While we remember those who gave their lives for our freedom this Memorial Day weekend, let us not ignore the efforts of our own government to take away our rights under the Second Amendment.
Human Interest
We knew it was coming because the situation was so clear. Congressman Paul Ryan introduced a bold plan to deal with out of control government spending and the Democrats had no credible plan of their own. So what does one do in a case like that? Lie, smear, distort, and scare the uninformed into thinking that we should shut up and surrender our liberties to the government. But the level of the latest lies is remarkable if only because of how shameless it is.
Compare the address below in honor of our wounded heroes with Michelle Obama’s famous statement that she was proud of her country for the first time in her adult life after her husband was nominated as the Democrat party presidential candidate.
The bedrock principle of the First Amendment is to protect political speech from government censorship. That is what the Founders intended as a way for the citizens to disagree with their government without fear of reprisal.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4KQUs9Xms4&hd=1
In a “lightening round” where Kirsten Gillibrand and her opponent Joe DioGuardi answered the moderator’s question with only a yes or a no, proved interesting. Among the things she revealed were:
For all the hand wringing by the Republican establishment over Christine O’Donnell’s fitness for office two points must be made. One, who is calling the kettle black? Two, has anyone bothered to look at who she is running against?
In the desperate attempt to throw anything and everything they can find at Christine O’Donnell to try to derail her roaring comeback, her critics have gone all the way back to probe who her friends were in high school. High school. If that is a criteria for being unfit for government office, how about these gems:
- President Barack Obama admitted using marijuana and cocaine in high school, but he is fit to be the chief law enforcement officer of the United States
- Vice President Joe Biden committed plagiarism and had to drop out of the 1988 Presidential race, but he is fit to be the “experienced statesman” to balance the Obama-Biden team
- President Bill Clinton lied under oath to a federal judge to prevent a woman with a legitimate case of sexual harassment from having her day in court.
- Senator Ted Kennedy left a woman in a submerged car to die rather than doing everything possible to help save her life and his Democratic colleagues called him the “Lion of the Senate”
- Timothy Geithner oversees the IRS, but didn’t pay his own taxes
- Charlie Rangel is under investigation for numerous ethics violations including not paying his taxes despite being the former chairman of the Congressional committee that writes the tax laws.
- Hillary Clinton, not as a high school student but as First Lady, held a séance so she could talk to Eleanor Roosevelt.
Is that enough or should I continue? And these people and their supporters say, Christine O’Donnell is not fit for office? Maybe she should rob a bank so that her resume would be more in line with these icons of the Democrat firmament.
Before you proceed with trying to increase taxes $700 billion in the midst of your very weak economic recovery, perhaps you should pass the plate around the White House. Better yet call in Nancy and Harry and ask them to do the same.
According to the LA Times, 41 of your aides owe $831,000 in back taxes. If you expand that to all federal employees, the number rises to $1 billion. Just 638 workers on Capitol Hill alone owe $9.3 million in back taxes. Let me put it another way, you want us to fork over $700 billion in taxes because you cannot collect the taxes from the other people who work for us.
Fix the leaky bucket, before you come back for a re-fill.
To say today’s “Restoring Honor” event in Washington will be historic is an understatement. Gauging by the biased reporting on the news pages of the New York Times and the seething, sputtering outrage from Bob Herbert and Charles Blow on the Op-Ed pages should give you a pretty good indication of the focus this event will garner.
Kate Zernike opens her report, titled “Where Dr. King Stood, Tea Party Claims His Mantle”, saying it is the ultimate “thumb in the eye” to stand on the anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream Speech” in the place he stood and talk about restoring honor. How dare he? Isn’t that what racists said of Dr. King when he stood in front of the Lincoln Memorial with these words?
“Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.”
Ms. Zernike reminds us of the case of Shirley Sherrod, who was fired by the Obama administration when a videotape of her redemptive speech about how she first discriminated against a white farmer but later helped him was shown across the Internet. She writes about video tape being heavily edited by failing to show how she mended her ways and helped that farmer. But Ms. Zernike doesn’t finish the story where later in her speech Ms. Sherrod says that those who opposed Obama’s health care plan had racist motives because President Obama is black. Ms. Sherrod’s redemption is far from complete.
She then says that the Tea Party’s talk of states’ rights raises the specter of Jim Crow and George Wallace. But it was the federal government that passed and enforced the Fugitive Slave laws and it was independent states of the north, exercising their states’ rights, who supported the Underground Railroad and refused to actively assist returning slaves to the South. So states’ rights cut both ways.
She concludes that, “Even if Tea Party members are right that any racist signs are those of mischief-makers, even if Glenn Beck had chosen any other Saturday to hold his rally, it would be hard to quiet the argument about the Tea Party and race.” It’s hard to quiet the argument because those on the left keep falsely making it. They cannot prove racism so they feel that by repeating often enough, they can make it stick.
I was at a street fair manning a booth for a Tea Party organization this spring. An African-American teacher approached us tentatively to ask what we were about. I asked her if she wanted the rumors or the truth and she opted for the truth. I told her that we were a policy based organization focusing on accountable government, fiscal responsibility, limited federal government and following the Constitution. She said she didn’t know any of that, she got e-mails from Moveon.org all the time and before leaving she signed our e-mail list. When the truth reaches the ears of people over the screeching of the New York Times and the main stream media, it is generally well received. The racial of mix of the Tea Party rallies will change over time when we can speak to the folks one on one without the lies of the left.
The Opionators
Bob Herbert begins his Op-Ed piece in a very open minded fashion, “America is better than Glenn Beck. For all of his celebrity, Mr. Beck is an ignorant, divisive, pathetic figure.” Thank you for sharing that, Bob, but there’s no need to pull punches here.
“There is a great deal of hatred and bigotry in this country, but it does not define the country. The daily experience of most Americans is not a bitter experience and for all of our problems we are in a much better place on these matters than we were a half century ago.”
So why to you and your fellow travelers throw down the race card every time someone disagrees with a policy, if they are not of the same race? Object to ObamaCare, that’s racism. Object to the stimulus, racism. Wanting Obama to fail to turn America into a socialist states, racism straight up. Yes there is hatred and bigotry in this country, but it is primarily coming from the left.
Not to be outdone in the outrage department, Charles Blow titled his Op-Ed piece, “I Had a Nightmare.” Mr. Blow said the following, “I find it curious that many of the same people who object so strenuously to the Islamic cultural center proposed for Lower Manhattan, many on the grounds that it is inappropriate and disrespectful, are virtually silent on the impropriety and disrespect inherent in Beck’s giving a speech on the anniversary of King’s address.” This would be an excellent point, if he could point to 3,000 blacks that Glenn Beck has murdered in the name of restoring honor. But Mr. Blow can make no such connection, so his analogy to the Ground Zero mosque falls flat. Curious indeed.
After venting his spleen, Mr. Blow suggests we re-read Dr. King’s speech “and to recommit ourselves to the nobility of righteous pursuits.” Let’s do that.
“But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.” –“I Have a Dream Speech”
How do the actions of the left, throwing down the race card at every turn, accusing everyone who disagrees with Barack Obama to have racism at the core of that disagreement comport with not “drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred”? It arrogantly assumes that it is impossible not to see the glorious benefit of the government running every last aspect of our lives, therefore the only reason to disagree has to be racism. With regard to violence, where do we see the violent demonstrations on the left or the right? Breaking windows, looting, SEIU members beating down street vendors for selling anti-Obama buttons, etc. are all on the left. When the police show up at rallies organized by the left they show up in riot gear, at Tea Party rallies the mounted police have to decide whether to let people pet their horses or not.
“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’” –“I Have a Dream Speech”
Didn’t America elect an African American President of the United States with 53% of the vote? More than voted for Clinton either time, or Jimmy Carter? Barack Obama wasn’t elected by minority votes alone.
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” –“I Have a Dream Speech”
Who more closely shares that dream, Glenn Beck, or those on the left who insist that forty years after Dr. Martin Luther King gave his speech that blacks can’t get into college or get a job without affirmative action; that black families have not been destroyed by government programs like welfare that drove fathers away; that government run schools that can’t graduate its students are far better for blacks than school vouchers that will let them escape those hellholes? Dr. King’s speech says nothing about racial preferences. Dr. King’s speech talks about color blindness. Dr. King’s speech says give us an equal chance. Glenn Beck believes that. Those on the left do not. It is those on the left who believe African Americans cannot compete without more government programs to help them. Glenn Beck believe they can succeed if government gets out of their way and if the left stops the lies of dependency that hold them back. It is the New York Times, Charles Blow, Bob Herbert who wrap themselves in racial division and then say, “Why can’t we come together?” If you want us to come together, stop standing in the way.
“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” — XIV Amendment of the Constitution of the United States
Well that’s a pretty bold statement. Who am I to say that children of Illegal Aliens are not Citizens upon birth? I say that because of the part of the Fourteenth Amendment that most people choose to ignore. It is a two part statement. The first part concerns being born or naturalized in the United States and the second part states that you must be subject to the jurisdiction thereof. It’s not either or, the requirement is that both conditions must be met.
We have in the news talk about Lindsey Graham introducing a new Constitutional Amendment to bar children of illegal aliens becoming citizens upon birth. I don’t think that step is necessary.
Let’s look at the history. The infamous Dred Scott decision said that no black of African descent could be a citizen of the United States, even if they were freed blacks. After the Civil War Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866 which stated:
“All persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States.”
Prior to the passage of this law, citizenship was conferred on individuals by the states and U.S. citizenship flowed from that. This law reversed the process. Why? Because some southern states could have prevented blacks from becoming U.S. citizens by blocking state citizenship. By turning it around, they were U.S. citizens first and then citizens of the states in which they lived. Similar language was included in the Fourteenth Amendment to prevent subsequent Congresses from repealing the 1866 Act. In the Fourteenth Amendment, the language regarding Indians was dropped. There were some concerns raised that this would automatically confer citizenship upon Indians, who also had allegiance to their tribes. Senator Jacob Howard who was the author of the Citizenship clause said this:
“Indians born within the limits of the United States, and who maintain their tribal relations, are not, in the sense of this amendment, born subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.”
Senator Lyman Trumbell, who was Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee agreed, “subject to the jurisdiction thereof {meant} not owing allegiance to anybody else…subject to the complete jurisdiction of the United States.” Indians were not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States because they owed allegiance, even if only partly, to their tribes.
So if an illegal immigrant comes to the United States and has a child, is that child automatically a United States citizen? Does this action comply with the Fourteenth Amendment? To the first part yes, they are born here; but to the second part, no. The mother is a citizen of her home country and is thus subject to the jurisdiction of that country, not the United States. Secondly, she is here illegally so she is exempting herself from rather than subjecting herself to, our immigration laws. As for the child, a newborn can hardly swear allegiance to any country, so in all cases it fails the second part of the Citizenship Clause. Consider diplomats who may be assigned to the United States. If the French Ambassodor’s wife has a baby while posted here, is her child not French?
Let’s take another look at the history. In Elk v Wilkins (1884), the Supreme Court held that a “native Indian who had renounced allegiance to his tribe did not become ‘subject to the jurisdiction’ of the United States by virtue of the renunciation.” It went on to state, “The alien and dependent condition of the members of the Indian Tribes could not be put off at their own will, without the action or assent of the United States.” So that would mean an illegal alien could not come to the United States and declare in the delivery room, “I renounce my allegiance to [fill in country here],” and then her child would be a citizen. “Neither the ‘Indian Tribes’ nor ‘individual members of those tribes,’ no more than ‘other foreigners’ can ‘become citizens of their own will.” In other words there has to be a treaty or other legislation that allows the renunciation. Congress began extending citizenship to various Indian tribes beginning in 1870.
In a later Supreme Court decision United States v Wong Kim Ark “conferred birthright citizenship to legal residents of the United States.” It appears that the language of the majority opinion is broad enough to allow interpretation that this also extends to children of illegal aliens, but it should only take a Supreme Court challenge or legislation to clarify the meaning of the Citizenship Clause to do what the authors of that clause originally intended. There is no need for the arduous process of a Constitutional Amendment. With the will of the American people as strong as it is for regaining control of the immigration situation, this could be done with a new Congress in January.
Reference: The Heritage Guide to the Constitution, Regnery (Washington, 2005)
Back on the campaign trail where he feels comfortable that he knows what he is doing, Barack Obama traveled to Las Vegas to stump for Harry Reid. Harry Reid used to be a boxer and when he told Barack Obama this he said, “Barack, I wasn’t the fastest. I wasn’t the hardest-hitting, but I knew how to take a punch.” Based on all the legislation that has been passed since 2008 that an overwhelming majority of the American people have opposed, makes one wonder if Harry Reid took a few punches too many.
Shortly after taking office and settling into his “bash business” mode Obama blasted businesses for their extravagant meetings held in places like Las Vegas. Someone then whispered in the president’s ear that extravagant business meetings in Las Vegas were good for Las Vegas and Harry Reid. Oops. And there you have the crux of the problem.
What, exactly, is government’s role to tell private companies how to spend their money? What is the role of governments to say to a BP, “Give us the $20 billion, or we’ll take it from you,” as was attributed to Joe Biden, without first going to court? What is the role of government to say to its citizens, you must buy this health care product or pay a fine? Well in Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela, it is probably all fine and dandy, but in America?
Barack, the standup comic, used the analogy that he and Harry Reid had mud on their shoes, were pushing hard to get the car back on the road, and were making progress little-by-little and when they finally got one wheel on the pavement the Republicans want to throw the car into reverse. Really? I would compare it more to conservatives telling everyone to get out of the car and help push, instead of waiting for Nancy Pelosi to come back from Dunkin Donuts with free food for all the overweight union bosses jammed in the car squawking that they didn’t do manual labor. Their contract didn’t call for pushing cars out of ditches.
So, while this car should have been out of this ditch and well down the road by now, Harry and Barry will try to convince us that what they’re doing is absolutely brilliant; it’s just that we are too stupid to see it. After all, it took the greatest president in history, FDR, over eight years and a World War to get us out of the Great Depression, so relax we have another 6 ½ years to go.
Imagine what would have happened if the ever resilient American economy was allowed to work on its own without all the government intervention in the 1930s. Perhaps the Depression would have been shorter like the recession of 1920-1921, and perhaps we would not have had World War II, and Fannie Mae, and a bankrupt Social Security, and a couple of generations later all of us swimming in debt. It’s time the tow truck of the most powerful economy on the face of the earth to come along and be allowed to do its job. Tell Harry and Barry to go sit down on that stump over there, and watch how it is really done. “You’re making a mess of yourselves and embarrassing the rest us.”
