Constitution Day - Considering the greatest of all reflections on human nature

What is it that we celebrate today, Constitution Day, but the efforts of our Founding Fathers, 225 years ago, to harness the pursuit of power, and force it to serve the pursuit of happiness?

It is simply the greatest achievement in history, to date, to enable men to live in liberty, with one another, while disagreeing with each other, under the protection of the Rule of Law.

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquillity, 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."

It's worth noting that our Founding Generation found the efforts of the Framers of the Constitution... wanting. They very nearly refused to ratify the document, not because it wasn't an elegant solution to harnessing power, but because they felt it didn't go far enough in securing our Individual Rights. But, in the end, they took a risk, that politicians could be trusted to provide the lacking Bill of Rights afterwards, and though they almost reneged, James Madison insisted that their word be kept, and though he disliked the idea of a Bill of Rights, he submitted a series of amendments which, after vigorous debate, became the original Ten Amendments to the Constitution that we know of as the Bill of Rights, amended to the Constitution for the purpose of restraining the power which the Constitution harnessed into the hands of men:

"Begun and held at the City of New York, on Wednesday, the 4th of March, 1789.
The conventions of a number of the states having, at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added; and as extending the ground of public confidence in the government will best insure the beneficent ends of its institution;--"

Madison didn't dislike the idea of a Bill of Rights because he didn't want to secure our Rights, but because he feared that any list of Rights, in the hands of politicians, would serve as snares and loopholes to all our Rights, limiting them to only those words written upon parchment. But in the process of writing his amendments, he hit upon the ideas that would become our 9th and 10th Amendments, reserving all those Rights and Powers not listed, to the people and those powers not listed, to the states.

And now we are engaged in an elections, an election, "testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure." If you have not considered what rests at the core of our Constitution, the balancing of powers against powers, forcing ambition to serve liberty... not an easy task. As Madison put it in Federalist #51:

"But the great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department, consists in giving to those who administer each department the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachments of the others. The provision for defense must in this, as in all other cases, be made commensurate to the danger of attack..Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place. It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions."

Coming into this election, forget about the personalities of Obama & Romney, and look at what they propose... look especially hard at what Obama's administration and his Regulatory Czars are proposing. Consider whether or not a federal agency that can arbitrarily decree that Americans must purchase no less than four gallons of gasoline; consider whether or not that power is balanced against anything at all, so as to serve your liberty - or to extinguish it.

Our Constitution was devised so as to put Government at the service of your ability to live your own life. Is it still serving that function, or imperiling it? That's a question you'd better consider, and  cast your vote upon, because it will determine the direction of this government turns towards, or forever away from, enabling you, your children and your children's children, to live their own lives - or not.

DOTUS Obama 2012: Making Carter 1979 look fierce - An utter and complete disgrace

The DOTUS (Disgrace of the United States of America) had the temerity to say of Mitt Romney that he

"seems to have a tendency to shoot first and aim later."

An amazing thing to say, from the person who has shown himself to aim, but not shoot (recall the almost Iranian revolution), and his habit of shooting without ever aiming (his abandonment of Egyptian President Mubarek and losing Egypt as an ally of America), and his preference to simply hand the gun over to others to shoot for him (putting our military under the command of NATO, to overthrow Libyan President Khadaffy), and far beyond a mere slip of the lip, his actions, inaction's and failure to act, has resulted in a dead United States Ambassador and three other personnel.

I don't have too much to say myself, this administration in particular and the Democrat party in general, they are an utter and complete disgrace. Your memory doesn't even have to be tested. Recall Hillary Clinton, after the unjustifiable and ill-advised lending our military personal to NATO to overthrow our tame monster in Libya, chortled about the death of Kadaffy:

"We came, we saw, he died! (hahaha!)"

Aside from the complete lack of common sense, which kept the Obama administration for even suspecting that it might not be a good idea in a nation of savages, that if you overthrow their brutal leader, who at least kept them under control and kept the even more brutal Al Queda at bay, that disaster was very likely going to follow. But even worse than that lack of forethought, it appears that they had ample warning of the violence to come,

"But according to the Independent, she had no reason to be puzzled. Quoting senior diplomatic sources, the paper reports, “the US State Department had credible information 48 hours before mobs charged the consulate in Benghazi, and the embassy in Cairo, that American missions may be targeted.” Nonetheless, “no warnings were given for diplomats to go on high alert and ‘lockdown,’ under which movement is severely restricted.” "

Hillary Clinton on the disaster in Libya, the death of a U.S. Ambassador and three personnel, had the friggin' gall to ask

"Today many Americans are asking, indeed I asked myself, 'How could this happen? How could this happen in a country we helped liberate? In a city we helped save from destruction?'" Clinton asked. "

The Russian's perhaps summed this up best,

"Aleksei K. Pushkov, the head of Russia’s parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee, wrote via Twitter: “Under Qaddafi they didn’t kill diplomats. Obama and Clinton are in shock? What did they expect – ‘Democracy?’ Even bigger surprises await them in Syria.”"

Which is particularly fitting, given that the DNC Convention, in a tribute to American Veterans, displayed in 50 foot tall screens across the stage and to the nation, Russian warships! In a salute to US vets!

 And let's not forget about DNC Convention chairman, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, blatantly lying to your own convention and the entire nation with:

"In the opinion of the chair, two-thirds have voted in the affirmative"

But as almost comical the immorality and incompetence of our DOTUS Obama, and seemingly the entire Democrat party are, it goes far beyond being embarrassing, their actions are having real consequences, ones that are spreading destruction and destabilization around the world.


The entire Democrat party is an utter and complete disgrace.

The 9/11 Copybook Heading

There's no doubt that we will remember 9/11 for quite some time to come, but what we remember and why, is far less certain.

More than remembering where I was 11 years ago, I remember how we got there. By denying the reality of what we faced in the World Trade Center bombing, the hijacking of airliners and cruise ships, the bombing of our interests around the world and of the USS Cole, by refusing to deal with evil as is required, evil strolled up and gave us a hug on 9/11, 11 years ago.

Have we learned the lesson? I don't even need to turn on the News to know that the answer is: Not even close.

The cost has been, and no doubt will again be, the likes of 9/11, as the Gods of the Copybook Headings limp up to explain it once more... reasoning with those who are unreasonable, giving measured responses in reply to savagery, enables the evil to harm the good. Remember this 9/11, that 'measured responses' are why those who attacked us on 9/11, 11 years ago, were still alive and able to attack us - the fruition of a decade worth of 'measured responses'.

Leftists deny the existence of Evil, and 'Conservatives' deny the necessity of dealing with evil as the evil that they are. Fearing that Just retribution brings us 'down to their level', they insist on 'reasonable' and 'measured' responses, blind to the fact that such measures extend a hand up to evil, which it will use to reach up and hammer you in the face - the face they never could have reached without the aid of those 'measured responses'.

Conservatives like O'Reilly are the reason why I'm uncomfortable calling myself a Conservative. For conversations sake, I use the term as a shorthand, half-step towards the more accurate term, Classical Liberal. And I have a holy hell full of spite for the ProRegressive Leftists who have made it necessary to tack 'Classical' onto that.

If the policy of the interviewee in this video, Leonard Peikoff, had been followed back in 2001, I believe we'd have been done worrying about Iran & the Middle East a decade ago. Instead, we followed the lead of dunderheads like O'Reilly, whose 'measured responses' have drawn the conflict out, strengthened Iran and put us in the position we are in today.

A proper foreign policy is "Mind your own business & we'll mind ours. Mess with us or ours, and we'll destroy you. Period."

Anything less, reasoning with those who are unreasonable, giving measured responses in reply to savagery, etc., are concessions and only serve to enable those who wish us harm. The history of the last couple decades is that of those who wish us harm, understanding this truth, and understanding that we don't understand it, and using it to play us to their benefit.

And the cost has been, and will be, the likes of 9/11, as once again, as the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more:

AS I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

Please, try to remember 9/11 as the lesson we won't have to learn once more.

Reality will not be denied, and Evil will not be turned aside because you choose to turn away from it. Deny that, and the Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return. Please. Just face the facts and learn the lesson so we don't have to learn it once more.

DNC: Give us those reins of Govt that you all belong to!

DNC: Give us those reins of Govt that you all belong to!
Well I've got to say thank you to the DNC for finally clearing up a question that has baffled me for years. I've asked people of the leftist persuasion, over and over again, in every way I could think of, how they could support not only a political party, but a philosophy, that is intent on ensuring that you will have only a secondary role in living your own life. How could people possibly support them without seeing that their lives would no longer be their own?

The DNC has finally given me an answer to this troubling question of mine. What was the answer from the DNC?

"So? What's the problem with that? You do belong to the government. Really."

And please, leftists, those of you bristling at how I worded that... hold your objections for a few more lines, and then see if you really want to argue the point.

The video introduced at the beginning of the DNC, was written, prepared, edited, reviewed by the local Democratic committee, and then approved of by the Democratic National Committee, as being representative of their views and recorded in voice over by the Democratic Mayor of Charlotte. It states:

"We do believe that we can use government in a good way. Government is the only thing we all belong to."

That was a planned, scripted, edited and approved of statement that was selected to acquaint the American people with the Democrat Party and to convey 'Who they are', and it was considered entirely uncontroversial by democrats, large and small. It only received some attention (aka thrown under the bus) as Americans caught wind of it the next day:

Embarrassed Obama campaign staffers were compelled to disavow the video after Mitt Romney gave the one and only true American response, via Twitter: “We don’t belong to government, the government belongs to us.”

“The video in question was produced and paid for by the host committee of the city of Charlotte,” sniffed an anonymous Obama for America official, quoted at Buzzfeed. “It’s neither an OFA nor a DNC video, despite what the Romney campaign is claiming. It’s time for them to find a new target for their faux outrage.”

Wow.

Do you think they just allow any old group to plop down an intro video to be played to the entire convention, not to mention going out through every network news-feed to the entire nation, at the kick off their convention, without careful review? As if they say "Eh, nah, we don't need to review or approve it, just put whatever you want out there, no biggee"? Really?

But in case you really do think that some rogue elements somehow hoodwinked the Public Relations people and the opinion police of those whose opinions do actually matter in the DNC, to the chagrin and offendedness of the party members... have a listen to those attendees to the DNC 2012 convention, as they gave their reactions to the statement. A questioner asks them:

• One of the themes put forth tonight at the convention was "We all belong to the Government.", 'How does it feel to be owned by the government?'

This reply is the least enthusiastic of the conventioneer's replies:

"I think regardless of where you grow up, and regardless of where you live, you're gonna be owned by someone at some point, so I think the American government so far has been a fair government, so I don't necessarily hate that I'm owned by them at this point"

, what is that? Pre-Emptive enslavement? This one is much more representative,

"It feels like one big, happy family, to work, to belong to the government, it feel that way because we're more safer, we should feel that government can help us, can take care of us...."

, as is this,

"It feels great. I support that."

, and this,

"I absolutely agree with that."

It is truly stunning, a view I would have thought more at home in the USSR, Mao's China, or even 1920's Germany, than from key members of one of the two major political parties in the United States of America. I suspect that the Founding Fathers response to the Democrat's claim that "The Government is the only thing we all belong to.", would be something like "We didn't build THAT!" But the Obamacrats reply seems to be that "This is just a feature that comes free with entitlements and a $16 trillion dollar debt - get used to it."

And no, leftie spinsters, they are not looking at "The Government is the only thing we all belong to" in the way that people choose to belong to a club - look at the replies of the people who were questioned in the video! They see themselves as actually belonging to the state, and they see that as not only a good thing, but as a given. And in one dark sense, I suppose that is correct, for when you go so far into debt, $16 trillion dollars worth... there is a sense that your life really does belong to another... but that's nothing to be pleased about.

And yet they are pleased.

I can't tell you how deeply that horrifies me. These are less people who are looking to elect a president, than who are looking to give their lives over to a leader. That's bad news. Bad news for Liberty, bad news for the rule of law, bad news for even the pretence of living your own life.

The Power to choose for you
There is an embarrassment of riches coming out of this convention, and I almost hate to pile on the evidence, but... I'll get over it. One jewel in particular lends its shine to the 'We belong!' theme above. When the DNC moved to reinsert language in the Democrat Platform, referencing God and of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, to forestall a firestorm that someone belatedly realized 'might' follow their having been taken out, it caused a firestorm all it's own.

The details are as the L.A. Times puts it:

"Four years ago, the Democrats included the word God in their official platform, writing, "“We need a government that stands up for the hopes, values, and interests of working people, and gives everyone willing to work hard the chance to make the most of their God-given potential.” That line was originally omitted from the 2012 document and reinserted Wednesday night. “As an ordained United Methodist minister, I am here to attest and affirm that our faith and belief in God is central to the American story, and informs the values we've expressed in our party's platform,” Strickland said in introducing the amendments. “In addition, President Obama recognizes Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and our party's platform should as well.""

, and seeking to fix that, it fell to DNC Convention chairman, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, to dispense with the formality of a voice vote of delegates, in compliance with the script on his teleprompter. As the hapless mayor goes about reading the teleprompter script, the cognitive dissonance he experiences between reading "Two-thirds majority" from the teleprompter, and the 50-50 split his lying ears were presenting him with, is just too much for him. He valiantly tries reading "In the opinion of the..." and stops. The break between what the teleprompter tells him is real, and the reality plainly on display before him - and to the nation via T.V. - is just too great.

He tries it again. But again it is clearly at least a 50-50 split, with maybe even a tad more vocal voice to the nay side. His face is priceless. "This can't be!" his expression says, and he stammers a moment, looks about for help, finds none, and then tries it again, but he's still not getting the response his script tells him he should be getting. A lady standing on the platform near him can be heard saying "you gotta let them do what their gonna do", which seemingly snaps him out of it, he knows he can't allow that to happen, so he once again repeats the 'All those in favor, all opposed" line, but this time, though still clearly getting the same 50-50 split, he follows the teleprompters orders to follow the script, and says "In the opinion of the chair, two-thirds have voted in the affirmative", and simply disregards the irate boos of those who know he is lying; lying to them and to the nation.

Ladies and Gentlemen: This is what Democracy looks like! And it always has. Demagogues,and power brokers who manage to get put into power by "The will of the People!", do to the people, whatever it is that they think would be best, in their opinion, to done unto them, or as Rousseau put it, with such ignorant people ,

"This means nothing less than that he will be forced to be free"

That is what the true meaning of "We do believe that we can use government in a good way" is!

If you have any lingering doubts, look at the people in the video loudly voicing their "Nay!" votes. They are angry. And they almost seem surprised. But they aren't. They know that this is, and always was, a sham.

I'm certainly not surprised.

It is the logical end result of believing that Reality is what you wish it to be, that 'Man is the measure of all things', that Rights come from the state. Ladies and Gents, if that is your premise, then of course those people who you have put into power over you, are going to measure out whatever measure of reality they feel you are capable of managing, in the role they have determined would be best for you to play, for them. For the greater good. Of course.

But what I wasn't prepared for, was the fact that so many people not only have realized the implications of this train of thought, but who are not revolted by it... that is so incredibly disturbing and as an American (as defined by ideas rather than birth) disheartening.

The Change that remains the same
Despite claims of Progress and moving Forward!, this is not a new argument. In Plato's Republic, Thrasymacus, the father of "Might makes Right!", made that very point, very clearly and very early on, that

"Listen, then, he said; I proclaim that justice is nothing else than, the interest of the stronger. "

, and neither Plato's gyrations through the Republic to make Justice out to be those ideas that the enlightened ones say it is, or to be those things that an individual dictator desires, or to be the views of the mob, er, democracy, clamoring that Justice is whatever the majority say it is - it is all the of the same kind, and the ultimate meaning of it is that

'You all belong to us, give thanks to us as we proceed to do good unto you.'

That IS the meaning of "We do believe that we can use government in a good way. Government is the only thing we all belong to.""

It was its meaning 2,500 years ago, and it is its meaning today.

It is the meaning behind the Obama administration's HHS saying that "You will pay for birth control", and behind the meaning of "under my plan of cap and trade system... electricity rates will necessarily skyrocket", it is in the nature of the assumption that a crazed mass murderer 'must be!' a Tea Partier, while a Muslim Terrorist in the Army is simply a work place shooting. It is the meaning of the POTUS having effectively nationalized GM, installed not one, but two CEO's, stomped upon the claims of bondholders, mandated the sale of privately owned businesses (remember the GM dealerships the Obama administration stole and spread around to friends?).

This all comes from discarding what is real and true, for what you wish were real and true - that is the ultimate meaning and result of 'man is the measure of all things', or as Barack Obama put it:

...Falsani: Do you believe in sin?
Obama: Yes.
Falsani: What is sin?
Obama: Being out of alignment with my values.

Have you ever found a pithier summary of the narcissistic core of today’s “progressive” Left-liberal ideology? I’m not sure I have...

When you make man the measure of all things, you can no longer turn to reality for a standard to measure their judgment against. That gives absolute power to men, and absolute power corrupts, absolutely.

There is no Progress in Regress
What I wish I could point out to all those who are buying into this, is that far from moving our society forward, this is moving us all as backwards in time as it is possible to go. It took some 2,500 years, from defining the question of whether it was Just for people to belong to the state, or not, back in ancient Athens, to some 200 years ago, to reach the ultimate response and refutation of that idea, in our Founding Father's era. The Declaration of Independence sums it up well:

"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."

The long line of thought that runs from Socrates, through Thucydides, Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Aquinas, Locke, reached its high water mark in history with a nation founded upon the idea that Individuals had the right to live their own lives, and governments were instituted to preserve their liberty to do just that.

That was true Progress.

But you cannot make progress by reversing that development. You cannot make progress by diminishing the power of the individual in favor of increasing the power of the state over them. Yet that is what the left is intent upon doing.

Harry Reid says that Obama has saved jobs, and 'invested' in America, but that is Not government's role, or even within its ability to do so, and when it takes the power upon itself to attempt it, it takes our money and gives it to those who they want to, they do not do so as a venture capitalist would, with a cautious eye to returning a profit on your investment, with an eye towards the betterment of investor, business owner, and customers alike. Instead, Govt behaves as only a Crony Capitalist would dare venture to, with an eye to bestowing favors, enhancing political power, and gaining favor in the voters eye, which is the bane of our nation's Capital, and of the  remaining capital in our wallets.

Michelle Obama said last night that Barack knows the importance of the hard thing to do... while saying that a strong part of his 'signature achievement' is enabling (aka: Govt.forcing insurance providers to do good) 'kids' to live on their parents insurance to 26 years of age? That's the hard thing to do? And also 'enabling' (ditto) that woman should get free recreational sex pills in their insurance package, even if it goes against not only your own choice in the matter, but even against your religious beliefs - that's the hard thing to do? Using power to flatter your pet preferences without regard to the opinion and rights of those who disagree? That's hard?

Michelle Obama said that 'Being president doesn't change who you are, it reveals who you are' which is something I entirely agree with. And in the 'You didn't build that!' world of Barack Obama, he is an Empty Chair for the 100+ year old, stale, musty, ideas of Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. And those Wilsonian ideals which were posing as moving Forward! over a century ago, they are in fact are examples of sliding us backwards towards a world of crowns and scepters, of Rulers and the ruled.

In pulling us back from the brink of that ProRegressive nightmare a century ago, President Coolidge saw things quite differently from our current POTUS. Coolidge said,

About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful. It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But that reasoning can not be applied to this great charter. If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers.

In the development of its institutions America can fairly claim that it has remained true to the principles which were declared 150 years ago. In all the essentials we have achieved an equality which was never possessed by any other people. Even in the less important matter of material possessions we have secured a wider and wider distribution of wealth. The rights of the individual are held sacred and protected by constitutional guaranties, which even the Government itself is bound not to violate. If there is any one thing among us that is established beyond question, it is self government; the right of the people to rule. If there is any failure in respect to any of these principles, it is because there is a failure on the part of individuals to observe them.

What this means is that:

• You can't move Forward! by denying Individuals the Right to live their own lives and while empowering bureaucrats to live your life for you.
• You cannot move Forward! by moving away from a nation of laws, and towards a nation where those in power administer executive orders to benefit their crony capitalist friends.
• You cannot move Forward! by regressing back to a time where Individual Rights are unrecognized by law, giving power to those who flatter the collective desires of the majority at the expense of the rights of individuals.

That is not Progress, that is Regress, and regress most ancient and foul, which is precisely what it means to say that "We can use government in a good way. Government is the only thing we all belong to."

It is because the leftist views you as something which belongs to them, that they are also able to view your 'rights' as conditional benefits which they give to you... on condition of your good behavior. When they say that 'We can use government in a good way', you can easily see what they mean by looking to the friendly neighborhood regulatory agency nearest you, and if you don't know where to look, look in your food, in your house, in your school, in your vehicle, in your job, in your education, in your bank, in your investments, in your entertainment, in your phone, in your internet... they are most certainly there, making, and preventing, choices beyond measure. Get the picture? Making those choices for you, is the means of conditioning your 'good' behavior.

Jonah Goldberg uses a quote to open his new book 'The Tyranny of Cliches: How Liberals Cheat in the War of Ideas', from George Orwell's review of Bertrand Russell's book on the wonders of 'Power!', that fits here,

 "...we have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men."

, which I agree with, and so, yet once again, I'll restate the most obvious point of all, that Karl Marx said:

"the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property."

It doesn't matter if you are a Marxist, or Socialist or Communist, or a Progressive, or on the Left or the RINO Right, if the sum of your ideas boil down to that same fundamental principle, then despite what you call yourself, it will look the same in the end. Because as you lose your say over, your control over, your ownership over, what you typically think of as being yours, such as your food, home, education, car, job, bank, investments, entertainment, phone, internet... you progressively lose your right to live your own life, and you will soon find that others are living it for you.

And once that happens, you will have lost your liberty, and you will belong to those who do possess and control those things which those who once lived their own lives, once owned and controlled, themselves. What it is that you call that political system doesn't matter, what does matter, is that under the power of that government, you will not have the liberty to live your own life. Those who you belong to, will determine how to live your life for you.

As a dear friend of mine, one that I grew up with, and who unfortunately died about a century and a half ago, Frederich Bastiat, said 160 years ago,.

If I had to point out the characteristic trait that differentiates socialism from the science of economics, I should find it here. Socialism includes a countless number of sects. Each one has its own utopia, and we may well say that they are so far from agreement that they wage bitter war upon one another. Between M. Blanc's organized social workshops and M. Proudhon's anarchy, between Fourier's association and M. Cabet's communism, there is certainly all the difference between night and day. What, then, is the common denominator to which all forms of socialism are reducible, and what is the bond that unites them against natural society, or society as planned by Providence? There is none except this: They do not want natural society. What they do want is an artificial society, which has come forth full-grown from the brain of its inventor. It is true that each one desires to play Jupiter to this Minerva; it is true that each one fondly caresses his own invention and dreams of his own social order. But what they have in common is their refusal to recognize in mankind either the motive force that impels men toward the good or the self-healing power that delivers them from evil. They quarrel over who will mold the human clay, but they agree that there is human clay to mold. Mankind is not in their eyes a living and harmonious being endowed by God Himself with the power to progress and to survive, but an inert mass that has been waiting for them to give it feeling and life; human nature is not a subject to be studied, but matter on which to perform experiments.

ProRegressives like to think they're 'New!' & 'Forward!' in their 'thinking', but Bastiat had them pegged 150 yrs ago - "They quarrel over who will mold the human clay, but they agree that there is human clay to mold...." Leftists, Marxists, Socialists, Progressives, Statists, have no forward thinking because they are blind to the past - they aren't progressive but ProRegressive, and they are taking us back to the darkest of dark ages, while calling it progress.

Which I suppose it is, for some - at least for those who would rule over you... because, you know, you belong to them.

Here's your choice this November: Defeat Barack Obama and those who share his ideals, or prepare to have their idea of 'good' done unto you.

Our ECOTUS (Empty Chair Of The United States) shares more than a chair with Karl Marx

Our ECOTUS (Empty Chair Of The United States) shares more with Karl Marx than an admiration for empty chairs, Obama & his Regulatory Czar, Cass Sunstein, share with Karl a desire to do away with private property rights (gradually of course, progressively, don't scare people!, for goodness sake, just start by spreading the wealth around, then requiring govt to approve of private property, etc), isn't that great!

Why is that great? Well, because, as Karl said in chp 2 of his Communist Manifesto:

"In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property. "

See if you can pick out any instances of History Rhyming in these fun facts from Karl's summary of the steps to Utopia:

"We have seen above, that the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class to win the battle of democracy.

The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible.

Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois production; by means of measures, therefore, which appear economically insufficient and untenable, but which, in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the old social order, and are unavoidable as a means of entirely revolutionising the mode of production.

These measures will, of course, be different in different countries.

Nevertheless, in most advanced countries, the following will be pretty generally applicable.

1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal liability of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, &c, &c."

Isn't that great!

By moving gradually, progressively, step by step, the enlightened ones will move "to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State", and it's working pretty well, isn't it?

Not sure? Really? Here, let's count down the steps to our all facing an empty chair:

#10 Dept of Education? Common Core Curriculum? Race To The Top?
#9 Have you ever heard of Sustainability? The Farm Bill? Govt directed Smart Grid? Agenda 21?
#8 EEOC? And what did Obama mean by that " 'we need a civilian national security force" comment? Hmmm.
#7 GM? NLRB? EPA?
#6 FCC? Net Neutrality? Dept of Transportation? FAA? And let's not forget TSA. Remember, baby steps.
#5 The Fed, TARP, Consumer Financial Protection Agency (Yep, that's Fauxchahontas herself, Elizabeth Warren)
#4 If you're finding some reassurance in this, try thinking of emigrants as those with offshore bank accounts, and rebels as... well, have a cup of TEA and think it over.
#3 Death Tax?
#2 Hellooo IRS? The agency charged wtih providing the means of 'Spreading the wealth around'? The Enforcement Agency for the ObamaoCare bill?

... and rounding out the #1 spot, the neatest trick of all... (drumroll please...!)

#1 Regulatory Agencies. These are the means of abolishing private property (and Individual Rights) for various 'Greater Good!' causes. See above for reference.

As these steps are gradually tightened up, locked down and put into place, and as you may find that you are progressively unable to live your own life any longer, and as you may want to go complain to someone about it... you know what you'll be facing in your quest for Justice?

Yep. An Empty Chair.

Now that's moving Forward!