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Redistribution of Rights

Sunday, August 15th, 2021

Whose Rights Are They Anyway?

It’s inevitable in a collapsing civilization that you will observe every sort of ethical and moral inversion conceivable, but there’s also a chance you’ll see something novel. In 2021 America, I think I’ve spotted something happening that ought to cause all Americans a moment of pause. When hate speech legislation began to erupt around the country in the 1990s, many of us thought it a despicable idea, in part because the sort of acts that generally accompany hate speech evince all the hate one need infer from those acts, and because speech does not cause actual harm. Essentially, critics of hate speech legislation adopted the old but true “sticks and stones” argument, and while correct, they also cautioned about the absurd directions a hate speech law could take us as a civilization. Sadly, they were quite right, and now we’re seeing the development of the most sickening notions. Recently, it’s been proposed that government bureaucrats should be safe from hate speech. In simplest translation, and in most recent application, people wish to protect government officials from criticism, particularly criticism that attaches criminal consequences to the government official’s actions. Suggesting, for instance, that Dr. Anthony Fauci should face a war crimes tribunal for his apparent involvement in funding the gain-of-function research in the Wuhan lab that now appears to have been the source of SARS-CoV2, a.k.a., COVID-19. This notion, that public officials must not be criticized, and especially mustn’t be accused of crimes, is anathema to free speech, but it’s a growing symptom of a broader threat. Slowly but surely, the bureaucracy is seeking to protect itself, and to empower itself, by depriving Americans of rights while redistributing those rights to itself.

Consider the subject of the Second Amendment. Here we see every level of government working to restrict the rights of Americans to keep and bear arms. The long train of abuses in this area is not merely horrible, but increasingly, we see the government agents employing weaponry denied to American citizens. In some jurisdictions, certain types of ammunition are prohibited to citizens, while police agencies suffer no such limits. More broadly, it is not unusual for police departments to have at its disposal full-auto select-fire weapons. They may have other destructive devices like grenade launchers, and they’re not restricted to purchasing from the shrinking pool of such weapons legally available to citizens. The Armed Forces maintain many millions of small arms to which you have no entitlement. I was in the Army. I’m no less trained or qualified to handle such weapons responsibly than I had been as a young man in uniform, and indeed, I would argue that in most ways, I’m far more qualified and much more responsible in my conduct some thirty years later than I had been in my youth. I also have a good deal more to lose by being irresponsible. The Second Amendment doesn’t specify any type of weapon. It says “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” It doesn’t say “except for short-barreled shotguns,” or “excluding machineguns.” And yes, such things did exist at the time of its writing and adoption. I don’t wish to have here an argument about the second amendment, but notice the underlying problem: My rights to have a machinegun, for instance, have been stripped from me, while government institutions well beyond the military now legally possess and employ them. My right – your right – has been redistributed to the government or its favored agents.

Consider the matter of religion. What is a religion? A religion is defined variously, but a common description is “an organized system of beliefs, ceremonies, and rules used to worship a god or a group of gods. informal : an interest, a belief, or an activity that is very important to a person or group.” This begs the question: What is a god? They have an answer for this too: “a superhuman being or spirit worshiped as having power over nature or human fortunes; a deity.” In this context, I’ve often argued that for statists, “god” is government. In other contexts, you could argue that they contend “the public interest” (whatever they may claim it it to be at a given time) fits this definition. In our public schools, your children have been prohibited from praying. Teachers are most often prohibited from displaying artifacts or symbols of their faith, such as a cross or crucifix, and in the workplace, similar restrictions apply. Yet in all cases and at all times, public officials claim to tell us what is “in the public interest,” and they do so with a zeal no less ferocious than the most militant religious actors. Somehow, we’ve permitted the worship of the state and state power in the guise of “the public” to be adopted as a national religion, while we’ve seen our individual right to free exercise of religion diminished and slowly eroded. Bureaucrats are permitted to worship at the altar of false science, and they’ve even taken to re-writing the historical evidence that counters their religious observances. Again, rights explicitly guaranteed to the people have been redistributed to the state, its instrumentalities and agents.

The Ninth Amendment provides: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” This is pretty explicit in terms of its reach, and yet we see precisely the opposite taking effect. In virtually all controversies between citizens and the state, judges routinely blow past this amendment to rule with inverted effect. This amendment tells us that simply because a right isn’t specifically listed and defined in the Constitution, this doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, and it doesn’t mean the government has a right to violate it. Of course, one of the reasons the courts may have avoided giving this amendment any effect in law is that depending upon how the concept of “a right” is defined, one could imagine all sorts of rights that don’t fit that definition. Another problem is that Americans, broadly, don’t understand what is a right, nor do they understand that governments have no rights. Governments have only claims to or grants of authority. In effect, governments have powers, but not rights. What has happened is that we’ve permitted governments to steal our rights and smuggle them into the what should have been a narrow set of their powers. Now, governments and their favored grantees enjoy virtually unlimited exercise of rights that are properly held and exercised solely by the people.

We see this in other areas as well. You’re supposed to be secure in your persons, houses, papers, and effects, according to the fourth amendment, but as in other matters, governments have laundered the violation of these things through nominally private actors – corporations and non-governmental organizations – such that in our modern world, your electronic data is subject to snooping by Apple or Google or any other large corporate interest, to be handed-over to government on request or even without having been asked. Meanwhile, if you approach government, demanding access to public records, every form of dishonesty and malfeasance will be employed to obstruct disclosure of any information the actors within government(or its agents and cohorts) have decided you ought not know. Your putative right to open government has been demolished, and your right to private information has been exploded, all by this same process of the redistribution of your rights from the people to public offices and agents.

This applies to more than the “free exercise” clause of the First Amendment. Consider that while you should properly enjoy a guarantee to freedom of speech, your ability to exercise that right is being demolished, or redistributed to government and government’s favor actors. See Dr. Shiva’s detailed explanation on how government now launders censorship through its private cohorts here to understand how your First Amendment has been gutted for the interests of the state. This isn’t limited to the explicit rights guaranteed in the constitution, nor is my outline here exhaustive in detail. It is possible to evaluate many laws, acts, and orders, as well as court rulings to have been a part of this general redistribution of our liberties to entities that do not rightly possess them. It confronts us daily. Why are car manufacturers shifting to electric vehicles? Is it because the market wants them, or is it because government and its co-conspirators are imposing them? Are they the most economical or “green,” or is this simply somebody’s peculiar desire and interest? In every facet of our lives, our rights to choose and act in accordance with our natural endowment has been abridged, either by governments claiming authority it does not have, or exercising power it has seized by guile, legal gymnastics, or outright force.

All of this is despicable, given that ours was to be a constitutional, representative republic. There may be no solution within the context of our existing government, but to take the approach of the framers in the face of the failures of the Articles of Confederation. We may need to dissolve this government in its entirety, by adopting a new constitution that supersedes our current governing document. Do we have the wisdom to actually do so? Can we obtain sufficient broad public support for such a thing? I suspect it will only be possible when our rights are completely redistributed into the hands of increasingly tyrannical state authorities. At that point, it may take force of arms. We are coming to a departure from civil society, because Americans are and have been accustomed to a broad palette of rights and rather tighter limits on government power in all but a few narrow applications, despite peculiar disagreements among us. This current circumstance cannot go on indefinitely, so it won’t. What happens next will be our greatest challenge. We have already answered Franklin’s concern: We have not kept it. Americans are correct in worrying now that we will not get it back.

An Open Letter to the President from an Arch-Bishop You Must Read

Monday, June 8th, 2020

The Courage to Speak Out Against Evil

Most of my long-time readers will remember that I was raised to be a Catholic. Many of the causes of my discontent with the church are subjects dealing with the conduct of the church, its hierarchy, the behavior(s) of some of those who would claim to lead it, and the various cover-ups that have become the signature of an historic religious institution that has lost its way. With that in mind, I want you to read this letter from Arch-Bishop Carlo Maria Viganò. He’s been an agent of reform in the church, attempting to right some of the very wrongs about which I and so many others have complained. In this case, he offers to give you a glimpse into the nature of the devils against which he wars, and he makes clear that he is a natural ally to President Trump, to patriotic Americans, and indeed all people of good will everywhere. I don’t ordinarily discuss religion on this site because it is so divisive, but I think upon reading this letter, all Americans of good will can recognize the good in men where we find it, whatever our religious beliefs(or even lack thereof.) It’s in this spirit that I offer you an amazing, astonishing open letter to President Trump, first made available late Saturday. I think you will profit from the time spent reading it, as the Arch-Bishop concludes with a prayer in his war against the Invisible Enemy:

(It’s a three page document, the controls should appear at the top of the document)

Open_Letter_President_Donald_Trump

Tags:Evil, Invisible Enemy, news, Politics, Religion, Trump, Vatican, Vigano, war
Posted in #ObamaGate, DC UniParty, Deep State, Donald Trump, European Union, Featured, Free Speech, Global Revolution, Globalist Conspirators, Philosophy, Politics, Religion, Statism | 3 Comments »

Texas Justice à la Commode

Wednesday, May 6th, 2020

Tyrant Judge Takes Dump on Justice

When Dallas Judge Eric Moyé demanded that Salon a la Mode owner Shelley Luther apologize for her “selfishness,” he revealed himself as a despicable altruist. Altruists demand that people must live their lives for the sake of others, and must forfeit their liberties, properties, and lives when it is deemed necessary or otherwise in the “public interest.” Shelley’s only error in this entire fiasco was in innocently agreeing to the sickening premise of the worthless judge: She contended that she did not see it as selfishness inasmuch as her chief concern lied with making a living to assist her in feeding her children, therefore refusing to apologize. This courageous woman has been through quite enough at the hands of a system gone wild, so it is understandable that she would claim not to have been selfish. To Shelley Luther, let me say quite bluntly: You were indeed selfish, and you had every right to be, and the judge who sat there chastising you for your selfishness ought to be hauled off to a jail for the sake of the rest of us. Judge Eric Moyé is a despicable animal, a scumbag of the worst sort, and I don’t need to know a single thing about his resume or his career on the bench to say so. In this case, in which he sentenced Ms. Luther to a week in jail, he demonstrated everything we need to know about his unfitness for the bench. His actions in this case make quite clear that he knows nothing of justice, and the case makes it quite clear that Judge Moyé is defecating on the entire concept of justice in Texas.

Ms. Luther might not understand my meaning, and I suppose it’s quite natural, given the state of our society and polity, that she might not have a point of reference for what I shall now explain. First, I shall ask a series of questions:

Whose Salon is it?
Whose earnings are at stake?
Whose property is at stake?
Whose livelihood is at stake?
The welfare of whose children are at stake?

The answer to all of these is quite clearly: “Shelley Luther’s.” In most accurate answer to the robed demon squatting imperiously on a bench, paid for, in part, by the efforts of Ms. Luther’s self-interest, Ms. Luther should have said:

I love my life. I love all the great and wonderful things my life and my efforts in its name have produced, and among those things are my children, my business, my associates, my clientele, my home, and all the other things my own efforts have garnered for me and helped me to build, so that if the accusation is that I had been selfish in re-opening my business in the furtherance of all I love, and that my love of my life and all these enriching fulfillments of it are to be adjudged as selfishness, then yes, I am unashamedly selfish, and I will not apologize for any of it, and I further state to the hearing of the world that any court, or any law, that would damn me or condemn me for my rightful selfishness to my love and my life may not rightfully claim the name of justice on this good Earth, and must be banished straight to Hell for the crime it is against all humanity, and if this declaration is to serve as the evidence of my contempt for this court, then let the record show that there is not enough contempt within the four walls of this room, or the four corners of this good Earth to enclose the span of the contempt with which I now respond to this court’s sick demand for an apology for all that I cherish and all that I love.

Ms. Luther had every reason to refuse to apologize, but she should not disclaim the selfishness. She should be proud of it. She had every right to be selfish. If she loves her children, and she values their welfare ahead of the interests of a tyrannical state, she is expressing an entirely selfish love, and she is rightfully entitled to it.

I am disgusted by this worthless judge, and by the system that has empowered him to dispose of the lives of Americans who had committed NO CRIME.

I want Judge Eric Moyé to know in no uncertain terms that he is the enemy of liberty, and the enemy of every living Texan. He is not an officer of justice, but a purveyor of injustice, and had he any honor, he would surrender his robe and his bench and relinquish them for all days. As it is, Judge Moyé is a greedy worthless bastard. He must be removed from the bench by whatever legal means are at the disposal of the people of Texas.

I want Governor Greg Abbott to know that he has culpability in all of this, having empowered dirt-bags like Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins to prey upon the people of Texas, to use whatever power he has under the Texas Constitution to pardon Ms. Luther and to commute her sentence, lest he be eligible to all the same remedies. This is not justice. Texans have a right to their lives, their liberties, and their livelihoods, and as a former Attorney General, he should have known better than to have participated in this over-hyped madness during which the rights of Americans, and Texans, were subordinated to the demands of a mob. He’s as guilty as Judge Moyé, for his role in this blasphemously despicable attack on liberty. Fix it. Americans in general, but Texans especially, should never be reduced to the state of groveling in front of a worthless scum like Judge Moyé to beg for their rights or their freedoms, and Abbott had damned-well better do something about it.

Tags:Abbott, Jenkins, Lockdown, news, politics, Salon A la Mode, Shelley Luther, WuFlu
Posted in #WuFluHysteria, Civil Disobedience, Civil Unrest, Ethics, Featured, Idiot Judges, Injustice, Law, News, Philosophy, Politics, Texas, Worthless Bureaucrats | Comments Closed

Ameriphobia

Friday, March 15th, 2019

Ameriphobia: The irrational fear and hatred of America and Americans

If you say the least little thing about Islam and its adherents, you are immediately labeled. It is said of this despicable attack on a New Zealand mosque that the killer had been motivated by Islamophobia, the irrational fear and resultant hatred of people of the Islamic tradition. This we are told is the nature of the motive behind the maniac who undertook this attack, and as a result, they point to Donald Trump(and his supporters, and other conservatives) because he once called for a ban on some Muslim migrants. On September the 12th, 2001, elements in the media began to arise to warn us to avoid falling prey to Islamophobic sentiments. The smoke-clouds had not yet cleared, and the fires within the rubble-pile at ground zero was still burning as CNN’s website published an article telling us that hate-crimes against Muslims were on the rise in the wake of the attack. The actual death toll was still unknown, but we knew the attack had killed at least 2,500 people, mostly Americans, and CNN was worried about an alleged rise in hate-crimes. Ladies and gentlemen, this is despicable, and what I want to know is when we are going to create a label of our own, for once and for all, to be applied equally to the 9/11 attackers and to CNN: These people who are consumed with an irrational fear and loathing of America must hereafter be known as Ameriphobes, and their affliction must be called what it is: Ameriphobia.

Ameriphobia is the irrational fear and the hatred it generates against America and Americans. It’s been widespread through much of the world for most of the last one-hundred years, but until the last few decades, it prevailed mainly among our enemies. Now, like a cancer, it has spread into the homeland, into our culture, into academia, government, and especially the media. Those who spew their hatred against America and Americans are responsible for the irrational fear that drives the anti-American killers. Think of it: The 9/11 attacks were carried out by people militantly radicalized against America and Americans. The killers in San Bernandino, CA, were motivated by the same irrational fear and loathing. In 2016, this disease of Ameriphobia even led government agents to try to undermine the candidacy, and then the presidency, of the pro-American nominee in the race, attempting a bloodless coup d’etat against the legitimately elected President of the United States.

Worst of all, the Ameriphobes have now succeeded in recruiting Republican betrayers to the cause. Driven by this same irrational fear, they now agitate in the United States Senate against the President of the United States. Secretly, they call themselves #NeverTrumpers, because they oppose President Trump, the openly America-first President, but in truth, what they really are is #AmericaLasters. The idea of a sovereign America, with sovereign American citizens, is so frightening to them that they can conceive of no goal more important than to block open America’s borders so that Americans can be overrun and replaced. The Democrats are so consumed with Ameriphobia that they cannot conceal their hatred any longer. They now openly agitate against resolutions condemning the idea that illegal aliens would be permitted to vote against Americans and America.

In the wake of the shooting in New Zealand, these media maniacs have become consumed with Ameriphobia. Now twenty-eight months into an unremitting hatred of President Trump, and a fear that America will be made great again, they feel compelled to connect monstrous events that occurred half a world away in a foreign country to the President of the United States. Think of the preposterously irrational emotions behinds such a ridiculous contrivance! What, other than pure and unadulterated Ameriphobia, could possibly drive such hatred? Ladies, and gentlemen, we must call them out wherever and whenever we see it, and it must be plain for all to see: The irrational fear and hatred of America and Americans has gone so far that we now have self-hating Americans. Born to this country, raised in the swaddling of the liberty she provides, they have been brain-washed to perceive this gentle embrace as an attack. They are terrified. Freedom is awful, they have been convinced to believe. This is the deadly nature of Ameriphobia, and it must be defeated. Only Americans who love lives and cherish their country will understand that fear and hatred of America and Americans is self-destructive disease of the mind.

It’s not too late. We can defeat Ameriphobia and Ameriphobes, but to do so, we will first need to acknowledge that this disease is real, dangerous. It poses an existential threat against all we love, whether its adherents are Muslims or Leftists or any other form of statist. It doesn’t matter whether it arises abroad or upon our shores, we must combat it and reject it at every turn. It’s time to cast out Ameriphobes because we cannot bear their irrational hatred any longer, and we must not shrink from identifying it. At every turn, we must condemn Ameriphobia. Our survival depends on it.

Tags:AmericaLasters, Ameriphobia, Media, NeverTrumpers, news, politics
Posted in Ameriphobia, Anti-Capitalists, Featured, Global Jihad, Media, News, Philosophy | 1 Comment »

The Infantilization of America

Wednesday, February 21st, 2018

President Trump wants the sale of firearms curtailed to people between eighteen and twenty years of age. It’s bad enough that he’s apparently decided to go along with the gun-grabbers in various ways, but now he wishes to further infantilize young adults. Some of what I will say may ruffle some feathers, and it may be erroneously construed as an attack on the young, but frankly, I don’t give a damn. We don’t permit 18-20 year-olds to drink. We do permit them to vote. We permit them to remain on their parents’ health insurance through their twenty-sixth birthday. We didn’t permit them to purchase handguns, and now it seems we will deny them any guns of any description. What has remained unchanged for many generations is that we permit them to serve in our military as early as seventeen. If you wonder who is to blame for the crass irresponsibility of so many among our young, look no further than the ways in which we diminish them. Since this seems to be the cultural trend, I think it’s time to amend our constitution to comport with our cultural and legal machinations. Let’s make the new age of majority twenty-six, and return all those younger to a state of pre-emancipated infantilization.

Some of you will think I’m joking. Some of you will believe that I couldn’t possibly be serious. I am completely serious. Let us revoke adulthood from all those under twenty-five. Here’s how that would apply:

No vote
No military service
No booze
No marijuana even in states where it has been legalized
No contracts of any kind
No firearms of any sort
No “right to privacy”of any kind
No marriage
No driving

If we want to infantilize our young, let’s at least do it thoroughly and consistently. Let us return them to a state of pre-emancipated minor, subject to all forms of parental intervention, and supervision. Understand that I don’t want this, but if we’re going to begin stripping rights from them, we must strip them as a set. Adulthood is an all-or-nothing affair, and I think it’s time we recognize this in law. Since the previous administration thought twenty-five year-olds should remain on their parents’ health policies, and since the current administration thinks they shouldn’t be able to buy an AR-15, then there’s no point in them being adult in any part. Any.

I had an M16 thrust into my hands for the first time at age seventeen. I was a big kid, so it was assumed I would also make a good candidate to drag around an M60 machine gun, with the M16 cross-slung on my back. They seemed to think I was able to bear up under the load, and so I was, amazingly. There’s a lesson in there, but of course, it’s lost on a President who thinks 18-20 year-olds shouldn’t have AR-15s. My question is: When will President Trump order Secretary Mattis to discharge all servicemembers under the age of 21? The weapons with which they are routinely entrusted are far more lethal than anything you can pick up in your local gun shop.

Or will the President recognize that just as there is variability in young adults with respect to their fitness for military service, there’s just as much variability among the young adults and their capacity to safely own firearms? It seems the Commander-in-Chief is confused. He’s certainly confusing me. He’s causing me to ask why, if he will not stand up for the rights of all Americans, including young adults, I should endeavor to defend him against the “Russian Collusion” hoax. Truth is truth.

Meanwhile, in Florida, our children, who haven’t the good sense to defer to their parents on politics, are being exploited by the anti-gun phalanx. They’re kids, after all, and we already know that they don’t use logic until their brains are more fully developed, as late as twenty-five? Why do we think car insurance drops in price for people obtaining the age of twenty-five? It’s because they make better decisions on average, because we’ve known for years that their brains aren’t fully developed until then. Of course, some people remain dominated by emotionalism in their decision-making into their seventies, apparently.

What I really believe is that all the rights and privileges and responsibilities of adulthood go together as a set. When we define the age of adulthood, that’s the end of the argument. It’s always been abominable to me that at seventeen, they shoved an M16 in my hands, but I was forbidden a beer or a handgun. Now it seems the President wishes to add rifles to the round-up of things young adults cannot possess. I think it’s horrible policy, but if we’re going to do this, then let us pick the age of adulthood and let it stand in all circumstances, in every case, everywhere and at once.

Like all such reflexive measures taken in the aftermath of a tragedy, this is another horrible mass abolition of rights for law-abiding people because in our society, we have a handful of lunatics. I’m tired of losing my rights due to criminals. I’m tired of losing my rights to the pleas of hyper-emotional, arrested development children. Let us at least be consistent in defining what are adults.

Tags:adulthood, Guns, news, politics, Trump
Posted in Activism, Donald Trump, Featured, Gun Rights, Law, Leftist Cabal, News, Philosophy, Politics | 2 Comments »

Life Without Principles: The New America

Friday, February 12th, 2016

Given the feedback I’ve gotten over a previous column, both here and on Facebook, I’m inclined to believe that the country will not be salvaged or saved. What I’ve been told by people who I had long believed to be conservatives is that ideology is “BS.” Principles are worthless. Ideas and philosophy don’t matter. It’s all pointless babble, with no power to affect change, and that it must be discounted in favor of expedience, electioneering, and the perceived political exigencies of the moment. I understand that there are people who find themselves in a place of complete and utter political disenfranchisement (welcome to my world,) but to suggest that ideas, principles, and philosophies don’t matter is to say nothing matters, not even life itself. I was told in a Facebook comment today that I should be willing to set aside my principles for “the good of the country.” What in the name of John Jacob Jingleheimer-Schmidt does that mean? Without my principles, how am I to know what is “the good of the country?” Without my principles, I might consider “the good of the country” to be whatever I imagine on a whim. Do I surrender my principles to Donald Trump’s judgments? To Sarah Palin’s? Without principles, how do I know if any of them are right? How do I know? There are some people who I trust a good deal, but I don’t surrender my intellectual or moral sovereignty to anybody. Ever. For once, I’d like all of the proponents of life without principle to consider what it is they’re advocating, assuming they’re still able.

Get up tomorrow morning. Go to work. Why? Why bother? Who says you should pay for your own way in life? Who needs principles? Choose your mate. Your soul-mate. If s/he displeases you, ditch and get another. Why try to work it out? Who says children need parents and an intact family? Why are you hung up on principles? Need food? Go take it from your neighbor. Sure, it’s stealing, but we don’t have time or need of principles of private property, or any of that old-fashioned nonsense about good and evil, the ten commandments, or any other idea. We don’t need that. Just do what you want to who you want when you want! “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you?” Why bother with that? They’re all out to screw me anyway, and they will do unto me whatever they want, because they don’t have need of principles either.

To Hell with principle. Principles never seem to get me anywhere, anyway! If I stick to principles while others cast them aside, or never bother to consider them, I’m the sucker, and I’m the one at a disadvantage! No sir, no principles any longer. I don’t worry about principles, or holding fast to my beliefs. I can go with the flow. I can be anything I want to be, any time I want to be whatever it is I’m considering. I don’t have a care in the world about principles, because they simply act as a constraint upon me, but upon nobody else. That makes me the sucker, so no more principles. In politics, I want to win, whatever principles I need to reject, discard, or otherwise eject from my thinking. As long as my candidate wins, principles don’t matter.

Ladies and gentlemen, if this line of thinking has come to dominate your thought processes, you’re on the wrong website. LEAVE NOW, and never return, excepting as your folly becomes clearer in your mind. I find this despicable in every possible meaning of the word. If you accept life without principle, I will have nothing to do with you, as no decent person on the face of the planet should. Had you any principles remaining, you would be ashamed for even suggesting such a thing, never mind practicing it. It is despicable that in a nation founded upon an idea, the people of the country would devolve in character and wisdom to such an extent that in the throws of their allegedly patriotic fervor, they would reject ideas and ideals. It makes me sick – physically, demonstrably ill.

People have prevailed upon me to consider how a certain candidate will “Make America Great Again.” I then ask: “What made America great in the first place?” By what standard of value had American been “great?” On what principle were those standards of value based? How can I even determine what is “great” without principles? How can I know if it’s better or worse or just the same if I’ve cast off the ideology by which I am able to make such determinations? How will I know? Whose judgment shall I trust? Upon which principle will my judgment rest once I’ve cast them off? This is something none of them can or will answer. There can be no honest answer to this without either an immediate confession of error or a de facto admission of idiocy.

The United States, as currently constituted, was founded on a series of ideas about self-governance, limited government and natural rights. Those principles, yes, principles, are the basis of everything we do and have and know in this country in terms of our relative prosperity, our material wealth, our technological advancement, and every other tangible exhibit of our modern culture. None of it would have been possible without principles, and you will neither restore or even retain your country if you now discharge those principles in favor of intellectual and political expedience. Put another way, if you have come to believe that you can “Make America Great Again” without reference to principles, what you have done is to become part of a cult of personality, having surrendered your intellectual and political sovereignty to the perceived exigencies of the moment. Good luck with that. In all the history of the world, such a movement has never succeeded. Most frequently, they result in the rise of despots and the enslavement and purging of human beings in the million. Of course, what do I know? One of those antiquated principles to which I adhere is: “Those who cannot remember the past, are condemned to repeat it.”(George Santayana – one of those useless philosophers.)

If that’s your schtick, so be it. Go forth to whatever end your folly will have earned for you.

Tags:Conservatism, Election 2016, Judgment, news, Philosophy, politics, Principle
Posted in Conservatism, Election 2016, Featured, News, Philosophy, Politics, TrumpUnism | 6 Comments »

Donald Trump Lied About Conservatism

Friday, February 12th, 2016

Watching the 2016 election season unfold, I’ve become a bit tired of two things in particular about the media, and Donald Trump. In the first instance, Trump is wholly unwilling to discuss details of his plans, and the media dutifully accepts his empty rhetoric in an unquestioning manner almost as thorough as some of his supporters. In the second instance, Mr. Trump is lying, and it’s a big lie that we conservatives must debunk. It could be that Trump is just ignorant, so that when he spews his lie, he’s simply the parroting of talking points emanating from the rabid left and the DC establishment. Either way, a lie is a lie, whether it originated from Trump’s own mind, or he’s merely passing it along unthinkingly. So what’s this big lie? On Thursday, Trump tweeted that conservatives are to blame and that conservatives have failed the country. This couldn’t be further from the truth, but once again, debunking it requires the examination of a few salient details. His throngs of supporters won’t be moved by this, just as they won’t be moved by any other rational argument. By and large, they’re proving immune to facts, reason, and details. It should come as no surprise to conservatives that in one respect, I think there’s a nugget of truth that makes Trump’s lie seem superficially plausible, but it’s just a nugget. It’s time to deconstruct Trump’s lie.

The first thing one must consider in answer to Trump’s assertion is: “Who are the conservatives?” The truth in answer to this question is that actual, thinking, breathing, ideological conservatives constitute a minority of the Republican party. The truth is that there are almost no actual conservatives in Washington DC, and to have been the party to blame for the state of the country, that is where one would have needed to be, not simply in a geographical sense, but in the sense of political efficacy. Actual conservatives haven’t had any power to speak of in Washington DC for nearly two generations. From the time of the middle of Reagan’s second term, there has been little one could properly label as “conservative” in our nation’s capital. Where one can find any justification of Trump’s lie, despite the reality, is that for too long, we conservatives have let people who had no real attachment to conservatism pose as our representatives.

George H.W. Bush was no conservative. Bob Dole was no conservative. George W. Bush was no conservative. John McCain is no conservative. Mitt Romney is no conservative. I can extend this list to include current candidates like Jeb Bush, John Kasich, Marco Rubio to an extent, and any number of other conventional Republican politicians. Paul Ryan is certainly no conservative, but neither were his immediate predecessors, John Boehner and Dennis Hastert. Mitch McConnell and his caucus of establishment Republican cronies aren’t conservatives either, but the problem is that we have permitted them to claim conservatism, and we’ve allowed them to thereby define conservatism by the association with us. Most Americans simply don’t pay much attention to politics, and in their barely-informed state of political ignorance, they’ve accepted the following basic formula: Republican = Conservative. They may have accepted also: Democrat = Liberal. Both of these are tragically wrong, and I will suggest to my conservative brethren that we are at least somewhat collectively guilty for letting this stick.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we’ve permitted this to happen. We’ve been so busy trying to expand the “big tent” of conservatism that we’ve permitted the party-crashers of the establishment to redefine what conservatism is, at least in the popular culture, by their constant association with us. It’s been going on since Teddy Roosevelt, who was a progressive in Republican clothing. For my part, here on this website, I’ve always endeavored to make clear the distinctions. One cannot go through the columns of these pages and make any mistake about the fact that the form of conservatism advocated and advanced here has no relation whatsoever to the Republican party, never mind its establishment.

Of course, the truth is far removed from Trump’s nonsensical allegation. Most actual conservatives, I’d nearly assert all, do not support the actions of the establishment, moderate, “center-right” wing of the Republican party. Most conservatives actually detest those people, and would replace them with actual conservatives if it was in their power to do. Every time conservatives have gone along with the GOP establishment in order to try to move things in the right direction, two things have been true almost without exception: The GOP establishment betrays us, and we wind up moving backward. A case in point is immigration: Those who call themselves “conservative” but are aligning themselves with Rubio in this election cycle have a very “YUGE” problem: Their guy is an amnesty-monger, having proposed the most exasperatingly un-conservative bill proposed by a Republican in quite a long time. The so-called “Gang-of-8” bill was a nation-destroying monstrosity, and it would never have attained launch, much less threatened passage, without the efforts of people who claim to be “conservative.”

This is the problem exposed by Trump’s lie: It’s only plausible because we conservatives permit others to define what is conservatism. We permit the misapplication of the term to people who may on occasion, for their own political expedience(and too frequently, ours) to associate with us and our body of political philosophy. Since the greatest number of Americans don’t really pay that much attention, and use generic labels in order to short-cut thinking, we have a responsibility as conservatives to define what that means, and to take great pains to differentiate conservatives from anything else.

The facts supporting Trump’s assertion dissolve the moment one asks: “What is a conservative?” The laundry list of non-conservatives mentioned above is just a sample, but it should serve as a decent basis for understanding the problem in its proper context. When Donald Trump talks about “the conservatives failed,” what he’s actually saying is that “Republicans have failed.” That’s demonstrably true. The problem is that conservatives haven’t failed, largely since they’ve never really held power in Washington, except for the briefest few years immediately after the ’94 “revolution” in the House of Representatives. Even its leader, Newt Gingrich, isn’t really a conservative, but some of the people around him were, and a few of the people who led early efforts in those environs were, but they were short-lived as was the influence of conservatism. To find substantial, muscular conservatism, one must return to the first term of Reagan’s presidency, which is why conservatives so thoroughly long for a Reagan-like leader. It’s also why the fakers, the so-called moderates in the GOP, can’t wait to bury Ronald Reagan in long-forgotten history of the Republic.

We conservatives must separate ourselves from the GOP establishment in a political and cultural sense. We must create clear separation from the party’s moderates because by failing to do so, we permit the broadest brush to be used in defining our cause, our philosophy, and our values. It won’t be easy to do, but I believe it must be done. The most promising of the current crop of GOP candidates, who may be able to draw this distinction, is probably Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX,) simply because on so many issues near and dear to the hearts and minds of conservatives, he bucked the political trends in Washington DC, abandoning even his own party at times, apparently on the basis of principle. It may be that for him to fully set conservatism apart from the muck of establishment GOP politics, he will find himself required to loudly and forcefully make the distinction clear, not merely in his words, but in the clear-thinking actions of his office, so long as he may be in it. Otherwise, Trump will succeed in painting him, and conservatism, as just more representative of the whole of the Republican party, and with such a faulty attribution of blame, conservatism label will continue to be the generic container into which the wider voting public will file all Republicans. I suspect Trump knows all of this, but his campaign isn’t one of nuance or detail. Quite to the contrary, his campaign is one of generic sloganeering, with thinly-veiled emotional appeals substituted in place of syllogisms.

It’s because I do believe that Trump knows the difference that I consider this attack on conservatism to be a lie on his part. There is some small chance that he is so thoroughly ignorant that he doesn’t understand the distinction, but I suspect that’s not the problem. I believe that Trump is gambling on and playing to the electorate in a disingenuous fashion, knowing that his prospective voters don’t understand the distinctions anyway, and won’t be motivated to discover them. Thus far, he’s been largely correct in this assumption, although it remains to be seen whether it will hold up through the entire campaign season.

The problem for conservatives is “Yuge” because they’re stuck in the same sort of problem, in almost exactly the same fashion, as is the basic reputation of “capitalism.” This is not coincidental. Capitalism continues to be blamed for all the evils of statism, in its various manifestations, because few are interested in learning the distinctions between what America’s actual economic system is, and why capitalism bears no actual resemblance. In much the same fashion that we haven’t even had approximately conservative governance in more than a generation, so too is it the case that capitalism was vanquished in America by the enactment of the Sherman Antitrust Act. The Sherman Act is wholly antithetical to capitalism, and whatever economic system we may have had since, it is not and cannot be labeled as “capitalism.” Of course, once again, the propagandists for statism have managed to re-cast the meaning of the term in precisely the same way that “conservatism” has been redefined so as to include all “Republicans.” It’s nonsense, of course, but that fact does not stop them from doing it. One must be attentive to details, in a disciplined way. It’s an article of faith among those same propagandists that our system of government be referred to as “democracy,” but that bears little resemblance to the actual form of government our Constitution’s framers designed and ratified. The United States is, by definition of its organizing document, a “constitutional representative republic,” but too often, as a matter of ease and propaganda, folks drop that longer, much narrower description, and it is to the detriment of the body politic, unless you happen to be a propagandist or advocate for statism.

The truth Trump won’t tell you is that had conservatives had their way over the last three decades, we would never have approached the state of desperate gloom under which we now suffer. What he won’t tell you is that statism is the responsible political philosophy, in large measure because he has been among its practitioners and advocates. When he proposes solving the “student loan problem” with another government program, he’s advancing statism. When he proposes replacing Obamacare with what seems to be a Canadian or British-styled single-payer healthcare system, he’s proposing more statism. He’s doubling down. When he states that eminent domain is an important tool in private initiatives, he is declaring statism in big, broad terms, while he is defiling the good name of capitalism to do it. Donald Trump isn’t a capitalist, but instead a cronyist. He has greased palms and bought favors with campaign contributions as much as any person who has ever sought the office of President, and maybe more. His well-documented use of government officials and offices in the name of his private concerns is evidence neither of capitalism, nor conservatism, and that to date, he has gotten away with this mislabeling and slander is at least in part the fault of we conservatives.

After all, it’s the same thing: Jeb Bush calls himself a “conservative” and most of us won’t bother to debunk his claim. His brother called himself a “compassionate conservative,” but too few of us challenged his claim though it was obvious in most notable respects that his presidency was rife with the growth of statism, and the advancement of anti-capitalist measures.

Yes, Donald Trump is probably going to succeed in blaming conservatism for the sins of GOP establishment, moderate actions. His lie will stand mostly unchallenged because most of us will not even stand for our claimed political philosophy. While I can’t do a thing about that, I can and will continue to speak out about the lies of Trump in this regard: Conservatism is not to blame for the ills of this country, any more than one can blame capitalism, and for the same exact reason: We haven’t practiced either in so long that the terms have lost their true meaning. Trump knows this, and he’s gambling that his supporters won’t discover it either. It’s our job, the job of actual conservatives, to educate the electorate on the differences.

Editor’s Note: The Tweet image was added again after the fact because either I didn’t save the article with that image in it, or it dropped it, or something or other. Anyway, that is what I am referencing. Conservatives didn’t HELP the GOP betray its voters.

Tags:Conservatism, Election 2016, news, Philosophy, politics, Ted Cruz, Trump
Posted in Conservatism, Donald Trump, Economics, Education, Election 2016, Featured, Philosophy, Politics, Ted Cruz, TrumpUnism | 24 Comments »

Liberty’s Last Gasps

Monday, May 25th, 2015

We live in the time of a desperate struggle no politician seems willing to name. Our nation is sinking back into the swamp from which it emerged, in a world still dominated by primitive, tribalism from which we seem unable or unwilling to escape. We do not examine our philosophy any longer, and we do not consider the meaning of our abandonment of principles, much less the result of such evasions. A culture is only as good as its underlying philosophy, but ours is damaged seemingly beyond repair. America had always suffered from contradictions, but now they are not exceptional “one-offs” but the the norm. Those of us who have bothered to understand these dire problems have grown weary, and I am among those who no longer wish to repeat the same things, because the intended audience seems unmoved. We are giving away our liberty, and for all of the missteps of the last two-hundred years, America survived despite them, but this situation will not persist indefinitely. If the America our founders had envisioned is to be reborn, rejuvenated, and revived, we must do the work. We must explain it. We must be its advocates. We must be willing to have the arguments. Whether America will survive or perish, it is up to us to make its case, but to do so, we must first understand what had made America.

To understand what had been unique about America, let us consider that feature, the underlying notion, which had been at the heart of its founding, its growth, and its success. Let us be careful to carve out only that which had made this country substantially different from all the others, lest we fall into the trap of misidentifying its greatest virtues. Among all the things one might say about America, it’s most fundamental principle had been that “man is endowed by his Creator with certain unalienable rights.” Whether you took that endowment to be a product of “Nature or Nature’s God,” the simplicity of this idea is that which had set America apart. For the first time in all of human history, a government was formed that declared that it was not the ultimate arbiter and owner of all men under the sphere of its control. In all other systems before it, and all the systems arising since, men were chattel of the state in some form or fashion. In short, they were still property of the tribe. This was true whether you were subject to the “Divine Right of Kings,” or property of the collective as in the Soviet Union. This has remained true in all the welfare states of Europe, and with a sickening degree of rapidity, has been increasingly adopted here in the United States over the last century. These are the definitions of statism. America had been the first system to reject statism.

There are those who will immediately critique the American experiment because it permitted slavery for most of its first one-hundred years. Despicable though that institution had been, what they hope you will not notice about the former American institution of slavery, now dead more than one-and-one-half centuries, is that which it had not been: Ownership of men by the state. This distinction, while superficial and meaningless to the objects of slavery, was the only reason the practice could be ended. Once ended, America was a country without men as chattel. In fact, it was the only period in all of human history in which such a society ever existed. It was the period of the greatest unrivaled growth and economic prosperity generated by man. All the prosperity that has followed was born of this era. We linger as a modern society now, our vestiges of civilization now only a facade, because of the achievements of that industrial age, the age of capitalism. It is only recently that the bequeath of that generation is finally running out of steam, because we have destroyed its underpinnings in degrees and steps ever since. We have permitted the destruction of liberty, and slowly, in bits and pieces, returned mankind to the ownership of the state. What we face today is only the last act of a play set in motion more than a century ago, by men whose motives were short-run and political. It was the birth of national “pragmatism.”

The principle that man is an end in and of himself, without reference to another soul, had been the bedrock of America. That principle has been polluted, deprecated, denounced, and demolished. Now we see the abysmal spectacle of man the slave to man via the commands of the state. We have escaped only to permit ourselves to again become captive to the same old treachery. In what other manner can you explain the idea that a person subject to the laws of the United States must now be held to pay support for every artifact of modern convenience for every other soul? How else can one explain Obamacare, SNAP, Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, AFDC, WIC, Section 8 Housing, “Obama-phones,” “Free” Internet, and all the myriad other “benefits” or “entitlements” of our allegedly civilized age? We have no need to complain of a military-industrial complex, or of foreign aid, for all the evils they may impose, because these represent a pittance of the national expenditure when compared with all the rest. No, what we have permitted, at first in small pieces and by small enumerations, is the enslavement of all men to all men via the artifices of the state.

We love to speak of our freedom of speech, our freedom of religion and the press, and our right to keep and bear arms, but these too are now taking a beating under the enslavement of all to all. You have the right to free speech lest you offend somebody. You have the right of free exercise of religion lest it offend somebody. You have the right of a free press, but no press anywhere, except perhaps in small ways in the blogosphere is free any longer. You have the right to bear arms in your own defense, but only in such fashion as it doesn’t offend or frighten anybody, or permit you the ability to actually repel somebody who might attack you. You have the right to pursue happiness, but no right to hold onto the material implementations of happiness that your own exertions may have afforded to you otherwise. These liberties were all born of the notion that no man is owned by the state, and yet slowly and seemingly irretrievably, these “rights” have been yielded back to the state. Still, these are mere symptoms of the greater disease that is rotting away the core and health of the American political environment. The root of this disease is philosophical, but it will not be cured by political slogans.

Men must not be owned, either directly by other men, or through a surrogate called “the state” or “society.” So long as we permit this idea to fester and grow, it is a cancer slowly metastasizing to all parts of the body of American culture and politics. It has destroyed our philosophy. It has permitted egregious inconsistencies and contradictions in our laws. It has enabled the would-be slave-masters to re-establish a foothold in a wider fashion than nineteenth century slavery ever could. What we have permitted to be lost is the philosophical core of our argument, and every retreat or defeat in politics of the last century has been merely a symptom of the surrender of this principle: Man is endowed with unalienable rights, and it is governments’ sole legitimate purpose to defend them. Instead, we now see that government has become the worst offender, and we wonder why we can make no ground on subsidiary concretes.

If you wish to salvage America, if it is to be done at all, the only answer is to restore in law and in fact the philosophy that holds man as his own rightful property, and his life and his liberties as the material implementation of that fact. Please do not bother about statist notions of “obligations” or “responsibilities” of free men. The only actual, logical “obligation” of a free man is to respect those same rights among other men, and his only collectivized “responsibility” is to pay for the upholding of those rights among all men. This is the sole justification of governments, and it is the sole reason that any form of taxation is logically (and morally) permissible. This means a court system, to resolve disputes among men; a policing mechanism, to apprehend those who violate the rights of men; a national defense to protect against massive attacks on the rights of men. Deprived of the ability to use the power of the state as a gun aimed at the heads of other men in the name of their own peculiar interests, with the threat of a watchful state waiting to punish such aggressors, men must deal with one another by volitional means, i.e., “free trade” or “commerce.”

This had been our founders’ vision. To the degree they failed to “perfect” it, they nevertheless left us the means by which to do so. Instead, we have tarnished their ideals, and rejected their core philosophy in favor of the “pragmatic” expediencies of the moment. We have failed to educate our young, and we have failed to remind ourselves why it is that America had been different, and why there was so much to be gained here for all men, everywhere. It was not the material wealth of America’s resources that permitted her growth, but the idea at the heart of its laws and traditions that each person is an end in themselves, and that no person or collection of persons had the authority to disparage those rights. Today, rights are being disparaged and deprecated at a mind-numbing pace, and we have none to blame but ourselves. If we are to resurrect liberty from its dying gasps, we must know and publicly identify the cause of its impending death, and we must not shrink from standing in the breech in liberty’s waning moments. Stand there, and others will accompany you, bolstered by your courage. If not, we’ve already lost.

Tags:Freedom, government, Liberty, news, Philosophy, Politics, rights
Posted in Activism, Capitalism, Featured, News, Philosophy, Politics, Welfare State | 1 Comment »

Obama Claims “Healthcare Is a Right”

Saturday, September 28th, 2013

What Rights?

Barack Obama is nothing if not audacious. It takes a bold liar to assert a falsehood with such vigorous certitude before such a large audience. It may be that he gets away with it because most of his audiences are hand-picked and vetted to eliminate rational people, relying instead on mobs of ignoramuses wherever he goes. One could hope that so many Americans would not be so chillingly vapid in their thinking, but then again, they have elected and re-elected a man who has lied to them repeatedly and fearlessly. Such a spectacle is only possible because so many people refuse to bother themselves with logic, and instead operate entirely on the basis of their wishes, projected into the political sphere. Ayn Rand [at least] once characterized such primitive atavism by comparing these politicians to cavemen. It’s true. In order to believe health-care is a right, never mind “affordable” health-care, one must arrive at the presupposition that the lives of other men and women exist at the disposal of any taker. It is to regard one’s fellow persons as slaves, so while Obama prattles on in contrived, dismissive sarcasm over the question, berating the Obama-care’s critics for calling the program the most dangerous law ever passed, somebody somewhere should take the time to explain to Americans why this law is worse even than the fugitive slave act, over the din of the chuckling drones. Health-care cannot be a right while men and women are free.

The first question we must ask is: “What is a right?” Some time ago, I answered that question when prompted by a font of Obamtastic ignorance on the subject of Internet access. Here was my answer:

“A right is a natural entitlement of liberty that requires the consent of no others for its exercise, and imposes no positive obligation upon any other. If what you propose requires the actions, property, or consent of others, it cannot be a “right.”

Let us consider some rights as contemplated by our founders and the philosophical understanding of the enlightened age, arising from such men as John Locke, among others. Our founders codified several such rights, and those rights are under assault by government. Free speech. Free exercise of religion. The right to keep and bear arms. The right to one’s life and liberty. The right to self-determination. The right to be secure in one’s property, papers and effects from unreasonable search and seizure. The right to obtain legal representation. The right to a speedy trial. The right to equal protection under law, that is, equitable treatment by government. One has a right to one’s income, one’s life and all the things one’s labor(physical or intellectual) produce.

Let us now consider the President’s oafish, dictatorial claim: That others must be held to provide medical services to any who may come to want or need them. After all, as Mark Levin pointed out recently, if Health-care is truly a right, then government must not be permitted to create any death panels, or limit any sort of care you might want or need. Of course, Obama hadn’t meant it when he said it, but he wanted those poor befuddled and bedazzled wishers in his audience to believe it. Instead, what Obama-care creates is dependency, misery, and slavery.

If Obama and the Democrats(and not a few dastardly Republicans) have their way, they will take over health-care in the United States in its entirety. Doctors will be fewer, and government will control them. Since no honest or competent practitioner will long subsist in such an environment, only the incompetent and the dangerously sloppy will remain. No decent person will choose to remain a slave to a government system if they have other options, and the caliber of people who comprise the average medical school student historically suggests that these are capable people who have nearly unlimited career choices before them. There will be a few great doctors who hang on until retirement, or until they can take it no longer, committed and devoted to their patients, but within a generation, most of the competent doctors will be gone, replaced by incompetents who one wouldn’t voluntarily permit to lance a boil on one’s buttock. They will be inept and sloppy. They will be attitudinally-corrupted. Having chosen to live as a slave, wouldn’t you be resentful after a time?

How can it be a right for one man to dictate the life of another? How can it be the right of some claimant to reach into the pocket or purse of another and extract cash at will, or make demands of another person’s time and labor? Only in a system in which slavery or indentured servitude is permissible can one find such a circumstance, and yet this is precisely what the President laughs-off as less than dangerous. Of course, it’s far worse than this implies, because if he has his way, the government will become the sole source(single-payer) and possess a monopoly over the entire medical field. Only then will the chuckling morons discover how little like a right health-care really is, as they are denied life-saving surgeries and treatments, and they are compelled to pay whatever price the government demands. They will discover that theirs is a claim without standing, and they will find no recourse anywhere within the borders of the United States. Since this country is among the few into which you can travel to obtain services on the open market(at present,) once it becomes another victim of the global socialization of health-care, one will find one’s options have run out, excepting perhaps only the super-rich, who will always be able to get their care somewhere, at some price.

This president is a shoddy creature, with a narrow ideological focus and an even narrower mind. To claim as a right that which others must provide is an infamous attack on the lives and rights of people everywhere. To do so laughingly expresses a contempt for human life and liberty so thoroughly inculcated as to be dangerously maniacal. Such master-minds always begin by making such claims, but in the end, they finish by leaving a trail of destruction in their wakes. Obama is no worse (so far) than his philosophical predecessors, but such a man bears watching, because at any given moment, he may decide to unleash himself from semi-civil, quasi-rational conduct. Proof of this thesis exists each time one tunes a television to see the latest rant of Ed Schultz, Chris Matthews or Lawrence O’Donnell. These men offer an insight into the sheer insanity that exists behind the relatively calm demeanor of Barack Obama, and it is precisely that sort of vile creature who can imagine his fellow-man as involuntary servants by claiming a right to their labor, their time, and indeed, their lives. What may be worse is that for all their pretense and feigned opposition, at least twenty-five Republican senators do not see fit to object.

One cannot have a right to the lives, labors or properties of others, but with a stunted intellect, too many of our countrymen now suppose that because laws may be enacted that would claim otherwise, they are immune from its reach, and therefore safe from its grasp. Only a people with nothing to offer, fulfilling the exact definition of worthlessness, could imagine their own safety in such a paradigm. This is what we must fight, and it is in the name of life, liberty and the pursuit of our own happiness that we must fight it. So long as men like Barack Obama imagine other men as their slaves, and servants to their personal whims, there can be no safety in any place or condition on Earth. It is time for conservatives to demand of their alleged leaders such behavior as would signify their awareness of this mortal threat. There can be no peace with this, so long as men and women claim to be free.

Tags:Barack Obama, Healthcare, news, Obama-Care, Philosophy, Politics, rights
Posted in Activism, Barack Obama, Conservatism, Featured, News, Obamacare, Philosophy, Politics | 3 Comments »

The Art of Context-Dropping

Thursday, June 20th, 2013

NASA Vacuum Chamber

Wednesday morning, my article focused specifically on the logical problems arising from the libertarian viewpoints on immigration. As I explained, there cannot be a method by which to maintain a free nation if that nation’s people decide to throw open its borders to all comers without first setting the conditions under which newcomers may enter. This is a common problem with many of the libertarian ideas, and it explains why although I have many sympathies with their views, particularly in the field of economics, in other areas of human interest, I have clear disagreements. Those disagreements always stem from what I see as the singularity of unreasonable assumptions into which their born-in-a-vacuum notions most frequently fall. Their ideas are frequently only valid in a volume devoid of any other facts, and it is this lack of contextual consideration that leaves me flat. I love the libertarians, and on many issues, it is fair to say I am among their number, but often, I find their arguments to be an attempt to defend the logically indefensible through a process best described as “context-dropping.”

Consider the libertarian view on legalization of drugs. Absent any other considerations, if you wish to pollute your brain with drugs of varying description and effect, it is no business of mine. While I might pity you based on my own views of the value of my life and my own mind, it is perfectly reasonable for you to be able to exercise the freedom to use drugs. In a vacuum. The problem with this idea, however, is that none of us live in a vacuum, and our actions may well have consequences for others. The school bus driver who smokes marijuana before beginning his route has taken into his hands more than his own life. The police officer who uses anabolic steroids to build his muscle mass, but then addresses members of the public as though he were a raging bull presents a clear danger. The drunk, making his way home from the bar who claims the lives of a family of eight in a head-on collision has negated a good deal more than his own future by his actions. It is in this context that I always insist to my libertarian friends that precisely so soon as they come out in support of absolute liability laws that leave drug users’ lives, properties, and all they value in full exposure to the law should they enact such a thing on others, I will be satisfied. The moment we have capital punishment for drug-impaired driving that results in vehicular homicide, I will get behind the move for legalization. The problem with many libertarians is that they want all the freedoms, but they’re not nearly so interested in taking responsibility for the choices, so that they avoid this problem by ignoring the context of the freedoms they seek.

A close examination of many libertarian ideas reveals that rather than viewing the task of civilization as the cooperation of billions of individuals, they seem instead to view mankind as an assembly of 6.5 billion dictators, each permissively directing his own course without regard to others. The question at which they never seem to arrive is what happens when any two(or more) of those personal dictatorships happen to collide. It is this context-dropping that harms their arguments. The problem with this is that to enjoy a right, it must be something one can perform on one’s own without the intervention, assistance, or consent of another. Consider “assisted suicide.” The moment one claims a right to assisted suicide, what one is claiming is really the right to obligate another as part of their own self-destruction.

I might claim a right to kill myself, but I cannot impose on another an obligation to help me accomplish that end. It’s a preposterous misconstruction of logic to say on the one hand “all mankind must be free,” but then claim on the other that “some other(s) must be compelled to help me obtain my wishes.” If you wish to kill yourself, I might consider it a loss or a waste, but it’s your life, and it’s your choice, however, claiming the right to have assistance in that endeavor by medical practitioners(or anybody else) is a preposterous encroachment on the liberties of others. What if you can find no person who will willingly assist you? How then do you exercise a “right” to assisted suicide? In this context, you cannot, thus the claim of such as a right is negated. In a vacuum, I might well have a right to end my own existence, but there can be no right to impose such an obligation to act on others.

On the issue of abortion, most libertarians are enthusiastically pro-choice. Their vacuous assumption is that the only party with an interest in the matter is the would-be mother. As a matter of logical consistency, however, this is hardly the case. There is a father, somewhere, and there is that growing life inside the mother. Libertarians claim an a priori right to life, a right not created but only guaranteed by government. I share that sentiment, but if one’s right to life is a precondition to life as man qua man, there can be no authority by any person to interfere with its development. Human beings fully vested with the natural rights of man do not simply pop into existence. In fact, even carried to term and successfully delivered, a person is not vested with the full rights of a person until obtaining 21 years of age. This being the case, in logically consistent constructs, libertarians should be fine not only with abortion, but also retro-active abortion. One could only imagine how in this culture, some parents my get two or three years into the job and decide “Never mind, let’s start from scratch.” One might blanch in horror at that suggestion, but it has been proposed by any number of scholars, most infamously, Peter Singer.

If a person is to have a right to life, that right must have originated at some moment in time. Which moment? When one obtained the legal right to drink? The right to vote? The 6th grade? When? At birth? That is where it seems we have temporarily drawn the line, but since under our laws, one may only arrive intact at birth with the gracious consent of one’s mother, is it the argument of the context-droppers that a mother establishes one’s right to life? This too is a preposterous argument, but the matter becomes even more clear when we consider laws aimed at punishing those who commit homicides that result in the death of children in utero. According to the pro-choice crowd, that isn’t a human life, thus no homicide is committed, but this too evinces a preposterous standard of reason. If the right to life exists at all, it must commence in its earliest moments, and that moment is defined by that event in which ova meets sperm, a genetic blueprint is established, and a new human life actually begins. Losing all of this context, one can imagine almost any conceivable but patently absurd standard for when a human life begins, and with it, the right to life.

Let us admit that libertarians have many good ideas, and they’re right on many more things than many conservatives may be willing to admit, but let us likewise remember that the context-dropping they practice in some issues creates a vast hole in the ideological consistency they claim to practice. It’s important for we conservatives to understand that like libertarians, we ought to seek more individual liberty, but as we do, we must insist also on the personal responsibility that makes liberty workable on Earth. One absent the other is every bit as impossible as the statist desire to eliminate both.

Tags:Context-Dropping, Libertarians, news, Politics
Posted in Featured, Libertarians, News, Philosophy, Politics | 5 Comments »

Hating “Extremism”

Friday, August 24th, 2012

One of the terms that has gained favor in popular culture, particularly on the left, but increasingly in the broader political arena in America is the word “extremist.” I find this word to be a shallow, empty word, used as a bludgeon, but carrying no factual, logical impact while delivering an entirely emotionalized blow. I’ve been called an “extremist” depending on the issue at hand, and after a while, the term loses its meaning precisely because “extremist” merely refers to a person who had been “extreme” in some facet of their actions, character, or pronouncements. In this context, the word “extremist” tells us precisely nothing about the matter at hand, but since it’s an ugly-sounding word, it is used by leftists for its emotional impact rather than as the basis for any rational discussion. When I see the term “extreme” or “extremist” hurled around in this fashion, it has generally been a leftist hurling it, but increasingly, I have seen conservatives begin to wield this same weapon, and what this signifies is how intellectually slothful some on the conservative side of the aisle have become in making an argument, or at the very least how thoroughly they disrespect the intellect of their audiences. When some commentator, pundit, or writer uses the term “extremist” or “extremism,” whether from right or left, we ought to demand a fuller explanation than that which had been provided by such an empty taunt.

Rather than pulling out Merriam Webster’s dictionary in demonstration of the misuse of the term, I’d prefer that we restrain ourselves to contextual examples. Knowing that I’ve been labeled an “extremist” myself on a few occasions, it might be instructive to view the context in which such a charge has been leveled. After all, in our culture, the term “extremist” has such negative connotations that one is immediately painted with an easel of colors that suggests a wild-eyed maniac, lurching zealously in pursuit of some particular end. Of course, therein arises the problem, because the term tells us little or nothing about the nature of the “extremism.” Instead, due to the negative connotations associated with this word, the presumptive impact delivered is negative, and yet there is nothing inherent in the meaning of the word to suggest a deleterious implication.

For instance, I have been told I am an “extremist” because I refuse to abandon the logically consistent position that life begins at conception, and that if men are endowed by the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God with certain unalienable rights, they must begin to arise at that moment, such that any excuse for ending that life must still ignore the rights of that individual, no matter how new and as yet, undeveloped it may be. The assertion leveled in my direction is that by remaining inflexible to any other contextual concerns, I have become an “extremist.” The only thing truly “extreme” about my position is that I refuse to concede the argument on the basis of situational ethics, or relativism. My support of a right to life for all human beings is therefore branded as “extreme,” and the connotation attending that label is foisted upon me in the same manner that Timothy McVeigh was called an “extremist” without reference to what it had been about which he was extreme, or to what extremes he was willing to go in furtherance of his twisted world-view. That’s the object being pursued in many instances in which the word “extreme” is so frequently misused: The desire to paint one’s political opponents as being raving lunatics.

I have been called a “Second Amendment Extremist,” because I can read the plain language of that amendment, and because I can see in the construction of the sentence that comprises it everything I need to know about the intentions of its authors. I note that in that amendment, there is a dependent and independent clause, and that if I identify the two, what is plain is exactly opposite of what leftist, statist legal scholars contend. They suggest that the right of the people to keep and bear arms is dependent on their proximity to a “well-regulated militia,” but knowing the construction and grammar of the English language, I know they are lying. The full sentence states:

“A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

There are two clauses in this sentence, and you can decide for yourself which is the dependent and the independent. One definition of the distinction would lead you to test them each as sentences. “A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State…” Complete sentence, or fragment? Now try the other: “…the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” Clearly, the second clause is independent, while the first clause is dependent on the latter. You could, in point of fact, place any clause whatever in place of the first, and not change the meaning or impact of the second. “Ham and cheese on rye being necessary to the fullness of one’s stomach, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” Yes, this seems a preposterous remark, but notice that substituting my dependent clause about ham sandwiches does exactly nothing to the meaning or impact of the independent clause. What we must therefore learn from this is that the author of this Amendment, and those who subsequently adopted and ratified it intended to say “The right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” Why put the other clause there? The intention was to demonstrate one cause relative to governance for which the government must sustain that right, but it was not intended to be the exclusive or sole reason for the amendment. Instead, it was simply to explain one interest the federal government should recognize so that it does not infringe upon that right.

Naturally, the fact that I would rely on the actual words of the amendment, and the rules of English to recognize its essential meaning simply implies (according to leftists) that I am some sort of “extremist.” Note, however, that I am only an “extremist” about this subject in the eyes of those who at least contemplate depriving the American people of this right. I might just as easily state that those who would consider such a disparagement of our rights as an “extremist,” and I would contend to you that they are, but I will at least offer you the respect of telling you the nature of their “extremism,” rather than relying upon that word to carry the emotional water I wish to convey.

Of course, this can be applied to many things, well away from the realm of politics. How about human relationships? I am certain that my wife would prefer that I remain an “extremist” with respect to my observance of my wedding vows. I am certain that my friends and neighbors would prefer that I remain an “extremist” when it comes to my honesty in my dealings with them. I am likewise certain that my co-workers would prefer that I maintain my extreme diligence and thoughtfulness with respect to the work I do. Of course, if you prefer to remain in the political realm, you could take it from Barry Goldwater who famously asserted:

“I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!” (Sen. Barry Goldwater(R-AZ), 1964 RNC Convention)

Here’s the video, for those who weren’t yet around to witness it:

The Republican Party has been running away from that statement with few exceptions since Senator Goldwater uttered it, and yet it reminds us of a central truth about the nature of our political discourse and the infamy of misusing the language in such a way. What Goldwater said as he accepted the Republican Party’s nomination for the office of President was a thing we ought to recognize, because at the time, the Johnson Campaign was painting him with the awful and generic brush of “extremism.” Quite obviously, the most controversial thing about Goldwater’s views at the time lied in the fact that they were perceived as controversial at all. The GOP establishment, even in those days, quickly abandoned Goldwater and left him to fight with an underfunded campaign.

My point in bringing up Goldwater, and the notion of “extremism” as a label of infamy cast about by commentators, reporters, journalists, and even ordinary people like me is that we should question its use, or more properly, its overuse. I have become accustomed, as have most of you, to being smeared with this label of “extremism” in such repetitive fashion by leftists that is very nearly a badge of honor among actual conservatives. I am proud to be what the press might call an “extreme conservative,” or what Mitt Romney might call “severely conservative,” or what John Boehner would simply characterize as a “knuckle-dragger.” The term “extremist” conveys no actual meaning of its own, and left in isolation, it’s impossible to judge with certainty whether the “extreme” under discussion is a bad thing or a good thing. It’s a shoddy method by which to launch an attack with no specificity for its basis, and that should get your attention.

What I am astonished to see in this campaign season is when bloggers, columnists, commentators, journalists, and writers ostensibly on our side resort to this sort of lazy language to attack not only our opponents, but also some of our own. “Extreme” and its derivatives are words we who cover politics should refrain from using without contextualization and definition. It’s a dastardly attack because of its presumptively negative connotations, but absent any context, it loses its meaning. I might posit the notion that “Voters don’t like extremists,” but what information have I conveyed if I provide no context or meaning to the term? What sort of extremists do voters not like? Is there a sort of extremist they might like? Having permitted the reader to define the term for his or her self, I haven’t said anything substantial, and in that case, perhaps I’m better off had I instead refrained from saying anything at all.

Tags:Bloggers, Commentators, Extreme, Extremism, Extremist, Journalists, Media, news, politics, Writers
Posted in Conservatism, Culture, Ethics, Featured, Media, News, Philosophy, Politics | 12 Comments »

Politics Is the Continuation of War Through Words

Sunday, July 22nd, 2012

Hold Onto Our Position?

War is a state of conflict existing between persons, parties, nations, or the alliances made up of any of these. The object of war is to dominate one’s enemy, and to impose one’s will over them, even if one’s will is nothing more complicated than naked destruction. Carl von Clausewitz observed that “war is not merely an act of policy but a true political instrument, a continuation of political intercourse carried on with other means. What remains peculiar to war is simply the peculiar nature of its means.” That being the case, it must also be true to say that politics is the means by which the hostilities of open war are concealed behind words. If all is fair in love and war, it is likewise fair in politics, and considering the radical left, at war with America for more than a century, we conservatives ought to expect that there is no scheme or connivance that exceeds their capacity for ruthlessness. In stark contrast, while they know they’re at war, many of us have innocently believed it was “just politics,” as though the object of politics had been something less destructive. History has shown us that politics is merely the extension of war, a pretty face painted on Death, and we ought to recognize its true nature.

Some won’t understand how “mere politics” can be the other side of the same philosophical coin as war. Let us refrain from the mincing of words: Politics is the means by which some people are coerced to obey the will of others. Slavery was a legal institution, created in politics, and backed-up by force. You might find that Obama-care is immoral, as do I, but in order to enforce it upon us, the government has claimed the authority to compel us to participation. When I say “compel,” I mean quite literally “force.” If you refuse, they will use the legal system to pursue you, and if you refuse to submit and surrender, they will ultimately kill you. Yes, I said “kill.” Have you any illusions about it? Do you not see that this is ultimately all government has in order to impose its dicta?

The more virulently oppressive government becomes, the more commonplace the use of coercion and force becomes. In a civilized state, the use of force is limited only to use against those who have committed wrongs, or crimes against other individuals. It is not used as an aggressive tool by which to compel others to servitude. This had been the essence of America in its earliest decades, and in those times, the left did not exist as such, and certainly did not have access to the reins of power, and yet their forerunners set up loopholes through which they would later slither. Make no mistake: The force of government is no longer an instrument of defense of the American people, but is instead the weapon of brutal invaders who use laws written against us, and for their protection. The statists of the left have captured the law, and it is the great continuation of their war against us.

People have been stunned at the rapidity with which the left and its media mouthpieces began to blame Rush Limbaugh, or the Tea Party for the shooting overnight in a theater in Aurora, Colorado. We have seen this before: It is the immediate reaction of every leftist on the planet who has access to the media in the aftermath of any human tragedy. This is another form their war takes. Their hope is to create an impression as a matter of propagandizing the audience. Brian Ross likely knew there had been a low probability of a connection between the 24-year-old shooter and the Tea Party, and he knew he would be forced to issue some form of apology, but he also knew the apology would be swept onto some obscure page on ABC’s website, long after the people who heard his earlier remarks had long gone. “Mission Accomplished!” The object of his “reporting” was the smear aimed at the Tea Party, so when a fifty-something man from Aurora Colorado heard himself being identified as the shooter, he understandably responded by disconnecting his phone to protect his own life and family. Let us hope that he retains a legal shark who will eat ABC News and Brian Ross for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, but even if he does, he will face a law that will offer Brian Ross et al protection, while obstructing his pursuit of justice.

You might think that Ross had merely been anxious to scoop the story on the gunman’s identity, but while I am certain there was some element of journalistic competitiveness driving the erroneous and premature identification, the truth is that his methodology was to immediately begin surfing the Internet looking for a James or Jim Holmes related to Tea Party groups in Aurora Colorado. He found one, and when he did, he ran with it, because he saw it not only as an opportunity to get the “scoop,” but also as an opportunity to score a propaganda coup against his political opponents. What Brian Ross did was to make the innocent Jim Holmes the victim of political profiling and media malpractice. Since the left is at war with America, however, the innocent fifty-eight year-old man will be considered by Brian Ross, George Stephanopolous, and ABC News as mere collateral damage. Besides, he is a Tea Party guy, so to Hell with him. Whether there is a lawsuit, it is irrelevant to the media personalities involved: They’re at war, and in war, sometimes there will be mistaken targets, but if those mistaken targets are aligned with one’s enemies, so much the better.

This is how the left functions at all times, and they are shamelessly convinced that they must carry out the war against America without mercy. For the moment, that war is mostly one of political rhetoric and subterfuge, but conservatives should understand that their objective is no different than that of actual combat. They exist to compel and coerce you to their ends, and ultimately, if they cannot convince you to voluntarily submit, they will revert to open warfare. This is the meaning of the Occupy Wall Street movement. The Occupiers comprises one part of the intended army of dupes to carry out the violence if need be, even as a justification for governmental force.

Statists are not without values, although they vary dramatically from yours. Their love complies with their values quite consistently, and it is this continual devotion to purpose that drives them forward and has allowed them to win, more or less, throughout most of the last century. Even when we have won the occasional temporary victory over them, they still managed to advance the ball somewhere, somehow, in some issue upon which we had surrendered. The conservative movement has been winning a lot of battles, but it’s been losing the wider war. The institutional left has been at war with America since the late 1800s, whether or not Americans at large recognized it as such. While we’ve been trying to maintain some sort of polite debating society, the left has been planning how to undermine our constitution, the republic it had established, and the culture of independence that had made it possible.

I am going to convey something that will likely be rewarded with scorn from some quarters, but I believe that out of respect for simple, plain-spoken truth, it must be said: Due to their shocking similarities, as a result of the basic, underlying roots of their system of morality, the institutional left has become the ostensibly secular equivalent of the Muslim Brotherhood, or al Qaeda. You might think I’ve gone a bit daft, but I assure you that the comparison is valid in all ways. You might insist that they’re not strapping bombs to their chests, and running into crowds of infidels to their cause, but I assure you, this is only because at present, they are winning, slowly, but steadily. When Brian Ross presented the preliminary results of his “investigation” into James or Jim Holmes, he did so knowing that his information was weak, and he knew it could be damaging and destructive, but so intent upon “scoring” a victory against his political foes was he, that he strapped on the story and charged onto your television screen in order to detonate his propaganda bomb. Would he face sanctions? Probably not, but even if so, he’d be picked up by MSNBC or some other leftist outlet that is more concerned with his commitment to the cause than with his journalistic integrity.

This is the form of the war at present, but I am warning you to pay attention because it may not always be restrained to our current political warfare, and if the coin flips, you will quickly learn how committed this cabal of leftist true believers is to dominate you, and how willing to rule you by naked force they are once you scrape away the veneer of their words. Do not be deceived: We already have all the evidence necessary to convict this group of radicals as charged, only they own the courts, the law, and the power to enforce it.

The left loves power, and specifically, the power over life and death of others, but since they cannot create life, and instead can only steal it, they are consumed by the instrumentalities of death. War is death’s greatest implement, and what you had ought to recognize is that there can be no middle ground in this war. Bystanders and fence-sitters are every bit as apt to be destroyed as the participants. They pursue their objective relentlessly, and it is this consistency of effort that affords them long-term victories.

Consider it in another way, if you please: As conservatives, by and large, we are a people satisfied to live our lives by our own efforts and on our own merits, come what may. Ours is not the philosophy of coercing the innocent – people who had done no wrong – but instead the philosophy of rejecting coercion as the basis for human relations in a civilized society. Conservatives expect that amongst honest men, there may be competition without conflict in its basest form. Ours is a philosophy that generally avoids imposing coercion on others as a tool of exchange. We believe in volitional exchange from mutual strengths to mutual advantage. This is why capitalism can succeed at all, and what conservatives generally expect is that one should be left alone to his own devices so long as he is not outwardly harming others. Not quite libertarian, but close cousins to be sure, conservatives are generally willing to prohibit some actions they believe destructive of the civil society. In the main, conservatives wish to be left alone, unimpeded by the capricious desires of others, whether directly or through governments. Conservatives do not seek, in principle, to make gains by force that they could not make by the voluntary exchange with others.

The left does not admit of any restraint upon their claim to coerce others. In their view, coercion and force are merely tools used to get their way, and they use them aggressively. Leftists must always attack, because they seek to make gains from their coercion. The reason for this dramatic difference is implicit in the nature of the sort of person who is conservative, or “liberal.” Conservatives are willing to rely upon volitional exchange, because in point of fact, they most frequently have plenty to offer, and are willing to create the material value necessary for said commerce. In stark contrast, the left is not satisfied to rely upon volitional exchange, because with respect to their fellow man, they create nothing of value. If one has nothing to offer in exchange for things of value rightfully possessed by others, one has but a single alternative: Expropriation, and naked theft, with coercion as one’s means of exchange.

Leftists believe no weapon is superior to the possession of the largest and/or most ruthless mob. They are willing to substitute a club or a gun for a syllogism at the first evidence that logic and reason will fail them, and there is no rationale that exceeds in quality their estimation of the primitive consideration that condenses at long last to: “I want it.” They are takers by profession, and they will take with a gun in one hand, a smile firmly affixed to their faces, all on the basis of the premise that “might makes right.” These are the modern cavemen who would club their mates into submission, dragging them to the cave, not interested in wooing but merely in dominating others to achieve their ends.

Those who fail to recognize this deadly basis for the century-long war the left has waged on America do so at the predictable expense of their own values. The left struggled one-hundred years at least to seize control of the law, knowing that you would obey each new dictum without much resistance, because you innocently believed that this would be enough. Now, fully a century after the attack was first launched, you’ve begun to notice that their demands never end, and that there is no compromise you may make that will finally satisfy their claims. It is the perpetual motion machine of goal-lines: No matter what you surrender, and irrespective to what degree you may have already folded, they have not had their fill, because, as they predict on the basis of your past retreats, you can be prodded into yet another.

In 1994, when Hillary-care went bust with the American people, they did not cease. Before a decade would elapse, they had an allegedly conservative President enacting their programs in small segments. By the time Barack Obama signed his Affordable Care Act into law, much of the worst of socialized medicine already existed in fact. This was merely the act in completion of a strategy stretched across a century of warfare. They do no yield, and they will not surrender. There is no time in which you can expect them to simply give up as defeated and go away with their horrid ideas, no matter how many times you may tell them “no.”

What they have succeeded most of all in doing is to convince you that you will always ultimately lose, because over the long march of time, you have innocently moved from battlefield to battlefield, never noticing that these are not isolated attacks, but the full collaboration of a war waged against you on all front. You may rush to the defense of one battlement, or to the strengthening of another flank, but they continue their war always and relentlessly. At the rank-and-file level, they don’t know or care that they’re each part of a coordinated attack. Some of them even believe foolishly that they are in defense of the citadel of liberty, on all fronts but perhaps some one exceptional issue they care not to defend, and against which they may even join in the attack.

The war is real, and victory will go only to those who had recognized it as such. With the 1993 WTC bombings, we should have known. With the embassy bombings in 1998, and the attack on the USS Cole, we should have realized this was a wider war. It shouldn’t have taken the attacks of 9/11 to wake us to this reality. In the same way, we should have known when the 16th Amendment was ratified, that this would be the opening salvo. When the New Deal came along, we should have noticed that it was a war against us all, and by the time the Great Society was proposed, the American people should have rejected it all, but we did not. Instead, we have come to accept those programs as a baseline of our existence, when we should have battled to cast them off, but weary from each engagement, defeated and demoralized, we instead took up a position in an attempt to hold the line. We have never succeeded because we have never recognized it as a war. We never charged the enemy, but always clung instead to a wilting defense.

If we are to win this war, we must recognize it as such, first and foremost, but rather than try to defend walls that have been breached already, it is time that we must consider a bold counter-offensive. The enemy(I do not use this term lightly) is already rallying for another attempt against our Second Amendment in the wake of the Aurora Colorado shooting. They take no days off, and no days at ease, and have begun already to advance legislation and regulation they’ve kept in their arsenal for decades. Rather than trying to stave off another attack on the 2nd Amendment by claiming your right to bear arms, about which they do not care, and that will not slow them, we must launch a counteroffensive. We must push for the wider extension of gun rights. Now. We must claim the moral high ground by championing the self-efficacy of arms possessed by the law-abiding in their self-defense. Rather than letting them seize the moment, as they will, we must seize it first.

Another great warrior admonished us:

“I don’t want to get any messages saying that we are holding our position. We’re not holding anything, we’ll let the Hun do that. We are advancing constantly, and we’re not interested in holding onto anything except the enemy. We’re going to hold onto him by the nose, and we’re going to kick him in the ass. We’re going to kick the hell out of him all the time, and we’re going to go through him like crap through a goose.” – George S Patton

If you wish to win the war against the statist left, you must know it as such. You must rise to fight it as such. You may not recognize it as a war, but your enemy does, and while you exchange thoughtful pleasantries, the enemy is scouting your flanks. It’s time to realize that their words are weapons of war, and we are under attack.

” All right now, you sons of bitches, you know how I feel. I will be proud to lead you wonderful guys into battle anytime, anywhere. That’s all.” – George S Patton

Tags:Leftist Cabal, news, Politics, Statism, war
Posted in Activism, Conservatism, Featured, Law, Leftist Cabal, News, Philosophy, Politics, War | 4 Comments »

Why Is Paul Gosar in Congress?

Saturday, July 14th, 2012

Paul Gosar(R-AZ)

WesternJournalism.com ran this story, with accompanying video, in which Representative Paul Gosar(R-AZ) participates in a panel discussion over the question of adherence to the US Constitution. The Congressman said that we can’t adhere to it, since fifty percent(or more) of the American people don’t wish to live within its confines. This admission by a US Representative, allegedly a conservative from a relatively conservative district, demonstrates the serious trouble we’re in, and also why the Republican party simply cannot be relied upon as the vehicle conservatives would use to restore a healthy respect for the Constitution, and a restoration of our republic. This congressman seems to be one of Boehner’s boot-lickers, undoubtedly sold on the notion that after all, Republicans control only one-half of one-third of the government. My question for a congressman who exhibits this pathetic attitude, and all the surrender-monkeys like him in the Republican party in Washington DC, and elsewhere around the country is simply this: If you will not stand for the constitution, why in Hell do we need you? We don’t need excuses for your inaction. We don’t need more sad stories. We need people who are willing to lead, and to fight if need be. Is Congressman Gosar one upon whom we can rely?

Here’s the video:

Somebody please offer the Congressman a tissue, and a pair of… Look, I realize that I have been rather surly about all of this lately, but the fact of the matter is that somebody in his district needs to get in touch with this moral coward and let him know that while the party’s establishment may be following in the mold he and other squeamish Republicans are wont to do, there are plenty of Americans who are becoming convinced by such displays as his that the Republican party needs to die a sudden death. We all know the realities, but I have a question for Congressman Lie-Down-and-Be-Depressed: If he is not willing to make a stand when he has the opportunity, truly, what sort of fraud must he be? This is the nature of much of the Republican party in Congress. They come home to rally the ‘troops’ but all they’re really doing is to let us vent a little of our frustration in the hope that we will stay in line through yet another election, since they see it all as futile anyway. They all swear an oath to uphold and defend the constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and too many of them either join or simply yield to the latter.

I’ve got a proposition for Congressman The Undescended: If you believe you can’t win while adhering to the constitution, then why don’t you have the guts to go home and tell your voters that? Why don’t you have the guts to go home and tell them that in order to restore their sacred constitution, which ought to be your touchstone too, they(and – fat chance – you) may well need to resort to actions rather than words? You see, with this wilting tendency that has overtaken the Republican Impotency in the House, the sad truth is that we don’t even have one-half of one-third of the government. It’s bad enough that the Republican nominee has all the fight of this morning’s oatmeal, that their majority leader in the Senate seems to need a dose of starch in order to stand erect behind a podium and make another display of impotent finger-waggling, and that the Speaker of the House cries ceaselessly about the obstacles and “realities” in Washington, but when rank-and-file members find they cannot serve and uphold their oaths, what they should do is resign their offices, tell their constituents the ugly truth about the state of the Republic, and then lead them into battle, but I don’t mean politics.

What I hope readers will note is that if it is as bad as this Congressman claims, there can be only one course remaining. If that is so, why will this Congressman not say so? The dear ladies in the video are precisely correct, particularly the latter, Stephani Scruggs, so permit me to say a word in her defense, since so few in this emasculated culture will do so with the requisite vigor: When she says we are slaves, she is in all ways correct. When she alleges that our constitutionally guaranteed liberties have been stripped from us, she in no way exaggerates the matter. If anything, to save time, she understated the list by some number, but she did not underestimate the gravity, and to her credit, that much was unmistakable: In order to save liberty, we may be called upon to risk every bit as much as our founders before us. In fact, it seems certain. If the Congressman’s assertion is correct, and it is not out of line with my own analysis of the futility of the tax argument, then our question to him and all those like him must be: “So what are you going to do about it, now that you’ve noticed?”

All the “moderates” who tell me I’m “too extreme” should instead offer my readers a solution that is workable, but does not consist of more pie-in-the-sky, “silver-linings” rhetoric. Tell us, bluntly if you dare: How do we reverse this now that we’ve created the beast? All along the way, the “extreme” conservatives warned that this would be the result of an uninterrupted string of surrenders dressed up as “tactical retreats.” If this Congressman is right, you might defend him on the basis that he’s merely being pragmatic. As I would point out to him, pragmatism of that sort leads to chains, and in fact, it has. We wear them now, you and I, each working, productive American. If this can be turned around with something short of violence, let the Congressman explain the methodology, because what he seems to propose is more of the same: Slinking, slithering retreat from battle, all in order to live to fight another day that never arrives. How does that restore our Constitution? How does that repair our republic? How does that loosen the bonds that increasingly weigh us down and must ultimately crush us? Will any Republican be honest enough to say what may be necessary? If our founders had been men like these, we would still kneel before the crown, irrespective of our current President’s penchant for bowing. If we continue to elect representatives who will offer no more vigorous an opposition than this, it’s clear we still do, though the throne may have changed addresses.

Tags:Conservatism, news, Paul Gosar, Politics
Posted in Conservatism, GOP Establishment, News, Philosophy, Politics, Tea Party, Video | 6 Comments »

Talk Is Always Cheaper

Thursday, July 5th, 2012

Oath or Bravado?

I have heard and read a good deal about a UN Convention on Small Arms Trade, a Treaty that some allege could ultimately result in the banning of firearms held by private citizens in the United States. While I’m not certain that such a treaty could affect domestic gun rights, the idea is that such a treaty, ratified by the Senate, effectively becomes Constitutional law. This argument is based on the notion that when the US enters into a treaty, it’s binding upon the government just like a constitutional amendment, although there are existing precedents in opposition to that view, including Reid v. Covert. Imagining that such a treaty would disparage our 2nd Amendment rights, were such a thing to eventuate, who doubts but that some leftist in charge would enforce it as such, or that a Supreme Court led by the likes of John Roberts would uphold it as superseding our 2nd Amendment? Who doubts that a Congress led by such cowards as now occupy those positions would subserviently enact all the funding mechanisms to support enforcement? Rep. Benjamin Quayle(R-AZ,) and co-sponsor Todd Akin(R-MO) have introduced the Second Amendment Sovereignty Act of 2012, (H.R. 5846,) in response to this threat. It’s going nowhere.

The Treaty in question is being written as we speak, and while we don’t know its content, anything that would impinge upon our domestic rights would be a real attack on the Second Amendment the likes of which would be unprecedented in American history. Then again, Obama-care was an attack on individual liberties unprecedented in history. Clearly, that there exists no precedent does not preclude a thing from being done, does it? All my life, I have heard a fair number of oaths including the phrase “my cold, dead hands,” that being the condition in which the persons professing said sentiment would enter before their guns would be taken from them. I’m not a betting man, but I personally believe most would turn in their guns without much more than a whimper. I think a diabolical leader of ill intent would know that too, and I believe he’d be willing to test the thesis. My question for you is simply: “Would Americans actually fight?”

This has always been my question, in fact, because I’ve been around long enough to know that many will say things that sound awfully tough, in terribly solemn tones in the first instance, but that most won’t live up to the billing in the second. Most mature people are relatively risk-averse, and when they consider handing over their guns to maintain a nervous peace versus the idea of actually beginning a second war for Independence against an[other] aggressive government, I think most so-called “fearless Patriots” might just chicken out. After all, by a slow process of incrementalism, the American people have let many of their liberties go without much more than a protest march or two, and not much more than a temporary backlash at the polls. I believe a rabid Marxist holding the reins of power would realize this too, as would his committed communist pals, and I think such a leader would be more than willing to go all the way and call some bluffs. In fact, I think such a villain would see it as a win-win: If he calls the bluffs of the American people on this and they should happen to fold, he would have rid the country of guns, and made the American people defenseless in their own homes. If he calls the bluffs, but they turn out not to be a bluff, he would have a good excuse to declare martial law, perhaps cancel elections, and wipe out a few hard-core conservatives along the way, if there is anything less than a perfectly united stance by American conservatives.

You might wonder why I am raising this issue now, and it surely arises in part from the recent talk over the treaty in question, but I am also asking the question because I’ve seen signs that we have no small number of surrender monkeys who call themselves “conservative.” If the day should ever arrive when gun confiscations actually begin, and there is a resistance, it will fail if conservatives don’t act – not talk – in lockstep. That would be a big play by by such a tyrant, for all the marbles, but it would also be a big play by Americans. It would be truly a matter of pledging their “lives and their sacred honor,” because any such battle would commence a counter-counter-revolution. What you learn from a lifetime of observation is that he who is more consistently committed wins every battle, every war, and every fight of any sort. This is why I have cause to worry: I think many people make many professions by which may not abide when push comes to shove.

After all, if such a resistance were to break out, you would scarcely receive news of it. Such a leader would use that new Internet shut-down switch to cut off that means of news dissemination. He would order the FCC to shut down all cell phones, and shortly, all wired calls, broadcast, cable and satellite, along with radio, and the only thing you might be able to dial would be 9-1-1, or if you had a shortwave radio, begin to exchange information before the jamming commenced in earnest . It’s what emergency exercises are intended to test. Remember? Neither would be trusted all law enforcement, nor all military. Too many are Oath-Keepers(though not nearly enough for my comfort.) What would result after a day or two is that the brain-addled multitudes would demand the restoration of their cable, their Internet, their phones, and their blessed text messages, so they would join the chorus from the left to put down any rebellion. Think about it. Fools all, yes, but fools who would provide a runaway government with every excuse it might ever need.

Every person must establish his or her own bright line across which government must not tread, or admit from the outset that he or she is a willing slave, but in the main, they do not admit it, and they make their lines dimly, and cover them over in hasty retreat when pressed. The singularly most pressing reason to raise this at this time is that I believe too few have actually considered all those oaths about “cold dead hands,” and what they would actually demand. After all, what that phrase implies is a willingness to literally enter a state of war against a runaway government that would claim legitimacy by virtue of some black-robed moron’s judgment, or some heat-of-the-moment command from a would-be tyrant. Any who take such things too lightly wouldn’t be the sort to be counted on in any case, because anybody who conceives of such things without deep prior contemplation of consequences isn’t very serious about it. Australia was a nifty experiment for the global gun-grabbers, and they saw how the cold-dead-handers reacted there. In a virtual flash, Australia was disarmed. Has Australia undergone a violent revolution? Have they repealed such measures? If so, I’ve not read about it.

If you wonder what the radical communist left would count on, considering the hundreds of millions of guns and the eighty-million or more firearm owners as an obstacle to their plotting, you might wish to give a thought or two to this. While alleged patriots who may or may not adhere to all of those oaths continue to make them, the radical left is surely plotting for the day in which they will make this a reality. Larry Grathwohl’s story of three decades ago hasn’t changed, and some of the very people about whom he had been concerned are now members of government. The question is whether they’ve thought this through, and I believe you can assume they have, and that’s something upon which I’m willing to bet. Our founders must have been much more extraordinarily brave than we credit them with having been. Now go consider all those oaths anew. Did you really mean them? Time may tell. Something to ponder.

Tags:Gun Rights, law, news, Philosophy, Politics, UN
Posted in Civil Unrest, Featured, Gun Rights, Law, News, Philosophy, Politics | 13 Comments »

Searching For America

Wednesday, July 4th, 2012

...If You Can Find Her

On this Fourth day of July, the nation marks its Independence Day, but I fear that for all the remembrances of glory now passed out of mind by most Americans, and for all the lovely, somber assemblies that will today gather in order to consider the truly beautiful words of the brilliant minds who once established this country, who risked literally all in order to put aside a tyrant, there are pitifully few among us who have the courage to repeat their bold actions, or even realize the true marvel that had been the American founding. I have always believed that America was more than a place defined by some lines drawn on a map, and its meaning was more than even the stunning assembly of the stars and stripes of Old Glory could represent. No, America had been synonymous with “Liberty,” and “Freedom,” and other rare concepts of human refinement that have not been duplicated anywhere. To all of my patriotic friends, who look glumly about at the depressing caricature we’ve been watching our nation become, I urge you to take heart: America lives!

It is true that the statists have developed and implemented a plan for our national diminution. It is true even that some among our number seem to happily go along with the slide. The worst of it for many will have been how the July 4th observances this year will seem more like a eulogy than a celebration. We now give our beloved America the big send-off, with fireworks to punctuate the wake. A funeral need not be a glum affair, and with all the flag-waving set to commence, it seems appropriate that rather than play an encore of Stars and Stripes Forever, we instead yield the music of the day to a funeral march. Yet this is only appropriate if we view America as nothing more than a political partition. True, it is clear that the Republic lies at Death’s door, but the idea that stands behind the Republic remains alive in each of us who will merely bear its memory forth.

The gun-grabbers will attempt to take our rights to keep and bear, but still we must resist them, whatever the laws they may make. That’s what an American would do. The taxers and dispensers-of-penalties (just in case Mitt Romney still doesn’t know which he had been as Governor of that once-free commonwealth) can work their worst, but at the end of the day, if you are willing to live without comforts, you can resist this too. This I am certain, every real American would do. Were I closer to New York, for example, I would be inclined to raid a grocery warehouse, buying up all the little Morton’s salt shakers, and dispense one on every table in every restaurant in sight, and a pox on Michael Bloomberg for his wretched regulating, and I would probably start in any cafeteria owned by the city. This is what the bold, but not the timid, would do. Americans think to do such things. Docile slaves never do.

I’d give a cop a hug, since they don’t pass the laws, and there may come a day when I’d like very much for them to ignore some mindless rule that I had decided I would no longer observe. Americans, the real ones, know that laws are only as powerful as they permit them to be. Americans aren’t frightened about the possibility of another Obama term, because even he is only so powerful as we decide he should be. You might offer me one-thousand scenarios in which he might seize more power, but I insist that it’s still only as good as the will of the people he appoints to carry it out, in the face of all of those who dare to say “no.”

America isn’t defined by Washington DC. It is only the United States of America that is shaped and molded there. One-million Obamas with one-billion executive orders backed-up by nine-thousand robe-clad morons cannot make a nation of three hundred million people do anything, not even a fraction of them, if they choose not to do it. In America, the people know this, and while they may lament the existence of such brigands in public office, they likewise remember that the founders of America had declared that a government exists at the pleasure of all its people. Does a government headed by Barack Obama exist at your pleasure? Do you think only Mitt Romney can save us, or do you understand that in America, the least among us is still completely capable of saying “no,” and meaning it?

People have asked me in times passed how such an America could function, and I tell you that there are more ways than one to eat that dog. Let your own conscience be your guide, but I have resolved that I will become an avid practitioner of “Not Guilty,” when the only victim alleged is some public policy. “John Q Public stands charged with failing to pay his Obama-care mandate noncompliance penalty/tax. What say you, the jury?”

“Not guilty.”

Jury nullification is not a new idea, but most of the time, we get tricked into a.)admitting that’s what we’re doing, thus putting ourselves in legal jeopardy, or b.)fooled into believing it’s not permissible, somehow dishonest, or lawless. Ladies and gentlemen, we live in a country where Supreme Court Chief justices are lawless as a matter of the routine. In America, we know that law has only the force we give it, and if the law is wrong, it mustn’t be enforced. Let us not give such laws any force, any longer. Am I calling you to anarchy? Never. I am asking you to consider correcting an anarchy already in progress, wherein the law is no restraint upon an aggressive government, irrespective of the party in power.

I vote “no” on every bond issue, every tax, and any expansion of government power, no matter how trivial it may seem at the time, because experience has taught me that it will not remain that way. Only in America do citizens routinely tell public officials to kiss off. We should all do so more frequently when justified, and these days, it’s justified plenty. In America, the people know that government isn’t their boss, but that the master-servant relationship puts the people a the top, and the people there have no compunction whatever about reminding the public servants of just exactly who is whom on that particular totem pole.

We can look for America in all sorts of places. The first place I always think to look for it is in the minds, the words, and particularly, in the deeds of the people around me. I know how to spot America every time. If you’re the sort of person inclined to read this blog, chances are, so do you, but the first place each should seek it is right there, inside you. I know it’s in there. You might keep it hidden in an office or a school full of leftists. It’s yearning to get out, you know. I realize that the polite society of Republican politics urges you to suppress it, and keep it hidden at all times, and that among Democrats, it’s tucked firmly away lest it escape embarrassingly from the closet. I’ve heard that in Congress, they do their best to isolate it like a leper colony.

America is not a Utopia, and does not seek that status, since in America, they yield to the natural fact that there can be no perfection among men. America’s constitution was established to create a “more perfect union,” but it did not promise Heaven on Earth, the authors having known such was impossible. Those men did not say they were seeking a “more perfect lifestyle,” a “more perfect country,” a “less costly health-care system,” or a “more perfect distribution of wealth,” but instead a “more perfect union” not among individual men, but among the several states. In short, they knew they could not make more perfect all the affairs of men, but only that among the institutions of man, they could improve the function, and for a time, they succeeded until some forgot what it was all intended to do.

I seek America because I know it’s “out there,” but it’s “in here,” too. I know there are others seeking her too, and I believe I’ve met some decent number of them through this blog. I would urge my friends to spend the Fourth of July seeking America wherever they can find it, but not to waste an inordinate amount of time looking for it in a country called the United States. America has to sneak in an out of there for visits these days, and there’s no sense looking for something where it plainly is not. My friends, I wish you all a happy Independence Day in search of it, and may you find it quickly. I hear she’s worth the trouble.

Tags:4th of July, America, Independence Day, news, Philosophy, Politics
Posted in Featured, News, Philosophy, Politics | 16 Comments »

Seeing Red: You’re Damned Right – I’m Mad

Sunday, July 1st, 2012

Afraid to Know?

I’ve received a few emails asking me if I’m so angry as it seems on the surface. I’ve politely responded that I’m actually much angrier than the printed word permits me to express. I’ve made mention of something else on that score, and in so doing, you’d think I’d crossed the Rubicon. Maybe I should. I’ve admitted openly that I am not only angry at the Congress, the President and the Court over this Obama-care monstrosity, but that I’m likewise furious at my fellow Americans who aren’t equally furious! I’ve been asked what I expect the anger to get for me, and the truth is that I don’t know. I’ve never been quite this angry before, and I’ve never muttered so many oaths under my breath, and within the confines of my own head as I have these last few days. I’ve asked this question in other forms before, but few have seemed willing to take it up. One of the reasons the statists continue to do things like this to us is because we’re peaceful, law-abiding people on the whole, but just as in the case of the contraception mandate in Obama-care, I am beginning to conclude that perhaps we are the problem. They seem to poke at us like a moron prodding a grizzly with a stick, safely from beyond the bars of a cage at the zoo. We never seem to grab the stick, pull them close, and rip their faces from their thick skulls, and it is this that makes them all the more smug each time they poke at us: We hold the key to the cage.

I’ve been asked too how it is that we can express this anger. I suppose we could resort to pitchforks and torches, but I expect that’s precisely what the statists want. In the mean time, we’ll wait peaceably for them to ban pitchforks and torches. They’ve already made incandescent light-bulbs illegal. How long can it be before torches are banned both as a matter of public safety and as a matter of environmental concern? Pitchforks may require a better excuse, but I’m sure they’ll do something like limiting their length. No, the way to express our anger comes down to something simpler, but even this, I’m afraid most people are too timid to attempt: We can simply say “no,” and mean it. Ayn Rand put forward the solution in Atlas Shrugged, but since few can be bothered to read a book of that epic length any longer, I suppose I had better give a brief summary: Those who work, and earn and build are convinced to simply stop, leaving nothing to the statists from which to subsist. All the little moochers, and all the crony capitalists find they cannot survive without those who produce, and they quickly move to a post-Apocalyptic society where anarchy reigns for a time, until the looters ultimately reduce themselves to insignificance.

The basic idea is this: All of this is done by our consent. The ghastly welfare-state, the crony-capitalism, the corruption, all of it, every piece, because in part, some of us are corrupted by it, and in part because we are too fearful to simply say “no” and thereby undergo the temporary misery of a rapidly collapsing society. Only our productive endeavors keep this monster alive. Each time we go to work, invest our money, or shove some of it into a savings account, we’re feeding the beast. We’re keeping it alive. It is by behaving as a parasite on our life-blood, our productive enterprises, our labor, and our jobs that this is all kept going. Without our daily/weekly/monthly/annual ‘contributions’ to their system, their system would quickly starve and die. The idea of leaving this all behind has come to be termed “going Galt,” a hat-tip to the book’s hero, John Galt. In Rand’s novel, he was the first to abandon the society to its own devices, determined that he would no longer to provide it any form of support, material, or otherwise. He then set about the task of convincing others to join him.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am on the cusp of “going Galt.” Being as this site is named “Mark America,” perhaps the act would come to be known as “going America,” and that would be fitting, indeed. Our country has fallen into the depths of a sickness from which the only recovery will be when we decide to impose it. We have the power to treat this disease. We have the ability to starve it of nourishment. Do we have the courage? Somehow, while I would love to credit Americans with the courage of the ages, still, I get the nagging impression that too many among us would be comfortable as slaves so long as the bellies are full, the roofs don’t leak, and the rivers don’t rise. It’s a depressing state of affairs.

Are there any willing to starve the beast, even at the cost of their own temporary, although probably somewhat protracted discomfort? None can say. None dare say. Meanwhile, let’s be angry. Without corresponding action, it doesn’t fix much, but it sure feels good.

Tags:Ayn Rand, Healthcare, news, Philosophy, Politics, Supreme Court
Posted in Conservatism, Culture, Featured, News, Philosophy, Politics | 17 Comments »

Barack Obama: Replacing the Church With State

Thursday, March 1st, 2012

Obama Won't Accept Competition

I have long held the position that statists wish to supplant the church and its influence in the lives of people with its own authority, and to do so, the institutional left seeks to displace religion from the lives of Americans because this will enable them to pour government into the vacuum. The latest controversy over the Obamacare mandates on religious institutions to provide contraception coverage in their health care insurance policies was thought to be just another ill-considered political decision from which the Obama administration would ultimately retreat. That retreat has been only rhetorical as Obama’s dictatorial policy remains in place. This isn’t political ineptitude, but statists’ calculations: The Obama administration knows that this attack on the Catholic church and Christianity generally will result in the wholesale elimination of religiously-oriented institutions. That’s what they’re after, and that’s what they’ll get, as the seek to push people even further from religion in order to make more room for the growth of an aggressive and overpowering state.

Hot Air posted an article on this, and I think it should give us pause, because it speaks to the motivations of those who are forcing these policies upon religious institutions, and what their real goal might be. They aren’t worried that the Catholic charities, hospitals, and schools(including universities) will perhaps cease to operate, due to matters of conscience because they fully expect them to do so. Francis Cardinal George of the archdiocese of Chicago sent a message to parishioners and its contents demonstrate the point:

“Two Lents from now,” Cardinal George warned, “unless something changes, the page [listing Catholic organizations] will be blank.”

The Cardinal didn’t stop there. He went on to describe the choices with which the church will be confronted:

Secularize itself, breaking its connection to the church, her moral and social teachings and the oversight of its ministry by the local bishop. This is a form of theft. It means the church will not be permitted to have an institutional voice in public life.
Pay exorbitant annual fines to avoid paying for insurance policies that cover abortifacient drugs, artificial contraception and sterilization. This is not economically sustainable.
Sell the institution to a non-Catholic group or to a local government.
Close down.

This is telling, and you can already see the hand-writing on the wall. The Catholic church will not be able to take steps 1 or 2, so they will instead be compelled to follow steps 3 or 4. What will that accomplish? Simply put, it will demolish their employees, their institutions, and will further serve to separate Catholics from their church. This is not accidental, but instead a long-sought goal of the institutional left that has been seeking to drive all religion out of our society. This move will force a retreat of the church into the physical buildings that bear the same description.

The truth is that the church, any church, is not a matter of buildings. It is as large and widespread as its adherents, and this is the secret to what the Obama administration and his thugs of the left are really after: They will confine the church to church grounds, but force the church out of the public sphere altogether. Whether you’re a Catholic, or a member of any other faith, you’ve just been served notice that your church is no longer welcome in the public square except on conditions to be established, enforced, and dictated by government.

Of course, Cardinal George is well aware of this fact, and it’s with sadness I report to you his conclusion from his letter to his parishioners, and if you are a person of faith, you had better pay attention, because whether you are a Catholic or not, he’s speaking to you. All of you:

“The provision of health care should not demand “giving up” religious liberty. Liberty of religion is more than freedom of worship. Freedom of worship was guaranteed in the Constitution of the former Soviet Union. You could go to church, if you could find one. The church, however, could do nothing except conduct religious rites in places of worship-no schools, religious publications, health care institutions, organized charity, ministry for justice and the works of mercy that flow naturally from a living faith. All of these were co-opted by the government. We fought a long cold war to defeat that vision of society.”

“The strangest accusation in this manipulated public discussion has the bishops not respecting the separation between church and state. The bishops would love to have the separation between church and state we thought we enjoyed just a few months ago, when we were free to run Catholic institutions in conformity with the demands of the Catholic faith, when the government couldn’t tell us which of our ministries are Catholic and which not, when the law protected rather than crushed conscience. The state is making itself into a church. The bishops didn’t begin this dismaying conflict nor choose its timing. We would love to have it ended as quickly as possible. It’s up to the government to stop the attack.”(emphasis added)

When you consider what the Cardinal is saying, its importance must not be ignored. He’s issuing you a warning, but he’s also telling you the resolution. The government is doing this. Who runs the government? You do. You have it in your power to stop this. You can stop this in November. You can stop this by refusing. You can. You can stop this with a vote. If you’re not Catholic, you’re not exempt from any of this, or the effect it will have on your church, mosque, synagogue or temple. There are no exemptions, because if the Obama administration can successfully drive the Catholic church out, by the far the single largest religious institution in the country, with as many as one in six hospital beds in the country under its umbrella, what will your relatively less influential institution of faith do in response? How will you hold back the government?

Here in the Bible belt of Texas, there are relatively fewer Catholics, but there is a vast diversity of small churches with tiny congregations that are all under threat by this move against religion. As people of faith, you had better understand that this isn’t a war on the Catholic church isn’t due to an anti-Catholic bias, but instead a war on all religion as an obstacle to the supremacy of the state. The institutional left isn’t out to slap the Catholic church in a political move for the sake of some radical, loud-mouthed supporters as has been supposed. They are taking steps to chase churches out of the public square, the private sphere, and eventually out of existence. This is the purpose, and if you blind yourself with the faulty notion that this is about Catholics, or about contraception, you’re setting yourself up for slavery, because whereas churches must solicit donations from you to support their various social causes, the government will instead only demand payment at gunpoint. There will be no choice, and there will be no conscience but that which they dictate it to be.

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Tags:Barack Obama, Catholic Church, Christianity, Church, Conscience, Faith, news, Politics, Religion, State
Posted in Barack Obama, Education, Healthcare, Law, News, Obamacare, Philosophy, Politics, Religion | 1 Comment »

The Influence of Cultural Conservatives in 2012

Thursday, February 23rd, 2012

Bully Puplit?

One of the more annoying themes to begin in earnest during the rise of Rick Santorum has been the idea that cultural or religious conservatives should shut up and go hide in the big tent’s closet. For those of who think of themselves as moderates, and may look with disdain on cultural conservatives, I have a message from the back, and moderates just might want to pay attention: The Republicans did not win in 2008 without cultural conservatives, and if you want to know who stayed home, making it more critical than ever that McCain capture more moderates and independents, let me give you just a hint: It was the cultural conservatives who moderates don’t like, but without them, Republicans cannot win the Presidency. More than just pat them on their heads, and placating them before banishing them to the periphery of the so-called “big tent,” moderates had better learn to speak to their issues, and show that they mean it. These cultural conservatives won’t always know the nuances of every piece of regulation ever written, but they know who’s who when it comes to their issues, so before dismissing them, moderates might wish to think again, because cultural conservatives are losing patience.

It’s not that they’re what moderates tell themselves are a bunch of back-woods Bible-thumpers, but then again, the centrist wing of the party doesn’t understand them mostly because they refuse to engage them. Some moderates may be suffering from a problem of narrow-mindedness that is almost as severe as some liberals. You see, cultural conservatives are people who believe that one’s actions, and one’s life should be consistent with one’s beliefs. This does not mean they’re holier-than-thou, but it does mean that by conscious choice, they try very hard to be devout. They are not infallible, and they know none are, but at the same time, they recognize that one cannot lead a virtuous life without choosing to follow through on their ideas about what is virtue. In short, they work very hard at living their lives in a manner consistent with their firmly-held beliefs.

I’d like to put this in context for some moderates who don’t quite see it this way, and who don’t understand how anybody can get so anxious over cultural issues like abortion. The best way to do this is to create an analog that permits one to see it as through their eyes, and to do this will necessarily require that we propose something as shockingly depraved to moderates as the issue of legalized abortion is to cultural conservatives. Let us imagine that a movement arose to repeal the prohibition on slavery, now enshrined in the Thirteenth Amendment. You wouldn’t stand by for that, and you’d rightly raise Hell over it.

For many cultural conservatives, each day that abortion is permitted under law is a day of life in Hell on Earth, writ large by the silence in which it takes place. When they see a woman walking toward that clinic, they see a crime against humanity every bit as severe and morally depraved. Understand that I’m not trying to change your mind about the issue, but instead, I’m merely suggesting that you consider the impact. How would you feel as you watched your country return to slavery? To people of faith, who believe each human life has unique, inherent value, what legal abortion permits is every bit as obnoxious to liberty and justice, and the rights of people.

It has been stated that strong cultural conservatives cannot win the election, but let me state to the knowing of the world: This is a dastardly lie. Ronald Reagan was unabashedly pro-life. Both George the elder and the younger claimed to be pro-life. It is fair to say that without this position, there is a fair chance that the younger would have lost in Florida, and thus the election of 2000. Moderates can pretend to themselves that the cause for a significant vote against Republicans originate with cultural issues, but none of the available evidence really supports that. Yes, there are a few at the margins of the moderate middle who can be swayed a little either way, but in most elections, this is not the driving issue, and you must understand that for any competent candidate, this will not be the most important set of issues in 2012.

Cultural conservatives don’t expect moderates to lead with cultural issues as their standard, but they do expect that when a Republican president arrives in office, at each opportunity to replace a federal judge, it will be one who views such matters in the context of a strict constructionist. As I see it, it’s not too much to ask, and if you happen to be a particular fan of that ludicrous ruling in the case of Roe v. Wade, you have other issues, because even if you believe abortion should be legal, Roe v. Wade was the most convoluted, concocted and moronic ruling to issue forth from the court in the 20th century, with only the Kelo decision challenging its blatant idiocy in the 21st.

Moderates who favor abortion have another choice, but they’re playing a game. The game is that they support it, but are unwilling to go through the constitutional amendment process. Why? For the same reason people fear to ever run the New Deal and Great Society programs through a similar constitutional process: They wouldn’t pass. The feminists know it, based on the Equal Rights Amendment, that was eventually doomed by its failure to pass muster before its expiration.

My intention here was not to get into the weeds on any particular issue, and I have discussed abortion particularly since that is the cultural issue most reference. What it is my intention to point out is that moderates who are so consistently uncomfortable with cultural conservatives had better get over it, because the conservatives have been putting up with the moderates patiently in election after election, for the most part, but if the moderates hope to overcome the voters who now begin to outnumber them as beneficiaries of the welfare state, they had better grasp that now more than ever, they need a working coalition with cultural conservatives, and the same old pat on the head may well not be enough any longer.

Tags:Cultural Conservatism, Election 2012, news, politics, Religion, Rick Santorum
Posted in Conservatism, Election 2012, News, Philosophy, Politics, Religion, Rick Santorum | 3 Comments »

Knowing the Difference Between “Can” and “Should”

Sunday, February 19th, 2012

“What can one do?” Clearly, that list is far more extensive than the more important one: “What should one do?” I can this moment walk into my kitchen, find a fork, and jam it into my forehead. I can do all sorts or self-destructive things, but the question isn’t a matter of what I can do, but instead what I should do. Knowing this difference is something we hope to teach to our children with enough clarity and just enough severity that they understand the distinction. It is a lesson far too many seem to forgo on their passage from childhood into adulthood. More often than not, those who do so become annoyed when you point it out. They say in childishly obstinate petulance that “it’s my life(or my body) and I can do what I want.” My question for those who hold this view of life is ever: If nobody doubts that you can do a thing, why do you hold no doubts about whether you should do it? This question is at the root of a deep cultural divide, and it thoroughly explains the collapse of our country.

Governments can do almost anything at all, particularly with the popular support of their people. Does this mean a government should do anything at all? It is not inconceivable that one could form a majority coalition that would demand that we eat the rich. Literally. We can do that, but the question remains: Should we? We could create any number of similar political majorities that would propose equally obnoxious ideas, and seek to implement them in law. Should we? Great disasters in human death tolls made by other men have been carried out on the basis of the idea that since a thing can be accomplished, that it necessarily should be done, but the truth is that ‘should’ doesn’t necessarily follow ‘can.’

Our constitution laid out fairly well-defined parameters for what government can do, but more importantly, our framers laid out well-debated conclusions about what our government should do. Their example was seen in the first few administrations, during which time government did do very little. Over time, this tendency to forget “should” and begin implementing “can” eventually gave us a government that is doing almost all it conceivably can, but does very poorly at the few things it should. Defense? Obama is slashing that, including our critical nuclear deterrence capacity. Law enforcement? That’s not something on which he spends a great deal of effort, although regulatory enforcement is now off the hook, with federal inspectors actually looking through pre-schoolers’ lunch bags.

The litany of things government can do is exhausting, and in fact, virtually infinite. Governments can compel people to buy health insurance, or pay for their neighbors’ lunches, or almost anything you can imagine. The things governments will do is supposed to be restrained, however, by the notions of what it should do, because in deciding what it should do, you’re also defining what it should not. That was the point of the founders, and the limited government they designed told us what government should do, and in so framing it, they also made clear what government shouldn’t do. Yes, they took the time to include a few things that government mustn’t do, but under the auspices of expanding what it can do, they’re now ignoring these limits too. The proposition that government can require insurers to provide free contraceptive solutions comes at the expense of a thing government mustn’t do, which is to interfere in the matters of exercise of religion.

This is what you ultimately find when you consider only the question of what government can do, because it no longer pays respects to the limitations formerly provided by the things it should not do, or must not do. “Should” is a matter of some debate, but it is one leftists seek to avoid. If you want simple proof of concept, I ask you only to think back to 2008, when Barack Obama was seeking the office of President, promising hope and change. He spoke at length about the things that he would do as President, and in rallying his mind-numbed disciples, he exhorted them with cries of “Yes, we can!”

What Senator Obama did not say was: “Yes, we should.”

Tags:Can, Election 2012, news, Obama, Philosophy, politics, Should, Statism
Posted in Barack Obama, Conservatism, Election 2012, Idiotic Politicians, News, Philosophy, Politics | 3 Comments »

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