I believe in the United States of America as a government of the people, by the people, for the people, whose just powers are derived from the consent of the governed; a democracy in a republic; a sovereign Nation of many sovereign States; a perfect Union, one and inseparable; established upon those principles of freedom, equality, justice, and humanity for which American patriots sacrificed their lives and fortunes.
I therefore believe it is my duty to my country to love it, to support its Constitution, to obey its laws, to respect its flag, and to defend it against all enemies.
Never Forget - Stay Involved by Sherry Grimes on Wednesday, 27 July 2011 at 07:11
We are facing major decisions in 2012 at the federal level that will have a local impact. The individuals we choose to represent us in Washington, D.C., whether in the White House or the U.S. Capitol, will determine our political, economical, and cultural future. Those officeholders may be geographically distant from Columbus, Indiana, but the laws they pass, the appointments they make, and the social agendas they endorse and promote affect us right here where we live. Four years of a Barack Obama White House is 4 too many, and 8 years would spell disaster. Likewise, the person we elect to represent the 6th Congressional District in 2012 and to the U.S. Senate seat now occupied by Richard Lugar should reflect our own common-sense, conservative Hoosier values. Congressman Mike Pence has remained steadfast in defending those principles, but Sen. Lugar appears to have forgotten his roots.
The TEA PARTY movement began 2 years ago, and our very first local TEA Party was held right here at Donner Park on April 15, 2009. The turnout was loud and enthusiastic, and there were approximately 2000 patriots who attended. The next Tea Party, held in July of 2009, had an attendance of around 1000. Finally, our last Tea Party rally was on April 15, 2010, with only 300 attendees. Let us resolve to not lose our passion or lessen our active participation. Our fire must be rekindled and restored to what it was at our very first TEA Party. We cannot let ourselves return to being the Silent Majority. The 2010 congressional and gubernatorial elections across the country were a good start, but they were only the beginning.
There is an endless list of challenges and uphill battles we are currently facing and will confront in the foreseeable future. How can we not be motivated, involved, and passionate with such an array of issues? Liberals and leftwingers unashamedly support their POSITIONS, office holders, and candidates with words, deeds, and dollars. Should we expect less of ourselves? I think not. We must be committed and stand by our convictions and values, even when we are being falsely accused of trying to destroy the middle class, not caring about the poor, or being racist.
Our current national unemployment rate stands at 9.2 percent, and the percentage of long-term unemployed workers is higher than it was during the Great Depression. The Economic Recovery from the recession that ended in June of 2009 is the worst since the Depression. We have a massive federal debt that is unprecedented in our history and will, sadly, be a part of the burden and legacy we pass on to future generations. Under the constantly campaigning Barack Obama, that debt is increasing by 4 billion dollars a day. Simply raising the debt ceiling and increasing taxes is unacceptable, and the class warfare rhetoric is irresponsible and unfair to all taxpayers. The government's addiction to spending must be addressed, attacked, and reduced. Government waste must be replaced by fiscal responsibility. Excessive regulation must be eliminated, so that free enterprise is once again free.
It's common knowledge that energy independence would help our economy. Unfortunately, we have a President who encourages and offers assistance to other nations, like Brazil, to develop THEIR oil resources, but refuses to tap our own natural oil resources here in the United States. No one wants to harm the environment and/or wildlife, but sacrificing our energy security for extreme environmentalism should not be tolerated.
Obamacare must go. It was revealed only last month that the health care law will make it possible for up to 3 million middle class Americans with incomes as high as $64,000 a year per couple to receive Medicaid. This has to be repealed or defunded. The Obamacare monstrosity is an assault on our economy, including jobs creation, as well as our personal liberty.
If President Obama has his way, amnesty will be enacted without Congressional approval, as required by the Constitution, simply by the issuance and enforcement of Presidential memos. He has a history of backdoor policy-making and, if left unchecked, his goals of amnesty and the passage of the DREAM ACT will come into existence UNDER the radar of the American electorate. We need to stop talking about illegal immigration and do something about it. That does not mean amnesty. We are a tolerant and generous nation, but no government can pay for everything for everyone. Nor should we look the other way when our laws are being broken just to avoid being called racist or accused of racial profiling. Illegal immigrants, as well as legal Hispanics, are extremely visible and vocal about issues affecting them, and we should be, too. We demand respect, not contempt, for our laws. When it comes to immigration, we need assimilation, not accommodation. I ask 3 things of all immigrants who come to this country: (1) Come here legally, (2) Learn English, and (3) Once you're here, your loyalty and allegiance to the country you left behind must be replaced by loyalty and allegiance to the United States. Forevermore, the United States must be #1 in your hearts and minds, and the country of your origin falls into 2nd place. Become a part of OUR culture, and we are more likely to appreciate yours.
We should demand the resignation or firing of Attorney General Eric Holder. What has he done FOR our country? Very little. What has he done AGAINST our country? A great deal. He and President Obama represent, better than anyone, the war on the 10th Amendment. His personal stamp has been on many controversial legal actions aimed at individual states, local law enforcement officers, private companies, and other entities.
Before Obama took the oath of office as President, he had one basic plan in mind for dealing with our adversaries around the world: Meet with the leaders without any pre-determined conditions, apologize for being the terrible people that we Americans are and have been, and reach out to our enemies, particularly Muslim nations. The love and admiration he expected in return from these countries did not happen. We are still the infidels. Rather than raising the respect of foreign nations, he lost respect here at home for his condemnation of the country he represents. Our President needs to be reminded that we are the United States of America, and our highest law of the land is the U.S. Constitution. It is not the United Nations. We have got to shed that "international law" mentality. We are not bound by the laws of other countries, nor are we subject to the United Nations and its hypocritical definition of human rights.
Spoken by Lisa Deaton at the Votes Have Consequences Bus Tour in Columbus Indiana August 2010
Because of the choices of your parents you are here today. You join with others that understand that our choices leave marks that cannot be corrected. They can be forgiven, they can be changed but they never are completely erased except by the hand of God.
We have the freedom to make our own choices. In my view 95% of the women in our society have a choice in whether they would become a parent. The child did not have the choice to be conceived.
The Lord chooses to give life to that child. He makes no mistakes. But the child cannot speak, cannot vote, and cannot protect itself. It falls on the shoulders of those that have a choice, you and me.
I have the choice to stand here today and share my views. I have the choice whether I will stand by and allow someone to take my contributions to this country and use it against my values. I have the choice to say nothing or to speak loudly in opposition.
I have chosen to speak loudly. I have chosen to vote against those that care nothing for the one that has no voice. The line has been drawn and I am stepping across.
I am choosing to take a stand against all of those that support the new Healthcare legislation that does, whether admitted to or not, contain funding for abortions. I have the choice to stand beside this group, their efforts and others with the same goals. I stand beside the state that will stand up to this legislation for it is the right choose. For those in office with red hands from the crime of signing this bill I say, we are counting the days till you no longer disrespect life from your office in the name of healthcare.
You have the choice to stand for life, freedom and liberty for those that have no voice. Do not forget that the power is in your hands.
Americans should fear political correctness
-- Sherry Grimes, Columbus, IN
May 28, 2010
We are approaching another Memorial Day when we will pay tribute to those who died for this nation and the preservation of freedom.
Over 1,425,300 Americans have died in combat, and it continues today in Afghanistan and Iraq. They sacrificed their lives to keep our republic and our way of life safe and secure.
Our freedom and values are currently on fragile ground, and we need more passionate patriots like our Founding Fathers. Too many good Americans are content to let others take an active role, but sometimes it is far more perilous to keep silent than to speak out for what is right.
The U.S. flag has become a source of controversy, which both saddens and angers me. In our politically correct world, it is sometimes called offensive. How did we sink so low? That flag represents all those brave patriots we are honoring on this Memorial Day. The Stars and Stripes should instill pride and appreciation, not shame and disdain.
Political correctness is a disease infecting this country and the world. It empowers the Left, who use it as a means of silencing anyone who disagrees with their agenda. Dissenters fear being labeled racist or intolerant.
As a result, in trying to avoid offending anyone who is not white and conservative, we cater to special interest and minority groups. If 99 people out of 100 are of one opinion, we disregard the 99 in favor of the other one person who may be “offended.”
Political courage is a rarity these days, so Governor Brewer of Arizona is a breath of fresh air. She displayed courage when she put civic duty ahead of politics and political correctness. It is appalling to see illegal immigrants marching in our streets demanding rights they have not earned.
It is even more appalling to hear Americans calling for a boycott of Arizona for passing legislation designed to protect its citizens. Americans turning against their fellow Americans in support of illegal foreigners dishonors our soldiers past and present.
Our flag and our sovereignty are under assault. When students, firefighters, office workers, businessmen, apartment tenants, and other private citizens are told their American flags are offensive and must be removed, then we are in trouble. When illegal aliens replace the American flag with the Mexican flag, then we are in trouble.
When the president elevates Cinco de Mayo to the status of an American holiday celebration, then we are in trouble. Being an American is not a 50/50 proposition. Our allegiance must be to only one flag. Illegal immigrants are so protected by politicians, the media, and ethnic support groups that there is no incentive to even learn English. The president, attorney general and director of Homeland Security condemned the Arizona immigration law, and congressional Democrats applauded the president of Mexico for criticizing it. Nancy Pelosi has called illegal aliens “very patriotic” while, at the same time, referred to I.C.E. raids on illegals as “American.”For enforcing the law?
The Obama administration recently banned any references to militant Islamic radicalism or global Jihad from the central document of our national security strategy. Attorney General Eric Holder refuses to say the words “radical Islam.” Their attitude is alarming, and one has to question the motivation behind it.
Not all Muslims are terrorists, but the terrorists are all Muslims. If racial profiling is what it takes to prevent another 9/11, then so be it. The same goes for the Arizona immigration law. If targeting Hispanics on immigration status makes life safer for our citizens, then so be it. Political correctness is something to be feared.
I am the type of person that must read the paper each morning with my coffee. However, for several weeks now I have been confused on whether I am reading the news paper, an opinion piece or a ladies magazine. Let me be clear, I enjoy the wide range of stories and sections in our local paper but there needs to be fair and balanced reporting as well. Let me offer a couple of examples. Recently there was an article about the drive for candidates from the Democratic Party. I was excited to see how strong the interest is in being involved with our local government and applaud not only the story but those that are stepping up to the plate. I would like to ask where is the other party’s activities reported? It is obvious from the candidate list on the county site that many from both party’s have come forward. Last year my not-for-profit group, We The People Indiana, put together a Tea Party at Donner Park. There were several elect officers present and their guess at the size of the crowd was over 2000 people. How disappointing it was to see a story that stated only “A Few Hundred” had attended. This April 15 the rally will be across the street from the paper, maybe that will help with the head count. Finally, I must chime in with the recent opinions on the lack of coverage to all of the candidates. How can a news paper leave out coverage on some over excess on others. I would think that all of the candidates would be news because they have stepped into the ring, they have opened themselves up to the people, they are getting involved. We the people would like to see more coverage on all of the candidates because they all deserve to be heard. I would ask the reporters that are keeping a watchful eye on the news to keep both eyes open from now on.
COMMENTARY: “..in God we Trust.”
With few exceptions, the Founding Fathers had very strong religious convictions. After all, wasn’t the ability to practice their religion a primary reason to come to the New America to escape religious persecution?
There is ample documentation proving people like Jefferson, Hamilton, Washington, Jay, Franklin, and others possessed strong faith in God. Indeed that fact is amplified in the Declaration of Independence and in the Constitution. In fact, the founders believed no country could succeed unless there was an abiding faith in God. They knew you cannot legislate morality.
Many believe, and we agree, that this nation was built by men of God with the help of divine intervention.
Our inalienable rights come from God, not man. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are gifts from God. It is government that takes away those inalienable rights. The founders also believed government should not direct religious pursuits or how citizens should practice their religion. They rightly believed government should not be in the religion business.
But, government has carried the prohibition too far and outlawed demonstrations of faith on any public property. Mere demonstrations of faith, such as the Nativity Scene at Christmas, in our view, do not rise to the level of “promoting” a specific religion. Courts, too, have carried it much too far. Even school children are not allowed to sing faith-based Christmas songs as we did in our childhood many years ago.
We believe this overreaction to religious practices is overreaching. Most of us can claim a modicum of common sense. We understand where that invisible line is stretched.
The U.S. Jaycees got it right in their “Creed” containing this line:
“We believe that faith in God gives meaning and purpose to human life.”
We are reading about the life of George Washington to our children. As I sit here in my warm home, looking out at the snow falling, I am thinking about those men who braved the cold and unimaginable conditions while fighting for a cause much bigger than themselves.....FREEDOM.
Everyone has seen the painting of, George Washington Crossing the Delaware, by Emanuel Leutze, but have you really looked at it and thought about the amazing Patriots depicted in that painting. We read last night that these men (volunteers) had nothing more than summer clothes and blankets for capes to keep them warm. Their shoes were so worn that they tried to stuff paper in them to protect their feet. Their feet left bloody footprints in the snow because of exposure to the elements. Men that stopped moving froze to death it was so cold! Look at the painting again....NO ONE is wearing gloves. Can you imagine how painful it was to row and steer those barges in the dead of winter? (Just walk outside for a few minutes without a coat and gloves) Yet these men did not give up!
My mind can not begin to grasp the fortitude of these men, nor can it grasp the fact that we are on the verge of letting the very thing these men gave their all to gain, slip away. Do you know the cost of freedom? Those before us did, so much so that they were willing to "pledge their Lives, their Fortunes, & sacred Honor." Where are today's Patriots? They are certainly not in Washington D.C.!
Look again at this picture and remember those that came before us. Are we going to hand over our freedoms without a fight? Read about these heroes from our history, teach your children about the cost of Freedom, "Lest they forget" - I guarantee this is not what they are learning in history class! Hold those in office accountable for their actions....they still work for us!
We can’t all be Washingtons, but we can all be patriots. ~Charles F. Browne
ARE WE A REPUBLIC OR A DEMOCRACY?
Walter E. Williams, January 5, 2005
We often hear the claim that our nation is a democracy. That wasn't the vision of
the founders. They saw democracy as another form of tyranny. If we've become a
democracy, I guarantee you that the founders would be deeply disappointed by our
betrayal of their vision. The founders intended, and laid out the ground rules, for
our nation to be a republic.
The word democracy appears nowhere in the Declaration of Independence or the
Constitution -- two most fundamental documents of our nation. Instead of a
democracy, the Constitution's Article IV, Section 4, guarantees "to every State in this
Union a Republican Form of Government." Moreover, let's ask ourselves: Does our
pledge of allegiance to the flag say to "the democracy for which it stands," or does it
say to "the republic for which it stands"? Or do we sing "The Battle Hymn of the
Democracy" or "The Battle Hymn of the Republic"?
So what's the difference between republican and democratic forms of government?
John Adams captured the essence of the difference when he said, "You have rights
antecedent to all earthly governments; rights that cannot be repealed or restrained
by human laws; rights derived from the Great Legislator of the Universe." Nothing in
our Constitution suggests that government is a grantor of rights. Instead,
government is a protector of rights.
In recognition that it's Congress that poses the greatest threat to our liberties, the
framers used negative phrases against Congress throughout the Constitution such
as: shall not abridge, infringe, deny, disparage, and shall not be violated, nor be
denied. In a republican form of government, there is rule of law. All citizens,
including government officials, are accountable to the same laws. Government
power is limited and decentralized through a system of checks and balances.
Government intervenes in civil society to protect its citizens against force and fraud
but does not intervene in the cases of peaceable, voluntary exchange.
Contrast the framers' vision of a republic with that of a democracy. In a democracy,
the majority rules either directly or through its elected representatives. As in a
monarchy, the law is whatever the government determines it to be. Laws do not
represent reason. They represent power. The restraint is upon the individual instead
of government. Unlike that envisioned under a republican form of government,
rights are seen as privileges and permissions that are granted by government and
can be rescinded by government.
How about a few quotations demonstrating the disdain our founders held for
democracy? James Madison, Federalist Paper No. 10: In a pure democracy, "there is
nothing to check the inducement to sacrifice the weaker party or the obnoxious
individual." At the 1787 Constitutional Convention, Edmund Randolph said, " ... that
in tracing these evils to their origin every man had found it in the turbulence and
follies of democracy." John Adams said, "Remember, democracy never lasts long. It
soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There was never a democracy yet that
did not commit suicide." Chief Justice John Marshall observed, "Between a balanced
republic and a democracy, the difference is like that between order and chaos." In a
word or two, the founders knew that a democracy would lead to the same kind of
tyranny the colonies suffered under King George III.
The framers gave us a Constitution that is replete with undemocratic mechanisms.
One that has come in for recent criticism and calls for its elimination is the Electoral
College. In their wisdom, the framers gave us the Electoral College so that in
presidential elections large, heavily populated states couldn't democratically run
roughshod over small, sparsely populated states.
Here's my question. Do Americans share the republican values laid out by our
founders, and is it simply a matter of our being unschooled about the differences
between a republic and a democracy? Or is it a matter of preference and we now
want the kind of tyranny feared by the founders where Congress can do anything it
can muster a majority vote to do? I fear it's the latter.
"I have lived, Sir, a long time; and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this Truth, that God governs in the Affairs of Men."
--Benjamin Franklin
There are many reasons why I look forward to Veterans Day, one being that it affords me the opportunity to write about Patriots who have sacrificially served our nation, honoring their sacred oaths to support and defend our Constitution.
So, each year at this time, I have the privilege of profiling friends whose conduct and lives are personal inspirations to me.
Adequately portraying the extraordinary service of these individuals within the confines of a single essay -- men like Roger Helle and Roger Ingvalson, the subjects of previous essays -- is difficult.
In honor of all Veterans, however, I will attempt once again to do so and, moreover, to provide a sketch of not one, but two Patriot friends who are an inspiration to all who know them, and to anyone who has ever served beside them.
At the end of this composition, you'll discover the connection between these two Americans -- wait for it.
About 15 years ago, I hitched a ride to a national security briefing in Thomasville, Georgia, with a fellow I had only recently met. He had just retired as an Army officer after Desert Storm, and we were serving in a reserve capacity with a civilian agency. It was a five-hour drive, which gave us time to become well acquainted, and I am grateful for every minute of that trip.
His name is Don Rodgers, and he is one of those people who has never met a stranger.
Don is a fellow Tennessean, a Vet with 34 years of service including combat tours in Vietnam and support tours in Korea and Germany. He served as CO of Fort Gordon and Fort Huachuca, and concluded his military career as a lieutenant general, Director of the Defense Communications Agency and Manager of the National Communications System -- which is to say that at one time Don knew more about C4 (Command, Control, Communications and Computers) than anyone else on the planet.
"Having the opportunity to serve as an officer in the U.S. Army was the greatest honor of my life," Don says. "I could never have imagined how committed and capable the young men and women of our country really are. In the Army you find that out very quickly. Our country is so fortunate that so many of our young citizens choose to enter military service. During my 34 years of active duty, my most vivid memories are not the isolated tours, the wonderful experiences nor the great jobs, but the great men and women who make our Army second to none."
Of his success, Don affirms, "Every one of those young people is a hero to me and any success I enjoyed in the military, I owe to them."
Don married his teenage sweetheart, Faye, during their senior year at Tennessee Tech, and they both lived lives that exemplified their faith, "preaching the Gospel without using words."
"My grandmother insisted that I be in the church if the front doors were open," Don recalls. "Of course, this does not assure that you are a person of Faith but does put you in the correct environment. Since those early days when I accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior, I have always tried to live by that commitment, not always successful, but it has been the anchor in my life. Military service is among the most honorable and moral callings of all occupations, so a person of Faith has a lot of company in the service. Faith is my life's compass."
Don is a most humble servant, a man who has been in positions of great responsibility and power, but unlike many of his peers in corporate positions with 50,000 employees, he is plainspoken and a loyal friend to any Patriot from any walk of life. He is one of those people who always wears a smile, and means it.
Let me leave Don for a moment and tell you about another great Patriot and friend, June Kent. She is not, technically, a Veteran, but she was the wife of a career Air Force officer. To be sure, the spouses and families of those in our Armed Services bear a heavy burden in the absence of their loved ones, but there are no medals for that. They may not be Vets, but they most certainly are Patriots.
June was born in Alabama and raised in abject poverty, the daughter of an itinerant carpenter and a frail mother who was hospitalized for years at a time. Consequently, June spent much of her childhood living with grandparents, other relatives and even in foster care, moving dozens of times around the Southeast.
Through all that transition, her children's Bible was her most prized possession.
During June's traumatic early years, she devised a code by which to live, conceived out of necessity. She refers to it as her ABCs -- A: Attitude, approach problems as challenges; B: Believe in God and myself; C: Commitment to make a positive out of a negative. "I was sometimes labeled Pollyanna, goody two-shoes, a dreamer, wishful thinker," she says. "And I met lots of naysayers."
Despite the odds stacked heavily against her, June's strong and abiding faith and her ABCs created a pathway to triumph over many trials.
June married her high school sweetheart, a young Airman who was an aircraft mechanic, and she went on to complete her bachelor's degree followed by her master's and then a Ph.D. from Texas A&M. She became a mother to Rich and Kathie, and a professional educator, her life's aspiration, teaching every grade level from K through college. She says on the day she was awarded that last degree, "My husband took a little paint brush to our rural mailbox and wrote 'Mr. and Dr. Scobee.'"
But the greatest trial of her life would come on 28 January 1986. On that day, she would need every ounce of courage and faith she could muster, all of her ABCs, to endure the tragedy that she, and our nation, witnessed.
June recalls: "On the rooftop viewing area of Launch Control at Kennedy Space Center, my children and I stood, waiting for Challenger to lift off with Dick Scobee, my husband and their father, in command. I could only imagine what Dick was feeling now. I recalled his joy in telling me what it was like to fly in space. Next to me stood Steve McAuliffe, husband of Christa, the beloved New Hampshire schoolteacher who had been chosen to be the first teacher in space, and their two young children. Nearby were the families of the other five crew members."
Finally, liftoff: "We cheered as the solid rocket boosters ignited and the shuttle carrying its precious cargo lifted off the pad. I imagined Dick in his ever-so-calm, matter-of-fact, take-charge mode. I imagined Christa in her excitement, nervously waiting for the solid-rocket boosters to separate, the engines to cut off, and the buoyant lift of weightlessness to signal their safe arrival into earth orbit.
"My teenage son, Rich, lovingly and protectively put his arms around me and his sister," says June. "As I reached to help my daughter Kathie with her baby, the unspeakable happened. Standing there together, watching with the entire world, we saw Challenger rip apart. It shattered into a million pieces, along with our hearts. My memory fails after that."
Utterly devastated, June somehow managed, by way of the faith and perseverance that had sustained her so many times before, to turn tragedy into triumph. A year after the death of her husband and his Challenger crew, she and the surviving families launched the Challenger Center for Space Science Education to continue the crew's educational mission. There are now more than 50 Challenger Learning Centers nationwide.
In 1988, June was attending an Easter Sunrise Service at Arlington National Cemetery. "I stood in the chilly pre-dawn and watched the dark give way to light. As I listened to the sermon, I asked God to let the True Light shine within me until the darkness of fear and loneliness had subsided. I wanted to let go of the vulnerable self within and reach out to the people weeping softly beside me."
At the end of the service, a fellow she had just met, Lt. Gen. Don Rodgers, announced plans for the group to meet and walk a trail along the Potomac River that afternoon. It was on that walk that June learned from Don of the recent and unexpected death of the love of his life, his wife, Faye.
"Don's loss was not public like mine," says June, "but just as tragic for those who loved Faye. Each of us understood the other's pain and concerns for the future. Our conversation was a comfort to both of us."
The next week, Don informed his assistant at the Pentagon that he had met "a wonderful woman who would make some lucky guy a great wife." He was still reeling from the loss of his own wife. A few months later, his aide convinced him to call June, and soon thereafter he convinced June to become his bride. They were married in the little Chapel at Arlington, near where they had met.
June says of that day, "Our families and friends were joined with us and I discovered joy as great as my sorrow had been deep. God blessed me with another chance to love and be loved, but more important was my rekindled spirit. I had learned that, with God's help and by walking the path with our Savior Jesus Christ, we can rise above our personal needs and become dream-makers. We can create opportunities for others and help them discover their silver linings within their clouds."
No narrative of the lives of Don and June would be complete without mention of their children and grandchildren, whom they adore. Don's son Eric and his wife Anne are the parents of three children. Eric is a successful northeast regional manager for an auto manufacturer (one that managed to survive). June's daughter Kathie and her husband Scott have three children, and she is the senior project manager for our Chattanooga mayor's office. June's son Rich and his wife Alene also have three children. He is an Air Force colonel who just left command of Kirkuk Air Base in Iraq for command of the 301st Fighter Wing in Texas. Rich has more than 3,200 hours in the F-16.
These days, when I have the good fortune to visit with Don and June, it is with a deep sense of gratitude for the example of their lives, which is a reflection of their faith. They are Patriots, individually and united, of the first order.
Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!
Mark Alexander
Publisher, PatriotPost.US
We the People Indiana will be sponsoring a constitution class on January 16, 2010. This will be a 8 hour day with lunch provided within the cost of the class. The instructor will be from the National Center of Constitutional Studies. If you register by November 30, 2009 the cost will be $20.00 per attendee but after November 30 - January 3 the cost will be $25.00 per attendee. This cost will cover your study material and lunch.
I have been told that the class is too long. This is the weekend and no one will want to spend their Saturday studying for 8 hours.
Can you put a limit on learning the Constitution, the framework of our nation., the very foundation of our government.?
I asked you as a voter, if you are a believer in the original intent of the constitution, should you not know it front and back?
I can not say that i do and so i must learn more. The 2010 elections will be an election of the ages. As it stands now the elected officials that we have are voting against our survival as a free nation.
I would encourage you to look at yourself and those around you that can vote and ask the question….do i believe that our public servants should be voting legislation and governing from the original intent of the constitution and if i do believe this, then do i know all i can about that sacred document that we are fighting to protect?
Take our class, order a study program, find your own avenue to study this great work. But do not take too much time, for time is not a luxury that we have. The clock is ticking.
A final note. Will knowing the constitution save our country? Maybe not. What i can tell you is that you will no longer need to rely on another to understand whether your freedoms are being trampled on. You will know in your heart, mind and body and therefore, you will be a stronger force in this fight that will be never ending. I say never ending because surely we have learned that if we become lazy in our care of our freedoms, we will awaken to them being gone. So let us not sleep any longer.
I will take the first watch. Will you take the second?
Former IFI Board member and current U.S. Representative Mike Pence spoke at the Family Research Council's Values Voter Summit recently. Congressman Pence, master communicator, caught my attention with his explanation of the health care reforms being debated in Washington. The main plan before Congress contains what many are calling the "public option." Congressman Pence correctly calls it a government run insurance plan that will lead to a government takeover of healthcare in this country.
Government run insurance. That would be bad news for Hoosier families. It's interesting how liberals want to stifle competiton among private businesses, like putting Walmart out of business, but they are all for "competition" when it comes through creating government run health insurance. It's one thing for a private company to work more efficiently and create products at a cheaper price than their competition. It's quite another for government to drive all private health insurance companies out of business through force of law. There is no true competition between government and private industry. The government can take losses and pass it off on taxpayers. Private companies cannot.
'Too Big to Fail?'
"There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily."
-- George Washington
"An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself... A murderer is less to fear."
-- Marcus Tullius Cicero
As reported two weeks ago in The Patriot Post (and practically nowhere else), Indiana Treasurer Richard Murdock filed an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court seeking review of the legality of the Obama-forced bankruptcy of Chrysler, LLC.
Murdock is petitioning the Court to rule on Barack Obama's blatant disregard of the U.S. Constitution, Article 1, Section 8, which explicitly authorizes Congress, and not the president, to determine bankruptcy laws. In particular, Murdock is challenging the president's unashamed indifference to more than 220 years of bankruptcy precedent, which puts senior, or secured, creditors ahead of junior, or unsecured, creditors during bankruptcy proceedings.
With regard to the latter, BO unilaterally declared a 55 percent ownership stake for the UAW, a junior creditor, and he donated a 20 percent ownership stake to non-creditor and non-investor Italian automobile maker Fiat, which was also given options for an additional 15 percent. (Fiat exchanged not even one penny for its ownership stake or options, and the jury is still out as to the politics behind that unsavory deal.)
Adding insult to injury, BO announced that he would bestow senior creditors only 29 cents on the dollar for their bond holdings. From the onset of this fiasco, the largest senior creditors, representing $6.6 billion, calculated Chrysler's value to be at least 90 cents on the dollar. Other private and public senior creditors, representing $300 million, along with private analysts, concurred. Even Chrysler itself argued that it was worth more than 29 cents per dollar.
But, when BO and his Treasury thugs held firm, everyone prepared to do battle in bankruptcy court. Then, one morning, the largest senior creditors withdrew their opposition. In an act of cowardice, California and Michigan public funds decided to play along with Obama's scheme, so as not to jeopardize potential federal bailout moneys.
Only Indiana Treasurer Richard Murdock, fiduciary of three relatively small Indiana public funds ($45 million total invested in Chrysler bonds), stood firm.
During the discovery phase, under threats and intimidation from the "tolerant" Left, Murdock documented how the largest senior creditors had changed position because Obama officials had assured them overnight, Chicago-style, that they were "too big to fail," and that their substantial losses as Chrysler bondholders would be recovered through other government programs.
While a stay to prevent the Obama-forced bankruptcy was eventually rejected by the full Supreme Court, no ruling was ever made based upon the legal merits of the case. Hence, the appeal.
Of course, this is not the only instance where BO (and George W. Bush before him) has, with a Democrat-controlled Congress, used the "too big to fail" ploy. Banking, investing, insurance and mutual funds are other economic sectors that have also been usurped over the last 12 months by Big Brother.
While each of these events, in and of itself, has been devastating to our liberty and our pursuit of happiness, they have been mere tactics in an end-game strategy -- that of engendering Democrats themselves as too big to fail.
Obama's disregard of the Constitution is also evident in his naming of some 30 so-called czars, policy coordinators who usurp even Democrat-controlled congressional constitutional authority, bypassing the budgetary responsibilities of the House of Representatives and the advice-and-consent responsibilities of the Senate.
With Leftist Democrats in control of the House and with a veto-proof majority in the Senate (and an occasionally traitorous Republican), Democrats are ramming through legislation unwanted by the American public (Card Check, Cap-and-Tax, government-run health care). In addition, they are stonewalling certain investigations and pursuing others so as to suit their immediate political needs.
More egregiously, Leftist Democrats are surreptitiously scheming to legalize 30 million illegal aliens and to force same-day voter registration across the country, thereby allowing them to convert these freshly minted "citizens" into millions of new Democrat votes.
Another dire consequence of this veto-proof Senate majority is that Democrats are packing our courts with "living Constitution" judges. Unlike Democrat hero Franklin D. Roosevelt's efforts to pack the Supreme Court directly, this modern Democrat tactic seeks to stock the appellate court level. After all, little attention is paid to appellate nominees, and appellate courts can be altered more stealthily than can the Supreme Court.
Significantly, packing the appellate level furnishes Democrats with a layer of insulation between their election-stealing shenanigans and the Supreme Court. If, for example, informed and patriotic voters were able to file suit over a rigged election (quite challenging and expensive, in and of itself), these "living documenters" could stymie or accelerate appeals, depending upon which rulings would support the desired outcome.
The fulcrum of this too-big-to-fail strategy is Obama's coercion of his own party members, especially those vulnerable in the 2010 elections. First, consider the frustration and outrage displayed during the August congressional recess. Then, consider Democrat incumbents' disdain and mockery of constituents who dared to challenge their Leftist agenda. Under "normal" circumstances, the prognosis for such an incumbent would be very dark. Alas, these are not normal days.
Be it by persuasion or coercion, every vulnerable Democrat is being forced to march in Leftist lock-step, to walk the plank on each and every piece of legislation, and, ultimately, to vote in favor of immigrant legalization and same-day voter registration to garner the ensuing millions of voters.
Couple these tactics and advantages with ACORN's illegal get-out-the-vote efforts, BO's hundreds of millions in campaign fund dollars, and the Democrat shakedown of industries and companies around the world, and the 2010 Democrat congressional candidates would appear to be positioned as "too big to fail."
Team Obama, however, lacks one major element in their nefarious conniving -- the truth. Indeed, it is their brazen lying, half-truths and obfuscations, which have awakened the sleeping giant of American Patriotism.
We are a generous and tolerant nation, the greatest in the history of mankind. We have freed other nations and peoples from tyrannies and oppressions, and we have done so at great cost of our blood and treasure. But, we have reached the limit with Obamanism, this nascent American Communism.
While The Patriot Post's motto, Veritas Vos Liberabit, takes its inspiration from John 8:32, "The truth shall set you free," as Ronald Reagan noted, "There are no easy answers, but there are simple answers. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right."
And, Edmund Burke once noted, "All that is necessary for evil to succeed is that good men do nothing."
George Washington urged, "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."
Are Obama and his Democrat minions too big to fail? I say, emphatically, NO! Indeed, they already are failures.
Still, there is much to be done to save our Republic. To paraphrase Thomas Paine, freedom is being hunted, reason is considered as rebellion and the slavery of fear makes men afraid to think. Fortunately, as Paine further observed, "[S]uch is the irresistible nature of truth, that all it asks, and all it wants, is the liberty of appearing."
If we continue to shine the light of Truth, we may yet force these Leftist cockroaches to scurry for cover. Let us pray for Almighty God's guidance. Let us roll up our sleeves and extend to our posterity proof that we were worthy of the title "American."
Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!
Mark Alexander
Publisher, PatriotPost.US, with J. Adams Clymer
So do you think that today is a day where "All 50 states are coordinating in this [phone bank] – as we fight back against our own Right-Wing Domestic Terrorists who are subverting the American Democratic Process, whipped to a frenzy by their Fox Propaganda Network ceaselessly reseizing power for their treacherous leaders?" I found this on your website Barackobama.com. Is this what you mean by Organizing for America?
Let me tell you something, Mr. Chairman. I have seen presidents who have been disrespectful to their constituents. Presidents who have absolutely ignored the people. Absolutely insulted what it is to be an American. NONE of them has done something as sick as you have.
You disrespect our troops (which you command by the way). You disrespect the public everytime you come out. You release statements classifying those who come back from active duty as "right wing extremists." You give the same name to people who read and follow and preach the Constitution (a document which you have no familiarity with).
I voted for you in the Primary. I voted for you because I did not want Hilary in the General Election. I thought that someone as inexperienced as you would be no match for the top three candidates who had all sorts of political and executive experience (not to mention military experience).
I was wrong. The American youth were naive enough to think that someone who just gives generalities is a wonderful politician. You did very well bussing all those people to the voting places. You did very well getting ACORN to sign illegal immigrants up to vote and getting people the ability to vote twice or more!
I am going to tell you this right now, Mr. Chaiman Obama. Your Chicago mobster tactics will NOT work in this country.
I and my friends in Southern Indiana are activists. And we are "Organizing for America." That includes organizing against you and pretty much everything you stand for.
We used to be the silent majority. The moderate to hard conservative voice which chose to not get too involved. Well, now our very country is about to be lost.
Washington has almost left the Constitution. When that happens, the last check and balance will come into play. WE THE PEOPLE! That's right, we are the foundational separated power. If the system fails to serve us the way we want, we take it out! 2010 will sound like a bell across all the nation. The bell tones will strike fear into radicals and socialists, such as yourself, who want to change our American way which has prospered us for two centuries. The tone will be the sound of those representatives leaving the house and senators leaving the senate who have spat in the American people's face.
WE THE PEOPLE will take back America in 2010, and then we'll be coming for you and the other half of the Senate in 2012.
Your pretty words and quaint sayings may have landed you in office, but now that the American people (who you hate) have found out who you REALLY are, your inexperience will be the political undoing of you!
Good day, Chairman Barack Hussein Obama!
-- Phillip Swaim
Bartholomew County Watchman bcwatchman.blogspot.com
You say you will never forget where you were when
You heard the news On September 11, 2001.
Neither will I.
I was on the 110th floor in a smoke filled room
With a man who called his wife to say 'Good-Bye.' I
Held his fingers steady as he dialed. I gave him the
Peace to say, 'Honey, I am not going to make it, but it
Is OK..I am ready to go.'
I was with his wife when he called as she fed
Breakfast to their children. I held her up as she
Tried to understand his words and as she realized
He wasn't coming home that night.
I was in the stairwell of the 23rd floor when a
Woman cried out to Me for help. 'I have been
Knocking on the door of your heart for 50 years!' I said.
'Of course I will show you the way home - only
Believe in Me now.'
I was at the base of the building with the Priest
Ministering to the injured and devastated souls.
I took him home to tend to his Flock in Heaven. He
Heard my voice and answered.
I was on all four of those planes, in every seat,
With every prayer. I was with the crew as they
Were overtaken. I was in the very hearts of the
Believers there, comforting and assuring them that their
Faith has saved them.
I was in Texas , Virginia , California , Michigan , Afghanistan .
I was standing next to you when you heard the terrible news.
Did you sense Me?
I want you to know that I saw every face. I knew
Every name - though not all know Me. Some met Me
For the first time on the 86th floor.
Some sought Me with their last breath.
Some couldn't hear Me calling to them through the
Smoke and flames; 'Come to Me... This way... Take
My hand.' Some chose, for the final time, to ignore Me.
But, I was there.
I did not place you in the Tower that day. You
May not know why, but I do.. However, if you were
There in that explosive moment in time, would you have
Reached for Me?
Sept. 11, 2001, was not the end of the journey
For you . But someday your journey will end. And I
Will be there for you as well. Seek Me now while I may
Be found. Then, at any moment, you know you are
'ready to go.'
"[T]he people alone have an incontestable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to institute government and to reform, alter, or totally change the same when their protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness require it."
-- Samuel Adams
[Publisher's Note: This essay is the first of a two-part seminal treatise on Constitutional Rule of Law in advance of Constitution Day, 17 September, the 222nd anniversary of our national Constitution. This essay appears in its entirety in our new Constitution booklets. On Constitution Day, The Patriot will announce a major education initiative promoting the Right construction of our Constitution and Rule of Law.]
On December 16th, 1773, "radicals" from Marlborough, Massachusetts, threw 342 chests of tea from three British East India Company ships into Boston Harbor in protest of oppressive taxation and tyrannical rule. They wrote of their actions, "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." That event, of course, was the Boston Tea Party.
On April 19th, 1775, Paul Revere departed Charlestown (near Boston), for Lexington and Concord, in order to warn John Hancock, Samuel Adams and other Sons of Liberty that British regulars were coming to arrest them and seize their weapons caches. Revere was captured after reaching Lexington, but his friend Samuel Prescott took word to the militiamen in Concord.
In the early dawn of that first Patriots Day, Captain John Parker, commander of the militiamen at Lexington, ordered, "Don't fire unless fired upon, but if they want a war let it begin here." And it did -- American Minutemen fired the "shot heard round the world," as immortalized by Ralph Waldo Emerson, confronting the British on Lexington Green and at Concord's Old North Bridge.
On July 6th, 1775, Thomas Jefferson and John Dickinson issued their Declaration of the Cause and Necessity of Taking up Arms: "With hearts fortified with these animating reflections, we most solemnly, before God and the world, declare, that, exerting the utmost energy of those powers, which our beneficent Creator hath graciously bestowed upon us, the arms we have been compelled by our enemies to assume, we will, in defiance of every hazard, with unabating firmness and perseverance employ for the preservation of our liberties; being with one mind resolved to die freemen rather than to live as slaves."
A year later in Philadelphia, on July 4th, 1776, Jefferson and 55 merchants, farmers, doctors, lawyers and other representatives of the original 13 colonies of the United States of America, in the General Congress, Assembled, pledged "our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor" to the cause of liberty, declaring, "When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation."
Our Founders further avowed, "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."
Our Declaration of Independence was derived from common law, "the laws of nature and nature's God," all men being "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights." It calls on "the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions" and "the protection of Divine Providence."
The Declaration's common law inspiration for the rights of man has its origin in governing documents dating back to the Magna Carta (1215), and was heavily influenced by the writings Charles Montesquieu, William Blackstone and John Locke.
However, its most immediate common law inspiration was Blackstone's 1765 "Commentaries on the Laws of England," perhaps the most scholarly historical and analytic treatise on "the laws of nature and nature's God."
Blackstone wrote, "As man depends absolutely upon his Maker for everything, it is necessary that he should in all points conform to his Maker's will. This will of his Maker is called the law of nature. ... This law of nature, being coeval [coexistent] with mankind and dictated by God Himself is, of course, superior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the globe, in all countries, and at all times; no human laws are of any validity if contrary to this. ... Upon these two foundations, the law of nature and the law of revelation, depend all human laws; that is to say, no human laws should be suffered [permitted] to contradict these."
In 1776, the Second Continental Congress appointed a committee representing the 13 states to draft a formal document of incorporation, and approved the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union for ratification by the states on November 15, 1777. The Articles of Confederation were ratified on March 1, 1781, and the "the United States in Congress assembled" became the Congress of the Confederation.
At the conclusion of the Revolutionary War, it was apparent that the Articles of Confederation between the states were not sufficient to secure the interests of the confederation. On February 21, 1787, the Congress of the Confederation charged a group of delegates with revising the Articles of Confederation. Those delegates decided against amending the existing Articles in favor of a new Constitution and convened in Philadelphia to draft a new Constitution.
Using the Virginia Plan drafted primarily by James Madison, the delegates spent five months deliberating a constitutional draft, which would secure the rights and principles enumerated in the Declaration by establishing a republican form of government under strict Rule of Law, reflecting the consent of the people and severely limiting the power of the central government.
George Washington and the delegates to the Constitutional Convention wrote, "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
"To secure these rights..."
The Bill of Rights: "In order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of [the Constitution's] powers..."
Endeavoring to define further our Constitution's limits on government interference with the innate rights of the people, James Madison, its primary architect, introduced to the First Congress in 1789, a Bill of Rights -- the first 10 Amendments to our Constitution, which was then ratified on the 15th of December 1791.
The Bill of Rights was inspired by three remarkable documents: Two Treatises of Government, authored by John Locke in 1689 regarding protection of "property" (in the Latin context, proprius, or one's own "life, liberty and estate"); the Virginia Declaration of Rights, authored by George Mason in 1776 as part of that state's constitution; and, of course, our Declaration of Independence, authored by Thomas Jefferson.
There was great debate about the need to enumerate these rights, as such a listing might be taken to suggest that they were amendable rather than unalienable; granted by the state rather than "Endowed by our Creator."
As Hamilton argued in Federalist No. 84, "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?"
On the other hand, George Mason was among 16 of the 55 Constitutional Convention delegates who refused to sign it because the document did not adequately address limitations on what the central government had "no power to do." Indeed, he worked with Patrick Henry and Samuel Adams against its ratification for that reason.
As a result of Mason's insistence, 10 additional limitations were placed upon the federal government by the first session of Congress, for the reasons outlined by the Preamble to the Bill of Rights: "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 of constraints upon the central government.
Rule of Law v. "A Living Constitution"
"What is the most sacred duty and the greatest source of our security in a Republic? An inviolable respect for the Constitution and Laws. ... A sacred respect for the constitutional law is the vital principle, the sustaining energy of a free government." --Alexander Hamilton
For its first 150 years (with a few exceptions), our Constitution stood as our Founders and "the people" intended -- as is -- in accordance with its original intent. In other words, it was interpreted exegetically rather than eisegetically -- textually as constructed, rather than as a so-called "living" document, altered to express the biases of later generations of politicians and jurists.
But incrementally, constitutional Rule of Law in the United States has been diluted by unlawful actions of those in the executive, legislative and judicial branches -- most notably, the latter -- at great hazard to the future of liberty.
As Thomas Jefferson warned repeatedly, the greatest threat to the Rule of Law and constitutional limitations on the central government was an unbridled judiciary: "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. ... 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."
Jefferson understood that should our Constitution ever become a straw man for a politicized judiciary to interpret as it pleased, Rule of Law would gradually yield to rule of men -- the terminus of the latter being tyranny.
Regarding the process of amendment prescribed by our Constitution in Article V (popular ratification rather than judicial diktat), Samuel Adams wrote, "[T]he people alone have an incontestable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to institute government and to reform, alter, or totally change the same when their protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness require it. And the federal Constitution -- according to the mode prescribed therein -- has already undergone such amendments in several parts of it as from experience has been judged necessary."
Jefferson concurred: "The will of the majority [is] the natural law of every society [and] is the only sure guardian of the rights of man. Perhaps even this may sometimes err. But its errors are honest, solitary and short-lived."
The Federalist Papers, as the definitive explication of our Constitution's original intent, clearly define constitutional interpretation. In Federalist No. 78 Alexander Hamilton writes, "[The Judicial Branch] may truly be said to have neither FORCE nor WILL, but merely judgment ... liberty can have nothing to fear from the judiciary alone, but would have everything to fear from its union with either of the other departments."
In Federalist No. 81, Hamilton declares, "[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." And yet this non-existent "spirit" is the essence of the so-called "Living Constitution," which liberal jurists now amend by judicial diktat rather than its prescribed method in Article V.
The first instance of extra-constitutional interpretation by the federal judiciary was the 1803 case of Marbury v. Madison, in which the Supreme Court, under Chief Justice John Marshall, denied the plaintiff's claim because it relied on the Judiciary Act of 1789, which the court ruled unconstitutional.
Marbury set a very dangerous precedent, which would, a century later, be used to greatly expand the limited judicial powers outlined in Article III of our Constitution.
Prior to Franklin D. Roosevelt's "New Deal" mischief, however, the courts were still largely populated with originalists, those who properly rendered legal interpretation based on the Constitution's "original intent." But Roosevelt grossly exceeded the constitutional limits of his office and that of the legislature in his ill-advised efforts to end the Great Depression (the latter falling victim to World War II -- not FDR's social and economic engineering).
FDR even attempted to increase the number of justices on the Supreme Court in 1937 so those appointees would give him a majority, which would do his political bidding. He failed, but during his unprecedented first three terms, he appointed eight justices to the High Court, who radically accommodated their "interpretation" of the Constitution to comport with Roosevelt's expansion of central government authority and power.
It is no coincidence that the term "Living Constitution" was coined in that same year, as the title of a book on that subject.
In the decades that followed, the notion of a "Living Constitution," one subject to contemporaneous interpretation informed by political agendas, took hold in federal courts. With increasing frequency, "judicial activists," jurists who "legislate from the bench" by issuing rulings at the behest of like-minded special-interest constituencies, were nominated and confirmed to the Supreme Court.
This degradation of the Rule of Law was codified by the Warren Court in Trop v. Dulles (1958). In that ruling, the High Court noted that the Constitution should comport with "evolving standards ... that mark the progress of a maturing society." In other words, it had now become a fully pliable document, "a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary which they may twist and shape into any form they please," as Thomas Jefferson had warned. Indeed, the Court had become "a despotic branch."
Since then, judicial despots have not only undermined the plain language of our Constitution, but also grossly devitalized the Bill of Rights.
For example, the First Amendment reads plainly: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
Once again, in plain language, "Congress shall make no law..."
Judicial activists have for decades "interpreted" this amendment to suit their political agendas, placing severe constraints upon the free exercise of religion, invoking the obscure and grotesquely misrepresented "Wall of Separation" to expel religious practice from any and all public forums.
As noted by the late Chief Justice of the Supreme Court William Rehnquist, "The wall of separation between church and state is a metaphor based upon bad history, a metaphor which has proved useless as a guide to judging. It should be frankly and explicitly abandoned. ... The greatest injury of the 'wall' notion is its mischievous diversion of judges from the actual intention of the drafters of the Bill of Rights."
Meanwhile, judicial despots and legislators are endeavoring to abridge the freedom of speech and the press, while asserting that virtually all other mediums of expression constitute "free speech."
As another example, the Second Amendment reads plainly: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." And yet certain executive, legislative and judicial principals are unceasing in their efforts to enfeeble this essential right.
In the 1788 Massachusetts Convention debates to ratify the U.S. Constitution, Founder Samuel Adams stated: "The Constitution shall never be construed ... to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms."
That same year, James Madison wrote in Federalist No. 46, "The ultimate authority ... resides in the people alone. ... The advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation ... forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition."
Madison's appointee, Justice Joseph Story, in his Commentaries on the Constitution (1833), has correctly observed of the Second Amendment: "The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of the republic; since it offers a strong moral check against usurpation and arbitrary power of the rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them."
Similarly, Founder Noah Webster wrote, "Tyranny is the exercise of some power over a man, which is not warranted by law, or necessary for the public safety. A people can never be deprived of their liberties, while they retain in their own hands, a power sufficient to any other power in the state."
Equally offensive to our Constitution is the manner in which the 10th Amendment's assurance of states' rights has been eroded by judicial interpretation.
The 10th Amendment reads plainly: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
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."
But as early as 1794, Madison had begun to rail against the government's unconstitutional urge to redistribute the wealth of its citizens: "I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents. ... If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one, subject to particular exceptions."
Today, more than two-thirds of the federal budget is spent on "objects of benevolence," for which there is no constitutional authority. Put another way, much of your income is being confiscated and redistributed unconstitutionally.
Perhaps with an eye toward such a future, George Washington advised, "The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their Constitutions of Government. But the Constitution which at any time exists, 'till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole People is sacredly obligatory upon all."
Today, more than two centuries hence, Justice Antonin Scalia has said, "As long as judges tinker with the Constitution to 'do what the people want,' instead of what the document actually commands, politicians who pick and confirm new federal judges will naturally want only those who agree with them politically."
To: Congressman Baron Hill
Senator Evan Bayh
Senator Richard Lugar
From: Debra Dean
Lawrenceburg, IN 47025
I am addressing all three of you since my message is the same to all. As one of your constituents who does vote and who does follow everything done in Washington, I have the following to say concerning;
Healthcare Reform
- Do not vote for any bill that would allow for medically necessary services to be withheld. That applies to all, not just Seniors citizens. Do not open the door to euthanasia.
- Do not vote for any bill that would force a healthcare plan on anyone.
- Do not vote for any bill that would allow the Government to dictate to Doctors and patients what healthcare they deliver or receive.
- Do not vote for any bill that puts a monetary penalty on Americans if they choose to pay for their own healthcare services.
- Do not vote for any bill that would demolish our current healthcare system and replace it with government run/national healthcare.
- Do not vote for any bill that would increase taxes on anyone or anything.
- Do not vote for any bill that allows anyone in the federal government to control, regulate, restrict, select, or choose the healthcare delivered to individuals and the coverage that an individual has.
- Do not vote for any bill that puts in place a system or healthcare plan that you would not be willing to sign up for.
- Do not vote for any bill that gives preference to any one group of people whether they be a minority or not.
- Do not vote for any bill that allows illegal aliens to have a healthcare plan paid for by the taxpayers.
- Do not vote for any bill that forces taxpayers to pay for abortions.
- Do not vote for any bill that you have not read and picked apart.
- Vote for a bill that will eliminate fraud and abuse in the current and future healthcare system starting with those run out of Washington.
- Vote for a bill that includes stringent tort reform. Eliminate frivioulous lawsuits, set caps and make the loser pay all of the legal costs.
- Vote for a bill that reduces and regulates healthcare insurance and healthcare costs.
- Vote for a bill that allows for coverage of pre-existing conditions.
- Forget party talking points. Speak honestly and simply to your constituents. Stand firmly and do not cave to pressure and bribes from your party or the White House. Do not sell out your constituents for the sake of your political office. Be a political hero to your constituents. Protect and uphold our Constitutional rights and we will protect and uphold your office.
- There is no rush. There is no emergency. Take your time and get it right the first time. We will wait for you if we are assured you will do it right.
Illegal Aliens
- Do not allow E-Verify to expire or be banned from use.
- Do not allow work site checks to be done away with.
- Do not allow illegal aliens to have citizenship rights to paid healthcare, education, etc. They are illegal. They need to be returned to their country. They have no right to displace American workers and they have no right to taxpayer funded programs.
- Enforce the laws that are currently on the books.
Cap & Trade
- Step back and start again. This bill is full of the potential for fraud and deceit. Do not buy into Al Gore’s dubious warnings and ideas. Since we are now in a global cooling trend as carbon emissions are rising, the old dire warnings are not applicable. The debate is still open. Listen and learn.
- Read the bill!
- Do not vote for a bill that puts a crippling financial burden on the American people, grows government and puts them in bed with big businesses.
- Do not vote for a bill that would ration water, electricity, fuel oil, natural gas, etc.
- Investigate who gains and who loses with this bill.
- Again, uphold our Constitutional rights and freedoms.
- Stand up for more economical alternatives to clean energy.
- Do not allow this to go forward in its current state.
- By all means, do not agree to or support any effort for The United Sates to pay another countries way with clean energy reform.
Miscellaneous
- Stop the out of control spending.
- Close the tax loopholes for large Corporations and give tax breaks to small businesses and individuals.
- Rescind the unused stimulus money.
- Investigate ACORN and get their hands off of our census and out of our pockets.
- Do something about the thug Czars that are in positions that allow them to re-shape and control our society and Government. Fire them and stop the intentional circumvention of our checks and balances.
- Stand up to the White House when it is doing things that bully, shred our Constitution, infringe on our rights, and spend money that we don’t have.
- Read the ‘5000 Year Leap’ so you can understand and uphold the principles of our Founding Fathers.
- Read Glenn Beck’s ‘Common Sense’ so you all can return some to the Congress.
- Do not allow the Independent Inspectors to report to or be under the control of the White House.
- Uphold our current laws and investigate and hold accountable those in Washington who break them.
- Return integrity, honesty and fiscal prudence to Washington.
- Do not allow Unions to force themselves on businesses and individuals.
- Do not allow Washington to force Americans to serve in volunteer positions.
- Stop President Obama’s plan to create a private citizen army or enforcement entity.
- Stop the Presidential National Apology world tour and start demonstrating our national pride and patriotism.
- Stop the effort to remove God from our Nation’s fundamental principles.
- Start investigating every governmental program, department, and office for waste and fraud and eliminate them.
- Stop the pork spending.
- Stop the bail outs and let Capitalism and free-market thrive.
- Leave Gitmo open and do not allow suspected terrorists to be brought to our shores and be eligible for our individual rights. It has a purpose. It works. There is not a better alternative unless you can get other countries with a strong stance against terrorism to take them. And by the way, reading terrorists their Miranda rights on the battle field is ridiculous.
Work on these things and you will be busy. Work on shrinking government control instead of increasing it. Work on understanding the basic beliefs, influences, ideologies and agendas of those who work and hold office in Washington so you can be proactive in blocking them from restructuring this country and forcing its citizens towards anything other than our fundamental beliefs, structure and principles. Its not about political parties, it is about the greatness of The United Sates of America and its citizens. It is about maintaining the integrity our Republic, its fundamental principles and democratic processes.
The right of speech can never be over shadowed by selected government officials we have the right in America to air our comments, concerns, and complaints without provocation. Yet as the people speak out in a civil manor the bigots that are in control make inflammatory remarks to further their personal agenda. What is lost and sweep aside are malice intent to bring about civil discourse. The insidious intent to spark violence in order to have control of the people may very well prove be the downfall of the secular progressive movement in America. Hate crime bills have passed and this is just another form of a spoiled stench mark on our society. “We the People” must rise above the fray and prove the resilience of the whole embodiments of the endeavors that we have undertaken. We never should resort to violence; we must use our faith, our wittiness, strengths of our convictions, and retain our focus on the tasks, which are ahead of us. Our focus should remain on returning control back to the people.
The national healthcare bill is a moving target with thousands of details yet to be revealed. What appears certain is that a national government gains more authority to ration healthcare access and plans to lower costs by paying providers well below the cost of service. With any limited resource, if money is not the mechanism by which you ration, another scheme based on perceived level of need, or social status, or age, or some criteria yet to be explained must be put into place. In some nations, the rationing mechanism is simply to wait your turn on a list, in hopes you die before the government has to pay for the desired treatment.
Two fundamental reasons exist why national healthcare will destroy choice. The first: any insurance provider must either make a profit, or fail. All of the prepaid insurance premiums I and my employer submit today for services yet rendered (i.e. future benefits), must be treated as an accounting liability. The private insurer must be solvent, with sufficient assets available to pay claims.
A national healthcare plan will not do that, if implemented in any fashion like Medicare today. Medicaid owes $34 trillion dollars worth of future benefits to workers who will not receive any benefit until retirement. The feds do not show this liability; completely ignored as all new taxes collected are distributed for current liabilities. The system is bankrupt from day one. With a $34 trillion dollar liability for which Medicaid is not forced to recognize, how can any federal insurance plan be referred to as a “competitive” alternative to private insurers when it must be heavily subsidized by..... our grandchildren perhaps?
Secondly, the rationing process described is driving doctors out of the practice. Two Columbus physicians told me last week they must find another way to make a decent living if the national government gets more involved in setting reimbursement rates. The Indiana Academy of Family Physicians has identified a shortage in primary and preventative care physicians, which are the lowest cost point of access for healthcare. A big contribution to this trend has been the woefully inadequate reimbursement rates by government insurance plans, as already 30% of Indiana’s 92 counties have been designated as areas incurring primary care provider shortages. The best avenue to patient centered medical care is for local doctors to make local decisions. Encouraging trained professionals to quit the practice sounds like a tremendous waste to my community.
Are there ways to lower cost? Certainly, and reducing the red tape for providers and insurance, eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse, and fewer expensive procedures ordered to prevent massive malpractice lawsuit claims would be the three areas of “low fruit” which would all increase the interaction between healer and patient.. None of these ideas, not one, will be addressed by increasing the bureaucratic control of healthcare allocation.
On Tuesday, August 18 at 2:00 PM in Columbus, location to be announced, is an event sponsored by Americans for Prosperity is entitled "Hands off my Health Care Indiana" bus tour. Because the last person I want between me and my doctor is a government bureaucrat!" The free rally will encourage you to stand up for your freedom to decide how you want to live. To your good health.
A MINORITY VIEW
BY WALTER WILLIAMS
RELEASE: WEDNESDAY, JULY 15, 2009
EPA Cover-up
Here's what I wrote in last year's column titled "Global Warming Rope-a-Dope" (12/24/2008): "Once laws are written, they are very difficult, if not impossible, to repeal. If a time would ever come when the permafrost returns to northern U.S., as far south as New Jersey as it once did, it's not inconceivable that Congress, caught in the grip of the global warming zealots, would keep all the laws on the books they wrote in the name of fighting global warming. Personally, I would not put it past them to write more." On June 28, 2009, the House of Representatives, by a narrow margin (219-212), passed the Waxman-Markey bill. The so-called "cap and trade" bill has been sold as a system for cutting greenhouse gas emissions in the struggle against global warming. There's a full-court press on the U.S. Senate to pass its version of "cap and trade."
"Cap and trade" is first a massive indirect tax on the American people and hence another source of revenue for Congress. More importantly "cap and trade" is just about the most effective tool for controlling most economic activity short of openly declaring ourselves a communist nation and it's a radical environmentalist's dream come true.
So why the rush and the press on the Senate? Increasing evidence is emerging that far from there being global warming, the Earth has been cooling and has been doing so for 10 years. Prominent atmospheric scientists have recently sent a letter to Congress saying, "You are being deceived about global warming. ... The Earth has been cooling for ten years. ... The present cooling was not predicted by the alarmists' computer models." Last March, more than 700 international scientists went on record dissenting over manmade global warming claims. About 31,500 American scientists, including 9,029 with Ph.D.s, have signed a petition, that in part reads, "There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate."
The Obama administration's EPA sees the increasing evidence against global warming as a threat to their agenda and has taken desperate measures. About a week before the House vote on "cap and trade," the Washington, D.C.-based Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) released some EPA e-mails, demonstrating that an internal report by Alan Carlin, a 35-year career EPA analyst, criticizing EPA's position on global warming, had been squelched for political reasons (http://bit.ly/11XwoC). One of the e-mails is from Dr. Al McGartland, director of the EPA's National Center for Environmental Economics reads, "The administrator and administration has decided to move forward on endangerment, and your comments do not help the legal or policy case for this decision. ... I can see only one impact of your comments given where we are in the process, and that would be a very negative impact on our office."
The Competitive Enterprise Institute summarizes Dr. Carlin's report saying, "(T)hat EPA, by adopting the United Nations' 2007 'Fourth Assessment' report, is relying on outdated research and is ignoring major new developments. Those developments include a continued decline in global temperatures, a new consensus that future hurricanes will not be more frequent or intense, and new findings that water vapor will moderate, rather than exacerbate, temperature. "New data also indicate that ocean cycles are probably the most important single factor in explaining temperature fluctuations, though solar cycles may play a role as well, and that reliable satellite data undercut the likelihood of endangerment from greenhouse gases."
Geologist Dr. David Gee, chairman of the science committee of the 2008 International Geological Congress, currently at Uppsala University in Sweden asks, "For how many years must the planet cool before we begin to understand that the planet is not warming? For how many years must cooling go on?" Obviously, 10 years is not enough.
Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University. To find out more about Walter E. Williams and read features, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
WTPI...Here is a letter sent to Democrat Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana.
Stephen Fraser, MD
July 23, 2009
Senator Bayh,
As a practicing physician I have major concerns with the healthcare bill before Congress. I actually have read the bill and am shocked by the brazenness of the government's proposed involvement in the patient physician relationship. The very idea that the government will dictate and ration patient care is dangerous and certainly not helpful in designing a healthcare system that works for all. Every physician I work with agrees that we need to fix our healthcare system, but the proposed bills currently making their way through congress will be a disaster if passed.
I ask you respectfully and as a patriotic American to look at the following troubling lines that I have read in the bill. You cannot possibly believe that these proposals are in the best interests of the country and our fellow citizens.
Page 22 of the HC Bill: Mandates that the Govt will audit books of all employers that self insure!!
Page 30 Sec 123 of HC bill - THERE WILL BE A GOVT COMMITTEE that decides what treatments/benefits you get.
Page 29 lines 4-16 in the HC bill: YOUR HEALTH CARE IS RATIONED!!!
Page 42 of HC Bill:The Health Choices Commissioner will choose your HC Benefits for you. You have no choice!
Page 50 Section 152 in HC bill: HC will be provided to ALL non US citizens, illegal or otherwise
Page 58 HC Bill: Govt will have real-time access to individuals finances & a National ID Healthcard will be issued!
Page 59 HC Bill lines 21-24: Govt will have direct access to you ur banks accounts for elective funds transfer.
Page 65 Sec 164: is a payoff subsidized plan for retirees and their families in Unions & community organizations: (ACORN).
Page 84 Sec 203 HC bill: Govt mandates ALL benefit packages for private HC plans in the Exchange.
Page 85 Line 7 HC Bill: Specifications for of Benefit Levels for Plans = The Govt will ration your Healthcare!
Page 91 Lines 4-7 HC Bill: Govt mandates linguistic appropriate services. Example - Translation: illegal aliens.
Page 95 HC Bill Lines 8-18: The Govt will use groups i.e., ACORN & Americorps to sign up individuals for Govt HC plan.
Page 85 Line 7 HC Bill: Specifications of Benefit Levels for Plans. AARP members - your Health care WILL be rationed.
Page 102 Lines 12-18 HC Bill: Medicaid Eligible Individuals will be automatically enrolled in Medicaid. No choice.
Page 124 lines 24-25 HC: No company can sue GOVT on price fixing. No "judicial review" against Govt Monopoly.
Page 127 Lines 1-16 HC Bill: Doctors/ American Medical Association - The Govt will tell YOU what you can make! (salary)
Page 145 Line 15-17: An Employer MUST auto enroll employees into public option plan. NO CHOICE!
Page 126 Lines 22-25: Employers MUST pay for HC for part time employees AND their families.
Page 149 Lines 16-24: ANY Employer with payroll 401k & above who does not provide public option pays 8% tax on all payroll.
Page 150 Lines 9-13: Business's with payroll btw 251k & 401k who doesn't provide public option pays 2-6% tax on all payroll.
Page 167 Lines 18-23: ANY individual who doesn't have acceptable HC according to Govt will be taxed 2.5% of income.
Page 170 Lines 1-3 HC Bill: Any NONRESIDENT Alien is exempt from individual taxes. (Americans will pay)
Page 195 HC Bill: Officers & employees of HC Admin (GOVT) will have access to ALL Americans finances /personal records.
Page 203 Line 14-15 HC: "The tax imposed under this section shall not be treated as tax" Yes, it says that!
Page 239 Line 14-24 HC Bill: Govt will reduce physician services for Medicaid Seniors, low income and poor are affected.
Page 241 Line 6-8 HC Bill: Doctors, doesn't matter what specialty you have, you'll all be paid the same!
Page 253 Line 10-18: Govt sets value of Doctor's time, proffession, judgment etc. Literally value of humans.
Page 265 Sec 1131: Govt mandates & controls productivity for private HC industries.
Page 268 Sec 1141: Federal Govt regulates rental & purchase of power driven wheelchairs.
Page 272 SEC. 1145: TREATMENT OF CERTAIN CANCER HOSPITALS - Cancer patients - welcome to rationing!
Page 280 Sec 1151: The Govt will penalize hospitals for whatever Govt deems preventable re-admissions.
Page 298 Lines 9-11: Doctors, treat a patient during initial admission that results in a re-admission -Govt will penalize you.
Page 317 L 13-20: PROHIBITION on ownership/investment. Govt tells Doctors what/how much they can own!
Page 317-318 lines 21-25, 1-3: PROHIBITION on expansion- Govt is mandating hospitals cannot expand.
Page 321 2-13: Hospitals have opportunity to apply for exception BUT community input is required. Can u say ACORN?!!
Page 335 L 16-25 Pg 336-339: Govt mandates establishment of outcome based measures. HC the way they want. Rationing.
Page 341 Lines 3-9: Govt has authority to disqualify Medicare Advance Plans, HMOs, etc. Forcing people into Govt plan.
Page 354 Sec 1177: Govt will RESTRICT enrollment of Special needs people! Unbelievable!
Page 379 Sec 1191: Govt creates more bureaucracy - Tele-health Advisory Comittee. Can you say HC by phone?
Page 425 Lines 4-12: Govt mandates Advance Care Planning Consult. Think Senior Citizens end of life patients.
Page 425 Lines 17-19: Govt will instruct & consult regarding living wills, durable powers of attorney. Mandatory!
Page 425 Lines 22-25, 426 Lines 1-3: Govt provides approved list of end of life resources, guiding you in death. (assisted suicide)
Page 427 Lines 15-24: Govt mandates program for orders for end of life. The Govt has a say in how your life ends.
Page 429 Lines 1-9: An "advanced care planning consultant" will be used frequently as patients health deteriorates.
Page 429 Lines 10-12: "advanced care consultation" may include an ORDER for end of life plans. AN ORDER from GOVT!
Page 429 Lines 13-25: The govt will specify which Doctors can write an end of life order.
Page 430 Lines 11-15: The Govt will decide what level of treatment you will have at end of life!
Page 469: Community Based Home Medical Services = Non profit organizations. Hello, ACORN Medical Services here!!?
Page 472 Lines 14-17: PAYMENT TO COMMUNITY-BASED ORIGINATION. 1 monthly payment 2 a community-based organization. Like ACORN?
Page 489 Sec 1308: The Govt will cover Marriage & Family therapy. Which means they will insert Govt into your marriage.
Page 494-498: Govt will cover Mental Health Services including defining, creating, rationing those services.
Senator, I guarantee that I personally will do everything possible to inform patients and my fellow physicians about the dangers of the proposed bills you and your colleagues are debating.
Furthermore, If you vote for a bill that enforces socialized medicine on the country and destroys the doctor/patient relationship, I will do everything in my power to make sure you lose your job in the next election.
"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
As of this writing, Barack Hussein Obama's "fundamental transformation of the United States of America" has obligated taxpayers for an admitted $7 trillion in current and future debt for his so-called "economic recovery" act. Heaping insult upon near-fatal injury, Congress is now considering an additional $2 trillion in proposed tax increases for BO's CO2 folly, over $1 trillion for his nationalized healthcare experiment and untold trillions for another round of "economic recovery" programs. Furthermore, TARP Inspector General Neil Barofsky announced this week that total Federal exposure for all TARP "spending" had been leveraged to $23.7 trillion, equal to approximately one and one half times GDP.
All of this tax obligation comes amid the worst economic decline in decades, and is sure to test the limits of "Trickle-Up Poverty."
Of course, none of the aforementioned Obama initiatives, or the collection and redistribution of wealth to fund them, is authorized by our Constitution (unless of course you subscribe to the so-called "Living Constitution" as amended by judicial diktat).
Therefore, if these schemes are not authorized by our Constitution, then we have an outlaw government, and if we have an outlaw government, then by what authority does that government assess and collect taxes?
That question will be the subject of an upcoming essay, but I raise it here in order to highlight an expenditure that our Constitution does authorize Congress to enact -- defense appropriations.
The National Defense Authorization Act for 2010 (H.R. 2647) passed the House by a vote of 389 Ayes, 22 Nays (2 Republican) and 22 Present/Not Voting. It contained 69 amendments, mostly related to defense expenditures.
The Senate version of the NDAA (S.1390) with its 216 amendments is now being debated.
One of those amendments, a liberal effort to expand so-called "hate crimes" legislation, resulted in heated discourse on the Senate floor, including this scolding by John McCain (R-AZ) toward Harry Reid (D-NV): "The majority leader has made it clear that their highest priority ... is a hate crimes bill that has nothing to do whatsoever with defending this nation. While we have young Americans fighting and dying in two wars, we're going to take up the hate crimes bill because the majority leader thinks that's more important ... than legislation concerning the defense of this nation."
Indeed, McCain has this one exactly right.
However, I draw your attention to another amendment, this one added by Sen. John Thune (R-SD), authorizing interstate reciprocity of concealed-carry permit holders cross state lines with their weapons. Thune's amendment was stripped from the legislation even after mustering 58 votes for and 39 votes against.
Yes, that is a strong majority in favor, but still two votes short of the 60-vote threshold needed to block a promised filibuster by Chuck Schumer (D-NY). (In today's milquetoast Senate, just the threat of a filibuster is treated as an actual filibuster.)
Deplorably, two Republican senators voted against Thune's measure: Richard Lugar of Indiana and George Voinovich of neighboring Ohio.
For the record, I am not suggesting this measure would have passed had Lugar and Voinovich changed their votes -- the Democrats were not going to let this one through. These votes always come down to who cut the best backroom wink-and-nod deals on some other piece of legislation in return for a aye or nay on this one. But I do wonder what Lugar and Voinovich got in return...
Schumer protested, "This amendment is a bridge too far, and could endanger the safety of millions of Americans. Each state has carefully crafted its concealed-carry laws in the way that makes the most sense to protect its citizens. Clearly, large, urban areas merit a different standard than rural areas. To gut the ability of local police and sheriffs to determine who should be able to carry a concealed weapon makes no sense. It could reverse the dramatic success we've had in reducing crime in most all parts of America. Whether you are pro-gun or pro-gun control, this measure deserves to be defeated. We will do everything we can to stop this poisonous amendment from being enacted."
There was a concerted effort by the Left to paint Thune's reciprocity amendment as having nothing to do with national defense -- a tit-for-tat in response to McCain's complaint about Reid's "hate crimes" amendment.
However, I subscribe to the notion that "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." That would be directly from the Second Amendment in our Constitution's Bill of Rights.
Sidebar: For those who don't know enough about American history to comprehend that "a well regulated Militia" refers to "the People," stop reading this essay and take Civics 101 at any accredited institution. Oh, wait, they don't teach Civics 101 any longer, which not only perpetuates but, in fact, institutionalizes ignorance of our Constitution.
The Second Amendment's assurance of the right, nay, the responsibility to own and carry firearms, with the attendant proscription against government infringement of that right, is our most essential reassurance of self defense, national defense and defense of our Constitution from "enemies, domestic and abroad."
Justice Joseph Story, appointed to the Supreme Court by James Madison (our Constitution's principal author), wrote in his "Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States" (1833), "The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of the republic; since it offers a strong moral check against usurpation and arbitrary power of the rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them."
On that note, let's take a closer look at Schumer's complaint in an effort to discern what the Second Amendment really provides.
"Each state," says Schumer, "has carefully crafted its concealed-carry laws in the way that makes the most sense to protect its citizens. Clearly, large, urban areas merit a different standard than rural areas."
Schumer is asserting that the Second Amendment prohibits only federal government infringement of the right to keep and bear arms while that prohibition is not incorporated to prohibit state governments from infringing on the same right.
So, would Schumer likewise argue that states have authority to regulate First Amendment rights of religious freedom, or freedom of speech, or of the press? Of course not.
Ironically, the First Amendment notes, "Congress [emphasis added] shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." (Our Founders chose their words with great deliberation.)
Though the First Amendment is clearly a proscription on congressional legislation, not state legislation, the Second Amendment contains no such language and declares that "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
However, the Left has errantly incorporated proscriptions of the First Amendment upon the states (while completely redefining "speech" to include even the most grotesque forms of expression but restricting political speech,) while arguing that the Second Amendment is a prohibition only upon the federal government.
Sidebar: When an über-leftist attempts to make an argument for federalism, beware. Though the 10th Amendment in the Bill of Rights defines federalism -- "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." -- this does not suggest that the previous amendments apply only to the federal government.
In order to consider whether there is a constitutional basis for Thune's reciprocity amendment in the first place, we must first discern our Founders' original intent.
The Bill of Rights was adopted in 1791 after great disagreement on whether the enumeration of such rights was even required. Alexander Hamilton aptly summed up the basis for this disagreement in Federalist No. 84: "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?"
Indeed, read in context, the Bill of Rights is an affirmation of innate individual rights, of Natural Rights as noted by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence: "[All men] are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." The Bill of Rights, then, is a clear delineation of constraints upon the central government in regard to infringement of those rights.
Further, it is ludicrous to argue that the enumeration of those rights was a prohibition on only the federal government since, in the words of Hamilton (and echoed in the writings of many other Founders), "Why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do?"
These rights were enumerated, according to those who favored inclusion, in order to explicitly recount the rights of "the people," as noted in the Bill of Rights Preamble (yes, it has one): "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..."
In other words, our Founders argued that they enumerated both "declaratory and restrictive clauses" in order to "prevent misconstruction or abuse of [central government] powers" that would infringe on the inherent rights of the people.
More than a century after the Bill of Rights was adopted, the Supreme Court (of Jefferson's "Despotic Branch") began incorporating the provisions in the Bill of Rights as applicable to the states. This, in and of itself, implied that somehow the inalienable rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights might not already extend to all people in all jurisdictions.
The High Court construed the 14th Amendment's Section 1 as support for incorporation: "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
It is notable that the 14th Amendment makes direct reference to the Bill of Rights' Fifth Amendment prohibition against depriving any person of "life, liberty, or property."
In the mid-20th century, the Supreme Court increasingly used the 14th Amendment's Privileges or Immunities Clause, Due Process Clause and Equal Protection Clause to make portions of the Bill of Rights binding upon the states. The consequence of this interpretation was and remains that the inalienable rights enumerated by our Founders are now awarded at the discretion of the judiciary, not endowed by our Creator.
However, given the fact that our Founders' intent with the Bill of Rights was to enumerate certain declaratory and restrictive clauses to ensure the Declaration's "unalienable rights" of all men, one must conclude by extension that those rights are inalienable by any government jurisdiction, irrespective of the 14th Amendment.
So, in regard to Sen. Thune's reciprocity amendment, I ask, "Reciprocity for what?" Are we so steeped in the errant notion that our rights are a gift from government that we no longer subscribe to the plain language of our Constitution based on the inalienable rights of man? Has the temperature been turned up so slowly over the last eight decades, so incrementally, that when we finally feel the heat, it will be too late for us to jump, like frogs, out of the pot?
With our Constitution now in exile, I can understand why Sen. Thune would forward an amendment to provide interstate reciprocity for law-abiding concealed weapon permit holders.
However, the Second Amendment still enumerates my right to carry.
When senators such as Chuck Schumer and Dick Durbin declare, "We're able to breathe a sigh of relief," in regard to the defeat of Thune's amendment, let me suggest that you obtain a copy of our Constitution, and be prepared to educate anyone charged with enforcing the law, just what it is that they have sworn to "Support and Defend."
Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!
Monday night Democrats voted to shut down the U.S. House Representatives rather than allow a handful of Republican Congressmen to speak on the floor. What could have been so offensive or frightening about our discourse that Speaker Pelosi felt she had to protect her party by gagging free speech in the House?
In fact, we had planned to speak on the lack of transparency of the House since Democrats took control. We had planned to criticize Speaker Pelosi for repeatedly denying Members, the media, and the public to right to read legislation before it was voted on. We were set to discuss House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer’s statement last week that if his Members were required to read the Democrats’ healthcare reform package before it was voted on, it would fail.
So the Speaker obviously feels that if the public is truly aware of her party’s agenda, they will reject it. She is now making sure the public is kept in the dark by trampling the centuries-old democratic traditions of the House.
What are those traditions? Every day that the House is in session, following the final vote of the day, representatives are allowed the privilege of free speech on the House floor in what is known as “Special Orders.” They may speak for one minute, five minutes, or one hour segments, and must request their time in advance. Time is allocated equally to both parties on a first-come basis.
Since the advent of live C-SPAN coverage of the House, this has provided a national televised outlet for both Republicans and Democrats to speak to the nation on topics they feel were not adequately addressed during regular order in the House, during which the Democrat majority has the parliamentary ability to limit debate and speeches.
Special Orders therefore frequently serves as a political safety valve if the party in the majority becomes too dictatorial during debate, using their majority status to truly oppress the minority’s ability to debate and offer amendments.
That is now the case in the House, with the Democrat majority under Pelosi repeatedly rejecting House rules to ram a far-left agenda through before the public has time to learn what is actually in the bills.
This is what we were committed to bring to public light.
House rules require a bill be publicly posted for three days before it can be voted on. That basic rule was written by none other than Thomas Jefferson as part of the original rules package of the House, as it is essential to the survival of representative democracy.
The House can waive that rule if it chooses on specific occasions. The Republican-controlled House chose to waive it when considering the Patriot Act in 2001 following the terror attacks of 9-11. They thought there was enough of a national defense emergency to just bring the bill to the floor for a vote.
But Nancy Pelosi and her House Democrats have chosen to ignore the rule on every major issue taken up by the House this year, including:
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act: The Obama Stimulus: This one just had to pass that very day because time was a-wastin’ in getting those new jobs coming. We couldn’t wait for Members to read it. But then the President waited four days to sign it into law while he spent the weekend in Chicago, and months later none of the new jobs have come into existence.
The Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization (SCHIP): Speaker Pelosi couldn’t wait on this one either, although the deadline for reauthorization was still two months away.
The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act: Lilly was peddled as covering decades-old wage discrimination cases, but after waiting 20 years, Congress couldn’t wait one more day to let Members actually read the thing.
The Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009: No excuses at all on this one. They just didn’t want the details known.
The Omnibus Appropriations Act of 2009: This one has been languishing since last October, but we suddenly had to pass it that day.
The AIG Bonus Tax Act: This had to get through right then, don’t mind the details, we just had to go after those bonuses. Only when we read what passed after the fact, the bill contained waivers for all of the same executives the bill was supposed to reign in, many with curiously close ties to Treasury Secretary and tax cheat Tim Geithner.
The Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2009: No rush whatever on this one time-wise, the Democrats just didn’t want people talking about the hundreds of billions given to foreign banks that should have gone to our troops.
The American Clean Energy and Security Act/National Cap-and-Trade Energy Tax: No excuse was offered on this one, the Speaker just didn’t want anybody reading Henry Waxman’s 300 page amendment he sneaked in overnight before we were forced to vote. Three weeks later, the Senate shows no intention of taking up the bill before the opening day of dove season, if then.
There’s a reason all these bills are listed. The list constitutes every major policy bill undertaken by Congress this year. House Democrats are not just waiving the three-day rule -- they have destroyed it, and are intentionally pushing their agenda to the floor with blindfolds on the media and the public.
This constitutes an astonishing and chilling acceleration of the assault on representative democracy that began in earnest this January.
Representative democracy works when a U.S. Representative listens to the input of their constituents, and votes the way the majority of their district would vote. Only a Representative can’t listen if no one has ever seen the bill, or had time to provide input. They have to vote blind, which for too many, is voting the way their leadership tells them.
This is what Republican House Members were going to the floor to say Monday night. We were set to decry the loss of openness in the House.
Instead, we were met with a slammed door by Democrats, who are now committed to burying truth along with democracy.
The Democrats are the majority -- for now. They chose to silence debate on the floor by gagging House Republican Members from using their historical right to speak after the close of the day. But they cannot stop us from speaking outside the halls of Congress and letting the American public know the truth about their ongoing attack against the very foundations of a free Republic.
WTPI...Team ObamaCare: Sanger, Ginsburg and Holdren
"The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government."
-- Thomas Jefferson
Now that Barack Hussein Obama has undermined free enterprise by nationalizing major financial and manufacturing sectors of our economy, he has set his sights on the health care sector, which comprises almost 18 percent of the U.S. economy.
This shouldn't surprise us. After all, he did promise a "fundamental transformation of the United States of America," and his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, did cite the current economic crisis as the means for doing so. "Rule 1: Never allow a crisis to go to waste," Emanuel said. "They are opportunities to do big things."
Of course, there is NO constitutional authority or precedent for this massive government intrusion into the private sector. But then, when do Leftists look to any authority higher than themselves?
Considering the prospect of Socialists in charge of dispensing health care from cradle to grave, I was reminded, by none other than Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, that when one is in need of health care, one should not depend on folks who advocate a "culture of death."
In an interview last week, Ginsburg said that she thought "at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don't want to have too many of."
This comment was not some senile blunder from an aging jurist noted for nodding off during High Court deliberations.
In fact, Ginsburg's candid assessment of the Left's advocacy for abortion as a means for controlling propagation of undesirable ethnic groups is based upon the writings of atheist social activist and leftist icon Margaret Sanger.
Some 50 years before Roe v. Wade, Sanger founded the American Birth Control League, which later became Planned Parenthood, now the largest perpetrator of abortions in the U.S.
Sanger asserted that ministry to the poor, a fundamental tenet of Christianity, is responsible for excessive numbers of "unwanted" ethnic breeds. "Those vast, complex, interrelated organizations aiming to control and to diminish the spread of misery and destitution and all the menacing evils that spring out of this sinisterly fertile soil, are the surest sign that our civilization has bred, is breeding, and is perpetuating constantly increasing numbers of defectives, delinquents, and dependents. My criticism, therefore, is not directed at the failure of philanthropy, but rather at its success. These dangers are inherent in the very idea of humanitarianism and altruism, dangers which have today produced their full harvest of human waste."
Ah, yes, "human waste."
Sanger characterized the poor as "human weeds, reckless breeders, spawning ... human beings who never should have been born."
In "Woman and the New Race," Sanger insisted that women create an enormous "debt to society [by] creating slums, filling asylums with the insane, and institutions with other defectives. ... Poverty and the large family generally go hand in hand. ... The most merciful thing that a large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it."
Of blacks, Sanger wrote, "We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members."
She advocated policies that ensured "more children from the fit, less from the unfit" in order to "to create a race of thoroughbreds." (Remember this quote the next time a liberal tells you that Fascists and Socialists have nothing in common.)
Sanger was certainly the 20th century's most noted American proponent of racist eugenics. However when we remind our liberal friends of the origins of Planned Parenthood, they sputter on about Sanger's support for eugenics being an anomaly of another time and context.
But Sanger's advocacy for the extermination of the "unwanted" is the basis of today's culture of death. Indeed, one of the adherents of eugenics now directs BHO's White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and is the co-chair of Obama's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.
John Holdren may not be openly advocating racial selection, but he clearly advocates mass sterilization and abortion in order to control human impact on the environment. This is nothing but a contemporary interpretation of Sanger's eliminating "human weeds" and "reckless breeders."
Holdren's modern day eugenics program is outlined in a book he co-authored, "Ecoscience," in which he calls for "a comprehensive Planetary Regime [in order to] control the development, administration, conservation and distribution of all natural resources."
One solution, writes Holdren, is "adding a sterilant to drinking water or staple foods" which would help weed out those "who contribute to social deterioration."
As for the constitutional authority, Holdren writes, "Indeed, it has been concluded that compulsory population-control laws, even including laws requiring compulsory abortion, could be sustained under the existing Constitution if the population crisis became sufficiently severe to endanger the society."
"If some individuals contribute to general social deterioration by overproducing children," insists Holdren, "if the need is compelling, they can be required by law to exercise reproductive responsibility -- just as they can be required to exercise responsibility in their resource-consumption patterns -- providing they are not denied equal protection."
I suppose Holdren is Obama's "Czar of Compelling Needs."
As for global solutions, Holdren writes, "The Planetary Regime might be given responsibility for determining the optimum population for the world and for each region and for arbitrating various countries' shares within their regional limits. Control of population size might remain the responsibility of each government, but the Regime would have some power to enforce the agreed limits. If this could be accomplished, security might be provided by an armed international organization, a global analogue of a police force. Many people have recognized this as a goal, but the way to reach it remains obscure in a world where factionalism seems, if anything, to be increasing. The first step necessarily involves partial surrender of sovereignty to an international organization."
Holdren is of course careful about how his "Planetary Regime" might enforce these limits, but given the common bonds of Fascists and Socialists, a contemporary global solution with much more efficient ecological results than dismembering children in the womb would be to release a biological agent targeting mass populations in developing regions of Asia and Africa -- something like strains of Swine or Bird Influenza. After all, AlGorites consider climate change to be a crisis of global proportions, and such a crisis requires innovative solutions.
Holdren concludes, "This may be the last opportunity to choose our own and our descendants' destiny. Failing to choose or making the wrong choices may lead to catastrophe. But it must never be forgotten that the right choices could lead to a much better world."
In 1931, futurist H.G. Wells wrote of Sanger's proposed regime, "The movement she started will grow to be, a hundred years from now, the most influential of all time. When the history of our civilization is written, it will be a biological history, and Margaret Sanger will be its heroine."
Apparently, Obama's director of White House Office of Science and Technology Policy is prepared to do his part to sustain Sanger's legacy.
Given Holdren's musings about population control, should these folks be in charge of determining who receives what medical care?
Circling back to that same interview with Justice Ginsburg last week, here is how she defended a woman's right to end the life of her unborn child: "The basic thing is that the government has no business making that choice for a woman."
But in regard to ObamaCare, I doubt that Ginsburg would apply a similar standard: "The basic thing is that the government has no business making that choice."
The Hippocratic Oath, until recently the de facto position of medicine, established the fundamental principle that a physician should "First, do no harm." Perhaps BO himself should take that oath -- not that he has shown any penchant for honoring the one he took for his current job.
I call you servant because you are not deserving of being called a representative of the people you claim to represent. I might remind you and your office of an electronic message I sent concerning your seat of power. It is a power entrusted to you by the Ninth District of the State of Indiana and its people who are your constituents. A power which requires responsibility, transparency, fiscal soundness, concepts which you do not fully grasp yet.
You speak before people on a war which you believe will free a race of oppressed people and grant them freedom. “Once they get a taste of Democracy, they won't want to go back!” Is what you said as rationale for voting for the war. Then you blame the previous president when you had the same information as he did. Information which had been true for almost a decade of verifying. Saddam had weapons of mass destruction.
I have seen evidence of all your failures in these areas over the past few years. You constantly vote against our men and women in uniform.
You blame a war on an administration when it is YOU who voted for the war. When things go sour you claim no responsibility for your votes but tout that it is someone else's fault. You add earmarks to bills to entice your former constituents to vote for you. You spend and spend and then wonder why we have a deficit so large. You call yourself conservative, but you in no way exemplify conservatism; rather statism and Neo-Marxism. You do not sponsor most bills but rather follow. You are not the leader we need in Washington. You are one of the sheeple.
You are a dog who is following the wrong pack of savage, mouth foaming mutts who are ravaging through our Congress promising change, but only to bring disaster and lost jobs.
You vote for socialism at every corner. You fall for the Neo-Marxist theory of Global Warming or Climate Change and act accordingly. You have recently voted in favor of a bill which regulate how much CO2 companies emit. Are you even aware that CO2 is not a pollutant? Do you not follow scientific logic and look at all evidence? Do you not know that so called Global Warming is just a theory like evolution and the big bang? Why are we acting on things which will change our lives for the worst when there is nothing to fear? Cap and Trade, servant Hill, will be your undoing.
It is now my honour and privilege to inform you that I hereby strip you of all my powers endowed to you. I formally denounce my constituency of you, and condemn your action in the Congress. Let it be known that you do not represent me. Let it be known that you soon will not represent my fellow citizens.
I will see to it that you are removed from office. That you will be destroyed politically and you will not have any honour or glory to claim. When I am done with you, when WE are done with you, you will not be hailed and regarded as a former representative; you will be called a Failed Servant of the People, a coward, a reckless spender, a quibbler, a fat white pink boy, the OLD Washington politics of the liberals and fiscally irresponsible nuts who got us into this hell hole of a mess of socialism.
You do not realize that the seat of power you occupy is not an occupation. It is a burden. It is a duty. It is a service. You have failed in your feeble attempts to bear the burden, execute your duty, and serve my people.
We are now at war. You will no longer be comforted in knowing the next election will be yours. You will fall, and we shall bury you in your shame.
You should have listened to my plea for logic and reason, but like all of the rest of your fellow trogladytes, you were too absent minded to recognize the power of one voter. Prepare yourself, for this is your last term in Congress!
Recently, I received your expensive looking mailing entitled - “Putting Our Fiscal House Back in Order."
In that piece you spoke of “leading the fight” to reduce the deficit and “restore pay-as-you-go rules.” You told me that you had “taken action to strengthen accountability over your tax dollars” and that you “supported legislation that would require each committee to Congress to hold hearings on any waste.”
You went on to tell me about “Strengthening Accountability in Government Spending” in large letters. All very flowery rhetoric designed to make me think you are on my side.
And then Congressman, last Friday you voted to pass the largest tax increase in the history of our country by initiating the Cap and Trade Bill.
The increases in energy costs that will take place if this gets through the Senate, might just bankrupt me and many of my friends and neighbors. All retired people on fixed incomes just cannot keep up with these exorbitant increases to our every-day living.
Congressman Hill, I can’t begin to tell you how disappointed I am in you and the way you are executing the power of your office. You DO NOT represent me, and I would venture to say that you DO NOT represent 80% of your constituents.
I am sick of the manner in which you “go along” with the Washington administration. Their socialist liberals are leading our great country toward destruction. Look around Congressman, do you love America? If you do, then DO SOMETHING that would make us Constitutional conservative Americans believe you are on our side.
I guess I already know how you will vote on the upcoming Healthcare Reform issue.
WTPI... “We the People of Indiana” in order to form a more perfect health care system and to promote the general welfare of the people respectfully ask the Federal Government to kindly step aside and allow us to solve our own problems. We understand that health care is on an “unsustainable path” and needs to be reformed. We are also painfully aware that most “unsustainable paths” are paved by the Government and we have dutifully and blindly followed behind with hopes that our representatives had our best interests in mind. But history has shown this not to be the case- that party and power have become the basis for most of our representative’s decisions and not what is in the best interests of our Country. So please Federal Government, stick to your Constitutionally defined obligations and stop interfering in our lives!
As a matter of fact, if you would have read and heeded the Constitution to begin with we would not be in the mess that we are in today. Free Market solutions with prudent regulations put forth by compassionate people would solve most if not all of the problems we face today. Health care is no exception- if we all become more responsible with our own lives then the abuses of our system and ourselves would quickly go away.
The health care “smorgasbord” that exists due to our third party payer system has removed the patient from some of the financial responsibility of their care. When people are not ultimately responsible for their costs then they are more likely to be consumers whether they need to or not. This phenomenon is only magnified when the Federal Government offers all things to all people when in actuality they can’t nor should.
The responsibility extends not only to the financial aspects of health care but also to the physical as well. Four chronic diseases account for 70% of all health care costs. These four diseases are directly related to our lifestyle choices. So any real health care reform has to involve reforming the way we choose to live. Obesity and alcohol and tobacco abuse consumes large quantities of our health care dollars and all are directly under our control. We need to make better choices. We need to take care of ourselves.
Also, any solution needs to be locally driven. To try to make a blanket policy that covers all of us when we are such a diverse Nation is impossible. States are Constitutionally driven and are better prepared to meet the needs of its citizens as its citizens define. The Federal Government needs to take a step back and allow the States to find their own solutions.
And lastly, tort reform should be a cornerstone of any health care reform movement. Defensive medicine, liability insurance, and litigation expenses account for at least 80 billion health care dollars per year. This is money that could be better spent on real care. Doctors are under a constant threat of litigation and it is not surprising that many are forced to perform extra tests to protect themselves. We must lessen the threat so that doctors can efficiently practice medicine.
The first time I heard these words I was in church. As the days went by, I found myself going back to them over and over: I have seen the enemy, and it is us.
In many situations, the enemy is not so obvious, but in the fight for our country it is. Our actions, or our lack thereof, and our apathy are enemies of the cause of freedom and liberty.
I began my commitment in February 2009. Looking over the last several months, I see that my life has moved in a direction that I never could have anticipated. I have been the enemy for too many years to count by remaining aloof, removed from what was happening in this country, my country. Didn't I absolve my citizen's duty by voting once every two years? Wasn't that enough? No to both questions. I was not involved with my local government and was not aware of the issues that constantly change all around me. I proved myself the enemy of freedom by doing nothing. Most importantly, I betrayed Jesus Christ my Savior and Lord because He expects me to reflect His light in a dark world.
What was the proverbial final straw? I don't know. What one thing shook me awake and propelled me down this road? I have no idea, because it wasn't any one thing; it was an aggregate of many things. But I am here now and can never go back.
How should you then fight, my fellow patriot? I cannot tell you that. Find your own path. Every effort is a movement forward to protect our values. Every issue you learn about is a step closer to understanding what is in jeopardy. Every meeting you attend is an encouragement to those fighting with you. Not everyone can join the fray in the same way, but all who are concerned that our right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness is being stolen away from us and our descendants must take action today.
My daughter recently asked me why I have taken so much time from my family for this cause. Her question gave me pause, as well as pain. Inasmuch as she can, she now understands that I fight because I love her.
An old fable tells of a poor man who realizes that if the king goes ahead with plans to build an ornate fountain for the palace gardens, it will cut off the water supply to the village below. Crops will wither, animals will perish, and eventually the villagers will weaken and die, also. The poor man set out on a quest to persuade a strong man, a silver-tongued orator, and a wise man to approach the king on the subject. All tremble in fear at the prospect. Finally, the poor man returns home in defeat, where he is met by his daughter.
"Who will speak to the king, Papa?"
"No one, my child. They were all too afraid."
"Then you talk to him, Papa."
"I cannot. I am only one poor man. The king will not listen to me. And my head might end up on a pike for trying."
"But won't we die, anyway if the water is cut off? Talk with him, Papa. If not now, then when? If not for this, then for what? If not you . . . then who?"
The king was so amazed that a commoner would dare to approach him and plead the case that he halted the building of the fountain.
Look inside yourself. If you do not fight, who will? Please find a way to come to the table. Offer yourself (in whatever capacity you can). This battle to preserve our country and the Constitution that governs it has only begun. We have so far to go. Commit yourself to what you can do, in whatever arena you are most comfortable. Look at your family, those whom you love, and think of what you value. This is a fight for the history books. Let them not record that we lost because the enemy was us.
-- Lisa Deaton, Chairman of the Advisory Board for We the People Indiana
We are reading about the life of George Washington to our children. As I sit here in my warm home, looking out at the snow falling, I am thinking about those men who braved the cold and unimaginable conditions while fighting for a cause much bigger than themselves.....FREEDOM.
On December 16th, 1773, "radicals" from Marlborough, Massachusetts, threw 342 chests of tea from three British East India Company ships into Boston Harbor in protest of oppressive taxation and tyrannical rule. They wrote of their actions, "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." That event, of course, was the Boston Tea Party. 
That question will be the subject of an upcoming essay, but I raise it here in order to highlight an expenditure that our Constitution does authorize Congress to enact -- defense appropriations. 
The Bill of Rights was adopted in 1791 after great disagreement on whether the enumeration of such rights was even required. Alexander Hamilton aptly summed up the basis for this disagreement in Federalist No. 84: "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?" 
Now that Barack Hussein Obama has undermined free enterprise by nationalizing major financial and manufacturing sectors of our economy, he has set his sights on the health care sector, which comprises almost 18 percent of the U.S. economy.