The Evolution Of A Gun Owner

Over the years my thoughts, beliefs, and positions of firearm ownership have evolved. As a young boy living in Ohio I owned a single-shot bolt action .22 caliber rifle. I used to go into the woods near our home and shoot at tin cans and such. I also went hunting several times with my Navy vet neighbor and used one of his shotguns. Hunting never really appealed to me. As I grew older and became more interested in other things such as cars, girls, and making money for these things I forgot about the gun.

Once I entered the work world my focus turned to career. Eventually I got married to a girl that had a terrible tragic act of gun violence in her family and was terrified of firearms. I never thought of owning a firearm as my family began to grow. The thought of firearm ownership was virtually non-existence in my brain. I was very ambivalent on the general issue of firearm ownership. I did not much care if people owned or did not own a rifle or a pistol. It was their business – not mine. In one of my boyhood friends, who I grew up with and got into mischief with, owns many firearms including revolver and semi-automatic pistols. He also has a Concealed Carry Weapons permit (CCW) in his home state of Ohio, Michigan, and Texas where he and his wife vacation in the winter.

As my career grew and I spent considerable time traveling throughout the United States, Europe, Central America, and Asia both for business and with my family Firearms were not on my mind. Neither was personal self-defense beyond being on the watch for possible problems. Instead I became a serious armature photographer with a proclivity for better and more expensive cameras and lenses. This was a serious avocation that I still have.

Several years ago I went to a local shooting range with my brother, his son, and my daughter and rented a semi-automatic pistol. I believe it was a Beretta 92FS. I discovered that I enjoyed the sport of shooting and did not do too bad hitting the paper targets where I was supposed to. My interest in firearms was germinating.

Being a conservative and dedicated to the Constitution of the United States I began noticing the numerous articles and reports in the mainstream media pertaining to gun violence and the rise of the gun grabbing crowd who used these reports as the basis for their agenda. I began to realize that the gun banning crowd were either ignorant of the facts or eschewed them to advance their agenda based on the emotion of the day – or both.

For the past 30 or 40 years both the Federal and State governments have been not only taking extreme liberties with the Constitution they have been shredding it some cases. Regulations and policies of agencies such as the EPA, Department of Education, and the White House have been eroding our liberties on almost a daily basis. Sometimes the Courts throw up roadblocks to these infringements to our rights; most times they remain silent and allow the infringement to stand. Probably nowhere is this more evident than in the issue of our Second Amendment rights. The gun grabbing progressive left basis their arguments on emotions and the news of the day (or days when it comes to the 24-hour cable news outlets and the Internet). Most of these emotions rise when there are incidents of mass shootings by criminals, terrorists, or deranged individuals. These incidents, while newsworthy and tragic are not the norm and are rarer than people dying from lightning strikes.

Despite the hyperbole generated by groups such as “Moms Demand Action” and “Mayors Against Illegal Guns,” FBI statistics prove we are more likely to be killed by a lightning strike than as the result of a mass shooting.

Columbine, Aurora and Sandy Hook are all battle cries designed to rally the troops into action, and pushing lawmakers into introducing stricter gun control measures. Although mass shooting incidents are unquestionably tragic, they also get perhaps far more attention than they deserve due to their rarity.

The FBI published its “Study of Active Shooter Incidents” in September 2013 at the request of President Barack Obama, and under the authority of the Investigative Assistance for Violent Crimes Act, to investigate “violent acts and shootings occurring in a place of public use.”

The report indicates that from the years 2000 to 2013, 486 Americans lost their lives in active shooter situations, which works out to approximately 37 deaths per year. Compare that to being killed by what everyone considers that rarest of circumstances–being struck by lightning.

Americans are 38% more likely to be killed by a lightning strike than by an active shooter.

“According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, over the last 20 years, the United States averaged 51 annual lightning strike fatalities,” wrote U.S. Air Force Flight Surgeon Capt. Rocky Jedick in 2012.

What else are you more likely to die of than being killed by active shooter? Let’s have a look.

Riding a bicycle – 800 people were killed by bicycling accidents in 2010 alone.

Falling Down – 26,631 died from injuries sustained in various types of falls from 2010 – 2011.

There are an estimated 300 million firearms in the United States. Compare that number to the 30 people killed in mass shootings each year.

Certainly, I am not trying to negate the value of the lives lost to shooting incidents each year. However, when we’re talking about laws and policy making which will affect literally tens of millions of Americans we have to keep things in perspective.

How about that most used argument pertaining to having firearms in the house with children. After a New York Times blog was published suggesting that parents shouldn’t allow their children to visit the homes of playmates where family members are gun owners, writer Dr. John Lott decided to investigate further.

Lott reported in National Review Online:

“For all children younger than 10, there were 36 accidental gun deaths [in 2010, the latest year then available], and that is out of 41 million children. Perhaps most important, about two-thirds of these accidental gun deaths involving young children are not shots fired by other little kids but rather by adult males with criminal backgrounds. In other words, unless you send your child to play at a criminal’s home, he/she is exceedingly unlikely to get shot.”

But what of other, perhaps less obvious dangers lurking in and around the home? Lott continued:

“Indeed, if you are going to worry about your child’s safety you should check into other, perhaps less obvious dangers lurking in the playmate’s house: swimming pools, bathtubs, water buckets, bicycles, and chemicals and medications that can cause fatal poisoning. Drownings alone claimed 609 deaths; fires, 262 lives; poisonings, 54 lives. And don’t forget to ask about the playmate’s parents’ car and their driving records if your child will ride with them: After all, motor-vehicle accidents killed 923 children younger than 10.”

All firearm deaths are tragic and worthy of investigation and debate. But any such debate must be based on honesty, something that’s sorely lacking from the left.

The gun grabbing crowd and left-leaning mainstream media has become so vocal in their emotional cries against guns, including guns in the hands of law enforcement officers (LEO) that cops are now reluctant to protect themselves against criminals by drawing their weapon.

Last Monday white police officer who was beaten unconscious and bloody by a man in Birmingham, Ala., and about the ugly reactions to the incident posted afterward on social media. It turns out that the comments, which celebrated the beating and intimated that the assailant overpowered the cop, were not only obscene but factually incorrect.

CNN reports via station KPIX that the detective said he resisted the impulse to use force against the suspect, whom he had stopped because his vehicle fit the description of one used in a string of burglaries, because he didn’t want to become the latest white police officer accused of needlessly killing an unarmed black man. The officer, whose identity remains unknown in order to protect his family, told reporters:

According to a recent report by Pew Research Center report national views on firearm ownership has not changed much in the past two years. The only real exception is the growing support for more background checks to wed out the mentally disturbed. The Pew report states:

“While there is broad support for several specific gun policy proposals – and opinion on these measures has not changed significantly since 2013 – the public continues to be more evenly divided in fundamental attitudes about whether it is more important to control gun ownership or to protect the right of Americans to own guns.

Currently, 50% say it is more important to control gun ownership, while 47% say it is more important to protect the right of Americans to own guns.”

I have learned to view my world in four zones. The first I call Zone White. This is the zone where most people live. It is a luxury zone. It is the zone where you walk about on the street, mall, or theater paying little or no attention to things or people around you. It is a zone where you do not practice situation awareness. You see people, mainly young adults and people in groups walking about with earphones in or on their cell phones oblivious to what is going on around them. When something happens they are usually victims. I prefer not to live in this zone!

The next zone is the Yellow Zone. It is here that you walk or drive about being aware of what is going on around you. You constantly scan people and goings on in you near proximity. You are cautious and aware. This is my preferred zone.

The third zone I call the Orange Zone. This is where you perceive a potential problem or a person who might cause a problem. Yes, this is profiling. We all should profile our surroundings if we intend to protect ourselves or our families. An example might be walking to your car in a parking structure or stopping at your local ATM to withdraw some cash. Be aware. Even if you have a CCW permit and are carrying a firearm get out. Flight is better than fight. You are not a LEO. Do not act like one. Just get the hell out. Don’t stop at that lonely ATM or the gas station pump or AM/PM shop.

The fourth zone is the Red Zone. This zone pertains to those who are legally armed. Now you have to make a life changing decision – defend yourself and loved ones or become a victim. This is where you draw that weapon telling the potential perpetrator to stop and call 911. If the potential perp is mentally disarrange or and out and out criminal you will probably have to shoot. Now you problems will really begin. All responsible CCW permit holders know this and hopefully are well trained. You can find out more about this by clicking this link to download the free 20 page book from the USCCA. It’s worth your time if you are CCW permit holder, or considering too becoming one. Even if you self-defense shooting is righteous and justifiable you will still probably have to spend thousands of dollars to defend yourself from criminal or civil trials.

I hope you’ll never have to defend yourself or your family from a violent criminal.

And let’s be honest, chances are you never will. (Well, unless you live in certain parts of Detroit, Washington DC, Chicago, Los Angeles, etc… you get the picture!) But you know what, that’s not really what we’re talking about here.

Let me explain.

Since 1977, house fires are down 64.5%. Yet you and I still have fire extinguishers all over our houses and we still pay for fire insurance every single year.

Cars are significantly safer than they were only twenty years ago. Yet you and I still wear our seat belts and buy collision insurance.

Chances are you and I will never be in a serious auto accident and our houses will never burn down. But we still prepare for these kinds of events!

Why do we do this? Because that’s what responsible people do. And responsibly armed Americans make sure they’re educated, trained and properly insured. We plan for the possibility, not the probability.

If you are a CCW permit holder of a legal firearm or carry a firearm in those states that do not require permits you no doubt are a responsible firearm owner. But you still could be liable to criminal or civil trials. Organizations like USCCA have information, resources, and insurance that will assist you in this event. They are well worth a look see.

As a solid believer in the Second Amendment and the words “shall not infringe” I began my evolution to where I am today – a proud, safe, and responsible gun owner. I have taken and passed an 8-hour gun safety class and intend to continue my education and training. I wish not for me or my family to be a victim and will exercise my Constitutional rights to bear arms as long as they are not taken away by a dictatorial government.

In the meantime continue your training and be vigilant to the attempts by the gun grabbers to keep up their efforts to infringe on your Second Amendment rights. They have a mission – so do you!

Obama’s Buildup of Military Forces In the Civilian Sector

“No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.” — Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

The Fifth Amendment creates a number of rights relevant to both criminal and civil legal proceedings. In criminal cases, the Fifth Amendment guarantees the right to a grand jury, forbids “double jeopardy,” and protects against self-incrimination. It also requires that “due process of law” be part of any proceeding that denies a citizen “life, liberty or property” and requires the government to compensate citizens when it takes private property for public use.

Our Founders believed that private property was an essential component of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. The concept of “Happiness” was defined by our Founders as Property. As James Madison stated in his1792 Essay on Property;

“… In a word, as a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights.

Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions.

Where there is an excess of liberty, the effect is the same, tho' from an opposite cause.

Government is instituted to protect property of every sort; as well that which lies in the various rights of individuals, as that which the term particularly expresses. This being the end of government, that alone is a just government, which impartially secures to every man, whatever is his own….”

The Fifth Amendment is the logical extension of the Fourth Amendment:

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

The Fourth Amendment originally enforced the notion that “each man’s home is his castle”, secure from unreasonable searches and seizures of property by the government. It protects against arbitrary arrests, and is the basis of the law regarding search warrants, stop-and-frisk, safety inspections, wiretaps, and other forms of surveillance, as well as being central to many other criminal law topics and to privacy law.

Both of these Amendments are pertinent to this blog post and should be taken into consideration when reading it. They are a part of our basic rights under the Constitution!

President Barack Obama considered deploying the U.S. military during the Cliven Bundy Ranch standoff in Nevada under the approbation of a Pentagon directive on military support to civilian authorities signed in 2010.

The Department of Defense directive provides U.S. commanders with the emergency authority to use military support to quell domestic disturbances where needed to “prevent significant loss of life or wanton destruction of property” and when “necessary to restore government function and public order.” A second condition is when Federal, State or local authorities “are unable or decline to provide adequate protection for federal property or federal governmental functions.”

The military assistance can include loans of arms, ammunition, vessels and aircraft, and also authorizes the use of drones in operations against domestic unrest, though it prohibits the use of armed drones.

The directive and information that Obama considered deploying the U.S. military in Nevada were revealed by Bill Gertz of The Washington Times last Wednesday and famously ignored by the rest of the corporate establishment media. Deploying the military in a domestic law enforcement scenario is a violation of Posse Comitatus.

According to Gene Healy of The Cato Institute — a Libertarian Think-tank writes:

“The Posse Comitatus Act is no barrier to federal troops providing logistical support during natural disasters. Nor does it prohibit the president from using the Army to restore order in extraordinary circumstances — even over the objection of a state governor.

What it does is set a high bar for the use of federal troops in a policing role. That reflects America’s traditional distrust of using standing armies to enforce order at home, a distrust that’s well-justified.

There are good reasons to resist any push toward domestic militarization.

As one federal court has explained: “Military personnel must be trained to operate under circumstances where the protection of constitutional freedoms cannot receive the consideration needed in order to assure their preservation. The Posse Comitatus statute is intended to meet that danger.”

Army Lt. Gen. Russell Honore, commander of the federal troops helping out in New Orleans, seemed to recognize that danger when he ordered his soldiers to keep their guns pointed down: “This isn’t Iraq,” he said.

Soldiers are trained to be warriors, not peace officers — which is as it should be. But putting full-time warriors into a civilian policing situation can result in serious collateral damage to American life and liberty.

It can also undermine military readiness, because when soldiers are forced into the role of police officers, their war-fighting skills degrade. That’s what the General Accounting Office concluded in a 2003 report looking at some of the homeland security missions the military was required to carry out after Sept. 11, 2001.

According to the report, “While on domestic military missions, combat units are unable to maintain proficiency because these missions provide less opportunity to practice the varied skills required for combat and consequently offer little training value.”

The GAO also concluded that such missions put a serious strain on a military already heavily committed abroad.

American law calls for civilian peace officers to keep the peace, or, failing that, National Guard troops under the command of their state governors. So perhaps we should stop treating the National Guard as if it’s no different than the Army Reserve.

As Katrina made landfall, there were 7,000 Louisiana and Mississippi Guard troops deployed in Iraq. Among them were 3,700 members of Louisiana’s 256th Mechanized Infantry Brigade, who took with them high-water vehicles and other equipment that could have been put to better use in New Orleans.”

Gertz stated in his May 28, 2014 article:

“A 2010 Pentagon directive on military support to civilian authorities details what critics say is a troubling policy that envisions the Obama administration’s potential use of military force against Americans.

The directive contains noncontroversial provisions on support to civilian fire and emergency services, special events and the domestic use of the Army Corps of Engineers.

The troubling aspect of the directive outlines presidential authority for the use of military arms and forces, including unarmed drones, in operations against domestic unrest.

“This appears to be the latest step in the administration’s decision to use force within the United States against its citizens,” said a defense official opposed to the directive.

Directive No. 3025.18, “Defense Support of Civil Authorities,” was issued Dec. 29, 2010, and states that U.S. commanders “are provided emergency authority under this directive.”

“Federal military forces shall not be used to quell civil disturbances unless specifically authorized by the president in accordance with applicable law or permitted under emergency authority,” the directive states.

“In these circumstances, those federal military commanders have the authority, in extraordinary emergency circumstances where prior authorization by the president is impossible and duly constituted local authorities are unable to control the situation, to engage temporarily in activities that are necessary to quell large-scale, unexpected civil disturbances” under two conditions.

The conditions include military support needed “to prevent significant loss of life or wanton destruction of property and are necessary to restore governmental function and public order.” A second use is when federal, state and local authorities “are unable or decline to provide adequate protection for federal property or federal governmental functions.”

“Federal action, including the use of federal military forces, is authorized when necessary to protect the federal property or functions,” the directive states.

Military assistance can include loans of arms, ammunition, vessels and aircraft. The directive states clearly that it is for engaging civilians during times of unrest.”

A defense official opposed to the directive told Gertz, “This appears to be the latest step in the administration’s decision to use force within the United States against its citizens.”

Actually it’s not the latest, though it may be the latest revealed. The regime has been arming alphabet soup agencies at an alarming rate, even as it works in nefarious and extra-legal ways to disarm law-abiding Americans and propagandizes against them. All the while, the regime is arming al-Qaida-linked terror groups in Libya, Syria and elsewhere, demonstrating exactly who the regime considers “terrorists.”

According to Gertz, defense analysts say there has been a buildup of military units within non-security-related Federal agencies, notably the creation of Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) teams. “The buildup raises questions about whether the regime is undermining civil liberties under the guise of counterterrorism and counter narcotics efforts,” according to Gertz.

Agencies with SWAT teams include the Department of Agriculture, the Railroad Retirement Board, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Office of Personnel Management, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and the Education Department.

Gertz continues in his May 28^th Article:

“The militarization of federal agencies, under little-known statues that permit deputization of security officials, comes as the White House has launched verbal attacks on private citizens’ ownership of firearms despite the fact that most gun owners are law-abiding citizens.

President Obama stated at the National Defense University a year ago: “I do not believe it would be constitutional for the government to target and kill any U.S. citizen — with a drone or with a shotgun — without due process, nor should any president deploy armed drones over U.S. soil.”

A Pentagon official who defended the directive said it was signed in December 2010 after four years of thorough consultations within the Pentagon and with other federal agencies The 2010 directive replaced several previously published directives in 1980, 1991, and 1993. The last time military forces were used to quell civil unrest was 1906 following the San Francisco earthquake to protect the federal mint and restore order in the city.

The official said: “I suppose that in a very extreme case, one can imagine a combination of natural and man-made disasters that result in the cascading failure of communication infrastructure, or some electro-magnetic pulse that shuts down all electronic communication.”

“In the event that it should happen in today’s day and age, we would want our senior military leaders in the field to do all they can to assist their fellow Americans to prevent significant loss of life or malicious destruction of property and to protect federal property or federal governmental functions,” the official said.”

So not only has the regime assumed the authority to disappear Americans without trial or Habeas Corpus under the Congress-passed National Defense Authorization Act, it has assumed under a simple DoD secretary’s signature the authority — and granted it to military commanders — to attack Americans with wanton force if it determines they are a threat. And the second most powerful man in American government, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, has called Bundy supporters “domestic terrorists,” which crosses the threshold needed by the NDAA and the directive to deploy force against Americans standing up to government abuse and overreach.

We have come a long way distant from the basic concepts of our Founders belief in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Over the years presidents and Congress have been chipping away at our basic rights. In the last 100 years under the egis of Woodrow Wilson’s administrative state. Today the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management (once the General Land Office staffed by land surveyors and cartographers) now has SWAT teams and the EPA has the power to control the use of your land if they consider the puddle in your back yard should be environmentally protected as a wetland. This is the totality of the fourth branch of our government — the Administrative State.

Two Good Things In One Day

"The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny." — James Madison

It’s not often that two good things happen of the same day but today we had just such a happening.

The first thing was a ruling handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of the Town of Greece, New York v. Galloway et al. The Supreme Court ruled that a town in upstate New York did not violate the Constitution by starting its public meetings with a prayer from a “chaplain of the month” who was almost always Christian. (See Washington Post Report)

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, writing for the majority in a 5-to-4 decision that divided the court’s more conservative members from its liberal ones, said the prayers were merely ceremonial. They were neither unduly sectarian nor likely to make members of other faiths feel unwelcome.

“Ceremonial prayer,” he wrote, “is but a recognition that, since this nation was founded and until the present day, many Americans deem that their own existence must be understood by precepts far beyond that authority of government to alter or define.”

In dissent, Justice Elena Kagan said the town’s practices could not be reconciled “with the First Amendment’s promise that every citizen, irrespective of her religion, owns an equal share of her government.” What else would you expect from the four progressive, non-tolerant liberals sitting on the Court?

Town officials in Greece, N.Y., near Rochester, said that members of all faiths, and atheists, were welcome to give the opening prayer. In practice, however, almost all of the chaplains were Christian. Some of their prayers were explicitly sectarian, with references, for instance, to “the saving sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross.”

Two town residents sued, saying the prayers ran afoul of the First Amendment’s prohibition of government establishment of religion. They said the prayers offended them and, in Justice Kennedy’s words, “made them feel excluded and disrespected.” That’s it folks two residents out of a town of 94,000. I guess 93,998 have to bow two the wishes of 2 malcontents that are offended.

But Justice Kennedy said the relevant constitutional question was not whether they were offended. “Adults often encounter speech they find disagreeable,” he wrote.

Justice Kennedy said traditions starting with the first Congress supported the constitutionality of ceremonial prayers at the start of legislative sessions. He added that it would be perilous for courts to decide when those prayers crossed a constitutional line and became impermissibly sectarian.

“To hold that invocations must be nonsectarian,” he wrote, “would force the legislatures that sponsor prayers and the courts that are asked to decide these cases to act as supervisors and censors of religious speech, a rule that would involve government in religious matters to a far greater degree than is the case under the town’s current practice of neither editing or approving prayers in advance nor criticizing their content after the fact.”

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. joined all of Justice Kennedy’s opinion, and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas most of it.

Justice Kennedy did suggest that some prayers may be unacceptable if offered consistently over time, including ones that “denigrate nonbelievers or religious minorities, threaten damnation or preach conversion.”

Town officials had tried, he said, to recruit members of various faiths to offer prayers.

In dissent, Justice Kagan said they had not tried hard enough. “So month in and month out for over a decade,” she wrote, “prayers steeped in only one faith, addressed toward members of the public, commenced meetings to discuss local affairs and distribute government benefits.” How hard were they supposed to try? Perhaps they should have scoured the state and nation for volunteers. Ridiculous!

In 1983, in Marsh v. Chambers, the Supreme Court upheld the Nebraska Legislature’s practice of opening its legislative sessions with an invocation from a paid Presbyterian minister, saying that such ceremonies were “deeply embedded in the history and tradition of this country.”

Justice Kagan, joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor, said the case from Greece was different. The prayers at the town board meetings were often explicitly sectarian, they said, and residents were forced to listen to them in order to participate in local government.

“No one can fairly read the prayers from Greece’s town meetings as anything other than explicitly Christian – constantly and exclusively so,” she wrote in her dissent in the case, Town of Greece v. Galloway, No. 12-696.

Moreover, she said, the clergy “put some residents to the unenviable choice of either pretending to pray like the majority or declining to join its communal activity, at the very moment of petitioning their elected leaders.”

These 4 liberal progressive justices will go to any length to disrespect the intent of our Founders when it comes to religion and the First Amendment.

As I drive east along SR 91 in Orange County there is a cross high upon a hill surrounded by a chain link fence that is clearly visible from the freeway. There is an even larger cross visible from the northbound I-215 in Riverside County near Murrieta. Both crosses are on private property, but very visible to and motorist driving east or north past the respective Christian symbols. I am waiting for the day when some bone-headed person brings an atheist group to town to bring a suit for the removal of these crosses on the grounds that they are “offensive” to them and cause such a distraction that they could cause a traffic mishap. To paraphrase Justice Kennedy’s comment on offensive speech; there are things I see and hear that I don’t like, but I just ignore the moron who said it and go one with my life. I used to live in the neighborhood where a mosque was located and I drove by every day. In fact I drove by it so often I no longer saw it. All I have to say to those who supported the two malcontents in the Town of Greece is “get a life.”

The second good thing that happened is Speaker of the House John Boehner finally after 601 days of spinning, obfuscating, lying, cover-up, political posturing, and Congressional hearings appointed a select committee to get to the bottom of what happened in Benghazi on the night of September 11, 2012 when terrorist carried out a planned attack on our consulate and left the ambassador and three others dead. No more “what does it matter” Mrs. Clinton, now, hopefully we will get to the truth.

To head this committee Boehner selected a very good congressman. His name is Trey Gowdy from South Carolina. He’s got fifteen years of prosecutorial experience at both the federal and state levels. (Fun fact: I was watching an old episode of “Forensic Files” on HLN a week or two ago and who popped up onscreen but a young, dark-haired Trey Gowdy, discussing a murder case he’d won in South Carolina.) He’s also been out in front of the caucus in accusing the White House of Benghazi cover-ups: He’s the man who claimed last summer that they’d been giving CIA agents linked to the incident new identities to hide them from House investigators, and he told Greta Van Susteren just a few days ago that he has evidence that the White House is deliberately withholding documents related to the attack.

Boehner’s statement in appointing Gowdy.

“With four of our countrymen killed at the hands of terrorists, the American people want answers, accountability, and justice. Trey Gowdy is as dogged, focused, and serious-minded as they come. His background as a federal prosecutor and his zeal for the truth make him the ideal person to lead this panel. I know he shares my commitment to get to the bottom of this tragedy and will not tolerate any stonewalling from the Obama administration. I plan to ensure he and his committee has the strongest authority possible to root out all the facts. This is a big job, but Rep. Gowdy has the confidence of this conference, and I know his professionalism and grit will earn him the respect of the American people.”

Gowdy may not be a Sam Ervin of Watergate fame but he is damn close. According to Hot Air:

“Smart politics twice over. Part of the reason Boehner agreed to the select committee was to unify the party ahead of the midterms; after Ben Rhodes’s e-mail became public, refusing to form a committee would have been another flashpoint between the party establishment and the grassroots to go along with amnesty and increasingly tepid opposition to ObamaCare. It stands to reason that if you’re going to do something to placate your base, you might as well choose a conservative in good standing for chairman too. If he’d appointed a centrist and the committee came up with nothing, righties would have accused him of a whitewash. They can’t do that with Gowdy in charge, and if Gowdy comes up with nothing too, then Boehner can distance himself from it by saying it was largely a tea-party production all along.

The other reason it’s smart politics is that not only is Gowdy a respected prosecutor, he’s consistently one of the most dynamic members at House hearings. (You’ve watched enough clips of him on this site to know that.) Boehner doesn’t know what he’s going to get by way of evidence but he will insist on some political payoff from this ahead of the midterms, and Gowdy’s just the guy to deliver that. You want clips of John Kerry or Hillary Clinton sweating under a tough cross-examination to dominate the day’s news cycle on cable? He’ll do that for you better than virtually anyone else.

One question, though. Will Democrats participate in the committee? Here’s Adam Schiff telling Chris Wallace yesterday on FNS that he thinks the party should boycott. I hate to admit it but that’s sound strategy. They’re taking a risk in doing it: If the GOP turns up compelling evidence of Obama’s or Hillary’s negligence on the night of the attack, the fact that Democrats refused to take part in the investigation will make them look complicit in the cover-up and whitewash. If the GOP doesn’t turn up something compelling, though, the boycott will make it easier for Democrats to argue that it was a kangaroo court all along that the public should either pay no attention to or actively punish Republicans for organizing. In fact, Dems can cite their boycott as a reason for the public to downplay or ignore any evidence that Gowdy does uncover. E.g., “We knew Republicans would be grossly unfair to the administration and blow their findings out of all proportion. That’s why we didn’t participate.” It’s a way to delegitimize the effort, which is the whole ballgame for them right now.”

Be that as it may the Democrats better buckle up during the coming weeks. It’s going to get rough and explosive just like Watergate did. There are too many skeletons that have been stashed away in their closet and it’s up to Gowdy and his staffers to drag them out. It’s also a good time for Gowdy and some of his staffers and investigators to make a name for themselves. Over the past 20 months people have been shuffled around, demoted and promoted. Documents have been uncovered and no doubt some folks are fearful of their political fate. Washington is no bastion of loyalty when things get tough. Ask John Dean of Jeb McGruder.

Recognizing a serious threat, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid blasted the expansion of the House GOP probe of Benghazi as an “election-year stunt.”

Close, but no cigar. The real stunt came during the election of 2012, and it was carried out by Democrats.

That’s when the White House went into full fudge mode to protect President Obama from responsibility over the terrorist attack that killed four Americans, including our ambassador to Libya.

The desperate effort included lying about the attack, a fact that is now undeniable thanks to the release of a secret email written days later.

In it, an Obama aide said (Ben Rhodes) a goal of having U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice do five TV interviews was to “underscore that these protests are rooted in an Internet video, and not a broader failure of policy.”

But there was no protest about a video before the Benghazi attack, and CIA analysts said they knew instantly it was a planned terror operation. The date — the 11th anniversary of 9/11 — was one of many telltale signs.

The slaughter came only two months before Election Day in a campaign where Obama insisted that Al Qaeda was on the run. He couldn’t say “never mind,” with Mitt Romney breathing down his neck.

So his campaign and the White House tried to obscure what the president knew and when he knew it, and the question now is whether they committed a crime. The email was released in response to a private group’s lawsuit, after being withheld from congressional subpoenas asking for all Benghazi documents.

In promising a select committee would pursue the case, House Speaker John Boehner used the “O” word, accusing the White House of illegally “obstructing” Congress.

That carries echoes of Watergate and Monicagate, so Hilary and the Democrats buckle up it’s a rough road ahead.

To me this was very good news as I called for such committee in my blog of May 10, 2013.

The mainstream media declared the Benghazi story insignificant long ago. To the extent it is covered, the focus is usually on the horrific and unnecessary deaths of four Americans. The Obama administration dismisses it as a lot of fuss about a few silly talking points. Remember Hilary’s “what does it matter” comment.

But everybody is missing the big-picture story of the Benghazi affair and its cover-up. It’s about the White House using the intelligence community for its own political purposes, and lying to the American public in order to win an election. It’s about abuse of power, and that is a big deal. It always has been about the abuse of power and the cover-up. It always is. Those who abuse that power use their minions in the media to assist in the cover up and then wait while the public just forgets about. Too the relatives of those four dead Americans do not have the luxury of forgetfulness.

That’s why the administration cannot be allowed to investigate itself. That’s why it is time for Congress to appoint a special committee to get to the bottom of the story. Benghazi is no longer just a political issue. It’s not just a partisan witch hunt. It goes to the heart of what our system of government is all about.

If it turns out that Benghazi and the cover-up were just a series of junior level mistakes that’s the end of it. But if it turns out the administration was using the military and intelligence communities for political purposes prior to the attack, during the attack and in a subsequent cover-up, it must be held accountable. Because once the precedent is set, future administrations will feel no reluctance to do the same.

America has the most powerful military and intelligence services in the world, probably in the history of the world. They have an infrastructure that endures separately and beyond any administration or politician.

At the same time, the military-intelligence complex takes its orders from the American people, through their elected/appointed representatives in the White House and Cabinet.

It’s a sacred trust at the heart of our Constitution, as set out in civilian control of the military. But it comes at a price — that our civilian leaders do not abuse that power and bend the military and intelligence communities to do their political dirty work.

The president doesn’t order the military to seize political opponents. He doesn’t order his intelligence community to lie about national security for political purposes. He uses the military or intelligence communities to protect the United States and our citizens, not to help him win elections.

That’s the heart of the Benghazi scandal and cover-up. The White House twisted intelligence to suit its political needs.

It is now incumbent on Rep. Gowdy and his select committee to act and act like a hungry dog digging for his bone. There have been countless hearings into Benghazi by numerous congressional committees, but none have had subpoena power to demand the paper trail, or to force government workers to testify about what they knew and when they knew it.

The questions I see at the heart of the Benghazi scandal and cover-up are specifically:

Did the White House fail to provide adequate security at the Benghazi consulate because it didn’t want to acknowledge that a terrorist threat remained, even though Bin Laden was dead?

Did the White House order the intelligence community to change its analysis so the president could claim his policy was a success, rather than a failure, just a few weeks before an election?

And, finally, what was the relationship between an overzealous White House staff and the president himself? What did the president know, and when did he know it?

This is no longer just a political issue. It’s not just a partisan witch hunt. It goes to the heart of what our system of government is all about. That’s why it’s time for Congress to act and to get to the bottom of this, once and for all.

That’s why Benghazi matters.

I am sure in the coming weeks I will have more to say on this issue.

Happy Constitution Day – One Day Late

"We have duties, for the discharge of which we are accountable to our Creator and benefactor, which no human power can cancel. What those duties are, is determinable by right reason, which may be, and is called, a well informed conscience. What this conscience dictates as our duty, is so; and that power which assumes a control over it, is an usurper; for no power can be pleaded to justify the control, as any consent in this case is void." — Theophilus Parsons, The Essex Result, 1778

The United States Constitution has endured for more than two centuries. Even now, this single, guiding document remains the greatest statement of liberty ever written and a powerful beacon to all who strive for liberty.

On September 17^th in 1787 The Constitution of the United States of America was signed by 38 of 41 delegates present at the conclusion of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. Supporters of the document waged a hard-won battle to win ratification by the necessary nine out of 13 U.S. states.

The Articles of Confederation, ratified several months before the British surrender at Yorktown in 1781, provided for a loose confederation of U.S. states, which were sovereign in most of their affairs. On paper, Congress — the central authority — had the power to govern foreign affairs, conduct war, and regulate currency, but in practice these powers were sharply limited because Congress was given no authority to enforce its requests to the states for money or troops. By 1786, it was apparent that the Union would soon break up if the Articles of Confederation were not amended or replaced. Five states met in Annapolis, Maryland, to discuss the issue, and all the states were invited to send delegates to a new constitutional convention to be held in Philadelphia.

On May 25, 1787, delegates representing every state except Rhode Island convened at Philadelphia's Pennsylvania State House for the Constitutional Convention. The building, which is now known as Independence Hall, had earlier seen the drafting of the Declaration of Independence and the signing of the Articles of Confederation. The assembly immediately discarded the idea of amending the Articles of Confederation and set about drawing up a new scheme of government. Revolutionary War hero George Washington, a delegate from Virginia, was elected convention president.

During an intensive debate, the delegates, due to Madison’s influence, devised a brilliant federal organization characterized by an intricate system of checks and balances. The convention was divided over the issue of state representation in Congress, as more-populated states sought proportional legislation, and smaller states wanted equal representation. The problem was resolved by the Connecticut Compromise, which proposed a bicameral legislature with proportional representation in the lower house (House of Representatives) and equal representation of the states in the upper house (Senate).

On September 17, 1787, the Constitution was signed. As dictated by Article VII, the document would not become binding until it was ratified by nine of the 13 states. Beginning on December 7, five states--Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, and Connecticut--ratified it in quick succession. However, other states, especially Massachusetts, opposed the document, as it failed to reserve undelegated powers to the states and lacked constitutional protection of basic political rights, such as freedom of speech, religion, and the press. In February 1788, a compromise was reached under which Massachusetts and other states would agree to ratify the document with the assurance that amendments would be immediately proposed. The Constitution was thus narrowly ratified in Massachusetts, followed by Maryland and South Carolina. On June 21, 1788, New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify the document, and it was subsequently agreed that government under the U.S. Constitution would begin on March 4, 1789. In June, Virginia ratified the Constitution, followed by New York in July.

It should be noted here that this ratification process was spurred by the publication of 85 essays on the purpose and value of the new constitution authored by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, writing under the pseudo name of Publius, known as the Federalist Papers. These papers spell out the thinking, intent, and reasons for the new constitution and a republican form of federal government.

On September 25, 1789, the first Congress of the United States adopted 12 amendments to the U.S. Constitution — the Bill of Rights — and sent them to the states for ratification. Ten of these amendments were ratified in 1791. In November 1789, North Carolina became the 12th state to ratify the U.S. Constitution. Rhode Island, which opposed federal control of currency and was critical of compromise on the issue of slavery, resisted ratifying the Constitution until the U.S. government threatened to sever commercial relations with the state. On May 29, 1790, Rhode Island voted by two votes to ratify the document, and the last of the original 13 colonies joined the United States. Today, the U.S. Constitution is the oldest written constitution in operation in the world.

Over the past 226 years since the signing of the Constitution it has been amended 27 times (including the first 10 known as the Bill of Rights). Some of these amendments such as the 13^th and 14^th were needed to complete our dedication to the Declaration of Independence “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed..”

On the other hand amendments such as the 16^th and 17^th are in direct contradiction to the wishes of our Founders. These amendments created a progressive direct income tax — something our Founders did not want — and the election of Senators by direct popular vote reducing the power of the state legislatures and therefore the power of the states. It was this manner of the states sending senators to the upper house of the congress that was needed to obtain ratification of the Constitution in the first place as the states were not willing to abdicate their authority to a strong and powerful central government. An example of this abdication can be seen in the case were the state legislature, governor, attorney general, and people of the Commonwealth of Virginia were opposed to the passage of the Affordable Health Care Act (ObamaCare) yet there two senators (both Democrats) voted for its passage. This was indirect contradiction to the will of the people of the state — something the Founders did not want.

For the past 100 years since the rise of the progressive movement at the turn of the twentieth century the Constitution has been slowly and steadily degraded. All three branches of the federal government have been overstepping the bounds imposed by the Constitution. The executive branch has gained more power than the Congress and the Supreme Court has made unconstitutional decisions based on politics and not on the intent of the Founders. Congress has passed laws in direct contradiction to their powers enumerated in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution. Today we are living under a tyranny of the federal government that had the original 13 states known would occur they would have ratified the Constitution.

What we need today is a third American Revolution, a revolution not with guns as was the first one (the original revolt against the British and the progressive revolution of the twentieth century), but a revolution using the Constitution itself and the state legislatures as our weapons the main weapon being Article V that states that amendments can be added either through Congress or the States:

“The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress; provided that no amendment which may be made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first article; and that no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.”

Our Founders drafted this article for two reasons. One was to allow a rational amendment process using Congress as the initiating body and the second was to allow the states to curtail a tyrannical congress.

Mark Levin’s The Liberty Amendments: Restoring the American Republic is the revolutionary blueprint millions of Americans have been waiting for. In his book Levin leads the charge for restoring constitutional republicanism and preserving the civil society from the growing authoritarianism of a federal Leviathan.

Levin’s research into the Constitution, the debates of the 1787 Constitutional Convention as well as those of the state ratification conventions are beyond thorough. As is his sharp eye for the extensive writings of Founders famous — James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, George Mason — and lesser known: Virginia’s Edmund Randolph, Pennsylvania’s Gouverneur Morris and James Wilson along with Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts and others. Levin has plunged into the contemporaneous thoughts and writings of all the Founders to document precisely what reasoning lay behind the creation of the nation’s founding document.

Writes Levin in his opening chapter of the nation’s current state of affairs:

“Social engineering and central planning are imposed without end, since the governing masterminds, drunk with their own conceit and pomposity, have wild imaginations and infinite ideas for reshaping society and molding man’s nature in search of the ever elusive utopian paradise.”

How did a country so carefully crafted as a constitutional republic by thoughtful men who had experienced tyranny up close and personal ever get to the point where the federal administrative state runs wild, Supreme Court justices, the president and the Congress disdain the Constitution they are all sworn to uphold and the nation, in Levin’s words, “is teetering on financial ruin due to the unconscionable profligate spending, borrowing, taxing and money printing by the federal government”? How does America wake up every day to find its government exercising unlimited power over the private economic behavior of every American? How is it possible that a federal government designed to operate from a defined “enumeration of grants of specific power” is now:

“…the nation’s largest creditor, debtor, lender, employer, consumer, contractor, grantor, property owner, tenant, insurer, health-care provider, and pension guarantor….with aggrandized police powers…(that) for example…regulates most things in your bathroom, laundry room, and kitchen, as well as the mortgage you hold on your house. It designs your automobile and dictates the kind of fuel it uses. It regulates your baby’s toys, crib, and stroller; plans your children’s school curriculum and lunch menu; and administers their student loans in college. At your place of employment the federal government oversees everything from the racial, gender, and age diversity of the workforce to the hours, wages, and benefits paid.”

In effect, over a century after the original American Revolution of 1776, followed by the writing and adoption of the Constitution after exhaustive debate in both Philadelphia at the Constitutional Convention and in the various states that then had to vote up or down on ratification — a Second American Revolution took place. A revolution that wasn’t termed as such, that was for the most part non-violent and in fact presented itself as just ordinary-politics-of-the-day. A “reform” that would, Americans of the day were assured, modernize the nation. This Second American Revolution — the Progressive Movement — burst onto the American scene in the 1880s. Progressives directly opposed the underlying principles of America. Where the Founders believed man was an individual — as Levin says a “unique, spiritual being with a soul and a conscience free to discover his own potential and pursue his own legitimate interests, temper by a moral order that has its foundation in faith.” the Progressives believed something else altogether.

Progressives believed man was not born free, that freedom was not a gift from God but a gift dispensed from the hand of the state. Freedom was redefined as the quest for utopia — or as Levin has termed it, Ameritopia. And in the endless quest for that utopia the social re-engineering of America, the Second American Revolution — the effective nullification of the Constitution — began.

Scornful of the Founders’ belief in limited government, progressives rammed through constitutional amendments that restructured the original design of the American government. Next up was the construction of an administrative state, and Levin quotes Alexis de Tocqueville — who was eerily prescient about what was to come in America long after his death in 1859. America, said the famous French philosopher, could be at risk of being consumed by a system that:

“…covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.”

This is exactly the effect of the Statist or Progressive movement, taking a century to lead the nation into what Levin calls a “post-constitutional soft tyranny” through an endless series of “inventions and schemes hatched and promoted openly by their philosophers, experts, and academics, and the coercive application of their designs on the citizenry by a delusional elite.”

Levin writes:

“…I propose that we, the people, take a closer look at the Constitution for our preservation. The Constitution itself provides the means for restoring self-government and averting societal catastrophe (or, in the case of societal collapse, resurrecting the civil society) in Article V.”

And there it is. The Constitutional way-out of the Statist nightmare — or, as Levin calls it the “Achilles’ heel” of Statism. Article V of the United States Constitution. Levin reprints the relevant portion of Article V with his italics for emphasis:

“The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress….”

Levin notes a very important point. Article V does not provide for a constitutional convention. It provides for a process of proposing amendments. Article V:

“…provides for two methods of amending the Constitution. The first method, where two-thirds of Congress passes a proposed amendment and then forwards it to the state legislatures for possible ratification by three-fourths of the states, has occurred on twenty-seven occasions. The second method, involving the direct application of two-thirds of the state legislatures for a Convention proposing Amendments, which would thereafter also require a three-fourths ratification vote by the states, has been tried in the past but without success. Today it sits dormant.”

Which is to say, a new Constitutional Convention, and the subsequent ratification process would begin the long overdue process of shifting the tyrannical power out of the hands of the federal Leviathan and handing it back to the states. The states that created the federal government — a much different federal government — in the first place.

As Levin writes:

“I was originally skeptical of amending the Constitution by the state convention process. I fretted it could turn into a runaway caucus. As an ardent defender of the Constitution who reveres the brilliance of the Framers, I assumed this would play disastrously into the hands of the Statists. However, today I am a confident and enthusiastic advocate for the process. The text of Article V makes clear that there is a serious check in place. Whether the product of Congress or a convention, a proposed amendment has no effect at all unless “ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States or by Conventions in three fourths thereof…” This should extinguish anxiety that the state convention process should hijack the Constitution.”

Thus Levin in The Liberty Amendments lays out in clear, concise language eleven proposed amendments to the Constitution. They are:

1. An Amendment to Establish Term Limits for Members of Congress
2. An Amendment to Restore the Senate
3. An Amendment to Establish Term Limits for Supreme Court Justices and Super-Majority Legislative Override
4. Two Amendments to Limit Federal Spending and Taxing
5. An Amendment to Limit the Federal Bureaucracy
6. An Amendment to Promote Free Enterprise
7. An Amendment to Protect Private Property
8. An Amendment to Grant the States the Authority to Directly Amend the Constitution
9. An Amendment to Grant the States the Authority to Check Congress
10. An Amendment to Protect the Vote

Here are my favorites (actually I like all of them but I find these to be of the highest importance):

An Amendment to Restore the Senate

SECTION 1: The Seventeenth Amendment is hereby repealed. All Senators shall be chosen by their state legislatures as prescribed by Article 1.

This amendment may well be, as Levin notes, considered to be “the most controversial and politically difficult to institute.” A rare Levin understatement. But repealing the 17th Amendment, which provides for the popular election of U.S. Senators, would decidedly begin to right the balance in the American governmental ship of state.

The 17th Amendment was sold to Americans by Progressives as, in Levin’s words, “a cleansing and transforming expansion of popular democracy” when in fact it has turned out to be “an object lesson in the malignancy of the Progressive mind-set and its destructive impact on the way we practice self-government in a twenty-first century, post-constitutional nation.”

The United States Senate, as its name indicates, was designed to represent — the states. For 124 years it did so, producing along the way some of the nation’s greatest legislators including Daniel Webster of Massachusetts, South Carolina’s John C. Calhoun, Kentucky’s Henry Clay, Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois and Charles Sumner of Massachusetts. But as Levin points out, the idea in the early 1900’s was that since electing members of the House of Representatives by direct popular vote was working as designed — why not do this with senators?

The obvious answer brushed aside in the day was that the Framers had a reason for making the lower House chosen by popular vote and the Senate by state legislatures. Our Funders wanted both individuals and state governments to have “direct input in the national government” — the states that had, of course, created the federal government in the first place. To prevent, in the words of George Mason, the possibility that “the national Legislature will swallow up the Legislatures of the States.” The Founders wanted a direct flow of power from the institutions of state government into the process of making federal law.

The 17th Amendment decidedly undid this bedrock principle — and all too predictably the federal government did in fact “fill whatever areas of governance and even society it chooses.”

In point of fact, United States Senators today are not representative of the interests of their state governments — which are elected directly by the people (see the example of Virginia I show above). Instead they are beholden to, as Levin accurately notes, “Washington lobbyists, campaign funders, national political consultants, and other national advocacy organizations.” Or in other words: goodbye Boston, Albany, Harrisburg, Springfield, Lincoln, Little Rock, Atlanta, Austin, Sacramento, Carson City, Juneau and Jackson — hello K Street. And who, exactly, elected K Street lobbyists? No one, of course.

The fact of the matter is that the responsibility of the states in the national government as envisioned by the Founders has been stripped away, taking power once reserved specifically for states and turning it over to, as Levin notes, Washington’s “governing masterminds and their disciples.” Indeed, there is considerable irony in the furious anger from President Obama and liberals over the recent defeat of gun control legislation by the U.S. Senate. Who did they blame for the defeat? That’s right — the NRA. Not an elected state government. They blamed a lobby.

The repeal of the Seventeenth Amendment effectively created K Street and the modern “lobbyist/consultant industrial complex” America has come to know and hate today. To repeal the Seventeenth Amendment would effectively become an attack on that thoroughly “bipartisan” and distinctly well-heeled complex. Most assuredly, as Levin indicates, launching a battle royal between Washington elites and the rest of America.

An Amendment to Establish Term Limits for Supreme Court Justices and Super-Majority Legislative Override

SECTION 1: No person may serve as Chief Justice or Associate Justice of the Supreme Court for more than a combined total of twelve years.

[…]

SECTION 4: Upon three-fifths vote of the House of Representatives and the Senate, Congress may override a majority opinion rendered by the Supreme Court.

SECTION 5: The Congressional override under Section 4 is not subject to a Presidential veto and shall not be the subject of litigation or review in any Federal or State court.

SECTION 6: Upon three-fifths vote of the several state legislatures, the States may override a majority opinion rendered by the Supreme Court.

There’s more in this amendment, but these sections listed above — designed to rein in what many perceive as an out-of-control federal judiciary will alone doubtless cause an uproar only marginally less vivid than the battle to repeal the Seventeenth Amendment.

Levin notes the concerns various Founders and others had with the idea of the federal judiciary (to use a modern phrase) “going rogue.” He cites the prescient writings of New York Judge Robert Yates, an articulate opponent of the Constitution. As supporters of the Constitution rallied around The Federalist Papers, Yates (writing under the pseudo-name of Brutus) and others writing under pen names authored The Anti-Federalist Papers. In Anti-Federalist 80 (Essay no. 11) Yates warned:

”Much has been said and written upon the subject of this new system on both sides, but I have not met with any writer who has discussed the judicial powers with any degree of accuracy. And yet it is obvious, that we can gain but very imperfect ideas of the manner in which this government will work, or the effect it will have in changing the internal police and mode of distributing justice at present subsisting in the respective states, without a thorough investigation of the powers of the judiciary and of the manner in which they will operate. This government is a complete system, not only for making, but for executing laws. And the courts of law, which will be constituted by it, are not only to decide upon the constitution and the laws made in pursuance of it, but by officers subordinate to them to execute all their decisions. The real effect of this system of government, will therefore be brought home to the feelings of the people, through the medium of the judicial power. It is, moreover, of great importance, to examine with care the nature and extent of the judicial power, because those who are to be vested with it, are to be placed in a situation altogether unprecedented in a free country. They are to be rendered totally independent, both of the people and the legislature, both with respect to their offices and salaries. No errors they may commit can be corrected by any power above them, if any such power there be, nor can they be removed from office for making ever so many erroneous adjudications.”

And so it has turned out. Yates died in 1801, two years before Chief Justice John Marshall famously wrote in 1803’s Marbury v. Madison:

The judicial power of the United States is extended to all cases arising under the constitution.

Levin notes importantly that Abraham Lincoln took the occasion of his first inaugural address in 1861 to speak out in favor of limits to judicial power. Lincoln went on at length that he did not “forget the position assumed by some that national questions are to be decided by the Supreme Court” But as a staunch opponent of the Court’s fateful 1857 decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford — in which Democrats led by Andrew Jackson appointee and slave-owner Chief Justice Roger Taney attempted to write slavery into the Constitution — Lincoln believed the Court had arranged affairs so that “the people will have ceased to be their own rulers.”

Contrast this with that exemplar of the Progressive movement and a liberal hero to this day — the Democrats’ Woodrow Wilson. Wilson the Progressive — and staunch segregationist — “endorsed flat-out judicial tyranny” says Levin. Wilson believed “the federal judiciary was to behave as a perpetual constitutional convention,” rewriting the Constitution at will and “nearly always promoting the centralization and concentration of power in the federal government.” Indeed, things are now so far off track with the federal judiciary that the liberal Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has urged the Court to “look beyond one’s shores” to international law when writing and justifying Court rulings. The Constitution? What’s that?

Levin writes that by “claiming authority not specifically granted by the Constitution, abuses of power would certainly follow, as they have.”

The notion that, for example, Roe v. Wade might have been overturned by three-fifths of the state legislatures had Levin’s amendment been in place in January of 1973 will doubtless cause a frenzy on the left. On the other hand, there is no doubt the Left would love for this particular Liberty Amendment to be in place right now — so they could try and repeal Citizens United.

Giving the Congress and the States veto power over Supreme Court decisions will surely roil the waters political.

We won’t run through all the other amendments in detail here. It’s safe to say that each in their own fashion will arouse considerable controversy.

Limiting taxation to 15% of income? Abolishing the death tax and prohibiting a value-added (VAT) tax? A failure by the Congress and the President to adopt and sign a budget no later than the first Monday in May mandates “an automatic, across-the-board, 5 percent reduction in expenditures” from the previous year’s budget? Individually reauthorizing “all federal departments and agencies….individually in stand-alone reauthorization bills every three years by a majority vote of the House…and the Senate” — or said departments and agencies automatically expire? Finally reining in the much abused Commerce Clause? Securing “the fundamental right to own and maintain property” from government regulatory takings by forcing the government to “compensate fully” any financial loss over $10,000?

Boy will this cause a loud howl from the progressives who have their way with we the people for so long.

While the Liberty Amendments are the heart of Levin’s book, it is critical to go back to the reason for this book — and the undoubted reaction to his proposals that is surely about to rain down on the book and its supporters, not to mention the author himself. Writes Levin in his Epilogue, appropriately titled The Time for Action:

“No doubt, in a twist of logic, the state convention process and The Liberty Amendments will be assaulted by the governing masterminds and their disciples as an extreme departure from the status quo and, therefore, heretical, as they resist ferociously all efforts to diminish their power and position. Paradoxically, it is they who distort the Constitutions’ text and trespass its purpose by actively pursuing its nullification and abandonment. History demonstrates that republics collapse when demagogues present themselves as their guardians to entice the people and cloak their true intentions…..Indeed, the closer the approach to constitutional restoration, should that day arrive, a torrent of fuming and malevolent rage will, predictably, let loose, alleging perfidy by the true reformers.”

The Liberty Amendments — all eleven of them — are a serious work of restoration and reform. They are ironically the very embodiment of that current liberal favorite: “Hope and Change” — turned back on the entire progressive concept of government. There is in fact no reason whatsoever that Americans must accept what Levin calls the “obtuse and defeatist notion of moderation that accepts the disposition of inevitable societal self-destruction without recourse to an available escape. Its irrationality is self-evident.”

It is all too apparent after a hundred-years plus of the Progressive “Second American Revolution” that the revolution is not only failed but dangerous. Exceptionally dangerous. Dangerous to everything from the larger financial underpinnings of America to the individual lives of Americans who must daily face this, that or the other onslaught from their own government.

The plethora of scandals from recent years — tellingly in both the Obama and Bush administrations —speaks to the fundamental recognition that the problem is the inevitable out-of-control nature of a massive, intrusive federal government apparatus. From the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac caused financial crisis of 2008 to recent headlines about the IRS, FEC, DEA, SEC, EPA, State Department, Food Stamps and more, all in a very real sense are nothing but the latest confirmation of just how massive and irrational the federal government has become. Indeed, the defense of President Obama by liberal allies in the IRS scandal is that surely one cannot expect the President to have any idea about what’s going on in his own government because the government is in fact so huge.

All the way back in 1964 in that famous speech A Time for Choosing (found here) that introduced Ronald Reagan to America as a political figure, Reagan saw all this coming. Said the future president in those famous closing lines:

“You and I have a rendezvous with destiny.

We’ll preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we’ll sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children’s children say of us that we justified our brief moments here. We did all that could be done.”

The challenge Mark Levin’s Liberty Amendments now poses to millions of Americans is exactly Reagan’s challenge.

Will we preserve the last best hope of man on earth?

Will, in Levin’s words, “we the people restore the splendor of the American Republic”?

Ronald Reagan’s A Time for Choosing has now become Mark Levin’s The Time for Action.

And Mark Levin has provided the blueprint.

I urge you to obtain a copy of Levin’s book and read it through. He not only presents the problem and offers the solution with one of his liberty amendments he does a fantastic job of giving the historical context and thinking (through the writing and speeches) of our Founders when they drafted and ratified the Constitution. Levine’s book should be read by anyone concerned about the direction of our Republic.