Breaking the Chains – Our Rotten Common Core Part 3a

“ In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution. ”
Thomas Jefferson, 10 Nov. 1798

What do you suppose Jefferson was referring to in the quote above? The Constitution?... or the paper it was printed on? What power does that have? I'll say... none. The Law’s only power lies in the hearts and minds of those who read and understand the constitution and insist that it be respected and followed, and even then it is powerless unless We The People insist our govt limits itself to only those powers which We The People have delegated to it – absent that, it is only paper. The only strength Jefferson’s chains can have is that which is derived from the understanding which you and I have of the constitution's meaning and purpose. That is the real strength of our Republic, and the only chains with which We The People can bind the powerful down.

This was of course the reason why Jefferson was so adamant that Education be spread across the land; our Republic cannot survive without it, but of course his idea of what Education was, bore little relation to what we think of it as being today, and in that the statist’s hacksaw has been busily sawing back and forth upon the links in Jefferson's chains. From the outright attacks and neglect of well over a century, our awareness of the common core materials, traditions and principles vital to Western Civilization and critical to our American way of life, have been damaged.

What do I mean by 'damaged'? Ask the nearest college graduate to name the key events and ideas of Western Civilization. Once you've failed at that, as there's a good chance you have, then try it again with a High School student. For bonus points, ask either one to name what Article's I, II & III of the constitution primarily deal with.

That's what I mean by damaged. Our ability to not only understand what we read, but to know what we should bother to read; that has been just as weakened as Jefferson's chains themselves have been, indeed there is little difference between the two.

It may seem like I’m not getting to the point fast enough with these posts (here are parts 1 and part 2), but it's hard for me to see how you'd see the point clearly, if I rushed my way to it. How would you grasp the full meaning if I leave out the parts which the meaning is formed from? Ever seen a hill which you figured would be no problem to trot right up and probably not much worth doing? Then at the top of it, an hour later, winded, chest burning, you force yourself upright to look around and can't believe how far you can see?
The nature of how we've gotten to where we are is sort of like that. But not in a good way. I'm giving you key pieces in these posts, which in the end, will come together and give you the perspective to see quite a bit farther than you wish you could.

How we got where we are today, is the result of numerous well-intentioned, seemingly common sense decisions, made over the span of the last two centuries, progressively refined and reinforced with each passing decade, and are just this much short of our feeling their full power. The culmination of these rather blase decisions are what we are now feeling shake our common core, as an out of balance tire shakes its car to the point that it seems as if the entire car must fall apart – because of one simple balance weight lost. Those decisions begun way back then, changed our concept of Education and opened us up to a set of ideas that are fundamentally anti-American, ideas which incline those who hold them towards innocently seeking after the centralization of power over individual freedom,

Just cause, and Justification for War, are just not the same thing

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

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 to get the little stuff out of the way first.

The President is the commander in chief of the military forces of the United States of America, and the militias of the several states, he is able to order military action, without congressional approval (contrary to what then Senators Obama, Biden and Clinton said of Bush), in order to do what he thinks is required to protect and defend America, Americans and/or their vital interests and property in the event of what he considers to be a credible threat to them.

There are of course serious concerns which come along with bestowing such power, as George Mason expressed in the ratification debates, he,

"... thought it would be dangerous to let him command in person, without any restraint, as he might make a bad use of it. He was, then, clearly of opinion that the consent of a majority of both houses of Congress should be required before he could take the command in person."

However as the Constitution was ratified, the decision was made that it was a necessary risk, as Alexander Hamilton noted in Federalist #74, noted,

"...The propriety of this provision is so evident in itself; and it is at the same time so consonant to the precedents of the State constitutions in general, that little need be said to explain or enforce it. Even those of them, which have in other respects coupled the Chief Magistrate with a Council, have for the most part concentred the military authority in him alone..."

Mr. Spaight, in agreeing with Hamilton's argument during the debates for the importance of one man having undivided command of the military, he pointed out that the checks retained to balance such power,

"... that Congress, who had the power of raising armies, could certainly prevent any abuse of that authority in the President--that they alone had the means of supporting armies, and that the President was impeachable if he in any manner abused his trust...."

It is of course true that Article 1, Section 8, Clause 11 of the Constitution gives Congress alone, the ability to declare war:

"To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;"

But 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).

But that should leave everyone here wondering whether an essentially tribal civil war amongst people predominantly anti-American poses any threat, or concern, to the interest of America. Without that... the President's executive authority and position as commander and chief to call military action, is without justification.

It should be recalled by every citizen, every four years, that one of the primary responsibilities they have as citizens, is to gravely consider when casting their vote for a President, just who it is that they are seeking to give over command of the most awesome and destructive military force on the planet to, and do they feel justified in placing such power in the hands of that person.

Those who may have shown more concern for their candidates slickness, oratorical skills or their ability to either organize a community against banking, or as 'mavericks' passing laws limiting freedom of political speech, may now be questioning whether their candidate really warranted such power. They'd do well to remember their new found caution two years from now. And of course in this instance with Libya today, there still remain certain constitutional procedures to be considered and followed (none of which have to do with the 'War Powers Act'), especially as a 'kinetic military action' (WTF dishonest crap is that?!) might make it necessary to actually declare war, if in fact the act itself didn't already implicitly declare it (now that's an issue whose implications are ripe for debate).

I don't even think that our 'exit strategy' rises to the level of a primary issue... though it was one of the most disgusting things I've ever heard a leader say, one of the few times I've actually involuntarily shouted at the T.V. on hearing Obama's reply to the question of what our exist strategy from Libya was. He replied that our plan was,

"The exit strategy will be executed this week in the sense that we will be pulling back from our much more active efforts to shape the environment", ... and said he had "absolutely no doubt" that control could be shifted from the U.S. to other coalition members within days.

"When this transition takes place, it is not going to be our planes that are maintaining the no-fly zone," the president said earlier at a news conference. "It is not going to be our ships that are necessarily enforcing the arms embargo. That’s precisely what the other nations are going to do."

In other words, after putting some effort in for a few days, encouraging 'our allies' to join us, our exist strategy was to run away and leave it in their hands within a weeks time. This was as disgusting, infuriating, and as shameful a thing I've ever heard a 'leader' say in public. Not surprisingly his 'coalition' is falling apart, as Germany and other nations strategy is to head for the exits before being left holding the bag.

But even all of that is not the primary issue at the moment, not for me at least. It's not even these few questions, though I'd certainly like answers to them as well, such as

• What was the Left’s issue with Bush invading Iraq?
• Wasn’t it that people would be killed?
• No blood for oil?
• That it was an unjust war?

Using the criteria of the left, how does Obama's 'kinetic military action' not fail their tests and warrant immediate mustering of the ol' hippies walker's and new commie kids to march against it?

But, barring a couple odd Dennis Kucinich's & Ralph Nader's here and there, they have not protested and rioted and burned him in effigy, as they did with Bush, and so clearly those stated reasons could not have been their real motivation for opposing the war in Iraq. Also clearly, given the statement of Thaddeus Kosciuszko noted above, and the history of Saddam Hussein which made Qa'Daffy look like a piker, the Leftists problem with Iraq couldn’t have been that it was an un-just war; Saddam was a tyrant, and any free or semi-free nation on earth had just cause to invade and destroy his regime. But that was never seen or even considered by the left during the Iraq war (under Bush, at any rate), and so they cannot claim it's cover and pretext now. And given the fact that Bush received a set of over twenty resolutions from congress authorizing America to go to ‘war’, and the fact that few, left or right, were complaining that there was never any actual declaration of war made - still the case today - (which has been a bit of an issue with me), then the issue couldn’t have been that the Iraq war wasn’t justified… so what was the real problem that was a problem with Iraq, but isn't one with Libya?

Maybe the better question is, what is it that this ‘action’ has, that the Iraq war didn’t?

My guess is that this ‘action’ has the same thing going for it which the left didn’t object to when Clinton bombed Yugoslavia, which he also did by executive order alone, without congressional approval, just as with Obama today.

What is that you ask?

International approval, especially U.N. approval… that is their measure of ‘legality’ and worth.

But not just any approval, recall that the approval of nations who had recent experience with the oppression of tyrannies, Poland, Ukraine, etc, were discounted as having no standing among the 'old powers' of the world, France even denounced Poland as America's "Trojan Ass". No, the left is a bit pickier about whose approval it is they think is worth having. They prefer the sniffy set, France, Russia, China, and an international 'community' predominantly made up of thugs and despots little or no different from Qa'daffy. Why is that?

More to the point, why is it that the left doesn’t seem to give a fig for constitutional authority or even popular approval from Americans themselves or their representatives in congress…Bush lobbied congress for nearly a year to get overwhelming approval to 'go to war', Clinton and Obama did no such thing. U.N. popularity with among the 'in' crowd, on the other hand, that’s a biggee with them, for apparently in their eyes, if you’ve got that, you’ve got all you need to go to war with.

Let me be clear, our President has just cause to command the military to bomb every square inch of Qa’Daffy’s territory, but even so, he has not established a justifiable threat posed by Libya to America, which justifies our doing so, and there have been no constitutional procedures taken for authorizing it, there hasn’t been congressional approval sought or given, or even consultation, for sending our troops and treasure into battle against Libya.

There is no proper justification for risking our blood and treasure for the purposes of saving Libya’s people from their own government. When George Washington warned of alliances with European powers, he was speaking of making alliances with powers which we had no credible or vital interest getting involved with. I think he would have clearly seen the vital, unavoidable and very credible interests which we had for getting involved with WWII, and would at the very least have seen the basis for "temporary alliances for extraordinary emergencies" as an argument for war with Iraq and Afghanistan... but... at this point in time, in this scenario, is there a credible interest or threat to America's interests, for expending our blood and treasure in Libya?

I'm not seeing it. Worse, neither is the President. All he can say, is that 'The international community has demanded it' Well I'm sorry Obama, but just where in the hell is it that our vital interests are under perceivable and credible threat, from a civil war in Libya?!

Forget all the procedural niceties, that is the real basis you need to have for taking our nation into 'kinetic military action' - that is the Justification which needs to be established for those who will see their loved ones wounded or killed, for those people will have the brutally real context for calling this what it is, War.

they are not your constituents,
they are not your vital concern,
they are not who you owe allegiance to (are they?) and
they have no part in the Constitution you swore to uphold and protect!

I'm willing to listen to a case being made for one, but so far all I've heard is that the U.N. community has demanded it... that it is our duty to resolve another peoples civil war - where are your vaunted 'lessons of Vietnam' now you hypocritical P.O.S? You want to risk our blood and treasure on a society which has no coherent structure whatsoever which could conceivably be called pro-Western, and for which there exists plenty of evidence for being anti-Western and anti-American, a society which cheered the release of the Lockerbie bomber... this is the society which justifies our military involvement in their civil war?! Sorry, NO, that IS NOT WORTH our blood and treasure, this 'kinetic military action' IS NOT JUSTIFIED.

I'd even be willing to consider that "Tyranny anywhere is a threat to freedom everywhere", and that this action in Libya is somehow part of a wider and coherent plan to eliminate all tyranny... I probably still wouldn't agree, but at least that would show some hint of legitimacy and basis for an argument.

The cause, assuming that the cause is overthrowing Qa’daffy (and even that seems unlikely), is just, but it isn’t justifiable or justified under our constitution - such an action does not protect or defend the constitution or We The People, from whom all its power and authority is derived, which means that this is the arbitrary, non-retaliatory use of military force without even the pretense of having the legitimate authority for doing so.

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

Should the Education of your children include educating the government about your private life? The Rotten Common Core pt 2

Question: Should the Education of your children include educating the government about your home, your possessions, your habits, your own educational history, profession, the types of media you possess in your home and other tidbits of information about your family?

That pursuit of information is key to what the process we call ‘education’ has evolved into and is involved in doing today, and not only is it not considered controversial, it has been a central aim of it for well over a century. A mover and shaker of the early 1900's who we left off with last time, Ellwood P. Cubberley, had long

"... portrayed education as the main tool of America's progress... "

, and the wrenches and screwdrivers of that tool set were rigorous testing and surveying and agitating for 'education' legislation. Now by that, Cubberley did not mean that 'Educated People' were the key to our progress - that I would have agreed with – no, he meant that the educational process, the operations of educational institutions, their scope and their reach into American life, was the main tool for transforming America into what the Progressive experts had determined America should be; and thanks to aspects of our modern “Common Core Standards” programs, those tools are now being taken to the next level, one Cubberley could only have dreamt of.

Keep in mind that Cubberley (who we'll dig into further in a moment) is the same fellow we left off with last time, who approvingly said that,

“Each year the child is coming to belong more to the State and less and less to the parent.”

Amazingly, some influentially uninformed people think there's no reason for concern here. For instance, a well meaning long time legislative wonk, Kerry Messer, said in a local print sheet that there's no reason for concern about Common Core Standards because there are no ties to Washington behind them,

"It is important to point out that these reforms have nothing to do with the social engineering found in the programs coming out of Washington D.C. I can vouch for the fact that these current education reform proposals have been promoted in Missouri for more than a decade, and bills can be found in the archives of past legislative sessions to demonstrate such."

No doubt, if you stick to the letter of the law and it's intent, you know, as congress rigorously does with Article 1, Section 8 of it's enumerated powers (ahem), looking no further than how one bill refers to another, it's possible to honestly become myopic enough to believe that these programs are actually separated. But for those who look a little further than the obvious, his statement is a bit like saying that two baseball fans who've never met couldn't possibly be concerned with gathering the same sorts of statistics...'RBI's? Error's? HRr's? Come on! They've never met and discussed such things! What are the odds!?' No doubt Mr. Messer is very well informed about the legislation involved, but he's miserably ignorant of the aims and scope of modern educational policies - we'll get to the details of those policies in a couple posts, but please, history first, then legislation.

The prevalence of such influentially uninformed people is exactly why learning the history of this mess, what we term 'Education', what it considers to be it's goals, and the thinking behind such things, is so important to get a grasp of. When founded on common core ideals, there is no need for direct plans or conspiracies to be laid between state and federal level, or private organizations and corp's, their common core goals will synchronize almost on their own; weirdly, it's the same reason the Free Market works so well, as if moved by an 'Invisible Hand', common interests and objectives move people toward shared goals without any need for knowledge of each other's interests or motives.

Gretchen at Missouri Education Watchdog, caught a whiff of this sort of thing when wondering why someone at the dept of health and human services would be googling her site, nosed about and found this interesting tie-in between her posts on Education and HHS legislation:

A question: are these the intended functions and constitutional responsibilities of the Federal government and the public schools?

New Heights participants may be eligible for educational, employment, housing, support services and information about community resources until their 20th birthday. Contact the Anacostia SHS office at 202-645-4040, or the Cardozo SHS office at 202-671-1995.
This is listed under the Health and Wellness section under the teen parent program information:

WRAP MC CONDOM AVAILABILITY PROGRAM

We have adopted DOH’s Wrap MC Condom program in all high schools, where trained school staff provide condoms to students as part of a comprehensive health education program for students in grades 9–12. Condoms are also available through the school nurse.

Visit the Department of Health for more information.

How did this sort of thing come about? To find out, let’s continue looking back in time into the ‘new’ ‘Common Core Standards’ and the changes which have been made in the meaning and purpose of Education, when & why those changes came about and whether or not they’ve produced the benefits promised.

Looking Backward
Last time we went over how the definition and purpose of ‘Education’ has been changed and split into tasks and skills, long before the mid 20th century, and how common core standards, the new tool for intensifying this redefinition, were themselves nothing new.

But that ain’t the half of it. The problem with writing on this stuff isn’t finding damning material, but deciding on only a few to use lest your post be mistaken for an encyclopedia, and then forcing yourself to leave out the more sensational material so you don’t look wacky yourself for mentioning them (factual though they are). Probably the best place to start this post, is by continuing on with Ellwood P. Cubberley, the premier early historian of American Education, he of the cheery thought:

“Each year the child is coming to belong more to the State and less and less to the parent.”

This statement wasn’t made recently of course, or even the 1960’s, but back in the supposed good old days of 1909, and it was not said as a warning but as something to be looked forward to. Cubberly

Our School Curriculum's Rotten Common Core - pt.1

On a recent email thread someone said,

“So what is the motive and goal of this new education system we are constructing? Answer that first and the specific recommendations will follow."

That’s a question that really needs to be asked and followed through on; it’s one I've been bleating on about for years. I'll try to be brief here in responding to it, but as you might already guess... I probably can't be brief ( nope, turns out I couldn't be brief, but I'll be a bit more understanding to readers and spread this out over a week’s worth of posts. You're welcome).
Gretchen at Missouri Education Watchdog has been doing some outstanding work diving into the hiden corners of the goals, favors and paybacks behind ‘Race To The Top’ and Missouri’s new Common Core Standards, and has been drawing attention to the new dumbed down purpose of ‘Public Education’ as expressed in the "Mission Statement" of our new "Common Core Standards", which states:

"The Common Core State Standards provide a consistent, clear understanding of what students are expected to learn, so teachers and parents know what they need to do to help them. The standards are designed to be robust and relevant to the real world, reflecting the knowledge and skills that our young people need for success in college and careers. With American students fully prepared for the future, our communities will be best positioned to compete successfully in the global economy."

She's particularly taking note of how our State’s stated purpose for education has degraged from that of seeking to foster ‘skilled reasoning’, to simply acquiring some ‘knowledge and skills’ thought to be useful for ‘success in college and careers’. I agree this shows that our standards have slid yet another rung down the ladder. But I'd like to go a little further here and question whether the ladder we’re worrying over which rung we’ve slipped to, is even leaning up against a structure worth climbing – or not.

If not, then although reclaiming a higher rung would improve our position on the ladder... if we’re on the wrong ladder to begin with, is a less bad position really the issue we want to focus upon? Perhaps it is needed as an intermediary step, but shouldn't we begin more clearly defining what the actual goal should be in order to put us on a good position, on the right ladder, which is actually leaning up against the right structure?

To help ensure that, there are a few more questions I think we need to be asking ourselves. For instance,

• Does simply having a concern for “‘knowledge and skills’ thought to be useful for ‘success in college and careers’,” or even “skilled reasoning’, really qualify as Education?
• Is all useful learning equivalent to Education?
• Is improved reasoning equivalent to Education?
• Useful skills to be sure, every one of them, but is that , Education?
• Has Education always referred to acquiring these sorts of useful skills, and if not, when and why did the meaning change, and has the change been for the better?
• If not, how did they used to go about getting their 'useful skills', and has that changed for the better?

If the answers to these questions are in the negative, just what in God's name is it that we have fooled ourselves into not only accepting, but paying hundreds of billions of dollars in seeking after it, in lieu of an actual Education? 

These are the questions I'll be looking into over the next several posts, in order to answer this opening question at the top of this post, and even with everything else going on in the world today, I think this is among the most important issues facing us - other's might be more momentarily urgent, but few could be more important and defining for our future, and our present.

Founding out the problem
Gretchen asks, in comparing the previous educational goals of 1939, with today's,

"Is education facilitating the "achieving the purpose of his being" (1939) the same as being able to "compete successfully in the global economy" (2011)?”"

Certainly 'achieving the purpose of his being' would be preferable to simply training kids for the global economy - after all, a person who is trained for 'the' global economy, is a person that's going to be trained for competing in the currently foreseen global economy, and would be unlikely to be able to compete in any other, or even foresee any other. Not even the businesses know today what they'll need tomorrow - anyone remember WordPerfect? Lotus? If you train for a skill today, there's a very real chance it'll be obsolete tomorrow.

Shouldn’t the education our schools spend billions of dollars on, be concerned with something more lasting than currently relevant 'knowledge and skills'? Ask yourself this, what is the image that comes to mind when you think of an educated person, is it of someone who's been given skills suited to handling only one particular situation? Is an educated person someone who can only dance to the tune which someone else calls?

How is an education going to help a student to find and develop the ‘purpose of their being’ if all they've been educated in is simply developing skills at ‘reasoning’ (better check into what they mean by that word)? Sure, they may find themselves a few rungs higher up on the ladder, but... if it's still a ladder which is leaning up against the wrong building, how much better is that actually?

If those were the goals of education during the era of our Founding Fathers... they would have founded nothing more than stamp tax loopholes and better markets (both legal and illegal) for King George’s Tea; life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, would quite literally never have entered into their minds. And for all those whose minds don't seem to have a passion for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness today... it's worth wondering why.

Training, whether in ‘critical thinking’ skills, or new technological skills, or any other sort of business or professional skills, shouldn’t be confused with Education. Not even ‘literacy’ skills;

Would supporters of Liberty and Freedom want to Egypt the U.S.A.?

I went down to our State Capital, Jefferson City, Saturday afternoon, with a sizable number of Tea Party minded supporters, and had some encounters with the opposite minded, which were rather puzzling, and enlightening. As I walked up, Jim Hoft, Gateway Pundit was launching into speech that pulled no punches about naming the problems we faced and the nature of those we faced.	Jim Hoft
Followed by Stephanie Rhubach of Move-on-up.org, ("Reboot Congress" has some much higher quality picturess posted)	Stephanie Rhubach
Special thanks and appreciation for my congressman, Rep. Todd Akin, for dashing across the state from an important Missouri political function, to support our rally, giving a very good speech on the importance of facing issues head on, no matter how difficult, and the consequences of not doing so - as happened with the issue of slavery and the Civil War - and stay around for quite awhile afterwards talking with people and listening to their concerns,	Rep. Todd Akin
and a rousing call to arms by St. Louis Tea Party co-founder, Bill Hennessy, who highlighted the importance of Liberty Evangelism, of the need to talk about liberty and the Constitution to our fellows (check out his son's efforts... Bill just kicked it up a step to Big Government.com), and that our Tea Party have distributed thousands of free Constitutions throughout the St. Louis area, free, with no questions asked about party affiliation or for anything in return.	Bill Hennessy
The material IS the message and reading it is all the response we ask for. With that in mind, Jim Hoft, Adam Sharp of SharpElbows, Stephanie & I took a walk around to the back of the Capital building to the counter cultures rally to pass out some free constituitons, and see how the other half lived.	Stephanie, Sharp, Hoft & I going to spread the word for Liberty
Apparently they don't think we live too well. Stephanie's "Liberty or Slavery" sign lays out the choice, and the other sides choices were all for intimidation, power, and fists calling for 'Solidarity' and 'Koch Sucker' and "American Dream Stolen" (Hey, 'stolen'? Ya think that means they care about property rights? Nyah, dream on). I came with my pockets jammed with Constitutions, but only a few people would accept them. I got several sneer's, a few "Koch Plantation worker!" (apparently Koch is the new 'Bush'), and some who wanted to take them all and do... you can imagine what, with them. Someday I'm going to upgrade my phone so my pictures and video are worth looking at, but you can see how some of these encounters went at Bill Hennessy's, or at Jim Hoft's Gateway Pundit, Adam Sharp's Sharp Elbows & Patch Adam's Po'ed Patriot	Words collide
A co-worker of mine in the background, and most definitely on the other side
The sign says "Egypt JeffCity - what do you suppose that means	"Egypt JeffCity?
Would you accept a constitution from these guys?

One lady kept shoving her placard in front of Sharps face and camera, an inch away, and several times bumping into him - claiming that she was there supporting 'The Right of Workers to be free!", while claiming that Sharp had no right to be "In our demonstration!", loudly asserting their right to have their rally (which none of us questioned), and that he and we had no right to be there to listen to it.

Free speech? It doesn't mean to them freedom for all, but only freedom for them to speak ... and for us to be silent so they can speak.

"You've got no right to be here! You should stay on your side of the capital!" I pointed out that we were just listening, passing out free constitutions, not disrupting anything, but one of their people came over to our side and loudly tried to interrupt and stop Bill from making his speech... "Well working people must be heard!"

What do you do with that? What do they do with that?

Moments later an older unkept fellow stood there accussing Sharp of intimidating him with his camera (at least four or five feet away), using it like a gun... when I asked him how he'd characterize the lady he just watched physically accosting Sharp with her sign, blocking his sight, attempting to keep him from seeing or filming, whereas he was simply talking and running a camera without invading anyone's physical space, he began to get very agitated and attempted to make some incoherent point.

Whatever his point was, he never managed to make it. Another witty lady attempted humor by demanding that Stephanie go back to her side and fetch her some Tea. And another told her "You’re on Koch’s plantation!" Not a real wise thing to say to Stephanie. I've really got to get myself a decent camera, fortunately Jim Hoft caught most of it.

I saw one of my co-workers at the union side rally, enthusiastically joining in on denouncing greedy businessmen (I suppose that includes the people who employ both of us?)... very strange, very strange indeed.

In between the surging wacko's, there were a couple who seemed able to speak, and who actually felt (somehow) that they were there in support of liberty and freedom. When I tried to ask them to explain how forcing businesses or even the government to accept a union into their place of business, and forcing workers to join and pay dues, like it or not, against their will, and even to the point of not being able to afford them - how was that supporting liberty and free choice?... they couldn't.

They were puzzled, then annoyed by the question, and shrugged it off with "Businesses shouldn't be allowed to have power over workers".

But isn't it their property? Just like their clothing, car or home was theirs? Would they be open to having a community organizer tell them how to dress? Tell them who would cut their lawn, how low and how much they'll pay for it?

That was the end of their reasonablness, and they walked away. Bill Hennessy related a similar experience, from last fall as we were promoting Prop C (Missouri rejecting Obamaocare),

"I was waving a Prop C sign at a busy intersection and a fellow in a red mercedes convertible pulled up, "What's Prop C?" he asked and I told him it meant that people should be free to choose their own insurance, if they want it, and not be forced by the govt to buy insurance they approved of", and he said "Oh, I'm against that.", "Why? " I asked, "Because everyone should have the same things."

"Well give me your car then!"

Suddenly socialism didn't seem like such a great idea to him."

There's the puzzler. The disconnect between language and sentiment, between what words are used, the feelings they arouse - and the notion that you can somehow skim those feelgood feelings off the top of what they actually mean, without having to acknowledge the meaning your feelings are floating upon. So many people so rarely seem to examine their words they use and hear beyond those feelings - rarely looking at what those words actually mean, and even less often noting what other words they are using which directly contradict and render their 'happy words' meaning, meaningless.

For instance, you can't claim to be 'for freedom!' while advocating that people be forced to accept what you'd like to be free to receive.

How is that not seen and understood?

I got into a bit of a spat recently while trying to quickly hit the problems with the union organized strikes in Wisconsin and unions in general, and the point of disagreement was whether or not the unions represented socialist (or communist) aims (for those who don't think so, I'd direct them to several revealing posts Patch has provided).

The person I was talking with didn't think unions had any interest or concern for socialism or communism ("They don't care about spreading the wealth around, they just want power and control"), and with that dismissal, wouldn't hear another word about it. Another person couldn't see the Teachers in Wisconsin as being in any way socialist, "They just want all the goodies they can get."

Neither person saw either the Teamsters or any of the other unions in Wisconsin as being avowedly socialist, they also wouldn't see them as being either anti-capitalist (which I find mind boggling) or as posingany real threat to constitutional law.

There's an issue here, often missed and a big problem which happens all the time, and I think it's probably because of the term which Marx and his ilk succeeded in labeling their opposition as: Capitalist, instead of Free Market.

It really was a master stroke of spin, naming a 'system' whose fundamental principle is the freedom and liberty of people being able to choose to offer, produce, sell and/or buy, what they themselves think would be the best decision for their circumstances, renaming that which is the very essence of freedom, as something which many people have negative feelings about - money, capital.

With that trick of wordplay, the Marxists succeeded in making freedom seem repulsive.

Butl the fact remains that they are 'anti-capitalist', because they are anti-free market, and because they are that, they are anti-constitional, because they are opposed to the one thing which both freedom, law and the constitution entirely rest upon - Property Rights.

You don't need to be a socialist, or a communist or a 'Christian Democrat', or even have favorable feelings towards them, in order to find yourself falling fully in line with all of the goals and aims of Marx, Lenin, or any of his other buds like Mao, Pol Pot or even Hitler and Musillini, all you need to do to align yourself with the bloodiest tyrants in all of history, is to oppose the principle of Private Property, which means Property Rights.

That's it.

Marx himself saw this issue fairly clearly, and said as much himself, which I noted in a previous post here:

"The fact is that they are a direct result of what Marx summarized all of his ideas as being (ideas which fully followed from Rousseau’s ideas, btw), Chapter Two of his Communist Manifesto:

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

Those who've followed more than a few of my posts, know the annoying regularity with which I repeat that ALL political support for our Individual Rights is based upon a respect for Property Rights, and that dispensing with Property Rights inevitably dispenses with all Rights and all liberty and is, in fact, Anti American. This is why. You may not like that or agree that that is what you are after, you might think it unfair of me to point the fact out that hundreds of millions of lives have been lost or destroyed due to your ideas, however that IS what your ideas are based upon, and what THEY (the ideas you follow) are after."

Our Republic, our Laws, our Rights, our way of life, all rest upon Private Property which requires Property Rights - including having property in your own life and person - to be legally and politically secure in your life and liberty, and our system cannot survive without them. Or as John Adams said in 'Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States',

"The moment the idea is admitted into society, that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. If "Thou shalt not covet," and "Thou shalt not steal," were not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society, before it can be civilized or made free."

If you ever catch yourself thinking "Oh those nasty rich people, they shouldn't be allowed to make all that money, they should have to give some of it back to the community!" or something similar, you are at the very least undermining the Republic, our Laws, our Rights and our way of life as well as putting your own life and liberty in jeopardy.

And if you think that's ridiculous of me to say, try this one on for size: When you oppose Property Rights - following all the words and concepts it is inextricably integrated with - you are not only undermining the Republic, our Laws, our Rights and our way of life, but you are also rejecting reality itself, rejecting the very concepts of Truth, Beauty and all that is or ever could be, Good.

Yep. I'm serious. Gimme a little bit of your time (at least about 30 pages worth) and I'll be happy to demonstraight it for you.

Unless of course you are just fine with having Teachers who ask Doctors to falsify sick notes so they can skip school in order to hang out with union thugs and try to shut down a government whose elected representatives are attempting to do what their constitutients elected them to do - stop breaking the bank by giving away free goodies.

If that's what you're after, well, congratulations, you've got it.

Me? I intend to repeal, reduce and restore the Constitution and the Rule of Law.

Presidential Waivers and other Royal decrees

Something I don't see being taken much notice of, regarding the Obama Administration's granting of waivers to 200... 700 businesses, and now 4 states... is the blatant wielding of unrestrained power which it represents.

"The Obama administration said Wednesday that it had granted broad waivers to four states allowing health insurance companies to continue offering less generous benefits than they would otherwise be required to provide this year under the new federal health care law."

I'm sorry to tell my conservative friends that granting these waivers is not a sign of weakness on the part of the administration, far from it. I'm also sorry to tell my leftie friends that It is not a sign of benevolence on the part of the administration, who is after all, 'just trying to look out for their health'. This is a demonstration that those who the Obama administration favors will be given extra-legal preferences, and that those who it doesn't favor - will have to deal with 'the law' as it's written. More than anything else, this is a 'step into my parlor, said the spider to the fly' moment for those who may have half heartedly supported the administration, and even more so to those who have been granted the waivers.

"...Mr. Larsen, who is director of the federal Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight(http://www.hhs.gov/cciio/). It was to protect such coverage that the administration granted the waivers, he said.

To qualify for a waiver, a state, an employer or an insurer must show that compliance with the federal requirement would cause “a significant increase in premiums or a decrease in access to benefits.”

The issue which these folks who are benefiting from Obama's waivers should be most focused upon, and if they aren't yet I'm sure the administration will soon be raising their consciousnesses to it, is that now that they are under the administrations protection, if they don't toe the line, they can lose it.

This is a textbook example (well... it would be if textbooks were actually concerned with accuracy and truth) of a nation whose laws are based upon the whims of powerful men, and an absolute repudiation of "A nation of laws" which motivated the founding of our Republic. What John Adams wrote in his "Thoughts on Government" about how Americans felt when talking to Englishmen way back then, applies to how most of us feel when talking with leftists here today,

"A man must be indifferent to the sneers of modern Englishmen, to mention in their company the names of Sidney, Harrington, Locke, Milton, Nedham, Neville, Burnet, and Hoadly. No small fortitude is necessary to confess that one has read them. The wretched condition of this country, however, for ten or fifteen years past, has frequently reminded me of their principles and reasonings. They will convince any candid mind, that there is no good government but what is republican. That the only valuable part of the British constitution is so; because the very definition of a republic is “an empire of laws, and not of men.” That, as a republic is the best of governments, so that particular arrangement of the powers of society, or, in other words, that form of government which is best contrived to secure an impartial and exact execution of the laws, is the best of republics."

This situation is not isolated to 'trying to make health care work', it is the basic motivating policy of regulatory law (BTW, if you haven't read any of those names he mentioned, you might want to, your nation was founded, in part, upon their ideas). Play ball, get favored status, continue playing ball to keep your favored status. Don't play ball, and you will be crushed. The EPA, an old hand at this sort of thing, is well on into the practice with it's greenhouse regulations.

As National Review points out, back in 2009, Obama awarded GE $24.9 million in stimulus funds, and “roughly $20 billion more slated for health care record modernization of the kind that GE specializes in — ‘with a direct request to do so from GE’s CEO Jeffrey Immelt.’” Then last month, the President appointed Jeffrey Immelt, the CEO of General Electric, to his Head Council of Competitiveness and Jobs.
This all holds incredibly consistent with Immelt’s notion that for businesses to be successful it must work “in concert” with the government. However, it’s also known as “rent seeking” and is a glaring example of Big Government interfering with Big Business. Which is a problem.

These aren't 'failings' or 'slip-ups', these are examples of the entire purpose and point of regulatory law.

Get used to it. Practice bowing and grovelling.

Or work to repeal, reduce and restore the Constitution and the Rule of Law.
(Cross posted at 24th State)

Niall Ferguson actually looks at what is to be seen in Egypt

Niall Ferguson, almost alone on the national seen, has actually bothered looking at what is to be seen happening in the Egyptian revolution. He flabbergasts a bevy of MSNBC pundits by pointing out

"...Can I just remind you that the army is officially in charge of egypt which is not what one usually expects from a triumphant democratic revolution..." 

and leaves the host speechless when he dares to point out that,

"Obama's foreign policy seems to be 'I'm not George W. Bush - love me."

I've been watching the various reports, and frankly not buying any of the gammit running between 'it's 1776 again!' to 'Theocratic conspiracy!', though I think Stratfor has had the best and most worthwhile coverage of the situation, one line sums it up best, is

"The demonstrations were the backdrop for this drama and the justification for the military’s actions, but they were not a revolution in the streets. It was a military coup designed to preserve a military-dominated regime. And that was what the crowds were demanding as well."

And that's about where it remains... for the moment. The military, thanks to 'the people', switched out it's aging handler who wanted to pass his office to his son, for it's own handlers - themselves - promising promises of a promising future constitution. I don't think this 'revolution' is over, I don't think the situation has resolved itself, about the only thing that can be said is that Mubarak is gone and somethings else is coming. Personally I'm doubtful it'll be an improvement. When crowds race through the streets calling for "Democracy!" it reminds me of "Liberty! Fraternity! Equality!"... and the French Revolution didn't turn out all that well.

A counterpoint to the media's gushing praise for the 'happy peaceful crowds' can be taken from this reporters experience:

"CBS News reported today that on Friday in Cairo, as news of Mubarak's resignation flooded the crowd, reporter Lara Logan was assaulted: "In the crush of the mob, she was separated from her crew. She was surrounded and suffered a brutal and sustained sexual assault and beating before being saved by a group of women and an estimated 20 Egyptian soldiers."

That sums my feelings up well. The ecstatically happy crowds brutally raped and beat an American reporter for hours, who had to be rescued by a group of women who got help from soldiers, saving her from the democratic revolutionaries.

There ya go. I don't claim to know what's coming next in Egypt, but if past is prologue... it's not likely going to be pretty.

Freedom of Speech or Freedom from Speech? At Washington University, it's the latter.

Washington University claims that the goals it has are intended to provide your students (in exchange for $50,000 or so per year) the ability,

• to judge ourselves by the most demanding standards;
• to attract people of great ability from all types of backgrounds;
• to encourage faculty and students to be bold, independent and creative thinkers;

... 'bold' and 'independent'... as long as it agrees with the popular point of view, that is. WashU recently had Green Star Czar Van Jones speak on campus, at the invitation of the Student Union (with reportedly a fairly hefty $20k fee (initially)) to hear Jones' words of wisdom, such as,

"Would you be willing to take your life, write on a card, throw it in a big pot with everybody else, reach in at random and pull out another life with total confidence"

That's Jones view of not just a measure of societies affluence, but an actual ideal goal; to live a life as undifferentiated and as lacking in individual meaning and value as anyone else (what our Founders would have called a "A leveling spirit" (and then spat)) - that's the Green Star Czar's view of things... spreading not only the wealth around, but of cutting all the poppies down to one uniform size.

Sad, sick even, but for some reason it didn't cause much of a stir among the students, faculty or student union. But that's not really my point here, and only slightly more to the point is the fact that only those friendly to his views are allowed to listen to his words of wisdom. Curious.

Somewhat less than curious, is the fact that Bristol Palin was invited to speak by the student union as part of 'Student Sexual Responsibility Week' (I know, really? But it is only one week out of the year. Phew, right?! And besides, it's balanced by faculty advice on Miss Lewinski's speciality (no word on whether or not that qualifies as new Green Jobs )) and offer a conservative point of view on a panel (with reportedly a fairly hefty $20k fee) to hear about the folly of thinking there were no consequences to pre-marital sex, you know, being 'penalized with a baby', single parenthood, you know, non-fun stuff.

A cautionary tale, to be sure, and I don't know enough about Miss Palin to say whether or not she has anything to say that'd be worth listening to, but for some reason the fact that she might be there saying it, almost immediately stirred up a firestorm of fury and outrage, raising concerns about the security and safety not only of Palin, but students as well. There was also much outrage from students, faculty and so forth, over the exorbitant fee involved. (See Gateway Pundit and Poed Patriot for the details).

"A "No thanks, Bristol" Facebook petition against the appearance was started by College Democrats shortly after the plan was announced Wednesday and hundreds of students signed it Thursday. Others expressed displeasure during a packed meeting on the St. Louis campus"

Hmmm... do the differing receptions of Jones, vs Palin, strike you as being particularly fair and balanced? Do they strike you as evidence of promoting 'bold, independent and creative thinking' in their students, or of a diversity of views?

There were two bills: Jones billed $20,000, Palin billed $20,000, but only one firestorm over them... hmmm... suspicious? I was, but apparently there's no reason to be, the Student Union reports that:

"“His honorarium for the Assembly Series actually cost $20,000,” Klagsbrun said. “The speech was only $5,000 because we were able to call in a personal favor.”"

That's nice.

Now, being that WashU is a 'private' university, and it being the decision of the Student Union who to invite, and what out of state events to fund a delegation to (they reportedly chose to pay for 165 kids to go to the "Return to Sanity" rally in D.C), that's their decision to make.

Sad, sick even, but it is their right to do what their students want them to do.

However... given that the basic premise of the University is to broaden a students outlook and perspective, make them more reasonably tolerant of other points of view, even (supposedly) encourage interest in seeking out other points of view by, you'll remember, making an effort to "encourage faculty and students to be bold, independent and creative thinkers"... isn't this a sign that they are failing in both their intent, and follow through?

Mom? Dad? Are you getting what you thought you paid for?

These fiery outbursts over Free Speech being used for an opposing point of view, is not an uncommon situation on college campuses, or even a localized event, do you think it might have some ramifications for our society?

It was pointed out to me by a shadowy anonymous source that:

"The state Bar Associations (essentially professional unions that are far scarier than SEIU) require Continuing Legal Education (CLEs) to maintain a legal license. The Van Jones speech counted as 1 CLE credit in the state of Missouri, despite the fact that there was nothing "legal" in the Van Jones speech."

Ah. Well, might there be some ramifications from a Marxist's views being considered worthy of credit, in our lawyers continuance of their legal education? The Student Newspaper notes that:

"Jones was listed among Time’s 100 Most Influential People in 2009 and is a distinguished visiting fellow at Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. He is a senior policy adviser at Green For All, the non-governmental organization he established in 2007. He was appointed special advisor for green jobs in the Obama administration in early 2009, before his previous political ties entangled him in controversy and forced his resignation."

'Previous political ties'... yeah...  just your average communist party member, and avowed marxist promoter of cop killers - those who uphold the law - just another case of building bridges between students and communists and democrats, nosiree, nothing to see here, just move along please.

What again is the educational profile of this communist friendly, green jobs promoting university with a concern for the little people?

"The university has nearly 14,000 students and is among the Top 10 most expensive in the country, with costs of over $50,000 a year per student."

Yeah... $50k a year, instilling students with a fondness for phrases like "Workers of the world unite", and against those considered representative of an opposing point of view. Could there be a problem there? Does it seem reasonable that the ideas of Marx, and Che, and Jones, of 'toss your life into a pot', are being made popular, on a campus that's paid $50,000 per year for the education of their students? Does it seem reasonable that the students thinking of such things as being popular, are likely to have any real comprehension of what those phrases mean, intellectually, or occupationally? Or even to have given consideration to the consequences in death and destruction which the popularity of such phrases, visited upon Russia, China, Cambodia...?

Parents send their kids to colleges like this to train their kids to sharpen their reasoning faculties and to learn a profession (two things which shouldn’t be thought equivalent, but that's another story), and yet their children are being indoctrinated with the most virulent one sided, strident, unreasoning sets of views, which are avowedly out to eliminate all professions and all possibility of any individual getting ahead in life ('toss your life in a jar and pull out another' remember?).

We're told we should accept these thug's denouncing of conservative views... and apparently we do.

And that's considered reasonable? And parents send their kids here... expecting what? And from Conservatives, why no outrage? Why are so very few voices being raised about how a point of view, easily an unpopular point of view, being trampled and forced off the stage, why is THAT not decried and protested? Why aren't YOU making noise about this? Yet we are going to allow these thugs of the left to go about their bully-boy ways of intimidating any speech they don't approve of into silence?

Freedom of Speech or freedom from speech?
It's tempting to ask what our problem is. Why are we being so 'reasonable' that we politely wait our turn for admittance to the gulag which must be waiting for us at the ultimate end of this queue?

But don't let it fool you, this isn't a problem of conservatives being too reasonable - the fact is that we are being anything but reasonable. That's our problem, it's the fact that we've accepted this passionless Mr. Spock form of logic chopping in place of reason, something that says when unreasoning and even anti-reasoning savages attempt to shut you up, that you should give them the credit for being 'just another valid point of view'.

Listen to this clip at Poed Patriot,

"This is a Video that explains, in the Communists own words, how they use a Crisis to manipulate people's feelings ( of peace activists and the unemployed) in order to indoctrinate them into Marxism (Blame the Capitalist System for everything). All the While working with Unions, Churches, and organizations, like Jobs with Justice, to push forward their agenda."

To stand by and listen to that, is not in any way being 'reasonable', but is in fact jettisoning reason, as well as any informed view of a hierarchy of principles, out the window. Putting your head calmly into the mouth of a lion is not a demonstration of being reasonable, cool, calm and collected - it's a death wish. We are allowing ourselves to be distracted into focusing on lesser rules of civility and appropriateness, at the expense of our vital interests and values, distracted into behaving as if we are facing a reasonable opponent, while missing the higher and more vital issues involved.

Civility is indeed a necessary component of civilization, but it assumes a reasonable expectation of receiving the same from your fellow and opponent. When your opponent's entire ideas and tactics are based upon eliminating your point of view, and your right to speak it, civility must take a back seat, if you wish it to have any prominence in society ever again. No, that doesn't mean violence, that means that you cease turning polite and contrite ears to these people; it is time that we call them out for supporting the ideas which are suited only to thugs, murderers and tyrants.

Our valued higher principles, such as 'life, liberty and pursuit of happiness', the exercise of Reason, a nation of Laws, not of men, these are all under belligerent assault, and it is no longer being done surreptitiously At the very least, it seems as if views once considered those of our deepest enemies, are being given a friendly ear amongst those considered to be our future leaders. Isn't it reasonable to be concerned about that?

Socialists and communists - self avowed - have been coming out of the wood work lately, the Director of White House Communications could offer up comparisons between Mother Theresa and Chairman Mao,, there are newscasters announcing it on T.V., communists and socialists no longer hide or pretend they don't exist. We've even had a message from the head of the Communist Party USA, that it's "Time to "Ally" with "Sections of the Democratic Party and the Obama Administration""

And how do they somehow manage to not be publicly and angrily rebuffed and denounced by the Democrat party for even suggesting that a political party devoted to the Constitution of the United States and the free market (right?), should be thought of as being chummy with those committed to the overthrow of the Constitution of the United States, people who are purveyors of communism, the greatest cause of human misery, destruction and death in all of history?

Gee, I wonder, where it is that they find their members, where do they find people sympathetic to the views of the State controlling the lives of it's people 'for their own good'?

There is a war going on, an intellectual war upon the principles of freedom and Reason itself, by avowedly anti-Reason, anti-Western savages.

The reason why Reason has been attacked and undercut in our schools, is that Reason isn't in any way weak... Reason not only developed the atomic bomb, but dropped it. Twice. For thousands of years Reason has made possible a range of incredible feats, everything from enabling small numbers of determined men to destroy vastly larger ones, as Alexander the Great defeated the Persians 2,500 years ago and the U.S. Military when obliterating a million man army just a few years ago, and both with only a handful of losses, to actually sending men to the moon - or the most astounding feat of them all for Reason - the U. S. Constitution which made it possible for men to live in freedom and prosperity for over two centuries.

But we aren't facing an enemy who fights with anything as clean as an atomic bomb, or even as civilized as suicide bombers. Our enemy is even lower than these, attacking us in our very hearts, souls and minds, eating at our very ability to know who we are, hollowing us out from within our own minds, and we are it's greatest weapon, sending our children to these 'schools' of self destruction, for $50,000 dollars and more per year.

We are paying for the privilege of being denounced and destroyed. There is nothing reasonable in that at all. Merely compliant.

Is Winning Everything?
Anything less than winning IS unacceptable. But winning isn't everything. Mistaking an opponents thinking and aping of our values ('free speech!' isn't free when it's used as cover for force), that IS a deadly mistake, but even so, winning is not everything, and the proper response is not to respond with force, or to begin seeking to win at any cost - that would be losing to our enemies 'values'.

However, that does not mean that we be quiet, civil and polite, except as they might further our cause, that of a reasoning, moral, law abiding society. Last year I had an animal rights activist attempt to shout over me in a 'discussion', fully expecting me to quietly and politely yield to her stream of assertions.

Screw that. I demonstrated how ridiculously loud I can be. I won't be shut up by those expecting to use my civility against me, those who have no civility for me or those in attendance, and I won't sit down if you try and roll over me. And none of us ever should. I suspect that the old saw "Don't talk of religion and politics in public" was started by proregressives who wanted to be able to subvert religion and politics without interference.

Screw that.

Being Reasonable certainly doesn't mean yielding and stepping aside for the barbarians within the gates of academe to pour out upon us. We must fight ideas with ideas. Brutally, and without a shred of political correctness involved. Use raw, unadorned truth, when someone claims to be 'for the little person', remind them that in the last century, the ideas in their minds have slaughtered 'little people' by the tens of millions around the world. When they claim to be for free speech, remind them that their view of 'free speech for me but not for thee' are the same vile view of 'freedoms' practiced by Stalin, Mao and Hitler. When they speak of only wishing to offer health care, remind them that what they intend will mean enslaving an entire nation, and dooming coming generations to bureaucratic death panels and economic destruction.

Winning is important, it is extremely important, but it is more important to win because it is the right and reasonable thing to do, Win because it is the only way to preserve the Western way of life, freedom, and the liberty to live your own life, without permission from some worthless bureaucrat to breath or eat as you wish. Winning for the right Reasons is a vital focus to retain, and prudence says that when a potential murderer demands to be allowed to demand your death, screw the niceties, take away the only weapon they have - your polite acceptance of their 'right' to demand it.

Keep in mind that these punks who shut down Palin from speaking at their conference, did far more than stop one person from speaking, they shouted down the conservative voice from being heard on the same terms as their pro-regressive leftist views, which they desired to go unchallenged; they shut down the very principle of Free Speech altogether, and they did this on a college campus, where Reason is supposed to hold supreme, and liberty is supposed to flourish.

They attacked the very heart and soul of America... and our response is supposed to be 'reasonable'?

Screw that!

When these little Che wannabee's demand that you treat them with respect for their ideas, then you should firmly, even loudly, identify what they are saying as nothing less than an apology for evil, and rationalizing brutality and murder. Stop worrying about offending your Sister-In-Law, and start considering the evil you are allowing to fester unchallenged in her mind... and to be spread to others.

Think. Speak. Act.

In short, damn the civility and full speech ahead.

The State of the Union: The Force of ideas vs. the idea of Force

The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.' - Ronald Reagan

If the quote above doesn't strike fear into your heart, you haven't given the ideas behind it much thought. The left wants to help you with your healthcare, with your home loans, with your education, with your job hunting, even with your drainage.

Many people ask what could be wrong with that? Sounds like nice and neighborly things to do, don't they? Why shouldn’t Govt be empowered to help? Why is govt action worse than that of individual choices and the free market?

One word: Power. Govt has it, and it has it by taking it from you. Taking from you your personal power and freedom to make your own choice, as well as the freedom of anyone else to make their own choices.


The Huffington Post recently ran a headline they thought outlandish "Michele Bachmann: Obama Health Care Reform 'The Crown Jewel Of Socialism'", along with a telling comment 'Where did she go to college'. The better question would be how did she go to college and still retain the ability to say such a thing?


But in light of all of our new emphasis on using nicey-nice words, I'd like to make a proposal, lets stop calling the leaders of the opposition mean names, and stop suspecting them of nefarious intentions. Maybe we could do so with just a bit more effort than the Dem's recent efforts. But aside from that tweak, I don't say this lightly. If you hide from reality in any way, you invite in falsehood and endanger yourself and all you value.

The vast majority of those looking to improve our world through the govt are not intending to harm you or take your freedoms, they are sincerely trying to help you... and that should inspire far more fear than a simple villain out to do harm. They seek to do good, they feel in their hearts that they are doing what they can to help you, and feel morally empowered in doing so... with your best interests in mind... it's the sort of self-righteousness that can prompt someone to say "But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it", and "I don't worry about the constitution", they are simply intending to do for you what you don't have the sense to do for yourself.

That's all.

There is nothing more dangerous than someone having power over you in order to do good for you. They are not restrained by the Constitution, they are not restrained by law (though they expect you to be restrained by those laws they favor), they are not restrained by your choice to go another way, to try a different solution - or none at all - they feel that your choices are misguided, shortsighted, wrong. And because they know what's best for you, they are going to 'prevent' you from such harmful behavior - for your own good.

They feel they are in the 'right'.

But what is that right? What does it rest upon? This is the question which the proponents of the Ideas of Force, are peculiarly weak willed in examining.

I’ve had a couple discussions lately, some on The Federalist Papers facebook site, some on mine, and some by email or in person, that just cause the head to swirl in disbelief. In response to my pointing out that no one has a right to force others to give them what they feel they are entitled to, one responded:

“Where’s this “use of force” I’m advocating? “Force” means an object acting against the will of a subject. In a democratic system such as ours, the public will is defined as the preferences of a majority. Force means a minority acting against the will of a majority (simple or super).”

Despite being college educated (or rather, because of it), this person actually stated, and not as an off the cuff typo, but something often repeated, that "Force means a minority acting against the will of a majority (simple or super)", the concept of a tyranny of a majority apparently never crossing his mind. Sooo... what 'Democracy' decides is good, is good? I know what college he went to - a modern one. And it is a notion that is held by many today, the counter arguments to it, the Force of Ideas hinted at in the quotes in the sidebar of this post, are simply not being taught.

So let's have a quick look, I assure you it is exceedingly important. By these all too common leftist Ideas of Force, 'Democracy' simply serves the will of the majority of the people, and what the majority of the people choose is what is right... which was the same one used by the Athenian people, when they expressed their preference to put Socrates to death for expressing his ideas... does that mean they were not advocating Force? Conversely, does that mean that Socrates’ apology was advocating the use of force against the majority by his desire to be left free to continue his questioning of them?

You might look to the left's condemnation of conservative speech for a clue to their answer to that.

Now most leftist's will balk at that, and say “We’re not talking about putting someone to death here!”, but based upon their argument, it does not matter what the issue is, it is only by an argument whose standard is rooted in Natural Law, in peoples’ self-evident Natural Right to ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ that anyone could possibly have any disagreement with the Athenians preference to put Socrates to death for his public philosophizing... or to imprison people for wishing to handle their own healthcare. A 'morality' or 'standard' that is based upon the power of the majority to do what it wishes, contains nothing that will prevent, or even discourage, it from doing what it has the power to do. The inevitable consequences of unleashing such powers, will be the formation of things such as the much derided 'Death Panels', but Sarah Palin's apt term has stubbornly resurfaced again, which Reboot congress is shocked, shocked I say and "I'm still shocked" to say that the reality of death panels

are noted in an op-ed in the Boston Globe:"

"But... Palin is right. Death panels are an inevitable consequence of socialized medicine. The law of scarcity demands them."

But more accurately, the law of unrestrained power demands that the choices of individuals will be forced aside. When the Ends justify the Means, and are allowed unrestrained power to accomplish their goals, then the Ends will not blink at the means used to accomplish them. Force, raw and brutal, is the inevitable result of dispensing with the responsibility of living and governing outside of a constitution which upholds respect for Individual Rights, as understood through Natural Law.

Here's another example from Dana Loesch at Big Journalism, of what such ideas lead to, even from those who decry the use of words such as 'Crosshairs"... from the other side of the aisle, that is,

"“I have considerable respect for nonviolence but I don’t treat it as inevitably a necessary rule …
“It’s partly a problem almost strategy and propaganda, it’s a violent country, it’s a violent government, it’s killing people, and they’re going to call us violent if we break a window, but they will do that. Unless you have good reason for breaking the window, probably you shouldn’t do that, unless it’s,m you know, a big part of your strategy.”"

Francis Fox Piven, who is now claiming 'little old widow' status, would like everyone to not notice that she has publicly, and consistently over the course of decades, directly called for violent revolution, for destroying property... as long as it's in support of a good thing.

In other words, if you don't respect Natural Law & Property Rights and abide by laws which uphold them, then you are left with no standard but your personal desires and the power to impose them on others, and there is nothing you will not condone if it serves your purposes as a "a big part of your strategy".

The fact that Power is used with the intention to 'do good', changes nothing for the better or for the good. It ensures that the choices of individuals will not be respected, and that ultimately ends, time and time again, in death and destruction. For those who point to Europe's "Social Democracies" and say "It's working there!", well, have you heard the joke about the optimist plunging from the top of the skyscraper? He's heard to say as he plumets by each floor "So far so good!" - ultimately, that doesn't end so well.

In a comment to my last post by someone who wants the Ideas of Force to prevail, was annoyed that I'd noted it's modern source, Marxism, as being behind Political Correctness, better termed 'Cultural Marxism', he wished to paint it as being simply a benign system for doing good unto our fellow man (you), as if that’s just swell nice stuff, purely well intentioned ideas which we should all be able to get behind.

Well no, sorry, these ideas are fundamentally no different than thugs mugging you in the street, the fact that they use words and ideas rather than clubs, knives or guns (at the moment) is only a measure of their current proregress. I absolutely do not grant any civility to such ideas. I do, of course, grant civility to people who have unwittingly accepted the PC PR boilerplate assertions about how all Marxism really means is just a desire for sunshine and lollipops, but that’s granted (temporarily) to people, not their ideas… their ideas I put in the crosshairs of as destructive a philosophical bullet as I can find - and, IMHO, those people lose their immunity to such condemnation, as their familiarity with their own ideas increases.

What proponents of 'Democracy', like my commentator, and others proposing full popular vote in all elections and even on legislation, like to say,

“I am for majority rule on ALL issues: a supermajority on a certain things (e.g. civil liberties); a simple majority on everything else.”

They want majority rules on all issues. Period. See if you can find the wiggle room between such ideas of Democracy, and Europes 'Social Democracy, and the fact that only one political system in the history of the world, has led to the massive death tolls, 100 to 150 million lives, ‘achieved’ by the ideas of Marxism and Communism. The fact is that they are a direct result of what Marx summarized all of his ideas as being (ideas which fully followed from Rousseau’s ideas, btw), Chapter Two of his Communist Manifesto:

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

Those who've followed more than a few of my posts, know the annoying regularity with which I repeat that ALL political support for our Individual Rights is based upon a respect for Property Rights, and that dispensing with Property Rights inevitably dispenses with all Rights and all liberty and is, in fact, Anti American. This is why. You may not like that or agree that that is what you are after, you might think it unfair of me to point the fact out that hundreds of millions of lives have been lost or destroyed due to your ideas, however that IS what your ideas are based upon, and what THEY (the ideas you follow) are after.

In the same chapter, Marx lays out his 10 point plan for achieving his ideal... see if anything here seems familiar to you today:

"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."

You can claim all you want that you don't intend death and destruction; you just want to make things more fair. I'll grant you that. I'll even (with much trepidation) grant you that maybe Marx didn't want that either, or Lenin, or Stalin, or Mao or Pol Pot, etc, I would not be surprised at all to learn that they all only wanted to make things more fair for the average person. But fewer things are more true than the truism that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

You may not intend to destroy America by your policies – but your intentions really don’t matter. You may not intend to hurt yourself when jumping off of a cliff, but the fact is that the principle of gravity doesn't care about your good intentions; certain results follow from certain actions because of the basic principles and laws which they have no choice but to adhere to. Chief among political and social principles is that if you diminish, disregard or discard a lawful respect of Property Rights, destruction and death will eventually follow. It matters not one whit whether or not the majority or even a super majority of people agree to it. What goes up, must come down, and when the idea goes up that the foundation of Property Rights are to be removed from the basis of that civilization, what will come down is that civilization.

Your intentions to the contrary, you can only take the property of another which you have no right to, through the use of force, real or implied. You cannot forbid the preferred actions of another, without the use of force, real or implied. You cannot demand that a businessmen not compete to the best of his ability, without the use of force, real or implied. You cannot mandate that I, and everyone else in this nation, ‘participate’ in Govt’s health control plan, without the use of force, real or implied.

Intellectual Warfare
You cannot fight ideas and principles with legislation alone. At best, you can temporarily thwart or slow the progress of your good intentioned enemies with legislation. They have not made their successes through legislation, but through mis-education. They've won over the 'hearts and minds' of large swaths of America, primarily the college educated, or uneducated, but leaving few who are not at least touched with sympathy for these anti-American views.

The battleground of an intellectual war, is in the minds of those we oppose, and the proper tanks, rifles and bullets are principles, concepts and words - the left knows now, and always has known this. With that in mind, we must remember that 'winning' a negotiation over something like lower taxes, which concedes that Govt has the right to tax us in order to force us to comply with its 'doing good' to us, is no victory at all.

Conservatives repeatedly make the mistake of abandoning the field of battle to the left, with the ludicrous idea that they've 'won'. For example, they will often say something true, such as "Entitlements are wrong!", but then unknowingly capitulate when the left replies with 'Our Entitlements at $N trillion dollars would be very affordable if we cut defense!". The left knows that the conservatives response will be to pragmatically (taking action without reference to principles) begin bargaining over the details of percentages of the budget for this and that to be cut here and there. What the conservative doesn't see is that this is nearly complete victory for the left in every way but the speed of their desired proregress.

Pssst! Conservatives! Hey, yes I'm talking to you, 'when you discard Principles, you discard the only thing you have that are worth conserving, your principles!'.

We must realize that when engaging in such negotiations without making your position clear, we’ve conceded the argument and all moral authority to the left.

The State of the Union today is one based on the Ideas of Force - A nation not of laws, but of men
 No doubt President Obama will attempt to portray his Ideas of Force in his State of the Union Address, as if they had the Force of Ideas, but the fact is that, legislatively, we already have conceded our constitutional principles as Americans.

That is indisputable. The Constitution stands today, in word only - look to your, and your neighbors understanding of it, for proof. But look at this quote from John Adams

John Adams, Novanglus essays (1774 - 1775)
“ Obsta principiis, nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud, is the only maxim which can ever preserve the liberties of any people. When the people give way, their deceivers, betrayers, and destroyers press upon them so fast, that there is no resisting afterwards. The nature of the encroachment upon the American constitution is such, as to grow every day more and more encroaching. Like a cancer, it eats faster and faster every hour. The revenue creates pensioners, and the pensioners urge for more revenue. The people grow less steady, spirited, and virtuous, the seekers more numerous and more corrupt, and every day increases the circles of their dependents and expectants, until virtue, integrity, public spirit, simplicity, and frugality, become the objects of ridicule and scorn, and vanity, luxury, foppery, selfishness, meanness, and downright venality swallow up the whole society..”

we have been in this situation before, and we recovered our Rights and Liberty then, and we can do so again, now. While the last time required real warfare, today's battle can and will be won peacefully on the battlefield of ideas alone - if we - you and your neighbor - stand up for, and commit to them.

We have everything our Founding Fathers lacked - we have our own nation, our own government, we have the incredible power of our Constitution - we only have to remember that its power resides in us - we are now in a situaiton where we realize that we have let slip its meaning and allowed our representatives to forget it and us, but realizing that, we can, and must, work hard to get from where we are, back to a position where our constitutional principles are again seen as the law of the land, and to do that we must, step by painful step, politically, legally, educationally and properly, reverse the situation we find ourselves in.

In that context, of course reducing spending is important for us to do, and I’ll say that in those situation where that is all we can credibly accomplish at the moment, well ok, that’s a good start, and it's good to give credit and a thank you to Sen. DeMint and friends when they target $2.5 Trillion in spending cuts.

But it is only a ‘good start’, not a success. And it is only a good start if we refuse to ignore that their good intentions are fundamentally opposed to the American understanding of liberty. If you can't quite imagine regarding your convincing a poisoner to cut the amount of arsenic he puts in your food, from a dose that’ll kill you in a month, to a dose that’ll kill you in a year… as being a victory… then don't fool yourself about reducing taxes and spending either. Nevertheless, from the position we find ourselves in, it is also hard not to call such measures, improvements, and ones that should be encouraged - just don't forget the fact that our ultimate goal is to get the poisoner out of the kitchen and far from being able to do further harm, ASAP. As long as We The People don’t mistake this for being anything other than a good start, and don’t let them forget that we haven’t forgotten it, well then, I think we oughta give those Senators and Representatives who are proposing such cuts, an 'atta boy'.

"Atta Boy!"

Now get back to work, Repeal, Replace, Restore, but most importantly of all, stand up for your principles, and proclaim them!

Note: To learn where the Founding Fathers got their ideas for sound government and how a return to these ideas can solve our nation’s problems today. This DVD-based study on the book "The Five Thousand Year Leap" will be offered on Wednesday evenings beginning February 9. This study will cover the “Twenty-Eight Principles of Liberty--Ideas that Changed the World.” You can pay for and pick up your book ($6) on February 9.

To register or for more information, contact Van at: Blogodidact@gmail.com.