Happy Anniversary Habeas Corpus

Today is the ninth anniversary of the 2nd US Court of Appeals ruling against President Bush's denial of due process to Jose Padilla.


Suspension of the writ of habeas corpus by Bush and Rumsfeld was an outrage, and I am personally grateful that the court ruled it so. Various liberal and libertarian groups filed amicus curiae briefs in the case, also cause for appreciation.


Among more complex legal issues - which I'll leave to the experts, was the simple fact that suspension of habeas corpus, during time of calamity, is granted to Congress, not to the President. This can be discerned by any literate person reading Article 1 of the Constitution, and I'm once again grateful that this simple point of law was noted by the legal experts on the court.


There is a downside, however. Almost nobody seems to recognize the original precedent for the unlawful actions of the Bush administration in this matter.


George W. Bush, in depriving a U.S. citizen of his right to the writ, was following the example of the most revered Republican in American history, a demigod whom our nation has honored with a temple.


Abraham Lincoln incarcerated hundreds of citizens who opposed his war against the South, locking them up without charging them with any crime. When Justice Taney, acting as a circuit judge, ordered a writ of habeas corpus, the federal marshall, on Lincoln's orders, declined to execute it. Moreover, Lincoln actually issued a warrant for Taney's arrest, but couldn't find anyone compliant enough to carry it out.


Lincoln had no legal right to deny habeas corpus, but is only mildly criticized by feckless historians due to his iconic status, sealed by his martyrdom.


The lesson for imperial presidents is clear: If you wish to jail citizens with impunity, you better instigate all out war within our borders first. If you happen to be an imperial president from the Left, you will have the advantage of a fawning, courtier press.

Hitler Praised by Bush official!

Exclusive to Onesimus Jones from intrepid reporter Beau Gus LeScribe

Beau is French!

In a recent speech to a group of high schoolers, Bush(1) communications director Nicolle Wallace(2) praised Adoloph Hitler(3) as one of her two favorite philosophers, with Mother Theresa being the other.

Ms. Wallace's(2) remarks were widely reported on talk radio, internet blogs, and Fox News, but completely ignored by major broadcast news, cable giants CNN and MSNBC, and even PBS.

However, PBS ran a story last night warning of the dangers of talk radio. Several grim prigs supported the party line: "talk radio hosts don't check facts." Most remarkably, Nicolle Wallace(2) herself was featured denouncing Fox. Not one word about Ms. Wallace's(2) high regard for the Feuhrer(4). Nor were any specific "unchecked facts" promulgated by talk radio mentioned.

Bush(1) administration spokespersons state that Ms. Wallace's(9) remarks were taken out of context - she only meant to credit Hitler(3) for his political strategy, not his tendency to murder human beings by the millions. "Real journalists find nothing newsworthy in a government official making one favorable comment about Hitler(3)," said an obtuse ideologue from a rightwing(5) blog. +

~Beau Gus LeScribe is a self-described rousseauite, and publishes the quarterly journal Robespierre Redux. Mr. LeScribe has agreed to provide progressive input to this blog from time to time.

CORRIGENDA

As our guest writer, Onesimus Jones wishes to give wide latitude to Mr. LeScribe in sharing his progressive views. But we must correct blatant factual errors. Mr. LeScribe is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts. Therefore, his piece was footnoted where egregious errors were found, and following is a list of true facts in relation to said footnotes:

1. Obama (not Bush)

2. Anita Dunn (not Nicolle Wallace)

3. Mao Tse-Tung (not Adolph Hitler)

4. The Chairman (not the Fuehrer)

5. leftwing (not rightwing)

"Peace, peace" - when there is no peace.

Theodore Roosevelt was an unabashed war monger. Perhaps the only war he ever found distasteful was the Russo-Japanese war of the early 2oth century. For his part in brokering an end to that war, TR received the Nobel Peace Prize.

Woodrow Wilson campaigned for re-election in 1916 with the slogan "he kept us out of the war" [i.e. WW I], while he was, in fact, maneuvering to get us into the war. Wilson jailed those who spoke against our entry into the war (eg. socialist Eugene Debs). At the end of the Great War, Wilson promoted the League of Nations, a world body from which he could presumably tyrannize other peoples the way he tyrannized Americans. For his efforts on behalf of the League, and for his other work at Versailles (which paved the way for WW II), Wilson, naturally also received the Nobel Peace Prize.

Finally, today, after ninety years, another sitting president receives the Nobel Peace Prize. Barack Obama is clearly the most deserving of the three presidents to be so honored.

Iconic Myths Worthy of Destruction

What do these nine statements have in common?

1. Republicans are fiscally conservative and believe in smaller government.

2. Democrats are staunch defenders of the first amendment.

3. Herbert Hoover responded to the stock market crash with laissez-faire economic policies.

4. FDR lifted the country out of the Great Depression.

5. Robert E. Lee fought for the South because he wanted to preserve slavery.

6. Ulysses Grant fought for the North because he wanted to end slavery.

7. The Puritans were teetotalers.

8. The Constitution's commerce clause was always understood to authorize federal regulation of all business activity.

9. The Constitution's general welfare clause shows that the founders favored central government primacy over states' rights.

Pose these assertions as true or false questions to several randomly selected college graduates, and each will be marked "true" by the majority.

The nine assertions have this in common: they are widely believed, and completely false.

Recommended reading: 33 Questions About American History You're Not Supposed to Ask by Thomas E. Woods.

Lies and the Lying Liberals Who Slander Glenn Beck

Glenn Beck may have surpassed Rush Limbaugh as chief bugaboo of the Left.

OLBERMAN BESTOWS CREDIBILITY ON BECK

Progressives’ visceral hatred of Beck was evident during the 2008 presidential campaign when they (Media Matters, Think Progress, and Keith Olberman) promulgated the lie that he (Beck) had, in earnest, asked televangelist John Hagee if Barack Obama was the Antichrist. Actually, Beck - tired of emails from gullible fundamentalists touting Obama as the Antichrist - asked the question facetiously. He was tweaking Hagee, who – ever his self-important, didactic self - answered in the negative.

Progressives eschew civil discourse, preferring always to hurl shit and see if it’ll stick to their opponents. The above named culprits fed their fecal story to the parrot-Left. Instantly, nuance-free liberals across the land gleefully sought to one-up each other with excretions of mock horror over the gullibility of Beck and his audience. The lovely folks who opine at the Huffington Post hadn’t been so giddy since Nancy Reagan broke her leg. The jackals ate what Olberman the zookeeper fed them, - the text of Beck’s Hagee interview - and never bothered to check the context, or listen to the audio to hear the inflection in Beck’s voice.

The unreflective Left remain oblivious to the irony of having epitomized the obtuse certitude they so decry on the Right. Looking for a mea culpa? Take a number and wait. Progressives haven’t renounced their ideological forebears’ love affair with Stalin yet; they aren’t about to forsake Olberman and his ilk for the truth.

ATTENTION LIBERALS: STOP BECK!

A year after they disseminated the fable of him affirming sensationalist eschatology, the progressive Left is feeling more threatened than ever by Glenn Beck.

Beck has the third most popular talk radio program, and has moved from CNN to Fox on television. Less of a partisan Republican than Limbaugh or Hannity (talk radio’s top two), he’s been unrelenting in his pursuit of any person or group he perceives as a threat to liberty. Notably, he was the driving force behind the resignation of Van Jones - a communist appointed by President Obama to one of the coveted czar positions.

Obama is under fire from his fellow progressives for not defending Jones. Bill Maher, ranting on Conan O’Brien’s show, expressed disgust with the president for caving to Beck. During his diatribe, the fact-resistant Maher implied a fraternal association between Beck and “birthers,” but never mentioned that Jones is a “truther.”

Nor did Maher address the salient issue regarding Jones (that he’s a self avowed communist) - not surprising, given the historical affinity between communists and progressives.

Let’s be clear: Birthers (who insist Obama’s not an American citizen) and Truthers (Bush and/or Israel orchestrated the 9/11 attacks) are equally deficient in the critical acumen department.

Let’s be even clearer: Communists and Nazis both represent ideologies of mass murder. (Phrase borrowed from Accuracy In Media’s Cliff Kincaid)

Progressives wouldn’t want birthers or Nazis in government.

But they’re fine with truthers and communists.

Progressives have earned our mistrust. Don’t believe anything a progressive says without corroboration from a non-socialist source. Don’t refuse to hear the substance of what Glenn Beck says because of the barrage of ad hominem attacks being unleashed by the media.

The fact that shots are being fired at the messenger doesn’t render the message invalid.

MEMO TO BILL MAHER

Bill:
Progressives always assume, and never ask. So you’ll peg me – wrongly - as a Glenn Beck sycophant. And, although I’m not a “birther,” you nevertheless would consider me stupid, because I have faith to believe in micro-evolution, but not macro-evolution. Worse, I believe in God, and His son, Jesus Christ.

You are doubtless one of those special people who - when you fly from LA to New York – refers to the area where I live as “fly-over country.” Admittedly, I shake my head incredulously at the stubbornness and ignorance I sometimes observe here in the Ozarks. But, unlike you, I also look for redeeming qualities and character strengths in the natives here; I desire to have relationships with other people characterized by mutual respect.

You, on the other hand, prefer to denigrate those you consider less enlightened; your contempt for them making it impossible to impart any knowledge you might otherwise share. Yet you marvel that millions balk at the idea of being ruled by those who share your (so called) progressive views.

I’m well pleased to be considered stupid by a pompous ass such as you.

It is for posterity that I want to refute just one lie that you perpetuate about those of us in the Resistance: We do not get our worldview from Glenn Beck.

In fact, Glenn is being indoctrinated by me, and others of like mind. From my cave here in the Shire, I use The Force to send subliminal messages through the Matrix to Beck. The goal: to take the Neo out of his Neo-conservatism.

There is no guarantee of success, but Glenn Beck’s views have been in flux (as opposed to rigid Republican or doctrinaire Democrat). He has recently rejected some key components of progressive historiography. As a result he now repudiates the iconic status of presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. Just this week, I heard him refer to the latter as an “imperialist.” He also makes frequent mention of the tyrant Wilson jailing those who opposed his push for entry into World War I.

TR and Wilson consistently finish near the top of the occasional presidential rankings that plague our society. Progressive education - the legacy of John Dewey in our government schools - has produced compliant tools such as yourself, willing to exalt men who imprisoned dissenters and destroyed thousands of lives through needless wars.

Progressives such as you masquerade as opponents of war when it advances your progressive agenda, but were silent when Clinton bombed the hell out of Serbia. Nothing new under the sun: Robert Kennedy was at his brother’s side when our troop strength in Vietnam was expanded from 700 to nearly 15,000. But in March 1968, RFK put his finger in the wind and discovered he was adamantly opposed to the war.

Eugene McCarthy’s principled opposition to the war was upstaged by a rock star.

If Glenn Beck continues his journey out of the dark side, he will ultimately renounce America’s worldwide military presence. He will also abandon the view that the Republican Party has been corrupted over the years, and affirm that the GOP was corrupt from its inception. He will proclaim that states’ rights are the foundation of the Bill of Rights, not a heresy conjured up by Klansmen.

If Glenn Beck continues to follow where the facts lead, Mark Lloyd – Obama’s man at the FCC - will need all the guidance his hero, Hugo Chavez, can give to try to shut down talk radio.

The Republican Party: Historical Enemy of Liberty

A Republican president initiated a bloody war, citing a grave threat to national security. Those challenging the lawfulness or morality of the war were branded as disloyal and swept aside by a flood of jingoistic demagoguery masked as patriotism. Enemies were imprisoned for years without being charged; habeas corpus was suspended.

As the death toll mounted, the national defense justification wore thin - so the war was deftly morphed into a crusade for democratic government. Being a wordsmith, the Commander in Chief used his considerable verbal skills to obfuscate his contempt for the Constitution, framing those whose land he invaded as the aggressors.

One wouldn’t describe the oratorically challenged George W. Bush as a wordsmith, so the rogue president described above is, obviously, Abe Lincoln.

The first Republican president imprisoned thousands of people for criticizing his war, and shut down several newspapers. The grandson of Francis Scott Key, a newspaper editor, was imprisoned for a couple of years in Ft. McHenry, where his grandpa had written our national anthem.

Abe Lincoln invented a law against secession, the threat of which, along with nullification, was the chief check on government power. During the War of 1812, several of the New England states threatened to secede. Their decision to remain in the Union was based on practical grounds – no serious objections were raised on legal grounds.

Moreover, Virginia had ratified the Constitution with the understanding that she could withdraw from the Union at any time.

Lincoln’s Real Agenda

Lincoln plainly stated that the war wasn’t about ending slavery, but preserving the Union, which he claimed was his “solemn” duty.

As a mercantilist, Lincoln’s real priority was looking out for the interests of his corporate friends and continuing to collect protectionist tariffs from southern ports. He was shrewd enough to play both sides of the slavery issue, so that while enraging southern fire-eaters, he could garner tentative support from some of the radical abolitionists.

Abe’s agenda - corporate welfare for railroads, a central bank, and protectionist tariffs – couldn’t coexist with states’ rights.

So Abe invaded Virginia, and made the tenth amendment a nullity. His war killed 620,000 of the country’s most virile males (projecting to six million dead in modern America), and transformed states into de facto provinces.

The Great Emancipator held racist views (admittedly typical for the day), believing in the superiority of the white race. He worked diligently to find a way to colonize blacks out of the United States. His home state of Illinois was one of several northern states that forbade immigration of free blacks.

We Hate War, But We Love Shooting Southerners

Progressives who oppose the Iraq War glibly accept the carnage heaped on the old South for the one happy result: slavery’s demise. Students learn that the Civil War (it wasn’t actually a “civil war,” but we don’t have time) was a great advance for liberty.

Does anyone remember a classroom “what if?” discussion of what might’ve happened to the institution of slavery had Lincoln not made war on the South?

Some thoughts for discussion, should a daring teacher wish to venture out of the unreflective, progressive box:

· Virginia, North Carolina, Arkansas, and Tennessee would’ve stayed in the Union.
· A constitutional amendment would’ve passed ending slavery in the United States.
· The seven state CSA would’ve been subject to trade embargoes from most of Europe and the USA.
· In addition to the South facing disapproval and boycotts from the rest of the civilized world, anti-slavery southerners (like Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson- but those two Virginians would’ve stayed in the Union) would’ve lent their influence to the abolitionist cause, rather than having to protect their country from an invading army.
· While slavery lingered in the Deep South, escaped slaves wouldn’t have had as far to flee (Tennessee is closer than Kentucky), nor would the North have been legally obligated to return them to the South.
· Even allowing for some skirmishes, slavery would’ve ended with 500,000 fewer deaths, and with less rancor between the races; there would’ve been no KKK.

Students are taught to disapprove of the betrayal and slaughter of the Indians, but not to reflect on the fact that these were carried out by the same Republican stalwarts who destroyed the South: Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Custer et al.

Exporting Republican Imperialism

After destroying states’ rights and breaking numerous treaties with the Indians, Republicans sought to expand their empire. McKinley and Hearst maneuvered the country into war with Spain, thereby acquiring Guam and the Philippines. The expansion of America’s reach into the South Pacific set the stage for our future war against Japan, as well as the debacles in Korea and Vietnam.

The Spanish-American War also propelled Theodore Roosevelt to national prominence, and ultimately the presidency.

TR was a genuine war monger. No hypocrite –he eagerly risked his life at San Juan Hill, then as a middle-aged ex-president wanted to take a regiment to France during the Great War. Woodrow Wilson wouldn’t allow it.

He was the first progressive – a statist and an imperialist. He advanced Lincoln’s contempt for states’ rights into a disregard for the sovereignty of other nations.

Prohibition (of Secession) Ends

TR and his friends wanted to build a canal in Colombia, but the recalcitrant Colombians wouldn’t come to terms…

…Whereupon Teddy reversed Abe Lincoln, and decreed that secession was acceptable – for the Colombian province of Panama. The American fleet was positioned off Colombia’s coast to provide moral support for the secessionists, and the new nation of Panama subsequently proved amenable to making a deal for a canal.

The Republican Party has never been about limited government (individual Republicans excepted, e.g. Calvin Coolidge) or fealty to the Constitution, unlike the Democratic Party, which was an opposition party until Woodrow Wilson – who took imperialism to new levels, jailed political opponents, and set the stage for the Democrats to equal the Republicans as usurpers of power under FDR.

Republicans and the Legacy of Hamilton

Republicans are the historical heirs apparent of the Federalists, the party of Alexander Hamilton (who, despite having lost a son in a duel, agreed to duel Aaron Burr), who advocated primacy of the central government, and hated Jefferson, who believed in states’ rights. Federalists opposed the Bill of Rights – these first ten amendments to the Constitution were agreed to only when it became clear ratification would fail otherwise.

The Federalists disbanded after they made themselves odious with the Sedition Act. Patriots were not pleased about citizens being arrested for disagreeing with the government.

They were replaced by the Whigs, the party of Henry Clay and of Abe Lincoln, before he became a Republican.

Two Parties: Zero Opposition to Expanding State Power

After Wilson and FDR established the Democrats as both the Welfare State and Warfare State party, Republicans marketed themselves as the party of fiscal responsibility, free enterprise, and national security - aided by the Democrats’ association with the likes of Alger Hiss, and the consternation felt in some quarters by the bigger, more intrusive government left in place by the New Deal.

In reality, government has continued to grow under both parties. The tenth amendment remains a nullity.

Government grew under Reagan. There were mitigating factors. Tip O’Neill’s Congress never submitted a balanced budget, and the military had been dismantled under Carter (under whom families of some enlisted men were getting food stamps). Still, some libertarians and conservatives (e.g. The Heritage Foundation) were unhappy that Reagan didn’t try line item veto - knowing it would be challenged in court - and let the Democrats bear the entire stigma for out of control spending.

Reagan gave us George H. W. Bush, who gave us more government, and the first Gulf War, which logically led to the current Iraq malaise.

After Clinton, George W. Bush, allegedly a “conservative,” ended his tenure with a $trillion plus bailout of failing banks, adding to the Republican legacy of disdain for the Constitution and affinity for deficits, and making way for a socialist disciple of Saul Alinsky to spearhead an unprecedented assault against the remaining restraints on government power.

The Democrats are the historical home of progressive Stalinists, and have done nothing to extract the country from its worldwide military obligations. They have been just as devoted to lining the pockets of special interests as Republicans, and have opposed corporate welfare in word, but not in deed.

Nevertheless, it was the Republican Party that originally nullified the Constitution, promoted empire building, and displaced our democratic republic with a democracy – undermining the rule of law, and making our country vulnerable to mob tyranny after the tradition of the French Revolution.

Reasonable liberals - an oxymoron?

Politically conservative person seeks discussion forum to occasionally engage in discussions with liberals, progressives, and others on the political left without first being subjected to neo-Stalinist diversionary tactics.

A word of explanation - by neo-Stalinist diversionary tactics, I refer to the common practice of accusing every opponent of Obama's policies of being a racist, a disciple of Fox News, or a Limbaugh sycophant. Also, it gets tiresome, when asserting that Obama is a socialist, of being told that "socialist" is code for the N word. I have a dictionary, and I use it. The two terms are not synonymous.

It's not that my sensitive ego can't withstand a barrage of agitprop masquerading as discourse. It's a matter of logistics. I have limited time - not enough to waste defending against baseless charges from ideologically rigid people with no tolerance of other views. A member of my family is a communist - I'll contact her if I need a condescending and contemptuous response to my ideas.

Anyone aware of an internet forum that fits the bill, I'd greatly appreciate a heads up.

John Calvin and the perils of Theocracy

John Calvin turned 500 years old this year.

As a Pentecostal, I obtained special access to heaven to attend a gala birthday bash in his honor.

Organizer Martin Bucer wanted to surprise John at home, but the guest list was too large for John’s 10,000 square foot mansion to accommodate. Instead, Michael Servetus invited John over to his place (15,000 square feet) - ostensibly for a barbeque – a ruse that worked beautifully. A great time was had by all, and John acknowledged the irony of being invited to a “barbeque” at Michael’s house, even while raising a toast to his good friend.

Upon returning to Earth, I pondered Calvin’s impact in the world.

My first thought was the horrendous burning of Servetus.

This brilliant but stubborn man, having escaped from Catholics (who would have executed him), ventured into Geneva - a thriving theocracy whose leading citizen - Calvin - had warned him not to come, on pain of death.

True to his word, Calvin (who had been annoyed by several unsolicited letters from Servetus) was the leading witness for the prosecution, and Servetus was burnt as a heretic.

This appalling episode is merely the most famous of several in which Christians were executed by other Christians in the name of orthodoxy.

Church history is replete with examples of the perils of a theocracy. Both Catholics and Protestants used state power to tyrannize dissenters and non-conformists.

Servetus's crime was dissent from the doctrine of the Trinity. This gives me extra pause, since I am also non-Trinitarian.

The outrage against Servetus notwithstanding, John Calvin is largely responsible for the separation of civil government from church government in our country. Separation of church and state wasn’t conceived by Progressives concerned about government enforced social mores, but by Calvinists (who had been on the receving end of more persecution than they had doled out) desiring to protect the Church from a meddling state.

Christians in colonial America wanted no part of a theocracy dominated by any religious sect, or a theocracy where the state is god.

Accordingly, it was through the efforts of anti-Federalists – mostly Calvinist in their theology - that the Bill of Rights was included in our Constitution.

The god of statism is currently the greatest threat to our liberty. Progressive socialism advances with slogans fitting a religious revival: "change you can believe in."

"Yes we [i.e. government] can."

Progressives (the old, but new, trendy label preferred by militant collectivists) spread fear of a fundamentalist takeover of the government even as said government ensures the transfer of all the nation's wealth to itself through debt monetization.

Similarly, the Progressives of the 1930's used Nazism and Fascism as bugaboos, while their idol, Stalin, secretly worked with Hitler to plunge the world into unprecedented chaos.

To be sure, religious tyrants have oppressed far too many humans throughout history.

But unrestrained states, of the kind that Obama and his progressive cohorts seek, have murdered or enslaved hundreds of millions - in the last century alone.

We are in peril of becoming serfs in a theocracy where there is one god, the State, whose prophet is Obama.

Progressive democracy is tyranny

World War II began seventy years ago yesterday, with the invasion of Poland by the Wehrmacht. Two weeks later the Red Army entered Poland from the east, per a secret protocol between Hitler and Stalin.



World War II was Socialism's gift to the world. History's two most prominent socialists exemplified what bipartisanship can accomplish.




The War is thought of as a struggle between freedom and tyranny. Actually, the Nationalist Socialists and the Internationalist Socialists put aside their differences to ensure hegemony of some form of Progressive Socialism in eastern Europe.



Hitler deserves all the contempt history has heaped on him, but Stalin hasn't received his due as Der Fuehrer's equal in terms of suffering imposed upon humanity. This is partly due to the large number of Stalin apologists among western intellecual elitists in the 1930's and 1940's - such as New York Times reporter Walter Duranty and The Nation magazine.

Communists and Nazis obfuscated the issue of statism vs. liberty by plunging the world into a bloodbath where the heresies were provincialism and racism on one side, and atheism and imperialism on the other.

Provincialism and Racism lost - two happy outcomes of the War.

Unfortunately, Imperialism and Atheism were victorious, and perhaps 100 million people were subsequently murdered by imperialistic, atheistic states.

Fascism survived the war, too, because it can adapt itself to internationalist and progressive causes such as global warming and massive printing of fiat money.

"Progressive" is the preferred term for modern fascism, because government schools still teach that "fascism" is evil.

Students are conditioned to think only within dichotomous paradigms: Democrat vs. Republican; Conservative vs. Liberal; Left vs. Right. Therefore the average citizen doesn't contemplate whether the government ought to continue to expand (on constitutional grounds), whether proffered solutions may be worse than the problems they purport to solve, or the future effect when $trillions in new debt is monetized.

Rather, students are taught that we are a democracy, in which the salient issues are: 1.) which party governs the ever expanding state, and 2.) which party's ethics (such as they are) are superior.

Government schools don't facilitate thought as to whether the state should continue to expand.



They are, after all, GOVERNMENT schools.

Hence, with a populace ignorant of American history, and of the Constitution, government growth continues under the guise of "democracy."

Politicians of every stripe - liberal, conservative, Democrat, Republican - tout the virtues of "Democracy."

"Democracy:" the talking point that is seldom derided as a "talking point."

Democracy: "Two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner." An apt description (yes, I'm aware of the petty scuffle over the quote's origin).

Democracy: What the French Revolution was all about. An obtuse king was overthrown by the people.

"The people" - euphemism for "a mob."

Pathetic as Louis XVI was, he was a pillar of virtue next to Robespierre.

In eighteenth century France, Democracy led to the guillotine, regicide, and finally....Napolean.

Obamacare vs. the Constitution in the Show-me state

All Federal employees take an oath to defend the Constitution, though most of them haven't ever read it.

A case in point: Federal employee Claire McCaskill, a United States senator from Missouri.

Senator McCaskill was recently challenged about the constitutionality of government involvement in health care. In her response she opined "...I will not support a government takeover of the healthcare system. But that doesn't mean that there's anything in the Constitution that prohibits it..."

Comrade McCaskill is either ignorant or dishonest in her assertion, because the Constitution certainly DOES prohibit government takeover of the health care system.

"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."

That's the tenth amendment, which proscribes most of what the Federal government does these days.

The United States is not delegated any power to govern health care by our Constitution. Collectivists like Senator McCaskill will cite the "general welfare" clause, which is a statement of purpose, not an enumerated power - notice the term "general." The tenth amendment clarifies the "general welfare" clause, not vice-versa - otherwise the amendment is rendered void of meaning.

Working folks don't have time to read 1000 page bills being rammed through Congress (the politicians don't even read them). But any literate person can take a few minutes to read the Constitution, which if adhered to, would put a halt to this tsunami of progressive tyranny we are observing.

George Tiller, R.I.P. ?

Abortionist George Tiller was murdered at his "church" recently. The Church doesn't need more reproach brought upon herself, so I hope Tiller’s slayer turns out to be a member of Fred Phelps's "church" or some other disreputable group. Deception takes many forms, including the kind that leads people to erroneously believe that they have received the mantle of Phinehas (Numbers 25:6ff).

Pro-life groups from Right to Life to the more activist Operation Rescue have always been unequivocally opposed to violence. Rogues such as Paul Hill, who murdered an abortionist several years ago, are used as stereotypes by pro-abortionists, but the facts don't support the insinuations.Paul Hill was rightfully executed, and if Scott Roeder is guilty of the premeditated murder of Tiller, capital punishment would also be appropriate, absent mitigating circumstances, such as if Tiller mutilated a loved one of Roeder's.

It should be mentioned that in 1991 I participated in Operation Rescue's "Summer of Mercy" -- a long term, peaceful protest conducted at Tiller's clinic in Wichita. I enjoyed a day of fellowship with 50 other Christians in the custody of the Wichita police. I don't foresee being involved in such activity again, but it was a positive experience. It was also a personal catharsis after having imbibed a toxic, pro-choice doctrine on abortion promulgated by a perverse "pastor" in a church to which I once belonged.

I hope George Tiller came to Christ before expiring.