Index for posts concerning Constitutional Law

Dear Girl sitting in front of me eating dates and knitting pt 2 by Bear
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A journey into the political ideas of Distinguished Bean… (Compare/Contrast with the Congressman from Texas) by Distinguished Bean
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America’s Two-Party System: Going 90 Miles an Hour down a Dead End Street by Distinguished Bean
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Amendment 48: Another Crack at Banning Abortion by Darth B'strad
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Another Obama Post! by Darth B'strad
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The Courts in CA have just changed something for the first time in history! by Darth B'strad
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Prager Says that McCain is Disqualified for President by Darth B'strad
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Commander and Chef: Nancy Pelosi by Darth B'strad
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Dear Girl sitting in front of me eating dates and knitting pt 2

Posted on April 22nd, 2009 by Bear.
Categories: Death Penalty, Ethics, Abortion, Constitutional Law, Terrorism, Philosophy, Republicans, Parental Advisory.

Wale is not a delicious meat. You shouldn’t eat it, because most people would consider that cannibalism due to the fact that you’re fucking huge. It’d be like me saying “Yeah, they don’t have laws in Japan about peopling, but I understand because people are delicious.”
Wales are awesome. You’re not.
Fuck you,
Sam

5 comments.

A journey into the political ideas of Distinguished Bean… (Compare/Contrast with the Congressman from Texas)

Posted on January 17th, 2009 by Distinguished Bean.
Categories: Political, Abortion, War, Law, Constitutional Law, Terrorism, education, Economics.

When i began to develop politically, morally, and economically, i took on specific views on most of the issues spanning the political spectrum of today. I began to take stances and apply my own intellect onto the issues, however, something was weird. I was raised old fashioned Republican and thought it was faultless, however, when i began my journey i began to contradict myself and confuse my past. My views didn’t fit one political party, let alone a single frame of thought. I suddenly realized that there was a party out there that, for the most part, was saying what i was thinking. However, even then, i felt very confused. Suddenly i read and studied the history and ideas of the 10 term congressman Ron Paul from Texas. I was absolutely amazed on how much i lined up with his political thoughts. I truly and honestly believe that if people could step past party boundaries, politicians like him, who actually thought ‘outside the box’ , would have a chance at positively influencing the country. I have recently read his book Revolution: A Manifesto. I felt like he did an incredible job of covering the issues pressing our nation today, so i have decided to post brief summaries that i found on the site http://www.ontheissues.org/Revolution_Manifesto.htm, that sum up his views and political thought.

Abortion is murder
A popular academic argument for abortion demands that we think of the child in the womb as a parasite.but the same argument justifies infanticide, since it applies just as well to an infant outside the womb.newborns require even more attention & care.

People ask an expectant mother how her baby is doing. They do not ask how her fetus is doing, or her blob of tissue, or her parasite. But that is what her baby becomes as soon as the child is declared to be unwanted.
Source: The Revolution: A Manifesto, by Ron Paul, p. 59-60 Apr 1, 2008

Roe v. Wade decision was harmful to the Constitution
The federal government should not play any role in the abortion issue, according to the Constitution. Apart from waiting forever for Supreme Court justices who rule in accordance with the Constitution, Americans do have some legislative recourse. Article III, Section 2 of the Constitution gives Congress the power to strip the federal courts of jurisdiction over a broad categories of cases.

Wasteful government spending backed by both parties
Truth is treason in the empire of lies. There is an alternative to national bankruptcy, a bigger police state, trillion dollar wars, and a government that draws ever more parasitically on the productive energies of the American people. It’s called freedom.

School prayer is not a federal issue
[Limits on Constitutional authority] holds true for issues like prayer in schools. Such issues were never meant to be decided by federal judges. The whole point of the American Revolution was to vindicate the principle of local self government.
Source: The Revolution: A Manifesto, by Ron Paul, p. 61 Apr 1, 2008

Private funds for arts work better than government funds
Some Americans appear to believe that there would be no arts in America were it not for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). While the government requested $121 million for the NEA in 2006, private donations to the arts totaled $2.5 billion that year, dwarfing the NEA budget. NEA funds go not necessarily to the best artists, but to people who happen to be good at filling out government grant applications. I have my doubts that the same people populate both categories.

Free trade agreements threaten national sovereignty
I opposed both the North American Free Trade Agreement and the World Trade Organization, both of which were heavily favored by the political establishment. Many supporters of the free trade market supported these agreements. Nearly six decades ago when the International Trade Organization was up for debate, conservatives and libertarians agreed that supranational trade bureaucracies with the power to infringe upon American sovereignty were undesirable.

The “living Constitution” is the death of democracy
A living Constitution is just the thing any government would be delighted to have, for whenever people complain that their constitution has been violated, the government can trot out its judges to inform the people that they’ve simply misunderstood: the Constitution, you see, has merely evolved with the times.

Those who would give us a ‘living’ constitution are actually giving us a dead constitution, since such a thing is completely unable to protect us against encroachments of government power.

Replace Medicaid with volunteer pro-bono medical care
In the days before Medicare and Medicaid, the poor and elderly were admitted to hospitals at the same rate they are now, and received good care. Before those programs came into existence, every physician understood that he or she had a responsibility towards the less fortunate and free medical care was the norm. Hardly anyone is aware of this today, since it doesn’t fit into the typical, by the script story of government rescuing us from a predatory private sector.
Source: The Revolution: A Manifesto, by Ron Paul, p. 84 Apr 1, 2008

Private medical savings accounts, not government meddling
The most obvious way to break this cycle is to get the government out of the business of meddling in health care, which was far more affordable and accessible before government got involved. Short of that, and more politically feasible in the immediate run, is to allow consumers and their doctors to pull themselves out of the system through medical savings accounts.
Source: The Revolution: A Manifesto, by Ron Paul, p. 89 Apr 1, 2008

Conscription is unconstitutional–including National Service
Nowhere in the Constitution is the federal government given the power to conscript citizens. The power to raise armies is not a power to force people into the armies.

Lesser forms of the draft, such as compulsory “national service” are based on the sam unacceptable premise. Young people are not raw material to be employed by the political class on behalf of whatever fashionable political, military, or social cause catches its fancy. In a free society, their lives are not the plaything of government.

Contract with America was a toothless cop out
The Republican leadership urged these freshmen congressmen to focus on a toothless, soporific agenda called the Contract with America that was boldly touted as a major overhaul of the federal government. Nothing could have been further from the truth. The Brookings Institution in effect said that if this is what conservatives consider revolutionary, they have conceded defeat.
Source: The Revolution: A Manifesto, by Ron Paul, p. 3 Apr 1, 2008

11/5/07: Set fundraising record of $4 million in single day
I was a reluctant candidate, not at all convinced that a sizable enough national constituency existed for a campaign based on liberty and the Constitution rather than on special interest pandering and the distribution of loot. Was I ever wrong.

On November 5, 2007, we set a record when we raised over $4 million online in a single day. Not only is the freedom message popular, it is more intensely popular than any other political message.

Terrorism is just like any other murder: you look for motive
People were bound to start wondering eventually, why we were attacked? Not because they sought to excuse the attackers, but out of natural curiosity regarding what made these men tick. Looking for motive is not the same thing as making excuses; detectives always look for motive behind crime, but no one thinks they are looking to excuse murder.
Source: The Revolution: A Manifesto, by Ron Paul, p. 15 Apr 1, 2008

War in Iraq was senseless invasion of sovereign state
The war in Iraq was one of the most ill considered, poorly planned and just plain unnecessary military conflicts in American history.and I opposed it from the beginning.
Source: The Revolution: A Manifesto, by Ron Paul, p. 21 Apr 1, 2008

Mandate declaration of war before military aggression
In 2002, as war with Iraq loomed, I proposed that Congress officially declare war against Iraq, making it clear that I intended to oppose my own measure. The point was to underscore our constitutional responsibility to declare war before commencing major military operations, rather than leaving the decision to the President or passing resolutions that delegate to the president the decision making power over war.

And finally, due to the recent heat of the conflict in Israel/Palestine, i have found an excerpt from a speech he made concerning the conflict.

“collective punishment” against Palestinians is immoral.

“Many innocent children are among the dead. While the shooting of rockets into Israel is inexcusable, the violent actions of some people in Gaza does not justify killing Palestinians on this scale,” said the outspoken Republican.

Israel launched Operation Cast Lead on December 27 against Gaza to put an end to rocket attacks launched from the coastal enclave.

At least 888 Palestinians have been killed during the Israeli operation, while some 3,700 others are reported wounded. At least 10 Israeli soldiers have died in the now 16-day onslaught.

Hamas, the democratically-elected ruler of the impoverished strip, demands a cessation of an 18-month Israeli blockade on Gaza before it stops rocket attacks on Israel.

The US Congress endorsed a resolution Friday to support Israel in its offensive in Gaza, “recognizing Israel’s right to defend itself against attacks from Gaza.”

Congressman Paul, however, says the resolution “clearly takes one side in a conflict that has nothing to do with the United States or US interests.”

“At the very least, the U.S. Congress should not be loudly proclaiming its support for the Israeli government’s actions in Gaza,” Paul added.

The Israeli operation has entered its third week now, despite international calls and a UN Security Council resolution which urge an immediate end to the attacks against the densely-populated strip.

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America’s Two-Party System: Going 90 Miles an Hour down a Dead End Street

Posted on November 20th, 2008 by Distinguished Bean.
Categories: Political, Party System, Law, Constitutional Law, Philosophy, Media, Republicans, Democrats, education, Economics.

A famous American novelist in the mid twentieth century, named Gore Vidal, once said that “It makes no difference who you vote for - the two parties are really one party representing four percent of the people”. It is this idea that has scared many people concerning America’s current two-party system. These skeptics of the two-party system say that it is wrong due to its tug on all politics to one point on the political spectrum that lacks representation of a big part of the country’s political wants and needs. However, is a two-party system inevitable for a nation like America? Since the beginning, from Hamilton’s Federalists to Jefferson’s Democratic Republicans, America has had a two-party system to some extent, and it has brought many years of successful governing to a country based on freedom and liberty. On the other hand, France, which has had a multi-party system since the French Revolution, has undergone over thirteen changes in their governmental leadership and style, damaging the progress and development of their nation. Obviously, in order to successfully rise to power and rule according to the people in a nation where a democratic voting system is in place, a party must win over a majority of the political opinion within a country. A two-party system seems to be the most natural and obvious way that this can work out. Although not all extreme political views of the society are represented, a two-party system is able to easily represent the middle, moderate, and majority of the opinions of the people. On the contrary, a two-party system can effectively, if both parties move too close to each other, become a one party system, where someone, even many, who disagree with the one prevalent political philosophy that embodies the two major parties, will not be represented. So the question is: Is America still a positive and productive two-party system, or is it moving more and more into the realm of becoming essentially a one-party system?

On the surface America is seen as a truly dynamic and productive two-party system, where all have a say, vote, and an opinion. Its government is seen as being truly representative of its people and the popular political opinion. It is seen as an un-manipulated, fully representative system that fits the ideals of freedom and liberty that the country was founded on. However, a deeper look into the political system, as well as some manipulative factions of the country’s political mobility shows a possibility of the opposite being true. Yet a few small changes to the political system and process could rid of these negative contributions to the nation’s political progress. So although the idea of a two-party system is somewhat inevitable, the present two-party system of The United States of America is ultimately a negative contribution to the progress of the nation and should be changed through banning polling, allowing third party candidates the same rights, rules, and privileges as the primary parties, and reducing the size of each district in order to represent the peoples’ opinions more clearly.

The first way to positively change the system is to ban polling and clear up the corruption within the media. The media is the single most effective political motivator within the American political system. It is due to media coverage, opinion, and polls that many candidates are able to achieve the support and votes of the people. But the media is ran by people who have opinions themselves and a majority of the time fit the center of the political spectrum, either Democrat or Republican. So it is rather puzzling that these few, the people who run the television and radio stations, have such great power in swaying the nation towards their own political opinion. Polling is one of the most widely used tools by the media to manipulate elections and political opinion. Yet many do not see the corruption within the very idea of polling, that is that “polls are an addiction that also distort our political feelings and actions even as they trivialize political campaigns, and they allow our political and media suppliers to manipulate us ruthlessly” (Schwartz). The fact that the public political opinion can be highly manipulated by corrupt polling shows how it negatively influences the true representation of the peoples wants. Polls should be banned by the public media due to its proven manipulation and corruption. The deep problem with the media and polling is that “poll bashing is still a frequent phenomenon in the media, polls are ubiquitous, and attempts to mislead deliberately occur” (Erikson 47). Although in itself polling is obviously not a corrupt action, it is now used by the media to sway the public toward its own opinion. Due to this, any ideas or candidates that differ from the center of the political spectrum are shot down by manipulative polling that has nothing to do with a fair representation of the public’s actual opinion. However, even within the two major parties polling has been used to discriminate against candidates who are not popular to the centrist views of the media.

The discrimination used by the popular media towards certain candidates, even within the Democrat and Republican parties, is unfair and proves to be another reason why public media polls should be banned. One strong recent case of this was that of Ron Paul in the Republican primary election. Although “Ron Paul led all other candidates by a more than comfortable margin in the online polls, [he] was hardly even considered a ‘dark horse’ candidate by the offline ‘scientific’ polls” (Bowery). It is bewildering to assume that the online polls could have been that much different than the public media polls. Had the television channels even reported the activity that was going on online, Ron Paul may have been given a more equal chance in the primary. Ron Paul is an old style Republican congressman with Libertarian tendencies which makes the media polls even more suspicious, seeming as though they were not wanting to allow a candidate whose opinions differed from the ‘norm’ to have a chance. The media should not have the power to put any political candidate at a disadvantage due to a disagreement with the popular opinions of the media.

Each American presidential election should strive to represent the country’s citizens’ wants and opinions as closely as possible. Any factors or tools that can exist or be used, by the public media, to incorrectly manipulate the opinions of the country on a certain candidate or issue should be banned, due to how they skew the results of the voting process. Tools such as polling, which the television stations and other forms of public media has wrongly used, should be changed and outlawed, in an attempt to better represent the peoples’ wishes. Although there are others, polling really is the most obviously manipulative tool that is presently being used. It is clear that “polling certainly deserves a critical look. Many surveys are badly conceived, poorly executed, and incorrectly interpreted” (Erikson 24). Polling has created a discriminatory, systematic problem in the voting process of The United States of America that has put many candidates who have attempted to change the system at a disadvantage. Overall, a political system being centered on the political spectrum is obviously not wrong and may be inevitable in certain cases, including America. However, discouraging, as well as unfairly hiding, progressive and un-centered ideas and candidates is un-democratic and eventually will kill the progress of a once positively evolving political system. This would, in actuality, create a one-party, media ruled system that discourages diversity and distorts opposing ideas to its artificial ‘norm’.

As well as polling, many other discriminatory factors within the political process put third parties and ideas at a major unfair shortcoming within the electoral competition. Although, obviously, no third party will have a great opportunity to win a major election any time soon, they should not be dejected from the process or put out of the competition. Third parties do a wonderful job of keeping the Democrat and Republican parties honest and pure. Third parties bring up issues that the two major parties could not bring up for risk of being labeled extreme or out of the ‘norm’. Throughout history, “it was third parties who first introduced ideas like restricting slavery, granting suffrage to women, establishing minimum wages and controlling child labor” (Lichtman). Though third parties have not had many victories in major elections, they have introduced ideas and philosophies that have proved to positively affect the country as a whole. So the limitation on them and discouragement of them is un-democratic and will only hurt the development of the country. One way that the third parties are limited is the difficult process set up for them to get on the ballot. Both major parties are easily passed and let onto ballots due to their past popularity and financial success, whereas, third parties are forced to gain large amounts of signatures and pay dues that put financial strain on their campaigns once on the ballot. It is clear that “the difficulty of getting on the ballot state-by-state is surely a barrier deliberately erected by the major parties to keep third parties out of the field of play” (Lichtman). It is a serious problem that a party has to be financially successful just to be put upon the ballot. If third parties are given easier opportunities to get on election ballots, it will encourage the competition of parties that is so necessary for a strong two-party system. For “in order to enjoy the benefits of a healthy two-party system, we must encourage the growth of new parties. And if we are ever to replace one of the two major parties with a new party (something that even the opposition acknowledges is possible, and something that we, the voters, ought to have a right to do), it will only be done if we life the current ballot-access restrictions on third political parties” (Winger). Third parties are actually a very positive and helpful thing for a two-party system and it only hurts a two-party system to deny or make difficult political accomplishments for third parties, such as easy ballot access.

The financial strain of ballot access for Third parties is a definite blockade for their ability to positively affect the political system and process. The electoral process should allow for equal opportunity for legitimate Third parties who would be able to better the development and progress of the political establishment as a whole. Presently, the scary aspect of the electoral system is that “it seems that in American government, one must buy their ‘equality’. Only the wealthiest parties and individuals have equal access to the electoral system” (Sandusky). America should take no pride in the fact that it has established an electoral procedure where only the wealthy may influence it, unequally putting the poorer intellectuals at a major disadvantage. For what reason should one’s socioeconomic status govern whether or not he or she should be able to run for office? If all other credentials are met, financial strains should not be able to hinder rising politicians in their goal of running for political office. If the large fees are removed from ballot access, the political system would benefit through having a wider span of political ideologies and greater representation of different social classes within the country. It would allow third parties to be able to be more competitive with campaigning due to the money they would save, not having to spend it on ballot access. This competition would, like the American capitalist system itself, enrich the politics of the country and give a wider range of people the ability to become the influential leaders this country needs.

The final way that the electoral process should be changed in order to promote Third Party competition is through allowing Third Party candidates to participate in the Presidential debates. The Presidential debates have recently become more and more about physical appearance and image rather than political intellect and intelligent responses. If a candidate can look good, then what that candidate says means a lot less. A lot of the deterioration of the positives of the Presidential debates is due to the fact that the Democrats and Republicans are the only two parties represented and mostly agree with each other. So the debates have become less about the content and more about whether or not they can make the opponent look bad. In the recent election this was made tremendously clear. It was obvious that “one problem was that in a debate, it is important for the debaters to actually disagree. Yet Senators Barack Obama and John McCain substantively agree on many issues. That is one major reason that the debates should be open, and that major third-party or independent candidates should be included” (Goodman). What’s the purpose of debating if both candidates in the debate are very close to the middle of the political spectrum and have little disagreement? If Third-party candidates were allowed to participate in the debates it would not only be fair to them, in giving them a equal chance in running, but it would also enrich the debate for the other two candidates, giving them actual positions to disagree with. Once a major party candidate is forced to disagree with someone, it is more clear to see what that candidate actually believes. So even if Third-party candidates didn’t necessarily win elections due to benefiting from debate participation, they would enhance the whole process for the Democrat and Republican candidates, achieving a better election process altogether.

The final way in which the American two-party system is failing is that it seems to be harmfully moving our nation is into easily corruptible waters. Two-party systems automatically are set up to be vulnerable to corruption. If the two major parties of a system move closer and closer together, as they are in America, it becomes a simple task for them to dictate corrupt and wrong political ideas that will hurt the country. It is this monopoly of power that is being created in the American political system that all should be afraid of. The two parties are seen as the only capable parties now and that, in itself, can lead to corruption. The debate over which party is better than the other wages on, stronger than ever, when the “truth is that one is no better than the other. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Our system is no longer set up to benefit or protect us” (Wade). The system now is more about profits for political icons and for the wealthy in power more than for protecting life, liberty, and property, the nation’s early ultimate goal. It is for making those who want to be represented fit the two parties in power, rather than allowing other parties, that truly represent different sects of the people, gain potential leadership. The more parties there are that have a chance, the less likely the system is going to be easily degraded.

Corruption can also spread through the stereotyping of parties. In the present American political system people are seemingly forced to support a party, and along with it, all of its stances on all of the issues. People are looked as outsiders of the party if they disagree with even one of the issues, so they, on purpose, conform their views to fit their parties. This causes our political leaders to represent an image of the people rather than just the peoples’ opinions themselves. This is why “Representatives and voters have come to the conclusion that all Democrats and Republicans are the same, more or less, and that they all have the same ideology” (Bechtold). The way the two parties have moved together as one ideology that is supposed to represent the whole country is a negative and has discouraged people from thinking for themselves. It has caused great disagreement over petty issues, while big issues are ignored and left for the greedy politicians to gain power off of. This marriage of ideology of the two parties will only create a bigger, more powerful government that is sure to use its power in guiding the country. However, as history tells, ultimate power is followed by ultimate corruption. This idea is clearly evident in examples such as Stalin’s communist rule in Russia and Hitler’s fascist rule in Germany. America better heed the warning signs of the harms of big and powerful governments, and better change its policies now, in order to make sure it won’t become what it has opposed in the past.

In the end, if policies aren’t put into place to stop the media from using fallible polls to manipulate the system and control the political opinion of the populous, then the country is going to be harmed through an established unanimous political camp that rules all and represents far too little. If policies aren’t put into place that give third parties a greater chance to be represented and to be competitive possibilities for leadership, the political system will be debilitated to the point where both parties could become essentially one ideology that un-democratically rules over the nation. Finally, if policies aren’t put into place that stop the potential corruption of this country’s two-party system, then each and every citizen’s democratic voice and opinion could be ignored altogether. However, it is not just the establishment of a two-party system that brings about this negativity, for that establishment may be inevitable, it is the way in which the American two-party system is moving that appears detrimental to the ideas of liberty and equality in this country. Just because third parties have a great chance and voice in a political system does not mean that it has to be anything more than a two-party system. If third parties are given that chance they will enrich the system and craft the major parties into parties that would better represent and lead according the people. It is this great outcome, of two truly different parties that accurately represent the populous, that once flourished in America and must be attempted to be put into place again by this country. For democracy may only exist if those that vote are those that govern the policies of the country and republics may only exist if those that are put into leadership positions actually represent the people. So is America’s Two-Party system headed in the wrong direction? Is it becoming more and more un-democratic? Is it becoming essentially a ‘one-party’ system? America must proceed with caution and a great critique of itself if it wants to thrive as it so successfully has in the past.

Works Cited

Bechtold, Joe. “The Flaw of the Two Party System .” 23 Feb 2008
emid=83>.

Bowery, James. “Ron Paul Demolishes Other Republicans In Online Polls.” Majority Rights 05
May 2007 .

Erikson, Robert. American Public Opinion. 6th. New York: Longman, 2003.

Goodman, Amy. “Open Presidential Debates to Third Parties.” Seattle Pi 10 Oct 2008
.

Lichtman, Allan. “3rd Parties: What They’re For and What They Do.” The Jim Lehrer Newshour
22 Oct 1996 .
Sandusky, Trent. “Why the Two-Party System is Un-American.” 12 Nov 20 .
Schwartz, Michael. “Polling: The Opiate of the Electorate .” Common Dreams 06 Oct 2004
.

Wade, Anthony. “Corruption-Lite and The Two Party System That Has Choked the Democracy
out of this Country. ” Oped News 23 Oct 2005
.

Winger , Richard. “The Importance of Ballot Access.” Massachusetts School of Law Spring
1994 .

3 comments.

Amendment 48: Another Crack at Banning Abortion

Posted on October 15th, 2008 by Darth B'strad.
Categories: Political, Abortion, Law, Constitutional Law, Local.

Quite clear and simple on this one: this is going to force the Colorado state Government to look at every unborn child as a human being. In theory this should ban all abortions in the state of Colorado. However I don’t think that should it pass that abortions will actually get banned in our state. More than likely our state supreme court will just throw this one out like they did to our vouchers amendment. But it certainly wouldn’t hurt to see what could happen here. For all we know the national supreme court could also pick this up and reopen the debate there! I signed the petition to get this one on the ballot and I’ll vote yes on this one.

Here are the Amendments.

1 comment.

Another Obama Post!

Posted on July 8th, 2008 by Darth B'strad.
Categories: Political, Immigration, Energy, Environment, Abortion, Party System, War, Law, Constitutional Law, Terrorism, Republicans, Democrats, Iraq, Israel, Economics.

Yes yes, that’s right! I’m posting on Obama again because this is just too important to pass up. Townhall.com has had two of my favorite talk show hosts: Hugh Hewitt and Dennis Prager. I’ll start with Prager’s article first:

My bottom line is this: The gulf between John McCain and conservatives is miniscule compared to the gulf between John McCain and Barack Obama. This is true regarding virtually every issue of significance to America. The America that a President Barack Obama would shape, with the help of a Democratic Congress and a liberal Supreme Court, would be very dissimilar from the America shaped by a President John McCain.

Conservatives who will not vote for McCain are well-intentioned utopians. They are comparing McCain to a consistently conservative candidate. The reality, however, is that McCain is not running against a consistently conservative candidate. He is running against a consistently left-wing candidate. And America cannot afford to have its first leftist president ever. It can afford liberal presidents — such as Bill Clinton, or Jimmy Carter (who governed as a liberal but became a leftist after leaving the White House), or John F. Kennedy, or Lyndon Johnson, or Harry Truman — i.e., all the Democrats who have been president since World War II. But the Democratic Party has moved well to the left of liberalism. And Barack Obama is at the left of that left-wing party.

Furthermore, given the strong possibility of a Democratic House, a Democratic Senate, and a liberal Supreme Court for decades to come, given the number of Supreme Court appointments a Democratic president will be able to make, an Obama victory will move America more radically leftward than ever in its history.

The Supreme court is good reason in it’s self! It’s taken a long to just to get it to a swing court. An Obama presidency will ensure that it stays a swing court and possibly reverse what we have wanted all along. The next president has the possibility of picking the next six supreme court justices.

That is why the argument that an Obama administration will be so destructive that Americans will reject the left and then elect a real conservative to undo the damage done in an Obama presidency is deeply flawed.

First of all, other than impeachment, there is no way to undo Supreme Court appointments, two or three of which a President Obama would likely make. And given how active most liberal judges are, it won’t matter much if the country has some conservative epiphany and then elects a Republican president and Congress. Because even if the Congress and the president will not pass liberal legislation, a liberal Supreme Court will. On almost any social issue that matters — the right to bear arms, late-term abortion, the definition of marriage, capital punishment, and many others — a liberal Supreme Court will rule on these issues, and there will be nothing that a post-Obama Republican president, even with a Republican congress, will be able to do about them.

Moreover, the argument that Americans will have a conservative epiphany after four years of an Obama presidency is predicated on America being greatly damaged by his policies. What kind of mindset welcomes such damage to the country it loves for the sake of potentially gaining politically after the damage is done? Is it, for example, really worth a considerably weakened economy (which Barack Obama’s tax and other economic policies would likely lead to), with its widespread suffering and unforeseeable social and political consequences, just to — hopefully — get a conservative into the White House four or eight years later?

And the damage won’t necessarily be undone. Even Ronald Reagan, the most popular conservative to ever serve as president, could not roll back most liberal creations. He never could get rid of the useless Department of Education, for example. Nor could a then-popular President George W. Bush do a thing about Social Security even when he had a Republican House and Senate. And how will Barack Obama’s successor undo the damage done to Iraq, the Middle East, the War on Islamic Terror, and the credibility of America’s assurances to allies once Iraq slides into chaos as a result of America’s precipitous withdrawal from Iraq?

Therefore, as well meaning and sincere as many conservatives are, this mode of thinking — let the country suffer under a left-wing president, Congress, and Supreme Court and then it will come to its conservative senses — will likely lead to a downward spiral from which it is hard to see the country escaping for a generation, if it is lucky.

There is one person who can prevent this unhappy future — John McCain.

He will not raise taxes, the last thing we should be doing in a weakened economy.

He will reduce government spending, and thereby prevent the state from controlling even more of American life.

He will ensure that America wins in Iraq. That will make one of the biggest and richest Arab states the freest of the Arab states. And it will hand Islamic terrorists the biggest defeat they have ever suffered. It will teach potential enemies not to attack America (whether Iraq did so directly is irrelevant to the point). And it will reassure America’s allies around the world, many of whom, as in Iraq, risk their lives for America and liberty, that America will never abandon them.

He will appoint conservatives to the Supreme Court and to federal benches, thereby depriving the left of its most powerful weapon in reshaping America in its image.

He may attract enough Hispanic votes (while securing the borders) to prevent that critical constituency from identifying with the Democratic Party, something that would ensure left-wing victories for decades to come.

He will develop nuclear power, environmentalist (read leftist) opposition to which has been morally indefensible. We would all love to have a solar powered or wind powered country. However, on planet earth at this time, nuclear power may be the cleanest source of energy we have. That is why France, not heretofore known as politically conservative, relies on nuclear power for nearly 80 percent of its electricity.

Now to Hugh Hewitt’s bit:

The key: McCain will pursue victory in the war, deter our enemies because of his reputation for strength and defend the country via aggressive pursuit of terrorists in Iraq, Afghanistan and wherever they are, and get most of the judicial nominees right. He’ll keep taxes where they are if he can.

Obama, on the other hand, is just now coming into focus for other than the already committed Obamians. He had a stumbling, bumbling close to his primary campaign, and the opening weeks of his general campaign have been marked by flip flops and lurches left.

Here’s the core of Obama:

He’s hard left.

He wants the marginal rate on total federal taxes, including his social security tax hike, to immediately rise at least 57% on the highest earners. Obama wants to raise taxes even in a weak economy, though this is a recipe not just for recession but worse. Obama also wants to raise taxes on dividend income and to return the death tax to its highs of eight years ago.

Obama has proposed more than a trillion dollars in new spending.

Obama is going to absolutely destroy this economy even worse than it is.

Obama wants to cut and run from Iraq, with withdrawals of crucial forces beginning immediately upon his entry into office. Obama has never met one on one with General Petraeus and has not been to Iraq in more than 900 days. He is indifferent to the incredible progress made by our troops and the Iraqi Defense Forces and the Iraqi government in the last 18 months.

He supports the decision extending habeas rights to Gitmo detainees and he thinks the most liberal member of the Supreme Court, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, is a great model for future Supreme Court appointments.

Obama supports gay marriage, and opposes the California constitutional amendment to restore marriage to the definition overturned by a 4-3 vote of the California Supreme Court in May. He supports abortion on demand, including partial birth abortion.

If any of you care about abortion and gay marriage, Obama’s going to shove it down your through.

Obama has the slightest grasp on history, and routinely makes the sort of errors about basic facts that shock knowledgeable observers, like arguing the Kennedy-Khrushchev summit in Vienna was an example of the benefits of one-on-one diplomacy.

Obama is not a strong friend of Israel. He spent 20 years in a church that was openly hostile to Israel, and he reversed himself on Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel after one day of criticism by Palestinians.

Obama is running a dirty campaign, and the serial assaults on John McCain’s service, most visibly by Wesley Clark but by many others closely associated with Obama, is repulsive. These are not hits by independent 527s but by close associates and advisors of Obama.

Michelle Obama’s campaign rhetoric has been very divisive, is full of anger and resentment about “moving the bar,” and not being proud of the country, and has led to her high negatives with the public.

Obama’s close friends, mentors and associates are deeply troubling: the radical pastor Jeremiah Wright, the unrepentant terrorists William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, the convicted swindler Tony Rezko, and now a long line of “public housing developers” who took the money and failed to deliver on promises of safe and secure housing for Obama’s poorest constituents.

Obama’s judgment on key appointees is suspect, and he has had to fire the head of his vice presidential search team because of ties to the subprime mess and dump numerous “foreign policy advisors” for their hostility to Israel.

Obama’s deal with the Teamsters to end federal oversight of the union smells very bad indeed and telegraphs the sort of cronyism we could expect from an Obama Adminsitration. Obama’s mentor and real estate partner is Rezko, who helped the Obama’s buy their home, a home on which the Obamas received a mortgage that looks to many like a sweetheart deal.

Obama, like the other leaders of the Triple D Democrats –the Don’t Drill Democrats– doesn’t care about the price of gas, and refuses every initiative to increase supply and thus bring that price down.

Obama has broken his word on his commitment to public financing of the campaign and to meet John McCain in frequent debates. Obama can’t be trusted to keep even high-profile promises he made even only weeks ago.

Away from a teleprompter Obama stumbles and stutters and lapses into a closed circle of cliches that betrays almost no reading or curiosity about the world around him,and a massive ignorance of the war in which we find ourselves. Even when he works from a prompter he says nothing at great length with wonder phrasing but zero substance.

His crowds are enormous and his coffers overflowing, the products of a highly energized and vitriolic left that expects –believes it will be owed, in fact– the spoils of the election. If Obama wins, the sharpest lurch left in American history is ahead of us.

Barack Obama is not only the most radical nominee of a major American political party in history, he is also the least prepared and the least informed. He has spent less than four years inside of the United States Senate, and much of those years have been spent away from his job and away from the capital he wants to lead. But he is protected and his campaign nurtured by a MSM that swooned for him long ago. The prolonged and serious scrutiny of his background and his proposals will not be forthcoming in any consistent way between now and November.

And that’s the argument against Obama. So what’s the argument for him? Oh, yea that’s right: he’s for change! Well if you are looking for big changes to where the government is in control of every aspect of your life then Obama is your man. I’ll pass on that! I’m voteing for McCain.

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The Courts in CA have just changed something for the first time in history!

Posted on May 22nd, 2008 by Darth B'strad.
Categories: Political, Law, Constitutional Law, Philosophy, Islam, Judaism, Religon, Christianity.

The Issue is same sex marriage and just last week the California Supreme court just through out California’s ballot initiative to ban same sex marriage (even though it was overwhelmingly pass by California voters). It came down to a 4 to 3 vote and 4 judges decided that they were wiser than the entire state of California. This is a bad development for many reasons. Dennis Prager has been on this issue from day one and he has a new article out at townhall.com:

Americans seem mesmerized by the word “change.” And, by golly, they sure got it last week from the California Supreme Court. It is difficult to imagine a single social change greater than redefining marriage from opposite sex to include members of the same sex.

Nothing imaginable — leftward or rightward — would constitute as radical a change in the way society is structured as this redefining of marriage for the first time in history: Not another Prohibition, not government taking over all health care, not changing all public education to private schools, not America leaving the United Nations, not rescinding the income tax and replacing it with a consumption tax. Nothing.

Unless California voters amend the California Constitution or Congress amends the U.S. Constitution, four justices of the California Supreme Court will have changed American society more than any four individuals since Washington, Jefferson, Adams and Madison.

And what is particularly amazing is that virtually none of those who support this decision — let alone the four compassionate justices — acknowledge this. The mantra of the supporters of this sea change in society is that it’s no big deal. Hey, it doesn’t affect any heterosexuals’ marriage, so what’s the problem?

“What about ancient Greece?” No, there was no Gay marriage there. There was a lot of homosexuality in ancient Greece but thous men still married women and had kids. They didn’t marry the other men that they had sex with. And this was the same for ancient Egypt as well.

This lack of acknowledgment — or even awareness — of how society-changing is this redefinition of marriage is one reason the decision was made. To the four compassionate ones — and their millions of compassionate supporters — allowing same-sex marriage is nothing more than what courts did to end legal bans on interracial marriage. The justices and their supporters know not what they did. They think that all they did was extend a “right” that had been unfairly denied to gays.

However they do still have the right to marry just as much as anyone else in this society. Where on the Marriage form does it have a sexual orientation check box? Just like everyone else in this society we are limited to marring one person of the opposite sex. I’m Heterosexual but it would be nice to get a tax brake, so why don’t I just marry Bieren to get a tax brake even though I have absolutely no sexual attraction to him whatsoever? More money in my pocket!

Another reason for this decision is arrogance. First, the arrogance of four individuals to impose their understanding of what is right and wrong on the rest of society. And second is the arrogance of the four compassionate ones in assuming that all thinkers, theologians, philosophers, religions and moral systems in history were wrong, while they and their supporters have seen a moral light never seen before. Not a single religion or moral philosophical system — East or West — since antiquity ever defined marriage as between members of the same sex.

That is one reason the argument that this decision is the same as courts undoing legal bans on marriages between races is false. No major religion — not Judaism, not Christianity, not Islam, not Buddhism — ever banned interracial marriage. Some religions have banned marriages with members of other religions. But since these religions allowed anyone of any race to convert, i.e., become a member of that religion, the race or ethnicity of individuals never mattered with regard to marriage. American bans on interracial marriages were not supported by any major religious or moral system; those bans were immoral aberrations, no matter how many religious individuals may have supported them. Justices who overthrew bans on interracial marriages, therefore, had virtually every moral and religious value system since ancient times on their side. But justices who overthrow the ban on same-sex marriage have nothing other their hubris and their notions of compassion on their side.

Modern Christianity doesn’t ban you from marring a non-believer anymore and most churches don’t excommunicate for that reason anymore. Although it is still strongly discouraged but that is mostly for common sense reasons. You will have a much easier marriage if your spouse does have the same religious values as you do. However we understand that life happens and you really can help who you fall in love with all that much.

Since the secular age began, the notion that one should look to religion — or to any past wisdom — for one’s values has died. Thus, the modern attempts to undo the Judeo-Christian value system as the basis of America’s values, and to disparage the Founders as essentially morally flawed individuals (They allowed slavery, didn’t they?). The modern secular liberal knows that he is not only morally superior to conservatives; he is morally superior to virtually everyone who ever lived before him.

Which leads to a third reason such a sea change could be so cavalierly imposed by four individuals — the modern supplanting of wisdom with compassion as the supreme guide in forming society’s values and laws. Just as for religious fundamentalists, “the Bible says” ends discussion, for liberal fundamentalists, “compassion says” ends discussion.

If this verdict stands, society as we have known it will change. The California Supreme Court and its millions of supporters are playing with fire. And it will eventually burn future generations in ways we can only begin to imagine.

This will be destructive to the idea to the family and bring with it many implications that will be hard for our society to get through and here is a big part of the reason:

Outside of the privacy of their homes, young girls will be discouraged from imagining one day marrying their prince charming — to do so would be declared “heterosexist,” morally equivalent to racist. Rather, they will be told to imagine a prince or a princess. Schoolbooks will not be allowed to describe marriage in male-female ways alone. Little girls will be asked by other girls and by teachers if they want one day to marry a man or a woman.

The sexual confusion that same-sex marriage will create among young people is not fully measurable. Suffice it to say that, contrary to the sexual know-nothings who believe that sexual orientation is fixed from birth and permanent, the fact is that sexual orientation is more of a continuum that ranges from exclusive heterosexuality to exclusive homosexuality. Much of humanity — especially females — can enjoy homosexual sex. It is up to society to channel polymorphous human sexuality into an exclusively heterosexual direction — until now, accomplished through marriage. But that of course is “heterosexism,” a bigoted preference for man-woman erotic love, and therefore to be extirpated from society.

Any advocacy of man-woman marriage alone will be regarded morally as hate speech, and shortly thereafter it will be deemed so in law.

Companies that advertise engagement rings will have to show a man putting a ring on a man’s finger — if they show only women fingers, they will be boycotted just as a company having racist ads would be now.

Films that only show man-woman married couples will be regarded as antisocial and as morally irresponsible as films that show people smoking have become.

Traditional Jews and Christians — i.e. those who believe in a divine scripture — will be marginalized. Already Catholic groups in Massachusetts have abandoned adoption work since they will only allow a child to be adopted by a married couple as the Bible defines it — a man and a woman.

Anyone who advocates marriage between a man and a woman will be morally regarded the same as racist. And soon it will be a hate crime.

Me and Prager will end up in jail because I won’t shut up and I think Prager won’t ether.

Indeed — and this is the ultimate goal of many of the same-sex marriage activists — the terms “male” and “female,” “man” and “woman” will gradually lose their significance. They already are. On the intellectual and cultural left, “male” and “female” are deemed social constructs that have little meaning. That is why same-sex marriage advocates argue that children have no need for both a mother and a father — the sexes are interchangeable. Whatever a father can do a second mother can do. Whatever a mother can do, a second father can do. Genitalia are the only real differences between the sexes, and even they can be switched at will.

And what will happen after divorce — which presumably will occur at the same rates as heterosexual divorce? A boy raised by two lesbian mothers who divorce and remarry will then have four mothers and no father.

We have entered something beyond Huxley’s “Brave New World.” All thanks to the hubris of four individuals. But such hubris never goes unanswered. Our children and their children will pay the price.

And that has been one of the most foolish developments in our society to date. The Idea that the only difference between men and women is genitalia is absurd. Mothers have different things to offer a child and like wise fathers have different things to offer a child. Both offer good things to a child that help them grow! This is not to discourage single parents, many of them do the best that they can and work amazing wonders with their kids. However I am sure that most of them would admit that it would have been easier if they have had a good man or woman in the home as well. Also there are some kids that absolutely need both parents in the home or they won’t survive. I know this for a fact because I am one of them. As I have talked about in my A True B’Strad posts, I wouldn’t be alive today if I only had one of my parents raising me. This isn’t always the case, I am a special case and there are children that are much more resilient in this way than me but still I have to encourage marriage as much as possible because I am not the only one like this.

Anticipating reactions to this column — as to all defenses of man-woman marriage — that it or its author are “homophobic,” i.e., bigoted and unworthy of respectful rejoinder, it is important to reaffirm that nothing written here is implicitly, let alone explicitly, anti-gay. I take it as axiomatic that a gay man or woman is created in God’s image and as precious as any other human being. And I readily acknowledge that it is unfair when an adult is not allowed to marry the love of his or her choice. But social policy cannot be made solely on the basis of eradicating all of life’s unfairness. Thus, we must love the gay person — and his and or her partner as well. But we must never change the definition of marriage. The price to society and succeeding generations will be too great.

That is why Californians must amend their state’s Constitution.

That last part was absolutely critical that Prager wrote it and actually I think his piece might have been better if he had lead in with that paragraph instead of sticking it at the end. As a Christan, I do feel that my church does owe the gay community an apology for how the church has been handling this entire issue. On one side, Christians have been overly hateful towards gays and they forget that Jesus had commanded us to love them. We are not to lash out at gays with hate. To be perfectly honest here I used to be one of them and I think that most of that I did hate gays was because I kept on getting teased as being gay when I wasn’t. I am here now saying I’m sorry for hating you gays out there and I shouldn’t have let my feeling get in the way of the real issue here. I am still growing and learning and God is now taking control of my life and changing me into the man that he wants. However on the other had you have Christians that are taking the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy here. The bible is firm in saying that this is a sin that is destructive. We Christians should not be afraid to talk about it and as Prager pointed out here they are still people made in God’s image and he still wants to be apart of their lives. Just because some can not find them selfs attracted to the opposite sex does not mean that God can be apart of their life. We are all sinners and none of us Christians are any better than anyone that is gay! We all have to work on trusting God and bringing people in to our faith and teaching them to trust God too. And that includes gays as well! We need to work at loving them and being kind to them just like when Jesus encountered the prostitute at the water well.

Now that I have tried to make amends for me and my religion, I still must say that I can not support gay marriage. This has nothing to do with who people love and how people decide to live their lives but rather the impact that this will have on our society. The vast majority of our society wants to keep our current definition of marriage as one man and one woman but now you have 4 judges that are saying “to hell with what you people want! We’re going to force this down your troughs anyway!” The absolute hubris and arrogance for them is absurd here and now we no longer have any freedom in this county! Now all it takes is 4 or 5 judges to make laws up that aren’t elected and can overrule anything in this county! This is a bad development that is setting up a judicial dictatorship in this county where the courts rule everything. Why bother with ballot initiatives if courts can just say that it’s unconstitutional when they have no basis to make that ruling. Even if you are for gay marriage you should be against this ruling because if the courts can make it then the courts can also take it away. We no longer have a say anymore in our county! Laws are now made by the judicial branch here. Why bother with the legislature anymore because anything that they pass can be overturned by judges that think they are going to save the world. I know they have good intentions but this can get really bad really quick.

Now on the actual issue, the reason why this is so important is because marriage is what the society deems is the basic family unit. Again, this is not to put down single parents here but explain that we should try our best to obtain this ideal. Having one man and one woman raising children is the healthiest environment for kids to be raised in. I understand that life happens and that it gets messy but we as a society should work hard to try to make this ideal easier. As Prager had explained, having gay marriage will confuse kids and make this harder on religious families to follow their values. This is a development that will degrade our society and destroy the family. There are many people that don’t get to marry who they want! You can’t marry your sister or brother! You can’t marry someone who is already married! You can’t marry many different people in this society. If we keep down this path then marriage will no longer hold any meaning and our children will pay the price for it.

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Prager Says that McCain is Disqualified for President

Posted on May 26th, 2007 by Darth B'strad.
Categories: Political, Ethics, Law, Constitutional Law, Philosophy, Media, Republicans.

In an article Dennis Prager says that he can not vote for McCain because of campaign Finance reform. This form Townhall.com:

Few political or social positions in and of themselves should disqualify a person from being a candidate for president. Just about every candidate will differ with any of us even on something we consider important. That is why I admire pro-life Republicans, such as former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who argue that a pro-choice position should not automatically disqualify a Republican from pro-life Republicans’ support. A big tent is necessary in politics or one ends up with a small tent and no power.

Thus, I could support politicians with whom I differ on taxation (I support a consumption tax), on education (I support vouchers and think the Department of Education should be disbanded), on a flag-burning amendment (I’m against), on an amendment defining marriage as a man-woman institution (I’m for), and on many more divisive issues.

But there are a few positions that are either so immoral or so destructive or so foolish that a politician who holds them cannot be considered a viable candidate. Campaign finance reform, such as the McCain-Feingold bill, falls into the latter two categories. It is particularly destructive to society, and it is particularly foolish.

The primary consequence of most campaign finance reform has been to ensure that more and more extraordinarily rich people run for office. News media have just reported that New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is considering running for president on a third party ticket if he is not happy with the nominees of the two major parties. He is willing, the reports noted, to spend a billion dollars on himself. As his worth is about $6 billion dollars, this is quite feasible.

Why shouldn’t he? Thanks to campaign finance reform, Jon Corzine and Frank Lautenberg bought New Jersey’s two Senate seats. By prohibiting a billionaire from giving more than $2,000 to anyone else’s campaign but his own, campaign finance reform has ensured that with few exceptions, only the super rich will run for office in races that demand great expenditures of money.

Prager has a good point here but if McCain happens to get the nomination I will still vote for him for president because he is still better than any dem that might come up (in my humble opinion of course). But the point that Prager makes very well is that McCain-Feingold is a bad law and in fact it is unconstitutional. Who is the government to tell me how much I can give to the candidate of my choice.

Why shouldn’t he? Thanks to campaign finance reform, Jon Corzine and Frank Lautenberg bought New Jersey’s two Senate seats. By prohibiting a billionaire from giving more than $2,000 to anyone else’s campaign but his own, campaign finance reform has ensured that with few exceptions, only the super rich will run for office in races that demand great expenditures of money.

And right there is the problem with the bill it makes sure that only the super rich can run for curtain seats. And despite the current thought that the republicans are the rich ones that is generally not true. Now nation wide it has hurt the Dems more because it put their party in the hands of their crazy base but here in Colorado it has been devastating because there are a few rich leftys that are trying to buy the state. And they are succeeding at it too.

A few years ago, I considered running for the Senate seat held by Barbara Boxer. Ultimately I decided against it for family reasons and because I thought that having a national radio show enabled me to influence more people than even a Senate seat from California would. But what rendered running untenable was the campaign finance reform ban on individuals giving candidates more than $2,000.

Since no one can run in a California statewide election with less than $40 million and since I have no personal wealth, I would have had to raise tens of millions of dollars from tens of thousands of individuals. My life would have consisted almost solely of asking people for money. I had supporters who could have personally given me millions of dollars, but they are barred from doing so. Wealthy people can only spend such money on themselves, no matter how ill-suited they may be for public office.

That is what campaign finance reform has achieved — discouraging, if not actually eliminating, non-wealthy Americans from running for office and forcing those who do run to devote their lives to asking for money; while at the same time pushing more and more extremely wealthy incompetents into office.

If I had my way I would actually do it the other way around: you can only spend 2000 bucks on yourself and the rest you have to raise. That way you have to be a serious candid and get people to support you to win the office that you are seeking. That is the way to make running for a curtain office equal for everyone. but right now unless if you are rich you can not run for a seat in the Senate. This is really a bad law.

And I haven’t even mentioned campaign finance reform’s undermining of elementary freedoms. Who is the government to tell an American whom he can give his money to? So long as the giving is completely transparent — i.e., the public knows exactly who has given any candidate money and exactly how much — people should be allowed to spend as much on another person as on themselves.

I understand why liberals support it — by limiting access to the political process, incumbents and, most significantly, the media are empowered. Any time a few wealthy people can boost the chances of a Republican candidate, the power of the liberal media to influence elections is reduced.

That Sen. Russell Feingold, a liberal Democrat, would support campaign finance reform therefore makes perfect sense. That a Republican senator — let alone one who calls himself a conservative — would do so boggles the mind.

When asked about campaign finance reform in the last Republican debate, he argued for it and by extension for the Senate bill that bears his name — McCain-Feingold. He argued that such reform was necessary because politics is “awash in money.” Of course, campaign finance reform has not reduced the role of money at all. It has merely shifted it to organizations that have far less transparency than candidates have and ensured that the wealthy disproportionately run for office.

But I don’t think that Prager has to worry about McCain winning the nomination because of this law and constant backstabbing of the conservatives by McCain, his nomination is pretty much done now. And I think that as the campaign goes on McCain will continue to get worse and start to push the base further and further away. McCain is losing it out there.

That is how damaging campaign finance reform has been to American democracy. And that is why John McCain, a good man and a great American, cannot now get my vote. Which is quite something considering that I voted for him against a governor from Texas in the 2000 California presidential primary.

But like I said I will not vote for him in the primary but if he happens to win it I will vote for him for president because he is better than anything that the dems can put up (in my humble opinion). But I don’t think we have to worry about it. Now about McCain-Feingold, I think that it is unconstitutional and the courts should strike it down. Even if it end up helping the Dems I do not care. It’s wrong! I do not want such government control on us. It’s a bad law!

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Commander and Chef: Nancy Pelosi

Posted on April 7th, 2007 by Darth B'strad.
Categories: Political, Ethics, Crime, War, Law, Constitutional Law, Terrorism, Democrats.

Well apparently Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi (Democrat, California) decided that she has Commander and Chef powers that allows her to go to Syria and start making foreign policy for the United States of Americans. This from USAtoday.com:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi held talks with Syria’s leader Wednesday despite White House objections, saying she pressed President Bashar Assad over his country’s support for militant groups and passed him a peace message from Israel.
The meeting was an attempt to push the Bush administration to open a direct dialogue with Syria, a step that the White House has rejected. Congressional Democrats insist the U.S. attempts to isolate Syria have failed to force the Assad government to change its policies.

Rep. Tom Lantos, the head of the House Foreign Affairs Committee who was in Pelosi’s delegation, said the meeting “reinforced sharply” the potential benefits of talking to Syria. “This is only the beginning of our constructive dialogue with Syria and we hope to build on this visit,” he told reporters.

On Tuesday, President Bush denounced Pelosi’s visit to Syria, saying it sends mixed signals to Assad’s government. “Sending delegations doesn’t work. It’s simply been counterproductive,” Bush said.

Washington says Syria is fueling Iraq’s violence by allowing Sunni insurgents to operate from its territory. It also accuses it of backing terrorism because of its support for the Hezbollah and Hamas militant groups and of destabilizing the Lebanese government.

And then in an Editorial this is what USAtoday.com had to say:

Democrats in Congress have been busy flexing their foreign policy muscles almost from the moment they took power in January, for the most part responsibly. But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi crossed a line this week by visiting Syria, where she met with President Bashar Assad. She violated a long-held understanding that the United States should speak with one official voice abroad — even if the country is deeply divided on foreign policy back home.

USA today is hardly a right wing news source. But this has exploded a big mess of a controversy especially with the fact that she violated the law. what am I talking about? Well it has to do with the Logan Act, This is what Cornell reports that the law is about:

Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.

This section shall not abridge the right of a citizen to apply, himself or his agent, to any foreign government or the agents thereof for redress of any injury which he may have sustained from such government or any of its agents or subjects.

So in other words Nancy Pelosi Broke the law by doing this. By going behind the president’s Back and starting to talk to Syria (a state sponsor of Islamic terrorism) she broke the law. But the democrats are above the law, especially when you have the Queen Bee syndrome going around. Dems also really never have to pay the consequences of such actions, like congressman William Jefferson, Democrat, Louisiana, stuffing his freezer with cold cash. And in the end she just ends up killing more of our solders. but don’t just take my word for it, hear it from Gunnery Sergeant Krueger, USMC:

How can you even think of pushing forward legislation to set a withdrawal date for US forces from Iraq? Do you know how much you embolden the insurgency here in Iraq? YOU ARE JEOPARDIZING THE LIVES OF US SERVICEMEN AND WOMEN WITH YOUR ACTIONS. You and your fellow Democrats are causing the Al Qaeda supported insurgency to use more catastrophic attacks against us and Iraqi forces. You will see more SVBIED’s with chlorine gas, more VBIED’s against civilians and security forces every time you and other Democrats open your mouths. You will have to live with yourself and try to sleep at night knowing all the defeatist propaganda you have spewed forth is nothing more than ammunition for Islamic extremist groups around the world and more US deaths. The ! unsuspecting people who support you know nothing of what goes on over here; you fill their heads with nonsense and talk of pullout to appease them. The only thing that will happen is the establishment of an extremist Islamic state where sharia law is the law of the land and no one is safe.

That is pretty harsh but accurate. Now don’t get me wrong, of course there is wonderful democrats and rotten republicans but those actions that the democrat leadership is taking is GOING TO GET US KILLED. I think that the President needs to prosecute Nancy Pelosi so that he can send a clear message to the Democrats that this will not be tolerated. You can not just go out there and start negotiating with other countries (especially our enemies) behind the President’s back and start trying to push though a shadow presidency. Here’s what the president had to say:

We have made it clear to high-ranking officials, whether they be Republicans or Democrats, that going to Syria sends mixed signals, signals in the region and, of course, mixed signals to President Assad.

And by that I mean, you know, photo opportunities and/or meetings with President Assad lead the Assad government to believe they‘re part of the mainstream of the international community, when, in fact, they‘re a state sponsor of terror; when, in fact, they‘re helping expedite, or at least not stopping, the movement of foreign fighters from Syria into Iraq; when, in fact, they have done little to nothing to rein in militant Hamas and Hezbollah; and when, in fact, they destabilize the Lebanese democracy.

There have been a lot of people who have gone to see President Assad: some Americans, but a lot of European leaders, high- ranking officials. And yet we haven‘t seen action. In other words, he hasn‘t responded.

It‘s one thing to send a message. It‘s another thing to have the person receiving the message actually do something.

So the position of this administration is that the best way to meet with a leader like Assad or people from Syria is in the larger context of trying to get the global community to help change his behavior.

But sending delegations han‘t worked. It‘s just simply been counterproductive.

Now it is good to hear the president getting defiant with the democrats a little more but I think that he still needs to go further here and prosecute the speaker. Not only will it put the Democrats in there place but it will send a clear signal to the enemy that we will have the political resolve to see this war though to the end. When we show weakness, like when both houses of congress votes to set a date curtain to withdraw, that only serves to embolden our enemy to carry out more attacks. Also, you do not have enough enough to override a veto so in the political sense all they have done is political masturbation. Yea that’s right, all they have accomplished politically is make them selfs feel better. The only problem is WE DID NOT SEND YOU THEIR TO FEEL GOOD ABOUT YOURSELF! We sent you there to make decisions; so if they really wanted to bring the troops back then they would cut off funding to the war (that is within their constitutional powers) but they know that they would look bad in doing that and the majority of Americans do not want to loose. So instead they try to grant them selfs Commander and Chef powers in order to make us lose this war (that the constitution says those powers are for the president alone). If the democrat party keeps this up they are going to ensure them selfs a landslide defeat someday because America does not lose. The only way we lose a war is to give up and that is what the democrats are trying so desperately to do here just like they did in Vietnam. The massive difference this war and Vietnam is that our enemy will follow us home if we leave this war. The only question is how many millions will have to die before we start to realize that we have to fight this war to the end. We are at war here and we are completely capable of winning it. We are the United States of America and we do not lose wars that we fight fully and to the end. we have the power to win this war so now all we need it to summon up the will to fight this war. Unfortunately that may require a nuclear weapon going off in one of our cities in order for us to summon up the will to fight this war fully but the new media and I will do everything in our power to try to prevent that. We are the most powerful and best county the world has ever known but if we turn our backs on Iraq then we will not be worthy of calling our selfs Americans because then we would have betrayed everything that our country has stood for. We can ether fight this war fully and win it or we will die or have to accept Radical Islamic law. I know that that does not feel good but that is the reality.

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