Bart Simpson For President April 22, 2016
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Politics, Politiocal Philosophy, Uncategorized.Tags: Hillary Clinton, Dr. Robert Owens, Email scandal, Benghazi scandal, Corrupt Hillary
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That ultimate symbol of mischievous scamp Bart Simpson in Season One of the longest running show in TV history when caught red-handed offered up one of his signature phrases, “I didn’t do it, nobody saw me do it, there’s no way you can prove anything.”
This came to mind when I was thinking about Hillary “They’ll Never Indict Me” Clinton and her morally challenged obviously corrupt character. Donald Trump has said, “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters.” Hillary could say, “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t get indicted.”
Everyone in the country knows that if any of us common people did one hundredth of what she has done in the email scandal alone we would have already been indicted along with the ten year Navy Vet indicted for taking a selfie on a submarine. The Obama Justice Department is not going to indict Mrs. Clinton no matter what the FBI recommends. She is above the law and she knows it or as she infamously said in the Benghazi hearing with regard to our four dead heroes, “What does it matter now?”
As a person who has been involved with and has closely followed the American political scene for more than fifty years this is the first time in my personal memory or Historical knowledge that a potential candidate for one party has promised to prosecute a potential candidate of the other party if elected.
As Secretary of State, Hillary’s accomplishments include the failed reset with Russia and of course her debacle in Libya. As a United State Senator what did she accomplish? In eight years she only sponsored three inconsequential laws:
S.3145, which designated a portion of U.S. Route 20A, located in Orchard Park, N.Y., as the “Timothy J. Russert Highway,” after the former “Meet the Press” host.
- 3613, which renamed the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 2951 New York Highway 43 in Averill Park, New York, as the “Major George Quamo Post Office Building.”
- 1241 which made the brick house of 19th century female union leader Kate Mullany a national historic site.
Her major accomplishment is that she married a man who became the most ethically challenged president in American History. As the wife of Bill Clnton she was deeply involved in smothering the serial bimbo eruptions which grew out of his long history of having affairs, sexually harassing women who worked for him, and assaulting others. This is the person who portrays herself as an advocate of women’s rights.
To highlight just one of her hypocritical faux stances for women’s rights look at her advocacy for equal pay. The Clinton Foundation pays women executives 38% less than their male counterparts. During her time in the Senate she paid women 72 cents for every dollar she paid men. According to public records her current campaign pays women staffers less than she pays men. So much for putting your money where your mouth is!
Looking back once more to the email scandal that Hillary so nonchalantly dismisses if as she maintains she never received nor sent any classified material during her entire term as our Secretary of State my question is, what was she doing besides traveling the world at our expense? Was she out of the loop and merely Secretary of State in name only? It is inconceivable that anyone could be the Secretary of State and not send or receive any classified material. That is beyond belief and a lie so transparent it shows total contempt for those it is meant to fool.
In the current election the Great Impresario likes to label people. In many ways it is an effective form of political shorthand. It sums up the thoughts, accusations, and beliefs about a person and brings them crashing in whenever they hear the catcall. Lyin Ted and Little Marco have taken their toll picked up and repeated by the Corporations Once Known as the Mainstream Media and their pet FOX. Now we have Crooked Hillary. The others were just effective. This one seems appropriate.
If Hillary wins the presidency it will be a watershed just as the election and then re-election of her husband was. As his marked the end of public morality hers will mean the end of the rule of law. It will become evident to anyone observant enough to note the sunrise that enforcement of the bewildering lattice of laws and regulations are only aimed at the common folk not at our masters.
If such a legally challenged individual can fool enough of the people all the time to sit in the oval office it reminds me of what Bart said to Homer after it was revealed he had cheated on an important test, “I cheated on the intelligence test. I’m sorry. But I just want to say that the past few weeks have been great. Me and you have done stuff together. You’ve helped me out with things and we’re closer than we’ve ever been. I love you, Dad. And I think if something can bring us that close it can’t possibly be bad.”
Doing bad things for good purposes is the operational rational of Progressive Liberalism. The ends justify the means was the operational rational of all the megalomaniac dictators of world History. Please explain the difference.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion. He is the Historian of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2016 Contact Dr. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens / Edited by Dr. Rosalie Owens
Merry Christmas and a Happy New America December 17, 2015
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Politics, Politiocal Philosophy.Tags: Obama taxes, Dr. Robert Owens, Obama Alinsky, Progressive agenda, Chicago Outfit, Obama Hawaii, Obama Chicago, community organizer
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In December of 1914 in the first bitter winter of a long bitter war the solders of the German Empire and the soldiers of the British Empire defied the orders of their officers. They abandoned their hastily dug entrenchments that would soon grow into an elaborate maze of trenches stretching from Switzerland to the English Channel to meet each other in no man’s land. They sang hymns and exchanged gifts in a spontaneous outpouring of the feelings of peace, fellowship, and forgiveness which were then the staples of a Christ centered Christmas season.
If you drench yourself in the torrent of Christmas movies that bombard us from Thanksgiving till December 25th you see that the spirit of Christmas in emotional America isn’t about Christ: God clothed in the flesh of a child who came into a lost world to die as a payment for sin and to rise again to bring new life. It is instead about the sentimental ideal of love and the boy gets the girl or is it the girl gets the boy? Who knows sometimes they throw in a curve that really builds the suspense. There are movies about Santa Clause, his sons, his daughters, his elves, and wingless angels all of whom help people learn the true meaning of Christmas, which is never about Christ and always about family and friends and being nice people.
In commercial America, Christmas is about Black Friday and discounts so deep they remind me of the street vendor in Mexico who follows you shouting “I’ll give you 110% off if you buy two!” The Chia Pets come out along with snuggies, pet rocks, and every other doodad imaginable to buy for people who already have too much.
The mountains of presents which obscenely bury Christmas trees in so many American homes are ripped apart by sugar-high children. Children who get into a frenzy of getting so intense they never have time to appreciate what they get. All they want is to get something else. The beautiful wrapping paper, the miles of ribbon, and the forests of bows are stuffed unceremoniously into big green garbage bags on their way to landfills.
So this is Christmas, and what have we done? Another year over, and a new one just begun.
In the still sweet morning of December 26 people start preparing for the next blast of holiday cheer, Happy New Year!!!
What will 2016 bring?
Whether we plunge over another fiscal cliff, the government shuts down, or another executive order reminds us we are living in a dysfunctional democracy ruled by decree it will bring us a New America. An America cast in the image of our Community-Organizer-in-Chief. This representative of the Saul Alinsky wing of the Progressive movement, this made man from the Chicago political Outfit won a second term and as it ends seems determined to rub our face in the defeat of all we hold dear. Whether it was through the voter fraud no one seems willing to mention or through the actual votes of those who bought into the Uncle Sugar myth and vote for Santa Clause, the man from Hawaii who says he’s from Chicago and who won’t tell us much of anything else, is determined to create the Age of Obama, or America in his own image.
In the New America today more people qualify for disability than get jobs, more people get food stamps than start businesses, and more people forget that America was founded to provide individual liberty, personal freedom and economic opportunity and embrace America as a cradle-to-grave welfare state. People forget that when you limit failure you also limit success. They don’t understand that when you create a safety net so complete it becomes a hammock many people figure why work when you can play.
Incentive is stifled by entitlements, and innovation is strangled by regulation.
In our New America in 2016:
* Taxes will go up and up as spending goes up even faster.
* Regulations will pour out of the bureaucracy to fill in all the blanks in thousand page laws no one ever reads.
* Our President will continue to bow before despots.
* Our foreign policy will continue to support radical Islam while pretending to battle it in the Mideast.
* No one will ever be held accountable for the IRS scandal, Fast and Furious, Benghazi, or any of the other scandals which erupt from the pustule of corruption that is Inside the Beltway.
* The burgeoning energy industry that had the potential to lift America out of its economic tailspin has been throttled as the coal industry, the fracking boom, and oil shale are all regulated to death.
* We will pour billions down the green energy rat holes building industries that cannot produce enough energy to exist without government support.
* Obamacare will continue to destroy the insurance industry and eventually a single payer system will consign the rest of us to standing in lines in converted gymnasiums for impersonal care while our leaders take limousines and private jets to the Mayo Clinic all on our dime.
* Industry will continue to flow out as foreign made goods flow in and the mother of all imbalanced trade agreements is advertised as free.
* We will be monitored by drones, wire taps, and computers as Big Brother extends his grasp till freedom becomes just another name for nothing left to lose.
* The borders will remain open and tens of thousands of refugees and perhaps thousands of Islamist radicals are brought here at our expense and over our objections.
This may be the New America that awaits us in 2016. Our families, friends, and neighbors have voted for it, and we all get to live in it: oh happy days are here again. The second coming of FDR has put food stamps in every pot and a Smart Car in every garage.
In our New America Christ has been purged from Christmas and sappy sentimentality has replaced the joy of being born again in a relationship with God our loving Father. So as you prepare to celebrate Christmas and the New Year be sure and thank any of the millions of Obamazombies and low information voters who get their opinions from the Corporations Once Known as the Mainstream Media and who actually believe the economy is recovering and glory in America being knocked off its high horse for the New America we are all unwrapping under the Xmas Tree this year.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion. He is the Historian of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2015 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens / Edited by Dr. Rosalie Owens
Why We Need a Third Party December 4, 2014
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Politics, Politiocal Philosophy.Tags: Dr. Robert Owens, National Debt, Obama agenda, Progressive agenda, Progressives, Third party
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It has happened just as foretold. The Progressive Republicans joined with their Democrat fellow-travelers and once again sold our inheritance for a bowl of promises. In 2010 we voted for an end to the out of control spending and what did we get? 3.5 trillion steps closer to the abyss.
Fast forward to 2014 and we did it again. We sent Washington a loud wake-up call that out here in fly-over country we are tired of this slow motion slide into collectivism. And what is the first thing our shiny new majorities do? Re-elect the same tired old progressive leadership that has compromised its way from debt to debt and legislation to regulation. Does anyone think for a moment this crowd of Democrat lite that call themselves Republicans are going to do anything to stop the emperor who has no clothes?
Does anyone think they will use their power of the purse to reign in the President Obama from doing things he himself said he couldn’t do because he wasn’t an emperor? Does anyone think they will do anything to bring out the truth about the IRS or Benghazi? They may play politics with investigations and hearings but at the end of the day the administration will not be called to account for turning the light out on America’s time in the sun.
It’s time to admit that when you fall off a cliff it doesn’t matter much if you were pushed or if you walked. The fall might not be so bad but that sudden stop at the end isn’t so good.
Maybe it’s just me but I’m tired of the same old same old in our politics. The big-box monopoly parties have morphed into two sides of the same coin. Today we choose between the Conservative Progressives’ policies of tax and spend, infringe personal liberty, and outsource our sovereignty or the Liberal Progressives’ policies of tax and spend, infringe personal liberty, and outsource our sovereignty. We’ve been caught on the horns of a dilemma trying to choose between Tweedledee and Tweedledum, and since we don’t want to throw our vote away we must vote for one of the big boys after which the campaign promises dissolve and we’re hung out to dry.
As a voter I’ve had my Damascus Road Experience. The scales have fallen from my eyes. I’ve reached the point where I would rather vote for someone who might actually try finding another way to operate our government besides taxing like the Sun King and spending like a drunken sailor whose credit card limit is constantly raised and who can print his own money.
It’s time to stop talking. It’s time to take action. The Founders of our nation dedicated their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to birth our state and this noble experiment. It’s time for us to do the same. This nation was conceived as a representative republic designed to operate on democratic principles. For over 100 years the Progressives have worked to transform the land of the free and the home of the brave into a People’s Democratic Republic. What’s the difference? The difference between a Democracy and a People’s Democracy is “the difference between a jacket and a straight jacket.”
How did we arrive at the current situation?
James Madison our fourth president and the chief architect of the U.S. Constitution said, “There are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by the gradual and silent encroachment of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpation.” We didn’t get here all in one jump. First the camel said, “Can I just stick my nose in your tent to stay warm?” and finally the generous man found himself out in the cold as the camel settled down for a nice warm nap, one inch at a time.
The compassion of our people built a safety net for those who needed help and the greed of the lazy turned it into a hammock. America, the Land of the Free is being transformed into an America that is dedicated to the unsustainable achievement of, from each according to their abilities to each according to their need. When you rob Peter to pay Paul eventually Peter changes his name to Paul and the house of cards tumbles down.
The willingness to share our heritage led America to welcome more immigrants each year than the rest of the world combined, and the abuse of our generosity turned into a migration invasion that threatens to overwhelm us and destroy the future of our children. Taxes imposed to meet the ever-swelling demands of government have turned into a blatant, wealth re-distribution program that makes most pyramid schemes look fair. It’s as if our predatory government looks at a productive citizen as merely a source of residual income. Or as the ads promise, our Progressive leaders lay on the beach of self-importance and our checks just keep pouring in. We’re no longer respected as Citizens. Instead, we’re coveted as consumers or human capital.
It’s time for action.
We as citizens who love our country must to break the logjam caused by an imperial presidency, an abdicating legislature, an activist court, a suffocating bureaucracy, and the strangulation of regulation. The constant growth of government destroys freedom for “as government expands liberty contracts.”
It’s time to actively work for America’s acceptance of a different way.
And what might this Different way be?
Something radical, something that almost strains the bounds of the imagination, something that would immediately unleash the bent-up energy of a free people: a return to constitutionally limited government!
But how do we get there from here? We need to build a new party to win the reins of government from the two-headed bird of prey which has assumed perpetual power through perpetual re-election. What we need now are citizens willing to sacrifice their repose and enter the arena. We need non-professionals to clean up the mess and right the ship of state.
What we don’t need is one more election where the Conservative Progressives replace the Liberal Conservatives because as Albert Einstein said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
We need a new party. We must work to unite the Tea Party Movement with the many splinter parties which hold the same basic values. We must reclaim our liberty from the professional politicians and professional radicals who have manipulated the system to achieve unlimited power which they use to spend us into insolvency, tax us into poverty, and regulate us into serfdom.
This new party must siphon off all the conservatives who are members of the twin party out of habit or family tradition. This new party must rise fast and work hard. It must capture the center and the right declaring boldly that it will defend what America stands for but not necessarily all that stands for America. The time has come to fight for the right before we are swallowed by the wrong.
Winston Churchill said, “If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed, if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not so costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.”
We can’t let divisions divide us or they will bury us. United we stand, divided we fall. None of us can do this alone but together we can. Keep the faith. Keep the peace. We shall overcome.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion. He is the Historian of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2014 Contact Dr. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens / Edited by Dr. Rosalie Owens
Impeach President Obama Why When Where and How November 20, 2014
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Politics, Politiocal Philosophy.Tags: amnesty, Benghazi, DOMA, Dr. Robert Owens, executive amnesty, Executive orders, Fast and Furious, illegal aliens, IRS scandal, Obama amnesty, Obama immigration, Obama impeachment
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In America today just like in Lake Woebegone every child is above average and every child gets a trophy. We may score low in international grade comparisons but we rank number one in self-esteem. In other words American students may not be doing well but they think they are. Those of us old enough to remember how Dad could control the situation with a look and when you got in trouble in school your parents didn’t sue or contact the School Board you got in trouble at home too are also old enough to remember Watergate.
This scandal that the general public still does not understand brought down a president and led to the Watergate Congress which threw away the victory in Vietnam and solidified the Progressive control of Congress until 1994. Today we are confronted with contempt for the Constitution and the rule of law that makes the Watergate Scandal look like the tempest in a teapot that it actually was. How many people died as a result of the Watergate Scandal = 0. How many have died as a result of the Fast and Furious debacle = at least 200 and still counting including an American law enforcement officer. How did Richard Nixon disrespect, disregard or violate the Constitution in the Watergate Scandal = 0 (although his use of Executive privilege did spark a constitutional crisis). How many times has Barack Obama disrespected, disregarded or violated the Constitution during his time in office = at least twice as documented below by making recess appointments while Congress was still in session and refusing to enforce laws.
There is an old saying, “That’s good enough for government work.” This saying comes out of the big government make-work programs of the 1930s and has been used ever since as short hand for “Approximate is close enough,” which might as well be the new national motto. In societies that rob Peter to pay Paul the stage before all the Peters change their names to Paul is typified by government bean counters picking winners and losers. This process discourages producers and encourages non-producers assuring you get less of the former and more of the latter. As an educator I have a belief that if you don’t teach someone to do something right you are teaching them that doing it wrong is acceptable.
In the past seven years President Obama has said repeatedly that he does not have the power to act unilaterally through executive orders to re-write the nation’s immigration laws.
In October of 2010 President Obama told the Washington Press Corps that he was not a dictator and thus could not impose immigration reform on his own without Congress.
In 2013 in interviews with Spanish language media he said, “I am not a king” and that he could not impose immigration reform on his own without Congress.
In all he has said things similar to this 22 times since becoming president. In 2008 when then Senator Obama was running for president he attacked President Bush for using executive orders in a bold over-reach to illegally extend presidential power. In 2008 he tried to back up his critique of Bush’s use of executive orders by claiming to have been a constitutional law professor. A claim not supported by investigation.
If President Obama is now doing what he has consistently proclaimed he didn’t have either the power or the authority to do and no one at least tries to stop him. What is there that he can’t do?
If Congress does not assert its place as a co-equal branch of government, the Imperial Presidency of Barack Obama will continue to usurp power. From recess appointments while Congress is in session to refusing to enforce the laws of the land to unilaterally remaking immigration law this President is fundamentally transforming our system of government. Not through the amendment process, but through a campaign of unconstitutional and therefore illegal actions designed to buy him enough votes for a second term. Whether it is through the money laundering schemes that are government negotiations with public service unions, pork barrel payoffs to political donors, or back-door amnesty this is nothing more than buying votes: a time-honored Chicago tradition. Combine this with a campaign to resist any attempt to verify who is voting and the stage is set for an election that would make any managed society proud.
His supporters may call it the Audacity of Hope Campaign, but if it is successful it will be the audacity which crushes any hope of limited government, personal liberty, and economic freedom. The dreams from his father will become the nightmares of our children and grandchildren. With no authority Mr. Obama is attempting to rule by decree. Executive orders have previously been used to direct the Executive Departments how to implement laws. Mr. Obama is using them to legislate, and that is in direct contravention to the separation of powers clearly outlined in the Constitution.
President Obama has built a shadow government that parallels and is standing ready to supplant our constitutional government. He has appointed more Czars than most of his predecessors and these Czars are not just advisers they are actually tasked with duties that under our traditional American governmental structure have been the responsibility of Cabinet Secretaries. These Czars are not confirmed; they are anointed, and none of them are accountable to anyone but the President. Even though Congress voted to defund his Czars, President Obama has said he will ignore that part of the Budget and keep them anyway. A cult of personality surrounds him typified by a compliant media which fawns over his every action and defends his every transgression.
As if to add icing to the cake the Obama Administration has invoked Executive Privilege to support Attorney General Holder in his refusal to surrender all requested documents in the Fast and Furious Scandal. What national security issues could there be in this matter? If the documents proved that the operation really did start under the Bush administration as Mr. Holder contends does anyone doubt they would have been on the table yesterday? Either the President is attempting to protect his Attorney General, some member of the White House staff or himself. Either way this may eventually provide a real similarity to the Watergate Scandal. Though in this case the cover-up could not be worse than the crime it could lead to enough fallout to make his own supporters leave a sinking ship to avoid the stigma of a failed presidency and a looming constitutional crisis.
Now think of the IRS scandal and Benghazi and it is obvious we have a rogue president who is becoming exactly the threat to liberty the Constitution was written to prevent.
If this slide into tyranny is not stopped it will continue. If it is not protested it will be accepted. I know that just as with Clinton in the 90s there are not enough Senators to convict but if these blatant attacks upon the checks and balances are not punished, at least by the shame and reproach of an Impeachment Resolution, they are being silently condoned.
Speaker Boehner stand up and lead the House! Don’t just make a speech; present a case. Don’t just give us a photo op; give us a fighting chance to save this great experiment in human freedom.
If you don’t stand for something you will fall for anything. America it is time to stand up to this Southside Chicago bully, and let him know he can’t have our lunch money anymore, and he can’t subvert our Republic either at least not without us protesting and using every legal means available to stop him and preserve limited government.
We, the lovers of freedom and the supporters of limited government cannot merely wait the clock out on the Obama presidency. Because with all these affronts to constitutional government unchallenged combined with his presidential campaign in 2012 based upon class warfare and the redistribution of wealth he and his statist backers will declare it a mandate for more of the same, on steroids. An oligarchy of the perpetually re-elected veneered over a permanent nomenclature of federal bureaucrats will easily fall in line behind a complacent and complicit media to cheer the new order as the soft tyranny of the central planners tell us what is best for us and then forces us to say thank you. As Hilary or someone like her along with their tens of millions of imported voters wait in the wings to be the nail in our coffin.
Protest the lawless Progressive counter-revolution! Contact your Representative and demand an impeachment hearing to investigate President Obama for the High Crimes of subverting the Constitution. He should be investigated for:
- For making recess appointments while Congress was still in session
- For ignoring his obligation to enforce the laws of the land in the areas of Immigration and the Defense of Marriage Act
- For incorrectly using a claim of Executive Privilege to cover up reckless and possibly criminal activity in the Fast and Furious scandal.
- For stonewalling the congressional investigations into the IRS and Benghazi
- For unilaterally doing what he himself has said he doesn’t have the constitutional authority to do, legalize those who have broken into our land
Act today! Contact your Representative and let them know patriotic Americans want this tyranny ended and limited government restored. Keep the faith. Keep the peace. We shall overcome.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion. He is the Historian of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2014 Contact Dr. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens / Edited by Dr. Rosalie Owens
Law vs Anti-Law October 16, 2014
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Politics, Politiocal Philosophy.Tags: Anti-Law, Dr. Robert Owens, God’s Law, legal positivism, Natural Law, Obama’s agenda, Progressive agenda, Soviet legal theory
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America was founded upon the principles of Natural Law. The Progressives led us into the realms of Legal Positivism. The vast government apparatus they have constructed has progressed into a dystopian fantasy land beyond law where faceless bureaucrats in an alphabet soup of departments create regulations with the force of law from thin air. Such is the journey from tyranny to tyranny in ten generations. Such is the journey from law to anti-law.
We built this Republic on the foundation of Natural Law:
The opening sentence of the Declaration of Independence is unarguably the most famous. Countless American students have memorized it, regurgitated it for exams, and many can still recite it many years later.
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
While many will point to this preamble as a statement of why the Declaration was made few in our present generation can define what Thomas Jefferson was referring to, which was a common term and a common understanding at the time of its composition, “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.”
In his book, The Five Thousand Year Leap, by Dr. W. Cleon Skousen,he points out that “…the debates in the Constitutional Convention and the writings of the Founders reflect a far broader knowledge of religious, political, historical, economic, and philosophical studies.” He also states, “The thinking of Polybius, Cicero, Thomas Hooker, Coke, Montesquieu, Blackstone, John Locke, and Adam Smith salt-and-peppered their writings and their conversations. They were also careful students of the Bible, especially the Old Testament, and even though some did not belong to any Christian denomination, the teachings of Jesus were held in universal, respect and admiration.”
The ancient Roman Cicero was a victim of turbulent power politics and eventually killed for writing against the dictatorship of Caesar, but in his writings On the Republic and On the Laws he spoke about Natural Law. He spoke of it as True Law or Right Law. “True law is right reason in agreement with nature; it is of universal application, unchanging and everlasting;…It is a sin to try to alter this law, nor is it allowable to repeal any part of it, and it is impossible to abolish it entirely. We cannot be freed from its obligations by senate or people…one eternal and unchangeable law will be valid for all nations and all times, and there will be one master and ruler, that is God, over us all, for he is the author of this law,…”
Introduced in 1766, Blackstone’s became the law book of the Founding Fathers. In fact, political scientists have shown that Blackstone was one of two most frequently invoked political authorities of the Founders. Like Cicero more than a thousand years before Blackstone recognized Natural Law as the sure foundation of human society when he stated, “Upon these two foundations, the law of nature and the law of revelation (the law of nature’s God), depend all the human laws; that is to say, no human laws should be suffered to contradict these.”
In essence what all this means is that there are laws greater than any laws man can make therefore there are areas which are beyond legislation. In America we attempted to safeguard those areas such as individual liberty, personal freedom, and economic opportunity with a constitution. This Constitution was written to limit the power of government to those powers and only those powers which had been specifically delegated to it.
The final amendment in the Bill of Rights reads, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.” It would be hard to be more clear. However this amendment has been interpreted into irrelevancy as the Progressives made their long march to power.
The Progressives nudged us into Legal Positivism:
Throughout the last twenty five years if we spoke of “the laws of nature” many Americans would think we are speaking of doing whatever comes naturally as typified in the saying, “If it feels good do it.” Most seem not to consider the relevance or even the existence of absolute truth or God’s Law.
To the leaders of today and the compliant populace they and their government controlled schools have indoctrinated man’s law as supreme. The epitome of this is extolled in the belief in a “Living Constitution.” One in which everything is constantly evolving, and where people, legislatures, and courts do not seem to be concerned with a constitution meant to limit the power of government. Instead they say relevance and necessity drives them to interpret a constitution which empowers government to do anything it decides is necessary.
This brings us to the legal philosophy which undergirds this assault upon traditional American law: Legal Positivism.
This legal philosophy posits that law consists exclusively of that which is created and directed by the human will. In other words with the limiting guide of Natural Law removed the appropriateness of government action becomes a question of mere legality. Anything which has become law is acceptable. The Final Solution of the Third Reich was legal. The purges of Stalin were legal.
As one German professor intellectually paving the way for the Nazi dictatorship stated in his analysis of the death of limited government after World War One, “fundamentally irretrievable liberty of the individual … gradually recedes into the background and the liberty of the social collective occupies the front of the stage.” He further notes that this change in the emphasis of freedom from the individual to the collective signaled the “emancipation od democratism from liberalism.” Remember that in this context Liberalism had its original meaning, which is advocating liberty, and not its corrupted American meaning, advocating for exactly what the good professor was describing.
This newly liberated democracy equates the state with the legal code. Whatever the majority decides is legal is right. This leads inevitably to the position that there are no limits to the power of the legislator. There are no natural rights and no fundamental and inviolable liberties.
Turning traditional reasoning on its head the proponents of Legal Positivism advanced the position that when a state is bound by law it is an unfree prisoner of the law. They reasoned that in order for a state to act with true justice it must be free of the law. Since personal freedom and the rule of law are inseparable as Legal Positivism overtakes a state, personal freedom becomes progressively more proscribed until the individual is enmeshed in a bewildering web of laws.
By the end of the twentieth century America was tangled in law after law. The Federal laws alone fill more volumes than anyone could carry: libraries full of laws written by lawyers often weighing out the gnat while swallowing the camel. There were laws about this and laws about that until finally there were laws about everything. Until even those we have elected to protect and defend the Constitution believe, as one Congressman said, “The Federal Government can do most anything in this country.”
Today we are entering the rule of Anti-Law.
With the prevalence of omnibus bills numbering thousands of pages written to read like telephone books with addendums and commentaries in insurance speak, the legislature has abdicated its power to bureaucrats who fill in the blanks.
The situation is typified by statements by some of the leaders of the post-constitutional Obama Congress. From the former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s famous, “We’ve got to pass the bill to find out what’s in the bill,” to perpetual incumbent Congressman Conyers outburst, “I love these members, they get up and say, ‘Read the bill.’ What good is reading the bill if it’s a thousand pages and you don’t have two days and two lawyers to find out what it means after you read the bill?”
The philosophical position of the rule of bureaucracy has been best stated by Soviet political theorists attempting to explain and justify that great prison of nations: the USSR. One put it this way, “Since it is impossible to distinguish between laws and administrative regulations, this contrast is a mere fiction of bourgeois theory and practice.” Perhaps the best description of the Soviet position is from another Russian, “What distinguishes the Soviet system from all other despotic governments is that … it represents an attempt to found the state on principles which are the opposite of those of the rule of law .. and it has evolved a theory which exempts the rulers from every obligation or limitation.”
Or as a Communist Theorist summed it up, “The fundamental principle of our legislation and our private laws, which the bourgeois theorist will never recognize is: everything is prohibited which is not specifically permitted.”
Here we are in a land strangled by regulation. Our elected officials pass laws they don’t read about things they don’t understand and unelected bureaucrats fill in the gaps. As can be seen in the IRS scandal they see themselves as above the law and there seems to be no way to make them accountable. Like a runaway train involved in a slow motion wreck the citizens stand helplessly by as our nation implodes. We can vote for one of the parties of power; however, they are merely two heads on the same bird of prey. No matter which one is in power the government grows and grows.
How do we end this death spiral? How did Washington, Jefferson, and Adams do it? We started with the Declaration of Independence so we might as well end there,
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to affect their Safety and Happiness.
These were dangerous words then, and they are dangerous words now. Let each citizen swear to do and be whatever is necessary to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution. God bless America.
Keep the faith. Keep the peace. We shall overcome.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion. He is the Historian of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2014 Contact Dr. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens / Edited by Dr. Rosalie Owens
September 13, 2014
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Politics, Politiocal Philosophy.Tags: amnesty, Bill Clinton, Cloward-Piven Strategy, Dr. Robert Owens, George Bush, NAFTA, Newt Gingrich, North American Union, Obama, Obama agenda, Progressive agenda, Ronald Reagan, Ross Perot
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Amnesty With Open Borders Equals National Suicide
Our President has made no secret of what his end game is. Remember him with Joe the plumber? He just wants to spread the wealth around. He is perhaps not an avowed socialist but he is certainly an announced one. Yet he has won two elections one way or another and he is coordinating the end game of the Cloward-Piven Strategy This is not a conspiracy…it’s a strategy….and it breaks my heart that as America dozed on the couch watching the game these Progressives have turned the American dream into a nightmare.
Now the Southern border has been all but erased by a pre-arranged catastrophe. What does America’s Community Organizer in Chief say in response to Republican reticence in voting millions to pay for lawyers to argue against our own laws? He tells us he is going to unilaterally grant amnesty through executive edict to millions if not tens of millions while holding the door open to millions more. Of course he will wait till after the2014 midterms are over so that his party can campaign against amnesty while planning to grant it afterwards.
Does the GOP move to block this unconstitutional act of national suicide? Do they mount a national campaign to harness the vast majority of citizens who want to save America for Americans? No, the congressional Republican leaders let everyone know they are for amnesty too.
How can they not know that amnesty for millions of undocumented democrats is suicide for the GOP? Call it executive action. Call it comprehensive immigration reform. Call it anything you want. Amnesty under any other name is amnesty and amnesty with open borders is a siren call to the tens of millions who haven’t already come to come now. Our leaders are actually working on a plan to merge the United States with Canada and Mexico into a new super state of North America. Our children and grandchildren will grow up in a third world hellhole that was once the land of the free and the home of the brave.
My question is….How can the GOP be so stupid….or…Why are Democrats smarter than Republicans?
I was a fourth generation Republican who cut my teeth in Nixon’s first presidential campaign, worked for Goldwater, Reagan, and all the following place holders until the impeachment debacle and the explosion of government growth and spending under Hastert, Lott, and Bush. When the Republican Senate refused to impeach President Clinton for crimes he later admitted and when they then became Democrat Lite as the party of power and profit, I mailed my membership card to the party that was no longer the Grand Old Party of my great grandfather and became an Independent.
For most of my life I was a party man: accepting some things I didn’t agree with for the greater good of electing a party with a platform I could agree with. However, once it became apparent that as far as the budget went we had elected the foxes to watch the hen house that the conservative social agenda received a tip-of-the-hat during elections followed by no action, and that the only victims of the impeachment were those who brought the charges the scales fell from my eyes. Once I saw that the Republicans had lost their moorings and were swilling at the public trough, I realized the platform we conservatives battle so hard for and hold so dear is merely a mirage held in front of social and fiscal conservatives to keep them loyal to a Party captured by the Progressives.
Back in the Dream Time, when my mind was still locked in the glow of Ronald Reagan and all his example and message meant to America even then I wondered, “What’s wrong with these leaders of ours? Why do the Democrats always seem to outsmart them at every turn?”
Even Reagan, the best of the best, was hoodwinked by Tip O’Neal in the amnesty bargain: we would grant amnesty and then seal the border. The problem is the illegal immigrants got the amnesty, however America’s border was never sealed. He also signed several tax deals with the Democratic majority. We the People lost many deductions in exchange for lower rates. The deductions never came back even though the rates started rising again as soon as the Gipper said good night and George the First forgot to read his own lips.
George Bush the Elder was out maneuvered by the Progressives so many times that 20% of his base ran to Perot opening the door for Clinton and the first attempt to ram national health care down America’s throat. That time they overplayed their hand and the last great strategist among the Republicans, Newt Gingrich, was able to sell a Contract with America and bring the first Republican majority in Congress in 40 years.
Newt kept the promises and brought some fiscal sanity back to Washington. Within a few short years the Republican led Congress ended welfare as we had known it for generations and balanced the budget. Unfortunately the Party of Lincoln then nominated someone who campaigned as if he had voted for Lincoln. The 1996 Republican campaign would have had to improve several thousand percent to make it to dull. Suddenly, with an assist from the Corporations Once Known as the Mainstream Media, it was Clinton who had been dragged kicking and screaming to the benefit and spending cutting table who was the author of everything positive Congress had accomplished. The Republicans had been outmaneuvered and outsmarted again.
According to every one of the serial re-counts Bush the younger won Florida and legitimately the presidential race of 2000. Yet, to this day people talk of him being selected not elected. After the dastardly deeds of 9-11 the rhetorically-challenged George captured the hearts of America and the admiration of the Western world by taking a bullhorn and talking to a crowd at ground zero. Yet by fighting and winning America’s first preemptive war and then losing the peace through the lack of planning he soon lost the PR campaign which led to the Pelosi-Reid Congress and eventually absolute triumph of Progressivism in 2008.
The Progressives immediately took the reins of single-party rule and imposed their radical agenda to transform America into a Nanny-state based upon the re-distribution of wealth. This wanton destruction of the traditional American society based on limited government and free enterprise sparked a vast rebellion in the silent majority and the resulting teanami of 2010 brought a Republican majority back to the People’s House and an expanded minority to the Senate.
And what was the first thing these political savants did? They struck a deal that anyone who was paying attention could see was tailor made to save the discredited Obama presidency and set the stage for him to follow in Mr. Clinton’s footsteps taking credit for anything good the recent election might have made possible. What were these so-called leaders thinking? They turned the victory of the grassroots into capitulation by the elites to the elites. Not did they sign a deal that extended uncertainty and raised estate taxes, they gave the Administration cover for a stealth stimulus filled with pork designed to help re-elect the President.
So, “Why are Democrats smarter than Republicans?” The answer is they aren’t. It isn’t a matter of intelligence it’s a matter of people with dedication to something larger than themselves as opposed to people with dedication to seeing themselves as something larger than they are.
The leadership of the Democrats are committed radical Progressives. They have a long term agenda to transform America into a socialist welfare state with an unlimited government, and they never lose sight of that goal. They’re willing to commit political suicide, or more accurately they’re willing to encourage their followers who do not inhabit safe seats to commit political suicide. They never take their eyes off the ball. They’re constantly pushing to move closer to the goal line even if it’s one inch at a time.
By comparison the leadership of the Republicans is composed of professional politicians. They’re pragmatists who do whatever they have to do and say whatever they have to say to retain their seats, their power, and their perks. They believe the inside the beltway press who tell them how visionary they are to compromise, losing sight of those back home in fly-over country who instead believed the campaign promises and expect their representatives to stand up for principles.
The outraged public may rise up and throw out the democratic majority of Harry Reid. They may increase the majority for John Boehner. What will be the result? Will America reject the creeping socialism that is sapping our energy and subjecting us to the rule of bureaucrats and their regulations? Will America get back on track?
No, in the unfolding amnesty debacle the Party of Lincoln once will once again choose to be on the receiving end of Pickett’s Charge instead of behind the spit-rail fence chanting “Fredericksburg! Fredericksburg!” as their enemy wastes itself in a senseless charge against an immovable barrier. Once again the leadership of the right will embrace the left, reaching across the aisle in a bi-partisan enactment of America’s Día de Muertos to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion. He is the Historian of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2014 Contact Dr. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens / Edited by Dr. Rosalie Owens
Don’t Worry Be Happy September 4, 2014
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Politics, Politiocal Philosophy.Tags: AI, cyborgs, Dark Energy, Dark Matter, Dr. Robert Owens, exponential growth, Hope, Hopelessness, Jesus saves, Moore’s Law, Saved by faith, the Big Bang, the God particle
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No one gets to live in the world they grew up in, it moves too fast.
It wasn’t always like this. My father grew up plowing with mules as had his father and his father and his father back and back into the mist of time. Things changed slowly until the machine age. Then with the development of the steam engine, the assembly line, and mechanization things started to speed up. Today we are in the first throws of the Second Machine Age, and things are beginning to travel faster than we can assimilate.
The renowned futurist Alvin Toffler first called it Future Shock. Then he called it The Third Wave. Then came Powershift, War and Antiwar, and finally Creating a New Civilization.
What it all comes down to is technology is moving at an exponential rate. It is accelerating faster than we can adapt to and therefore there are social and cultural dislocations on the horizon. One good way to visualize exponential growth is to remember the story of the man who invented chess.
Hundreds and hundreds of years ago there was a King in India who loved to play games. But he had gotten bored of the games that were present at the time and wanted a new game that was much more challenging. He commissioned a poor mathematician who lived in his kingdom to come up with a new game. After months of struggling with all kinds of ideas the mathematician came up with the game of Chaturanga (Chess).
The game had two armies each lead by a King who commanded the army to defeat the other by capturing the enemy King. It was played on a simple 8×8 square board. The King loved this game so much that he offered to give the poor mathematician anything he wished for. “I would like one grain of rice for the first square of the board, two grains for the second, four grains for the third and so on doubled for each of the 64 squares of the game board” said the mathematician. “Is that all?” asked the King, “Why don’t you ask for gold or silver coins instead of rice grains.” “The rice should be sufficient for me.” replied the mathematician. The King ordered his staff to lay down the grains of rice and soon learned that all the wealth in his kingdom would not be enough to buy the amount of rice needed on the 64th square. In fact the whole kingdom’s supply of rice was exhausted before the 30th square was reached. “You have provided me with such a great game and yet I cannot fulfill your simple wish. You are indeed a genius.” said the King and offered to make the mathematician his top advisor instead.
We can see what a great example this is as a lesson in exponential growth when we reflect on the fact that the chess board has 64 squares and if you put just one grain on the first and double up on the next and so on, you will reach an enormous amount of grain.
1 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 If you work this out you get an incredible amount of grain something like this: 18.446.744.073.709.551.615 around 18.446.744 Trillions of wheat grains.
This is where Moore’s Law begins to impact our lives. Moore’s Law is a computing term which originated around 1970 which states that processor speeds, or overall processing power for computers will double every two years. That is exponential growth. It began very slowly with computers the size of small buildings in climate controlled rooms clean manned by teams of scientist and mathematicians. Today five year-old children routinely play with games having more computing power that NASA had to get to the Moon. Our cell phones were invented by Martin Cooper who was trying to bring the Star Trek communicators to life. Today our smartphones are computers that have more power than supercomputers of just a few years ago. It helps to remember that the Star Trek communicators were audio only.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is on the horizon and humanoid robots with the mental agility of Watson and memories the size of Google will soon be walking among us. Scientists are already using Cochlear implants to bring hearing to the deaf. Using them to increase memory, intelligence and control machines by thought is just around the corner as we race to what Ray Kurzweil calls The Singularity. This will be a time when as Kurzweil puts it, “the next step in this inexorable evolutionary process: the union of human and machine, in which the knowledge and skills embedded in our brains will be combined with the vastly greater capacity, speed, and knowledge-sharing ability of our creations.”
What does all this mean? Do we redefine life from something like, “the condition that distinguishes animals and plants from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth, reproduction, functional activity, and continual change preceding death.” to sentient to include AI?
Do we become cyborgs as our machines become alive? Are we close to becoming gods who create life and virtual worlds?
While all of this technology is amazing and wondering about it and its future impact is entertaining it all reminds me of the story of the scientist who told God, “You’re not so much. We have now mastered the techniques for creating life in the laboratory.”
God answered, “Isn’t that interesting.”
Feeling as if God had taken his brazen assertion lightly the scientist said, “I challenge you to a contest. Let’s just see who can create life the fastest.”
God answered “All right let’s go.” With that God reached down and picked up some mud and began fashioning it into a man. The scientist filled with pride took his test tubes and started pouring his potions back and forth when God looked at him and said, “Hey! Get your own mud!”
Man proposes and God disposes. We think we are on the verge of taking the place of God in our own evolution. Many live as if all of this here is all that there is anywhere.
Yet the unanswered questions outweigh the answers. There are two things: Dark Matter and Dark Energy that scientists tell us makes up the vast majority of everything yet is un-seeable and unknowable. The Big Bang is now accepted as fact by all scientists yet none can tell us what was before the Big bang or how the Big Bang could have banged.
Faith has the answers. Dark Energy and Dark Matter are the power of God and the spiritual world. One upholds us and one surrounds us. And as far as the Big bang goes, in the beginning God said, “Let there be.”
If the mad rush towards the future leaves you shocked, if the idea of machines that are smarter than humans or of humans that are as smart as machines leaves you turned off instead of turned on don’t worry be happy. There is joy unspeakable and a life filled with glory right at your fingertips. Accept Jesus as your Savior, turn from the world and embrace the all-encompassing reality of a spiritual life and find the peace you have always longed for.
Even the godless Communists turned to God when they were on the ropes. Don’t wait for the bell to ring before you surrender and win. Jesus is the Rock that doesn’t roll and the shelter in the face of the storm.
We are standing on the edge of the abyss and the bell will toll soon. When we wonder for whom the bell tolls let’s rejoice together as children of God united in the Holy Spirit through faith in our risen Savior Jesus Christ. For if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion. He is the Historian of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2014 Contact Dr. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens / Edited by Dr. Rosalie Owens
Dr. Robert Owens Chronicles the History of the Future 