Category Archives: Constitution

UPDATED: ‘We Need To Do A Lot Less & A Lot Sooner Around The World’

Constitution, Foreign Aid, Foreign Policy, Ron Paul, War, Welfare

Rep. Ron Paul: “There is no authority in the Constitution for the welfare state, the warfare state, and the police state. … If you learn about, fight for and promote free-market economics, I can guarantee that you will sleep better at night; you will enjoy your life, and you will feel like you are doing something worth while. Defend liberty.” This innocent, impish, almost awkward man can make those tears well in your eyes.

UPDATE (Feb. 13): Patrick Cleburne of VDARE.COM has captured the mood at FoxNews as “Ron Paul Wins Presidential Straw Poll at CPAC – Again Feb 12, 2001”: bad-tempered.

Read on as to why Ron Paul is serious about sovereignty issues too; always has been.

Lincoln Lied, People Died

Constitution, Federalism, Founding Fathers, History, Republicans, States' Rights, War

The following is excerpted from my latest WND.COM column, “Lincoln Lied, People Died”:

“Tomorrow is Abraham Lincoln’s birthday. Familiar Lincoln idolaters will gather to celebrate the birth, on Feb. 12, 1809, of the 16th president of the United States and finesse his role in “the butchering business” – to use professor J. R. Pole’s turn-of-phrase. Court historian Doris Kearns Goodwin is sure to make a media appearance to extol the virtues of the president who shed the blood of brothers in great quantities and urged into existence the “American System” of taxpayer-sponsored grants of government privilege to politically connected corporations.

On publication, in 2002, of the book “The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War,” the “Church of Lincoln” gave battle. The enemy was the author, Thomas J. DiLorenzo, who had exposed Lincoln lore for the lie it was – still is. DiLorenzo had dared to examine the Great Centralizer’s role in sundering the soul of the American federal system: the sovereignty of the states and the citizenry.

Steeped as they were in the Lockean tradition of natural rights and individual liberty, the constitutional framers held that the unalienable rights to life, liberty and property were best preserved within a federal system of divided sovereignty, in which the central government was weak and most powers devolved to the states, or to the people, respectively, as stated in the 10th Amendment. If a state grew tyrannical, competition from other states – and the individual’s ability to switch allegiances by exiting the political arrangement – would create something of an agora in government. This was the framers’ genius.

The concentrated powers Lincoln sought were inimical to the founders’ loose constitutional dispensation.” …

The complete column is “Lincoln Lied, People Died,” now on WND.COM.

Assassinations Under US Auspices?

Constitution, Criminal Injustice, Foreign Policy, Intelligence, Iraq, Journalism, Justice, Law, Media, Middle East

I hope the failed assassination attempt on Omar Suleiman, Egypt’s vice president, recently appointed to quell the unrest in that country, is not a harbinger of things to come. I am thinking of the vulgar cellphone images that circulated the Internet, in which a stoic Saddam Hussein, noose about his neck, is heckled by a hooded Shiite executioner. Even more repugnant than the hasty hanging carried out under US auspices were the US-sponsored legal proceedings that preceded it. (All the obligatory denunciations of Hussein obtain here, naturally. Bad man. Bad man. Bad man.) That Tribunal, which was branded “made-in-America,” had more in common with the French Revolutionary Assembly (See “No Due Process For A Despot”).

Similarly, such a barbaric specter in Egypt (conjuring the French, and not the American, Revolution), will have been greatly inspired, like in Iraq, by American media screeches.

I worry because the US is not necessarily averse to hasty hangings, considering that the strongmen we betray may turn around and tell all: You know; the stuff about how they helped the U.S. with its rendition and torture programs.

UPDATED: Healthscare Halted?

Constitution, Democrats, Healthcare, Individual Rights, Individualism Vs. Collectivism, Justice, Law, Natural Law

“I must reluctantly conclude that Congress exceeded the bounds of its authority in passing the Act with the individual mandate,” Judge Roger Vinson writes. “Because the individual mandate is unconstitutional and not severable, the entire Act must be declared void.” (http://www.campaignforliberty.com/blog.php?view=40520) District Judge Roger Vinson hails form in Pensacola, Florida. He sided with 26 suing states.

Will those Senators who’re up for re-election in 2012 bring themselves to vote with their lower-chamber colleagues to repeal the thing? Will the same representatives admit that forcing an individual to purchase a product is wrong, and certainly beyond their mandate?

I doubt it. They’ll tell us that the (Rousseauist) common good, as defined by the state, takes precedent over the common man. We have not heard the last from Obama’s advancing Politburo Of Proctologists.

UPDATE: Vinson’s is really a beautifully written and reasoned Decision. It cleaves to the Constitution. Keith Olbermann’s proxies have begun to tarnish Judge Vinson as a judicial activist, whatever that means. Do these sound like unfair proceedings?

Both sides have filed strong and well researched memoranda in support of their motions for summary judgment (“Mem.”), responses in opposition (“Opp.”), and replies (“Reply”) in further support. I held a lengthy hearing and oral argument on the motions December 16, 2010 (“Tr.”). In addition to this extensive briefing by the parties, numerous organizations and individuals were granted leave to, and did, file amicus curiae briefs (sixteen total) in support of the arguments and claims at issue.

“… I conclude that the individual mandate seeks to regulate economic inactivity, which is the very opposite of economic activity. And because activity is required under the Commerce Clause, the individual mandate exceeds Congress’ commerce power, as it is understood, defined, and applied in the existing Supreme Court case law….”

AND:
The individual mandate is outside Congress’ Commerce Clause power, and it cannot be otherwise authorized by an assertion of power under the Necessary and Proper Clause. It is not Constitutional. Accordingly, summary judgment must be
granted in favor of the plaintiffs… ”

Also adjudicated was the state plaintiffs objection “to the fundamental and ‘massive’
changes in the nature and scope of the Medicaid program that the Act will bring about. They contend that the Act violates the Spending Clause [U.S. Const. art. I, § 8, cl. 1] as it significantly expands and alters the Medicaid program to such an extent they cannot afford the newly-imposed costs and burdens. They insist that they have no choice but to remain in Medicaid as amended by the Act, which will eventually require them to ‘run their budgets off a cliff.’ This is alleged to violate the Constitutional spending principles set forth in South Dakota v. Dole, 483 U.S. 203, 107 S. Ct. 2793, 97 L. Ed. 2d 171 (1987), and in other cases.5 Under Dole, there are four restrictions on Congress’ Constitutional spending
power: (1) the spending must be for the general welfare; (2) the conditions must be stated clearly and unambiguously; (3) the conditions must bear a relationship to the purpose of the program; and 4) the conditions imposed may not require states ‘to engage in activities that would themselves be unconstitutional.’ Supra, 483 U.S. at 207-10. In addition, a spending condition cannot be ‘coercive.’ This conceptional requirement is also from Dole, where the Supreme Court speculated (in dicta at the end of that opinion) that ‘in some circumstances the financial inducement offered by Congress might be so coercive as to pass the point at which ‘pressure turns into compulsion.’ … If that line is crossed, the Spending Clause is violated.”

[SNIP]

Left-liberals believe a judicial activist is someone who reverses precedent. Republicans think a judicial activist is someone who disobeys the President. That’s the sum total of how the two parties relate to the law.