The Unconstitutionality of Obama's Kinetic Action in Libya

A co-worker and friend of mine wrote the following article, and I thought it more than worthy to post here.  His name is Randy Jones and while he does not have his own blog, he is very well read and has extensive current event and historical knowledge.  Further, while he is a lawyer and there are rumors to him once having had a Hillary picture hanging in his office (okay, not really!) he is a good guy and quite often nails it with any given subject.  In other words, he often agrees with my perspective!

Enjoy!

This evening,  the President is finally getting around to telling us why he thinks we should be fighting in Libya.  However, I think there is a deeper problem here that only Jeffersonian Republicans and Liberal Democrats are talking about.  I should say some Liberal Democrats as the others are siding with the Big Government Republicans on this one.  The deeper problem and most important one is the fact that President Obama did not go to Congress to seek authorization to go to war with Libya.  Article I Section 8 Subsection 11 gives the US Congress the power to Declare War.  The President is only given the power as Commander-in-Chief under Article II. 

Now, does this mean that if the President knew of an imminent threat that he/she could not launch a preemptive strike?  Of course not.  The Constitution is not a suicide pact as one Supreme Court Justice once put it.  Could a President defend the nation while under attack without going to Congress?  Of course, he/she could do that.  That is what FDR did in the Pacific after the attack on Pearl Harbor.  However, that is not the case with Libya.  The case with Libya is a President buckling to Hillary Clinton and the Big Government Republicans and involving us in another war.  It is that plain and simple.  He was not for getting into this war.  That is very obvious, but he buckled under the pressure. 

The President argues that he got permission from the Arab League, NATO, and the United Nations.  That doesn't mean anything without authorization from Congress.  He has to go there and if Congress says no we are not going to war then, that is the end of discussion.  Is Obama the first President to do this?  The answer is a clearly no and Ronald Reagan was probably the last one to egregiously offend the war powers of Congress when he invaded Grenada for no real reason other than just wanting to do it.  It was of no threat to America and no one really believes that students were being threatened enough to warrant an invasion. 

That is the case here with Libya.  However, Obama has taken this to a newer height by saying he got international approval therefore he doesn't need Congressional approval.  That is outrageous and should worry everyone.  You may remember that even though President George H. W. Bush had permission from the UN to drive Iraq out of Kuwait, he still got authorization from Congress.  George W. Bush had permission from the UN to invade both Iraq and Afghanistan, but he still went to Congress for authorization for both wars. 

Liberals forget that Congress signed onto both those wars, but those are the facts.  Congress could have repealed both authorizations to stop those wars, but chose not to do so in which Obama has power to prosecute those wars.  I should state for the record that I supported the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, but I do quarry with how Bush prosecuted both those wars.  That is a subject for another day as things have changed and so should our strategies.  I digress.

Having said that, he has no power from the people of the United States to wage this war in Libya.  It doesn't make our imminent threat scenario or our under attack scenario, so he has no excuse for what he is doing.  International agencies cannot be a bypass of the Congress's war making powers.  If we allow this go on it will be a step towards eventually all of our laws being bypassed by some international institution.  Big government does not come all at once and neither does world government.  It comes in drips and drabs in which now is the time to stop the leaking of our freedom before someday we will have to get permission to even have an army from the United Nations.

Randy S. Jones, Esq.

Jeffersonian Republican

Dennis Prager on The Speech Every American High School Principal Should Give

Dennis Prager wrote an excellent "speech" last July and pondered at how much better off our country would be if each and every high school principal in America had the courage and fortitude to deliver this speech and enforce the sentiments expressed within it.  It is too bad because too many teachers, let alone parents, would find much to complain about in the words that would hypothetically be spoken, hence the sad and continuously declining state of our current poorly educated populace.

To the students and faculty of our high school:

I am your new principal, and honored to be so. There is no greater calling than to teach young people.  I would like to apprise you of some important changes coming to our school. I am making these changes because I am convinced that most of the ideas that have dominated public education in America have worked against you, against your teachers and against our country.

First, this school will no longer honor race or ethnicity. I could not care less if your racial makeup is black, brown, red, yellow or white. I could not care less if your origins are African, Latin American, Asian or European, or if your ancestors arrived here on the Mayflower or on slave ships.

The only identity I care about, the only one this school will recognize, is your individual identity -- your character, your scholarship, your humanity. And the only national identity this school will care about is American. This is an American public school, and American public schools were created to make better Americans.

If you wish to affirm an ethnic, racial or religious identity through school, you will have to go elsewhere. We will end all ethnicity-, race- and non-American nationality-based celebrations. They undermine the motto of America, one of its three central values -- e pluribus unum, "from many, one." And this school will be guided by America's values.

This includes all after-school clubs. I will not authorize clubs that divide students based on any identities. This includes race, language, religion, sexual orientation or whatever else may become in vogue in a society divided by political correctness.

Your clubs will be based on interests and passions, not blood, ethnic, racial or other physically defined ties. Those clubs just cultivate narcissism -- an unhealthy preoccupation with the self -- while the purpose of education is to get you to think beyond yourself. So we will have clubs that transport you to the wonders and glories of art, music, astronomy, languages you do not already speak, carpentry and more. If the only extracurricular activities you can imagine being interesting in are those based on ethnic, racial or sexual identity, that means that little outside of yourself really interests you.

Second, I am uninterested in whether English is your native language. My only interest in terms of language is that you leave this school speaking and writing English as fluently as possible. The English language has united America's citizens for over 200 years, and it will unite us at this school. It is one of the indispensable reasons this country of immigrants has always come to be one country. And if you leave this school without excellent English language skills, I would be remiss in my duty to ensure that you will be prepared to successfully compete in the American job market. We will learn other languages here -- it is deplorable that most Americans only speak English -- but if you want classes taught in your native language rather than in English, this is not your school.

Third, because I regard learning as a sacred endeavor, everything in this school will reflect learning's elevated status. This means, among other things, that you and your teachers will dress accordingly. Many people in our society dress more formally for Hollywood events than for church or school. These people have their priorities backward. Therefore, there will be a formal dress code at this school.

Fourth, no obscene language will be tolerated anywhere on this school's property -- whether in class, in the hallways or at athletic events. If you can't speak without using the f-word, you can't speak. By obscene language I mean the words banned by the Federal Communications Commission, plus epithets such as "Nigger," even when used by one black student to address another black, or "bitch," even when addressed by a girl to a girlfriend. It is my intent that by the time you leave this school, you will be among the few your age to instinctively distinguish between the elevated and the degraded, the holy and the obscene.

Fifth, we will end all self-esteem programs. In this school, self-esteem will be attained in only one way -- the way people attained it until decided otherwise a generation ago -- by earning it. One immediate consequence is that there will be one valedictorian, not eight.

Sixth, and last, I am reorienting the school toward academics and away from politics and propaganda. No more time will devoted to scaring you about smoking and caffeine, or terrifying you about sexual harassment or global warming. No more semesters will be devoted to condom wearing and teaching you to regard sexual relations as only or primarily a health issue. There will be no more attempts to convince you that you are a victim because you are not white, or not male, or not heterosexual or not Christian. We will have failed if any one of you graduates this school and does not consider him or herself inordinately lucky -- to be alive and to be an American.

Now, please stand and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of our country. As many of you do not know the words, your teachers will hand them out to you.

Amen, Mr. Prager!  Now do you suppose we citizens that still believe in America and its exceptionalism could convince a few principals across the country to deliver such a speech despite the outrage that would inevitably come from the NEA and those few parents that have taught their children to game the system and act as perpetual victims?

Obama Supports New Oil Drilling... In Brazil

In a truly remarkable statement this week, President Obama has enthusiastically announced his support for new offshore drilling for oil. Yep, you did indeed read that right. Unfortunately his support is for Brazil to commence this drilling and not the United States. This is particularly ironic because this very action is something that he and his administration have consistently banned and restricted in the United States after last year’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico from British Petroleum’s Deepwater Horizon rig.

Further, our president intends to back up his support for Brazil with the promise of U.S. taxpayer financing to help fund Brazil’s drilling operations, which consequently will create thousands of new jobs in Brazil. He is quoted as saying,

“We want to work with you. We want to help with technology and support to develop these oil reserves safely, and when you’re ready to start selling, we want to be one of your best customers. At a time when we’ve been reminded how easily instability in other parts of the world can affect the price of oil, the United States could not be happier with the potential for a new, stable source of energy.”

One wonders why President Obama wants to be one of Brazil's best customers of oil and gas when there are millions of Americans who would be eager to be the best customers of new supplies of oil and gas produced by workers in Louisiana, Alaska, and Virginia? Indeed, the consequences of President Obama’s drilling moratorium last summer and the administration’s subsequent refusal to issue new drilling permits has been partially responsible for the soaring gas prices we are currently experiencing.

Further, these actions alone have cost the United States a loss of at least 20,000 jobs. The long term consequences of that moratorium and lack of new drilling permits has further caused at least seven deep water oil rigs to plan to leave the Gulf of Mexico for work elsewhere on the globe. Those jobs will likely be gone from U.S. shores for many years to come.

So while our gasoline and diesel prices continue to climb drastically, especially with the upheaval in the Middle East, our President continues to prevent the development of domestic sources of energy from going forward. He then applauds this very same development in a foreign nation and promises U.S. taxpayer dollars in support of the venture. One wonders if he realizes that he is supposed to be working to help the economy of the nation for which he presumably is the president thereof and to thus create jobs in the UNITED STATES.

The incompetence, hypocrisy, and lack of foresight in our President has reached capricious levels. One wonders what gas prices and the REAL unemployment rate will look like come 2012 accordingly?

Andrew Klavan: Behold! Your Public Sector Unions

The Theory of Moral Relativity

There have always been those in humankind that have done exactly what they wanted to do, regardless of what their society, culture, or creed dictated was moral. Unfortunately, since the 1960’s and the sexual revolution, it seems that this attitude has become ever more prevalent to the point that anything goes in today’s secular society and those that wish to still live by a moral code are typically seen as antiquated, rigid, prude, and intolerant of those whose mantra is “just because you think it is wrong, does not make it wrong for me!”

Before we delve into this further, let’s define a few terms here.

Moral Relativism: There are no absolute truths when it comes to moral judgments. Indeed, the truth of moral judgments are absolutely relative to the context of the individual or group. What one person or group might find to be moral and the truth may very well not be for another person or group. Further, there is no valid intrinsic standard of morality by which to compare them. Without such a standard for a frame of reference, it is a wasted exercise to try and determine the morality, the right or wrong of one’s decisions and actions in a morally relative environment. Morality is changeable, subjective, and individualistic to the moral relativist.

Moral Absolutism: There are very clear and well defined moral judgments that are absolutely true, regardless of one’s culture, society, or value system. There are definitive judgments of right and wrong, good and evil that transcend cultures and societies and are absolutely true for all humankind regardless. Natural law and a strong reliance upon it is typically a key component of it.

Nihilism: This is a belief that comes about when one accepts the premise of moral relativism as being true. Since moral beliefs and judgments are all relative to the individual or group and there is no overarching standard of reference, all moral conversations are meaningless. Morality is a relative thing and therefore the definition of it is abandoned. It is a belief in nothingness.

For those that know me or have read my blog for any length of time at all, it probably won’t surprise you to learn that I fall into the moral absolutism category, as it is my considered opinion that the belief in moral relativism creates the slippery slope that invariably ends with a belief in nihilism and a certain kind of secular totalitarianism.

Peter Kreeft writing in his A Refutation of Moral Relativism states,
“Peter Maurin and Dorothy Day defined a good society as one that makes it easy for you to be good. Correlatively, a free society is one that makes it easy to be free. To be free, and to live freely, is to live spiritually, because only spirit is free—matter is not. To live spiritually is to live morally. The two essential properties of spirit that distinguish it from matter are intellect and will—the capacity for knowledge and moral choice. The ideals of truth and goodness. The most radical threat to living morally today is the loss of moral principles.


Moral practice has always been difficult for fallen humanity, but at least there was always the lighthouse of moral principles, no matter how stormy the sea of moral practice got. But today, with the majority of our mind-molders, in formal education, or informal education—that is, media—the light is gone. Morality is a fog of feelings. That is why to them, as Chesterton said, ‘Morality is always dreadfully complicated to a man who has lost all his principles.’ Principles mean moral absolutes. Unchanging rocks beneath the changing waves of feelings and practices. Moral relativism is a philosophy that denies moral absolutes. That thought to me is the prime suspect—public enemy number one. The philosophy that has extinguished the light in the minds of our teachers, and then their students, and eventually, if not reversed, will extinguish our whole civilization.”

There are various reasons why some individuals choose to live with a seemingly oxymoronic code of moral relativism, and I would encourage you to read more of Mr. Kreeft’s excellent dissertation on the particulars here. Suffice it to say that for reasons ranging from psychological, cultural, social conditioning, to “tolerance” etc., far too many people try to justify their belief in this Nihilism.

Many folks do this from a sense of “enlightened” superiority in the mistaken assumption that our way is not the only right way to live. The moral relativist wants to be happy and therefore being able to live up to the “tougher standards” of moral absolutism is typically found to be exceptionally difficult. Failure to do so brings about guilt and a lack of self esteem at the failure to live by a transcendent moral code, hence the desire to cultivate only one’s happiness through the justification that all people should be tolerant and thus allowed to live as they choose.

While I would not ever be for forcing people to live by a moral absolutism code, that doesn’t mean that I won’t try to the best of my ability to live so personally and thereby hopefully provide an example for others as a contrast in the life they might have chosen. I realize that I always fall short of the moral code that my Christian faith and Western culture as defined by traditional American values prescribes, but far better for me to have goals that often exceed my grasp, than to have no moral goals at all for which I succeed at masterfully.

Indeed, living a life of moral relativism opens the door to everything being permissible. It is in such an environment where one states, “I am personally against abortion, but others can get one if they choose,” or to the extremes of “I personally don’t agree with homicide bombers, but I can understand their reasons for engaging in such desperate acts”. It is this thought process that creates that slippery slope from black and white, right and wrong, to everything being gray and some otherwise pernicious behavior being acceptable and permissible for some folks. Just because a Nazi thinks that genocide is okay, does not make it so. Just because some cultures insist on the mutilation of girl’s genitalia, doesn’t make it right. Just because a person practices a faith other than fundamentalist Wahabi Islam, does not make it right for that person to be executed in some nations, and yet all of these things have and do occur. To the true moral relativist, we should not judge these people/groups and hold them to our own moral standards of what is “right”.

At Mass this past Sunday, our priest pointed out that Satan doesn’t typically try to seduce the corrupt and those not living by any moral compass, as he typically already has those people in his grasp. It is those that are trying to be righteous that he focuses upon the most. In capturing them, he finds victory. Further, it is not through the temptation for the commission of grave or mortal sins by a person trying to live by a moral absolutist life that Satan typically tries to ensnare them, as most folks that try to live a righteous life are not typically able to be easily swayed to commit murder or steal or commit any other such obviously wrong actions.

Rather it is precisely through moral relativism that Satan will be most successful. Indeed, there often is the appearance of truth in some morally relativistic arguments that could persuade an otherwise morally absolutist person into abandoning his or her code to consider such actions as justifiable. Grandma is terminally ill and has lived a long life; she doesn’t want to be in constant pain, so we should do the merciful thing and help end her life compassionately. Of course this justification starts the slide down that slope to the next step of “Grandma doesn’t want to be a burden on the family and live out the rest of her life alone in the nursing home.” Then it becomes only a few generations away to the value of the elderly being deemed as unimportant or even as nuisances in this morally relativistic society. Such is the cost of abandoning a moral absolutist code and proclaiming that everything is permissible as an individual or group so desires. It creates a world where only might will eventually protect oneself as this secular anarchy will come to rule. Such is not a world in which I ever hope to live.

Defund Planned Parenthood

Our Ludicrous Foreign Aid Expenditures

Texas congressman Ted Poe brings up a point that I have been griping about for decades. There are currently 192 countries in this world.  Do you know how many of them to which the United States provides foreign aid?  If you guessed over 75% of them, then you would be correct.  The United States provides either monetary or military aid or both to 158 nations on this planet. 

I find that interesting since it would seem that there are nowhere near 158 nations that stand up for freedom and have common interests with the United States.  In fact, often times many of the nations to which we are providing aid are either strategic competitors or downright hate us altogether.  I really don’t understand the purpose of spending tax payer dollars in support of such nations like Russia, Cuba, or even Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela.  These nations do not have our best interests at heart, and as Representative Poe says in the video, I don’t need to pay people to hate me.  They can do that on their own.

The problem lies in the fact that the spending authorization for foreign aid comes in the form of one large consolidated bill.  Either every nation on the bill gets their tax-payer funded foreign aid or nobody does.  Congressman Poe is proposing that we single each nation out and provide for an up or down vote for aid individually for each nation.  Now there are some allies that absolutely are in need and indeed deserving of our aid, such as Israel, but I would be willing to bet we could whittle that number of 158 down to low double digits REAL easily.  In light of our current fiscal situation, this is an idea that is long past due.

A New Record in Deficit Spending

It would seem that the federal government has achieved another history-breaking record.  For February 2011 the federal government posted the largest monthly deficit in the entire history of the United States.  Indeed, this $223 Billion deficit for the month of February alone dwarfs the $161 Billion deficit that the government posted for the ENTIRE YEAR in 2007.  In other words, Barack Obama's government is running up larger deficits in one MONTH than the government posted in an entire YEAR only a few short years ago.

Meanwhile, Democrats in congress are screaming about the Republican's still-anemic attempts to cut the deficit for this current year's budget.  According to the Washington times, "a top Senate Democrat said his party can accept no more than $6 billion in domestic cuts."  We just posted $223 Billion in deficit spending last month alone, and the Democrats claim that the most they can cut in spending for the remainder of the fiscal year is $6 Billion dollars!  They truly are clueless as to the peril our economy and indeed our nation is in with this unsustainable spending.

March 18th will be the next vote over the continuing resolution to try and fund the government for the remainder of the year.  Currently the Democrats are threatening to reject the House GOP plan to cut $57 billion in spending for the rest of this fiscal year. They say those cuts are too much.  Instead of being serious about the need to cut all but the most vital CONSTITUTIONALLY authorized governmental functions, President Obama put forth a budget that was full of additional spending that we simply do not have the money for right now.  As he stated in his State of the Union Speech, he wants to spend our taxpayer dollars to fund such extra unnecessary items like high speed rail despite the fact that a vast majority of Americans don't want it and won't use it.

Further, if union agitators succeed in bullying governors like Scott Walker and John Kasich and do manage to impose their statist agenda at any price so that tax payers will continue to have to fund public union pensions and health care to degrees that exceed those of even private employers, then we are bound to collapse under the weight of our own fiscal malfeasance very soon. Things are quickly coming to a head.  The Republicans in congress absolutely must hold the line and insist that their cuts be implemented. 

Those cuts alone are pathetically impotent when it comes to the monthly deficits we are now seeing and indeed they need to be even bolder in the GOP's plans to balance our budget. Unfortunately, when you have Democrats that seemingly don't even acknowledge that we are in a dire situation and refuse to even exceed $6 Billion in cuts for the remainder of this year, it will make the battle an exceptionally difficult one.  Take note which Democrats (or Republicans for that matter) are not taking this seriously, send them an email or call, and make damned sure to vote them out of office come November 2012, assuming we still have a functioning government and nation by then.

Reason, Passion, and the Soul

Nearly four hundred years before Christ walked this earth as fully man and fully God, Plato within his dialogue Phaedrus, created a rather interesting allegorical representation for a person’s soul. 

Plato described a charioteer being pulled by two winged horses.  The charioteer himself was seen to be the reason and intellect of the soul that must guide the stallions to enlightenment.  Now one of the steeds is pictured to be of noble breed and character and representative of rationality and moral impulse of a righteous nature, while the other of the two horses was the diametric opposite in bearing and virtue and thus represented the soul's irrational passions, appetites, or decidedly more base natures.   The two horses of such disparate natures were exceptionally hard to drive accordingly as they each wished to venture towards their own predilections, while the charioteer struggled mightily to drive them to his wanted destination of that elusive enlightenment.

It is a story of which I first learned back in high school the better part of three decades ago, but was recently reminded of a few weeks back in the homily at Mass one Sunday.  In the homily, our deacon spoke of the soul that is the Charioteer driving the winged twin horses of reason and passion. 

While perhaps not truly faithful to Plato’s original story, one can see the troubles that the charioteer soul might encounter when one steed tries to pull the chariot in one direction at the expense of the direction that the other steed wishes to travel, and thereby going to a place that the soul neither intended nor wished to venture.

If the horse of passion is allowed full rein to pull the chariot at the expense of the horse of reason, one might very well find one’s soul fulfilled, albeit for a very short lived time, as we do not live in a world where rationality and logic are absent for long, and thereby the consequences of having ignored them will quickly become apparent to the soul with excruciating and even grave consequences.

Indeed, fall in love with someone where the physical chemistry is magnificent initially, but the character or intellect are wanting and one will soon find that passion to falter and extinguish, leaving the soul injured and longing. 

At the same time, if one were to marry and commit oneself to a person for practical matters that made unassailable logical sense, as the person was of sterling character, quality, and the perfect complement to one in all things of a pragmatic nature, but yet there was no chemistry or passion and love for that individual,  it would be a marriage that too would soon falter as the purpose and meaning of such a marriage would never be fully realized.

The consequences of such disproportionate reason and passion, in favor of either steed, can likely be found applicable to any number of one’s relationships, career, vital interests, or critical elements to that which makes us each lacking in our own humanity.  I suspect that in all things, ensuring that there is a balance of reason and passion would ultimately make for a much longer lasting and far more fulfilling  life’s journey within the context of the soul driving that chariot.

Indeed, when passion and reason are yoked equally, one will find the chariot soul easy to steer towards that wanted destination and the journey will prove to be far smoother and enjoyable for the traveling.