Thoughts Aloud

Archive for November, 2008

As a followup to my Child Wind post below, here is another example on Michelle Malkin’s website:

Jeffrey Rosen’s piece there is rather interesting.◄Dave►

My friend Troy is asking for serious discussion of our future and poses three key questions:

1. Can an ignorant citizenry, unfamiliar with its own systems of government and economics, with no demonstrable values, be entrusted with the self government of a free nation?
2. How do we allow freedom for all while, at the same time, denying the ignorant, the stupid and the indifferent the easy means to destroy our systems of government and economics?
3. Do the able citizens of a free, self-governing country actually have the right to be ignorant, indifferent, and/or dependent on government?

Let’s go engage his fertile mind. You first. ◄Dave►

Only ten days ago, I was lamenting the quality of comments to an NBC affiliate’s report on Alan Keyes’ lawsuit, and linked to a report on how George Soros’ “Center for American Progress” might be behind them.

Then, just yesterday I asked if MSNBC was biased for only allowing pro-Obama comments on Pete Williams’ report, about the Supreme Court’s upcoming discussion of two other such lawsuits. I shared a dissenting comment I had left there myself, and wondered aloud whether it would get past the moderator.

When I returned today, nothing has changed. Granted, yesterday was a holiday and the moderator may still be in the throes of a turkey induced nap. On closer inspection, however, I noticed another curiosity. Pete made his post at 11:57 AM on Wednesday. The first comment was sent 36 min. later at 12:33 PM. Then, in rapid fire succession twenty comments, all pro-Obama and many sounding like they were written by the same few individuals, were posted in exactly 30 min. ending at 1:03 PM. Then nothing and still nothing, although I know at least my comment, and the trackback from my post here, both await moderation. Is one hour and six minutes all the time MSNBC allows for discussion of their reports?

I’ll give the moderator the benefit of the doubt, and assume that Team Obama was the first to notice Pete’s report. They could have given him the bum’s rush just before he left early for a four-day weekend. Surely, when he returns refreshed, he will approve my comment, yesterday’s trackback, and the one he will get from this post. That is, unless MSNBC is in fact blatantly biased, and they are actively suppressing informed dissent to their worldview; thus creating the impression on casual readers that there is overwhelming support out here for it. Time will tell… ◄Dave►

MSNBC has finally reported on the Supreme Court’s pending review of Obama’s birth certificate issue. I read with interest the comment section, and every single one that they have published so far has been pro-Obama, with most rather disparaging of “pathetic” Republicans. Somehow that doesn’t seem natural, so I submitted the following:

This is not my issue, and I am commenting just to see if a single dissenting view will be published in the comments.

Pete’s final paragraph is factually incorrect. The Hawaii official would not comment on whether his actual birth certificate showed him to be born in Hawaii. Obama’s half-sister, clearly born in Indonesia, possesses a similar Hawaii “Certificate of Live Birth,” (COLB) which the Hawaiian government will issue to any child born of Hawaiian residents up to a year after their birth elsewhere.

A COLB is inadequate for many purposes for which a “Birth Certificate” is required. All anyone is asking is that Obama actually produce his true Birth Certificate to prove where he was born, yet he continues to spend time and resources fighting the legal battles rather than simply produce it. Common sense would make most anyone wonder what he is hiding. If we have to cough up ours just to get a passport, or security clearance, is it really asking too much that he prove he is Constitutionally eligible for the civil service job he is applying for?

To the commenters blaming the Republicans for this story, be advised that Berg is a lifelong Democrat. This story has been pursued and advanced by die-hard Hillary Clinton supporters, not Republicans. ◄Dave►

Any bets on whether it gets past the moderator? Does anyone see a reason that it shouldn’t? ◄Dave►

What appears to be a “Black” oriented website, “Essence,” has an excellent interview of Alan Keyes regarding why he has filed the lawsuit challenging Obama’s status as a Natural Born Citizen. He gives a very articulate justification, and one point was profound:

ESSENCE.COM: For argument’s sake, let’s say Obama is only a naturalized citizen, and was raised by Americans and grew up in the United States. What difference does that make to you?

KEYES: It makes a difference to the Constitution. The Constitution has to be obeyed. If we get into a position where it is somehow regarded as dispensable then this country will fall apart. Black people should be the first folks to remember that. Without adherence to the Constitution our battles would have never been won. I don’t want to live in a country where we are suddenly back in a world where the force of majority rules. I don’t think any of us do.

The MSM, who have studiously avoided this subject and the dozen or so current lawsuits working their way to the Supreme Court, should think about that – seriously. So should all the folks who will riot if this ends up costing Obama the job he worked so hard to get. ◄Dave►

This story at Atlas Shrugs bothers me – a lot! I first encountered it last night as I was making the rounds of the key players in the Obama Birth Certificate saga. I figured there was some reasonable explanation, and that Pamela was just becoming paranoid. Now, 24 hours later, there are more damning updates to it, and Google seems to be avoiding dealing with it.

If it really is what it increasingly appears to be, I feel a chill wind blowing across our internet. Say it ain’t so… please! Else, what is the next best search engine? Google just got really sour for me. ◄Dave►

Mommies, Daddies, and Kiddies didn’t used to be considered synonymous – nor were they meant to be.

I recently submitted several of my pages to the Gender Analyzer, and the underlying AI engine has always reported with a confidence level well above 70% that they were written by a man. Thus, I was surprised to find that according to their ongoing poll, it is only right 53% of the time. Why? It was reportedly “taught” the difference by submitting writing samples written by known women and men.

I have for years noted that the political Left seems to be dominated by emotion, and most actual critical thinking occurs on the political Right. I have noted that Talk Radio is owned by the Right, simply because those on the Left become viscerally upset and tune out. They generally feel their political truths, are easily offended by, and are thus largely uninterested in serious political discourse and debate. It has also not escaped my attention that the vast majority of political bestsellers are written by, purchased by, and apparently read by those on the Right. Readers are thinkers; emoters, not so much…

The very name for this website was an outgrowth of an experience a couple of years ago, when I innocently joined a “freethinkers” forum, thinking the word meant what it implied. I soon found myself almost alone as a rational thinker in a sea of ACLU type irrational emoters, bent on doing battle with their favorite bogymen, the fundamentalist Christians. They were constitutionally incapable of comprehending that their fundie Marxist dogma was every bit as irrational to a true skeptical thinker as fundie Christian dogma, and in many ways infinitely more dangerous to individual Liberty. Needless to say, I soon found myself unwelcome among them.

In my post below, I noted that Victor Davis Hansen’s sixth politically incorrect observation hadn’t occurred to me:

6. Something has happened to the generic American male accent. Maybe it is urbanization; perhaps it is now an affectation to sound precise and caring with a patina of intellectual authority; perhaps it is the fashion culture of the metrosexual; maybe it is the influence of the gay community in arts and popular culture. Maybe the ubiquitous new intonation comes from the scarcity of salty old jobs in construction, farming, or fishing. But increasingly to meet a young American male about 25 is to hear a particular nasal stress, a much higher tone than one heard 40 years ago, and, to be frank, to listen to a precious voice often nearly indistinguishable from the female…

It seems that it has to others. In, “The Voice of the Neuter is Heard Throughout the Land,” a blogger named Vanderleun offered nearly two years ago:

…What interestest me is how he speaks.

If you focus on it, you realize that you hear this voice every day if you bounce around a bit in our larger cities buying this or ordering that, and in general running into young people in the “service” sector — be it coffee shop, video store, department store, boutique, bookstore, or office cube farm. It’s a kind of voice that was seldom heard anywhere but now seems to be everywhere.

It is the voice of the neuter.

I mean that in the grammatical sense:
“a. Neither masculine nor feminine in gender.
“b. Neither active nor passive; intransitive,”

and in the biological sense:
“a. Biology Having undeveloped or imperfectly developed sexual organs: the neuter caste in social insects.
“b. Botany Having no pistils or stamens; asexual.
“c. Zoology Sexually undeveloped.”

You hear this soft, inflected tone everywhere that young people below, roughly, 35 congregate. As flat as the bottles of spring water they carry and affectless as algae, it tends to always trend towards a slight rising question at the end of even simple declarative sentences. It has no timbre to it and no edge of assertion in it.

The voice whisps across your ears as if the speaker is in a state of perpetual uncertainty with every utterance. It is as if, male or female, there is no foundation or soul within the speaker on which the voice can rest and rise. As a result, it has a misty quality to it that denies it any unique character at all…

Above all, it is a sexless voice. Not, I hasten to add, a “gay” voice. Not that at all. It is neither that gentle nor that musical. Nor is it that old shabby lisping stereotype best consigned to the dustbin of popular culture. No, this is a new old voice of a generation of ostensible men and women who have been educated and acculturated out of, or say rather, to the far side of any gender at all. It is, as I have indicated above, the voice of the neutered. And in this I mean that of the transitive verb: To castrate or spay. The voice and the kids that carry it is the triumphant achievement of our halls of secondary and higher education. These children did not speak this way naturally, they were taught. And like good children seeking only to please their teachers and then their employers, they learned.

This is not to say that the new American Castrati of all genders live sexless lives. On the contrary, if reports are to be credited, they seem to have a good deal of sex, most often without the burden of love or the threat of chlldren, and in this they are condemned to the sex life of children.

No, it is only to say that this new voice that we hear throughout the land from so many of the young betokens a weaker and less certain brand of citizen than we have been used to in our history. Neither male nor female, neither gay nor straight, neither…. well, not anything substantive really. A generation finely tuned to irony and nothingness and tone deaf to duty and soul.

If you have never heard Hugh Hewitt flay a Lefty in one of his well prepared, fast paced, and courtroom like interviews, it is a treat and I recall the referenced one well; but though Vanderleun’s piece was beautifully written and insightful, the whole impetus behind this post was his link at the end to:

“The Pathetic Last Children of Nietzsche’s Pitiable Last Men,” by “Gagdad Bob” at the “One Cosmos” blog. Here in the metaphor of the decade, he compares the current American political system (since the ’60s) to a dysfunctional family, with the Mommy on the Left and the Daddy on the Right:

…One way of looking at it is that we are seeing a collapse of the covenant between mother and father as represented in the previous maternal/paternal two-party system. It is as if we are children living in a home where mother and father no longer get along and are bickering constantly. In fact, that is probably putting it too mildly, because the current situation has gone beyond mere arguing, to the point that the masculine and feminine spheres are no longer communicating at all and are going through a very messy and acrimonious divorce. Both sides are “lawyered up” and ready to go for the throat.

I believe we may trace this divorce to the 1960’s, when mother government started to become so all powerful that there was almost no role for father. Of course, this began to change in the 1980’s, when father began reasserting himself because of the cultural, political and economic chaos that hit bottom in Jimmy Carter’s gynocracy, but by then, something else had happened. That is, the age old distinctions between mother and father and adult and child had begun to attenuate, leaving many people confused about their primordial identity.

Then he discusses how we are crippling our children. Not just by confusing their gender identities, but by blurring the distinction between adults and children:

The other main psychological mutation that occurred beginning with the 1960’s was the eradication of the differences between adult and child. Up until then, there was a clear difference between the spheres of adult and child, and everyone knew it. When I was growing up in the 60’s, I had my interests and my parents had theirs’, and there was relatively little intersection between the two–for example, baseball with my father. But we dressed differently, listened to different kinds of music, enjoyed different activities, read different literature, liked different movies, etc. I knew that I wasn’t an adult or a man but that some day I would have to become one–someone like my father, who worked hard, didn’t whine, had honor and a sense of duty, and had feelings but didn’t necessarily give them much weight.

But that has all changed now. Here again it is critical to point out that there is nothing at all wrong with an adult maintaining contact with the child part of himself. In fact, doing so is vital for creativity, spontaneity and play. However, as in the blending of male and female, the problem arises when the differences between adult and child are obliterated, which creates a hybrid monster that is neither adult nor child but both at the same time. This affects both adults and children, for our society has become a plague of adult children and childish adults–that is, prematurely sexualized children who are burdened with all kinds of inappropriate concerns, and childish adults who psychologically do not grow beyond the age of 21 or so, and never enter the realm of the truly adult.

There was this profound and insightful paragraph:

The modern conservative movement is not just trying to preserve the traditional male element, but the traditional separation of the various spheres in general–civilized vs. barbaric, animal vs, human, adult vs. child–while the Democratic party is the party of mannish women (e.g., Hillary Clinton, Gloria Allred), feminized men (e.g., Bill Clinton, John Kerry, Al Gore), adult children (Howard Dean, John Edwards, Ted Kennedy, Joe Biden, et al), and even animal humans (PETA members who believe that killing six million chickens is morally indistinguishable from murdering six million Jews, radical environmentalists, etc.). And it is almost impossible to engage in rational debate with the adult child, who has the cynicism of a world-weary grown up but the wisdom of a child, or with the male-female hybrid, who possesses an emotionalized reason that is easily hijacked by the passions. This is not so much a disagreement between the content of thought as its very form.

Another, discussing the book, “Wimps and Barbarians,” by Terrence O. Moore:

Moore ties the phenomenon of wimps and barbarians directly to the culture of divorce and the absence of male role models in boys’ lives. “Half of American boys growing up do not live with their natural fathers. The sons of single mothers lack strong men to usher them into the world of responsible, adult manhood. Divorce, whether in reality or in the acrimonious rhetoric of the mother, impresses upon the boy an image of the father, and therefore of all men, as being irresponsible, deceitful, immature, and often hateful or abusive towards women. For sons, the divided loyalties occasioned by divorce actually create profound doubts about their own masculinity. As the boy approaches manhood, he is plagued by subconscious questions which have no immediate resolution: ‘Will I be like Dad?’ ‘Do I want to be like Dad?’ ‘What is a man supposed to do?’”

Now that I know it exists, I would have hated to miss this article. The comment section was good too. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in the changes taking place in our culture and political system. I am that much the wiser for having read it. Bless the internet and the blogosphere. ◄Dave►

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Update: 11/26/08  I suscribed to the RSS of the American Digest Blog after visiting yesterday, and lo today he reposted his “Voice of Neuter” post of 2006, which I referenced in response to VDH’s post above. ◄Dave►

Don’t miss Victor Davis Hanson’s “Ten Random, Politically Incorrect Thoughts.” They are all profound; number six I hadn’t thought of; and number ten speaks of our doom:

10. The K-12 public education system is essentially wrecked. No longer can any professor expect an incoming college freshman to know what Okinawa, John Quincy Adams, Shiloh, the Parthenon, the Reformation, John Locke, the Second Amendment, or the Pythagorean Theorem is. An entire American culture, the West itself, its ideas and experiences, have simply vanished on the altar of therapy. This upcoming generation knows instead not to judge anyone by absolute standards (but not why so); to remember to say that its own Western culture is no different from, or indeed far worse than, the alternatives; that race, class, and gender are, well, important in some vague sense; that global warming is manmade and very soon will kill us all; that we must have hope and change of some undefined sort; that AIDs is no more a homosexual- than a heterosexual-prone disease; and that the following things and people for some reason must be bad, or at least must in public company be said to be bad (in no particular order): Wal-Mart, cowboys, the Vietnam War, oil companies, coal plants, nuclear power, George Bush, chemicals, leather, guns, states like Utah and Kansas, Sarah Palin, vans and SUVs.

How do we possibly recover from this? In due course these ignorant kids will have to take over the reins. As an old man, I am finding myself more and more disinterested in worrying about our posterity… Western culture is already relegated to history… which at the rate it is going, their kids won’t even be allowed to read, much less understand their loss. ◄Dave►

We have been discussing the inevitable necessity of secession lately hereabouts. A Drudge Flash offer’s a Russian political analyst’s view of the mess we are in, and discusses his prediction that we will break up as a country. Since it is not a permalink, here is the whole Flash:

RUSSIAN ANALYST PREDICTS DECLINE AND BREAKUP OF USA
Tue Nov 25 2008 09:04:22 ET

A leading Russian political analyst has said the economic turmoil in the United States has confirmed his long-held view that the country is heading for collapse, and will divide into separate parts.

Professor Igor Panarin said in an interview with the respected daily IZVESTIA published on Monday: “The dollar is not secured by anything. The country’s foreign debt has grown like an avalanche, even though in the early 1980s there was no debt. By 1998, when I first made my prediction, it had exceeded $2 trillion. Now it is more than 11 trillion. This is a pyramid that can only collapse.”

The paper said Panarin’s dire predictions for the U.S. economy, initially made at an international conference in Australia 10 years ago at a time when the economy appeared strong, have been given more credence by this year’s events.

When asked when the U.S. economy would collapse, Panarin said: “It is already collapsing. Due to the financial crisis, three of the largest and oldest five banks on Wall Street have already ceased to exist, and two are barely surviving. Their losses are the biggest in history. Now what we will see is a change in the regulatory system on a global financial scale: America will no longer be the world’s financial regulator.”

When asked who would replace the U.S. in regulating world markets, he said: “Two countries could assume this role: China, with its vast reserves, and Russia, which could play the role of a regulator in Eurasia.”

Asked why he expected the U.S. to break up into separate parts, he said: “A whole range of reasons. Firstly, the financial problems in the U.S. will get worse. Millions of citizens there have lost their savings. Prices and unemployment are on the rise. General Motors and Ford are on the verge of collapse, and this means that whole cities will be left without work. Governors are already insistently demanding money from the federal center. Dissatisfaction is growing, and at the moment it is only being held back by the elections and the hope that Obama can work miracles. But by spring, it will be clear that there are no miracles.”

He also cited the “vulnerable political setup”, “lack of unified national laws”, and “divisions among the elite, which have become clear in these crisis conditions.”

He predicted that the U.S. will break up into six parts – the Pacific coast, with its growing Chinese population; the South, with its Hispanics; Texas, where independence movements are on the rise; the Atlantic coast, with its distinct and separate mentality; five of the poorer central states with their large Native American populations; and the northern states, where the influence from Canada is strong.

He even suggested that “we could claim Alaska – it was only granted on lease, after all.” Panarin, 60, is a professor at the Diplomatic Academy of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and has authored several books on information warfare.

Developing…

Wow, he saw this coming ten years ago? It is hard not to wonder if Russia has been surreptitiously doing to us what Reagan did to them… actively nudge their economy into national bankruptcy. I can’t find much fault with Panarin’s analysis; can you? ◄Dave►

From the IowaHawk, “Obama Names Bill Clinton to Presidential Post“:

Clinton said he was “excited and honored” by the appointment, and would work “day and night” to defeat all the key policy objectives proposed by Mr. Obama during the campaign.

“I am gratified that the President-Elect has entrusted me with this important responsibility,” said Clinton. “I’m looking forward to getting back behind, and under, the Oval Office desk again. As I have told the President-Elect, I pledge to do whatever I can to serve his historic administration by making sure that none of that bullshit he talked about during the campaign will ever see the light of day. Americans can rest assured that he will be safely confined to the East Wing, as far away as possible from any potentially dangerous office equipment or nuclear buttons.”

It gets better. ◄Dave►

A slow-paced discussion has been going on in a comment section that deserves a wider audience. Tom recently said:

Thank you for your comments. My mind is still swimming. I have thoughtfully read your comments twice–at least–at different sittings, as well as Troy’s Secession piece along with the comments that followed. I am very impressed by the clearly written expressions of passion and conviction and the depth and quantity of thought and detail. I have some thoughts to express aloud.

As an American citizen, I share much anger and frustration. On the other hand, I do not believe there can exist a political utopia, whether the embedded economic system is capitalistic or socialistic, or a blend of both. Because human beings are imperfect creatures, all governments, institutions, and professions will have elements of corruption and incompetence: and if these pockets of corruption and incompetence are unattended, they can erode and\or destroy a government, an institution, or a profession. Along with many others, I also think that human beings are animals capable of reason and that human beings are also social animals who thrive best by forming social contracts, that is, systems of agreements with commitments, rights and responsibilities, although the social contracts (including the Constitution) may be imperfect ones. As time moves and flaws in the social contract become apparent and new problems develop, the parties involved in the social contract must make choices to correct present and potential problems. In such a process, I think that intelligent, honest, sincere, and competent men and women will sometimes make mistakes, though they act with good intentions. And I also think that all complex problems are not immediately solvable and that some problems cannot be solved at all. When “corrections or “perceived corrections” are made, there well may be some negative, unintended consequences. Consequently, adjustments will be needed. So the cycle continues and more imperfect representatatives in a constitutional repubic will attempt to solve complex problems. So it goes.

So, for me, given the imperfections of human nature and American strengths balanced against America’s weaknesses (democracy’s flaws, capitalism’s flaws), I think that living in America and accepting my rights and responsibilities (as I understand them in the context of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and its Amendments, and The Gettysburg Address (especially a government of, and by, and for the people) is the best choice for me at this time and place, my here and now. And I am thankful that I can freely discuss and write about this free choice to live in America, while at the same time honoring and respecting those who think and choose differently.

A closing note: I believe that Freedom is not an absolute and that Freedom is not free. My freedom–my ability to make important and significant political, economic, and personal choices in a personally secure and comfortable environment–is deeply rooted in the risks and the sacrifices that many Americans have made through the years in order to make and preserve the identity of the United States. I am humbled at the thought.

That was an excellent summation of your reaction to what you are encountering here, Tom. When one first becomes exposed to some of the history of what America once was, and the perversion of it that has taken place, one’s mind and worldview do indeed swim in a sea of confusion and mixed emotions.

For what it is worth, Troy and I experienced this awakening years ago, long before we met online. We spent the last year together elsewhere, almost daily kicking around proactive ideas about how to awaken the American people to what had happened; and what was coming, if we did not return to our founding principles before it was too late. In between, it is probably fair to say that we went through the stage of pragmatic compromise with the modern Robin Hoods, which you find yourself presently in.

We are now, to be sure, inflexible proponents of individual sovereignty, who will never accept the status of serf or the chains of a slave, be they attempted by a tyrant or a committee of the vox populi. We have watched with trepidation the brewing of this perfect storm. Converging forces of corrupted national politics, unsustainable debt, phony environmentalism, expanding corporatism, globalist geopolitics, Islamic jihad, illegal immigration, the monetary malfeasance of the financial world, and the abdication of their adversarial duty by the fourth estate, were there for all to see; but few bothered to connect the dots. Believing in the essential character of the American people, Troy, I, and countless others did all we knew how to warn them.

Alas, as old men from the heartland, we discounted the efficacy of the emoting academics and their sycophant media, feverishly emasculating the minds of metropolitan voters; thereby robbing them of their birthright as free, self-sufficient, and self-reliant Americans. The indomitable character of the typical countryman of our youth, has simply vanished in our lifetimes.  Now, the results of our recent election provide the final ingredient to that perfect cauldron, and with utter dismay we watch helplessly as the maelstrom comes crashing on our shores.

You appear to subscribe to the swinging pendulum theory, which would keep America essentially centered as we tack back and forth in our endeavors to make more perfect our Union. I and others had a brief moment of hope back in early ’94, when a cadre of young libertarian thinking Republicans made a “Contract With America” to win their votes. Sadly, it only took a distressingly short time for them to be utterly corrupted by the environment in DC, and the pendulum has been stuck on the Left ever since.

For all the hateful rhetoric from the Left over the past eight years, the Bush administration has basically been a Progressive one. For all the epithets from Leftists toward “neocons,” people forget that these characters were Wilsonian Progressives who got fed up with the pacifists who had hijacked the Democratic Party; so they deliberately sought to hijack the Republican Party for their New World Order agenda.

With the singular exception of his Jacksonian reaction to 9/11, Bush has allowed these Wilsonian neoconservatives to govern entirely from the Left. “No Child Left Behind,” “Medicare Drugs,” “Amnesty for Illegals,” “Mexamericanada” (SPP) et al, are not conservative ideas. Neither is massive deficit spending or corporate bailouts. He signed all the pork barrel spending bills that allowed Congress to pander to their voters, to maintain the status quo of incumbency. Bush is not a conservative ideologue or even a libertarian, he is a Pragmatist.

Even his personal choice for the Supreme Court was uninspiring, and it took a massive revolt by his own constituency to get him to appoint a couple of strict constructionists. The simple truth is, Kennedy’s administration was well to the Right of Bush’s, and to a lesser extent, so was Clinton’s. Were he a Democrat, all but the twitchy Jeffersonians among them would be singing his praises. As a Republican, almost nobody is, and to call his tenure in office a period of conservatism, is just silly.

You allude to flaws in our original social contract, and I will acknowledge a few; the pragmatic accommodation of the slave trade, chief among them. Our nation eventually paid dearly for that; but the changes enacted in 1913 were not corrections, they were perversions. If I could erase a single year in our history, that would be the year.

From my and countless others’ perspective, the pendulum never even got back to the center, much less to the Right, and it just took another hard swing Leftward. Nothing I see on the horizon is likely to correct that, and this rapidly approaching perfect storm will be unthinkably devastating and not abate anytime soon. The Progressives who are now in total control of the reins, will undoubtedly repeat FDR’s mistakes, which so unnecessarily delayed our recovery from the last depression.

Please forgive us for abandoning all hope of reason alone effecting the necessary political adjustments to weather it comfortably. Reason is in short supply in America these days; feelings, whim, and the crippling “entitlement” mindset are in ascendancy. The powers that be, even if smart enough to know better, are going to have to dance with the the folks who empower them; and to the tune they played as the piper, however discordant to a rational ear.

Thus, we reckon that nothing short of hitting the reset button, and rebooting an uncorrupted copy of our original Constitution, is going to get the system back to operating smoothly and efficiently in an atmosphere of laissez faire capitalism, with honest currency, for the true benefit of all Americans – whether they are too mind-numbed to understand it or not. If that requires abandoning the metro-academics to pillage and plunder each other in their Marxist inspired ghettos, while the producers in Flyover Country cast off their chains and start afresh, C’est la vie. ◄Dave►

Today is Victory in Iraq (VI) Day. As a Vietnam Era veteran myself, I share wholeheartedly in the sentiments expressed here in reaction to the suggestion expressed here. Well done, men. Carry on… ◄Dave►

This is intriguing. Some clowns from a local radio station in Detroit (WFRI) called Kenya on a lark after Obama’s election, to congratulate them on becoming the 51st. State. They managed to have a long conversation with their ambassador to the U.S. The 20 min audio clip of it is available here, and I was somewhat surprised to learn that Kenya had established the following day as a National Holiday to allow their citizens to celebrate Obama’s election.

Then, 12 ½ minutes into it, one of the radio clowns jokingly asked if Kenya was going to errect a monument at Barak’s place of birth there. His Excellency didn’t take it as a joke at all, and said that an actual monument would be up to the government; but explained that it was already celebrated as a well known local landmark and remarked that Obama’ paternal grandmother was still alive.

I see no legal ramifications here; but the fact that the ambassador seems to unquestioningly believe – and openly discusses – that Obama was born in Kenya is curious, to say the least. They seem to be taking more celebatory pride in a native son’s accomplishments than Hawaii is… ◄Dave►

An ethanol drenched IowaHawk classic. Enjoy. ◄Dave►

This story continues to be ignored by the MSM; but World Net Daily is reporting that the Supreme Court, on Dec 5th, will be discussing the New Jersey version of the multitude of court cases around the country, regarding Obama’s refusal to prove he is a natural born citizen:

If four of the nine justices vote to hear the case in full, oral argument may be scheduled.

The action questions whether any of the three candidates is qualified under the U.S. Constitution’s requirement that a president be a “natural-born citizen.”

Given media apathy regarding this matter, I am losing confidence that any court is going to do anything. It appears that there is no legal mechanism for skeptical voters to ascertain a candidate’s qualifications for office; so I guess that if a majority wishes to ignore the Constitutional requirements, nothing will be done about it. ◄Dave►

Most of my blog activity today has been in an interesting discussion in the comment section of Orrin’s “First Principles” blog, in a post entitled, “Principles, Presumptions, and Bailouts.”

I also continued to comment on the E3Gazette blog, in the post entitled, “Pournelle: Republican Principles or Democrats Light?” ◄Dave►

This is why I dearly love debating and intellectual discussion on the internet. I learn so much in the process; and it keeps me from wasting too much time consuming repetitive news and commentary on current events, which are generally insignificant in the larger scheme of things. We have been kicking the subject of federalism around in a comment section over at E3Gazette. One of the participants said this:

Dave, immigration is specifically a matter for the national government. The Constitution gives Congress that power, exclusively as of 1808.

Since that did not resonate with my understanding of the matter, I asked Google what he was getting at. This led me to a marvelous resource named The Federalist Blog, which is just begging to be explored further by me. Specifically, I was directed to an eye-opening essay of considerable length entitled, “The US Constitution Only Delegates the Power Over Immigration or Asylum to the States,” originally posted two years ago. Reading the comment section, it appears to be a collaborative effort that was just updated again last month.

I promise that anyone confused over our Federalism and the matter of the sovereignty of our individual States, will lose some of the scales from their eyes by starting at the beginning of the entire fascinating read. It seems that for at least the first half of our nation’s existence, it was undisputed that all matters of immigration were handled by the States, not the Feds. The Feds could set the rules for “naturalization,” which is applying to become a U.S. Citizen after a period of residency in a State; but the States regulated for themselves who they allowed to become a resident or Citizen of their State. The above assertion on E3 is easily refuted with this passage:

The same Congress that had passed reconstruction acts after the civil war, including the 14th amendment, required rebel State Constitutions to conform to the US Constitution before being re-admitted into the Union. Texas, like other States, had elected to form its own immigration bureau for managing immigration within State limits. Article XI of the pre-approved Texas Constitution of 1869 read:

SECTION I. There shall be a Bureau, known as the “Bureau of Immigration,” which shall have supervision and control of all matters connected with immigration. The head of this Bureau shall be styled the “Superintendent of Immigration.” He shall be appointed by the Governor, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. He shall hold his office for four years, and until otherwise fixed by law, shall receive an annual compensation of two thousand dollars. He shall have such further powers and duties, connected with immigration, as may be given by law.

Most all the States had their own “immigration commissioners” in a number of European countries before and after the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, seeking to encourage those persons who possessed certain needed skills to immigrate to their State…

Thus, States certainly did regulate their own immigration matters at least beyond 1869. Then, near the end, one will encounter:

Congress has no option of resorting to the already comically abused commerce clause in exercising any authority over aliens within the States as evidenced by the courts shift over the years in claiming national sovereignty gives them authority.

Early cases involving the landing of immigrants dealt with various tax schemes against ship owners or immigrants themselves, were ultimately ruled an unconstitutional intrusion with the regulation of foreign commerce. The logic the court used in these decisions was frail and weak, and consequently the rulings were wholly void of facts to support the majority opinion.

The reason the regulation of foreign commerce was inserted in the Constitution was to enable Congress to protect its primary source of revenue (imports) by denying to the States the power of imposing their own tariffs on foreign imports. On the other hand, the regulation of commerce between the States served no purpose on behalf of Congress but only served to protect the States against each other (one State imposing tariffs on another State to give the infringing States own commerce an advantage price wise.)

The is why James Madison said the the regulation of commerce among the States was not a “power to be used for the positive purposes of the General Government.”

The history of the regulation of commerce in this country demonstrates it had nothing to with the power of taxing but with protecting American industry through protective tariffs on articles of trade. This is why there are separate provisions found in the Constitution for generating revenue through taxes and not through the regulation of commerce.

Under Article 1, section 9 we find these words: “The migration or importation of such persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the year 1808, but a tax or duty may be imposed on such importations not exceeding ten dollars for each person.”

Why was this inserted into the Constitution if immigration was, in the words of the court, an incident to the “sovereign powers delegated by the constitution”? It was inserted because there was no sovereignty invested in Congress over the voluntary or involuntary migration of slaves, and also, it was doubtful whether Congress could impose a tax to prevent such importation as it wouldn’t be an impost.

It was never disputed the clause only acted as a limitation and not as a recognition of a broad hidden power.

There was nothing the court could find in the Constitution to justify their ruling that a State imposed tax on immigrants or the ships carrying them had anything remotely to do with the regulation of commerce. And the court would had been just as foolish to argue such a tax was a tax on imports or tonnage when Congress never before attempted to impose a tax penalty on people entering a State from anywhere. Only States did such a thing since the authority was exclusively retained by them to do so.

What is significant with this commerce discussion is that current judicial thinking in regards to federal immigration powers is substantially founded on commerce clause holdings.

Consequently, early waves of immigrants into this country were not the result of any acts of Congress or any State, but acts of the United States Supreme Court in denying the States the right to penalize the commercial importation of immigrants by commercial passenger companies for profit.

As one might suspect, Congress has no constitutional authority to issue green cards to immigrants either. The States are the only authoritative entities that can issue green cards and offer residency within their limits. In a sense, there really is no such thing as a “legal immigrant” as a result of acts of Congress because Congress has no legal basis to make anyone a legal resident within the States – only the States do. Some might be alarmed to think the Federal Government could have no control over who enters or resides within a State, but really if our Constitution upheld and the principles of our republican form of government is followed, current problems associated with absorbing millions of immigrants would be limited.

Consider for a moment if California decided she wanted to have an open border policy, encourage and welcome millions of immigrants from Latin America to immigrate. California could then issue resident cards, make rules and regulations governing its foreign population, and most importantly, be stuck with all the costs because the Federal Government really would have no authority to raise and spend tax dollars to support California’s foreign population (another non-delegated power). Wouldn’t take long for Californians to begin questioning whether an open border is a good thing.

Consider also California would have no way of relieving itself of its own internal generated burden because other States could constitutionally refuse non-citizens from residing within their limits, making it harder for California’s self-inflicted woes to migrate to other States. California would then be forced to withdraw the privilege of residency to foreign immigrants within the State – forcing the State to enact responsible laws governing foreign residency.

Congress then could apply checks upon California through naturalization rules, such as limiting the number of citizens to be naturalized and other conditions. Our form of government really would work well for us if Congress and the courts would let it work as intended under the great social compact in which established our republican form of government.

Utterly fascinating. Thus, I reckon that I can now go back to E3Gazette and report that the comment that sent me on this quest, has it exactly backwards! ◄Dave►

Orrin over at First Principles has a very comprehensive piece on the looming piracy issue. He makes a good point:

The proper role of government can be understood as an umbrella.  In order to maximize individual freedom, the government must protect us from other individuals who might wish to curtail that freedom.  This is how being tough on crime and having a strong national defense are conservative in the tradition of protecting individual liberties.  (While the proper balance is admittedly never easy to strike, liberals and many libertarians tend to ignore completely the freedom-enhancing value of being able to live your life free from fear of crime or death-by-terrorist, as if government were the only entity capable of restricting your freedom.)

No where does this principle apply more than with protecting commerce from direct, physical attack.

Imagine I make a product, and want to sell it across town to my friend who wants to buy it.  He needs my product in his business, I need his money to grow my own business (and get a sweet car).  But if I am attacked and lose my product every time I try to transport it to my friend, my production becomes pointless, and my profit is lost.  In those circumstances, can I truly be said to be free to pursue my rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness?  Not in the least.  I starve, or am reduced to subsistence.  Same with him.

In a global economy, international piracy works to strangle freedom and liberty in exactly the same way.  It is a scourge to our most fundamental rights.

Undermining these economic liberties is far more dangerous than limiting the growth of some CEO’s retirement fund.  It is a direct threat to our civilization.

Agreed. That is why this libertarian accepts the notion of limited government and is not quite an anarchist. I recommend the article and his prescription for a solution. I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for Obama to act decisively, however. He and his handlers are pretty invested in diplomacy, and it just wouldn’t do for him to come out swinging. We will have to wait to see whether he is an appeaser. I suspect he will be. ◄Dave►

We all use “Drink the Kool-Aid” as an idiom for fanaticism. Chances are that most under forty have no idea how the phrase originated. Of those who do, most have probably bought the narrative that several hundred brainwashed cult followers of a Messianic religious fanatic, committed mass suicide by drinking cyanide-laced Kool-Aid at their Christian commune in Jonestown, Guyana. The famous event happened thirty years ago yesterday, it was Flavor-Aid, not Kool-Aid, and Jim Jones was anything but a religious fanatic.

He was an openly avowed Marxist atheist, who preached Marxism from the pulpit of his “Peoples Temple.” I just refreshed my memory of the time with an excellent article by Dan Flynn, author of “Intellectual Morons” and “Why The Left Hates America.”:

Jim Jones was an evangelical communist who became a minister to infiltrate the church with the gospel according to Marx and Lenin. He was an atheist missionary bringing his message of socialist redemption to the Christian heathen. “I decided, how can I demonstrate my Marxism?,” remembered Jones of his days in 1950s Indiana. “The thought was, infiltrate the church.” So in the forms of Pentecostal ritual, Jones smuggled socialism into the minds of true believers–who gradually became true believers of a different sort. Unless one counts his drug-induced bouts with self-messianism, Jones didn’t believe in God. Get it–a Peoples Temple. He shocked his parishioners, many of whom certainly did believe in God, by dramatically tossing the Bible onto the ground during a sermon. “Nobody’s going to come out of the sky!,” an excited Jones had once informed his flock. “There’s no heaven up there! We’ll have to have heaven down here!” Like so many efforts to usher in the millenium before it, Jones’s Guyanese road to heaven on earth detoured to a hotter afterlife destination.

Reading the article, which covers Jones’ esteem and influential relationship with the politicians and press from his base in San Francisco, was chilling. I couldn’t help thinking about Chicago, Obama, his Marxist church, his Marxist revolutionary associates all his life, and the way today’s even more Leftist press continues to excuse and spike unfavorable reports about the history of “The One.” Then I think of all the tight shots of enraptured listeners in the crowds he was mesmerizing with his hollow hopenchange sermons. These are not comforting thoughts. ◄Dave►

Who deserves the dubious award for this achievement:

Survey finds most Obama voters remembered negative coverage of McCain/Palin statements but struggled to correctly answer questions about coverage associated with Obama/Biden

UTICA, New York — Just 2% of voters who supported Barack Obama on Election Day obtained perfect or near-perfect scores on a post election test which gauged their knowledge of statements and scandals associated with the presidential tickets during the campaign, a new Zogby International telephone poll shows.

Only 54% of Obama voters were able to answer at least half or more of the questions correctly.

The 12-question, multiple-choice survey found questions regarding statements linked to Republican presidential candidate John McCain and his vice-presidential running-mate Sarah Palin were far more likely to be answered correctly by Obama voters than questions about statements associated with Obama and Vice-President–Elect Joe Biden.

…

When asked which candidate said they could “see Russia from their house,” 87% chose Palin, although the quote actually is attributed to Saturday Night Live’s Tina Fey during her portrayal of Palin during the campaign. An answer of “none” or “Palin” was counted as a correct answer on the test, given that the statement was associated with a characterization of Palin.

…

In addition to questions regarding statements and scandals associated with the campaigns, the 12-question, multiple-choice survey also included a question asking which political party controlled both houses of Congress leading up to the election — 57% of Obama voters were unable to correctly answer that Democrats controlled both the House and the Senate.

…the MSM or our Public School teachers? The “view of Russia” question is particularly galling; because not that many people watch SNL, and I heard it attributed to Palin by Democrat pundits repeatedly. I’ll say it again… there ought to be a minimum competency test required before allowing sheeple to vote. ◄Dave►