Posted on 07/24/2011 4:46:45 PM PDT by Whenifhow
And now for something completely the same… In the “those who won’t learn from history, are doomed to repeat it” department, I give you a quote from the National Center for Constitutional Studies:
"America’s Founders had just declared themselves free of a tyrannical government. They were determined that such tyranny would never be repeated in this land. Their new charter of government – the Constitution – carefully defined the powers delegated to government. The Founders were determined to bind down the administrators of the federal government with Constitutional chains so that abuse of power in any of its branches would be prevented. The revolutionary idea of separation of powers, although unpopular at first, became a means by which this was to be accomplished.
John Adams, in a letter to Dr. Benjamin Rush, stated: “I call you to witness that I was the first member of Congress who ventured to come out in public, as I did in January 1776, in my ‘Thoughts on Government,’ …in favor of a government with three branches, and an independent judiciary…” By the time the Constitution was adopted, the idea was supported by all of the members of the Convention. James Madison, the father of the Constitution, devoted five Federalist Papers (47-51) to an explanation of how the Executive, Legislative, and judicial branches were to be wholly independent of each other, yet bound together through an intricate system of checks and balances. Madison believed that keeping the three branches separated was fundamental to the preservation of liberty. He wrote:
“The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many… may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”
George Washington, in his Farewell Address, reminded Americans of the need to preserve the Founders’ system. He spoke of the “love of power and proneness to abuse it which predominates in the human heart” and warned of the “necessity of reciprocal checks of political power, by dividing and distributing it into different depositories and constituting each the guardian … against invasions by the others.” Of such checks and balances through the separation of powers be concluded, “To preserve them must be as necessary as to institute them.”
And from Harry Truman:
"There is nothing in the world except the history you do not know."
As well as, Alexis deTocqueville:
"History is a gallery of pictures in which there are few originals and many copies."
Americans labor under a failed government and a failed economy. High unemployment, soaring debt, want, need, desperation. Deja Vu comes knocking as our politicians are locked in a battle over our debt ceiling – a battle choreographed and planned for our benefit to accomplish some nefarious end, no doubt. It is the dance of history replaying itself in the fight between freedom and tyranny.
America is bankrupt and Democrats don’t want to cut spending at all. They want to keep spending in a Cloward and Piven frenzy guaranteed to destroy America once and for all. They insist on more revenue, i.e. taxes. Taxes on a suffering American public who can shoulder the burden of taxation no longer; who cannot even feed and clothe their families adequately or scrounge together the needed funds for gas to get to and from work. Does any one else feel like we are being played by both sides? These budget deals are not surpassingly awesome.
The Republicans claim they want to Cut, Cap and Balance the budget. And while I’ll concede there are a number of brave souls who wish to do that, primarily the Tea Party candidates in the House of Representatives, the remainder for the most part in the Senate are far too weak kneed to accomplish the vital objective of a Constitutional Amendment to balance the budget. They now claim to have a two-step plan to come to a bi-partisan agreement with the Progressives on the Left and handle the debt ceiling. But notice, this plan is not on CSPAN. You won’t see it on Fox News. It’s not out in the open. Just vague innuendos from Boehner that we aren’t there yet and that there is a two-step plan based on Cut, Cap and Balance involving a ‘committee.’ It is being cobbled together behind closed doors and in the dark of night.
I would remind people of the Enabling Act of 1933 in Germany. It is eerily similar to what is happening now. In short, with the Enabling Act, the parliament granted the German government additional powers and de facto legalized Hitler’s dictatorship.
And let’s not forget the Communist Party of Soviet Russia and the Politburo.
We are in a similar position. The “Super Congress,” however, is taking the power out of the people’s hands (as delegated to their “representatives”) and placing it into the hands of a few before giving it to an authoritarian.
And there are more and more of the whispers speaking of a Super Congress. Starting Saturday evening, a story came forth from the New York Times that a Super Congress was being touted as a solution to the debt ceiling empasse. Hardly the most reliable source, nevertheless it is being repeated in the Huffington Post and has now been picked up byNewsMax. I pray this is wrong, because it is so unconstitutional as to bring fear into this American’s heart of another revolution and to reverberate the echoes of tyranny rising throughout America.
I ask our politicians, where is the transparency? Since when do Americans get locked out of seeing your ‘plans?’ Plans that will effect each and every one of us in life changing ways. Why don’t you show us what you are proposing? Sunlight is the best disinfectant – bring these talks and plans into the open for all to see.
A Super Congress is not the answer. It is a Progressive/Marxist solution to a problem of their own making and will allow an elite cabal to rule over America with a dictator at the helm. Is this what we have come to? From the Huffington Post:
"This “Super Congress,” composed of members of both chambers and both parties, isn’t mentioned anywhere in the Constitution, but would be granted extraordinary new powers. Under a plan put forth by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and his counterpart Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), legislation to lift the debt ceiling would be accompanied by the creation of a 12-member panel made up of 12 lawmakers — six from each chamber and six from each party.
Legislation approved by the Super Congress — which some on Capitol Hill are calling the “super committee” — would then be fast-tracked through both chambers, where it couldn’t be amended by simple, regular lawmakers, who’d have the ability only to cast an up or down vote. With the weight of both leaderships behind it, a product originated by the Super Congress would have a strong chance of moving through the little Congress and quickly becoming law. A Super Congress would be less accountable than the system that exists today, and would find it easier to strip the public of popular benefits. Negotiators are currently considering cutting the mortgage deduction and tax credits for retirement savings, for instance, extremely popular policies that would be difficult to slice up using the traditional legislative process."
The article goes on to claim that John Boehner is making the Super Congress a defining point in his new proposal to raise the debt ceiling. If true, shame on him and shame on McConnell. We’ve come to expect fascist maneuvering from the Progressives on the Left, but now it would seem the Progressives on the Right are rearing their unconstitutional heads.
The Tea Party and American patriots want and demand that our leaders cut spending and not raise taxes. Do not raise the debt ceiling any more. We don’t want a Super Congress and we don’t want to be a party to your gleeful destruction of the Constitution. Stop floating these Marxist ideas or Americans will surely see you are removed from office for good. Americans will not become subservient to an elite ruling class. We will fight you, you can be sure of that.
There is a good reason that Boehner has not pressed this plan publicly. He would be ripped to shreds by Conservatives over it and he knows it. If this story is true, we are indeed in real trouble folks. Why is this story not everywhere you look? And how much power and money was promised to those that would betray the Tea Party and Americans in general? Inquiring minds really need to know.
Whether this piece of insanity comes to fruition is yet to be seen. I don’t think it will come to pass because it would mean a revolt of the people. However, I still believe there is a very strong chance that Obama will use his Executive Order power using the 14th Amendment as cover to raise the debt ceiling. Looks like this week will be one wild ride…
If this effort to create a Super Congress to distill power into the hands of the few, the elite, the select succeeds, we will indeed have tyranny rising.
Even more so then Albert Nock, Garet Garrett, writing in
1938 lays it out pretty well. R and D are just useless labels that serve only the central government by keeping the populace almost evenly divided...while it has it's own agenda...one which seems to have a lot to do with imperialism and little to do with nationalism.
Not Communist...more fascist, with a corporatist twist to it.
I am a huge fan of John Quincy Adams and I am not saying that Nock was and is considered somewhat of a radical. But like Garet, he was there.
My favorite of Adams is this speech to the U.S. House of Representatives on July 4, 1821, in celebration of American Independence Day.
And now, friends and countrymen, if the wise and learned philosophers of the elder world, the first observers of nutation and aberration, the discoverers of maddening ether and invisible planets, the inventors of Congreve rockets and Shrapnel shells, should find their hearts disposed to enquire what has America done for the benefit of mankind?
Let our answer be this: America, with the same voice which spoke herself into existence as a nation, proclaimed to mankind the inextinguishable rights of human nature, and the only lawful foundations of government. America, in the assembly of nations, since her admission among them, has invariably, though often fruitlessly, held forth to them the hand of honest friendship, of equal freedom, of generous reciprocity.
She has uniformly spoken among them, though often to heedless and often to disdainful ears, the language of equal liberty, of equal justice, and of equal rights.
She has, in the lapse of nearly half a century, without a single exception, respected the independence of other nations while asserting and maintaining her own.
She has abstained from interference in the concerns of others, even when conflict has been for principles to which she clings, as to the last vital drop that visits the heart.
She has seen that probably for centuries to come, all the contests of that Aceldama the European world, will be contests of inveterate power, and emerging right.
Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be.
But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy.
She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all.
She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.
She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example.
She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom.
The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force....
She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit....
[America’s] glory is not dominion, but liberty. Her march is the march of the mind. She has a spear and a shield: but the motto upon her shield is, Freedom, Independence, Peace. This has been her Declaration: this has been, as far as her necessary intercourse with the rest of mankind would permit, her practice.
John Quincy Adams on U.S. Foreign Policy (1821)
Nice.
“If, in the opinion of the people, the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed.” —
George Washington, Farewell Address, 1796
Whatever you want to say this country is...one can no longer consider it a confederation of sovereign States.
The reality is that we have become more a Social Democracy to a great extent. Tilting at windmills is all we do and probably all we can do anymore.
I agree with Professor Ortega y Gasset when he wrote about Americans,
"The unquestioning, determined, even truculent maintenance of the attitude which Professor Ortega y Gasset so admirably describes, is obviously the life and strength of the State; and obviously too, it is now so inveterate and so widespread - one may freely call it universal - that no direct effort could overcome its inveteracy or modify it, and least of all hope to enlighten it.
This attitude can only be sapped and mined by uncountable generations of experience, in a course marked by recurrent calamity of a most appalling character. When once the predominance of this attitude in any given civilization has become inveterate, as so plainly it has become in the civilization of America, all that can be done is to leave it to work its own way out to its appointed end. The philosophic historian may content himself with pointing out and clearly elucidating its consequences, as Professor Ortega y Gasset has done, aware that after this there is no more that one can do. "
Perot was a pro-abort populist demagogue, not a conservative.
He was right about the giant sucking sound.
I question the the sincerity of those who say they oppose the barbaric act of abortion while ignorning politicians who year after year propose laws that would end this terrible practice. Ron Paul is one such politician. Since the religious right see his stance against the drug war as immoral, they ignore his efforts in Congress to change these laws.
Year after year he has proposed a “Sanctity of Life Act” only to find no backing from his fellow Congressman or the leadership of the Moral Majority. The Act still reads thus:
H.R. 2533:
Sanctity of Life Act of 2009
111th Congress
To provide that human life shall be deemed to exist from conception, and for other purposes.
Summary:
Sanctity of Life Act of 2009 - Deems human life to exist from conception, without regard to race, sex, age, health, defect, or condition of dependency and requires that the term “person” include all such human life. Recognizes that each state has authority to protect the lives of unborn children residing in the jurisdiction of that state . Amends the federal judicial code to remove Supreme Court and district court jurisdiction to review cases arising out of any statute, ordinance, rule, regulation, or practice, or any act interpreting such a measure, on the grounds that such measure: (1) protects the rights of human persons between conception and birth; or (2) prohibits, limits, or regulates the performance of abortions or the provision of public funds, facilities, personnel, or other assistance for abortions. Makes this Act and the amendments made by this Act applicable to any case pending on, or commenced on or after, the date of enactment.
Full Text:
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h111-2533
This Act has been presented to the House multiple years in a row and few have even heard of it. Why is that?
"No State shall deprive any person of life without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.""No person shall be deprived of life without due process of law."
To put it simply, Ron Paul is pro-choice for states.
-- Ron Paul, 'Federalizing Social Policy,' January 31, 2006"[W]hile Roe v. Wade is invalid, a federal law banning abortion across all 50 states would be equally invalid."
Some might consider that Roe v Wade came about through due process of law. It had it's day in court. You might not like the outcome but the process was served.
Bad law perhaps...but then so is the Patriot Act.
As far as equal protection? Well no one is prohibited from getting an abortion. The law does not recognize that life exists as a person until some arbitrary gestation period has passed. Once again the Courts claim the ability to make such laws(regulations, in fact) based on the same reading of the commerce clause that allowed the Feds to wage a "drug war" against its own citizens.
"[W]hile Roe v. Wade is invalid, a federal law banning abortion across all 50 states would be equally invalid."
And he is right. Nothing in the Constitution gives the Feds or the Courts any power to make such laws. The use of the Commerce Clause or The Necessary and Proper Clause (also known as the Elastic Clause, the Basket Clause, the Coefficient Clause, and the Sweeping Clause)to make such law is imo, a usurption of power by the Central Government.
The first responsibility of all officers of government, at every level, in every branch, is to protect innocent human life.
And there is no longer any shadow of scientific doubt about when the physical existence of the human person begins: at the biological inception or creation of that person.
Other than the supreme right, the right to life, which other unalienable rights of the people do you apply this "logic" to?
You said, “The only way to kill this monster is to cut off its blood supply...money from the taxpayers. There should be some creative ideas how this can be done, but the example of the East Germans in bringing down their Communist masters holds some important clues.”
I would be very interested in learning more about that. Could you elaborate or give me a good reference to read on that?
If you think life is such an absolute unalienable right you should protest at Starke in Fl. or Huntsville in Texas every time a person is executed by the State. We are a war like people. We do not respect life as a first principle. You would have to be blind not to see that.
I myself have never had an abortion nor would I. Of course I am a man.
You go ahead and stand on that hill.
I salute you...but I have my own windmills to tilt at.
A good night to you.
bkmk
This is a tremendous piece of writing.
(( ping ))
This is really good.
Ping for your consideration.
BUMP
BUMP again.
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