There is a concerted effort afoot on the part of big-state socialists to paint the Tea Party as a bunch of dangerous, hate-filled radicals with a bunch of crazy new ideas that go far beyond the pale of the traditional American political mainstream.
Let’s ask some reasonable men – because the Founding Fathers were surely the largest collection of reasonable men ever gathered in one place at one time in history – what they thought about the issues raised by the Tea Party movement.
For instance, what did they think of a powerful central government?
George Washington:
“Government is not reason; it is not eloquence. It is force. And force, like fire, is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.”
To those who say, well, the Government has to force you to buy something you don’t want. It’s for the greater good! Here’s William Pitt, 1783:
“Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is argument of tyrants. It is the creed of slaves.”
Thomas Jefferson, the most intellectually brilliant man to ever hold the office of President – Barack Obama excepted, of course – had this to say in his First Inaugural, accepting the reins of that power:
“A wise and frugal government – (wise and frugal, my God how we have fallen) A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government…”
Did the greatest mind in American history have any other radical, dangerous thoughts on the encroachment of government and uncontrolled spending?
Jefferson, 1782:
“On every unauthoritative exercise of power by the legislature must the people rise in rebellion or their silence be construed into a surrender of that power to them? If so, how many rebellions should we have had already?”
Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Taylor, May 28, 1816:
“The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.”
Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to Spencer Roane, March 9, 1821:
“The multiplication of public offices, increase of expense beyond income, growth and entailment of a public debt, are indications soliciting the employment of the pruning knife.”
Thomas Jefferson, 1824:
“I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious.”
1824! If Jefferson was outraged at the extent of the federal government in 1824, then that’s good enough for Bill Whittle in 2010. You see, unlike Chris Matthews and Rachel Maddow and Ed Schultz and Keith Olbermann, I don’t think I’m smarter than Thomas Jefferson. But Ed and Rachel and Chris and Keith are here to tell you that protesting this government takeover of the auto industry, the financial industry, the insurance industry, the housing market and now the nation’s health care is a wild and radical idea!
I’ll tell you what else we Tea Party supporters believe in: we believe that the Constitution is Law. In the same way it’s the Ten Commandments and not the Ten Suggestions, we feel that the Constitution is law. When the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, was asked where she drew the Constitutional authority to force people to buy health insurance, she said this…
And, famously, a few days ago, Democratic Congressmen Phil Hare, from Barack Obama’s own state of Illinois, had this to say about the source of his legal authority to make people do things they don’t want to do…
Now, if you took your responsibilities and your oaths seriously, I would be forced to at least respect the offices you hold, Madam Speaker, and Congressman Hare. But it’s obvious you don’t. So listen carefully, Nancy and Phil, to what better people then you can even imagine being had to say about the source of your authority:
“If it be asked, What is the most sacred duty and the greatest source of our security in a Republic? The answer would be, An inviolable respect for the Constitution and Laws — the first growing out of the last…. A sacred respect for the constitutional law is the vital principle, the sustaining energy of a free government. “
Alexander Hamilton, Aug 28, 1794
“The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government.”
Patrick Henry
“A free people [claim] their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate.
Thomas Jefferson, 1774.
And finally, what about the dangerous, wild-eyed, hateful and threatening allusions to violence? What about that un-American, unheard of, unprecedented repudiation of the genteel nature of politics, as represented by the calm and rational rhetoric that came from the left during the Bush years? What did the founders have to say about defending freedom, by force if necessary?
One of the Framers of the Constitution, John Dickinson wrote:
“We are reduced to the alternative of choosing an unconditional submission to the tyranny of irritated ministers (“irritated ministers” – I love that; that’s spot-on) or resistance by force. Honour, justice, and humanity, forbid us tamely to surrender that freedom which we received from our gallant ancestors, and which our innocent posterity have a right to receive from us.”
Or this, from Patrick Henry , 1778:
“Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined.”
Of all of the things I have seen since this movement began, nothing has tickled me the way blogger Kent McManigal has with his updated take on the famous Gadsen Flag, widely popular at the time of the Revolution and making a strong comeback in the Tea Party movement. Here’s Kent’s flag:
Time’s up, guys. I know you Irritated Ministers and the defenders of the rich and powerful in the news media loathe and despise the Tea Party because you fear it. And you are right to fear it! It’s coming! It’s coming to take the country back from you big-state, anti-freedom elitists. Time’s up.
Here are some final words to take us out.
Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 21, 1787:
“The natural cure for an ill-administration, in a popular or representative constitution, is a change of men.”
John Adams, 1765:
“Liberty must at all hazards be supported. We have a right to it, derived from our Maker. But if we had not, our fathers have earned and bought it for us, at the expense of their ease, their estates, their pleasure, and their blood.”
Benjamin Franklin, July 4, 1776:
“We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.”
And then there’s this:
“What country before ever existed a century and half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
Thomas Jefferson in a letter to William Stephens Smith, 13 November 1787
And finally, from Samuel Adams – for all you big-state control freaks, Tea Party slanderers and the entire staff at MSNBC:
“If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”
Those are the wild-eyed radicals I stand with, and those are the ideals that I hold that are under assault. What about you?
Mr. Whittle,
I do not believe I have sufficient command of the English language to describe just how much I admire you. Ever since I discovered PJTV over a year ago I have held you as my favorite pajamasmedia.com personality and one of my favorite political commentators (along with people like Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Lou Dobbs, and Jerry Doyle) anywhere. It’s not just that we share very similiar political philosophies, but also your ability to verbalize those philosophies (whether it be on camera or on the written page), and your ability to back up those arguments with logic and fact that just leave me smiling and thinking to myself, “YEAH!!! That’s just what I would say (if I were smart enough and learned enough to say it)!” If you were to write a new book, I’d buy it in a heartbeat. If you were to run for office, I would contribute to your campaign immediately. If your run for office were to ever be in my state, I would vote for you without a second thought. Thank you so much for everything you’ve done to date, best of luck in everything you do in the future, and bless you.
Sincerely and respectfully yours,
Erik M. Sandelin
Brunswick, ME
Nice work bill. I link to PJTV and ejectejecteject often. Love this piece.
Bill, you are true to your word, thank you for posting the transcript of today’s Afterburner. My crayons and signboard are at the ready, waiting for just the right quote.
I don’t know if you understand the impact you’re having on We the People. Remember how President Reagan was an eternal optimist? And how Sir Winston was said never to give in to despair? Your attitude reminds me of these great men.
Nice work, Bill! Thanks!
Excellent, as always. In the first sentence I think you meant “far beyond the pale”.
If God grants victory to the modern Tea Party I just sincerely pray for two things. Firstly that it ignites the same cause of freedom around the world just like 1776 did; and secondly, to paraphrase the epilogue of Henry V, that it does not squander away its victories cheaply after the war by relaxing too soon, not purging enough of the irritated ministers from their infested lairs and by assuming the new bastards are any different in stripe from the old without real evidence thereof.
Cicero said that it was the City (of Rome) that bred corruption; that once men went there to serve the polity it inevitably corroded their character. Well we’re all grown up now so for God’s sake let’s innoculate the new citizen revolutionaries who take high office or elect others to it from that corruption. Getting to the Moon was easy- eradicating the modern unholy lust for corrupting money, perverted sex and raw power will be as revolutionary as the founding of America.
We stand together, Mr. Whittle. I’m passing this along to my friends, and I’m teaching this to my 13-year-old son. He’s going with me to a Tea Party meeting Thursday.
Y’know, you could get banned on certain websites for such ravings….
HotAir for one.
Huffington Post for another.
…or Ace of Spades.
…or Protein Wisdom.
…or Free Republic.
Ayup. Ben banned or run off by all of them…for saying what Bill said here.
Banned on websites? You could get put on a government watch list and accused of inciting violence against Democrat lawmakers!
Spot on, Mr. Whittle. I’ll stand with you and those “Reasonable Men” anytime.
Booyah! Spot on, Bill. Great writing, as usual.
Me, I want to get one of those “Time’s Up” flags in a bright yellow t-shirt and wear it on election day.
I sure agree with you. Now what we need to do is figure out how to take our country back. I hope you will be back soon with some plans for that.
Step One: Start showing up. Go to meetings and protests. Vote in every election, whether you think it matters or not. It does.
Here’s a plan and now that “Times Up” it’s ready to be executed: Draft Victor Davis Hanson for President in 2012.
I was inspired to make a “Yes, Nancy, we’re serious.” T-shirt.
Indeed a bunch of racist, hatemonger, gun totting, radical christian terrorist ! …. ooooopss I was reading a MSM report
Great Job Mr Wittle and keep it coming that we support and appreciate your contribution
well done bill! the radical lefties will stand out dramatically in the company of tea party folks. acorn-aclu-loony progressive pukes attempting to disguise themselves at a tea-party gathering will be like a donkey in the company of elephants. very easy to spot.
“What about you?”
Count me in amongst you and these radical thinkers. Goverment is a beast that must be caged, lest it wreak havoc.
The Tea Party, New freedom Party, or whatever party must define a set of principles and constitutional amendments that define it.
Constitutional amendments/principles outline:
1) If you are on the “government dole”; you can not vote until one full election cycle after you are off the dole.
2) Islime is primarily a hostile subversive political movement whose Mosques should be viewed as terrorist recruitment centers and traitorous entities; and should be closed. No burqa or similar female garment should be legal since it should be presumed that women are forced to wear them and say they like it under threat of death: honor killing.
3) No war is legal, and no American can be forced to go or remain in an battle zone, unless the war strategy is “unmercifully crush all areas accommodating the enemy until unconditional surrender”; any political correctness, leniency, or less than crushing assault by the leaders in executing a war should be a criminal offence and any recognized group should be able to go to court to guarantee we are not reading rights to terrorists on the battle field.
4) No prisoner of war, or enemy combatant, has any constitutional rights.
5) The federal government can only be funded by a progressive national sales tax; withholding tax is from now on unconstitutional. The higher the luxury, the higher the tax. Grocery store purchased meat, fruit, vegetables, prescription drugs et al exempt.
6) No former member (or spouse) of the executive or legislative branch may ever represent a foreign government directly or indirectly.
7) Until 2060 or 50 years, no former employees/owners of: banks, weapons manufacturer, Wall Street, drug companies may run for congress or president.
9) Having won the war on racism; affirmative action in any form is illegal.
10) Freedom of speech is to be protected; The right to criticize Islime ( other religions or seculars et al) is absolute and can not be diluted by any political correctness.
11) The right of adult non –felons to own guns is absolute. (violent misdemeanors excluded from gun ownership)
12) The federal government can not enforce by any means unfunded mandates on the states, and any provision of law that attempts to create or cause to exist an unfunded mandate, now or in the future, is not enforceable; The federal government can not blackmail states by threatening to withhold funds to obtain compliance.
13) The USA is to use all natural resources to become energy independent. No oil from the mid-east can be imported after 2018. No “environmental tax” (cap and trade scam) can be added to energy cost; coal is to be used and the EPA can not regulate coal beyond 2005 standards.
14) The states have the final say on which of their states’ natural resources can be developed, no federal designation of any kind can prevent a state from exploiting its natural resources as it sees fit, including offshore.
15) Journalist appearing on TV/cable “news” (public airwaves) must be licensed and certified in the fields they cover. Mis-representing the facts is a lose your license offence which effectively means “the hook”! No licence needed for internet…
16) The Supreme Court must investigate (and make completely public all findings) persons running for president to certify their Constitutional eligibility. Two no votes out of nine is enough to disqualify; any doubt, the answer is no. If they are wrong impeach them.
17) The USA is one nation under God with liberty and justice for all its law abiding citizens. |Marriage is between a man and a woman. There are gay and lesbians that should be treated with respect by citizens and laws; That does not mean you “must” or should or should not: respect their homosexuality.
18) The USA is not a secular socialist society. The USA is a free market God fearing country; To each according to his earnings from each according to the sales tax on his purchases…
19) The Justice system can not “blackmail” people to testify against others.
20) All civil cases are automatic counter suits against the plaintiff. Juries may find against, and assess damages from, the plaintiff and plaintiff attorney in any and all civil cases.
Criminy, how many times are you going to spam us with this BS?
Markthefake: says nothing constructive. PJ prints articles that do not adopt of refute my post; I try to print solutions. And as usual, your negatives only describe yourself.
I refuted Your BS the first time you posted it. I don’t feel the need to spam every thread with the same stuff, over and over again.
markthefake: Invalid objections that were/are unrelated to my post. and nothing constructive…ever from markthefake…
I see you inability to do basic logic remains unchanged.
I detailed why your suggestions were bad. That’s all that’s required to show that your suggestions are bad. If a comment is racist, saying so is all that is required. I’m sorry if being shown for an incompetant fool is so painfull for you. Maybe you should quit before you fall even further behind.
Markthefake: you detailed nothing/zero, you are an unmitigated…talk till you believe your own BS. Liberal with a mental disorder…subversive anti-American…
Disawith you makes one a liberal?
No wonder you aren’t able to see anything that you don’t want to see.
The refutations are there. If you ask your mother, maybe she will explain how logic works again.
Make that “Disagreeing with”.
Preview is my friend.
Whether you agree with him or not, Bruce has put out a lengthy and detailed list of recommendations that are intellectually consistent and well phrased. While you may not agree with him, they are in NO way “spam”. Your comments consist of nothing but name calling with no attempt to refute Bruce’s specific points.
Bottom line: Bruce wins and you lose. Now stfu and get off the thread.
Posting it once is not spam. Posting it 20 times is spam. He has posted this same text to every thread in anyway related to the tea party. That’s spam.
As to refuting it. I did that the first time he posted his garbage, if you want to read that refutation, go back to that thread.
Kinda creepy to imagine that FOX-contributors would have to be “licensed” by the current administration and if Id own a TV-channel or a Radio-station Id give u the finger for telling me who is allowed to speak on it and who isnt.
Come on Bruce. I am beginning to believe you are a “Party Crasher” trying to make people look stupid via association with you. Believe me, I am about as right wing as you can get – but this is just silly. But, – just for fun – I will take one and only one brief stab at your manifesto. Maybe I’ll just follow your little manifesto
General Comments:
This is not real articulate. You should probably take a basic writing class. If your prose is weak, your points lose credibility.
You use lots of vague terms: (government dole, unmercifully crush etc.) Anything that would be policy needs to be clear and specific.
Now let’s just go down a few key selections from your list:
?
1) This would require a constitutional amendment. Not happning.
2) How are you going to get past the 1st amendment on this one?
3) This is just silly. Total destruction as the only use of force? I had to read this one a couple of times to see where you were going. Dude, take a writing class.
6) Just how to you plan on enforcing this?
7) Constitutional Amendment – not happening.
9) Do you know what affirmative action is, who it applies to, or how it is enforced? You might have a general point in theory – but again, your specifics are silly. Research some HR law, and then make a logical proposal.
13) How do you enforce this? Take the US out of the free market completely?
15) This is the one that makes you officially a nut. Licensed by whom? Who decides what is a misrepresentation?
16) Another case of silliness. Constitutional amendment (two in fact – one for pres qualifications and the other for the two vote majority in the Supreme Court). I could get 2 out of 9 to vote that I was Elvis!
17 – 19, I for the life of me can figure out what you are saying with there? If you have a point or proposed policy – I can find it.
Bruce, I am split on this. Part of me thinks you are well intentioned and frustrated like most of us (and you just don’t write well) – and the other part says no one could be this inarticulate and that you are an online “Party Crasher” who is looking silly on purpose. The fact that you are spamming multiple threads with this is leaning me toward the latter.
GDT, well done. Bruce’s comments are more interventionist than some of Pelosi’s ideas. We need transparency, accountability and simplicity – not psychotic dogma.
I like all your points except 15. The implementation seems very problematic.
Let’s stay on topic.
Benjamin Franklin’s web site; What a concept
Can you imagine the campaign ads he would be running ?
One small nit. In their time, the Founding Father’s were considered quite radical.
That’s why liberty and small government are fast becoming a radical idea in the context of all governments. Take for example socialist Europe.
Obama wants us to hurry up and catch up to Europe…as if we’re really behind! I say true freedom, free markets, personal responsibility are all fresh, radical ideas now!
Take back the power to coin and Value money from the banking system and the United States and its dollar will regain value within a decade. The debt and deficits are tied directly to the inability of US government to control its own currency, due to handing control of the Banks to Federal Reserve in 1913, and removal of US dollar from Gold Convertibility in 1971.
Allow the Federal Reserve to continue its present course, and within a decade the US dollar will be worthless and the labor of US taxpayer will be its only value.
Spot on Alex. Private currencies, a continued uninhibited internet, and innovation is all that is needed to bring it all down.
Non Serviam! The sophist trembles on his throne of sand, and knows that free men finally see him for the worm that he is.
Just a quick note: I’m on the road to the Indianapolis Tea Party so comment moderation will be irregular at best. WordPress seems to hold one out if four. Not your fault!
Bill,
Aaargh! I can’t believe you’re going to be in Indy and no way I can get up there. Please post video at least.
Hawkhavn
From that part of southwestern Indiana you would not trade the world for in ‘Power’.
It is better to be equal in freedom than to be equal in servitude to a government.
Since we are collecting Founders quotes, here’s one that combines the gold thread and this one from John Adams:
A letter to his wife from his diplomatic post in Paris on June 3, 1778, illustrates his concern that luxury would undercut religion: “My dear Country men! how shall I perswade you, to avoid the Plague of Europe? Luxury has as many and as bewitching Charms, on your Side of the Ocean as on this–and Luxury, wherever she goes, effaces from human Nature the Image of the Divinity. If I had Power I would forever banish and exclude from America, all Gold, silver, precious stones, Alabaster, marble, Silk, Velvet and Lace” (Adams Family Correspondence, III, p. 32).
BILL WHITTLE! Bruce Stein enough of your B.S.
Thomas L: describes his own post. It does take an IQ above 102 to understand my post, so you should read something else!
Ha ha! Okay smartiepants. From your forays into fantasy fascism, it’s obvious you haven’t a clue about actual freedom though.
DFTT
You fail to take account of a fundamental belief of the Obami. They believe that government is redemptive. That belief comes from Karl Marx and Al Gore.
Be warned. Marxism has spread through our societie. It is in our schools, universities, unions and government. Our Tyrants today are a vast coalition of parasites of many stripes.
So is a clown-sized gavel representative of good government, or not?
Nice work, Bill.
I thought the over-sized gavel just made Pelosi look tiny.
Bill,
As much as I enjoy your PJTV bits, I think that I still like your writing better. Another fine effort which I’ve already passed onto many others, including a few friends who will not comprehend a single word. Thanks.
Thanks, Bill for the transcript and for putting into words and onto the internet what many of us think and feel.
I think a transcript of every PJTV report might be a great thing for us out here to refer to when crafting rebuttals to our “well intenditoned” Liberal family and friends.
Hell, 100 years from now, they may be part of a curriculum in a class about freedom.
You know though, John Adams didn’t respect the Constitution as POTUS. With him, power corrupted. The XYZ Affair and the Alien & Sedition Acts were a couple of things he did as President. Alexander Hamilton was also about big government….
Having just completed the McCullough biography, I felt compelled to ask for greater specificity in your comments. I largely agree that the Alien and Sedition Acts were unconstitutional. Interestingly, Jefferson’s chief complaint was not that they violated the First Amendment right to free speech, but that in light of the States rights guaranteed in the Tenth it overstepped the federal government’s limits.
I do not agree, however, with your larger point that Adams’ signing these acts into law indicated a general disrespect of the Constitution. First, both the republic and the Constitution were very young and untried. There was no historical prcedent for the freedoms enshrined in either the First or the Tenth Amendment against which to measure the propriety of such a law. Second, the bills were delivered to him with strong congressionsl support, a fact he took as representing the wishes of the people, an ideal of the representive democracy he greatly respected. Third, there was great apprehension among his administration and party with regard to the terrible bloody consequences of the recent revolution in France. Adams most emphatically was worried about the possibility of another revolution more in that mold growing from the political attacks that were frequently featured in the pages of Democratic-Republican papers. For clarity, I agree that signing the Alien and Sedition Acts was a mistake and they were unconstitutional. I am more inclined, however, in light of Adams’ record of governing and his writings coupled with his specific concerns with this issue, to consider his support as an honest mistake and not a result of general contempt for the Constitution.
As for your bringing up the XYZ affair, I fail to see how the attempt by French politicians to extract bribes for securing peace in any way brings into question Adams’ regard for the Constitution. If you have a specific point, please make it. Otherwise I will consider your inclusion in your post as merely an attempt to “pile on” and thereby make your assertion against Adams appear to be supported by more than it is.
I hope this is only my misreading, but this smells awfully like the You’re Not Jesus argument, a form of ad hominem. It goes like this:
1. You’ve expressed Principle A.
2. You failed to live up to Principle A.
3. Therefore, you don’t really believe in Principle A, and/or Principle A is false.
It’s a way of undermining positive ideals. Since you’re not Jesus, you will fail to be perfect. Thus, you don’t actually believe in what He taught, and what He taught must be false or useless, anyway.
Righteous, Bill. Well done.
Bill: “Jackpot”
The truth of these mens words is still sharp and effective today. Anyone who wields the sword of truth shall suffer persecution from the wicked. But let all the liars and their lies be exposed when compared to this Godly truth and may they be destroyed on the battlefield of ideas and should the wicked persist another battlefield awaits.
“I concur with you strictly in your opinion of the comparative merits of atheism and demonism, and really see nothing but the latter in the being worshipped by many who think themselves Christians.”
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Richard Price, Jan. 8, 1789
Two can play that game. Try thinking for yourselves.
Umm…. The post is about the role of government, not the merits of Christianity. Although they were a minority, it’s well known that some founders were athiest. So? How does this quote advance the discussion? What’s your issue?
Certainly you aren’t the only person to point out Jefferson’s statements on his doubts about organized religion. But this is merely a frivilous dodge on your part. Your blind side is that can’t conceive of people of who value personal liberty and limited government, yet might be agnostics themselves in matters of religion.
“A Democratic state senator on Tuesday handily won the first U.S. House race since Congress passed a massive health care overhaul, beating a decidedly underdog Republican who tried to use the backlash against the measure to pull an upset.
With 100 percent of precincts reporting, Florida state Sen. Ted Deutch had 62 percent of the vote compared to 35 percent for Republican Ed Lynch.”
And so it will go. Good luck, Tea Things.
A pathetic post from the king of pathos.
Did anyone ever claim that the Democrats were going to lose 100% of coming elections?
What were the particulars in the race? How Democrat does this district normally vote? Did the Democrat defend BarryCare?
Your attempts to proves something, merely prove how incompetant you are in forming a coherent argument.
The district is made up largely of retired New Yorkers (mostly Jewish) who moved to Florida. It’s probably the most reliably Democrat Congressional district outside of San Francisco. Anyone trying to spin this as a devastating defeat for the GOP or conservatives in general is just lying to you. In fact, the Democrat turnout was down a bit from normal for that district.
So the Dems managed to hold onto South Beach. I guess the next big success for the Dems will be holding on to Berkley CA.
Our trolls are a hoot.
Um, do you understand the meaning of the word, “underdog,” here? It basically means, “someone who has little chance to win”. When the modifier “decided” is applied to that, it means something like “dude has the same chance as the proverbial snowball in hell”. Why are we supposed to be surprised that this particular Republican lost, again?
You’re not. Skeezik’s posts are the approximation of intelligence. Just enough to make him feel as though he’s a wit, a genius and a sage. It’s very typical of lefties with just enough education to irritate their parents.
It sounds, without doing much thinking-work, right. But if you stop for but a moment to actually look at the pieces, it never works out. Since Skeezik can’t do that, he goes on like the guy who yells “Checkmate” all the time when he is far from winning.
In his first post about Christianity, he starts (let’s be honest) with the assumption that Tea Partiers are all a pack of Christians. You saw this one all the time during the Iraq Campaign. “Who would Jesus bomb?” I have no idea – everyone, if I read Revelations properly – but as an atheist, my concern is that we keep doing it until the job is done.
Moreover, the quote itself is of little use. All Jefferson is saying is that people, regardless of what they profess to worship, do both good and ill. “People who THINK themselves Christians.”
Those words say nothing, actually, about Christianity itself, nor God. If I think that I’m a dog, it doesn’t make me one. I can bark and piss on the rug, but that still doesn’t make me a dog.
If it’s supposed to be some revelation that people who call themselves Christians can do bad things, Skeeziks will be the first to proclaim that he (and Thomas Jefferson) possess secret knowledge that you gun- and Bible-clinging idiots can’t grasp. He will fail to realize that the Founding Fathers already covered that (as did 10 generations of men before them) when they established the principle of Religious Freedom.
It wasn’t about being free FROM religion, or being free from Mohammedism or Buddhism. It was about, generally speaking, being able to practice your own version of Christianity, because others who called themselves Christians did bad things to yet others who called themselves Christians. Not exactly a revelation.
But Skeeziks and guys like him hear Christianity in a context that seems to be negative and it’s like a dog whistle. They obey their training and come barking about the wickedness of Christians.
His reading of the victory by the Democrat in Florida is of a piece. There’s a straw man – post-Obama all Democrats will lose – that he, being smarter than you, tears down. He doesn’t even bother to understand the words he’s reading. The dog whistle says, “come” and he comes like a good slave. Like a loyal Leviathanist.
You couldn’t be more wrong. My point was a simple one, and it had nothing to do with Christians. Anybody can use the Founding Fathers to support their personal views, just like I can quote the Bible to prove you’re going to Hell. But conservatives think only they have the right to do so. It’s your own special brand of elitism, and most of America ain’t buying into it. Just like they reject your inherent hypocrisy around taxes. You want lower taxes until you discover somebody is paying less than you. Then you say they should pay more taxes. A genuine position or argument generally benefits from balance, which completely eludes the right.
You have no standing.
Nice try, but Amos conducted a surgically-precise eviseration of your mindset. Right-wing/Christian/Crazy/hypocrisy allusions recur in much of what you post. You’re strictly a clown with but one act.
What is a Leviathanist? That said, I know not what hypocrisy skeeziks refers to.
IMO, the Tea Parties aren’t going to cut it. If you want to stop the lefties you’re going to have to do what the original Tea Partiers did. Quit paying the taxes…and get ready to fight.
Hate to say it, but nothing sort of actual resistance is going to stop the lefty tyrants. They firmly believe that we exist to serve them, and it’s going to take more than just polite protests to change their minds.
Dave-I wouldnt discount that possability. As a c ommunist, Obama and his minions will NEVER cede power easily, just look at Tiannamen Square , 1989 as a recent example, or Iran several months ago. Margaret Thatcher, before her election as British PM in 1980, advocated not paying taxes as a way to stop marxist governments. I agree, they cant get anything done without our money. In Ayn Rand terms its called “going Galt”. Have you ever wondered where all the “stimulus” money went? Americorps, perhaps? Funding a little private force of Nazi-like brownshirts? Keep the powder dry , Dave,Im with you, I will not discount the possability we might have to fight back with force. My only question is , What about our military and police? a large number of troops hate Obamas guts. I certainly cannot imagine say,Gen David Petraues supporting this scum if he sends thugs out after american citizens. I know Col Alan West(running for congress in Florida, good man) woulkd oppose Obama, I certainly pray there are many more like him. I certainly hope it doesnr come to that. Unfortunately, Im afraid that possability is fairly likely. After all, didnt Jefferson once say a “little revolution now and then is a good thing”?
Skeeziks,
Some words for you: Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA). Current occupant of the seat held by the late Ted Kennedy.
Let’s wait for November 3, 2010, to see how it really will go.
Never forget that Obama was elected by 30% of the electorate, not 52%. Only 58% of the electorate turned out for the election and Obama got 52% of that subgroup.
So 0.58*0.52 comes to 0.30. We can beat these people if the Independents and Conservatives simply VOTE!!!!!
And what makes you think that these people who didn’t vote were “independents” and “conservatives”? For all we know they could be the same ilk, like abortionists, atheists, gay/lesbians/transvestites, islamists, anarchists, drug addicts, criminals, immoral scum that voted for their Supreme Leader. BTW, the share of these fine individuals is increasing exponentially fast among the population of this country, in case you hadn’t noticed.
OK I’ll take that one. John McCain was so weak, my decaf. white tea in the kid-size girlie blend could have whipped his milquetoast buttocks in an election. And just to clarify, I’m strictly talking about the candidate, not the man.
Get a ‘rock star’ (like Reagan was, or a true anti-Obama) in there, and the same amount of people-and more-will come out in droves to fight big ugly greedy ball-crushing government.
Considering the high percentage of black voters who turned out to vote for the first “black” president, I’m pretty sure the 42% that didn’t vote was comprised mostly of indpendents and conservatives who didn’t like McCain and couldn’t trust Palin.
I’d bet the Dems had a larger turnout than ever before.
The bottom line:
A majority of what used to be called “Americans” (at least 67 million among the 124 million or so voters) through their “chosen representatives” are now controlling more than $15 trillion dollars, and in the process of dismantling what used to be called “America.” Currently nothing is or can stop them.
All the rest (Constitution, Founding Fathers, and their letters) is irrelevant and to them ancient (and shameful) history. Welcome to an already “fundamentally tranformed” entity still to be named.
0BAMERICA?
Yes, an ungodly portion of our country has regressed into the abyss.
Why do you believe this makes a difference?
Apologies, I figured out what you were trying to say. It wasn’t easy though.
Thank you!
The Founders are my heroes, my role models, the very best we have ever produced. Over the years, we have betrayed their legacy by trading freedom for the illusion of security and the false promises of professional politicans. Maybe we have a chance to set some of it right with the Tea Party. If not, we’ll have to wait until after the coming collapse.
They don’t make ‘em like that anymore.
The Founders have probably been rolling in their graves for years.
How dare you quote Jefferson and the rest of those white elitist fascist Nazi patriarchal rich murderers? Don’t you know they all owned slaves, therefore rendering everything else they ever said or did irrelevant? RACIST!!!eleventy
RACIST!!! RACIST!!! RAAAAAACIST!!!!
/typical frothing liberal reaction to absolute, unimpeachable truth
Quick question: would you rather be held as a private slave or a public slave?
History must be viewed through the lens of the times. At the time, it was not considered immoral to own slaves, as slavery (to date) had existed since the dawn of time. These men operated within the normal culture of the day. To disregard the merit of these men and all they accomplished because of a modern viewpoint shows extreme ignorance. To tout them as racist (repeatedly) is no argument at all.
When I tell people that “the American Revolution occurred over less than this”, or point out the insanity that is our tax code (and how it wasn’t always there), they look at me like I’m crazy. No, I think it’s more that they’re oblivious. Each generation, we accept new layers of government servitude as the norm, and the next generation grumbles abou the newest layer. It’s a process that can’t go on forever….
Keep up the good work, Mr. Whittle.
But isn’t it ironic that Americans paid more taxes almost immediately, once they formed their own government? We found out that running our own country with a standing army, and eventually standing everything else, including healthcare, ain’t cheap. I’ll bet you won’t hear anything about this “truth” from Palin’s Boston Tea Party today.
C’mon, face it: the American Revolution did not save us one dime in taxes, in fact, quite the opposite. It just meant that we were paying taxes to a government we could more or less call our own. My concern, is not that taxes are unfair, but rather that the economic center may not be able to hold. Do you understand the difference?
Care to document your claim?
True, but the new government was one subject to the American people, and paying for a war ain’t cheap. The Federal government was running an annual surplus early on, but the debt was many times the annual budget, debt that was almost exclusively accrued fighting the Revolutionary War, which lasted eight years.
I believe the issue wasn’t taxation, but taxation without representation.
If I am correct in believing this, then it would make sense that Americans were willing to pay more in taxes upon the formation of their own central government due to the fact they’d be receiving representation (and therefor have a voice) in that government.
Yes, that is exactly the point, which blurs the supposedly clear line that Tea Partiers are making about taxes. The complications of reality get in the way, so the temptation is to over-simplify and sloganize; but the fact that we did pay MORE taxes after the Revolution is just one of those difficult pieces of history which debunks the golden age views. Ever hear of Shay’s Rebellion? Our embracing of a war and soon a standing army is what set us on this path.
All spending has to finally boil down at least indirectly to up and down votes by the citizens, because the Constitutional piece is a crap shoot, kind of like “getting back to Biblical principles.” It SOUNDS good to a certain percent of the population, but not a majority. We muddle onward, one President at a time, one election cycle at a time.
When half the population votes itself money from the other half, Congress ceases to represent the taxpayers, even though there are nominally elections. Instead of representing the taxpayers, Congress will then represent the tax takers.
There are those who honestly believe that as long as we are given a chance to vote, we are morally obligated to accept whatever the majority has choosen.
Kind of like two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.
True…that IS Demacracy. Liberty; however, is a well-armed sheep contesting the vote. The analogy to the Second Amendment is obvious.
What neither the left nor right can abide is a full view of the Founders (and their times.) Everyone wants to cherry-pick.
As one poster has already pointed out, whatever Adams, and what the hell, I’ll throw in Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Munroe, too, SAID/WROTE/DECLARED at any particular time has to be held up against how they acted when they were holding the reins of power AND all the other things which they said/wrote/declared, which somewhat contradict, or at a minimum, qualify, other
such statements.
I wish I knew the Founders better, in order to be able to give the full range of their “opinion,” but we can take it as a basic law that anyone today, who is at all political, finds or ignores the specific content of the Founders diverse opinions and stances, based on THEIR OWN proclivities.
One can create a fantasy world where if you brought back all the Founders, they would all be at the Palin Tea Party Rally in Boston today, but since they were political rivals, half of them would be mocking the half who were there. Of course, they would also be in a state of shock from almost every aspect of our lives today, but being ambitious “leader” types, they would soon form opinions and parties to respond. Abigail Adams might be cheering Palin as a woman who finally had the reins of some power in her hands or knocking her for daughter, dress, diction, or provinciality. Ah, the mind boggles.
Someone should write a book or invent a board game which addresses a FULL range of Founder splendor and folly. It would probably have to be co-authored.
We will probably have to add Jackson, Lincoln, and FDR to the later tier of Founders, but then we get in Double-Jeopardy, where scores can really change.
Some interesting observations and the same could be said about the Bible and other religious texts too. Some things have historical context that are understandable by the times (by observing the historical references they allude to), while other things are absolutely timeless in their relevancy.
Quoting anyone (at any given time) from history up to present day is basically ‘cherry-picking’.
Martin Luther King had some great quotes. Did he slip? Sure. Should we discount some of the great things he said that are still eternally relevant for humankind? I’d like to think not.
There is a difference between judging the Founders, and judging their writings.
The Founders were imperfect human beings, and it is crucial to keep that in mind. It is right and proper that their failings should be taught.
Their writings, however, are the distilled essence of what was best about them. The government they conceived is designed with human failings, even their own, clearly in mind. The Founders assumed that anyone in power, even themselves, would sooner or later exhibit their failings, and that it was therefor necessary to structure the government to constrain its powers, and limit the damage the fallible humans running it might do.
But “their writings” are on the one hand, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, in which one might assume that they were speaking, for the sake of this point, Ex cathedra. On the other hand, they include anything any of them ever wrote to anyone during their lives. Are you including all such things in the sacred and inerrant writings?
Valid point, but we can extrapolate the core of their beliefs when we read the Constitution which is what they drew up to draw from when making laws.
All of this *is* mere rhetoric. About half of us work for the government, one way or another. Maybe even more than that.
Aside from those who work directly for the government (everything from government offices to cops) there are secondary workers. We have to by law send kids to school. Teachers have guaranteed jobs as the result. We have to by law have insurance to drive. Insurance agents derive a great deal of income due to that. How about the armies of road workers and vast seas of orange road cones? Government extracts taxes to keep roads up. If not for the IRS, H&R Block would be 5% the size it is. You don’t have to collect a cheque directly from Uncle Sam. A cheque derived from Uncles’ dictates also qualifies.
Then factor tertiary concerns; e.g. food corporations that supply schools, and so on. How about Lockheed? They’re not known for supplying stuff to the civilian world.
If the government were to downsize as demanded herein, most Americans would be out of work.
Excellent, if inconvenient point.
You assume a static system.
Were we to downsize, would not these people find other employment … and employment that in the end, might just be more beneficial to themselves and the rest of us, than serving government in areas where it is ill-equipped to operate effectively and efficiently?
I see no problem, for example, for compelling the good people in the tax-preparation industry to find a better way to make a living, by instituting something like the Fair Tax in place of the 1040 Nightmare … just as buggy-whip makers had to adapt to new enterprises at the turn of the last century.
Short-term pain? Yes.
Long-term gain? YES.
I think you may find that most “movements” usually have their roots with the “romantic revolutionary” past, mainly in hopes of inspiring the masses and “get change”. Pre-America certainly had one, so did Russia, Germany and even in Vietnam and the Mid-east as well. Many universtities have entire semester classes covering them.
Revolutionary and/or Liberation movements, specifically those in America, are usually quite health from a democratic standpoint and for the most part, harmless. So I think the T-Party movement, reaching for the romantic early revolutionary themes and icons, is no exception. So good Luck to them !!
Thank you for reminding us that it is possible for someone to be a Progressive and remain civil. We are diametrically opposed on our views, but you uphold the Bill of Rights.
Thank you, excellent choices !
The PRINCIPLES that we can find in the words of the Founding Fathers are the light that can guide us in the struggle against totalitarianism.
The way from now until November is long and the totalitarians- controlled media (and schools and universities) will make it difficult and full of possible “October surprises”, but the People are awakening and if we keep working hard this next November will be as important as the November in which the Wall fell in Berlin (1989).
Godspeed America !
Godspeed Freedom !
Here’s ore on Adams:
On the pursuit of happiness, Adams wrote in 1765 that “The Happiness of a Million is in the sight of God, and in the Estimation of every honest and humane Mind, of more importance, than that of 20 or an Hundred.” In his 1776 essay, “Thoughts on Government,” Adams wrote that “the happiness of society is the end of Government…. From this principle it will follow, that the form of government, which communicates … happiness to the greatest number of persons, and in the greatest degree, is the best.” The pursuit of happiness was an egalitarian, and thus a radical concept. In America, all people, not just the rich, had a right to seek happiness.
Rights come from religion. A republic should protect those rights for all. But the founders thought that citizen virtue was absolutely necessary for the success of the new republic. George Washington repeated what many believed when he included this concern for citizen virtue in his Farewell Address (September 19, 1796). John Adams, who assumed individual human imperfection, agreed that virtue, morality, was necessary in republics. They feared that any type of democracy, not just the republican variant, could be destroyed if the moral support structure of government were undermined. That moral support structure would be provided by the churches and by women.
The role of churches is clear in Adams’s draft of the 1779 Massachusetts Constitution: “Good morals being necessary to the preservation of civil society, and the knowledge and belief of the being of GOD, His providential government of the world, and of a future state of rewards and punishment, being the only true foundation of morality, the legislature” should support the worship of God.
Another Adams comment on virtue and religion has particular resonance during this recession. In an October 8, 1776 letter to Abigail Adams, October 8, 1776, he wrote: “The Spirit of Venality, you mention, is the most dreadfull and alarming Enemy, that America has to oppose. It is as rapacious and insatiable as the Grave. … This predominant Avarice will ruin America, if she is ever ruined. If God almighty does not interpose by his Grace to controul this universal Idolatry to the Mammon of Unrighteousness, We shall be given up to the Chastisements of his Judgments” (Adams Family Correspondence, II, p. 140).
In addition to the church, women had a role in promoting virtue; Adams’s letters are replete with references to the importance of chastity and virtue in the women of the republic, so the women could teach virtue to future (male) citizens.
Justice was one virtue churches and women should teach. This ideal was crucial to John Adams but not simply because he was a lawyer; it also came from his religion. In 1775 he wrote of justice as a Christian duty. Forty years later, in a letter to Thomas Jefferson, December 12, 1816, he stated that his religious creed was, for fifty or sixty years, “contained in four short Words ‘Be just and good.’”
Allow me one concrete example of Adams’s application of justice to the political economy of the American revolutionary era: the existence of slavery in all thirteen colonies. Peers in Massachusetts politics, such as James Otis and John Hancock, owned slaves; Abigail’s minister father did, too. But when John and Abigail inherited that slave, they immediately set her free and helped her get on her feet economically. Also, Adams thought that he would have saved money had he bought slaves instead of using hired labor, but he refused to do so because of his Christian beliefs.
http://www.valleyadvocate.com/blogs/home.cfm?aid=11523
WRT the Church and Religion, it should be pointed out that Adams’ chief regret as a member of the later convention to revise and ammend the Massachusetts Constitution was his inability to successfully insert a specific freedom of religion amendment. This regret was later specifically communicated in letters to at least one Jewish friend.
There is a concerted effort afoot on the part of big-state socialists to paint the Tea Party as a bunch of dangerous, hate-filled radicals with a bunch of crazy new ideas that go far beyond the pale of the traditional American political mainstream.
David Axelrod has been the designated point man for this credo, the outset marked most dramatically by his comments on a Sunday morning talk show about one year ago, around tax day, 2009, April 15.
(a reasonable person would have asked way back then, what are you smoking, David ? Then a reasonable person would have figured out that “some decisions” about how to approach the Tea Party movement had likely been made in the Oval office.)
Nancy P soon picked up the theme with mumblings about astroturfers and swastikas.
The shameless lamestream media, in all of its permutations, has given a relentlessly big assist to the effort.
It doesn’t seem to particularly matter to all these sorts of subversives that the Tea Party movement best reflects the founding principles of this nation.
I think they and especially this President don’t think too highly of the founding principles in the first place.
Folks, if you like this stuff, I challenge you to do Janine Turner’s “180 for America.”
The Constitution and the Federalist Papers: 90 readings in 90 days, starting April 20.
The formerly brunette actress who appeared in Cliffhanger and a few 80s t.v. shows is a perfectly reasonable person to be suggesting this, since Americans are probably more familiar with her than with these documents. I only wish she’d organized it a little better. Her website isn’t complete, and a few promotional items on Cafe Press might have helped to ramp up the event. Her post is at http://constitutingamerica.org/blog/?p=6
Still, it’s a great idea. The Constitution is spread out over five days, leaving the 85 Federalist Papers a day each. They’re only a few pages each, so it’s not as bad as it sounds. Dinner table. Family. Or, if you have no life like me, why not print them out, put on some patriotic garment or adornment, ramble down to the local bar or coffee house, and ostentatiously read them? I intend to do just that. I’ll let you know how it goes, starting April 20, at my blog.
Abraham Lincoln…
We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.
Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as a heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere. Destroy this spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors.
No man is good enough to govern another man without that other’s consent.
Don’t interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained, for it is the only safeguard of our liberties.
America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.
You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.
I’m wondering why a draft Victor Davis Hanson for President in 2012 movement has not been started. Do you happen to know?
If you can’t attack the message, attack the messenger. Seeing people post about how the founders weren’t that great, etc etc, just shows why the Tea Party can’t afford to have any leaders.
They’ll be ripped apart in the press and by people who can’t argue against the message.
How did the USA go from aspiring to greatness to gasping its last breaths wallowing in abject mediocrity and how do Americans resolve this conflict?
Well, it seems the Founders gave us most (if not all) of the answers [to the above question] already and we steadily ignored them in favor of comfortable complacency. They laid the groundwork and America made great strides but in the end Americans built McMansions, allowed their children to be state-controlled, bent over for the IRS to steal their labor/survival/future, charged up their credit cards to ‘keep up with the Joneses’, kept fellow citizens on the gov poverty plantation in perpetuity in the name of ‘good’ (so long as they didn’t have to live near them), idolized idiots, pandered to a political class and tinkered with tyranny.
What will be the final price-tag once all is said and done?
We let professional politicians take over.
Delia, our biggest problem as I see it is that we have replaced respect for wisdom with the blind worship of “expertise” and intellect … to the point that the typical American believes that they are incapable of exercising personal initiative to solve the problems they face, because they have been told again and again that only their “betters” can solve their problems FOR them … and that they can’t get ahead otherwise.
I once listened to experts who said to me
that livin’ large would be so easy
Go buy that McMansion with zero down
Grab this credit card and burn up the town
But when bills came due, and ’twas time to sell
Those bums had led me to financial Hell
They’re bailed out, I’m left in the red
Misleading me about my ri–ii–ight
To get ahead.
Now our leaders are experts who’d “guarantee”
My “right” to get by irresponsibly
Get drunk get stoned get high on crack
And jump with anyone into the sack
And then go see the doc for “free”
To cure that hangover and STD
Pick up a check and go back to bed
All they ask is my ri–ii–ight
To get ahead
But history’s led me to a better view
Responsibility starts with me and you
No one but you can take your place
in solving most of the problems that you will face
And if we need to, we can help each other
Without the gov. acting like our mother
Everything is better, the truth be said
When we protect our ri–ii–ight
To get ahead.
This is why I’m here, you see
It’s about a lot more than dumpin’ tea
It’s about the lie that’s led to hurt
That life should be left to only trained experts
Instead of pourin’ money down’ their ratholes
The ordinary people now will take control
Government is best when it’s limited
so it simply protects our ri–ii–ight
To get ahead.
For an exhaustive and excellent collection of quotations on liberty and tyranny, check out http://www.languageofliberty.com.
Bill, not sure how to do a trackback…but there’s my link to your post:
http://thevailspot.blogspot.com/2010/04/reasonable-men.html
Thanks for a great read
Rich Vail, Pikesville, MD
Somebody up thread made a comment that we don’t need to change the constitution, just follow it. There are a few changes that I would like to see.
Either eliminate the ammd that permits the income tax, or cap it at something like 3 to 5%.
Remove the ammd that made Senators popularly elected.
Make voting dependant on some kind of service to the nation. Either military service, or paying taxes.
Increase the age of eligibility for office, right now it’s 25 Rep/30 Sen/35 Pres. This was established at a time when most people were parents by the time they were 16 and had been working for years and life expectancy for most was in the mid 40′s. It should not be possible to go directly from college to the House of Representatives. I suggest 35/45/55.
Life time term limits. It doesn’t matter what office you serve in, 20 years of cummulative elected service and your gone.
Great idea-Ive long advocated eliminating both the 16th and 17th amendments. The 16th never legally passed(theres evidence Woodrow Wilson Treasurer Olander Knox actually cited the vote AGAINST the 16th amendment as being for it) and the founders wanted the Senate as a check on the house. One last proposal Id make-Only property owners can vote. The founders had such a proposition in place. The demonrats under the dictitorial Wilson changed that also. Wilson in many respects was no different from Obama, except for the likelihood that Obama is likely NOT a US citizen(some Kenyan lawmaker said last week Obama was born in KENYA) and the fact that the media is far more corrupted by leftwing hatred of America today.
Back then, property (real estate) owners were about the only people who routinely paid taxes. There are a lot of good and decent people who for one reason or another decide that it is not in their best economic interest to own land at this time. I know a lot of freeloaders who own their own homes as well. I believe that in this day and age, paying taxes is a better predictor of who is a responsible person than owning land.
Love the Sam Adams’ quote “If you love wealth better than liberty…”
Please, everyone, continue to give Time, Talent and Treasure just as our forefathers did!
By the way Bill-Ed Schultz? The former TV character Sgt Schultz from the old “hogans heroes” TV show (played by the late John Banner) was far more intelligent(even only acting ) than the Ed Schultz of today. Remember Sgt Schultzs catch line was “I know nothing, I see nothing”. Ed of MSNBC Schultz truly does know nothing.
Bill,
I’m profoundly deaf and struggle to hear your PJTV comentaries. The quality of flow makes reading lips difficult and of course I have all the volume indicators on max so I can enjoy the message in spite of the challenge to hear. THANK YOU FOR THIS TRANSCRIPT. And thank you for articulating better than I can myself the thought that we seem to share.
Mike
Mike,
Can you set your computer to “read” audio for you? Maybe that will help you enjoy the video commentaries better.
OK, let’s talk patriotism. The Army doctor / birther / traitor who refused deployment is being court martilled.I agree with that. The punk ass coward belongs in the stockade.
He probably wants to be court martialed. After all, Obama’s birth certificate constitutes potentially exculpatory evidence and is therefore subject to subpoena by the defense. Refusal to permit it into evidence nullifies the case.
The Supreme Court has already deemed that which has been produced sufficient. Maybe he should hire Orly Taitz to defend him.
Apples and Oranges. The Hawaiian live birth document released by Obama was ruled sufficient for satisfying the admittedly imprecise requirements for the presidency. However, that does not preclude requiring an actual birth certificate as exculpatory evidence in a UCMJ proceeding.
While I believe Obama is a natural born citizen based on his mother’s citizenship when he was born, the UCMJ proceedings should be interesting and put the question to rest once and for all.
I agree. I decided long ago that if it were possible to prove Obama was not eligible to be President, the Clintons would have done it. Does anyone believe they didn’t try? The first leaks about this issue came from Hillary’s campaign.
Now, Obama has a vested interest in keeping this issue going, since he loves to try and discredit his critics. He loves it when “birthers” a labled right wing kooks.
When did the Supreme court hear arguments?
skeeziks is wrong on that. The SCOTUS never heard any arguments nor ruled, (or ‘deemed’ in skeeziks’ words), that the live birth document was sufficient because the question has never been brought before the SCOTUS.
Long before the DNC accepted him as the primary winner, the DNC requested documents from each candidate declaring a run for the Democratic Party nomination proving they met the legal requirements for the Presidency as did the Republicans for their candidates. Along with proof that Obama met any other unrelated requirements, Obama had to provide documentation that he met the, once again admittedly imprecise, citizenship requirements for the presidency, and the separate but far more precise age requirement. As far as any released information indicates, the DNC accepted the Hawaiian live birth document released by Obama as sufficient answer to both questions and certified him to first move forward through the primary process and eventually again certify him as the Democratic Party candidate. It is the certification from the DNC after the primary win that declares that Obama meets the requirements to be on the ballot in the general election that is submitted to the Federal Election Commission. It has nothing to do with the SCOTUS.
There’s an art to calling a man out at the plate when he takes a third strike pitch. The call must be decisive. It’s why umpires pump and point with authority. To do less invites questions. And you double down when circumstances require you to eject a player from the game. Never show weakness.
The good citizens of this great nation are not required to be civil to uncivil opponents who invade a legitimate protest. Be decisive. Grab their signs and break them. Get in their faces and toss them from the game. Act like an ump confident in his call. Record it all.
I can guarantee you that the opposition won’t come back for more if you stand righteous the first time. The press will lie about it, edit with selective clips, and make you appear the aggressors. That does not alter the truth. Stand tall and defend the truth.
YOU’RE OUT!
Hmmmm, better make sure that you get a good lawyer, too. Because being in the position of authority, an umpire can call someone out and have him removed from the game, does not exactly translate into one citizen grabbing another’s sign and destroying it. If Acorn types did such a thing to a tea-partier holding a sign, what then?
We are in good company.
58. skeeziks
OK, let’s talk patriotism. The Army doctor / birther / traitor who refused deployment is being court martilled.I agree with that. The punk ass coward belongs in the stockade.
And you’ve done exactly what for your country, besides feed at the public trough? The army doctor, is honoring his oath to the Constitution to protect the country from all enemies foreign and domestic. Those prosecuting him, are traitors to the Constitution, and the oath they took. The army doctor has a duty to disobey. Barack Hussein Obama is a Kenyan despot, and fraud. I just wrote Benjamin Netanyahu’s office to let them know what is going on with the usurper. I’m sure others will as well. I want this man caught, Hussein that is, and put in Federal Prison, until he takes his last breath.
None of that’s going to happen here in reality world.
If the Colonel can legitimately question the credentials and authority of the C-in-C, then, upon being ordered to advance, what is to stop some corporal from demanding that his lieutenant show him HIS commission and HIS orders, refusing to obey a command until the lieutenant produces them?
The Colonel must obey or resign. The rest of us have to work to defeat Obama in 2012 to relieve the Colonel and others like him of that burden.
“You’ve come to the wrong shop for anarchy, brother.” Capt Jack Aubrey, Master and Commander
Well done. Thank you.
So refreshing to hear the wisdom of our Founding Fathers! They rock extremely hard–and so does Bill for this piece.
Death and Taxes
“In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” (BenjaminFranklin); ”Taxes are the price we pay for civilization.“ (Oliver Wendell Holmes)
Franklin was semi-correct in his observation, in the death part, but though taxes are always with us the rates are always negotiable in a civilized society thus adding a degree of uncertainty.
The Obama administration commented on death without ever using the word. In the context of a nuclear attack on the United States we were reminded, (just reminded, mind you), that local agencies should and would be the first responders and decimated cities shouldn’t expect to see the feds on hand for 72 hours or more.
The reader may recall the uproar over FEMA’s slow response in the aftermath of Katrina when President G.W. Bush was lambasted for doing a flyover over New Orleans and commending FEMA head Michael Brown (”Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job”). President Obama seems to want to forestall any such criticism by warning local officials not to expect any “significant federal response” for up to four days if they were nuked.
Barry, you’re doing a heck of an advance job.
It’s bad enough that Obama was talking about the unthinkable, a terrorist nuclear attack on an American city, but he gives fair warning that the surviving victims would be on their own for a good few days. Brownie screwed up after massive flooding; Barry is planning to screw up after a mushroom cloud rises above NYC or LA or SF or DC.
Some 1836 people died from Katrina, a horrendous toll. Tens of thousands would be killed in a nuclear blast but fear not, says the White House in a guide posted online and sent to local officials, in effect saying you guys will be just fine until we get around to you.
And what would that blast do? “A 10-kiloton nuclear explosion would level buildings within half a mile of ground zero, generate 900-mph winds, bathe the landscape with radiation and produce a plume of fallout that would drift for hundreds of miles, the guide says.” That would be followed by chaos so the plan is for the feds to hang back until things were more settled: http://bit.ly/agkd93
Then there’s tax news, which seems cheerful in comparison. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1631
It’s not as bad as it sounds. That hundreds of miles refers to directly downwind, in an ellipse whose eccentricity is 91% (eccentricity=1-(minor axis/major axis)), so you only have to travel a few miles crosswind to avoid the overwhelming majority of the fallout.
“Barack Hussein Obama is a Kenyan despot, and fraud. ‘
And you, of course, can prove that. But how? As for me, my Purple Heart suggests I’ve done more than you may want to believe. Feed at the public trough? You mean unemployment or welfare or food stamps or a public defender? Never. Can you and yours say the same? Now, because you are so wrong (and so presumptuous) on so many points, it seems the opinions you should question the most are you own. Here’s the first question you should ask yourself . . . ‘What have I done, exactly, for my country?” (Here’s a hint: Holding a sign with Obama in a Hitler mustache, or whining, “Keep government out of my Medicare, those things don’t count.) Maybe you should send a letter to Obama to let him know about Bibi’s fraud allegations and investigation for receiving free home improvements and maintenance from a Jerusalem contractor over a three year period. Or perhaps a glimpse into his four marriages.
Now, you were saying?
And you, of course, can prove that. But how?
Bill Whittle: The Thomas Paine of OUR Revolution.
Bruce is a lot closer to the Founders than the rest of you Republican crap piles.
The founders wanted the govt to ban certain religions?
The founders wanted the govt to license reporters?
The founders wanted the govt to tax out of existence products they didn’t think people needed?
Neither you nor Bruce have the faintest clue regarding the what the founders believed.
Looks like Bruce had to create another sock puppet in order to find somebody to agree with him.
Inspiring!
I would quibble with the claim of Thomas Jefferson being either “the most intellectually brilliant man to ever hold the office of President” -I would say that was either James Madison or John Quincy Adams. I would also take issue with the part about Thomas Jefferson being “the greatest mind in American history” as Alexander Hamilton, Gouveneur Morris, and John Adams were arguably all superior minds to Jefferson’s (particularly Hamilton who was on another level altogether). None of them fell for the French Revolution nonsense that Jefferson did among other things I could mention. Jefferson himself would feel insulted to be placed higher than Benjamin Franklin who also deserves mention as every founder mentioned above thought Franklin was the pre-eminent man of their age. But those quibbles aside, this is a most pleasing commentary Bill!
These are the radicals I stand with as well.
(Well, except for that lunatic Bruce Stein.)
Great article as always, Bill. Where’s your Pulitzer?
Seems most of you are missing a very important fact about the founding fathers; they lived during a time that most people were able to grow their own food, make their own clothes, etc. Therefore, they could discuss being self-sufficient and such—now is very different! Most of us can not grow our own food, do not know how to make our own clothes, therefore we depend upon others for our survival! Now, you can reduce the federal government but you will need to transfer some responsibility to the states, such as food and drug safety! I know I’m not about to buy food produced in California unless it has been inspected- this could be done by a private firm with the cost of inspection added to the cost of production, but I would expect my state to at least regulate this private inspection! And you can not allow the industry to inspect itself (29 miners are dead today because of this lack of oversight)!
So, there are several issues related to modern life that can not be managed by looking back to the founders. They did not know how we would evolve as a country!
I agree that inspection is needed, I disagree that the state needs to play any role in either the inspection, or setting up the standards.
Take for example UL (United Laboratories). Few would buy an electrical product that did not have the UL label. It is an entirely private company that sets it’s own standards. No govt intervention at all. The same could be true for both drugs, food, and any other product you care to mention.
The problem of corruption is less than it is with govt as well. When a govt inspector is found to be taking kickbacks, what punishment does the govt inspection program take? None. If a private inspector is found to be taking kickbacks, the company that hired him has a public relations nightmare on it’s hands and will lose customers to it’s competitors.
As to the price of the inspection being added to the cost of the product. That’s where it belongs. The consumers of an activity should be the ones to bear the cost of that activity. Govt inspection also costs, but the costs are socialized onto the whole of the people.
These are wonderful sentiments. The problem (for me) is that they are so sweeping, general, and non-specific that I can’t always derive from them meaningful guidelines for dealing with today’s problems.
But more important. At the time these warnings and platitudes were penned, the Founders had a clear idea about POLITICAL power. But we live in an age of enormous “private” power. For example, when Patrick Henry wrote “Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel,” he wasn’t aware of huge financial and banking giants, nor of the impact that multinational corporations and foreign governments on our every day lives.
My question to the Tea Party is: can citizens protect themselves from private and foreign powers without a?strong state.
This “huyge” power exists only in your paranoid fantasies.
No bank can force you to buy it’s product. No conglomerate, no matter how big, can conscript you to work for it.
Oh! Nice one, Whittle!
Good stuff! I do have one minor quibble – in what world is William Pitt the Younger, a Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, a Founding Father? I guess you could make a very convoluted argument about him being the Prime Minister when the Treaty of Paris was ratified by Parliament, but I don’t think HE would want to be considered a Founding Father.
Good quote, wrong group.
Somehow I don’t think these guys visualized World War II. Which we won by the way and saved the whole world from three sinister forces. Don’t trivialize our founders, maroon.
The most innovative part was how they found a way to enshrine all these beliefs into their government while still relegating a good number of the country’s inhabitants as slaves.
They tried to deal with the issue of slavery, but found it unresolvable, so inserted into the constitution a method so that later generations could try again.
I am as angry as all of you at the way the big banks and corporations are being bailed out and protected by the government, with no one paying attention to the rest of us hard-working regular folks–except to collect our taxes. What I don’t understand is why the Tea Party, that I thought I might join, is endorsing REPUBLICANS! Didn’t they get us into this recession? Didn’t they blow the deficit with all their spending, particularly on war in Iraq and with all their earmarks, and tax cuts to the wealthy? Aren’t they the ones that let the lobbyists write the laws that give the corporations tax breaks and loopholes? The Democrats are not for us either, but if you want a revolution, why are you backing the worst of the two political parties? And is it true that the biggest energy corporations are funding the Tea Party? Like they are really for the little guy as they gouged us with gas at almost $5/gallon (one reason to be thankful that Democrats are in power, so the gas companies can’t raise prices again, not that I am for the Dems either). Does anyone out there really think this is the answer? Why not go independent? Then I’d be with you.
1) The Republicans did not create the deficit.
2) Anyone who thinks Tea Partiers should be backing Democrats clearly has emitional issues to deep to spend time on here.
#’s 72 and 73 get us closer to the practical issue here. It may not be practical by the time I am done rambling on it, but here goes:
Can we really get by without a huge government? At the Boston Tea Party event, Boston Globe reporters managed to get one Tea Partier to “rethink” her position when it was pointed out to her that the Medicare on which she relied was a big government program. But the example which took the cake was a mother of a huge family of home-schooled children, who drove up in a van from Connecticut. She admitted that she took government assistance which she did not really believe in, but it made possible her having more children, which she believed in even more (or words to that effect.)
After recent Tea Party happenings and reader responses in the NYT I have reached two conclusions;
-A fair number of Tea Partiers are dumber than dirt.
-A fair number of NYT responders are nasty self-proclaimed elitists, who have their own tunnel vision, which yields a different version of being dumb.
Obviously the aforementioned Globe reporters were trying to lure the folks into such contradictions, but the fact is that many if of most of them receive Social Security or Medicare, and are not prepared to give it up! I am also trying to imagine the scenario in which GWB had succeeded early on in his second term of getting his Social Security reform passed and millions of people really had taken the option of pulling their money out and investing it, just in time for the collapse of the economy. Not a pretty picture.
A sweeping consensus of people want and use some of the safety net, but a Tea Party per cent want to affirm principles approaching absolute liberty, and an even larger number don’t want the safety net broadening to much beyond what they themselves need and use. There is such a hodge podge of competing needs and assertions, that it really is safer to just bash Obama.
As for the Founders, I love to think of how amazed they would be by rock-ribbed American Christmas, a holiday which was little celebrated and rarely even mentioned in their day. But to be true Founders, if they were alive today, they would have to protect creches on public property (they would probably have little problem with that, since church and state were a lot closer then (but most of them would be damned suspicious of the papist leanings of any emphasis on the MOTHER and child motif; they might allow the Baby Jesus, but Mary would have to be offstage; except for the Maryland Founders.)
Is it fair to say that if you watch Fox News, as I do all the time, that their “defense of Christmas is presented as if they are protecting some Founder-type America value? The Founders would be stunned to know that to get into the black, American commerce has to have a Christmas binge of buying and that Black Friday and Good Friday are both essential parts of our state religion. But what the hell, it’s like big government, we grumble a little, yet it is all so much a part of the texture and fabric of our lives, that we have no real intent of rending that veil in our temple.
Is it true that when asked about the Tea Partiers, that GWB said, “they should stop grumbling; if they really want to help the country, they should go out and buy some big ticket item…not a $20 Rattlesnake flag.
Dwight,
As to the first person you mentioned, we have no way of knowing her circumstances, but we DO know that people are much more generous in general than the Left believes them to be, but Medicare has replaced most of the voluntary charity programs, so people wind up relying on that rather than, say, the local church or other private groups for assistance.
For the second, yes, she’s taking advantage of a program that is already there, but I don’t think she would be all that disconcerted if it weren’t. Since the reporters were undoubtedly pushing pretty hard on them, it’s not surprising that she didn’t think to respond that way (I become completely tongue-tied if I get overloaded, myself).
Ultimately, the Government wants to take control of everything that could be more easily and more efficiently created and/or managed by private groups. If we started scaling things back, we would find that people step up and help out the truly needy. One of the big gripes the Tea Partiers have is that Government doesn’t really make much of an assessment of who actually needs assistance, and who is just a leech.
Let’s see. Govt takes most of our money. Govt gives a small part of it back.
Ergo, we can’t live without big govt.
Can you believe there are actually people who believe liberals are capable of coherent thought?
The answer to that argument is that Roosevelt having addictied the populace to tobacco (social security), and LBJ having addicted them to marijuana (Medicare) is hardly a reasoned argument for letting Pelosi and Obama addict them to heroin (Pelosibama care).
The Adams quote says it all:
“Liberty must at all hazards be supported. We have a right to it, derived from our Maker. But if we had not, our fathers have earned and bought it for us, at the expense of their ease, their estates, their pleasure, and their blood.”
I wonder if part of our problem is that our fathers (and other children of the 60s like Speaker Nancy) didn’t buy our liberty by paying their ease, estates, and pleasure. The Boomers got everything, and paid nothing for the liberty they enjoyed, and just one generation later, we’re suffering the consequences, and the price of regaining liberty will be paid for with interest applied.
There was a Tea Party demonstration outside of the office yesterday. They carried signs that said, “IF YOU VOTED OBAMA, YOU HATE YOURSELF AND JESUS,” and yelled out harassment at anyone who didn’t honk in approval. Not reasonable men at all.
Granted, they don’t necessarily speak for the Tea Party as a whole. But here’s the big question: If the Tea Party’s own members don’t speak for the group, how can the group speak for the entire country?
More importantly, the violence has already gone beyond threats; three weeks ago, just after Tea Party members in Danville posted what they thought was Rep. Tom Perriello’s home address (it actually belonged to Periello’s brother Bo, his wife, and their four young children), his home’s gas line was intentionally slashed.
(Source: http://www.examiner.com/x-25653-FBI-Examiner~y2010m3d24-FBI-investigating-severed-gas-line-at-Rep-Tom-Perriellos-brother-home)
That’s just the latest example of how all the far-right propaganda has been stirring Americans to violence — not some metaphorical violence, but the real thing — against their fellow Americans. Just over a year ago, an obsessive Fox News listener went on a shooting rampage in a left-leaning church, killing two and wounding six. They found piles of Hannity, Savage, and O’Reilly books in his home and car, along with a raging anti-liberal manifesto he’d written himself.
(Source: http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2008/jul/28/church-shooting-police-find-manifesto-suspects-car/)
Call it “freedom fighting,” “revolution,” or any other word you want, but there’s another word for violence used as a political tool, and that’s terrorism.
Much more so than any other news corporation, Fox News and its affiliates have raked in fortunes selling conflict and hatred. Recently, a leaked Republican memo advised the RNC to sell fear, to demonize the opposition, to convince people that their opponents aren’t just wrong, but evil.
(Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/ynews_ts1217)
Ann Coulter unironically referred to the DNC as the “Spawn of Satan Convention.”
(Source: http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=39644)
Anger sells. Controversy sells. Jerry Springer wouldn’t have lasted a year if his guests had all been calm and rational. He drew ratings by being a ringmaster. His movie was even called that.
The angrier people get, the more they tune in. The more they tune in, the more they have invested in what you have to say. The more they’ve invested, the more powerful you become. That’s why Fox News has promoted the Tea Party events so heavily, going so far as to label them “FNC TEA PARTIES” in a map of the events they showed on TV. They’re stoking the anger, trying to exploit it, get themselves a piece of that pie, and more than that, control how the narrative goes.
It’s all a means of control. Us Against Them. We’re always right and good, and they’re always wrong and evil. Agree with us, or you’re a traitor to America, because we decide who and what America is.
And as all that sets in, you start seeing what Michael Stackpole once called a “fortress mentality,” the idea that the world is evil, you’re the only true force for good, and anyone who isn’t with you is either one of the bad guys or a pitful, ignorant dupe of the bad guys. “Don’t listen to them. Don’t even talk to them. They’re lying. They’re evil. At best, they’re idiots.”
That’s not democracy. Democracy is about resolving conflicts through discussion and consensus, not through insulation, inflexibility, and threats. It’s not about demonizing the opposition, not about hatred, certainly not about destruction.
Peaceful reconciliation. Pooling all our best ideas, and putting those ideas to work for the country; that’s democracy. And there’s plenty to respect in both sides’ ideals.
Conservatism, at its best, is like a “tough love” kind of dad, always driving the kids to excel, making sure they work hard, and showing them how to take their scrapes and bruises.
And liberalism, at its best, is like a soft, caring mom, someone who makes sure their children are safe, that they have a nice hot cocoa waiting for them when they get home at the end of the day, and that, if their kids fall on harder times than they can manage on their own, they have someplace they can rest and recover.
Obviously, those two philosophies come into conflict every day. Both have their flaws, and both often fall short of what they can be. But you need both. And if your mother and your father are fighting, do you want one to kill the other? Do you even want one to “win”? Of course not; you just want them to stop fighting.
Don’t expect much commentary on your post. It’s too rational. It’s too accurate. It’s too genuine.
But here’s the big question: If the Tea Party’s own members don’t speak for the group, how can the group speak for the entire country?
The Tea Parties don’t have to speak for everyone. Just enough people to swing elections. I’m looking forward to November. How about you?
#79 Dwight — Can we really get by without a huge government?
Doubtful.
As per #72 government size is and always has been inversely related to the proportion of the population devoted solely to maintenance (i.e. enough food etc to maintain existence.) In 1776 ag tech was such that most people had to be involved with food production (and the largest exports were food and raw materials.) By the time the industrial revolution really kicked in government was growing, but then again new farm implements were letting fewer people do the maintenance function. By the time of Lincoln government had grown to the point that Lincoln had detractors saying he was screwing the founders (and to this day Lew Rockwell still beats on this particular drum.)
Today only a small fraction of the population is devoted to maintenance and government is bigger than ever.
You have the relationship backwards.
Having a richer society enables us to support a bigger govt, it doesn’t require a bigger govt.
Economic studies have demonstrated that there is an inverse relationship between the size of govt and economic growth.
And Adam Smith noted that economic growth is not related to overall wealth, and in fact there’s a weak inverse relationship between the two.
Beware of the wolf in sheeps clothing. I’m referring to the likes of Lindsey Graham (R-SC) This
is a Arlen Spector clone (wolf in sheeps clothing or shall I dare say Lindsey Specter?)
he is now crafting the Cap & Tax bill with
John Kerry and others that will put more government hands in your pocket. They insist that it
will only raise the price of gasoline .27 cents per gallon, but we all know how the estimated cost of
Obamacare. Know this, the gasoline tax is “people control”. This is a tax to control your life, your
activities (See People Control)
MarkTheGreat — Economic studies have demonstrated that there is an inverse relationship between the size of govt and economic growth.
Link?
The US economy grew post-WWII and has been on an amazing trajectory, and simultaneously the government has also grown, tracking technolgical advance as I have noted.
Post a link to these studies, thanks.
“A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government…”
My favorite one!:D
“which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement;” Hmmm, how do we apply this to Goldman Sachs and the “free market?” What would the FF’s have thought about the SEC? If we shrink government, can we also shrink Goldman, Google, and Exxon?
@ #81 –
I liked the ending of your post very much:
Conservatism, at its best, is like a “tough love” kind of dad, always driving the kids to excel, making sure they work hard, and showing them how to take their scrapes and bruises.
And liberalism, at its best, is like a soft, caring mom, someone who makes sure their children are safe, that they have a nice hot cocoa waiting for them when they get home at the end of the day, and that, if their kids fall on harder times than they can manage on their own, they have someplace they can rest and recover.
Obviously, those two philosophies come into conflict every day. Both have their flaws, and both often fall short of what they can be. But you need both. And if your mother and your father are fighting, do you want one to kill the other? Do you even want one to “win”? Of course not; you just want them to stop fighting.
However true that is however, those two philosophies are best applied by the cultural practices of our society. Just as I don’t want mom and dad to kill each other, I don’t want the police (i.e. armed force – the government in the context of your metaphor) to come into my house and support only one of them. EITHER one of them…
The Tea Party philosophy, in my opinion, is best expressed by Jefferson’s “A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government…” THAT is the destination that should be aimed for – the ire should be directed at the current practices of government and its agents. The Tea Party movement will continue to have a lunatic fringe associated with it (as the Dems / Reps have themselves) and must simply present a unified front to the media about core objectives as much as possible. I won’t stop the loon with the anti-Obama personality sign, but if he is drowned out by 100 people with pro-liberty policy then his hatred is exposed.
@ #86 — As long as Goldman, Google, Exxon aren’t injuring people ‘shrinking’ them isn’t your business. If they are, and only then, should action be taken. If you can reasonably explain how ‘large’ companies should be made illegal and limited to a certain size then that would make a good bill for the new Congress. I don’t care how large Google becomes, they lack the power to force my compliance via violence.
“However true that is however”
Nice redundancy – learn not to post before coffee. Apologies.
Hey Russell,
Thanks for the reply.
I agree, as I think most people would, that we should have as little government intrusion into our lives as possible. That said, to go back to the metaphor, the police are, of course, there for a reason.
Back in his “Tribes” essay, Bill Whittle once compared a policeman, or a soldier, or any sort of watchman, to a guard dog. Difficult to tell from a wolf sometimes, but always there to protect those in need of protection.
I once met a sheriff’s deputy who talked about his work, and said that in all his years on the force, he never drew his gun, never even put cuffs on anyone; if he saw a disturbance, he’d step in, assert his authority until everyone calmed down, asked if anyone wanted to press charges (the answer was usually “no,”) and then send them home their separate ways. He said that he’d rather call himself a peace officer than a law enforcement officer.
That kind of authority can be a good model for government. Neither overbearing enough to interfere when people can solve their own problems, nor negligent when they’re in genuine need of help. And of course, we’ve been trying to find the right balance there since we kicked out the Brits.
You probably already know this, but our original federal government was very weak, practically nonexistent. Under the original Articles of Confederation, the President had no executive power, there were no federal courts, no regulation of interstate commerce, no authority to tax the states, no authority to raise an army, and each state was sovereign unto itself. No doubt, that all sounds great to many people today, but apparently, it didn’t work too well, because eight short years later, America scrapped it entirely and wrote the Constitution in its place.
Jefferson was a great man. (On a side note, the Texas Board of Education just voted not to list him as a Founding Father anymore. Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/ynews_ts1253) But small government wasn’t his only platform; he also knew the value of a good education. In 1818, he wrote, “If the condition of man is to be progressively ameliorated, as we fondly hope and believe, education is to be the chief instrument in effecting it.”
As much as I respect Bill here, I really do think he downplays the value of factual knowledge. In his “The Dowd Conundrum” bit, among others, he equates knowledgeability with arrogance, with presumptuousness, with a lack of wisdom and world experience. And he’s not alone; too many people use “intellectual” as an insult, equating it with awkwardness, absent-mindedness, deviousness, and impotence in every sense of the word.
For some time now, there’s been a movement on the right to ignore the value of knowledge in favor of gut feelings. To ignore facts in favor of belief. Or, as Glenn Beck famously put it, “Believe in something! Even if it’s wrong, believe in it!”
Knowledge is critical to good decision-making. Especially knowledge of past mistakes, past successes, and everything you possibly can know about the present situation. Too many angry people these days are angry over things that aren’t true. Fearful of things that aren’t happening. Like the way a lot of leftists were over the supposed “Patriot Act II” — remember all the rumors about that one? — but on a bigger scale.
Remember the outrage over Obama’s 99% tax, to take back all the bailout money that got used on bonuses? It didn’t exist; someone in the House proposed it, Obama went on record being against it, and it never happened. Remember all the fearmongering over the dreaded North American Union? Not happening, no matter how much Lou Dobbs raved about it. Remember back when Michelle Bachmann and Glenn Beck both publicly feared that Obama would round people up and throw them in internment camps? Beck at least had the sense to eventually drop that one. But people still, on this very forum, insist that Obama is a secret Kenyan Muslim terrorist just waiting for Bill Ayers’ orders to launch the nukes. It’s ridiculous.
And on a less ridiculous note: Death panels? Not everyone knows this, but our insurance companies right now, before Obamacare passed and quite possibly still, have rooms full of people, people with no particular experience in medicine or law, whose job it is to find excuses to deny coverage to paying customers. I’ve known those people personally. The health care system we had was unsustainable. Obamacare may be far from perfect, but at least someone took the wheel before we went over the cliff. (Whether they’re steering us back on the road or toward a different cliff, of course, remains to be seen.)
I’ve rambled a while, but what I’m trying to say is that we as a democracy need clear, precise knowledge, on everyone’s part, to correctly identify problems and come up with the best solutions. And we need to gather it from as many different sources as possible, not just from any one particular source that its listeners believe the only real source for truth (you know which source I’m talking about).
The energy and the passion the Tea Party has rallied together is a wonderful thing. But passion on its own is unstable and dangerous; it needs to be tempered and focused with knowledge and wisdom. That way, you have the clearest possible picture of what the country needs, and you have the drive to make it happen.
How did the founding fathers feel about calling the President a N****R? Or lying to poison the health care debate.
The Teabaggers aren’t patriots, and don’t believe in having civil discourse. Now that their crazy past, has come back to haunt them, they want to play nice, and have everyone forget about their looney, raciest rantings.
This is one of the finest summations of the cause of liberty, that I have ever had the privilege to read. Outstanding Bill, Outstanding.
I found it a wonderful article. I agree that it is time for resistance. The only way this resistance is going to work, however, is if the Tea Party movement is able to cast off all the rank and file Republicans who are trying to latch on to the movement. I find it disgusting. You can label me as a liberal all you want for saying that, and I really don’t care. I AM a liberal, a classical liberal with the same beliefs of free-market economy that Thomas Jefferson held. If this resistance is going to have any merit whatsoever, it needs to cast off the notions of liberals vs. conservatives. Conservatives, by and large, are against resistance. They, by definition, should have no part of this. Republicans who are latching onto the Tea Party movement are doing so for one simple reason: the protesting is against the establishment and that incumbent establishment is a Democrat. Let’s not forget that John McCain was all for the bailouts during the campaign. Would the same Republicans who are hanging on to this resistance now being doing so if McCain had won? Well, you’re lying to youself if you say yes, not to me.
I happen to be a man who believes in the Constitution. But I’m also an honest American. I know that the Constitution, the greatest system of rights the world has ever seen, has NEVER been enforced by the government to its capacity. The same government that was established by this Constitution, the one that guaranteed inalienable rights to ALL men, is the same government that allowed slavery to exist for nearly another hundred years, and Jim Crow laws to exist into the 1960′s. It should shame every one of us that Great Britain, the government against which these great men stood, beat us to the abolishment of slavery. So, I ask you, is the abuse of the Constitution by the government really that new?
So, I say again, if the movement honors the words of Benjamin Franklin when he said “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately,” then it must reject the hangers-on. Sarah Palin does not care about this resistance. If you believe she does then you are easily fooled. Just saying one is for the constitution is not enough. One must prove one knows the Constitution and truly respects its nature, and be honest in acknowleging that its enforcement has been flawed from the start. Thomas Jefferson knew it, John Adams knew it.
If one rejects only this recent spread of government power and spending, but not the abuses of the Constitution that have gone on for far longer, then I am forced to question that person’s credibility and agenda. If that offends anyone hear who reads it, then call me on where I’m wrong. Otherwise, examine your own beliefs and heart and ask yourself if you really believe in resistance.
A Reasonable Man?? A reasonable man would recognize that the Tea Party people are mostly republicans. They would recognize that republicans ran this country into the dirt. they would recognize they LOST the last 2 elections BIG TIME.
They would also recognize this is a repeated historical pattern. Republicans get in control for too long…. we have a Great Depression or some other economic collapse. Democrats take over. The republicans scream COMMUNIST and SOCIALIST. The the economy gets better.
Dow jones DOWN -25% Over 8 years of Bush and the Republicans
Dow Jones UP 30% in just 18 months under the Democrats…. SO WHO IS THE SOCIALIST????
I’m sure you are going to be really pleased this November.
BTW the economy is running on borrowed money. What happens when the bill comes due?
Thank you Bill. I have enjoyed your commentary for years and have made others aware of your being. Have never met or spoken with you but consider you a blood brother.
Strength & Honor!
“We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.” You had quoted Benjamin Franklin as saying but you want almost no government and that everyone should do as it pleases. Let me point you to what you really want, a state where no one really pays tax and everyone only cares for himself. Check it out, its third world visit Nigeria and see what it looks like. (People who own oil blocks driving on tattered roads). That is what you want eventually for America. You are so individualistic and you quote the same Bible I went to study in bible school after getting saved. You American “Christian evangelicals” shame most of the people who are new believers around the world with your views. It is this s same crop that supported the leaded fuel in 1921 and brought large scale cancer to the world. When you meet your maker you will answer for yourself. If Jesus fed 5000 and healed the sick, please what message was he preaching? That you should be selfish? ….I doubt it. That when you find a cure let only the rich be availed of it? ….I doubt it. I am dissappointed in what you support and do not support. I am not liberal but I am a Christian who know what Christ represents and its definately not the American selfish conservatives.
Bill,
Fantastic as always. This needs to be turned into a video interview with slick graphics and professional production values so that the media-savvy youth of today will watch it and learn.
I have tried to find any posts by Bill Whittle concerning his friendship with Charles Johnson from LGF. I know he used to post over there, but has he split way with CJ? If so, was there a thread or article about it from BW?
A link would be appreciated.
God bless the USA.
the famous Gadsen Flag, widely popular at the time of the Revolution and making a strong comeback in the Tea Party movement
Don’t forget the Gadsen flag flies on the jackstaff of every US Naval vessel.
Amen!
No matter how the leftists/liberals/socialists/communists rant at the wind that we are not a Judeo/Christian nation—the Truth will not be extinguished. They can burn the books, they can unplug the internet, they can make laws to keep us from congregating…but you cannot stop the Truth-it WILL be heard.
More and more people know about our country’s founding and those God loving & fearing men and women who fought, lived, and died for our freedom and the two hundred plus years following NOW than two years ago. And as we all learn, as we all remember, as we all rediscover the amazing, wondrous, exciting, and blessed history and heritage we have as Americans there will be NO STOPPING US! For We are His People. We are One Nation Under God. Our One and ONLY KING!
We will bow down to no other.
Posterity, you will never know the sacrifice our generation made to preserve your liberty. I hope that you will make a good use of it. If you do not, I shall repent in heaven that I ever took half the pains to preserve it.
–John Adams
Do you think Mr. Adams would be pleased looking down at the nation he helped to create?
Appleseed: Weekend courses in American heritage and marksmanship – coming soon to a town near you!
http://www.appleseedinfo.org