Government’s Propensity Towards Evil

Most governments’ insidious slide towards evil works can be directly correlated and attributed to the regressive path away from morality as expressed in many religions. At a time in our nation when values and morality were more highly prized, John Adams once said, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

That pesky memo…

Really, Nancy?

Representative Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) recently informed the nation that July Fourth isn’t just for fireworks and independence any more. It is also the day we should “celebrate” Obamacare.

Sure July Fourth is traditionally celebrated as the day we declared independence from Great Britain, an action that preceded the Revolutionary War and set the tone for our nascent nation. But now it has another significance. As far as Pelosi is concerned it is “health independence” day, too.

From the San Francisco lady herself. Do we need any more proof that progressives really want us to forget the history of our country? Here’s what she said in a press briefing recorded by CSPAN….

“Pretty soon we’ll all be leaving for the Fourth of July recess. Next week, when we celebrate Independence Day we’ll also be observing health independence.

This week marks one year since the Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act. It captures the spirit of our founders. The spirit they wrote in the Declaration of Independence: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The Affordable Care Act offers just that–a healthier life and the liberty to pursue a person’s happiness to be free of constraint, be job-locked, because they’re policy-locked and so if you wanted to be a cameraman, a writer, you want to be self employed, if you want to be, start a business, if you want to change jobs, whatever it is you want to do you are free, you have the liberty to do.

So, we’ve had Social Security, Medicare, and now health independence, and that’s something our members will take home to celebrate over this Independence Day.”

Yes, Nancy, I will certainly be celebrating health independence…independence from an oppressive, tyrannical federal government that deserves all the de-funding I and every other red-blooded, freedom-loving  American can and should muster. Godspeed to you.

I’d post her photo, but I don’t want to. Instead I will post this…

What it’s really all about.

….as the list of the People’s grievances continues to grow…..

America’s Birthday

This is an awesome tribute to our founders and our country.

And a quick overview of the American Revolution.

Where Are The Wise Men?

President Calvin Coolidge on the 150th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence gave a speech on July 4, 1926. This is an excerpt from his wise words and really does speak to the times we live in.

“About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful. It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But that reasoning can not be applied to this great charter. If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers.”~~President of the United States, Calvin Coolidge, 1926

You nailed it, President Coolidge.

H/T to PowerLineBlog

The 4th of July…

On July 2nd, 1776, a resolution of independence was voted for by the 2nd Continental Congress.  The  Congress then turned its attention to the Declaration of Independence and finally approved it on July 4th, 1776.  Thomas Jefferson was its principal author.  The Declaration laid out the colonists’ grievances against the King of England and then made declaration as to what they  planned to do about it.

Everyone should read the Declaration of Independence.  My usual way of celebrating this holiday is to spend time reading and pondering this document of history.  This year it has even more meaning to me.  In my prior post, I excerpted some of the Declaration to make a point about the colonists’ decision and where we are today.  Here, I  will list the grievances against the King.  Perhaps some of them will capture our feeling of the times we live in today. I have a suspicion that this particular 4th of July is going to mean a whole lot more to citizens of our great country.

“The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.”–Declaration of Independence

And the colonists then declared their intent to “divorce” the king.

As for me, this year, I probably won’t get much time to read.  I plan to attend a farmer’s market in the a.m. to “practice the art of  capitalism” while I still have the privilege; then I plan to attend a tea party.

I wish every patriot of this great nation a most memorable and safe Independence Day 2009.  Let us pause and give God thanks for the truly great system of government that He inspired men to create, one that has been the inspiration and hope of millions of people  for over 200 years. Then let us determine to preserve and protect this way of life that we and others have come to love by being better and more enlightened citizens.

Excerpt From the Declaration…

“…That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. ..–Declaration of Independence

Are we there yet?

Look at Honduras…they didn’t put up with it from their president.  And look at the people striking for freedom in Iran.  Examples for us?

What the President Thinks…

How does our new president view the Bill of Rights and the Constitution? I previously had remarked that he seems to have trouble with the wording of the Constitution.  I came across more information today.  This is from Power Line’s blog and quotes  an Op Ed by Thomas Krannawitter in a Washington Times article…

“Obama, following FDR, rejects the Declaration’s principle of equal, individual rights. This explains why in a 2001 radio interview Mr. Obama lamented that the modern Supreme Court had not yet displaced individual rights with a Constitutional defense of group rights and schemes of redistribution of wealth and property. This is exactly how Mr. Obama thinks the Constitution should be understood.”

The whole article  in the Times deserves reading but here is another quote about Lincoln from the same article.  I think this says it all.

“Employing a biblical metaphor, Lincoln once described the principle of individual rights, beautifully presented in the Declaration of Independence, as an “apple of gold.” The Founders’ Constitution, he said, is “the picture of silver, subsequently framed around it.” “The picture was made not to conceal or destroy the apple, but to adorn and preserve it.” Nothing better explains Lincoln’s constitutionalism and politics”

You be the judge…is our new president really like Lincoln?

Update: Read a wonderful blog post here. It was written before the election but has so much clarity about the President’s belief system that I wanted to link to it.

Minnesota’s Senate Race Still Not Decided…

Check out Power Line’s blog today. They have been following the Minnesota Senate Race between incumbent Norm Coleman and Al Franken. It was pretty close on November 4th and it keeps getting closer as ballots keep turning up in odd places. I’m an election judge. It’s pretty weird that this is happening.

They also quote Calvin Coolidge from a speech he gave on July 5, 1926 celebrating the 150th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. I found it worth pondering.

“We live in an age of science and of abounding accumulation of material things. These did not create our Declaration. Our Declaration created them. The things of the spirit come first. Unless we cling to that, all our material prosperity, overwhelming though it may appear, will turn to a barren sceptre in our grasp. If we are to maintain the great heritage which has been bequeathed to us, we must be like-minded as the fathers who created it. We must not sink into a pagan materialism. We must cultivate the reverence which they had for the things that are holy. We must follow the spiritual and moral leadership which they showed. We must keep replenished, that they may glow with a more compelling flame, the altar fires before which they worshiped.”

We Hold These Truths….

You know how some things you learned in grade school just stay with you for life?  Phrases and the like, like this one: 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. —Declaration of Independence

I started reading the Declaration tonight…and here’s the part that didn’t stick with me all these years. Some things really stand out to me. Continuing…”That, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organising its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.  Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and, accordingly, all experience hath shown that  mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.  But, when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariaby the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.  Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity that constrains them to alter their former systems of government.  The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having, in direct object, the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these States.  To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.”–Declaration of Independence

And then it goes on and lists the many grievances against the King of Britain.

Wow.  I wonder what these guys would say if they saw the way our Congress is spending the tax money of our children and grandchildren and probably, our great grandchildren.  I call that “usurpation”.