Why We Lost

Now that the shock of the election results are beginning to wear off, Republicans and conservatives are starting to do a post mortem on what happened, in preparation for the next round of political fisticuffs. The general opinion that seems to be emerging is that we lost because of our preoccupation with the social issues; and that, they blame on the Tea Party. If that is your belief, let me suggest that you are being self-delusional.

We should have read the handwriting on the wall in ’08. Instead, as the nation continued to spiral out of control, we convinced ourselves that Obama had won by deception in ’08, and as the recession deepened and the economy continued to tank, the American people would wake up and toss him out of office. That didn’t happen. The message in Obama’s winning the Presidency in the first place was much more sinister than we realized.

What we failed to understand was that we had already lost the culture war and the election of a progressive (American socialist) government was simply the natural outcome of that loss. A country’s culture is the soul of that nation. That is, the culture is the essence of a nation’s identity. It is what makes one nation different from all the other nations on earth. Up until the middle of the past century, America was a Christian nation. That does not mean that all Americans were Christians, or that all Americans were conscious of their Christian heritage. It simply means that America’s system of government and the civil laws governing its society were based on Christian values. That fact is historically undeniable.

That began to change around 1950 when the left launched a deliberate and focused campaign against the prevailing culture. Within two or three decades, they had infiltrated and taken over our entertainment industry, our education system, our national media, and one of our two major political parties. Even as the battles raged, many conservatives celebrated the new freedoms that they anticipated would emerge from the secular society, based on secular values, being created. They would now be free to enjoy the basest of entertainment, relaxed sexual mores, and the disappearance of social etiquette that had restrained their behavior in the past.

Now that we have that secular society, a slight majority of Americans seem to be content with it, since they voted for it to continue. That should not be surprising, since most Americans under the age of fifty have never had the experience of living in a truly free society. They have been indoctrinated since early childhood in the secular doctrines of “social justice”, “equality” and unbridled “democracy” through our education system and the left wing propaganda of our national media. It should not be surprising that the guaranteed religious freedom found in our Constitution has been degraded to religious toleration only; or, that even that tolerance is not universally applicable to Christianity. “As ye sow, so shall ye reap”.

As dismal as the future of America looks now, there is still an ever-so-slight possibility that things can be turned around. It is never too late for reform. However, any meaningful reform must start with the basics and it must start with the individual. My generation is the last generation to have lived in a truly free county, and too many of us took the liberty we enjoyed for granted, hardly noticing their loss as they slowly were taken away. The so-called “Greatest Generation” will soon be gone and it will be up to the next generation to correct the mistakes we made through our apathy and ignorance. As Thomas Jefferson pointed out “the earth belongs to the living”. We all live in a country we either created or allowed to be created.  My advice to the current generation now leading the nation is to get out your Bibles and your Constitution and take back your culture, beginning with your churches, your community, your city, your county, your state and your political party—in that order— before you can hope to take back your country. There is no other way.

We have two years to prepare for the all important 2014 elections that will give us, possibly, our last opportunity to take back the Senate and increase the number of conservatives among the House membership. The only groups in a position to affect meaningful reform are the Tea Parties. However, they must become better organized at the state and local levels so that they do not work at cross purposes to each other as many did in the last three primaries. This is particularly true in those states that have essentially become socialist oligarchies like Illinois and California. We need fifty state-wide Tea Party conventions by 2014 to agree on candidates to run in the Republican primaries since there is not time to establish an effective alternative party. Without unified goals we will just split the conservative vote and accomplish nothing.

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Obama and the Jefferson Koran

By Niko
President Obama recently had the Jefferson Koran on display during the White House Ramadan dinner. While the President was accurate when he said, “Of all the freedoms we cherish as Americans, of all the rights that we hold sacred, foremost among them is freedom of religion, the right to worship as we choose. It’s enshrined in the First Amendment of our Constitution — the law of the land, always and forever.” He is kind of missing the point of why Thomas Jefferson owned, read, and was partially responsible for the first printing of the Koran in the United States. Barack Obama associated the Jefferson Koran with generations of patriotic Muslims in America, and that Islam is part of our national story.

Jefferson needed that copy of the Koran because he was desperate to learn something about Islam from that religion’s written de facto standard of all things Muslim. Why? Just like today’s radical Muslim terrorists, the concept of jihad was being used to legitimize the killing and harassing of U.S. merchant ships during the al-jihad fil-bahr (the holy war at sea), serving as the cornerstone of the Barbary states’ interaction with Christendom. Jefferson also figured that the best way to learn about the political, military, social, economic, and religious agendas of America’s enemies was to read about it translated directly from the Arabic text. Jefferson’s copy of the Koran equipped him with everything he needed to know on how to respond to threats from the caliphates of the early 1800s.

So, the sunset dinner Thomas Jefferson held at the White House with an envoy from Tunisia (which Barack Obama was mentioning to refer to religious tolerance), Ambassador Adja explained the Muslim nation’s violence to the Continental Congress, “that it was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as Prisoners, and that every Musselman who should be slain in Battle was sure to go to Paradise.”

They are known in history as the Barbary Pirates, as they were from the Barbary Coast of North Africa. Allusion to the affair can be found in the words “…to the shores of Tripoli” mentioned in the Marine Corps Hymn. They were in fact Wahhabi-type, radical Muslims. After the Revolutionary War, the young United States of America lacked its own Navy and no longer had the protection of the British Royal Navy, so it was forced to pay the extortion fees forced upon it by the Barbary States of Tripoli, Algiers, Morocco and Tunis.

However, by the last year of George Washington’s presidency, a full sixteen percent of the federal budget was spent on extortion payments. Thomas Jefferson, who served as Secretary of State under President Washington, believed that a time would come when not only the economic effects of the extortion payments to the Muslim terrorists would be felt by every American but also that using force would be the only practicable way to end the terrorist attacks. He saw it not only as an affront to the nation’s dignity, but also as an ineffectual response to an abhorrent practice.

Once Thomas Jefferson was inaugurated as our nation’s third President, he began refusing payments to the offending nations. In response, Tripoli declared war against the United States (and Algiers threatened to do so), thus constituting America’s first official war as an established independent nation. Jefferson, determined to end the two-decades-old terrorist attacks, selected General William Eaton (Adams’ Consul to Tunis) and elevated him to the post of “U. S. Naval Agent to the Barbary States,” with the task to lead an American military expedition against the four terrorist nations. General Eaton therefore led a successful military campaign against Tripoli that freed captured seaman and crushed the terrorist forces. After four years of fighting, in 1805 Tripoli signed a treaty on America’s terms, thus ending their terrorist aggressions.

What Barack Obama fails to see is that the religion of Islam, both past and present, has yet to demonstrate that it is friendly to a free government and a free people and the main traits seems to be intolerance and tyranny.  As a modern confirmation of this fact, the U. S. Commission on International Religious Freedom monitors nations for egregious violations of religious liberty, and the current list of the most religiously-intolerant nations in the world is loaded with Islamic nations, including Eritrea, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan (secularism and communism join Islam as the other two worst offenders). On the watch list for serious but slightly less egregious violations are numbers of other Islamic nations, including Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, and Nigeria (secularism and communism again join Islam among the worst violators). Significantly, the Judeo-Christian belief system protects freedom and religious liberty; yet, other belief systems – especially that of Islam – have not exhibited those protections.

President Obama also used the venue to praise Hilary Clinton’s assistant, Huma Abedin, saying “The American people owe her a debt of gratitude — because Huma is an American patriot, and an example of what we need in this country — more public servants with her sense of decency, her grace and her generosity of spirit.”   It is interesting to note that The Departments Deputy, Chief of Staff, Huma Abedin, has three family members – her late father, her mother and her brother – connected to Muslim Brotherhood operatives and /or organizations.  This doesn’t necessarily indicate her connection, but may deserve some scrutiny because her position affords her routine access to the Secretary and to policy making.  One would think that the proper vetting would have occurred by Clinton’s people concerning her brother Hassan and her mother Saleha Mahmoud Abedin, and any connections with known Islamists, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood, but this is the administration that appointed a known radical communist, Van Jones, to its cabinet as the green-jobs czar.

We must be mindful not to let “creeping sharia” infiltrate our system of freedom under the guise of religious liberty and tolerance.  Former President, John Quincy Adams, realized that Sharia law is not compatible with a free society, “[The] law of nations as practiced among Christian nations . . . is founded upon the principle that the state of nature between men and between nations is a state of peace. But there was a Mohametan law of nations which considered the state of nature as a state of war.”   We need to note that the Clinton family has been playing a key role in promoting Fethullah Gulen who has worked assiduously to overthrow Turkey’s secular government.  Gulen, who currently resides in Pennsylvania, has told his followers that in order for “worldwide Islamic domination to succeed, every method and path is acceptable, including lying to people.”   We need to pay attention to Azizah al-Hibri, appointed by Barack Obama to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.  Al-Hibri believes that sharia law is superior to American law.  Yet, al-Hibri is only one of the pro-sharia adherents that Obama has placed in influential positions since he became president.  Last year, Obama appointed two devout Muslims to Homeland Security.  Obama’s record concerning Islamic terror was alarming from the beginning of his term and it has only become more entrenched.  Congressman Keith Ellison aka Keith Hakim, who converted to Islam and brought the Jefferson Koran for his swearing in process, is already in place in Congress.  His connections to CAIR are troubling.

Most importantly, we need to stay informed and hold those elected to represent us accountable.  Since the Obama administration is clearly becoming more friendly to radical Islam, we should learn more about Islam, how it operates, and what it teaches.  The wise recommendation of Chinese General and international relations expert Sun Tzu (544-496 BC) remains relevant here:

If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.

Impeachment May Be Our Only Hope!

After three days of testimony before the Supreme Court on Obama’s health care law, the so-called “Affordable Health Care Act”, some things are becoming evident, although no one can predict how the Court will rule. In a “best case scenario”, it will rule the entire law unconstitutional, killing it completely. In a “worst case scenario”, they could rule the law constitutional as it stands, which would be catastrophic for the country. While either is possible, neither is probable. More than likely, the final ruling will fall somewhere in-between.

There seems to be a widespread belief that the individual mandate will be struck down by the court, although that is in no way certain. Even if it is, there is a strong possibility that parts of the law will be left intact. Based on the history of Supreme Court decisions, it is likely that if the Affordable Care Act is struck down, all or in part, the majority opinion of the Court will contain language that can be used by the left to further expand the meaning of the commerce clause of the Constitution.

At this point in the deliberations, it seems obvious that the final outcome and thus, the future of the Republic will hinge on the decision of a single Supreme Court Justice. It is certain that the four progressive/socialist Justices will come down on the side of government, while the four constitutionalists will elect to strike down, at least several parts of the law. The deciding vote on most of the major issues will certainly be Justice Anthony Kennedy. That means that the future of the Republic for generations to come depends on the decision made by one man. This cannot be allowed to stand. A free Republic must be governed by the rule of law. We cannot afford to continue to allow one individual to decide what that law shall be.

In order to maintain the independence of the Judiciary, federal judges, including Supreme Court Justices, are appointed for life, or “during good behavior”. This lifetime tenure was granted to the judiciary with the understanding that they could be turned out of office by impeachment, should they prove to be unworthy of the position. In the history of America, thirteen federal judges have been impeached. However, only one Supreme Court Justice. That was Associate Justice Samuel Chase in 1804. He was impeached by the House of Representatives, charged with allowing his partisanship to influence his Court decisions. He was acquitted in the Senate by one vote, however.

Congress, after the elections of 1800, was dominated by the Democratic-Republican Party. However, because of the slow turnover of the Senate due to the three-election-cycle term of Senators, the Federalist Party was still strong enough in the Senate four years later to prevent Chase’s conviction. Since that time, no Supreme Court Justice has ever been impeached by the House. Short of impeachment, there is no way Supreme Court Justices can be held accountable for violating their oath of office. This fact became a major subject of debate during the Constitution’s ratification process.

The anti-federalists feared that the Supreme Court would become too powerful, usurping the powers granted to the Legislature by the Constitution. Justices would hold their office for life and there were no provisions in the Constitution for correcting their errors. The Framers believed the threat of impeachment would by sufficient to prevent the Court from overstepping its authority. One of the Anti-federalists, writing under the pseudonym “Brutus”, succinctly stated the objection in an article dated March 20, 1788.

 “1st. There is no power above them that can correct their errors or control their decisions — the adjudications of this court are final and irreversible, for there is no court above them to which appeals can lie, either in error or on the merits. — In this respect it differs from the courts in England, for there the house of lords is the highest court, to whom appeals, in error, are carried from the highest of the courts of law.
2d. They cannot be removed from office or suffer a diminution of their salaries, for any error in judgment or want of capacity.”

Alexander Hamilton attempted to answer the objections of the Anti-federalists in Federalist numbers 78 – 81. In Federalist 81, Hamilton summed up the objections of the Anti-federalists.

“The arguments, or rather suggestions, upon which this charge is founded, are to this effect: ‘The authority of the proposed Supreme Court of the United States, which is to be a separate and independent body, will be superior to that of the legislature. The power of construing the laws according to the spirit of the Constitution will enable that court to mould them into whatever shape it may think proper; especially as its decisions will not be in any manner subject to the revision or correction of the legislative body. This is as unprecedented as it is dangerous. In Britain, the judicial power, in the last resort, resides in the House of Lords, which is a branch of the legislature; and this part of the British government has been imitated in the State constitutions in general. The Parliament of Great Britain, and the legislatures of the several States, can at any time rectify, by law, the exceptionable decisions of their respective courts. But the errors and usurpations of the Supreme Court of the United States will be uncontrollable and remediless’.”

Later in the same paper, Hamilton attempts to put this objection to rest by pointing out the power of impeachment given to the two houses of Congress.

“It may in the last place be observed that the supposed danger of judiciary encroachments on the legislative authority, which has been upon many occasions reiterated, is in reality a phantom. Particular misconstructions and contraventions of the will of the legislature may now and then happen; but they can never be so extensive as to amount to an inconvenience, or in any sensible degree to affect the order of the political system. This may be inferred with certainty, from the general nature of the judicial power, from the objects to which it relates, from the manner in which it is exercised, from its comparative weakness, and from its total incapacity to support its usurpations by force. And the inference is greatly fortified by the consideration of the important constitutional check which the power of instituting impeachments in one part of the legislative body, and of determining upon them in the other, would give to that body upon the members of the judicial department. This is alone a complete security. There never can be danger that the judges, by a series of deliberate usurpations on the authority of the legislature, would hazard the united resentment of the body entrusted with it, while this body was possessed of the means of punishing their presumption, by degrading them from their stations. While this ought to remove all apprehensions on the subject, it affords, at the same time, a cogent argument for constituting the Senate a court for the trial of impeachments.” (Emphasis added)

Conviction in impeachment cases requires a two-thirds affirmative vote in the Senate. This makes conviction almost impossible with the highly partisan nature of the professional politicians who populate both houses of Congress, a majority of whom will always side with their party over the welfare of the nation as a whole. We saw this in the planned impeachment of Richard Nixon and in full display during the impeachment of President Bill Clinton. The Act of impeachment will always be a partisan issue so long as the two major political parties are allowed to hold the power over government they have exercised from the beginning of the Republic. This fact of political life prevails in all political parties. The prosecuting party will ignore facts and mitigating circumstances in order to gain a victory over its opponent, and the defending party will do the same in defense of the accused in its party.

The next four to twelve years will be an all-out battle between the forces of despotism and the forces of liberty. There have been only two periods in the past when the nation has been as divided as it is today; during and after the Revolutionary War and the period surrounding the Civil War and its aftermath. We cannot allow the outcome of the coming conflict to depend on the decisions of one Supreme Court Justice.

The Constitution is our only real defense against outright tyranny. By now, this should be apparent to anyone who honestly looks at the facts. Since the tenure of Chief Justice John Marshall in 1803, the Supreme Court has taken it upon itself to decide what the language penned by the Framers actually means. Our current Court is almost evenly divided between the enemies of the Constitution and its defenders. The four progressive/socialist Justices barley mount a pretense of honoring the Constitution they took an oath to defend. As difficult and distasteful as it is, impeachment seems to be the only means of changing the politically corrupted nature of the Supreme Court. We simply cannot wait for time and chance to do it for us, and the immediate future is likely to be the only time for generations when impeachment is possible.

Thanks to the heavy-handed and tyrannical way in which Obama wields the powers of his office, millions of Americans are waking up to the realization that our nation is on the verge of total economic, political and cultural collapse. Every day hundreds if not thousands of citizens are gaining more knowledge of how our system works and why. Humanly speaking, the system established by the Founders, has alone been responsible for the success and prosperity we have enjoyed in the past. Before the nation goes back to sleep, either from the stupor brought about by socialist despotism or the indolent slumber fostered by the blessings of liberty, we must begin to take the steps correct the problems in our court system, from the federal trial courts to the Supreme Court.

More information on the Supreme Court and Impeachment. 

A New Script for the Talking Heads This Week

“Santorum says he doesn’t believe in separation of church and state,” blared the headline in Sunday’s Yahoo News. Santorum seems to have a penchant for making statements that drive the left-wing media nuts. His latest, according to Yahoo was, “I don’t believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute,” made during a campaign speech in Michigan last week. While his ability to send the left-wing media into hysterics should be celebrated by conservatives, unfortunately conservatives, independents and rank and file Republicans alike, who are not familiar with American History, are likely to be turned off by Santorum’s statement. The lack of knowledge concerning our own history by a majority of the American people is what is appalling, not Santorum’s statement.

The term “Black Regiment”, used during the Revolutionary War did not refer to the black soldiers who fought in the War for Independence. Instead, it referred to the large number of Christian Pastors who served in the Continental Army, not as chaplains, but as combat soldiers and officers. They were called the black regiment because of the black robes they customarily wore in the pulpit when preaching. It was not unusual for all the able-bodied men in a church to follow their Pastor’s lead in joining either the local militia or the army. Entire congregations often showed up at the recruiting office as a group and fought as a group in battle.

The First Amendment was never meant to protect citizens from incidental exposure to the religious view of their fellow Americans. In fact, for over a hundred and fifty years after the ratification of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, our Christian heritage was openly celebrated in practically all American institutions, schools, courts, government assemblies, and public gatherings of all types. Virtually all senior citizens of today who grew up in America can remember starting every school day with a morning devotional, led by the teacher. Why, we even said the Pledge of Allegiance to the United States Flag. That “wall of separation” found in the First Amendment and alluded to by Thomas Jefferson in the famous letter to the Danbury Baptist Association in 1802 was not a wall intended to keep out the influence of Christianity or religion in our public policies. It was intended to keep the national government from meddling in the religious affairs of the people.

It was not until the 1960s that the Supreme Court suddenly discovered new meaning in the First Amendment phrase, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion”, that had never been noticed by any of their predecessors in the 175 year history of the court. The court deliberately ignored the second phrase in the clause, “or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”. In doing so, the court inadvertently or intentionally created the conditions guaranteeing exactly what the first phrase prohibited, the establishment of a national religion. In officially disconnecting the American culture from its Christian heritage, they created a vacuum that was quickly filled with another religious structure more compatible with the changing American mindset. Secular Humanism became the established religion of America.

Since that time, the courts have consistently ruled and legislators have routinely passed laws supporting the doctrines of secular humanism, America’s new established religion. Court rulings and laws supporting environmentalism, same-sex marriage, abortion, etc., etc., are all based on the doctrines of secular humanism. This shift away from the traditional American values embodied in our Christian heritage is rapidly leading to the destruction of our culture, our political system and our economic well-being. The eradication of Christian values is essential to the acceptance by our citizens of the socialist system envisioned by America’s new “ruling class”. Christianity is incompatible with socialism; On the other hand, secular humanism supports and even encourages socialist policies.

While the media will have a field day with Santorum’s statement in the coming week, patriots who understand America’s history and heritage should applaud him for his courage in standing firm on his and America’s traditional values. A politician who is willing to compromise his or her core principles in order to win an election is not worthy of the office they seek. One of the questions all Americans have to answer in the coming elections is do we prefer a leader who stands by and defends his principles or do we prefer candidates who have no principles? The future of America may stand or fall on the answer voters give to this question.

Concerns About the Proposed Balanced Budget Amendment

Virtually every conservative and Republican politician, pundit, writer, and broadcaster is enthusiastically touting the Balanced Budget Amendment proposal. If I was of a more cynical nature I might think that Congress is trying to rid itself of some of the tedious responsibility the Constitution places on it. Considering the seriousness of any proposed Constitutional Amendment, we ought to spend some time reading and understanding its implications before giving it our support.

Section I of the proposed Amendment says,

“Total outlays for any fiscal year shall not exceed total receipts for that fiscal year, unless two-thirds of the duly chosen and sworn Members of each House of Congress shall provide by law for a specific excess of outlays over receipts by a roll call vote.”

If you are a fan of Constitutional Amendments that sounds fine; it is concise, to the point and reasonably well worded. It does not leave a lot of “wiggle room” for the courts and politicians to avoid understanding exactly what the Amendment is supposed to accomplish.

Since the purpose of an Amendment is to change, expand, or repeal the rules for government written by the Founders into the original Constitution, before we allow ourselves to be stampeded into something future generations will have to live with and very well may regret; we ought to carefully consider the consequences. History has shown that the U.S. Constitution including the Bill of Rights is the best plan of government ever devised by man. Although, for the past century, its value has been demonstrated mostly by the consequences following its many breaches rather than by strict compliance to it by our elected officials.

The fact that so many people feel that a Constitutional Amendment is necessary is prima facie evidence that one or more of the branches of government is failing to live up to the oath of office to defend and support the Constitution each of its members took before assuming their position. We do not have to look far to identify the culprits, either. Both the Legislative and Executive branches are ignoring the restrictions on taxing and spending in the original Constitution and taxing us into poverty and spending us into oblivion. Thomas Jefferson made the complaint against George III in The Declaration of Independence, that “he has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.”

Jefferson knew nothing about the EPA, DOE, DOL, or any of the many czars currently accomplishing this chore for the Obama Administration, so we have to assume that he was referring in particular to the “Quartering Act” and the occupation of Boston. But he could just as well have been writing about any of “alphabet soup” of government agencies jammed into every nook and cranny of Washington, D.C.

Assuming that we really do need a Constitutional Amendment to enforce fiscal discipline on our elected officials and that they will abide by a new Amendment more faithfully than they have abided by the Constitution itself in the past, the Amendment as written above seems to be adequate for the job — if it stopped with those words. However it does not. The proposed Amendment contains 618 words making it the longest Constitutional Amendment to date.

In writing Amendments brevity is the key to effectiveness. Every unnecessary or carelessly chosen word becomes a loophole through which the courts, politicians and lawyers can push socialist policies, or that societal busybodies can use to take away a little more of our liberties. For example, the Fourteenth Amendment, containing only 445 words, is used to grant birthright citizenship to the children of foreigners who happen to be born on U.S. soil; to claim the right for same sex marriage; and, to give the federal government the authority to decide the qualifications for voting in national, state and local elections. The same pattern is true for the other ill thought-out and excessively worded amendments added to the Constitution since 1791.

Section 2, provides that…

“Total outlays for any fiscal year shall not exceed 18 percent of the gross domestic product of the United States for the calendar year ending before the beginning of such fiscal year, unless two-thirds of the duly chosen and sworn Members of each House of Congress shall provide by law for a specific amount in excess of such 18 percent by a roll call vote.”

This may be okay for those willing to spend almost twenty percent of their work life laboring for the federal government. However, keep in mind that the federal government is only a small portion of the government bodies we have to support with our taxes. The spending limit imposed by this section is based on the aggregate GDP of all fifty states. Each of those states has hundreds of taxing and spending bodies “harassing their people and eating out their substances”. The combined outlay of all the government bodies in the United States, federal, state, county and local is much closer to 50% or more than to 20%. This section guarantees that the federal government will always be entitled to at least 18% of the produce of our labor, to spend on whatever it sees fit; more if it thinks it is necessary.

Section 3 is one of the more troubling sections of the proposed amendment. It provides that…

“Prior to each fiscal year, the President shall transmit to the Congress a proposed budget for the United States Government for that fiscal year in which—
‘‘(1) total outlays do not exceed total receipts; and
‘‘(2) total outlays do not exceed 18 percent of the gross domestic product of the United States for the calendar year ending before the beginning of such fiscal year.”

What is troubling about this section is that it puts the onus on the President to determine the budgetary needs of the country each year, wiping out a four-hundred year portion of our heritage. If History is indeed our best predictor of the future, future Presidents will claim that the Constitution (this Amendment) gives the Executive Branch the “power of the purse” overturning four hundred years of custom and Constitutional law. As we pointed out in a previous post, the power of the purse has always resided in the people’s assembly. Before the Constitution it rested with the colonial general assemblies. Since the Constitution it has rested in the House of Representatives.

The Remaining eight sections all contain similar opportunities for future courts and politicians to mold in into about anything they desire it to be. The piece de resistance, however, is found in section 11, which says, “This article shall take effect beginning with the fifth fiscal year beginning after its ratification.’’

It takes on average, two to five years to get an Amendment through the Amendment process. This section adds an additional five or six years, depending on the time of the year it is finally ratified, before it takes effect. By that time we will either be a socialist dictatorship or we will have won the struggle with the socialists in government and will not need the amendment.

Space prevents a complete exposition of this question. We have provided a copy of the proposed Amendment here and challenged readers to consider some of the possible pitfalls inherent in any changes to our Constitution, no matter how logical and necessary they seem at the time. As my mom used to say “eat what’s on your plate before going back for more”. Enforce adherence to the Constitution we have, before attempting to add more requirements that are likely to be ignored or circumvented when government finds such action desirable for its agenda.

It’s Time To Cut Up The Credit Card

The debate over raising the debt ceiling continuously brings up the threat that not doing so would jeopardize the “full faith and credit of the United States”.  Exactly what is the full faith and credit of the United States?  It might help in the discussion if we stopped for a moment and thought about what the expression actually means.

“Full faith and credit of the United States” is referring to the confidence lenders have in the ability of the federal government to confiscate enough of the earnings of the American people in time to pay off its debts when they come due. The federal government itself earns nothing. Every penny spent by any government must first be earned through the physical and intellectual labor of its citizens. The government then confiscates a part of those earnings and uses it to pay for the products and services it purchases.

Once the amount of spending exceeds the amount of confiscated earnings, in order to continue spending the government must borrow against the future earning of it citizens. At present: July 13, 2011, some forty percent of the average person’s earnings are taken by federal, states and local governments in order to support their prolific spending habits. Thomas Jefferson warned us in 1813 “never to borrow a dollar without laying a tax in the same instant for paying the interest annually, and the principal within a given term; and to consider that tax as pledged to the creditors on the public faith.” That is still good advice today.

The problem is that our politicians do not have the political courage to follow Jefferson’s advice. They know that attempting to do so would result in their being thrown out of office at the earliest possible opportunity. To put it in perspective, the total paid by the average American today is somewhere between forty and sixty percent of their income, including all taxes paid at the federal, state and local level. (exact figures are hard to come by) That means when we go to work each week, all the money we earn on Monday and Tuesday goes to a government body in taxes — government always gets its money first. It is not until Wednesday or Thursday that we begin to earn money we can use for our own personal consumption.

If we followed Jefferson’s advice today the government would need to confiscate all our earning in taxes and still it would not have enough to pay off the debt. Of course, it cannot do that and survive, therefore, they need to keep raising the debt limit and passing the debt on to future generations. It is time to force the federal government to “live within its means”. As it is, we have already condemned our children and grandchildren to a life of servitude to the state. To allow the federal government to continue to borrow against the earning of future generations is unconscionable and should not be allowed.

That is exactly what congressional Republicans will be doing if they make any type of deal with the progressives (American socialist) currently running the federal government to raise the debt limit. It’s time to cut up the nation’s credit card.

Choosing the Right Candidate

Before we know it, we are going to find ourselves in the midst of the most important primary race in generations. The number of patriots who recognize the perils facing America has grown exponentially over the past two years along with the continued growth of the Tea Party Movement. A number of patriotic politicians have stepped up to the plate to oppose the reckless and dangerous socialist policies of the current administration. Still, as we survey the developing field of possible “conservative” candidates we see a lot of ambiguity as to what it means to be a true constitution  conservative, both among the people and the potential candidates.

There are only two issues in the next election, one for the people and one for the candidates. The one for the people is; do we wish to continue as a constitutional republic or as a democratic socialist oligarchy?  The answer to that question determines the question we must get a clear answer to before we decide to support any candidate in the coming elections.  If the answer is that we want to continue as a constitutional republic, then the only thing we need to know about the candidate is; will he or she fight for our founding principles and defend our founding documents?

This is not something about which we have to speculate.  We have over four hundred years of history as our guide; 169 years of colonialism under a monarchy, 5 years as independent nation states, 8 years as a confederation of sovereign states, and 222 years as a constitutional republic, including some 130 years of experimenting with socialism. The one lesson we should have learned from our own history as well as the history of other nations of the world is that socialism does not work. Yet, in spite of the clear evidence that it does not, our political leaders continue to attempt to force in on an inadequately informed population.

The number one challenge facing the patriot movement today is a lack of knowledge among the voting public concerning our history, our Constitution and our American heritage. America has become a nation addicted to big government socialism. In order to cure any addiction one first has to recognize it and admit that it is a problem and have a real desire to break the habit.

Illinois Conservative.Com has published a new book, “Philosophy of Evil” especially for Tea Party Members and other patriots to help in understanding who we are as a people, where we are today as a nation and how we got here. It is the result of years of study and months of intensive research in American history and the history of socialism, especially as it took root and grew in American society. Philosophy of Evil traces the history of socialism in America from the early experiments with it in colonial times, through the utopian commune movement, the progressive era and its rapid growth in the twentieth century, culminating in the economic, political and social crises we are experiencing  today.

We invite our readers to go to our website, check out the subject index and read the sample chapters we have posted there. We believe an understanding of the information found in this book is essential to the restoration of America as a constitutional republic. As Thomas Jefferson said concerning his writing of the Declaration of Independence,

“[Our purpose is] not to find out new principles, or new arguments, never before thought of, not merely to say things which had never been said before; but to place before mankind the common sense of the subject, in terms so plain and firm as to command their assent. …. Neither aiming at originality of principle or sentiment, nor yet copied from any particular and previous writing, it [is] intended to be an expression of the American mind.”  Thomas Jefferson, 1825

New Book
Philosophy of Evil
Socialism in America

Click HERE for more information

The Founder’s Lockbox

By Jerry McDaniel

Unlike the fictitious Social Security lockbox, the Constitution contains a lockbox for the federal government. That box is the list of enumerated powers found in Article One of the Constitution, and the lock is the Tenth Amendment in the Bill of Rights. In Houdini like fashion, the government has escaped from the box over the past century, using the Seventeenth Amendment to open the lock. Our task in the twenty first century is to stuff it back into its box and reclose the lock.

Bracketed between the first and nineteenth clauses of Article I, Section 8, is a comprehensive list of all the powers delegated to the federal government; or to put it another way, a list of those things the federal government is charged with managing on behalf of the American People; namely, those that cannot be adequately managed by the states or individual citizens. This is the “lockbox” intended by the Founders to contain the federal government.  Clause One introduces the enumerated powers and describes the taxing powers of the government and Clause Nineteen describes the conditions all laws passed by Congress must meet. Clause One reads,

“The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;”

This clause list three purposes for which Congress is allowed to lay and collect taxes, debt, defense, and welfare. The two key words are “common” and “general”. Under common defense, the Feds are allowed to tax us for the collective defense of all the states and territories making up the United States. It does not authorize taxing in order to provide block grants for law enforcement activities within individual states,  to protect individual citizens against insults and unkind treatment by other citizens, our own unwise decisions, or to protect us from the proselytizing efforts of various religious groups.

Neither does it authorize Congress to tax us for the defense of other nations, unless the defense of that nation is directly related to our own national security. Border security, anti-drug smuggling and human trafficking, etc. are legitimate functions of the federal government because they are for the “common defense” of all the states. International defense against terrorism is also a Constitutional power that falls under this clause because international terrorist organizations have declared war on America.

The same principle applies to “general” welfare. As Thomas Jefferson pointed out in his report to George Washington concerning the chartering of a National Bank, Congress does not have the power to tax for any purpose that might be thought to promote the welfare of citizens but only for the general welfare of the nation as a whole and extending only to those enumerated powers listed in the Constitution. Taxing one group of citizens in order to provide for the welfare of another group of citizens is not countenanced by the Constitution. Most of the “earmarks” that are used by Congress members to “buy votes” only improve the welfare of a limited number of citizens therefore are unconstitutional. The famous “bridge to nowhere” would have benefited only a small number of the citizens in Alaska, for example.

The phrases “common defense” and “general welfare” also make up the litmus test for the laws authorized by clause nineteen, which reads,

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

The key words here are “necessary”, “proper” and “foregoing”. Keep in mind that clause eight is a single, compound sentence made up of nineteen clauses, separated, as James Madison pointed out, by “nothing stronger than a semicolon”. The word “foregoing” refers only to the enumerated powers listed in clauses two through eighteen, all of which fall under the headings of common defense or general welfare. Thomas Jefferson pointed out that the word “necessary” applies only to those laws without which an enumerated power could not be carried into execution. This is the first test as to whether a law is constitutional or not. Necessary does not have the same meaning as “facilitate” or “make more convenient“.

The second test of constitutionality under this section is, is it proper? Does the law fulfill the purpose set forth in the introductory clause of providing for the common defense or the general welfare of the nation? If it does not it is not “proper” for the purpose and is therefore, unconstitutional.

Someone has said, “the power to tax is the power to enslave” however, repealing the Sixteenth Amendment or reforming our tax code is a useless exercise until we first return the federal government to its constitutional lockbox. Regardless of the form it takes, the American people have to be taxed eventually in order to pay for government spending since the only income it has is what it is able to squeeze out of the taxpayer. The only way to establish and sustain lower taxes is to limit government spending to those things included in the enumerated powers section of the Constitution. That is our challenge for the twenty-first century.

HELP WANTED: Prophet

By Jerry McDaniel

America’s founding principles of life, liberty and property are rooted in the Judeo-Christian traditions found in the Holy Bible. I have long believed that our founding documents contain God’s plan for the American government.  No, this was not reveled to me by an angel in a vision and I am not a crazed religious fanatic. Neither am I claiming Divine inspiration for the Founding Documents. I came to this view after many years of study in American History, the Founding Documents and the Bible, particularly the Old Testament which reveals God’s dealings with the nations of the earth. 

We know from history that virtually all the Founders, including Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson had a deep and abiding faith in the sovereignty of God over the affairs of man as expressed in the frequently used term, “Divine Providence.” Thomas Jefferson is the author of “we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…” in the Declaration of Independence.  Congress as a whole added the phrase, “with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence”, after extensive debate.  Benjamin Franklin expressed his faith in the Providence of God during the Philadelphia Convention by calling for prayer for God’s guidance on their deliberations; “…The longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth — that God Governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid?” He declared. The Founding Fathers fervently prayed for God’s guidance as they debated the new government. The historical evidence is that God heard those prayers and answered them.

Throughout our history, whenever we have strayed from our principles as expressed in our founding documents, we have multiplied our problems. After a century of ignoring the Constitution and corrupting its meaning when convenient, it appears that we, as a nation, have lost our faith in both Divine Providence and America. Our national leaders no longer have faith in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the founding principles or American exceptionalism. Expressions of faith by a political leader, are routinely met with ridicule and derision by large segments of the “elite ruling class” and the popular media. Is it any wonder that we find ourselves on the very brink of losing the liberty so many Americans have sacrificed and died to protect.

In the Old Testament God used prophets to pronounce judgment on Israel and Judah for their idolatrous ways and to call for repentance. From our founding, there have been patriots whose roles in our origin and development as a nation were similar to the prophets of old. Early American prophets like, Samuel Bryan, Melancton Smith, Robert Yates and John DeWitt warned us about the dangers of a consolidated national government, an over-powerful executive, rogue courts with lifetime judges, the danger of internal taxes and the insatiable appetite for power of professional politicians. It is to them we owe the addition of the Bill of Rights to the Constitution.

The Bill of Rights is our protection against an out-of-control national government. In recent generations, we have allowed our internal enemies to use it instead, to deny us the liberty it was designed to protect, through perverted interpretation and application by the courts and rogue congresses. Instead of a shield of liberty, we have allowed it to be used as a tool of socialist tyranny. It is time for us to “bring forth fruit worthy of repentance” as a nation and reaffirm our faith in God, America, and American principles when we go to the polls in a few weeks to elect a new Congress.

Millions of Americans are discovering anew our founding documents and demanding that we return to the principles they espouse. For that to happen we cannot continue to vote for candidates who deny the principles of our Declaration, Constitution and Bill of Rights whatever the excuse. What we need today is a few modern day prophets like those of old who are willing to stand up to the powers that be and declare the judgment of God on America’s idolatrous apostasy from our founding principles.

Reprinted from “Christian Patriots“

America’s Sacred Texts

By Jerry McDaniel

After several years spent studying American History and our founding documents, I came to the conclusion that the Founding Fathers left us a perfect plan for governing a free people. Most, if not all the major domestic crises faced by America since its founding could have been avoided had the leaders at the time, followed the precepts of our founding documents. Unfortunately, while the Founders gave us a perfect plan, that plan has never been administered by perfect men. The verdict of history and the Bible is that there are no perfect men, which brings us to the central question. If there are no perfect men, and yet we have a perfect plan of governance, how did we get it?

To appreciate fully the wisdom of the Founder’s plan it is necessary to view it as a single document consisting of three parts. (1) The Declaration of Independence gives the justification for our existence as a separate and independent people and the principles to enable us to govern ourselves successfully. (2) The Constitution presents the plan for governing, embodying those principles, and strengthening the whole while protecting the liberty and independence of all its parts. (3) The Bill of Rights clarifies and amplifies the intent of the Founders for particular elements of the plan.

These three parts of the Founder’s plan, collectively represent the most perfect and complete plan of government ever devised. Since its inception in March,1789 there have been many attempts to improve on the original as our political leaders moved away from its direction and chafed at the restrictions the plan placed on their ambitions. In each attempt to “update” the original, history has shown the effort to be of dubious benefit, with the unintended consequences sometimes far outweighing the intended improvements. For example, there have been seventeen Amendments to the Constitution since the ratification of the Bill of Rights. Most of those have produced marginal benefits with negligible damage to the original plan. Others have been used by revisionists to alter drastically the original plan, to the detriment of the American people and liberty, Amendments 12, 14, 16 and 17, are good examples.

The unity, cohesiveness, and durability of the Founder’s plan is even more remarkable when we consider the diversity of personalities, occupations, education, and interests of the hundreds of people who contributed to its formulation, including the Second Continental Congress, the Philadelphia Convention, and thirteen State Ratifying Conventions. One explanation can be found in the closing paragraph of the Declaration of Independence, “a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence”. This phrase is much more than a rhetorical device to add solemnity to the document. It expresses the heartfelt faith of virtually all the Founding Fathers.

In our desire to view ourselves as a secular society ruled by a secular government, we overlook and often deny the most fundamental attribute of our national character; we are a religious people. According to a 2007 study by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, 78.4% of all American Adults identify themselves as Christian. 4.7% identify as being affiliated with other than Christian religions and another 5.8% identify as being religious but not affiliated with any particular religious group. 88.9% of all American Adults consider themselves “religious”.  Admittedly, many of those who identify themselves as Christians are not “practicing” Christians, and many more would not meet the Biblical definition of Christian. However, that does not change the fact that we are a Christian nation and have been since our founding.

That is not to say that all the Founding Fathers would be considered as orthodox Christians by today’s doctrinal standards. It is fashionable in today’s secular America to discount the religious influence on the founding of America by pointing out inconstancies between the views of many of the more prominent Founders and what we might consider to be a proper Christian worldview. In doing so, we deny ourselves some of the most valuable lessons of history. There was a wide variety of beliefs then, just as there is now. The Framers that crafted our founding documents were members of Quaker, Anglican, Baptist, Congregationalist, and other Christian disciplines, and yet, there were certain beliefs they all held in common. Two of the most important religious characteristics of the Founders were their reverence for the Holy Bible and their faith in the Providence of God. They perhaps possessed the highest degree of Bible literacy of any group of political leaders before or since. The political speech of that era is replete with biblical references.

It is popular for historians to point to the writers of the Enlightenment Era such as John Locke or Montesquieu as providing the guiding principles behind our founding documents. The truth is that political writings of the time contain far more references to Biblical sources than to Enlightenment sources. In fact, Professor Daniel Dreisbach, an historian with American University claims there are more references to the book of Deuteronomy alone, found in the political writings of the Founders, than all of the Enlightenment writers combined. The Bible formed such a large part of the Founders thinking that they routinely referenced it in their speeches and correspondence without attribution, assuming that their audience would automatically recognize the reference. A classic example of this can be found in a speech by Benjamin Franklin to the Philadelphia Convention on June 28, 1787.

“…[T]he longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth — that God Governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred writings, that “except the Lord build the House they labor in vain that build it.” I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without his concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better, than the Builders of Babel: We shall be divided by our little partial local interests; our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and bye word down to future ages.”

In this short paragraph, there are at least three distinct biblical references, Psalm, 127, Matthew 10:29, and Genesis 11:8-10. Franklin also refers here, to the Providence of God in the “affairs of men”, as does George Washington in a letter to Brig. General Thomas Nelson in August 1788,

“The Hand of Providence has been so conspicuous in all this, that he must be worse than an infidel that lacks faith, and more than wicked, that has not gratitude enough to acknowledge his obligations.”

This was written just before the Presidential election of 1788 and after the completion of the Constitution. It is evident that he was referring to the Divine Hand of God in the Revolutionary War and the events following, including the Confederation and the outcome of the Philadelphia Convention. James Madison had the same thoughts in mind when he wrote Federalist 37. In discussing the difficulties of the Convention in reconciling the differing ideas, opinions and interests of so diverse a group, Madison wrote,

“It is impossible for any man of candor to reflect on this circumstance without partaking of the astonishment. It is impossible for the man of pious reflection not to perceive in it a finger of that Almighty hand which has been so frequently and signally extended to our relief in the critical stages of the revolution.”

I agree with Franklin, Washington and Madison in their conclusions that the plan of government set forth in our founding documents bears clear evidence of the providence of God in its creation. Lest I be misunderstood, let me point out that the Divine Providence of our founding is different from the inspiration of Scripture. In inspiration, God deals with individuals directly so that each book of the Bible has a single author. With Providence God works “behind the scenes” so to speak, using multitudes of people and events, often seemingly unrelated, to bring about His will. Providence can only be seen through the lens of hindsight. It is only through observing the formation and progress of our nation in history, that we can appreciate the Providence of God and that we can confidently declare our founding documents to be America’s Sacred Texts.