Category Archives: Federalism

Updated: Who’s Stupid? Not Sarah

Conservatism, Elections 2008, Federalism, IMMIGRATION, Intelligence, Israel, John McCain, Just War, Media, Republicans, Sarah Palin, War

The following is an excerpt from my new WND column, “Who’s Stupid? Not Sarah.” It is the first in a series of three (unless the news cycle changes the plan):

“Governor Sarah Palin’s alleged lack of cerebral alacrity is probably less in doubt after the first Vice-Presidential Debate. Prior to that, a bipartisan consensus had been developing among the ideologically converging political class and their parrot pundits that she was indeed an idiot.

The biggest hitter was conservative columnist Kathleen Parker, who demanded that Governor Palin bow out of the race. “Only Palin can save McCain, the Party, and the country she loves. Do it for your country, please,” pleaded Parker histrionically.

How like a woman to implicate causes not in evidence for the country’s undoing.

Where was Sarah Palin when the Bush/Bernanke bulldozer was running up debts and deficits financed by promiscuous printing and borrowing? Whodunit? Who so debased the country’s coin? …

Sarah Palin … has an alibi. When these characters were gassing-up the economy with hot air, she was in Alaska getting her house in order. This does nothing to excuse Sarah’s subsequent sell-out, but it doesn’t put her at the original crime scene.

Elementary, my dear Ms. Parker: Palin quitting will not save your Party or the country.

…. At the very least, the developing consensus as to Palin’s aptitude, I venture, is premature. …”

Read the complete column, “Who’s Stupid? Not Sarah.”

Update: A reader sent this YouTube clip along with the comment, “Explain this about your precious Sara! [sic].”

He apparently had not understood my column, wherein I condemned Palin for turning her back on a laudable cause she and Tod once supported: peaceful secession, which is as American as apple pie. I’ll repeat what I wrote:

Palin slammed a cause she had, at one time, saluted: that of the Alaskan Independence Party. It advocates what was once a fundament of the American founding: peaceful secession. As leading economic historian Tom DiLorenzo has documented in rich detail, the Union was a voluntary one. If the states had believed it was a “one-way Venus flytrap,” they would never have ratified the Constitution.

“Sarah Palin: Palling Around With Secessionists” convinces me that by joining McCain, Palin has forfeited a previously held, laudable libertarian principle.

I urge the reader to read “Quebec May be the Guard of Our Ultimate Freedom” and “Raise a Toast to Western Separatism and Canada’s Good Health.” Since Sarah seemed to have once supported peaceful secession, I am all the more convinced that she was a patriot, and has sold her soul by adopting McMussolini’s creed.

Diablo’s Birthday

Constitution, Federalism, Political Philosophy

“Feb. 12 ought to mark the birthday not of an American icon, but of a man whose name should live on in infamy. If Americans want to reclaim their moral character as a nation, they will have to confront and denounce ‘The Real Lincoln,’ who carried out a violent constitutional revolution (instead of pursuing peaceful emancipation like every other nation did), a revolution, which, in turn, sired the modern imperialist, interventionist and highly centralized American State.

Let’s imagine, as the Lincoln-louts claim, that the Constitution ratified in 1788 forbade peaceful secession and authorized the federal government, which was supposed to have limited powers delegated to it by the people, to invade and occupy any seceding state, declare martial law, subdue the secessionists by force, burn and ransack entire cities, and then establish a military dictatorship over those states for a dozen years.

Let’s pretend that it was constitutional to intentionally wage war on civilians, blacks included, to imprison without trial thousands of Northern citizens, jail, even execute people who refused to take a loyalty oath to Lord Lincoln, shut down hundreds of opposition newspapers, incarcerating editors and owners, and generally suspend the Bill of Rights, the writ of habeas corpus and international law.

If it endorsed, or even accommodated what Lincoln did, including his ignoring of the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, and his violating of the Second, then the Constitution is categorically evil and self-contradictory.”

Updated: The New Republic’s Vilification of Paul

Elections 2008, Federalism, Journalism, Media, Ron Paul

The less said about the New Republic’s vile write-up about Ron Paul the better.
On Pajama Media is where I first saw the exuberantly celebrated link to TNR’s hit piece. Pajama Media is a conglomeration of some of the lowliest neocons in the production of cyberspace ejaculate. Ditto “The New Republic”— warmongers all. They’ve never been right in any of their policy forecasts, and are mad as hell that Paul’s predictions usually pan out.
The stuff spewed by the author, who is fast becoming known as “Pimples” for obvious reasons, masquerades as investigative journalism, when it is no more than an ad hominem attack. The various contentions—mostly that Paul is alleged to have made offensive statements about crime and demographics—are not relevant to the campaign issues; these attacks do not address the issues Paul speaks to, but are, rather, personal attacks without proof.
Since it’s hard to hate the impish, good-natured Paul, I suspect that in Paul, his opponents have found man who has led an exemplary life—he has served his country and community, stayed married to his childhood sweetheart for 50 odd years, and is as devout a Christian as he is a constitutionalist. His actions alone make him the man his detractors can never aspire to be.
Disclaimer: “Pimples” appears to believe that advocating secession, which is no more than a peaceful political divorce, is racist and hateful. So in the interest of full disclosure, here is a piece I wrote. It appeared in Canada’s National Newspaper, the left-leaning Globe And Mail. It celebrates Canadian secessionism. But then the title is self-explanatory: “Raise a Toast to Western Separatism and Canada’s Good Health.”
Paul has issued a statement addressing The New Republic smears. Here it is.

Update: I imagined Andrew Sullivan, having endorsed Rep. Paul, would act like a man, for once, and stand up for Dr. Paul. But no: Sullivan became hysterical over the allegations against Paul. A sulking Sullivan has announced he no longer feels the same about the candidate he once praised so highly. Shame.

Letter of the Week: Short and Sweet

Federalism, Government

In “It’s About Federalism, Stupid!,” I thought I had written a straightforward column, the logic of which every clear-thinking person, whatever his party, would follow. How wrong! I am still incapable of assessing the slavish fealty among my readers for the Republicans and those who “carry the water for them.”

The column is running again on WND over the week-end. Adjacent to it are letters berating—as opposed to debating—me.

E-MAIL TO THE EDITOR
Wanted: Conservative savior
Exclusive: Readers hammer one another, take columnist Ilana Mercer to woodshed
–WND

PLAY IT AGAIN, SAM
Exclusive: Ilana Mercer skewers Rush Limbaugh, calls for adherence to Constitution
All is not lost. Joe, a reader, absolutely gets it. His is BAB’ Continue reading →