Still, and overall, the ruling will revive the eroded, immutable right to defend life, liberty and property. (The title of John Lott’s op-ed encapsulates exactly that: “Court’s Gun Decision An Important Win for Americans Who Want to Defend Themselves.”) This is a war. Progressives have left little of the original Constitutional scheme. A victory for natural rights in the rights-violating society we inhabit is a good thing. The good guys won. A toast to the patriots who fought the good fight: a besieged black man from Chicago and his lawyer.
Coverage has been hard to come by today on the passing of the DISCLOSE Act, with the exception of WND.COM and Fox News. Older reports were carried on Hot Air, and Politico. Where the Act was briefly mentioned, it was only to gloat that its passing dealt a defeat to Republicans. Credit goes to the HuffPo for this report.
[Amends] the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 to prohibit foreign influence in Federal elections, to prohibit government contractors from making expenditures with respect to such elections, and to establish additional disclosure requirements with respect to spending in such elections, and for other purposes.
As our reader rightly points out, Mark Levin ATTEMPTS to explains how the Disclose Act threatens the First Amendment, but he and his guest fumble hopelessly.
UPDATE (June 26): Contra Levin, the Campaign for Liberty gets it. This from their newsletter:
“Earlier today, the House of Representatives shredded the First Amendment by voting 219-206 to pass H.R. 5175, the DISCLOSE Act.
As hard as it is to believe, they made the bill (which should really be called the Establishment Protection Act) even worse in the hours leading up to the vote by including more provisions to benefit their Big Labor pals and to obtain further details on those opposed to their powergrabs.
Thanks to the actions of Campaign for Liberty members and other freedom-minded activists across the country, the vote on H.R. 5175 came down to the wire and was much closer than expected. Your pressure reminded them that we are serious about holding our elected officials accountable for their actions.
Matter of fact, your calls made such an impact that Campaign for Liberty was even mentioned on the House floor during the debate!
This vote is by no means the end of the fight, and the battle to protect Americans’ right to free speech and to keep the federal government from gathering even more information about us now moves on to the Senate, where the bill faces many challenges.
There are several steps you can take to ensure the Establishment Protection Act is decisively defeated in the Senate.
First, contact your senators right away and make sure they know we have not given up on this critical issue. Click here to find their contact information and urge them to oppose H.R. 5175 and all other attempts to curb free speech.
Next, call the NRA headquarters at 1-800-672-3888 and their Legislative Action group at 1-800-392-8683 and tell them to drop their compromise and actively oppose H.R. 5175.
Without their special deal with House leaders, DISCLOSE may have been stopped in its tracks before ever reaching the House floor in the first place.
Finally, please forward this email to your family, friends, neighbors, and coworkers so we can spread the message about the threat posed by the Establishment Protection Act.
Campaign for Liberty has enjoyed more success than the statists ever imagined possible, and they would love nothing more than to shut us down by going after our donors.
Let’s show them that the Freedom movement will never back down.”
That “Barack Obama is exceeding his legitimate constitutional authority” is not news. CNSNews.com: “The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution was ratified specifically to prevent the government from taking or redistributing private property without due process of law. The amendment says: ‘No person shall be … deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.'”
Michele Bachmann reminds us that BHO’s strong-arming British Petroleum to “set up an independent fund, not controlled by the company, for compensating victims of the Gulf oil spill”—this is in violation of the constitution’s “jurisdictional limits … on what the extent of executive power” should be. (I hope the congresswoman is not implying that if Congress, and not the president, decided to seize BP assets—why, that would be an entirely different matter.)
The conservative from Minnesota said she was particularly bothered by the call President Obama made Monday–later reiterated in his Oval Office address Tuesday night–for BP to set aside money for reimbursements to victims of the Gulf oil spill that would be administered independently, taking control of the money away from the company.
“Bachmann acknowledged the problem began under President George W. Bush with the creation of the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP).”
Socialism is not necessarily the ownership of the means of production. As usual, Bachmann is a beacon of light in pointing out that, “just because we don’t own an industry doesn’t mean that we don’t effectively control it, because we are in a lot of ways.”
The win “followed the defeat of an incumbent Republican senator, Robert Bennett of Utah, by conservative forces in that state. And it came after the recent decision by Gov. Charlie Crist of Florida to drop out of the Republican primary for Senate in the face of a surge by a Tea Party favorite, Marco Rubio.”
Not wishing to delve into the issues, and say unseemly, hick words such as “Constitution,” the New York Times has chalked the defeat of the establishment candidate to “A strong anti-Washington sentiment.” Of course they would.
Update I (May 19): “March with Martin Luther King, vote with Barry Goldwater.” Rand Paul vacillates about his opposition to the federal regulation of private property wrought by the Civil Wrong’s Act. This is the strict propertarian/libertarain position, apparently “repulsive” to mainstream America, claim NPR and RM. It cannot be denied that Rand Paul comes across as sour.
Part I
Part II
Update II (May 20): SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT, somewhat weakly, I think. Backing away from First Principles…
“I believe we should work to end all racism in American society and staunchly defend the inherent rights of every person. I have clearly stated in prior interviews that I abhor racial discrimination and would have worked to end segregation. Even though this matter was settled when I was 2, and no serious people are seeking to revisit it except to score cheap political points, I unequivocally state that I will not support any efforts to repeal the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
“Let me be clear: I support the Civil Rights Act because I overwhelmingly agree with the intent of the legislation, which was to stop discrimination in the public sphere and halt the abhorrent practice of segregation and Jim Crow laws.
“As I have said in previous statements, sections of the Civil Rights Act were debated on Constitutional grounds when the legislation was passed. Those issues have been settled by federal courts in the intervening years
“My opponent’s statement on MSNBC Wednesday that I favor repeal of the Civil Rights Act was irresponsible and knowingly false. I hope he will correct the record and retract his claims.”
“The issue of civil rights is one with a tortured history in this country. We have made great strides, but there is still work to be done to ensure the great promise of Liberty is granted to all Americans.
“This much is clear: The federal government has far overreached in its power grabs. Just look at the recent national healthcare schemes, which my opponent supports. The federal government, for the first time ever, is mandating that individuals purchase a product. The federal government is out of control, and those who love liberty and value individual and state’s rights must stand up to it.
“These attacks prove one thing for certain: the liberal establishment is desperate to keep leaders like me out of office, and we are sure to hear more wild, dishonest smears during this campaign.”
Update III:Civil Wrongs: When I allude to the Civil Rights Act, as I have every so often, it never occurs to me that for the reasoning advanced in these posts, I could be construed as a racist. Respectable scholars advance the same arguments: Richard A. Epstein, Forbidden Grounds: The Case Against Employment Discrimination Laws (Cambridge, Massachusetts & London, England, 1995), and Richard Pipes, Property and Freedom: The Story of How Through The Centuries Private Ownership has Promoted Liberty and the Rule of Law (New York, 2000).
I guess what I’m struck by is the incredulity and the indignation the cable cretins are expressing at Paul’s pretty standard, if hard-core, libertarian position. Dare I say that the founders held similar, if not identical, views about the sanctity of private property?
Update IV: Howard Fineman is one of the most detestable journos. Here’s howhe turns Rand Paul’s principled defense of private property into something dark and dreadful. This does not take skill, but a wicked sleight of hand:
“…Some of that old-time, race-based attitude—a Kentucky mix of romantic benevolence and cruel disdain (immortalized in D. W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation)—has seeped into the groundwater of the Tea Party. I attended one of its first rallies, in Louisville more than a year ago, and I saw on the ground some of the anti-busing elements of old there.
If Dr. Rand Paul doesn’t immediately apologize for holding his victory rally at a private club—and doesn’t abandon his opposition to the 1964 Civil Rights Act—then he will not only pollute the Tea Party, he will severely damage the GOP’s chances of winning control of either the House or Senate this fall.”
Update V (May 21): Writes Richard Spencer at AltRight (but what, for heaven’s sake, is HBD?):
As revealed by the above video, Rand is a proponent of a sunny-side up, left-libertarian version of American history.
Racial discrimination within public institutions should be stamped out; discrimination in the private sector, however, probably should not be, as this would entail a prying federal government and likely violations of multiple Constitutional amendments. But never fear! Racial discrimination isn’t just immoral, it’s bad business, and if the government just gets out of the way, all non-economic discrimination will come to an end on its own.
Through Rand certainly goes further than any other politician in criticizing Civil Rights, there’s a lot wrong with his view.
The argument that private businesses are more profitable when they serve everyone is often correct, particularly in a mass consumer society — though one shouldn’t forget that value is ultimately subjective. An entrepreneur might be able to charge higher prices, and receive more personal satisfaction, by operating a restaurant that caters only to whites (or Jews or Chinese or Indians), and he should have the right to do so.
Of course, instances of businesses refusing service are exceedingly rare….
