Fighting to Preserve Liberty in America
photo by Kevin Dooley
One of the main reasons the current economic problem is so hard to solve and the battle lines are so starkly drawn is that there is strong disagreement on what the problem is and likewise the solutions. The mantra from the left is that the problem is Bush’s fault, there was too much deregulation under Bush, although no one points to any particular regulation repealed under Bush that caused the crisis, and that we don’t tax enough. Those on the right have a different view.
As they say, when it rains it pours. The Obama administration famously boasted about having its boot on the neck of BP and extorting $20 billion from the company without the benefit of due process, but now a different assessment emerges.
According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling, faulted the administration on several fronts. “A White House spokesman didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.”
It is quite clear that this administration stumbled and bumbled along at the start of the disaster, once again fully displaying its inexperience in executive matters. Here are some of the salient points from the commission.
A recent article in the Wall Street Journal, newly elected Republican Congressman from Hawaii Charles Djou called Birthright Citizenship a GOP Achievement. And to think I was happy to hear Mr. Djou was elected in an unusual special election where he ran against two Democrats simultaneously. They split the vote and he won. Birthright Citizenship is not a GOP achievement it is an accomplishment of judicial activism, pure and simple. Mr. Djou says, “The Citizenship Clause of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment provides that a person born in the United States is automatically a citizen, regardless of the race, ethnicity or citizenship of his parents.” Where the hell does it say that?
The Amendment actually reads, “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.” These, so called conservatives, like the first part of the clause but seem to go ignorant or blind at the second part. If you are a Constitutional Originalist, you look to the meaning of the Constitution first in the actual text, then to any information that you can glean from what was discussed at the time of its passing. This is a case where that information could not be any clearer.
Senator Jacob Howard of Ohio was the author of the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment. He said:
“[E]very person born within the limits of the United States, and subject to their jurisdiction, is by virtue of natural law and national law a citizen of the United States. This will not [emphasis added] , of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United States, but will include every other class of persons. It settles the great question of citizenship and removes all doubt as to what persons are not citizens of the United States. “
How much clearer could “not include aliens” be? Aliens are outside the jurisdiction of the United States and are subject to their home country.
Linda Chavez, who presents as her conservative credentials that she served in the Reagan and Bush administrations, points to English Common Law as the basis of the Birthright Citizenship. Since under Common Law you are immediately and forever a citizen of the place of your birth. However, with the Declaration of Independence we did away with that custom of English Common Law. Under Common Law, you could not renounce your citizenship, and if we are still under that law, we are still all Englishmen. It was also one of the causes of the War of 1812. The British did not recognize our process of Naturalization. They were stopping our merchant ships and taking off sailors they deemed to still be English citizens and pressed them into service in the Royal Navy. The concept that Ms. Chavez is arguing supports Birthright Citizenship is from feudalism, where the serfs belonged to the land. They received the lord’s protection and in return gave their lord a lifetime of service.
At the time of passage of the 14th Amendment, whose purpose was to grant citizenship to the freed slaves, the debate was whether it would also confer citizenship on the American Indians. Under Mr. Djou’s logic and Ms. Chavez’s they were born here, it was automatic. But it wasn’t. Not because of discrimination but because they were members of their tribes which were considered sovereign nations. The United States signed treaties with them. In the Supreme Court case Elk v Wilkins the court ruled:
“Indians, born within the territorial limits of the United States, members of and owing immediate allegiance to one of the Indian Tribes, an alien though dependent power, although in a geographical sense born in the United States, are no more born in the United States and ‘subject to the jurisdiction thereof’ …than the children of subjects of any foreign government born within the domain of that government, or the children, born within the United States, of ambassadors or other public ministers of foreign Nations.”
That was the law until 1898 in the Supreme Court case United States v Wong Kim Ark, where the majority used the Common Law argument to ignore what was written in the text of the Amendment, what was discussed at the time of the Amendment by the author of the Amendment and its supporters and the prior Supreme Court case. This is judicial activism at its baldest. In the dissenting opinion by Chief Justice Fuller he made it clear:
“when the sovereignty of the Crown was thrown off and independent government established, every rule of the common law and every statute of England obtaining in the colonies, in derogation of the principles on which the new government was founded, was abrogated.”
The American Revolution did away with that definition of Birthright Citizenship under the Common Law.
So along comes Lindsey Graham, who can’t decide if he is for open borders or against them, so his suggestion to amend the Constitution to end Birthright Citizenship sounds somewhat hollow. It is also irrelevant. Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution clearly grants the Congress the power “To establish an (sic) uniform Rule of Naturalization..” This does not require an amendment, just a simple clarifying law that Birthright Citizenship does not exist in the United States.
The irony is that the 14th Amendment was created to make it more difficult for future Congresses to repeal the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which said pretty much the same thing as the 14th Amendment and it was changed with the stroke of the pen of an activist Supreme Court. Perhaps we need to consider the idea of Mark Levin in that perhaps we need to have a legislative veto of Supreme Court decisions. If the role of the Supreme Court is to interpret laws written by Congress, why not let Congress with a two-thirds vote, explain what the Supreme Court misinterpreted?
An article in today’s New York Times is just one more, “Don’t let a crisis go to waste,” move from this administration. The article, titled “As Oil Industry Fights a Tax, It Reaps Billions From Subsidies,” uses the same tired talking points to justify another tax increase that will ultimately be passed along to consumers.
The article talks about how the oil companies take advantage of tax credits and breaks and then it also talks about how many oil based companies re-incorporate in countries like Panama, the Marshall Islands, the Cayman Islands, and Switzerland because it will lower their taxes. When with the Statists get it? If you raise taxes both corporations and people will change their behavior to lower their taxes. Impose a millionaire’s tax in Maryland and Maryland discovers they have one-third fewer millionaires a year later and hundreds of thousands of dollars in less revenue. Impose among the highest tax rates in the developed world on businesses and businesses will move to where the taxes are lower. Create tax breaks and then somehow the Progressives are surprised that companies took advantage of them.
The initial thrust of the article was that the tax on oil companies was necessary to pay for the cleanup of the oil spill in the Gulf. Pardon my confusion, but didn’t the government just get BP to pony up $20 billion into an escrow fund for this purpose? Hasn’t BP said from day one that they will pay the cost for the clean up? So why are the Progressives in Congress rushing to put a new tax in place other than to take advantage of a crisis to reach into your wallet?
Another unintended consequence of our onerous tax policy is that when companies incorporate in other countries, those countries often have lower engineering and environmental standards.
I am no fan of corporate welfare so why don’t we take the IRS code and run it through a shredder? Get rid of the tax breaks across the board. Lower the tax rate to a fixed number that is on par with other developed countries. According to the Heritage Foundation, the freest economy in the world is Hong Kong, which oddly enough is located in Communist China. The Chicoms were smart enough to leave well enough alone when Hong Kong reverted to their control from Britain in 1997. Their individual tax rate is progressive ranging from 2% to 17% or an option for a 15% flat rate depending on which liability is lower. The top corporate tax rate is 16.5%. Their five-year compound annual GDP growth rate is 5.7%; unemployment is 3.5%; and their inflation is 4.3%. By comparison, our top corporate tax rate is 35%, more than double that of Hong Kong; our five year compound annual GDP growth rate is 2.2%; unemployment is 9.4% (at the time of this study); and inflation is 3.8%.
If we could implement real tax reform it would not only simplify our lives, save several hundred billion dollars in compliance costs, reduce uncertainty for business, create jobs, and grow the economy. With a larger pie, overall tax revenues will also increase.
In that Heritage study the United States has the eighth freest economy in the world, down one place from the year before; not the direction we should be going. Imagine if we set a goal to become the freest economy in the world. Americans like a challenge so let’s set our sights on becoming number one. The first three to concentrate on passing are those directly in front of us: Canada, Switzerland and Ireland. On this Fourth of July, let’s plant our flag and get to work.
I was watching Mike Huckabee’s show this weekend when a curious exchange took place. Governor Huckabee tried to be fair to President Obama by saying “I believe in his heart that President Obama believes he is doing what is best for the country.” The governor is not alone among those who oppose President Obama who graciously say this. Perhaps it is a preemptive strike to avoid being tarred as a racist. At the same time, however, they will say they think President Obama is a smart man. How do you reconcile those two positions?
Either the man is an idiot and he is stumbling toward socialism without realizing it, or he is an intelligent man who is taking the country to socialism by design. I don’t see a middle ground. The only possibility is that he is a man with an arrogance so breathtaking in scope, that he ignores the will of the people and is implementing programs and policies that he believes is better for the unintelligent masses, and mistakenly thinks it is still capitalism. I can’t square the man’s intelligence, which I believe he has, with him not knowing the difference between capitalism and socialism/Marxism.
Okay, so what prompted this train of thought? It was prompted by some little know activity south of the border and I don’t mean Mexico. Earlier in his term, President Obama, Secretary Clinton and others tried to help return a Hugo Chavez puppet to the presidency in Honduras. Manuel Zalaya was following tactics of Chavez and Castro, to remain in office beyond his term which is limited. By doing so, he was immediately in violation of Honduran law and their constitution. He was removed by order of the Honduran Supreme Court with the backing of the Honduran legislature. The only step they might have taken which was too far was they put him on a plane out of the country.
Chavez, Castro, et al, were outraged. Did the Obama administration come down on the side of democracy and democratic institutions? No, they tried to strong arm Honduras to put Zalaya back in office, by cancelling visas, affecting trade and other measures. Honduras proceeded, ignoring these threats, to hold a general election to peacefully choose a new president which they did. The United States has reluctantly agreed to recognize the new president, but it was not easy for small Honduras to stand up to the United States and based on what they were fighting for and they shouldn’t have had to.
What other signs do I find troubling? After going against the will of the American people in forcing through ObamaCare, Fidel Castro heaped praise upon Obama for the law’s passage only criticizing him for taking so long. In April of 2009, President Obama embraced Hugh Chavez. Today Hugo Chavez is in the process of shutting down the last television outlet that is critical of him while forming closer ties to Ahmadinejad of Iran.
In Ecuador, President Rafael Correa is following the Chavez model. He is also chummy with Iran, is constantly threatening the free press, and the economy is in shambles. He fired congressmen who disagreed with him and replaced them with others who saw things his way. When the constitutional court said the fired congressmen had to be reinstated, Correa took to the airwaves to declare he was ignoring the court’s decision. Shortly thereafter an angry mob marched on the court, the police who are supposed to protect them stood aside. Do we have a statement of concern from the White House regarding this trampling of democracy? No, we have the State Department’s Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Arturo Valenzuela, calling on President Correa. According to the Wall Street Journal’s Mary Anastasia O’Grady:
During Tuesday’s meeting before television cameras, Mr. Valenzuela expressed concern about Iran’s nuclear ambitions and its budding relationship with Ecuador. According to Reuters, Mr. Correa told him: “We don’t want to get involved in that discussion. But what does it have to do with selling bananas to Iran or with Iran financing our hydroelectric plants?” Translation: Ahmadinejad is my friend. You butt out.
The U.S. response? Mr. Valenzuela would not rule out a meeting between Mr. Correa and Barack Obama. If that happens, prepare for a redux of the Obama embrace of Hugo Chávez in Port of Spain, Trinidad, in April 2009—more humiliation for Americans who used to think of their government as a noble defender of liberty against despots.
Creeping Socialism
Obama has given government control over one-sixth of the U.S. economy with the implementation of ObamaCare. He has nationalized two automobile companies. He has nationalized the student loan program. Unions, for the first time, have more members in the government than the private sector, but President Obama wants to increase their numbers in the private sector as well with Card Check. Who are the unions beholding to and vice versa? The Democratic Party. With more union members to do his bidding where does the average citizen stand? In a July speech President Obama said the following:
”We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.” (emphasis added)
If this doesn’t send chills up your spine conjuring up dark images from the 1930s, you need to put down the Playstation and pick up a newspaper or a book. Consider that when he graduated from Columbia he became a follower of Saul Alinsky, a Marxist community organizer. Barack Obama did not cut his teeth by starting a small business. He cut his teeth learning how to take down capitalism using Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals. As he gets chummy with America’s enemies, he gives the back of his hand to our allies: Israel, Great Britain, Poland,and the Czech Republic. Do you still believe this is a coincidence Governor Huckabee?
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;” — Amendment I, Constitution of the United States
So what is one to make of the new campaign sponsored by atheists that says, “No God? That’s good. Let’s be good for goodness sake.” Who could argue with the last part? After all it comes from that famous Christmas carol, Santa Claus is Coming to Town. But what are we to make of the first part?
How do you argue in favor of something that doesn’t exist? Having a manger scene in the public square next to a menorah is not the establishment of religion on the part of the government that is prohibited in the Constitution. But demanding that all signs and symbols of religion be banned from the public, to me, comes pretty close to the state establishment of a religion called secularism. What was the point of the First Amendment prohibition of the establishment of religion?
Religion and America
The atheists will argue that a manger scene on public land is contrary to the establishment clause. How so, I ask? Specifically what religion is it establishing? Christianity? One of the reasons that the Founders created the establishment clause was to protect freedom of religion. Christianity is too broad a term to be considered an organized religion. If you don’t believe me, ask the Pilgrims, and the Quakers, and the Catholics, and the Mennonites who fled the persecution that came with not swearing allegiance to the Church of England. They are all Christians and that was the whole point. The Founding Fathers did not want the new nation of the United States to form an official state religion and a specific form of worship and tyrannize anyone who did not adhere to it. Having a belief in God and adhering to a particular way of practicing it are not the same. It is easy to see that the Founding fathers manifestly believed in the former while protecting everyone’s rights to the latter. So the very argument that the atheists and the ACLU are making should be pointed at themselves, for they are demanding that everyone follow their religion to keep the public square naked.
Faith of Our Fathers
“WE hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness…” — The Declaration of Independence
Are we to believe that the same people who wrote and signed this document meant that faith should be banished from the public square? The Founding Fathers called upon God repeatedly for strength, guidance, and courage. To say we should do the opposite today and call that the American way is bizarre, to say the least.
Pointing Out the Obvious
In any display of a manger scene or a menorah, or a Christmas tree, wreath, etc. the atheists are also covered. Perhaps we need to be more careful to make it obvious. An area, of appropriate size, should just be cordoned off or outlined in chalk, with nothing in it. That’s what atheists believe in, nothing, so wherever you see nothing around the display, they are there. They are represented. Their tacky messages criticizing or condemning people of faith, is what is out of place and should be condemned. You don’t see a message in front of a manger scene or Christmas tree pointing to the menorah saying, “They missed the boat on this one!” Or a sign in front of the menorah pointing back at the manger saying, “Never happened!” The universal messages are peace and understanding, not a Madison Avenue pitch for one brand over another. So the atheists should stand down and go back to work.
Go Back to Work?
Yes, go to work. Why are you taking December 25th off? Without Christ, there is no Christmas. Without Christmas there is no national holiday on December 25th. With no national holiday on December 25th why aren’t you atheists working? Instead of putting up insipid signs on buses go to work with gusto! That will show the rest of us!
In his book, “What Americans Really Want…Really, ”Frank Luntz writes:
“Harris Interactive and MBA students from Brigham Young University developed a “happiness index” based on a list of questions such as positive relationships with friends and family members, worry about work and finances, and spiritual beliefs…for the most part, the results were conclusive: The happiest people were those who described themselves as very religious and those who pray or study religion every day. Religious people worry less about their health and are less frustrated with work. At the very bottom of the happiness index were people who said they were not religious at all. The angriest people are atheists and agnostics.”
Just Because You’re Miserable, Don’t Blame the Rest of Us
So you don’t believe in God. This is America, that is your right. But you don’t have the right to tell the rest of us what to believe. “Well, you can’t do that in the public square, because it offends me.” How do you come out of your dwelling this time of year? If you are truly offended by Christmas how could you set foot in New York City? Is your argument that all the stores and churches along Fifth Avenue with their decorations are okay, but the decorations in City Hall Park, are an outrage to your sensibilities? Or are you really trying to start by establishing your religion of Secularism in direct violation of the Constitution?
Lunacy Unleashed
This has really gone too far. From removing a cross from the seal of the city of San Diego, to the assault on Christmas when will it end? When will we see the campaign to rename Corpus Christi, Texas, since the name means “The Body of Christ”?
Instead of attacking people of faith, how about trying to emulate them. Be of good cheer, hold a door open, help out at a soup kitchen, sing a joyful song. Maybe, just maybe, the next time Frank Luntz takes a poll, you won’t be the miserable wretches at the bottom of the happiness index.
Merry Christmas, everyone.
With Ahmadinejad and the mullahs taking maximum advantage of Obama’s apology tour, it was time to make a bold statement regarding a second nuclear installation in Iran. What better place and what better time than at the U.N. Security Council meeting especially with President Obama holding the gavel as the current chairman. At least that was what French President Nicholas Sarkozy thought, as well British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
The problem was that President Obama was basking in the glow of his makeover of America. Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, after all, told the General Assembly that he no longer smelled the sulfurous odor of El Diablo, President Bush. It was another Obama global love fest. Why spoil it by talking about global security in the Security Council of all places? It would be far better to talk about global security the following day at an economic summit of the G-20. Don’t you think?
French Fried
Sarkozy apparently had his U.N. speech prepared to take a strong stance against Iran in the Security Council Meeting, but was forced to remove that part of the speech.
President Sarkozy in particular pushed hard. He had been “frustrated” for months about Mr. Obama’s reluctance to confront Iran, a senior French government official told us, and saw an opportunity to change momentum. But the Administration told the French that it didn’t want to “spoil the image of success” for Mr. Obama’s debut at the U.N. and his homily calling for a world without nuclear weapons, according to the Paris daily Le Monde. So the Iran bombshell was pushed back a day to Pittsburgh, where the G-20 were meeting to discuss economic policy. — WSJ, September 29, 2009
Welcome as it is, at the same time somewhat embarrassing that the French are frustrated that the United States isn’t taking a harder line. President Obama has certainly come full circle from President Bush in just nine months. As for me, I slept better with an American cowboy in the White House.
When given an opportunity to speak in Pittsburgh, President Sarkozy could hardly contain himself:
“We are right to talk about the future,” Mr. Sarkozy said, referring to the U.S. resolution on strengthening arms control treaties. “But the present comes before the future, and the present includes two major nuclear crises,” i.e., Iran and North Korea. “We live in the real world, not in a virtual one.” No prize for guessing into which world the Frenchman puts Mr. Obama.
Sarkozy continued,
“I support America’s ‘extended hand.’ But what have these proposals for dialogue produced for the international community? Nothing but more enriched uranium and more centrifuges. And last but not least, it has resulted in a statement by Iranian leaders calling for wiping off the map a Member of the United Nations. What are we to do? What conclusions are we to draw? At a certain moment hard facts will force us to make decisions.”
Vive la France. I hope we make it to 2012.
Money for Nothing
The Commerce Department released the second revision to first quarter GDP and it is the second time it was revised upward. Originally it was reported that GDP fell by 6.1%, not much different that the fourth quarter’s 6.3%. Subsequently it was first revised to 5.7% and the last report pegs it at 5.5%. So what does this mean?
The Economy Bottomed in 4Q08
These figures point to the economy hitting bottom in the fourth quarter of 2008, which means the economy was already on the mend before President Obama took office. Since President Obama didn’t take the oath of office until 2/3 of the way through January, and rushing through the stimulus package that nobody read took until the mid-point of the first quarter, the economy improved without any help from the new president.
Medicine or Poison?
With the massive government spending that the Obama Administration and the Democratic Congress is heaping on us, the other economic data bears watching. The inflation rate nearly doubled to 1.6% in the first quarter from 0.9% in the fourth quarter. The unprecedented borrowing that the government is undertaking will drive up interest rates and inflation and may likely kill the recovery. Again, since the Obama effect has not yet kicked in, we haven’t seen anything yet.
Today, the House of Representatives is poised to pass the most massive tax increase in history with Cap and Trade. Energy costs will skyrocket so that global temperatures will be curtailed by 0.2 degrees Celsius over the next 100 years. I’m feeling better already.
Money Down the Drain
$787 billion is being spent to stimulate an economy that is recovering on its own, spread pork across the land, and saddle us with unnecessary debt. That works out to $2,300 for every man, woman, and child in America. Add in health care at $1 trillion to $1.6 trillion ($4,700 per man, woman, and child), Cap and Trade that will double the cost of gasoline, heating your home, cooking your food, etc. When will this stop? If you still believe that no couples making under $250,000 will see any increases in their taxes, snap out of it! We do not have enough rich people in this country to cover the bill even if we tax them at 100%.
At the state level we are already seeing the mobility of the wealthy. Maryland slapped a new tax on the rich and then discovered that 1/3 of the rich moved out of the state of Maryland. So you say, “What are the rich going to do? Move out of America?” While you giggle over that one, ask yourself this. Why did the Beatles all move to America? If you don’t know the answer to that one go read the lyrics to their song, The Taxman. It was to avoid the crushing tax burden in the U.K. Don’t think that trend can’t reverse itself.
I’ll see you at the next Tea Party.
