Nemo me impune lacessit

No one provokes me with impunity

____________________________________

No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.

Article 1, Section 9, Constitution of the United States

If this is the law of the land...why in a republic (little r) and as republicans, do we allow mere POLITICIANS to the right to use a "title of office" for the rest of their lives as if it were de facto a patent of nobility. Because, as republicans, this should NOT be the case...just saying...

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Sunday, March 31, 2013

FEDERALIST No. 30

 Concerning the General Power of Taxation

From the New York Packet.
Friday, December 28, 1787


.Alexander Hamilton
 
To the People of the State of New York: 


IT HAS been already observed that the federal government ought to possess the power of providing for the support of the national forces; in which proposition was intended to be included the expense of raising troops, of building and equipping fleets, and all other expenses in any wise connected with military arrangements and operations. But these are not the only objects to which the jurisdiction of the Union, in respect to revenue, must necessarily be empowered to extend. It must embrace a provision for the support of the national civil list; for the payment of the national debts contracted, or that may be contracted; and, in general, for all those matters which will call for disbursements out of the national treasury. The conclusion is, that there must be interwoven, in the frame of the government, a general power of taxation, in one shape or another. 


Money is, with propriety, considered as the vital principle of the body politic; as that which sustains its life and motion, and enables it to perform its most essential functions. A complete power, therefore, to procure a regular and adequate supply of it, as far as the resources of the community will permit, may be regarded as an indispensable ingredient in every constitution. From a deficiency in this particular, one of two evils must ensue; either the people must be subjected to continual plunder, as a substitute for a more eligible mode of supplying the public wants, or the government must sink into a fatal atrophy, and, in a short course of time, perish.


In the Ottoman or Turkish empire, the sovereign, though in other respects absolute master of the lives and fortunes of his subjects, has no right to impose a new tax. The consequence is that he permits the bashaws or governors of provinces to pillage the people without mercy; and, in turn, squeezes out of them the sums of which he stands in need, to satisfy his own exigencies and those of the state. In America, from a like cause, the government of the Union has gradually dwindled into a state of decay, approaching nearly to annihilation. Who can doubt, that the happiness of the people in both countries would be promoted by competent authorities in the proper hands, to provide the revenues which the necessities of the public might require? 

The present Confederation, feeble as it is intended to repose in the United States, an unlimited power of providing for the pecuniary wants of the Union. But proceeding upon an erroneous principle, it has been done in such a manner as entirely to have frustrated the intention. Congress, by the articles which compose that compact (as has already been stated), are authorized to ascertain and call for any sums of money necessary, in their judgment, to the service of the United States; and their requisitions, if conformable to the rule of apportionment, are in every constitutional sense obligatory upon the States. These have no right to question the propriety of the demand; no discretion beyond that of devising the ways and means of furnishing the sums demanded. But though this be strictly and truly the case; though the assumption of such a right would be an infringement of the articles of Union; though it may seldom or never have been avowedly claimed, yet in practice it has been constantly exercised, and would continue to be so, as long as the revenues of the Confederacy should remain dependent on the intermediate agency of its members. What the consequences of this system have been, is within the knowledge of every man the least conversant in our public affairs, and has been amply unfolded in different parts of these inquiries. It is this which has chiefly contributed to reduce us to a situation, which affords ample cause both of mortification to ourselves, and of triumph to our enemies. 


What remedy can there be for this situation, but in a change of the system which has produced it in a change of the fallacious and delusive system of quotas and requisitions? What substitute can there be imagined for this ignis fatuus in finance, but that of permitting the national government to raise its own revenues by the ordinary methods of taxation authorized in every well-ordered constitution of civil government? Ingenious men may declaim with plausibility on any subject; but no human ingenuity can point out any other expedient to rescue us from the inconveniences and embarrassments naturally resulting from defective supplies of the public treasury. 


The more intelligent adversaries of the new Constitution admit the force of this reasoning; but they qualify their admission by a distinction between what they call INTERNAL and EXTERNAL taxation. The former they would reserve to the State governments; the latter, which they explain into commercial imposts, or rather duties on imported articles, they declare themselves willing to concede to the federal head. This distinction, however, would violate the maxim of good sense and sound policy, which dictates that every POWER ought to be in proportion to its OBJECT; and would still leave the general government in a kind of tutelage to the State governments, inconsistent with every idea of vigor or efficiency. Who can pretend that commercial imposts are, or would be, alone equal to the present and future exigencies of the Union? Taking into the account the existing debt, foreign and domestic, upon any plan of extinguishment which a man moderately impressed with the importance of public justice and public credit could approve, in addition to the establishments which all parties will acknowledge to be necessary, we could not reasonably flatter ourselves, that this resource alone, upon the most improved scale, would even suffice for its present necessities. Its future necessities admit not of calculation or limitation; and upon the principle, more than once adverted to, the power of making provision for them as they arise ought to be equally unconfined. I believe it may be regarded as a position warranted by the history of mankind, that, IN THE USUAL PROGRESS OF THINGS, THE NECESSITIES OF A NATION, IN EVERY STAGE OF ITS EXISTENCE, WILL BE FOUND AT LEAST EQUAL TO ITS RESOURCES. 


To say that deficiencies may be provided for by requisitions upon the States, is on the one hand to acknowledge that this system cannot be depended upon, and on the other hand to depend upon it for every thing beyond a certain limit. Those who have carefully attended to its vices and deformities as they have been exhibited by experience or delineated in the course of these papers, must feel invincible repugnancy to trusting the national interests in any degree to its operation. Its inevitable tendency, whenever it is brought into activity, must be to enfeeble the Union, and sow the seeds of discord and contention between the federal head and its members, and between the members themselves. Can it be expected that the deficiencies would be better supplied in this mode than the total wants of the Union have heretofore been supplied in the same mode? It ought to be recollected that if less will be required from the States, they will have proportionably less means to answer the demand. If the opinions of those who contend for the distinction which has been mentioned were to be received as evidence of truth, one would be led to conclude that there was some known point in the economy of national affairs at which it would be safe to stop and to say: Thus far the ends of public happiness will be promoted by supplying the wants of government, and all beyond this is unworthy of our care or anxiety. How is it possible that a government half supplied and always necessitous, can fulfill the purposes of its institution, can provide for the security, advance the prosperity, or support the reputation of the commonwealth? How can it ever possess either energy or stability, dignity or credit, confidence at home or respectability abroad? How can its administration be any thing else than a succession of expedients temporizing, impotent, disgraceful? How will it be able to avoid a frequent sacrifice of its engagements to immediate necessity? How can it undertake or execute any liberal or enlarged plans of public good? 


Let us attend to what would be the effects of this situation in the very first war in which we should happen to be engaged. We will presume, for argument's sake, that the revenue arising from the impost duties answers the purposes of a provision for the public debt and of a peace establishment for the Union. Thus circumstanced, a war breaks out. What would be the probable conduct of the government in such an emergency? Taught by experience that proper dependence could not be placed on the success of requisitions, unable by its own authority to lay hold of fresh resources, and urged by considerations of national danger, would it not be driven to the expedient of diverting the funds already appropriated from their proper objects to the defense of the State? It is not easy to see how a step of this kind could be avoided; and if it should be taken, it is evident that it would prove the destruction of public credit at the very moment that it was becoming essential to the public safety. To imagine that at such a crisis credit might be dispensed with, would be the extreme of infatuation. In the modern system of war, nations the most wealthy are obliged to have recourse to large loans. A country so little opulent as ours must feel this necessity in a much stronger degree. But who would lend to a government that prefaced its overtures for borrowing by an act which demonstrated that no reliance could be placed on the steadiness of its measures for paying? The loans it might be able to procure would be as limited in their extent as burdensome in their conditions. They would be made upon the same principles that usurers commonly lend to bankrupt and fraudulent debtors, with a sparing hand and at enormous premiums. 


It may perhaps be imagined that, from the scantiness of the resources of the country, the necessity of diverting the established funds in the case supposed would exist, though the national government should possess an unrestrained power of taxation. But two considerations will serve to quiet all apprehension on this head: one is, that we are sure the resources of the community, in their full extent, will be brought into activity for the benefit of the Union; the other is, that whatever deficiences there may be, can without difficulty be supplied by loans. 


The power of creating new funds upon new objects of taxation, by its own authority, would enable the national government to borrow as far as its necessities might require. Foreigners, as well as the citizens of America, could then reasonably repose confidence in its engagements; but to depend upon a government that must itself depend upon thirteen other governments for the means of fulfilling its contracts, when once its situation is clearly understood, would require a degree of credulity not often to be met with in the pecuniary transactions of mankind, and little reconcilable with the usual sharp-sightedness of avarice.
Reflections of this kind may have trifling weight with men who hope to see realized in America the halcyon scenes of the poetic or fabulous age; but to those who believe we are likely to experience a common portion of the vicissitudes and calamities which have fallen to the lot of other nations, they must appear entitled to serious attention. Such men must behold the actual situation of their country with painful solicitude, and deprecate the evils which ambition or revenge might, with too much facility, inflict upon it. 


PUBLIUS.

Why Communism and Socialism Always Fail

There is, at root, only one reason why communism and socialism always fail.
The family is communist — from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs — and it takes a while to realize that the rest of the world doesn’t work that way, because only parents are willing to make that sort of sacrifice, and then only for their own kids. [emphasis is mine, not the author's]
And that is it.

Liberalism Is the Left's Religion...

Conservatives, especially social conservatives can be difficult to relate to at times.  However, on the whole, the real difference between Conservatives and Liberals is that many on the right have strong religious beliefs.  Liberals on the other hand, only have their political beliefs.
They have given up a belief in G-d an taken in its place...Liberalism-Leftism and it's inherent dogma.  Dennis Prager has written that,
You cannot understand the Left if you do not understand that leftism is a religion. It is not God-based (some left-wing Christians’ and Jews’ claims notwithstanding), but otherwise it has every characteristic of a religion. The most blatant of those characteristics is dogma. People who believe in leftism have as many dogmas as the most fundamentalist Christian.

...

The answer is dogma — a belief system that transcends reason. No rational person can deny that big governments have caused almost all the great evils of the last century, arguably the bloodiest in history. Who killed the 20 to 30 million Soviet citizens in the Gulag Archipelago — big government or big business? Hint: There were no private businesses in the Soviet Union. Who deliberately caused 75 million Chinese to starve to death — big government or big business? Hint: See previous hint. Did Coca-Cola kill 5 million Ukrainians? Did Big Oil slaughter a quarter of the Cambodian population? Would there have been a Holocaust without the huge Nazi state?

Whatever bad things big corporations have done is dwarfed by the monstrous crimes — the mass enslavement of people, the deprivation of the most basic human rights, not to mention the mass murder and torture and genocide — committed by big governments.

How can anyone who thinks rationally believe that big corporations rather than big governments pose the greatest threat to humanity? The answer is that it takes a mind distorted by leftist dogma. If there is another explanation, I do not know what it is.
But, man needs myths, legends and higher goals.  We have striven for that since conscious thought evolved within us.  We've always had gods.  but, as Jonah Goldberg wrote,
When man loses God he sets about to make new gods. Or as the philosopher Eric Voegelin puts it, “[ W] hen God is invisible behind the world, the contents of the world will become new gods; when the symbols of transcendent religiosity are banned, new symbols develop from the inner-worldly language of science to take their place.”

Likewise man creates dogmas because man needs dogmas. The light of reason illuminates the darkness and science provides us compasses to find our way. But it does not provide us with reasons to get out of bed in the first place. As John Dos Passos said, “The mind cannot support moral chaos for long. Men are under as strong a compulsion to invent an ethical setting for their behavior as spiders are to weave webs.”
Without dogmas, intellectual chaos ensues.  As recently as 2006, Lee Harris described French Marxist Georges Sorel (1847-1922),
 Sorel, for whom religion was important, drew a comparison between the Christian and the socialist revolutionary. The Christian’s life is transformed because he accepts the myth that Christ will one day return and usher in the end of time; the revolutionary socialist’s life is transformed because he accepts the myth that one day socialism will triumph, and justice for all will prevail. What mattered for Sorel, in both cases, is not the scientific truth or falsity of the myth believed in, but what believing in the myth does to the lives of those who have accepted it, and who refuse to be daunted by the repeated failure of their apocalyptic expectations. How many times have Christians in the last two thousand years been convinced that the Second Coming was at hand, only to be bitterly disappointed — yet none of these disappointments was ever enough to keep them from holding on to their great myth. So, too, Sorel argued, the myth of socialism will continue to have power, despite the various failures of socialist experiments, so long as there are revolutionaries who are unwilling to relinquish their great myth. That is why he rejected scientific socialism — if it was merely science, it lacked the power of a religion to change individual’s lives. Thus for Sorel there was “an…analogy between religion and the revolutionary Socialism which aims at the apprenticeship, preparation, and even the reconstruction of the individual — a gigantic task.” [emphasis is mine, ed.]
 We humans, need something larger than ourselves to clutch onto to explain what we're reaching for.  Liberals have taken political dogma as their religion.  That simple fact explains the avalanche of personal attacks when any Liberal strays from their accepted party line...after all, throughout history, heretics have been sacrificed for the greater good by the mass of the people.  That has continued through today. 

Just look at Larry Summers when he was president of Harvard University when he was figuratively crucified for, during a seminar in which you were supposed to put up arguments that would then be knocked down in intellectual discussion, posited that women's lack of representation in the hard sciences and mathematics was, perhaps, due to evolutionary factors.  That's just one example...there are hundreds of others. The one thing they have in common, is that the entire community harangues the offender until he comes to his moment of confession and apology... which MUST be made in public.  But I digress.

Conservatives have a tendency to forgive those who stray from the political corral.  We might call them RINO's but they're allowed to wander off and back with little regard to whether or not they closely adhere to conservative political principles.  John McCain...need I say more?

But, at the end of it all, Google's using Cesar Chavez as it's "saint" in place of Jesus ben Joseph on Easter is the perfect example of political dogma as religion.

Thursday, March 28, 2013

Why Liberals Like Touré Love Racism


Monday, March 25, 2013

My Husband's Blog but Wife is Making an Opinion

I am making my statement about legalizing marijuana and the use of it for medical purposes.

I really never thought much about actual marijuana as being used for medical usage until just recently.  As I have been through cancer, my gallbladder removed and having stomach issues within a period of 6 months my outlook has become more of an active force behind making it legal.

I have been through many medications to help me with illnesses that I have had and the only thing that keeps me from being sick all of the time is a product from marijuana.

I do have a medical script for it but when we had insurance they didn't think I needed it after 5 months of trying every other type of medication for my medical issue was necessary.

I have been off of my medication because it cost 350 every two weeks.
Please help me get the government to pass the usage of the products of marijuana for medical usage.

For me if I eat I get very sick and I am in pain, if I don't eat it is the same thing.
Marinol or Dronabinol (same) is the only thing that works.

This is the one thing I completely believe that should be made legal.

I am tired of being sick all of the time and not being able to eat.

Thank you for your time.

Cheri D. Vail

Sunday, March 24, 2013

Congress Doesn't have a Spending Problem?

From Twitter:

Treasury dept: debt added 
$37,829 a second 
$2.2 million a min. 
$136.19 million a hr 
$3.268 billion a day 
And Obama said no spending problem!

DEBT FACTS:

US National debit
16,618,292,042,950

Debit per citizen
52,733.92

Debit per Taxpayer
131,834.81
Pop. 315,136,653

Quote of the Day



I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious. Thomas Jefferson

...And You Only Thought the GOP Was the Party of Stupid...

Just about the time I think that only the GOP is the party of stupid I hear something like this:
ultimatum delivered by billionaire California “clean energy philanthropist” and Democratic activist, Tom Steyer, to Massachusetts Democratic Senate candidate, Rep. Steve Lynch. Either withdraw support for the Keystone Pipeline by “high noon” this Friday, says Steyer, or face the consequences (an expensive, multi-pronged negative campaign devoted to exposing Lynch’s support for Keystone).
Makes you proud to be an American.  It turns out that the idiot tree huggers of both coasts oppose the use of fossil fuels by large margins.  In NY state, a recent poll shows that New Yorkers oppose fracking for shale oil in NY by 61-21%...that would bring in thousands of jobs to the western portion of the state as well as millions in tax revenue...but being Liberals, they just can't help themselves...no economic progress for NY.
public objections to Keystone are becoming increasingly mainstream among Democrats. Tom Friedman said “No to Keystone. Yes to Crazy.” A New York Times editorial endorsed a crusade the Post had labeled a counterproductive obsession a week before. Splits continue to open up among Democrats on this issue.

Additionally, it looks like if Obama does approve the Keystone pipeline, that he'll launch a whole slew of regulations in an attempt to make oil and gasoline more expensive.
the administration will redouble anti-carbon regulation in other areas, which will keep our new energy culture war at a boil. Given Obama’s recent moves on the climate front, the idea that the divisive campaign against fossil-fuels is going away is already fading.

Consider the fundamentals. Our economy runs on fossil fuels, yet an ever-growing number of Democrats at the heart of Obama’s base are literally convinced that the world is coming to an end because of it. This rapidly proliferating movement of Democratic voters has a near-religious determination to choke off the fuel that drives America’s economic engine.
Therein lies the real problem.  These people just don't understand how an economy works.  If you want to eliminate the use of fossil fuels, you have to develop an in expensive alternative...so far, they have failed to do that in any way.

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Chemical Weapons Used In Syria

IF, the Syrian government has used it's chemical weapons (most of which they received from Iraq prior to the 2003 invasion...what do you want to bet that Obama does....nothing.

FEDERALIST No. 29 Concerning the Militia


From the Daily Advertiser.
Thursday, January 10, 1788
Alexander Hamilton
 
To the People of the State of New York:
THE power of regulating the militia, and of commanding its services in times of insurrection and invasion are natural incidents to the duties of superintending the common defense, and of watching over the internal peace of the Confederacy. 

It requires no skill in the science of war to discern that uniformity in the organization and discipline of the militia would be attended with the most beneficial effects, whenever they were called into service for the public defense. It would enable them to discharge the duties of the camp and of the field with mutual intelligence and concert an advantage of peculiar moment in the operations of an army; and it would fit them much sooner to acquire the degree of proficiency in military functions which would be essential to their usefulness. This desirable uniformity can only be accomplished by confiding the regulation of the militia to the direction of the national authority. It is, therefore, with the most evident propriety, that the plan of the convention proposes to empower the Union "to provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, RESERVING TO THE STATES RESPECTIVELY THE APPOINTMENT OF THE OFFICERS, AND THE AUTHORITY OF TRAINING THE MILITIA ACCORDING TO THE DISCIPLINE PRESCRIBED BY CONGRESS."


Of the different grounds which have been taken in opposition to the plan of the convention, there is none that was so little to have been expected, or is so untenable in itself, as the one from which this particular provision has been attacked. If a well-regulated militia be the most natural defense of a free country, it ought certainly to be under the regulation and at the disposal of that body which is constituted the guardian of the national security. If standing armies are dangerous to liberty, an efficacious power over the militia, in the body to whose care the protection of the State is committed, ought, as far as possible, to take away the inducement and the pretext to such unfriendly institutions. If the federal government can command the aid of the militia in those emergencies which call for the military arm in support of the civil magistrate, it can the better dispense with the employment of a different kind of force. If it cannot avail itself of the former, it will be obliged to recur to the latter. To render an army unnecessary, will be a more certain method of preventing its existence than a thousand prohibitions upon paper.

In order to cast an odium upon the power of calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the Union, it has been remarked that there is nowhere any provision in the proposed Constitution for calling out the POSSE COMITATUS, to assist the magistrate in the execution of his duty, whence it has been inferred, that military force was intended to be his only auxiliary. There is a striking incoherence in the objections which have appeared, and sometimes even from the same quarter, not much calculated to inspire a very favorable opinion of the sincerity or fair dealing of their authors. The same persons who tell us in one breath, that the powers of the federal government will be despotic and unlimited, inform us in the next, that it has not authority sufficient even to call out the POSSE COMITATUS. The latter, fortunately, is as much short of the truth as the former exceeds it. It would be as absurd to doubt, that a right to pass all laws NECESSARY AND PROPER to execute its declared powers, would include that of requiring the assistance of the citizens to the officers who may be intrusted with the execution of those laws, as it would be to believe, that a right to enact laws necessary and proper for the imposition and collection of taxes would involve that of varying the rules of descent and of the alienation of landed property, or of abolishing the trial by jury in cases relating to it. It being therefore evident that the supposition of a want of power to require the aid of the POSSE COMITATUS is entirely destitute of color, it will follow, that the conclusion which has been drawn from it, in its application to the authority of the federal government over the militia, is as uncandid as it is illogical. What reason could there be to infer, that force was intended to be the sole instrument of authority, merely because there is a power to make use of it when necessary? What shall we think of the motives which could induce men of sense to reason in this manner? How shall we prevent a conflict between charity and judgment?

By a curious refinement upon the spirit of republican jealousy, we are even taught to apprehend danger from the militia itself, in the hands of the federal government. It is observed that select corps may be formed, composed of the young and ardent, who may be rendered subservient to the views of arbitrary power. What plan for the regulation of the militia may be pursued by the national government, is impossible to be foreseen. But so far from viewing the matter in the same light with those who object to select corps as dangerous, were the Constitution ratified, and were I to deliver my sentiments to a member of the federal legislature from this State on the subject of a militia establishment, I should hold to him, in substance, the following discourse:
"The project of disciplining all the militia of the United States is as futile as it would be injurious, if it were capable of being carried into execution. A tolerable expertness in military movements is a business that requires time and practice. It is not a day, or even a week, that will suffice for the attainment of it. To oblige the great body of the yeomanry, and of the other classes of the citizens, to be under arms for the purpose of going through military exercises and evolutions, as often as might be necessary to acquire the degree of perfection which would entitle them to the character of a well-regulated militia, would be a real grievance to the people, and a serious public inconvenience and loss. It would form an annual deduction from the productive labor of the country, to an amount which, calculating upon the present numbers of the people, would not fall far short of the whole expense of the civil establishments of all the States. To attempt a thing which would abridge the mass of labor and industry to so considerable an extent, would be unwise: and the experiment, if made, could not succeed, because it would not long be endured. Little more can reasonably be aimed at, with respect to the people at large, than to have them properly armed and equipped; and in order to see that this be not neglected, it will be necessary to assemble them once or twice in the course of a year."
"But though the scheme of disciplining the whole nation must be abandoned as mischievous or impracticable; yet it is a matter of the utmost importance that a well-digested plan should, as soon as possible, be adopted for the proper establishment of the militia. The attention of the government ought particularly to be directed to the formation of a select corps of moderate extent, upon such principles as will really fit them for service in case of need. By thus circumscribing the plan, it will be possible to have an excellent body of well-trained militia, ready to take the field whenever the defense of the State shall require it. This will not only lessen the call for military establishments, but if circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people while there is a large body of citizens, little, if at all, inferior to them in discipline and the use of arms, who stand ready to defend their own rights and those of their fellow-citizens. This appears to me the only substitute that can be devised for a standing army, and the best possible security against it, if it should exist."
Thus differently from the adversaries of the proposed Constitution should I reason on the same subject, deducing arguments of safety from the very sources which they represent as fraught with danger and perdition. But how the national legislature may reason on the point, is a thing which neither they nor I can foresee.

There is something so far-fetched and so extravagant in the idea of danger to liberty from the militia, that one is at a loss whether to treat it with gravity or with raillery; whether to consider it as a mere trial of skill, like the paradoxes of rhetoricians; as a disingenuous artifice to instil prejudices at any price; or as the serious offspring of political fanaticism. Where in the name of common-sense, are our fears to end if we may not trust our sons, our brothers, our neighbors, our fellow-citizens? What shadow of danger can there be from men who are daily mingling with the rest of their countrymen and who participate with them in the same feelings, sentiments, habits and interests? What reasonable cause of apprehension can be inferred from a power in the Union to prescribe regulations for the militia, and to command its services when necessary, while the particular States are to have the SOLE AND EXCLUSIVE APPOINTMENT OF THE OFFICERS? If it were possible seriously to indulge a jealousy of the militia upon any conceivable establishment under the federal government, the circumstance of the officers being in the appointment of the States ought at once to extinguish it. There can be no doubt that this circumstance will always secure to them a preponderating influence over the militia.

In reading many of the publications against the Constitution, a man is apt to imagine that he is perusing some ill-written tale or romance, which instead of natural and agreeable images, exhibits to the mind nothing but frightful and distorted shapes "Gorgons, hydras, and chimeras dire"; discoloring and disfiguring whatever it represents, and transforming everything it touches into a monster.
A sample of this is to be observed in the exaggerated and improbable suggestions which have taken place respecting the power of calling for the services of the militia. That of New Hampshire is to be marched to Georgia, of Georgia to New Hampshire, of New York to Kentucky, and of Kentucky to Lake Champlain. Nay, the debts due to the French and Dutch are to be paid in militiamen instead of louis d'ors and ducats. At one moment there is to be a large army to lay prostrate the liberties of the people; at another moment the militia of Virginia are to be dragged from their homes five or six hundred miles, to tame the republican contumacy of Massachusetts; and that of Massachusetts is to be transported an equal distance to subdue the refractory haughtiness of the aristocratic Virginians. Do the persons who rave at this rate imagine that their art or their eloquence can impose any conceits or absurdities upon the people of America for infallible truths?

If there should be an army to be made use of as the engine of despotism, what need of the militia? If there should be no army, whither would the militia, irritated by being called upon to undertake a distant and hopeless expedition, for the purpose of riveting the chains of slavery upon a part of their countrymen, direct their course, but to the seat of the tyrants, who had meditated so foolish as well as so wicked a project, to crush them in their imagined intrenchments of power, and to make them an example of the just vengeance of an abused and incensed people? Is this the way in which usurpers stride to dominion over a numerous and enlightened nation? Do they begin by exciting the detestation of the very instruments of their intended usurpations? Do they usually commence their career by wanton and disgustful acts of power, calculated to answer no end, but to draw upon themselves universal hatred and execration? Are suppositions of this sort the sober admonitions of discerning patriots to a discerning people? Or are they the inflammatory ravings of incendiaries or distempered enthusiasts? If we were even to suppose the national rulers actuated by the most ungovernable ambition, it is impossible to believe that they would employ such preposterous means to accomplish their designs.

In times of insurrection, or invasion, it would be natural and proper that the militia of a neighboring State should be marched into another, to resist a common enemy, or to guard the republic against the violence of faction or sedition. This was frequently the case, in respect to the first object, in the course of the late war; and this mutual succor is, indeed, a principal end of our political association. If the power of affording it be placed under the direction of the Union, there will be no danger of a supine and listless inattention to the dangers of a neighbor, till its near approach had superadded the incitements of selfpreservation to the too feeble impulses of duty and sympathy.

PUBLIUS.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

This particular essay is of interest...considering the Democratic Party's aattempts to curb the rights of the citizentry to own the same TYPE weapons that the police and military use...and would use upon the citizens of this nation should the government decide to SEIZE those weapons...since several states now have either bills pending or have passed such legislation.  New York is now offering a $500.00 reward to those who will inform upon their neighbors for NOT turning in weapons now deemed "illegal."

If the government decides it has the right to seize guns...then we are no better than slaves...think about it people.  Our ancestors (my direct "Revolutionary" ancestor was capture @ Ft Washington, Manhattan, NY in 1776, and died on HMS Jersey prison ship) literally fought thier lawful government because that government decided they ddidn't have the right to possess military arms...  

Quote of the Day


“Men by their constitutions are naturally divided into two parties: 1. Those who fear and distrust the people, and wish to draw all powers from them into the hands of the higher classes. 2. Those who identify themselves with the people, have confidence in them, cherish and consider them as the most honest and safe, although not the most wise depositary of the public interests. In every country these two parties exist, and in every one where they are free to think, speak, and write, they will declare themselves. Call them, therefore, Liberals and Serviles, Jacobins and Ultras, Whigs and Tories, Republicans and Federalists, Aristocrats and Democrats, or by whatever name you please, they are the same parties still and pursue the same object. The last one of Aristocrats and Democrats is the true one expressing the essence of all.”   – Thomas Jefferson (Letter to Henry Lee, 1824)

Monday, March 18, 2013

GOP Elites Circle the Wagons

As I predicted the other day, Reince Priebus of the RNC has prepared a 97 page document that exonerates the RNC and GOP leadership of ... to be blunt, fucking up the election. Their ideas to fix what went wrong in 2008 and 2012 would utterly change the GOP primary system.  They seek to eliminate caucuses.  These changes would only benefit those candidates with very deep pockets.  Stuck at the very end of the report is a suggestion that would seek to reduce by half the number of urges halving the number of  primary debates in 2016.  Furthermore, the report urges the creation of regional primary clusters that would start after the  early states of Iowa and New Hampshire.


This would only benefit the candidate that had amassed a huge warchest, such as Mitt Romney and John McCain...both of whom ran incompetent campaigns against a beatable Socialist candidate.  Furthermore, this is a naked attempt to beat back any sort of insurgent candidacy. POLITICO is reporting that,
The recommendations are also a nod to the party’s donor class. Several donors bluntly told RNC Chair Reince Priebus at meetings right after the election that they wanted Iowa, with its more conservative base, to have less of a role in the process.

Reaction was swift. Allies of potential 2016 hopefuls Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and former Sen. Rick Santorum, sensing a power play by the establishment-dominated panel, reacted angrily to recommendations they think are aimed at hurting candidates who do well in caucuses and conventions and need debates to get attention.
A Rand Paul supporter was even more to the point, 
“Elimination of caucuses would mean nuclear war with the grassroots, social conservatives and [the] Ron Paul movement,” said this Republican.

Bring it on, said some GOP leaders. “If Paul forces want ‘nuclear war’ over reducing [the number] of caucuses, let’s have it,” tweeted longtime GOP strategist Mike Murphy. “[The] key to [a] stronger party is more open primaries.”

How about me, I now believe that the GOP Leadership is beginning to run very scared.  They're starting to realize the the Tea Party movement is far broader than they thought it was.  That group seeks to toss them out on their collective asses.  After all, they've lost every single election since 2006.  2010, was a clear cut victory of the Tea Party as most of the candidates they supported were in fact elected.

That has been the only ray of sunshine in the GOP picture.  Instead of spending huge sums on candidates who are "moderates' or "Democrat Lite" that can't possibly win, the GOP should instead focus on candidates who are in fact conservatives.  Essentially, this is the party elites saying, "If we don't  select you get the hell out."  That will not do.

While I support the idea of regionalizing primaries, because it in my opinion would reduce the amounts candidates would have to spend bouncing from one side of the country to another...and would permit a less well funded candidate to concentrate on one region at a time. How ever, I  believe that instead of reducing the number of debates, that number should be tied to the regional primaries.

Iowa (Jan)
New Hampshire (1 week later)
Then New England (Feb)
Mid Atlantic (Late Feb: NY, PA, MD, DE, VA)
South (Early March:  NC, SC, GA, FL)
Upper South (Late March:  KY, TN, AL, MS , MO)
Mid West (Early April:  OH, MI, IN, IN)
Upper MidWest (Late April:  WI, MN, MT, ND, SD)
South West (early May:  TX, AR, OK, AZ, NM)
Central (Late May:  CO, WY, KS, NB, ID)
West (Early June:  CA, OR, UT, NV, WA, HI,  AK)

I'm sure I missed a few, but you get the picture.  That still gives the traditional early states their early time to shine...but would end the primaries by June and give us our convention by late June, and our nominee four solid months to campaign.  

What do you think?   Please comment.

Pat Condell: OAS & UN's Blasphamy Laws


Sunday, March 17, 2013

Quote of the Day



"We should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else ... But this is predicated upon the man's becoming in very fact an American, and nothing but an American. ... There can be no divided allegiance here. ... We have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people." President Theodore Roosevelt