Brown’s Win Is a Victory for TEApublicanism

By Tim Dunkin

Last Tuesday was an exciting day if you are an opponent of the socialistic agenda that Obama, Pelosi, Reid, and their various and sundry acolytes in Congress have spent the better part of the past year trying to ram down our throats. In Massachusetts of all places — that bright, glowing sapphire blue jewel in New England's crown — a reasonably conservative Republican won the Senate seat held by the Kennedy's since 1952. In doing so, Scott Brown becomes the 41st Republican vote in the Senate, and the barrier to the passage of Obamacare in any of its present House and Senate forms. Brown, an energetic and charismatic candidate, campaigned on a platform of fiscal responsibility and opposition to the insanity we see unfolding in Washington. His victory over Marcia, er, Martha Coakley, in what should have been the single safest seat in the entire universe for the Democrats, has helped to underscore the disgust and anger on the part of the electorate for the present ruling power in the Capitol. People are angry, people don't want Obamacare, cap'n'trade', more spending, greater debt, higher taxes, and the rest of the "progressive" agenda that has hithertofore been pushed so aggressively by the Democrats.

The days and weeks to come will prove whether the Democrats learned anything from the drubbing they took in Massachusetts. So far, the signals seem to be mixed. Their handlers in the media seem to be in panic mode — even Chris Matthews, one of the wackiest of the whackos on television, has urged the Dems to pull back and reassess what they're doing. But then again, Matthews also got into a shouting match with Howard Dean about it, since Dean cluelessly thinks that the real problem is that the American people are mad that the Dems haven't gone far or fast enough. Several "moderate" Senatorial Democrats, like Evan Bayh (Indiana) and Jim Webb (Virginia) publically called on their leadership to back off of universal health care, and Pelosi was forced to admit that they don't have the votes in the House now to pass the thing — a sure sign that "Blue Dog" Democrats are abandoning ship, knowing that Obama isn't going to save them come November. Yet...there's also some noise that Pelosi is nevertheless going to make an attempt at passing Obamacare by reconciliation, which would serve as an end run around the loss of their filibuster-proof majority. Also, the Democrats just floated the idea of increasing the debt limit for the federal government another $1.9 trillion, so they can continue to borrow and spend more and more. So maybe the Democrats didn't learn their lesson after all.

While not as much of a red-meat conservative as I and many others would like, the general perception of Scott Brown is that he's "conservative enough," certainly as good as we can expect to see out of Massachusetts. As a state Senator in Massachusetts, he voted for Romneycare — the Massachusetts state version of socialized medicine — and he did so knowing it had a provision requiring the program to co-pay for abortions. His own stance on abortion, as articulated on his campaign's website, would appear to be a "soft pro-choice" position — he makes noise about abortion ultimately being "between a woman and her doctor" — yet he goes on to support a litany of positions which are indeed pro-life, such as parental notification and consent laws, opposition to partial-birth abortion, and support for making adoption easier. Brown stands generally for fiscal responsibility, and is on the record for supporting the right to keep and bear arms, opposing illegal immigration, and has stated that marriage is between a man and a woman. He also appears to desire to devolve a lot of these, and other, issues back to the states, so he sees to be solid on the issue of federalism as well. So I reiterate my terminology — Brown is "conservative enough," about as good as we'll get from a very leftist Northeastern state. Much better than Marcia, er, Martha Coakley would have been. As a Senator, Brown will give the conservative movement many more votes than Coakley would have, though he will probably have us rolling our eyes and groaning at times, too.

As imperfect of a candidate as he was, ideologically at least (as a campaigner, he was preternaturally exquisite), Brown nevertheless garnered the support of one group that has also been taking American politics by storm — the Tea Party movement. The Tea Partiers in Massachusetts endorsed and came out for Brown, which helped to put him over the finish line by delivering to him a strong majority among Independents.

This helps to illustrate the point I made earlier this month, which is that the Tea Party movement needs to "hijack" the Republican Party. The two cannot stand apart from each other, but they are unstoppable together — the essence of TEApublicanism. The Tea Party movement lacks the organization to operate as a mass-movement third party across the nation, and most of its leadership doesn't seem inclined to try to do so anywise, if the example of the coolness of the Florida Tea Partiers towards the self-proclaimed "Tea Party Party" started in that state is any indication. Further, if the Tea Party movement fields its own candidates in races where there is already a credibly conservative Republican running, then all they will accomplish is to split the vote and hand the seat to the Democrats — completely unnecessarily. DO run Tea Party conservatives when the GOP foolishly tries to install a Dede Scozzafava into office. DON'T run Tea Party candidates, however, when the GOP does the right thing and runs a Doug Hoffman on its ticket instead.

The Republican Party, in turn, desperately needs the Tea Party movement, and would be indescribably foolish to ignore or reject it. The Tea Party movement, as I said earlier this month, is a re-energized mass movement of conservatives who are getting active again after having gone dormant for a while. The Tea Party movement is, in essence, the rebuilding of the Reagan coalition of conservatives — Republicans, Independents, "Reagan" Democrats, libertarians — people who want fiscal discipline from their government and less intrusion into their own lives. If the Republican Party follows the John McCain route — trying to pawn off more big-government establishment insiders onto us — then it deserves to lose, and lose big.

However, that need not be the case. The election of Scott Brown shows us the way out of the wilderness. The Tea Partiers helped to elect the Republican. They united the thin-on-the-ground Republicans in Massachusetts with the much-thicker-on-the-ground Independents, and elected a Republican candidate who represents their views and interests much more than Marcia, er, Martha Coakley would have. The Republicans pick up a seat, while the Tea Partiers helped to kill, or at least severely wound, Obamacare. A win-win situation for all involved.

So what would have happened had the Tea Partiers irrationally played the "hate Republicans" game and endorsed the Independent candidate, Joseph Kennedy, perhaps delivering him a few percentage points of the vote, taken from Brown? Ol' what's-her-name would now be the Senator-elect from Massachusetts, the Democrats would have had no lessons to learn, and would even now be preparing to finalize the destruction of American health care and American freedom.

The example of the election of Scott Brown needs to be the wave of the future for conservative political activists. Granted, I hope we can find many candidates who are more conservative to run in the many more conservative districts all across this country. But this fusion of the conservative grassroots in the Republican Party with the concerned conservatives who make up a broad portion of the self-described Independents in this nation is what Reagan rode to victory in 1980 and what the Contract with America Republicans rode into office with in 1994. The people of this nation don't want socialism, nor do they want socialism-lite. They want statesmen (rather than politicians) who will stand up and protect their freedoms, their pocketbooks, and their country. Give them that by uniting the conservative movement and seeing the conservative agenda advanced, and follow up on it by not going soft and forgetting why we were elected in the first place, and we will see a renaissance for conservatism and America.

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Obama's 666 International Police Order

Without any fanfare, President Obama has signed an Executive Order that undermines our national sovereignty to benefit a foreign police organization

By TVC Executive Director Andrea Lafferty

On December 16, 2009, President Obama secretly signed an Executive Order 12425 (EO) that gives Interpol unprecedented access in America to pursue and prosecute “criminals.” We may as well have given Interpol a badge with 666 on it.

The EO exempts Interpol (International Criminal Police Organization) from being accountable to our own law enforcement agencies, such as the FBI.

Interpol is an international police organization that investigates crime and refers defendants for trial in foreign lands. The Interpol website describes its purpose as follows:

… it facilitates cross-border police co-operation, and supports and assists all organizations, authorities and services whose mission is to prevent or combat international crime.

INTERPOL aims to facilitate international police co-operation even where diplomatic relations do not exist between particular countries. Action is taken within the limits of existing laws in different countries and in the spirit of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Nearly 200 countries work with Interpol, including some of the most ruthless Communist and Islamic tyrannies on earth.

The Obama EO removes the protections put into place by President Ronald Reagan in 1983 to protect Americans from being pursued by a foreign law enforcement agency within our borders. With this Obama EO, Interpol will operate outside of the constraints of the U.S. Constitution.

The current Secretary General of Interpol is Ronald Noble. He is an American who oversaw the Treasury Department’s review of the 1993 raid on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas. That massacre left nearly 80 people dead. Interpol has a history of being staffed by numerous Nazis from 1930 even into the 1970s.

Interpol’s new powers within the U.S. could be used to enforce arrest warrants for Americans who are charged with “war crimes” – including former Bush officials who prosecuted the war on Islamic terrorism. This could include American soldiers as well. Last year, TVC warned that Democrats were going to attempt to try President Bush for “war crimes.”

Interpol could refer individuals for arrest and facilitate their extradition to foreign courts for trial. One internationalist goal within the Obama Administration is to have America come under the authority of the International Criminal Court (ICC) headquartered in Brussels, Belgium.  (In February, 2009, the Obama Administration began signaling that it was open to having America come under the authority of the ICC.)  Former President George W. Bush made certain America did not come under ICC authority.

This is not just a theoretical possibility. Interpol went after 25 Israeli government officials at the request of the terrorist state of Iran. Interpol actually issued arrest warrants for 15 Israeli over their Gaza offensive several years ago.

While the Obama Administration is seeking to give terrorists constitutional rights in American prisons, he is working to strip Americans of those constitutional rights by giving Interpol police powers within our borders – powers that can be used to violate the protections of American soldiers and Bush officials who prosecuted a war against Islamic terrorism.

What Does Snopes Say?

Snopes is a web site devoted to debunking urban legends that are circulated on the Internet. One of the more recent postings is about the Interpol issue. Snopes has reacted to a memo about Obama’s Executive Order (EO) circulating on the net that is clearly a fake. The memo quotes the EO and then adds additional comments not in EO 12425. It then ends the memo with “Barack Obama” as though he had signed the entire statement. While the memo is not true, the threat from Obama’s Interpol EO order does create a real and present danger.

What Are Conservatives Saying?

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich was on “The O’Reilly Factor” on January 4 and discussed the Interpol issue. He noted: “Freedom of information acts don't apply. All the constraints that you as a citizen could use against an American police force, based on a recent Obama signed executive order, give Interpol – which has relationships with Syria, Libya, with Iran – it gives them all sorts of extra legality in the United States in a way that has never, ever before been offered to Interpol.”

Mark Tapscott, editorial page editor for the conservative Washington Examineris deeply concerned about the Interpol Executive Order:

If there is nothing newsworthy involved [about the Interpol story], then why won't the White House answer these basic questions regarding the EO?

* Every other international organization granted such exemptions deals with mundane issues like fish - the International Pacific Halibut Commission - or disaster aid - the Red Cross. But Interpol is a law enforcement operation. Why does President Obama think it appropriate to give such exemptions to an international law enforcement operation, and what does he want Interpol to do here in the U.S. in the future with the exemptions that it cannot do now without the exemptions?

* Does the search and seizure exemption extend to the activities and documents created by U.S. Department of Justice employees working with and for Interpol in New York and Washington, D.C.? If these employees and activities were already exempt from coverage of the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), why have FOIA requests concerning them been previously answered?

These are serious questions that the White House ought have no hesitation about answering, if indeed "there is nothing newsworthy here."   

 Andy McCarthy (formerly a federal prosecutor in the New York City blind sheik case) with National Review is also alarmed about the Interpol Executive Order. He has written:

Interpol works closely with international tribunals (such as the International Criminal Court — which the United States has refused to join because of its sovereignty surrendering provisions, though top Obama officials want us in it). It also works closely with foreign courts and law-enforcement authorities (such as those in Europe that are investigating former Bush administration officials for purported war crimes — i.e., for actions taken in America's defense).

Why would we elevate an international police force above American law? Why would we immunize an international police force from the limitations that constrain the FBI and other American law-enforcement agencies? Why is it suddenly necessary to have, within the Justice Department, a repository for stashing government files which, therefore, will be beyond the ability of Congress, American law-enforcement, the media, and the American people to scrutinize.

What Can Be Done?

The President has authority to issue Executive Orders, but these EOs can be nullified by Congress through legislation. An EO that violates a congressional law is illegal and must be rescinded. In addition, courts have determined that EOs are unconstitutional and have struck them down.

A lawsuit could result in the Obama Interpol EO being declared unconstitutional. The House and Senate could pass legislation ordering the repeal of the EO, but this would have to be signed into law by President Obama who wants international control over America.

The elections in November 2010, could change the balance of power in the House and Senate and give constitutionalists power once again to block liberal legislation – and to send a strong message to Obama that national sovereignty is not something to be given away to Interpol or the International Criminal Court – nor through climate change treaties or cap and tax schemes being pushed by liberals in Congress.

---

Additional Resources:
Obama Executive Order Cedes US Sovereignty, Citizen Rights to Interpol
Why Does Interpol Need Immunity from American Law? - Andy McCarthy - The Corner on National Review Online
Obama gives Interpol free hand in U.S. | Washington Examiner
Obama May Place U.S. Under International Criminal Court - HUMAN EVENTS
Executive Orders and Presidential Directives
The Use And Abuse Of Presidential Executive Orders
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1070021.html

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What Conservatives Need to Focus on as We Move Forward

By Tim Dunkin

These are exciting times if you’re a grassroots conservative activist.   After years of being taken for granted by a Republican Party leadership that simply assumed that we’d keep on voting for whatever leftist RINO they handpicked for us, a new paradigm seems to be in the making.  The assumption that the GOP has to “move to the center” to be electable appears, as we speak, as if it is being proven untrue.  Doug Hoffman, the insurgent conservative candidate in the NY-23 special congressional election, has successfully driven off the RINO candidate and now appears poised for victory over his Democrat rival, if two polls that came out on November 2nd can be believed (at the time I’m writing this, the election still has not taken place).  Likewise, in Virginia, a slate of very conservative candidates are set to sweep the big three state races handily – each has led his respective race by double digits for weeks now – polling well even in northern Virginia, the place where we’ve always heard that solidly conservative candidates just can’t win anymore.  Yet, Bob McDonnell, an unabashed socially and fiscally conservative Republican – who was even attacked for a very conservative religious thesis he wrote twenty years ago – is going to smash his Democrat opponent tomorrow, in what is now a purple state that voted for Obama in 2008.  All in all, conservatism appears set to make a comeback tomorrow – the news reports of her demise were certainly premature.

Of course, this only surprises those David Frum-style “moderates” who have spent the last four years trying to foist off the narrative that the Republican Party needs to become more liberal to stay competitive.  So far, that has only led to two straight drubbings in the national elections – 2006 and 2008 – as the Republican Party drove off its own base while failing to replace them with an adequate number of “moderates.”  This is unsurprising, since this nation is fundamentally centre-right.  An estimated 40% of Americans identify themselves as conservatives, making us the dominant plurality.  It should only seem to be common sense that if the GOP drives away 40% while trying to plug into the 30% or so that claims to be “moderate,” that it would find itself electorally hampered.  Conservatives are the base of the GOP – we are the ones who do the groundwork, who work the phones, who put up the yard signs, who donate the money.  If we’re not happy, as the old saying goes, ain’t nobody happy. 

And it looks like our hard work is paying off.  With conservative Republican candidates winning, with a successful elimination of at least one RINO already, we appear to be taking our rightful place once again.  We should, of course, realize that the county-clubbers who run the GOP won’t let go without a fight, but we are in the process of successfully proving that this is a fight we can bring to them and win.  We are the barbarians coming out of the rough, and messing up their neatly manicured putting green – and we’re having fun while doing it! 

As with any group flush from a dazzling array of initial victories, we need to be careful with where we proceed, however.  Raw emotion, enthusiasm, can only carry us so far.  We need to consolidate our gains, and strategize intelligently about where we go from here.  As I ponder this necessity, I’d like to make a few suggestions.

First, conservatives need to understand that, ironically, the victory of Doug Hoffman over Dede Scozzafava and the Washington D.C. establishment, and likely over Democrat Bill Owens, hammers home the message that third partyism is not the direction conservatives need to take.  “How can you say that,” you might be tempted to ask, “when the guy running on a third party ticket just took out the establishment Republican candidate?”  Well, as Rush Limbaugh pointed out the other day, the Hoffman/Scozzafava divide was really the GOP primary that should have occurred to decide who the GOP nominee would be in the first place.  If there had been a primary and rank-and-file Republicans had been allowed a voice in the process, Hoffman, by all evidence, would have been the nominee going into this race.  Hoffman himself still identifies himself as a Republican.  The ones who largely will be giving him victory in this election by voting for him are Republicans.  The big names whose support brought this race to national attention and helped to hand it to Hoffman were mostly people like Sarah Palin, Fred Thompson, Tim Pawlenty, and others – in other words, Republicans.  If Hoffman had had to rely solely upon those inclined to vote third party, he would not even be in the running.  Hoffman will be a winner because conservative Republicans in this district and across the country revolted against the politics-as-usual and went for the guy who was more ideologically in line with them. 

I want to be up front with folks – I completely understand the frustration that many have with the Republican Party, or more properly, with the spineless “leadership” of the GOP.  Last week, I wrote up my own scathing harangue aimed at the elitist GOP county-club caste.  I completely understand why people would want to wash their hands of it all and go third party.  That being said, I think that is the wrong direction for conservatives to take, at least at this point.  A good argument can be made, in fact, that a lot of the reason for the leftward drift in the GOP is because conservatives have been leaving it over the years.  As conservatives leave, the moderates grow disproportionately more powerful in the party, and the ugly cycle starts all over again.  In essence, conservatives have been acting to eliminate their own options.  What the events surrounding the NY-23 special election show is that conservatives, both inside and outside the GOP, when we get together and start acting in one accord, can get things done within the Republican Party.   Because let’s face it – Doug Hoffman most likely will not remain a Conservative Partyist only.  When it comes time for him to be re-elected next year, he will be back to running on both the CP and GOP lines, unless the district-level GOP leadership up there is just completely insane and vindictive.  When all is said and done, what we conservatives have accomplished is to win this seat for a conservative Republican. 

My argument is that going third party is something of a cop out.  It’s an easy way for some conservatives to prove their ideological purity without having to do any heavy lifting.  Face it, taking the Republican Party away from the country club RINO elite and delivering it back into the hands of the conservative rank-and-file where it belongs will be a battle.  It won’t be easy.  It’s not something that we’re just going to snap our fingers and see happen.  But it can be done.  We’ve already seen it at work in NY-23, and there no reason that we can’t see it happen all across this country – if we’re willing to man up and do it.  There’s no reason why we should fritter away our strength among dozens of third parties, each vying to prove its self to be the One True Conservative Party.  Why build a national organization from the ground up, when there’s no need and one is already in place, ripe for the taking?  While painting the GOP with a broad brush and accusing all Republicans of being RINOs (ironic, that) and condemning the GOP across the board may be emotionally satisfying to some, it is ultimately destructive to the conservative movement.  Think of it this way – you don’t shoot a wild horse that’s bucking you.  You saddle it, break it, and make it do what you want it to.  That should be our attitude towards the GOP and its current crop of  “leaders.”

This being said, we conservatives need to do more than just plan political strategy.  We need to re-establish our ideological foundation.  We need to agree upon a foundational set of beliefs and positions that we want our candidates to hold to – be they Republican or be they the occasional Independent or Third Partyist in case we have another NY-23.  As such, I’d like to submit the following as an outline of what we ought to look for that will distinguish us from the RINOs, the moderates, and others.  Who knows, maybe somebody out there more policy-detail oriented than I would like to run with it and develop the next Contract for America?  Of course, these should apply equally at the local and state levels as well, and while I may touch on a few examples, there are many specific and individual policy decisions that, when approached under these general guidelines, would readily be agreed upon by most conservatives.  At any rate, I believe we can probably agree that our candidates should:

Support Liberty:  Liberty is something that all politicians talk about, but which has widely various meanings, depending on who is using the word.  What I mean by “support liberty” is this: we should seek out candidates who hold to the overarching view that the fewer laws we have, the better; the less money our government takes and spends, the better; the fewer intrusions into the everyday lives of American citizens, the better.  I want to see candidates who will go up to Washington and who will go through the U.S. Code and see what can be removed, rather than what can be added.  There are laws on the books that make you a criminal for growing a certain kind of flower in your landscaping.  There are any number of laws on the books that people unknowingly violate any day of the week.  Laws like these that serve no real public utility, and only serve to make criminals out of law-abiding citizens, and which unduly hinder us from living how we want to live, need to go.  I want to see candidates who will seek to remove from the federal budget the spending and the waste that aren’t necessary for the constitutional functions of this government.  I want candidates who don’t just mouth platitudes about tax and spending cuts, but who have an ideological commitment to lessening the burden that the government places on the people – all across the board. 

Support Capitalism and Private Property:  We need candidates who are committed to the truth that economic freedom is the necessary corollary to political freedom.  I don’t want people who will support capitalism until a bank says it needs bailed out with public funds.  I want people who will stand up and say that we’re not going to assault the underpinnings of our economic prosperity, regardless of what “crisis” occurs.  We need candidates who will resist the urge to expropriate the property of hard-working citizens so that they can give it to yet another big box store promising to generate more tax revenues for the locality.  We need candidates who support tax cuts for other reasons besides just the supply-side argument of maximizing tax revenues.  We need leaders who will support small business and the middle class, rather than undermining and destroying them. 

Support the Constitution:  We need candidates whose first instinct, upon seeing a bill set before them on their desk, will be to ask “Is this thing constitutional?” instead of “will this thing buy me some votes with a special interest group?”   We need candidates who won’t laugh when somebody asks them about the constitutionality of a bill.  Subsumed under this would be candidates who clearly and unequivocally support our 2nd amendment right to keep and bear arms, our 1st amendment right to political and religious speech, and our 4th amendment right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure.  At the same time, we need candidates who understand that the Constitution does allow for the federal government to operate in some spheres of activity, and who will not hinder it from doing so, such as in the pursuit of foreign policy and military action deemed necessary by our duly elected leaders. 

Support the Rule of Law:  Concomitant with a respect for the Constitution, we need candidates who will also have a respect for legitimate laws that are framed under and in line with that document.  We need candidates who understand the difference between justice and anarchy.   We need candidates who understand that the sovereignty and integrity of our borders is a necessary part of the rule of law, and that it is detrimental to reward lawbreaking that helps to undermine the very foundations of our sovereignty as a nation to make and enforce our own laws and our own borders.

Support for an America First Foreign Policy:  I want to see conservatives fielding candidates who will take into account the benefit and advancement of the United States of America first, over and above the concerns of foreign nations or extra-governmental bodies.  We need candidates who will refuse to support or enter into any agreement – such as the Copenhagen climate agreement or the Law of the Sea Treaty – that will harm the well being of our nation.  We need leaders who will refuse to surrender even an ounce of American sovereignty to any foreign power, from the United Nations on down.

Support the Family:  When I say “pro-family,” I don’t just mean adhering to the right position on a litany of socially conservative positions on a few hot button issues.  I mean that we need to find and support candidates who will work to restore the traditional nuclear family to its position of prominence as the pillar of our social stability.  Without the foundation of a father and a mother raising the children to be law-abiding good citizens, we have seen our country descend further and further into crime, anarchy, and corruption.  As it currently stands, there are a number of things on the books – no-fault divorce, the organization of our welfare system, the marriage penalty in our tax code, and much more – that serve to undermine the stability of the family as the driving social force in America.  We need candidates and leaders who will support the family, since strong families where good values are taught and where support is received from other family members will remove much of the demand for the government to act like a father and a nanny to the people of this nation.

Support Life:  One of the fundamental liberties that are affirmed in our Declaration of Independence is the right to life.  Opposition to abortion is implicit in this.  We need to support candidates who understand that life IS a liberty issue – when abortion is allowed to take place, the liberty of an individual, in this case one who is unborn, is destroyed irrevocably.   We must support leaders who will affirm the fact that the rights afforded by our Creator belong to ALL people, not just those who have passed through a birth canal.

These are probably just scratching the surface of what could be said on the subject of who conservatives should support.  I readily acknowledge that there is much more that could be said than what I have done here.  These are meant to be guidelines to stimulate discussion among conservatives about our fundamental values, and how we are to flesh them out, taking them from the realm of ideology to the realm of public policy.  The last thing we need to do right now is rest on our laurels.  There is a lot of hard work to be done between now and November 2010, and a lot of that will involve articulating our core convictions to the voters at large, cultivating conservative candidates who share those convictions, and capturing as much of the Republican party apparatus as possible to provide a ready-made vehicle for the advancement of those convictions. 

Let’s get to work.

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It’s Begun: Liberals Invoke Specter of “Hate Crimes” to Eradicate “Hate Speech”

By Matt Barber

Cleveland, OH – Matt Barber, Director of Cultural Affairs with both Liberty Counsel and Liberty Alliance Action issued the following statement on News that the left-wing United Church of Christ (UCC) and other quasi-Christian liberal groups are calling for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to officially investigate talk radio and other conservative media outlets in an effort to “put an end” to “hate speech” and so-called “media violence:” 

“One man’s principled conviction is another man’s ‘hate speech,’” said Barber. “For this reason – to protect the free exchange of ideas – our Founding Fathers gave us the First Amendment. The election of President Obama and the recent passage of so-called ‘hate crimes’ legislation has galvanized the radical homosexual lobby, the pro-amnesty crowd, the quasi-Christian left and other fringe factions. Now, more than ever, they are emboldened to silence all dissent.

“We knew it was merely a matter of time until liberals – to include the Obama administration – would begin using the euphemistic terms ‘hate crimes’ and ‘hate speech’ interchangeably. None of us thought it would happen this fast. Those of us who opposed the new ‘hate crimes’ law have charged for years that the bill’s true objective was to silence any opposition to liberal views, including principled opposition to the homosexual lifestyle and illegal immigration. Before the ink on Obama’s ‘hate crimes’ signature is even dry, we have our smoking gun. The verdict? Guilty as charged.    

“Unfortunately, the UCC’s leadership is cut from the same counter-biblical, anti-American cloth as President Obama’s racist pastor Jeremiah Wright. The religious-left movement fervently pushes the doctrines of postmodern secularism – all dolled-up and tagged ‘Christian.’ They want to have their religion cake and eat it too. In order to achieve their extreme left-wing goals, they are willing to stand by – strike that – they are willing to advocate the trampling of our beloved First Amendment under jackbooted government heel.

“But I’m encouraged. Obama, Pelosi, Reid and the rest of their like-minded cohorts continue to over play their hand. Despite open attempts to “remake” America, we are not an Eastern Bloc country. We’ve defeated the cancer of Marxism before and we’ll do it again. As I believe today’s election will prove; the tide is turning. Liberty will prevail.” 

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Here Hangs Lady Liberty

By J.J. Jackson

To the Citizenry of the United States

Two words struck fear into the hearts of Americans after their fight for Independence had concluded and during the formation of the great Constitution under which we have since prospered despite the best efforts of those in Washington.  Those dreaded words that caused consternation were none other than “general Welfare”.  It did not matter for most Americans which side they were on when the thought of a new Constitution was being discussed to replace the failed and impotent Articles of Confederation.  Whether they were for or against the proposed Constitution both the majority of Federalists and the anti-Federalists knew how two simple and clear words would be taken by those that desired neither liberty for the people or limited government power.  Those words, they knew, would be taken by such people to mean that Congress when assembled would have the power to tax the public and spend their money on any object of benevolence or pet project that they would dare justify as helping to “promote” the “general Welfare.” It was also known that these cads would get away with such diabolic actions too unless the people were educated as to the proper meaning and application of the term.

Make no mistake, in those early years of our history there were even then those who believed that such a term should be broadly applied and without any restraint.  Those alive today who wish to ascribe a meaning other than the clear and obvious one to these two words found within our Constitution tout Alexander Hamilton as the pivotal point for their arguments.  I dare say that I must defend Mr. Hamilton for he has been much maligned by ignorant sorts.  His opinions of the Constitution and the powers that it granted have been greatly misrepresented by those that desperately seek a prominent figure to help with their cause.  He was far from perfect but he was not the fiend that he has been turned in to.

History shows that Alexander Hamilton was certainly in favor of the Constitution and those two and very often misused words.  However it also shows as well that he believed their meaning and definition to be limited.  In Federalist 32 when discussing the general powers of taxation the following in support of a strictly written Constitution he clearly wrote:

"An entire consolidation of the States into one complete national sovereignty would imply an entire subordination of the parts; and whatever powers might remain in them, would be altogether dependent on the general will. But as the plan of the convention aims only at a partial union or consolidation, the State governments would clearly retain all the rights of sovereignty which they before had, and which were not, by that act, EXCLUSIVELY delegated to the United States. This exclusive delegation, or rather this alienation, of State sovereignty, would only exist in three cases: where the Constitution in express terms granted an exclusive authority to the Union; where it granted in one instance an authority to the Union, and in another prohibited the States from exercising the like authority; and where it granted an authority to the Union, to which a similar authority in the States would be absolutely and totally CONTRADICTORY and REPUGNANT."

In Federalist 83 he said further that:

"The plan of the convention declares that the power of Congress, or, in other words, of the national legislature, shall extend to certain enumerated cases. This specification of particulars evidently excludes all pretension to a general legislative authority, because an affirmative grant of special powers would be absurd, as well as useless, if a general authority was intended."

Those that today seek greater meaning to his words take Mr. Hamilton out of context.  They pull quotes of his from thin air and attribute a new meaning to the terms by citing writings such as his "Opinion on the Constitutionality of the National Bank," where he stated that such powers as those granted under the Constitution, "ought to be construed liberally, in advancement of the public good."  However it should be noted that Hamilton was not advocating a broader scope for the general Welfare clause and the addition of powers.  He had already clearly spoken against that and was merely debating and putting forth his interpretation of another often abused clause known as the Necessary and Proper Clause which states under Article I, Section 8 which is:

“The Congress shall have Power - To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.”

His argument was simple; that to place too much of a limitation upon the government and prohibiting it from doing ancillary things that would allow it to fulfill its obligations under Article I would neuter the powers of Congress and prevent it from actually providing for the common defense and promoting the general Welfare as charged.

For example, Congress has the power to build post offices and post roads.  But does it have the power to staff those offices and deliver the mail that accumulates in the post offices that it builds? Do it have the authority to demand that others, perhaps the States, do so if it is not allowed?  Hamilton’s claim of “liberally” applying the powers of Congress was meant in this vain and his argument was that it makes little sense to give Congress the power to do something but not the other powers necessary and required to actually do it effectively.

Likewise the federal government is also granted the power to coin money.  But nowhere in the Constitution is it explicitly given the power to put the money it coins into circulation.  By implication under the necessary and proper powers granted the federal government it must also have the power to do this otherwise the money would just pile up never to be used.  And technically the government or its agents would not even have the authority to pile up the money either since such a power was not granted explicitly if such a severe restriction on authority were adopted.  It would, literally, without the necessary and proper clause, be required to let the coins fall where they may and never touch them once they had been minted.  There are a myriad of things that go into the coining of money that the government is not expressly given the authority to do but without doing them the government could not fulfill this obligation.  This is precisely what the debate over the “liberal” interpretation of the necessary and proper powers of Congress entailed.

This, Hamilton explained clearly as such in his 1791 opinion.  Forgive me while I reprint several whole sentences so that the context cannot be misconstrued or my representations claimed to be false:

“The only question must be in this, as in every other case, whether the mean to be employed or in this instance, the corporation to be erected, has a natural relation to any of the acknowledged objects or lawful ends of the government. Thus a corporation may not be erected by Congress for superintending the police of the city of Philadelphia, because they are not authorized to regulate the police of that city. But one may be erected in relation to the collection of taxes, or to the trade with foreign countries, or to the trade between the States, or with the Indian tribes; because it is the province of the federal government to regulate those objects, and because it is incident to a general sovereign or legislative power to regulate a thing, to employ all the means which relate to its regulation to the best and greatest advantage.”

Further in his paper on the topic of the National Bank, often cited by those seeking desperately for something to support their unconstitutional desires, he clearly again states that the Constitution is a limited set of powers:

“... the foundation of the Constitution is laid on this ground: “That all powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited to it by the States, are reserved for the States, or to the people.” Whence it is meant to be inferred, that Congress can in no case exercise any power not Included in those not enumerated in the Constitution. And it is affirmed, that the power of erecting a corporation is not included in any of the enumerated powers.

The main proposition here laid down, in its true signification is not to be questioned. It is nothing more than a consequence of this republican maxim, that all government is a delegation of power.  But how much is delegated in each case, is a question of fact, to be made out by fair reasoning and construction, upon the particular provisions of the Constitution, taking as guides the general principles and general ends of governments.” – Alexander Hamilton (emphasis mine)

Again, he returns to a citation of the principle of necessary and proper powers which are expressly given to the federal government.

Another often cited document by those that wish to abuse the meaning of the General Welfare Clause is Hamilton’s “Report on Manufacturers”.  A quick reading of this document without proper context leads them to conclude that the General Welfare Clause expounds an unlimited power to tax and spend by the Congress of the United States.

They shall cite quotations from this document such as, “The terms “general Welfare” were doubtless intended to signify more than was expressed or imported,” and lay a hearty dose of reliance upon passages such as, “The only qualification of the generality of the Phrase in question, which seems to be admissible, is this – That the object to which an appropriation of money is to be made be General and not local; its operation extending in fact, or by possibility, throughout the union, and not being confined to a particular spot,” to support their contention.

However, once again, in this very document Hamilton expressly scolds those that think his words meant more and slaps shut the federal treasury on their grubby fingers!  He state boldly:

“A power to appropriate money with this latitude which is granted too in express terms would not carry a power to do any other thing, not authorised in the constitution, either expressly or by fair implication.” (emphasis mine)

Again I show you that he returns to a discussion of his previous contentions and not an open ended and unlimited power.

Clearly based upon all this it as has been shown even Mr. Hamilton did not believe in the radical expansion of the power of the federal government to the point where we have seen it encroach upon liberty today.  Was he perfect in every argument or desire?  Certainly not.  But his opinion is certainly clear and I believe that I have now unbastardized what has been bastardized.

The anti-Federalists however still had a right to be wary of the new Constitution in their own day.  As I previously stated, even though it was well formed they were well aware that among the Federalists there existed those who were sinister in their plans and that would gladly abuse simple and plain wording to their own ends.  Politicians have changed little over the years and even in the young United States many politicians were interested in power rather than other nobler things. Today we still fight this same battle even though we are many years removed from the late Convention and the great minds therein that worked tirelessly to form us into a more perfect union.

Justification is a dangerous tool which each man who seeks political power possesses and many of those that seek justification twist and distort the historical record in order to obtain such power.  One can justify just about anything if given the chance, the right audience ignorant of the truth and ultimately enough words or even the sly omission of centain other terms. History is replete with master orators whose ideas were hideous to any sense of reason.  Yet these men and women were able to weave a tapestry of words that united the masses against the common good, against liberty and against God given rights and limited government.

Because of such persons the debate about the meaning of two simple words written into our Constitution over two hundred years ago still rages on to this modern day and is ultimately a question of does the term “general Welfare” mean what those who twist Hamilton’s words suggest?  Should the term be used in conjunction with enumerated, clear and limited powers to confine the federal government as he and others clearly said or should the term be used “liberally” to allow for the limitless expansion of federal powers to tax, monitor and regulate as a sort of Constitutional loophole to strip slowly every right retained by the States and the people?

You will well note that even as Hamilton promoted what was to be the Supreme Law of the Land he sought the aid of others among the populace with high amounts of clout to bolster his own and whose words would ease the minds of the wary.  And it was for good reason.  Putting the record straight was of the utmost importance because distrust ran high.

When it came time to defend the words and make clear the manner in which they were used it was James Madison who stepped up and was to put forth a further explanation that was to be accepted widely by those promoting the new federal Constitution.  In Federalist 41 Madison stated that objections to the new foundation of our government based on a broad interpretation of the two words previously mentioned ad nauseam were not valid and that it was natural to read the words as pertaining only to the specific list of functions that followed them.  Then in Federalist 45 he reiterated this point much more succinctly saying that the powers of the federal government were, “few and defined.”

But we can dig deeper and further bolster the truth on this issue. We can quote a myriad of founders of high influence who all promoted just such an idea.  Thomas Jefferson is but one and in his 1817 letter to Albert Gallatin he was quite blunt saying, “Congress had not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but were restrained to those specifically enumerated.”   Further evidence is best found by reading the Constitution in its total context.  Such an approach does more to illuminate the clear meaning of what the term “general Welfare” means than any other tactic.  Especially that of taking a mere two words out of any reasonable context in an attempt to make them mean what one wants them to in the unreasonable pursuit of power and the destruction of liberty.

Further, while doing this important step, to simultaneously cast even more light on the subject logic dictates that there is no middle ground option.  So let us cast aside such a silly notion.  Either the term is narrowly and precisely defined or it is indefinite in scope.  Either Madison, Jefferson and Hamilton in their strict interpretation are correct or those with devious purposes and who promote their liberal interpretation are correct.  Obviously one cannot legitimately make the claim that the term “general Welfare” applies both to a list of enumerated powers as well as some (but not all) non-enumerated ones outside of what is obviously necessary and proper to carry out these enumerated duties.  Such however would be the acceptance of those that would promote such a bizarre idea; that it is possible to determine which authorities out of a nebulous soup of infinite powers would be considered as included within the “general Welfare” and which would be discarded and not intended by the founding fathers.  Neither Madison, Jefferson or Hamilton believed this and if such a broad meaning were true one would expect to find language such as “that among these are” preceding any list of powers and similar to what was written in the Declaration of Independence to denote the unalienable rights of man which were well defined at the time through various writings including the numerous constitutions of the individual states.

I wish to once again reiterate that the necessary and proper clause is not meant to be used for the argument of bolstering an indefinite scope of the “general Welfare” clause or meant in the same manner as saying, “that among these [powers] are.”  Once again I remind the reader that this particular clause is clear in that it only applies to those authorities previously enumerated and may not be used in such a broad context.

To proceed, having now beaten this horse thoroughly to death twice over, we know that by reading the Constitution in its full context that the vast majority of the founding fathers agreed that the nation was formed for specific reasons and that among those reasons was the primary one of securing the blessings of a concept known as liberty.  Liberty is a very broad term encompassing the concept of individual persons being free to do as they choose while only being constrained in so far as their actions cannot interfere with the liberty and rights of another.

Such is not a radical position.  It was not more than a few years prior to the formation of the Constitution that Thomas Jefferson wrote that, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”  Such equality begets by default that liberty is bound only by a restraint that as equals our rights are everyone else’s rights and our rights cannot trample upon anyone else’s in perfect equality.

When two rights appear in conflict, one must ultimately not be a right and simply a bastardization of one’s rights made to justify one’s actions.  You would not be allowed, for example, to murder your neighbor and steal his land because you claim a desire to pursue happiness and own land yourself would you?  No.  Because you have infringed upon your neighbor’s liberty by taking his right to life and his right to own property acquired through free and open transactions in order to do so.

So then we must return to the modern day Hamiltonian's view of an open ended and broad general Welfare clause understanding this.  Does such an interpretation support or destroy individual liberty, the equality of all mankind where rights do not conflict and that is bulwark of limited government control?

Under this liberal view of general Welfare and with a keen tongue one could begin justification of nearly anything without much trouble and, dare I say, everything without much more of an effort.  With such a distorted take on the general Welfare clause everything and anything, even if it violates the basic tenants of liberty, can and will be justified as a legitimate function of government and constitute a need for taxes and regulation out of Congress.

Such misinterpretation has already been used numerous times by modern day fiends that hoist up perversions of Hamilton to justify time and again taxes for acts of benevolence performed by government that benefit a predetermined and favored few and not the whole.  Programs from Social Security to Welfare to Medicare to Food Stamps have all been created with one justification or another under the auspices of bettering the general Welfare despite the groups that these programs serve having survived with their true liberties intact prior to such government creations.  But the facts remain.  With these programs, all created under the auspices of furthering a liberal and open-ended interpretation of the general Welfare clause which was never envisioned, the liberty of one is regularly taken for the benefit of another in the end making slaves of the taxpayer to those that receive the benefits of such programs and also slaves of those that receive the benefits of such programs to the government itself.

Although some will shy from this comparison, such use of the power of government is not a far cry from the hideousness of the slavery that was rampant within the United States at the time of our founding and where people were brought from Africa to labor as forced servants having the fruits of their work taken by dictate to enrich others.  The concept that any group of Americans should be allowed to take the property, land, life, wealth, time or possessions of another group under threat of punishment by government solely for their own benefit is so alien to the concept of liberty that it cannot be squared with its basic tenants and certainly not included in any reasonable discussion of the general Welfare of any nation.  Such actions may, for certain, be for the betterment of someone’s specific Welfare, but not the Welfare of our nation in general which was founded upon the concept of equality and freedom; Liberty.

But the extent of the desire within those who wish to expand by leaps and bounds the powers of the federal government beyond its Constitutional limits does not cease at direct redistribution of wealth.  No, they would also lay and collect taxes to meddle in the affairs of citizens and regulate behavior that neither physically harms anyone nor infringes on the rights of others in order to sway their interactions.  From determining the number of gallons of water allowed in one’s toilet to the wages that employers must pay their employees to regulating the content which may be broadcast or that is otherwise shared by private individuals with other private individuals each of these are just a cursory glance at how expanding government has impeded our liberties.  No liberty or general Welfare is protected by such acts, but such certainly are infringed under the auspices of promoting both.

Other whole parts of the Constitution are cast aside by this ideological malfeasance and the fallacious expansion of the meaning of the general Welfare beyond a simple and confined set of powers to which it should rightfully be constrained.  From the freedom to contract without interference and by free choice as well as the sundry terms of those contracts between freemen to the right to private property and the right to be free from unreasonable searches, all rights begin to fall by the wayside as we expand the role of government into realms that true Federalists did not imagine.

We know there was a real fear that some would abuse the Constitution and seek to expand its powers based on the debate and correspondence over the document’s wording. So deep was this fear that the founding fathers attempted to reinforce the idea of a federal government with limited powers by adding the Tenth Amendment which specifically states, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

It does not get much clearer than this that the Constitution is a set of limited powers not to be expanded upon based on whim and desire.  For if the general Welfare clause was designed to grant the unlimited power to tax and spend to our federal government on any issue or cause Congress decided was in the interest of the general Welfare then what powers would possibly be retained by the States after enough time should pass and Congress had slowly brought all powers under its wings like a mother bird huddling her chicks?  The answer to this question is none!  And the Tenth Amendment would not have been needed because all power would reside within the federal government under such an interpretation.  All that would be required would be for Congress to claim each power at a time when they so desired.

To the relief of Lady Liberty, Madison’s words helped win the day all those years ago and the Constitution was ratified even though she and the Founding Fathers knew that it was with the help of those who desired to liberally interpret the general Welfare clause and at some later point play upon the ignorance of some and the simple search for power of others.

The battles started early and were fought often over the expansion of the term “general Welfare” from a small, defined set of government powers. Sometimes the battles were won and other times they were lost as justification for such expansion was not in short supply and both Madison and Jefferson, each while President, vetoed and admonished those legislators that tried to raise revenues and spend tax dollars outside of the powers in Article I. Although they were also not without fault in this matter either.  Jefferson, for example, appropriated funds to purchase large tracts of land with no authority for Congress to approve such an expenditure. Even Jefferson himself conceded that such was not constitutional but did the deed anyway.

Since those early days of our Republic it has become fashionable to accept broad infringements upon our liberties by federal authorities and agents as they expand their grasp and the role of government.  We, the people, allowed all this to happen despite knowing better.  We have done this and in essence covet that which is our neighbor’s when it is material in nature and infringe upon their liberty when their ethereal acts may indeed bother and offend our sensibilities but cause no true harm to be done to anyone else’s rights and liberties.

The blatant examples of unconstitutional government brought forth based on the bastardization of the General Welfare Clause are numerous.  They have piled up over the decades to form an enormous mountain whose destruction would be a monumental, but necessary task if we still desire liberty.  From enforced government retirement savings plans (Social Security) to imposed “charity” for the poor (Welfare) these abominations are impossible to avoid and impossible to claim as valid when that all important phrase used to justify them is put into context and the lies are stripped away.

With the dawning of every new day and with every new Congress and President elected, each with their own plans for appeasing their constituents using the money of others, more and more such hideous violations of our Constitutional Republic are witnessed.  All under the premise that people “generally” will not take responsibility for their own “Welfare” and that because of this the government should act to hold their hands and cast a safety net for them beneath their feet.  Of course the obviously fallacious nature of such claims is clear.  For when looking at history each of these programs do nothing except supplant already existing liberties and charitable acts that existed prior to such programs with government and its administrative hand now taking the lead.

Once again we see this repulsive ballet playing out as our Congress at the behest of President Obama struggles to manipulate, warp and ultimately circumvent the federal constitution with the passage of legislative controls over the health care and insurance systems used by many Americans to cover expenses which may occur in their own lives.  Of course there is clearly no such power granted under the already proven limited powers of the general Welfare clause.  By corollary there can also be no such power under the necessary and proper clause either because such only grants authority to do what is necessary and proper with relation to those foregoing powers.

Disciples of big government say that it is in the best interest of the general Welfare that certain, if not all Americans have money provided for them from the government in order for them to obtain health insurance to cover medical care.   They also claim that those not granted such a special favor due to arbitrary factors, such as having too great of an income, etc., should simply accept the government’s hand in dictation of what is covered, by whom, how and where.  The justification, after enough words have been spewed, is that it would not be in the interest of the nation to have in existence a group of people who have no insurance to cover feebleness or other maladies which may strike at any time and that such a group would be a drain on the resources of society and that said group would suffer needlessly in times of illness.  It is also further, and quite magically, reasoned that the family, friends and local neighbors of such people would simply not care for these persons and aid them and that they are so isolated and despicable in their personal lives that none would lift a finger to help even though for decades and centuries prior to such programs being concocted they had.  It is reasoned that since it is in the interest of the general Welfare that these people be helped that government should be the agent of that help.  They then propose to either extend existing taxes or levy new taxes or fees on other productive Americans currently earning wages determined to be in excess in the marketplace to pay for said program or worse – to sell our children into bondage and at the feet of government by spending money that we do not currently have.  They stretch even further and claim that all Americans, even those that could afford health insurance, should gladly accept government restrictions upon what plans they may be allowed to buy, what ills such plans should cover and regulations upon how care shall be doled out.  Then they perform the most sick and twisted power grab of all and force those that are wealthy enough to not need insurance because they can pay all expenses for their own health care out of pocket to buy into the system in order to bolster it.  All for the sake of the general Welfare.

But what about the fact that such taxes, fees and debt takes the property (i.e. wages) of one person and gives that property to another by arbitrary force?  What about the fact that such restrictions to be imposed violate our written covenant with the federal government? What about the fact that the free interaction between individuals to contract for their own lives as they see best is impeded? Is this liberty?  I reiterate again that it is certainly not!  And I will say that boldly and take all the stones you will hurl at me if you so dislike hearing the truth of this matter!

The long train of facts from human history reveals the truth of not just this but other sinister plots to overthrow just government.  The elderly in America got by prior to the invention of programs like Social Security and Medicare by getting the aid of others through the glory of charity.  The poor managed without Welfare and Food Stamps while getting the aid of charity from churches and their communities.  We know this for a certainty!  Just as we know that the sick have rarely gone without care for their conditions if they so sought it out. While there will always be failures of any system, those miniscule examples do not damn it as so imperfect that it should be torn asunder and granted to the authority of government.  Each year the cost of free care to those that cannot afford treatment is highly noticeable.  Companies, hospitals and doctors and nurses donate time, sweat and their own treasure to treat patients without health insurance and who have taken no responsibility for their own well being and assumed risks they have decided to take.  Health care has never been in shortage for those that need it although often those that need it do not seek it out.  So there is no way that helping such persons could be justified as a legitimate function of limited government considering these facts.

All that will be accomplished by government imposed mandates on health care, and has been accomplished by similar acts in the past, is that instead of families, churches, communities and individuals handling these issues with accountability it will now be the federal government that does so without any semblance of such.  All that has changed is the hand which cares for these groups and not the fact that they are cared for.  Except that now the hand that cares for them will be another faceless bureaucracy siphoning off its own fees to perpetuate its own and growing existence and that, if we are to be honest, cares little to nothing about any of those they half-heartedly proclaim to help but only that the bureaucracy itself exists.  And those within the bureaucracy care about the bureaucracy’s own existence only inasmuch as that there is a continuing existence of their bureaucratic posts and positions and that such will continue on in perpetuity so that they might continue to draw salaries paid for by tax payer dollars collected by force rather than having to exert effort to earn those dollars through convincing others that their cause is just and that they are good stewards of said money.

By partaking in such acts, those that believe in a broad and nearly all encompassing power under the general Welfare clause have violated the basic tenants which the Constitution was established to protect.  At this point those Americans that are taxed no longer have the liberty to spend their money, which is their property, as they see fit to help those that they deem to be in need.  Other Americans are forced to accept standards not of their own choosing but of a bureaucrat’s desire and have their own personal liberty shrunk.  Instead government forces the expenditure of independent wealth on programs that profit not everyone but instead singular groups of people which those in government can warn would surely lose such benefits if the kindly and wise bureaucrats were ever deposed from power.  People are no longer free to choose ultimately how or even if they will expend their fortune and are instead forced to do so in a manner dictated by the federal state for unconstitutional powers conjured out of thin air.  They are not only made to act as dictated but also told that their wages will be garnished today to pay for the benefit of others and not themselves and that the punishment for not abiding will be fines, detention or even perhaps loss of their own life for their defiance.

Whatever government welfare program you choose, this same model holds true; one American is taxed to better another and not the general Welfare of the nation.  We have in the most very basic of sense turned the Constitution on its head!  We have tracked down, bound and hanged Lady Liberty exchanging her blessings for a yoke that confines us and binds us to an unkind master who tells us when and how to expend our efforts by mandate, what crops to sow and when to reap them.  We have divested ourselves so far from the basic principle of liberty as a cause that is to be championed and ignored the history laid bare before us about where such actions lead.  We have ignored the very first and most basic principle of good government; it’s limited nature to treat all under its care equally before the law and preserve individual liberty and rights which are beyond the reach of any man.  And as we do this dastardly deed?  Look up friends!  Look up!  See what is happening!  Lady Liberty hangs from a tree choking out her final breaths, grasping as the noose that we have looped around her neck tightens!

That noose has been fashioned from the words of those that have lied to us and sought to deceive us for their own power with wicked tongues.  And we have let them continue to lie to us.  But for what?  For the false perception that if we add just one more knot in the rope, one more restriction to Liberty, one more false mandate for government to perform under the auspices of the “general Welfare,” one more link in the chain that we can somehow attain a higher state of freedom?  That the quicker we kill Liberty the quicker we shall attain such?

How sick and twisted an idea this is!  How are we to accept that by allowing our inalienable rights to be taken and our bodies to be bound by more and more rope that we will find more liberty in our lives?  Will no one free Lady Liberty?  Will no one step up and cut her loose?  Has no one the courage to stand up and unsheathe their knife and defy our government masters and the hordes of loyalists to them who seek to have our monies placed within their palms?  Or will we just be content to carve Liberty's epitaph into the bark of the tree on which she will now surely die? And will we have the courage to write that epitaph truthfully if we choose not to act?

Beware for that epitaph sadly will read: “Here hangs Lady Liberty, choked out by the general Welfare!”

Laus Deo!

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In the Shadow of Leviathan: America's Arising Fear-Based Society

By Linda Kimball

"Thought crime was not a thing that could be concealed forever. You might dodge successfully for awhile...but sooner or later they were bound to get you." George Orwell, 1984

"The fact is we are witnessing an all-out drive to impose thought control that seeks to ban the ability---the right---to think or speak for one's self. Thinking is becoming a crime." (Globally Acceptable Truth and the Crime of Thinking, Tom DeWeese, Address to the 10th Annual Freedom 21 Conference, 10/16/09)

In an article entitled “Dems Undermine Free Speech in Hate Crimes Ploy,” the Washington Examiner exposes the insidious machinations of House statists in their determination to impose totalitarian hate crime laws upon the American people. Hate crime laws do much more than undermine free speech however, for in that what one says is the result of what first takes place in the mind, hate crime laws are mind-control devices. ( http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2361178/posts)

Hate crime laws are not just alien to America’s traditional Christian-based worldview, but in violent opposition to it. They are part of a program of psycho political terrorism utilized by Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, and the Bolsheviks after they seized control of Orthodox Christian Russia and put into practice long-term plans to abolish on a vast cultural scale every vestige of belief in the Biblical God, family, morality, private property, and other signs of "the capitalist petite Bourgeoisie." By way of various sadistically brutal forms of behavior modification, torture, psychotropic drug experimentation, re-education, and psychological terror tactics, Russians were terrorized into submission while Bolsheviks systematically stole their property, confiscated and perverted their children, desecrated and blasphemed churches, crucified thousands of nuns and priests, and in general, committed monstrous crimes against humanity which took the lives of sixty-million men, women, and children. For example:

“About 200,000 clergy, many crucified, scalped and otherwise tortured, were killed during the approximately 60 years of communist rule in the former Soviet Union, a Russian commission reported this week. In addition, another 500,000 religious figures were persecuted and 40,000 churches destroyed in the period from 1922 to 1980, the report said. Half the country’s mosques and more than half the synagogues were also destroyed. “Clergymen were crucified on churches’ holy gates, shot, scalped [and] strangled,” said Alexander Yakovlev, head of the Commission for the Rehabilitation of the Victims of Political Repression. The commission prepared the report for Russian President Boris Yeltsin. “I was especially shocked by accounts of priests turned into columns of ice in winter,” Yakovlev said. “It was total cruelty.” (http://www.paulbogdanor.com/left.html)

Former red-diaper baby David Horowitz observes that it is,

"not for nothing that George Orwell had to invent terms like 'double-think' and 'double- speak' to describe the universe totalitarians created."

Though publicly they describe themselves as scientific, forward-thinking, enlightened, and progressive, they are in reality, notes Horowitz,

"...religious fanatics who regard their opponents as sinners and miscreants and agents of civil darkness...when they engage an opponent it is rarely to examine and refute his argument but rather to destroy the bearer of the argument and remove him from the plan of battle." (The Surreal World of the Progressive Left, David Horowitz, FrontPageMagazine.com, 1/25/2008)

Over the course of the twentieth century, progressive religious fanatics---or in Dostoevsky's words, devilish Gnostic irreligionists---murdered anywhere between 100,000,000-200,000,000 "sinners and miscreants and agents of civil darkness."

Totalitarian Bolshevism can be understood as an umbrella under which shelters Marxist-socialism, Darwinian scientism, progressivism, positivist materialism, sex-positivism, rationalism, idealism, feminism, atheism, occultism, empiricism, relativism, and nihilism. These cancerous ideological 'isms' emerged mainly out of Enlightenment France and Germany, spawning both Marxist-socialism and Hitler’s National Socialism and today, continue to spread and secrete yet more toxic cells: heterosexism, normativism, sexism, and ageism, among others.

Whereas twentieth century's Big Brother touted himself as positivist, materialist, atheist, and 'red,' today's Big Brother is decidedly 'green,' says Steve Milloy in his book, "Green Hell." Yesterdays' ‘isms' have reshaped themselves into yet another apocalyptic, messianic, utopian- globalism, one that is blatantly spiritual and occult, pantheistic, politically correct, and in exclusive globalist salons, brazenly Luciferian.

"Without a doubt, President Obama is a true believer in the green cause. Viewing our current living standards as excessive and immoral, he's determined to downsize our lifestyles---for the good of the planet...If the greens succeed, we will see their vision for our future implemented with staggering speed. By the time you finish this book you may well be appalled by that vision, but you may also find yourself in awe of the sheer totality of the green's agenda and their single-minded determination to achieve it." (Green Hell, Steve Milloy, pp. 6-7)

As Fyodor Dostoevsky astutely observed, Progressive religious fanaticism is at bottom, the creature in rebellion against the Creator, His creation, immutable truths, and moral absolutes. Hence it is rebellion against the very idea of normal, says David Horowitz:

"the enemy is no longer a ruling class, a hegemonic race or even a dominant gender. Instead it is the sexual order of nature itself. Oppression lies in the very idea of the “normal,” the order that divides humanity into two sexes. Instead of a classless society as the redemptive future, queer theorists envisage a gender free world." (quote from "Are Evangelical Churches Drifting Left?" Barbara Sowell, http://faultlineusa.blogspot.com/)

In sum, it is little 'g' godmen, their pride swollen to satanic proportions, usurping the throne of the Creator in order to correct His ‘mistakes.’

From Karl Marx, who declared that he would “walk triumphantly like a god” through the ruins of the old Christian-based order to today’s ‘elite’ insider transnational Progressive green-spiritual globalists, all have or are proclaiming their godhood, like Barbara Marx Hubbard for example:

“We are immortal…We can create new life forms and new worlds. We are gods!” a revelation channeled from her spirit guide ‘Christ’ to Barbara Marx Hubbard, influential transnational green Progressive, one of the directors of the World Future Society along with Robert McNamara and scholars from Georgetown University, George Washington University, and the University of Maryland. (False Dawn, Lee Penn, pp. 316, 326)

Fueled by satanic pride, Bakunin—one of Karl Marx’s partners in the First International—described the emancipation of man and destruction of the old order in these words:

“The Evil One is the satanic revolt against divine authority, revolt in which we see the fecund germ of all human emancipations, the revolution. Socialists recognize each other by the words, “In the name of the one to whom a great wrong has been done.” Satan (is) the eternal rebel, the first freethinker and the emancipator of worlds (he) emancipates (and) stamps upon his brow the seal of liberty…in urging (man) to disobey and eat of the fruit of knowledge. In this revolution we will have to awaken the Devil in the people, to stir up the basest passions. Our mission is to destroy, not to edify. The passion of destruction is a creative passion.”

Considered by many to be the 19th century’s greatest apocalyptic prophet, Fyodor Dostoevsky defined the conjoined ‘isms’ and their ultimate program of the “destruction of everything” as the politics of apocalypse—in other words, the politics of catastrophic death and destruction. This is made clear by Karl Marx in his poem, Human Pride:

“With disdain I will throw my gauntlet/ Full in the face of the world/ And see the collapse of this pygmy giant/ Whose fall will not stifle my ardour/ Then will I wander godlike and victorious/ Through the ruins of the world/ And, giving my words an active voice/ I will feel equal to the Creator.”

In another piece Marx made his demonically-fueled hatred of the world and his death-wishing toward its’ people even more clear:

“A silent, unavoidable revolution is taking place in society, a revolution that cares as little about the human lives it destroys as an earthquake cares about the houses it ravages. Classes and races that are too weak to dominate the new conditions of existence will be defeated.” (Marx and Satan, Richard Wurmbrand, p. 42)

During his commencement address at Harvard in the 1970s, Alexander Solzhenitsyn raised the alarm when he warned that America was already tilting towards evil. Americans—specifically the ruling class and intelligentsia— have forgotten God said Solzhenitsyn, and embraced instead, scientistic-socialism….the politics of destruction. America is on the same highway to hell taken previously by the Russians, warned Solzhenitsyn.

Also raising the alarm is Natan Sharansky, a dissident in the former Marxist-socialist Soviet Union. Sharansky describes the Soviet Union as a tyranny where,

“there were no dissidents (because) they were simply killed immediately.” Under the terrorist-tactics of hate crime laws, speech codes, and other mind-control tactics, everyone became double thinkers. To outside observers notes Sharansky, double thinkers appear as true believers: “everybody says the same thing, everybody votes the same way, everybody speaks with passion.” But it is an illusion caused by fear of speaking the truth. These people, he noted, “live with self-censorship throughout their lives. Since the regime demands loyalty right from childhood, many don’t even notice. They just automatically control how they express themselves.” But when a “fear society disappears or becomes weak, people suddenly start saying what they feel,” Sharansky commented, and “It’s such a big relief.”

To determine if a society is fear-based, Sharansky applies what he defines as the “town square test.” In this test, if you,

“can go to the center of town and publicly express your views without being punished, you have a free society” even though that society may not be just. However, if you are “punished for your views you live in a fear society,” said Sharansky. “In such societies there are always three types of population: True believers, who accept the ideology…dissidents, who take risks to speak publicly; and double thinkers, who have doubts or disagreements about the official ideology but are afraid to express them publicly.” In conclusion, Sharansky comments that the level “of dissidence is always a function of how tough the regime is.” (The Power of Freedom, published in The American Enterprise, Apr/May 2005, pp. 38-39)

Measured by Sharanskys' town-square test we can see that America is quickly descending into a fear-based society. As her freedom-producing Christian-based worldview fades while simultaneously replaced by green-progressive totalitarianism, the three types of population described by Sharansky come into focus. In general, Progressive Liberals are the true believers. Rabid zealots, brazen liars, rebels against all authority, they freely destroy, transgress, scoff, demean, blaspheme, demonize, and otherwise psychologically terrorize the large body of fearful double thinkers.

More than fifty years ago, Conservative poet and journalist Anthony Harrigan foresaw the rise of this generations' destructive true believers. Observing that a 'process of decay' was being fostered by a modernist orthodoxy fueled by immorality, Harrigan presciently noted that:

"Modernists are determined to force acceptance of pornography as medical science, filth as artistic realism, and abnormality as a mere difference of opinion...Though the life of the country is basically decent, Americans are in the hands of a cultural ruling class, having led to destruction the humane elements in our civilization, is conducting us to ruin." For what cause? To raise up a revolutionary army of "liberal-bred" barbarians "motivated by a destructive impulse" and unchecked by "traditional values and restraints." (The Conservative Intellectual Movement of America, George H. Nash, p. 40)

With the 'cultural ruling class' seen as The Ministry of Truth, Orwell describes the diabolical 'process of decay' fostered by them:

"There was a whole chain of...departments dealing with proletarian literature....Here was produced rubbishy newspapers, containing almost nothing except sport, crime, astrology, sensational five-cent novelettes, and films oozing with sex. The rubbishy entertainment and spurious news...was referred to as prolefeed." (1984)

Protecting and fomenting the destruction of America is a vast matrix of interconnected front groups, activist organizations, and phony civil rights defenders such as the ACLU, the most infamous terroristic enforcer of politically correct ‘true belief.’ (See matrix here: http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/)

All around the outside edges are the dissidents, for example, the Conservative blog-o-sphere, Tea Partiers, Minutemen, political leaders like Jim DeMint and Randy Forbes, and a variety of Conservative organizations and civil rights defenders such as the Alliance Defense Fund.

Supremely immoral, reeking of perversity, a double-speaking transnational green-progressive leviathan is moving with crushing force across our nation, fostering obscenity and blasphemy, instilling fear and confusion into the hearts of Americans and stifling individual liberty while it perverts Americas' youth, imposes mind-control and relentlessly destroys the spiritual foundations of America’s traditional Christian-based order. Its' devilish tactics come into focus in the following examples:

1. Cultural Marxism: the politics of rebellion, perversity, and nihilism fueled by satanic pride.

2. Multiculturalism: the insidious destruction of America’s traditional culture by way of elevating all other cultures in the name of politically correct tolerance.

3. Political correctness, speech codes, and hate crime laws: a psychic-cage for the soul/mind of traditional-values Americans.

4. ‘Gay rights/’gay’ marriage: rebellion against the idea of normal.

5. Sex education: called ’sex pol’ by Marxist-socialists, it’s purpose is the subversion and perversion of our youth, the awakening of the Devil, as Bakunin said. (Read: The Gay- Straight Alliance and the Quiet Revolution, http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/Articles/The%20Gay%20Straight%20Alliance%20and%20the.html)

6. Social justice: the hammering down of everything good, everything excellent, everything normal, everything true into the perversely foul mud of demonic nothingness.

7. Critical theory: the mindless vomiting out of the acid of destructive criticism upon everything good, true, excellent, normal, and traditional.

8. Redistributive Justice: the evisceration of our standard of living and individual liberties in order to 'save the planet'---in other words, death and slavery on behalf of Gaia.

9. Sustainability: Extreme population control and theft of private property to achieve the 'new' communism--communitarianism.

10. Religious Pluralism: the erasure of America's founding Christian-based worldview by way of elevating Wicca, animism, Islam, New Age occult spirituality, Buddhism, shamanism, and atheism in the name of politically correct tolerance and diversity.

Death of Freedom

In an article entitled, "American Capitalism Gone with a Whimper," author Stanislav Mishin notes that, "on and off for the past century," Americans have been stealthily prepared to accept totalitarianism, and with the election of Barack Obama,

"It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American descent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the backdrop of a passive, hapless sheeple..."

"The initial testing grounds was conducted upon our Holy Russia," notes Mishin, "and a bloody test it was."

Who financed the bloody test? "Wall Street," says Mishin.

In his book "The Naked Capitalist," W. Cleon Skousen exposes the unholy alliance of bankers and capitalists collectively defined as "Wall Street" by Mishin. Skousen verifies his findings through the writings of Dr. Carroll Quigley, both a professor of history at the Foreign Service School of Georgetown University and mentor to Bill Clinton. In his opus, "Tragedy and Hope," Quigley deliberately reveals one of the worlds' best kept secrets: the existence of a gigantic leviathan of political and economic power poised to seize control of the planet.

The gargantuan power complex says Quigley, has been--right from the start---controlling Marxist-Communist-Socialist groups,

"...the power that...Left-wingers exercised was never their own power or communist power but...the power of the international financial coterie." (p. 954, Tragedy and Hope)

Why did Quigley expose the existence of the global financial coterie? Because he says, it is now too late for the little people to turn the tide. He urges them to not fight the noose which is already around their necks, for they will only hang themselves.

"On the other hand, those who go along with the immense pressure which is beginning to be felt by all humanity will eventually find themselves in a man-made millennium of peace and prosperity." (The Naked Capitalist, Skousen, pp. 4-6) See funders here: http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/guideDesc.asp?type=funder

'Elite' transnational progressive Robert Muller, former Assistant Secretary-General of the UN and former Chancellor of the UN University for Peace in Costa Rica speaks of the fate that will befall the politically incorrect:

"...all those who hold contrary beliefs" to politically correct thought favored for the "next phase of evolution" will "disappear." A hellish fate awaits all who resist political and spiritual globalization, "..those who criticize the UN are anti-evolutionary, blind, self- serving people. Their souls will be parked in a special corral of the universe for having been retarding forces, true aberrations in the evolution and ascent of humanity." (False Dawn, Lee Penn, p. 133)

In other words, the 'chosen ones' are evolving into gods and hell awaits all 'selfish' ones who stand in the way! "....and you will be like God..." (Genesis 31-7)

The lessons learned from the Russian experiment says Mishin,

"were taken and used properly to prepare the American populace for the surrender of their freedoms and souls, to the whims of their elites and betters."

Among the lessons applied by The Ministry of Truth to Americans,

"First the population was dumbed down through a politicized and substandard education..." then, said Mishin, "their faith in God was destroyed, until their churches, all tens of thousands of (them) were for the most part little more than Sunday circuses and their televangelists and top protestant mega preachers were more than happy to sell out their souls and flocks to be on the 'winning' side of one pseudo Marxist politician or another."

In conclusion Mishin writes,

"The proud American will go down into his slavery without a fight, beating his chest and proclaiming to the world, how free he really is. The world will only snicker." (American Capitalism Gone with a Whimper, Stanislav Mishin, Pravda.Ru)

Warnings from the Wise and the Valiant....

"... when People are universally ignorant, and debauched in their Manners, they will sink under their own weight without the Aid of foreign Invaders." --Samuel Adams, Founding Father

"It is when a people forget God that tyrants forge their chains." - Patrick Henry, Founding Father

"Whenever the pillars of Christianity shall be overthrown, our present republican forms of government, and all the blessings which flow from them, must fall with them." -- Samuel F.B. Morse, the son of educator Jedediah Morse, known as "Father of American Geography."

"...the events of the Russian Revolution can only be understood now, at the end of the century...What emerges here is a process of universal significance. And if I were called upon to identify briefly the principal trait of the entire twentieth century...I would be unable to find anything more precise and pithy than to repeat once again: Men have forgotten God." (Alexander Solzhenitsyn to Amerika: Godlessness, the First Step to the Gulag, from Russia with Love, Joe Clarke, Jul. 8, 2009)

...the Self-Sacrificially Courageous

"Death is more eligible than slavery. A free-born people are not required by the religion of Jesus Christ to submit to tyranny, but may make use of such power as God has given them to recover and support their liberties..." The men of Marlborough, Massachusetts who took part in the Boston Tea Party

....and regarding the imposition of hate crime laws, the Prophetic

"If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter." ---George Washington

Linda Kimball writes on culture, politics, and worldview

Additional Resources

Founders quotes: http://www.earstohear.net/Separation/warnings.html
Marx and Satan, Richard Wurmbrand

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