The Ten Commandments of the US Constitution

When the Founding Fathers had defeated the army of England and won their freedom they began building a new nation fro m the ashes and devastation of a war-torn frontier.  They started with a good idea, but soon found flaws in that.  They didn’t give up.  They went back to the drawing board and tried again.  The result was the US Constitution.

The Constitution began with a preamble and ten amendments.  These ten amendments are commonly known as the Bill of Rights.   They are intended to protect the citizens of the new nation from an oppressive government.  How do they protect the citizens?  They do so by limiting governments rights, government including all three branches, the legislative, executive and judicial.   By doing so they could more reasonably be called the “Ten Commandments of the US Constitution.”

By now I would hope we all know how the Fathers wrote these ten amendments.  Maybe now it is time to rewrite them in a way that our elected officials can understand. 

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

Thou shalt not infringe on the right of the people to keep and bear arms to maintain security of the state from oppressive government, or any other enemy of the state.

Thou shalt not, in time of peace, quarter soldiers in any house without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

Thou shalt not violate the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the person or things to be seized.

Thou shalt not hold any person to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall thou subject any person for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb;  nor shall thou compel any person, in any criminal case, to be a witness against himself, nor to be deprived of life, liberty,  or property, without due process of the law; nor shall thou take private property for public use, without just compensation.

Thou shall in all criminal cases, allow the accused to enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have assistance of counsel for his defense.

Thou shall in suits in common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, preserve the right of trial by jury, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise examined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

Thou shall not require excessive bail, impose excessive fines, nor inflict cruel or unusual punishments.

Thou shall not construe the enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Thou shall recognize and accept that the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

Throughout the twentieth century, and now into the twenty-first century, Government has forgotten, or flat-out ignored, its place.  It has consistently passed laws contrary to the Constitution, the will of the people, and the intent of the Founding Fathers.

The first Commandment says, specifically, “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”  It does not say that Government has the right to suppress and deny religion.  There is no “Church of the United States.”  That would be unconstitutional.  How did we come to the point that it is “unconstitutional” to display the Ten Commandants in the public square?  To display Nativity scenes in the public parks or at the county courthouses?  How does Government, constitutionally, deny students rights to “free exercise” of religion in school, to the extent that they are forbidden a moment of silence to pray to the God of their choice if they choose to do so?

“Abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press?”  Banned by the first Commandment of the Constitution.   But Congress talks about and proposes controlling the press with the “Fairness Doctrine.” 

“The right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”  But it is infringed upon.  It is infringed upon to the point of almost completely doing away with the right to keep and bear arms.  More people are denied this right with each gun control law passed.  While Government claims it merely wants to keep weapons out of the hands of criminals, the driving force behind gun control laws comes from anti-gun groups that make no bones about the fact that they don’t want people to own guns.  The Government has an ulterior motive to deny gun ownership by its citizens.  It was an armed citizenry that stood up to and defeated the English army in 1776, giving birth this nation, and it is the armed citizenry that can rise up and defeat this Government now.  That was the purpose of the second Commandment, and it is the reason this Government must bypass this Commandment.

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.”  This Commandment was violated with the Supreme Court’s Kelo decision.  Since its founding, there has been the understanding in this nation that people have the right to own their homes, eminent domain was used to take land at a minimal price from private holders for the purpose of public good, roads, schools, hospitals.  Under the Kelo decision it became possible for Government to steal private property from land owners, and give it to wealthy developers for the express purpose of increasing tax revenue.  It is hard to be secured in your home when Government can come and steal your home from you, just to give it to someone else who happens to have more money than you do.  This decision also violated the fifth Commandment, “nor shall thou take private property for public use, without just compensation.”

The eighth Commandment should prohibit excessive taxation.  “Not require excessive bail, impose excessive fines, nor inflict cruel or unusual punishments.”  What is taxation but excessive fines for merely being an American, choosing to engage in activities which, while legal, are out of favor with Government, such as smoking?  Taxes are commonly used to deter activities that the Government wishes to prevent, such as increasingly excessive taxes on the purchase of firearms and ammunition.

The ninth Commandment, “shall not construe the enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, to deny or disparage others retained by the people” can only mean that the rights of the people and the limits of Government are not limited only by what is in the Constitution, the people have other rights and Government has other limitations.  Government ignores this Commandment all together, usurping still more power for itself, while continually limiting the rights of the people.

“Thou shall recognize and accept that the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.”  Government uses money stolen from the people as “taxes” to bribe and blackmail states into sacrificing their power to the Government.  The recent stimulus bill is the perfect example of this process.  The Government included stimulus money to the states, with strings attached.  For the states whose governors refused the stimulus money due to the strings, Government included provisions which allowed state legislatures to bypass their respective governors and accept the stimulus money with the governors approval.  The rights of the states and the people are no longer relevant to Government, all that matters is Government’s unquenchable thirst for power and control.

Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.  And you, our esteemed leaders in Washington are absolutely corrupt.  The people are getting angry, they want their rights, their nation, and their government back.  Government needs to repent now, remember their place, and start acting like the Government of the people again.  If they fail to do so, this nation will need to be washed in the blood of its own citizens, again.

The Kos Attacks Republicans for NOT Agreeing With The Democrats Again

The Daily Kos is at it again.  They hate Republicans with a passion.  That is fine, they have that right, but they insist that Republicans agree with Democrats on every issue.  They whine about and demand tolerance for different opinions, but won’t show any tolerance for anyone who disagrees with their views.

In the latest example of the Kos’ intolerance Dana Houle compares the Republicans to “indulgent parents” for not telling voters and the conservative wing of the Republican party to “shut up.”

“In American politics, the spoiled children struggling to deal with a reality they don’t like and didn’t expect are those voters who make up the rightwing of the Republican base. The indulgent parents of American politics are the leaders, elected officials and apparatchiks of the Republican party.”

Apparently, the Kos doesn’t understand how American politics work.  “The indulgent parents of American politics are the leaders, elected officials and apparatchiks of the Republican party” are not the parents, the voters are.  The political leaders, elected officials and “apparatchiks” of the Republican party work for us, the voters, not the other way around.  In the Kos’ communistic world the elected officials are the ones in control, but in America’s political system the voters are the ultimate authority.  We vote them in, and we can and will vote them out.  They cannot vote us out.

Dana Houle goes on to declare that Republicans used to be “tolerant” and progressive.

“It wasn’t always so. The Republican party wasn’t always hostile to progress, tolerance and good governance. After WWII, it still contained some retrograde elements who wanted to go back to 1928 and wipe out an expansive role for the federal government. But most top Republicans at least tried to live in reality and be responsible about governance. That began to change, however, after their landslide loss in 1964. The Goldwater insurgency marked the beginning of a long-term takeover of the GOP by the rightwing ultras who viewed the world through an unyielding ideological prism.”

In truth, Conservatives lost their way, they got away from the principles of conservatism, and bought into the idea that people wanted to be controlled by government.  While some people do want the government handouts promised by “progressives” most people recognize that they can’t have those handouts without giving up control of their own lives.  This is what Houle fails to understand, that most of us that realize what is happening are not willing to hand control of our lives over to the socialistic Democrats that promise to make things more fair and equitable.  The progressives idea of making things “fair and equitable” is to condemn all to mediocrity.  They fail to understand that individuality is what sets us apart from each other and drives some to succeed in business while others are more than willing to find success in spending more time at home with friends and family. 

One should not fail to see the ludicrous claim of “rightwing ultras” viewing the world through an “ideological prism.”  The fact is, the the “leftwing ultras” also see the world through their own ideological prism.   The difference is that the rightwing ideology allows liberty and individuality, while the leftwing ideology leads to a cookie cutter approach that leaves all people exactly the same as everyone else, and enslaved to the government that seeks to make all equal in that slavery.

“As the ultras expanded their control over the party and increasingly determined the results of Republican primaries, the Republican party took on an aggressive agenda of eliminating taxes and regulations and rejecting the legitimacy of nearly all government action (except on issue of bellicose foreign policy and domestic law-and-order).”

Apparently, the ultras are the Republican voters since it is the voters that decide the primaries and in effect the agenda of the Party.  What the Republican voters seek is to get the government out of our lives and back to where the Founding Fathers intended it to be.  Government was never intended to provide anything more than opportunity, what an individual did with that opportunity was up to the individual.  With that in mind, it is only natural that Republican voters want less government intrusion into their lives.  What is surprising is that Democratic voters are willing to be slaves to the government and to force the rest of us into that slavery, too.

“However, it wasn’t until the newly-organized religious right became important to GOP success that the reactionary social issues gained a more important place in the agenda and the campaign messaging of the Republican party. Because of the rise of the religious right, the GOP increasingly accepted and eventually embraced social intolerance and a view of the world that in numerous ways—especially in regards to science, reason, faith and tolerance of individual differences—rejected the Enlightenment.”

Houle’s attack on the religious right is an odd one.  An intolerant rant against the tolerance of individual differences while appearing to be in support of individual differences.  So much for “enlightenment.”  I guess individual differences are only allowable if you aren’t different?

“From the late 70’s through the presidency of George W. Bush, politically active evangelical Christians joined with the libertarians, xenophobes, anticommunists, neocons and other various “movement conservatives” in solidifying their hold over the Republican party.”

In contrast, the Democrats have submitted to consistantly more control from the Communist Party USA, the Socialist Democrats of America, communistic Labor Unions and political fringe groups that seek to end the American way of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness in favor equality for all as decided by government, which will be, as all government programs are, extremely limited and impossible to escape from.  But while it is wrong to desire to have control over your own life, it is ok to want the government to control everything you think, say and do.

Houle goes on to place the race baiting game, misleading readers into thinking conservatism is primarily a racist movement.

“Not all White evangelicals are social and political conservatives, but a disproportionate percentage of white evangelicals are. They’re also heavily concentrated in the states of the Confederacy, although there are social conservatives just about everywhere in the country. This bloc of voters, and the politicians they’ve sent to Washington, have increasingly exerted control over the national Republican party.”

What Houle neglects to mention is that Conservatives are also heavily concetrated in places like Kansas (an anti-slave sgtate during the “Confederacy”), Texas (which wasn’t even a state yet), South Dakota, Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, Colorado, and Utah.  None of these states had anything to do with the “Confederacy.”  And again Houle fails to recognize that the voters are the ones’ who are supposed to control the Party, not the other way around.

“Since Reagan the Republican party’s centers of power shifted from the rural Midwest, northern upscale suburbs and the Sunbelt of California and the Southwest to Texas and the states of the Confederacy. But because of the organization of the Christian rightwing, they were able to apply pressure and often determine the winners of Republican primaries in most of the country.”

This is so far out there, I can’t even make sense of it, let alone dispute it.  From what I can tell, Houle is saying that Conservatism is from the Confederate states but from all states.  Wouldn’t that make it more of a national movement than a “South doin’ it again” movement?  Of course, Houle won’t say that, it wouldn’t fit with the idea that conservatism is about racism.

“As the Republican power base shifted southward, the litmus test issues of the far right increasingly became litmus test issues for the Republican party everywhere. Republicans usually opposed taxes and often—especially if they were outside the Northeast—took a more conservative view on social issues. But even in to the 1990’s there were plenty of socially tolerant Republicans who respected good governance (and could support taxes as a “necessary evil”), and didn’t demagogue on social issues.”

As Houle points out here, the Republican party is “tolerant” of different opinions.  It shouldn’t be surprising to anyone but the far left that Republicans in the Northeast would have different priorities than Republicans in the Midwest, and would, as a result, vote for a different type of Republican.  That is a totally foreign concept to the left that doesn’t believe in and cannot understand something like individuality or even regional differences in priorities.  Everybody has to be the same in their view.

Houle goes on to make a claim that most Conservatives aren’t Conservatives, but rather “Authoritarians.”  Considering Obama’s time in the White House, declaring anyone who doesn’t support him to be a “rightwing extremist” and declaring that nothing can be accomplished if Republicans listen to Rush(instead of him), one would reasonably wonder who the real authoritarians are.  Or maybe the term “authoritarian” has a new meaning now?

“The second major development that allowed the radical right to take over the GOP and the rightwing base to determine the winners of Republican primaries was the rise of Rush Limbaugh and rightwing talk radio. Meshing with the conservative think tanks funded by rich reactionaries, conservative foundations and corporations from industries hostile to government regulation, the radical right now had an effective propaganda machine more effective than the Republican party itself.”

Houle fails to acknowledge that the “rightwing” talk radio hosts would have no radio shows to host if they had no audience.  They do have the audience, and that audience grows everyday because they are saying what people believe and want to hear.  The left also has its talk radio hosts, but not the audience.  Why?  Because they aren’t saying what people think and want to hear.

“Karl Rove, George Bush and the Republicans’ Congressional Leadership gave everything they could to the far right of the Republican base. They were told they would be given whatever they asked for.

Ronald Reagan had begun the indulgence of the Republican base with the idiocy of supply side economics and the Laffer Curve. He told Americans that if you cut taxes, revenues would rise.”

In actuality, Bush and Reagan can’t be truly compared.  What did Bush in was his propensity to spend like a Democrat.  Bush did not follow Reagan’s lead, and he suffered in the polls for it, he lost the midterm elections in 2006 because of it.  Houle also fails to acknowledge that Reagan’s “supply side economics” worked exactly like Reagan said they would.  Revenues did rise, and people prospered.  That was bad for the Democrats and their idea that people needed government to make them successful.

“The eventual problem, for the Republicans, is the same as the problem for parents who never tell their kids no: eventually, they lost control. What makes this so deadly for the Republican party is that they’ve lost control to a reactionary base that wants to take the country back to an idyllic Christian, anti-Enlightenment past that never existed as societal and cultural change render the beliefs of the radical right increasingly anachronistic and rejected by the American mainstream.”

No.  What the problem is, is that the Republican voters want the Republican party to go back to the Constitution.  Nowhere in the Constitution does the government have the right to control the people in the ways the Left want.  Nowhere in the Constitution is the government required to provide health care for those who provide their own.  Nowhere in the Constitution does the government have the power to control peoples’ lives in the manner the Left seeks.

Obama Administration Pushing Swine Flu Panic

It has been just over one week since Mexico reported an outbreak of H1N1Influenza A, also known more commonly as the Swine Flu.  Since Mexico’s announcement there has been a flurry of activity, first from the Obama Administration, then from the UN’s WHO.  The push is on for a major world-wide panic.  Secretary Janet Napolitano said, “There is no need to panic, but people will get sick, and people will die.”  In other words, “We don’t want you to panic, but you are going to get swine flu and die!”  Vice President Joe Biden said, “I wouldn’t ride in a plane or train right now.”  He didn’t believe it was smart to get into a confined space with people coughing and sneezing and trying to give you swine flu so you could “get sick and die.”  Our Illoustrious Leader, Barack Obama, said, “Cover your mouth when you cough and wash your hands.  If you feel sick don’t go to work, don’t send your kids to school.”  I can just imagine what my boss will say monday when I call him to say, ”I think I feel sick, just to protect the company, I will go fishing this week.”  Probably something along the lines of, “You can go fishing all week, all month, and all year for all I care.  You do need to find a new job, though.”

It is nice to know that our government is concerned for our health, but we need to look at some facts before we jump into the panic they seem to be pushing us towards.

Cases of Swin Flu                      Population                           Percentage of sick

World-wide 787                         6.7Billion                             0.000012%

Mexico        506                         111.2Million                        0.000455%

US              160                          300Million                           0.000053%

There are other countries involved, but these are the major numbers, Canada is getting close with 70 confirmed cases as of this morning, but not worth listing unless we list all 15 countries in the world that have confirmed cases of swine flu.  That is it, only 15 countries, only 787 cases world-wide.  And only 19 deaths, one in the US and the rest in Mexico (the one death in the US was a Mexican child brought to the US for medical treatment).  That is only a 2.414231% fatality rate.

Not exactly threatening.  The numbers aren’t there.  At the risk of sounding overly-complacent, in the eyes of the government or anyone else prone to worrying, call me when the numbers are more disconcerting.  Say maybe around 4 or 5% getting sick with 10% of those dying.  Then I will get concerned.  Until then, I’m taking Obama’s advice and going fishing, just tell my boss it is the President’s orders, I think I have a fever.