Once again the Obama faction insults the historical heritage of the United States, and once again present day so-called Republicans (unworthy of the name) not only let them get away with it, they cravenly join in.
The Senate has now joined the House of Representatives in a vote purporting to apologize for slavery. Apparently, the current generation of sorry politicos is too ignorant, too stupidly self-righteous or too blatantly manipulative to remember the little episode in American history called the Civil War. As far as they are concerned Lincoln spoke in vain at Gettysburg when he honored the sacrifice of those who gave their lives during the war that ended law enforced slavery in the U.S.:
Now we are engaged in a great civil war…We are met here on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of it as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but can never forget what they did here.
With these profound words of truth literally carved in stone upon the record of our history, how can the soulless, self-serving and treacherous politicians in Congress today presume to do what Lincoln knew he could not: better the deeds- more sincerely eloquent than any hollow legislative resolution-of those who acted on the truth that there are rights worth fighting and dying for. Like Abel's in the first age of this fallen world, their lifeblood still cries out from the ground of every scene of Civil War battle. It reproves the nation conceived in liberty for the long persisted sin that betrayed the self-evident moral truths that made its conception possible. But it also proclaims the proof of ultimate repentance which merits God's forgiveness even while it renders superfluous every word and gesture of succeeding generations except those intended to prevent any repetition of that betrayal.
Yet this supposed apology comes from a Congress controlled by a Party ruthlessly committed to the evil practice of child murder, a more surely fatal betrayal of America's moral principles than slavery ever was. It comes from political spendthrifts who have bankrupted the nation and fastened upon future generations a burden of enslaving debt more inescapably onerous than physical chains. It comes from a Congress enacting socialist policies in every sphere that will make Government owned slaves of all Americans except favored politicians, bureaucrats and corporate moguls. They mean to make themselves the new masters and overseers not of one race only, but of all humanity.
Like the breakthrough election of one who only purports to be the first "African-American" President, this mimicry of repentance masks the restoration of the very evils it pretends to decry. We can only hope that Americans with common sense and some memory of our history will apply the lesson these treacherous destroyers of our liberty want us to forget: their actions speak so forcefully that their words serve no purpose- except to distract and to deceive.
The present Congress would do better to apologize for the slavery they are busily imposing upon us, with the one gesture that would be truthful and effective: resign en masse. Since they won't do it now, we should apologize for them in 2010.
Now I can safely cheer up.
Senator John Thune (R-SD) has introduced a bill he calls the "Government Ownership Exit Plan Act of 2009." At the site he has established to promote public support for the bill, he explains its purpose. "The government has taken unprecedented actions over the past 15 months to stabilize the economy, including taking direct ownership stakes in private companies. This creates a dangerous conflict of interest between the federal government and the private sector. The government shouldn't be an owner of companies it regulates in the private marketplace." The bill aims to prevent further government acquisitions. It sets a deadline of July 1, 2010 for complete divestiture of existing government ownership. It requires the Secretary of the Treasury "to submit a plan within 90 days for how it [sic] will end the conservatorship of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and end government ownership of those entities."
Since I agree with what the bill aims to achieve, I suppose I shouldn't quibble about the rationale Senator Thune gives for it. For better or worse though, my mind has a delicate digestive system. As when food is badly seasoned, so bad reasoning can make an otherwise welcome dish unpalatable. In this case it's hard to stomach the notion that the best reason for opposing the government's takeover of the private sector is that it compromises the integrity of its regulatory efforts. It's as if someone should oppose a government takeover of private homes because it would interfere with the honest collection of property taxes.
Thune's rationale sadly reveals the purblind vision that is destroying the Republican party. While some GM franchisees are seeing the fruits of a whole lifetime of disciplined hard work stolen away in a political vendetta, the Republican Senator laments the effect of the socialist takeover on government administration. In the process he accepts the notion that the current leap into socialism is the incidental by-product of some effort "to stabilize the economy," a lie made completely transparent by the simple fact that government action created the conditions for America's cascade into economic ruin.
I guess the 17th amendment is bearing its ultimate fruit (cf. 3 Cheers for the 10th Amendment Movement.) Even a supposedly "conservative" Republican Senator seems to think more like an appendage of the Federal government than like a representative of the deeply threatened interests of people in the State he's supposed to represent.
For a real conservative, the reason for opposing the socialist takeover of the private sector isn't that it might sully the integrity of the government's regulatory efforts. Instead, like Ronald Reagan at his best, real conservatives oppose specious government regulation because it threatens to undermine the economic independence people need to maintain their political liberty. They oppose it because it precisely gives unscrupulous politicians and bureaucrats the power to manipulate us into disaster, then use the disaster as an excuse to rob us all at once of livelihood and liberty.
How free can a people remain when government bureaucrats and politicians determine their wages, their conditions of work and indeed whether they work at all? How free can a people remain when government bureaucrats and politicians dictate their medical providers, their treatment and even whether they will be treated at all? How free can a people remain when the elected officials who are supposed to represent them become mere appendages of government power, with no thought but about how best to manipulate the people in order to gain and consolidate that power?
Those who wonder why so many conservatives no longer lay claim to or trust the Republican label, should think carefully about what's said here. It's hard to trust what Republicans say or do when their silences and omissions speak so eloquently of their lukewarm or betrayed allegiance to republican self-government.
As for Senator Thune's bill: I would recommend visiting his site to sign the petition that supports it. But while you're at it write him a note reminding him that socialism is bad because it destroys the conditions for liberty, not because it compromises the (mostly fictional) integrity of the government's regulatory schemes. If he ever grasps and effectively advocates the right reasons for his professed convictions maybe someday he'll be able to find the guts to do what he (and his G. W. Bush-led Republican bank bailout buddies) couldn't do last year: hold on to those convictions when the chips are down. They cravenly opened the floodgates to the socialist deluge the Obama faction is inflicting on our nation.
What's the difference between a conservative politician and a Republican? The conservative remembers his principles when he's in office. The Republican only acts as if he remembers when he needs our votes to put him there.
The tragic irony intensifies. Barack Obama's election supposedly represented an historic breakthrough in the struggle for justice and human rights in America. The success of that struggle depended on respect for the principles of the American Declaration of Independence, the Constitutional sovereignty of the American people, and Constitutionally secured civil rights of all individuals in the United States. Yet every day brings reports of some new travesty signaling hostility to those principles, the abandonment of the Constitution, and the end of respect for those rights.
Along with securing their persons and property against abuses of government power, nothing is more essential to maintaining liberty than the Constitutional rights that give citizens assurance against repression and abuse as they speak and act on political matters. Of these matters, issues that involve respect for the Constitution are the most critical, since without the Constitution the people lose the institutions that assure their political participation and authority.
From the outset, Obama's strenuous efforts to prevent access to records that could lay to rest the growing public concern about his Constitutional eligibility for the office of President of the United States signaled his contempt for the provisions of the Constitution. It was inevitable that these efforts would go beyond legal maneuvering to encompass attempts to suppress all public expressions of interest and concern about his fundamental disregard for the authority of the Constitution. Evidence of this suppression appeared quickly with respect to grassroots internet activities aimed at overcoming the big corporate media's obstinate censorship of the issue. Despite this censorship, and efforts to ridicule and marginalize people who continue to raise the issue, the common sense questions occasioned by Obama's unrelenting cover up have become more and more widespread.
Along with common senses questions about Obama's cover up has come increasing dismay at the willingness of the Courts, the Republican politicians and other elements of the US power elite to accept complicity with it. Some say that this results from fear of a violent reaction from black Americans if the issue is treated with integrity. However, I believe that it may also reflect a shared elite desire to overthrow the sovereignty of the people in order to re-establish government based on the authority of the powerful few (oligarchy) that American constitutionalism is intended to replace. (This would explain Republican cooperation in the 2008 so-called 'bank bailout', which began America's precipitous slide into socialist government dictatorship.)
Against this repressive elite consensus, one key resource for news and information has been the reporting and commentary provided by WorldNetDaily. WND's founder and CEO Joseph Farah has consistently stood against the big corporate media censors, to provide readers with the facts and reasoning needed to make an accurate assessment of the nature and importance of the eligibility controversy. He has also taken the initiative to get at the facts, and to encourage citizen action on behalf of respect for Constitutional authority. In this regard he has lately initiated a drive to place billboards around the country asking the simple question "Where's the birth certificate?" Corporate media censors, first at CBS, the No. 1 U.S. outdoor advertising company and now at Lama Outdoor, another billboard giant, have refused to lease billboards for the campaign.
The Italian communist Antonio Gramsci suggested decades ago that Marxist-Leninists learn from the reverses they suffered at the hands of the Nazis and fascists during the 1930's. It's clear that the communist leaning elements of the Obama faction have done just that. In both their economic and political moves to install a neo-communist regime in the US, they are co-opting and manipulating corporate entities rather than openly adding them to the government bureaucracy. Instead of government commissars censoring dissident voices, private entities, claiming to exercise legal private property rights, enforce the regime of repression.
There are some possible avenues of redress against this repressive ploy. Though it is often forgotten these days, the term civil rights has no racial connotations, except in the propaganda of leftist politicos hijacking it for partisan political purposes. In the first instance it refers to the rights of citizenship under the Constitution and laws of the United States, including free speech, assembly and the right to seek redress of grievances. Clearly, the abrogation of the Constitution of the United States represents a legitimate citizen grievance. Clearly, asking the question that highlights this abrogation involves an exercise of the freedom of speech, in the very context where it was most especially intended for protection by the first amendment to the Constitution. Under the Civil Rights Act of 1871
Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance,
regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory or the
District of Columbia, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any
citizen of the United States or other person within the
jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges,
or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable
to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other
proper proceeding for redress…
Every private entity or corporation seeking to repress free speech on the issue of Obama's eligibility should be sued for damages for violating the civil rights of the victims of their abuse. As part of the legal effort, injured parties should seek court injunctions requiring that the abusers cease their repressive activities so that their victims do not suffer indefinite harm to their citizen rights while the suits are in progress.
Of course, throughout the country, the Courts have been chief among the collaborators in the eligibility cover up. It makes no sense simply to assume they will give fair treatment to the civil rights suits arising from the abuses needed to implement it. Grassroots people have recourse however, in the exercise of their own property rights. People with appropriately situated property who want to see the Constitution's authority re-established, should offer use of the property for placement of the billboards. In addition people should place signs in their shop windows, and bumper stickers on their vehicles until it becomes impossible to drive the streets and highways without wondering why Obama obstinately refuses to comply with the Constitution he has supposedly sworn to uphold.
In every important respect Obama's victory in the 2008 presidential election was a victory for racism. First there was the racist claim that his skin color made his election somehow significant for black Americans with whom he otherwise shares no common moral or historical heritage. Second, his stubborn advocacy of the parent's right to murder her child made it a victory in principle for the racist notion that "inferior" physical development leaves people with no rights that must be respected by their supposed betters. Third, the US Constitution has been openly set aside on account of fears that racist violence would result from investigating the facts regarding his citizenship at birth (lest they support the conclusion that he is constitutionally ineligible to serve as President of the United States.) Truth, right and the Constitution all sacrificed for the sake of racist fears and premises.
The reaction in some quarters to the Sotomayer selection smacks of the same racist mentality. "Janet Murguia, president and CEO of the National Council of La Raza, called Sotomayor's nomination 'a monumental day for Latinos. Finally we see ourselves represented on the highest court in the land.'" There was a time when we understood that those who served on the Supreme Court had first and foremost to prove that they represented the whole people of the United States, whose sovereign will constitutes the legitimacy of the Constitution it is their duty to uphold. The notion that someone would serve as the representative of this or that race or special interest tended to disqualify them from service.
Of course, a person proposed for a seat on the bench can't be held responsible for how others see her. But in a speech she reportedly gave in 2001 "Sotomayor has said that personal experiences "affect the facts that judges choose to see….I simply do not know exactly what the difference will be in my judging…but I accept that there will be some based on my gender and my Latina heritage."
If her assessment of herself was correct, her own words disqualify her from serving on the Supreme Court. Unless we mean to overturn the whole idea of Constitutional government, the decisions of the justices of the Supreme Court should be based on the Constitution and the laws. No justices can be allowed to "accept" judgments based on gender or ethnicity. If they do, what becomes of the promise of liberty and justice for all, of equal rights and the equal protection of the law?
Does the notion that it's somehow acceptable to disregard the Constitution on account of race in Obama's case now make it acceptable to confirm as a Supreme Court Justice someone willing to allow their ethnic identity to distort their judgment of facts, and the basis for their decisions? Tragically, this is exactly the racist legal culture we would expect to result from the racist political mentality the Obama faction exploited to achieve his electoral victory.
Unity is always on their lips, but their hearts are far from it. Instead of a national government that represents our common heart for justice and liberty, the Obama faction means to create a fractured reflection of all our differences, until we forget how to see, think and act as Americans, regardless of those differences. With this dissolution of the American identity they prepare the way for the dissolution of the United States itself, so that a strong sense of our national identity no longer poses an obstacle to their plans for a new, global regime that sets aside our "provincial" concerns with right and ordered liberty.
Of course, those concerns are precisely what raise our national consciousness above the level of mere group selfishness, so that our concern for the good of our nation becomes a concern for the rights and decent freedom of all humanity. The sacrifices we commemorate every Memorial Day are marked by headstones and memorials in far flung corners of the globe where Americans gave ultimate proof that this concern is no pious abstraction. But it seems that what they died to preserve for others, we are now quietly surrendering ourselves under the mesmerizing influence of racist fears and lies.
Such is the change Obama represents. But where is the hope in it, except for those who succeed, as he did, by invoking the power of the very evil their success has supposedly overcome? "Racism is dead," they seem to say, "Long live the tyranny of race."
A friend recently forwarded me a link to Anne Coulter's latest column with the following comment:
"Anne's Coulter's latest column is entitled: "Notre Dame Holds First Alan Keyes Fundraiser"
Here is a multiple choice test:
Anne Coulter uses Alan Keyes' name to
a. piggyback off of Dr. Keyes' fame and courage in order to get people to read her column (Dr. Keyes is never even mentioned in the body of the article)
b. give herself credibility by creating the appearance of being on the same side of the abortion issue as Dr. Keyes
c. to distract readers from realizing that she explains (in two consecutive sentences) that Roe v. Wade is both "lawless" and "the law of the land"
d. promote her latest "pro-life" idea of allowing the people the right to vote on whether or not babies can be killed."
Naturally I took a look at the column. My friend was right. Except for the shrewdly deceptive title, my name did not figure in the article at all. As I reflected on this oddity, one possibility occurred to me in addition to the choices listed. The title leaves the impression that somehow or another I benefited financially from what I did and endured at Notre Dame.
In reality, nothing could be further from the truth. Not long after I received the forwarded link, I got a phone call from the lady who helps me keep my schedule. She reported that the controversial nature of my efforts at Notre Dame is already adversely affecting requests for speaking engagements, which is my main source of income for my family. It wouldn't be the first time that my commitment to the pro-life cause has had this effect. Some time ago, as a result of my efforts to promote better understanding of the importance of US support for Israel's existence, I was often invited to speak at fundraising events for Jewish organizations. But in my political efforts I gave unstinting priority to the defense of innocent life. Thanks to strong support for so-called abortion rights from some quarters in the Jewish community, as this priority became known it virtually eliminated such requests for speaking engagements. (Ironically, in the political realm my firm commitment to the defense of the US-Israel relationship contributed greatly to the failure of efforts to join forces with the Constitution Party last year.)
The same sense of priority led to my departure from the Republican Party. Again, die hard Republicans unwilling to admit and act on the betrayal of moral principle by the Party's leadership, have assured that I am now unwelcome at political events where once I was a sought after voice.
Combined with the general impact of the current economic crisis, all this has resulted in a situation that is just about as far from a "fundraiser" as it's possible to get. My involvement in the events at Notre Dame even interfered with my ability to devote enough time and effort to this blog site over the last two weeks, and it has suffered as a result. Meanwhile a well remunerated pundit like Anne Coulter slyly implies some mercenary motive behind the work I do for the sake of the moral principles without which our liberty cannot survive in any form. Perhaps that's because, judging others by what they see in themselves, it's the only motive some people can understand.
By email and other means good people have communicated their support for the efforts made by the courageous people who joined in the effort to counter the Notre Dame Scandal. Many of them have concluded by saying that they hope I won't "disappear" again, but will keep working for the cause of life and liberty. Apparently, despite their good hearts, they still rely on the lying and sly propagandists of the so-called mainstream media for their perceptions. I have never "disappeared" and never ceased to do what I can toward the restoration of American liberty. God has blessed me with the heart to persevere in the effort to revive America's allegiance to His will. The spirit therefore is willing, but the material means are weaker than ever. It appears that, like the contestants on the game show, I have used my last material lifeline in this latest effort to fulfill my Catholic and Christian duty to the integrity of my faith. Still, it is better to lose all here trying to do what's right than to lose all in eternity.
It's a sign of the times. People lament the disappearance of rights they will not defend; of faith for which they fear to witness; and of leadership they will neither provide themselves nor materially support. I thank God that there is still a faithful remnant that understands how self-defeating this is, including those among my readers here who have helped to keep my efforts going, on this web site and in general.
Last Friday (May 8) I and others concerned with Notre Dame's scandalous invitation and extension of an honorary degree to Barack Obama were engaged in peaceful, prayerful witness to truth on the Notre Dame Campus. We walked onto the campus praying the rosary and pushing strollers that illustrated the Church's teaching with respect to the objective evil of abortion. At the behest of Father John Jenkins, the President of the University, we were detained by the UND police and turned over to the civil authorities. At the time of our arrest we were not defying civil law, but obeying the laws of God and the directives of the Church and its leadership. We sought to counteract the scandalous impression given by University authorities that it is compatible with Christian faith and Catholic teaching to honor and hold up as an example of good conduct someone who has made himself the focus of abortion evil in the world today.
Yesterday I sent a letter to David Tyson, the Provincial Superior of the Indiana Province of the Congregation of Holy Cross urgently requesting a hearing at which I and the others injured by Father Jenkins' abuse of his authority can present our grievances and seek relief. Unlike Father Jenkins, we are acting with respect for Christ's instruction that people of faith should work out their differences within the communion of the faithful before calling upon civil authorities who may or may not act with respect for the laws of God and the teachings of the Church. This is why I sought to meet with Father Jenkins before I joined in the spiritual rescue efforts occasioned by the University's scandalous behavior. He did not respond to my request. In this he displayed the same obdurate indifference to spiritual considerations that has exemplified his conduct throughout this scandalous affair. He has encouraged a bunker mentality within the University of Notre Dame community, by treating other members of the Body of Christ, even those in communion with the Holy See, as if we are "outsiders".
This mentality contradicts the "emphasis on Community in Catholicism" cited in the University's mission statement but utterly ignored in the actions ordered by Father Jenkins and his colleagues. Archbishop Burke of the Vatican and the American bishops who have asked that the invitation and honorary degree be withdrawn; the hundreds of thousands who have signed the petition with the same plea; the millions of Catholics and prolife Christians they represent: though part of the Church communion, the body of Christ or the community of the faithful, all are apparently to be treated as criminals if they dare to set foot on the Notre Dame campus to question the University administration's will and judgment.
Where is the humility that should characterize Christian leadership? Where is the love toward other believers that should give glory to God? Instead of ordering arrests and persecution, a true Catholic and Christian heart should seek to converse in order to instruct (if there is misunderstanding) or to learn. Instead Father Jenkins has reacted with a harshness that bespeaks fearful guilt, using force to dispose of opposition. If, despite the opinion of the Vatican, the bishops and so many of the laity, he and his colleagues are right to honor evil, why are they afraid to deal openly and respectfully with both the Church authorities and fellow believers who disagree?
They react with forceful abuses of their authority because they cannot properly defend their action in terms of the laws of God and the teachings of the Catholic Church. They therefore substitute force for persuasion. In this too they honor evil, by imitating its methods.
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