What Would the Founding Fathers Do?

The Wisdom of Franklin

2011-02-28T18:33:00.001-06:00

Benjamin Franklin had it right. Today I think one can safely say that since the great experiment in self government (republican government), whose concepts were born during the Age of Reason and the Enlightenment and came to full fruition with the American Revolution, the nation founded on the principles contained in Franklin’s quote below has strayed far.
“The ordaining of laws in favor of one part of the nation, to the prejudice and oppression of another, is certainly the most erroneous and mistaken policy. An equal dispensation of protection, rights, privileges, and advantages, is what every part is entitled to, and ought to enjoy.” –Benjamin Franklin, Emblematical Representations, 1774
The further we have strayed from the founding republican principles on which this nation was built and grew strong staying true to, the greater our problems seem to grow. We are already in the shadows of a declining nation. The choice we have is to continue on the same path or chart a new one.

Franklin had, wisdom, oh if ONLY our leaders today had that

A bit of misplaced, yet righteous outrage

2010-09-27T17:03:00.000-05:00

From the fine folks at Weasel Zippers who, by aiming for the easy to pick low hanging fruit, miss the real issue with Obama’s ideology.

Oops He Did It Again: For Second Time, Obama Omits “Creator” When Speaking of “Inalienable Rights” Cited in Declaration of Independence…

Now, the real problem im the Obamassiah’s statement is not his “omission” of the word Creator. Here first read his statement.

Just seven days after he sparked controversy by omitting the word “Creator” when he closely paraphrased the passage from the Declaration of Independence that says all men “are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights,” President Barack Obama again omitted the Creator when speaking about the “inalienable rights” that “everybody is endowed with.” This time the president was speaking at a Sept. 22 fundraiser for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City, and his reference to “inalienable rights” was not as close a paraphrasing of the Declaration as it had been the week before.

“And what was sustaining us was that sense that, that North Star, that sense that, you know what, if we stay true to our values, if we believe that all people are created equal and everybody is endowed with certain inalienable rights and we’re going to make those words live, and we’re going to give everybody opportunity, everybody a ladder into the middle class, every child able to go as far as their dreams will take them–if we stay true to that, then we’re going to be able to maintain the energy and the focus, the fight, the gumption to get stuff done,” Obama said at the DCCC/DSCC event, according to the transcript posted by the White House.

To me, he says we are “Created” so the fishing for hidden meanings in the fact that he does not say “Creator” as well misses the larger issue. Focus on this quote.

if we stay true to our values, if we believe that all people are created equal and everybody is endowed with certain inalienable rights and we’re going to make those words live, and we’re going to give everybody opportunity, everybody a ladder into the middle class,

Yep, see, his version of our national ideal is that the GOVERNMENT is going to GIVE opportunity, and somehow ensure EVERYONE has a place in the MIDDLE CLASS. Sorry Barry, but the Founders spoke of freedoms like the PURSUIT of happiness, not any guarantee of happiness, and certainly no government “ladders” into any certain class. Their ideal was more along the lines of keeping the government out-of-the-way. Once again, Obama’ vision, and that of his entire party, of America is out of touch with the men who founded America.

Senator Coburn, I second that emotion!

2010-08-30T20:49:00.000-05:00

Tom Coburn is not exactly what you would call on the Newt 2012 bandwagon! Neither am I! Coburn has his reasons, which I share, and to which I would add quite simply that Newt is a politician, in my opinion before he is a Conservative! That just will not do! We need leadership, and in my opinion, politicians are not, by nature leaders. They are, rather than driven by principles, are driven too often by power!

DaleyGator DaleyThought: The victimzed Mulsims Card

2010-08-16T15:34:00.000-05:00

A member of CAIR says the Tea Party are just bigoted against Muslims. My response is,unlike Obama's clear, concise and correct!

Andrew Klavan talks to young Americans about...........

2010-08-12T18:42:00.000-05:00

The Constitution! H/T to Big Government

My radio show from 7-5-10

2010-07-05T22:39:00.002-05:00

I talked about the Founders, and their sacrificees and principles! Listen here!

MAJOR announcements concerning the Daley Gator

2010-06-07T19:10:00.000-05:00

Announcement number one- This month, marks the two-year anniversary of the start of The DaleyGator! Thanks to all of the readers, the blogs that link us blogroll us, and who have been so gracious to Ed and I.

Announcement number two- Sometime this week we will exceed the 300,000 hits mark, this blog is growing and again, thanks yto all those who make it possible. I expect that 400,000 will fall before the end of the year.

The third, and biggest announcement is that on Wednesday at 4 PM EST my radio show on Chimpsy Radio will debut. Thanks to David Cholesterol for the opportunity, you can check out their entire talk lineup out right here!

If you care to chat about the show, before or after look here for the chat, check out the Facebook page here!

I am excited about this and hope to hear from y’all, give me feedback, I will appreciate it!

The trouble with Liberals

2010-04-23T18:41:00.004-05:00

Well, OK, if you read that headline and thought “there trouble with Liberals is everything they stand for” you would be correct. However, the one specific area I am concerned with is this. Liberals have real issues thinking in simple terms. Take this story I found while perusing the Blogprof’s fine work

Granholm: All Supreme Court candidates ‘sensitive to women’s concerns’

President Barack Obama’s statements this week about seeking a Supreme Court nominee who is sensitive to women’s rights “does not necessarily” mean Gov. Jennifer Granholm will move up the list of possible nominees, the governor said today.

“I think everyone on that list is sensitive to women’s concerns,” Granholm said about the names in published reports said to be among those Obama is considering to replace retiring Justice John Paul Stevens.

Blogprof then offers a fine take on Granholm’s lack of focus on what is truly important in picking a Supreme Court justice

This is what infuriates me about today’s judiciary. Here we have the President and a potential pick that are ‘concerned about’ women’s ‘rights’/'issues’ when the only thing that should concern them is upholding the US Constitution!

Absolutely! That IS all that matters. But Granholm, and identity politics addicts like her, are so obsessed with dividing people into groups. Blacks, Asian, Gay, Straight, Women, etc. that they miss the important issues. And no, gender, skin color, sexual orientation, are NOT that important. The folly of the Left is that they say they are desirous of a society that completely ignores color, or gender, yet by their actions, they make such a society nearly impossible.

If Granholm were to say, “I want nominees that are concerned with upholding Constitutional principles” she WOULD end up with a nominee that would be sensitive to all American’s constitutional rights, women included. But, Granholm, being a Leftist, cannot come to grips with this simple reality. Again, note that the Left obsesses over “equality” yet they do not want true equality. The equality they seek is an equality dictated by government insistent on enforcing “social justice”.

Social Justice, of course, is code for Marxism, and any honest student of history will tell you that there is no justice under Marxism. Rather than equality of opportunity, Marxism attempts to put “equality enforcement” in the hands of government, which, of course, leads to a nation that makes all equal by ultimately removing everyone’s liberty.

The ultimate roadblock Liberals cannot seem to bypass is that rights come not from government, but are inherited by each person at birth, the founders referred to these rights as Natural Rights. There is no right to equality of results, or social standing, or income, and a government seeking to supply such a right will, in the end trample all our liberties.

Cross Posted at The DaleyGator

Doug's thought of the day

2010-04-19T16:33:00.003-05:00

Today is the 235th anniversary of Lexington and Concorde, more commonly known as “Patriots Day“. Wizbang has a brief history. Here is a snippet

It was on this day 235 years ago that the British army set out to arrest two key patriots, Samuel Adams and John Hancock. They also wanted to capture a stockpile of Colonial ammunition stored at Concord.

As the British advanced, Paul Revere, William Dawes and Samuel Prescott rode out to warn the surrounding towns, signaling the Minutemen to ready themselves for possible confrontation

Now, here is my thought. If MSNBS, and CNN, and the rest of the main stream media were around that day, how would they have painted those patriots and minutemen? Wanna bet they would be coloring them as radicals, dangerous, and, OF COURSE, extremists? Just think about it.

'Breathtaking arrogance' in the House

2010-03-16T06:39:00.000-06:00

From what I gather the best thing to come out of Monday's House antics was Rep. Paul Ryan's condemnation of them. Dems like to think (and dearly hope) that the voters don't care about the process, and perhaps that's often true. But don't count on it in this case, when 1) voters are informed, 2) the majority party is pushing the process up to and perhaps beyond the limits of the Constitution, and 3) there is so much at stake. People are paying attention and they do, in fact, care about this disgraceful process.

Here's Ryan:

Michelle Malkin has excerpts for those who can't watch the whole thing. Just one:

This is the vaunted transparency that the president promised? The arrogance, the paternalism, the condescension to the American people is just breathtaking.

Ryan covers the substance as well as the process. Worth watching.

Meanwhile, our Campaigner in Chief graced Ohio with his presence yesterday. He was "there for Natoma," an alleged victim of insurance industry abuse and our "broken" health care system. Turns out (you know what's coming) her story is, er, different, from the one Obama sold to the small crowd in Strongsville. Gateway Pundit:

Natoma Canfield is being cared for at one of the top cancer centers in America. She will qualify for financial aid and won’t lose her home.

Someday they'll find a real victim of the flawed system. In the meantime I'm feeling pretty good about what we've got.

h/t: Potluck, Instapundit

I'm reluctant to repeat this but The Hill reported last night that Rep. Bart Stupak "guesstimates" that Pelosi isn't close to the 216 votes she needs. The Dems say otherwise. No one knows what's true and it shouldn't affect our actions either way. Keep melting the phones.

Is your liberty meaningless to you?

2010-03-15T18:56:00.004-06:00

Bob Belvedere wonders, and quotes something our “leaders” have spat upon today!

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. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Stacy McCain has been aggregating, updating, and commenting here.

The good news: They still don’t have the votes. The bad news: Obama doesn’t care:

If Obama refuses to look at public opinion polls, then how can he profess to know what the American people want? And if he doesn’t care about polls, then how come the White House is circulating polls on Capitol Hill asserting that support for health care legislation is rising?

UPDATE 6:26 p.m. ET: Nancy Pelosi reminds the national press corps that she thinks Americans are a bunch of idiots:

House speaker Nancy Pelosi held a news conference with children’s advocates at the Capitol on Monday to push for the Democrats’ sweeping health care legislation. . . .

In a brief question-and-answer session, a reporter asked Ms. Pelosi about assertions by Representative David Dreier of California, the senior Republican on the House rules committee, that Democrats were engaging in legislative gymnastics to complete the legislation.

“It’s about accountability of the insurance companies; it’s about affordability for the middle class,” Ms. Pelosi said. “It’s not about gymnastics alone — except if that’s part of the wellness program that we have for our children.”

Translation: “We’re going to ignore any criticism you might have. It’s about what I say it’s about, you stupid morons.”

Michelle Malkin live-blogged today’s usurpations here

The Classic Liberal has been aggregating here and comments:Dismiss this warning at your own peril. Believe in the Beltway pundits if you must. After all, they’ve helped you achieve freedom and liberty by limiting and reducing government over the years. Right?

In my 41 years, the government has consistently grown in size and scope as we continue to march further and further down the road of serfdom. In other words, the Beltway pundits have harmed our cause, not helped.

These are not normal times. They are historical times. Volatile times. Keep listening to the same, tired-old mumblers … at America’s peril.

Washington will no longer vote on legislation, but instead, we now have law by fiat.

Fight for nothing less than the liberty and freedom our founding generations bequeathed us. Compromise won’t do. “Republican” isn’t enough.

The Grim Reaper is knocking at America’s door. What are YOU going to do about it?

So, I ask again, how much IS your liberty, your Constitution worth? As we see the Democrats give not one good shit about either. They stopped believing in them some time ago. Remember this in November. And again, pray that God will turn their hearts back towards our founding principles. There is still time, but remember, liberty, once lost…………….

Cross-Posted at The DaleyGator

A message to Democrats

2010-03-15T18:24:00.001-06:00

Bluegrass Pundit has a message for the Blue Dogs, from Samuel Adams

Here is an important message for Blue Dog Democrats from Samuel Adams
"If you love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen."

-Samuel Adams

My friends our liberty IS at stake here, once passed this bill will become an entitlement to dwarf all others.You and I will lose vital control of OUR health care decisions. American liberty will be dealt a blow from which it might never recover.
I ask that all of you pray, and keep as much heat on our elected representatives as we can.

Will someone go buy Derrick Z. Jackson some Pampers please?

2010-03-09T19:42:00.000-06:00

Derrick Jackson, columnist for the Boston Globe is nothing if not reliably predictable. He seems to write every column as if he has lost control of his wimpy, Leftist bladder. And his latest on Starbucks allowing people with licenses to carry firearms in their stores is more of the pants-wetting same.

IF STARBUCKS wants to run Wild West caffeine saloons, the least it can do is provide gunsmoking and nongunsmoking sections.

Oh, of course, right off the bat, Jackson plays the Wild West card. Every time a pants-wetting whiner writes, or talks about gun rights, they, at some point, babble about creating a Wild West atmosphere, where mass shootings will become rampant, and blood will run in the streets, and blah, blah, freaking blah!

The fact is Derrick, the states, 37 of them, that allow concealed and open carry, are SAFER, than states that do not. Violent crime goes down, and the Wild West scenarios? They never materialize. See, Derrick, those Americans who carry firearms, are very responsible, and safe. You can prattle and whine all you want, but, guns are not evil, and those who carry them legally? They are no threat to anyone. Criminals, on the other hand, tend to, you might want to sit down for this Derrick, break the law. Gun-free zones,which Liberal bed-wetters like you orgasm over, seem to be the only places mass shootings happen. And those shootings stop when armed police, or armed citizens arrive and stop the bad guys who, again, ignore laws.

You can go read the rest of Jackson’s whining, but, it is just more of the “guns are scary” idiocy the Left has been spewing for years. Jackson, of course, vows to not enter a Starbucks. Hey, fine with me. I do not really frequent coffee shops, but, now, I AM going to go visit my local Starbucks, and thank them for respecting the right to self-defense. And, I will feel much better about having coffee at Starbucks, since, from what I hear, it is going to be a whiny-bitching-moaning,-pants-wetting-Leftist-free-zone!

Cross-posted at The Daley Gator and The Resistance

If only Democrats listened to Jefferson

2010-02-28T11:27:00.000-06:00

That some Democrats actually attempt to claim Thomas Jefferson as theirs. Really? Now, it is true that the politcal Party of Jefferson, and Monroe, Madison and others was the Democratic Republicans, which later, became the Democratic Party.

The principles of Jefferson, however, are far from those of modern day Democrats. Yankee Phil has done a great job of listing some of Jefferson's quotes. I certainly wish the Democrats would accept Jeffersonian principles.
When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe. -Thomas Jefferson
The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not. - Thomas Jefferson

It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world. - Thomas Jefferson

I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.- Thomas Jefferson

My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.- Thomas Jefferson

No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. - Thomas Jefferson

The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government. - Thomas Jefferson

To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical. - Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson said in 1802

'I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered..'

The Mount Vernon Statement, A Poor Man’s Manifesto… VERY Poor

2010-02-22T17:02:00.002-06:00

-By Warner Todd Huston

A group made up of some of the biggest names in contemporary conservatism got together a few days ago and crafted what they are calling the “Mount Vernon Statement,” a manifesto of sorts meant to give direction to today’s conservative movement. Put succinctly, it fails to fill the bill.

Taken as a whole this statement is fine as a short history lesson. It explains pretty clearly what the founders had wrought when their basic work was done with the adoption of the U.S. Constitution. But as a statement of principles that might guide today’s discussion I do not think the letter works.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that this effort is harmful. In fact, I think every young person should read it for its explication of our historically conservative American principles. The problem is that this thing doesn’t seem to speak directly to what we are facing today like a statement that perhaps aims to become boilerplate should.

Some of those involved with the statement said that the 1960 “Sharon Statement” served as their inspiration. The Sharon Statement, intended to give some ideological umph to Goldwater conservatives, is an effort that works much better as a rallying cry to action. Sadly, the Mount Vernon Statement falls a little flat in this respect.

Historically I have two minor qualms about the newest effort. First of all its name doesn’t resonate. Yes, George Washington was the indispensable man of our early republic. Without him the warring factions facing off in political battle during our early republic just might have strangled this baby in its crib. But, as steadying a force as he was, Washington was not really the ideological or intellectual father of our nation. He was the father that kept the kids from beating each other up, the father we looked up to as a model of comportment, the man we looked to as the solid rock of the family, certainly, but he wasn’t the idea man. For that we looked to men like Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams among many others.

So, naming this letter after George Washington’s estate seems a bit odd. Better that these folks should have met in Independence Hall, Philadelphia and called this the Philadelphia Statement, the Independence Statement, or some such thing. The words “Mount Vernon” are obviously meant to lend historical heft to the document but they just don’t succeed as a meaningful ideological association. In fact, it’s sort of hollow. Are we naming our bedrock ideological principles for the man that didn’t craft them? That seems a bit odd to me.

Secondly, I find fault with this paragraph (my bold):

The conservatism of the Declaration asserts self-evident truths based on the laws of nature and nature’s God. It defends life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It traces authority to the consent of the governed. It recognizes man’s self-interest but also his capacity for virtue.

The word “recognizes” is not the correct word to use for what the founders thought about the word “virtue.” They didn’t merely “recognize” virtue existed. They built their entire political edifice on the insistence that our political leaders practice virtue and that they base their every move on the need to be seen as civically virtuous. This is an idea about which few of our political leaders today have the slightest clue, not to mention that the public is generally ignorant of what the founders meant when they discussed public virtue. Sadly, this letter doesn’t help us regain a proper perspective on the founder’s idea of public virtue.

The Mount Vernon Statement missed an opportunity to better explain what virtue in government could mean as a rallying cry for today’s conservative movement.

The Mount Vernon Statement is a fine little history lesson but compared to the Sharon Statement, it just doesn’t seem to as immediately take on the issues that we face. Where is the discussion of the destruction of our educational system, where is the warning against our worst foreign threat, where is the assertion that our system of jurisprudence has been undermined? All these things are broadly implied by the Mount Vernon Statement, granted, but one wishes that today’s problems were more directly addressed.

While we don’t want a statement that names names or attacks specific policies directly -- that would detract from the essential universality of such a statement of principles -- still to my mind the Mount Vernon Statement is a bit too broad. I feel that we need something a tad more direct. The Sharon Statement was perfect for its mixture of what were then current issues and timeless conservatives principles.

Should you have signed onto the Mount Vernon Statement, or should you feel that you’d like to do so, I can find no harsh words for you. As I said, there is no great harm done by this effort. Unfortunately, there is also correspondingly little succor that this effort can lend to our cause. It seems like a nice history lesson but as a manifesto to rally around it is more like a staid assertion than a battle cry. It is eminently forgettable.

Part Two

Yes, it’s easy to criticize. Surely it will occur to the minds of many readers of my criticism here that I should offer solutions along with my criticisms. So I offer the following basic idea of what I’d consider a better “statement” than what resulted from the efforts at Mount Vernon, Virginia. I’ll call it the “Huston Statement” for lack of a better title and since, well, I’m the one writing the thing.

Remembering that I am one man, not a committee of 80 some high-powered conservative operatives, here are the ideas I thought of while reading the Mount Vernon Statement, humbly offered as a basis upon which to further the discussion:

The Huston Statement

Since our political climate has long since drifted from the first principles of our founding and since we now face a crisis threatening to tear down our American moral center we commit ourselves to re-establishing our American character.

We believe that our Constitution and the principles espoused in the Declaration of Independence form the best guide by which to nurture our American character and provides a firm bedrock upon which to build a government.

We as Americans believe:

That as individuals we have the right of self-determination, to be free of overweening involvement in our lives by government at all levels from local, to state, to federal.

That as free men we must strongly assert that we are responsible for ourselves, our family, and our property and that others owe us nothing but to observe our rights as we observe theirs.

That our liberties depend on our civic virtue and that it is up to each of us to become informed citizens.

With these God-given liberties in mind, that our representatives must strive to keep government out of the lives of the people to the greatest extent practicable and that they should honor the principles of limited government as handed down to us from our founders.

And we assert that adherence to these principles will act as a beacon of freedom to the world, that we should actively promote them abroad giving succor to all those that would follow in our footsteps, and that we should not lend legitimacy to foreign bodies or nations that retreat from them.

We affirm that:

Private property is sacrosanct

The market-based economy free of government meddling must be preserved

Employees must be free of compulsory associations

Governments must be accountable to the voters not to judges and unions

Communities have the right to draft standards without federal approval

Education is a local responsibility solely under local and state control

It is freedom of religion, not freedom from religion

And that our Second Amendment rights are God-given and cannot be infringed

Additionally, we as Americans also reaffirm that legislation is the rightful duty of our constituted bodies of representatives and not the venue of capricious judges. Ruling from the bench is no better than the ill-considered tyrannies from the throne from which we so long ago rebelled.

Finally, let us understand these principles to be an affirmation of our American character one that has made our nation the richest and strongest nation in human history. Any force, whether domestic or foreign, that wishes to materially alter this character is an enemy to our nation and one that should not be treated lightly but faced squarely and with resolution.

Well, this is how I see a statement of principles that are geared to today’s issues but are still the sort that attest to our timeless conservative ideals.

I hope this can serve to continue the discussion that the Mount Vernon Statement started.

Lincoln's Birthday: The Lincoln We Need

2010-02-12T21:44:00.004-06:00

-By Warner Todd Huston

Of course, Lincoln isn't a founder but for Lincoln's birthday, I post this because he was certainly a seminal American figure.

These last 20 or so years has seen a bifurcated treatment of Abraham Lincoln. There are the enthusiasts and hagiographers that still revere him as the best that America has to offer -- the proverbial great emancipator, Father Abraham. Then there is a second stream, enthusiasts of another sort, viewing the Civil War president in the opposite manner. That second group are the Lincoln haters. Those such as Thomas DiLorenzo, the sort that calls Lincoln a criminal and despot, and Henry Louis Gates Jr., the sort that castigates Honest Abe as an unremitting racist, have been joined by a small group of Lincoln detractors trying to convince America that Lincoln is to be discounted, even hated by history.

So, which Lincoln is the Lincoln? Is he the Lincoln of "the great emancipator" or the Lincoln of the "great despot" and which Lincoln is the one we as Americans should know?

In truth he is all and neither of the two views in current, popular memory. He is neither the vision of the Constitution destroying, negro hating man the detractors wish to foster, nor the spotless demi-god that the hagiographers want to claim as theirs. Yes he did single things that pulled out of context to the whole of the man are both racist and despotic. He was a man, flawed and imperfect to be sure, but he was also one so singularly radical and ahead of his time that I believe we should lean towards reverence as opposed to despising the 16th president.

In fact, Abraham Lincoln, warts and all, is the sort of man we truly need to study in detail in this time of ours. His example, his reverence for the law and human dignity, above all his nuance and scholarship, is something that we need to emulate today.

Gates, for his part, would have you believe that Lincoln was a racist that had little interest in the negro. Gates focuses on Lincoln's dalliance with deporting (or exporting as the case may be) all blacks from America's shores as the solution to the race problem in America. Lincoln floated this idea to Congress, expressing the hope that Congress could fund such an effort. Lincoln also posited that the U.S. government might refund the value of slaves to southern slaveholders so these blacks could then be shipped off to some colony in Africa. Congress flatly refused the plan.

Gates would point to the many times that Lincoln called blacks "nigger" in his public speeches and the Lincoln-Douglas debates and Gates would present this as proof of Lincoln's latent "racism." Gates would also recount the many times that Lincoln said that he didn't think black people were the physical or mental equal to whites. All this, Gates would say, proves Lincoln's racist sentiment toward the black man.

All this is true. In the glaring lights of today's sentiment on what constitutes racism, Lincoln could easily be dismissed as no better than the worst member of the KKK. Some detractors even go so far as to say that Lincoln "didn't care" about slavery. But this is simply an outright lie. In his papers, Lincoln used the words slave or slavery some 14,000 times. During his Cooper Union speech, the one that arguably made him a national figure, Lincoln attacked slavery and he was well known as an anti-slave man.

So there's that nuance I mentioned. In fact, when measured by the sentiment of his day Lincoln proves to be a radical in his views of the black man, a radical that would make of him the exact opposite of a "racist."

During the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debates Lincoln said the following:

This declared indifference, but, as I must think, covert real zeal for the spread of slavery, I cannot but hate. I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it because it deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world-enables the enemies of free institutions, with plausibility, to taunt us as hypocrites-causes the real friends of freedom to doubt our sincerity, and especially because it forces so many really good men amongst ourselves into an open war with the very fundamental principles of civil liberty-criticizing the Declaration of Independence, and insisting that there is no right principle of action but self-interest.

But it wasn't just slavery he was against. He was also against the idea that blacks were chattel and had no human rights. He also said the following in this passage recorded during the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debates:

"... I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong, having the superior position. I have never said anything to the contrary, but I hold that notwithstanding all this, there is no reason in the world why the negro is not entitled to all the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I hold that he is as much entitled to these as the white man. I agree with Judge Douglas, he is not my equal in many respects -- certainly not in color, perhaps not in moral or intellectual endowments. But in the right to eat the bread, without leave of anybody else, which his own hand earns, he is my equal and the equal of Judge Douglas and the equal of every living man."

Here Lincoln acknowledges to his white audience that perhaps the black man is not his equal in "intellectual endowments" and the white should be "superior" -- in his day this was a strange equivocation, the "perhaps" a dangerous idea. To us, though, it is an outrageously racist sentiment. But one must remember that in 1858 even science did not dispute that the white man was the superior of the black. Today we claim science to be the supreme judge of what "is." Well, in 1858 "is" meant that blacks were less than whites. Lincoln was bowing to both public sentiment and the accepted scientific facts of his day. We should judge him on that, not on today's sentiment.

Still, the rest of this quote from the debates shows Lincoln to be far more radical, even in his day, in how he viewed the black man. To claim that a black man deserves the freedom to enjoy the fruits of his own labor was a radical departure from the sentiment of his day. Even science seemed to oppose it.

Further, we also must realize that this is early, pre-war Lincoln. As the war years dragged on, Abraham Lincoln's views on blacks had grown toward an even more radical form. He had met with and was impressed by famed black leader Frederick Douglas during the war. He had also moved to put blacks in the U.S. military and was surprised and pleased by the conduct of those troops.

In his last open air speech just prior to his assassination he even declared that blacks might be afforded the right to vote, at least the soldiers who earned that right with their service and the "the very intelligent Negroes" that could be found. This was such a radical idea that John Wilkes Booth, one of those in the audience listening to what would be Lincoln's last speech, would end the life of the 16th president only a few days later.

So, it simply cannot be said that Abraham Lincoln was a blatant racist uncaring about the negro in America.

But what of the other charge, that of being the destroyer of the Republic, the "great despot" and his evisceration of the Constitution? Didn't he imprison many hundreds of American citizens for "disloyalty"? Didn't he suspend habeas corpus? Didn't he do all sorts of unconstitutional things during the war?

Without question, he did.

But, again we come to nuance. One of Lincoln's most excoriated actions was his order suspending the writ of habeas corpus (the right of the citizen not to be subjected to arbitrary arrest but to be afforded due process of the law). It is claimed the suspension was unconstitutional and evidence of his despotic temperament. Of Lincoln's most famous quotes on this subject, though, we can see nuance even as he evinced anguished frustration. (found in Lincoln's message to Congress in Special Session, July 4, 1861)

Are all the laws, but one, to go unexecuted, and the government itself to go to pieces, lest that one be violated?

Nearly every war time president we've had found the need to take some emergency liberties with the comfort of long deliberations of the law. The nature of our Republic has seen the pendulum swing back to rights in most cases. Lincoln did it. Wilson did it. FDR did it. LBJ did it. Even George W. Bush did it. Were they each to have allowed the country to fall because of a single law to be observed? There is a saying that holds that the Constitution is not a suicide pact and this should be a seminal consideration in times of emergency. This does not excuse any and all actions of a president based merely on his claim of "emergency." But to remove all flexibility from the chief executive, on the other hand, is just as dangerous to the safety of this nation.

We should also focus here on the fact that the Constitution does provide for the suspension of habeas. Unfortunately, that great document neglects to spell out in detail exactly how that process might play out. While the notation is in Article I, it could be assumed that the power belongs to Congress, not the president. Still, it should also be remembered that Congress retroactively approved Lincoln's move.

At length, Lincoln's detractors point to his suspension of habeas as proof of his despotism. They claim that the law meant nothing to him. Yet, on the other hand, these same people point to Lincoln's initial refusal to abolish slavery as proof of his "racism" when, in truth, it was Lincoln's observance of the same Constitution detractors claim he hated that kept Lincoln form ending slavery by fiat. Lincoln haters try to have it both ways.

In 1862 Lincoln famously wrote to newspaper man Horace Greeley (later presidential candidate of the Democratic Party) that he would leave slaves in chains if it helped save the Union.

I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be "the Union as it was." If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.

Lincoln knew he did not have the Constitutional power to free the slaves merely because he said so. He knew he was limited in his powers. Yet, he also issued the Emancipation Proclamation that freed slaves in rebelling sections of the country. This was the first foot in the door that allayed to the federal government the power to control slavery. It was but a first step to eradicating slavery completely. In all his focus was on the Constitution, what it meant, what the founders meant when they wrote it, how it should guide our actions.

In fact, he based his entire stand against slavery on what the founders "meant" when they wrote the Constitution. Lincoln began his Cooper Union speech quoting Senator Douglas who said, "Our fathers, when they framed the Government under which we live, understood this question just as well, and even better, than we do now."

Lincoln then went on to predicate his ideas on what could be done about slavery in 1860 on what the founders did in 1787.

I fully indorse this, and I adopt it as a text for this discourse. I so adopt it because it furnishes a precise and an agreed starting point for a discussion between Republicans and that wing of the Democracy headed by Senator Douglas. It simply leaves the inquiry: "What was the understanding those fathers had of the question mentioned?"

He carried this ideal through to his every move basing all his actions on the pretext of Constitutional thought. In fact, Lincoln's papers reveal a president that considered his actions against the back drop of Constitutional originalism more than just about any other president ever.

At Gettysburg in 1863, Lincoln reminded us of our national charge to keep. "Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal," he began. He finished renewing that sacred charge: "...we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." Lincoln was guided by that national birthright. So should we be.

Lincoln was no angel by any means. He liked a low joke. He called people names. He was often morose and moody. He had marital difficulties. But we cannot view Lincoln under a microscope of any particular failing without remembering the whole of the man measured against his own time, based on his actions and those of his contemporaries.

If we do that, we'll find a man that does, indeed, rise above his countrymen. We'll find a man that can be a shining example for the ages. We'll find the Lincoln that we need. And on this 200th anniversary of his birthday, it is something that befits us to do.

Anti-Gun Government Tyranny in Canada And Our Founders

2010-02-08T01:47:00.000-06:00

-By Warner Todd Huston

Unlike the U.S., Canada does not have the right of self-protection enshrined in its laws. Where we Americans have the coverage of the Second Amendment to protect our God-given right to self-protection, the Canadians have to rely on the occasional good nature of their overlords in government to determine how their right to own a firearm is treated. Sadly, their ownership of firearms is usually mistreated rather than upheld.

A writer for the Toronto Star wrote an article recently that showed the capriciousness of government thugs where it concerns privately owned firearms in Canada. Joe Fiorito had a retinue of Toronto's finest stormtroopers come beating on his door one day this month to confiscate his old rifle because the columnist had the temerity of forgetting to re-up his registration of a disassembled, 30-year-old, small caliber bird gun.

Involved were multiple police cars, half a dozen officers, judge's warrants. All sorts of iron, jack-booted automatons of the state came down on Mr. Fioritto. It was as if he were public enemy no. 1. All of this over a beat up old rifle that was disassembled, locked in a basement, and stored in a house in which no ammunition existed.

You might laugh at this absurd overreach. It might amuse you that all these thousands of Canadian dollars in state funded policing assets were wasted for this practically useless old rifle in the possession of an obviously unassuming and powerless citizen. You might utter a guffaw at the Canadian's follies.

But be forewarned: Canada is but one step ahead the U.S.A. if the American left has by hook or crook gotten its way and outlawed our Constitutional rights.

Mr. Fiorito calls himself a "social democrat who wears his bleeding heart on his sleeve," and one that agrees with the Toronto gun registry... or at least used to. He says he agrees that no one but cops should be allowed to have handguns or "military-style weapons." But what threat, he wonders, did his little bird gun present to society?

I am and have been a supporter of the gun registry but now I'm not so sure, not when ownership of a two-bit little bird gun – legally acquired, lawfully used and stored in pieces in a trunk for the past 30 years – is sufficient reason for three cops to come to my door and snatch it, after threatening me with a search warrant.

Look, I registered the damn thing. I simply neglected to renew. A sin of omission?

Send in the troops.

Fiorito then reported that even days afterward the Toronto police were seen in cars idling in front of his house. What a waste of government resources not to mention an outrage against this man's god-given rights.

This incident shows the idiocy of government, the penchant for stormtrooper tactics by its police/military arm, and government's outright inability to consider a citizen as anything other than a dangerous threat. And these facts, the way that an all powerful government that doesn't have to fear its citizens treats those same citizens, is precisely why America's Founders enshrined our rights to self protection in the Bill of Rights of the Constitution of the United States. The founders weren't nearly as worried about thieves and marauders as they were of an out of control government.

The founders did not invent this right out of their over-ripe imagination, either. There was an awful lot of precedent for it. A book called Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws (1765) was a huge influence on the founders and this is what it said on arms ownership: "The right of the citizens that I shall at present mention, is that of having arms for their defense." And " This is the natural right of resistance and self-preservation when the sanctions of society and laws are found insufficient to restrain violence of oppression" and again "To vindicate these rights when actually violated or attacked, the citizens are entitled ... to the right of having and using arms for self-preservation and defense." This warning by Blackstone was born of thousands of years of government abuse of citizens.

With our founder's heavy use of Blackstone's Commentaries, it is clear that what the founders had in mind was that self-preservation and defense was a natural right to be protected by the laws and the Constitution. And historically what did people have to fear at least as much as criminals? Government.

James Wilson was one of only 6 founders who signed the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, he was a great Jurist, and was one of the first members of the Supreme Court appointed to that body by George Washington. He spoke on the floor of the Constitutional Convention 168 times and was one of the most active politicians of his day.

Mr. Wilson taught his laws students that the rights secured by the Constitution did not create new rights, but simply reaffirmed old ones. He said that our own documents were made, "to aquire a new security for the possession or the recovery of those rights to... which we were previously entitled by the immediate gift or by the unerring law of our all-wise and all-beneficent Creator." Thomas Jefferson similarly viewed our Constitution and principles, saying: "Government is to declare and enforce only our natural rights and duties and to take none of them from us." For his part John Adams stated that, "Rights are antecedent to all earthly government; Rights ... cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws; Rights are derived from the great Legislator of the universe."

As far as our founders were concerned, the right to protect one's self was God given. What God bestows let no man tear asunder.

Here are some other quotes about firearms uttered by our founders specifically now that we have the principles of self-preservation established:

"The right ... of bearing arms... is declared to be inherent in the people." Fisher Ames, one of the framers of the 2nd Amendment in the first congress
"The great object is that every man be armed ... Every one who is able may have a gun. But have we not learned by experience that, necessary as it is to have arms, ... it is still far from being the case?" Patrick Henry
"And what country can preserve its liberties if its rules are not warned from time to time that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms." Thomas Jefferson
"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them" Richard Henry Lee
"The advantage of being armed is an advantage which the Americans posses over the people of almost every other nation ... the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms." James Madison
"A free people ought ... to be armed." George Washington
And now, what is the militia? Try these quotes:
"The militia are the people at large." Tench Coxe Atty Gen. of Penn. and Asst. Sec of Treasury under Washington
"Who are the militia? They consist now of the whole people." George Mason
"The militia is composed of free citizens." Samuel Adams
"A militia... are in fact the people themselves." Richard Henry Lee

And who is this militia? The first federal law passed concerning just who a militia member might be, the Militia Act of 1792, states that the "militia of the United States" consists of every adult male in the country. Under that act each adult male was required by the law to possess a firearm and a minimum supply of ammunition. In fact, the current law still states, "The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 and under 45 years of age." -United States code, title 10 par., 311(a)

Lastly you can check most of the early states and see that they went even further in delineating that firearms should be owned by individual citizens of the states. But that is another, longer, discussion.

So, what the heck does this all mean? Well, to be blunt, the founders would surely have agreed that American citizens should be expected to defend themselves against the sort of government thugs that pounded on columnist Fiorito's door. Yes, you read that right. There is no gentle way to put it, no softer way to massage the essential truth that the founders would themselves have been up in arms if some government official had imagined he had the power to confiscate their firearms. In fact, they did. We now call it the Battle of Lexington and Concord, one of the earliest engagements of our Revolutionary War. The colonists, our founders, took up arms to prevent British authorities from confiscating their firearms and gunpowder.

The final conclusion is that no patriotic American citizen should meekly hand over his firearm to the government (unless he's abdicated his rights by becoming a criminal). Unfortunately, if the anti-American left has its way the United States of America will emulate Canada and become meek, powerless, subjects of an all powerful, uncaring, illicit government.

Don't let it happen. Be vigilant.

America, a nation founded on Individualism, not Collectivism

2010-02-06T22:10:00.000-06:00

There is no greater difference between the Left and Right than on the issue of human rights. The Left talks incessantly of human rights, equality, social justice, free elections, and so on. Wondferful stuff, really inspiring, until you look at what the Left REALLY means. In the mind of a Leftist, rights are collective, not individual. Take a peek at the "right" to health care, one of the pillars of Marxism, which, of course Leftism is a direct descendant of.

The Left will tell us that having access to health care is a right, as much as the right to speak, or worship, or assemble peacefully. But, in every nation where the ideal of universal health care is in practice, the "right" is managed, rationed, and ultimately controlled by the government. The "right" is often dependent on the patients age, or health condition, or the cost of treatment. What type of "right" is this? I have asked this question before, and ask it again. If the Left truly believes health care to be a right, and yet approve of that right being rationed, then what other rights would they allow the government to ration?

Would they allow the government to ration speech? Certainly many on the Left desire the return of the Fairness Doctrine, which would require radio stations to "balance" their political talk shows. This could, and certainly would be expanded to blogs, and all other forms of speech.

What type of right is that?

We know that the Left is no friend of the right to keep and bear arms. There is no real belief in that right among the Leftists is there? No there is not, unless you consider the government dictating when and where you may carry your gun. Not unless you are OK with the government dictating what type of gun you may own, whether or not you may keep it loaded, or must keep it locked away.

What type of right is that?

The Left does not seem to take freedom of religion as much of a right either. Again, unless you consider judges dictating that pretty much any public display of faith is forbidden.

Again, what type of right iks that?

In short, all of these rights are seen as "collective" by the Left. And as such these rights are to be controlled, rationed, restricted by the government to fit the common good. The idea of common good is straight from Marx. The individual is only valuable under Marxist doctrine if that individual is deemed beneficial to the collective. If not, then those rights the Left speaks of are taken away from the individual, for the common good of course.

Collectivist thinking celebrates "rights" like the right to have your income and wealth, and eventually you property redistributed to benefit the common good. They love the "right" to have your children educated as the government sees fit. Parental rights? The Left love those, as long as the parenting fits their model. In short, the Left loves "rights" that cede personal liberty to the State. The Bill of Rights? No, the Left much prefers the Bill of Needs, where of course they decide what you need.

The individual is a dangerous animal to the Collectivists. Individuals think, and seek things that the Collectivists loathe. The individual seeks less government, less regulation, greater liberties, and believe, as the Founders did, that rights are not collective, or dependent upon the common good. The individual sees our rights as natural rights, coming from either a Creator, or as simply the natural state of men. The individual sees our rights as unalienable, as untouchable by other men, or by government.

In 1789 Albert Gallatin wrote a letter to Alexander Hamilton which sums up how the Individualists see liberty.
The whole of that Bill [of Rights] is a declaration of the right of the people at large or considered as individuals...[I]t establishes some rights of the individual as unalienable and which consequently, no majority has a right to deprive them of.
There, in those few words, lies the definition of American liberty. Such words are distasteful to the Collectivist's mind, who see rights as conditional rather than unalienable. Conditional, as in, the government, not God, will give and take away your rights. Conditional, as in the government will be your master, your doctor, your teacher, your parents, your employer.............

When the State grows, the indiviudual becomes smaller

2010-02-04T18:42:00.000-06:00

The Washington Rebel, one of my favorite blogs, has a great post on the direction our country has taken. Read it all, I especially liked this quote from Dennis Prager
That is what happens when the state gets bigger — you become smaller. The dream of America was that the individual was to be a giant. The state stays small so as to enable each of us to be as big as we can be. We are each created in God’s image
That IS the essence of the diiference between the Left (Collectivists) and the Right (Indivdualists). The Left's ideal of collectivism, if left unchecked allows, even celebrates such atrocities such as Stalin, Mao, Castro, Lennin, Pol Pot and others committed. To the Left, the individual is always less important than the "collective". And, though the Left speaks of "social justice" and is fond of proclaiming "power to the people" it sees the rights it speaks of as collective, never individual.

Justice Clarence Thomas explains free speech

2010-02-04T18:18:00.001-06:00

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is my personal favorite of the justices who serve on our highest court. I heard him say, years ago, that he always refes back to the Founders, and of course to the Constitution when deciding cases. In this video via Yankee Phil he explains, in very clear terms why he has always felt that McCain Feingold was indeed unconstitutional.

In short, Thomas believes that the Constitution actually means what it says. Imagine that! No wonder the Left loathes Thomas and ridicules him. They prefer to see the Constitition as some flexible document that can mean whatever they wish it to mean.

Cross Posted at The DaleyGator

Your Founding quote of the Day

2010-02-03T22:08:00.001-06:00

Comes from Jefferson, who had the directly opposite view of taxation that Karl Marx held.

To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it

Now, as we know, Liberals try to claim Jefferson as the Father of the Democratic Party, but, this can hardly be true, given Jeffeson's views on guns, taxes, religious freedom, and limited government. In fact, if Jefferson lived today, the Left would castigate him as an extremist Tea Bagger.

The truth about the Democratic Party is that the Democratic Republicans, was a political party, and Jeffeson, James Madisdon, James Monroe, were among its members. And yes, that party did, in fact, eventually become the Democratic Party. But ANY resemblance between the ideals Jefferson/Madison/Monroe ideals and those of Pelosi/Reid/Obama is non existent!

There could be no greater divide than between the ideals of the Founders and the ideals of the modern day Democratic Party, and anyone arguying that Jefferson is, in any practical manner, the Father of the Democratic Party of today is either a liar, a fool, or demented!

Robert Gibbs says something the Founders would agree with

2010-02-01T20:46:00.000-06:00

Ya think maybe that Hell froze over just a bit when Robert Gibbs said this?

Of course his words are pretty much hollow, considering how much this administration has spent already. It sounds a lot like an alcoholic telling you that you have to drink moderately.

A Constitutional Crisis in National Security

2010-01-04T12:31:00.003-06:00

Don't miss Andy McCarthy's article at NRO today about the constitutional crisis we find ourselves in right now. Here is a condensed recap:

On courts demanding release of detainees:

The courts have no more right to tell the president to release an enemy combatant than a president has to tell a judge how to rule on the validity of a contract. The president’s war powers are more than adequately checked by Congress, which could close Gitmo and require the repatriation of all enemy combatants tomorrow if it were disposed to do so. The courts should have no say in the disposition of alien enemy combatants in wartime.

*****

A judicial finding that there is insufficient evidence to hold a detainee as a combatant ...does nothing more than impose on the executive branch a duty to make good-faith efforts to deport the combatant in a manner that is consistent with American national security. That means finding a country willing to take the prisoner, and — here’s the important part — ensuring that such a country is a functioning, responsible state that can guarantee the detainee will not threaten the United States.

On the President's responsibility to protect the nation:

What is the administration thinking? As the intelligence debacle surrounding the Christmas Day attack shows, President Obama will be blamed for failures to take obvious steps to thwart terrorists. He has the constitutional obligation to protect the nation, and Congress is firmly in the grasp of his party. If he proposed sensible procedures for terrorists’ detention cases, he’d get nigh-unanimous Republican support — and Democrats would go along regardless of the Left’s grumbling. The Bush administration, through Attorney General Mukasey, tried to spur Congress to act, but Democrats turned a deaf ear. Politcally, Obama can get it done. Why doesn’t he?

On the Justice Department's failure to appeal bad judicial decisions:

These are cases involving jihadists trained to kill innocents. They are not the cases you compromise on: You take them all the way. If a district judge gives you a lunatic ruling, you appeal to the D.C. Circuit. If you lose there, you take it to the Supreme Court. Aside from having good-faith reasons to play out the string, this gives you months or years of time — time during which dangerous people stay detained while you have the opportunity to go to Congress and ask for help in the form of a legislative remedy to rein in the judges.

Why isn’t this being done? Americans are more than entitled to surmise that it is because there is a serious pro-detainee bias in this Justice Department.

Be sure to read the whole thing.

I don't think anyone would argue that terror attacks have stepped up in the past year. I heard the spin meisters on the Sunday shows yesterday saying things like, 'Well al Qaeda hasn't progressed very much if they're still focusing on conducting terror using airplanes.' I'm paraphrasing but that was the essence of it. Another said something to the effect that 'Boy we sure have al Qaeda on the run if they're resorting to sewing explosives into underwear; they're running out of ideas.'

It's a real stretch, to my mind, to find anything positive in the latest terror attacks, excepting the fact that it failed - that is certainly positive. Although, one could say that on one level it was a success because we certainly are terrorized now. We are afraid.

McCarthy is spot on when he attempts to hold the President and Congress responsible for protecting this nation. It's time they stepped up to that responsibility and setting terrorists free, or bringing them to U.S. soil, is not the way to go about it.

(Cross posted at And So it Goes in Shreveport)

Congress Has Become Taxation Without Representation

2009-12-17T16:08:00.000-06:00

-By Warner Todd Huston

We are speeding headlong toward a time when our Congress will have become just like Mad King George’s Parliament, that body from which in 1776 the American colonists separated with the rallying cry of “no taxation without representation.” Our national government is fast becoming just as unrepresentative of the people as far off Briton was when we went to war to become the United States of America.

Does that seem like a hyperbolic statement to you? At first blush, it might. But a considered look at the direction in which we are quickly heading will prove that, compared to the British Parliament that raised the ire of our forefathers so long ago, today’s Congress shows many signs of the same, oppressive, haughty, disinterested politicians that considered their national government more important than the local’s interests and needs.

Representation is the key word, here. What does it mean? What did it mean then? Of course, the problem was that it meant two different things to the opposing sides of the Revolutionary era, hence the conflict. In England, representation meant that Parliament “represented” the whole of the country and that each member of that body was elected from their home to go forth and become a member of the whole. British politicians generally did not imagine that they were representing their hometown when they went to Parliament.

As an example of the basic assumption of Parliamentary representation, a pamphlet published in 1765 in London asserted that, “every Member of Parliament sits in the House not as a representative of his own constituents but as one of that august assembly by which all the commons of Great Briton are represented.” (”The Regulations Lately Made Concerning the Colonies and the Taxes Imposed Upon Them, Considered,” by Thomas Whately)

On the other side of the Atlantic, however, the American political system had evolved in the opposite direction. The distance between colonies, the fact that they didn’t all meet together and each represented distinct and separate proto-states, this tended to propel the colonial political scene toward local interests and control. Consequently, when someone was sent to any political office in the colonies, it was expected that he would represent those that sent him, not the greater body into which he entered. Local interests were premier.

Consequently, when it came time for Parliament to consider tax policies to be imposed on the colonists (the Paper Tax, Tea Tax, Towshend Duties, et al), there was no expectation among them that the colonists themselves needed any members of their own sitting in Parliament to represent their fellows. Parliament itself was considered the proper representation of all Great Briton’s possessions regardless of what individuals sat there.

The colonists, however, were quite upset that their own people had no voice in the national body and were incensed that taxes descended upon them without their ascent to the policy. Parliament seemed haughty, disinterested, unconnected and unconcerned with the colonist’s needs and desires and Americans felt as if enslaved to far off masters that never asked for as much as a by your leave. The people and the government seemed in no way connected to the colonists.

Now, doesn’t that sound like Congress today?

Of course, this is not to say that Congress is in every way a far off body of disinterested masters haughtily unconcerned with the voices back home. But who cannot see that it is becoming more like that every day?

Repeatedly, for instance, we find Congressmen and Senators suddenly adopting the national party line and doing a 180 from previous positions — the ones that got them elected — or succumbing to giant piles of cash from interests outside the state that elected them. Remember Al Gore, the staunchly anti-abortion politician from Tennessee that suddenly became a Roe fan once he entered Congress and decided he had national political ambitions? Even this year we saw Senator Gillibrand from New York do an instantaneous about face on the Second Amendment once she entered the Senate. She was well known as pro-Second Amendment and then she got appointed to the Senate and, voila, she’s suddenly anti-Second Amendment. Additionally, Republicans in Illinois just discovered that Congressman Mark Kirk is a proponent of Cap and Trade proving himself amenable to destroying the entire energy industry and laying an oppressive tax on every American despite what they might want. Why did he do it? Because he got money from the enviro-wacko lobby from outside his state and decided to give them his vote instead of the people of Illinois, that’s why. It was a simple, unprincipled dash for the cash.

Increasingly nationally focused Non-Governmental Organizations are gathering large sums of money to influence Congressmen to their cause whether the people back home care about the lobbyist’s issue or not and this is not to mention the increasingly demanding control of the national party establishment forcing Congressmen to spout the party line often times in contravention to what those at home support.

There are many reasons for this. The 17th Amendment, for instance, dangerously detached members of the Senate from local control by making them beasts of the party and elected by “the people,” instead of sent by the states to represent state interests. And there is the increasing cost of running for election. Any more, only the ultra rich can run a campaign without having to worry if the national party will support them financially — and that support is often keyed toward whether or not the candidate assumes the party line.

As it happens, the voice of the folks back home is receding farther and farther into the background as members of Congress pay increasing heed to national issues, donors outside their state, and party doctrine instead of local interests.

How long will it be until Congressmen will firmly decide that they represent “The United States” instead of the individual States there from? In fact, Congress is already far down that road toward ignoring the voices back home and deliberating on what they imagine is good for the whole of the country instead of those that sent them to D.C. in the first place.

So, how are they getting away with it? One way is that, while these unconnected, haughty pols make laws they deem it in their political interests to pass, they hide behind baubles and pork sent home in an insincere attempt to make it seem as if they are “doing something” for the folks back home.

Still, our voices from home can force a Congressman to change course. But it takes the collective outrage of the people back home to force that course correction because all too often it seems as if Congress is intent on its own agenda with no mind to what the little people back home might want. Instead of going to Congress with their constituents first and foremost in their minds, the people are an afterthought as the national agenda is pursued.

Congress may not quite yet be a perfect emulation of the Parliament that taxed American colonists without including them in on the decision making process, but how much longer will it be until that hubris is revisited on the people of this nation?

We should not entirely despair, of course. The true system that the founders created is still there underneath all the garbage that later generations piled on top of it. It will take dedication of the citizens to hold their representatives accountable to return this system to a more pure one, but more than that it will take education. As Ben Franklin is reputed to have said to a woman wondering what the founder had wrought, we have a Republic “if we can keep it.” That takes educating ourselves on the issues as well as just how our government is supposed to work.

All is not lost, to be sure. But with the poor education we are now offering our youth, it cannot be much longer before no one has the slightest clue what it was that the founders created and just why it is special enough not to let slip through our fingers.

We conservatives serve as the stopgap to the degradation of our country. Liberals and the uneducated see no reason not to rush headlong to wholesale destruction of what the United States “is.” They just don’t care a whit about what we are. Like Buckley said, it is our duty to stand athwart their path and yell STOP. But our duty is not just to be bellicose. Ours is to educate and keep this country on the straight and narrow and one of those duties involves holding our representatives accountable within the American system. We can fix it, if we have the fortitude. The alternative is to lose the world’s greatest nation and to see our great experiment end in failure and that is just what the left wants.

Remembering the Boston Tea Party

2009-12-16T19:20:00.001-06:00

Lance marks the 236th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party

If you hadn’t already heard, today is the 236th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party. The website EyeWitness to History has an account from George Hewes, who was there:

In about three hours from the time we went on board, we had thus broken and thrown overboard every tea chest to be found in the ship, while those in the other ships were disposing of the tea in the same way, at the same time. We were surrounded by British armed ships, but no attempt was made to resist us.

…The next morning, after we had cleared the ships of the tea, it was discovered that very considerable quantities of it were floating upon the surface of the water; and to prevent the possibility of any of its being saved for use, a number of small boats were manned by sailors and citizens, who rowed them into those parts of the harbor wherever the tea was visible, and by beating it with oars and paddles so thoroughly drenched it as to render its entire destruction inevitable.
God bless the lovers of liberty. Let us resolve to make sure that we throw out every miscreant politician who seeks to deny us our natuiral rights. Remember in November!

A message to RINOs, Newtists, and David Brooks!

2009-12-15T20:52:00.001-06:00

To every single "Republican" who says backing Conseratives will lead to failure for the GOP, we at WWTFFD say HELL NO!

Rubio tied with Crist! There's a lesson here for the NRSC. Something about pearls before swine.

At this rate, Crist might be Scozzafavaed by March of next year. One can only hope, at least.

Red Code Rally photos

2009-12-15T20:45:00.003-06:00

Taking our country back from the Neo-Marxists is job number one. Here are some pictures of some patriots with the right idea, via the Left Coast Rebel

More info at Michelle Malkin

Ed posted some videos at The DaleyGator, so please check them out

What happens when the government ignores our Constitution?

2009-12-15T20:38:00.001-06:00

One of the founding principles was the right to own property. But, today, our "leaders" seem to lean far more towards the Stalinist view of "property rights". Via The Pirates Cove

The Clean Water Restoration Act currently pending in the U.S. Senate could reach to control even a “seasonal puddle” on private property.

Eleven senators and 17 representatives in the U.S. House have sent a letter to Majority Leader Harry Reid and Speaker Nancy Pelosi blasting the measure as one of the boldest property grab attempts of all time.

This bill is described by opponents as a sweeping overhaul of the Clean Water Act that could threaten both physical land and jobs by wiping out some farmers entirely.

“Right now, the law says that the Environmental Protection Agency is in charge of all navigable water,” said Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., chairman of the Senate Western Caucus and an opponent of the bill.

“Well, this bill removes the word ‘navigable,’ so for ranchers and farmers who have mud puddles, prairie potholes — anything from snow melting on their land — all of that water will now come under the regulation of the Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency,” he said.

They just keep taking away our liberties, because they DO NOT BELIEVE in liberty! My friends, we must take this nation back, and it starts with removing these miscreants next November!

Mourning the Bill of Rights

2009-12-15T20:26:00.001-06:00

Great post up over at the Classic Liberal

Today is Bill of Rights Day. Should we celebrate? Or should we mourn the Bill of Rights?
The Bill of Rights should be mourned, not celebrated. It is defunct. Intended as the bulwark of the right of decentralized self-government, it now serves mainly as an excuse for the opposite: a roving judicial veto of state policies that federal judges dislike.

So, if the people of virtually every state ban flag burning or regulate abortion, provide capital punishment or support prayer in school, that does not settle the matter. Unlike 200 or 100 years ago, today the federal judiciary is apt to step in to stop state legislatures from adopting policies like this.

The people never consented to have the federal judges behave this way.

The purpose of the first ten amendments was laid out clearly by their Preamble. “Preamble?” You might ask. “What preamble?” Although the main body of the Constitution is never published without its Preamble, one could study American history for a lifetime without ever encountering the Preamble to the Bill of Rights.

That Preamble says that Congress is recommending amendments to the states because a number of states in ratifying the Constitution “expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added.” Since the people were afraid of the new Federal Government, that is, the Bill of Rights was being added to hedge in the powers of the Federal Government more carefully.

So, for example, the Tenth Amendment stated what Thomas Jefferson called the underlying principle of the entire Constitution: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.” In other words, the Constitution gave the Federal Government a few enumerated powers, and those were all.

That is why the First Amendment begins by saying that, “Congress shall make no law.” Congress, not government generally. The point was to leave such questions in the hands of elected state legislators.

America’s Revolution was fought and won in the name of self-government via elections to state legislatures. King George III and Parliament insisted that those legislatures could legislate only when and as far-off officials essentially unaccountable to American colonists said they could. The Americans rejected that idea. In fact, rejecting that idea was what made Britain’s North American colonists into Americans.

Be sure to read it all, our nation is dying right before our eyes. It is dying because of many things, but the most telling blow comes from abandoning our founding documents My friends, pray for this nation.

God blessed us with those men who had the wisdom to found this nation, and only He can now bless us with the leaders to return us to our roots.

American Liberty v. Obama’s Social Engineering

2009-12-13T09:50:00.001-06:00

Frank Salvato has a great piece up over at The Publius Forum. It is a must read and fits perectly into what this blog is all about.

After the General Election of 2008 I made a conscious effort to give President Obama a chance. I wanted to give him an opportunity to be true to his word; to prove that he was committed to governing from the center. I also wanted to demonstrate that I was not of the same ilk as the Bush-hating, “he stole the election,” fact-ignoring Progressive malcontents that served to divide the country over the eight years of the Bush Administration. But now, a year after the election, and as we approach a full year of the Obama Administration, it has become abundantly clear that Mr. Obama has abandoned almost all of his campaign promises (but for his commitments to the SEIU) and is governing from the far Left. He has instituted a campaign of social engineering that can only be described as a direct threat to liberty.

Liberty

Liberty is defined as, “freedom from arbitrary or despotic government or control.” It was the single most motivating factor in the American Revolution and war for independence. Our Founders and Framers risked their lives to free the people of what would become our nation from the elitist tyranny of King George and his court, a tyranny that choked liberty – personal and societal – dead.

In addition to the limitations placed on religious freedom and freedom of speech, taxation was excessive and exploitative and it was imposed without representation. Many of the colonists believed the denial of direct representation in the British Parliament was an illegal denial of their rights, as colonists were considered Englishmen subject to the king’s rule. Thus the credo, “no taxation without representation,” served as the rallying cry for Patriots in each of the thirteen colonies as they coalesced into a movement toward American independence.

Thomas Jefferson is quoted as having said, “The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.” If Jefferson were alive today to witness the encroachment of government into the private sector being perpetrated by the Obama Administration or the non-representation of constituencies in the House of Representatives under Nancy Pelosi and the US Senate under Harry Reid, he would be validated in his statement.
Intolerable Acts

In the run-up to the American Revolution, the British Parliament imposed five laws that Patriot colonists referred to as “Intolerable Acts .” Four laws were enacted in direct response to the Boston Tea Party:

The Boston Port Act closed the port until such time as the East India Company should be paid for the tea destroyed.

The Massachusetts Government Act gave complete control of seating government officials to the King and Parliament. It also severely limited activities at town hall meetings.

The Administration of Justice Act allowed the king’s appointed governor to move trials of accused royal officials to another colony or even to Great Britain. This made it nearly impossible for witnessed to testify against those charged due to monetary and geographical constraints.

The Quartering Act allowed the king’s appointed governor to house soldiers in non-governmental buildings.

The rult of the imposition of these acts was the formation of the First Continental Congress and the eventual Declaration of Independence, which not only stated the colony’s declared independence, but enumerated the Patriot colonists’ grievances with the king.
Intolerable Acts II

Today, we are witnessing another establishment of “Intolerable Acts” by the 111th Congress and the Obama Administration that enable an encroachment into the private sector and onto the personal liberties of every American; an encroachment of liberties that dwarves the Intolerable Acts of 1774.
The Stimulus Bill

The $787 billion stimulus bill that was rushed through Congress by a coalition of liberal Democrats and neo-Marxist Progressives, and signed into law by President Obama, was less a bill that stimulated the growth of the US economy or the creation of jobs and more a pork-laden special interest bill that was timed to be dispersed for the maximum political benefit it could afford the elected Democrats and Progressives. In reality, the almost trillion dollar legislation was a raid on the Treasury by political factions to reward loyal special interest groups and bankroll the intellectual manipulation of voters in 2010 and 2012, just before the elections.

The Healthcare Reform Bill

The trillion dollar healthcare bills proposed by both houses of Congress and championed by the Obama Administration have more to do with a governmental power-grab of one-sixth of the US economy than they do with affording the uninsured in the United States healthcare benefits.

Instead of crafting legislation that would mandate the private sector to cover the uninsured and promote true free-market competition among private health insurance companies (which would lower premiums for all), the Obama Administration and Congress are deceptively marketing a government take-over of the healthcare insurance industry as a protection against the “evil healthcare insurance industry.” An examination of the almost bankrupt federal Medicare program provides a perfect example of government-run healthcare.

The EPA, CO2 and Cap & Trade

With the recent announcement by the Environmental Protection Agency that carbon dioxide (CO2 – the stuff we exhale and which is required for plant growth) is now considered a pollutant by the federal government, the Obama Administration has enabled itself to not only usurp the legislative process but coerce the electorate and the total of the energy industry into supporting a Cap & Trade Bill. Of course, this designation – as well as any legislation designed to address this issue – is based on the now debunked junk science of anthropological global warming – or what the disingenuous eco-zealots are now calling climate change.

With this designation, FOX News reports that the Obama Administration has positioned itself to force one of two outcomes with regard to energy management in the United States:
“The Obama administration is warning Congress that if it doesn’t move to regulate greenhouse gases, the Environmental Protection Agency will take a “command-and-control” role over the process in a way that could hurt business.
“The warning, from a top White House economic official who spoke Tuesday on condition of anonymity, came on the eve of EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson’s address to the international conference on climate change in Copenhagen, Denmark.
“…while administration officials have long said they prefer Congress take action on climate change, the economic official who spoke with reporters Tuesday night made clear that the EPA will not wait and is prepared to act on its own.”
Taxation Without Representation

The 111th Congress and the Obama Administration have veered violently away from representative government where the citizenry is concerned and moved to execute a government that represents special interest groups, unions, advocacy organizations and the two political parties. They have crafted legislation behind closed doors and in the company of special interest groups and union officials that provides wealth and privilege to the few while mandating a debt that future generations will have to bear if, in fact, we do not collapse the US dollar and watch, helplessly, as our country fades into the pages of the history books as another failed experiment of government and human nature.

A Usurpation of the Established Branches of Government

In seating a plethora of “czars” – overseeing everything thing from broadcast regulation to safe schools, jobs and the economy to environmental issues – President Obama has effectively usurped the congressional oversight used to vet cabinet level appointees and department heads. In essence, Mr. Obama has seated a shadow government with ideological generals who answer to no one but him. This usurps the complete idea of representative government as mandated by the US Constitution.

The Revolution Starts Now
James Madison, the Father of the US Constitution, said in Federalist 10 :

“Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm. Nor, in many cases, can such an adjustment be made at all without taking into view indirect and remote considerations, which will rarely prevail over the immediate interest which one party may find in disregarding the rights of another or the good of the whole

“…Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths. Theoretic politicians, who have patronized this species of government, have erroneously supposed that by reducing mankind to a perfect equality in their political rights, they would, at the same time, be perfectly equalized and assimilated in their possessions, their opinions, and their passions.”

Today, enlightened statesmen are not at the helm. Political opportunists who have their own interests and the interests of the financial benefactors in a position of priority are seated in power. And while there are a scant few in government who still do adhere to the notion of public service and are still dedicated to their oaths of office and the US Constitution, the controlling majority of those in federal government – and in many cases state government – have come to represent everything our Founders and Framers despised in the elitists they waged war against for independence.
Now, the question is this, will those of us who still believe in the sanctity of the Charters of Freedom – The Declaration of independence, The US Constitution and The Bill of Rights – defend them, doing so in a cohesive manner so as to avoid the politics of factionalism – as with the institution of litmus test politics, or will we watch, helplessly, impotent, as Rome burns?

____________

Frank Salvato is the managing editor for The New Media Journal . He serves at the Executive Director of the Basics Project, a non-profit, non-partisan, 501(C)(3) research and education initiative. His pieces are regularly featured in over 100 publications both nationally and internationally. He has appeared on The O’Reilly Factor, and is a regular guest on The Right Balance with Greg Allen on the Accent Radio Network, as well as an occasional guest on numerous radio shows coast to coast. He recently partnered in producing the first-ever symposium on the threat of radical Islamist terrorism in Washington, DC. His pieces have been recognized by the House International Relations Committee and the Japan Center for Conflict. He can be contacted at oped@newmediajournal.us

Your Founding Quotes of the Day

2009-12-11T18:10:00.003-06:00

Come from the greatness of Thomas Jefferson

The will of the people is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free expression should be our first object.

How lovely it would be if Congress listened to that sage advice

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it always to be kept alive.

We can see today that the Democatic Party wishes that spirit to be non-existent.

An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens.

Imagine if our political leaders had such character. Instead of seeking power, they would be seeking to serve their constituents.

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.

No words better sum up the divide between those Americans who love liberty, and those who desire the government to take care of our every need.

Cross posted at The DaleyGator

No Isolated Incident: Why Was the Boston Massacre so Shocking?

2009-12-05T19:58:00.000-06:00

-By Warner Todd Huston

You may heave heard of the saying “nature abhors a vacuum”? In essence, it means that once something disappears nature quickly fills the hole left behind. Well, in history there is another axiom about “vacuums.” It is that nothing occurs in one. In this short piece, we’ll take a moment to find out why the Boston Massacre was one of the final straws that severed the bonds of affection between the American Colonists and the British Crown and we’ll see that it didn’t occur in a proverbial vacuum. Far from being a sudden action or one that happened without precedent, the Boston Massacre was the culmination, at least philosophically so, of actions of a similar nature that had been happening in both England and the Colonies for months beforehand.

Any student of the American Revolutionary era knows of the Boston Massacre. It was that incident that occurred on March 5, 1770 in Boston, Massachusetts during which five colonists were killed by a contingent of skittish British Infantry. It was an incident inextricably linked to the beginning of the Revolution that founded the United States of America.

The row began when British Infantry private Hugh White was confronted by a townsman claiming that the soldier hadn’t paid a debt. The argument went on for some time during which more colonists gathered. At one point, Private White struck a young man with his musket butt angering the crowd further. Eventually, several hundred Bostonians gathered and began hurling insults at the beleaguered soldier causing several more British troops to come to White’s aid. Momentarily, one of the British troops was struck with a club and, once he regained his feet, the angered private fired his musket into the crowd. This startled the rest of the soldiers causing them to follow suit. It became clear later that the officer among them did not order his troops to open fire, but five colonists were killed in the incident nonetheless.

Soon afterward, the British soldier involved were arrested and charged with murder. At length, the imprisoned soldiers were represented in court by John Adams with the result that the men were acquitted of the crime. But Adams’ successful defense of these soldiers was not the sort of solution that allowed the Colonists to forgive and forget, nor was the final verdict looked upon by many as justice properly carried out. To the most suspicious of the Colonists, it appeared as if the fix was in.

By itself, it might seem odd that this one incident led inexorably to the American Revolution. A cynical review of that history might make one suspicious that the colonists merely inflated this messy conflict into far more than it really was to serve their separatist purposes. However, the Boston Massacre was not a lone, solitary incident but was of a piece with a series of events that led to this attack being a final straw of sorts.

To begin with, the political culture of the Colonies had been steeped in the small-government, pro-liberty thinking of English Whiggery made popular several decades prior by John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon in the weekly periodical “The Independent Whig.” Trenchard himself was well-known among the most educated and politically active Colonists for writing a 1698 book entitled “A Short History of Standing Armies in England,” and even more famous — at least in the Colonies — for penning “Cato’s Letters,” an extended treaties on liberty, freedom of speech, and freedom of conscience. “Cato’s Letters” became one of the sources that fed the ideology of the American Patriots.

The fear of a standing army, though, had also become ubiquitous in the philosophy of peace loving colonists of both pro-separation as well as pro-British sentiment. A careful examination of history showed the colonists that every time a government emplaced an army among the people — those not on the frontiers, in any case — tyranny and despotism soon followed in that location. Boston had already been inflamed for two years before the massacre when the British regulars entered the town on October 1, 1768.

For his part, the governor of Massachusetts, Sir Francis Bernard, had been looking for a reason to bring in the Army to quell the rising incidents of tax evasion and other near mutinous behavior in his province. The Stamp Act and his ill advised 1760 Writs of Assistance to Massachusetts’ customs tax collectors had had the people in an uproar since he was appointed governor. During those two years, Bernard used these “lobsterbacks” to enforce tax collection as well as to act as a police force. Many incidents of a questionable nature had already occurred between these soldiers and the increasingly resentful townsfolk.

So, as Bernard escalated his actions by bringing in the military to tamp down insurrection his action inadvertently fed right into the worst fears that the colonists had. Once the troops arrived, the Colonists had become more sure than ever that their liberties were about to be stolen away from them and the fear that they were to go from free British citizens to virtual slaves under the heel of a standing army that would be used to grind them into dust became common even among some pro-royalists.

To spread the word, as the British Army entered Boston, a series of articles began to appear in the New York Journal (from dispatches sent out of Boston) chronicling the outrages suffered by Bostonians at the hands of the British regulars. The series lasted from October 13, 1768 to November 30, 1769. Called “The Journal of the Times,” this series was reprinted first in the Pennsylvania Chronicle, then the Boston Evening Post and then throughout the Colonies. These articles also appeared widely in England.

But, it wasn’t just a matter of fears and a ginning up of suspicions by those interested in rabble rousing against the Crown that led to further feelings of revolutionary zeal. Real incidents of government abuse were piling up one on top of the next in both the Colonies and England herself previous to the Boston Massacre. Every move the soldiers made was viewed as another act of oppression of the Colonist’s liberties and rights as Englishmen.

There was also a situation occurring in England that seemed to mirror the oppression happening in the New World. Americans with political interest had become taken with the situation of English politician and radical John Wilkes. Wilkes was seen by many Americans as the epitome of the man of the people standing against the tyranny of overpowering government.

Wilkes had been voted into Parliament by his voters half a dozen times, yet the Crown refused again and again to allow him to take his seat. At some point, Wilkes had ben accused of being an “outlaw” for having written a ribald poem titled “An Essay on Women” that the Crown deemed pornographic and it was widely known that a particular member of Parliament used his position to thwart Wilkes’ ability to take his rightful seat in that body. Wilkes was involved in an awful lot of controversy but one incident in particular caused the American Colonists to see him as their example of growing English tyranny.

In May of 1768 a mob had formed in St. George’s Fields, London to jeer the imprisonment of John Wilkes. As it happened a detachment of British troops fired on this crowd killing several. The troops were also used to hunt down and shoot to death a young boy that was, it turned out, wrongly accused of being one of the mob’s leaders. Worse, those soldiers involved in the St. George’s Fields massacre were let off without any consequences, a situation that many Americans would see as a parallel with the not guilty verdict of the soldiers in Boston a few years later.

Not long after this incident in London, in February of 1770, some soldiers in Boston ended up killing an eleven-year-old boy in another riot against a customs house there. Because of the amount of time it took for incidents to be communicated over the vast ocean, the St. George’s Fields attack was fresh in the minds of the colonists and many quickly equated this Boston incident to the Wilkes incident. Of course, shortly after the eleven-year-old boy was killed by British troops in Boston in February of 1770, the Boston Massacre occurred in March.

These incidents, the constant harassment and imprisonment of the popularly elected Wlikes in London, the killing of civilians during the 1768 riot in England and the killing of the boy in 1770 in Boston, as well as the irritant of the British troops being used against the Colonists in Boston, added up to an obvious conspiracy to destroy British liberty, quash British rights, and unleash a despotic, overweening government upon the people. It all amounted to a final straw as far as many were concerned.

Yet, then came a brief two-year-long period when it almost seemed as if the Crown had begun to realize its mistake. The troops were withdrawn from Boston and several of the onerous taxes like the Townshend Duties were repealed. But, by 1773 it started all over again with the Tea Act which soon to lead to the Boston Tea Party in December. From there it wasn’t long until full-blown revolution was on hand at the Battle of Lexington and Concord in 1775, which became the “shot heard round the world.”

Finally, it should be remembered that incidents of a like nature were playing out throughout the colonies, not just Boston, until Tea Parties of the sort that happened in Boston harbor occurred in several eastern costal cities in several colonies. It didn’t take much of a logical leap for politically active colonists to shift from imagining that their government was merely incompetent to feeling that there was a concerted plan emanating from the King and carried through several personnel changes in Parliament to destroy their constitutional rights as Englishmen.

As you can see, history is always more complicated than a simple review of “the” incidents is concerned. The Revolution did not skip from the Boston Massacre, to the Boston Tea Party to the first shots at the battle of Lexington and Concord but had rather a wide range of incidents both in the Americas and in the Motherland that finally led up to that great conflagration.

And now, you know a little it more about those interesting and perilous times.

Your founding quote of the day

2009-12-05T11:56:00.000-06:00

Comes from Ben Franklin, and is I think very timely considering the current attempt by climate change "Scientists" to say the deabte about AGW is settled, and the media's current policy of repeating this lie.

Printers are educated in the Belief, that when Men differ in Opinion, both sides ought equally to have the Advantage of being heard by the Public; and that when Truth and Error have fair Play, the former is always an overmatch for the latter: Hence [printers] cheerfully serve all contending Writers that pay them well, without regarding on which side they are of the Question in Dispute

Your Founding quote of the day

2009-12-04T19:15:00.000-06:00

Comes from George Mason.

When the last dutiful & humble petition from Congress received no other Answer than declaring us Rebels, and out of the King’s protection, I from that Moment look’d forward to a Revolution & Independence, as the only means of Salvation; and will risque the last Penny of my Fortune, & the last Drop of my Blood upon the Issue.

Why did Jefferson say "We hold these truths to be self-evident"?

2009-12-04T19:11:00.004-06:00

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.

These words are the most well known in American history. The Declaration of Independence, penned by Thomas Jefferson, is the mission statement for the American republic. Every principle that America was founded upon can be traced back to those words Jefferson wrote in the Summer of 1776. Of all those words, so carefully chosen, and so eloquent, these two have been on my mind of late. "Self-evident." Why self-evident? Why did Jefferson choose those words?

I would submit that Jefferson chose those particular words because they best defined the most basic of American principles. That principle? That our rights, our basic liberties are natural rights. Not rights selected, alloted and limited by any government. Rather these rights, which would later be listed in our Constitution, are not man's, or government's to give, or to restrict. They are our rights at birth. Jefferson believed, as did Franklin, Mason, Madison, Washington, and the rest that it is the natural condition of mankind to be free. Alexander Hamilton defined the source of our liberties quite eloquently.

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.

So, it was quite natural for Jefferson to use the words "We hold these truths to be self-evident" wasn't it? That liberty is the natural right of people was not a great discovery for our founders. To them, saying that humans are blessed with the freedom to pursue happiness, and live as they choose, was as simple as saying the sky is blue, or that grass is green. Again, Jefferson saw the great truth that birthed this great nation. We are created with certain liberties as surely as we are born with lungs, eyes, or toes.

To ask if a man ought to have liberty was to the founders a non-question. Men are free, because they were created to be free. Again, this, to men like Jefferson was what we might refer to today as a no-brainer. The importance of understanding this cannot be overstated if we are to understand why this country was founded. The words "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" ARE America.

Those words define the most basic principles that Americans must defend today. The Left does not believe Jefferson was right. Their ideology is so clouded witth delusions that they are not able to truly honor Jefferson's words. To the Left, despite their cliams of loving freedom, people are not created free. Take any issue that divides Left and Right and weigh it on the scales of Jefferson's words.

The right to self-defense? To keep and bear arms? To the Left, no such individual right should exist. In the Jefferson model, that right is not up for question. We are free, and being free means being free to defend ourselves, period!

Take the current debate over health care "reform". The plan that the Left favors mandates everyone have health insurance. It does not respect individualism. Again, this is completely anti-thetical to the principles of Jefferson.

Examine any position the Left argues for, and put in on the scales of Jefferson's principles. Government regulations, high taxes, laws that invade our personal lives, or that place the government in the role of restricting basic liberties, such as seat belt laws, laws dictating that a restaurant owner cannot allow smoking, or tax laws that punish the productive.

Take a close look at the relentless campign of political correctness the Left has been waging for years. How would Jefferson react to speech codes? The Fairness Doctrine? Net Neutrality? The war on Christmas? The war on any viewpoint that dares dissent from Leftist (Marxist) doctrines? What would Mr. Jefferson say about these?

I think Jefferson might see the real goal of the Left. I think he would have two very apt words to describe their agenda. Self-evident!

Where Have you Gone George Washington

2009-11-29T21:20:00.004-06:00

-By Warner Todd Huston

President's Day is coming up in just a few short months, but I don’t celebrate “President’s Day.” I celebrate the presidents individually, not the whole gaggle of them at once. These days, George Washington has been relegated to that “truth telling guy” to be seen on the one dollar bill and on TV commercials at the end of February or that guy lumped in with Lincoln on “President’s Day.” And that is a shame, indeed, for, without George Washington, our presidency and nation might have had a far different attitude.

But, what made Washington such a giant for our times as well as his? For one thing, he knew how to act in public.

Back in the 1700’s

In the year 1759 a man named William Robertson wrote a book called The History of Emperor Charles V, a book some claim was the standard after which modern historical study and writing has come to be patterned. Mr. Robertson, who became Principle of the University of Edinburgh in later years, introduced a salient point into the era of the Scottish Enlightenment. That idea was that "Politeness" in society would result in becoming a civilized nation. And it was a politeness perpetuated and spread through capitalism that was the best avenue to achieving that civilized level.

He wrote "In proportion as commerce made its way into the different countries of Europe they successively ... adopted those manners, which occupy and distinguish polished nations." So, as the theory goes, man by his very nature craves material possession and property. To get that property he must work for it with his best skills. To make use of these skills he must rely on neighbors to get supplies to employ such skills as well as to become customers for his skills. This leads man to act in a solicitous manner of his neighbors so that they will be disposed to employ him and his abilities. This "politeness" employed by the individual inculcates the action in society at large which, in turn, enlarges that field of involved persons to counties and then the country in general, neighboring countries and, ultimately, the world and the governments they create.

Yet, even before the intelligencia of Scotland waxed eloquent on the reasons and why-fors of commerce, civilization, and conduct religions had already realized that such concepts, if only on a personal level, simply made sense. As early as 1559 the French Jesuits has compiled a series of maxims to govern human interaction many based on the Bible’s teachings. These maxims became all the rage in the mid 1600's when they were spread throughout Europe.

So, with the theory of politeness in its various vestiges firmly entrenched in commerce and foreign and interpersonal relations it became obvious that one needed codes of conduct agreed upon by all to govern the rules of the game. This code of conduct became to be known as ethics in business and politics. In personal conduct it became known as etiquette. It is etiquette that underlies political ethics. Without etiquette, ethics struggles to exist. Unfortunately it is etiquette that seems to have died in modern society.

Today

A few months ago I was walking through an itinerant book store, an empty store front temporarily rented by entrepreneurs who have bought returned books or close out books at cut-rate prices to sell cheaply to the public. In the history section I saw there the usual Clinton apologist books and Bush Hatemonger’s screeds that no one wanted, the dry collegiate studies of the fall of the Roman Empire and the coffee table compilation books that have recently fallen out of favor. Suddenly I spied a spare little book edited and commented upon by Richard Bookhiser called Rules of Civility, The 110 Precepts That Guided Our First President In War And Peace. This 90 page hardback book sported the price of only $4.00 so I picked it up.

I took it home and spent the few minutes it took to read the Rules that were said to have governed the life of George Washington and found myself wondering what the heck happened to civility in this country? What happened to the etiquette that, once upon a time, governed civil society?

Washington was the best of both worlds in a revolutionary leader. He was able to lead a rebellion as well as govern the new country after the rebellion succeeded, as Mr. Brookhiser points out in his forward. It was once remarked by a European diplomat's wife that Washington had, "perfect good breeding and a correct knowledge of even the etiquette of a court.” High praise, indeed, from a haughty European in the days when they were so sure the United States of America were doomed to ignominious failure.

Today many of the rules seem archaic as they laid out rules on how to eat in public, When to wear a hat and when not to, the correct posture and the like. But even in these seemingly pointless "rules" one gets the distinct impression that the training to be imparted by these precepts are meant to work from the personal to the interpersonal informing the whole man, not just the public man. A concept we seem to have totally lost in our day of "rights" and desires. We have come to an age where what we "want" supersedes good posture, delicate eating habits and proper dress. We tell ourselves we are more than what we wear or how good our table manners are and so we dispense with such “nonsense.” But is it nonsense? Do we give ourselves short shrift when we ignore such once common ideals of conduct in our arrogance? It might become obvious as we view how people treat each other in public, while we feel the palpable anger in the air as each person seems so sure that they are not getting the "respect" they deserve. But do they treat others with the same respect they are so sure they deserve in return?

As you read further into the rules you'll find a road map to polite social discourse and comportment that you will just know have been lost to society. Here are a few of them for the purpose of comparison to today’s standards:

22) Show not yourself glad at the misfortune of another though he were your enemy ... Be NICE, even when you win.

25) Superfluous compliment and all affectation of ceremony are to be avoided, yet where due they are not neglected ... Real ceremony is a matter of respect not an end in itself, as Mr. Brookhiser notes.

36) Artificers and persons of low degree ought not to use many ceremonies to lords or others of high degree, but respect and highly honor them, and those of high degree ought to treat them with affability and courtesy, without arrogancy .... At first sight this might tend to enrage today’s man yet when you truly look at it this rule commands everyone, both high and low, to treat people with good grace and respect something that seems sorely lacking today.

80) Be not tedious in discourse or in reading unless you find the company pleased therewith ... How many blow-hards do you find droning on about their theories and feelings today?( Hey wait a minute, don’t look at ME!)

81) Be not curious to know the affairs of others, neither approach those that speak in private ... Don't be a nosy gossip. That would erase most of TV and the newspapers report, I would imagine.

84) When your superiors talk to anybody hearken not, neither speak nor laugh ... of course that would presuppose we HAVE superiors these days. It seems everyone assumes that no one is their “better” these days.

89) Speak not of the absent for it is unjust.

109) Let your recreations be manful not sinful.

Naturally these are just a few examples but don't they all ring with a sense of delicacy, justice and common decency? Can you see how social discourse would improve with wide acceptance of such precepts? I would urge each of you to find this book or others like it and read General Washington's maxims. It can do nothing if not improve your life.

Let me close this with the last rule in the series. One that is definitely forgotten these days ...

110) Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience.

So, as the new year begins, I want to say Happy birthday, sir, but where have you gone George Washington, indeed?

The price of a constitutionally illiterate electorate

2009-11-29T10:57:00.000-06:00

Cross posted at The DaleyGator

Warner Todd Huston lays it out Be sure to read it all. Huston echoes my feelings on this.

The reasons that I could never get elected to any government position is the same reason why conservatives have a tough time getting elected and, if they end up elected, can’t govern in this era of the ill-educated voter. First I’ll lay out my main principles…

Leave me alone

Stop taxing me

Shove your regulations

That’s about it. Though there are complexities and nuance contained in them, these are the main tenets of modern conservatism simply put. And therein lies the problem. How can one get elected when his basic tenets are that government should do less, stay out of our lives, and mostly go unnoticed and unseen? In essence a conservative is saying: “Elect me and I’ll do nothing for you.” It’s a tough message to sell in a day when people have lost touch with the American principles that are contained in those very tenets.

Leave Me Alone

The true conservative American does not want welfare or government involvement in his daily life. A real American wants government to shut up about his kids, his education, his religion and his home and hearth. A real American wants the freedom to make his own way in life, to grab for the brass ring without government holding him back. A true American is a self-reliant, family centric being that simply wants his government to leave him alone. This means that government must also stay out of it when men fail, too, and a good conservative understands this.

Stop Taxing Me

A real American understands that some taxes are necessary but feels that the up to 60 percent of his income (depending on where you live) that is currently stolen by greedy government do-nothings is exorbitant. A true American does not want to pay for illegal aliens to get heart transplants, or mentally disturbed people to get sex changes, or for government to pay for infanticide. A real American also has some trouble seeing his hard earned tax dollars going to third world dictators as “aid.” And a real American really hates it when politicians and government placemen retire at age 50 to live on many times more money in government pensions than anyone in the private sector is ever likely to see. The waste, graft, and corruption in government is something that makes the average American wary of his government but makes a conservative sick to his stomach.

Shove Your Regulations

A true American does not want a government hack coming into his back yard to tell him how to build a shed and then charging him, perhaps, hundreds of dollars, for a “permit” for the privilege of building it. A real conservative has a problem with a government forcing itself on him at every turn charging him fees and licensing costs as he tries to start a business that will feed both his family and his employee’s families. A real conservative knows that NO business is “too big to fail,” nor should any ever be considered so.
These principles essentially mean that conservatives have expectations that the citizen tells government what to do, not the other way around, and that he wants the room to make his own way free from constant interference and nanny state hectoring.

Huston goes on to talk about when America cherished, REALLY, cherished our founding principles, and offers a solution. This blog is all about the things Huston writes about.

Retake the initiative in our schools. Get rid of the anti-American educational establishment. Bust the unions, fire the tenured professors, dump the false doctrines of “wymin’s” studies, stop pretending Marx is a worthy philosopher, and again teach our children why America is a great nation.

We can bring back our American first principles. But it won’t be easy and it won’t be quick. It also won’t happen with electing just one leader. It will take all of us as a movement to effect these changes to return us to our greatness. It will take all of us to defeat the moral relativism so firmly entrenched in our schools. It will take a concerted effort to defeat this anti-Americanism but it can be done.

AMEN!

Your Founding Quote of the Day

2009-11-28T12:11:00.000-06:00

Jefferson had dozens of great quotes to choose from, and this particular quote seems very timely to me.

I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground that 'all powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are preserved to the states or to the people.' ... To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition. The incorporation of a bank, and the powers assumed by this bill (chartering the first Bank of the United States), have not, been delegated to the United States by the Constitution

Oh yes, very timely indeed. As Congress seeks to take over your health care, substitue health care for bank, and.....

George Washington's Thanksgiving proclamation

2009-11-25T18:49:00.002-06:00

Via Saber Point

Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor; and Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me “to recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness :”

Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enable to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted’ for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and, in general, for all the great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us.

And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions; to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have show kindness to us), and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best.

Given under my hand, at the city of New York, the 3d day of October, A.D. 1789.

Meet George Mason

2009-11-24T17:32:00.000-06:00

George Mason was one of the key voices in the Americam ideal of limited government and individual rights. He has been called the Father of the Second Ammendment, and his greatest contribution was drafting the Virginia Bill of Rights

But the most significant contribution Mason made to the fledgling state government was writing a constitution and bill of rights during a six week period in May and June of 1776. Mason's readings in history had convinced him that "there never was a government over a very extensive country without destroying the liberties of the people," and he sought to remedy that with a declaration of rights. A committee was assigned to do the writing, but except for Madison's insertion of stronger wording on freedom of religion, the words are entirely Mason's. Some of Mason's phrases appear in the U.S. Bill of Rights that passed 15 years later. The idea as well as the wording caught on, and by the end of 1776 five colonies had adopted declarations of rights, and by 1783 every state had some form of a bill of rights.
Mason's hand was clearly the guiding force behind this process. Edmund Pendleton, president of the Virginia Assembly, wrote to Jefferson, who was in Philadelphia working on the Declaration of Independence, that "the political cooks are busy in preparing the dish, and as Colonel Mason seems to have the ascendancy in the great work, I have sanguine hopes it will be framed so as to answer its end."

Edmund Randolph said that of all the plans being discussed, "those proposed by George Mason swallowed up all the rest." Nearly 50 years later, Jefferson added, "the fact is unquestionable that the Bill of Rights and the Constitution of Virginia were drawn originally by George Mason."

The Declaration of Rights was approved by the Assembly on June 12,1776, and 17 days later Mason had a final draft of the state constitution approved by that body. Although he remained in the legislature four more years and influenced nearly all major bills, Mason never made a more important contribution than authoring the first American document that limited the authority of governments and strengthened the rights of individuals.

By 1780, Mason felt the new government was on firm foundation and he could safely leave of fice. In that year, he remarried and retired to Gunston Hall, letting it be known that he would consider any effort to draft him back into the legislature as "an oppressive and unjust invasion of my personal liberty."

But Mason was too respected, important, and opinionated to stay retired. At first, he spoke out from Gunston Hall on certain issues. In particular, he felt that American debts to British merchants should be honored, as the Revolution had not been fought merely to elude creditors.

Since Gunston Hall was located on the road from Richmond to Philadelphia, leaders on the way from one capital to another began to stop and seek Mason's counsel. In 1783, when debate was going on over revising the Articles of Confederation, the wisest minds sought to involve Mason again. Jefferson wrote to Madison asking if he had stopped by Gunston Hall on his way home from the Continental Congress:

"You have seen G. M., I hope, and had much conversation with him. What are his sentiments on the amendment of our constitution? What amendments would he approve? Is he determined to sleep on, or will he rouse and be active?"

Madison replied,

"I took Colonel Mason in my way and had an evening's conversation with him . . . on the article of convention for revising our form of government, he was sound and ripe and I think would not decline participation in such a work."

Shortly afterward, Mason was part of a panel that negotiated a Potomac navigation agreement between Virginia and Maryland, which served as a sign that cooperation between states could be achieved and that Mason was ready to come out of retirement.

Mason was also a key player in drafting the Constitution, although he refused to sign it.

When the Constitutional Convention of 1787 was called, Mason agreed to go to Philadelphia as one of Virginia's delegates. He arrived on May 17, typically the last of his delegation to arrive, and lost no time in complaining. He had been in town less than two weeks when he wrote to his son that he had begun "to grow heartily tired of the etiquette and nonsense so fashionable in this city."

Yet for once Mason was impressed by his peers, writing that "America has certainly, upon this occasion, drawn forth her first characters." He was also impressed by the seriousness of the business at hand, noting that "the eyes of the United States are turned upon this assembly, . . . may God grant that we may be able to gratify them, by establishing a wise and just government."
Throughout the convention, Mason consistently spoke out in favor of the rights of individuals and the states as opposed to the federal government. He spoke out strongly against a 10- mile-square Federal district that ironically came to be located just a few miles from his home. Concerning the proposed District of Columbia, Mason said:

"This ten miles square may set at defiance the laws of the surrounding states and may . . . become the sanctuary of the blackest crimes! Here the federal courts are to sit . . . what sort of jury shall we have within the ten miles square? The immediate creatures of government!"

Mason also spoke out in favor of popular elections, unrestricted admission of new western states, and in favor of a three-part executive. As the summer wore on, compromises were reached on most major issues, but a growing Federalist consensus began to emerge. What finally turned Mason against the proceedings were decisions reached on a bill of rights and on slavery.
Although a lifelong slaveholder, Mason abhorred the institution, feeling that "every master of slaves is born a petty tyrant." He favored abolition as soon as it was economically feasible and wished to halt all future importation of slaves. However, a hasty compromise was worked out permitting the slave trade to continue for another 20 years.

This compromise upset Mason, and he wrote bitterly to Jefferson of
"the precipitate, and not to say indecent, manner in which the business was conducted, during the last week of the Convention, after the patrons of this new plan found they had a decided majority in their favor; which was attained by a compromise between the Eastern and the two Southern states to permit the latter to continue the importation of slaves for twenty odd years; a more favorite object with them than the liberty and happiness of the people."

For Mason, the last straw came on September 12,1787, when his proposal to include a bill of rights in the new Constitution was defeated 10 states to none. Not even Mason's offer to write an immediate version himself was enough to sway the delegates who were impatient to wrap up matters and go home. The convention also voted down Mason's proposal to hold a second convention, and Mason declared he could not support the final version. "Colonel Mason left Philadelphia in an exceeding ill humor indeed," Madison wrote to Jefferson, and Mason was not present when the other delegates signed on September 17.
Instead, Mason was one of the leaders in the fight against ratification of the new Constitution. He composed a three-page list of objections, and, after dutifully forwarding a copy to George Washington, published them in the Pennsylvania Packet on October 4. This publication served as a counter to the Federalist Papers that were written during the ratification fight.

Foremost among Mason's objections was that "there is no Declaration of Rights, and the laws of the general government being paramount to the laws and constitution of the several states, the Declaration of Rights in the separate states are no security." There were several other objections raised as well, but it was the lack of a bill of rights that was seized as a rallying point for the AntiFederalists.

Nine of the 13 states were needed for ratification, and the fight was a heated one in many states. One of the casualties was the friendship of Mason and Washington, as the latter bitterly referred to Mason as his "quondam friend." When the Virginia ratification convention began in June 1788, the AntiFederalist contingent was led by Mason and Patrick Henry. Among the supporters of the Constitution in the Virginia delegation were such luminaries as Madison, George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, John Tyler, Benjamin Harrison, and John Marshall, as well as Washington and Jefferson, who did not attend but were known supporters. After much emotional debate, Virginia ratified the Constitution by an 89-79 vote, four days after New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify.

After this defeat, Mason retired to Gunston Hall for the final time. He turned down a seat in the U.S. Senate, preferring as usual to offer advice from home. James Madison introduced a bill of rights that was essentially based on Mason's to the first session of Congress. Mason commented that "I have received much satisfaction from amendments to the federal Constitution that have lately passed . . . with two or three further amendments . . . I could cheerfully put my hand and heart to the new government."
Mason continued to offer advice to any who would stop by for it. Thomas Jefferson complimented him by saying, "whenever I pass your road I shall do myself the honor of turning into it." Jefferson visited Mason in late September of 1792, and found the Sage of Gunston Hall reconciled with himself on every issue except the slavery compromise. A week later, Mason died peacefully-to the end a man who hated politics but loved liberty.

What an incredible man Mason was, and very concerned with preserving our natural rights. Lord knows we could use men like him today. Men of principles, not politics.

Power to the people? Another Democrat lie

2009-11-23T18:12:00.002-06:00

Democrats love to tell us that they are on the side of the working man, and they they are the party of the common folk. It is the Left who always shouts "power to the people!" If all of that rhetoric is accurate then explain why the Democrats are trying to shove a health care bill on us when 56% of the people oppose it.

Fifty-six percent (56%) now oppose President Obama and the Democrats health care reform bills. Thirty-eight percent approve of the legislation. This is the lowest support Rasmussen has recorded for Obamacare. Half of the polling was completed after the Senate vote. The support for health care reform was lower in that sample.

Just 38% of voters now favor the health care plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats. That’s the lowest level of support measured for the plan in nearly two dozen tracking polls conducted since June.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 56% now oppose the plan.

Half the survey was conducted before the Senate voted late Saturday to begin debate on its version of the legislation. Support for the plan was slightly lower in the half of the survey conducted after the Senate vote.

Lower and lower all the time. In fact the more the people know, the less they like it! So, the next time a Democrat tells you that they are fighting for you...........

Cross posted at The DaleyGator

What can Congress do?

2009-11-22T10:30:00.006-06:00

We now know that the Senate will soon vote on a national health care plan. The House has passed their bill, the Senate will begin debate on their bill after the Thanksgiving break.

The most crucial focus of this debate should be simple. Is it constitutional? Yes, it is important to debate the impact on our economy, and our taxes, and on private insurance options. Will it lead to rationing? Will it deny care based on bureaucratic decision makers? Will it increase costs, waiting times, quality of care, etc. I would argue that this bill is disastrous on all of those fronts.

The main thing, though, is that we ought to demand that the Senate examine the constitutionality of such a bill BEFORE anything else. The Founders wrote our Constitution to set barriers that would prevent government from growing too large, and becoming a master of the people, rather than their servant.

I would argue that we are, as a nation, in deep peril because that founding set of rules, the Constitution, is being largely ignored by the Congress. They have forgotten it is there apparently. Certainly, if we are to endure as a nation that honors and protects the liberties our Founders knew we were endowed with, then we must insist that Congress obeys the Constitution. Without the Constitution, we are without hope. If the boundaries our Founders set for governmental power are not respected and followed then each of our liberties will, sooner or later, be sacrificed upon the altar of Statism.

So, what powers does the Constitution grant to Congress? Here is Article I Section 8 of our Constitution.

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

Now, I am sure that Reid and his ilk would tell us that the "general welfare" would include this health care bill. But, what would the Father of the Constitution say? Here are some words from James Madison, whom I dare say knows more about the Constitution than Reid.

With respect to the words general welfare, I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators.

Section 8 of our Constitution lists the various powers of Congress, you may read them at the link, and no, Senator Reid, there is no grounds for the action you are seeking to force upon our nation.

Our Founders were very careful to constrain, through the Constitution, the powers of government, they knew how quickly government would, if left unchecked, devour our natural rights. George Washington spoke of the danger of uncontrolled centralized power

Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.

Washington also made clear where the power should lie.

The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the republican model of government, are justly considered deeply, perhaps as finally, staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.

Thus it is our scared duty to ensure that Congress obeys the Constituition. If we fail, then our country will fail. Congress though, as well as our president, seems to have forgotten Washington's words. They have embarked on a course to secure all the power in their hands rather than in ours. They have forgotten where the source of our liberty lies. Consider Ben Franklin's words.

Freedom is not a gift bestowed upon us by other men, but a right that belongs to us by the laws of God and nature

Hmmm, no mention of Congress, or the president there at all is there? Franklin was indeed a wise man. He not only knew the source of liberty, but the dangers of forgetting that source. Jefferson also was a wise man, he understood what could happen should government be unleashed from its constitutional restraints..

We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debt, as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our calling and our creeds...[we will] have no time to think, no means of calling our miss-managers to account but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow-sufferers... And this is the tendency of all human governments. A departure from principle in one instance becomes a precedent for[ another]... till the bulk of society is reduced to be mere automatons of misery... And the fore-horse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression.

When we consider the multitude of new taxes and bureaucracies in the health care bill, we best heed Jefferson's warnings. And we must force our government to heed them as well. Liberty and governmetal power are in a constant struggle, let us resolve to ensure liberty prevails.

Cross-posted at The DaleyGator

More taxes, more government intrusion, less liberty

2009-11-20T19:41:00.000-06:00

While looking for a quote today, I ran across these words from Thomas Paine, and immediately thought of all the new taxes contained in the Senate health care bill. All those new, punitive, confiscatory taxes.

Taxes on businesses, taxes on individuals, taxes on health care plans, taxes, and more taxes, all in the name of helping us. Those words from Paine are very telling when we consider the current course the Liberals are on.

Beware the greedy hand of government, thrusting itself into every corner and crevice of industry.

As I have often said, it is the government that is greedy, not Americans who want lower taxes. It is not greedy to want to keep the fruits of our labors. That is simply the very just desire to exercise one of our natural rights. Our government, which generally seems to demand more and more of OUR money, more and more of the fruits of our labors, never is sated by tax increases is it? No, it wants more, and more. The Senate health care bill is no different, except in its audacity. Rather than taking many small bites out of our wallets and liberties, this bill shows that the great beast is ravenous, and intends to take massive bites. Bites, that we, as a nation, cannot sustain and yet remain free.

The founding quote of the day

2009-11-20T19:12:00.000-06:00

George Washington would not be a fan of Sarah Brady and the other anti-gun nuts.

Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself. They are the American people's liberty teeth and keystone under independence. The church, the plow, the prairie wagon, and citizen's firearms are indelibly related. From the hour the Pilgrims landed, to the present day, events, occurrences, and tendencies prove that to insure peace, security and happiness, the rifle and the pistol are equally indispensable. Every corner of this land knows firearms, and more than 99 99/100 percent of them by their silence indicate they are in safe and sane hands. The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere restrains evil interference; they deserve a place with all that's good. When firearms go, all goes; we need them every hour.

I need add nothing to his words my friends.

The founding quote of the day

2009-11-19T18:40:00.000-06:00

John Hancock may be best known for his signature on our Declaration of Independence, which he made so prominent to assure that it could be seen by King George.

There, I guess King George will be able to read that.

That statement is a great example of the fire and determination the Founders posessed. They risked everything they had to change the course of history. In doing so, they formed a nation that honored liberty. Now, it is our turn. Will we ensure that Pelosi, Obama, Reid and the rest, be able to read OUR signature on American history?

The founding quote of the day

2009-11-18T18:39:00.002-06:00

Consider the wisdom of Benjamin Franklin. If there is one thing sorely lacking in out politicians today, it is wisdom. We all understand that freedom of speech, and of thought are on the hit list of the Left. Franklin, understood that liberty needs freedom of thought and of speech, if it is to endure. The Left today, understands that to implement their Marxist- Utopian standards, they must first crush these precious liberties. As you read this quote, understand that the warning Franklin gave us must be heeded.

Without freedom of thought there can be no such thing as wisdom; and no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech.

Friends, the left is working to cease thinking and to silence speech they disagree with. They desire ignorant, silent subjects, not liberty-loving Americans. Those who think, become wise, and will never embrace the evil ends of Marxist ideology. Nor will they be silent, or will they submit, or sacrifice their liberties. This is why the Left so desperately wishes to crush our dissent. What is at stake is our liberty, the liberty the Lord blessed us with. To reject that liberty, or to seek to deprive us of it are evil ends, and must never be tolerated!

High taxes hurt economic opportunity

2009-11-17T15:13:00.000-06:00

One of the key differences between Liberals and Conservatives is their tax policies. Liberals will tell you that higher taxes are necessary to help people, and will tell you also that higher taxes only ask the "richest" Americans to pay their "fair share".

Conservatives will tell you that those higher taxes hurt all Americans because they can discourage the richest Americans from investing, starting new businesses, hiring people, giving raises, etc.

So, who is right? Well, let us take a look at something Thomas Jefferson said.
A wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement.
Now, it would seem that Jefferson, were he here today, would side with the Conservatives. Less regulation certainly is a Conservative ideal, and you could safely surmise that Jefferson would also agree that lower taxes would be part of leaving Americans free to regulate their own pursuits.

So, let us take Jefferson's words, and the Liberal and Conservative approaches and apply them to a story I found at Hot Air.

You don’t have to be a boxing fan to understand the uppercut that high state taxes gave to an opportunity for a big sports event in New York and New Jersey. Newsday reports on the decision by promoter Bob Arum to pursue a highly-sought bout between Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather in Jerry Jones’ new football stadium in Texas instead of Yankee Stadium or the Meadowlands. What KO’d the East Coast? High state taxes:

It appears the Tax Man is about to do to Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr. what Oscar de la Hoya, Ricky Hatton and Miguel Cotto could not.

Namely, knock both of them out.

Out of New York, that is. And New Jersey, too. …

But last night, Arum dropped the hammer on the fight taking place anywhere east of the Mississippi River.

“No chance,” Arum said. “Nothing would please me more than to have it at Yankee Stadium, but the way the tax structure in New York is set up, it’s impossible.”
The answer is, no state taxes in Texas and a ton of them in New York and New Jersey. According to Arum, the fighters could lose more than $12 million in taxes if the fight takes place in New York and slightly less if it winds up in the Meadowlands.
Arum said that between New York State and city taxes and a tax levied on nonresident independent contractors performing in New York, the fighters - and the promoter - would lose 15 percent of all revenue generated by the bout.
"It's just not economically feasible to do events like that in New York,'' Arum said. "It's ridiculous, really.''

So, the high taxes in the Tri-State area caused the fight, which will have a big economic impact wherever it is held, to move to a location with LOWER TAXES? Hmmm, higher taxes drive a major sporting event from one state to one that is far less punitive financially to those putting it on? I think we can all do the math here can't we? And who gets hurt? Yes, those rich folks like Arum, but also everyone working in the local area hotels, restaurants, bars, etc. Not too mention the loss in sales tax revenue for the cities surrounding this event. Everyone loses with higher taxes, everyone!

Looks like Jefferson was right.

Why does Obama keep bowing?

2009-11-17T10:34:00.002-06:00

Hmmm, maybe this explains it?

Your founding quote of the day

2009-11-17T09:19:00.002-06:00

Comes to us from Alexander Hamilton. This quote ought to be read to Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama, Harry Reid, and every other senator and representative that voted for the Pelosi health care bill despite the clear wishes of their constituents. This bill, is unconstitutional, there is no place in that document that authorizes Congress to force Americans to buy health insurance. When Pelosi was asked about jailing Americans who refuse to buy insurance, she said it was fair. Earlier, someone asked Pelosi where, in the Constitution, she found the authority to force Americans to purchase insurance. She replied "ridiculous" and refused to answer. The first question, about any legisation ought to be is is constitutional!

No legislative act contrary to the Constitution can be valid. To deny this would be to affirm that the deputy (agent) is greater than his principal; that the servant is above the master; that the representatives of the people are superior to the people; that men, acting by virtue of powers may do not only what their powers do not authorize, but what they forbid. It is not to be supposed that the Constitution could intend to enable the representatives of the people to substitute their will to that of their constituents. A Constitution is, in fact, and must be regarded by judges as fundamental law. If there should happen to be a irreconcilable variance between the two, the Constitution is to be preferred to the statute.

In the Midst of Our Present Turmoil...

2009-11-16T22:57:00.003-06:00

What Would Benjamin Franklin Do?

It seems as though modern Conservatives and Republicans are having a difficult time trying to find the limits and scope of our 'big tent.' 'Groping in the dark to find political truth' is nothing new.

In 1887, during the Constitutional Convention, the delegates were having similar disagreements. After several weeks of futile efforts, all hope of progress dimmed. Benjamin Franklin rose to address the Convention and its President, George Washington.

Mr. President:

The small progress we have made after four or five weeks close attendance and continual reasonings with each other-- our different sentiments on almost every question, several of the last producing as many noes as ayes is, methinks, a melancholy proof of the imperfection of the human understanding. We indeed seem to feel our own want of political wisdom since we have been running about in search of it...

In this situation of this Assembly, groping as it were in the dark to find political truth, and scarce able to distinguish it when presented to us, how has it happened, sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of lights, to illuminate our understanding? In the beginning of the contest with Great Britain, when we sere sensible of danger, we had daily prayer in this room for the Divine protection. Our prayers, sir, were heard, and they were graciously answered. All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a superintending Providence in our favor. To that kind Providence we owe this happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity. And have we now forgotten that powerful Friend? Or do we imagine we no longer need His assistance?

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. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? We have been assured, sir, in the Sacred Writing, that "except the Lord build the House, they labor in vain that build it." I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without His concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel: we shall be divided by our little partial local interests; our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and byword down to future ages. And what is worse, mankind may hereafter from this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing governments by human wisdom and leave it to chance, war, and conquest.

I therefore beg leave to move-- that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessing on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning before we proceed to business, and that one or more of the clergy of this city be requested to officiate in that service.

Franklin was one of the least religious of the Founders, but, nonetheless, this was his recommendation in the midst of turmoil.

What Would James Madison say to today's tax and spend Democrats?

2009-11-16T18:04:00.003-06:00

Ah, the "common good" we hear those words, or at least words to that effect from the Democrats in Congress and the Senate. We hear it from our Democratic president too. We also hear a lot about "spreading the wealth". The Democrats claim that it is their duty to use tax dollars to help certain Americans. Of course those tax dollars are not found growing on a Magic Money Tree. No, they come out of every working American's paycheck.

So, how would one of our Founders feel about the government "redistributing our wealth" to make things more fair? Well, we could easily read a quote from James Madison, who is the Father of the Constitution. In other words, if there was one single historical authority to turn to, it would be him no?

OK, so did Madison ever mention Congress spending OUR money? Well yes, look at this nugget.

I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on the objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.

How about the man who penned the Declaration of Independence? Thomas Jefferson? How did he feel about taxes, and national debt?

We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debt, as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our calling and our creeds...[we will] have no time to think, no means of calling our miss-managers to account but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow-sufferers... And this is the tendency of all human governments. A departure from principle in one instance becomes a precedent for[ another]... till the bulk of society is reduced to be mere automatons of misery... And the fore-horse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression.

Finally, consdider this quote from Benjamin Franklin. When Democrats begin their talk of spending the tax dollars they demand we pay to help us. Remember that a key element of liberty is being allowed to keep the money we earn. Remember that higher taxes, more government spending and regulation intrude on our abilities to enjoy the fruits of liberty. Remember, this quote when Nancy Pelosi starts telling us all that it is FAIR that Americans who choose not to have health insurance should be fined and even jailed!

Freedom is not a gift bestowed upon us by other men, but a right that belongs to us by the laws of God and nature.

That is the essence of American liberty, and our Constitution! We are not free because Nancy Pelosi, or any politician allows us to be. Freedom is not theirs to give, limit, or to take or regultate! Liberty is the natural state of mankind. The magic of our Founders, and of our Constitution is that they recognized that we are designed, created, with liberties that no man, no government may take away. Our Consitution does not grant any rights or liberties. It protects them. It protects them from the Nancy Pelosi's of this country. Never forget that!

Cross-posted at The DaleyGator

Today's founding quote

2009-11-16T17:37:00.003-06:00

Just like yesterday, this comes from James Madison. Remember it the next time someone tries to tell you that America is a Democracy and not a Republic!

"Democracies have ever been

spectacles of turbulence and contention;

have ever been found incompatible

with personal security or the rights of property;

and have in general been as short in their lives

as they have been violent in their death."

Nullification?

2009-11-15T18:39:00.001-06:00

A fantastic video and post from the Blogprof

The biggest threat to liberty today is not China, or Russia, or communism. It is the monstrosity that the federal government has grown into. It needs to be starved back down to size. High time that states exercise their rights.

This is why remembering what the constitution says is so important to slowing down, maybe even stopping Obamunism. More information here!

Nullification: When a state ‘nullifies’ a federal law, it is proclaiming that the law in question is void and inoperative, or ‘non-effective,’ within the boundaries of that state; or, in other words, not a law as far as that state is concerned.

History of Nullification: While the media generally portrays nullification as being solely aligned with the efforts of the nullifiers of the South and the Civil War, this is certainly false, and reeks of misinformation. Nullification has a long history in the American tradition and has been invoked in support of free speech, in opposition to war and fugitive slave laws, and more. Read more on this history here.

In 1798, the legislatures of Virginia and Kentucky approved resolutions that affirmed the states’ right to resist federal encroachments on their powers. If the federal government has the exclusive right to judge the extent of its own powers, warned the resolutions’ authors (James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, respectively), it will continue to grow – regardless of elections, the separation of powers, and other much-touted limits on government power. The Virginia Resolutions spoke of the states’ right to “interpose” between the federal government and the people of the state; the Kentucky Resolutions (in a 1799 follow-up to the original resolutions) used the term “nullification” – the states, they said, could nullify unconstitutional federal laws.

Again, we should spare no efforts to actually use the Constitution and the clear intent of the founders to fight back the avalanche of Leftist legislation Pelosi an her ilk are preparing. Recall, it was Madison and Jefferson who argued the point in the Virginia and Kentucky Resoltions. Whether or not the Democrats, or RINOs wish to acknowledge it, the Founders believed in state sovereighnty.

Rachel Maddow, Constitutional Illiterate

2009-11-15T18:19:00.000-06:00

The Blogprof brings a cute video that shows Rachel Maddow, while attempting to show how stupid Republicans are, shows how clueless she is! Way to go Rachel! And to think somone who wants to lecture us on the Constitution does not know it has a preamble?

Your Founding quote of the day!

2009-11-15T12:26:00.002-06:00

Comes from James Madison. Imagine if our current "representatives" had this much wisdom.

It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is today, can guess what it will be tomorrow. Law is defined to be a rule of action; but how can that be a rule, which is little known, and less fixed?

Donald Douglas on the government wasting your tax dollars

2009-11-15T12:09:00.003-06:00

And just what would the Founders say about this? $17 million to preserve the Billy Carter gas station?

Wonders never cease! From the Los Angeles Times, "Billy Carter's Old Gas Station: A National Monument?":
Should the American taxpayer foot the bill to enshrine the gas station run by the late Billy Carter -- the beer-swilling, wisecracking, self-professed redneck brother of our 39th president?

I think I can hear Madison rolling in his grave. Yes, I know, Liberals will play the Gerneral WElfare card here. But, Madison, had a word or two about that clause.
With respect to the words general welfare, I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators.
Lord, how we need a Madison right now.

"Core principles"?

2009-11-15T09:00:00.004-06:00

Dede Scozzafava, who ran as a Republican, in New York's 23rd Congressional District, took money from the Rerpublican Party, then, upon leaving the race, endorsed the Democtrat, Bill Owens, is now lecturing Republicans on "core values". Stacy McCain writes about this incredible hypocrisy at the American Spectator.

Say Anything blog has the understatement of the year about Dede Scozzafava: "Her calls for unity seem a bit weak after she essentially stabbed Republicans in the back by backing the Democrat candidate." A bit weak, indeed:

Scozzafava continues playing the victim, claiming her conservative opponents engaged in "vicious" attacks. She displays a spectacular lack of self-awareness: "We need leadership that's going to make sure that the party is strong going forward and that independent voices are heard from all ranks of the party." Right -- Dede was anointed as the Republican nominee in NY23 by a cabal of GOP insiders, and now she whines about the need to listen to "independent voices."

Here is the video

Her arguments for an inclusion of "independent voices" is a common one today. The argument from the David Brooks, and Meghhan McCain's of the world is that the GOP must be a "big tent" party to survive and prosper.I do kot mind having a party that welcomes disagreement and debate over tactics, ideals etc. That is healthy. However, the fact is that the GOP just like the Democratic Party must stand for certain core principles, if it is to win elections.

Our Founders had disagreements over varying issues, yet, they remained united on their principles. Their most basic principles, liberty, small government which obeys the people, the right to own firearms, national sovereignty, the right to self-defense, freedom of speech, and religion, and the most basic ideal, that our rights come from God, and cannot be taken or restricted by man our politicians, are the same ideals that Conservatives espouse today.

In other words, you cannot talk about a "big tent" GOP at the same time you are supporting ideals that run counter to both Republican ideals and those of Washington, Jefferson, Masdison, Franklin, and the other Founders.

The Big Tenters, if they were to get their way, would render the GOP into a weak, idealess party. Dede Scozzafava, and those who support her version of Republicanism, should stop whining and accept that they just are NOT Republicans. Sorry, but if you support card check, "reasonable" restrictions on firearms, abortion, Obamacare, higher taxes, and other Liberal ideals, you are NOT A REPUBLICAN!

The GOP can only stop the massive "change" that the Democrats are intent on forcing on the American people if we are strong and united. The Marxist utopian ideals that Pelosi, Reid,Obama and the rest are pushing so deperately right now will, if enacted, forever alter this nation. What, you thought Obama was joking when he repeatedly spoke of "fuundamentally changing America"? The nation our Founders created is at stake, our liberties, the liberties that are ours at birth, are at stake. This is a fight for the future of America. If the Left wins, we will become a nation that is over-taxed, over-regulated, indebted to and dependent upon the government for everything, and a nation that has no liberty, and no hope that our dreams can be reached. In short, America will die, slowly, painfully, and tragically.

The Dede Scozzafava's of the world ARE part of that struggle, but, sorry Dede, you are on the wrong side of the fight. You are not someone who embraces the vision of the Founders. You are someone who, ultimately, embraces the vision that your "core principles" whatever they are this week, are superior, and should be forced on the American people, whether they like it or not!

When, in the course of human events.....

2009-11-14T22:31:00.000-06:00

The Founding Fathers did their duty, and a great nation was born. Now, let us, the American people, resolve to do our duty so that our Republic may survive. If we succeed, the liberties bestowed upon us by our Creator will endure. If we fail, then everything our Founders did is gone forever. We will either be free, or subjects. We will either be left alone to pursue our dreams, reach for our goals, and to secure and enjoy the fruits of our labors and talents, or, we will be forever yoked to an overbearing government that restricts our liberties.

This blog is dedicated to preserving liberty, restoring Constitutional government, and defeating those who would sacrifice our natural rights upon the altar of Marxism.