President Obama's recent comments at the National Prayer Breakfast comparing Christians of a thousand years ago to today's radical Islamists were illustrative of the core function of Leftism. That core function is to remove distinctions and de-moralize the actions of immoral groups and ideologies. It is Barack Obama and the Lefts inability to embrace moral clarity for fear of being judged as judgmental and in some way less sophisticated than those who they consider "intolerant," that drives their every public action.
First the historical problems with what the president said. The crusades of a thousand years ago were a Christian response to Muslim aggression against the followers of Christ. The Christian crusaders conducted the first war on terror, and it does not take much imagination to understand what the world would have looked like had they not fought radical Islam and had instead allowed a world-wide caliphate ten centuries ago.
Barack Obama, laboring under his twisted view of history, also said that slavery and Jim Crow laws were perpetrated in the name of Christ. Let us not forget that the anti-slavery movement, which eventually freed black slaves, was a Christian movement. And the Jim Crow laws in the South were a result of Democrat political ideology, not Christian doctrine. In fact, the civil rights movement, lead by Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., was fueled by the good reverend's Christian values and his belief in the United States constitution.
The blurring of separation between opposite sides of morality or tenets of natural law is the primary function of Leftism. As radio talk show host and author Dennis Prager puts it, "The Left aims to destroy the separation between God and man, man and woman, man and animals, good and evil, and holy and profane." The proceeding statement is the core function of Leftism, and has been the outcome of almost every legislative activity engaged in by the Democrat Party in recent decades.
So President Obama's misstatement of history and his moral equivalency acrobatics at the prayer breakfast was not motivated by disdain for Christianity or his sympathy with radical Islam, as some have suggested, but from his deep seeded desire to create a moral-less society that is more dependent on government. Lack of religiosity necessarily increases the need for bigger government in any society. The Left has figured this out and made it their all-consuming passion to eliminate morality from the public sphere and replace it with the immorality of big government.
Friday, February 6, 2015
Thursday, February 5, 2015
Wealth And Poverty In America
The more I read about the past history of this great country, the more I realize we are currently living through one of its least impressive periods. It should be a lesson to future civilizations, as the rise and fall of ancient republics were to our Founders, that the simple lesson of more government means less advancement is a truism that can not be repudiated or denied. The United States of America has advanced the human condition more than any other nation in world history, but that advancement has come as a result of free markets and commerce, not by the crushing edicts of government.
As centralized government becomes more entrenched and more powerful in the United States, its primary duty of national defense is left more and more wanting. And even the subterfuge of "social" programs and improvement only improves the status and wealth of government. The proceeding assertion is easily proven by the government's own data. According to census data from the last half century, the poverty rate has actually ticked up. And that after the largest transfer of wealth in human history. The ten trillion plus dollars that has been confiscated from producers and given to none producers has only resulted in enriching government and impoverishing the nation as a whole.
I know what some will say, "The United States is the wealthiest country on earth, and can afford to help the less fortunate." This is the opiate of compassion that Leftist politicians on both sides of the aisle have used to sell the transfer of wealth. Lack of money does not, in and of itself, cause poverty, it is simply a corollary to it. Just as an abundance of money does not cause wealth but is a result of behavior and choices of the wealthy.
Put another way, college education does not cause intelligence, but is simply a corollary of the human trait of intelligence that is inherent in human beings. In the same way money, or lack of it, has no role in the causation of wealth or poverty, but is simply a road sign on the highway of both. Wealth and poverty are deeper issues than the ephemeral nature of money, they are rooted in human traits, or lack there of, which leads one to the former or the latter. And no amount of confiscation and redistribution by government can mitigate poverty or create wealth.
It is said that if the riches of the wealthy were taken away and given to the poor, in a relatively short period of time the previously wealthy would be so again and those that were poor would resume their former life of poverty. So the result of wealth, i.e. money, will never eliminate poverty, it only can enrich those who play middle man between commerce and individuals. The last 50 years since President Johnson's War On Poverty began has not helped its intended beneficiaries, but has succeeded at impoverishing the nation's morals and values while simultaneously making wealthy a political class which simply lives off the sweat from other men's brows.
As centralized government becomes more entrenched and more powerful in the United States, its primary duty of national defense is left more and more wanting. And even the subterfuge of "social" programs and improvement only improves the status and wealth of government. The proceeding assertion is easily proven by the government's own data. According to census data from the last half century, the poverty rate has actually ticked up. And that after the largest transfer of wealth in human history. The ten trillion plus dollars that has been confiscated from producers and given to none producers has only resulted in enriching government and impoverishing the nation as a whole.
I know what some will say, "The United States is the wealthiest country on earth, and can afford to help the less fortunate." This is the opiate of compassion that Leftist politicians on both sides of the aisle have used to sell the transfer of wealth. Lack of money does not, in and of itself, cause poverty, it is simply a corollary to it. Just as an abundance of money does not cause wealth but is a result of behavior and choices of the wealthy.
Put another way, college education does not cause intelligence, but is simply a corollary of the human trait of intelligence that is inherent in human beings. In the same way money, or lack of it, has no role in the causation of wealth or poverty, but is simply a road sign on the highway of both. Wealth and poverty are deeper issues than the ephemeral nature of money, they are rooted in human traits, or lack there of, which leads one to the former or the latter. And no amount of confiscation and redistribution by government can mitigate poverty or create wealth.
It is said that if the riches of the wealthy were taken away and given to the poor, in a relatively short period of time the previously wealthy would be so again and those that were poor would resume their former life of poverty. So the result of wealth, i.e. money, will never eliminate poverty, it only can enrich those who play middle man between commerce and individuals. The last 50 years since President Johnson's War On Poverty began has not helped its intended beneficiaries, but has succeeded at impoverishing the nation's morals and values while simultaneously making wealthy a political class which simply lives off the sweat from other men's brows.
Saturday, January 24, 2015
Why Reagan Was Great, And Obama Is Not
This week marked the second to last State of the Union speech by Barack Obama that the nation must suffer through and endure as the clock of mercy slowly ticks out his time in office. The State of the Union address has become just one in a long list of this great country's traditions that Barack Obama has de-elevated from the heights of the republic's decency to the depths of sleazy showmanship.
The actual show in the House chamber that is perpetrated on the traditions and values of our great constitutional republic by this president is bad enough, but the pre-game and post-game shows that are imposed upon an innocent and once free people are the height of the tyranny of impropriety. And through all three stages, pre-game, game, and post-game, President Obama shows a complete lack of presidential decorum and grace exhibited by most of his predecessors, and required by the stature of the office of President of the United States of America.
The presidency of the United States as drawn by the Framers of the constitution is an annoyance to this president, not an honor. I wish those who voted for this malcontent community agitator would have known that they were not voting for a president but for a churlish defender of infantilism. Barack Obama does not speak the language of America, but the language grievance against America. He does not seek common ground with his political opposition, or even the majority of Americans, but rather the ground of Leftism that has been so thoroughly salted with the failed ideas of Stalin, Mau, Castro, et al, that even the weeds of Liberty can not take root, let alone its flower of prosperity.
I heard this week the clanking rhetoric of Barack Obama, and juxtaposed against it, I also heard segments of Ronald Reagan's State of the Union from the same point in his presidency that President Obama is in currently. The difference is the stark contrast between a man who was deferential to congress and one who is derisive of that body. It is the difference between a man who spoke of the three words that make the United States Constitution exceptional over any other, i.e. "We the people." President Reagan affably and aptly explained in just a few words that those three words meant that the American people get to tell their government what it can do and can not do, not as Barack Obama believes, the other way around.
Where Ronald Reagan had humility, Barack Obama has hubris. Where Ronald Reagan had the largess of magnanimity, Barack Obama possesses the pettiness of arrogance. Where Ronald Reagan felt a love of his country so great that he wanted to preserve it, Barack Obama loves his own greatness above all else, even the very founding of the country he now "leads." Barack Obama never wanted to be president, he wanted the presidency to be his. Ronald Reagan understood that the office is greater than the man who contemporaneously holds it.
The actual show in the House chamber that is perpetrated on the traditions and values of our great constitutional republic by this president is bad enough, but the pre-game and post-game shows that are imposed upon an innocent and once free people are the height of the tyranny of impropriety. And through all three stages, pre-game, game, and post-game, President Obama shows a complete lack of presidential decorum and grace exhibited by most of his predecessors, and required by the stature of the office of President of the United States of America.
The presidency of the United States as drawn by the Framers of the constitution is an annoyance to this president, not an honor. I wish those who voted for this malcontent community agitator would have known that they were not voting for a president but for a churlish defender of infantilism. Barack Obama does not speak the language of America, but the language grievance against America. He does not seek common ground with his political opposition, or even the majority of Americans, but rather the ground of Leftism that has been so thoroughly salted with the failed ideas of Stalin, Mau, Castro, et al, that even the weeds of Liberty can not take root, let alone its flower of prosperity.
I heard this week the clanking rhetoric of Barack Obama, and juxtaposed against it, I also heard segments of Ronald Reagan's State of the Union from the same point in his presidency that President Obama is in currently. The difference is the stark contrast between a man who was deferential to congress and one who is derisive of that body. It is the difference between a man who spoke of the three words that make the United States Constitution exceptional over any other, i.e. "We the people." President Reagan affably and aptly explained in just a few words that those three words meant that the American people get to tell their government what it can do and can not do, not as Barack Obama believes, the other way around.
Where Ronald Reagan had humility, Barack Obama has hubris. Where Ronald Reagan had the largess of magnanimity, Barack Obama possesses the pettiness of arrogance. Where Ronald Reagan felt a love of his country so great that he wanted to preserve it, Barack Obama loves his own greatness above all else, even the very founding of the country he now "leads." Barack Obama never wanted to be president, he wanted the presidency to be his. Ronald Reagan understood that the office is greater than the man who contemporaneously holds it.
Sunday, January 18, 2015
Why The Republican Establishment Hates Ted Cruz
While the 2016 presidential election is still a year and nine months hence, and only guesses can be proffered by one who wishes to predict who will be our next president, we do know who will not reside at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue on January 21, 2017. For the Democrats it is Hillary Clinton (sorry all you Hillary fans and foes). On the Republican side, the presidential pariah, for the establishment anyway, is Ted Cruz. Even though he would probably be the best man, woman, or child for the job, unfortunately our country has moved far beyond considering what is best for it in electing representation.
So why is it that the Republican establishment, like Mitch McConnell, John McCain, John Boehner, et al, hate Ted Cruz? The answer is simple: Senator Cruz is a vocal representation of the bright light of probity and Liberty that he has shined directly into the establishment's bed of political inequity. He has revealed that the Republican establishment have been sharing the bed of their politics with the whore of compromise. Ted Cruz is a constant and vociferous reminder to the establishment of the better angels of their own nature which they have long ago buried under the dung of big Party politics.
The criticism of Ted Cruz by the Republican establishment is that, God forbid, he actually listens to his constituents and serves the tenets of the United States Constitution. Senator Cruz is a marker on the political highway of America. A marker, which when compared to the position on that road of the Republican establishment, is illustrative of how far they have strayed from the principles and values of the founding documents written by men they claim to be there ancestors, and sanctified by a creator whose natural laws they no longer follow.
It is certainly a sad time in our nation's germination when many in the Republican establishment consider their campaign promises to be nothing more than the whispered machinations that a teenage boy whispers to a teenage girl in the backseat of his car to convince her to compromise her virtue. The Republican establishment's constitutional probity is as ephemeral as the campaign dollars that run through their fingers and are washed away by the waves of political compromise that are fed by the Sea of political self-serving.
What really burns my bottom is that the Republican establishment, from their position of moral and political compromise, have the audacity to assail persons like Ted Cruz. Leaders who take their commitment to the voters, to their own honor, and to the oath they pledged to the Constitution of the United States of America, as a sacred bond which no amount of arrows from the establishment can break.
So why is it that the Republican establishment, like Mitch McConnell, John McCain, John Boehner, et al, hate Ted Cruz? The answer is simple: Senator Cruz is a vocal representation of the bright light of probity and Liberty that he has shined directly into the establishment's bed of political inequity. He has revealed that the Republican establishment have been sharing the bed of their politics with the whore of compromise. Ted Cruz is a constant and vociferous reminder to the establishment of the better angels of their own nature which they have long ago buried under the dung of big Party politics.
The criticism of Ted Cruz by the Republican establishment is that, God forbid, he actually listens to his constituents and serves the tenets of the United States Constitution. Senator Cruz is a marker on the political highway of America. A marker, which when compared to the position on that road of the Republican establishment, is illustrative of how far they have strayed from the principles and values of the founding documents written by men they claim to be there ancestors, and sanctified by a creator whose natural laws they no longer follow.
It is certainly a sad time in our nation's germination when many in the Republican establishment consider their campaign promises to be nothing more than the whispered machinations that a teenage boy whispers to a teenage girl in the backseat of his car to convince her to compromise her virtue. The Republican establishment's constitutional probity is as ephemeral as the campaign dollars that run through their fingers and are washed away by the waves of political compromise that are fed by the Sea of political self-serving.
What really burns my bottom is that the Republican establishment, from their position of moral and political compromise, have the audacity to assail persons like Ted Cruz. Leaders who take their commitment to the voters, to their own honor, and to the oath they pledged to the Constitution of the United States of America, as a sacred bond which no amount of arrows from the establishment can break.
Sunday, January 4, 2015
What Is So Scary About Hillary?
Now that 2015 is underway, so to is the race for the 2016 presidential nominations. With no official declarations on either side, one can surmise that certain persons on both sides will surely throw their political hats into the cesspool of presidential politics. The most feared candidate on the Democrat side of the aisle (at least the most feared by moderate Republicans), is Hillary Clinton. Remember her, the smartest women, nay, the smartest person in the world who was destined for the presidency in 2008, until little known community agitator Barack Obama ripped the scepter of presidential power from her chubby little hand.
I never understood some Republicans' debilitating fear of Hillary Clinton, the woman who lost her party's nomination that was understood by everyone on both sides of the political spectrum to be a fait accompli. The reason was clear; she was a bad candidate that was bound to lose to any of the Republican challengers being considered by GOP primary voters. Democrat Party stalwart Teddy Kennedy understood this and threw his rather weighty support behind Barack Obama to avoid being trapped in the burning wreckage of the Hillary campaign.
When one examines the career of the Left's favorite career woman, it is obvious that the Hillary train of failure and non-success somehow dragged itself into the station of political power. This is a woman who was dismissed from the Watergate committee by her Democrat superior for, in his words, "Ethical violations and lying." Having no political star of her own, she tied herself to Bill Clinton's coattails and hung on for dear life.
Hillary was given a position at the prestigious Rose Law Firm in Little Rock Arkansas, in spite of her ethical violations, because she was the wife of the state's attorney general and latter governor. In all the years she spent at the firm she never tried one case, but rather met with important clients of the firm as a physical representation of the firm's conduit to the highest levels of power in the Arkansas state government.
Hillary's failure continued as First Lady when what was suppose to be her crowning achievement, universal healthcare, went up in a spectacular political fireball of ineptness and illegality. Some may have forgotten that Hillary's healthcare task force was found by a federal judge to have been formulated illegally. The rest of her husband's term in office Hillary was relegated to baking cookies and handling Bill's bimbo eruptions, which seem to be popping up as frequently as gas pains after a bad Mexican meal.
After the eight years of the Clinton administration Hillary was rewarded for her loyalty to Bill and the party with a New York senate seat, for which she ran virtually unopposed. To say that her senate career was undistinguished is an understatement on par with saying ISIS is a slightly aggressive organization. And then there is her campaign for the Democrat presidential nomination to which I alluded earlier in this post.
The 2008 campaign was the longest stretch of campaigning in which Hillary had ever engaged, and the party bulls like Ted Kennedy did not like what they saw. Placing her on the top of the ticket against John McCain and Sarah Palin was seen as political suicide and so she was thrown under the bus in favor of, as Joe Biden put it, "A clean articulate black man." She was thrown the bone of Secretary of State (a position in which she not only did not distinguish herself, but was a total failure) to soothe her hurt feelings with the promise that next time it would be her turn.
Here we are, ground zero of next time, and my guess is the Democrat Party establishment will find some way to deny Hillary again. But what about the polls that say Hillary Clinton is still one of the most popular figures in American politics? Well, I think they have been created to form opinion, not reflect it. If she really was that popular, why did her book sell so embarrassingly few copies? If ever there was a paper tiger in American politics, it is Hillary. That is why I will be saddened if she is not the Democrat Party's nominee for 2016. She is, after all, the most beatable candidate ever in presidential politics.
I never understood some Republicans' debilitating fear of Hillary Clinton, the woman who lost her party's nomination that was understood by everyone on both sides of the political spectrum to be a fait accompli. The reason was clear; she was a bad candidate that was bound to lose to any of the Republican challengers being considered by GOP primary voters. Democrat Party stalwart Teddy Kennedy understood this and threw his rather weighty support behind Barack Obama to avoid being trapped in the burning wreckage of the Hillary campaign.
When one examines the career of the Left's favorite career woman, it is obvious that the Hillary train of failure and non-success somehow dragged itself into the station of political power. This is a woman who was dismissed from the Watergate committee by her Democrat superior for, in his words, "Ethical violations and lying." Having no political star of her own, she tied herself to Bill Clinton's coattails and hung on for dear life.
Hillary was given a position at the prestigious Rose Law Firm in Little Rock Arkansas, in spite of her ethical violations, because she was the wife of the state's attorney general and latter governor. In all the years she spent at the firm she never tried one case, but rather met with important clients of the firm as a physical representation of the firm's conduit to the highest levels of power in the Arkansas state government.
Hillary's failure continued as First Lady when what was suppose to be her crowning achievement, universal healthcare, went up in a spectacular political fireball of ineptness and illegality. Some may have forgotten that Hillary's healthcare task force was found by a federal judge to have been formulated illegally. The rest of her husband's term in office Hillary was relegated to baking cookies and handling Bill's bimbo eruptions, which seem to be popping up as frequently as gas pains after a bad Mexican meal.
After the eight years of the Clinton administration Hillary was rewarded for her loyalty to Bill and the party with a New York senate seat, for which she ran virtually unopposed. To say that her senate career was undistinguished is an understatement on par with saying ISIS is a slightly aggressive organization. And then there is her campaign for the Democrat presidential nomination to which I alluded earlier in this post.
The 2008 campaign was the longest stretch of campaigning in which Hillary had ever engaged, and the party bulls like Ted Kennedy did not like what they saw. Placing her on the top of the ticket against John McCain and Sarah Palin was seen as political suicide and so she was thrown under the bus in favor of, as Joe Biden put it, "A clean articulate black man." She was thrown the bone of Secretary of State (a position in which she not only did not distinguish herself, but was a total failure) to soothe her hurt feelings with the promise that next time it would be her turn.
Here we are, ground zero of next time, and my guess is the Democrat Party establishment will find some way to deny Hillary again. But what about the polls that say Hillary Clinton is still one of the most popular figures in American politics? Well, I think they have been created to form opinion, not reflect it. If she really was that popular, why did her book sell so embarrassingly few copies? If ever there was a paper tiger in American politics, it is Hillary. That is why I will be saddened if she is not the Democrat Party's nominee for 2016. She is, after all, the most beatable candidate ever in presidential politics.
Sunday, December 21, 2014
What Would A Jeb Bush Candidacy Mean?
Sometimes I really do not know why I bother to comment on the events of American modernity. Every day it seems as though the porthole of liberty becomes more and more encrusted with the limiting mineral deposits of Leftism. I expect Democrats and the rest of those on the Left to support, condone, and impose public policy that limits the individual while bestowing more authority to government. The sickness of an unlimited central government is exactly why the Founders of this great nation created the antibody to this virus called the U.S. Constitution.
In recent years it appears that the Leftist virus of big government has become part and parcel to the modus operandi of the Republican Party. Jeb Bush, in announcing his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination for 2016 (in essence that is what empaneling an "Exploratory Committee" means), has proffered the strategy of running without actively pursuing the base of the Republican Party. In other words, Jeb Bush is going to run a campaign that ignores the concerns of the Tea Party and other conservatives in the Party, instead focusing on "moderates" and "independents."
For a preview of how successful his campaign strategy may be, Jeb Bush only needs to study the 2012 presidential campaign of Mitt Romney. Governor Romney ran a campaign, directed by the Republican Party establishment, aimed at moderates and independents. He won big among that group over Barack Obama and still lost the election. Heaping even more evidence on the pile of proof that Republican consultants are living in an electoral politics bubble that is at least a decade behind the times.
It is a bubble created by Democrats and voluntarily entered into by the Republican establishment and other Party moderates that says moderates, Hispanics, and independents (as if there are any) must be promised and cajoled into voting for the GOP, at the expense of the "radical" right wing of the Party. And what is it that the "radical" faction of the Republican Party like the Tea Party and others want from their representatives? Smaller government, minimal government spending, and a strict adherence to the Constitution.
Not only have moderate Republicans become accomplices to the illegal acts of the Obama administration by rewarding unconstitutional behavior with funding for it through September of 2015, but they have also acquiesced to the Affordable Care Act. No one in the Republican Party, except for fringies like Ted Cruz and others, speak anymore about repealing ObamaCare. No, the moderate refrain is change the law to make it better. The moderates miss the point that it is unconstitutional for the federal government to wrap its rather muscular regulatory fingers around the throats of the health care industry and the American people.
I have no doubt that the Republican establishment and its wealthy donors will ensure that Jeb Bush is the 2016 Republican presidential nominee. He will probably lose, but even if he is victorious, the cause of conservatism and constitutional government will be dealt another debilitating blow. And the American people will move ever closer to severely diluted citizenship as a result of open borders and amnesty, federal control of a larger chunk of not only health care but an ever increasing percentage of our free society, and the making irrelevant of the greatest document of freedom in the history of man.
In recent years it appears that the Leftist virus of big government has become part and parcel to the modus operandi of the Republican Party. Jeb Bush, in announcing his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination for 2016 (in essence that is what empaneling an "Exploratory Committee" means), has proffered the strategy of running without actively pursuing the base of the Republican Party. In other words, Jeb Bush is going to run a campaign that ignores the concerns of the Tea Party and other conservatives in the Party, instead focusing on "moderates" and "independents."
For a preview of how successful his campaign strategy may be, Jeb Bush only needs to study the 2012 presidential campaign of Mitt Romney. Governor Romney ran a campaign, directed by the Republican Party establishment, aimed at moderates and independents. He won big among that group over Barack Obama and still lost the election. Heaping even more evidence on the pile of proof that Republican consultants are living in an electoral politics bubble that is at least a decade behind the times.
It is a bubble created by Democrats and voluntarily entered into by the Republican establishment and other Party moderates that says moderates, Hispanics, and independents (as if there are any) must be promised and cajoled into voting for the GOP, at the expense of the "radical" right wing of the Party. And what is it that the "radical" faction of the Republican Party like the Tea Party and others want from their representatives? Smaller government, minimal government spending, and a strict adherence to the Constitution.
Not only have moderate Republicans become accomplices to the illegal acts of the Obama administration by rewarding unconstitutional behavior with funding for it through September of 2015, but they have also acquiesced to the Affordable Care Act. No one in the Republican Party, except for fringies like Ted Cruz and others, speak anymore about repealing ObamaCare. No, the moderate refrain is change the law to make it better. The moderates miss the point that it is unconstitutional for the federal government to wrap its rather muscular regulatory fingers around the throats of the health care industry and the American people.
I have no doubt that the Republican establishment and its wealthy donors will ensure that Jeb Bush is the 2016 Republican presidential nominee. He will probably lose, but even if he is victorious, the cause of conservatism and constitutional government will be dealt another debilitating blow. And the American people will move ever closer to severely diluted citizenship as a result of open borders and amnesty, federal control of a larger chunk of not only health care but an ever increasing percentage of our free society, and the making irrelevant of the greatest document of freedom in the history of man.
Saturday, December 13, 2014
The Ghost Of Calvin Coolidge
Calvin Coolidge, the thirtieth president of the United States, was known by both his political allies and political foes as a man of principal. Whether those who worked with him, or in many cases against him, agreed with his economy and federalism or not, all understood clearly the principles he lived by, and by which he tried to govern a nation. The extent of his commitment to the founding principle of federalism was tested in the floods of 1927.
Mississippi suffered a devastating flood and the affected area's representatives in congress tried to pressure President Coolidge into supplying federal monies to aid the stricken area. Coolidge and his administration had worked hard for years to trim the federal budget, which lead to lower spending when he left office than when he entered and a smaller national debt. A feat that has not been achieved again in the ensuing 85 years since Silent Cal left office.
One Mississippi representative smugly stated that the president would surely open the spigot of federal dollars if his home state of Vermont had been the victim of nature's wrath. Later in the year that representative's supposition was tested when Vermont was inundated with flood waters that damaged whole towns and displaced hundreds of thousands of residents. True to his federalist beliefs, Calvin Coolidge did not open up the federal vault and start shoveling money to flood ravaged areas.
Calvin Coolidge knew, as the Founders knew who proceeded him by 150 years, that once the federal government had the authority to distribute taxpayer dollars to special interests, even if those special interests were areas of the country affected by natural disasters, then the limiting factor written into the constitution meant nothing. Mr. Coolidge suffered the slings and arrows of myopic politicians of his day who wanted to garner the votes and adulation of their constituents using federal taxpayer money. It was this kind of myopia that would drag the United States into the inescapable cavern of debt in which we currently find ourselves.
I was reminded of Calvin Coolidge's probity and adherence to his principles this week when House republicans showed just the opposite characteristics in passing a spending bill that will fund the federal government through September of 2015. A cowardly piece of budgetary legislation in which the issue of executive amnesty and the yoke of ObamaCare around the necks of the American people were absent without leave.
Some defenders of Speaker Boehner and the rest of his support staff for the Obama agenda may point to the fact that Harry Reid and the Democrats still control the senate until the Republicans officially take control next month. That is true, but the Republican leadership in the House would not even allow the hint of standing on principle with their refusal to bring Representative Nick Mulvaney's amendment to the floor for a vote. An amendment that would send a strong signal to President Obama that this is still a nation of laws, laws created by the people's representatives in congress and enforced by the executive branch.
I fear for our nation, not because of what a rouge president is doing to it, but because those who should be in opposition have become silly excuse machines that continually spew reasons why they can not achieve. Meanwhile the ghost of Calvin Coolidge haunts the corridors and alcoves of the capital and rattles the chains of moral rectitude and adherence to principles. Unfortunately there seems to be no one left with ears to hear, nor the courage to take up the challenges of true leadership.
Mississippi suffered a devastating flood and the affected area's representatives in congress tried to pressure President Coolidge into supplying federal monies to aid the stricken area. Coolidge and his administration had worked hard for years to trim the federal budget, which lead to lower spending when he left office than when he entered and a smaller national debt. A feat that has not been achieved again in the ensuing 85 years since Silent Cal left office.
One Mississippi representative smugly stated that the president would surely open the spigot of federal dollars if his home state of Vermont had been the victim of nature's wrath. Later in the year that representative's supposition was tested when Vermont was inundated with flood waters that damaged whole towns and displaced hundreds of thousands of residents. True to his federalist beliefs, Calvin Coolidge did not open up the federal vault and start shoveling money to flood ravaged areas.
Calvin Coolidge knew, as the Founders knew who proceeded him by 150 years, that once the federal government had the authority to distribute taxpayer dollars to special interests, even if those special interests were areas of the country affected by natural disasters, then the limiting factor written into the constitution meant nothing. Mr. Coolidge suffered the slings and arrows of myopic politicians of his day who wanted to garner the votes and adulation of their constituents using federal taxpayer money. It was this kind of myopia that would drag the United States into the inescapable cavern of debt in which we currently find ourselves.
I was reminded of Calvin Coolidge's probity and adherence to his principles this week when House republicans showed just the opposite characteristics in passing a spending bill that will fund the federal government through September of 2015. A cowardly piece of budgetary legislation in which the issue of executive amnesty and the yoke of ObamaCare around the necks of the American people were absent without leave.
Some defenders of Speaker Boehner and the rest of his support staff for the Obama agenda may point to the fact that Harry Reid and the Democrats still control the senate until the Republicans officially take control next month. That is true, but the Republican leadership in the House would not even allow the hint of standing on principle with their refusal to bring Representative Nick Mulvaney's amendment to the floor for a vote. An amendment that would send a strong signal to President Obama that this is still a nation of laws, laws created by the people's representatives in congress and enforced by the executive branch.
I fear for our nation, not because of what a rouge president is doing to it, but because those who should be in opposition have become silly excuse machines that continually spew reasons why they can not achieve. Meanwhile the ghost of Calvin Coolidge haunts the corridors and alcoves of the capital and rattles the chains of moral rectitude and adherence to principles. Unfortunately there seems to be no one left with ears to hear, nor the courage to take up the challenges of true leadership.
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