Saturday, January 23, 2010

the eyes have it

Many people wonder why there is so much vitriol and polarization in every strata of American life.

As I see it the condition is utterly unavoidable considering the confluence of a number of social and political factors. I'll just focus on the political here.

There was a time the political factions were devoted to the Constitution. Like one's eyes they saw the same object from a different perspective.

After the shooting phrase of the War for Southern Independence the Great Victim that was mortally wounded was the Constitution and with it American Liberty. As Salmon Chase, Lincoln appointee to the supreme court said, "States rights died at Appomattox." But it took some time to expire and the body to begin to rot and stink as it does today.

By the time of Roosevelt and Wilson so-called Constitutional lawyers, working together with a Supreme Court that had arrogantly cast off natural law, carried out an all out attack on the Constitution. That attack continues to this day, striking now repeatedly at the bill of rights.
Their efforts quickly rendered the Constitution all but irrelevant, making it, like state sovereignty, a mere relic of the past, fecklessly on display under glass. The war had taken place between the General government and the Constitution that was supposed to restrain it, and the government had won.

Sadly , through the process of incrementalism the sovereign states have been reduced to little more than administrative arms of the National Government. Make no mistake about it, there is only one Government in America and it is located on the Potomac. The states have no more political power than the Queen of England. Their borders are vestigial relics and their local politicians have their eyes focused on pleasing Washington and looking to the day they can go up to the big time and join the show.

The Constitution, now confined and under guard, can no longer restrain the excesses of men's imaginations to control and manipulate others, to get unjust gain, and corruption oozes out of the cracks of the Ship of State and all its compartments begin taking on water.

Impotent in its encasement the Constitution can no longer do mischief to the smoke-filled back room deals and schemes of self-seeking politicians and business men. The inmates have at last a free hand to run the asylum, and run it that are--more on that later.

One important result of this was a sea change; the nation ceased being a nation of laws and began being a nation of men; a nation of battling wills and silver-tongued lawyers arguing for which position serves best the greater good, not which position preserves the Constitutional constraints on the Central Government and protects individual liberty.

Consequently, the Constitution has evaporated in importance in the eyes of the two parties, and each now focuses on their own unique perspectives almost exclusively. Just as a man whose eyes are pulled to their respective right and left corners would look mad, to reasonable men American politics and society now look like madness; a barely restrained brawl.

Like a rudderless vessel that has willfully torn itself free from its anchor, the American Ship of State is now wandering aimlessly in a dark and turbulent sea of conflict, careening to and fro as irreconcilable factions struggle to capture the wheel. Those who are now powerless, that is to say, We the People (remember us), pray fervently neither group will succeed in gaining control, for the moment one does shipwreck on the rocky shores of either the Scylla or the Charybdis will be our certain fate.

Our only hope is to re-anchor ourselves in and submit to the Constitution. It is still, technically speaking, the law of the land. But once a nation has betrayed its founding ideals, has history ever seen that nation return to them and re-achieve its spiritual, economic and political health?

Friday, January 22, 2010

A Lesson in Plain Sight

Michael Steele, RNC chairman, has pushed and pushed for "a big tent" party since the day he assumed his position. It is, essentially, "let's become democrat light." Without laboring the point, his logic is crude, his intellect unimaginative and his powers of observation (and perhaps his ability to understand the lessons of history) are, evidently, non-existent.

A very large lesson would loom before him if he would only take a moment to glance over his should---no, not at Ronald Reagan, though that's a start. No need to go to politics, an even larger and more frightening example that refutes his thinking is there in the Episcopal church (a.k.a. the church of England).

Since the Lambeth conference, where Anglican bishops decided to accept the use of artificial contraception in very narrowly defined circumstances, the Anglican church has experienced bleeding of membership. Why?

As the years passed that tiny trickle of moral exception has widened into a flood of heresy: The virgin birth of Christ, the miracles, marriage between a man and a woman, the Resurrection and the divinity of Christ, the indissolubility of marriage, the Sacraments and many other long held Christian doctrines have fallen by the wayside as optional, irrational, absurd or mere metaphor–– all in the interest of accommodating one type of modernist idea or another.

Bishop after bishop and scores of Anglican theologians questioned or simply rejected every core doctrine in the Christian faith, all the while, the silence from Canterbury is deafening. Parallel with these events Catholic liberals in America also tried to co-opt the bureaucratic halls of power in the Catholic Church in the 60s and 70s, and control the orders and seminaries. They did a lot of damage, from which the Church is still recovering. But unlike Canterbury, Rome stood firm, and today Catholic doctrines on faith and morals remain unchanged from the ancient teaching. The wildly liberal orders of brothers and nuns that sprang up in the 70s have all but withered on the vine. Liberal seminaries have only handfuls of candidates for the priesthood (including some women who will never become priests), while orthodox orders and seminaries faithful to Rome are bursting at the seams.

The result of this mini-tale of two churches can be summed up briefly in this way: Rome is flourishing while Canterbury is vanishing into oblivion. Large numbers of faithful members of the Anglican church have fled to Rome, and in America, whole Episcopal churches have "Poped." Why? Rome said "Here is something to believe in," while Canterbury said, "Tell us what to believe because we believe in you." In other words, the Anglican church sought to become all things to all men and ended up becoming nothing to any one.

England persecuted the Catholic Church for almost four centuries, the persecution ending formally with the Edict of Toleration in the early 19th century, though much antipathy to the Church remains to this day. But now, little more than a century and a half later, there are many more Catholics at Mass on Sunday in merry old England than Anglicans at divine services. Anglican churches are all but empty.

Get the message, Michael? If not, let me spell it out as plainly as I know how.

Michael Steele cannot have it both ways; he can't embrace the social and fiscal sanity of conservative orthodoxy and try to be all things to all people at the same time. If the Republican message is clear and unequivocal, and the leaders demonstrate that clarity by their actions and votes the people will follow and the party will grow. If not, if the Michael Steele notion of presenting the Republican party as a "Tell us what to believe because we believe in you," gains the high ground, the party will go the way of the dinosaur, the Edsel, bell bottom trousers,... and the Anglican church.

Conservatism is on the rise, not because it is perfect or makes everyone feel good in the short run, but because it saves the society from moral depravation, fiscal destruction and social collapse in the long run.

This is the case Steele and the RNC must make in the most certain of terms.

And the voting group it should target most explicitly is gender, not race, based. It's called winning the female vote by speaking truth to power. Obama and the effects of his insane, irresponsible policies have made that job easier to do today than it has ever been in the past. Let me explain:

For decades now men and women have been divided at the polls, the men voting Republican and the women voting Democratic. Self-seeking politicians have succeeded in convincing the voters that fiscal issues and social issues are at odds. But the times that helped politicians succeed with such dishonest arguments are ending, and more and more people are learning that the argument is and always has been a false dichotomy.

So, how can this truth be brought home more effectively to women voters? Simply by understanding something so deeply fundamental to female nature that is may rightly be called primal:

The greatest weakness of man is woman, while the greatest weakness of woman is her child. If conservatives want women to open their hearts and minds to their arguments and cast out the false promises offered by the statists and socialist all that is needed is to make the case to mothers that the unfunded social and welfare programs of progressives are destroying their children's future. These programs will reduce their children's lives to certain penury and consign them to a life of slavery laboring to pay off the debt incurred by them. What mother could vote to support such a thing?

Chairman Steele and others of his ilk in the Republican party need to see this and get their minds off trying to pander to racial groups---Such pandering doesn't make the Republican party the party of "no." It makes it something worse; it makes it the party of "me too." This cannot help but result in increasing losses of credibility with both liberals and conservatives. The attrition of fiscal conservatives bolting from the Republican party in the Bush years will seem a trickle compared to what will happen should the Michael Steeles, John McCains and Lindsey Grahams persist. Much more of the "big tent," "we believe in you, so please tell us what you believe and we'll believe it too," kind of pandering and the Republican party will go the way of the Whigs.

Maybe that's just what should happen.

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Massachusetts Afterthoughts

Parties are destructive to liberty and divide the fealty of elected leaders. So the Founders of our Republic rightly believed. The present congress is a clear vindication of their opinion. For that reason and others I believe it's important that the Tea Party and similar groups remain independent of the so-called national parties. In addition, it's been observed that most just causes devolve into parties, are taken over by professionals and further devolve into rackets, robbing the many while enriching the few.


In the League of the South we put it this way: our present central government is an organized criminal conspiracy. Many of the states, in imitation of the Feds, are not far behind.


In lieu of becoming formal parties on the one hand or being co-opted by a corrupt national party on the other, these populist groups should remain independent. Rather than merging they should work together while remaining distinct. Their primary task, as I see it, should be to find and support those seeking public office who believe in limited, constitutional government, states rights, low-to-no income taxes, the reigning back of federal spending and ending federal encroachments on our liberties and right to self-rule. Secondarily, they should monitor these candidates once elected, holding them accountable by making sure their actions match their words.


Such candidates are essential to stop the massive confiscation of $$ from the people by the Feds; starve the beast and you cure 90% of the corruption problems in Washington. Follow the trail to a carcass to find flies & maggots; follow the $$ to find the profiteers and crooks. Keeping $$ local will not prevent corruption––it will only cause corruption to be localized.


The consequence of shifting the theatre of corruption to the local rather than the national does not seem to have immediate appeal. But in reality it means the corruption can be more easily exposed and controlled. It will also do another critical thing; it will help shift the focus of the people to their local governments and communities rather than Washington. This will help give a new birth of the sense of patriotism, localism and community that slowly died as the central government grew out of control and increasing numbers became more dependent.


The Tea Party people have made a start to rebuilding local community the National Tyranny, uh, I mean National Government has systematically destroyed in order to seize increasing amount of $$ and control over our lives. Their agenda in regard to the citizens is plain and simple: weaken individuals by making them feel helpless and isolated. It has worked great–––until now.


Local identity not only needs to grow as national identity shrinks to a proper proportion, it must grow for a new birth of liberty and its preservation. "States Rights" and "Take the 10th" should be the cry of Americans everywhere!


Finally, in relation to what happened in Massachusetts, we owe a debt to more than the Tea Party, Campaign for Liberty, 9/12 style organizations; we owe Glenn Beck an enormous debt for exposing the collectivists in BOTH parties and their agenda; the Barney Franks, Pelosis, Reids AND the Lindsey Grahams and John McCains; both parties are poisoned with these central planners.


Progressivism is just another word for and form of modern collectivism; it is the enemy of liberty and republican government since its' goal is the centralization of power into the hands of the few.


As evidence for this we note that Progressives persistently attack capitalism, not because it creates big fat cats, but because it produces a lot of little fat cats; true free markets actually distribute wealth, making it more difficult for central planners to control and manipulate the people. Yet, crony capitalism is the handmaiden of the Progressives. They LOVE it! Why? They work together to consolidate power into the hands of the few.


Obama, arch collectivist and wealth re-distributor-in-chief, has demonstrated that definitively by his persistent collusion with GE, GM and select Wall Street institutions.


Despite the victory last night painful and important questions remain; will Americas awaken sufficiently? And if they do will they remain awake or be lulled back to sleep by the diversions of bread and circuses provided by the tin horn tyrants? Will they learn that power is seductive and easily overcomes the best of people with the best of intentions, and the preservation of liberty requires eternal and persistent vigilance?


We are always only one generation from sinking into tyranny and despotism. Americans must learn this lesson and practice it rigorously: Never pay attention to what someone says, only what they do. Application of this principle is destroying Obama and his cronies by the day, since the cognitive dissonance between his words and his actions, his promises and deeds is so glaringly obvious. Keep it up America. We're not done; we've hardly gotten started!

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

BIG ELECTION NEWS from Massachusetts

Big news from Massachusetts: Obama, Pelosi and Reid defeat Mass. attorney general, Martha Coakley, in upset election. Coakley stated, "This is completely unfair. I was and am the most competent and experienced candidate. I should have won easily. I just feel ganged up against. It's hard to believe but Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Eric Holder, Janet Napolitano and Harry Reid have done more to destroy the Democratic party in one year than George Bush did the Republicans in eight. It's just unfair, unfair, unfair. Obama and the rest should change their party affiliation NOW, lest there be nothing left of the Democratic party by Arbor Day. I'll have to join my victorious opponent, Scott Brown, in saying, 'Mr. President, TRUCK YOU!'"

I have a Dream

I have a dream. I have a dream we can live in a land with a government restrained by our Federal Constitution and our liberty is protected. I dream of the day when politicians won't confiscate our money and use it to buy votes. I have a dream that welfare pimps and class warfare collectivists can't co-opt the death of a martyr and use his name to progress their racketeering. I have a dream that we can own our own homes without fear of the government taking it from us through never ending property taxation.
I dream I live in a free land where there is no illegal income tax, no federal reserve to destroy the value of my money in order to enrich their cronies. I have a dream I live in a land where the President is not a communist and the Speaker of the House is not a prattling, empty-headed magpie, and the legislators are devoted to the constitution and their constituencies, and not the lackeys of a so-called National Political Party and the special interests they cater to.
I dream I might live in a land where people live responsibly and have genuine concern for their neighbor, and when trouble strikes they turn to one another not some politicians who come with the quid pro quo of votes for welfare. I dream I live where government doesn't steal my money, robbing my children, to pay for the stupidity, laziness and fool hardy behavior of others, whether rich and poor. I have a dream where crooks are not placed in high government positions and can accuse and try to prosecute me of the very crimes they themselves have committed with impunity. I have a dream I live under a government who protects the most voiceless and helpless instead of making their indiscriminate slaughter a constitutionally protected right.
I have a dream where a race of people don't call those of their own race "brothers" and then sell the little brothers of those "brothers" drugs, rape their sisters, spread venereal disease, impregnate women and abandon them and then blame others for the problems that result.
I have many other dreams; living where Wall Street cronies don't skew the economic playing field for insiders, where thug unions don't try to strong arm their way into free shops and businesses, where perversion is called for what it is, where children are protected from exposure to lewdness and sexual abuse by perverts, where religion and religious values are encouraged instead of mocked, attacked and legislated against, where government doesn't meddle in businesses and skew markets, where local peoples can determine their own values, morals, religious expressions and are not terrorized by the Federal government or outside groups and enslaved by a tyrannical minority---and on and on. I have a dream I live in a land where each man has a right to live his own dream without encumbrance and oppression from politically correct governments, where a man who has labored to start his own business has the right to hire whom he wants and serve whom he wants, and where government is the protector of businesses, not their destroyer. I have a dream I and my children won't have to endure oppression from an aggressive, despotic Centralized Government that has overreached its mandate---so in this land of equality, why is my dream not heard and a day set aside to celebrate my life and my dream––why is my dream, allied as it is to the dream of the Founders and the Constitution, why is my dream only a dream?

Massachusetts Miracle

Boston. Jan. 19, 2010 (TP)
This morning as the polls opened for the special election to fill the late Teddy Kennedy's senate seat (he was never sober enough to be on time) Bostonians waiting to enter the polls were both shocked and amazed by what they heard and saw. First, there was a low rumble, heard coming from Forest Hills, Baker Street Cemetery, Evergreen Cemetery and many others throughout the city.

Voters soon realized the rumble was caused by graves opening as thousands of deceased Bostonians rose and began walking zombie-like towards their respective polling places. They walked past amazed voters, directly into the polling places, past officials and into the voting booths and proceeded to vote repeatedly until the voting machines showed "TILT."

Of course there is no official confirmation of this, but insiders overseeing the process noted that the deceased citizens voted democratic in overwhelming numbers. One official who insisted on remaining anonymous said, "These spook's voting solidarity is amazing. It reminds me of elections in my home country of Nicaragua. Indeed, it made me feel right at home."

As she left the voting booth, democratic senatorial candidate, Marcia Croakley, commented, "This is nothing but amazing! This proves there is a God, and he's on my side and not the side of the cold hearted Catholic workers in emergency rooms who refuse to participate in the destruction of nascent human life. God is for abortion!"

She said this among shrieks of approval from the New Salem Witches, a local feminist organization, who had gathered there to support Croakley and sacrifice various small animals as offerings for a Croakley victory. Several of the witches complained about having to pay the parking meters where they had parked their brooms. The spokes wiccan protested, "This is nothing but class favoritism. Hillary Clinton did not have to pay to park her broom when she came here during the 2008 campaign. Marcia will fix that if she's elected. Witches park brooms for free!"

When asked about the precedence of such a remarkable event Croakley said, "Oh, no. This has happened many times in the past. Whenever the democratic lock on Massachusetts politics is threatened in any way it seems we get divine assistance. We not only believe in such miracles, we depend upon them and do all we can to make sure they happen. And of course, since this is obviously a divine act no one would ever have the temerity to even suggest these votes should not be counted, and more than once if necessary."

The big question now is will it be enough to help Croakley snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Teddy Kennedy, rising from his plot in Arlington Cemetery to cast an absentee ballot said he was confident this divine act would "put Marcia over the top."

When the former senator was asked how it felt to be clean and sober since his interment last summer he offered no comment, but simply gave that patented Kennedy smile, such as it is now (brrrrrr), and a thumb's up as he descended into his resting place. The senator looked amazingly good, despite the stench of sulphur which seemed to emanate from his every pore. Election officials speculated that his well-preserved appearance was probably largely due to his having almost never been clean and sober in life.

Now all that is left to do is to gather around the HD TV in the evening and see if this Massachusetts Miracle will, indeed, be miracle enough.
©TOMPRESS MMX

--