The Revolution Passed in the Night April 26, 2013
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Politics.Tags: amnesty, Cap-n-trade, Constitution, Dr. Robert Owens, Dream Act, fundamentally transform America, negative rights, Obamacare, positive rights, Progressive agenda, Second Bill of Rights
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Many things are holding the headlines hostage, the terrorist attacks, the crippling effects of Obamacare, the prospect of expanding war in Syria, and as always Iran.
There is one over-riding constant that defines as it divides the present era: the fact that America has a President who advances values and policies diametrically opposed to the traditional beliefs of a vast number of Americans. From bowing to foreign leaders to not knowing how many states there are, from vowing to fundamentally transform America to actually doing it, President Obama is to many the Manchurian Candidate.
Elected the first time on a vague promise of hope and change he has been re-elected on a blatant promise to re-distribute the wealth and complete the transformation of America into a welfare state. His bureaucratically imposed policies such as Cap-n-Trade and the Dream Act are blatant end runs around the authority of a Congress that overwhelmingly rejected both. The alarming reality we all must face is that for the first time in American history we may actually have a president who is anti-American.
Barack Obama is blatant in his anti-American rhetoric. Such as:
“In America, we have this strong bias toward individual action. You know, we idolize the John Wayne hero who comes in to correct things with both guns blazing. But individual actions, individual dreams, are not sufficient. We must unite in collective action, build collective institutions and organizations.” Emphasis added.
“And what would help minority workers are the same things that would help white workers: the opportunity to earn a living wage, the education and training that lead to such jobs, labor laws and tax laws that restore some balance to the distribution of the nation’s wealth …” Emphasis added.
“But the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and more basic issues such as political and economic justice in society. And to that extent, as radical as I think people try to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution, at least as it’s been interpreted. And the Warren Court interpreted in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties — says what the states can’t do to you — says what the Federal government can’t do to you — but it doesn’t say what the Federal government or State government must do on your behalf.
And that hasn’t shifted and one of the, I think, the tragedies of the civil rights movement was because the civil rights movement became so court-focused I think there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalitions of powers through which you bring about redistributive change. In some ways we still suffer from that …” Emphasis added.
These positive rights are what Progressives have been trying to establish since FDR floated his idea of a second bill of right which included:
- The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation
- The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation
- The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living
- The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad
- The right of every family to a decent home
- The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health
- The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment
- The right to a good education
Now all of these sound great and in a perfect world might make up a laundry list of prizes falling out of the cornucopia of utopia. In a real world they would mandate a government large enough to provide everything and powerful enough to take everything away.
The whole idea of having a constitution is to limit the government which is in essence a charter of negative liberties.
President Obama goes on to state, “Now, just as there was in Teddy Roosevelt’s time, there is a certain crowd in Washington who, for the last few decades, have said, let’s respond to this economic challenge with the same old tune. ‘The market will take care of everything,’ they tell us. If we just cut more regulations and cut more taxes — especially for the wealthy — our economy will grow stronger. Sure, they say, there will be winners and losers. But if the winners do really well, then jobs and prosperity will eventually trickle down to everybody else. And, they argue, even if prosperity doesn’t trickle down, well, that’s the price of liberty.
Now, it’s a simple theory. And we have to admit, it’s one that speaks to our rugged individualism and our healthy skepticism of too much government. That’s in America’s DNA. And that theory fits well on a bumper sticker. But here’s the problem: It doesn’t work. It has never worked.”
And of course there is his infamous “You didn’t build that” statement which exposes his complete misunderstanding of what it takes to start and grow a business.
With a leader such as this whose basic understanding of America is at such odds with those who once constituted the majority of the citizens and the continuity of our History is it any wonder that so many feel as if they are living in a conquered nation?
Conquered by who? As Pogo once told us, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
Or as Garet Garrett, quipped as he chronicled the fall of the Republic and the rise of the American bureaucratic Empire said, “There are those who still think they are holding the pass against a revolution that may be coming up the road. But they are gazing in the wrong direction. The revolution is behind them. It went by in the Night of Depression, singing songs to freedom.”
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion. He is the Historian of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2013 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens / Edited by Dr. Rosalie Owens
Socialism is as Socialism Does August 31, 2012
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Politics.Tags: Bill Ayers, Dr. Robert Owens, Frank Marshall Davis, fundamentally transform America, Obama’s firsts, Obama’s socialist agenda, Progressive agenda, Progressives, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Saul Alinsky, socialism, transformational president, Utopia, utopians
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Ronald Reagan taught us, “How do you tell a communist? Well, it’s someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It’s someone who understands Marx and Lenin.”
Barack Obama’s mentor as a young man was communist party member Frank Marshall Davis. As a community organizer he was a follower and promoter of the communist fellow-traveler Saul Alinsky’s methods and goals. As a professional in Hyde Park he associated with socialist radicals such as Bill Ayers. As an up-and-coming Chicago Politician he attended the church of Reverend Jeremiah Wright, an outspoken proponent of the socialist Black Liberation Theology. As president he appointed communist Van Jones to be one of his many Czars. Mr. Obama says he is not a socialist. However, simple logic tells us if it looks like a duck and walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck you can be relatively certain it’s a duck.
Mr. Obama has told us that he seeks to be a transformational president like his idol FDR. He was bold enough to tell us just days before the election in 2008 that he would fundamentally transform America. In just one term he has accomplished much along the way to changing us from what we have always been into what the Progressives have always wanted us to be.
How has Barak Obama transformed us? Into what is he transforming us? A look at his impressive *list of firsts as president of these United States points in the direction he is herding us:
- First President to have a Social Security number from a state where he has never lived
- First President to preside over a cut to the credit-rating of the United States
- First President to violate the War Powers Act
- First President to be held in contempt of court for illegally obstructing oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico
- First President to require that all Americans purchase a product from a third party as a condition of citizenship
- First President to spend a trillion dollars on shovel-ready jobs and then joke that shovel ready wasn’t quite as shovel ready as he thought
- First President to abrogate bankruptcy law to turn over control of companies to his union supporters
- First President to by-pass Congress and implement laws such as the Dream Act and Cap-n-Trade through executive fiat
- First President to demand a company hand-over $20 billion to one of his political appointees
- First President to tell a CEO of a major corporation (GM) to resign
- First President to terminate America’s ability to put a man in space
- First President to cancel the National Day of Prayer and to say that America is no longer a Christian nation
- First President to have a law signed by an auto-pen without being present
- First President to send the families of fallen service members a form letter signed with an auto-pen
- First President to arbitrarily declare an existing law unconstitutional and refuse to enforce it (DOMA)
- First President to threaten insurance companies if they publicly spoke-out on the reasons for their rate increases
- First President to tell a major manufacturing company in which state it is allowed to locate a factory
- First President to file lawsuits against the states he swore an oath to protect (AZ, WI, OH, IN)
- First President to actively try to bankrupt an American industry (coal)
- First President to fire an inspector general of Ameri-Corps for catching one of his friends in a corruption case
- First President to appoint 45 czars to his office
- First President to golf more than 100 times separate times in his first three and a half years in office
- First President to hide his medical, educational and travel records
- First President to win a Nobel Peace Prize for doing nothing to earn it
- First President to go on multiple global “apology tours” and concurrent “insult our friends” tours
- First President to go on 16 lavish vacations, including date nights and Wednesday evening White House parties for his friends paid for by the taxpayer
- First President to have 22 personal servants (taxpayer funded) for his wife
- First President to keep a dog trainer on retainer for $102,000 a year at taxpayer expense
- First President to publicly read from the Quran & tell us the early morning call of the Azan (Islamic call to worship) is the most beautiful sound on earth
- First President to recite the Muslim call to prayer in perfect Arabic
- First President to tell the military men and women that they should pay for their own private insurance
- First President to side with a foreign nation over one of America’s 50 states (Mexico vs. Arizona)
Mr. Obama is leading us from being the first among nations to being just another vote in the United Nations. Now there’s a level playing field for you. And now it’s time for another election, some say our most important, some say perhaps our last.
In many ways this election cycle is refreshing. For generations the Progressives have pretended to be something they are not to win elections. They have pretended to be dedicated to the American dream of personal liberty, economic freedom and the belief that America was different from other nations, that as the world’s first and most enduring modern experiment in a republic based on limited government we were exceptional. Although the policies of the Progressives have always been at odds with this assumed identity at least every election cycle they would tip their hat to the America of our fathers and portray themselves as a Thomas Jefferson or an Andrew Jackson.
Therefore, 2012 is shaping up to be the election where the Progressives cast aside their mask and run as who they are: the American version of socialism promising to tax the rich and spread the wealth around, from each according to their ability to each according to their need.
If Mr. Obama wins re-election on this platform the Progressives will finally have their chance to give Americans the same kind of cradle-to-grave utopia the happy people of Russia, China, North Korea, and Hitler’s Germany have had the fortune to endure. If Mr. Obama wins re-election espousing the true intentions of the Progressives, to change the constitution from a rock solid foundation for freedom into a living document that is a dead letter, he will succeed at his vow to fundamentally transform America.
He will fundamentally transform the dreams of our fathers for a land of liberty and opportunity into the dreams of his father who was a pro-communist social engineer and America will become just another country trying to build heaven on earth by plundering some to benefit others.
As to his utopian beliefs and aspirations President Obama has said, “I am confident we can create a Kingdom right here on Earth”
President Reagan also told us, “Socialism only works in two places: Heaven where they don’t need it, and hell where they already have it.”
*Lists of Mr. Obama’s firsts are found numerous places. The sources referenced for each first are merely representative of the many available for each.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion. He is the Historian of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2012 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens
Education is the Foundation of the Future August 16, 2012
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Politics.Tags: American Exceptionalism, fundamentally transform America, liberalism a mental disorder, Progressive Education. Dr. Robert Owens
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Have you ever asked yourself, “How can Progressives like President Obama hate America? How can anyone who was raised in the most free and prosperous society in the History of the world believe America is an imperialistic power and the source of evil?”
If we can’t understand our adversary we may defeat them, but we will never know what it is that motivated them. This lack of understanding leaves us open to assault by the same forces in the future. If we wish not only to defeat Barack Obama and the forces of Progressivism in the November elections but also to set America on the path to restoration we must understand the root cause of the Progressive delusion and modern Liberalism which Michael Savage has correctly labeled a mental illness, and I consider a Socially Transmitted Disease.
If you want to understand something it is necessary to learn where it came from and how it came to be. Even if President Obama was educated partially in his adopted country of Indonesia he is a prime example of the assembly-line progressive education that has become the norm in America today: bash America at every chance and cram the idea of a living constitution and the necessity for government intervention in every aspect of daily life.
We’ve all heard horror stories of the anti-American bilge being pumped into our youth in today’s schools, so the following personal experiences shouldn’t shock anyone too much.
As an educator I participated in a program that combined college and high school classes so that students could earn credit towards their high school diploma and at the same time work on an Associate Degree. I was happy to work in this program, and I helped many hard working students earn their Associates at the same time they earned their high school diploma giving them a decided advantage when they went on for their Bachelor degree.
During the course of my years in the trenches of blended education I was in control of the college side of the class; however, I had no authority to stop the blatant dissemination of Progressive propaganda that made up the totality of some teachers’ curriculum. While in the classroom I strive to present material in such a way as to lead students in the direction of critical thinking. I would present both sides and urge students to evaluate and come to their own conclusions. Many times after a semester of teaching Political Science students would come up and ask, “Now that the class is over tell us, which are you a conservative or a liberal?”
Many of my high school teacher colleagues were not so subtle. Here are two examples that were more the rule than the exception in many classes:
- One Political Science class had the following assignment; watch Fahrenheit 9/11by Michael Moore and then write an essay on how many ways President Bush lied to trick America into an unjust war.
- In a History class the students were assigned to read Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle and then write an essay on the dehumanizing effects of capitalism.
The list of such blatant and crude attempts to mold our children into good little Progressives that I witnessed would fill a book on how not to teach, but this is nothing new. I am sixty three years old and though not as out-in-the-open or in-your-face I was subjected to the same type of illiberal liberalism when I was a youngster in school.
In grade school I did encounter one History teacher who had been in the profession since before my father was born. She still thought it a good thing to teach American History as an objective subject instead of a vehicle for her own agenda. She inspired students to look at the evidence and think. She however was the exception. From Math to English, from Geography to History teachers were constantly extolling the benefits of government social programs and depicting America as a world-class bully marching around imposing its will on poor little nations that couldn’t protect themselves.
In high school I was suspended for accusing a Social Studies teacher of being a communist. Years later he admitted that he in fact had been a communist since the forties. Another teacher rejected any History paper that he felt was too patriotic which he dismissed as jingoism. A teacher of Russian spent more time in class extolling the virtues of the USSR than teaching the language. When I complained about this forty five minute daily propaganda session I was again suspended. All of this took place back in the 1960s. This isn’t a new problem.
The Progressives realized long ago that if they could take over the nation’s education system they could raise up generations of Americans with no conception of the uniqueness of America as the world’s bastion of freedom and liberty. Today we see the fruit of this campaign: legions of voters ready to throw away our heritage for a government check. The descendants of the Founders are willing to surrender their freedom to strive for the best in exchange for the security of just enough to get by.
So as the wisest woman I have ever known, my wife asks me, “What can we do now?”
Back in the early 90s we decided that what we needed to do was go to school so that we could become teachers. Neither of us wants to impose our ideas on others, but we do want to present the materials in an objective manner and help our students acquire the critical thinking skills necessary to be informed citizens. Whenever a student asks me to figure out what their grade is during a semester I tell them, “If you give a man a fish he will eat for a day. If you teach him to fish he can eat forever.” I then proceed to teach them how to find an average and how to translate that into a letter grade.
What can we do now? We can’t all become teachers but we can all become involved in our local school boards. We can all do our due diligence and find out what is being taught at our local schools, and we can follow the procedures to correct what is wrong and implement what is right. One thing is for sure if we do not regain control of our schools we will lose the future. Our leaders are leading us down the primrose path to collectivism. Our education establishment is conditioning America to accept it. Step-by-step, inch-by-inch we have strayed from a federal republic operating on democratic principles with liberty and justice for all to a centralized bureaucracy dispensing cradle-to-grave loot taken from producers and redistributed to non-producers. We may have gotten here step-by-step but we are not too many steps away from one step too many. Barack Obama has stated that his goal is to fundamentally transform America. From stimulus slush finds, shadow governments, and imperial edicts he is systematically remaking us into a centralized state based on social democracy and wealth redistribution.
In 1962 the leader of the socialist slave camp we knew as the USSR, Nikita Khrushchev, said “The United States will eventually fly the Communist red flag…The American people will raise it themselves. We can’t expect the American People to jump from Capitalism to Communism, but we can assist their elected leaders in giving them small doses of Socialism, until they awaken one day to find that they have Communism.”
Education has led the way to this precipice and only education can lead our way back. If we don’t learn from our mistakes and once again begin building up America through education we may learn that Khrushchev was right.
Did we win the Cold War defeating an enemy dedicated to our destruction to end up proving the wisdom of a cartoon character, “We have met the enemy and he is us”?
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion. He is the Historian of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2012 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens
We Know the Problem … What’s the Answer? March 22, 2012
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Politics.Tags: Cloward/Piven Strategy, Dr. Robert Owens, fundamentally transform America, rule without Congress
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This weekly column, which I have been privileged to submit for your consideration for the past three years, elicits many comments and questions. The most common of which can be summed up as, “I agree with your analysis, appreciate the Historical context, but how about some practical suggestions.”
If you are one of the many who have sent me those emails, posted those replies, made those phone calls, or asked me in person this column is for you.
To fully address these questions we have to look at two levels: the macro and the micro. We need practical suggestions for the very large and the very small. We need practical suggestions for the societal and cultural level and the personal level.
First of all we need some historical context for our current situation. In some ways we are unique, we are America after all. And in some ways what is happening to us has happened many times before. As I have often said in these columns if History doesn’t actually repeat itself it does rhyme.
The French Revolution occurred between 1787 and 1799. It was the first to try to replicate the phenomenon of the American Revolution which overthrew the age old tyranny of divine right kings and landed aristocracy replacing it with a federal republic operating on democratic principles based upon limited government, personal liberty, and economic freedom.
The American Revolution inspired the French to believe they too could break free of the chains and breathe the fresh air of freedom. However, it lost something in the translation. Perhaps because the French didn’t have the centuries long tradition of limited self-government and human rights which had grown up in England since the Magna Carta had been forced on a reluctant King John in 1215. Perhaps it was because the French had endured centuries of the cruelest servitude under the most absolute of absolute monarchs.
Whatever the reason once the French broke free of the cultural, societal, and personal restraint of the Old Regime which had persecuted and exploited them for so long the French people sought to exact revenge. They sought to cut the former ruling class out of society and while they were at it establish a completely new regime in its place. The French, always famous for philosophers, had produced one who had a tremendous influence on the thinking of the Founders of our country and the Framers of the Constitution: Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
However, Rousseau had two sides. On one he eloquently expressed the idea that government was established upon a social contract between the rulers and the ruled and that to have any legitimacy government must base itself upon the consent of the governed. Thus empowering the governed to decide when that contract has been violated and giving them a philosophical basis for change. Our forefathers based their work upon this side.
On the other side, Rousseau argued against private property. And that it is the role of the state to impose freedom, equality, and justice for all within the state regardless of the view of the majority. Thus empowering a minority to decide what constitutes freedom, equality, justice, and justifying the use of state power to mold society to fit the vision of the few. On this side Rousseau is considered the father of modern socialism and communism. This is the side that the leaders of the French Revolution chose to follow.
Another difference is that by 1787 France had been a highly centralized nation for centuries. The local governments served at the pleasure of the central authority and they could be established or overthrown upon the whim of the ruler. In America we had the experience of thirteen separate colonies each with their own particular history and each with their own particular traditions. In America this led to the establishment of a Federal republic with sovereignty resting in the states and only delegated to the central government.
These differences led to the corruption of the French Revolution into The Terror. This was a period between 1793 and 1794 when France was surrounded by enemies and pressed on every side. The Leaders of the Revolution felt as if there were agents and sympathizers of their enemies everywhere and they proceeded to execute thousands of their own people in order to secure freedom. The Terror eventually led to a military dictatorship which evolved into an Empire with a monarch at least as absolute as the one they had overthrown in 1787.
Unfortunately for humanity suffering under the yoke of absolute rulers and their crony elites, subsequent revolutions have tended to follow the French model instead of the America. The Mexican Revolution (1810-1821) was part of a wide ranging revolt against the once great Spanish Empire (1808-1826). From the Rio Grande to Tierra del Fuego revolutions cast aside the foreign rule of Spain and established homegrown republics. All of these republics modeled their initial declarations of independence on America’s but the successor regimes all came to model some variation of the French. The people rose up in righteous indignation against an oppressive system and in the end found themselves under one military dictator after another. They fought to gain their liberty and merely traded one elite for another as the iron heel of tyranny maintained its stand on the throat of liberty.
Other revolutions, the Russian (1917) and the Cuban (1952-1959) are further examples of the trend. What begins as an attempt to bring the blessing of limited government, personal liberty, and economic freedom to people ends up bringing instead a tyranny usually more cruel than what the people originally rebelled against.
As can be seen by this litany of subverted revolutions it is usually violence that brings the fall of the former tyranny and facilitates the rise of the latter. One example of a revolution that came about through an election would be the Nazi revolution in 1932. Another would be the current regime of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. A revolution by way of the ballot box, but a revolution none the less.
Today America is in the midst of a revolution. America has elected a President who has vowed to fundamentally transform America. He promised this to his adoring supporters before his election, and he has worked tirelessly to bring it about. He is an Alinsky style community organizer who is working to organize our community by occupying the center of power and the streets at the same time. He follows the Cloward/Piven Strategy spending us into oblivion in the name of saving the economy. He has seized major portions of the economy and shoved national health insurance, a financial sector take-over, and undeclared war down the throats of a passive American public. Polls show that vast majorities do not want what he is selling but he is closing the deal anyway.
Right now Mr. Obama is campaigning day and night for another term, and a term that would be without restraint for a President who has already said he can rule without Congress. He would undoubtedly appoint at least one more Supreme Court Justice and solidify America’s passage from a federal republic to a European style social democracy.
That is the context, so what should patriotic Americans do now? As I said at the beginning to fully address these questions we have to look at two levels: the macro and the micro. We need practical suggestions for the very large and the very small. We need practical suggestions for the societal and cultural level and the personal level.
On the macro level we need to do everything in our power to make sure Barack Obama does not win a second term. We need to contribute our time, our talent, and our treasure to making sure he is defeated and defeated decisively in the November of 2012. Whom should we support? My advice is study the opposition candidates, and support the one who stands for limited government, personal liberty, and economic freedom. Choose the one that most credibly supports a return to constitutional government.
If after the primaries that candidate does not win the nomination of the Republican side of the government party, patriots will be faced with a dilemma. If we are forced to choose between Obama and the sure, sudden and, complete destruction of constitutionally limited government or a big government Republican who is in favor of more foreign interventions and a continuation of our role as policeman of the world what’s a patriot to do?
The problem with choosing the lesser of two evils is that you are still choosing evil. However in this instance with code blue on one side and a slow fall off a high cliff on the other we may want to choose the one who will drive us to the poor house a little slower. At least that way we will have more time to prepare and perhaps another opportunity to make the logical choice and vote for a return to constitutional government.
On the Micro level I am reminded of the many people I have met over the years who have escaped from any one of the hell-holes socialist revolutions have produced in the last hundred years. Whether it is Poland, or Russia, or Cuba they have told me over and over that they see the same things happening here that once swallowed their homelands. They have told me how they cry at night as they see central planning and social engineering consuming America. They have tearfully asked me, “Where can we go now? We escaped tyranny looking for freedom and now we see the same thing coming here?”
In answer to their questions I have asked one of my own, “How can we survive the coming darkness?” One by one they have all given me the same advice, “Get out of the cities, get yourself some land where you can grow your own food, and do all you can to protect your family and preserve the traditions of liberty.”
In other words, head for the hills and hunker down. Personally my wife and I have made this choice. We have decided to sacrifice whatever portions of our modern life styles and lucrative careers must be jettisoned to maintain what is truly important: our family, our lives, and our liberty. We saw this coming and made a five year plan which is now coming to fruition. Myself and many others have been sounding the alarm from the watchtowers for years.
Now is the time for all good citizens to come to the aid of our nation. We must stand up for our heritage. We must do battle in the marketplace of ideas, and we must engage in the struggle at the ballot box, but we must also prepare to save some seed corn in case the winter does descend. We must preserve what we can so we can begin again. So “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.”
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
Positively Negative June 10, 2011
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.Tags: Alexis de Tocqueville, Dr. Robert Owens, fundamentally transform America, the American Dream
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The Corporations Once Known as the Mainstream Media constantly trumpets the claim that President Obama was a Professor of Constitutional Law. And when he was campaigning he charged that President Bush was not respecting the Constitution when he fired eight prosecutors saying, “I was a constitutional law professor, which means unlike the current president I actually respect the Constitution.”
In this long over looked quote from a radio interview a Pre-President Obama laments the negative liberties he sees as a flaw in the Constitution and waxes eloquent in defense of the redistribution of wealth and the positive power of an intrusive welfare state.
“If you look at the victories and failures of the civil rights movement and its litigation strategy in the court. I think where it succeeded was to invest formal rights in previously dispossessed people, so that now I would have the right to vote. I would now be able to sit at the lunch counter and order as long as I could pay for it I’d be o.k. But, the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and of more basic issues such as political and economic justice in society. To that extent, as radical as I think people try to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution, at least as its been interpreted and Warren Court interpreted in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. Says what the states can’t do to you. Says what the Federal government can’t do to you, but doesn’t say what the Federal government or State government must do on your behalf, and that hasn’t shifted and one of the, I think, tragedies of the civil rights movement was, um, because the civil rights movement became so court focused I think there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalition of powers through which you bring about redistributive change. In some ways we still suffer from that.”
Unfortunately for this radical interpretation, liberty is a negative. Personal liberty is always and only possible when and where external control stops. We have the liberty to think as we wish because no one can control or even know our true inner thoughts. We do not have the liberty to steal; society has placed limits on that action which are enforced by external control. The Framers of our Constitution knew this which explains why our foundational document includes restrictions on the power of government not restrictions on individuals. Unless governmental control over the individual was limited there would be no liberty.
This has been common knowledge in our Republic since John Hancock signed his John Hancock and we declared to the world that the United States of America was going to be something different. We were determined to break free of the entangling state control stifling the monarchies of Europe. We would be a new type of nation where individual liberty, opportunity, and free enterprise would unleash the pent-up creativity and ingenuity would make real the genius of a free people. However, over the years many have fallen asleep, lulled into a trance by the prosperity and security this freedom from state control has fostered.
Slowly the knowledge of what gave vent to this prosperity and security has been lost and generations of Americans have been taught by state schools that free enterprise is evil and state paternalism is good. Generations have been bred to see governmental support, direction, and control as necessary and proper. They have ingested the poison of dependence metastasizing the debilitating life on the dole to the point where they see their continued receipt of stolen goods as an entitlement. So many have fallen for the licentious materialistic hedonism masquerading as life in a post-modern America that when asked, “What is the American Dream?” many will reply “To own your own home.” A response and a belief which made the congressionally mandated Fannie/Freddie induced housing bubble possible if not inevitable.
This shows the negative results of the positive reinforcement of materialism over intellectualism. The correct response to the question, “What is the American Dream?” is Individual liberty and opportunity. Once this was common knowledge among an engaged American public who realized that no one fought and died to own a home, people owned homes in America before the revolution. It was freedom that was the object of the Revolution and it is the individual liberty and opportunity that freedom enables that is the American dream. And today in America this individual liberty and opportunity has now become the object of ridicule in schools pushing a green agenda and a socialist future. The demand for a return to individual liberty and opportunity has become the disparaged slogan on signs at Tea Parties.
Our leaders have embraced instead the idea of “Positive Liberty” which is an oxymoron. By this they mean that the state should actively intervene in the lives of people to provide them with all that is necessary for lives lived as the leaders think they should be. What they are really New Speaking of is Socialism disguised as democracy. However, the increase of governmental power over people does not equate to liberty it equates to serfdom and only the progressive newspeak of a post-modern America could call this decrease of freedom an increase of liberty or democracy.
Alexis de Tocqueville said, “Democracy extends the sphere of individual freedom socialism restricts it. Democracy attaches all possible value to each man; socialism makes each man a mere agent a mere number. Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.”
This positive liberty is the handmaiden of the other new positive that our progressive leaders wish to foist upon us: positive equality. The real equality, the one our ancestors fought and died for is equality of opportunity which is a negative, forcing the government stays out of the way and the people go as far as their investment of time, talent and treasure can take them. In our new progressive world government is supposed to act to create an equality of outcome so that all are equal all the time. This type of collective equality is to be advanced and protected by the all powerful state pushing down some, lifting others until all are equal at all times. This equality of outcome becomes an unlimited reality that is conceived of as the goal of society. Unfettered democracy defined as the participation of all in the political process either as rulers, dispensers or consumers becomes not only the goal but the means and the end in and of itself.
Thus our Constitutional Scholar-in-Chief is leading us step by step away from the individual liberty and opportunity that are the guardians of the American Dream and into a negative representation of our positive values. With another four years this administration will succeed in fundamentally transforming America.
One last quote from Alexis de Tocqueville “The American Republic will endure, until politicians realize they can bribe the people with their own money.”
PS: Don’t take the bribe.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College. He is the author of the History of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com View the trailer for Dr. Owens’ latest book @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ypkoS0gGn8 © 2011 Robert R. Owens dr.owens@comcast.net Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook.
I’ll See Your Hiroshima and Raise You a Nagasaki October 17, 2010
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.Tags: alphabet soup of Federal agencies, City on a Hill, Dr. Robert Owens, fundamentally transform America, illegal drilling moratorium, John Boehner
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I do not lightly use the names of the only cities in history obliterated by the use of Atomic weapons. The nature of the cause in which they forever stand as sentinels of determination precludes their use for any profane purpose. I wouldn’t use such loaded terms unless the issue at hand wasn’t equally as momentous within the flow of American History.
Hearing the voice of the people on November 3rd, President Obama ought to pivot to the Center after the coming Tea Party driven Republican resurgence. The Chat-o-crats of talk radio and the 24 hour cable news cycle debate endlessly whether he will imitate Bill Clinton who suddenly switched from his drive to socialize America into a born-again reformer bellowing “The Era of Big Government is over” to ensure that he was still relevant. However, there’s a significant difference between the man from Hope and the purveyor of hope and change. Bill Clinton is a pragmatist willing to do whatever it takes to stay in front of any crowd so he can call it a parade and look like the Grand Marshal. President Obama is an ideologue with an iron-clad agenda and, as his most admirable trait, an iron determination to stand by his convictions. Instead of pivoting Mr. Obama will unveil the Imperial Presidency hidden in those thousand-page bills no one reads.
Thousand-page bills don’t write themselves overnight. Since the people who said they wrote them don’t know what’s in them where did they come from? These bills have been waiting in the wings for such a time as this. The Progressives realized that even after their infiltration and hijack of the liberal wing of American politics, even after generations of addicting Americans to one entitlement at a time their naked grab for power during the sprint to the finish line would turn the most died-in-the-wool fellow-traveler back to American values. And they had to fear that their final push to fundamentally transform America into a social democracy might wake-up those dozing on the couch in front of the game. Realizing all along the homeowner might wake up and catch them with their hand in the cookie jar they built automatic-pilot bureaucratic nomenclature into their signature pieces of legislation.
By voting through omnibus bills without reading them the Best Congress Money Can Buy has ceded their power to the vast Federal commissariat. Since the November Revolution of 2008 this gaggle of accomplices and dupes has allowed the Commander-in-Chief to inflate the Federal red-tape machine by more than 15%. Congress rubber-stamped themselves into irrelevance. Power has been transferred to the alphabet soup of Federal agencies and bureaucrats know how to fill in the blanks.
As a case in point: The Obama administration ends their illegal Moratorium on all offshore drilling. Does this mean the tens of thousands of jobs already lost will come back as new operations ramp up to locate and exploit American energy resources? Not so much. At the same time the administration announced the end of the moratorium they also announced that new regulations are coming. This threat of new, unknown regulations discourages anyone from investing money in new drilling. Even the crony capitalists with their government guarantees and bailout cushions aren’t fool enough to invest money in a rigged game when the rigging hasn’t been decided on yet. None of this took Congressional approval or even notification. After the election look for rule by decree by any other name as the people elected to drain the new swamp learn their predecessors gave away the store.
This is what brings us full circle to the Hiroshima and Nagasaki reference. If we who believe in limited government run the board and send a significant majority to put steel in the back of John Boehner as the new Speaker of the House we must also elect a veto- proof majority in the Senate. If both of these are not accomplished the Progressives, who are masters of the legislative two-step, will thwart every attempt to roll back the coup d’état they’ve legislated for themselves and America will swirl down the drain into the historical backwaters of failed experiments. Unless the new pro-limited government majority is large enough to repeal the massive centralization of the last four progressive administrations over President Obama’s veto, they will become cast in the cement of precedent and instant tradition. A willing media and a complicit judiciary will anoint the Progressive agenda as the new normal.
Victory must be total or it will not be victory. The surrender that was signed in August of 1945 would not have been signed for months or years later unless the twin horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki hadn’t convinced even the Japanese Army who was still winning their war in China that all was lost. Likewise, we who desire a return to limited government must take total control of Congress. If the margin is only a vote or two in the Senate the Progressives, who campaign as Patrick Henry and rule as Benedict Arnold, will cross the aisle and the time for an electoral reversal of the Progressive Evolution will pass. America will still be here. The next day when we wake up the world will still be spinning and the birds will still be singing, but the America we have known will be History. Victory must be total or it will not be victory!
Now is the time for everyone who believes in limited government to come to the aid of their nation. In the past few years many who previously ignored politics have awakened to find their nation has been hijacked and they’re about to land in an America more like Cuba than a City-on-a-Hill. Those now awake must wake-up their families, their friends and their neighbors. A tsunami, an avalanche, an earthquake of voters must swamp the polls on November 2nd to overcome the reality that Chicago votes early and votes often.
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
Obama’s War (s) May 31, 2010
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.Tags: Afghanistan, Dr. Robert Owens, fundamentally transform America, Iran, Iraq
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A war here, a war there, everywhere it’s war, war, war. General Douglas MacArthur wanted to invade China because they offered a safe haven for our enemies during the Korean War. In testimony before the Senate the first Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Omar Bradley said, “It would be the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time.” Today we face endless wars for elusive peace when we can’t secure our own borders. We’re committed to war in Iraq and Afghanistan; we’ve been rattling sabers in Iran’s direction for years and there’s one more war just for good measure.
The Corporations Once Known as the Mainstream Media have stopped covering the war in Iraq. Our Progressive leaders are throwing away the peace accomplished by the surge Senator Obama opposed. Our brave troops are withdrawing from hard-won positions as violence creates havoc and Al Qaeda seeks to spark a sectarian civil war. Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, our strong man in Baghdad, seeks to steal an election he lost and Iraq is selling their oil to China. Candidate Obama promised that he would immediately begin bringing the troops home at the rate of one to two brigades a month. Obama also stated he’d call for a second constitutional convention in Iraq, this one run by his friends at the United Nations, which he wouldn’t allow to adjourn until Iraq’s leaders reached a new agreement on political reconciliation. The fruits of the surge thrown aside, the same people running the Iraqi government in the same way and endless garrison duty in Iraq look likely.
Then there’s Afghanistan, the war Candidate Obama told us was the right war in the right place, and the one we need to win, which we can only assume means there’re some wars we don’t need to win. While life goes on as normal here heroic volunteers are in harm’s way.
Since taking office, President Obama, after agonizing past recent election deadlines, has done what he opposed in Iraq: sending in a surge of troops to rescue a deteriorating situation. And for the first time in American history, or maybe in any history, he announced the surge while at the same time announcing the date of our withdrawal scheduled for July 2011? So as hard as our forces are fighting, as many victories as they gain since our leader has already announced we’re leaving on a date certain, do you think maybe the Taliban is waiting in the wings? Do you think anyone in Kandahar or Kabul might think about what the Taliban might do once we leave? Saying we’re going to persevere and not quit means little when we’ve already announced the date we’re going to quit. If we send them to fight we need to let them fight to win or bring them home. They aren’t chips in games played by diplomats over Champaign glasses. They are the cream-of-the-crop, and the best America has to offer.
To top off this no-win strategy, Afghan President Hamid Karzai the man we installed and continue to prop-up with dollars we don’t have and heroes we do honors the leader of Iran and says he might join the Taliban. He’s doing this either to save face since we’ve acknowledged he’s basically the Mayor of Kabul and at least related to the biggest drug dealer in the country, or he’s doing it to wring concessions from his handlers. The tragedy is we’re sending troops to fight and die for a surrender that’s already been announced.
Iran has offered to ship half their low-enriched uranium to Turkey. True, the deal wasn’t brokered or imposed by Hilary and her crew at State it was negotiated by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Brazilian President Lula da Silva, and though it lacks the Obama Imprimatur it’s basically the same deal he’s demanded. If President Obama doesn’t accept this deal he’s signaling to the rest of the world that it’s his administration seeking confrontation with Iran, it’s he who refuses to throttle back the avalanche to war. Are the neo-cons who stampeded Bush to war against an Iraq that never attacked us on track to lead us to war against an Iran that hasn’t attacked anyone in centuries?
Then there’s the war for good measure, the one against free enterprise, federalism and the traditional America we’ve known waged by a president who promised (or threatened) to fundamentally transform our nation. Those of us still clinging to our God and our traditions cannot ignore the one campaign our national community organizer seems intent on winning: the one against us. From Soros-backed front groups to pandering pundits of the captured media, from union bosses to academics and bureaucrats who’ve never held a regular job in their lives, day-by-day traditional America is being transformed before our eyes. The battle may seem long, the way may seem dark, but if we keep the faith and keep the peace we shall overcome.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College and History for the American Public University System. http://drrobertowens.com © 2010 Robert R. Owens dr.owens@comcast.net
Dr. Robert Owens Chronicles the History of the Future 