Archive for Founders
Flexing States Rights
Posted by: | CommentsMore states flexing their States rights.
This week in the Missouri state Capitol, a large rally was held in favor of defending state sovereignty. Rep. Tim Jones and Senator Jane Cunningham spoke about their respective bills filed to protect Missourians right to choose their own healthcare and not be forced into the federal governments plan under threat of fines or imprisonment. This centralization of more and more power in Washington D.C. is fostering a citizens movement to understand and defend personal liberty and the federalist principle of state sovereignty – a governing principle captured eloquently in the 10th amendment to the U.S. Constitution: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Dr. John Lewis – Charlotte Tea Party
Posted by: | CommentsI suspect there will be more posts regarding Tea Parties, but having personally met Dr. Lewis recently (in Fort Collins, Co at a Young Aristotle Competition) I can personally attest to this man’s incredible intellect for, grasp, and knowledge of history (bio here)…
Transcript of video 1 below, h/t to capmag..
Read More→
Lessons From the Tea Party
Posted by: | CommentsThough not surprising, the convulsive reaction by many toward last weeks Tea Parties shockingly demonstrated the thieving mindset of and historical ignorance now so prevalent throughout the country.
The question that must be asked is why anyone could be so opposed to the point of hysteria against the ideas of one keeping the fruits of their labor and defending the principles of liberty. What is it about our founding principles of limited government and the right to private property that Representative Jan Schakowski finds so despicable?
The answer should be obvious. Without the ability to forcibly take the wealth of others through the political process, many would be relegated to a lifestyle reflective of their talents, intellect and motivation. For a majority such a change would mean living with less.
Only a thief would protest loudly over anothers right to private property. The country is now clearly divided between takers and the taken; or the thieves and the mark; or the immoral and the moral. How can such a gulf in philosophy ever be bridged? Read More→
Could Paine get elected today?
Posted by: | CommentsNo.
Thomas Paine may be the most maligned, and certainly the most under-rated, of all the men who impacted and played a role in the American Revolution. If alive today he would likely be accepted at best as a pseudo intellectual; rejected equally by conservatives for not passing the mystic litmus test, and by the left for his views on limited government and, interestingly, individual liberty.
Yet, in the words of Thomas Edison:
“We never had a sounder intelligence in this Republic. He was the equal of Washington in making American liberty possible. Where Washington performed Paine devised and wrote. The deeds of one in the weld were matched by the deeds of the other with his pen. Washington himself appreciated Paine at his true worth. Franklin knew him for a great patriot and clear thinker. He was a friend and confidant of Jefferson, and the two must often have debated the academic and practical phases of liberty.
I consider Paine our greatest political thinker.”
In the words of Abraham Lincoln:
“I never tire of reading Paine.”
In the words of Thomas Jefferson:
“You ask my opinion of Lord Bolingbroke and Thomas Paine. They were alike in making bitter enemies of the priests and Pharisees of their day. Both were honest men; both advocates for human liberty.” (Letter to Francis Eppes)
Paine, along with a very few others, was one of the intellectuals behind The Revolution. Intellectuals are not just found on college campuses; institutions where one is ineligible to be a serious thinker without a doctor of philosophy degree. In fact, there are intellectuals of tremendous import and impact with little or no formal education beyond high school. Considering the humble, by modern standards, opportunities for formal education in the 1700’s, what marked the great thinkers of the revolutionary period, in my view, was not the institution from which they obtained a degree, but rather their insatiable appetite for knowledge and their willingness to obtain it and apply it.
When it comes to the minds who drove this nation to freedom, the key feature they all shared was self-education beyond any formal schooling, and discourse. Reading, writing, thinking, discussing, and then engaging in the application of their mind’s work those universal truths so discovered, particularly the nature of man. In short, what it is that a free man really needs and what constraints must not be placed upon him in order to live free in the present and to secure such for generations to come. To suggest this mind work was something other than intellectual is beyond ignorance.
Where Washington was the shiny external of an Indy race car it was, from an intellectual perspective, men such as T. Jefferson, T. Paine, B. Franklin, P. Henry, and S. Adams (several others I could mention here, including G. Mason, E. Gerry, and R. H. Lee), that were more the activist thinkers or, in fact, varied measures of action and intellectual thought. These men knew deeply of the ancient Greeks, the follies and fortunes of the Romans, were clearly intimate with Christian theology and its irrationality, read and were often fluent in Latin (and other languages), studied and were fascinated with the science of their day (they lived within a 100 year distance from Rene Descartes’ seminal treatise, from which the French phrase “Je pense, donc je suis” comes) , having lived within one genration’s memory of the outrageous treatment of Galileo by the Catholic Church – a mere 144 years prior to Jefferson penning the Declaration of Independence. These guys were, thinkers and social application engineers. Their life’s work was to create not just a working model of freedom, but a nation premised upon the individual liberty of the person from any government.
These men also clearly understood the liberal traditions that had sprung up and taken root in their homeland (England) – at the time, the freest monarchy on earth. Three men in particular stand out in my mind: Jefferson, Paine, and Henry. These three, aided and abetted by the likes of Sam Adams and his Sons of Liberty in Massachusetts, were part gasoline, part piston, in the Indy car of ideas that ran the 500 mile race to revolution and independence.
Make no mistake about it, were it not for Thomas Paine there most likely would not have been a successful Revolution. At a moment in history where starving minds desperately needed to be fed, Paine offered up a banquet in Common Sense (published anonymously on January 10, 1776). But often you will see in history books, or in online encyclopedias, that, for instance, Thomas Paine is not considered one of the top ten Founders; why? Why would such a brilliant, principally self-educated intellectual, who saw our individual freedom and liberty as primary, be shunned? The man who, more than any other, communicated the distilled abstrations of Aristotle, Locke, Descartes, Galileo, and others in a way the common man could understand and provided the much needed spirit for independence when it was most needed. Clearly, his authorship of Rights of Man, Age of Reason, Common Sense, and The American Crisis reserve to him the status of an intellectual standing shoulder to shoulder with the best and brightest of the 17th and 18th centuries.
Below is a passage written by Mr. Paine while imprisoned in Luxembourg which stands out as heresy to the religious fundamentalists and is, in my humble view, part and parcel of the ostracizing of him by contemporary historians.
If I owe a person money, and cannot pay him, and he threatens to put me in prison, another person can take the debt upon himself, and pay it for me; but if I have committed a crime, every circumstance of the case is changed; moral Justice cannot take the innocent for the guilty, even if the innocent would offer itself. To suppose Justice to do this, is to destroy the principle of its existence, which is the thing itself; it is then no longer Justice, it is indiscriminate revenge.
This single reflection will show, that the doctrine of redemption is founded on a mere pecuniary idea corresponding to that of a debt which another person might pay; and as this pecuniary idea corresponds again with the system of second redemption, obtained through the means of money given to the Church for pardons, the probability is that the same persons fabricated both the one and the other of those theories; and that, in truth there is no such thing as redemption, that it is fabulous, and that man stands in the same relative condition with his Maker as he ever did stand since man existed, and that it is his greatest consolation to think so.
I believe it was because of those words (and thoughts) Thomas Paine was shunned, ridiculed, and swept under into the rough… He was challenging morality by conscensus, he was challenging the church and everything it stood for. Yet for these following words, the fight for our freedom went from a brush fire to a continent-wide blaze of glory:
Small islands not capable of protecting themselves, are the proper objects for kingdoms to take under their care; but there is something very absurd, in supposing a continent to be perpetually governed by an island. In no instance hath nature made the satellite larger than its primary planet, and as England and America, with respect to each Other, reverses the common order of nature, it is evident they belong to different systems: England to Europe, America to itself.
I am not induced by motives of pride, party, or resentment to espouse the doctrine of separation and independence; I am clearly, positively, and conscientiously persuaded that it is the true interest of this continent to be so; that every thing short of that is mere patchwork, that it can afford no lasting felicity, that it is leaving the sword to our children, and shrinking back at a time, when, a little more, a little farther, would have rendered this continent the glory of the earth.
Thus Minds were fed, leaders were mentally reinvigorated, the revolution was then won.
If alive today, Thomas Paine would not be a electable to public office in any corner of this country, particularly as a member of the Republican party. This is so because he was not a conservative as we have now come to understand that concept(Christians first, militant pro-lifers, interventionists by expedience or practical benefit). Perhaps electable as a Democrat, his views on limited government would probably preclude him there too. Thomas Paine should be considered in all corners as one of the principal Founding Fathers equal to Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Henry and Franklin. The revelation that it was his mind, and not his mouth or sword, that was principally his contributing force is aparently anathema to the guardians of Founder-ship. Such is a lousy reason to exclude this great man from his rightful place. Indeed, I suspect that if one could poll those whom are considered as Founders asking who not among them ought to be, Mr. Paine would be highest upon their list…
A lesson in the Second Amendment/Right To Arms
Posted by: | CommentsIn 1776, America’s Founders came together in Philadelphia to draw up a “Declaration of Independence,” ending political ties to Great Britain. Written by Thomas Jefferson, it is the fundamental statement of people’s rights and what government is and from what source it derives its powers:
WE hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness–That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed.
The Founders were declaring that we are all equal, and that we are defined by rights that we are born with, not given to us by government. Among those rights is the right to pursue happiness–to live our lives as we think best, as long as we respect the right of all other individuals to do the same. The Founders also declared that governments are created by people to secure their rights. Whatever powers government has are not “just” unless they come from us, the people.
Eleven years later, after the war for independence had been won, our Founders assembled once again to draw up a plan for governing the new nation. That plan would be ratified two years later as the Constitution of the United States of America.
To understand the true meaning of the Second Amendment, it is important to understand the men who wrote and ratified it, and the issues they faced in creating the Constitution. During the debate over the ratification of the Constitution, there was significant concern that a strong federal government would trample on the individual rights of citizens–as had happened under British rule. To protect the basic rights of Americans–rights which each person possesses and that are guaranteed, but not granted, by any government–the framers added the first ten amendments to the Constitution as a package. Those amendments have come to be known as the Bill of Rights. They represent the fundamental freedoms that are at the heart of our society, including freedom of speech, freedom of religion and the right of the people to keep and bear arms. Read More→
Major Victory for American Workers Right to Self-Defense
Posted by: | CommentsFairfax, Va. Today, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled unanimously in support of allowing employees to store legally owned firearms in locked, private motor vehicles while parked in employer parking lots. This decision upholds NRA-backed legislation passed in 2004.
This is a victory for the millions of American workers who have been denied the right to protect themselves while commuting between their homes and their workplace, said NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre. This effort was aimed at skirting the will of the American people, and the intent of legislatures across this country while eviscerating Right-to-Carry laws. This ruling is a slap at the corporate elitists who have no regard for the constitutional rights of law abiding American workers.
In March 2004, the Oklahoma legislature passed an amendment holding employers criminally liable for prohibiting employees from storing firearms in locked vehicles on company property. A number of corporations subsequently filed suit in opposition to the new laws, alleging they were: unconstitutionally vague; an unconstitutional taking of private property; and preempted by various federal statutes. The lower court ruled in favor of the injunction.
This issue was contrived by the gun control lobby who goaded corporations into doing their dirty work for them, said Chris W. Cox, NRA chief lobbyist. However, this ruling is a vindication for every hardworking and lawful man and woman whose basic right to self-defense was taken away on a whim by corporate lawyers. NRA is prepared to defend this right and to ensure the safety of every American worker.
In October 2008, Oklahoma Gov. Brad Henry and Attorney General Drew Edmondson appealed to the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals the lower court decision to strike down the NRA-backed worker protection laws. Todays proceedings handed down by Circuit Judges Paul J. Kelly, Bobby R. Baldock, and Michael W. McConnell reversed the lower courts grant of a permanent injunction.
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Anti-Gun Deception On The Senate Floor
Posted by: | CommentsAs we reported last week, legislation to require a federal license to possess any detachable-magazine semi-automatic rifle or shotgun, or any handgun, has been introduced in Congress. Bills to re-impose the federal “assault weapon” and “large” magazine ban, or to impose a much broader ban, have been introduced in Congress since 2003, and will likely be introduced in the current Congress soon.
Already, the deliberate deceptions we heard from anti-gunners previously are resurfacing. Anti-gun Sen. Carl Levin, (D-Mich.), said Thursday on the floor of the Senate that “assault weapons” are “capable of firing up to 600 rounds per minute” and that they are “once again pervading our streets and neighborhoods.”
Did we mention that our opponents are deliberately deceptive?
Many fully-automatic firearms can fire 10 rounds in a second, which theoretically would work out to 600 rounds per minute, but they cannot be reloaded fast enough to achieve anything near that rate in reality. But we are not talking about fully-automatic firearmswe’re talking about semi-automatics, and the difference between them need not be explained here.
“Pervading our streets?” Anti-gun lawmakers swore up and down that once the “assault weapon” ban expired, the murder rate would go through the roof. Well, the ban expired in 2004 and since then, the murder rate has gone down to a 43-year low.
The anti-gunners think they can revive this bogus issue, and maybe they can; they will no doubt try. But Congress required a study of the 1994 ban, and the study concluded, “the banned weapons and magazines were never used in more than a small fraction of gun murders.” Violent crime was going down before the ban, and it has continued to go down after the ban. If the issue is looked at objectively, it should be over, done with, water under the bridge. The ban should never have been imposed in the first place, let alone be imposed again or ever expanded.
And certainly guns should not be banned on the basis of nonsense like Sen. Levin’s speech, and other deliberate deception perpetuated by gun ban groups.
Deliberate deception such as:
* A folding stock makes a rifle concealable, as if it were a pocket knife. But anyone who knows anything about gun laws knows that federal law requires a rifle to be 26 inches long, regardless of its stock, and a 26-inch-long rifle is not concealable.
* A pistol grip is designed to allow a rifle to be fired “from the hip.” But the 90 million pistols owned by the American people all have pistol grips, and they aren’t designed to be fired “from the hip.” Besides that, the fact that a rifle has a shoulder stock and sights mounted on the barrel proves that it is designed to be fired from the shoulder.
* Magazines designed to hold more than 10 rounds are not useful for self-defense. If they really believe that, let them propose to prohibit the military and police from having pistol magazines that hold 12, 15, and 17 rounds.
* These guns are “high-powered.” Next time an anti-gunner calls a gun “high-powered,” ask him to name one gun that is low-powered. They even call .22 rimfires “high-powered,” when they want to brand a .22 as a so-called “assault weapon.”
NRA members who own AR-15s and other so-called “assault weapons,” you are not alone. There are nearly two million AR-15s in our country, the same number of M1s, the same number of M1 Carbines, and many more Mini-14s, semi-automatic shotguns, pump-action shotguns, and all the other guns the anti-gunner want to call “assault weapon.” Countless millions of American own handguns that use magazines of over 10 rounds.
Our challenge is to coalesce these Americans into a political force that will make anti-gun lawmakers’ heads swim. When they repeat gun ban groups’ deliberate deceptions, we must tell the truth; not some of the time, but all of the time! But we cannot wait for them to act, and then only respond in defense. We must be out front. When we carry our message, we must do so confident in the knowledge that we are doing so in a manner that respects our fellow citizens, and their right to disagree–a way of doing business that is alien to our opponents–and that our arguments are based in logic and fact, not deceit.
A Little Gun History Lesson
Posted by: | CommentsIn 1929, the Soviet Union established gun control. From
1929 to 1953, about20 million dissidents, unable to defend
themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
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In 1911, Turkey established guncontrol. From 1915 to 1917,
1.5 million Armenians, unable to defend themselves, were
rounded up and exterminated.
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Germany established gun control in 1938 and from 1939 to
1945, a total of 13 million Jews and others who were unable to
defend themselves were rounded up and exterminated
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China established gun control in 1935. From 1948 to
1952, 20 million political dissidents, unable to defend
themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
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Guatemala established gun control in 1964. From 1964 to
1981, 100,000 Mayan Indians, unable to defend themselves, were
rounded up and exterminated.
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Uganda established gun control in 1970. From 1971 to
1979, 300,000 Christians, unable to defend themselves, were
rounded up and exterminated.
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Cambodia established gun control in 1956. From 1975 to
1977, one million ‘educated’ people, unable to defend
themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
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Defenseless people rounded up and exterminated in the
20th Century because of gun control: 56 million. Read More→
Losing Autonomy
Posted by: | CommentsVclav Klaus gives a lesson on his countrys hesitation to adopt the European Constitution. His reasoning closely parallels the many things that I feel have been stripped away by our Federal government from our states. Klaus, doesnt want the Czech Republic to become just another state among a centralized Federal European state, just like each of our states in the United States have become.
Thomas Paine’s Wisdom
Posted by: | CommentsWhen we suffer or are exposed to the same miseries by a government which we might expect in a country without government, our calamity is heightened by the reflection that we furnish the means whereby we suffer.
Thomas Paine
What Paine meant by this as it was written in Common Sense, is that when the state usurps their citizen’s liberties and freedoms they will suffer. I don’t think any of us has ever seriously suffered to the point of real misery. If there is one person who does understand and personifies the understanding of the meaning of misery, it is Paine. So then why is the abridging of our liberties and freedoms miserious?
Our society is derived by it’s wants, and government by it’s wickedness. Society is free to act accordingly through positive means whereas government uses it’s power negatively by restraining society. Government is a punisher. It governs with a stick in hand. It has gotten to the point that it is us who have allowed it, yet we continue to add to it’s vigor.
Unfortunately, the phrase as written in the Constitution by Jefferson, “and the pursuit of happiness“, has been bastardized beyond comprehension. Until we can definitively delineate where our rights and responsibilities should end and where government’s begin, we have no philosophical basis for what government should be allowed to do, and conversely, what should be out of bounds.
And that’s today’s wisdom.
The Immorality of Democracy
Posted by: | CommentsI would rather be ruled by one tyrant three thousand miles away than three thousand tyrants not a mile away.
Though the origin of this witticism is in doubt, it aptly sums the fears that the founders had about democracy. I virtually cringe every time when someone wistfully sings about the virtue of democracy. Today, the act of voting is paramount to hiring a thief.
Unwilling to attain their dreams either through personal sacrifice or effort, many will line up at the voting booth in hopes that the results of an election will turn wishful thinking into reality.
The defeated library referendum is a case in point. Several thousand people across the joint library district voted in favor of the ten million dollar project. If these people felt the need was so great, than why didnt they show real philanthropy and true benevolence by donating $4,000 each. Some certainly could give more than others. Instead of reaching for their wallets supporters, including city councilman OMalley, found it easier to reach for a gun and attempt a stick-up. Fortunately, the intended victims taxpayers jammed the trigger.
The following video of an Obama supporter is the quintessential illustration of the perils found in democracy. Through Obama she believes the worries of paying a mortgage and the gas in her car will be relieved. Can the electoral process degenerate any further?
Freedom First
Posted by: | CommentsI watched Mr. McCain very carefully last night, and thought about what he said earnestly. I thought about his war record, his imprisonment, his Vice Presidential selection, and a myriad of other issues. I also noted those signs all over the hocky arena that said: Country First!.
It seems quite obvious that Country First was the overt theme of this convention, but more precisely and importantly is the underlying implications and meaning; the object of John McCain’s social perspective and vision. You can see it in the person and family challenges of Sarah Palin, she represents to a great degree in person this perspective. Moreover, it was revealed in the deeds of his lovely wife, Cindy, in the numerous wonderful and compassionate deeds she has accomplished. That our highest calling as American citizens is to subordinate ourselves to something greater than self. A concept, by the way, that can be defined as whatever need, whenever needed, wherever found. It’s an altruistic notion whose focus shifts in time and place from situation to situation, and once accepted as dogma can be weilded as veiled benevolence with the best of intentions yet engendering a slippery slope towards dependency with all the unintended acoutriments.