Does Equality Mean We Are All The Same April 26, 2010
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.Tags: Bill of Rights, Declaration of Independence, Dr. Robert Owens, Equality before the law, equality of opportunity, equality of outcome
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In the Declaration of Independence a new thing entered the world, a country founded upon the idea of equality. The Old World consisted of societies built upon hereditary class and entrenched privilege. Beginning with words that still burn within the breast of Patriots, this great document proclaims two types of equality.
Based upon the first clause, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,” the first type is equality before the law. We all stand before the bar of justice on the same footing. There aren’t different laws for different classes. The definition of murder is the same for the homeless person, the mechanic and the billionaire. This equality, a natural part of our creation proclaims that neither classes nor other artificial divisions will ever be recognized in law or enshrined through legislation.
Based upon the second clause, “that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,” the second type is equality of opportunity. Everyone is entitled to their life and the fruits of it. Each of us has an equal right to the liberty of action, the freedom to choose our life’s path and to make our own decisions. And each of us has the right to pursue happiness. In almost all other lists such as this from the period, many of them written into state constitutions by the same people who wrote the Declaration, this is the right to own property and the happiness here is assumed to mean the right to use our own talents and the things they gain for us for our own benefit as long as we do not injure nor hinder others.
These rights and the equality they express were later protected by the Constitution. Congress shall not confer titles of nobility. Congress shall not pass bills of attainder convicting groups or individuals without a trial. Through the use of these and other negatives the Framers sought to secure Americans the possession of the equality proclaimed by the Declaration. The Bill of Rights went even further in declaring what Congress could not do in the attempt to guarantee the continued exercise of the equality granted by our Creator. The mechanism the Framers used to keep freedom alive was limiting government for they knew governments gain power by subtracting freedom from individuals.
However, it needs to be noted that the limitations placed upon government as a means of securing the equal rights of citizens in no way states that there should be a leveling of all people or that there will not continue to be distinctions and differences among them. This was never stated and never intended for the belief in or vision of a population with standardized talents, inclinations and goals does not match reality. There are as many different sets of these as there are people. In each individual, life should be open to choice. The only boundaries being that we do no harm nor proscribe the choice of others. This is the level playing field of creation, a pure equality of opportunity to be harvested in proportion to the Creator’s gift of talents and our investment of time and effort.
As long as the role of government is limited, and as long people are free to operate within the informal social arrangements of a non-regimented, non-stratified society there’s no tension between equality of opportunity and liberty. This quest for equality of outcome has become a social goal adopted as a reason for destroying society as it is in the name of society as a small cadre of radicals thinks it should be. In the aftermath of economic or societal collapse, revolutionaries, or in the case of the American Progressives “Evolutionaries,” will seek to erect in the place of popular government a bureaucratic tyranny devoted to leveling all to the lowest common denominator. Except of course for the levelers themselves who rise by deciding who gets what, and it’s the deciders who always seem to get the most. For, some perceive that equality of all is not the same as the equality of some, or as the ruling pigs in George Orwell’s novel, Animal Farm declare, “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” This reflects the subversion of equality of opportunity into equality of outcome or as it’s termed by Progressives equal opportunity.
To build this monument to mediocrity the philosophers of progressivism subtly change the meaning of equality. Instead of the opportunity for all to succeed it becomes the certainty of everyone getting a trophy for showing up, a diploma for attendance or a check for not working. Built upon the premise that if all are created equal all should end up equal thus denying the goal of equality the chance to go as far and as fast as talent and hard work can lead.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College and History for the American Public University System. http://drrobertowens.com © 2010 Robert R. Owens dr.owens@comcast.net
We Must Know Who We Are to Decide What We Will Be April 12, 2010
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.Tags: Articles of Confederation, checks and balances, Constitution, democratic, Dr. Robert Owens, federal, private property rights, republic, separation of powers
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Forget about the debate the government parties and the geriatric media want us to have, “Are you a Republican or a Democrat?” The debate we need to have concerns what we were meant to be, not who they tell us we should be. Instead we should discuss issues of substance such as, “Are we a Republic or a Democracy?” for this will lead us to the truth. In today’s polarized political atmosphere conservatives shout “Republic!” while progressives scream, “Democracy!” In truth, neither term fully describes the boldest experiment to provide individual freedom and release human potential in the history of mankind. There is a third term needed if we are to grasp the qualities which makes us who we are.
The United States was birthed in the fire of revolution against the denial of personal freedom and the expropriation of resources by an authoritarian government. The first attempt to balance the rights of the people, the prerogatives of their local states and the need for a centralized structure to face other nations on the world stage, the Articles of Confederation proved inadequate. Then the Framers crafted a constitution establishing a democratic federal republic. All three terms democratic, federal, and republic are needed to express the unique nature of the American Experiment. Not one of them conveys the strength of the three and therefore cannot stand alone. Together they outline the form of government and the manner in which it shall be chosen, yet even these loaded terms leave unstated the inner essence of the last best hope of humanity. For it is the separation of powers, private property rights and the checks and balances built into the system that has safe guarded liberty and unleashed the potential of the American people.
The fact that instead of a reasoned debate about who we are, where we came from, and how we got here we stand on opposite sides of barricades shouting slogans at each other highlights the need for all of us to educate ourselves in the history of the principles and values upon which our country was founded. The current public educational process is a government mandated system which forces teaching to a test that’s forgotten as soon as it’s passed. The teaching of American History has been presented as a boring jumble of names and dates for a few semesters in 12 years since before any of us were born. It’s time for anyone who wants to understand what’s going on in our rapidly evolving political landscape to dig in and educate ourselves. We cannot allow those who want to subvert the home of the brave and the land of the free either to the right or the left to sway us with slogans and catch phrases. We have to know enough to know when we’re being conned by ideologues with a hidden agenda.
Ideologues reduce all things to the dimensions of their own thoughts. They oversimplify and overload words with meaning effectively blocking the channels of communication. They turn complex political, social and economic principles into cat-calls, catch-phrases and campaign slogans designed to move masses to emotional responses not individuals to reasoned reactions. It was the ideologue Karl Marx who reduced history to a conflict between capital and labor, charged all problems to the inequalities of capitalism, projected a continually deteriorating situation and then pointed to communism as the only answer.
We must resist the temptation to reduce our American experiment to an ideology. We cannot allow this bait-and-switch tactic to lead us to the mirage of a collectivist utopia. We need to understand this would deny and distort the constitutionally limited government we inherited. Ideologies start with a conception of mankind as made-up of interchangeable parts projects universally comprehensive answers and ends with enforced uniformity in society. In contrast America has facilitated diversity, individualism and a variety of life paths.
So, “Are we a Republic or a Democracy?” First of all, we need to understand these are not equivalent or interchangeable terms. Today both republic and democracy have become loaded with ideological baggage as in the Democratic Peoples Republic, or Social Democracy. To be specific: republic describes a form of government wherein representatives stand in place of others to deliberate, decide and lead. Democracy means from the people. But there is the third term that must be reckoned with if we’re to understand America: federal. Federal means a form of government in which a union of states recognizes a central authority while retaining certain residual powers of government. Putting this all together, the United States of America was designed to be a federation of states with a republican form of government chosen through a democratic process.
Those who declare we’re a democracy want majority rule while striving to build a majority of people dependant on the government tax, tax, tax, spend, spend, spend, elect, elect, elect. Those who say we’re a republic have problems with the direction taken by the representatives whose very existence proclaims this to be a republic. This is where the third word fully impacts the other two. The federal nature of the American experiment declares to all that this is an elected representative government of limited power and separated authority. We are not a centrally-planned unitary government based on mob-rule. If we will learn who we are perhaps then we will see clearly who we will be.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College and History for the American Public University System. http://drrobertowens.com © 2010 Robert R. Owens dr.owens@comcast.net
Since Some Don’t Worry About the Constitution We Should April 5, 2010
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.Tags: Bill of Rights, Constitution, Dr. Robert Owens, limited government, Magna Charta, Petition of Rights
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One of the greatest challenges in teaching History is to convey the uniqueness in its conception of something that through the passage of time has become an accepted part of everyday life. When something has been around longer than we have it’s hard to realize that it wasn’t always there. It takes a conscious effort to understand that yesterday wasn’t today only earlier and tomorrow won’t be today only later. The permanence of the now is an illusion which helps us walk as if the shifting sands of our lives are really the solid shore of the sea of time.
When Americans organize anything of importance they immediately write a construction. In most cases American organizations include a president, vice-president, and a legislative type board. From the classroom to the boardroom from Main Street to Wall Street this is just the way we do things. The idea that there needs to be a written constitution is assumed. And looking at our history this only makes sense. For hundreds of years and for generation after generation we have lived lives of peace, prosperity and power under the shade of the most remarkable secular document to have ever come from the hand of man, the Constitution of the United States.
The birth of our Constitution shines as an almost miraculous event in the story of mankind. From the beginning of time might had always made right. One strong arm after another elbowed their way to center stage. Once there eventually their descendants grown fat on the plunder of the helpless became in turn plunder for the next strong arm. Those who managed through the passage of time to become fixtures in their culture reigned as monarchs saying God gave them a divine right to continue plundering those under their sway conveniently forgetting it was the strong arm of their less noble ancestors that slaughtered their way to the top. They may have arrived in chariots, but they were chariots of steel not fire.
A few centuries before the founding of the English colonies in America the people of England began to put limits on their king. They used violence and economics to wrest the guarantees of some basic individual rights, the recognition that the king was not absolute, and that there were some checks upon his power. The Magna Charta, the Petition of Rights, and the Bill of Rights were snatched from the king’s chain-mailed fist. Through the passage of time they became the accepted rights of all Englishmen. And when our ancestors founded Virginia, the first among English colonies the charter granted by the king stated that those who came to the New World were granted all liberties, franchises and immunities as if they were abiding and born within England. The colonists believed this and acted accordingly. With loyalty to the King and Parliament they set about organizing the land. Local assemblies, republican in nature were democratically elected. And it was only when George III and his ministers seemed to have forgotten that the colonists had rights that Americans took up arms to secure those rights.
After the Revolution, when it came time to create a government the Framers turned to a written constitution. In the birth of nations this was something new. England does not have a written constitution. Ours was the first; a unique attempt to limit government in order to preserve liberty. Most constitutions in the world today model themselves after ours. And if their authors did not consciously model their written document after ours the very concept of a written constitution is of American origin.
This earth-shaking event has become mundane. This ground-breaking experience now seems so common it’s glossed over with the boring presentation of a high school history class, memorize some names and few dates, regurgitate it for a test and forget it. For the first time a people had founded a government of the people, by the people and for the people. And to ensure the tranquility and safety of the people they limited that government through the separation of power into three branches and the maintenance of a unique federal system of sovereign states united as one. This is the source and the summit of American greatness: the Constitution which established and maintained a limited government providing for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Using the ideals and moral standards of the present to interpret the past is known as Presentism. Using presentism as a lens, many citizens today believe the Constitution is a living document meant to be reinterpreted with each passing generation. Others echo the former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales point of view, “The Constitution is what the Supreme Court says it is.” Instead of changing the document through the established amendment process they believe they can change the document through court decisions, precedent and legislation.
Twenty-first century America has been called post-Christian, post-capitalist, and post-racial. I would suggest that if we continue on the path we’ve chosen the future may refer to twenty-first century America as post-constitutional. For if the leaders of the present can impose unconstitutional laws then we’ve ceased to have a government of laws and have instead a government of men. One Congressman summed up the arrogance of our leaders perfectly. When asked where in the Constitution he finds the authority to impose the burden of purchasing health care on the American people he answered, “I don’t worry about the Constitution.” Since he doesn’t we should.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College and History for the American Public University System. http://drrobertowens.com © 2010 Robert R. Owens dr.owens@comcast.net
We Can Learn What We Don’t Know March 29, 2010
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.Tags: Bret Baier, Burton W. Folsom Jr., Dr. Robert Owens, Glenn Beck, Health Care, Jonah Goldberg, O’Reilly, Pat Buchanan
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If the price of freedom is eternal vigilance we deserve what we have since we took our eyes off the ball to watch the game. As economically our once strong Republic veers from Universal Empire to quasi-colony of China, as the Alinsky trained radicals from the 1960s and their second-generation clone army guide America to Amerika, from freedom to serfdom so many of the sheeple are still asleep. The alarm bells are ringing, but the cracks in the fabric of our nation have muted the sound as the crack has silenced the Liberty Bell.
There’s nothing more interesting than speaking to people across our land following the big Democrat win in the Congressional version of March Madness. The opinions, emotions, fears and gloating are a wonder to behold. In these days of change, hope still burns eternal in the hearts of Patriots grimly facing the prospect of America becoming a European-style social democracy so that some of us can finally be proud of our country. Fear for the fate of their children and grandchildren is in the hearts, eyes, and voices of the newly awakened as they imagine the shabby future we face in a de-industrialized debtor nation. They see the constantly expanding debt and they know eventually someone will have to pay the tab. And they know it won’t be the professional politicians and community organizers who flushed trillions down the rat-hole. Instead it’ll be the previously comatose populace and their unsuspecting children. Gloating like a fat cat left alone with a Christmas turkey, Progressives are crowing because they can finally pull their red flags out of the closet to match their Che Guevara tee-shirts as they take a victory lap around the White House.
The art of magic is all about getting us to watch the left hand while the right hand produces the quarter from behind our ear. It was telling when in the midst of his first real interview with real questions since O’Reilly President Obama kept pushing his hand in Bret Baier’s face and telling him don’t be concerned with the process, don’t ask about the process. Smoke and mirrors have become the hallmark of the Obama administration. Look at the Democrat re-election slush-fund Stimulus bill. Have a nation-wide debate about spending hundreds of billions while the Fed pumps out trillions without any fanfare whatsoever. The media enhanced dialog heats up and flares over imposing nationalized medicine without realizing we’ve shape-shifted from E Pluribus Unum Latin for “Out of Many, One,” to Ex Uno, Plures “Out of One, Many” as America splinters into shouting crowds and oblivious leaders.
Progressives always want to be judged by their intentions never by the outcomes of their actions. Foisting a war on poverty on a country which has fostered more upward mobility than every other nation in the world combined and forty years and trillions of dollars later we have more poverty than when we started, but they meant well. They’ve opened our borders until we’re awash in illegal immigrants then they act as if natural and naturalized citizens are racists for not wanting to pick up the tab and give away the vote too. The Progressives have successfully changed the melting-pot into a smelting pot as America fractures into ethno-tribal factions poised to tear each other apart, but they meant well. They’ve embraced free trade and giving most favored nation status to countries with populations willing to work at a fraction of the American scale. Causing industry to flood out as cheap goods flood in, changing us from the Arsenal of Democracy into a source of raw materials and credit card wielding consumers, our economy is shattered, but they meant well. Bowing to kings and emperors, embracing dictators and shunning allies mired in endless wars with phantom tribesmen our prestige and power fades, but they meant well.
Mistakes of this magnitude do not happen innocently. It’s time to rip the mask from these defilers of constitutionally limited government and expose them for the charlatans and hucksters they are. For as long as the Progressives and their corrosive influence have sought to bring the blight of socialism to our shores they’ve hidden behind their supposedly pure motives. They only want to help the poor. They only want to make a level playing field. They only want to heal the sick, soothe the dying and give everyone everything leaving the check on the table for the producers to pay. It’s time for anyone who’s interested in knowing what this is all about to educate themselves. Generations of Progressives have burrowed their way into our education system changing it into an indoctrination system. The stale, boring and flat history force fed to us as helpless cogs in the public school systems left out all the good stuff. Read Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg, New Deal or Raw Deal by Burton W. Folsom Jr., Arguing with Idiots by Glenn Beck and any of the eye-opening books by Pat Buchanan. Now look at the bibliographies in those books and read the books they’ve cited.
Find out who these Progressives really are. Learn what their goals have always been and the smoke and mirrors will lose their power to blind and the way will become clear. We cannot let the emotions of the battle cloud the thoughts of our minds. There’s a way home, but first we must understand how we got here before we can know how to return there. Keep the faith. Keep the peace. We shall overcome.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College and History for the American Public University System. http://drrobertowens.com © 2010 Robert R. Owens dr.owens@comcast.net
Return of the Swamp Creature March 15, 2010
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.Tags: Acorn, Charles Rangel, Dr. Robert Owens, Mayor Daley, Nancy Pelosi, Obama, Rep. Darrell Issa, Rep. Joe Sestak
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When the San Francisco über liberal Nancy Pelosi became the Speaker of the House she said she was going to drain the swamp of political corruption they claimed were created by 12 years of Republican control of Congress. Instead of draining anything Speaker Pelosi and her ham-fisted cohorts have brought slime time to prime time as they wallow in what they came to drain.
Representative Charles Rangel who’s been in charge of writing tax policies for the Democratic Congress couldn’t seem to pay his own taxes or even report millions of dollars of income. This of course is everyone else’s fault. He has been forced to resign as chairman of the powerful Ways and Means Committee. Then there’s the curious case of the Democrat Representative from New York who eagerly resigned rather than face an ethics investigation and then imploded on national television. Now the question turns to what did the Speaker know and when did she know it. Allegations have surfaced that her office was informed last year about Congressman Massa’s tickle parties and Greco-Roman wrestling matches with male staffers but did not inform the ethics committee.
And the rot goes all the way to the top. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), the top Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee charges the Obama administration may have broken the law by offering Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA) a job if he wouldn’t challenge Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA) in a primary. Rep. Sestak admits the administration offered him a high-ranking government job if he’d stay out of the race. Rep. Sestak made the accusation twice on national television. Democrats seem determined to prove Lord Acton’s famous quote, “All power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
Where will this cavalcade of corruption lead? Detroit is a picture of America’s future. After decades of control by Progressive Democrats what was once one of the greatest manufacturing cities in the world has degenerated to the point where banks are paying people to take abandoned houses and the best idea they have is to downsize the city by converting empty lots into farmland. With a 75% dropout rate in their schools and yes, Virginia, blatant corruption and low morals in high places, a collapsing economy and massive social dislocation Detroit is a vision for the shabby world Progressivism creates.
When Detroiters lined up to collect what they called Obama Money they couldn’t tell interviewers where the money they were waiting to receive came from all they knew was it was free, and someone was handing it out. This is where Nancy and her ethically challenged followers are leading America, a world where some people are bilked so others can receive freebees that never raise them out of poverty but instead encase them in it.
Is this shabby future inevitable? Is there any chance of avoiding the toxic embrace of this corrupt Swamp Creature? One more free election, one without the heavily Democrat illegal immigrant and convicted felon population voting and without His Honor Mayor Daley and Acorn counting the votes and we’ll see America hand the Pelosi-Reid super majority their hat and show them the door. That will be the greatest victory for America since Saratoga and Yorktown. But what about the dreaded ever-living spawn of the Swamp Thing?
The damage that can be done before we show this crowd of Progressives to the back benches may hang on like a summer cold. Health Care Reform with thousands of pages of governmentese double-speak has the potential to become the pile of paper that devoured a nation. No entitlement once established has ever been repealed, and since we aren’t allowed to know what’s in it until it passes who knows what anti-freedom anti-liberty provisions it will foist on us. Cap-N-Tax cobbled together with various bits of legislation, executive orders and bureaucratic regulation may lurch off the table and start pushing us towards seven dollar a gallon gas and the dislocations this would bring all in the name of discredited Al and his band of unethical cheating scientists. Millions of acres of potentially rich energy producing land may be seized and forever locked in the Fed’s clinging claw while NASA is slated to become the eye-in-the-sky for the man-made Global Warming fanatics. There’s the international apology tours and We Are the World/Workers of the World Unite silliness that are daily depreciating the American brand. And the hockey stick curve that represents our national debt will weigh down generations of Americans.
The damage the Obama-Pelosi-Reid triumvirate causes before we drain their swamp will hang like a mill stone around the neck of our nation. It will take more than a stake of holly or a silver bullet to bring these Progressive policies down. It will take a populace educated in the founding documents of our Republic. A people determined to re-establish the last best hope of mankind. A people dedicated to resuscitating a nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. It will take citizens resolved that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College and History for the American Public University System. http://drrobertowens.com © 2010 Robert R. Owens dr.owens@comcast.net
American Exceptionalism and a Can Do Attitude March 8, 2010
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.Tags: American Exceptionalism, City on a Hill, cradle-to-grave welfare state, Dr. Robert Owens, fundamentally transforming America, limited government, Progressives, Ronald Reagan
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Researching the national political scene could become depressing in an era when Progressives dedicated to fundamentally transforming America hold almost total control of the media and the government especially when they’re working hard to turn a recession into a depression. However, the Obama drama is like watching a slow-motion train wreck, if not inspiring at least it’s entertaining. Daily we’re assaulted by a Washington elite dedicated to proving Saturday Night Live never went far enough into satire to capture the nonsensical folly of our elected leaders.
Hourly our intelligence is insulted by people telling us they want to spend more money to lower the deficit and balance the budget as the deficit climbs higher and faster than ever before, and the national debt careens past satire into the theater of the absurd. Minute by minute we’re assaulted by news such as the self admitted Communist who was purged from the White House in the middle of the night is now an American Treasure. Or that the President’s long time pastor and mentor Rev. Wright recently honored Minister Louis Farrakhan the leader of the Nation of Islam with the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. Lifetime Achievement Trumpeteer award. Is that the last trumpet I hear?
Suffice it to say the national scene in America today appears determined to prove one of Mark Twain’s less repeated quotes, “Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it.”
Watching our leaders act as if Dilbert comic strips are their leadership manual it’s hard not to keep at least one eye out for Curley, Larry and Moe to dance in hitting each other with rubber hammers and spraying seltzer all over the place. Oh wait a minute that’s Pelosi, Reid and Rohm Emmanuel. If it wasn’t so tragic it’d be laughable to think these Chicago ward healers and their Progressive front men really believed they’d get away with hijacking a nation like it was a semi filled with flat screen TVs.
Concentrating on this every day could become depressing, but I realized long ago not to take it too seriously it all perishes with the using and it’s the things that won’t that are important. Besides, I look to my local government for a more realistic notion of how America is doing. The leaders I see are actually struggling to come to grips with the dire economic times we face. They aren’t charging it to the kids, taxing the citizens into poverty or begging for handouts from bloated state and federal governments. They’re making the hard, unpopular choices, cutting this and limiting that in order to maintain a balanced budget. Yes it’s hard work. Yes, it’s likely to lead to some of them not being re-elected. And yes, it’s what they volunteered for and what we chose them for.
In some areas this picture won’t match reality. In some places such as California, Illinois, Harrisburg PA, Chicago, Philadelphia, Phoenix, and Los Angeles the Progressives who’ve controlled these places for generations desperately try to find new ways to plunder their citizens as they contemplate bankruptcy. However, no matter how the remaining proponents of ever expanding entitlements and pork barrel budgets try to prop up their house of cards there are daily more citizens who get it. Not one to profusely quote President Clinton I’m happy to recommend that we all repeat together, “The era of big government is over.” Our elected officials need to get it instead of following the lemmings over the cliff.
Yes this could get depressing but I believe in American Exceptionalism and a can do attitude. I believe that our history and our future have been and will be defined by our devotion to limited government and the liberty and opportunity this provides.
Throughout our history when the days looked the darkest Americans braved the icy Delaware to surprise the overconfident mercenaries. We surrounded the largest army of the greatest empire on earth at Yorktown and birthed freedom from oppression. After the professional soldiers of the former masters came in like a flood chasing the representatives of the people and burned our new capital we met them again on the way to New Orleans and handed them the greatest defeat their arms had ever suffered. When the dispute over slavery finally ruptured the wound which had festered since independence and other nations thought we would devour ourselves in a nightmare of blood and steel we rose from the ashes, re-united and became the greatest industrial power the world has ever known. When the Nazi and Fascists of the twentieth century thought they would rule for a thousand years America led the rest of the world in defeating them. When the Soviets and other Communists sought to crush freedom under their collective heel the United States held high the beacon of freedom.
Yes, no matter how out of fashion it may be with the media or the liberal establishment I believe in America Exceptionalism and the can do attitude of the American people. No matter how hard our progressive leaders try to grow our traditionally limited government into a cradle-to-grave welfare state I do not believe they’ll succeed in suffocating the light of liberty which burns bright in the breast of America. And since I’m quoting presidents today I want to end with President Ronald Reagan who told us, “A troubled and afflicted mankind looks to us, pleading for us to keep our rendezvous with destiny; that we will uphold the principles of self-reliance, self-discipline, morality, and, above all, responsible liberty for every individual that we will become that shining city on a hill.”
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College and History for the American Public University System. http://drrobertowens.com © 2010 Robert R. Owens dr.owens@comcast.net
Why This When We Want That? March 1, 2010
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.Tags: Cut Regulations, Cut Taxes, Dr. Robert Owens, Health Care Summit, Mitch McConnell, Obama, Representative Cantor, toxic derivatives
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Now that the Health Care Summit is over could we have a Jobs Summit or an Economy Summit? And what a Health Summit it was. When Mitch McConnell the leader of the Senate Republicans pointed out a two for one disparity between the time given to the Democrats and the Republicans Mr. Obama explained, “I don’t count my time because I’m the President.” Senator McCain criticized the current democrat bills for backroom pay-offs and unsavory deals. President Obama quipped this was no time for campaigning since “The elections over.” Representative Cantor, the Republican Whip complained of the excessive length of the health care bills. The President told him displaying the massive bills was merely using them as a prop. Such dismissive mockery doesn’t build agreement.
With the health care process finally out of the backrooms and on TV what did we see? Were we treated to hours of soaring oratory hype proclaims the best in a generation or were we bored to tears? After a few minutes of the President’s lengthy introduction it was painfully obvious that off his teleprompter the Moderator-in-Chief has a hard time framing a complete sentence or expressing a thought. There were more ums and ahs then in a freshman speech class.
Our Professor-in-Chief lectures us daily proving he and his teleprompter may be the greatest orator since Reagan but he’s a poor communicator. How can anyone give hundreds of speeches over a year and then say the reason no one supports his program is because he hasn’t made it clear enough for us to understand. Either he’s saying he can’t communicate or he’s saying we’re too dumb. Maybe instead of thousand page bills he could give us an outline or a PowerPoint? Perhaps it’s time the professor hears what the people are singing, “Hey Teacher, leave those kids alone!”
The vast majority of people want to keep the insurance coverage they have. Sure it would be great to provide insurance for those who don’t have any but if that’s the goal for much less than any of the trillion dollar projections for the nationalization of our health care system we could buy Cadillac plans for every person who needs it. So what’s the point? Why wreck what 84.6% of the people have to insure the other 15.4%? Buy them the insurance. Leave the rest of us alone!
The State of the Union Speech told us our esteemed leader was pivoting away from the health care paradox to focus on reviving our flagging economy. Instead we see the President compulsively fixed on taking-over America’s health care system. The question is why? Once the Feds take over health care besides directly controlling up to 18% of the economy it will also give the vast new army of wellness bureaucrats who will follow the power to interfere in the most intimate and personal aspects of our lives. What we eat, how we exercise, how we drive, what light bulbs we use and where we can smoke all will become health care issues as America slithers towards totalitarianism, which is the total control of a population by their government.
People bought into the vision of “I’m Not Bush” standing between Styrofoam pillars spouting platitudes and avoiding specifics in the midst of an economic meltdown caused by lobbyist advanced cronies and casino capitalism. George II’s answer to his pals sinking the economy with government forced bad loans and toxic derivatives was bail out the perpetrators with tax money from the victims. And what does Hope and Change do? Double down with a pork-filled stimulus boondoggle that’s essentially a slush fund to re-elect Democrats in 2010. Now as an anemic recovery lurches towards a double-dip instead of doing anything anyone believes would actually help he’s banging the health care drum like a political rain man reciting what the weather was like on November 8, 2008.
Is it credible to believe that a team of political operatives who cut their teeth in the swamps of Chicago, who had the finesse to sell an empty suit with smoke and mirrors can’t hear hundreds of millions of Americans shouting, “We don’t want this we want that!” This makes no sense. How do political savants turn into tone-deaf conductors, colorblind painters and tangle-foot dancers overnight? Mistakes of this magnitude do not occur innocently. Almost every political pundit in the nation is endlessly chattering that the Democrats are following the President like lemmings off a midterm cliff and yet the White House organization is focused like a laser on nationalizing health care. Leave it alone! Move on. Allow freedom to fix economy before unsustainable debt sinks the ship of state.
Americans want the economy fixed. This isn’t rocket science. Economic geniuses such as Hayek and Friedman and political leaders such as Coolidge and Reagan charted the course years ago. Fixing the economy is simple: cut taxes, cut the strangulation of regulation and get out of the way. Europe is sinking under the weight of its version of socialism and if we make America the haven of freedom capital and talent will flock to our shores. If we don’t all that capital and talent may well flock to the rising colossus of the East. Forget the health care take over, the photo-ops and endless speeches we don’t want this we want that.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College and History for the American Public University System. http://drrobertowens.com © 2010 Robert R. Owens dr.owens@comcast.net
The Party of Hell No! February 22, 2010
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.Tags: 2010 election, Dr. Robert Owens, GOP, Obama, Progressives, Scott Brown, Tea Parties, The Party of No
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The Democrats have decided to re-name the Republicans the Party of No. That’s it. That’s their strategy to avoid an electoral debacle shaping up to be as bad for the Party of Hope and Change as 1994 was for the Party of Grope and Sleaze. Many have tried this strategy before. Harry Truman ran against the “Do-Nothing Congress” in 1948. Given their legislative and economic record, it makes sense the Democrats want the American people to spend the election year looking at someone else besides the Denizens of Chicago’s 51st Ward.
The basic flaw in their scheme to fool America is that due to the disastrous nature of our first year in Camelot II the Government Party has been unmasked for the grasping Progressives they are and the Independents who swing the vote have decided the Democrats are the Party of No-Way!
If the Republicans have a connection to the mood of the nation they won’t fight the Party of No label. This catchy slur is being decimated daily by the megaphones available to the Media. With the breadth and depth of the Progressive propaganda machine it’s impossible for anyone to escape the drum-beat Republican = Party of No. It’s impossible to escape being slapped with a brush that big. In Karate you use your own directed force. In Jujitsu you use the opponents’ force against them. The Republican explanations of their positions are lost in the continuous shouts of the Democrats and their Media. There’s no way to avoid the brand, so embrace it with a flourish. Campaign as the Party of Hell No!
The President speaks every day in his perpetual campaign of blame waging his finger in our face saying inherited every mistake he’s made. However, the Democrats controlled Congress for the last two years of the Bush debacle. Although Mr. “I have abandoned free market principles to save the free market system” never saw a spending bill he would veto. It was the Democrat leaders Pelosi and Reid who passed the budgets Mr. Hope and Change ran against.
Debating an endless string of straw men the President, his Chicago crew and the other Progressive grifters in his organization try to convince America that with a 60 seat filibuster-proof majority in the Senate and a 59% majority in the House it was the Republicans who stopped them from fundamentally transforming America. According to the media template if it wasn’t for the obstructionist Party of No we’d be linked arm-in-arm from sea to shining sea singing kumbaya, eating granola and hugging a tree. The problem for our Progressive masters is no-body’s buying their flim-flam except the Kool-Aid drinkers, the hardcore socialists and the made-guys with a piece of the action.
As the Party of Hell No! the Republicans can point out that Mr. Obama couldn’t get his transforming legislation through a Congress in the iron grip of his own party. Even with overwhelming majorities enough of his own people were either worried about re-election or had enough devotion to the Constitution to stand in his way. Then with the election of Scott Brown the administration acts as if only 59 votes out of 100 in the Senate make it impossible to govern. The Republicans have a great opportunity to shine a light on the corruption and arrogance of a Democrat organization that’s completely out of touch and out of step with the country they want to transform.
The Free Media and the resistance of everyday people typified in the Tea Parties and the Town Halls would coalesce around a Party of Hell No! As long as they could be convinced this wasn’t a death row conversion on the part of the Republicans. If those who want to restore constitutionally limited government could regain control of the Grand Old Party, if they jettison the Progressives who have dominated the party since George I, if they’d nominate candidates dedicated to righting the ship of state the wavering mass of Independents would flock to their standard.
It’s apparently obvious to the President and his handlers that people have seen through the hype and are mobilizing to excise them and their Progressive aberration from the body politic so they’re relying on their tried and true playbook, misdirect, mislead, mislabel and conquer. Instead of running on their discredited agenda they’ve deiced to run against the Party of No. With billions in free advertizing everyday from the Media they may pull that one off. But if The Party of No has the grit to be the Party of Hell No! we may emerge from this long dark night to see another morning in America.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College and History for the American Public University System. http://drrobertowens.com © 2010 Robert R. Owens dr.owens@comcast.net
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