Restoring Constitutional Government

“Democracy extends the sphere of individual freedom, socialism restricts it. Democracy attaches all possible value to each man; socialism makes each man a mere agent, a mere number. Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.” ― Alexis de Tocqueville

The election is over and the Constitution lost. 100 years of progressivism culminated in the reelection of Barack Obama to four more years as our chief executive officer. He was not elected on due to his management of our economy or adherence to the principles of our Declaration or Constitution — a Constitution he distains for its lack of so called “positive rights.”

We have become a nation of those who make and those who take, or as Bastiat said;” "The mission of law is not to oppress persons and plunder them of their property, even though the law may be acting in a philanthropic spirit. Its mission is to protect property."

In the City of Man the ruling class (defined as the complex of government, the mainstream media, most of the academy, much of our senior military class and industrial and public sector unions that are tied to government power) are the experts and masterminds that want to control the resources between the haves and have-nots and as John Dewey stated provide the mental equipment (education) that will bring the citizens into the progressive fold and away from our founding principle, which he called “negative freedoms.”

Today’s Progressives have two basic core beliefs — the collective (group rights and a victim class) and corporatism. They believe in a system of government that is powerful and has the power of science behind it. It was born in the academy among leading academics and what they say is that experts have to decide expert things and that most things are like that including health care, environmental regulations, who you may associate with, and how you should raise your family and educate your children. To accomplish this you must have government with a multitude of complex rules.

On the other hand those who want to adhere to the principles of the Declaration and Constitution believe it is incumbent on our government to render itself into simplicity so that one can understand it. The rule of law requires that we are able to read the laws. This requires a citizenry educated in the principles of our Founders.

Today we live in an administrative state where Congress’ primary function is constituent services. Our representatives pass broad conceptual laws and then leave the interpretation and enforcement to the experts and masterminds of the administrative state. These bureaucratic experts outlive Congresses and Presidents and are the real power in the United States.

The father of today’s progressivism, Woodrow Wilson, while a fan of Thomas Jefferson, did not believe that the United States could survive in the new industrial world by adhering to the outdated model of the Constitution. He believed we needed a new system of leadership where the executive was the political leader of the nation and we needed a cadre of experts to run his new administrative state. This was to be the model for the progressive liberalism’s transformation of America’s political institutions from Madison’s constitutional republic, where laws were made by the legislature, to an administrative state where laws and regulations came down from the executive branch through the hands of commissions of experts and masterminds.

In Federalist 49 James Madison wrote:

“The executive power might be in the hands of a peculiar favorite of the people. In such a posture of things, the public decision might be less swayed by prepossessions in favor of the legislative party. But still it could never be expected to turn on the true merits of the question. It would inevitably be connected with the spirit of pre-existing parties, or of parties springing out of the question itself. It would be connected with persons of distinguished character and extensive influence in the community. It would be pronounced by the very men who had been agents in, or opponents of, the measures to which the decision would relate. The PASSIONS, therefore, not the REASON, of the public would sit in judgment. But it is the reason, alone, of the public, that ought to control and regulate the government. The passions ought to be controlled and regulated by the government”

On November 6, 2012 the majority of the voters of the United States exercised their passions and voted for the most progressive liberal politician in our history when they voted for Barack Obama, the ultimate mastermind who in his election night victory speech proclaimed; “Thank you so much. Tonight, more than 200 years after a former colony won the right to determine its own destiny to perfect our union moves forward."

The preamble of our Constitution states:

“We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

To our Founders the words “more perfect union” did not mean a perfection of the people or laws regulating the path to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It meant bringing the states together from a loose confederation into a federalist system of government where the federal government would have certain powers and all powers not enumerated in the Constitution would belong to the states and the people.

To Barack Obama and his progressive cohorts “perfect” means more positive rights, social justice, and allegiance to the collective comprised of group rights, the victim class, a the redistribution of resources. This is what 52% of the voters wanted on November 6, 2012.

The Past Century has witnessed a transformation in the understanding of the purposes of American government. The political, academic, and media consensus today upholds the necessity and legitimacy of the Progressive project, making a return to the principles of the Founders appear difficult, if not impossible. However, the resonance among voters of appeals made to the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution by Calvin Coolidge and Ronald Reagan highlights the enduring character of those self-evident truths upon which the Founders built the American political order.

From the time of Woodrow Wilson’s presidency to that of Barack Obama, Progressives have systematically derided the principles of the American Founding as inapplicable to the complexities of contemporary politics. The strength and vigor with which the administrative state today is promoted and defended seems to mirror the support which limited government principles received in the century following the American Revolution. However, neither bureaucratic nor limited government is inevitable: each is the product of human choice shaped by a particular education and expressed through the voting process.

Two presidents have responded to the Progressive claims for the administrative state—Calvin Coolidge and Ronald Reagan. Coolidge used the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence to reaffirm that the American political order was founded on truths rooted in “Nature and Nature’s God.” These truths still applied, despite technological and economic changes. He argued that the Progressive claim that individuals are shaped by their economic conditions and material circumstances is a denial of the innate freedom of the human person. The Founders championed this freedom and protected it with their system of limited government by consent.

On July 5, 1926 President Coolidge delivered his speech, “The Inspiration of the Declaration” on the 150th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Rejecting Progressivism root and branch, he defended America’s founding principles when he stated:

“About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful. It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But that reasoning cannot be applied to this great charter. If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction cannot lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers

In the development of its institutions America can fairly claim that it has remained true to the principles which were declared 150 years ago. In all the essentials we have achieved an equality which was never possessed by any other people. Even in the less important matter of material possessions we have secured a wider and wider distribution of wealth. The rights of the individual are held sacred and protected by constitutional guarantees, which even the Government itself, is bound not to violate. If there is any one thing among us that is established beyond question, it is self-government—the right of the people to rule. If there is any failure in respect to any of these principles, it is because there is a failure on the part of individuals to observe them. We hold that the duly authorized expression of the will of the people has a divine sanction. But even in that we come back to the theory of John Wise that “Democracy is Christ’s government.” The ultimate sanction of law rests on the righteous authority of the Almighty.”

Ronald Reagan also captured the essential differences between the Progressive view and that of the Founders, which he stated clearly in his First Inaugural Address when he stated:

“From time to time, we have been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule, that government by an elite group is superior to government for, by, and of the people. But if no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else? All of us together, in and out of government, must bear the burden. The solutions we seek must be equitable, with no one group singled out to pay a higher price.

We hear much of special interest groups. Our concern must be for a special interest group that has been too long neglected. It knows no sectional boundaries or ethnic and racial divisions, and it crosses political party lines. It is made up of men and women who raise our food, patrol our streets, man our mines and our factories, teach our children, keep our homes, and heal us when we are sick—professionals, industrialists, shopkeepers, clerks, cabbies, and truck drivers. They are, in short, "We the people," this breed called Americans.

Well, this administration’s objective will be a healthy, vigorous, growing economy that provides equal opportunity for all Americans, with no barriers born of bigotry or discrimination. Putting America back to work means putting all Americans back to work. Ending inflation means freeing all Americans from the terror of runaway living costs. All must share in the productive work of this "new beginning" and all must share in the bounty of a revived economy. With the idealism and fair play which are the core of our system and our strength, we can have a strong and prosperous America at peace with itself and the world.

So, as we begin, let us take inventory. We are a nation that has a government—not the other way around. And this makes us special among the nations of the Earth. Our Government has no power except that granted it by the people. It is time to check and reverse the growth of government which shows signs of having grown beyond the consent of the governed.”

Reagan established a link between the principles and actions of Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln, and those of the soldiers in Arlington National Cemetery and of his fellow citizens. He argued that the limited government of the Constitution depends on, and enables, the self-government of each citizen. The principles and institutions of government established by the Founders are thus the best guarantee for the equal protection of the lives and liberties of all American citizens.

One of the greatest political speeches of our time was made by Ronald Reagan in 1964. In this nationally televised speech, entitled “A Time for Choosing”, in support of Barry Goldwater, the 1964 Republican Party presidential candidate, Reagan challenges the Progressive principles behind President Johnson’s Great Society. The speech propelled Reagan to national prominence. In his speech Reagan stated with the clarity and eloquence that only he could deliver:

“In this vote-harvesting time, they use terms like the "Great Society," or as we were told a few days ago by the President, we must accept a "greater government activity in the affairs of the people." But they have been a little more explicit in the past and among themselves—and all of the things that I now will quote have appeared in print. These are not Republican accusations. For example, they have voices that say "the cold war will end through acceptance of a not undemocratic socialism." Another voice says that the profit motive has become outmoded, it must be replaced by the incentives of the welfare state; or our traditional system of individual freedom is incapable of solving the complex problems of the 20th century. Senator Fullbright has said at Stanford University that the Constitution is outmoded. He referred to the president as our moral teacher and our leader, and he said he is hobbled in his task by the restrictions in power imposed on him by this antiquated document. He must be freed so that he can do for us what he knows is best. And Senator Clark of Pennsylvania, another articulate spokesman, defines liberalism as "meeting the material needs of the masses through the full power of centralized government." Well, I for one resent it when a representative of the people refers to you and me—the free man and woman of this country—as "the masses." This is a term we haven't applied to ourselves in America. But beyond that, "the full power of centralized government"—this was the very thing the Founding Fathers sought to minimize. They knew that governments don't control things. A government can't control the economy without controlling people. And they know when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose. They also knew, those Founding Fathers, that outside of its legitimate functions, government does nothing as well or as economically as the private sector of the economy.”

In reading and listening to Reagan’s speech you can see what Mitt Romney should have said the American People instead of his pabulum-laced quasi-progressive, play it safe dribble he advocated. Perhaps had he been as Bill O’Reilly said be “bold and fresh” Romney chose to be more of an economic technocrat than a leader conversant with the conservative principles of our founders. Progressivism is based, as Calvin Coolidge stated, on materialism while conservatism is based on our founding principles of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. This is why today’s Progressives are so entrenched in buy votes by offering the people more free stuff.

James Madison wrote in his Essay on Property:

“In the former sense, a man's land, or merchandize, or money is called his property. In the latter sense, a man has property in his opinions and the free communication of them. He has a property of peculiar value in his religious opinions, and in the profession and practice dictated by them.

He has a property very dear to him in the safety and liberty of his person. He has an equal property in the free use of his faculties and free choice of the objects on which to employ them.

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 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.”

Why Romney did not take the course of one of the successful politicians of the twentieth century is beyond me. His timid approach the protecting our liberty and our constitutional rights brought him close to winning, but close only counts in the game of horseshoes.

Wayne Allyn Root for wrote for Personal Liberty an article that I totally agree with. While a Libertarian and former Vice-Presidential candidate for the Libertarian Party Root’s comments ring true to my ears:

“What a stunning and miserable day. Ronald Reagan gave us “Morning in America” — as in a new sunny morning. I feel like I just woke up in “Mourning in America” — as in mourning for the loss of this great country. And it’s all because, in politics, “nice” doesn’t work. Mitt Romney is a nice guy, a gentleman. But in politics, nice guys often finish last.

To win the election, and beat a sitting President, Romney needed to do more than nicely debate Barack Obama.

He needed to indict Obama.

Here is the speech that Romney should have given. Had he given this speech, we’d all be waking up to “Morning in America” — as in a bright, sunny day filled with opportunity:

“Let me start by stressing that President Obama may be a nice man. He may be a good husband and father. He may love this country. He may think he is doing what is right. But the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Nice or not, Barack Obama believes government has the answer to every problem. He believes in punishment of the successful. He believes in income redistribution. He believes in massive spending and debt. He believes in so many rules, regulations and mandates that no one can open a lemonade stand anymore without permission from government.

Those beliefs destroy economies and kill jobs everywhere they’ve ever been tried. The U.S. economy under Obama is in crisis and free fall. You don’t need to look far to prove Obama’s policies are dangerous and deadly. Europe has been following Obama’s plan for decades: big government, big unions, big spending, big taxes, big entitlements, big pensions, free healthcare, too many government employees and unlimited spending on green energy and high speed rail. The result? Economic disaster on a grand scale. Greece, Italy and Spain are enduring a tragedy few can comprehend. France is next. Someday, we will read about this in history books.

America, under Barack Obama, is following the exact same path.

This is the state of the U.S. economy under Obama. Judge for yourselves:

As of Election Day, unemployment is officially listed at 7.9 percent, the highest for any incumbent since FDR.

More importantly, the real unemployment rate (including the under-employed and those who have given up looking) is in the range of 15 percent — higher than in most years of the Great Depression.

Unemployment in the black community is 14.3 percent.

Unemployment and under-employment for college graduates is a staggering 53 percent.

The Labor Force Participation Rate among men is the lowest since 1948.

Food stamp growth is 75 percent greater than job growth under Obama. Forty-six million Americans are now on food stamps.

The record 11 million Americans on disability is larger than the population of a majority of U.S. States.

Over 100 million Americans get entitlement checks.

One-sixth of all personal income in the United States is now provided by government.

The housing collapse is now deeper than at the peak of the Great Depression.

The net worth of the average American is down 40 percent.

New business startups are at the lowest level in 30 years.

The U.S. credit rating has been downgraded for first time in history.

We are experiencing unimaginable economic wreckage, crisis and collapse from coast to coast.

None of this is a coincidence.

With 60,000 new rules, regulations and mandates in only three years, Obama has turned the entire U.S. economy into a “hostile work environment”:

With Obama demonizing the wealthy and taunting entrepreneurs and financial risk-takers with “You didn’t build that.”

With the Environmental Protection Agency attempting to put the coal industry completely out of business and end oil drilling.

With thousands of new Internal Revenue Service agents hired to harass and intimidate business owners.

With massive new tax increases looming.

With 3,000 pages of ObamaCare, containing 23 new taxes.

With 2,000 pages of Dodd-Frank, making it much harder for banks to lend or for businessmen to raise money.

With $115 trillion in debt and unfunded liabilities at the Federal level.

With States, counties and cities even more broke and insolvent than the Federal government. The debt in Cook County, Illinois (Obama’s Chicago), is now an unimaginable $108 billion.

You have to question if this is incompetence or a purposeful plan to overwhelm the system with debt and entitlements, to collapse the U.S. economy and weaken faith in capitalism, to turn America into a European social state.

Obama tells us that he “saved” the auto industry. It’s his one and only accomplishment, so he repeats it 100 times a day. The reality is that he merely stole $25 billion from you and me (the taxpayers) to protect the pensions of auto union members who contributed tens of millions of dollars to his election. Now your children owe that $25 billion, plus interest – and you don’t even get a car! But Obama allowed private sector autoworkers to lose their pensions (because they didn’t contribute to him), while closing only auto dealerships owned by Republican contributors. This is all immoral, if not criminal.

Ladies and gentleman, we have to change direction:

Before we have no country left to defend.

Before we have no economy left to rebuild.

Before unions strangle the life out of the private sector.

Before taxpayers are sucked dry to pay for a food stamp and unemployment benefits economy.

Before “free” healthcare adds trillions of dollars in debt to our children’s burden.

Before Obama’s extreme views on energy leave us all dependent on nations that hate America and support terrorism.

Before Obama uses executive orders to render Congress and the Constitution meaningless.

Before every terrorist attack is given a politically correct name.

Before more victims are blamed when Islamic radicals slaughter them over a cartoon, book or film.

Before every Bible is permanently removed from our military bases and hospitals.

Before all religious celebrations, except Ramadan, are permanently removed from our White House.

Or before 6 million Israelis are wiped out in a second holocaust due to a foreign policy of apology, appeasement and indifference.

This is our last stand. For capitalism. For small business. For the American Dream. For our Judeo-Christian values. For our small businesses. For our children and grandchildren’s future. For the survival of the American Dream. And yes, for our guns and Bibles.

When you walk into that polling place to vote, remember that Osama bin Laden is dead. And so is a U.S. border agent who died in the Fast and Furious scandal. And so is our Ambassador and three heroes abandoned and left to die at our Libyan embassy. And so is the U.S. economy.

Remember that even at this moment, as broke as America is, Obama is giving $450 million of your taxpayer money to the radical Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt.

Remember Obama denigrates those who cling to old-fashioned ideas: God, country, faith, family, capitalism and our American exceptionalism.

Remember Obama presided over a Democratic convention that booed God three times.

Forgive, but never forget. Now, let’s go out and reclaim our country. God Bless America.”

That was the speech Romney should have given. The American people needed to hear the raw, unvarnished truth without sugar-coating.

The key to Romney’s election as President wasn’t to debate Obama. It was to indict Obama. Being “nice” and refusing to offend anyone just re-elected Obama. It may lead to the end of America as we know it.

Well, I’m not Romney. I’m not waving any white flags. I’m a Tea Party conservative. I’m going to fight hard and aggressively. And I’m going to help take back our country. This battle has only just begun.

There is no permanence in politics. All is fleeting. All is cyclical. We find comfort in our cycle and distress when others rise to the top.

Right now, conservatives are bitterly disappointed. Some choose to check out mentally. Some have decided to throw in the towel. A few blame the American People. Many think the gig is up, the show is over, and destiny is undone.

Demography is not destiny and neither is the ever growing leviathan of the federal government. Many think so now, but they forget the ebbs and flows of the tide of history. Conservatism is not done. The message of freedom and opportunity is not done.

No immigrant comes to the United States wanting to be on welfare. They come for a better life of hard work and success. What conservatives forget is that people forget.

And conservatives have done a terrible job reminding people.

Since Ronald Reagan rose from the ashes of the Goldwater movement, Republicans have articulated a message of freedom and opportunity — a rugged individualism that says if you work hard you can be what you want and do what you want. But people forget.

In the last decade or so, Republicans began to assume everyone just naturally agreed. They stopped explaining. They stopped being evangelists for the conservative principles of our Founders. Worse, conservatism morphed into Republicanism and instead of being about ideas, both became about the acquisition of power for the sake of power. Republicans no longer articulated a core set of principles through policy, but policies designed solely to keep them in power. The party leaders and many of its candidates began to do the same — freedom became a platitude, not a policy. Was Abraham Lincoln, the father of the Republican Party more concerned over being elected than ridding the nation from the scourge of slavery and keeping the Union together — I think not.

During Barack Obama’s tenure, Republicans tried to blur every line, make every compromise, and often surrendered before a weapon was even pointed at them. They did not articulate a positive conservative vision, but a defensive position that Obama was bad and they were good with little to show for it. They cut deals that sold out their core to preserve their power. They do so even today.

Republicans assumed Americans got it. They assumed Americans and Republicans were still speaking the same language. But they weren’t.

Politics is cyclical and Americans are forgetful. Republicans forgot that. They failed to keep advancing. They failed to keep explaining. They relied on on the tried and true that became the tired and stale.

Moving forward, the conservative movement from within the GOP needs to advance new ideas, not just dust off and repackage old ideas. The principles remain the same. The principles are fixed. But the ideas that advance those principles must fit into the twenty-first century.

The GOP should start with education reform. They should tackle tax reform. They should work the break up big banks by forcing big banks to capitalize further. They should not shy away from tackling social security and Medicare reform — ideas that did not hurt them with senior citizens and will ultimately help them with younger voters. They should still fight to repeal ObamaCare and explain to the American people why it is sucking the life out of the economy.

But more importantly, conservatives must be able to show Americans in this age of a stagnant economy that conservatism has ideas not just to make one prosperous, but also to help the poor and needy. There are those who do depend on and deserve a helping hand. If the GOP cannot show how small government lifts people up and provides for those who cannot, the GOP will fail.

Republicans should not be afraid to be obstructionist, but must be willing to explain that the obstruction prevents the passage of ideas that history once discarded before we all forgot.

These are exciting times for the conservative movement. But the conservative movement must get up and lead now — lead with conservative ideas for the GOP, not a Republican agenda packaged as conservative. We must begin again anew talking conservatism as evangelists, not fellow travelers. We must remember we are not in a permanent decline, but a cycle of politics that is only permanent if we let it be.

Our think tanks must stop producing white papers designed to woo donors and must produce ideas designed to persuade voters to limited government.

I like being free. I love it. I love that I can point out that the leader of the country is a profligate liar without being shot, beaten or sent to the gulag for it. I love that I can discuss the crimes he has committed and will commit in his insatiable quest for power without black helicopters descending on my house. I even enjoy the fact that Democratic sock puppets can party themselves into an even deeper stupor than usual after their icon’s victory, despite the fact that they’ve sold their country into slavery in doing so. And if I have to pay for creature comforts with my own cash, then so be it. It sure beats living in one of those sad, gray little dictatorships like North Korea.

And I’m not fleeing the country. I’m not one of those uber-wealthy Hollywood clowns who promises emigration to the nearest convenient tax shelter in the Caribbean every time my guy takes one on the chin. Even if I end up being the last man standing in a country overrun by liberal filth and their idiot minions, I’ll be damned if they’re going to run me off. I survived eight years of Bill Clinton’s dough-faced dishonesty; I can survive eight years of Obama’s mealy-mouthed mendacity.

Clinton was a liar and a reprobate, but at least he was fun about it. I never got the sense from Clinton that he hated me (though I did from his wife). Obama hates me. He also hates most of you. Close to 50 percent of the Nation voted NO to Obama and his policies, and he despises them for it. He despises their God and their guns. He reviles their refusal to knuckle under to socialist nightmares like ObamaCare. Clinton may have been a screwball, but at least you knew he could hold his liquor and might be fun to party with. Obama is a living, breathing archetype of the effete elite mastermind that has turned the Democratic Party into the national disgrace it has become. Democrats aren’t better than we are, but they think they are and they act accordingly. Witness Obama’s casual mendacity on Benghazi, Libya, and Operation Fast and Furious. Furthermore, witness his comfort in skirting the law with “executive orders.” He rules by fiat — like some kind of sideshow emperor.

Obama’s re-election is bad news for America. But we’ve received bad news before, and we will again. As the returns rolled toward Obama last night, I comforted a pal by suggesting that while Obama’s re-election may be a hurricane of horror for liberty, the storm surge might help to wash the shore clean for 2014’s House and Senate elections. We made it to 2012; we can survive to 2016. If you believe I am attempting to put lipstick on the proverbial pig I offered another outcome:

It’s 2012. If the Mayans were right, then none of this matters much.

Our Constitution cannot be restored unless it is the wish of the American People and that wish must be a sustained wish. This will require more than statesmanship — it requires education and learning. It is not about winning elections— it’s about saving the Republic.

The “I Want My Stuff Crowd” Wins Another Round

“Society will develop a new kind of servitude which covers the surface of society with a network of complicated rules, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate. 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.” ― Alexis de Tocqueville

On Tuesday night we suffered the culmination of 100 years of progressivism. It was a night when Americans lost the battle between those who want free stuff and those who want freedom. Yes, I know Obama won with 303 Electoral Votes (probably 332 when the final count from Florida comes in), but he only beat Romney by 2,805,978 votes or 2.3%. More importantly Obama won the so called battleground states of Florida, Virginia, and Ohio by 0.6%, 3.0%, and 1.9% respectively (Florida-47,016, Virginia-112,884, and Ohio-100,142) In the case of Ohio a large portion, if not all of Obama’s victory came from Cuyahoga County where he attained a plurality of 236,478 votes (68.8%). In Virginia Obama’s victory was advanced by a 127,627 vote plurality from Fairfax, Loudoun, and Prince William Counties — counties populated by government workers. Florida was even closer where Obama received a plurality of 552,715 votes from Palm Beach, Broward, and Miami-Dade Counties for an average of 62.5% of the votes cast in those counties. (Hat tip to the Huffington Post for their very informative Electoral Maps)

By now you should be tiered with numbers so I will add only one more statistic. According to reports 11% of women voted for Obama and Hispanics broke 2:1 for him. Single women from 20 to 31 broke 31% for Obama. The big issue for single women was abortion and birth control, Issues that were never debated by either candidate. It appears that these women will sacrifice their country for a free condom.

In watching the election returns on Tuesday night three things struck me. The first was John Boehner’s impromptu speech before the election was called for Obama. To me this seemed to be Boehner’s way of calling a Romney defeat and posing himself as the new leader of the GOP. His actions were unprecedented. I have just learned that he wants to propose an economic plan to Obama. That is insanity on his part. It is Obama’s responsibility to propose a plan and the House’s responsibility to accept or reject it. The ball is in Obama’s court where he must stand on his plan and explain it to the American People. Boehner is playing into Obama’s hands.

The second was the way the “experts” on Fox News kept telling us what the GOP needed to do to win the presidency. They talked about reaching out to women and Hispanics. They talked about moving to the “center” and not appearing to be right-wing conservatives. To most of them this election was about winning, not about principles. Neither the Democrat nor the Republican spinners talked about principles and what each party stood for.

What does the Republican Party stand for today? If you listened to Mitt Romney it stood for lower taxes, job creation and the economy. That’s not enough. The party was founded on the principle of anti-slavery, but today I think, in many cases, it stands for getting elected and to do that they have to be more like the Democrats. If that’s the case than elections are mere popularity contests. During the debates there was no discussion of the Constitution, securing the borders, or our founding principles. Romney believed if he stuck to the economy and did not fight back against the scurrilous attacks by the Obama machine and the press he would win. He was wrong. Romney seemed more like a economic technocrat than a politician willing to fight for liberty.

The third thing was Obama’s victory speech. Once the networks called the election for him he came out before the cameras and started his speech with these 31 words:

"Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Tonight, more than 200 years after a former colony won the right to determine its own destiny to perfect our union moves forward."

Grammar, you see, is how we clarify meaning. The Obama Code rests on vagueness, on multiple meanings that can be read into a statement. For the literati, the meaning can be clear, while the rest of us respond to what we guess is meant, based on the pleasant connotations of many of the words chosen. Nice words like "perfect."

The second element of the Obama Code is the wink to the hard left buried in his word choices. You see, he told us that our "destiny" is "to perfect our union." The wisdom of our Constitution, a "flawed document" in Obama's eyes, is that it does not promise perfection, but rather checks and balances. It consists of "negative rights" and doesn't obligate government to guarantee largesse ("positive rights," like health care) to its citizens.

That must change. That is the agenda. President Obama has shown a willingness to ignore the Constitution whenever it suits him, overriding creditors' rights, ignoring the Constitutional cabinet officers in favor of czars not subject to the inconvenience of a confirmation process, assassinating American citizens with no judicial involvement, and issuing frightening executive orders.

The code message dispensed with, the rest of the speech continued to appall. Andrew Malcolm of Investor's Business Daily, in a mordantly hilarious column, drew a contrast:

"Romney in 703 words graciously admitted his loss. He said the word "America" five times, the word "pray" three times and the words "Thank you" 21 times.

The Real Good Talker, who's never seen anything he couldn't throw a speech at, took 2,163 words to claim victory in what is traditionally a moment to call for unity and healing after a divisive campaign.

The victorious Chicagoan, who promised before the last election to end Washington's partisan bitterness, strangely uttered the word "fight" five times and "thank you" but seven times. He spoke the word "unify" zero times, "unity" zero times, "heal" zero times and "pray" zero times.

He did, however, manage to mention himself 27 times.”

We had best gird our loins. When it comes to ruthless leftism, we ain't seen nothin' yet.”

Now for a few words on the media and how they helped Obama get reelected. Reviewing the 2012 presidential campaign, here are five ways the media elite tipped the public relations scales in favor of the liberal Obama and against the conservative challenger Mitt Romney. According to Rich Noyes of Fox News here are the five major ways media bias helped Obama:

“1. The Media’s Biased Gaffe Patrol Hammered Romney: The media unfairly jumped on inconsequential mistakes — or even invented controversies — from Romney and hyped them in to multi-day media “earthquakes.” Case in point: the GOP candidate’s trip to Europe and Israel in late July. A Media Research Center analysis of all 21 ABC, CBS and NBC evening news stories about Romney’s trip found that virtually all of them (18, or 86%) emphasized “diplomatic blunders,” “gaffes” or “missteps.”

Conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer blasted the news coverage in an August 2 column, calling the trip “a major substantive success” that was wrapped “in a media narrative of surpassing triviality.”

Similarly, when the left-wing Mother Jones magazine in September put out a secretly-recorded video of Romney talking to donors about the 47% of Americans who don’t pay income taxes, the networks hyped it like a sensational sex scandal. Over three days, the broadcast network morning and evening shows churned out 42 stories on the tape, nearly 90 minutes of coverage. The tone was hyperbolic; ABC’s "Good Morning America" called it a “bombshell rocking the Mitt Romney campaign,” while ABC "World News" anchor Diane Sawyer declared it a “political earthquake.”

None of Obama’s gaffes garnered that level of coverage. After the president in a June 8 press conference declared that “the private sector is doing fine,” the ABC, CBS and NBC evening newscasts gave it just one night’s coverage, then basically dropped the story — nothing further on ABC’s "World News" or the "CBS Evening News" in the weeks that followed, and just two passing references on the "NBC Nightly News."

And, when Obama infamously declared, “You didn’t build that,” ABC, CBS, NBC didn’t report the politically damaging remark for four days — and then only after Romney made it the centerpiece of a campaign speech.

2. Pounding Romney With Partisan Fact Checking: There’s nothing wrong with holding politicians accountable for the honesty of their TV ads and stump speeches, but this year the self-appointed media fact-checkers attacked Republicans as liars for statements that were accurate.

For example, a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter writing for PolitiFact branded VP candidate Paul Ryan’s convention speech anecdote about the closing of the General Motors plant in his hometown as “false,” even though Ryan was correct in all of his details. The slanted review became TV reporters’ talking points; the next day on NBC, correspondent Chuck Todd grumped that while what Ryan said “was technically factual, by what he left out, [he] actually distorted the actual truth.” Matt Lauer greeted Ryan the following week in an interview on Today: “There are some people who are claiming that you played a little fast and loose with the truth....”

The same thing happened when Mitt Romney talked about Obama’s “apology tour” during the final presidential debate. While in 2009 Obama had, in fact, criticized the United States as “arrogant,” “derisive” and having “too often... set [our] principles aside,” the networks said to call it an “apology tour” was “false” because, as CNN’s John Berman tenuously insisted, “even if he was critical of past U.S. foreign policy, he issued no apologies.”

Writing in the New York Times August 31, correspondent Jackie Calmes scolded that “the number of falsehoods and misleading statements from the Romney campaign coming in for independent criticism has reached a level not typically seen.” That’s not true, either; Romney’s team was, at worst, guilty of highlighting those facts that best illustrated their points (something done by all politicians), and the Obama campaign certainly put out their share of tawdry TV ads and dubious campaign claims.

But with “truth cops” who mainly policed just the GOP side of the street, the media used “fact-checking” as another club to tilt the playing field in favor of the Democrats.

3. Those Biased Debate Moderators: Upset liberals scorned PBS’s Jim Lehrer for taking a hands-off approach in the first debate on October 3, with MSNBC analyst Howard Fineman slamming him as “practically useless” for not jumping into the debate on behalf of President Obama.

Such criticism may have encouraged the activist approach taken by ABC’s Martha Raddatz in the vice presidential debate October 11, and by CNN’s Candy Crowley in the October 16 town hall debate, as both of those journalists repeatedly interrupted the Republican candidate and larded the discussion with a predominantly liberal agenda.

Crowley earns extra demerits for taking the media’s penchant for faulty fact-checking to new heights when she jumped into the October 16 town hall-style debate to validate President Obama’s claim that he called the attack in Benghazi, Libya, “an act of terror” the very next morning. Crowley endorsed Obama’s story, telling Romney: “He did, in fact, sir, call it an act of terror.”

Not according to the transcript, which had Obama only speaking generically about how “no acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this nation,” not assigning that label to the violence in Benghazi.

Wrong though she was, Crowley became a heroine to many in the liberal media; ABC's Matt Dowd, for example, cheered: “What Candy Crowley did, I actually thought, was laudable. I hope we get to do more of that in this discourse.”

Moderators are supposed to ensure both sides get a fair hearing, not pick sides. By leaping into the fray, Candy Crowley epitomized the media’s itch to tilt the scales this year — again, in Obama’s favor.

4. The Benghazi Blackout: Right after the September 11 attack in Libya, the networks proclaimed that the events would bolster President Obama — “reminding voters of his power as commander-in-chief,” as NBC’s Peter Alexander stated on the September 14 edition of "Today." But as a cascade of leaked information erased the portrait of Obama as a heroic commander, the broadcast networks shunted the Benghazi story to the sidelines.

News broke online in late September, for example, that Team Obama knew within 24 hours that the attack was likely the result of terrorism. That starkly contradicted claims from White House press secretary Jay Carney, U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, and President Obama himself that the attack was a “spontaneous” reaction to an anti-Muslim video posted on YouTube. Yet, ABC took nearly two days to bring this story to viewers, while CBS and NBC held off for three days.

This was, shamefully, the broadcast networks’ pattern in October: New developments exposing the administration’s failure to provide adequate security, or contradictions in their public statements, were either given stingy coverage or buried completely. The puzzle pieces revealed a disturbing failure of Obama’s national security apparatus, but the networks flitted in and out of the story, never giving it any traction.

Instead of an “October Surprise,” the networks engineered an “October Suppression” — keeping a lid on the boiling Benghazi story until Election Day. Who knows how voters might have reacted if the media had covered this story as tenaciously as they did Romney’s “47% gaffe”?

5. Burying the Bad Economy: Pundits agreed that Obama’s weakness was the failure of the US economy to revive after his expensive stimulus and four years of $1 trillion deficits. But the major networks failed to offer the sustained, aggressive coverage of the economy that incumbent Republican President George H.W. Bush faced in 1992, or even that George W. Bush faced in 2004 — both years when the national economy was in better shape than it is now.

According to a study conducted that year by the Center for Media and Public Affairs, from January through September of 1992, the networks ran a whopping 1,289 stories on the economy, 88% of which painted it in a dismal, negative light. That fall, the unemployment rate was 7.6%, lower than today’s 7.9%, and economic growth in the third quarter was 2.7%, better than today’s 2.0%. Yet the media coverage hammered the idea of a terrible economy, and Bush lost re-election.

In 2004, the economy under George W. Bush was far better than it is today — higher growth, lower unemployment, smaller deficits and cheaper gasoline — yet network coverage that year was twice as hostile to Bush than it was towards Obama this year, according to a study by the Media Research Center’s Business and Media Institute.

When Republican presidents have faced reelection, network reporters made sure to spotlight economic “victims” — the homeless man, the woman without health insurance, the unemployed worker, the senior citizen who had to choose between medicine and food. But this year, with an economy as bad as any since the Great Depression, those sympathetic anecdotes have vanished from the airwaves — a huge favor to Obama and the Democrats.

Given Obama’s record, the Romney campaign could have overcome much of this media favoritism and still prevailed — indeed, they almost did. But taken together, these five trends took the media’s historical bias to new levels this year, and saved Obama’s presidency in the process.”

While the media played its part for the Democrat Party as they have done for many years it must be pointed out that Ronald Reagan not only had a hostile media, but a hostile Republican Party to deal with and he won big two times. Why? My answer is that he had a message that resonated with the American people. He had charisma and the ability to connect with all voters, be they Black, union, Democrats or Conservatives. This is the type of candidate the Republicans need, not some retread RHNO who will attempt to move towards the Democrats and lose again.

On a more positive note the Republicans now control 30 governorships. This should be a good pool to draw the next presidential candidate from.

"At times like these, after a bitter and hard-fought election, it's customary to talk about burying the hatchet, reaching across the aisle — pick your metaphor. It dawns on politicians that the public is sick of division and wants them to work together for the good of the country. This time is different, at least from my vantage point. Had Mitt Romney won the election, he would be reaching out to the other side already, without being told to. But Barack Obama is not that kind of politician or man. He thrives on division and reflexively demonizes his opponents.

The American people, by a slim majority, have chosen to go through four more years of a presidency that doesn't seem to have a clue about bipartisanship. What's worse this time is that America has lost four precious years to work out the tax and entitlement reforms it needs to ward off fiscal disaster. Another four years of gridlock brings national bankruptcy that much closer. Then there's the dead weight of ObamaCare, which will soon hit the economy with full force. The next four years would be challenging even for a popular and politically masterful president. Obama is neither, and his nasty campaign has only made his job harder.

The election left the House firmly in Republican hands. Until that changes, the GOP can block the advance of Obama's progressive agenda (at least that part of the agenda requiring laws rather than executive orders).

Obama will have other reasons to drive the GOP from its last beachhead. He owes his base some favors for its work in dragging him across the finish line. Unions will want another try at card check. Environmentalists will push for cap-and-trade and a tighter clampdown on coal. The left wing of his party will want to gut defense and ramp up social spending; he'll be happy to go along, if he can.

The Republican Party must be willing to compromise when it is truly in the national interest to do so, but it also should be ready to fight for the Constitution, free enterprise and individual liberty.

In 1777, at a very dark moment amid defeats in the first quest for Liberty -- and just before the fall of Philadelphia and the brutal winter at Valley Forge, Washington wrote one of his generals: "We should never despair, our Situation before has been unpromising and has changed for the better, so I trust, it will again. If new difficulties arise, we must only put forth new Exertions and proportion our Efforts to the exigency of the times."

I am reminded of the words of Thomas Paine from his Revolutionary pamphlet, The American Crisis: "These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman."

When Samuel Adams signed the Declaration, he said, "We have this day restored the Sovereign to whom all men ought to be obedient. He reigns in heaven and from the rising to the setting of the sun, let His kingdom come."

Indeed, God is Sovereign in the affairs of men.

As for the challenges we face, hold fast to this wisdom from James 1:2-4: "Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything."

We have lost a battle, not the war. Hold your head high and redouble your courage and resolve. Remain steadfast in your devotion to Liberty and hold the line.

Religious Liberty in the Administrative State

“No person, demeaning himself in a peaceable and orderly manner, shall ever be molested on account of his mode of worship, or religious sentiments, in the said territories.

Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.” The Northwest Ordinance, 1787.

The Northwest Ordinance (formally An Ordinance for the Government of the Territory of the United States, North-West of the River Ohio, and also known as the Freedom Ordinance or "The Ordinance of 1787") was an act of the Congress of the Confederation of the United States, passed July 13, 1787. The primary effect of the ordinance was the creation of the Northwest Territory as the first organized territory of the United States out of the region south of the Great Lakes, north and west of the Ohio River, and east of the Mississippi River.

On August 7, 1789, President George Washington signed the Northwest Ordinance of 1789 into law after the newly created U.S. Congress reaffirmed the Ordinance with slight modifications under the Constitution. The Ordinance purported to be not merely legislation that could later be amended by Congress, but rather "the following articles shall be considered as Articles of compact between the original States and the people and states in the said territory, and forever remain unalterable, unless by common consent.

Arguably the single most important piece of legislation passed by members of the earlier Continental Congresses other than the Declaration of Independence, it established the precedent by which the federal government would be sovereign and expand westward across North America with the admission of new states, rather than with the expansion of existing states and their established sovereignty under the Articles of Confederation. It is the most important legislation that Congress has passed with regard to American public domain lands. The U.S. Supreme Court recognized the authority of the Northwest Ordinance of 1789 within the applicable Northwest Territory as constitutional in Strader v. Graham, 51 U.S. 82, 96, 97 (1851), but did not extend the Ordinance to cover the respective states once they were admitted to the Union.

The prohibition of slavery in the territory had the practical effect of establishing the Ohio River as the boundary between free and slave territory in the region between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River. This division helped set the stage for national competition over admitting free and slave states, the basis of a critical question in American politics in the 19th century until the Civil War.

The Natural Rights provisions of the ordinance foreshadowed the Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution. Many of the concepts and guarantees of the Ordinance of 1787 were incorporated in the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights. In the Northwest Territory, various legal and property rights were enshrined, religious tolerance was proclaimed, and it was enunciated that since "Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged." The right of habeas corpus was written into the charter, as was freedom of religious worship and bans on excessive fines and cruel and unusual punishment. Trial by jury and a ban on ex post facto laws were also rights granted.

The Northwest Ordinance was a clear, unambiguous expression of the beliefs of our Founders. There could be no doubt that this new Congress believed that education and morality should go hand in hand and that as long as the religious practices of one did not violate the social compact or encourage criminal acts such as human sacrifice or refusal to support the common defense of the nation. Religion was not only to be tolerated, it was to be encouraged.

In his 1781 Notes on the State of Virginia, Query XVIII: Manners Thomas Jefferson said:

“With the morals of the people, their industry also is destroyed. For in a warm climate, no man will labour for himself who can make another labour for him. This is so true, that of the proprietors of slaves a very small proportion indeed are ever seen to labour. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever: that considering numbers, nature and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation, is among possible events: that it may become probable by supernatural interference! The Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in such a contest.--But it is impossible to be temperate and to pursue this subject through the various considerations of policy, of morals, of history natural and civil. We must be contented to hope they will force their way into every one’s mind. I think a change already perceptible, since the origin of the present revolution. The spirit of the master is abating, that of the slave rising from the dust, his condition mollifying, the way I hope preparing, under the auspices of heaven, for a total emancipation, and that this is disposed, in the order of events, to be with the consent of the masters, rather than by their extirpation.”

Here Jefferson is referring the immorality of slavery and the wrath of God that will descend on those who support this policy. Jefferson made no bones in referring to God, as he did in the Declaration four times, and warning that an immoral nation devoid of God would no doubt perish.

In his 1796 Farewell Address to the nation George Washington stated:

“Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism who should labour to subvert these great Pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of Men and citizens. The mere Politician, equally with the pious man ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths, which are the instruments of investigation in Courts of Justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that National morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle. ’Tis substantially true, that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule indeed extends with more or less force to every species of free Government. Who that is a sincere friend to it, can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric.”

Washington, however, offered on caveat to absolute religious freedom in his September, 1789 letter to the Annual Meeting of Quakers when he gently reminded them of their obligation to support the common defense. In his letter Washington stated:

“Government being, among other purposes, instituted to protect the persons and consciences of men from oppression, it certainly is the duty of rulers, not only to abstain from it themselves, but, according to their stations, to prevent it in others.

The liberty enjoyed by the people of these states of worshiping Almighty God agreeably to their consciences, is not only among the choicest of their blessings, but also of their rights. While men perform their social duties faithfully, they do all that society or the state can with propriety demand or expect; and remain responsible only to their Maker for their religion, or modes of faith, which they may prefer or profess.

Your principles and conduct are well known to me; and it is doing the people called Quakers no more than justice to say, that (except their declining to share with others the burden of the common defense) there is no denomination among us, who are more exemplary and useful citizens.

I assure you very explicitly, that in my opinion the conscientious scruples of all men should be treated with great delicacy and tenderness; and it is my wish and desire, that the laws may always be as extensively accommodated to them, as a due regard to the protection and essential interests of the nation may justify and permit.”

Once again we see how our Founders viewed the value of religion in the life of the nation and its schools.

Even the Wilsonian Progressives believed in the value of religion and morality in our national affairs and government policies. They believed in criminal and civil laws that would protect one citizen from the actions of another. This changed with the advent of the Post 1960s Progressives when they embarked on a campaign of anything goes sexual liberation and a complete intolerance for religious institutions.

Post-1960s Progressivism has steadily eroded religious liberty and the freedom of association in America. Measures such as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and many anti-discrimination laws express a new understanding of rights that rejects the Founders’ view of religious liberty and the freedom of private associations to govern themselves. Recent Progressivism follows the early Progressive belief that effective freedom requires government to redistribute resources in order to provide equal access to the goods that promote mental development and that make life comfortable. This redistributive agenda is combined with a new emphasis on the empowerment of victim groups, sexual liberation, and an aversion to traditional Christianity and Judaism that requires government intervention in the internal affairs of private organizations. Religious liberty today is divorced from the freedom of association and the free exercise of religion, which the Founders understood to be essential for a free society.

The Founders’ conception of religious liberty was anchored in the belief that the natural right of liberty—and religious liberty—meant not only that all persons may worship God in the way each thinks best, but also that all are permitted to follow what they believe to be God’s laws in their daily life outside of church. The Founders understood, however, that actions based on religion are limited by the purpose of the social compact—the security of rights. No one has a right to disturb the public peace, to obstruct others in their religious worship, or to incite crimes.

While the Founders believed that religion, especially Christianity, is helpful to the cause of liberty because it encourages the virtues necessary for the survival of a free society, they held that government involvement in religious organizations must be limited by the very purpose of government: to secure the equal natural rights of citizens to life, liberty, and property. Denial of the rights to religious liberty and to freedom of association violates the right to liberty.

In practice, liberty—including religious liberty—means that individuals are free to organize and conduct their affairs as they see fit through self-governing private associations. Contrary to today’s practice, the Founders understood that churches, businesses, and other private associations had the right to determine all internal policies, including rules for membership, employment, and conduct, free from government interference. As long as these entities do not harm the rights to life, liberty, or property, they should be free to manage their internal affairs.

After 1965, Progressives adopted a new attitude towards religion and private associations, viewing both as threats to effective or positive freedom. The redistributive agenda of early Progressivism required the violation of the natural right to property, but in general the early Progressives supported the traditional family and liberal Christianity. Post-1965 Progressivism (in the interest of sexual liberation) explicitly attacks Christianity and rejects the older morality which supported the traditional family.

One of the first steps along this road to the rejection of morality in our public education system was the 1963 Supreme Court case of Abington v. Schempp. This was a case in which the Court decided 8–1 in favor of the respondent, Edward Schempp, and declared school-sponsored Bible reading in public schools in the United States to be unconstitutional. Associate Justice William Brennan wrote in his concurring opinion:

“[I]t is implicit in the history and character of American public education that the public schools serve a uniquely public function: the training of American citizens in an atmosphere free of parochial, divisive, or separatist influences of any sort. Attendance at the public schools has never been compulsory. [The Constitution reserves] such a choice to the individual parent. The choice which is thus preserved is between a public secular education with its uniquely democratic values, and some form of private or sectarian education, which offers values of its own.”

Not only did this decision fly in the face of the Northwest Ordinance and the intent of the Founders it set the stage for most of the tyrannical laws against religious beliefs we live with today. Used as stare deices for lower courts to follow in subsequent decisions involving the free practice of religion in public schools and the public square such as; banning the singing of Christmas Carols, not allowing Christmas trees on public property, punishing students for wishing a fellow student a “Merry Christmas” or exchanging a Christmas Card. This is tyranny by a minority group that views itself as victims as they feel offended by these practices — practices that do them no harm. This was not the intent of the Founders when speaking of religious tolerance.

Another landmark case along the road to our throwing organized religion’s moral convictions and tenants was the 2003 case of Lawrence v. Texas, decided by a 6-3 vote of the Court.

In this case the Court struck down the sodomy law in Texas and, by extension, invalidated sodomy laws in thirteen other states, making same-sex sexual activity legal in every U.S. state and territory. The Court overturned its previous ruling on the same issue in the 1986 case Bowers v. Hardwick, where it upheld a challenged Georgia statute and did not find a constitutional protection of sexual privacy.

Lawrence explicitly overruled Bowers, holding that it had viewed the liberty interest too narrowly. The Court held that intimate consensual sexual conduct was part of the liberty protected by substantive due process under the Fourteenth Amendment. Lawrence invalidated similar laws throughout the United States that criminalized sodomy between consenting adults acting in private, whatever the sex of the participants.

In this case Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority:

“These matters, involving the most intimate and personal choices a person may make in a lifetime, choices central to personal dignity and autonomy, are central to the liberty protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life. Beliefs about these matters could not define the attributes of personhood were they formed under compulsion of the State.”

It seems that the Court uses the 14^th Amendment time and time again to override the 10^th Amendment

Justice Antonin Scalia wrote a dissent, which Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justice Clarence Thomas joined. Scalia objected to the Court's decision to revisit Bowers, pointing out many decisions from lower courts that relied on Bowers that might now need to be reconsidered. He noted that the same rationale used to overturn Bowers could have been used to overturn Roe v. Wade, which the Justices in the majority in Lawrence had recently upheld in Planned Parenthood v. Casey. Scalia also criticized the majority opinion for failing to give the same respect to stare decisis that three of those in the majority had insisted on in Casey.

Scalia wrote that if the court was not prepared to validate laws based on moral choices as it had done in Bowers, state laws against bigamy, same-sex marriage, adult incest, prostitution, masturbation, adultery, fornication, bestiality, and obscenity would not prove sustainable.

He wrote that:

“Today's opinion is the product of a Court, which is the product of a law-profession culture, that has largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda, by which I mean the agenda promoted by some homosexual activists directed at eliminating the moral opprobrium that has traditionally attached to homosexual conduct. The Court has taken sides in the culture war, departing from its role of assuring, as neutral observer, that the democratic rules of engagement are observed.”

He cited the majority opinion's concern that the criminalization of sodomy could be the basis for discrimination against homosexuals as evidence that the majority ignored the views of most Americans:

“So imbued is the Court with the law profession's anti-anti-homosexual culture, that it is seemingly unaware that the attitudes of that culture are not obviously "mainstream"; that in most States what the Court calls "discrimination" against those who engage in homosexual acts is perfectly legal.”

He continued: "Let me be clear that I have nothing against homosexuals, or any other group, promoting their agenda through normal democratic means." The majority's "invention of a brand-new 'constitutional right'", he wrote, showed it was "impatient of democratic change."

The case attracted much public attention, and a large number of amici curiae ("friends of the court") briefs were filed. Its outcome was celebrated by gay rights advocates, who hoped that further legal advances might result as a consequence. And it did!

Now we have another special victim group demanding a redistribution of resources and special protection under the color of law. If a religious institution or secular organizations like the Boy Scouts they are taken to court by the Gay Rights activists demanding their rights to be a part of the organization even if they are not welcomed. If a business like the photographer in New Mexico refuses to photograph a same sex wedding the photographer is fined $6,637.97. What if a Gay photographer would only photograph same sex commitment ceremonies? Would they suffer the same government sanctions. I doubt it. In this case Gay Rights trump religious rights.

To implement the new view of freedom from Christianity and moral self-restraint, government involves itself ever more pervasively in the internal affairs of churches and businesses. Since these private associations all have employees, they are thus subject to anti-discrimination provisions that actively promote affirmative action policies geared toward sexual liberation and the redistribution of resources to supposed victim groups. Private associations are not allowed to govern themselves, and businesses are often prohibited from treating religion as a positive good. Religious liberty is increasingly confined to the freedom to worship. The natural right to liberty and the specific application of that right as religious liberty and the freedom of association are denied by the contemporary Progressive view of religious liberty.

The Great American Flashlight

So that the record of history is absolutely crystal clear. That there is no alternative way, so far discovered, of improving the lot of the ordinary people that can hold a candle to the productive activities that are unleashed by a free enterprise system. — Milton Friedman

If you watch any CSI or other police show you will see the detectives and criminalists perusing the crime scene with those little flashlights. They use them to look about the crime scene whether day or night. Those little flashlights are called Maglites and come in many sizes including the favorite of police offices, the 5D battery size than can double as an effective truncheon and illuminate a scene up to 100 feet away. Maglites are the largest selling flashlights in the world with annual sales surpassing $150 million dollars a year.

Many police officers carry Maglites, as they are durable, focusable, and generally produce better output than inexpensive mass market flashlights.

Maglite flashlights have been known to be used as mêlée weapons. Security and police personnel often carry Maglite flashlights as they can be employed as a defensive weapon, especially at night or in dark locations. Police officers will often use Maglites during traffic stops or suspect confrontation, as the beam can disorient an attacker and the flashlight can be swung as a baton as a measure of last resort in self-defense.

Maglites are manufactured by Mag Instrument, Inc. at its plant located in Ontario. Mag Instrument employs 900 people and in 2004 reported sales of $150 million dollars. In 2006 the company began construction of a new $80 million, 700,000-square-foot facility. It was expected to house a total of 2,400 employees after its scheduled opening in 2006. The company's long-term goal was to increase exports to at least half of total sales.

So how did this little flashlight make such a hit and why is its company founder, Tony Maglica, a perfect example of the “American Dream.”

Maglite was introduced in 1979. Constructed principally of anodized 6061 aluminum, they have a variable-focus beam. Maglites are produced in several colors such as black, silver, blue, and red and different finishes. Originally Maglite flashlights used krypton or xenon incandescent bulbs. Current models have LEDs.

Accessories include belt holsters, mounting brackets, colored and glass lenses, attachable fiber optics extensions, higher-powered incandescent bulbs, and LED conversion modules. The Maglite was an improvement over the Kel-Lite, after which the Maglite was patterned.

Company founder Anthony Maglica was born in New York City in 1930, at the beginning of the Great Depression. He moved with his mother to her homeland of Croatia at age two. He was eventually trained as a machinist in Europe.

According to Maglica the WWII occupation of Croatia and the severe policies carried out by the Nazi puppet government of Ante Pavelić and ultranationalist Ustaše thugs were very hard on his mother and him. As poor farmers there were many times they nothing to eat and at one point his mother took a rock and knocked out her gold tooth to use to purchase food. He saw people rounded up and summarily executed or relocated to concentration camps where the eventually died from disease, starvation or brutality.

After the fall of the Nazi puppet government Croatia fell under the sphere of the Soviet Union and the equally brutal policies of Stalin. By the age of twenty Tony was very familiar with the tyranny of Socialism, Fascism and Communism. He wanted nothing to do with any of them and looked toward the West and the United States where he could live free and pursue his own course.

In 1950, Maglica returned to the United States with little knowledge of English but ample faith in the free enterprise system. According to the Business Press of California, he was unable to find anything but sewing work in New York City, so he moved west. He operated a lathe for Long Beach-based Pacific Valve Co. and then A.O. Smith Water Products Co., an East Los Angeles manufacturer of water heaters.

In 1955 he set up a small job shop in his garage in Los Angeles as a side venture. His start-up capital was the $125 he had saved, just enough for a down payment on a $1,000 lathe.

The business was incorporated on September 25, 1974, as Mag Instrument, Inc. By this time, Maglica was producing artillery shells. He also was making components for a flashlight manufacturer. Dismayed by the poor quality of their product, in 1976 he decided to build a better flashlight. At the time, most were cheap and virtually disposable. They had lousy reflectors and weak incandescent bulbs that drained batteries very quickly.

After three years, Maglica came up with a design that was tough and durable, with anodized aluminum housing rather than plastic. Called the Maglite, it was initially marketed toward law enforcement and rescue personnel. The flashlight also was designed to be attractive to civilians. Sportsmen were another early target market.

The Maglite, introduced in 1979, was a critical and commercial success. It won numerous accolades from product design circles as it made its way into home improvement chains and department stores. The Maglite Rechargeable Flashlight System (Mag Charger) was introduced in 1982.

That year, Maglica relocated the firm, which then had 80 employees, to a new 126,000-square-foot factory in Ontario, California, about 50 miles east of Los Angeles. Using his tooling experience, Maglica designed the machinery for the plant himself.

According to California's Business Press, a 1984 lawsuit against U.S. retailers who had imported cheap knock-offs of the Maglite flashlights was a turning point for the company in more ways than one. While Mag won the suit, instead of pursuing a cash award, Maglica had the retailers buy five Mag flashlights for every imported copy they had sold. This was an effective way to gain a great deal of shelf space, as the merchants included Sears, Roebuck & Co. and Kmart Corporation.

The original Maglite ran on D cells. In 1984 the company unveiled a smaller flashlight called the Mini Maglite, which ran on AA batteries. A still smaller AAA version came out three years later. The key ring-sized Solitaire flashlight was introduced in 1988. In the mid-1980s, Maglica also developed underwater lighting for eminent Sea Explorer Jacques Cousteau.

In 1987 the company won $3.1 million in a copyright infringement suit against Streamlight, Inc. Another judgment soon followed against Kassnar Imports, Inc. ($2.75 million, 1989) and The Brinkmann Corporation ($1.2 million, 1990). More imitations by potential competitors — some 50 different companies around the world — would follow. Mag spent $17 million from 1986 to 1989 to fight cheap knock-offs. This was more than three times the company's advertising budget, noted the Wall Street Journal.

It was often difficult to collect on such judgments, as manufacturers who lost suits were prone to declaring bankruptcy. Nevertheless, Mag spent millions to aggressively defend its trademarks for the design and manufacturing process of its flashlights. According to Management Review, the United States lagged behind other countries in protecting design features. In 1997, however, the "shape, style and overall appearance" of its Mini Maglite flashlights received copyright protection, followed by the other designs in 2003.

Inc. Magazine reported revenues were in the range of $70 million in 1989. ADWEEK mentioned reports the company held a 25 percent share of a U.S. flashlight market worth $400 million. Mag ended the decade with about 500 employees. Maglica was committed to keeping manufacturing operations in the United States. Extensive use of automation on the factory floor helped keep costs down.

A loyal Republican, Maglica donated 40,000 Mini Maglite flashlights for President George H.W. Bush's 1989 inauguration celebration. They reinforced the "thousand points of light" theme. He also supplied them for the younger Bush's inauguration in 2001. Audience members lit the lights as part of a grand finale.

Although an impassioned advocate for U.S. manufacturing, Maglica remained sensitive to the situation in the former Yugoslavia where he was raised. In 1994, Mag donated 40,000 flashlights inscribed with "Remember Sarajevo" for the closing ceremonies at the Lillehammer Winter Olympics. In 1997, Maglica established the nonprofit Maglite Foundation in Croatia. Its mission was the environmental cleanup of the region, particularly on the island of Zlarin, where Maglica grew up.

Mag entered the European market in 1995. The flashlights fared well even in Germany, known for its "over-engineered" products. They also were accepted in quality-conscious Japan. Total sales were reported at about $240 million per year.

The company was soon looking to expand its manufacturing space. It sought to take over the coating process done to the aluminum flashlights by a Kalamazoo, Michigan company.

99 percent of the Maglite Flashlight is made in the USA. The item not produced here is the bulb. There were no manufactures that produced the halogen bulb used by the original Maglite so Maglica found a company in Germany that was in financial trouble that had the machinery and expertise to make the bulbs he wanted. Maglica decided to buy the machinery and patents and ship the machinery to the United States so he could make the bulbs here. He wanted to make 100% of the flashlights in America.

This is where the U.S. Government stepped in a denied Tony a permit for relocating the bulb making equipment here. This was due to the U.S. Government’s EPA policy on banning the production if incandescent bulbs in the U.S. So Tony had to continue making the bulbs in Germany or switch to the more expensive and less powerful LED lights that are not being made here.

Under U.S. law you do not have to make 100% of a product here to claim it is made in America. The Maglite at 90% qualified for a Made in America sticker, but not in California where it has to be 100%. So Tony was between a rock and a hard place. He could not bring the bulb making equipment here so he could make all of the flashlights in the United States, but qualified to make that claim, except in California.

One day a slip and fall attorney was walking through Home Depot in California when he noticed a display of Maglites with the made in America sticker. He immediately filed a suit against Home Depot and Tony’s company in a California court. Home Depot was forced to remove all of the Maglites with the made in America sticker from their shelves and Tony had to recall all of flashlights in California.

In the first years of the new millennium, Mag Instrument employed 850 people and had 450,000 square feet of manufacturing space scattered across 11 buildings. In November 1999, Mag began leasing another, 300,000-square-foot facility as a stopgap measure to meet increasing demand.

The flashlights were sold in more than 85 countries; exports accounted for 25 percent of total sales, which were reported at between $100 million and $250 million in various sources. The company was valued at $775 million, Maglica's attorney told Ontario's Business Press in 2000 after settling a palimony suit brought by Maglica's longtime companion, Claire Halasz that was settled in an Orange County Court. The Business Press added that the company had produced 39 million flashlights the year before.

In 2003, Mag won a rare monetary award ($113,000) against a Japanese manufacturer, Asahi Electric Corp., which was found to have infringed upon Mag's patent. The 17-year patent on Mag's flashlight, however, was due to expire in March 2005. U.S. Representative Joe Baca was sponsoring a bill to extend the patent for two more years. According to the Business Press of California, part of Mag's appeal was an eight-year gap after the request of a renewal in 1995 in which Mag had no patent protection.

So here we have a virtual immigrant (although born in the United States) who suffered under the brutal, tyrannical regimes of Fascism and Communism and came to the United States in 1950 with no money. He worked hard, invested the little money he had for his dream of building not a better mousetrap, but a superior flashlight. The government gave him nothing, in fact they blocked his attempts to build 100% of the Maglite here and employ more people. When I heard Tony interviewed he claimed he looked on the United States as the freest nation in the world where you could pursue one’s dream. He also stated he never took a dime from the government and built his business through hard work, savings, increasing productivity, hiring good people and making a superior product. This was the American way. For a timeline of the milestone events in the history of the Mag Company click here.

William John Henry Boetcker (1873–1962) was an American religious leader and influential public speaker.

Born in Hamburg, Germany, he was ordained a Presbyterian minister soon after his arrival in the United States as a young adult. The Rev. Boetcker was ordained in Brooklyn, New York.

He quickly gained attention as an eloquent motivational speaker, and is often regarded today as the forerunner of such contemporary "success coaches" as Anthony Robbins.

An outspoken political conservative, Rev. Boetcker is perhaps best remembered for his authorship of a pamphlet entitled The Ten Cannots that emphasizes freedom and responsibility of the individual on himself. Originally published in 1916, it is often misattributed to Abraham Lincoln. The error apparently stems from a leaflet printed in 1942 by a conservative political organization called the Committee for Constitutional Government. The leaflet bore the title "Lincoln on Limitations" and contained some genuine Lincoln quotations on one side and the "Ten Cannots" on the other, with the attributions switched. The genuine Lincoln quotations may have been from an address on March 21, 1864 in which Lincoln said "Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another; but let him labor diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built." The mistake of crediting Lincoln for "The Ten Cannots" has been repeated many times since, notably by Ronald Reagan in his address to the 1992 Republican National Convention in Houston.

There are several minor variants of the pamphlet in circulation, but the most commonly accepted version appears below:

1. You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
2. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
3. You cannot help little men by tearing down big men.
4. You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.
5. You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
6. You cannot establish sound security on borrowed money.
7. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
8. You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than you earn.
9. You cannot build character and courage by destroying men's initiative and independence.
10. And you cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they can and should do for themselves.

Tony Maglica has built his flashlight business on here principles and continues to over a superior product and customer service.

As an aside, tonight is Halloween, my least favorite holiday. It is a night when little gremlins, many in tow by their parents or older siblings go door to door begging for treats (mainly sugar-filled candy) that they feel they are entitled to. If you do not comply with their requests for hand-outs you run the risk of being labeled as Scrooge or suffering vandalism to your property by the older beggars. These little tykes come dressed in some sort of popular costume holding open bags or pillow cases waiting for you to fill them with candy. Some, like Michelle Obama, may claim that you use healthy treats like nuts and fruit. Just try that and see the scornful looks you will get. Instead you have to go to the supermarket or big box store and stock up on those mini candy bars such as Snickers, Baby Ruth, Mounds Bars and other confectionary offerings. In essence you are spreading the wealth by spending your money to subsidize the sweet tooth of the neighbor kids. In some cases, like where I live, kids from other less affluent neighborhoods are bused in to roam the streets in search of their entitled candy. This bodes ill for when they grow up and continue the search for their entitled goods. It’s pure plunder.

Am I a scrooge? No. I am just tired of every year on this date sitting at a table with the garage door open doling candy. I use the garage as my staging area as I get annoyed at the door bell ringing every two minutes and my dogs barking.