Tea Party Originalism

Jonathan Hoenig Calls for Individual Sovereignty

2013-04-27T17:29:00.000-07:00

TOS Blog: Daily Commentary from an Objectivist Perspective

Jonathan Hoenig Calls for Return to Americanism

I had to point out that I am not the only one who uses the phrase "individual sovereignty" in today's world.

The Debate Is Only About Control--Not Guns

2013-01-21T00:30:00.000-08:00

Gun control isn't about guns, it's about control. The intention of the Second Amendment is to prevent control. Last Wednesday's post about gun rights being inalienable whether or not they are written, was about what we are born with rather than what we are given. What we are given is called 'positive rights'. What we are born with are called natural rights. What laws are supposed to prevent being taken from us are called 'negative rights', and natural rights are 'negative rights'.

President Obama and others said we must "protect the children", sometimes adding "at all costs" or "at whatever cost". But others in the past have said that we cannot protect one person's rights at the expense of another.

On Saturday at one of the many pro gun-right rallies held across the nation, former Marine Damon Locke said to applause at a Florida rally he had helped organize, "We are law-abiding citizens, business owners, military, and we are not going to be responsible for other people's criminal actions."

What lesson does it send to children and to young adults to learn their political leaders have a desire to protect them by diminishing the right of law-abiding citizens? What lesson does it send to demonstrate that when a problem arises, the only means their leaders can think of is to destroy the Constitution?

What lesson, when they are old enough to stop to think that the utilitarian and pragmatic ideas coming out of Washington have gone from the fallacy of the greatest good for the greatest number, to using children as pawns in the fight to control the weapons without which we could not protect our First Amendment?

The right to bear arms does not say which kind of arms. Certainly we do not want live cannons and mortars in our neighbors' back yards, so we ban those things. That isn't about control, it is about immediate safety; in other words, if a cannon shot a round from suburbs of Detroit, where would the round hit, and does anyone have a right to fire a cannon anywhere except on a training field? What if it was not properly maintained and it blew up? We wouldn't let people have tiny nuclear reactors, if they existed, in their homes for their electrical needs, because when those devices have accidents, they are often irreparable.

"The Second Amendment was not written to protect your right to shoot deer. It was written to protect your right to shoot tyrants if they take over the government," said Judge Andrew Napolitano.

© Curtis Edward Clark 2012

Inalienable Gun Rights Are Not Extremist

2013-01-16T00:30:00.000-08:00

Last week, Judge Andrew Napolitano revealed a secret about the Second Amendment: “The Second Amendment was not written to protect your right to shoot deer. It was written to protect your right to shoot tyrants if they take over the government.”

Why is it a 'secret'? It's a secret because 230 years ago, during a time when the Patriots and other colonists knew they would need weapons to fight the British, they knew they had right under the natural rights theory to own them, though the British government wanted to take them in order to keep the upper hand.

But since that period we have forgotten there might come a day when the federal powers to make us do whatever they wanted would be so great we would have to fight our own government. The NDAA which the President signed on New Year's Eve day, gives him the authority to use the military to arrest and detain indefinitely any American he chooses, for reasons he does not have to disclose.

On April 19, 1775, after British General Thomas Gage sent 700 trained troops to Concord, Massachusetts, the shot heard round the world began a war. The British had come for the guns of Americans. "Their own government had come to disarm them." [1] Arizona, Tennessee, Washington, Virginia, and six local governments including one in my home state of Michigan, have either nullified the NDAA, or are debating doing so. Several sheriffs and other law enforcement officials have stated they will not enforce the NDAA. In some places states have made it illegal for state authorities to enforce the NDAA and certain provisions of ICE rules. [2]

About Napolitano's comments, "Charles Blow wrote in The New York Times, 'These extremists make sensible, reasonable gun control hard to discuss, let alone achieve in this country, because they skew the conversations away from common-sense solutions on which both rational gun owners and non-gun owners can agree.' "

So those who defend the natural right of property ownership against a government that would abrogate those natural rights are the "extremists"; those who see the Second Amendment as something added to the Constitution, rather than as something which reinforces it as an "inalienable", right are common-sensical.

Why is it a violation of the right-to-safety of other people to have a populace who is armed and has violated no laws? Is it because someone could steal his mother's guns and shoot 20 children and 6 adults?

If that is the reason, then who is to prevent President Obama or another President from sending another "General Thomas Gage" to some part of the U.S. to disarm people it knows will fight the tyranny of a government that does not act Constitutionally, but rather acts like a utilitarian extremist?
[1] http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles2/silveira119lw.html
[2] http://www.naturalindependent.com/archives/7123/virginia-nullifies-ndaa-the-tenthers/

© Curtis Edward Clark 2012

Gun Control and the Second Amendment

2013-01-15T06:28:00.000-08:00

President Obama's stance, indeed the stand of anyone who is against ownership of guns or of specific guns and/or of specific bullets, clips, or other portions of guns, are acting as utilitarians. This is against the concept of natural rights inherent in the Constitution.

Opponents of such restrictions are fighting it on grounds of the Second Amendment. But they are fighting on the grounds that it is that Amendment which gives us the right. It is not. That merely states the right which existed before it was written. Indeed, James Madison and others were fearful that if some of man's natural rights were put into a Bill of Rights, it would seem as if that was the limit of them, that there were no others. But more than that, many members of Congress knew that by listing some of them it would open them to scrutiny 'as written'. In other words, while all natural rights belonged to Man, the way one or another was written could be argued against and altered.

That has happened in the modern case of the Second Amendment. The right does not exist because it is written; it was written because it exists, and because some Congressional leaders believed it necessary to say they existed.

A Bill of Rights was not only unnecessary, but would even be dangerous. James Madison agreed with Alexander Hamilton, who asked, "For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do [by Congress]? Why, for instance, should it be said that the liberty of the press shall not be restrained, when no power is given by which restrictions may be imposed?"

The harming of another in his person or property is not a right, natural or otherwise. The restriction of a natural right is the prerogative only of a tyranny.

© Curtis Edward Clark 2012

More Nasty Politics Heading Our Way

2013-01-09T09:18:00.001-08:00

"Brought together by the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, Communication Workers of America, and the NAACP, the meeting was invite-only and off-the-record. Despite all the Democratic wins in November, a sense of outrage filled the room as labor officials, environmentalists, civil rights activists, immigration reformers, and a panoply of other progressive leaders discussed the challenges facing the left and what to do to beat back the deep-pocketed conservative movement."

Of course they met at the HP of the NEA, the National Education Association.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/01/democracy-initiative-campaign-finance-filibuster-sierra-club-greenpeace-naacp

© Curtis Edward Clark 2012

Jumah At the DNC

2012-08-23T18:13:00.001-07:00

"There is no thought of original intent or original meaning in the way the Democratic leaders are giving this nation away to those who would see its downfall..."

The Washington Times reported yesterday that as many as 20,000 participants could show up for what is being billed by the participants and the Democratic National Convention as 'Jumah at the DNC'. Jumah is Arabic for 'Friday', and is the biggest prayer event of the week.

"The DNC lists the assembly as an 'official function' and claims that the leaders of the program are typical of the DNC community. The group is hardly 'mainstream,' being represented by Siraj Wahhaj, who will be the 'Grand Imam' for the gathering....Wahhaj and the co-leader of the Charlotte event, Jibril Hough, are both heavily involved in the separatist American Islamist movement," said the Times.

It then goes on to explain how this Islamic gathering at the DNC will be a "prime example of taqiyya". This will cover a protest by the participants directed at the Patriot Act, the NYPD, Islamophobia, and anti-sharia issues. Most of the participants, said the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, "will likely come from Hough and Wahhaj’s radical networks that have long been entrenched in the Charlotte area. Make no mistake they are part of the Islamist movement."

Bureau of Indigenous Muslim Affairs (BIMA), the national Muslim American non-profit that is coordinating the two days of events for leaders of the separatist, American Islamist movement, are receiving "a national stage and as much credibility as the DNC can muster," said beforeitsnews.com .

There are many baffling and troubling concerns here. The first may be how any organization can be taken seriously when referring to "indigenous" Islamic Americans--but many must be doing so, including the DNC.

Second, why is the DNC giving a religious platform to any group, let alone to those who in the past have advocated replacing the Constitution with sharia, as some of the participants have?

Third, why didn't the DNC vet the leaders better? Oh, wait--they did. Siraj Wahhaj's own website says lists his upcoming events as an Islamic Relief fundraiser, the funds of which will go to Iran and Myanmar, among other nations. It also lists a fundraiser for the Council on Islamic-American Relations, called radical and Islamicist by other American groups of Muslims.

CAIR was founded in 1994 by alumni of an older group, the Islamic Association for Palestine. The IAP, founded by senior Hamas figure Mousa Mohammed Abu Marzook, calls for the destruction of Israel and the creation of an Islamic state under Islamic law in Israel's place. (In 1996, CAIR would condemn the U.S. government's decision to deport Marzook as an "anti-Islamic" act.)
CAIR's first executive director, Nihad Awad, publicly declared himself a supporter of Hamas at a 1994 forum at Barry University in Florida.
One of CAIR's original advisory board members, Siraj Wahhaj, served as a character witness for Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman. Rahman is the blind Egyptian cleric convicted in 1995 of conspiracy to bomb New York landmarks. CAIR described Rahman's conviction as a hate crime. source

"The FBI [severed] its once-close ties with the nation's largest Muslim advocacy group, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, amid mounting evidence that it has links to a support network for Hamas." source

There is no thought of original intent or original meaning in the way the Democratic leaders are giving this nation away to those who would see its downfall, and who must have applauded on September 11, 2001. No patriotic Muslim American would need an 'official' jumah at the DNC.

'Like' Curtisedwardclark.com on Facebook
© Curtis Edward Clark 2012

Freedom Thoughts

2012-08-22T05:18:00.003-07:00

>Spike Lee said our expectations of Obama were of being a 'black Jesus'. The website I Will Not Vote For Obama in 2012 said, "Like us if you didn't expect him to be anything other than a Marxist dictator." [!!] What I can say is that no way did I think America would let him get away with being such an openly progressive president who is also openly anti-exceptionalism. (I also say Spike Lee insults the American sensibility of desiring only a President who values individualism and of upholding-- or raising--the integrity of the office.)
>"The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire." – Robert A. Heinlein One example of that division is this next item:

"Are social networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter 'information monopolies' that should be regulated as public utilities? ....utility-like regulation may be necessary not so much to satisfy economic or equity rationales, but to achieve various social policy objectives..." source

When a man or a group of them creates something, what is the reason for calling the achievement a monopoly, and wanting to regulate economically, if it isn't for the purpose of control--and of control only? The free market will un-monopolize natural monopolies. Google, for example, is in jeopardy of losing its status as the #1 search engine because 30% of Google searches are for something now found on Amazon, which who's own on-site product search engine is gaining momentum. The desire to label one, leads to the next. When will someone see Amazon as the 'information monopoly' for goods sold?

>"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." C.S. Lewis

>"The welfare of humanity is always the alibi of tyrants." Albert Camus

>"Nothing is unchangeable but the inherent and inalienable rights of man." --Thomas Jefferson

'Like' Curtisedwardclark.com on Facebook
© Curtis Edward Clark 2012

On the 20 Year Anniversary of Ruby Ridge

2012-08-21T22:30:00.000-07:00

Ruby Ridge energized the radical militarized part of the right wing in a way it had not been energized for years. Ruby Ridge was the event in which the U.S. government set out to determine whether a man who had bought land and moved his family there to get away from what he called a corrupt world, was "connected to" white supremacist or anti-government groups.

What libertarian--and even we Objectivists--are not opposed to the government? It seems that some of our 21st century objections come right from this wrongful use of government power that then turned to the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, where it killed 76 people, after a 51-day standoff, by accidentally starting their building on fire. These two events were cited by Timothy McVeigh as one reason for his part in the Oklahoma City bombing.

But no right wing sentiment is justification for taking the lives of other innocent people, as McVeigh did. Whether it is justification for killing certain guilty officers of the government in an act of revolution is yet another question. During the American Revolution there were patriotic Americans who detested the acts of the British government, but rationally set forth their reasons to say it wasn't enough for a revolution.

Yet, short of killing specific government officers guilty of acting with disregard toward the Constitution, what other means do the American people actually have for unseating an evil government? How can America have its own 'Arab Spring'?

Sara Weaver, one of the survivors of Ruby Ridge, said she is devastated each time someone commits a violent act in the name of Ruby Ridge. "It killed me inside," she said of the Oklahoma City bombing. "I knew what it was like to lose a family member in violence. I wouldn't wish that on anyone."

Ms. Weaver, who's older brother was killed by officers in an ambush, and who's mother was killed as she opened her front door while holding one of her babies, by a bullet to the head by one of the government snipers, did not say it was wrong to kill innocent people, as McVeigh had done. Weaver only talked about losing family members in violence. One is not the same as the other. McVeigh was clearly wrong; but was the government? A wrongful death settlement left Ms. Weaver and her sister each $1million. Today the survivors would ask for more, much more.

The Whiskey Rebellion was the first instance of the government using its force against Americans opposed to its use of power. During President Washington's first term Alexander Hamilton needed to raise money to pay federal debts, and persuaded Congress to pass an excise tax on the manufacture of whiskey. The tax was resisted, as it appeared that the eastern "big business" whiskey producers were being favored. When a taxman went to one area of western Pennsylvania, more than 500 armed men resisted. This should have been a wake up call to the new government that it was doing something wrong, but it didn't work. President Washington told the States to call out their militia to quell the resistance, and then he rode at the head of those forces, 15,000 strong. What better demonstration of government force than to have the President lead the army against you?

This use of federal armed power against Americans was one of the reasons for the formation of Jefferson's Democratic-Republican Party, which later repealed the tax. And now we have the spectacle of President Obama's National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), signed into law Dec. 31, 2011. "President Obama [ ] will forever be known as the president who signed indefinite detention without charge or trial into law,” said Anthony D. Romero, ACLU executive director. The President can put you or I into jail indefinitely, without a cause presented to us and without an attorney--if he alone says so.

There is currently a preliminary federal injunction blocking its enforcement. Truth-Out.org said, "US District Court Judge for the Southern District of New York Katherine B. Forrest agreed [that a part of the NDAA would prevent journalists from talking to the enemy]. In a 68-page opinion, she wrote [that journalist Chris] Hedges' and his co-plaintiffs fears that section 1021 could impact their First Amendment rights are 'chilling,' 'reasonable' and 'real'."

But it could be used against you, me, our neighbors, our family members as well, if the President--and the President alone has the authority--decides that an American citizen, anywhere in the world including in our own home, was:

"a person who was a part of or substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners, including any person who has committed a belligerent act or has directly supported such hostilities in aid of such enemy forces,"

These fears are 'chilling,' 'reasonable' and 'real' because neither Congress nor the president defined the terms 'substantial support,' 'associated forces' or 'directly supported', not to mention that neither al-Qaeda nor the Taliban can always be easily identified, and that a 'belligerent act' could be anything, including spitting on the sidewalk in a display of your disdain.

President Obama is energizing most of the right wing, both of the sort that has religious sensibilities, and the sort that says their guns will have to be taken from their cold, dead fingers. But he's not where the trouble began; he's only the trouble we elected.

We must stand for our state's sovereignty, our unalienable rights, above all for our individualism against the behemoth that is flying drones in our skies above us, and that is listening to our every phone and internet conversation for the secret words that trigger an investigation to determine whether we are 'connected to' this, that, or the other thing, or whatever it wants to call a 'belligerent act'.

'Like' Curtisedwardclark.com on Facebook
© Curtis Edward Clark 2012

Proof Nobody 'Gets It' About Economy

2012-08-19T22:30:00.000-07:00

Mitt Romney, replying to a question by Gayle King on CBS This Morning said, "Well, of course, we have to have regulation on Wall Street and on every street to make sure that our economy works well..."

Do we, Mr. Romney? We cannot call our system 'free enterprise' when that phrase, meaning an economy run by the forces of the market place, is instead run by political ideology. It doesn't matter if we mean your ideology or Obama's or Marx's. If an economy isn't free of politics, then you can't use the phrase.

On the self-declared Marxist website Political Affairs, author John Case discussing science-based economics wrote, "You cannot ever make economics non-political." However, he then goes on to explain how libertarian, Austrian-school economics is not political. He even states unequivocally that "The 'Austrian School' is the opposite of a data or evidence driven framework." Case cites Paul Samuelson's Keynesian economics as "a more scientific framework for economics." Case doesn't like libertarian economics.

Austrian economics is exactly the opposite of government's Keynesian-driven 'evidence', dealing exclusively instead with business evidence, the kind business people deal with on a sometimes hour-by-hour basis. Business professionals make decisions based on whatever they need to know when they need to know it, such as the rising prices of their materials or the falling price of their goods, or of their competitor's goods; the cost of transportation; the cost of labor, etc. These are not the things about which a government should worry; in fact, a government which protects men's rights ought to stay completely away from the things business professionals need to worry about.

A free nation needs to worry about protecting society from men who set out to bilk victims and receive ill-gotten gains, not about men working within legitimate market forces. Artificially affecting market forces makes the economy less able--in some cases impossible--to operate. When a government manipulates market forces using the evidence it chooses to see, it has no objective basis on which to set those manipulations. What objective standards could it possibly use since it is not operating a business?

As one example, should government help the trucking industry maintain status quo rates to prevent drivers from being laid off, or leave it alone so that producers can ship more cheaply, thereby creating more jobs or paying workers more (or both)? How can competition properly lower production and consumer prices, when government helps trucking companies maintain their current rates instead of letting market forces determine those?

But not even the conservatives like Romney seem to get this fact. Paul Ryan is nothing more than a conservative who attracts Tea Party labeling by being less progressive. Romney's desire to 'regulate every street' makes him sound very threatening. Does he mean such things as retaining the corn ethanol requirements, part of the Renewable Fuels Standard, that caused farmers to sell or slaughter livestock this summer because corn became so expensive when the drought prevented corn and wheat from growing? Using corn for ethenol is predicted to cause the price of our food to rise by as much as 14% in 2013.

(Read how farmers switched from growing white corn to yellow corn, "making the base of most Mexican foods unaffordable." What happens in one place, affects other places. Should things be affected by honest markets, or political ideologies?)

Economist Richard M. Salsman wrote in The Objective Standard, "There is a lagged influence between academic economics and public policy, but increasingly since the 1970s academic economists have recognized that free markets work, that 'market failure' reflects poorly defined and ill-protected property rights, and that boom-bust cycles and sapped prosperity are consequences of bad public policies."

He uses as examples of 'academic economists' the Nobel Prize winners F. A. Hayek of the 'Austrian-school' of economics (1974), the idea of 'monetarism' from Milton Friedman (1976), 'rational expectations' from Robert Lucas (1995) and Thomas Sargent (2011), the 'public choice' of James Buchanan (1986), and of supply-side economics by Robert Mundell (1999).

These are the economics that John Case and other Marxists, and progressives like President Obama and Hillary Clinton, abhor. Let's see whether Romney and Ryan come anywhere near such "academic" standards as those which advocate a really free economy.

'Like' Curtisedwardclark.com on Facebook
© Curtis Edward Clark 2012

Is There Originalism in the Tea Party?

2012-08-15T05:59:00.000-07:00

Now that fiscal conservative Paul Ryan has been chosen as Mitt Romney's choice for VP, I think this is a good time to republish this article from last year. There seem to be many who think that because Ryan says he is a fan of Ayn Rand, that it means he is automatically some sort of laissez-faire radical. The fact is that in a recent FOX interview with Britt Hume, Ryan stated Rand had inspired him, but that that he is 'opposed' to her 'atheistic philosophy'. That is certainly not a rejection of her philosophy, but only of her atheism, because her atheism did not propel her economics or her support of individual sovereignty. But Paul Ryan is no Objectivist, any more than Alan Greenspan, who walked away from his Objectivist roots before he took the job of Chair of the Federal Reserve.
A good reference about this subject is at The Objective Standard, a publication that does not appear to be associated with any other Rand-oriented institutions.

I am not ready to say whether or not anyone in the Tea Party has Originalist interpretations which they have or have not stated. I just don't know, yet. I questioned the office of Ron Paul, and the office of a locally-elected member of Congress, but as yet have gotten no response from either office. [And I never did.]

In March of 2010 the New York Times published an article about the lack of social issues in the Tea Party agenda. "The motto of the Tea Party Patriots, a large coalition of groups, is 'fiscal responsibility, limited government, and free markets.'....But the focus is also strategic: leaders think they can attract independent voters if they stay away from divisive issues."

In December of 2010 Suite 101 published this: "The Tea Party is a grass-roots movement in favor of smaller government, fiscal conservation, and an originalist interpretation of the Constitution."

The Atlantic said Tea Party members are "by and large, social conservatives, not social libertarians," and "In fact, it seems that the main intellectual solution offered, and problem posed, by the Tea Party movement is the connection between government spending and personal liberty."

That, for me, is the rub, especially if it is true--that the Tea Party sees their freedom only (or mostly) in fiscal conservatism, rather than in uprooting the anti-Constitutional legislation of coercion that has been allowed to survive not only debate, but to survive through various courts including the Supreme Court.

Why is it OK for members of the Tea Party to authorize or approve the spending of money on the dole if it is simply less money, enough less to make them happy to spend any at all? In other words, why is it OK to spend $5 trillion on Medicaid if it isn't OK to spend $15 trillion? Why is it OK to spend $500 million on a State's food stamp program, when they don't think its OK to spend $900 million? Where (and why) does the subjective line exist?

It is a subjective line, because there should be no line. Charity exists where charity is felt, not by local or State officials who have no right to redistribute what Peter has to feed Paul. It exists where concerned individuals and charitable institutions exist to feed, clothe, house, and give medical care to 'Paul'. That would be an Originalist interpretation, not necessarily on all government charity, but on such programs as social security, which is enforced on both employees and employers, yet which pays so little after retirement that anyone living only from that finds themselves in the poor column when compared to their wage-earning or pension-earning neighbors.

It wouldn't make it 'more Constitutional' if they were not in the poor column of government recipients. If our society was geared toward finding the solution to retirement income that is neither forced upon employees nor employers, a solution that does not redistribute wealth nor force anyone to set aside money but rather sets high standards of inducement for saving toward retirement, then the Constitutionality of such inducements would be the question.

But it is a Constitutional issue when only the cost/benefit ratio, or even simply the cost itself, is at issue rather than the law which makes the matter an issue to begin with.

The Tea Party needs its Originalists to step forward, take at least some of the reins, and steer the party, slowly-but-surely if slowly is necessary, toward the Founding ideas, rather than just in the direction of subjective and very temporal ideas, ideas that change as the political pendulum swings. The 'grass roots' represented by the Tea Party should be more substantive than to be simply fiscally conservative.

'Like' Curtisedwardclark.com on Facebook
© Curtis Edward Clark 2012

Why I (Partly) Suport the Tea Party

2012-08-12T22:00:00.000-07:00

While I do not support the morally offensive religious views of most of the members of the Tea Party, the fact that they are the libertarian bulwark against conservative and liberal economic policies means that I do support them on the libertarian issues they address.

They represent the best hope for their claim to support

Fiscal Responsibility
Constitutionally Limited Government and
Free Markets

For that reason I am allowing their fundraising efforts to have a place in my blog today.
https://www.teapartypatriots.org/donations/?ref=HF89

I wrote last week on Tuesday that "It doesn't matter how large government becomes, when it's doing only what is proper to its powers according to the Constitution." Those three bullets above, properly administered, will still yield a larger government than the Founders could imagine, and larger than even Teddy R., FDR, or JFK could imagine. (I do see LBJ imagining how large his Great Society could get out of control.)

And so long as the Tea Party can successfully demonstrate they can accomplish what they set out to do, I will support them in any way I can.

'Like' Curtisedwardclark.com on Facebook
© Curtis Edward Clark 2012

'Network Society' Seems Anti-Individualistic

2012-08-09T22:00:00.000-07:00

It would seem natural to think that a phrase like the 'network society', even capitalized, would merely refer to a world connected by the links of computerized networks. To some extent that is true. Ericcson, the Swedish technology company, says on its website that the network "will fundamentally change the way we innovate, collaborate, produce, govern and sustain."

But something called the Centre for Personal Sovereignty claims that this network society "resembles laissez-faire capitalism combined with the better promise of Marxism."

First I would ask what the 'better promise' could possibly be if it is not the individual existing free of government interference in the market-workings of his enterprises. The term 'free market'...means free of government's aggressive force, said Reason Magazine. 'Regulation' of industry is often necessary, such as in labeling, where we don't want two products called 'aspirin', one of which is not acetylsalicylic acid; where we want to be assured that our meat is properly handled before packaging; where a Doctor has the necessary knowledge and competence to practice what we believe he says he can. But regulation of the market place, ala Marx, helps no one and hurts all.

This "network society" in general is not an economic system: "The impact of this revolutionary political system," the Centre says, "though today existing only in theory, can already be calculated."

Of course it can. I can calculate that because it is a political system that it will contain government interference, legal plunder and legally aggressive force. After all, it "maximizes market efficiencies" instead of letting the market finds its own way of doing that.

"Unlike capitalist systems," the Centre says, "in a Network Society the 'people' as individuals fully own their personal means of production. One's compensation is directly proportionate to one's value as we all become economic and political 'free agents'."

They also say "it also represents control over your own means of production - that is, you will learn to reap the full economic value derived from what you do, rather than giving that value to your boss. A business owner that earns a profit from the efforts of her employees will be reaping the excess rewards derived from the synergistic efforts of the entire group (1 + 1 = 3). This excess value represents the value of the owner's ability to orchestrate the efforts of independent parts towards a productive end."

This gobbeldy-gook of twisted language leave me with questions:

If you can still have a boss who "reaps the excess rewards", how is it different from capitalism?
If you still have a boss, how do you "fully own your personal means of production", and if you do, why pay anything to a boss, let alone have a boss?
How is the "synergistic" efforts of "the entire group" (what group?) any different from a normal workplace today?
If an employer is the one who knows how to "orchestrate the efforts of independent parts towards a productive end," why is s/he reaping "excess rewards"? How can they be "excess" when s/he is doing essentially what the owner of his "personal means of production" will be doing; is that person not also reaping "excess rewards"? In excess of what? In excess of who's rewards? Why can't someone keep all his own rewards?

It all reminds me of Ayn Rand's criticism of Kant, when she said he "originated the technique required to sell irrational notions to the men of a skeptical, cynical age." We are living in such an age, and the technique keeps going and going.

After all, it would seem that my blogging and authoring a book to be sold only on line for E-readers would be the very thing Ericcson and the Centre and others are discussing. But it scares me to think that they want to include what I do in their crazy scheme of "the better promise of Marxism."

'Like' Curtisedwardclark.com on Facebook
© Curtis Edward Clark 2012

Goulash Collectivism in the US

2012-08-07T22:00:00.000-07:00

It doesn't matter how large government becomes, when it's doing only what is proper to its powers according to the Constitution.

'Goulash collectivism' is the hodge-podge of the various political policies we live under, from LBJ's 'Great Society', from FDR's government employment of the unemployed, from JFK's altruistic "ask what you can do for your country"; to social security, to unending unemployment payments, to phony 'green' energy programs that destroy the oil and coal industries we still depend on, to our new insurance program of 'buy-it-or-get-taxed-for-not-doing-it' policy, to the over-all dogged and ferocious meddling by government in our lives.

That we are employing this goulash collectivism "is not just a fringe view," wrote Mark Trumbull, in The Christian Science Monitor. In a poll, "A majority said it should not be the government's role to redistribute wealth, and a majority said they prefer 'a smaller government providing less services'."

No, it is not just a fringe view, though it may be said that it isn't the left wing progressives who are going to admit it. But it is odd how those progressives can turn and twist the message of prior leaders to fit their own agenda. President Lincoln, said President Obama last year, told us "that through government, we should do together what we cannot do as well for ourselves." He wanted to establish that the redistribution of wealth (his words, not mine) was something we cannot do at all for ourselves--as if it was something that ought to be done in the first place.

While we should not even be trying to do such a thing for ourselves, should we doing it through government, and should a political leader turn the words of other leaders into what they were not meant to say? The things that people "cannot do, or cannot well do, for themselves, fall into two classes," Lincoln said. The first class "embraces all crimes, misdemeanors and non-performance of contracts. The other embraces all which...requires combined action, as public roads and highways, public schools, charities, pauperism, orphanage, estates of the deceased, and the machinery of government itself."

In the last few years the case has been made that Lincoln was a socialist. Even the politically libertarian Congressman Ron Paul has gotten into that act. But it is clear from the quote that our current President used Lincoln's words out of context. Lincoln also said, "I believe that every individual is naturally entitled to do as he pleases with himself and the fruits of his labor, so far as it in no way interferes with any other men’s rights." That is libertarianism, not socialism; it upholds the Ninth Amendment and the idea of individual sovereignty.

It's clear that the progressives could throw as many progressive-sounding quotes from Lincoln as anyone else could throw freedom-loving quotes, but it is another thing altogether to use a quote out of context.

And what is really out of context is a debate over the size of government versus its proper purposes, as were described by Lincoln. If a government is doing only what is proper to it according to the Constitution, it doesn't matter how large it becomes. If the Federal and State governments were doing only what is proper and Constitutional, governments would be larger than they are now if we had the same number of citizens as mainland China.

Yet, the very things that progressives advocate are social programs which Originalist readings show the Founders were entirely against. Until the "Affordable Health Care for America Act" was passed, the biggest social overhaul of government services and of social justice programs was the Great Society, the various acts passed by the progressive President Lyndon Johnson. His anti-poverty program was the most far-reaching piece of socialism in US history.

"Because it is right, because it is wise, and because, for the first time in our history, it is possible to conquer poverty," LBJ told us to justify his meddling. Through his "Economic Opportunity Act of 1964" he began to transfer money from those who had, to those who had not, from "each according to his ability, to each according to his need," just as Marx said ought to be done.

This is not the original purpose of any part of the Constitution, as described by any of the Founders, yet the poverty of those who receive it no worse than it was in 1776--except in comparison to those who are not impoverished. Poor is poor. Yet, the poverty guidelines for 2012 are $11,170 for an individual, while the average income for all Americans is $47,000. So 'poor' is measured as one-quarter of the average, while in the first years of our nation one-quarter of the average would have been a God-send. And yet James Madison said, "Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government." He saw the black-and-white of the meaning of the Constitution.

Thomas Jefferson, forecasting what Marx would later say was the proper thing, was more more on the moral mark than Madison, when he wrote, "To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.”

'Like' Curtisedwardclark.com on Facebook
© Curtis Edward Clark 2012

Individuals Are Not Sovereign, Obama Implies

2012-08-05T20:30:00.000-07:00

Individualism is the recognition that sovereignty, meaning one's ownership of one's self, is inherent from birth. These are the so-designated "self-evident truths". The purpose and legitimacy of a government, then, resides in its protection of individualism's opposition to both restraint by government, and by assistance from from it. Restraint violates the sovereignty of the restrained; assistance violates a person's sovereignty indirectly by violating the sovereignty of others for his or her sake. In today's political climate that is called variously 'social justice' or 'social equality', or more honestly 'distributive justice.'

"What [Obama] means by his slogan, 'You’re not on your own, we’re in this together,'", wrote The Objectivist Standard, "is that individuals are not sovereign and that government must dictate the means and terms of their lives."

The first hint that most of America got in regard to the President's disregard of sovereignty, was his now-infamous talk with 'Joe the Plumber'. This was when Obama told the man, who had asked him a question about his business plans, that his taxes might go up if he reached the $250K mark. "It's not that I want to punish your success," Obama was telling America. "I just want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they've got a chance at success, too."

We ought to have taken that presciently. Many did, including myself, but the left said 'pooh pooh, that isn't what Obama meant'. Now we know it is precisely what he meant. If more Americans had had their eyes and ears open in 2008, we could have seen that he has no idea how how business works, how individualism works, or how the Tenth Amendment works, all of which which the last four years have borne out.

"For the president of the United States to say that you didn’t do that, [that] you didn’t build your business, was a ‘Joe the Plumber’ moment of 2012," said Rep. Greg Walden, deputy chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee and former small business owner.

"Those persons and groups who oppose the devolution of authority from the central government to the states in the United States," wrote James Buchanan, "[place] other values above those of the liberty and sovereignty of individuals." Does Obama not do everything to show that he appreciates the evolution of authority from the individual to the central government? "[In] a large economy, characterized by liberty of resource flows and trade throughout the territory," Mr. Buchanan continued, the problem becomes how "to maximize the protected sphere of individual sovereignty."

Individual sovereignty involves every sphere of human activity, even such things as trade policy with other nations:
"US trade policy is almost always debated in terms of economic utility: Does free trade raise or lower incomes? Does it help or hurt U.S. industry? Does it create or destroy jobs? But behind the statistics and anecdotes lie moral assumptions about human nature, [and] the sovereignty of the individual." source

'Protecting the sphere of individual sovereignty' is certainly not what our President is about.

'Like' Curtisedwardclark.com on Facebook
© Curtis Edward Clark 2012

Intension and Extension, Part 2

2012-08-02T21:00:00.000-07:00

The 'intension' of any idea consists in the qualities or properties that are the substance[1] of the idea. See the first part in this series. For example, the Constitution, Article. I.Section. 1. states that "All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives." Taken in its entirety, the 'substance' of the Section is legislative powers, and what they shall be vested in.

Any 'extension' of an idea is dependent on the 'intension' for its substance. Section 2. states, "The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States," and in the substance of that there is no 'extension' of any idea that those elected cannot be women or blacks--nor, for that matter, Catholics or Muslims or "Hindoos", as Thomas Jefferson spelled it.

So for all practical purposes, 'intension' is the same as someone's 'intentions'; it merely has a semantic difference in the way philosophers of law use the word. The intension is necessarily in the words and syntax, if you are a textualist (also called a constructionist, from the 'construction' of the clauses and sentences.)

If you are an originalist, the intension is more likely to be in the meaning of those words and that syntax as they were meant when the text was written. That is called original expected application. If on the other hand you are of the belief that the intension should be based on what reasonable persons living at the time of its adoption would have said was the meaning, that is called original public meaning. The problem between these forms of originalism is that the writers of the Constitution, and those who took part in the debates, wrote extensively both before and after it was written. If you read what they wrote and you abide by what they wrote, you might be adopting original application, or you might be following the original public meaning. Reasonable persons living at the time were very well versed in what their intellectuals had to say. And many of those intellectuals said the intension was in the text, so that textualism and both forms of originalism melt into one when we try to interpret the Constitution.

"Originalism tends to favor a narrower definition of civil liberties than modernism does, so it generally permits more authoritarian laws," states a popular website. Obviously this is wrong, because the entire purpose of the Constitution was the promotion of the 'general Welfare' without infringing upon what all 'reasonable persons at the time' believed was the individual sovereignty of the individual. But it may be a common belief because since the time of at least the New Deal, Americans have been taught by their leaders that our Constitution was meant to guarantee 'positive' rights, that is grants, the creation of what does not exist under natural law; in other words, entitlements, not just of money, but of 'social justice'.

The belief in individual sovereignty was not a 'peculiar conceit' of Thomas Jefferson; rather, it was "the common assumption of the day." Jefferson himself has often been described as a strict constructionist, yet his thoughts on the proposed and real extensions of his time are used by originalists of both types, and by textualists.

It is true that individual sovereignty was commonly acknowledged. Sam Adams wrote that he feared misinterpretation of the Constitution would grow the power of the Federal government at the expense of the States and "sink both in despotism." "Those Virginians, such as Patrick Henry and George Mason," wrote Dr. Roger M. Firestone, "who argued most strongly for the Bill of Rights, knew that the individual would require defenses against the authority of the state."

Positive rights are extensions of the Constitution if you interpret it as a 'living document', meant to be read in the context of a modern world. Even then, you must ignore what those who lived during that period knew was the intent of the Framers--because the Framers told them their intent.

The only 'modern' part of the extensions since the New Deal (and some before that) is the loss of individualism in favor of authoritarianism, not the reverse as the quote above states.

[1] that by virtue of which a thing has its determinate nature source

© Curtis Edward Clark 2012
'Like' Curtisedwardclark.com on Facebook

Chick fil A Day Wasn't About Free Speech

2012-08-02T00:30:00.000-07:00

Yesterday at Chick-fil-A, part of the nation showed up to support either
1) free speech, or
2) the politics of anti-gay-marriage.

But when the mayor of three prominent cities say Chick-fil-A is not welcome in their cities, is it because the mayors have a deep seated belief in social equality, meaning they don't like the politics of a biased company against a large part of their constituency;

or is it really because they don't support free speech?

The Tea Party on Facebook reported, "The National Organization for Marriage, which opposes gay unions, urged a boycott when General Mills and Starbucks came out in favor of same-sex marriage."

So this doesn't seem like a free-speech debate to me. It seems totally politically-centered. Yet I know there must be some who went to a Chick-fil-A to support free speech.

Yet, who was actually saying it was a free speech issue? CNN reported that "now a population already sharply divided over same-sex marriage is collectively less informed about the First Amendment," adding that the Amendment "does not protect you from private individuals' negative reaction to your speech." Exactly. How do you separate the "free speech" from the message contained in it?

The Houston Chronicle said people were showing up to support the anti-gay-marriage view. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee dubbed it 'Chick Fil A Appreciation Day'. Do you think it was over the issue of free speech? This former Baptist minister-turned-mushy-conservative former Governor, US News.com said, "wrote that he was 'incensed at the vitriolic assaults' made on Chick-fil-A as a result of their stance against gay marriage." Those 'assaults' were not made because someone protested the right to free speech. USA Today.com said he wanted people to "get behind Chick-fil-A as the company takes a stand against same-sex marriage."

The Daily News of Los Angeles said the company's free speech wasn't at issue. Instead, it said, "If it's OK to choose between McDonalds and Jack in the Box based on which clown mascot you like better, it should be OK to choose between Chick-fil-A and its competitors based on the images their logos conjure up."

Well, speaking as a gay man, every person and every company has a right to free speech. And a call for a boycott is never a boycott against their right to say what they want; it's always about the substance of the speech. I will not eat anywhere that is against my natural law right to association-through-government-sanction. The wall of separation between church and state ought to extend also to marriage.

Individual sovereignty means freedom from government interference, and when we are not allowed to legally do what straight people do outside of a church, that is, get a civil marriage rather than a religious one, then there is no separation of church and state for anyone who is not heterosexual.

'Like' Curtisedwardclark.com on Facebook © Curtis Edward Clark 2012

TP Originalism Exists On the Back Burner

2012-08-01T00:30:00.001-07:00

This blog originally appeared April, 2011

Something I managed to miss concerning any connections between the Tea Party and Originalism was this:

Constitutional originalism is all the rage these days. In Congress, the new Republican House majority opened the session with a reading of the Constitution and a requirement that every proposed bill cite the specific constitutional authority on which it relies.[1]

No, I knew about the Opening Session--the one where they read the amended Constitution that omitted the part about slavery. The part I missed was about Constitutional originalism being 'all the rage these days'.

But I actually did miss this piece of information: "[Michele] Bachmann even brought Antonin Scalia to a seminar on the Constitution for members of Congress, where the Supreme Court justice instructed members to read the Federalist Papers and follow the framers' original intent."[2]

Sheila Kennedy commented on that article by David Shultz: "It's the sort of article that should be read by the very folks who won’t read it, because it actually takes one of the Tea Party’s avowed purposes—constitutional originalism—seriously. It’s hard not to see similarities between the way so many of these 'God and Country' zealots read the Constitution and the way they read the bible—very selectively."

Which brings me to an important point. Tea Party Originalism as a populist movement "that is decried in [Jill] Lepore’s work [as] the use of history that is '[s]et loose in the culture, tangled with fanaticism,” and designed to look 'like history, but it’s not.'"[3]

Is this entirely true? As the co-author of a new book on the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, Thomas McAfee says "I can say confidently that the new national health care system does not produce a 'government take over' of the health care system, let alone of the entire economy. [ ] If Congress was not empowered to pass national health care reform, it is difficult to conceive how it could have been empowered to enact the law establishing Medicare."

What I'm thinking is, "Really, Professor McAfee? You don't see where 20th century Progressivism might have had something to do with it?" Tibor Machan[4] pointed out to me that McAfee's belief is possible because Article 1, Section 8, the interstate commerce clause

"has been misinterpreted by many legislators and justices as if the term 'regulate' meant 'regiment' instead of 'regularize,' its original intended meaning."

When I pointed out the McAfee seemed to be dancing around that fact, Machan went on to write that McAffee was stating conventional wisdom in the "post-New Deal era" of constitutional jurisprudence. "The way this is made palatable," he wrote, "is to associate the pre-New Deal constitutional jurisprudence--substantive due process and such--with rulings that failed to overturn segregation, etc."[5]

     The point is this: there is much more Originalist thinking going on in the minds of the Tea Partiers than they they have been given credit for, but much of it may be faulty. I discovered many more links on the internet to the TP and Originalism than were referenced above.

But it seems that won't be happening in the Tea Party Patriots. I commented on their site that "The Tea Party needs its Originalists to step forward, take at least some of the reins, and steer the party, slowly-but-surely if slowly is necessary, toward the Founding ideas, rather than just in the direction of subjective and very temporal ideas, ideas that change as the political pendulum swings. The 'grass roots' represented by the Tea Party should be more substantive than to be simply fiscally conservative."

    The response I got from someone named 'McFixit1' was, "That is going on behind the scenes. The state Coordinators and the Admin get together every week to refine the direction and the cause celebre' so to speak based on the genreal (sic) concensus (sic) of opinion of the general membership. Right now the focus is directed towards everything we need to accomplish to win the 2012 election and remove every Progressive running from office. My Opinion, is that the leadership believes the members can make better value judgments on a local level."

    So, if McFixit1 speaks for others, (there were no other responses but his, so can I presume he speaks for others?) the idea is to forget principles, subjectively reduce spending, then replace "their guys" with "our guys".

    Good plan.

[1] New York Times Week In Review January 8, 2011

[2] Salon "What 'original intent' would look like": David Shultz
[3] Thomas McAfee ; McAfee Machinations: Taking the Constitution Seriously
[4] Tibor Machan or this. See also 'Recommended Reading' list, left side column
[5] personal correspondence

© Curtis Edward Clark 2012
'Like' Curtisedwardclark.com on Facebook

Social Justice

2012-07-30T00:30:00.000-07:00

'Social justice' is also called 'distributive justice' by those who don't mind the word association problem. At least they are intellectually more honest than those who hide behind the word 'social'. The Washington University Law Review is one of the honest, posing the question, "What should be redistributed?"

The National Association of Social Workers proudly says: "Peace is not possible where there are gross inequalities of money and power, whether between workers and managers, nations and nations or men and women." I would say peace between them and sovereign individuals is not possible when they must use the force of their political power to 'distribute' money and power.

"Let me offer you my definition of social justice: I keep what I earn and you keep what you earn. Do you disagree? Well then tell me how much of what I earn belongs to you – and why?" Walter Williams

Amen. Just tell me how much of what I have is yours to 'distribute', for the purpose of your 'justice'--a justice which is unnatural by the laws of nature which oblige everyone who consults reason to the proposition that no one ought to harm another in his life, liberty, property, or health. (See John Locke)

A 'socially just' website, Buzzle.com, clearly states that "In a socially just society, there is equal distribution of wealth and property." By whom, and through the use of what force of power, is this to be achieved; and who gave the right to those who will effect the distribution?

The progressive position does not believe in individual sovereignty (IS). IS is not a road to total anarchy; the progressives don't like anarchy either because it leaves them with no power at all. But IS is Locke's idea of the individual being the source from which all governmental power is derived. I as an individual do not have the power to tax my neighbor for the 'general welfare' of paving the street so that we don't all get stuck in the mud. But government must have the power of building infrastructure.

When in a complete state of nature, I have the right to seek retribution upon anyone who does harm to my life, liberty, property (which metaphysically only is also my family members) or my health. But individuals are often cruel, literally taking an eye for an eye when that is not the right solution. Governments are formed to deal with this also.

Governments are not formed to take part of my wages or part of my home, as was demonstrated in Soviet Russia and depicted in the movie 'Dr. Zhivago'. That solution to homelessness is the logical extreme of progressive socialism--but so is the health care act. That is what Americans said about it when they rejected it in its first form--Hillary care. The dialectics of President Obama's speech patterns and the use of taqiyya to get what he wants led us to where we now stand, in all roads political and economic.

'Justice' cannot be separated by economics, because the distribution of economic elements from one individual or class to another class (never to another individual) is totally foreign to a Constitution that was written to protect the smallest minority, the individual.

See my local newspaper opinion on this subject.

The Extension and Intension of the Constitution

2012-07-27T00:30:00.000-07:00

We must begin this discussion with the definition of the words in the title:
"The intension of a concept consists of the qualities or properties which go to make up the concept. The extension of a concept consists of the things which fall under the concept; or, according to another definition, the extension of a concept consists of the concepts which are subsumed under it (determine subclasses)" source

The intension of the Constitution is, therefore, the qualities or properties which go to make up the concept. What is the concept? It is supremely simple, and in two parts: the first quality is that of a government more able to deal with national problems than the Articles of Confederation allowed for; and the second property was to make a government less able to violate the rights of minorities. The second quality was the biggest intensional concern of James Madison, Patrick Henry and others, and it is the one that has seen its extensions go awry, since the era of the New Deal.

The extensional parts are the subclasses of the intensions; they are the things which 'fall under' the concept(s). Article 1, Section 2 explaining the composition of the Congress, is therefore an extension of Section 1, explaining that there shall be a Senate and a House.

"The Constitution does not give you rights," explains the Constitutionality Crisis. "The founders considered your rights to be 'God-given' or 'natural rights' — you are born with all your rights. The constitution does, however, protect your rights by:

Limiting the powers of government by granting to it only those specific powers that are listed in the Constitution; (This has not proven to be effective of late.)
Enumerating certain, specific rights which you retain. These are listed in the Bill of Rights." [emphasis in original]

The Constitution, in turn, is an extension of John Locke's famous intensional statement about the state of nature specifically, that it "has a Law of Nature to govern it, which obliges every one: And Reason, which is that Law, teaches all Mankind, who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his Life, Health, Liberty, or Possessions. [John Locke, The Second Treatise of Civil Government, §6] [emphasis in original]

But more than that, our coveted Bill of Rights are the extensions of the entire concept for the limitation of the powers of government, and the empowerment of the individual. "The whole of the Bill is a declaration of the right of the people at large or considered as individuals…It establishes some rights of the individual as unalienable and which consequently, no majority has the right to deprive them of." –Albert Gallatin, 1789, New York Historical Society

The original statements of the Founders give us their intent for ratifying the words they used. Why did they say this, and say it that way instead of the other way or another way? But epistemological intension is like a definition of a genus, whereas extension is like the definition of a species. The genus of the Constitution is that of a document never seen before then, one that had two part, the way 'man' is defined as 'rational animal'. The two parts are to be an enabler of individualism, and a limiter of government.

Madison warned us of wrongful extensions of the limited powers given to government, and named many that we see today. Congress might, he said, "establish teachers in every state, county, and parish, and pay them out of the public treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the union, they may assume the provision for the poor; they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post roads; in short, every thing from the highest object of state legislation, down to the most minute object of police, would be thrown under the power of Congress [ ] and might be called, if Congress pleased, provisions for the general welfare."

These things are so commonplace that we do not even think about some of them as being usurpations by the nation upon the powers of the States; or worse, usurpations on your individual sovereignty, which was a commonly held extension of the purpose of the limitation on government.

Next Friday I will examine some others in detail.

© Curtis Edward Clark 2012

Obama and Charity

2012-07-25T00:30:00.001-07:00

"What is going to become of our charities if almost 33% of it dries up simply because of Washington's policies?"

Doesn't the 'general welfare' clause of the Constitution mean that the Federal government is empowered to dole out charity? James Madison, the principle author of the Constitution, said that the welfare clause is "qualified by the detail of powers (enumerated in the Constitution) connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators." [emphasis added]

"I cannot find any authority in the Constitution for public charity. [To approve the measure] would be contrary to the letter and spirit of the Constitution and subversive to the whole theory upon which the Union of these States is founded."
President Franklin Pierce's 1854 veto of a measure to help the mentally ill

There are dozens of direct references to charity and other welfare by the Founders. And it is clear from the hundreds of other references they made about the meaning of this or that word or clause of the Constitution exactly what was intended when they wrote it. But one thing is undeniably clear about Americans: they are willing to see the 'spirit of the law' in the letter of the law, and usually it is not a 'spirit' put there, nor accepted, by the people who gave it to us.

"Until the New Deal era [charity] was known not to be an enumerated power nor one reasonably implied by the 'necessary and proper' clause and therefore considered unconstitutional. Yet around the time of the New Deal, government began overlooking this clear unconstitutionality" Is Welfare Unconstitutional?

"The fiscal year 2013 White House budget specifies that the federal tax deduction for charitable contributions be reduced to a maximum of 28% for married couples with income over $250,000, and single individuals with incomes over $200,000." source

But that White House policy is harmful. In 2009, 89% percent of American households gave an average of $1,620 to charity annually; it was $308 billion in 2008, accounting for 2.2 percent of our GNP), higher than any other country in the world. "This clearly shows America does not have a charity problem--and shows that Americans are fully capable of giving away their own money to good causes." source

Now compare that to the FY2013 Budget, in which we clearly see that Mr. Obama would prefer the Federal government be the major contributor to the health and welfare of Americans:

"This budget would reduce the value of the charitable deduction for certain individuals, effectively subjecting them to pay taxes on money that they give to charity instead of using it to benefit themselves. [G]iving by households with $200,000 or more in income would have decreased by $820 million in 2009 and by $2.43 billion in 2010 had the administration’s proposal been in effect." source [emphasis added]

"Before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, which led to nearly $3 billion in donations for victims' families, donations because of large-scale disasters were measured in millions--not billions....an unprecedented $7.37 billion in donations to disaster relief groups in 2005." source What is going to become of our charities if almost 33% of it dries up by 2015 simply because of Washington's policies?

© Curtis Edward Clark 2012

Obama's Economic Collective

2012-07-23T00:30:00.000-07:00

President Obama's recent remarks about how people didn't do things on their own is not the first time he has slammed individualism, and raised the specter of a collectivist-thinking mind. "If you’ve got a business," he said, "you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen," he said, in his now famous remarks on interdependency.

In December of 2011, at a speech in Osawatomie, Kansas, Obama said that a free market "speaks to our rugged individualism and our healthy skepticism of too much government." But he followed that by saying, "It doesn’t work. It has never worked."

He went on with other remarks:

"We simply cannot return to this brand of 'you’re on your own' economics if we’re serious about rebuilding the middle class in this country."
'It results in an economy that invests too little in its people and in its future."
" I’m here in Kansas to reaffirm my deep conviction that we’re greater together than we are on our own."
"Factories where people thought they would retire suddenly picked up and went overseas, where workers were cheaper."

These remarks are the message of 'social justice' that the President has worked for his entire political life. But if you're not "on your own", where are you? Are you in a work environment made impossible for management by government regulations?

How does an economy "invest in its people"? I worked in a profit-sharing company where the idea was that we were greater together. But the slackers always lowered my shares and sometimes left me with nothing. If I had owned my own shop and my own welder I would have made more money, so how was standing in that factory part of being something "greater"?

And the only reason for a factory to go where wages are cheaper, is because something is preventing them from paying lower wages here, thereby keeping the jobs here. You can't have that fact both ways. It's either-or.

The President wants an America in which everyone plays by the same rules, as he said in his 2012 State of the Union Address, which was--over and over again--about 'economic fairness'. Yet, he injects tax-payer's money into companies he likes, in order to change the competition in the supply-and-demand market.

Like all good progressives Mr. Obama wants to see the playing field change. So is must be asked, what does he think is happening when an upstart company makes big inroads into someone else's industry? The only true 'economic justice' to be had is when the distribution of capital moves from what the buyers wanted to what they want now. That is not something that can be forced by government. E-85 was mandated by the Alternative Motor Fuels Act of 1988, 24 years ago. Yet in most parts of the nation, you have to go online to look for stations that sell it.

What if government could force a market to rise from little—or from nothing? "We are all painfully aware of the Soviet style mandate that requires 10% of petroleum to be comprised of ethanol. This unconstitutional mandate has killed jobs, driven up the cost of fuel and food, lowered gas mileage, and damaged car engines," said RS RedState.

Power Industry News wrote that "The Environmental Protection Agency has slapped a $6.8 million penalty on oil refiners for not blending cellulosic ethanol into gasoline, jet fuel and other products. [C]ellulosic ethanol does not exist. It remains a fantasy fuel. EPA might as well mandate that Exxon hire leprechauns. So far this year, just as in 2011, the supply of cellulosic bio fuel in gallons totals zero." [Emphasis added]

Is it fair for a President--or anyone who controls the tax purse--to determine what should be forced on the unconsuming public? Do you not think that $6.8M penalty doesn't mean jobs are lost? What about a safe pipeline not allowed from Canada, and wells not drilled in the Gulf, and ore mines not mined in Alaska? Why are those concepts of 'economic justice' the very sort this President destroys?

If the rules of the market do not "speak" to rugged individualism, why destroy individualism? Why not destroy the rules that prevent individualism in the market? Why not create rules that allow competition?

Obama's Practice of Taqiyya-style Lying

2012-07-18T00:30:00.000-07:00

Islamicdictionary.com defines 'taqiyya' as "Dissimulation - to conceal, partially conceal or disguise one's true feelings, beliefs or information when there is threat of death or serious harm and when there is a threat of great evil."

"In practical terms," says Islam Watch, "it is manifested as dissimulation, lying, deceiving, vexing and confounding with the intention of deflecting attention, foiling or pre-emptive blocking. It is currently employed in fending off and neutralising any criticism of Islam or Muslims"

From a description provided by a website about deception, lying is something practiced by many people in all cultures. "A sociopath is typically defined as someone who lies incessantly to get their way and does so with little concern for others. A sociopath is often goal-oriented (i.e., lying is focused - it is done to get one's way)."

The myth raised in 2007 that Obama was schooled in a radical madrassa does not change the fact that he did, in fact, go to an Islamic school. "[In] January 1968," said WorldNetWeekly, "Obama was registered as a Muslim at Jakarta’s Roman Catholic Franciscus Assisi Primary School under the name Barry Soetoro...After attending the Assisi Primary School, Obama was enrolled – also as a Muslim, according to documents – in the Besuki Primary School, a public school in Jakarta..." And according to Obama's own autobiography, "the teacher wrote to tell mother I made faces during Quranic studies."

This is not an effort to dismiss Islam. It is to make a connection, that Obama was in contact with other Muslims who must regularly practice 'taqiyya' as part of their culture, and he would have at least learned what it was, and as a boy might naturally have tried it.

But why would the American President need or want to resort to this form of false-hood? He would do it for the purpose of fending off and neutralizing any criticism of what he--and we--know to be the most progressive policies ever advocated.

Do not for one minute deny, if you are on the left, if you are a liberal or progressive, or a democrat, that Obama's are not the most progressive ideas in American history to be implemented. You are doing him a disservice if you deny it. Give him credit for doing what you have always wanted in American politics.

But Mr. Obama knows of what he speaks, and because he knows, he must use the tactics of dissimulation that he must have heard over and over again living in Indonesia. His two Islamic fathers may have used the tactic in his presence.

So let's name one, specifically that pledge he made over and over again, that if the health care bill passed you would be able to keep your health care and your doctors. Given the ideas contained within the bill, many right wing and independent critics said it could not happen, that many people would lose their plans or their doctors or both.

In January of 2010--2010, mind you, the President said, "I think that some of the provisions that got snuck in might have violated that pledge." [emphasis added] Aside from the fact that nothing was snuck past us, but rather Speaker Pelosi said we had to pass it "to see what is in it," there were people who wrote things that made the President's pledge false, and the White House had to know it. The website Scared Monkeys asked, why the President was not more upset about it. "Wouldn’t one think the reaction would be outrage and that he would get to the bottom of this reprehensible action perpetrated on We the People?"

No, he would not be more upset, because making the pledge in the first place was a dissimulation tactic intended to make those who sat on the fence feel a little softer about having their health care messed with. If you were one of those who had no health care, you wouldn't necessarily care if others could keep their plans and doctors, so long as you got a plan and a doctor.

What Mr. Obama sees as truly reprehensible is an axiom of progressive politics--that 'positive rights' (as opposed to negative rights) are natural human rights--has been allowed to go unfulfilled in the area of health care. Don't forget that Hillary Clinton also describes herself as progressive, and that President Bill Clinton's 1997 health care plan was dubbed 'Hillary care' because it was she who did all the behind-the-scenes work to put it together.

In 2010, Medicare said healthcare costs would nearly double to $4.5 trillion by 2019, accounting for 19.3 percent--almost a fifth--of our GDP. But by June, 2011, health care spending reached an all-time high of 18.2 percent. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that this percentage will double again over the next 25 years to 31% of GDP.

If you were a 'goal-oriented' President trying to endow government-sponsored 'rights' upon a nation, wouldn't you use a lot of deflecting, foiling or pre-emptive-blocking-taqiyya in your speeches?

And why wouldn't anyone try to demonstrate before nearly 4 years had passed, that you constantly used the art of dissimulation?

© Curtis Edward Clark 2011

A Proposed Amendment to the Constitution

2012-07-16T00:30:00.000-07:00

Limited Powers Amendment to

The Constitution of

the United States of America

"The government of the United States nor the governments of the several States have, nor shall be allowed, power not enumerated to them or power denied to them by the Constitution or by any of its Amendments."

Discussion: Does this proposed Amendment adequately treat of the problem of encroachment by the Federal government on the right of the States; and does it adequately treat of the problem of encroachment on the rights of individuals by the States?

Political Animals

2012-07-13T18:38:00.000-07:00

"Political Animals" is a new TV show described by its network as a "polished facade of a former first-family as they navigate the complex world of political and personal ambition." Its network, USA, would like us to think "Political Animals" is going to be the hottest summer replacement series of the year. But who is going to be watching it?

The problem isn't who it stars. Sigourney Weaver, no Meryl Streep, is still an engaging actress, nonetheless. James Wolk is a hot young leading-man type. Ciaran Hinds is always interesting. No, it isn't the actors that will cause this mini-series to fail in the ratings; it's the story line.

There are few left-progressive radio stations, and the major networks like Air America are gone, though they are prolific on the internet. But the fact is, the left, the liberals, the progressives do not pay much attention to their own programming, not compared to the right wing. 53 million people in the U.S.listen to Talk Radio. (source: Arbitron Radio Today, 2009) while 91% of talk radio programs are conservative. (source: Structural Imbalance of Talk Radio, Center for American progress and Free Press, 2007)

More recently according to Joanne Ostrow in the denverpost.com in January of this year, "Conservative talk radio rules 90 percent of the political airwaves today."

Are the Tea Party patriots and the conservatives going to watch Sigourney portray a fictional version of Hillary Clinton, whose TV husband portrays a lecher, and whose TV son portrays the first openly gay First Son in the White House?

Do you think the left is going to watch? Why bother? They already have the real things, but they won't watch it on TV anymore than they will listen to it on the radio.

USA's producers must be strange political animals themselves, to think this is going to go over with any segment of the viewers large enough to make them do it again. It's just political theater they are engaging in, and I find left wing theatrics to be lacking in anything that would engage my mind, anyway.

© Curtis Edward Clark 2012

2011-05-13T05:31:00.000-07:00

From the New York Times (but it could have been from any publication, and I heard it from the lips of commentators before I read it):

"For the last three years, federal agencies have backed new mortgages as large as $729,750 in desirable neighborhoods...Without the government covering the risk of default, many lenders would have refused to make the loans.

"Michael S. Barr, a former assistant Treasury secretary, said the federal government’s retrenchment would be painful for many communities. “There’s always going to be a line, and for the person just over it it’s always going to be an arbitrary line. [ ] But there is no entitlement to living in a home that costs $750,000."

    In an economic climate of objective risk taking, the government wouldn't have a hand in it at all. It was the hand of government that created the "arbitrary line" of credit that came from Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae in the first place. There is no entitlement to owning a home, period.

    Well, we both know that isn't a correct statement: there is an entitlement, but there is no Constitutional right, and the entitlement is un-Constitutional.

    A "retrenchment" is precisely what is needed, and it will be painful. If you don't have enough equity to stake against buying a home, any home no matter the size or cost, then you don't objectively deserve to own such a home.

    Maybe in another market on another day the equity you hold would get you what you want. But if that day isn't today, the government can't make it so without trampling on the value of the equity of every other home owner.

    And that does have a "trickle down" effect, except as we've all seen, it's not a trickle, it is a torrent.

Visit the Atheist-AA Google Group

http://groups.google.com/group/atheist-aa