Historical Facts Concerning Democracy and the US

What are we as a nation, relatively young as nations go, to understand from history?

In 1887 Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the
University of Edinburgh , had this to say about the fall of the
Athenian Republic some 2,000 years prior: "A democracy is always
temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent
form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until
the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous
gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority
always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from
the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally
collapse over loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a
dictatorship."

"The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the
beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200
years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:

From bondage to spiritual faith;
From spiritual faith to great courage;
From courage to liberty;
From liberty to abundance;
From abundance to complacency;
From complacency to apathy

From apathy to dependence;
From dependence back into bondage."

The Obituary follows:

Born 1776, Died 2012

Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University School of Law in
St. Paul, Minnesota, points out some interesting facts concerning
the last Presidential election:

Number of States won by:         Obama: 19               Romney: 29

Square miles of land won by:    Obama: 580,000      Romney: 2,427,000

Population of counties won by: Obama: 127 million  Romney: 143 million

Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by:                                            

Obama: 13.2             Romney: 2.1

Professor Olson adds: "In aggregate, the map of the territory
Romney won was mostly the land owned by the taxpaying citizens of the country.

Obama territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in low
income tenements and living off various forms of government
welfare..."

Olson believes the United States is now somewhere between the
"complacency and apathy" phase of Professor Tyler's definition of
democracy, with some forty percent of the nation's population
already having reached the "governmental dependency" phase.

This need not become the fact so long as the populace understand and adhere to the truth.

What is the Constitution?

Posit: The United States is not a democracy but a Constitutional Republic.  A democracy is that the people are governed by the will of the people--by common consent.  As a republic, we elect representatives to govern.  Then what of the Constitution?  What is, in fact, its role?

Is it the foundation upon which we build our laws?  That is, after all, what I got out of school.  We have a Constitution as a starting point and then we build our laws on top of it.  This common perspective is in fact in error.

The role of the Constitution is to constrain or temper the reach of both the governing and the governed. It places bounds of higher law above acts of governance and above the will of even a popular majority.

That means that even a 95% popular vote cannot be enacted if it runs counter to the Constitution.  An interesting point to consider the wisdom of the founding fathers to protect us from ourselves.

Even more completely, the Constitution constrains the acts of government by outlining how the government will function and its three-way division of powers, as well as defining the line across which government cannot in anyway cross.  Let us consider then the Second Amendment rights that have recently come under consideration, since it is concise and should be clear cut:

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.


For purposes of this discussion, common understanding of a couple of words is of import.  Militia, particularly a well regulated one, is often thought to mean only our National Guard, also referred to as citizen soldiers.  Militia in short includes every citizen and is distinguished from the paid standing army as volunteers.  They are a last line of defense against aggressors of home, life, and liberty.

Reading of the second line we may understand 'regulated' means organized and managed and does not include the power to disarm, or even limit the type number or size of arms as per the second line.  Re-read the Amendment.  The first line empowers the government to regulate the militia while the second line limits the degree to which that regulation can be imposed. (For a treatise on the matter please see http://guncite.com/journals/reycrit.html among any others.)  Such is typical of the Bill of Rights.  They exist in part to limit government and establish a bulwark against which neither government nor popular vote can pass.

While it is the roll of the Judiciary and no other body to interpret the meaning or intent of the Constitution and allow or reject statutes and legislation accordingly, for our purposes here, let us take infringed literally.  (Support for the meaning the Founding Fathers intended can be had in their own words here.)

Therefore:  Can any legislative body in the name of regulation, infringe a citizen's right to keep and bear arms?  Can an executive order establish as law the will of a President without due process of Congress?

In the late 1800's towns began passing laws prohibiting the bearing of arms within the city limits.  While doing so may have been legal--as per the laws and statutes of the town charter, was it Constitutional? When townspeople complied thinking it a good idea, did they in fact voluntarily abdicate their Constitutional right?  Would a citizen have been within his rights, per the Second Amendment not to comply without fear of reprisal?  While the government can legally prohibit felons from keeping and bearing arms, as long as they are citizens and taxed is it Constitutional?  Is an American citizen bound by any law or statute or executive order that is unconstitutional?

The Supreme Court offered a less than concrete ruling,  (see "The Constitution of the United States, Analysis and Interpretation, 2008 Supplement (Senate document 110-17)". p. 83.), therefore only a different ruling could say otherwise.  Such is the power of the Supreme Court.

Hense the slippery slope--if any body can be excluded from the unalienable rights of the Constitution, then everybody can, eventually.  While certain laws may seem to make good sense, are they worth it?

The Founding Fathers on Guns

The strongest reason for people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government. -Thomas Jefferson

Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself. They are the American people’s liberty teeth and keystone under independence … From the hour the Pilgrims landed, to the present day, events, occurrences, and tendencies prove that to insure peace, security and happiness, the rifle and pistol are equally indispensable . . . the very atmosphere of firearms everywhere restrains evil interference – they deserve a place of honor with all that is good. -George Washington

The Constitution shall never be construed….to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms. -Samuel Adams

Reclaim America as the Land of Free

The time has come for all good men (and women) to come to the aid of their country.

We are witnessing the repeat of history, a pattern as old as civilization.

"Yea, well did he say that if the time should come that the voice of this people should choose iniquity, that is, if the time should come that this people should fall into transgression, they would be ripe for destruction." (82 B.C.)

"For as their laws and their governments were established by the voice of the people, and they who chose evil were more numerous than they who chose good, therefore they were ripening for destruction, for the laws had become corrupted." (30 B.C.)

Historian Edward Gibbon on the fall of Athenian democracy said, ‘In the end, more than they wanted freedom, they wanted security. They wanted a comfortable life, and they lost it all — security, comfort and freedom... When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society, but for society to give to them... When the freedom they wished for most — was freedom from responsibility... Then, Athens ceased to be free.’ (D. Ray, The Four Freedoms, 2010,) (600 A.D)

We must unite, not only amongst ourselves but preach the truth of American independence from the rooftops. This is a call for an embargo against our own complacency and quiet tolerance of entertainment, media and education.

Post Mortem by Laura Hollis

Post-Mortem
Laura Hollis
Nov 08, 2012

I am already reading so many pundits and other talking heads analyzing
the disaster that was this year’s elections. I am adding my own ten
cents. Here goes:

1. We are outnumbered

We accurately foresaw the enthusiasm, the passion, the commitment, the
determination, and the turnout. Married women, men, independents,
Catholics, evangelicals – they all went for Romney in percentages as
high or higher than the groups which voted for McCain in 2008. It
wasn’t enough. What we saw in the election on Tuesday was a tipping
point: we are now at a place where there are legitimately fewer
Americans who desire a free republic with a free people than there are
those who think the government should give them stuff. There are fewer
of us who believe in the value of free exchange and free enterprise.
There are fewer of us who do not wish to demonize successful people in
order to justify taking from them. We are outnumbered. For the moment.
It’s just that simple.

2. It wasn’t the candidate(s)

Some are already saying, “Romney was the wrong guy”; “He should have
picked Marco Rubio to get Florida/Rob Portman to get Ohio/Chris
Christie to get [someplace else].” With all due respect, these
assessments are incorrect. Romney ran a strategic and well-organized
campaign. Yes, he could have hit harder on Benghazi. But for those who
would have loved that, there are those who would have found it
distasteful. No matter what tactic you could point to that Romney
could have done better, it would have been spun in a way that was
detrimental to his chances. Romney would have been an excellent
president, and Ryan was an inspired choice. No matter who we ran this
year, they would have lost. See #1, above.

3. It’s the culture, stupid.

We have been trying to fight this battle every four years at the
voting booth. It is long past time we admit that that is not where the
battle really is. We abdicated control of the culture – starting back
in the 1960s. And now our largest primary social institutions –
education, the media, Hollywood (entertainment) have become really
nothing more than an assembly line for cranking out reliable little
Leftists. Furthermore, we have allowed the government to undermine the
institutions that instill good character – marriage, the family,
communities, schools, our churches. So, here we are, at least two full
generations later – we are reaping what we have sown. It took nearly
fifty years to get here; it will take another fifty years to get back.
But it starts with the determination to reclaim education, the media,
and the entertainment business. If we fail to do that, we can kiss
every election goodbye from here on out. And much more.

4. America has become a nation of adolescents

The real loser in this election was adulthood: Maturity.
Responsibility. The understanding that liberty must be accompanied by
self-restraint. Obama is a spoiled child, and the behavior and
language of his followers and their advertisements throughout the
campaign makes it clear how many of them are, as well. Romney is a
grown-up. Romney should have won. Those of us who expected him to win
assumed that voters would act like grownups. Because if we were a
nation of grownups, he would have won.

But what did win? Sex. Drugs. Bad language. Bad manners. Vulgarity.
Lies. Cheating. Name-calling. Finger-pointing. Blaming. And
irresponsible spending.

This does not bode well. People grow up one of two ways: either they
choose to, or circumstances force them to. The warnings are all there,
whether it is the looming economic disaster, or the inability of the
government to respond to crises like Hurricane Sandy, or the growing
strength and brazenness of our enemies. American voters stick their
fingers in their ears and say, “Lalalalalala, I can’t hear you.”

It is unpleasant to think about the circumstances it will take to
force Americans to grow up. It is even more unpleasant to think about
Obama at the helm when those circumstances arrive.

5. Yes, there is apparently a Vagina Vote

It’s the subject matter of another column in its entirety to point
out, one by one, all of the inconsistencies and hypocrisies of the
Democrats this year. Suffice it to say that the only “war on women”
was the one waged by the Obama campaign, which sexualized and
objectified women, featuring them dressed up like vulvas at the
Democrat National Convention, appealing to their “lady parts,”
comparing voting to losing your virginity with Obama, trumpeting the
thrills of destroying our children in the womb (and using our
daughters in commercials to do so), and making Catholics pay for their
birth control. For a significant number of women, this was appealing.
It might call into question the wisdom of the Nineteenth Amendment,
but for the fact that large numbers of women (largely married) used
their “lady smarts” instead. Either way, Susan B. Anthony and
Elizabeth Cady Stanton are rolling over in their graves.

6. It’s not about giving up on “social issues”

No Republican candidate should participate in a debate or go out on
the stump without thorough debate prep and a complete set of talking
points that they stick to. This should start with a good grounding in
biology and a reluctance to purport to know the will of God. (Thank
you, Todd and Richard.)

That said, we do not hold the values we do because they garner votes.
We hold the values we do because we believe that they are time-tested
principles without which a civilized, free and prosperous society is
not possible.

We defend the unborn because we understand that a society which views
some lives as expendable is capable of viewing all lives as
expendable.

We defend family – mothers, fathers, marriage, children – because
history makes it quite clear that societies without intact families
quickly descend into anarchy and barbarism, and we have plenty of
proof of that in our inner cities where marriage is infrequent and
unwed motherhood approaches 80 percent. When Roe v. Wade was decided
in 1973, many thought that the abortion cause was lost. Forty years
later, ultrasound technology has demonstrated the inevitable
connection between science and morality. More Americans than ever
define themselves as “pro-life.” What is tragic is that tens of
millions of children have lost their lives while Americans figure out
what should have been obvious before.

There is no “giving up” on social issues. There is only the
realization that we have to fight the battle on other fronts. The
truth will win out in the end.

7. Obama does not have a mandate. And he does not need one.

I have to laugh – bitterly – when I read conservative pundits trying
to assure us that Obama “has to know” that he does not have a mandate,
and so he will have to govern from the middle. I don’t know what
they’re smoking. Obama does not care that he does not have a mandate.
He does not view himself as being elected (much less re-elected) to
represent individuals. He views himself as having been re-elected to
complete the “fundamental transformation” of America, the basic
structure of which he despises. Expect much more of the same – largely
the complete disregard of the will of half the American public, his
willingness to rule by executive order, and the utter inability of
another divided Congress to rein him in. Stanley Kurtz has it all laid
out here.

8. The CorruptMedia is the enemy

Too strong? I don’t think so. I have been watching the media try to
throw elections since at least the early 1990s. In 2008 and again this
year, we saw the media cravenly cover up for the incompetence and
deceit of this President, while demonizing a good, honorable and
decent man with lies and smears. This is on top of the daily barrage
of insults that conservatives (and by that I mean the electorate, not
the politicians) must endure at the hands of this arrogant bunch of
elitist snobs. Bias is one thing. What we observed with Benghazi was
professional malpractice and fraud. They need to go.

Republicans, Libertarians and other conservatives need to be prepared
to play hardball with the Pravda press from here on out. And while we
are at it, to defend those journalists of whatever political stripe
(Jake Tapper, Sharyl Atkisson, Eli Lake) who actually do their jobs.
As well as Fox News and talk radio. Because you can fully expect a
re-elected Obama to try to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine in term 2.

9. Small business and entrepreneurs will be hurt the worst

For all the blather about “Wall Street versus Main Street,” Obama’s
statist agenda will unquestionably benefit the biggest corporations
which – as with the public sector unions – are in the best position to
make campaign donations, hire lobbyists, and get special exemptions
carved out from Obama’s health care laws, his environmental
regulations, his labor laws. It will be the small business, the
entrepreneur, and the first-time innovators who will be crushed by
their inability to compete on a level playing field.

10. America is more polarized than ever; and this time it’s personal

I’ve been following politics for a long time, and it feels different
this time. Not just for me. I’ve received messages from other
conservatives who are saying the same thing: there is little to no
tolerance left out there for those who are bringing this country to
its knees – even when they have been our friends. It isn’t just about
“my guy” versus “your guy.” It is my view of America versus your view
of America – a crippled, hemorrhaging, debt-laden, weakened and
dependent America that I want no part of and resent being foisted on
me. I no longer have any patience for stupidity, blindness, or
vulgarity, so with each dumb “tweet” or FB post by one of my happily
lefty comrades, another one bites the dust, for me. Delete.

What does this portend for a divided Congress? I expect that
Republicans will be demoralized and chastened for a short time. But I
see them in a bad position. Americans in general want Congress to work
together. But many do not want Obama’s policies, and so Republicans
who support them will be toast. Good luck, guys.

11. It’s possible that America just has to hit rock bottom

I truly believe that most Americans who voted for Obama have no idea
what they are in for. Most simply believe him when he says that all he
really wants is for the rich to pay “a little bit more.” So
reasonable! Who could argue with that except a greedy racist?

America is on a horrific bender. Has been for some time now. The
warning signs of our fiscal profligacy and culture of lack of personal
responsibility are everywhere – too many to mention. We need only look
at other countries which have gone the route we are walking now to see
what is in store.

For the past four years – but certainly within the past campaign
season – we have tried to warn Americans. Too many refuse to listen,
even when all of the events that have transpired during Obama’s
presidency – unemployment, economic stagnation, skyrocketing prices,
the depression of the dollar, the collapse of foreign policy,
Benghazi, hopelessly inept responses to natural disasters – can be
tied directly to Obama’s statist philosophies, and his decisions.

What that means, I fear, is that they will not see what is coming
until the whole thing collapses. That is what makes me so sad today. I
see the country I love headed toward its own “rock bottom,” and I
cannot seem to reach those who are taking it there.
Click if you like this column!

On Religious Freedom by Ronald Reagan

No truth more misunderstood has been better explained by one who knew it better.  There can be no political freedom without spiritually enlightened political leaders.

The Total Power of One

A few days ago I had the pleasure of attending a lecture by Fred Holden, Author of "Total Power of One in America" hosted by Joe Sabah.  I've been thinking about it since.

The message was clear: speakers and teachers should be certain to utilize their influence to promote responsible citizenship.

A litany of topics and approaches were suggested.  Yet, it seems as though in some measure the message fell on deaf ears, and I have been wondering why.

Of the many things offered, it was the Eight dangerous illiteracies that caught my attention because it resonated.  My years of observation and research had come to the same conclusions. 

The eight can be condensed to four critical illiteracies: Financial (few of us know how to employ principles of prosperity regardless of circumstance), Political (few of us understand that we are to protect the Constitution and our rights by our elections), Economic (few of us understand the ramifications of economic policy--short term and long term), Business (few of us understand the principles that generate business success and how to differentiate business success from greed).

It is therefor incumbent upon those who do know to tactfully, tastefully yet boldly remind the rest of us what we all know in our hearts to be true yet forget in currents of daily living.

Why would a speaker or an author be reticent to take up that mantle?  Is it because we are so conditioned to avoid any social discussion about these topics that we bristle at the mere mention of them?  If not, why then would an author write or a speaker speak?  I ask you.