Assessing the Amendments to the Constitution: The Bill of Rights (Amendment I)

     Unless centralized American education is even worse than I fear, you know that the Bill of Rights is what we call the first ten amendments to the Constitution. Many people (and states), during the ratification phase of enacting the Constitution, were just on the edge of ratifying but insisted on a "Bill of Rights" to spell out and ensure certain rights would never, ever be violated by the new government. They liked the general premise of what had been drawn up but were understandably suspicious of a new central government not abiding.

It was a seemingly reasonable request which was ultimately granted, securing the ratification on the promise of a forthcoming "Bill of Rights". Many Federalists, however, opposed the inclusion. They held that it was unnecessary. The Constitution itself granted the People ALL rights, with the exception of the few enumerated rights which it granted to the government. The whole idea was "Federal government, you may/must do this and that. And nothing more. People, these are the powers/rights the federal government holds. ALL OTHER RIGHTS/POWERS NOT ENUMERATED TO THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT BELONG TO YOU."

Alexander Hamilton argued this point eloquently in Federalist No. 84. It was rightfully feared by some that a listing of such rights for the People would one day be interpreted not as a reinforcement of just a handful of all of the rights they retained, but rather an exhaustive list of them. They felt it redundant at best and dangerous at worst to explicitly prohibit the federal government from doing things they had no power to do anyway under the Constitution. The danger would be in the future when would-be usurpers would say "you listed 'this' but not 'that', so we're going to claim the power to do 'that'."  Alas, within two centuries their fear was realized.

Nonetheless, the request was granted to the Antifederalists and the Constitution was ratified.

So, let's examine Amendment I:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or of the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

This seemingly straight-forward proclamation is violated everyday. Remember, even these amendments comprising the Bill of Rights, are to be restrictions on the government, not on the People.  The people are to still be free to establish religion. To choose to practice or exercise the religion of their choice. Or not to, if they so desire. Allowing a nativity scene on a city courthouse lawn does not constitute the government establishing a religion. Its presence forces no one to practice or exercise Christianity. Non-Christians, if they wish, may ignore it or even verbally mock or ridicule  it. But they are not forced to become Christians by it. Same for a Jewish or Muslim display. All are to be freely displayed.

On the other hand, BANNING such displays in the public forum does in fact constitute a governmental "prohibition of the free exercise thereof". As does compelling someone to perform a service for a same-sex wedding. In fact, liberals stomp up and down about separation of church and state which is NOT in the Constitution, except perhaps in one direction: keep GOVERNMENT out of RELIGION. That said, there is no basis for government monitoring, regulating, banning or legalizing marriage of any sort. Homosexuals should be free to marry in any church that is VOLUNTARILY WILLING to marry them. There should be no legal question about it, especially at the federal level and especially with regard to forcing a church to perform/recognize the wedding/marriage. The only reason Feds are involved in marriage in the first place was to regulate it to prevent interracial marriages. Later, that control became convenient in manipulating people with the tax code.

Peaceable assembly and free speech are also under attack when agencies like IRS intimidate or burden groups like TeaParty, saddling them with tax uncertainty and rendering them far less potent than they should rightfully be. Also while deeming violent assembly such as Black Lives Matter as "peaceable" when their rhetoric has led to the senseless deaths of scores of police officers.

Next up: Amendment II.

Pass this "Jobs Bill" NOW!!!

NOW!!!

So why doesn't Senator Ried bring it to a vote? That's the only way to pass it NOW!!! Reason: It would not pass. He would need too many votes from dems who cannot vote for it because they are facing elections in 6 weeks. They know if they vote "yes" they cannot get re-elected. You see, The People don't want it. And they know it. If they want to hold their seat, they would have to vote "no". And the whole tax hike would be killed. So they will put it off until AFTER the election. IF these jerks do get re-elected, THEN they will vote on it and the constituents of these bums will once again be screwed.

Vitriolic Rhetoric

"In '94 people were elected simply to come here to kill the National Endowment for the Arts. Now they're here to kill women" -- Louise Slaughter

"This Republican path to poverty passes like a tornado through America's nursing homes." -- Debbie Wasserman Schultz

"In one of the bills before us, 6 million seniors are deprived of meals." -- Nancy Pelosi

"It's an opportunity for the right wing in the House to really sock it to women." -- Diane Feinstein

"This is the functional equivalent of bombing innocent civilians." -- Eleanor Holmes Norton

"All this to stop women from getting the regular tests and preventive services that they need." -- Harry Reid

"This entire debate has included throwing women and children under the bus." -- Barbara Mikulski

"I always use the word 'extreme'. That's what the caucus instructed me to do the other week." -- Chuck Schumer

Remember that Sarah Palin was blamed for Tuscon because of her "vitriolic rhetoric" when she talked about "targeting" certain congressional seats. Mind you, also, that Glenn Beck is a "fear monger". The above quotes are nothing but vitriolic rhetoric for the purpose of creating misplaced hatred and based on no facts whatsoever.

The difference between Beck and these jerks is that all the above statements are bald-faced lies -- AND THEY KNOW IT!!! They know it. But they don't care. They are hell-bent on scaring seniors, women, and minorities away from conservative common-sense. They care not if what they say is true because they are convinced that seniors, women, and minorities are either too stupid or too apathetic to bother to search for the truth and call them on it.

Beck shows video and plays audio of his targets (oops, I hope that doesn't cause somebody to shoot somebody else). He shows video of Van Jones saying his wacky stuff. He plays audio of Stephen Lerner laying out his plan to bring down Wall Street and our society.

The truth these days IS scary. Laying it out clearly is not fear-mongering. It's called "dealing with reality". Liberals prefer we just stick our heads in the sand and pretend everything is OK because they maintain their power due to our ignorance. And the less we know, the better their lies sound.

Political Rhetoric and What It Means For You

If this shooting had ANYTHING to do with politics, it certainly was not of the narrative the main-stream media conveys of him being a "conservative" or "tea-bagger" doing Palin's dirty work for her. He was as far from that as you could possibly imagine. As I posted on Facebook shortly after the incident, "Palin is as responsible for this as Jihad apologists are responsible for 9-11." And I stand by that.

This guy's anger was based in psychosis and brain chemical imbalances and was percolating long before anyone outside of Alask knew who Sarah Palin was and even longer before the Tea Party existed. This is yet another "let no crisis go to waste" moment for liberals. It seemed so easy to make their point until those pesky facts started getting in the way - again. If Palin is guilty of anything it is plagiarism for stealing the targeted map idea from the DLC and DCCC, both of which had maps "targeting" republicans. In fact, the DCCC map included photos of the "game", I guess so any crazy people won't make any mistakes and shoot the "wrong" person.

To be sure, it is a terrible tragedy that has been visited upon the victims, their families, and our nation. I have been praying for those people since it happened. Also, I have been praying for the victims and families of the Fort Hood shooting since it happened. It just amazes me how quickly the media pounced on Palin for this yet have still not condemned Islamic extremism for Fort Hood. Which do you think was more influential?

Even so, it WOULD be nice to rid our political discourse of such potentially violence-inducing pronouncements as:

"We have our boot on their throat" - Bobby Gibbs

"We have the opponent in the crosshairs" - Sarah Palin, thousands of upper-management employees of American companies, and countless coaches at all levels of athletic competition

"[big]Government isn't the solution to our problems. Government IS our problem" - Ronald Reagan (for some reason this seems to be considered by many an inflammatory comment so it is included here)

"If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun" - Barack Obama, and some guy in a Chicago gangster movie

We need to open our eyes and realize the daily propaganda war being waged against the conservative, freedom-loving, God-fearing people of our society. The left are constantly reporting with a "holier-than-thou" twinkle in their eye distorted and abridged stories while conveniently "forgetting" the rest of the story that makes them look as bad or worse. I really don't begrudge them their right to do it, freedom of speech and all, but when it is ABC, CBS, sometimes CNN, and always NBC and MSNBC doing it, I'm sick of their whining about FOX. It just reeks of hypocrisy.

Hypocrisy and Hope

President Obama has taken hypocrisy to depths never before explored from the Oval Office. The latest: accusing the U.S. Chamber of Commerce of funding campaigns with foreign money. For real? Does he really want to look under that rock?

First of all, the C of C operates on a $200M budget. They are spending $75M on 2010 mid-term elections, a small fraction of which MAY be, but probably isn't foreign money. We don't know. What we DO know is that AFL-CIO, Sierra Club, and SEIU take in tons more foreign money than the C of C, and they donate tons of money to mid-term elections. And Obama accepted multiple donations for his presidential campaign from Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck (really - on-line donations from Disney characters paid by "untraceable" pre-paid credit cards)! I guess the difference is Disney characters are American -- but BP is not and Obama accepted at least a million from them.

David Axelrod says they could clear the whole thing up by disclosing which accounts the money comes from. True. That way, the CEOs of all the AMERICAN companies that donated would have the pleasure of having Obama minions and union thugs on their front lawns (it has happened before). Also, to be fair, AFL-CIO, NEA, SEIU, and MoveOn would also need to disclose. It is true disclosure would create transparency, but when has this administration ever been interested in transparency other than during his presidential campaign when he repeatedly lied about how transparent his administration would be. In fact Obama himself could disclose his birth certificate and college records. I'm thinking if he did we would all find out he's not as smart as the machine has made him out to be. In fact, his economic policies pretty much suggest that anyway. And how much Chinese money is being used to pay his salary and salaries of his czars?

No, I don't think Mr. Obama really wants to turn over those stones.

More Immigration Madness

Suppose you are hiring. Suppose someone applies with a Social Security number and everything. Suppose you suspect she might be illegal. What do you do? You cannot check her out as you are not permitted to inquire on ones immigration status. You cannot NOT hire her based on your suspicion as that would be discrimination.

At this point I suppose you flip a coin. Heads you hire her, uncertain of her status, and hope like hell your suspicions are unfounded. Tails you don't hire her and hope like hell the ACLU isn't knocking at your door the next day slapping you with a discrimination suit.

So the coin comes up heads. You hire her. Later you discover that she is indeed illegal and that she had committed Social Security fraud to convince you to hire her.

So you flip the coin again. Heads you continue employing her, knowingly breaking the law yourself, but also knowing that no one will enforce that law. After all, it hasn't been enforced for about 3 administrations now. Tails you show some integrity, disregard the fact the authorities disregard the law, follow the law, and fire her. And again hope like hell the ACLU doesn't show up.

Then suppose all throughout this time liberal progressives have been running your state into the ground morally, culturally, and financially. So you run for governor because no one else who wants to save your state has the money to compete against said liberal progressives. Now suddenly you are under fire for how those coin flips turned out.

But go through those coin flips scenarios again with opposite results, and you will STILL be under fire.

So, what exactly would the liberal progressives have you do? And if you can figure it out, give Meg Whitman a call so she knows the next time. I guess she should have just turned the girl in when she became aware of her status so the feds could find her another job with someone who didn't know.

Is O'Donnell Really So Bad?

Christine O'Donnell took a loooonnnnnggggggg time to pay off her student loans. They say her home was foreclosed on. She dated some guy in high school and subsequently dabbled in witchcraft, which she ultimately rejected.

First of all, she will do fine if she can get the votes of the millions of Americans who can sympathize with her financial problems and who have also defaulted on a loan and have had their homes foreclosed. Trust me, there's a lot of 'em. I suppose excluding anyone with financial problems would go a long way in protecting Washington's elite since there would be virtually no one to run against them. But to make things fair, Charlie Rangle, Tim Geitner, and a multitude of other Obama henchmen and cabinet members might want to step down.

And witchcraft? I played ouija in high school. Does that count? Cm'on! This was a 17 year-old HIGH SCHOOL student who had a momentary lapse of judgement by dating some guy who was into witchcraft. But, hey, she didn't like it and she certainly did not inhale. Besides, it's not like she was a 40-something first lady of the United States holding seances to talk to Eleanor Roosevelt. O'Donnell is obviously no more a witch than Obama is a Muslim.

Then look at the seat she's seeking. She defeated in the primary a mainstay who you would not even know was a Republican but for the (R) after his name. In the general election she now faces a self-avowed Marxist in Chris Coon for the senate seat vacated by Joe Biden when he somehow became vice-president. Besides being a serial plagiarist, Biden has shown himself time and again to be a bigger moron than George W. Bush. All alternatives considered, O'Donnell seems like a big win for everyone.