I admit it, I’m an addict and I need help. I can’t kick this by myself. I’ve tried, time and time again; it’s just so easy to get a fix. I’m a hypocrisy junkie, no matter how hard I try, it’s everywhere!

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Dede is gone, throwing her support behind the Democrat in the final proof of her worth as a Republican.  This race was advertised as our “Hill To Die On”, it is only fitting to continue in a military venue.   On the eve of the election in NY 23 Doug Hoffman finds himself as our modern day William Travis, standing on the walls of the Alamo.  Newt Gingrich showed just enough disdain for American Conservatives for me to cast him as Santa Anna, the NRC, and NRCC as the Mexican Army.  (It makes the video above even better doesn’t it?)

If NY 23 is our 21st Century Alamo, the 2010 election is our Battle of San Jacinto.  As the early morning silence of April 21st, 1836 was shattered by cries of “Remember the Alamo!” the decisive battle of the Texas Revolution was begun.  18 minutes later it was over, Texas was its own Nation.

Hoffman’s chances are much better than those faced by Travis and should he win it is a win for every American who agrees it is time to reassert the “consent of the governed” over our beltway aristocracy.  The momentum of this and other promising early elections will provide the momentum to take us forward to 2010.

If Hoffman loses, the blame lies squarely on the doorstep of the NRC, NRCC, the DC GOP establishment and the $900,000 they gave to Bill Owens (D), via Dede Scozzafava.   And it is still a victory for conservative Americans as our cry of “Remember New York 23!” carries us to San Jacinto.

For anyone about to accuse me of forgetting the real enemy, the Rinos in the GOP have long been a fifth column for the progressive agenda, their current support of global warming legislation, their long record of growing government, and if nothing else, the evidence of last year’s pitiful abortive attempt at a Presidential campaign should prove my point.  Antigonus Monophthalmus, caught up in the Wars of the Diadochi (successors) after Alexander’s death, once called for a sacrifice beseeching the Gods to protect him from his friends explaining, “From my enemies I can protect myself, but not from my friends.”

Now our “friends” have been warned, each cry of “Remember NY 23!” will remind them which side we are on, they can make their choices accordingly.

Crossposted at The Minority Report

It is always a temptation to a rich and lazy nation,
To puff and look important and to say:
“Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you.
We will therefore pay you cash to go away.”

And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
But we’ve proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane.

It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation,
For fear they should succumb and go astray,
So when you are requested to pay up or be molested,
You will find it better policy to say:

“We never pay any one Dane-geld,
No matter how trifling the cost,
For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
And the nation that plays it is lost!”

Rudyard Kipling- Danegeld

Recent news of the White House’s “offended values” via the TARP laden Bank bonuses reminded me of Kipling’s poem, the lessons that should have been learned from the oft-quoted Danegeld apply to individuals and businesses as well as nations. If they were familiar with more than just the quote, that is.

England had endured Viking raids since 793, when the Scandinavian Raiders from Norway, Sweden and Denmark (the term Viking comes from the phrase fara í víking or going a-raiding) destroyed the Abby at Lindisfarne, carrying off the church treasures and making slaves of the monks that were not killed or drowned at the scene. By 991 the situation had worsened to see the raids being conducted by organized Danish Armies. After the disastrous Battle of Malden, the earliest known Democratic politician, King Æthelred the Unræd (noble-council; no-counsel) of England found a solution. He paid the Danes 10,000 roman pounds of silver. Not having the Chinese to borrow from, Æthelred laid one of the planks of the Democrat Party Platform which survives to this day, tax and spend. Both his ineffective tribute and the land tax that supported it became known as “Danegeld” (Danish Tax).

Small raids continued, in 994 another 22,000 pounds of gold and silver was paid, the taxes were raised, payments were made again in 997, 1000, 1001, and 1002, each time seeing the taxes increased accordingly. The Danes invaded in 1004, were paid off again in 1007, 36,000 pounds this time, guess what happened to the taxes! 1009 saw the largest invasion yet which was bought off in 1012 with a payment of 48,000 pounds of gold and silver.

In 1014 King Sweyn of Denmark decided to eliminate the middleman, that being King Æthelred, and collect the taxes himself. By 1016, Sweyn’s son Canute ruled England and paid his victorious army from the collected Danegeld.

Much like Æthelred the Unræd and his plague of Danish raiders, American Banks found themselves plagued by Democrat Politicians. Ever increasing numbers of risky loans, new markets in defaulting loans, the looming recession and the collapse of the entire house of cards is a familiar story. But then, rather than fail, as our capitalist system demands, the banks paid the Danegeld. This time it wasn’t silver pennies the banks paid in tribute, but power and control. Playing the part of the Danes in our modern day bit of history re-dux is the Federal Government, now controlled by those same Democrat Politicians. The banks paid the Danegeld again in March and are going to make another payment soon, as the Federal Government and its Pay Czar demand still more tribute.

While it’s tempting to point out that they paid the Danegeld, effectively asking for whatever they get, the Danegeld also strengthened the Danes. Politics recently blocked Rush Limbaugh, a private citizen and member of the White House “Enemies List” from minority ownership in an NFL Team. The White House recently felt strong enough to declare war on Fox News. How long and how many tributes will be demanded before the Federal Government “eliminates the middle man” as Canute did to Æthelred? How can our 21st century raiders “gone a-viking” threaten private industry that didn’t take the TARP funds?

While I can’t predict the future, I can give you more history of the Danegeld.

The Danegeld funded Canute’s later war with Scandinavia, in 1026 he declared himself Cnut the Great, “King of all England and Denmark and the Norwegians and of some of the Swedes.” William the Conqueror used it to fund his continental wars, his descendants coming to rely on it more and more, doubling and re-doubling the rates. By 1130 King Henry collected £23,000, roughly 100 million current USD. The Danegeld continued until 1162.

The effectiveness of the early democrat tax and spend philosophy is proven by archaeologists. English silver pennies were the most common coinage paid as Danegeld and more silver pennies from the time period are to be found in Scandinavia than in England. The recorded amounts of the Danegeld paid by Æthelred and Canute combined, total approximately £250,000, its purchasing power at that time is estimated to have been roughly £1,000,000,000 (1.635 Billion USD).

Contributor to The Minority Report

America is about to lose its republican form of government, the once vaunted phrases in the Declaration of Independence, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…” have been forgotten, thrown on the trash heap of history alongside the American Exceptionalism they spawned. Americans have awakened to find themselves ruled, as they were prior to 1776, by an aristocracy.  An aristocracy requires superiority, superiority need not stoop to receiving consent from the lesser class, they are, by their own superiority endowed with the just powers to rule.  It is their divine right.

Merriam Webster’s Dictionary defines aristocracy as:

1 : government by the best individuals or by a small privileged class
2 a : a government in which power is vested in a minority consisting of those believed to be best qualified b : a state with such a government
3 : a governing body or upper class usually made up of a hereditary nobility
4 : the aggregate of those believed to be superior

One of the triumphs the Founding Fathers saw in their design of the American government was the elimination of the aristocracy. Jefferson defined its successor as “natural aristocracy” based on virtue and talent, not, as the “artificial aristocracy” is based on hereditary privilege. In an 1813 letter to John Adams he said, “May we not even say that that form of government is the best which provides the most effectually for a pure selection of these natural aristoi into the offices of government? The artificial aristocracy is a mischievous ingredient in government, and provision should be made to prevent its ascendancy.”

A few years later, in a letter written shortly before his death, Jefferson wrote of the Declaration of Independence and the rights of man which that document recognized, once again making reference to the elimination of the aristocracy (in bold).

“May it be to the world, what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all,) the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government. That form which we have substituted, restores the free right to the unbounded exercise of reason and freedom of opinion. All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God.”

His reference to the hereditary relationship between the aristocracy and the citizens was itself a quote from another. Appropriately enough, owing to Jefferson’s authoring of the Declaration of Independence, he was quoting Richard Rumbold’s “Speech on the Scaffold”, delivered in 1685, just before he was hung for treason.

“I may say this is a deluded generation, veiled with ignorance, that tho popery and slavery be riding in upon them, do not perceive it; tho I am sure there was no man born marked of God above another, for none comes into the world with a saddle on his back, neither any booted and spurred to ride him.”

Americans may not find themselves saddled quite yet, but we have been gentled and calmed by years of Progressive Incrementalism as surely as a horseman calms and soothes a wary stallion before slipping the bit between his teeth. 206 current members of the House have been in office since 1999 or earlier, with the inestimable Duke Dingell having held office since 1955, when he inherited his seat from his father. The Senate counts 52 members who have held their seats since 1999 and earlier, led by one of the few Senators to have earned a title outside the aristocracy, the Exalted Cyclops of the Ku Klux Klan Robert Byrd, first elected to the House in 1952 and serving in the Senate since 1958. The eldest inheritor of his divine right to a Senate Seat is the Ard Tiarna Chris Dodd, holding his title since 1981. In the manner of the landed gentry since the dawn of time, the members of American aristocracy have steadily enriched themselves through the toils and tribulations of their serfs, the American taxpayers. In 1952, when the Exalted Cyclops first took office his annual congressional salary was $12,500, with the aid of the Seneschal of Ways and Means, Charlie Rangel (in office since 1971) it is now $193,400. The nobility has also enriched their knights and retainers during this time. Nancy the Grand Duchess of Pelosi, for example, paid her staff $1,194,089 from the federal coffers in 2008.

Occasionally those who style themselves our betters let their views of us, their serfs and peasants, slip. Comments made among their peers in the intelligentsia denigrating the “gun and bible clingers” in fly over country would slip into the media. These were quickly explained away. The more comfortable they grow in their divine right to rule the less need there is to explain these slips of the tongue or to even expend the effort to hide their true opinions.

The reactions of La Noblesse to the Tea Parties and their well documented reaction to their constituents during the August Recess’ Town Halls, echo Marie Antoinette’s “let them eat cake”, or Mel Brooks’, “Sire, the peasants are revolting!” “You said it, they stink on ice!” The only difference being that Mel Brooks was funny, this is both heart wrenching and terrifying.

As the Dauphin de Amerique bickers about the definition of “tax”, the peers devise new ways to confiscate our earnings and property to pay for their spending. What we desire is of no consequence, as long as it is named something other than tax they can slip it past us. Their own bards tell them we are too stupid to know what we need and should be dragged to it by force. When asked to share the burden of governance with the American serfdom by posting bills online, the barons and baronesses refuse to allow us to even see it, refusing at the same time to entertain our questions and concerns over the pending legislation.

That the government of the people, by the people and for the people has been supplanted, and our ruling elites now govern without any semblance of the consent of the governed is about to be proven beyond any doubt. When Harry le Vicomte de Sénat Reid uses parliamentary sleight of hand to force the passage of the Baucus Bill, it will be undeniable. The willingness to force the passage of a bill nearing 60% opposition among the populace shows the ultimate in contempt for both the American people and the need for our consent to govern. The combination of the passage of Healthcare and the subsequent passage of Crap and Tax, Card Check and the resumption of funding to ACORN, will see the aristocracy’s payments to their military caste, their knights of the realm, completed. The bit will be firmly in our mouths and the saddle cinched tight. Those of us intrepid enough to voice our opinions will find a modern day Sheriff of Nottingham wearing an SEIU t-shirt, forcing us into submission. Even if we flock to the polls in 2010 to retake our liberty, the aristocracy is confident that ACORN can negate our efforts.  And there is still Grand Inquisitor Holder to be considered.

Still, bitted and saddled is a long way from ridden, our new aristocracy may find their new steed is not what they expected. They may find it something more purely American than a common horse.

I think it was Chris LeDoux who said “You’re never ready to ride the bull; it just becomes your turn.”

Go ahead Harry, pass healthcare.

It just became your turn.

Cross posted on The Minority Report

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” George Santayana

The Seven Years War, the French and Indian War in the American Colonies, had left the British Monarchy with a debt of £133 million. In an attempt to repay this deficit the British Parliament began to levy additional taxes on the Colonies. For ten years following the war, 1764-1774, a succession of Acts were passed intended to increase revenues from the Colonies. 1764 saw the Sugar Act which, in addition to raising duties and fees from the import of sugar into the colonies also brought the Royal Navy into customs enforcement. The Stamp Act, also in 1764, was nothing more than a huge tax increase, intended to “further defraying the expenses of defending, protecting, and securing the same; and for amending such parts of the several acts of parliament relating to the trade and revenues of the said colonies and plantations, as direct the manner of determining and recovering the penalties and forfeitures therein mentioned.” These were followed by the Quartering Act which allowed British Soldiers to be housed in the “unoccupied” homes of the American Colonists. These Acts, coupled with abuses by the Royal Navy in its customs enforcement mission, were seen as increasingly restrictive and grew in unpopularity.

In reaction to these Acts, the Virginia House of Burgesses passed the Stamp Act Resolutions, which had been offered by, then 29 year old, Patrick Henry. The resolutions proposed several now familiar claims:

· American colonists had transported British rights to North America at the time of their immigration.

· Those rights had twice been confirmed in Virginia’s royal charters.

· The right to be taxed by representatives of one’s own choosing was one of the most fundamental British liberties.

Henry included one unforeseen idea as well:

· Only colonial assemblies had the right to impose taxes on their constituents and that right could not be assigned to any other body.

On May 30^th, 1765, Henry gave his first speech as a member of the House of Burgesses defending his resolutions. It has come to be known as his “If This be Treason” speech. Nearing the end of his oratory, he said, “Caesar had his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell and George the Third…” At that point he was interrupted by cries of “Treason!” from delegates who easily recognized the reference to assassinated leaders. Henry paused briefly, and then calmly finished his sentence: “…may profit by their example. If this be treason, make the most of it.”

The popularity of these resolutions and the ideas contained in them spread like wildfire, stories on the Virginia Resolutions were carried by the newspapers of the day and similar resolutions were passed by groups in other Colonies.

In 1765, Parliament reacted to the Virginia Resolutions and the growing sedition in the Colonies with the Declaratory Act which was intended to further bind the colonies to Great Britain and stated “resolutions, votes, orders, and proceedings, in any of the said colonies or plantations, whereby the power and authority of the parliament of Great Britain, to make laws and statutes as aforesaid, is denied, or drawn into question, are, and are hereby declared to be, utterly null and void to all intents and purposes whatsoever.” The popular idea of being governed by their fellow Colonists would not be realized, local governance could now be declared null and void if it were anything other than a rubber stamp for the Crown’s policies.

1767 saw the Townshend Act, intended to provide additional revenue (£40,000 a year) to the Crown by levying several new taxes and raising duties for the importation of British goods. The Act revived the anti-British reaction to the Stamp Act, Colonists reacted in 1768 with the Boston Non-Importation Agreement, basically a boycott of British goods, resulting in the occupation of Boston by British Troops. The boycott worked, in 1773 the Townshend Act raised just half of the expected revenue, tensions were high, the Colonies had already seen the Boston Massacre, not actually a massacre but effectively sold under that description to the Colonists. The Gaspee Affair, in 1772, saw a British Naval vessel burned by colonists after it had run aground chasing a colonial smuggler.

By this time the British East India Company was on the brink of financial collapse, in an attempt to prop up the struggling company and mollify the Colonies, the East India Company was given a trading monopoly with the colonies with teh passage of the Tea Act. The tax on tea would remain in place but with the monopoly the price could be significantly lowered. Parliament hoped the Colonists would be happy to receive the cheaper tea and therefore comply with the still present tax on it. While most activists once again advocated boycott, some went further. When Massachusetts Governor Thomas Hutchinson allowed three tea laden ships to enter Boston Harbor, before the taxes could be collected, a group of Bostonians stormed the ships and threw 342 chests of tea into Boston Harbor. The tea lost was valued at over $750,000 in current American dollars.

1774 saw the British reaction to the Boston Tea Party, another series of Acts, these earning the name “The Intolerable Acts” in the Colonies. The Boston Port Act blockaded the Boston Harbor, the Administration of Justice Act granted a change of venue to trials conducted in Massachusetts to any other British Colony or to Great Britain itself. The Massachusetts Government Act abrogated the colony’s charter and provided for a greater amount of royal control. As Lord North explained to Parliament, the purpose of the act was “to take the executive power from the hands of the democratic part of government.” The Quartering Act was little changed from the Act of 1764 but did provide the American activists with additional fuel for their fires. Finally the Quebec Act established the Colony of Quebec, cutting off the Colonies westward expansion by including Ohio, which was comprised of what is now Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin and part of Minnesota, to the province of Quebec.  The combination of these repressive acts and the utter disdain they demonstrated for the Colonists desires for self governance and a return to productive British citizenship were the last straw. 

Local elections, Colonial Legislatures and Committees of Correspondence sent delegates from all the Colonies except Georgia, to the First Continental Congress in September of 1774. The task was unclear at first, but the leadership present in the First Continental Congress decided to, one last time, attempt to plead the Colonies case to King and Parliament. On October 14^th, 1774 they issued the Declaration and Resolves, a statement of principles common to all the Colonies. Congress voted to meet again the following year if these grievances were not attended to by England.  The Declarations and Resolves were strongly worded and did not offer the King and Parliament much choice but it was a choice.  Many were beyond attempting reconciliation yet again but thoughts of treason were sobering and one last attempt was made. 

We find ourselves today awaiting the formation of our “Conservative Congress” and the issuance of our Declarations and Resolves. Our deficit began, not with a War but years ago with Social Security and the progressive camel getting its nose under the tent. Social Security was followed by “The Great Society”, “The War on Poverty”, and the thousands of bureaucracies necessary for the government to manage them. Incrementalism has allowed a slow but steady increase in the size of the Federal Government, expansion of social programs and entitlements to the point where nearly 50% of the American people do not pay the taxes upon which these programs depend. It has changed both our political parties, one to a fanatic leftist organization not even recognizable as the mutant spawn of its previous self, the other to a cringing, frightened collection of lost souls whose only desire is to hear something nice about themselves from the leftist controlled media, most without enough spine to stand erect much less actually represent the large portion of the citizenry who now find themselves at odds with the administration.

A year ago, thousands of Americans were dissatisfied with our elected leadership. The minority of those dissatisfied individuals held their noses and voted for the cringing candidate of compromise and aisle crossing, the majority were swept up in “Hope and Change”. That hope and change has brought about the New Intolerable Acts, resulting in the same reaction the original acts brought from American Colonists 235 years ago.

The first of these New Intolerable Acts was TARP and its $700+ Billion expenditure. The next was the Stimulus, or the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, passed in a rush to avoid “catastrophe”, unread. As time wears on the reasons for passing it prove the lies the American people were told about its necessity and its planned effects. As of September, less than $94 Billion has actually been spent, and word is leaking that the money authorized for “shovel ready” projects was always planned to be with held until 2010, an election year in which the majority party will need to be seen as accomplishing something. Unemployment still climbs above the promised cap that the stimulus would provide and only clever games with the numbers keep it below 10%. So the American people were lied to, the rush necessary to pass this Act without even reading it was actually to hide its details from us, not due to any pending catastrophe.

Another of the New Intolerable Acts still lingers in congress after having been passed by the House, Cap and Trade. The longer it lingers the more Americans see it for what it truly is as well, a power grab by the Federal Government and a money machine for the progressive Congress, funneling money into their social policies by raping and pillaging every citizen and private business in America at the cost of our entire economy.

Nearly every other action taken by the Obama administration adds into these Intolerable Acts, from the order to close Gitmo to the plethora of Czars found in the White House. With holding funds from our democratic neighbor after Honduras lawfully and in accordance with their democratic Constitution expelled the “no longer” President who violated that Constitution. The only budget that finds itself cut in Washington is Defense, and that in a time when America is sending its best and brightest into harms way.

The Tea Parties that began to voice our dismay with the progressive, statist policies were met with derision from our elected officials. When leftist sponsored anti-war protesters disrupted Senate Hearings or camped outside the President’s home the protesters were praised for “speaking truth to power” and being patriotic, when we protest the leftist’s actions we are racist, nazi tea-baggers. Obama’s Department of Homeland Security continues to warn about “right wing extremists” while left wing extremists murder pro-life supporters and even failed Presidents feel empowered to call Americans racist.

The American people and the progressive agenda collided in the issue of Health Care. Another thousand plus page bill stalled and could not be passed in reaction to some perceived calamity, leaving the American people with the entire August Recess to get a jump on our elected legislators and read it for themselves. The naked government power grab which is HR 3200, and every other liberal bill for health care, has been seen, and seen through, by the American people. Even after hearing it from our own mouths at town halls across the country, the statist legislators maneuver to force the bill through against our will. As their own pundits proclaim the American people “too stupid” to know what is good for us, the Senate flirts with a seldom used budgetary measure which would allow them to pass it with a simple majority rather than the 60 votes actually required. They may as well issue their own Declaratory Act and justify ignoring their constituents.

While the leftists ranks in Congress swell with tax cheats and corruption they drop everything and attack the one Representative of the People who dared to tell the truth, one elected official who dared tell the Nation that the President was a liar was censured by the same tax cheats and corrupt officials who sell their votes and legislation for campaign contributions.

Ladies and Gentlemen of Washington DC, the Conservative Congress is in session. We grow weary of your disdain and your failure to Represent us, we shall issue our Declarations and Resolves, at which time you will have one year to attend our grievances. The next step we take is up to you.

Contributor to The Minority Report

Glen Beck and Fox News have been publicizing more information about Cass Sunstein since their success in the ouster of Van Jones. Of course, that had no effect on our elected representatives who voted 57-40 to confirm Sunstein as the head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. Beck has been concentrating on Sunstein’s stance on Animal Rights and a 2007 call for the banning of hunting. That is only the tip of the iceberg of Sunstein’s progressive, statist agenda.

In 2004 Sunstein authored a book entitled “The Second Bill of Rights: FDR’s Unfinished Revolution and Why We Need It More than Ever”.  The Second Bill of Rights was laid out by FDR in his 11th State of the Union Address in 1944 as a means to “assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness.” Equal outcomes, or as liberal newspeak has it, “level the playing field.” FDR listed these state guaranteed “rights” as:

“The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;
The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;
The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;
The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;
The right of every family to a decent home;
The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;
The right to a good education.”

Each of these is a goal, something to strive for; the original Bill of Rights ensures we are able to strive for them, without the interference of government. Americans were the first people in the history of mankind to recognize that a higher power, our Creator and NOT our government, or our King, has endowed each of us with the liberties necessary to pursue these worthy goals. According to Sunstein, that is where we went wrong:

“…there are no “natural” rights - all rights are the product of government, defined by government, enforced by government, and protected by government. The “right” to ownership of property, for example, which most people think of as a primal right inherent to all who are born into society, is actually a product of law.”

According to Sunstein rights are a product of law, or more correctly, of the government that writes the law. Rather than being “endowed by our Creator” with liberties beyond the reach of government, we are endowed with our rights by our government. Sunstein would have us, to borrow from Thomas Jefferson, endowed by those “favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them [the mass of mankind] legitimately, by the grace of God.” Sunstein has even higher aspirations for his tyrannical theories on the origin of rights.

The Cato Institute’s Tom G. Palmer reviewed the book for National Review and described Sunstein’s constitutional desires for his government granted rights…

“The mere assertion of those rights isn’t enough for Sunstein; he wants to endow them with constitutional status, like the rights that are actually mentioned in the Constitution. He admits that “the founding document does not refer to them, and it is not seriously argued that they are encompassed by anything in the Constitution” — yet on the next page he states that “if the nation becomes committed to certain rights, they may migrate into the Constitution itself”. Later on, he asserts that “at a minimum, the second bill should be seen as part and parcel of America’s constitutive commitments. Roosevelt’s speech proposing the second bill deserves a place among the great documents in the nation’s history. Indeed, it can be seen as occupying a place akin to the Declaration of Independence, or perhaps somewhere between the Declaration and the Constitution.” (emphasis added)

With views like these it is no wonder Cass Sunstein is described as Obama’s close personal friend”, Obama himself describes the Constitution as “too restrictive” and “a charter of negative rights.” This is yet another glimpse of Obama’s goals concerning the Constitution for the United States.

Providing these state guaranteed rights will provide the ultimate power to the Statist government, placing the reins in our mouths and Obama and his radical statist ilk firmly upon our backs. Imagining how the government will meet the requirements entailed in all of these new rights is something straight out of “1984”, “Brave New World” or “Soylent Green”. Sunstein even telegraphs the first things our new, all powerful government will have to take away, for the good of all, of course. Property rights, how will government pay for everyone’s “remunerative” job if you are allowed to retain your money as property? How will the government provide guaranteed “decent homes” if you are allowed to maintain your home as property?

Palmer closed his book review with this:

“The Second Bill of Rights may rest on a logical fallacy, a primitive economic theory, and a silly ethical claim, but it is instructive nonetheless. Sunstein’s treatment of the problem of how to use the judiciary to enforce welfare rights shows what a radical departure they are from the rule of law, how they introduce arbitrariness into government policy, and how, ultimately, the contradictions and incompatibilities generated by welfare rights undermine the very idea of rights itself — for when “rights” conflict, the state must decide whose “rights” are to be respected, but, since it has been stipulated that both of the conflicting parties are in the right, the state’s decisions must be on the basis of something other than right.
Sunstein’s work represents a return to the governmental theories of absolutism — of power, rather than of right. Welfare rights are incompatible, not only with property rights, but with law and with the very concept of rights. Professor Sunstein, meet Louis XIV.”

Once our government, rather than our Creator, is recognized as providing all our rights it will no longer derive it’s just powers from the consent of the governed, rather using its divine powers to provide its “just” consent to the governed for our every action.

Or as Obama will be able to say, “It’s good to be da king.”

Contributor to The Minority Report

A piece on The Hill today speculates on White House maneuvering setting the stage to use reconciliation to pass Obamacare. From Sam Youngman: (emphasis mine throughout)

“By offering Republicans olive branches during his address to Congress on Wednesday, Obama has set up a win-win situation. If GOP lawmakers embrace compromise, a healthcare bill would pass Congress easily. But the more likely scenario is that Republicans will continue to oppose Obama’s plan, and the president later this fall will be able to note he tried to strike a deal with the GOP but could not. That will set up a Democratic argument that Senate leaders have been forced to use a partisan budget tool known as reconciliation to pass a health bill through the Senate by a simple majority, instead of 60 votes. Under the budget plan they passed earlier this year, Democrats could invoke the reconciliation process on Oct. 15.”

As Obama preps the battlefield calling for action…

“The time for bickering is over. The time for games has passed. Now is the season for action.”

Senior Administration officials begin to manufacture the crisis…

“I think getting something done is paramount here. We want to bring along everyone who’s willing to come with us, but the fact that not everyone is willing to come with us is not an excuse to fail in dealing with what is really a fundamental issue that has to be done.”

The lefts intimacy, history and reliance on astroturfed protests does not allow them to believe that the American people’s indignation is real, its Glenn Beck, Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, someone manufacturing this discontent. It is that incapacity to believe the American people can look to something beyond their next government handout that makes them believe they can force Obamacare down our throats.  The people in DC today and the people who have been filling Town Halls across the Country won’t stand for it.

Russian Roulette is played with a revolver, Obama, Rhambo, Pelosi and Reid don’t realize they are loading a semi auto. Once you spin the cylinder, a revolver offers an 83% chance for survival. The semi auto? Go ahead, pull the slide back, lock and load…

…your odds aren’t quite so good.

Contributor to The Minority Report

The Porkulus was 1,073 pages, Crap and Tax was 1,201 pages but does that include the 300 page, 3:00 AM amendments? I’m not sure but what are a few hundred pages between friends? Now Obamacare weighs in at 1,017 pages. Our elected representatives assure us that bills such as this are necessary to ensure the laws resulting from these monstrosities are enforced as planned. Somehow, the recent disaster of “Cash for Clunkers” doesn’t reassure me.

Of course, these were all absolutely vital bills, not just your run of the mill legislation. The Porkulus was supposed to save us from utter catastrophe and the collapse of the American, if not the world’s economy. Crap and Tax is going to save the world, from that dreaded pollutant and natural bi-product of life, carbon dioxide. And of course, Obamacare is going to provide medical treatment for the 45 million uninsured who can’t get it, unless of course they go to any emergency room anywhere in the United States.

1,000 page bills wasn’t always the norm, a man who knew a thing or two about government and legislation once said…

“It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.” James Madison

A comparison of legislation Madison was closely involved in and what passes for legislation today doesn’t shine a favorable light on our current crop of elected leaders.

“May it be to the world, what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all,) the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government. That form which we have substituted, restores the free right to the unbounded exercise of reason and freedom of opinion. All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God. These are grounds of hope for others.” Thomas Jefferson, June 24, 1826

Thomas Jefferson wrote this in a letter to Roger C. Weightman, then Mayor of Washington DC. Jefferson’s health forced him to decline Weightman’s invitation to share in the 4^th of July celebration honoring the 50^th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. While America celebrated that 50^th Independence Day, Thomas Jefferson passed away at the age of 83.

Jefferson, serving as the Minister to France from 1785-1789, missed the Philadelphia Convention and the creation of the Constitution for the United States. His friend, James Madison is considered the primary author, the “Father of the Constitution”, and kept Jefferson abreast of the proceedings. Madison described the Constitution in this fashion:

“The happy Union of these States is a wonder; their Constitution a miracle; their example the hope of Liberty throughout the world”

Jefferson witnessed the effects of our “inalienable rights” during the French Revolution, even providing a draft “Charter of Rights” to his friend the Marquis de Lafayette, one of the leaders of the National Constituent Assembly.

There is no denying the effect these two documents have had on America and the world, but by the standard of our current elected leaders these documents are all but useless.

The Declaration of Independence is one page, roughly 1,300 words. The Constitution is four pages, albeit each is 28 ¾ inches by 23 ^5/8 inches. Counting all 27 amendments it is comprised of 7,591 words. The horror! Surely something so short and unspecific must be riddled with unintended consequences, where is Madison’s “Cash for Clunkers” style failure?

I’ve read the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution for the United States, several times. The first time was while I was in High School; even then I found it easily understood. It was obviously written to be clear and concise and didn’t require “legalese”. I recently presented my daughter with a pocket copy for her High School graduation, she found it completely understandable. Though it was mentioned in her American History class, it wasn’t studied or discussed beyond the general facts and dates. Thanks to the August recess I had time to read HR 3200, all 1,017 pages. The same clear and concise style isn’t there. The primary language is legalese but even then, its text and the underlying meaning is murky, as if it’s hiding something. It establishes bureaucracies but doesn’t explain their function; it references other documents and laws but does not explain how that affects the bill itself.

Here are the opening statements…

Constitution: We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

HR 3200: To provide affordable, quality health care for all Americans and reduce the growth in health care spending, and for other purposes.

HR 3200 comes out a little lackluster, but it is only a bill intent on controlling a major portion of the American Economy, not intended to control the workings of the government of an entire nation. Of course, the first term of congress, 1789-1791, our legislators spent an entire $4.3 million dollars, with HR 3200 coming in at $1 Trillion plus, maybe we could expect a little more.

Contrast the creation of Congress with the creation of the Center for Comparative Effectiveness Research (pg 502).

The Constitution clearly delineates what the House and Senate can and cannot do. The Center for Effective Comparative Effectiveness is established to “establish and periodically update, not less frequently than triennially, national priorities for performance improvement.” What is done with these recommendations is not clearly mentioned but it involves a lot of concern with “high cost chronic diseases”, and “end of life care”. It goes on to define quality measures as those that “assess outcomes and functional status of patients, to assess the continuity and coordination of care and care transitions for patients across providers and health care settings, including end of life care, and to assess the safety, effectiveness, and timeliness of care.” That’s a lot of what it can and will do, but where are the limitations? With similar organizations, such as NICE in the UK, already well known for rationing available healthcare, where is the statement “the Center for Effective Comparative Effectiveness will not limit available treatment for patients, regardless of age or current health condition, including chronic diseases and end of life care? The Constitution would have included such a line, and many more. There are no limitations listed, no chains upon this particular government entity.

These observations hold true throughout HR 3200, it creates but does not limit. The bill itself does not address Americans concerns; we are left to trust our elected officials’ blithe answers to our questions about those concerns. They tell us we are being misinformed, there are no “death panels” they tell us we can keep our own insurance and our own doctors, the bill doesn’t say abortions will be paid for by our tax dollars, but they refuse to write these things into the bill. We are instead told we must trust them; they are trying to take care of us! I have no trust for government OR our elected leaders. The Constitution was written to eliminate the need for trust, as Jefferson described:

“In questions of power…let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.”

Our government and our elected leaders are wriggling free of the chains that bind them, hiding their efforts behind thousand page bills. It’s time to check the locks, tighten the cuffs till they pinch and chafe, they’ve done enough mischief already.

Contributor to The Minority Report