Obama’s War (s) May 31, 2010
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.Tags: Afghanistan, Dr. Robert Owens, fundamentally transform America, Iran, Iraq
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A war here, a war there, everywhere it’s war, war, war. General Douglas MacArthur wanted to invade China because they offered a safe haven for our enemies during the Korean War. In testimony before the Senate the first Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Omar Bradley said, “It would be the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time.” Today we face endless wars for elusive peace when we can’t secure our own borders. We’re committed to war in Iraq and Afghanistan; we’ve been rattling sabers in Iran’s direction for years and there’s one more war just for good measure.
The Corporations Once Known as the Mainstream Media have stopped covering the war in Iraq. Our Progressive leaders are throwing away the peace accomplished by the surge Senator Obama opposed. Our brave troops are withdrawing from hard-won positions as violence creates havoc and Al Qaeda seeks to spark a sectarian civil war. Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, our strong man in Baghdad, seeks to steal an election he lost and Iraq is selling their oil to China. Candidate Obama promised that he would immediately begin bringing the troops home at the rate of one to two brigades a month. Obama also stated he’d call for a second constitutional convention in Iraq, this one run by his friends at the United Nations, which he wouldn’t allow to adjourn until Iraq’s leaders reached a new agreement on political reconciliation. The fruits of the surge thrown aside, the same people running the Iraqi government in the same way and endless garrison duty in Iraq look likely.
Then there’s Afghanistan, the war Candidate Obama told us was the right war in the right place, and the one we need to win, which we can only assume means there’re some wars we don’t need to win. While life goes on as normal here heroic volunteers are in harm’s way.
Since taking office, President Obama, after agonizing past recent election deadlines, has done what he opposed in Iraq: sending in a surge of troops to rescue a deteriorating situation. And for the first time in American history, or maybe in any history, he announced the surge while at the same time announcing the date of our withdrawal scheduled for July 2011? So as hard as our forces are fighting, as many victories as they gain since our leader has already announced we’re leaving on a date certain, do you think maybe the Taliban is waiting in the wings? Do you think anyone in Kandahar or Kabul might think about what the Taliban might do once we leave? Saying we’re going to persevere and not quit means little when we’ve already announced the date we’re going to quit. If we send them to fight we need to let them fight to win or bring them home. They aren’t chips in games played by diplomats over Champaign glasses. They are the cream-of-the-crop, and the best America has to offer.
To top off this no-win strategy, Afghan President Hamid Karzai the man we installed and continue to prop-up with dollars we don’t have and heroes we do honors the leader of Iran and says he might join the Taliban. He’s doing this either to save face since we’ve acknowledged he’s basically the Mayor of Kabul and at least related to the biggest drug dealer in the country, or he’s doing it to wring concessions from his handlers. The tragedy is we’re sending troops to fight and die for a surrender that’s already been announced.
Iran has offered to ship half their low-enriched uranium to Turkey. True, the deal wasn’t brokered or imposed by Hilary and her crew at State it was negotiated by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Brazilian President Lula da Silva, and though it lacks the Obama Imprimatur it’s basically the same deal he’s demanded. If President Obama doesn’t accept this deal he’s signaling to the rest of the world that it’s his administration seeking confrontation with Iran, it’s he who refuses to throttle back the avalanche to war. Are the neo-cons who stampeded Bush to war against an Iraq that never attacked us on track to lead us to war against an Iran that hasn’t attacked anyone in centuries?
Then there’s the war for good measure, the one against free enterprise, federalism and the traditional America we’ve known waged by a president who promised (or threatened) to fundamentally transform our nation. Those of us still clinging to our God and our traditions cannot ignore the one campaign our national community organizer seems intent on winning: the one against us. From Soros-backed front groups to pandering pundits of the captured media, from union bosses to academics and bureaucrats who’ve never held a regular job in their lives, day-by-day traditional America is being transformed before our eyes. The battle may seem long, the way may seem dark, but if we keep the faith and keep the peace we shall overcome.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College and History for the American Public University System. http://drrobertowens.com © 2010 Robert R. Owens dr.owens@comcast.net
What Is Sovereignty and Who Has It May 16, 2010
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.Tags: 10th amendment, Articles of Confederation, Constitution, Dr. Robert Owens, Progressives, sovereignty clause
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Sovereignty is accepted as absolute uncontested authority. This definition of the concept of sovereignty emerged along with the nation-state. The nation-state hasn’t always existed. Everyone tends to see the circumstances of their own times as the static normality of history. And contrary to the endless lectures of History teachers tied to politically correct text books and standardized tests, History is not static it’s dynamic, it changes every day. The concept of the nation-state emerged in the sixteenth century evolving from countries as the private property of monarchs, and however hard to envision the nation-state will someday be replaced by something else.
If that’s what sovereignty is who has it? In England it’s vested in Parliament. In China it’s vested in the Central Committee of the Communist Party. But in America sovereignty isn’t vested in any one place, which means there really isn’t any. No sovereignty? How can that be? Since sovereignty is an absolute, it either exists or it doesn’t and it’s a misapplied concept when striving to understand the American government.
This does not mean that the United States is not a sovereign nation. The Federal Government represents the United Sates on the world stage. To the other countries of the world the Federal Government is the sovereign power with which they must deal. However, domestically we face a different situation. In some areas the Federal Government is sovereign, in some areas the States are sovereign, and in some areas the people are sovereign. Since sovereignty by definition is an absolutist concept and not one of degrees, either something is sovereign or it is not. In the United States there is no one legitimate source or center of sovereignty. The revolutionary theory the Framers advanced into practice is that several centers of power prevents the formation of an authority vortex swallowing all legitimate authority and paralyzing decision making, thus establishing the world’s first viable system of disassociated sovereignty.
Under the Articles of Confederation, which preceded the Constitution as the foundational document and framework of organization of the United States, stated categorically in Article II, “Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence.” Nowhere in the Constitution is this retention of inherent sovereignty surrendered. The so-called sovereignty clause found in Article Six of the Constitution obviously gives precedence to the laws and treaties made by the Federal government it does not however expressly say anywhere in the document that the States surrendered or forfeited their inherent sovereignty. If it had it never would’ve been ratified. As expressly stated in the 10th Amendment neither the States nor the people surrendered their sovereignty to the Federal Government they delegated it. There is a difference between these two actions. To surrender is to give entirely and irrevocably to another while delegation is a temporary action based upon continued agreement between the parties involved.
Another strong argument can be made that since all governments are the products of a social contract between those who govern and those governed sovereignty ultimately resides in the people and governments are therefore merely agents of the people’s will. According to this line of thought all governments wield delegated powers and can have no more power in and of themselves than the moon has light without the sun.
Amendment is the only legitimate process for change under the Constitution. If the design calls for a decentralized diffused sovereignty in an asymmetrical system how was change achieved from that to the current system of highly centralized power and control? Was it by amendment or practice? Is it possible for an illegitimate practice to become a legitimate tradition? Is it possible for an illegitimate tradition to set a legitimate precedent?
All of these historically based academic discussions aside and for all intents and purposes the argument about who is sovereign was forever settled by Abraham Lincoln. When the South attempted to succeed, an action not prohibited by the Constitution they were beat back into submission to the Federal Government. Debate over. Question answered. The Federal Government is supreme. However, though this is the reality of our circumstance since the Civil War this is a reality imposed through the use of military force not to be confounded with the original condition based upon the voluntary agreement between the people, the states and the national government in Constitution.
For years this question of who is sovereign has see-sawed back and forth. Today the Progressives and their two headed government party seek to make the exaltation of the central government permanent. If this stands unchallenged America has devolved from the defused model established under the Constitution to a centralized version reminiscent of its original absolutist definition. If this new normal is enshrined as reality it will become increasingly obvious as States strive to assert their rights and people seek to preserve their freedom. For if the central government is now absolutely sovereign it will eventually crush all rivals. If the people are sovereign in time they’ll find their voice, reassert their power, re-establish the federal system, and return to the social contract as ratified in the Constitution.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College and History for the American Public University System. http://drrobertowens.com © 2010 Robert R. Owens dr.owens@comcast.net
Government Funded Front Groups May 10, 2010
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.Tags: Acorn, Dr. Robert Owens, Fannie and Freddie, Obama, Planned Parenthood, SEIU
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How many Progressive groups are in reality government supported entities masquerading as public interest lobbies? How many government agencies act as Progressive lobbies? Marx said “The last capitalist we hang shall be the one who sold us the rope.” Is our hard-earned tax money being used to fulfill the words of the Progressive’s secular messiah? Another old saying goes, “The acorn doesn’t fall too far from the tree.” If the tree is the Progressive clique that’s captured America the acorn is the government money used by various Progressive fronts, both public and private to advocate for more money from the treasury to buy more power. Or is that more rope?
The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) says it’s collapsing without government funding . Perhaps it never was a broad-based grassroots social action organization. Instead it’s an off-the-books government funded agency dedicated to electing Democrats and pushing an agenda of Progressive economics through covert action.
Fannie and Freddie two reckless mortgage monsters and the fuse that lit the subprime bomb spent more than 170 million dollars influencing the Best Congress Money Can Buy during the decade preceding the crash. They both made the list of the top 20 lobbying organizations buying their way to success. Incidentally, during the same period they were also government backed and packed with hacks including President Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emmanuel. The leadership of both reads like a country club for retirees from Congress who looted the enterprises along the way. Before the crash, McCain and other Republicans including President Bush tried to warn Congress that the policies of these reckless lenders were dangerous. The Leviathans of Lending were defended by the same perpetually re-elected aristocrats that received the most money from them and who are the same arrogant Lords of the Legislature and their Glorious Leader who today lead the charge to clean up the mess they caused.
Planned Parenthood, one of America’s leading abortion providers is also the recipient of hundreds of millions of taxpayer donations every year. Planned Parenthood also vigorously supports Democrats including the current occupant of the Oval Office. A source of money and votes so potent the Illuminati of the Government Party feel it necessary to pay homage during every election cycle saluting the abortion flag and taking the pledge of loyalty.
The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is the government Union whose president boasts “We spent a fortune to elect Barack Obama – $60.7 million to be exact – and we’re proud of it.” Apparently they’ve reaped windfall profits from their investment. They’re the nation’s fastest growing union which isn’t surprising since under the Progressives the government is the only sector of the economy that’s growing. In fact, the number of government union members is now larger than private sector union members. In our corporatist government model unions are part of the power elite. They put money in and get jobs and union dues out.
Richard Posner, judge for the 7th Circuit US Court of Appeals pointed out the purpose of unions “The goal of unions is to redistribute wealth from the owners and managers of firms and from workers willing to work for very low wages, to the unionized workers and the union’s officers. … Unions, in other words, are worker cartels. … There is also a long history of union corruption. And some union activity is extortionate: the union and the employer tacitly agree that as long as the employer gives the workers a wage increase slightly above the union dues, the union will leave the employer alone.”
However, in President Obama’s fundamentally transformed America, the government union bosses don’t use wealth from private firms they redistribute taxpayer money. What do these servants of the working man do with the money they get from American taxpayers? Do they use it to fund the pensions of their members? No, that pension fund is upside down while the pension fund for SEIU officials is funded at more than 100%. Besides feathering their own nests what could be more important than taking care of the people who actually do the work? Apparently, it’s lobbying for larger government needing more workers thus growing SEIU. Who said perpetual motion was impossible?
If the incestuous relationship between the government and its in-house union isn’t bad enough the Progressive apparatus captured several government agencies which act as conduits for their lobbying activities.
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) uses federal money to fund not only chocolate covered obscenities they also fund art designed to promote the agenda of President Obama an activity which in other countries we call propaganda. National Public Radio (NPR) using government funds and well chosen words to frame debates and shape opinion has long espoused the Progressive line from abortion to the man-made global warming hoax and the import-a-voter approach to immigration.
Where are those who believe in limited government? Why do they allow Progressives to create these government funded interest groups? The government has become an interest group and they’re working for their interest not ours.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College and History for the American Public University System. http://drrobertowens.com © 2010 Robert R. Owens dr.owens@comcast.net
A Government of Fallible Men to Rule Fallible Men May 3, 2010
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.Tags: Constitution, direct democracy, Dr. Robert Owens, Founders, living breathing document, Progressive Movement, Seventeenth Amendment
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In America today a debate rages concerning the legitimate role of government. Currently the Federal Government is controlled by a group of politicians who consider themselves the ideological descendants of the Progressive Movement. Beginning in the 1890’s the Progressives led by Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson championed the idea that it was time to progress past America’s old ways of doing things. They felt the traditions, forms, and style of American governance and society should break-out of the mold provided by the Constitution by casting it as a “living Breathing Document” that could be remolded to meet the desires of every generation.
They believed, and their descendants still believe, it is the behavior of men that defines who they are. This contrasts with our Founders who believed that it is instead the nature of men that provides this definition. Our Founders expressly stated that they believed humanity has been endowed by the Creator with rights. They felt that these rights are inalienable, meaning they are humanity’s by virtue of existence. In other words, these rights have not been earned by man they’ve been given by God and since they haven’t been given by government, government can’t legitimately take them away. Instead of existing for its own right, the reason for government is to protect these natural rights. It’s the need for the order, security and liberty for the pursuit of happiness, which justifies the establishment and continuation of government.
Thus, a government of the people, by the people and for the people should be one based upon the nature of man. It’s in this context that the voice of the people could almost be called the voice of God for if the Creator implanted this nature and these rights within humanity the collective expression freely arrived at and freely expressed should bring to the fore those who will respect and guard these rights.
If this is true then the will of the majority should always be the surest way to ensure the continued existence of man’s natural rights. If we had a nation of perfect people this would be true; however, in establishing and maintaining government we don’t deal with perfect people we deal with people as they are with all the imperfections and prejudices nurture superimposes upon nature. People who don’t educate themselves enough to exercise self-leadership become the pawns of demagogues and the voice of God is perverted into the voice of the world.
Even the Founders, a grouping singular in the history of men concerning the brilliance of their intellects and the purity of their motives knew they couldn’t trust themselves to form or maintain a government of fallible men to rule over fallible men. They knew that history is filled with examples of charismatic leaders who’ve proven that while you can fool all of the people only some of the time it’s possible to fool enough people to take over a country. Then once you’ve fooled a plurality of voters to take over you can make fools of everyone doing whatever you like for as long as you like. This is why the protection of freedom is a limited government.
Power must be concentrated enough to provide order, security and liberty; however, if unrestrained power is given to a majority the opportunity exists for a faction to gain control and use it for purely partisan ends. Thus our Founders rejected direct democracy in favor of the federal model of divided sovereignty and the republican principle of both direct and in-direct representation. That the source of authority emanates from the people and the constituent States is demonstrated in several ways. The Constitution itself was referred to delegates chosen by the States. In the American government as initially designed the people were represented directly by the House of Representatives and the States by the Senate. The executive was elected indirectly by the people and the states through the Electoral College. The members of the judicial branch are appointed by the executive with the advice and consent of the Senate.
This process of allowing democratic choice within a framework of restraint was designed to create a government based upon the premise of inalienable rights yet cognizant of the fallible nature of mankind. A government powerful enough to ensure the security necessary to guarantee those rights, yet retrained enough not to trample them. Many of the Progressive innovations of the last 100 years have upset this delicate balance moving us from the government envisioned by the founders to the one we have today.
The Seventeenth Amendment mandates the direct election of the Senate. This left the States without any voice in the Federal Government. It also opened the door for a combination of factions acting as an unrestrained majority seeking the benefit of some at the expense of others. Often those who take the limits off government seek unlimited power for themselves. We must follow the guide of our ancestors for the good of our posterity. We must resist the temptation to seek security through government rather than security from government.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College and History for the American Public University System. http://drrobertowens.com © 2010 Robert R. Owens dr.owens@comcast.net
Does Equality Mean We Are All The Same April 26, 2010
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.Tags: Bill of Rights, Declaration of Independence, Dr. Robert Owens, Equality before the law, equality of opportunity, equality of outcome
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In the Declaration of Independence a new thing entered the world, a country founded upon the idea of equality. The Old World consisted of societies built upon hereditary class and entrenched privilege. Beginning with words that still burn within the breast of Patriots, this great document proclaims two types of equality.
Based upon the first clause, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,” the first type is equality before the law. We all stand before the bar of justice on the same footing. There aren’t different laws for different classes. The definition of murder is the same for the homeless person, the mechanic and the billionaire. This equality, a natural part of our creation proclaims that neither classes nor other artificial divisions will ever be recognized in law or enshrined through legislation.
Based upon the second clause, “that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,” the second type is equality of opportunity. Everyone is entitled to their life and the fruits of it. Each of us has an equal right to the liberty of action, the freedom to choose our life’s path and to make our own decisions. And each of us has the right to pursue happiness. In almost all other lists such as this from the period, many of them written into state constitutions by the same people who wrote the Declaration, this is the right to own property and the happiness here is assumed to mean the right to use our own talents and the things they gain for us for our own benefit as long as we do not injure nor hinder others.
These rights and the equality they express were later protected by the Constitution. Congress shall not confer titles of nobility. Congress shall not pass bills of attainder convicting groups or individuals without a trial. Through the use of these and other negatives the Framers sought to secure Americans the possession of the equality proclaimed by the Declaration. The Bill of Rights went even further in declaring what Congress could not do in the attempt to guarantee the continued exercise of the equality granted by our Creator. The mechanism the Framers used to keep freedom alive was limiting government for they knew governments gain power by subtracting freedom from individuals.
However, it needs to be noted that the limitations placed upon government as a means of securing the equal rights of citizens in no way states that there should be a leveling of all people or that there will not continue to be distinctions and differences among them. This was never stated and never intended for the belief in or vision of a population with standardized talents, inclinations and goals does not match reality. There are as many different sets of these as there are people. In each individual, life should be open to choice. The only boundaries being that we do no harm nor proscribe the choice of others. This is the level playing field of creation, a pure equality of opportunity to be harvested in proportion to the Creator’s gift of talents and our investment of time and effort.
As long as the role of government is limited, and as long people are free to operate within the informal social arrangements of a non-regimented, non-stratified society there’s no tension between equality of opportunity and liberty. This quest for equality of outcome has become a social goal adopted as a reason for destroying society as it is in the name of society as a small cadre of radicals thinks it should be. In the aftermath of economic or societal collapse, revolutionaries, or in the case of the American Progressives “Evolutionaries,” will seek to erect in the place of popular government a bureaucratic tyranny devoted to leveling all to the lowest common denominator. Except of course for the levelers themselves who rise by deciding who gets what, and it’s the deciders who always seem to get the most. For, some perceive that equality of all is not the same as the equality of some, or as the ruling pigs in George Orwell’s novel, Animal Farm declare, “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” This reflects the subversion of equality of opportunity into equality of outcome or as it’s termed by Progressives equal opportunity.
To build this monument to mediocrity the philosophers of progressivism subtly change the meaning of equality. Instead of the opportunity for all to succeed it becomes the certainty of everyone getting a trophy for showing up, a diploma for attendance or a check for not working. Built upon the premise that if all are created equal all should end up equal thus denying the goal of equality the chance to go as far and as fast as talent and hard work can lead.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College and History for the American Public University System. http://drrobertowens.com © 2010 Robert R. Owens dr.owens@comcast.net
We Must Know Who We Are to Decide What We Will Be April 12, 2010
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.Tags: Articles of Confederation, checks and balances, Constitution, democratic, Dr. Robert Owens, federal, private property rights, republic, separation of powers
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Forget about the debate the government parties and the geriatric media want us to have, “Are you a Republican or a Democrat?” The debate we need to have concerns what we were meant to be, not who they tell us we should be. Instead we should discuss issues of substance such as, “Are we a Republic or a Democracy?” for this will lead us to the truth. In today’s polarized political atmosphere conservatives shout “Republic!” while progressives scream, “Democracy!” In truth, neither term fully describes the boldest experiment to provide individual freedom and release human potential in the history of mankind. There is a third term needed if we are to grasp the qualities which makes us who we are.
The United States was birthed in the fire of revolution against the denial of personal freedom and the expropriation of resources by an authoritarian government. The first attempt to balance the rights of the people, the prerogatives of their local states and the need for a centralized structure to face other nations on the world stage, the Articles of Confederation proved inadequate. Then the Framers crafted a constitution establishing a democratic federal republic. All three terms democratic, federal, and republic are needed to express the unique nature of the American Experiment. Not one of them conveys the strength of the three and therefore cannot stand alone. Together they outline the form of government and the manner in which it shall be chosen, yet even these loaded terms leave unstated the inner essence of the last best hope of humanity. For it is the separation of powers, private property rights and the checks and balances built into the system that has safe guarded liberty and unleashed the potential of the American people.
The fact that instead of a reasoned debate about who we are, where we came from, and how we got here we stand on opposite sides of barricades shouting slogans at each other highlights the need for all of us to educate ourselves in the history of the principles and values upon which our country was founded. The current public educational process is a government mandated system which forces teaching to a test that’s forgotten as soon as it’s passed. The teaching of American History has been presented as a boring jumble of names and dates for a few semesters in 12 years since before any of us were born. It’s time for anyone who wants to understand what’s going on in our rapidly evolving political landscape to dig in and educate ourselves. We cannot allow those who want to subvert the home of the brave and the land of the free either to the right or the left to sway us with slogans and catch phrases. We have to know enough to know when we’re being conned by ideologues with a hidden agenda.
Ideologues reduce all things to the dimensions of their own thoughts. They oversimplify and overload words with meaning effectively blocking the channels of communication. They turn complex political, social and economic principles into cat-calls, catch-phrases and campaign slogans designed to move masses to emotional responses not individuals to reasoned reactions. It was the ideologue Karl Marx who reduced history to a conflict between capital and labor, charged all problems to the inequalities of capitalism, projected a continually deteriorating situation and then pointed to communism as the only answer.
We must resist the temptation to reduce our American experiment to an ideology. We cannot allow this bait-and-switch tactic to lead us to the mirage of a collectivist utopia. We need to understand this would deny and distort the constitutionally limited government we inherited. Ideologies start with a conception of mankind as made-up of interchangeable parts projects universally comprehensive answers and ends with enforced uniformity in society. In contrast America has facilitated diversity, individualism and a variety of life paths.
So, “Are we a Republic or a Democracy?” First of all, we need to understand these are not equivalent or interchangeable terms. Today both republic and democracy have become loaded with ideological baggage as in the Democratic Peoples Republic, or Social Democracy. To be specific: republic describes a form of government wherein representatives stand in place of others to deliberate, decide and lead. Democracy means from the people. But there is the third term that must be reckoned with if we’re to understand America: federal. Federal means a form of government in which a union of states recognizes a central authority while retaining certain residual powers of government. Putting this all together, the United States of America was designed to be a federation of states with a republican form of government chosen through a democratic process.
Those who declare we’re a democracy want majority rule while striving to build a majority of people dependant on the government tax, tax, tax, spend, spend, spend, elect, elect, elect. Those who say we’re a republic have problems with the direction taken by the representatives whose very existence proclaims this to be a republic. This is where the third word fully impacts the other two. The federal nature of the American experiment declares to all that this is an elected representative government of limited power and separated authority. We are not a centrally-planned unitary government based on mob-rule. If we will learn who we are perhaps then we will see clearly who we will be.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College and History for the American Public University System. http://drrobertowens.com © 2010 Robert R. Owens dr.owens@comcast.net
Since Some Don’t Worry About the Constitution We Should April 5, 2010
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.Tags: Bill of Rights, Constitution, Dr. Robert Owens, limited government, Magna Charta, Petition of Rights
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One of the greatest challenges in teaching History is to convey the uniqueness in its conception of something that through the passage of time has become an accepted part of everyday life. When something has been around longer than we have it’s hard to realize that it wasn’t always there. It takes a conscious effort to understand that yesterday wasn’t today only earlier and tomorrow won’t be today only later. The permanence of the now is an illusion which helps us walk as if the shifting sands of our lives are really the solid shore of the sea of time.
When Americans organize anything of importance they immediately write a construction. In most cases American organizations include a president, vice-president, and a legislative type board. From the classroom to the boardroom from Main Street to Wall Street this is just the way we do things. The idea that there needs to be a written constitution is assumed. And looking at our history this only makes sense. For hundreds of years and for generation after generation we have lived lives of peace, prosperity and power under the shade of the most remarkable secular document to have ever come from the hand of man, the Constitution of the United States.
The birth of our Constitution shines as an almost miraculous event in the story of mankind. From the beginning of time might had always made right. One strong arm after another elbowed their way to center stage. Once there eventually their descendants grown fat on the plunder of the helpless became in turn plunder for the next strong arm. Those who managed through the passage of time to become fixtures in their culture reigned as monarchs saying God gave them a divine right to continue plundering those under their sway conveniently forgetting it was the strong arm of their less noble ancestors that slaughtered their way to the top. They may have arrived in chariots, but they were chariots of steel not fire.
A few centuries before the founding of the English colonies in America the people of England began to put limits on their king. They used violence and economics to wrest the guarantees of some basic individual rights, the recognition that the king was not absolute, and that there were some checks upon his power. The Magna Charta, the Petition of Rights, and the Bill of Rights were snatched from the king’s chain-mailed fist. Through the passage of time they became the accepted rights of all Englishmen. And when our ancestors founded Virginia, the first among English colonies the charter granted by the king stated that those who came to the New World were granted all liberties, franchises and immunities as if they were abiding and born within England. The colonists believed this and acted accordingly. With loyalty to the King and Parliament they set about organizing the land. Local assemblies, republican in nature were democratically elected. And it was only when George III and his ministers seemed to have forgotten that the colonists had rights that Americans took up arms to secure those rights.
After the Revolution, when it came time to create a government the Framers turned to a written constitution. In the birth of nations this was something new. England does not have a written constitution. Ours was the first; a unique attempt to limit government in order to preserve liberty. Most constitutions in the world today model themselves after ours. And if their authors did not consciously model their written document after ours the very concept of a written constitution is of American origin.
This earth-shaking event has become mundane. This ground-breaking experience now seems so common it’s glossed over with the boring presentation of a high school history class, memorize some names and few dates, regurgitate it for a test and forget it. For the first time a people had founded a government of the people, by the people and for the people. And to ensure the tranquility and safety of the people they limited that government through the separation of power into three branches and the maintenance of a unique federal system of sovereign states united as one. This is the source and the summit of American greatness: the Constitution which established and maintained a limited government providing for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Using the ideals and moral standards of the present to interpret the past is known as Presentism. Using presentism as a lens, many citizens today believe the Constitution is a living document meant to be reinterpreted with each passing generation. Others echo the former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales point of view, “The Constitution is what the Supreme Court says it is.” Instead of changing the document through the established amendment process they believe they can change the document through court decisions, precedent and legislation.
Twenty-first century America has been called post-Christian, post-capitalist, and post-racial. I would suggest that if we continue on the path we’ve chosen the future may refer to twenty-first century America as post-constitutional. For if the leaders of the present can impose unconstitutional laws then we’ve ceased to have a government of laws and have instead a government of men. One Congressman summed up the arrogance of our leaders perfectly. When asked where in the Constitution he finds the authority to impose the burden of purchasing health care on the American people he answered, “I don’t worry about the Constitution.” Since he doesn’t we should.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College and History for the American Public University System. http://drrobertowens.com © 2010 Robert R. Owens dr.owens@comcast.net
We Can Learn What We Don’t Know March 29, 2010
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.Tags: Bret Baier, Burton W. Folsom Jr., Dr. Robert Owens, Glenn Beck, Health Care, Jonah Goldberg, O’Reilly, Pat Buchanan
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If the price of freedom is eternal vigilance we deserve what we have since we took our eyes off the ball to watch the game. As economically our once strong Republic veers from Universal Empire to quasi-colony of China, as the Alinsky trained radicals from the 1960s and their second-generation clone army guide America to Amerika, from freedom to serfdom so many of the sheeple are still asleep. The alarm bells are ringing, but the cracks in the fabric of our nation have muted the sound as the crack has silenced the Liberty Bell.
There’s nothing more interesting than speaking to people across our land following the big Democrat win in the Congressional version of March Madness. The opinions, emotions, fears and gloating are a wonder to behold. In these days of change, hope still burns eternal in the hearts of Patriots grimly facing the prospect of America becoming a European-style social democracy so that some of us can finally be proud of our country. Fear for the fate of their children and grandchildren is in the hearts, eyes, and voices of the newly awakened as they imagine the shabby future we face in a de-industrialized debtor nation. They see the constantly expanding debt and they know eventually someone will have to pay the tab. And they know it won’t be the professional politicians and community organizers who flushed trillions down the rat-hole. Instead it’ll be the previously comatose populace and their unsuspecting children. Gloating like a fat cat left alone with a Christmas turkey, Progressives are crowing because they can finally pull their red flags out of the closet to match their Che Guevara tee-shirts as they take a victory lap around the White House.
The art of magic is all about getting us to watch the left hand while the right hand produces the quarter from behind our ear. It was telling when in the midst of his first real interview with real questions since O’Reilly President Obama kept pushing his hand in Bret Baier’s face and telling him don’t be concerned with the process, don’t ask about the process. Smoke and mirrors have become the hallmark of the Obama administration. Look at the Democrat re-election slush-fund Stimulus bill. Have a nation-wide debate about spending hundreds of billions while the Fed pumps out trillions without any fanfare whatsoever. The media enhanced dialog heats up and flares over imposing nationalized medicine without realizing we’ve shape-shifted from E Pluribus Unum Latin for “Out of Many, One,” to Ex Uno, Plures “Out of One, Many” as America splinters into shouting crowds and oblivious leaders.
Progressives always want to be judged by their intentions never by the outcomes of their actions. Foisting a war on poverty on a country which has fostered more upward mobility than every other nation in the world combined and forty years and trillions of dollars later we have more poverty than when we started, but they meant well. They’ve opened our borders until we’re awash in illegal immigrants then they act as if natural and naturalized citizens are racists for not wanting to pick up the tab and give away the vote too. The Progressives have successfully changed the melting-pot into a smelting pot as America fractures into ethno-tribal factions poised to tear each other apart, but they meant well. They’ve embraced free trade and giving most favored nation status to countries with populations willing to work at a fraction of the American scale. Causing industry to flood out as cheap goods flood in, changing us from the Arsenal of Democracy into a source of raw materials and credit card wielding consumers, our economy is shattered, but they meant well. Bowing to kings and emperors, embracing dictators and shunning allies mired in endless wars with phantom tribesmen our prestige and power fades, but they meant well.
Mistakes of this magnitude do not happen innocently. It’s time to rip the mask from these defilers of constitutionally limited government and expose them for the charlatans and hucksters they are. For as long as the Progressives and their corrosive influence have sought to bring the blight of socialism to our shores they’ve hidden behind their supposedly pure motives. They only want to help the poor. They only want to make a level playing field. They only want to heal the sick, soothe the dying and give everyone everything leaving the check on the table for the producers to pay. It’s time for anyone who’s interested in knowing what this is all about to educate themselves. Generations of Progressives have burrowed their way into our education system changing it into an indoctrination system. The stale, boring and flat history force fed to us as helpless cogs in the public school systems left out all the good stuff. Read Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg, New Deal or Raw Deal by Burton W. Folsom Jr., Arguing with Idiots by Glenn Beck and any of the eye-opening books by Pat Buchanan. Now look at the bibliographies in those books and read the books they’ve cited.
Find out who these Progressives really are. Learn what their goals have always been and the smoke and mirrors will lose their power to blind and the way will become clear. We cannot let the emotions of the battle cloud the thoughts of our minds. There’s a way home, but first we must understand how we got here before we can know how to return there. Keep the faith. Keep the peace. We shall overcome.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College and History for the American Public University System. http://drrobertowens.com © 2010 Robert R. Owens dr.owens@comcast.net
Dr. Robert Owens Chronicles the History of the Future 