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Let’s Learn From the Past and Stop Spending the Future May 31, 2012

Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Politics.
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Remember the BP oil spill? We can still learn a few things from that experience.

In the constantly multiplying days since the BP oil spill all we have received from President Obama are many nuanced, vetted, and parsed versions of Bart Simpson’s famous dodge, “I didn’t do it, nobody saw me do it, there’s no way you can prove anything!”  Not exactly the change those who voted for the only honest politician from Chicago had hoped for is it?  It makes me wonder, is there a sign on the President’s desk that says, “The Buck Stops Over There.”  More than three years into a national calamity and only six months away from what we hope will be change in 2013 and Mr. Obama still thinks his fingerprints aren’t on anything except the levers of imperial power and a big arrow that points to Crawford, Texas.

In his first address to the nation from the Oval Office President Obama sounded like a professor lecturing his self-indulgent students as to why they failed their test because they didn’t study, “It’s a bad result but it’s your fault.”  BP was responsible for the leaking oil because they are greedy capitalists, but America was responsible because we use more oil than we possess or are allowed to produce parroting the falsehood, “We consume more than 20% of the world’s oil, but have less than 2% of the world’s oil reserve.”   Mr. Obama went so far as to blame Mother Nature falsely saying “And that’s part of the reason oil companies are drilling a mile beneath the surface of the ocean — because we’re running out of places to drill on land and in shallow water.”

The safest place to drill for oil is on land and we have proven reserves in ANWAR a region that was specifically set aside for drilling, but the Green Police who now rule the nation won’t allow it.  There are also proven reserves in shallow water but the Green Police once again wag their petulant finger in denial.  We are drilling in the most dangerous places almost asking for a disaster because our ineffectual unrealistic leader and his fellow travelers would rather invest billions more on green technology in the hopes of creating green jobs.

Acting as Venture Socialists, the Progressives our President represents have been investing billions of our tax dollars for decades in windmills and solar panels, and they still aren’t viable.  And if Spain, the world’s leader in creating Green Jobs is any indication for every green job produced 2.5 private sector jobs are lost and most green jobs are either non-producing government jobs or temporary.  Where’s the leadership?  Our government has told us for forty years that they have been trying to achieve energy independence.  Now we know we have the reserves to make that a reality and what has our leader led us to?   President Obama has managed to lead us from a recession into The Great Recession.  Which at least qualifies as following the advice of a cartoon characters or as Hank Hill said to his near-do-well son, “Bobby, if you’re gonna do something wrong, do it right!”

Everyday drip, drip, drip another assault on American traditions another insult to the American people as our President bows to foreign potentates or apologizes for our history.  His poll numbers show this is wearing thin.  Even the shills over at MSNBC have begun to question the leadership of President Obama, “What are we trying to do in this administration?  Why does he want a second term? Would he tell us? What’s he going to do in his second term, more of this? Is this it? Is this as good as it gets? Where are we going?”  If this is leadership, as Dilbert once observed, don’t step in it.

Having spent the better part of two decades teaching, I thought I had heard every excuse ever to grace the mind of an evasion artist.  I’ve heard everything from “I know its plagiarized but I didn’t have time to check over the work of the guy I hired to write my paper,” to  “I didn’t know that no late submissions accepted meant I couldn’t turn in work after the due date.”  And in the comedy series category I have heard 8,000 versions of “Bill Gates ate my homework.” However, as creative as some of those have been President Obama’s endless variations of “George Bush did it” has now become the all-time longest running excuse.  Evasion isn’t leadership just as saying something doesn’t make it true.

Now Mr. Obama is telling us he is a fiscal conservative and a budget cutting tightfisted economically conservative red white and blue deficit hawk.  After three years of FDR on steroids we are supposed to believe he is really Calvin Coolidge, Ronald Reagan, and scrooge McDuck all rolled up in one.  Then again it isn’t class warfare; it is making sure everyone pays their fair share except of course for his supporters who pay nothing.  It isn’t helping establish Islamist regimes throughout the Middle East; it is supporting democracy.  And, oh yes, it isn’t out-of-control spending; it is investing in our future.  I guess since we’re investing in the future it makes sense to spend the incomes of our great great grandchildren.  Can anyone say taxation without representation?

The continual fog of political spin and deception is poisoning the already fractured dialog between America’s citizens and their perpetually re-elected representatives.   This lead from behind, managing the decline transformation of America has got to stop.  Just as no one ever gets to step into the same river twice no one gets to live in the country they grew up in because the times they are a changing. But what we are experiencing today is not normal change. This is a top down revolution that is designed to transform America into a social democracy.

Evading the problems will not make them go away.  We have got to face up to the hard choices that need to be made.  Are we all going to silently follow as we are led over a cliff?  Or are we going to stand for something before we fall for nothing.  What we need is someone who will tell us the truth: “We’re broke.”  We need someone who will stand for limited government, personal liberty, and economic opportunity.  We need someone who will stand up and be counted not someone who counts on others standing up to do the job so they can buy votes by expropriating the hard-earned fruit of their labor to pass the wealth around.

We don’t need another four years of evasion and trickery. We need to take a long hard look at the dire situation these Progressives have created, and then we need to plan ahead, put our nose to the grindstone, and work our way out of this hole.  Or as Hank Hill said, “If you plan ahead, then when things happen, you’re prepared for them.”

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College.  He is the Historian of the Future and the author of the History of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2012 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com  Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens

 

The No Growth Zero Sum Pie May 25, 2012

Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Politics.
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Has America reached the stage where we all stand in a circle and take turns holding a constantly shrinking dollar?

If our Dear Leader and the Daley led Outfit wins re-election next year perhaps a few more people will see the hand writing on the wall.  Though the Constitution is undeniably the greatest work to come from the hand of man, though it provided the safe haven of freedom for generations it is today a dead letter.  If after the coming November election the Democrats tax storm sweeps us down the economic drain and inflation kicks in those dazed by the success of the Chicago system in re-electing the first anti-American president then the silent majority will be ready to hear the watchmen on the walls.

We have sold our birthright for a bowl of entitlements.  We have stood silently by while corrupt politicians have looted our posterity of opportunity and hope.  We have allowed our Federal Government to assume powers never delegated to them by the Constitution.  We have spent the revenues of the future for a present that no longer resembles the last best hope of mankind.  We have followed the pipers from the Land of the free and the home of the brave onto the road to serfdom and we are about to learn that he who pays the piper calls the tune.

While our nation wallows in the Great Recession which our Progressive leaders and their water boys in the Corporations Once Known as the Mainstream Media keep trying to tell us is over China keeps eating our lunch.  Starting with NAFTA both Democrats and Republicans have agreed to free trade deals that aren’t free and have suppressed our trade.  For these economic geniuses who think they can centrally plan the largest economy in the history of the world let me spell this out slowly and clearly:

  • If you buy more than you sell you have a negative balance of trade
  • If you spend more than you make you eventually go bankrupt

AND…..

  • Everyone else except you seems to know these two simple truths.

Maybe our economic geniuses should try Economics 101.  They want us to accept that America has become a no growth zero sum pie.  It doesn’t fit their game plan to take their foot off the throat of the economy.  If they did it would roar to life as the liberty and opportunity which is our heritage, and once again prove that free people making free choices is the best way to grow the pie and enrich the people.

A new book calls President Obama an amateur, and at first glance he may appear to be one.  However he does not stand alone.  He is the front man for a triumphant Progressive Movement which has successfully implemented a strategy that has taken more than a century to mature.  Starting in the 1890s they set their sights on education capturing the universities and then training generations of teachers, journalists, and lawyers.  These people have infiltrated every aspect of our lives dumbing down successive generations while Progressive politicians have worked at getting a majority of the voters addicted to government handouts.  Then in the1960s the Cloward and Piven Strategy was embraced as a way to spend the country into oblivion so that it could be remade in a Progressive image.  Step by step, inch by inch, line upon line these webs have been woven, and as the average American twists and turns trying to find some avenue of escape from the shabby future these want to be commissars have planned, all they see is the party line on the major networks telling them everything is coming up roses.

It is time to WAKE UP!  It is time to prepare as if the world we have known will end and expect major dislocations in every aspect of life.  Even an overwhelming defeat for President Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and the rest of their fellow travelers will only mean this train wreck is slowing down.  The so-called draconian Ryan Budget never gets to a balanced budget for 40 or 50 years.  More than 30 years out the national debt is still growing.  Projections show that by 2025 the interest on the debt alone will begin to consume any hope of getting out of the trick bag they have spent us in to.  Our elected leaders have no plan to reverse the decline. They merely want to manage it in a more orderly fashion.

Each of us must decide what is most important.  Each of us must either prepare for the coming contraction or hit the wall like a crash dummy.

Personally I have decided that family is more important than career, food is more important than convenience, and honor is more important than status.   I have left the tenured halls and headed for the hills.  I have abandoned friends of many years to be surrounded by family.  I have embraced the soil to grow my own food. In other words, I believe I have been to the top of the mountain, I have seen what is coming, and I have taken my own advice.

When I was the Dean of a School of Christian Ministries I used to tell my students to prepare as if there was no Holy Spirit and preach as if there were no notes.  Today I advise my readers, prepare as if the America we have known and loved is about to be transformed before our eyes into a social democracy of European proportions, and live as if there is still hope.

For as long as we believe there is still hope we will not be hopeless.

So we come to the ultimate message: hope in Christ and you will never be disappointed.  All things must pass and only those things done in Christ will last.  All empires fall.  It is our place in History to watch the slow motion fall of a mighty empire: Western Civilization. But if we hold on to what is true, if we stand for what we believe, though a thousand fall on our right and ten thousand fall on our left it will not come upon us.

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College.  He is the Historian of the Future and the author of the History of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2012 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com  Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens

 

What’s Mine is Mine What’ s Yours is Negotiable May 17, 2012

Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Politics.
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The economy is scheduled to plunge off a cliff in January.

Back in the first two years after the Progressive’s November Revolution of 2008, the big government party enacted tax increases not scheduled to take place until after the 2012 elections. They also passed Obamacare which carries within it multiple tax increases, which are also scheduled to take affect after the 2012 election.  Combine these with previous tax rollbacks scheduled to expire in January 2013 and we are looking at the major economic crisis the progressives have worked so hard to create so they can then work so hard to solve.

In 2010 the voters got a chance to let the central planners know what they thought of what had been done with the power entrusted to them in 2008.  However, with only one house of Congress in Republican hands they were unable to reverse any of the changes made in the first two years of the Obama administration, so come January we hit the wall.

This manufactured economic crisis will be used by the triumphant Progressives as proof that capitalism doesn’t work.  Then following their play book, since too much government wrecked the economy we need more government to fix the economy.  They will tighten the already strangulating regulatory straight jacket.  If Obamacare is upheld and implemented, within a few years it will kill the private insurance industry as company after company figures out it is cheaper to pay the fines imposed than purchase the insurance required.  The flight of paying customers from the private insurance companies will force them into bankruptcy.  Remember even if they used deceptive language at the moment of passing the bill President Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid were on the record many times saying what they were aiming at was a single payer European type healthcare system.  And we can all see how well that is working out for the Europeans.

They will also use the failure of the insurance industry as more proof that capitalism doesn’t work.

As President Obama travels around the country inciting class warfare with his constant attacks on the millionaires and billionaires which he tells us aren’t paying their fair share he continues to accept vast amounts of money from those same millionaires and billionaires.  While his administration imposes regulation after regulation that every day makes it harder to start new businesses, maintain or expand small businesses he turns a blind eye to the continued casino like atmosphere at the largest banks: the ones that are too big to fail and which should be too big to bail.

The largest bank in the country, J. P. Morgan Chase just lost another couple of billions in risky credit derivatives that their own chairman says were ill-conceived, poorly executed, and not managed very well.  This is the same bank that President Obama says is one the best run banks in America and the same chairman who has visited the Whitehouse at least 18 times since 2009..  The Chairman of the Board Jamie Diamom, the one in charge when all the poor execution was going on was just voted 23 million dollars in compensation while the stockholders take it in the wallet.

Crony capitalism, where the public takes the risk and bears the loss while the cronies who contribute money to the politicians reap the benefits is alive and well.  Favored corporation such as GE whose chairman, Jeffrey R. Immelt serves on the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness makes billions in profit and often pays nothing in taxes.  Personally I believe there should be no corporate taxes since they are in reality double taxation but taxing some while exempting others is the worst kind of Corporatism and the President merely uses this system to reward donors and then turns around and attacks this pay-to-play system as an example of the rich not paying their fair share.

There is a con game going on.  Straw men are being set up only to be knocked down.  Our fellow Americans who get their news from Jay Leno and the Daily Show have no idea what is being done.  They swallow the party line as belched out by the Corporations Once Known as the Mainstream Media and troop to the polls to vote for the same party their fathers and grandfathers voted for.  But the major parties today aren’t ideologically, organizationally, or in practice the same parties America has known.

Neither party stands for smaller government, individual freedom, and economic opportunity.  At one time they both stood for these fundamentally American concepts.  Operating like the twin heads of one bird of prey, both major parties expand the government and add to the regulatory burden which is changing America from the Land of the Free into a totalitarian morass that is stagnating its way from the first world to the second world.

From the beginning of the primary process it was obvious that Romney was the anointed choice of the establishment Republicans and the media.  Now that he has been all but chosen it is time for the Democrats to scare up a third party somewhere somehow.  President Obama’s record of socialist accomplishments is so stunning it has even aroused enough of the politically comatose to push him back to the 40+% of the electorate who would vote for a yellow dog before they would vote for anyone except a Democrat.  He has lost the independents and the undecided.  His only chance for victory is a third party, so there will be a third party even if the Democrats have to invent it and pay for it themselves.

As the big day, the day when we as voters will get a chance to reverse the November Revolution of 2008, watch as a third party emerges, well-funded and well prepared.  This third party will say all the right things.  They will come across as conservative ideologically and economically.  They will probably even try to portray themselves as the organized expression of the thousands of independent Tea Parties across the country.

No third party has won a presidential election in America since 1860.  The rules have been rigged, and so many people vote instinctively for the party their fathers voted for the odds of a third party winning are close to the odds of winning the power ball.

If the progressives win one more election they will cement in their transformation of America from a land based on equal opportunity to a land of based on equal outcome.  Everyone gets the same thing except of course for those who divvy up the swag.  Those who divide what they take from the producers to give to the non-producers always seem to end up with everything while everyone else gets just enough to get by long enough to produce something else that can be expropriated by an all-powerful central government.

The Progressives who have taken control of America act as if all the money we earn is theirs and the only debate is about how much they will let us keep.  And they constantly remind us that the government can’t afford to leave us with too much money.  If they did we wouldn’t be dependent on them.

Maybe we should change the motto from E Pluribus Unum to What’s Mine is Mine What’s Yours is Negotiable.

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College.  He is the Historian of the Future and the author of the History of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2012 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com  Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens

 

 

 

America Lost in a Bubble May 10, 2012

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All bubbles burst.  This is a law of nature.  No matter from what material the bubble arises.  No matter what forces propel its expansion.  All bubbles burst.

Actually the science of bursting bubbles has recently popped into the forefront of scientific discovery.  Conventional wisdom has taught since the beginning of time that when a bubble bursts it simply vanishes.  However, recent observations using high speed cameras has revealed that when a bubble bursts it leaves a circle of miniature daughter bubbles that pop so fast the eye cannot catch it.  There is even the thought that each daughter bubble leaves a ring and each daughter bubble leaves a ring ad infinitum.   All happening so fast it cannot be seen.  And yet, each succeeding bubble bursts.

The physics of bubbles tells us that the pressure on the inside works against the tension on the surface and a ratio between the two determines when the bubble will burst.  No matter how it bursts, no matter why or when it bursts one thing is certain: all bubbles burst.

In economics a bubble is the term commonly used for a cycle characterized by rapid expansion followed by rapid often dramatic contraction.  What causes economic bubbles is often a matter of dispute among economists.  Some believe they are a natural part of the economic cycle: everything goes up, and everything eventually comes back down.

Others believe they are caused by inflation.  In this scenario everything has a natural price which is the intersection of cost and demand.  The Bubble is the artificial rise of price over the natural price.  Eventually the economy must correct itself and the inflated product will return to its natural price.

No matter which theory you subscribe to, one thing is certain: all bubbles burst.

Remember the Clinton years?  Today the official History as dispensed constantly by the Corporations Once Known as the Mainstream Media is that the wise and benevolent rule of the man from Hope was a time of plenty.  There was solid growth and balanced budgets.  As the Progressive narrative goes, President Clinton alone was responsible for the growth of the nineties which Bush the Younger proceeded to destroy leaving a mess for President Obama who has fought valiantly to restart the economy and save the day.  At least that’s the story as dispensed by the headlines and the talking heads.

The reality is approximately 180 degrees opposite of the spin.

President Clinton won a three way election with less than 50% of the vote (twice) and called it a mandate both times.  The policies he opposed for his entire career had recently won the Cold War, and President Clinton reaped the rewards.  He gutted the military and called it a Peace Dividend which he proceeded to spend on social engineering projects pumping up the economy with government spending.  Then the Dot-com Boom turned into the Dot-com Bubble and the economy was roaring.  Another plus for Clinton was the defeat of Hillarycare which would have torpedoed the economy just as Obamacare is now.  He also profited by the election of a Republican House in 1994 which kept the promises in the Contract With America and led the way in cutting spending and building a budget that at least appeared to be balanced.

Everything was coming up roses. The economy was growing and so was the Dot-com Bubble, which everyone just knew would go on forever even though anyone older than the milk in the fridge should have known that all bubbles burst.

In 2000 George II won a contested election, and before he had time to change the drapes in the Oval Office the Dot-com Bubble burst.  This led to a short sharp recession; this was the one that Bush didn’t blame on Clinton.  He instead passed the now infamous Bush tax cuts and mailed out what he called rebates in the form of free money to spur the economy.  All the while behind the scenes the housing bubble was beginning to inflate to epic proportions.   Federal spending grew, the government grew, and the bubble grew.

During the go-go years people with no job, no money, and sometimes no ID were able to buy McMansions for no money down and walk out with cash in their hands.  How could this ever go wrong?  I remember hearing of people bidding on houses, offering 10% over the asking price and losing out to someone who offered more.  Prices went up and up and up and somehow even sane people apparently thought it would never end.

Things looked good.  Things looked very good.  Following the recession which began seven weeks after President Bush took office, America had six years of uninterrupted economic growth.  There were fifty two straight months of job creation producing more than eight million new jobs, the unemployment averaged 5.3 %, after-tax income per capita increased by11%, from 2000 to 2007, and GDP grew by more than 17 % adding almost $2.1 trillion.  Exotic ways to paper over the fact that people with no money were buying houses fueling the boom kept everyone smiling and the bubble expanding.

The only problem was that eventually all bubbles burst.  And when it did John McCain suspended his presidential race to fly back to Washington and add his hearty, “Me Too” to the bailout and seal his fate.

President Obama took office as the economy crashed into the deepest recession since World War Two.  He immediately began blaming President Bush and hasn’t stopped yet.  He passed the largest stimulus bill in American History, began a record expansion of the Federal government, and the largest spending binge since the beginning of time.  All in the name of cleaning up the mess from the bursting of the housing bubble.

And what are all these trillions of dollars in reckless spending doing?  Are they inflating another bubble?  Change the words and you change the perception: spending becomes investment and responsibility becomes austerity.  Those who are manning the pumps aren’t blowing up a financial bubble they are showing compassion for their fellow man and investing for the future.  Anyone who warns of a coming crash or tries to slow the rate of spending is pushing grandma off the cliff for the benefit of millionaires and billionaires.

No matter how this mad dash to nowhere is spun one thing is certain: all bubbles burst

On the brighter side President Obama has perfected the cure for illegal immigration.  The economy has taken such a massive hit that the illegal immigrants are leaving looking for greener pastures.  And he has also brought the solution to a 10%+ unemployment rate.  So many people have become discouraged that they have dropped out of the labor market, and according to our current administration this is good news.  Perhaps we should take a cue from Mr. Obama’s favorite pastime and just consider his first term a mulligan.

Maybe the slogan for President Obama’s second term shouldn’t be “Forward.” Perhaps it should be “I deserve a re-do.”

Just remember: all bubbles burst.

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College.  He is the Historian of the Future and the author of the History of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2012 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com  Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens

When Will Enough Be Enough May 3, 2012

Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Politics.
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When taxes become destructive they’ve surpassed the consent of the governed bending to the will of tyranny.  When regulations strangle competition instead of securing it from evil combinations they’ve become counterproductive and defeat the very purpose for which they were proposed.  When foreign entanglements bleed the nation but do not secure the peace or defeat the enemy they’ve become interventionist vehicles for vested interests.  When spending becomes a hemorrhaging of assists leading to national bankruptcy those who continue to pile debt upon debt seek not the good of the nation but instead its destruction.  When leaders selected to unite instead do all they can to divide they no longer advance the interest of the whole and are instead partisan leaders in a factional fight.

A social contract is one made between a people and their government.  It is an agreement whereby the people surrender certain aspects of their independence for the guarantee of corporate security and the enjoyment of a general welfare.  In the case of most countries this is an unwritten and unconscious arrangement built upon tradition and precedent as in the case of England.  However in the United States we have an actual contract, the Constitution.  This was ratified by the original states and the subsequent states were formed under it and admitted as full partners to it.

All contracts may be legitimately changed over time as long as there are mechanisms either within the document or established by the document to do so.  Within our Constitution there is an amendment process and it has been amended 27 times so far.  Whether we agree with those amendments or not they have been legally ratified and accepted becoming part of the document.  However, over the years our government structure has been changed and our manner of life transformed more by the informal changes than by the formal.  Nowhere in the Constitution is the central government given the power to wage unending undeclared war.  Nowhere is the central government given the right to ignore the requirement to protect the states from invasion.  Nowhere is there found any basis for executive orders, signing statements or bureaucratic regulations to have the force of law without legislative action by Congress.

Well-connected rabble rousers now say equality will not be achieved until everything is equal in everybody’s house.  Leveling the playing field has finally thrown off its cloak of deceit and exposed itself as, “From each according to their ability to each according to their need.”  The professional civil rights entrepreneurs who’ve extorted vast amounts of personal wealth with threats of boycotts and demonstrations have been unmasked as the true purveyors of prejudice seeking to keep race and gender differences alive for their own benefit.  Union bosses build political empires using the legally forced dues of members with more money spent on political activity than on member service.  The union bosses ride in limousine comfort from board meetings to political rallies while their members lose jobs.  The pensions of the bosses are golden parachutes while the pensions of the members are underfunded.

The Land of the Free is held captive, locked in a two party system where both parties are merely two heads on the same bird of prey.  Both parties are dedicated to more spending and bigger government.  Both parties exploit gerrymandering of districts and overwhelming corporate donations to ensure a hierarchy of the perpetually re-elected using a system of seniority to enhance their power.  Legal barriers exist at every turn to stop any new parties from gaining the access that might deflect the central government from its ever increasing growth towards totalitarianism.

When will enough be enough?  When will citizens rise in their righteous anger and demand not a New Deal, not a Great Society, a New Frontier or a Fundamentally Transformed America but instead their original deal.  The one we wrested from the hands of the tyrant King George.  The one we’ve fought to establish and defend from Yorktown to Kandahar and the right of a people to be free to live as they desire, to work for their own benefit and choose their own destiny.  Free from the smothering governmental control which has been the lot of most people in most places since the beginning of time.  When will the yoke of tyranny become too heavy to be borne?  What will be the spark that lights the torches and brings the incensed villagers to the gate of the castle demanding, “Bring the monster out!” so that a stake can be driven through the heart of tyranny and freedom can return to the land?

When that day comes what will we the people do?  Will we try to resurrect the government of old that ultimately brought us full circle or will we be bold enough to forge a new the social contract and design better ways to ensure that the beast of tyranny doesn’t once again break the chains of restraint.

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College.  He is the Historian of the Future and the author of the History of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2012 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com  Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens

 

If I Wanted to Make America Prosperous Again April 26, 2012

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First, I would ask myself how did our ancestors build America from an agricultural colony on the edge of civilization into the number one manufacturing and commercial nation the world had ever known.

Why reinvent the wheel if round ones still roll?

The early American colonies of the British were founded based upon the economic ideas of Mercantilism.  Governmental regulation of industries, trade, and commerce characterized Mercantilism as every aspect of the economy was utilized for national policy. This was especially true with foreign trade, which was determined more by national aims rather than individual or local interests.

The definition of wealth began to change in the sixteenth century.  During the Middle Ages, wealth was defined by the amount of productive land a nation possessed.  As transportation, especially by sea, improved so did the ability to conduct foreign trade bringing with it an increase in the amount of cash generated by that trade.  The definition of wealth came to be the amount of cash a nation possessed.  Therefore every nation sought to have a favorable balance of trade.  They also sought to develop monopolistic type environments wherein they provided their own raw materials thus avoiding imports which meant money flowing out and fostering the export of finished goods raising the level of money flowing in.  Defining wealth as the accumulation of cash, the nations of Europe desired to conduct foreign trade on a larger scale, and they began looking for foreign sources of gold, silver, and raw materials.

This brings us to the British effort to develop North America as a source of wealth.

The Chesapeake colonies of Virginia and Maryland were the first successful British colonies in what was to become the United States of America.  Though the initial colonists came looking for gold they soon learned that prosperity came not from a shovel but instead from a plow.  It was tobacco that primed the pump and lifted the colonies from a burden to a benefit for the mother country.  After years of mounting expenses for the British and years of starvation for the colonists the cultivation of tobacco brought prosperity.  Virginia’s production of tobacco grew from 200,000 pounds in 1624 to 3,000,000 pounds in 1638 overtaking the West Indies as the number one supplier of tobacco for all of Europe thus boosting Britain’s balance of trade.

The cultivation of tobacco fostered a plantation system based upon indentured and slave labor.  A gentrified class of great planters sought to replicate the social structure of Britain with a small number of very rich ruling a large number of small land holders who prospered to a certain extent but never enough to challenge the status quo.  The wretched poor of Britain who had come to the Chesapeake colonies to find a better life did find more opportunity and the ability to advance from the landless poor to the ranks of yeoman farmer.  However, there was little opportunity to enter the ranks for the gentry which became a type of American nobility.

New England, because of the soil, the climate, and the fact that there was no major cash crop that grew well in the area, did not lend itself to large plantations.  Most farmers were operating at a subsistence level.  If they did generate a surplus it was in crops that were not easily transported across the ocean, and they were also crops that could be grown in England and were not needed as imports.

This climatic and environmental adversity did not condemn New England to being a poor relation to the Chesapeake nobility.  Instead the New English diversified, innovated, and used individual enterprise to not only match but to surpass Chesapeake and every other colony in the British Empire.  Those who settled New England were Puritans who sought to purify the Anglican religion of ceremony and return it to what they saw as the simplicity of early Christianity.  They did not believe that good works brought salvation but they did believe that salvation brought good works.  Therefore they sought to occupy their time with productive activity to glorify God through their labors.  This was a manifestation of what the sociologist Max Weber later called , “The Protestant work ethic.”  Whatever you choose to call it, it was this drive to succeed no matter what the adversity that led the New English to look beyond the soil, beyond the climate and to the opportunity.

First they exploited the fisheries of the Northeast.  In 1641 the New English caught 600,000 pounds of fish much of which was exported to Britain.  By 1645 they were catching more than 6,000,000 pounds per year employing more than a thousand men on 440 ships.  They came to dominate the fish trade shipping not only to Britain and its empire but also to Spain, Portugal, the Azores, Madeira, and the Canary Islands.

By the end of the 1600s the merchants of the New English coast began to circle the globe trading the fish, surplus crops, and lumber of their area to all parts of the British Empire.  They became such shrewd traders that soon American ships were carrying trade from one colony to another even when the cargo didn’t originate in New England.  This secondary carrying trade generated a growing profit that in turn rebounded in a number of ways.  The increased profits brought home financed increased industry and growth at home, and it also spawned a shipbuilding industry which exploited the vast resources of the northern forests.

Between 1674 and 1714 the New English built more than 1200 ships, totaling more than 75,000 tons.  By 1700 there were fifteen shipyards in Boston which produced more ships than all the rest of the British colonies combined.  Only London had more shipyards.  This was a significant engine of economic growth.  To build one 150 ton merchant ship required as many as 200 workers, mostly skilled craftsmen.  The shipyards also supported the growth of numerous enterprises to supply their needs such as saw mills, smithies, barrel makers, sail makers, iron foundries, and rope makers. In addition, the farmers of New England benefited by feeding the craftsmen, supplying the ships, and providing the timber.

By 1700 Boston was the third city of the Empire behind only London and Bristol and the New English shippers were earning freight charges for carrying produce and material that was neither produced, shipped to, or shipped from their home colony.  The enrichment of the area spread prosperity far beyond the sphere of shippers, sailors, and their sundry suppliers.  According to Boston’s shipping register for 1697-1714 over 25% of the adult males in Boston owned shares in at least one ship.

All of these linkages produced an economy filled with diversification and development as opposed to the stratified monoculture of the Chesapeake colonies.

These trends continued as time went on leading to the industrial North eventually overwhelming the agricultural South.  The expansion and growth of America was based upon a foundation of hard work and innovation born of adversity.  Finding themselves in a hard place Americans found a way to prosper and grow like a young plant reaching for the sun.  Freed from the rigid restraints of the home country and then guaranteed freedom by the constitution and the limited government it provided America surged to the front ranks of nations.

Today, America labors under self-imposed adversity.  We are in the grip of an oppressive Progressive Movement that after 100 years of incremental advance is poised to transform America from what she has always been into what they want her to be.  America has traditionally been a constitutionally limited Republic operating on democratic principles providing individual liberty and economic opportunity.  The Progressives envision America as a centrally-planned highly regimented social democracy where the wealth is spread around from each according to their abilities to each according to their needs .

If I wanted to make America prosperous again I would take off the self-imposed shackles of a central government on steroids, stop imposing new regulations, and reduce taxes everywhere on everyone.  Then I would stand back and watch our economy takes off like a rocket and we take our place beside our ancestors as free people with economic liberty and a will to succeed.

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College.  He is the Historian of the Future and the author of the History of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2012 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com  Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens

 

Liberty is Null and Void April 18, 2012

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America was founded as a Federal Republic.  This means our nation was designed to have two levels of sovereignty.  The States which pre-date the central government and which created the central government is to be one level and the central government they created was to be the second.   The separate States first combined to found a central government when they drafted and ratified the Articles of Confederation in 1781.  This combination was strengthened and expanded in the writing and ratification of the Constitution in 1789.  However, in both of these new beginnings it was always stated and assumed that the States were the building blocks out of which the whole was built.

The Anti-Federalists sought to safe guard the inherent rights of the Sovereign States in the face of a proposed national government which concentrated power and superseded the primacy of the States.  The Anti-Federalists are often dismissed by those of succeeding generations who have been educated by the victorious philosophical descendants of the Federalists, as mere obstructionists and people of no-account.  However, their ranks were filled by some of the greatest names of the Revolutionary times such as Samuel Adams, George Mason, Thomas Paine, and Thomas Jefferson.

Another well-known leader of the Antifederalists, Patrick Henry, questioned the very legitimacy of what are possibly the most famous words in the document: “We the People” when he said, “I have the highest veneration for those gentlemen; but, sir, give me leave to demand, What right had they to say, We, the people? My political curiosity, exclusive of my anxious solicitude for the public welfare, leads me to ask, Who authorized them to speak the language of, We, the people, instead of, We, the states? States are the characteristics and the soul of a confederation. If the states be not the agents of this compact, it must be one great, consolidated, national government, of the people of all the states.”

Once the Constitution was maneuvered through the ratification process most of the Anti-Federalists faded into the background.  Forgotten were their war time services and forgotten were their warnings that a central government once established would inevitably grow in power to eclipse the States.

In the early days of the Republic the former Anti-Federalists attempted to keep alive the idea that it was the States which had created the central government and that the States therefore had the authority to determine if the central government had overstepped the authority which had been delegated to them by the States.  They proposed to do this through a process known as Nullification.

Nullification is the process through which they believed a State could suspend a federal law within its borders. In opposition to the Alien and Sedition Acts of the Adams Administration Thomas Jefferson and James Madison first enunciated this concept in1798. The tactic was accepted as a legitimate tool of the States by the Hartford Convention in 1814.  It was seen as a logical and legal protection against the encroachment of the central government upon the sovereign rights of the States.

The idea that a state or a combination of States could nullify what they perceived as unconstitutional laws passed by the central government which exceeded the delegated powers granted to it remained a point of contention until it reached a crisis in 1832.

The enactment of tariffs which were believed to be advantageous to the rapidly industrializing North and injurious to the agrarian South brought the question to a head.  South Carolina led the way by adopting an Ordinance of Nullification which stated that the tariffs, “are unauthorized by the constitution of the United States, and violate the true meaning and intent thereof and are null, void, and no law, nor binding upon this State.”

This was countered by President Jackson’s Proclamation Regarding Nullification, December 10, 1832.  In this proclamation President Jackson stated, “I consider, then, the power to annul a law of the United States, assumed by one State, incompatible with the existence of the Union, contradicted expressly by the letter of the Constitution, unauthorized by its spirit, inconsistent with every principle on which It was founded, and destructive of the great object for which it was formed.”

Immediately after the President issued his proclamation Congress passed the Force Act.  This law authorized the use of military force against any state resisting the tariff acts. The President being the man of action immediately sent warships to Charleston harbor and ordered the strengthening federal fortifications there. The situation staggered towards war as both the central government and the government of South Carolina prepared to dispute the Doctrine of Nullification on the field of battle.

It was at this critical juncture that Henry Clay who had not been able to find any other State willing to join South Carolina earned his reputation as the Great Compromiser. On the same day the Force Bill passed, Clay negotiated the passage of the Tariff of 1833. This law provided for the gradual reduction of the tariff over ten years until it reached the levels which existed in 1816.  Jackson signed both measures thus priming and holstering the Federal power at one time.  In response South Carolina repealed its Ordinance Nullification while at the same time reaffirming its belief in the legality of Nullification by nullifying the Force Bill. President Jackson knew he had won a victory and sought to move on by ignoring this face saving action.

After this crisis the issue of nullification died down.  However, the belief that this was a viable and legal recourse for the States did not disappear, it instead evolved into the belief that the States which had created the Union could or should be able to nullify the union itself.  This in turn led to the secession of Southern States beginning with South Carolina.

This next crisis precipitated the Civil War.  This most deadly of all American wars destroyed the balance.  The power of the States was crushed by the overwhelming power of the central government.  Since that time the central government has grown, and grown, and grown until today it has become Leviathan.  Not the sea monster referred to in the Bible but the soul crushing all controlling political and social government described by Thomas Hobbs.

Today this debate over the relationship between the central government and the States has resurfaced.  As an administration moves aggressively to transform America beyond any semblance of a federal structure into a centrally-planned and totally controlled socially engineered society citizens from sea to shining sea are searching for ways to return to the limited government won by the Revolution and supposedly safe-guarded by the Constitution.

One of the most revolutionary proposals is a direct descendant of the Doctrine of Nullification.  The Repeal Amendment is supported by citizens and their representatives in every State and in the Federal Congress.  This proposed amendment states, “Any provision of law or regulation of the United States may be repealed by the several states, and such repeal shall be effective when the legislatures of two-thirds of the several states approve resolutions for this purpose that particularly describe the same provision or provisions of law or regulation to be repealed.”  As of today, no State has passed the Amendment, and it has not gained enough support in Congress to advance past the proposal stage.

This proposed amendment is designed to restore the validity of the 9th and 10th amendments which have been fundamentally supplanted and submerged by the ever growing power of the central government.

The 9th Amendment states, “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”  The 10th Amendment states, “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.”

Unless we rebuild the reality of a balanced federal system we will soon find ourselves locked in the embrace of an all-powerful central government.  This Leviathan will seek to regulate the smallest details of our lives and the spirit of totalitarianism we spent the last half of the twentieth century fighting will win by default as the change our fellow citizens voted for brings the death of hope.

Keep the faith.  Keep the peace.  We shall overcome.

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College.  He is the Historian of the Future and the author of the History of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2012 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com  Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens

 

The Heart of the Problem is in the Heart April 12, 2012

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Benjamin Franklin told us, “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.”

Socialism is a debilitating confidence game dressed up as an ideology used by demagogues and want-to-be dictators to fool its victims into believing it is possible to have your cake and eat it too.  Those who fall under the spell of the charlatans singing this siren song actually come to believe it is fair and just to force some people to labor for the good of others.  This is the same type of sophistry and rationalization that was used by the clergy and philosophers of the Antebellum South to justify unending human bondage for an entire race of people because it was for their own good.

This twisted tool of central planners and bureaucratic tyrants teaches those who have not that it is fair and just to take from those who have and re-distribute the plunder as the government decrees.  This is not fair!  This is not just!  To teach that it is raises up generations of people who believe they have a birth-right to that which is not their own forfeiting their true birth-right: the opportunity to succeed through their own efforts.  The products of such an educational system are citizens without virtue voting pawns without honor.  Not because they have made a personal decision to live without these two attributes but because they have been programmed to believe taking the fruit of someone else’s labor is permissible as long as it will be given to someone else.  Theodore Roosevelt said, “To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.”

Those who drank the Kool-Aid dispensed by the government schools learned that this type of theft is not only permissible it is laudable.  They were told and they believe that this is what Robin Hood did: steal from the rich to give to the poor.  However, in reality the legend of Robin Hood tells of a fighter for liberty and the sanctity of personal property who robbed the stolen wealth of corrupt government officials so that he could return it to its rightful owners: those who produced the wealth in the first place.  However, the leaders of America today have turned the world upside down demanding that people objectified by the name “Millionaires and Billionaires” need to pay their fair share.  Yet they never say what that fair share is or when enough will ever be enough. According to Noah Webster, “…if the citizens neglect their Duty and place unprincipled men in office, the government will soon be corrupted; laws will be made, not for the public good so much as for selfish or local purposes; corrupt or incompetent men will be appointed to execute the Laws; the public revenues will be squandered on unworthy men; and the rights of the citizen will be violated or disregarded.”

We look around us and we watch as our beloved United States of America crumbles.  Our elected leaders act as if it is their goal to spend us into oblivion.  The only way to understand the pronouncements and actions of this administration is if we consider ourselves a conquered people and the Washington-centered oligarchy as an occupying power.  We, the silent majority who labor, innovate, and produce are treated as subservient beasts of burden needed and appreciated more for what can be extorted from us than for who we are.  Samuel Adams once said, “No people will tamely surrender their Liberties, nor can any be easily subdued, when knowledge is diffused and Virtue is preserved. On the Contrary, when People are universally ignorant, and debauched in their Manners, they will sink under their own weight without the Aid of foreign Invaders.”

It is no wonder that we see such a sorry collection of second-rate scoundrels prancing about on the stage of power.  They sell their snake oil of class warfare indoctrinating their victims to be needy and then promising to fill their gnawing need with loot legally taken from others.  This immoral process breeds a population without the virtue of self-reliance or the honor of being independent.  The soul sapping addiction to eternal government support leads to a nation neither adapted to nor deserving of liberty.  When a birthright has been sold for a bowl of stew it cannot be regained by demanding more. Thomas Jefferson said, “Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition.”

We the present day guardians of America must stand before the tsunami of anti-education that leads our nation away from virtue and into unrighteousness.  We must serve as examples working to earn what we receive and refusing to either play the victim or accept the self-imposed victim-hood of those who seek to expropriate the fruit of someone else’s labor.  We must stand for righteousness or we will fall before the juggernaut of socialism’s final assault upon the land of the free and the home of the brave.

In the coming election we must choose wisely.  We must find someone who is virtuous and who adheres to the principles of constitutionally limited government which alone can protect personal liberty, individual freedom, and economic opportunity.  Samuel Adams instructed us in this basic truth, “Neither the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt. He therefore is the truest friend of the liberty of his country who tries most to promote its virtue, and who, so far as his power and influence extend, will not suffer a man to be chosen onto any office of power and trust who is not a wise and virtuous man.”

Douglas MacArthur warned us, “History fails to record a single precedent in which nations subject to moral decay have not passed into political and economic decline. There has been either a spiritual awakening to overcome the moral lapse, or a progressive deterioration leading to ultimate national disaster.”

Finally, looking to the ultimate source of wisdom Proverbs 14:34 tells us, “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.”

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College.  He is the Historian of the Future and the author of the History of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2012 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com  Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens

 

Supreme Contempt April 5, 2012

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Recently President Obama made this remarkable statement, “Ultimately, I’m confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress.”  For someone reputed to be a former professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Chicago this statement is hard to explain.  Any high school student in a sophomore American History class knows there are many precedents for the Supreme Court making laws passed by Congress null and void.  As a matter of fact, in the system of government tradition has delivered to us overturning laws as unconstitutional has been an important power of the Supreme Court for more than two hundred years.

And if the primary content of the President’s statement isn’t strange enough the supporting information is wrong.  Obamacare wasn’t passed by a strong majority in Congress. In reality the final vote in the House vote was 220 to 215.  Every Republican and thirty four Democrats voted against the law.  In the Senate the vote was sixty Democrats and Independents voting for and thirty nine Republicans voting against.  The Democrats, even though they controlled both houses of Congress knew they would lose enough of their own members that it was going to be a close vote so they moved the bill outside the regular order of business and used a legislative maneuver known as reconciliation to avoid giving the Republicans the opportunity to filibuster the law.

What is the context of these current pressure tactics being used by the executive branch on the judicial branch?

Soon after taking office in 1829, President Andrew Jackson a long time Indian fighter spearheaded one of his signature pieces of legislation through Congress: the Indian Removal Act.  This act gave the president the power to negotiate treaties with the various tribes which still existed in America East of the Mississippi.  These treaties, often accepted either under duress or under questionable circumstances seized the lands of the tribes and forced them to move West to the Indian Territory in what is today Oklahoma.  The time for fighting had passed and most of the tribes quietly left their ancestral lands.

One tribe decided to try another route.  The Cherokee Nation had adopted the ways of the Europeans.  They devised their own written language and wrote their own Constitution.  They had their own plantations, printing presses, and businesses.  They also had their own lawyers and instead of going on the warpath as their ancestors had done they went to court to fight the orders from the State of Georgia which dispossessed them of their land.

In two cases; Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831) and Worcester v. Georgia (1832), the United States Supreme Court considered whether or not it had the power to enforce the rights of Native American nations in disputes between them and the states. In Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, the Court ruled that it lacked jurisdiction to review the claims of any Indian nation within the United States. In Worcester v. Georgia, the Court ruled that only the Federal Government not the states, had the power to regulate the Indian nations.

What the ruling in Worcester v. Georgia meant was that Georgia could not legally seize the Cherokee lands.  It was at this junction when referring to the majority opinion written by Chief Justice John Marshall that President Andrew Jackson made one his most famous statements, “Mr. Marshall has made his decision. Now let him enforce it!”  Instead of enforcing the ruling the Federal government joined in and the result was the Trail of Tears as the Cherokee lost their lands and moved west.

Franklin D. Roosevelt legislating Keynesian economic philosophy in the New Deal sought to end the Depression through government spending and central control.  With massive majorities in both houses of Congress the president’s agenda was enacted as quickly as possible.  Then less than three years after the New Deal began to transform America the Supreme Court began overturning some of the central portions of Roosevelt’s program

In response to this resistance to his vision for what should be done FDR decided to pack the court with Justices who would support his laws.  What he proposed was that for any justice over the age of seventy who refused to retire, the president could appoint a new justice to sit beside the current justice and do his work.   If his plan had been adopted and none of the then current Justices retired he would have been able to appoint six new Justices.  Since he couldn’t force the conservative justices to retire he sought in this way to outnumber them and thus change the ideological complexion of the court.  As the president moved ahead in his attempt to pack the court the Supremes started ruling in his favor which eventually stopped the need for his effort to influence the court through overwhelming appointments.  Then time and attrition did what he had tried to do with legislation.  By 1941, four justices had retired and two had died consequently by the end of his presidency seven of the nine justices were Roosevelt appointees.

Now we come full circle to President Obama and his obvious attempt to belittle and intimidate the court.  Should anyone be surprised?  This is nothing more than standard operating procedure for a Chicago politician.  It is also a normal technique for a community organizer who has been trained in the tactics of Saul Alinsky.  No, we shouldn’t be surprised but we could have expected more of anyone who has been entrusted with the highest office in the land.  It is just such crude strong-arm tactics such as this which open Mr. Obama up to charges of being a typical South Chicago thug.  If he wishes to avoid such charges he needs to avoid such actions.

The above brief review clearly shows that this was not the first attempt of a president to influence the court.  However coming from one who is constantly extolled as a constitutional scholar it is certainly disquieting.  As a constitutional scholar the president would obviously know what he said was incorrect leaving no other interpretation to his words than a conscious effort to alter the traditional system of checks and balances and the power relationship between the separate branches of the federal government.

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College.  He is the Historian of the Future and the author of the History of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2012 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com  Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens

 

Where Does the Supreme Court Get Its Power? March 30, 2012

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This week the eyes of everyone concerned with the continuance of limited government were riveted on the Supreme Court.  For three days the nine Justices heard arguments by the Solicitor General in favor of ruling the individual mandate which is the keystone of Obamacare constitutional.  They also heard the representatives of twenty-six States argue that it is unconstitutional.  This is the first time that a majority of the States have combined to protest an act of Congress.  Now We the People must wait while the fate of our Republic is decided in secret by our Black Robed rulers from whom there is no appeal.

How did we get here?

We elect our representatives and they enact laws which are supposed to be within the framework of the Constitution.  It should be the expectation of Americans that those we entrust with our delegated sovereignty would craft laws in accordance with our wishes as expressed in the founding document of our government.  These laws should reflect our desire for limited government, personal liberty, and economic freedom.

And the unicorns danced with the elves until the cow jumped over the moon.

The perpetually re-elected who control the two houses of our legislature make law with no regard for the limits, the spirit, or the letter of our Constitution.  In this case they have decreed not participating in Commerce is commerce, and that a penalty is not a tax, that is a tax, and then isn’t again.  After years of stepping so far over the line they have forgotten there was a line.  The Party of Power has finally legislated us to the point of no return.  If the court of last resort gives this power grab the green light what limits are left?

Since the law was passed over the overwhelming rejection of the voters its validation would cement the dictatorship of the Party in the transformation of America from what we have known into what we would never choose.  The Court appears to be our last line of defense.  But where does the Supreme Court get its power?

The Supreme Court is principally occupied in a task that has no basis in the Constitution.  The nine justices spend their time judging what is constitutional and what isn’t through a process known as judicial review.  However, when the delegates of the thirteen original States drafted the Constitution they decided after much debate not to delegate such a power to the judicial branch or any other branch of the new Federal Government.

If the Constitution doesn’t give this power to the Court how did they get it?  The surprising answer is that they assumed it unto themselves, and since no one stopped them they just kept doing it.  The process began in 1794 when for the First time they declared an act of Congress unconstitutional.  Then in 1803 they used a minor case Marbury v Madison to outline their justification for the process.  Since that time the belief that the Supreme Court is the ultimate judge of the constitutionality of anything and everything has become such a cornerstone of the American System that the average person erroneously believes the power was granted in the Constitution. Thus the first power grab has become our last defense against what could be the final power grab.

In other words we who want to see the rebirth of limited government are hoping the Supreme Court will use an unconstitutional power to save the Constitution.  We stand hat in hand waiting patiently to find out if the Commerce Clause can be stretched to give the central government unlimited power or will we step back from the precipice and wait for the Party of Power to try again.

Across the country we have watched as everything from abortion to gay marriage has been imposed upon us by the black robed tyrants of the Federal Bench.  We have watched as popularly passed referendums were overturned, and common sense laws such as Arizona’s immigration statutes cast aside by activist jurists determined to force our nation into their mold.  Unelected and almost unaccountable these imperious lawyers on steroids hand down pronouncements from Olympus on the Potomac as the sons of pioneers meekly accept the rule of tradition and the arbitrary decrees of men instead of the rule of law our ancestors fought and died to establish and preserve.

Now the arguments are over.  The talking heads endlessly dissect what was said telling us what it means.  For months we will hear rumors and hints as we wait until June for the word from on high.  Is not purchasing insurance commerce?  Does the government have the power to compel a citizen to enter into a contract?  Is a contract made under duress valid?  Does Congress have the power to make the purchasing of a product necessary to maintain the status of a law abiding citizen?  If the answer to what should be rhetorical questions is not a resounding “NO!” we have strayed beyond the pale of liberty and are adrift in the seas of arbitrary power.

As we look to an unconstitutional process to save the Constitution perhaps we should reflect on the state of our Republic.  I would also recommend a deep study of the works of our Anti-Federalist fathers.  Since we are living in the world they predicted maybe we should take a second look at what they recommended as an alternative to what we have become?

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College.  He is the Historian of the Future and the author of the History of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2012 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com  Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens