Constitutionally speaking
Sunday, February 21, 2010
We don’t NEED another “Contract With America”
In case those politicians looking to continue looting the public treasury have forgotten, we already HAVE a contract with our government.
Maybe I should have said “We The People” have a Contract.
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
We chose to define the government in terms of the very few things it was supposed to do
- defend against foreign invasion and domestic insurrection
- maintain the means for public travel, trade and communications
- print and protect the public currency
- control communication and trade with other nations, including diplomatic interaction
- to establish the inferior court systems
I’ve lumped a few together, for ease of understanding, but that’s pretty much it
They had many things that the Federal Government was NOT allowed to do:
- interfere with trade between the States (including being forbidden to tax interstate transactions)
- interfere with Habeus Corpus except in extreme emergencies
- pass a law to punish a previously legal act, after the fact (ex post facto)
- pass a Title of Nobility for any American citizen
The rest of it is designed to reinforce the message that the Federal Government needs to leave the common person ALONE. There are several levels of government below the Federal that can pass laws against harming your fellow man and setting the penalties for doing so - State, county and city level. The Founders knew that there would be differing opinions on many major issues that would arise from time to time, and they wanted to give the lower levels of Government the right to decide such measures at the lowest levels possible.
In essence, they turned the 13 colonies into separate laboratories to try different conditions and see what happened. If one set of conditions worked better and more efficiently than the others, the citizens could choose to “vote with their feet”, if seeking to make local changes to match the more efficient conditions don’t work, for whatever reason.
But, as P.J. O’Rourke once said, “The U.S. Constitution is less than a quarter the length of the owner’s manual for a 1998 Toyota Camry, and yet it has managed to keep 300 million of the world’s most unruly, passionate and energetic people safe, prosperous and free.”
We don’t need another one. Let’s try using the one we have…
Wednesday, February 03, 2010
Something else Barry will blame on Bush
There is something that I hadn’t thought about before reading this story, so all credit goes to Ace and James Taranto for the original concept.
Remember how Libtards were accusing Bush of “destroying the Constitution” with his War on Terror, since evolved into a “Police Action Against Man-Caused Disasters”?
Well, they got it exactly 180 degrees wrong. As usual. (If they were merely stupid, the laws of Probability state that they would be on the right side of issues more often. Their choices are deliberate.)
I’m just going to tease…
Obama, by refusing to admit any difference between trials of war criminal illegal combatants and citizen criminals, is accomplishing not one but two despicable outcomes.
The outcome he intends is to treat illegal combatants more sweetly and gently.
The outcome he doesn’t intend—but which he is engendering anyhow—is to treat citizen suspects with less constitutional rights than they’ve ever had in history.
Few judges will, say, demand that KSM be released into the public a free man due to the serious constitutional violations the government inflicted on him. Violations, that is, if you postulate from the outset he had full constitutional rights of a citizen criminal. If you don’t postulate that—if you postulate he was owed a lesser standard due to the fact he was an illegal combatant—then there weren’t any violations (or at least far fewer).
Now, if a judge won’t spring KSM for waterboarding—surely a “shock the conscience” bit of coercion if performed in a police station house—then a judge must necessarily bless it as permissible for a run-of-the-mill US citizen suspect, because that is, of course, [how] Obama categorizes KSM.
Assuming the judge does not want immediate calls for his impeachment, he will find some nonsense explanation as to why it’s okay to waterboard run-of-the-mill citizen suspects in some (rare) situations. Now, I don’t know if any judges will actually follow that precedent, but that precedent will be on the books. In some cases—the law is never very precise about what these cases are—it’s permissible for interrogators to strap a citizen suspect to a board and drip water into his mouth until he squeals about his confederates.
and
The point is: Either the government has the power to do something to a suspect or it does not. Either the Constitution forbids a certain practice or it does not.
Bush, the supposed idiot, established a bright-line distinction between citizen suspects and illegal combatants. Bush, the fascist cretin who couldn’t pronounce “nuclear,” set up an analytical structure wherein it was clear that citizen suspects were owed the full panoply of constitutional protections, and only terrorist illegal combatants were to be treated with lesser protections.
But Obama the Genius With the Nicely Creased Trousers has created a system wherein Mad Maxipad is sorta like me, as far as the law goes, and I, unfortunately, am sorta like him.
And instead of there being a bright-line distinction between us, I sort of have to trust that the Obama Administration will be restrained by its own conscience and judgment, because there isn’t any strong paper command about this any longer.
And how are they doing so far?
Well, gee: If Breitbart’s reportage is true, James O’Keefe was denied a lawyer for a full 28 hours.
Boy I sure feel a lot fucking safer knowing that my government is ready to treat me like a terrorist because they are too afraid to treat the actual fucking terrorists like terrorists. And maybe someone should point out to the “Constitutional Law Professor” that the Constitution is a contract, between the Federal Government and “We The People of the United States of America”. Nothing mentions citizens of other nations, nor those who are waging war against the US.
But Barry, in his zeal to let them Get Out Of Jail Free and back to killing Americans and other infidels, wants all of them released from Gitmo, and granted each and every one of the Constitutional protections that the Islamists are trying to take away from us (as a part of the process of converting to Shari’a Law under the Global Caliphate). Well done, Barry, you fucking moron.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
You. Have. GOT.
To. Be. Fucking. Kidding. Me.
Obama is now “open to the idea” of a newspaper bailout.
Just as when the “bailout” of GM suddenly meant that taxpayers (well, they supply the money, anyway) own voting control, any taxpayer bailout of a newspaper would result in the de jure ownership of whatever news media is bailed out, whether or not it is suddenly a “nonprofit”. (Hey, you fucking moron, the whole PROBLEM is that they are not making any profits.) Would advertisers suddenly be making tax-deductible donations?
I realize that Obama is no more a Constitutional Lawyer than he is a Governmental Executive (regardless of what his current title may be - calling a chair a cow does not mean that it is true), but you would think that somebody who works for him would have at least heard of the First Amendment.
Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press....
First, I have no idea how Congress can write ANY laws requiring that the press - any of it - do ANYTHING without “abridging [their] freedom”.
Second, the whole concept of bailing out failing businesses with taxpayer money is entirely anathema to a free market. I’m sure that the nation’s largest buggy whip manufacturer thought his business was also “too big to fail” when automobiles became generally affordable, but when it became no longer profitable to sell large quantities of buggy whips, those employees became available to manufacture other things that were profitable, and to adapt to the changing reality of the times. That is the beauty of allowing a business to fail - it releases scarce resources to be more efficiently used by other companies, while eliminating a drag on the standard of living of the entire community, and maybe even the nation or the world.
But when a failing business - that is hemorrhaging money and losing income - is artificially propped up, all that it does is waste those resources, since the money used to do the propping will never be regained. It is as thoroughly lost as though you had dumped it into a hole, soaked it in lighter fluid and used the flames to illuminate a nighttime beach party - once you finish, all you have are the memories of the money you once had.
That money could have been more efficiently used by the taxpayers to power the economy, rather than in increased tax money that was ultimately wasted. And believe me, the Government is already wasting enough money.
Third, the fact that they will be doing what they can to use MY tax dollars to prop up the very same businesses that are bending their efforts to support the current political leadership proves that they are violating MY rights to freely associate. I do not choose to support the Left Wing Media with my money, but the Government is taking away that right to choose which businesses I wish to support, with no control over how that money is being used.
Fourth, when is it going to stop? Government taking over the educational system, banks, the auto industry, the arts (with the NEA), health care insurers/providers, and now the media?
What about contractors? When do I get my bailout? Just $15-20K and I’ll be happy. This year, anyway.
Or cops? I’m sure that John Cross and Helo would like a chunk of that pie, too.
What a crock of shit, but I don’t expect anything else from that off-off-off-Broadway understudy cast of HSM suddenly running things in DC.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Un-be-fucking-lievable
"This used to be America!”
“It ain’t no more, okay?”
Obama Thugocracy at work. His administration has dropped all of the charges against the Black Panthers who had already pled guilty in a voter intimidation case. It has intervened in charges against New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson in a “Pay for Play” corruption scandal. Four white SEIU members beating up a black man selling “Don’t Tread On Me” flags outside a town hall meeting in St. Louis, yet neither Obama nor any of his race-baiting cronies (Jeremiah “Two Wrongs Make a” Wright, Jesse Jackasson, and Al “Pay Up Sucka” Sharpton, not to mention Shiela Jackson-Lee, Cynthia McKinney, and all the rest) have said a word, because those white men were simply doing Der Won’s bidding ("Get in their faces” and “hit back twice as hard").
He has pissed off the Brits, pissed off the Israelis (only 4% of Israeli Jews think Obama supports Israel), pissed off the Honduran Government, pissed off the Aussies, sucked up to Iranian terrorists, bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia, sucked up to Baby Hugo Chavez and Castro and Kim Jong Il and all the rest, and then tried to blame his policy failures on everyone else (especially Bush).
And now his thugs are deliberately ignoring the Constitution for no other reason than because it suits them to do so?
I’ll tell you this much, though - if he blames ANYTHING on Bush after September 11 of this year, that means that the attacks of 9-11-01 are Clinton’s fault, plain and simple. “Sauce for the Goose” and all that.
“When the politicians ignore the First Amendment, it is time for the People to remember the Second Amendment.”
“The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed - where the government refuses to stand for reelection and silences those who protest; where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one to enforce their decrees. However improbable these contingencies may seem today, facing them unprepared is a mistake a free people get to make only once.”—Justice Alex Kozinski, Ninth Circuit Court, in his dissent to Silveria v Locker
Buck Ofama.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
I wonder how many people would support
the repealing of the 16th and 17th Amendments?
There are two different ways of getting an Amendment to the Constitution ratified - either 1) through the Congress voting it out with 2/3rds majority in both chambers, and getting ratified by 3/4ths of the various State Legislatures; or, 2) a Constitutional Convention (which requires 2/3rds of the State Legislatures to request one), and then have any of its changes and Amendments ratified by that same 3/4 majority.
I cannot understand why the States would have ceded their autonomy by voting to ratify either of those two Amendments.
The 16th is the one that gave the Federal Government the right to tax incomes, which gave it a whole new power to punish individuals and businesses it deemed as “unpopular” (cv, the 100% punitive taxation on bonuses paid under perfectly legal employment contracts, or “windfall profit taxes” on oil companies), or to use the self-contradictory tax codes to punish political enemies (cv Clinton’s use of the IRS tax audit against popular conservative figures).
The current tax code is harder to understand than Bob Dylan reading Finnegans Wake in a wind tunnel.—Dennis Miller
Remember, folks, the initial tax rate was only 1% on taxable net income above $3,000 ($4,000 for married couples), less deductions and exemptions. (It rose to a high of 7% on incomes above $500,000, a veritable fortune a century ago.)
But as Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall wrote in McCulloch v. Maryland, “the power to tax involves the power to destroy”. Every dollar given to the government is one dollar less than can be used to improve the standard of living of the citizens living under that government.
Admittedly, there are necessary functions of government - roads, national protection, fair treatment under the law for all, etc. But, just like any parasite, now that it has been given control of the rate at which it can grow, it will choose to grow unimpeded, looking for ways to justify its size and complexity.
Government does not tax to get the money it needs; government always finds a need for the money it gets.—Ronald Reagan
Add that to the 17th Amendment - taking control of the States away from the actual government of those States and making those races subject to the whims of the populace - and there is now nothing to stop the government from treating the States the same way that the States treat the county governments - as an essentially unnecessary level of bureaucracy.
The Federal Government was supposed to be a unifying force between the various States, who were independent and sovereign unto themselves. It guaranteed rights throughout its coverage, so that if you had the right to vote in one State, you couldn’t be denied the right to vote in any of the other States. Each State would get to pass its own laws on anything not specifically mentioned in the Constitution, such as marriage laws, licensing of various occupations, educational standards, speed limits, etc., etc. And if a person living in (say) Nebraska didn’t like the laws prohibiting him from hiring a prostitute, he could go to one of the other States where such things were legal (such as Nevada). If he didn’t like the schools teaching his kids about Intelligent Design, he could move to where such things are kept in Comparative Religion college courses.
The States were supposed to be left as laboratories for Historical comparison, where each State tried out a slightly different system and set-up, and those that worked were kept, while those that didn’t work as well as their neighboring States were scrapped and their neighbor’s ideas adapted and tried out.
Each State had its own government, and the Senate was supposed to be the State’s representation at the Federal level, while the People, Deity bless their grubby little hearts, were represented in the House of Representatives (also known as The People’s House), based entirely on collections of population, without regard to occupation or religion or age or gender or educational level, just groups of people as close to the same number of people as could be managed. That is why Senators are elected for six year terms, and House members are only elected every other year. People will change their minds much more quickly than bureaucracies will.
But when the 17th Amendment was ratified, the States lost that voice, and their moderating influence, in the Federal Government.
Massively expand the size, remove any moderation, and allow the Federal Government to decide what kind of things it will get to control, and you have what we have today, where the Federal Government is now trying to tell us what kind of light bulbs we are allowed to put in the lamps in our homes.
That kind of intrusiveness would have been met with a suspicious glare and a shotgun a century ago.
Maybe it’s time to tell DC to go fuck themselves.
Friday, July 03, 2009
Are these State-issued IOUs a violation of the Constitution?
“No State shall ... coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts....”
Seems pretty clear to me, but I’m sure the courts would say that I had no standing as a taxpayer to file suit.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
How can Congress vote on a bill that hasn’t even been printed yet?
Seriously, there was an amendment to the latest Job-Killer Energy bill that was fully a fourth the size of the original bill, with lots of “Edit line 11 on page 237 to read” type crap involved, and the bill had not been sent to the various Legislative Leeches before they were required to vote on its final passage.
I think that might be a violation of the Constitution, but since the Supreme Court has long since ruled that simply being a taxpayer does not give one standing to challenge legislation on Constitutional grounds, even if it can be shown that the law under question would negatively impact the one challenging, there is absolutely no recourse we have.
Except one.
Our system is broken. Shattered beyond anything that the Founders could have conceived.
The Legislators no longer feel any affinity towards their constituents, either at the Federal, State or local levels. They are sources of income, not employers.
The Federal Executive Branch only has two positions that are up for any kind of election - POTUS and VPOTUS. They are not the lest bit interested in anything any one individual has to say, but are beholden to party and the various interest groups that are leading the parties around by their short-and-curlies.
The courts feel that their job is no longer to interpret laws according to the Constitution, but to enact social justice, based on extra-national sources. And with a lifetime appointment, there is not a damned thing anyone can do about any of them.
The Constitution has been interpreted to mean that free speech is no longer allowed in the period before elections when it is MOST needed; that private property is only permitted when the government is receiving enough in taxes from the owner; that gun ownership is only permitted to those who don’t bother obeying the laws in the first place; that freedom of religion means that you can never mention religion in public (except for the one religion that demands that its adherents kill the members of every other religion on the planet); and that “cruel and unusual punishment” includes not allowing sex-change operations on the taxpayer’s dime.
“When in the course of human events....”
Better practice your shooting skills, folks. It’s only going to get worse from here.
Tuesday, June 09, 2009
The Constitutional Tripwire
One of my best friends served in the Air Force at about the same time that I was in the Navy, and one of the places he served was in South Korea. He explained to me about how few military members they have along the De-Militarized Zone (DMZ) relative to the estimated threat, and why that is - it is the concept of the Tripwire. For those of you who have seen it in the movies (either military movies or the ones where they have lots of zombies), you will immediately recognize the utility of such a thing.
It is a simple concept - a string or wire stretched across a putatively open gap, with some kind of noisemaker attached (such as a few pebbles in an empty can), so that when the line is crossed, the noise will alert the defenders as to both the breach and the location. It can be as simple as a string, a can and a few pebbles to scare away the neighbor’s goat or as complicated as infrared and motion detectors with low-light level cameras and armed security responders with STK authorization.
The tripwire is not a defense, it is a deterrent - it is supposed to warn the encroaching forces that they have gone far enough and that any further advance will be met with much larger - and much deadlier - forces.
We have the same thing in our Constitution, and it is the Second Amendment.
Our Founders had just spent years of their lives and much of their personal fortunes getting rid of an oppressive government, and they recognized that the results of their efforts would not last forever, so they wanted to make sure that their descendants would be able to make the same decision, so they included a means for the People to take back control of their country from the men who thought that their elections were actually coronations.
Not only is the Second Amendment the one that protects all of the others, it is also the tripwire that warns of a much larger encroachment, requiring the response of those willing to defend that particular hilltop.
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.
People make much of the part about the Militia, ignoring two important things, one a flaw in logic, the other a flaw in definition.
The first is a flaw in logic, because they are ignoring some basic parts of sentence diagramming. That first clause - “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State...” - is what is known as a ”dependent clause”, and it cannot stand alone, but is intended to eatablish the basis for the independent clause of the sentence.
An example would be “Because Jimmy’s favorite flavor of ice cream is strawberry...”. It establishes a likely reason for the action described in the independent clause ("… his mother made sure she had some ready for his birthday party."), but not necessarily the only reason. Another reason is that perhaps everyone in the family also likes strawberry, or that it had been on sale, or other reasons, any one of which might be sufficient to explain the motive behind the action (buying strawberry ice cream). The independent clause “...the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed” can and should stand alone.
The second error lies in that of not being able to describe exactly what defines a member of a Militia. According to Federal Law, every able-bodied male between the ages of 18 and 45 is considered a member of the Militia, and the word has never been defined anywhere else that I can find, so that is the definition used in American Law.
The need for the States to be able to defend themselves via their various Militias is more than enough reason to make sure that everyone had the right to own and carry whatever weapons may be necessary to defend themselves against the various threats that the average citizen might come into contact with during his day (or night). There were highwaymen (seeking to redistribute the wealth), hostile natives (especially along the frontier), angry fauna or whatever. Just because the threat has shifted slightly with the times doesn’t mean that people don’t still run into muggers (seeking to redistribute the wealth), hostile natives (especially along La Frontera), angry former employees seeking their 15 minutes by shooting up someplace where guns are forbidden, or whatever.
The attempt by the government to take that power away is nothing more than an attempt to take away that tripwire. The police not only cannot protect you, they are under precisely ZERO legal responsibility to do so.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
The Congress shall have Power
To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;
I say we let our more inventive and adventurous citizens loose on the pirates using these Letters of Marque and Reprisal. It’s a win-win, since the actions won’t be against a specific nation, but the lawless asshats who have been running rampant in a major shipping lane, and the Gummint can take a share (in the form of taxes)
Fighting fire with fire, so to speak, and perfectly legal.
What say you all? Any of you buckos want to sign aboard the Pirate Ship ‘Da Missus’? Hardtack and Grog, a (small) share of the booty, and you don’t even have to see a parrot.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Directive 10-289
I pointed out how I, as a small business owner, am also John Galt. Since we now have Barney “Fannie Mac” Fwank proclaiming that the Government would get to decide the pay and entitlements of many thousands of employees of any company that took taxpayer funds, how much more of a push is it until we get to seeing Rand’s Directive 10-289?
The measure is not limited just to those firms that received the largest sums of money, or just to the top 25 or 50 executives of those companies. It applies to all employees of all companies involved, for as long as the government is invested. And it would not only apply going forward, but also retroactively to existing contracts and pay arrangements of institutions that have already received funds.
In addition, the bill gives Geithner the authority to decide what pay is “unreasonable” or “excessive.” And it directs the Treasury Department to come up with a method to evaluate “the performance of the individual executive or employee to whom the payment relates.”
See for yourself how the policies are becoming more and more closely aligned with Rand’s almost prophetic work…
“In the name of the general welfare to protect the people’s security, to achieve full equality and total stability, it is decreed for the duration of the national emergency that-
Point One: All workers, wage earners, and employees of any kind whatsoever shall henceforth be attached to their jobs and shall not leave nor be dismissed nor change employment, under penalty of a term in jail. The penalty shall be determined by the Unification Board, such board to be appointed by the Bureau Of Economic Planning and National Resources. All person reaching the age of twenty-one shall report to the Unification Board, which shall assign them to where, in its opinion, their services will best serve the interests of the nation.
Point Two: All industrial, commercial, manufacturing, and business establishments of any nature whatsoever shall henceforth remain in operation, and the owners of such establishments shall not quit, nor leave, nor retire, nor close, sell or transfer their business, under penalty of the nationalization of their establishment and of any or all their property.
Point Three: All patents and copyrights, pertaining to any devices, inventions, formulas, processes, and works of any nature whatsoever, shall be turned over to the nation as a patriotic emergency gift by means of Gift Certificates to be signed voluntarily by the owners of all such patents and copyrights. The Unification Board shall then license the use of such patents and copyrights to all applicants, equally and without discrimination, for the purpose of elimination monopolistic practices, discarding obsolete products and making the best available to the whole nation. No trademarks, brand names, or copyrighted titles shall be used. Every formerly patented product shall be known by a new name and sold by all manufacturers under the same name, such name to be selected by the Unification Board. All private trademarks and brand names are hereby abolished.
Point Four: No new devices, inventions, products, or goods of any nature whatsoever, not now on the market, shall be produced, invented, manufactured or sold after the date of this directive, The Office of patents and Copyrights is hereby suspended. (Added later in chapter: All “research departments, experimental laboratories, scientific foundations” will be closed except for government-operated facilities.)
Point Five: Every establishment, concern, corporation or person engaged in production of any nature whatsoever shall henceforth produce the same amount of goods per year as is, they or he produced during the Basic Year, no more or no less. The year is to known as the Basic or Yardstick Year is to be the year ending on the date of this directive. Over or under production shall be fined, such fines to be determined by the Unification board.
Point Six: Every person of any age, sex, class or income, shall henceforth spend the same amount of money on the purchase of goods per year as he or she spent during the Basic Year, no more and no less. Over or under purchasing shall be fined, such fines to be determined by the Unification Board.
Point Seven: All wages, prices, salaries, dividends, profits, interest rates and forms of income of any nature whatsoever, shall be frozen at their present figures, as of the date of this directive. (But taxes will be allowed to increase as needed for the public good)
Point Eight: All cases arising from and rules not specifically provided for in this directive, shall be settled and determined by the Unification Board, whose decisions shall be final. ”
Remember that frog in the pot of slowly warming water.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Since when …
... does ANY putatively elected politician, no matter the level of government, have the right to fire an employee, ANY employee, of a privately-owned company? (Even if you call it ”asking him to resign”.)
Anyone out there care to guess how the media and the Left (as though there was a difference) would have reacted if Bush had done this kind of dictatorial act?
Yeah. Me, too. 
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Congress Shall Make No Law
...respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Better memorize it while you can, because not only have key parts of it already gone the way of the dodo, but now we have petty city bureaucrats taking away the right of the citizens to peaceably assemble.
And what reason did they give for denying American citizens the right to get together and express their political opinions? The people didn’t have official permission for them to get together, and were not going to receive that permission. Why? Because there were going to be too many!
Suddenly there are going to be additional requirements, such as high-dollar-value liability insurance (how many anti-war marches showed up with such permits and insurance, I wonder?). However, the petty bureaucrat says that he’ll be glad to give permission for the citizens to exercise their rights once they obey his commandments.
Gee, isn’t that peachy-keen? We can actually get PERMISSION to exercise our Constitutionally-protected rights to assembly and political expression, once we meet the arbitrary standards set by government chair-warmers. See, it was the “more than 500” that touched off the rights being denied. So apparently 499 is okay, but toss in a set of twins or a dating couple who might decide to just show up without an RSVP, or might have been visiting the park on other business and got interested in the largish group, and the cops would be sent in to read them the Riot Act, no doubt.
Too many people pissed off at the government, and the government takes away their rights to tell each other about it.
When politicians forget the First Amendment, it is time for the People to remember the Second.
Friday, March 27, 2009
The More, The Merrier
Or, if not “merry”, at least ”willing to admit that they are fed up”.
(Another tip of the sombrero to Mike for this.)
The United States House of Representatives recently passed a blatantly unconstitutional bill, placing confiscatory tax burdens on anyone making more than $250,000 and working for an institution that received more than 5 billion of TARP funds.
The bill was in theory specifically addressed at the false outrage over retention bonuses paid to AIG executives; and is targeted only to their bonuses.
In theory.
Of course, this would be an unconstitutional bill of attainder, which wouldn’t pass even the most cursory constitutional challenge; so it was re-written to be broader.
Broader of course means more people would be affected, and congress would be given more power to steal more money.
In fact, if you read into the implications of the bill; it could be used to levy a 90% tax on any income over $250,000, earned by any family making more than $250,000 per year, where either spouse is employed by an institution that received federal “bailout” funds.
It appears that the Senate, and the Obama administration are cold on the bill and that it will not pass, or be signed into law if it did.
I do not earn that much money; nor do my wife and I earn that much together (though in the next few years it is entirely possible that we will).
However, I have something important to say.
If congress should pass any such bill, and the president sign any such law, I WILL NOT OBEY IT.
I will not allow congress to tell me how much I can earn. I will not allow them to take my income because of the actions of others. If they attempt to make me do so by force, I will resist with force.
I will most likely die in the process, which I regret; but at some point a line must be drawn. The constitution must be respected, or it is meaningless.
Congress can make no law that is unconstitutional on it’s face. If such a law be passed, it is the duty of the president to repudiate it; and it must not be signed. If such a law is signed, it is the duty of the agents of the government to refuse to enforce it. If the agents of the state attempt to enforce it, then they must be resisted with force, at all costs.
Anything less is submission to tyranny, and the diminution of citizens, to subjects; or worse.
I would have started back with McCain-Feingold and the Kelo decision, two of the most egregious violations of two of our most basic rights - to publicly support a cause and to own property. But everybody has their own lines in the sand.
Where is yours? What cause do you deem important enough to fight for? Is there anything for which you would pledge your life, your fortunes, your sacred honor?
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Good fences make good neighbors
If a fence is accepted between myself and my next-door neighbors, with whom I have fairly good relations, just as a means of making sure that everybody knows exactly where the accepted boundary lines are, why would it not be acceptable between nations?
It’s just a simple thing, too.
When you have the Speaker of the House saying that Illegal Immigrant activists are “very, very patriotic” and that the enforcement of our own immigration laws is “un-American”, and the Justice Department investigating Sheriff Joe Arpaio for daring to look for illegal immigrants from south of the border in heavily Mexican communities (apparently looking for Mexicans in areas predominately populated by Mexicans is somehow “racist” - somewhat like being called “racist” for deciding to look for Danish citizens at the Danish embassy), you have the Government not only NOT seeking to enforce the laws, but actively discouraging such enforcement.
When the people actually hired to execute and enforce the laws refuse to do so, what kind of recourse does the average citizen have?
Congress is now seeking to seize the assets (with an ex post facto Bill of Attainder charging anyone who makes over a fairly low minimum a 90% tax rate) of people who did nothing but negotiate an employment contract in good faith to do a very difficult job in a highly competitive segment of the economy. (If you think that handling the stock market on a day-to-day basis, with millions of people’s money resting on your every decision, is an easy job, I invite you to try.) The right to negotiate a private contract in a fair market is one of the most basic rights mankind has. So is the right to offer one’s services for fair compensation.
When the people can no longer trust the Government to treat them fairly, and to let them treat fairly with each other, what kind of recourse does the average citizen have?
When liberal Democrats whine about the $650 billion that the Iraq War (and subsequent activities) has cost the nation over the last six years, but then dump half again that much into the economy literally overnight for no apparent purpose, what are we to think? By the way, who gets all that cash? The Federal Reserve dumped that trillion dollars into the economy as a means of purchasing its own debt, so who owned the debt?
When the government unilaterally decimates the value of every single piece of currency held by every citizen in the country, what kind of recourse does the average citizen have?
I have a thought…
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
August 29, 2154
The new stimulus package passed by Congress yesterday will be signed into law on Tuesday, while Barry is visiting Denver. (I think he is hoping that the Mint will just open its doors to the general public when he signs it.)
Let’s see how that works out in the terms of real wealth, shall we?
Not a single Republican voted for it in the House. Only three in the Senate. This bill is entirely on the backs of the Democratic party in Congress and the White House. More than 1,100 pages - a stack of paper 8 inches thick.
If you were to be approached like Montgomery Brewster and told that you had to spend a million dollars every day - yet have nothing certifiably yours to show for it - how long would you be able to pull it off? Monty barely managed $30 million in 30 days.
Yet if you were starting such a $1,000,000/day spending spree and needed to spend what the Federal Government just passed, starting on January 1, year 1 Anno Domini, you would be spending that million dollars per day every day until August 29, 2154.
Every day of the centuries-long fall of the Roman Empire.
Every day of the centuries-long Dark Ages that resulted.
Every day of the rise of the Catholic Church.
Every day of the Crusades. Of the Hundred-Years War. Of the march of conquerors through Asia and Europe. The Renaissance and Enlightenment. The discovery of the New World. The ascension of the Colonies, and Revolution. The Industrial Revolution. Civil War. European wars. Two World Wars. A five-decade Cold War. Glasnost and perestroika. The war on terror.
Through the present day. Tick, tick, tick. A million dollars every single day. More money than 99% of the world will ever see - gone. Every day. For more than two millennia. And more than 14 decades into the future, to boot…
In one fell swoop.
*sigh*
And not a single person who voted in favor will admit to having read the whole thing.
Start learning useful skills, people.