Thursday, May 28, 2015

Rand Paul Is A Twenty First Century Joseph McCarthy

     Recently I have been trying to surmise just what is Rand Paul's end game. He certainly can not be seriously thinking that he has any chance whatsoever of winning the Republican nomination for the presidential election of 2016. Up until recently, I thought maybe he was trying to just influence the Republican Party towards radical Libertarianism. That he thought he could succeed where his unhinged father, Ron Paul, had failed, i.e. moving the political party of which he is a member in name only, towards his vision for the Party.
     Well, after hearing Senator Paul's comments on MSNBC's Morning Joe the other day, I think I finally have figured out what Rand's end game is. First of all for those who do not know, Rand Paul blamed the "hawks" in his party for the creation of ISIS. This statement instantly made Rand Paul more valuable to and interested in Hillary Clinton winning the presidency than she is. Not only is his comment deliberately incendiary to the very voters he is hoping to court, but they illustrate a lack of foreign policy and geopolitical knowledge that is worse than the current occupant of the White House.
     I could almost forgive Mr. Paul's naiveté when it comes to the NSA metadata collection program, but this most recent blunder by the Kentucky Senator is beyond the pale of simple ignorance. Of course I do not happen to believe that Rand Paul actually believes his stated position on the NSA program, he has taken it in order to appeal to the kook Right fringe that see government agents under their beds and hiding in their closets.
     Mr. Paul is a bright man, and must know that the NSA collecting phone numbers (which are not private property) that have called other phone numbers and when, is an invasion of no ones civil liberties. It does not even come close to violating the Fourth Amendment. Rand Paul is the 21st century version of Joseph McCarthy, sans the booze. Just like McCarthy, who saw communists everywhere in the 1950s, Mr. Paul sees overreaching, Liberty adverse government everywhere. Just as Senator McCarthy was correct, but ruined the effectiveness of his cause with his own overreach, so Senator Paul is traveling that same  road.
     What Rand Paul revealed with his recent comment is that there is little difference on foreign policy between himself and Hillary Clinton. Which was evident from his past weak-kneed stances on geopolitical matters. But now he has added a despicable dimension to his rapporteur, blaming others in his own party for the creation of terrorist elements in the Middle East which are clearly the result of President Obama's feckless policy. That makes Mr. Rand Paul the best friend the Democrat nominee for president in 2016 could ever have.
    

Sunday, May 24, 2015

Memorial Day Thoughts-2015

     Tomorrow, Monday May 25, is Memorial day. It is a time for honoring our military's fallen heroes, whose valorous actions have secured not only this nation's freedom for almost 240 years, but freedoms of countries around the world. I have often thought that it is a shame that this solemn and reverent occasion has been transformed into an orgy of burgers, dogs, and a day off work with pay for many Americans.
     For too many of us, especially our young who are not taught about such things, Memorial Day at best is synonymous with Veterans' Day. We have the two distinct holidays for a reason. The former is to honor those who have fallen in battle or as a result of battle or service to their country, the latter is to honor anyone who has served in our armed forces. I have recently thought that a better tribute to men and women whose ultimate sacrifice has lead to the loss of their earthly life would be for the nation to engage in a vigorous illustration of the economic freedom they helped to preserve.
     General MacArthur once stated that duty, honor, country are the values that guide the United States military, and those are the virtues that have been evident in every military member who has given their life in service to their country and its high ideals. Whether that life was given on the battlefield in a foreign land, or whether the ravages of war followed them home and cruelly extracted their final breath through the physical or mental manifestations of war. We honor, as well we should, all those who answered not only a call by their country, but a call to do right, a call by honor, and a call by justice.
     War is a terrible thing to be avoided. But avoiding war at the cost of higher values like Liberty, Justice, and Freedom, is a much more terrible thing. Plato knew that war would exist as long as men when he stated, "It is only the dead who have seen the end to war." Let us on this Memorial Day, 2015 remember the horrific and brutal deaths suffered by our countrymen in the service of our values as a nation. And let us not forget those values, thus we erase and disgrace the sacrifice of those brave, courageous, and virtuous men and women.

Wednesday, May 20, 2015

Cleveland Braces For Brelo Verdict

     On November 29, 2012 Cleveland police were lead on a 23 mile chase through Cleveland, into East Cleveland by two crackheads named Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams. Russell, the driver of the vehicle the pair were in, tried to use his vehicle as a weapon against police. Thirteen officers open fired on the pair, fearing they had a gun which they had reason to believe, but which later turned out to be not true. Russell and Williams were shot dead after the officers fired 137 rounds of ammunition into the vehicle.
     Officer Michael Brelo was one of the officers on the seen that night, and amazingly enough was the only officer charged in the deaths of Russell and Williams. Some how it was determined by Prosecutor McGinty that the rounds that killed Russell and Williams came from the gun of Officer Michael Brelo. Mr. McGinty then set about his task of poisoning the jury pool by beginning to try the case in public before the trial.
     So dedicated was Prosecutor McGinty to a figurative lynching of Michael Brelo that he tried to deny the defendant his constitutional right to waive a trial by jury, which would be culled from the Cleveland pool that McGinty had prejudiced against the defendant. Thankfully for the sake of justice the Brelo legal team was able to secure Mr. Brelo's right to have the case decided by a judge. Being a resident of a suburb of Cleveland, I am well acquainted with the political shenanigans of Mr. McGinty. But the political motivations of some prosecutors is a subject for another article.
     The trial of officer Brelo has ended and the city is awaiting word from the judge on the guilt or non-guilt of Michael Brelo. During the ensuing period Cleveland city leaders are on edge and calling for non-violence in the case that the embattled officer is found not guilty in the deaths of Russell and Williams. I have to wonder why they are not bracing for violence and calling for calm in the event that Mr. Brelo is found guilty?
     This dichotomy of reactions to the same event in Cleveland, Ohio is illustrative of the reduced expectations that the Left has for certain groups over other groups based solely on skin color and socio-economic status. It also is educative of the willingness of such leaders to abdicate their responsibility to keep law and order in the city, having been completely cowered by the mob.
     God forbid that Cleveland erupts in days of violence if Michael Brelo is found not guilty. It is a strange hypocrisy on the Left that leads to a child being suspended from school for biting his sand which into the shape of a gun because of a "no tolerance" policy toward violence in our schools, yet a blind eye is turned by these same people when street thugs use real guns, fire, bricks, and looting to "protest" what they see as inequality.

Tuesday, May 19, 2015

How The National Public Vote Will Destroy Our Republic

   In addition to all the other insidious threats that the American republic is facing in modernity, there is one that has flown under the radar of most Americans. It is a movement whose aim is to subvert the Founders' vision to such an extent that it will forever damage the republic they so carefully constructed. Not only do they seek change, but they seek to achieve it in a way that subverts the constitutional process for change because they know their idea is not popular enough to get the support needed to amend the constitution.
    This scourge to which I have alluded is called "National Popular Vote." The idea of NPV is to essentially eliminate one of the most brilliant mechanisms that our founders constructed to ensure continuation of the republic they founded, i.e. the electoral college. The framers of our constitution constructed a political system that was not a democracy, because their study of history taught them that pure democracies failed. This failure was often due to the development of a tyranny of the majority.
    The old adage to describe pure democracies is that they are analogous to two wolves and a sheep deciding what is for dinner. It was to give the minority protection from the majority that the founders wisely created the electoral college. Each state has electors in a quantity that matches the number of congressional seats in the state plus its two senators. In order for a president to be elected he must win a diversity of states that will gain him 270 electoral college votes. Each state allots their electoral college votes to the candidate that receives the majority of the popular vote in their state.
     What the NPV would essentially accomplish is the elimination of each state's sovereignty by forcing them to allot their electoral college votes to the candidate with the most number of popular votes nationally. This not only makes coalition building less likely (since a candidate would simply concentrate on pandering only to the needs of the big population centers in the country), but it would make fraud more likely. Instead of a candidate having to guess correctly which states may be swing states (since they are not the same every election), and trying to steal votes in those states, under NPV that same candidate would only need to steal votes anywhere to effect the national vote totals.
     Without the electoral college in operation as the Founders' intended, the major population centers in the country would essentially be able to impose their will upon the smaller states and population centers. And as I alluded to previously, fraud would be much easier because in a very real way the electoral college makes it harder for a candidate to steal an election because he would need to steal the popular vote of several states. In a post-NPV America, a candidate could steal an election simply with one vote anywhere.
     The NPV crowd is subverting the constitution by convincing states to sign a contract stating that in presidential elections they would allot their electoral college votes to the candidate with the most votes nationally and not simply the one with the most in their state. They have quietly been going about their business of destroying this republic using methods outside the remedies of the constitution. James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, et al are turning over their graves.

Monday, May 18, 2015

The Case Against U.S. Armed Revolution

     Ever since the founding of the United States there have been factions who exist on the precipice of revolution. These loosely affiliated groups of individuals see any excessive government intrusion into their lives as an impetuous to pick up their rifles and reconstitute the government, by force, to their vision of the constitution. There of course was Shay's Rebellion, the Whiskey Rebellion, the New England states' secession threat during the War of 1812, the South's insistence on states' rights over the continued survival of the Union, et al.
     The revolutionaries of American modernity have suggested that the federal government has overstepped its constitutional bounds, and it is the duty of all freedom-loving citizens to set right, with the use of force, this embattled ship of state. As a constitutional-loving conservative I can well understand the frustration of many with the current state of affairs in this country. But the wise founders of this nation gave us the mechanisms of the constitution so that armed conflict against the government would not be necessary.
     Before all those who are convinced that revolution is the only way to re-secure our Liberty begin to regurgitate quotes from our founders supporting such action, I would implore them to consider the limits of the written language. Words spoken or written by even the most brilliant men are at best a snapshot in time. Many a man has said things, or believed things in his twenties that he did not feel as strongly about in his thirties, forties, or fifties and beyond. And it seems silly to me that with such a beautifully written document as the United States constitution, which has proven itself to be worthy of the best and most libertarian way to organize a society, that there can be those who would turn their backs on such a document and base a bloody revolution on random quotes from the men who framed it.
     The realities of twenty first century America seem to have alluded these modern day revolutionaries, who seem to think they are still domiciled in eighteenth century America. This country is no longer an almost entirely agrarian society based in just the eastern most region of the continent. It has grown in size by a factor of more three times what it was 240 years ago. And the economy has become so diverse and complex that the agrarian lifestyle that men like Jefferson and Madison thought would always be the dominant one in this country, has now become occupied by one of the smallest minorities in this nation.
     Not to mention that any armed revolution by a group of people who somehow think they will gain military support in a war from their fellow citizens, when they are unable to secure political support in peaceful elections, is a fool's errand. What these thousands of wannabe revolutionaries do not understand is that their misguided ambitions will receive no support, only condemnation, from the hundreds of millions of their fellow citizens who see a better way, i.e. the United States constitution.
   

Tuesday, May 12, 2015

Time To Remove The Race Card From The Deck

     This week at a museum dedication no less, First Lady Michelle Obama used the opportunity to once again play the race card, as has been her and her husband's modus operandi for the last six plus years. From her high perch of extreme wealth and power she reached back into her privileged childhood where she grew up in a family who financially was firmly planted in the top ten percent of wage earners in the country, to once again whine about being discriminated against based on her skin color, this time in the museums of Chicago. Correct me if I am wrong, but are not most museums dominated by Left-leaning persons? So if poor little rich girl Michelle was kept out of museums in her neighborhood, which I highly doubt, it was done so by those of the same political ideology of the First Lady.
     The latest myth proffered by the race-baiters and race-profiteers is that blacks need to be held to a lower standard when it comes to public behavior and law breaking because of the effect that slavery has had on their psyches. This load of excrement is matched only by the product of pumping the portable toilets at a hippie festival that has free granola bars. If a black child was placed into an environment from birth in which the terms and conditions of slavery were never a part of his education, he would not inherently have some emotional reaction to that institution.   
     In other words to the extent that modern blacks, who are at least half a dozen generations removed from slavery, have a disability because of an institution which was abandoned and outlawed by an ever more just society 150 years ago, it is because of those who benefit from convincing them of that particular disability. The Democrat Party and others on the Left have a vested interest in keeping the flames of revenge against America for slavery alive and well. As well as having a vested interest in inculcating as many blacks as possible with the feelings of inadequacy as a result of an institution of which they had no part.
     The real slave masters are those on the Left that choose not to inspire blacks by holding up as an example of achievement those of their race like the Obamas, Colin Powel, Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, Ben Carson, et al, but conversely choose to weigh down the black race with the anchor of resentment for ills of a society that long ago have been banished from civilized life.  

Wednesday, May 6, 2015

Here Comes Sharia!

     The mass shooting of innocent people by two would-be terrorist assassins in Garland, Texas out side a freedom of speech festival whose highlight was a "Draw Mohamed" contest, was derailed by a patrolman with a service revolver. And although some may say that the most disturbing aspect of this attempted terrorism on American soil is that it illustrates just how far into American society terrorist groups like ISIS have made inroads, some are blaming the intended victims in this thwarted act of terrorism.
     Pamela Geller, the event's sponsor, has rightly accused the media, et al of complicity of imposition of Sharia Law by insisting that anything that might provoke radical Islamists to violence, like the drawing a picture of Mohamed, should be avoided by Americans. In other words these self-appointed surrenders of free speech rights have, in the words of Ms. Geller, "Used the language of the conquered," in blaming her and her attendees for the attempted wanton barbarism of the two men shot and killed before they could carry out their evil intent.
     What frightens me more than ISIS on American soil are those in and out of the media that somehow have concluded that the founders of this great nation meant to exempt any criticism of Islam from the practice of First Amendment rights. These foolhardy persons advocate for America the brave to become America the acquiescent. They believe that the high ideal of free speech is responsible for the evil that men commit. In their willful ignorance they believe that mitigating free speech rights of Americans will lead to fewer evil acts by the devotees of radical Islam.
     But this latest attempt by the Left to use an act of terrorism, and blame it on its victims, is also illustrative of their war on free speech specifically, and the constitution in general. It is not a picture of Mohamed, Christians in the Middle East, United States troops on Arab lands, or even American support for the state of Israel that motivates terrorist attacks by radical Islamists. As a top official of Al Qaeda once said, they do not make war on the West because they want something from us, but because of who we are.
     And who we are, or at least who we used to be, is a people with a deep and unbending belief in personal Liberty, self-government, and the natural rights that come from God. One of those natural rights is that of free speech, which can not be simply traded away for some false notion of keeping the barbarians from attacking. In the rush, mostly on the Left, to trade our Liberty for security they have forgotten the wise counsel of Benjamin Franklin who said those who would do that deserve neither Liberty or security.

Monday, May 4, 2015

The Slow Death Of Justice In Baltimore

     I just figured out why the Left is so dispassionate about the thugs in Baltimore looting their community, it is the modus operandi of the Left. But for Leftist politicians, like our current president and most of his political Party, the looting takes the form of hirer taxes on those who have produced. This government looting also takes the form of executive branch bureaucracies fining businesses into the billions of dollars, as they did with Citigroup for the financial crisis that was caused by the government's own policies.
     We are entering a period in our history which is very dangerous. It is an age of wisdom-less, not a continuation of the enlightened age of this nation's founders. The recent statement in Baltimore by Prosecutor Mosby, i.e. that she indicted the six officers (three of whom were black) because of what the mob wanted, and not based on the long tradition of legal justice in this country, is evidence of the lack of wisdom that has become all too common place in our leaders.
     Ms. Mosby stated that she was seeking justice in this case so that the protesters could have peace. In other words the mob threatened more violence and she indicted to placate it. This thinking, which is becoming more prevalent on the Left, is antithetical to the constitution which holds the ideal of justice above any action for which any mob is inciting. The justice of Plato, the Bible, and the United States constitution has been subjugated by the Left to the whim of racial politics.
    The Left aims to replace the millennia old concept of justice based on a higher morality with a regressive form of justice based on the emotional outburst of a mob. And those like Ms. Mosby who enable mobs in the future to be the arbiters of legal fairness, are guilty of a crime against not only justice but the enlightenment that was the bequeathal to modern society by men like Franklin, Jefferson, and Madison. Whenever moral concepts like justice are bastardized by the impure purveyors of politics, the true enlightenment of man is mitigated and his barbarity advances from the depths of where it was banished.
        It took many lives and many centuries to achieve a just and moral society, and now that morality and justice has been cavalierly disbanded by a political ideology that seeks equality over justice, equality over morality, equality over common sense, equality over fairness, and equality even over the tenets of the very constitution that has given the world the greatest pathway to Liberty and freedom in the history of man.

Friday, May 1, 2015

Black Disaffection And The Radical Gay Community

     There are those that say the causes of the anger under which the Baltimore rioters are operating are many and complex. Some, like the president, think, or at least he says he thinks, the cause is lack of "investment" in minority communities. But this overly simplistic assessment is one which is designed to grow government with even more programs that help bureaucrats and community agitator types, but very few others. After all, over the last 50 years this country has taken 22 trillion from those who have earned it, ostensibly to lift up the down trodden. The only thing that has been lifted are the incomes of those who administer such programs.
     I do not subscribe to the notion that it has been this country's past sin of slavery, and the subsequent sin of discrimination, that has so thoroughly disaffected young blacks today that the only way they see to express themselves is by looting, burning, and committing other acts of violence upon the city in which they live. Since Republicans slapped down the Democrats racist policies that kept blacks in second class citizen status fifty years ago, blacks have seen their ranks swell in professions from law to electrical engineering.
     But those on the Left and in the Democrat Party who benefit from disaffectedness among blacks have sought to preach the sermon of racial inequality, and the sacrament of slavery victimhood. This new racism, practiced by white Democrats and the black community's self-appointed leaders, aims to enslave blacks on the Leftist plantation of dependence by convincing them that their success in life does not depend on the content of their character, but their ability to mark a ballot for Democrats.
     But now after 50 years of assigning the power of civil rights almost exclusively to blacks, Democrats have transferred its deed to the radical homosexual community. The U.S. census data reveals that the gay population in America is about 2.3% of the total population. Of that six million or so gays only about two million are in committed relationships, according to a recent Gallup poll. Even if all the gays in committed relationships are rabid supporters of changing the millennia old definition of marriage to now include homosexual relationships, that comprises a population of about two million people.
     No wonder blacks are upset, they have been sent to the back of the bus by Democrats in favor of their new favorite minority group that is about one twentieth the size. I believe the real disaffection of blacks has come at the hands of the political Party that has for decades told them they had their backs, and now has left their numbers ravaged by destructive programs, in favor of a new and sexier minority that never suffered slavery, Jim Crow, or violence committed against them as they were marching for their basic right to participate in society.