War is not for Nudging

Dear Mr. President, members of Congress and members of the 'global community': Acts of War are not equivalent to really big nudges; the lives and materials of our military are not the means of sending 'messages', and above all else, Acts of War are not predictable and safe tools for the usage of those in power - with or without the benefit of adult supervision.

Last Saturday President Obama, while attempting to sound as presidential as John Kerry did, asked:

"“Here’s my question for every member of Congress and every member of the global community: What message will we send if a dictator can gas hundreds of children to death in plain sight and pay no price?”"

I don't have any messages to send, but I do have two questions that I'd like to ask of the President, every member of Congress and every member of the global community (I assume that includes my fellow Americans)

• The lesser question is this: What message do we send to dictators, when we allow them to machine gun to death tens of thousands of their own men, women & children, but threaten them with 'limited strikes' should they use scary weapons to kill 'just' a thousand of them?
• But the greater question is: What message do we send to the world, when we tell the dictators of the world that we consider them worthy of sitting down and talking to, as did President Obama? When we have dinner with them, as did then Sen. John Kerry? When we call them reformers, as did then Sec. of State Clinton?

Someone should tell the President and his co-horts that the 'message you send' when you are scurrying around this way and that sending messages, is unlikely to be the same message that you might have thought you were sending.

The messages that are sent in such ways, are nothing like those coming from someone whose actions conform to those proven principles which they deeply and truly believe in - not even if you are really good at mimicking their mannerisms and verbal inflections. A principled person, a person of character, a George Washington for instance, doesn't simply send out a stream of useful messages in futile attempts to influence people's behavior. Instead, because his actions are integrated around what is true, cohesive, consistent, his every move, from that of acknowledging and giving thanks to everyone from the lowliest messenger to a royal ambassador alike, or in leading a battle from the front, sends a single message from multiple perspectives which are felt like low rolling thunder in the souls of those who receive them. Cumulatively, the message which the actions of such a person send, can have the effect of pulling an entire people through the tumult of revolution and even on to the reformation of their nation.

But such a person, such a character, is the product of a life rooted in a love and regard for what is true, and driven through principles which correspond with knowledge and experience - what being Educated once meant - in order for their actions to best conform to their thoughts. Their words and actions are not staged, but are deeply lived out. Such a person is marked and recognizable.

That, however, is not the point of view of our modern ProRegressives, such as McCain, Obama, Clinton & Kerry. Their pragmatic approach isn't driven from within, but instead acts from without, attempting to nudge the behavior of this person or that, through actions which they assume will cause them to behave 'more rightly'. . Such a person is also marked and easily recognizable... and best avoided.

Such behaviorists can be seen enthusiastically practicing one politically correct action after another in an effort to modify peoples behavior - 'reaching out' and 'raising consciousness' - in our schools, in our prisons, and in capital cities around the globe. Sadly, their efforts fail equally to fool the child, just as badly as they fail to fool the criminal or the dictator. To be sure, the sharper ones will gleefully take advantage of such efforts, like savvy fish slipping the bait from the hook, but they won't actually nibble, let alone bite.

Unfortunately for U.S., President Obama's entire agenda, from the 1st Lady's school lunch program to the concocted fines and exemptions of ObamaCare, as well as his outstretched hand to the Islamists, they are all founded upon the deterministic notions of govt approved elites who feel they know best what's best for you, and who feel entitled to nudging other people into 'improved' behaviors. And such shallow silliness works no better for the child tricked into running up the stairs as a program of exercise, than they succeed in tricking dictators into extending enhanced programs of liberty to their people, as a result of 'respected' statesmen treating them as if they were respected statesmen.

Their reaching out to raise consciousness is hard enough to stomach, but when they attempt to use the means of mass destruction as if they were just another social scientistic means of nudging, they cease to be laughable and begin to be monstrous.

Simply put: Acts of war are not for sending messages or nudging dictators.

Yet all we hear from McCain, Obama, Clinton & Kerry, is about nudging behavior on the world stage. Nudging to affect:

• "What will dictators think?"
• "What will the Islamists think?"
• "What will become of the chemical weapons ban?"
• "What of America's prestige?"
• "What of Obama's prestige?"

So many messages they want to send out via our lives and dollars, in order to nudge the behavior of one group or another, as it pleases them.

Has anyone noticed that none of those nudges have anything at all to do with the only thing that can possibly justify the horrific decision to go to war?

War is justified - but is it justifiable?
War with Syria is justified, but that's not the question that should be asked, the question that needs to be asked is is it justifiable? I don't need any convincing on whether or not Assad is a tyrant - not only should he be removed, but IMHO any semi-free nation on earth would be fully justified in removing him.

The Syrian regime not only does not respect the rights of its own citizens, it routinely takes their lives and makes the lives of those who remain, a living hell - that alone is justification (but not itself justifiable) for any semi-free nation on earth to attack, invade and topple their govt. On top of that, the Syrian regime has actively participated in 'Acts of War' against our own military in Iraq, it has participated, along with its partners in Iran, in supporting terrorists worldwide, who've sworn to kill Americans, both abroad and at home. It routinely threatens not only our people and interests in the region, but those of our one legitimate ally in the region, Israel.

I don't need any convincing to believe that the world would be a better place without the Syrian regime in it. War with Syria is justified- but is it justifiable?

While I don't see Syria as a credible threat to our survival, they are undoubtedly a continuing threat to us, to our people, to our property and to our friends in the region. If someone were to make the case that it was in the vital interests of our citizens and the preservation of our rights and property to declare war on Syria, I'd listen carefully, and judge whether or not the risk, the cost, the burden and the results, would be worth such an endeavor (IOW: Justifiable).

But an honest state of war is not what is being proposed today, not even by Sen. John "Dr. Strangelove" McCain. What he is proposing to do is something more like a return to post Bush 41 Iraq - bombing Syria, setting up safe havens, no-fly zones and humanitarian support for the Syrian people through the use of our military, our lives, our wealth. And why? To support rebels who hate America every bit as much as, and perhaps even more so, than Assad does. And why? Whose interests would be served? According to the Senator:

"...Some kind of intervention will happen, with us or without us,” McCain said. “So the real question for U.S. policy is whether we will participate in this next phase of the conflict in Syria, and thereby increase our ability to shape an outcome that is beneficial to the Syrian people, and to us."

The way he tacks on "and to us" at the end, makes it doubly clear that it is not our people and our interests that are his fundamental concern, but some supposed 'greater good' which he'd like our lives and wealth to be used in serving. Thank God his ProRegressive butt will never sit in the Oval Office.

I don't need to be convinced that the Assad regime has no just claim to power, but what I do need convincing about, is that the proposed 'limited action' will accomplish something, or even anything, that will benefit the rights, property, safety, of the citizens and allies of the United States of America.

What I do need convincing about, is that the opposing side in the Syrian CIVIL WAR will be a significant improvement for our interests, over Assad's regime (see the video below).

Video From Weasel Zippers

What I do need convincing about, is whether or not a 'limited strike' on our part, will gain the co-operation of the Islamists, the Syrians, the Russians, the Iranians which will be needed, in order to ensure that such a 'limited strike' will not be escalated beyond the range of where the administration assumes it will end.

Most of all, I need convincing about whether or not the result of our expending our lives and wealth in someone else's civil war, will not only serve the vital interests of the United States of America, but that it will serve a vital enough interest to the United States of America, to make the risks and costs worthwhile.

Why give War a chance
The fundamental purpose of our government, is to uphold and protect the Rights, Property and Safety of We The People of the United States of America, any 'limited military action' (War), that is not directly, directly, rooted in that purpose, is not an action that is justifiable for our government to undertake.

Any 'limited military action' (War), undertaken with anything less than an entirely decisive result in mind, and one rooted in our governments fundamental purpose, is not an action which serves the interests and purposes of America, but it does still serve a purpose - one that unfortunately is fundamentally opposed to the real ideas and interests our nation was founded upon and is detrimental to our rights. That opposing purpose is that of the modern proRegressive, from Teddy Roosevelt to Obama, Left and Right, and it is driven by the urge to nudge other people's lives into serving what some powerful few deem to be 'the greater good'.

Listening to the string of comments coming from McCain, Obama, Clinton and Kerry, I was less than surprised yesterday to see that our former regulatory czar was getting into the act of war as well. Cass Sunstein, who, as he helpfully notes in his article, is now a member of the President’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technology (think Benghazi), and husband to Samantha Power, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and deeply involved in Syria policy, has a new article out: Can Obama Strike Syria on His Own?,

"Under the U.S. Constitution, does the president have the power to use military force in Syria on his own? Or does he need congressional permission?

Last week, 140 members of the House of Representatives signed a letter insisting that military action “without prior congressional authorization would violate the separation of powers that is clearly delineated in the Constitution.” But even while seeking congressional permission to use force in Syria, President Barack Obama objected, “I have the authority to carry out this military action without specific congressional authorization.”

That last line is one that I'd like to be given a closer look at by those 'conservatives' who've sounded so pleased that Obama has listened to their protests and has decided to follow the constitution and 'consult with Congress'. Not that I question whether or not a president has the authority to act, but that this one plainly didn't decide to follow the constitution (is 'consulting with congress' what following the Constitution means?). He said that he has already decided to take 'military action', which has already said he feels will be equally useful at any time of his own choosing. His decision to let congress play at debating the issue, was not intended to let them have a say in deciding the matter, but was only an attempt to placate them, to nudge them, and to nudge the polls, into a more POTUS friendly mood. He said he's going to take military action whenever he decides to, whatever they might 'decide' - so who's nudging who?

Sunstein's article gives some nice historical doo-wop, and it does a nice job of reviewing opposing quotes and balancing this against that, but the point of the article, the equivocal nudge which is always more informative than the information presented by a Nudger, comes in this passage:

"Under this rationale, we need to distinguish between a limited military mission and an actual “war.” In making that distinction, the Department of Justice has pointed to the relevance of two factors: the magnitude of the action (including its scope, nature and duration) and its underlying justification."

You see, war is not war, when it's not an 'actual war' - our department of Justice says so. Isn't that just awesome? If you can get it over quickly, then it's not really a war (say... does that mean that the 30 day initial 'war' in Iraq wasn't really a war?) So, it seems that with a few verbal nudges, Eric Holder's DOJ "pointed the way" back in 2011 with Libya, to how war can be transformed into something more akin to judicial action, a sort of international regulatory penalty, than something so crude as 'war'.

As I've said, and unlike many of my friends outside of the aisle (Tea Party, as opposed to left, right or center), I don't really have much of a problem with the mechanics of a President's war powers, or with his acting without 'consulting congress'. As I noted ten years ago with Iraq, and two years ago in a post on Libya, "Just cause, and Justification for War, are just not the same thing", and even in our founder's day, elections had consequences, and one of those consequences has always been that the commander in chief is able to take those actions he thinks are necessary, when he sees that they are needed,

"... using the military to defend America's interests as needed, especially in the face of a clear and present threat, is well warranted, justified, and in no way usurps Congresses authority to declare war. Congress never formally declared war on the Barbary Pirates, yet Jefferson did wage war against them ("...To the shores of Tripoli We fight our country's battles. In the air on land and sea...") - with Congresses authorization (though with much less a one than Bush had).

I don't have a problem with a President ordering military strikes, or in today's world responding in a way that can't help but commit us to war. I also pointed out that,

"Battling tyranny is a just cause. Overthrowing a tyrant is a just cause. But being a just cause is not the same as being a justified cause or even a wise one. The fact that Qa’Daffy’s regime exists, is enough of Just cause for America, or for any other free or semi-free nation on earth, to invade and overthrow his regime. Whether or not it would be wise of them to do so, is a separate issue, and not the one I have with what's going on in Libya today. I also don't have an issue with whether or not the President can order a military strike upon Libya. Whether he should order a strike, when he should, and more importantly Why he should - or shouldn't - order such a strike, those are a bit closer to the mark for me."

But not all that much has changed between then and now in this administrations ability to translate what may very well be justified, into something that is a justifiable use of military force. While my problem is not with a presidents powers, my problem is with what it is that a president considers to be a worthwhile cause for exercising those powers, and with what purpose they are exercised towards. My problem is with the pretense that a war is somehow not a war, as long as you don't name it that. My problem isn't with a President's power to enter into a war when necessary, but over what it is that he considers to be necessary, with what justifies it and whether or not that cost it is justifiable. And worst of all, my problem is with what he wants to accomplish with the blood and treasure it will inevitably cost.

To treat the use of military force, which, never forget, means putting our own sons and daughters into horrific harms way no matter what name it's labeled with, to behave as if that can and should be used as if it were just an international form of a regulatory nudge - that is the deepest moral obscenity on the scene today.

The idea that engaging in war, by any name, as if it were a defined and useful tool, a predictable action, is the height of ignorance, arrogance and not without a touch of insanity.The attempt to 'send a message', by an act of war, is more heinous than all the regulatory dreams of all of our regulatory czars, past or present.

It's not Greek to me
I opened my post two years ago with a quote from our revolutionary period:

"Tyranny anywhere is a threat to freedom everywhere"
Thaddeus Kosciuszko - Polish Lithuanian who served as a colonel in the American revolution

I'd still be willing to consider matters from Kosciuszko's point of view - it is a valid one - to consider that this action in Libya Syria is somehow part of a wider and coherent effort to battle those tyrannies arrayed against us today... I would probably still not agree, but at least that would show some hint of legitimacy and some basis for an actual argument being made.

A case for overthrowing (not spanking) a dictator can be made, and would be just, but that alone isn’t justifiable or even justified under our constitution, if such an action does not protect or defend the Constitution or We The People, from whom all governments power and authority are derived. Which means that these proposed actions are nothing more than the arbitrary, non-retaliatory use of military force, without even the pretense of having the legitimate authority for doing so.

What McCain, Obama, Clinton  & Kerry are saying, is that our lives and wealth should be expended upon experiments in behavioral modification upon those who hate us, and each other, in another country's civil war; it is an obscene abuse of power, and is in opposition to our rights, property and interests.

And with that, again, I refer you back to Thaddeus Kosciuszko’s quotation above.

Where do you suppose anyone ever got the idea that such a thing as is being proposed; not only going to war for interests that are not primarily our own, but entering into war as if it were of no more concern or consequence than issuing summons' and fines? To even entertain such thoughts is something the Greeks might have been tempted to call hubris, but to not only think them, but act as if they were credible, let alone wise...where does such thinking come from? Any guesses? Should I give a pop quiz? Perhaps some online testing to find out for sure? I'll resist the urge to say more on those lessons.

The too common core of the situation is that the choices we face today, or are not ever given, are a direct result of our adopting the reasoning that Rights are less about the nature of being human, than they are about acting for the benefit of the greater good, not because that is right, but because it might somehow 'work out' for:

• ...the greater good of the Syrians
• ...the greater good of Obama's prestige
• ...the greater good of John McCain's self esteem
• ...the greater good of... goodness.

But understand this: there is no Good to be served apart from those interests the Good is good for, and if those interests are not your interests, it is not at all Good that they are being served at your expense; and the only interests that will truly be served but such measures, are those of the desires, vanities, deceptions and enhanced powers, of a favored few.

Should we go to war for those reasons? As a great general from another period in our history, might have said:

Nuts.

Do you want to send a message? Then send an actual message, send one to those who need to hear it, and who might possibly stop McCain, Obama, Clinton & Kerry's from sending theirs; call your representatives, and tell them 'Nuts!' to using war to send a message, and if you're in Missouri, Sen. Roy Blunt would be a good choice for you to send that message to.

Labor Day Celebration:"We're all communists now... right? No? Then we're taking our racist fascist butts outta here!!!"

A couple weeks ago I noted that union bigwigs James P. Hoffa, & others, were so upset and disillusioned with Obamacare, that they wrote a letter to Harry Reid & Nancy Pelosi telling them just how unhappy they were with them, and with the Obama administration in general.

I also couldn't help but noticing that what they were saying about Obamacare - that it would ruin their healthcare, that it would cause unemployment, shatter the middle class, etc, were the very things which they had accused the Tea Party of being racists and fascists for having said... and so... by dint of their own reasoning, the Teamsters were obviously racists and fascists for not accepting what this President had created for them.

It was a pleasant morsel to savor... though...really... it was less like a morsel, than a mint.

Why?

Because what they were upset about, was not that Obamacare was going to do those very things to the country, but that Obama & his minions in the Senate and House weren't going to extend the unions enough exemptions to spare them what they were more than willing to inflict upon the rest of the country.

Hardly a Road to Damascus moment.

Well, we just got another little mint today, in that the Longshoreman's union is taking its 40,000 members and leaving the AFL-CIO, not just because of a turf war at the docks, but also in part, for its support for Obamacare as well as the administration's immigration policies.

But not because, you know, those policies are like, wrong, destructive, a violation or our rights, or anti-American, or anything like that... nyahhh. What of it? No, they're just peeved because the Trojan Horse that Obamacare is for single-payer govt controlled healthcare - aka Communism - hasn't rolled through the gates fast enough:

"The ILWU President made it clear they are for a single-payer, nationalized health care policy and are upset with the AFL-CIO for going along with Obama on the confiscatory tax on their "Cadillac" healthcare plan."

Not only that, but because neither the AFL-CIO nor the Obama Administration, would support an immigration plan that the NYT noted, insisted,

"Applicants must be at least 18 years old, have no "disqualifying felonies" on their records, be physically and mentally able to perform longshore work with or without reasonable accommodations for disabilities. Successful candidates, the committee said, must have sufficient understanding of English to understand safety warnings and be eligible to work in the United States."

IOW, the Longshoremen are demanding an immigration plan that, if the Tea Party or anyone else right of center had proposed it, would be called racist and fascist for.

And for not immediately being given a government run single payer healthcare plan that no communist worth his gulag would care to live without.

And while it's fun to be able to point out again that, by there own reasoning, they should be called racist fascists for their statements, the fact is that they only believe the administration hasn't been racist and fascist enough for their tastes.

"WAAAA!!!! We're not racist and communist enough yet! WAAAAAAA!!! We Wants IT!!!"

How's that for a truth in advertising Labor Day celebration?

The Virtual Rapists of the ProRegressives Virtual 'Men'

The other night a fine representative of The Huffington Post, made his argument in the only way it could be made, with force and insult, rather that reasoned argument.

Nothing unusual there.

What is worth taking note of is not that he had no argument - that's their norm - but that his substitute for it, was to suggest that the person he was arguing against, Dana Loesch, should be raped for not believing in the anti-gun agenda, as he does. Katie Pavlich asks:

"Are you shocked? Because I'm not. It's no wonder Robert is anti-gun, that's usually the case with progressive men who promote rape against women (conservative women in particular).

Loesch pointed out on her Twitter feed that attacks like the one above are the reason why many women don't get into politics and thanked her supporters for condemning Robert's comment.

"I appreciate you all who speak out against these morons. You show other women that if they take heat over free opinion, they have allies," she said.

The Huffington Post has not condemned the attack. "

As she notes, this is far from an unusual tactic from the proRegressives. It is however slightly unusual that this wasn't just the typical run of the mill proRegressive hate monger.

Take a gander at the Twitter feeds of Dana, or Michelle Malkin, or Stacy Washington or any other women of the Right (who BTW make up more than a majority of the Tea Party), and you'll see what I mean.

Conservative women who've dared speak out against the politically correct religious dogma of the ProRegressives - which the rest of us refer to as politics - are routinely subjected to what anyone with a sense of decency, would find to be highly obscene.

What is a teensy bit unusual in this case, is that this particular scumbag is an official blogger of The Huffington Post.

This'd be the same HuffPo that has been railing against the Right for conducting what it calls a 'War on Women'. HuffPo, prime purveyor of Offendocratic politics, the sort on online rag who screams out in offended outrage whenever anyone on the right should suggest that our government should not be paying for birth control, welfare, etc.

But when one of their own official bloggers spews out his desire for a women to be raped, for the crime of disagreeing with his creed - there is not a word of offense or outrage by Huffington Post, Ariana Huffington, or anyone else on the proRegressive left.

Why?

Because the sense of outrage they appeal to in all of their Offendocratic particulars, is not their sense of what is, and is not acceptable, but ours. They scream their outrage, not because they are outraged, but because they realize that our sensibilities can be appealed to with a minimal amount of spin, which more often than not, causes us to side with them against our own representatives.

It is the decency of the Right, which Offendocrats appeal to, and expect results from - not any such sense of theirs.

The ProRegressive on the other hand, left or right, does not derive their ideology from what they believe to be Right and True, but from what they pragmatically calculate will advance their cause.

Which explains why The Huffington Post will likely remain silent on the issue.

Calling out their own for outrageous comments does not advance their cause, and so it is of no use or   interest for them to care about or even acknowledge this or any similar incident. Advancing the cause is the virtual virtue of the ProRegressives.

But that doesn't mean that there will be no consequences for these comments, or the failure to acknowledge or denounce them.

For the ProRegressive's virtual men to use sexual actions as a means of insulting and intimidating women, is to transform themselves into virtual rapists. For the Institutions of the ProRegressive left, such as The Huffington Post, to not only condone but to purvey such virtual rape of those who disagree with them, is to be actively conducting far more than a virtual war on women.

For the virtual men of the ProRegressives, left and right, to insult, threaten, even pine for, the rape of women of the right, is to commit virtual rape in order to advance a political cause, and to feel virtually virtuous in doing so.

And if anyone thinks that our acceptance of such thinking will not have dire affects in the real world, they are living in a virtual reality of their own.

Dear Offendocrats: Please gather up your totalitarian virtues and Piss off! Thank you.

I had a short breather yesterday before being pulled back under the whirlpool of work, and as I looked out at the world for the first time in days, it was a struggle not to laugh bitterly at the stupidity abounding about us and dive back into the whirlpool. But eventually you reach a point where stupidity passes beyond the point where you can smile rudely, or sadly, and still manage some sympathy for a fool's victimization of themselves; there's a point where it descends into something that is purely obscene - and ladies and gentlemen, we've reached that point.

Appropriately enough, this latest episode began with a rodeo clown. It seems that what happened was that a rodeo clown did what rodeo clowns have been doing for decades, going at least back to Nixon (Richard, that is), and the clown put on a presidential mask, mixed it in with some clownish buffoonery, and amused the crowds while distracting the bulls from the riders.

That's their job.

Usually the only shit they have to deal with in such situations, is what comes out of the bulls.

This time however, the actual shit that came out of the bull's ass was positively fragrant and hygienic in comparison to what has come out of the mouths of our fellow citizens and elected officials.

Dana Loesch has skewered & linked to a stunning amount of human BS related to this episode, but there are a few stand-outs that I've got to point out.
One, is what MO Sen. Claire McCaskill (D) had to say:

"“If what’s being reported is true, then it’s shameful and it’s unacceptable. The State Fair is funded by taxpayer dollars, and is supposed to be a place where we can all bring our families and celebrate the state that we love. But the young Missourians who witnessed this stunt learned exactly the wrong lesson about political discourse-that somehow it’s ever acceptable to, in a public event, disrespect, taunt, and joke about harming the President of our great nation. Missouri is better than this, and I expect someone to be held accountable.”

Bite me Claire.

Oh, and BTW that's a bi-partisan 'Bite Me', which I'd also like to extend to the second stand-out, MO's Lt. Governor Peter Kinder (R), who tweeted:

I love the @MoStateFair and will attend this week. I implore @GovJayNixon to hold the people resonsible for the other night accountable.

, and,

The @MoStateFair celebrates Missouri and our people. I condemn the actions disrespectful to POTUS the other night. We are better than this.

The Lt. Gov. is condemning the actions of a rodeo clown, and demands that someone be held accountable... for his behaving like... a rodeo clown.

Are you friggin' kidding me!?!?!?!?

We have now sunk to such a level that the standard which We The People are to aspire to, is one where a rodeo clown A RODEO CLOWN (!!!) for Gawds sakes, cannot be tolerated to behave disrespectfully to those in authority?

Is it just me, or does such an uptight, repressed, priggish & humorlessness bunch of people seem more reminiscent of Cold War era East Germany, than of the American "Show Me!" state of Missouri?

I am so damn offended by these OfendoCrats, Left, Right and Center... and I have been for some time... see here ... and here, but this one, this really takes the cake.

It's tempting to simply reply to these examples of stupidity, absent memory and blatant hypocrisy, with examples from all sides reminding them of what has been done, and accepted good naturedly, in the recent, and very recent, past. I mean... while Claire's claiming to be offended over taxpayer dollars being spent in ways that might be inappropriate for family viewing, has she really never heard of the National Endowment for the Arts? Has she never heard of the NEA's funding of Robert Mapplethorpe's exhibitions? Serrano's 'Piss Christ'? Seriously? Or maybe those are simply examples of what Claire finds to be acceptable for family viewing?

And while she's claiming to be offended at taxpayer dollars being inappropriately spent, maybe she oughta browse some vintage Breitbart posts... from all of three years ago, such as:

"EXPLOSIVE NEW AUDIO Reveals White House Using NEA to Push Partisan Agenda

Should the National Endowment for the Arts encourage artists to create art on issues being vehemently debated nationally?

That is the question that I set out to discuss a little over three weeks ago when I wrote an article on Big Hollywood entitled The National Endowment for the Art of Persuasion?”

The question still requires debate but the facts do not.

The NEA and the White House did encourage a handpicked, pro-Obama arts group to address politically controversial issues under contentious national debate. That fact is irrefutable. "

But such reminders are really missing the real point here. But ... sadly, before we can get to the real point... I have to point out that what I've noted so far, is not nearly the lowest of lows that this situation has sunken to.

Brace yourself.

One: The Rodeo Clown has been fired... for being a Rodeo Clown.

Two: The Rodeo Announcer, has been removed, for announcing the doings of the rodeo clown in the rodeo he was there as an announcer for.

But it gets worse (though still not worst of all), with:

Three: Taking the absurd to the limits of absurdity, the Missouri State Fair Commission has insisted that rodeo clowns be given sensitivity training classes before they can work AS A RODEO CLOWN at another state fair.

Clowns. To be taking sensitivity classes. It is tempting to say that these people are obviously suffering from severely irony deficient diets, but it still gets far worse than that.

Just when you think the last clown has piled out of the clown car, along comes the biggest low of all, and the one that leads us to the real point that we should be focusing upon, and this low point comes to you courtesy of Tishaura O. Jones. Who, you ask, is Tishaura O. Jones? Her web page in the St. Louis City web site states that:

"Treasurer Tishaura O. Jones brings a deep personal commitment, a wealth of experience, and a proven record of leadership to serving the City of St. Louis. "

And apparently part of the wealth of experience that she is deeply committed to, is race bating, ignorance, and promoting an anti-conceptual mentality, all of which she perfectly expressed in under 140 characters in a tweet, during taxpayer funded city business hours:

"@eyokley @JeffSmithMO since November 2008, racism has been masked under the guise of "anti-Obama sentiment."

Psst! Claire! Is that an acceptable use of taxpayer dollars? As Dana points out in the above link:

"So a taxpayer-funded city official is entitled to her opinion but a rodeo clown at a tax-payer supported fair is not. In Missouri an elected official can clown the people whom she represents but a rodeo clown can’t clown Obama."

The Rodeo Clown was fired for being a rodeo clown. The City Treasurer is not even chided by the mayor for calling those who disagree with Obama, racists. I would personally like to thank Treasurer Tishaura O. Jones for so perfectly summing up the proRegressive mindset - if you disagree, you are not only wrong, you are bad; bad because what they agree with is good... and so 'logically'... you must be bad.

What she, and every other Offendocrat, of the left and the right, are demonstrating, is not just stupidity, but the chief virtues of the totalitarian state: Hostility to any ideas, actions or preferences that fail to hold up the positions of the state in a sufficiently exalted light.

This isn't funny folks, it should chill you to the bone.

Totalitarian Virtues Aren't Clowning Around
Not only is it now unacceptable to mock the President of the United States, but it is now a secular sin (Racist!) to criticize any of the policies of the politically accepted victim class, a crime punishable at the very least, by being fired from your job... and condemning everyone in your line of work to political re-education classes.

These sensibilities which people such as the Senator and Lt. Gov. are expressing, are two phases of Totalitarian 'Virtues', both of which promote in a person a sense of anxious self-consciousness, spiced with a liberal dollop of fear, and the ability to extend it (dare I say project it?) onto others. When a person feels concern not only over what their neighbor might be doing, as the Senator expressed,  but over what their neighbor might be thinking that you are doing, as the Lt. Gov. expressed, and that sensation impels you to speak out loudly in order to avoid being caught up in a politically correct backlash you know will directly, or indirectly, turn the power of the state against you - then you are displaying what, in the eyes of the totalitarian state, passes for virtue.

In short, if you are able to tolerate Un-PC points of view, you will be viewed as being intolerable to society.

And dealt with.

These are the priceless virtues of totalitarianism, and they can take decades to instill in a people, but to those in power they are worth their weight in your gold - because you simply cannot maintain a totalitarian state without a people conditioned to support it, and conditioned to turn on their fellow citizens, in just such a way as this. Such a state does not require a government itself be totalitarian - though that will surely follow - it only requires that its people cringe to the godz of political correctness.And IMHO, the 'Me Offended Too!'s', such as Lt. Gov. Kinder, are even guiltier than those who really believe it.

What this is, is the result of so many decades of fighting a political war, while ignoring the philosophical/cultural war - the intellectual equivalent of bringing a spit wad straw to a gun fight. It is the result of intellectually honest people being AWOL from academia and from the culture for a decade of decades, and the ignorance which that absence has bred are fast becoming our society's norms, which is to say they are becoming Cultural Law... and once those laws are written into the hearts of the people, neither the Bill of Rights, nor the entire Constitution for that matter, will be worth the paper they will be burned on.

"You Americans, you are such a happy people!"
When you go back and listen to interviews from 19th & 20th century immigrants to America, what they nearly all reported as being the most striking feature of Americans, was their cheerfulness "You all seem so happy" they'd say... unlike the people form those totalitarian societies they were escaping from.

There was nothing in the climate or food of those societies that made their people, or ours, as happy or as tight lipped and grim as they were, it was in their ideas, and their societies endorsement of those ideas - its culture.

Understand, it's not as if people in America were walking around with giggly faces on, they simply spoke their minds, and laughed at what amused them, and they did so without a second thought, or more significantly, without any inkling that such a thing should even be given a thought. THAT is a decidedly UN-Totalitarian mindset.

That is not a view that is compatible with Political Correctness.

Tell me, that spontaneity, that habit of acting without first wondering whether you should be concerned that what you say might 'get you in trouble' (aka: fear)... do you have that today? You don't have to tell me - tell yourself. Honestly. Do you ever wonder whether or not the first response that comes to mind might, like the Rodeo Clown, get your life turned upside down?

Really, the fact that the question can even be posed, should raise more than a few alarm bells.

The ProRegressive State of Political Correctness, which we are well into today, could not possibly have come into being without first having ingrained into our minds the need to be concerned about whether or not something might be 'offensive' to one politically favored group or another.

The common term for this, though rarely thought of in this way, is seeking to 'raise consciousness' upon the 'correct' response to a 'politically sensitive' issue.

IOW, the healthy, happy American mindset, that of being open to reality and responding honestly and truthfully to it, had to be replaced by one that shows concern for what certain influential groups of people think is more important than reality itself, in short: a dis-ordered mind.

If you think that's a stretch, you don't need to confine yourself to rodeo clowns, or even Missouri, for examples of this. Just look to our schools.

Such as this one from the California of the east:

"Parents across Massachusetts are upset over new rules that would not only allow transgender students to use their restrooms of their choice – but would also punish students who refuse to affirm or support their transgender classmates.

Last week the Massachusetts Department of Education issued directives for handling transgender students – including allowing them to use the bathrooms of their choice or to play on sports teams that correspond to the gender with which they identify."

The word 'Identify' is now no longer explicitly intended to accurately describe reality, but only to 'identify', meaning to take sides with, what some particular (politically acceptable and favored) person might wish reality actually were.

I'd call that dis-ordered 'thinking'.

To put that in broadly philosophical terms, whenever faced with an issue of Quality, the Leftist mind automatically transforms it into an issue of Quantity.

In regards to Health care, if you dare mention your concern for a persons right to live their own life and choose their own path, they will snarlingly demand to know why you want to condemn 30 million people to die in the streets without health insurance. They do not, and will not, respond to the conceptual quality of your idea, but only to the particular quantities of issues which they hope will deflect you away from your position - finding an actual error in your ideas is not their aim, but only to declare them to as being 'bad', making further explanation unnecessary.

If you say you'd prefer that your daughter not have to shower with someone you consider to be, more likely than not, a pervert, they will have you and your daughter punished for refusing to support what they have declared to be 'diversity' (a position notably lacking your opinion within the diverse positions it claims to uphold).

Unfortunately, the Right, caught unawares and outside of church, typically accepts these terms as offered and, raised in the same schools as the leftist, counters only with how it might be possible to tally up the quantities into socially acceptable, though hidden, benefits - surrendering the field of Right & Wrong altogether, and crawling off into the mud of justifiable quantities.

These are not unique situation, they are the norm. The left transforms Philosophy into Politics, and the Right responds with that relatively small fragment of politics they identify (in the modern sense) with... though bereft of the superior ideas they haven't had the courage to identify (in the classical sense) and defend ... and then they are baffled as more and more of the world slips away from their grasp.

To sum it up, if you lose the ideas that America IS (and that'd be what the meaning of 'is' is), and import Anti-American ideas into that place the American ones used to be (between our ears), then you will lose America, and no birth certificate will ever secure you passage back to it.

IOW, ya can't fight Philosophy with Politics.

You'll look like a clown if you try to.

Period.

The foolish injustice of calling for "Justice for Trayvon!", after justice has already been served.

I rarely follow criminal trials, because, it seems I know something that most other people seem not to know: I wasn't there.

I wasn't there for the crime and I wasn't there for the trial, therefore I'm not in a position to know, one way or another who did what. THAT is what we have a judicial system for. That's what we have trials for.

If you've been lucky enough to miss out on the relevant details of the matter, or sadly unable to understand them, let's recap, shall we?

• There was a violent incident, and a person died.
• Another person was put on trial for that death, and was just found innocent of murder.
• No one has shown any evidence of tampering with either the evidence or with the jury, and until someone does, that is the end of the matter, justice has been done.
• If someone would like to react violently or riot over it, then that will be the start of a new matter.

Now if that system is being abused, ignored or maliciously altered, then that's something I might be likely to take an interest in it and I might be able to have some additional knowledge of, and an opinion, to offer on it, but to the best of my knowledge there has been no such evidence brought forward (and no, not liking the verdict, is not evidence of wrong doing). Do you have some evidence? Again, evidence, not opinion of news stories. No? Then sorry, not interested. I'm actually more interested in the Royal's new baby... and I'm not the least bit interested in that.

For those who keep trying to get an opinion out of me on the zimmermartin trial, what I had to say about the matter last year, pretty much goes the same for this year:

"If we had a way of knowing what happened and who was to blame, we’d have no need for a Judicial system.

That is the very foundation of the Western concept of Justice, indeed of society. Clearly these people who are so loudly and violently calling ‘for justice!’, have no interest in Justice, whatsoever."

On the other hand, the Left one of course, if government officials, like an Attorney General or a President for instance, would like to raise some noise about trying the case again in order to get a 'better' result... well... that I do have an opinion upon... but there's really way I could fit that in this post, but in lieu of that long long wind, how about simply reviewing the Fifth Amendment? You don't even need to read the whole paragraph, just this clause will do:

"... nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb..."

Of course, if all those years of college 'education' has made it too difficult to actually think about such a non-PC concept as that, you could always let Justice Joseph Story's commentaries on it get you started:

"§ 1781. Another clause declares, that no person shall be subject, "for the same offence, to be twice put in jeopardy of life and limb." This, again, is another great privilege secured by the common law. The meaning of it is, that a party shall not be tried a second time for the same offence, after he has once been convicted, or acquitted of the offence charged, by the verdict of a jury, and judgment has passed thereon for or against him...."

That's not that complicated, is it? Simple enough for even an adjunct law professor to understand, isn't it? And I can't resist adding this next part about the nature of jury trials, especially the bit towards the end,

"§ 1785. The other article, in declaring, that the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury of the state or district, wherein the crime shall have been committed, (which district shall be previously ascertained by law,) and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation, and to be confronted with the witnesses against him, does but follow out the established course of the common law in all trials for crimes. The trial is always public; the witnesses are sworn, and give in their testimony (at least in capital cases) in the presence of the accused; the nature and cause of the accusation is accurately laid down in the indictment; and the trial is at once speedy, impartial, and in the district of the offence. Without in any measure impugning the propriety of these provisions, it may be suggested, that there seems to have been an undue solicitude to introduce into the constitution some of the general guards and proceedings of the common law in criminal trials, (truly admirable in themselves) without sufficiently adverting to the consideration, that unless the whole system is incorporated, and especially the law of evidence, a corrupt legislature, or a debased and servile people, may render the whole little more, than a solemn pageantry. If, on the other hand, the people are enlightened, and honest, and zealous in defence of their rights and liberties, it will be impossible to surprise them into a surrender of a single valuable appendage of the trial by jury."

IOW, if you are calling for "Justice for Trayvon!", such as those in this picture Stacy Washington took at the St. Louis rally, now, after a trial has already been held, in which evidence has already been presented and argued and a verdict of "Not Guilty" has been rendered, then please, stop pretending as if Justice is of any interest to you at all. You're simply spewing out words of thoughtless thuggery which someone else put in your mouth. Which is just gross.

And if you do have an interest in preserving your Rights and Liberties, then when you do hear someone talking such non-sense as "Justice for Trayvon!", point out that justice has already been served - a trial has been held and a verdict has been rendered - and ask them to explain themselves. It probably won't take much more than their own explanation of what they said, to show what a foolish thing it was to have said it.

Instant Karma: According to Union leaders and membership, all union leaders and members are racists and fascists.

Just a quick note to prove I'm still alive and share a fun fact. It seems that the Unions are waking up to the facts about Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reed & Obamacare. The Wall Street Journal informs us that James P. Hoffa, together with other Union big-wigs, have penned a letter to little miss "Gotta pass it to find out what's in it" Pelosi and Harry 'Pasty Face' Reed (long time Nevadan's will get that), telling them that:

" will shatter not only our hard-earned health benefits, but destroy the foundation of the 40 hour work week that is the backbone of the American middle class."

They also note that their political darlings are apparently dishonestly leading them on for their own purposes:

" As you both know first-hand, our persuasive arguments have been disregarded and met with a stone wall by the White House and the pertinent agencies. "

They've even figured out that they won't get to keep their own health care plans if they like them,

"Our health plans have been built over decades by working men and women. Under the ACA as interpreted by the Administration, our employees will treated differently and not be eligible for subsidies afforded other citizens. As such, many employees will be relegated to second-class status and shut out of the help the law offers to for-profit insurance plans."

, with even a glimmering of a hint that the Free Market may have some benefits for workers, they note that,

"And finally, even though non-profit plans like ours won’t receive the same subsidies as for-profit plans, they’ll be taxed to pay for those subsidies. Taken together, these restrictions will make non-profit plans like ours unsustainable, and will undermine the health-care market of viable alternatives to the big health insurance companies."

Though, in the end, demonstrating that they are themselves simply corrupt thugs demanding their share of the loot, they opine,

"We continue to stand behind real health care reform, but the law as it stands will hurt millions of Americans including the members of our respective unions."

Isn't that special?

Of course, most of that is what the Tea Party was trying to explain to them back in 2010.

To which we were subjected to slander and even assault. But, out of respect for the Union brotherhood's tightly reasoned and highly principled responses to the Tea Party when we tried explain the '2+2=4's of the world to them, obviously Hoffa and all Union members, and all Union sympathizers, are clearly all ignorant racists and neo-fascists who just hate America and who especially hate America's working class, it's children and the elderly.

Thank you, that is all.

Celebrate July 4th Right!

As with last year, I'm in a hurry again, but unlike last year, my lack of time is more due to that damn tornado having left my time out of joint... just can't quite devote the time needed to completing my posts - I almost had one done, but I've got to cave and admit it won't get done in time. Oh well, still though, once again, I'll post my standard for the 4th of July - President Calvin Coolidges' "The Inspiration of the Declaration of Independence", a necessity for cleaning up after Wilson, July 5, 1926, and no doubt it will come in handy for dealing with our current ProRegressive Wilsonian, Barack Obama.

Of The Declaration of Independence as Abe Lincoln once pointed out:

“All honor to Jefferson—to the man who, in the concrete pressure of a struggle for national independence by a single people, had the coolness, forecast, and capacity to introduce into a merely revolutionary document, an abstract truth, applicable to all men and all times, and so to embalm it there, that to-day, and in all coming days, it shall be a rebuke and a stumbling-block to the very harbingers of re-appearing tyranny and oppression.”—Abraham Lincoln to H.L. Pierce, April 6, 1859.

Before getting out of the way of the Ideas of the Declaration of Independence and it's self-evident truths (to those who understand the concepts which gave rise to it... see my last few posts if your scratching your head), I'll just point out this line from Lincoln's comment  "...had the coolness, forecast, and capacity to introduce into a merely revolutionary document, an abstract truth, applicable to all men and all times..." which nails it so well. And it is a rebuke and a stumbling block to tyrants - they do so hate the very idea of Individual Rights, of people living Their Own "...life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness...".

Job #1 of the any potential tyranny in America, has always been to replace our Individual Rights, with promises of privileges and benefits.

Job #1 of every American, is to understand the meaning of your Rights, and to hold them as swords in the faces of those who would raise a tyranny over you. Especially in the faces of those who come bearing gifts.

And now it is time again for a few words from our Sponsors:

The Inspiration of the Declaration of Independence - Calvin Coolidge (cleaning up after Wilson, July 5, 1926)

We meet to celebrate the birthday of America. The coming of a new life always excites our interest. Although we know in the case of the individual that it has been an infinite repetition reaching back beyond our vision, that only makes it the more wonderful. But how our interest and wonder increase when we behold the miracle of the birth of a new nation. It is to pay our tribute of reverence and respect to those who participated in such a mighty event that we annually observe the fourth day of July. Whatever may have been the impression created by the news which went out from this city on that summer day in 1776, there can be no doubt as to the estimate which is now placed upon it. At the end of 150 years the four corners of the earth unite in coming to Philadelphia as to a holy shrine in grateful acknowledgment of a service so great, which a few inspired men here rendered to humanity, that it is still the preeminent support of free government throughout the world.

Although a century and a half measured in comparison with the length of human
experience is but a short time, yet measured in the life of governments and nations it ranks as a very respectable period. Certainly enough time has elapsed to demonstrate with a great deal of thoroughness the value of our institutions and their dependability as rules for the regulation of human conduct and the advancement of civilization. They have been in existence long enough to become very well seasoned. They have met, and met successfully, the test of experience.

It is not so much then for the purpose of undertaking to proclaim new theories and principles that this annual celebration is maintained, but rather to reaffirm and reestablish those old theories and principles which time and the unerring logic of events have demonstrated to be sound. Amid all the clash of conflicting interests, amid all the welter of partisan politics, every American can turn for solace and consolation to the Declaration of independence and the Constitution of the United States with the assurance and confidence that those two great charters of freedom and justice remain firm and unshaken. Whatever perils appear, whatever dangers threaten, the Nation remains secure in the knowledge that the ultimate application of the law of the land will provide an adequate defense and protection.

It is little wonder that people at home and abroad consider Independence Hall as hallowed ground and revere the Liberty Bell as a sacred relic. That pile of bricks and mortar, that mass of metal, might appear to the uninstructed as only the outgrown meeting place and the shattered bell of a former time, useless now because of more modern conveniences, but to those who know they have become consecrated by the use which men have made of them. They have long been identified with a great cause. They are the framework of a spiritual event. The world looks upon them, because of their associations of one hundred and fifty years ago, as it looks upon the Holy Land because of what took place there nineteen hundred years ago. Through use for a righteous purpose they have become sanctified.

It is not here necessary to examine in detail the causes which led to the American Revolution. In their immediate occasion they were largely economic. The colonists objected to the navigation laws which interfered with their trade, they denied the power of Parliament to impose taxes which they were obliged to pay, and they therefore resisted the royal governors and the royal forces which were sent to secure obedience to these laws. But the conviction is inescapable that a new civilization had come, a new spirit had arisen on this side of the Atlantic more advanced and more developed in its regard for the rights of the individual than that which characterized the Old World. Life in a new and open country had aspirations which could not be realized in any subordinate position. A separate establishment was ultimately inevitable. It had been decreed by the very laws of human nature. Man everywhere has an unconquerable desire to be the master of his own destiny.

We are obliged to conclude that the Declaration of Independence represented the movement of a people. It was not, of course, a movement from the top. Revolutions do not come from that direction. It was not without the support of many of the most respectable people in the Colonies, who were entitled to all the consideration that is given to breeding, education, and possessions. It had the support of another element of great significance and importance to which I shall later refer. But the preponderance of all those who occupied a position which took on the aspect of aristocracy did not approve of the Revolution and held toward it an attitude either of neutrality or open hostility. It was in no sense a rising of the oppressed and downtrodden. It brought no scum to the surface, for the reason that colonial society had developed no scum. The great body of the people were accustomed to privations, but they were free from depravity. If they had poverty, it was not of the hopeless kind that afflicts great cities, but the inspiring kind that marks the spirit of the pioneer. The American Revolution represented the informed and mature convictions of a great mass of independent, liberty-loving, God-fearing people who knew their rights, and possessed the courage to dare to maintain them. The Continental Congress was not only composed of great men, but it represented a great people. While its members did not fail to exercise a remarkable leadership, they were equally observant of their representative capacity. They were industrious in encouraging their constituents to instruct them to support independence. But until such instructions were given they were inclined to withhold action.

While North Carolina has the honor of first authorizing its delegates to concur with other Colonies in declaring independence, it was quickly followed by South Carolina and Georgia, which also gave general instructions broad enough to include such action. But the first instructions which unconditionally directed its delegates to declare for independence came from the great Commonwealth of Virginia. These were immediately followed by Rhode Island and Massachusetts, while the other Colonies, with the exception of New York, soon adopted a like course.

This obedience of the delegates to the wishes of their constituents, which in some cases caused them to modify their previous positions, is a matter of great significance. It reveals an orderly process of government in the first place; but more than that, it demonstrates that the Declaration of Independence was the result of the seasoned and deliberate thought of the dominant portion of the people of the Colonies. Adopted after long discussion and as the result of the duly authorized expression of the preponderance of public opinion, it did not partake of dark intrigue or hidden conspiracy. It was well advised. It had about it nothing of the lawless and disordered nature of a riotous insurrection. It was maintained on a plane which rises above the ordinary conception of rebellion. It was in no sense a radical movement but took on the dignity of a resistance to illegal usurpations. It was conservative and represented the action of the colonists to maintain their constitutional rights which from time immemorial had been guaranteed to them under the law of the land.

When we come to examine the action of the Continental Congress in adopting the Declaration of Independence in the light of what was set out in that great document and in the light of succeeding events, we can not escape the conclusion that it had a much broader and deeper significance than a mere secession of territory and the establishment of a new nation. Events of that nature have been taking place since the dawn of history. One empire after another has arisen, only to crumble away as its constituent parts separated from each other and set up independent governments of their own. Such actions long ago became commonplace. They have occurred too often to hold the attention of the world and command the admiration and reverence of humanity. There is something beyond the establishment of a new nation, great as that event would be, in the Declaration of Independence which has ever since caused it to be regarded as one of the great charters that not only was to liberate America but was everywhere to ennoble humanity.

It was not because it was proposed to establish a new nation, but because it was proposed to establish a nation on new principles, that July 4, 1776, has come to be regarded as one of the greatest days in history. Great ideas do not burst upon the world unannounced. They are reached by a gradual development over a length of time usually proportionate to their importance. This is especially true of the principles laid down in the Declaration of Independence. Three very definite propositions were set out in its preamble regarding the nature of mankind and therefore of government. These were the doctrine that all men are created equal, that they are endowed with certain inalienable rights, and that therefore the source of the just powers of government must be derived from the consent of the governed.

If no one is to be accounted as born into a superior station, if there is to be no ruling class, and if all possess rights which can neither be bartered away nor taken from them by any earthly power, it follows as a matter of course that the practical authority of the Government has to rest on the consent of the governed. While these principles were not altogether new in political action, and were very far from new in political speculation, they had never been assembled before and declared in such a combination. But remarkable as this may be, it is not the chief distinction of the Declaration of Independence. The importance of political speculation is not to be under-estimated, as I shall presently disclose. Until the idea is developed and the plan made there can be no action.

It was the fact that our Declaration of Independence containing these immortal truths was the political action of a duly authorized and constituted representative public body in its sovereign capacity, supported by the force of general opinion and by the armies of Washington already in the field, which makes it the most important civil document in the world. It was not only the principles declared, but the fact that therewith a new nation was born which was to be founded upon those principles and which from that time forth in its development has actually maintained those principles, that makes this pronouncement an incomparable event in the history of government. It was an assertion that a people had arisen determined to make every necessary sacrifice for the support of these truths and by their practical application bring the War of Independence to a successful conclusion and adopt the Constitution of the United States with all that it has meant to civilization.

The idea that the people have a right to choose their own rulers was not new in political history. It was the foundation of every popular attempt to depose an undesirable king. This right was set out with a good deal of detail by the Dutch when as early as July 26, 1581, they declared their independence of Philip of Spain. In their long struggle with the Stuarts the British people asserted the same principles, which finally culminated in the Bill of Rights deposing the last of that house and placing William and Mary on the throne. In each of these cases sovereignty through divine right was displaced by sovereignty through the consent of the people. Running through the same documents, though expressed in different terms, is the clear inference of inalienable rights. But we should search these charters in vain for an assertion of the doctrine of equality. This principle had not before appeared as an official political declaration of any nation. It was profoundly revolutionary. It is one of the corner stones of American institutions.

But if these truths to which the declaration refers have not before been adopted in their combined entirety by national authority, it is a fact that they had been long pondered and often expressed in political speculation. It is generally assumed that French thought had some effect upon our public mind during Revolutionary days. This may have been true. But the principles of our declaration had been under discussion in the Colonies for nearly two generations before the advent of the French political philosophy that characterized the middle of the eighteenth century. In fact, they come from an earlier date. A very positive echo of what the Dutch had done in 1581, and what the English were preparing to do, appears in the assertion of the Rev. Thomas Hooker of Connecticut as early as 1638, when he said in a sermon before the General Court that:

The foundation of authority is laid in the free consent of the people
The choice of public magistrates belongs unto the people by God's own allowance.

This doctrine found wide acceptance among the nonconformist clergy who later made up the Congregational Church. The great apostle of this movement was the Rev. John Wise, of Massachusetts. He was one of the leaders of the revolt against the royal governor Andros in 1687, for which he suffered imprisonment. He was a liberal in ecclesiastical controversies. He appears to have been familiar with the writings of the political scientist, Samuel Pufendorf, who was born in Saxony in 1632. Wise published a treatise, entitled "The Church's Quarrel Espoused," in 1710 which was amplified in another publication in 1717. In it he dealt with the principles of civil government. His works were reprinted in 1772 and have been declared to have been nothing less than a textbook of liberty for our Revolutionary fathers.

While the written word was the foundation, it is apparent that the spoken word was the vehicle for convincing the people. This came with great force and wide range from the successors of Hooker and Wise, It was carried on with a missionary spirit which did not fail to reach the Scotch Irish of North Carolina, showing its influence by significantly making that Colony the first to give instructions to its delegates looking to independence. This preaching reached the neighborhood of Thomas Jefferson, who acknowledged that his "best ideas of democracy" had been secured at church meetings.

That these ideas were prevalent in Virginia is further revealed by the Declaration of Rights, which was prepared by George Mason and presented to the general assembly on May 27, 1776. This document asserted popular sovereignty and inherent natural rights, but confined the doctrine of equality to the assertion that "All men are created equally free and independent". It can scarcely be imagined that Jefferson was unacquainted with what had been done in his own Commonwealth of Virginia when he took up the task of drafting the Declaration of Independence. But these thoughts can very largely be traced back to what John Wise was writing in 1710. He said, "Every man must be acknowledged equal to every man". Again, "The end of all good government is to cultivate humanity and promote the happiness of all and the good of every man in all his rights, his life, liberty, estate, honor, and so forth . . . ." And again, "For as they have a power every man in his natural state, so upon combination they can and do bequeath this power to others and settle it according as their united discretion shall determine". And still again, "Democracy is Christ's government in church and state". Here was the doctrine of equality, popular sovereignty, and the substance of the theory of inalienable rights clearly asserted by Wise at the opening of the eighteenth century, just as we have the principle of the consent of the governed stated by Hooker as early as 1638.

When we take all these circumstances into consideration, it is but natural that the first paragraph of the Declaration of Independence should open with a reference to Nature's God and should close in the final paragraphs with an appeal to the Supreme Judge of the world and an assertion of a firm reliance on Divine Providence. Coming from these sources, having as it did this background, it is no wonder that Samuel Adams could say "The people seem to recognize this resolution as though it were a decree promulgated from heaven."

No one can examine this record and escape the conclusion that in the great outline of its principles the Declaration was the result of the religious teachings of the preceding period. The profound philosophy which Jonathan Edwards applied to theology, the popular preaching of George Whitefield, had aroused the thought and stirred the people of the Colonies in preparation for this great event. No doubt the speculations which had been going on in England, and especially on the Continent, lent their influence to the general sentiment of the times. Of course, the world is always influenced by all the experience and all the thought of the past. But when we come to a contemplation of the immediate conception of the principles of human relationship which went into the Declaration of Independence we are not required to extend our search beyond our own shores. They are found in the texts, the sermons, and the writings of the early colonial clergy who were earnestly undertaking to instruct their congregations in the great mystery of how to live. They preached equality because they believed in the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. They justified freedom by the text that we are all created in the divine image, all partakers of the divine spirit.

Placing every man on a plane where he acknowledged no superiors, where no one possessed any right to rule over him, he must inevitably choose his own rulers through a system of self-government. This was their theory of democracy. In those days such doctrines would scarcely have been permitted to flourish and spread in any other country. This was the purpose which the fathers cherished. In order that they might have freedom to express these thoughts and opportunity to put them into action, whole congregations with their pastors had migrated to the colonies. These great truths were in the air that our people breathed. Whatever else we may say of it, the Declaration of Independence was profoundly American.

If this apprehension of the facts be correct, and the documentary evidence would appear to verify it, then certain conclusions are bound to follow. A spring will cease to flow if its source be dried up; a tree will wither if its roots be destroyed. In its main features the Declaration of Independence is a great spiritual document. It is a declaration not of material but of spiritual conceptions. Equality, liberty, popular sovereignty, the rights of man these are not elements which we can see and touch. They are ideals. They have their source and their roots in the religious convictions. They belong to the unseen world. Unless the faith of the American people in these religious convictions is to endure, the principles of our Declaration will perish. We can not continue to enjoy the result if we neglect and abandon the cause.

We are too prone to overlook another conclusion. Governments do not make ideals, but ideals make governments. This is both historically and logically true. Of course the government can help to sustain ideals and can create institutions through which they can be the better observed, but their source by their very nature is in the people. The people have to bear their own responsibilities. There is no method by which that burden can be shifted to the government. It is not the enactment, but the observance of laws, that creates the character of a nation.

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. We hold that the duly authorized expression of the will of the people has a divine sanction. But even in that we come back to the theory of John Wise that "Democracy is Christ's government". The ultimate sanction of law rests on the righteous authority of the Almighty.

On an occasion like this a great temptation exists to present evidence of the practical success of our form of democratic republic at home and the ever broadening acceptance it is securing abroad. Although these things are well known, their frequent consideration is an encouragement and an inspiration. But it is not results and effects so much as sources and causes that I believe it is even more necessary constantly to contemplate. Ours is a government of the people. It represents their will. Its officers may sometimes go astray, but that is not a reason for criticizing the principles of our institutions. The real heart of the American Government depends upon the heart of the people. It is from that source that we must look for all genuine reform. It is to that cause that we must ascribe all our results.

It was in the contemplation of these truths that the fathers made their declaration and adopted their Constitution. It was to establish a free government, which must not be permitted to degenerate into the unrestrained authority of a mere majority or the unbridled weight of a mere influential few. They undertook the balance these interests against each other and provide the three separate independent branches, the executive, the legislative, and the judicial departments of the Government, with checks against each other in order that neither one might encroach upon the other. These are our guaranties of liberty. As a result of these methods enterprise has been duly protected from confiscation, the people have been free from oppression, and there has been an ever broadening and deepening of the humanities of life.

Under a system of popular government there will always be those who will seek for political preferment by clamoring for reform. While there is very little of this which is not sincere, there is a large portion that is not well informed. In my opinion very little of just criticism can attach to the theories and principles of our institutions. There is far more danger of harm than there is hope of good in any radical changes. We do need a better understanding and comprehension of them and a better knowledge of the foundations of government in general. Our forefathers came to certain conclusions and decided upon certain courses of action which have been a great blessing to the world. Before we can understand their conclusions we must go back and review the course which they followed. We must think the thoughts which they thought. Their intellectual life centered around the meeting-house. They were intent upon religious worship. While there were always among them men of deep learning, and later those who had comparatively large possessions, the mind of the people was not so much engrossed in how much they knew, or how much they had, as in how they were going to live. While scantily provided with other literature, there was a wide acquaintance with the Scriptures. Over a period as great as that which measures the existence of our independence they were subject to this discipline not only in their religious life and educational training, but also in their political thought. They were a people who came under the influence of a great spiritual development and acquired a great moral power.

No other theory is adequate to explain or comprehend the Declaration of Independence. It is the product of the spiritual insight of the people. We live in an age of science and of abounding accumulation of material things. These did not create our Declaration. Our Declaration created them. The things of the spirit come first. Unless we cling to that, all our material prosperity, overwhelming though it may appear, will turn to a barren scepter in our grasp. If we are to maintain the great heritage which has been bequeathed to us, we must be like minded as the fathers who created it. We must not sink into a pagan materialism. We must cultivate the reverence which they had for the things that are holy. We must follow the spiritual and moral leadership which they showed. We must keep replenished, that they may glow with a more compelling flame, the altar fires before which they worshipped.

Declaration of Independence

July 4, 1776

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In Congress, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

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 to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. --

Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.

He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.

He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature.

He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:

• For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
• For protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states:
• For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:
• For imposing taxes on us without our consent:
• For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury:
• For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:
• For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule in these colonies:
• For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:
• For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.

We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.

JOHN HANCOCK, President

Attested, CHARLES THOMSON, Secretary

New Hampshire

JOSIAH BARTLETT WILLIAM WHIPPLE MATTHEW THORNTON

Massachusetts-Bay

SAMUEL ADAMS JOHN ADAMS ROBERT TREAT PAINE ELBRIDGE GERRY

Rhode Island

STEPHEN HOPKINS WILLIAM ELLERY

Connecticut

ROGER SHERMAN SAMUEL HUNTINGTON WILLIAM WILLIAMS OLIVER WOLCOTT

Georgia

BUTTON GWINNETT LYMAN HALL GEO. WALTON

Maryland

SAMUEL CHASE WILLIAM PACA THOMAS STONE CHARLES CARROLL OF CARROLLTON

Virginia

GEORGE WYTHE RICHARD HENRY LEE THOMAS JEFFERSON BENJAMIN HARRISON THOMAS NELSON, JR. FRANCIS LIGHTFOOT LEE CARTER BRAXTON.

New York

WILLIAM FLOYD PHILIP LIVINGSTON FRANCIS LEWIS LEWIS MORRIS

Pennsylvania

ROBERT MORRIS BENJAMIN RUSH BENJAMIN FRANKLIN JOHN MORTON GEORGE CLYMER JAMES SMITH GEORGE TAYLOR JAMES WILSON GEORGE ROSS

Delaware

CAESAR RODNEY GEORGE READ THOMAS M'KEAN

North Carolina

WILLIAM HOOPER JOSEPH HEWES JOHN PENN

South Carolina

EDWARD RUTLEDGE THOMAS HEYWARD, JR. THOMAS LYNCH, JR. ARTHUR MIDDLETON

New Jersey

RICHARD STOCKTON
JOHN WITHERSPOON
FRANCIS HOPKINS
JOHN HART
ABRAHAM CLARK

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©2004 National Humanities Institute

And now dear reader, take the time to understand it better yourself, learn its meaning, so you can celebrate your independence Right!