America's Constitutional Republic Explained to a Progressive

Conservative Neil explains the Constitution to progressive Betty.

Berkeley Finds a Soldier to Admire

I came across the following article in The Scrapbook from December 20th's The Weekly Standard, and thought it worthy of sharing.  Enjoy!

The civic carnival that is the Berkeley City Council is at it again.  The members of the council, who wrote a letter to the U.S. Marine Corps in 2008 saying they were "uninvited and unwelcome intruders" to their shining liberal city on the Bay, have finally found a man in uniform (an American uniform, that is) to admire.  According to The San Francisco Chronicle, the council will vote this week on a resolution supporting Private First Class Bradley Manning (U.S. Army-under arrest), widely believed to be the source of the purloined State Department cables, as well as other classified intelligence and military information, turned over to WikiLeaks for worldwide dissemination.

The drafter of the resolution, Berkeley's "peace and justice commissioner" Bob Meola, told the Chronicle that Manning is "a patriot and should get a medal."  While it's certainly a landmark moment when the Berkeley city council positively recognizes any member of the armed services, The Scrapbook looks forward to the day when said member is one who is fighting for his country rather than against it, preferably serving under arms, rather than languishing under armed guard, awaiting trial in the Marine Corps brig at Quantico, Va.

A Review of The State of the Nation for 2010

With the rapidly approaching end of 2010 being a little over a week away, I thought I would look back at the results of what has happened in the United States of America this past year. Unfortunately many transformational issues were enacted that will have and indeed some already have had a huge negative impact on the country. On the other hand, the awakening of millions of Americans politically in our country and their desire to finally hold those that govern in our name accountable gives one a sense of hope that has been absent for well over a generation. With that being said, let us look at some of the major issues that have or will have a dramatic impact on our nation.

Unemployment
Despite billions of tax payer dollars spent and several extensions of unemployment benefits passed through congress, we still have held fast to a near 10% unemployment rate for the country for nearly the entire year. Of course the real unemployment number is significantly higher as one takes into account those people that have stopped looking for work or are under-employed. Meanwhile, the federal government has done nothing to help ease the economy so as to be able to create new jobs. Indeed, their actions have largely exacerbated the problem.

Gulf Oil Spill
The Obama administration dithered and refused domestic and international help in containing this oil spill and looked only to fix the blame rather than to fix the problem. President Obama only made the economic impact of this oil spill worse by issuing a moratorium on off shore drilling, all the while he provided billions of dollars to help Brazil’s Petrobas Oil begin offshore drilling in their waters, while Democratic donor, George Soros, benefitted financially from this arrangement. See HERE.

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell
DADT was finally passed and is supposedly to be signed into law today. This social engineering program from the left removes a working policy that was a seemingly good compromise and enacts a politically correct program that will cost millions of dollars to implement, degrade troop morale, ruin unit cohesion, and weaken good discipline within the military.

Affordable Health Care Act
Obamacare was passed ostensibly to provide health insurance to millions of Americans that were without coverage and to stop the rising costs of our health care. Instead, this travesty of a law has already created increases in health care costs and is well on the way to ensuring that rationing of care will be the norm as many doctors leave the field of medicine. The only bright spot thus far was the recent federal court ruling that stated what we Americans already knew. The law’s mandate that all Americans must buy insurance is indeed un-constitutional.

Financial Reform
This is one of those feel good sounding pieces of legislation which effectively gives control to the president to decide if he should seize control of any private company if the president deems its “imminent collapse” to be detrimental to the nation’s economy. In other words, the president unilaterally now has the power to decide who is too big to fail and act upon it as he deems necessary.

Student Loans
One of the often overlooked parts of the Obamacare Act was the section that also removed the power for banks to provide student loans to prospective college students. Now, only the federal government has the power to provide such loans. The potential for misuse or future indoctrination through “government-approved colleges or courses of study” just increased remarkably accordingly.

START Treaty
The pending likely ratification of this nuclear reduction treaty with Russia leaves the Russians with a significant nuclear missile strategic advantage over the United States and has some concerning verification issues. In its current form, this treaty is not in the best interest of the United States and weakens our nuclear deterrent accordingly. The utopians in congress are seemingly oblivious to this fact.

Border Security
The federal government still has done nothing but pay lip service when it comes to securing our national borders; indeed, they have actively tried to thwart states such as Arizona when that state sought to enforce existing federal law on the issue. Obama’s justice department spent more time harassing those trying to secure our borders than it did trying to actually do its job of protecting America’s borders.

Quantitative Easing
The federal reserve has begun buying our debt through quantitative easing which effectively will create very damaging inflation. Quantitative easing is typically a move done by third world countries right prior to total economic collapse. Hardly a peep has been mentioned about this while congress continues to spend our tax-payer dollars with reckless abandon.

On the good side though there is indeed a few bright spots and some hope that the future is not all doom and gloom. Some of these bright spots include:

DREAM Act
This bad legislation which would effectively grant amnesty to untold numbers of illegal aliens was denied passage in congress.

Terrorism
We have luckily been able to thwart any major terrorist attacks in America, with the exception of one involving a Muslim Army Major killing soldiers at Fort Hood.

Bush Tax Cuts
Congress finally realized the necessity to reauthorize the Bush tax cuts rather than letting them expire and further hurting millions of Americans while still deep in the arms of this recession.

The Conservative Ascendency
The awakening of millions of Americans to the foolishness of our government and the desire of We The People to finally start holding some of these knuckle-heads accountable is very encouraging. Congress has at least taken notice, and many members are appropriately scared that they cannot continue their corrupt business as usual now without reaping the consequences of being thrown out of office. The fact that people are now more politically aware than they have been for decades is a wonderful thing and gives me some hope that we can restore America to its greatness and derail the associated Marxists, progressives, and corrupt politicians to the sidelines where they no longer will be a danger to our representative republic. Hopefully 2011 will be the year where we begin to restore America and save it from plunging into the abyss. We shall see.

Rush on College Indoctrination and the Lack of Critical Thinking

Rush Limbaugh, in this excerpt, asserts something that I have long held as truth.  Colleges today, especially in the more subjective, non-hard science matters and liberal arts fields do not encourage critical thinking, but rather insist upon students accepting the views and theories posited by their professors.  Dissent or opposing viewpoints, particularly in political science fields, are often not only discouraged but are actively ridiculed as being foolish, un-enlightened, or fundamentally wrong.

Indeed I have had the "pleasure" over many years of meeting more than a few graduate students that were educated far beyond their intelligence levels.  The typical condescension and inability for many of these folks to even consider opposing viewpoints based on sound theories and facts speaks exactly to their lack of critical thinking abilities and serves precisely as proof of Rush's assertion that in many cases a college education today represents an indoctrination of leftist pogroms rather than an ability to analyze and actually think with consideration of all aspects of the data presented.

Once again, Rush is right...

A Parable For Our Students Regarding Wealth Redistribution

I have seen this following story before and thought it was an excellent parable in explaining the unfairness of wealth redistribution to our "enlightened, liberal students".

A young woman was about to finish her first year of college. Like so many others her age, she considered herself to be very liberal, and among other liberal ideals, was very much in favor of higher taxes to support more government programs, in other words redistribution of wealth.

She was deeply ashamed that her father was a rather staunch conservative, a feeling she openly expressed. Based on the lectures that she had participated in, and the occasional chat with a professor, she felt that her father had for years harbored an evil, selfish desire to keep what he thought should be his.

One day she was challenging her father on his opposition to higher taxes on the rich and the need for more government programs.

The self-professed objectivity proclaimed by her professors had to be the truth and she indicated so to her father. He responded by asking how she was doing in school.

Taken aback, she answered rather haughtily that she had a 4.0 GPA, and let him know that it was tough to maintain, insisting that she was taking a very difficult course load and was constantly studying, which left her no time to go out and party like other people she knew. She didn't even have time for a boyfriend, and didn't really have many college friends because she spent all her time studying.

Her father listened and then asked, "How is your friend Audrey doing?"

She replied, "Audrey is barely getting by. All she takes are easy classes, she never studies and she barely has a 2.0 GPA. She is so popular on campus; college for her is a blast. She's always invited to all the parties and lots of times she doesn't even show up for classes because she's too hung over."

Her wise father asked his daughter, "Why don't you go to the Dean's office and ask him to deduct 1.0 off your GPA and give it to your friend who only has a 2.0. That way you will both have a 3.0 GPA and certainly that would be a fair and equal distribution of GPA."

The daughter, visibly shocked by her father's suggestion, angrily fired back, "That's a crazy idea, how would that be fair! I've worked really hard for my grades! I've invested a lot of time, and a lot of hard work! Audrey has done next to nothing toward her degree. She played while I worked my tail off!"

The father slowly smiled, winked and said gently, "Welcome to the conservative side of the fence."

H/T: Carrie

Michael Moore Pledges to Post Wikileaks' Assange's Bail

On his website, Michael Moore has posted a legal statement promising to post Julian Assange’s $20,000 bail to get him out of a UK jail, where he is being held on sexually-related charges originating in Sweden.  Julian Assange is the founder of WikiLeaks, the internet site that purportedly received enormous amounts of highly classified material from Army Private Bradley Manning and proceeded to post these highly damaging releases on the public internet via the WikiLeaks site. 

Some of the information released has or may potentially cause severe damage to our national security and will almost assuredly endanger key allies and sources of information in our battle against terrorists.

Moore's thoughts to these actions is that we owe the Wikileaks founder a “debt of gratitude” for his acts.
Moore's goes on to acclaim Assange as a "journalist" who has worked tirelessly to expose "the follies" of the United States government and has even gone so far as to calling Assange’s actions “an act of patriotism.”

The statement notes that while Moore is out out of the country, he has already deposited the money into a specific account for Assange's bail.  A key excerpt of the statement reads as follows:

I support Julian, whom I see as a pioneer of free speech, transparent government and the digital revolution in journalism. His commitment to exposing the follies of government and business offers the greater society a chance to protect itself from these follies. Some aren’t just follies. Some are crimes. What do we do with someone who informs the authorities — and in this case it is the free people in a democracy who are the “authorities” — that a crime has been committed? Do we arrest HIM? Do we try to shut his mouth? Do we hound him, threaten him, track him down and hunt him as if HE is the criminal? He bravely informed the citizenry of what was being done in their name and with their tax monies. That is no crime. That is an act of patriotism. He should be thanked and honored, not abused and jailed. It dishonours this court to be used in this way, holding this man without bail. Julian has made the world, and my country in particular, a safer place. His actions with WikiLeaks have put on notice those who would take us to war based on lies that any future attempts to do so will be met by the fierce bright light provided by WikiLeaks and intended to expose those who commit their war crimes. His actions will make them think twice next time — and for that we all owe him a debt of gratitude.

Ironically in all of the classified information leaked to Julian Assange, nothing has been posted thus far that gives any credence to Moore's assertion that the Iraq war was based on lies by the Bush administration.  Further, does giving up essential data of identities and whereabouts of informants that have helped us against our terrorist enemies rise to the level of patriotism?  I would strongly argue that it certainly does NOT make our country safer. 

Assange is not a whistle-blower that brought egregious actions on the behalf of our government to light.  He is an anti-American blow-hard that is hell bent on harming our nation and its interests if possible, and embarrassing us at least if not.  He is a clear and present danger to our nation and should be treated as an enemy accordingly.

As for Private Bradley Manning, if he is indeed found guilty of his crimes under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, I hope he is convicted and punished for the treason he has committed.  Of course, the city of Berkeley, California has proposed a resolution out of the city's "Peace and Justice Commission" to honor and support him as well. 

I am all for free speech, even such nonsense as has been spouted by Michael Moore and the city of Berkeley, but it is a dangerous thing indeed to call evil, good and to call good, evil.  What Manning and Assange have done has endangered and will likely end up costing friends of America their lives.  These are not heroes.  The former is a traitor and both are an enemies of our great nation.  Michael Moore is once again sorely misguided in finding honor in such people.

Federal Judge Declares Key Part of Obamacare Unconstitutional

Yesterday,  U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson released his ruling on the case brought before his court by Virginia's attorney general, Ken Cuccinelli, that challenged the legal mandate within the Obamacare law that stated that individuals must purchase health insurance at pain of penalty otherwise. 

Judge Hudson stated that the law's requirement that most Americans carry insurance or pay a penalty "exceeds the constitutional boundaries of congressional power."  Further, requiring Americans to buy insurance "would invite unbridled exercise of federal police powers," wrote Judge Hudson.  "At its core, this dispute is not simply about regulating the business of insurance—or crafting a scheme of universal health insurance coverage—it's about an individual's right to choose to participate."

Now this is only the first victory in restoring constitutional sanity in regards to the egregious Obamacare Act and many court battles remain until this case eventually ends up in front of the Supreme Court for final adjudication on what any objective constitutional scholar can decipher as being an exceptionally poor law.  It is unlikely that this case will end up before the Supreme Court before 2012, however.  The fight has only begun.

In the meantime, the pernicious effects of this horrible law are already manifesting themselves to average Americans, despite huge parts of the law still yet waiting to take effect.  The law was sold to the public as being vital to insure those without health care and as a necessary way to hold down medical costs.  The latter part of that was known to have been a pipe dream by anyone that had a rudimentary understanding of free-market economics, and unfortunately has proven to be just as we had feared, especially in my own anecdotal situation.

Indeed, my co-pays have all gone up by 50% for 2011; my hospitalization costs have risen by 500%; my premiums have also dramatically increased, while covered procedures and tests have been severely cut back or have had their costs also increase significantly.  So much for the Affordable Care Act helping us in saving our health care dollars.

Indeed, in a conversation I had with my primary care doctor yesterday (a man that I have seen way too much of lately) said that he is very worried.  He said that insurance companies love the Obamacare Act because until this recent ruling, everyone was going to have to buy insurance, and yet the deductibles and co-pays for most plans would be such that many Americans still would see the doctor far less than necessary due to their inability to even afford these high co-pays and deductibles.  Thus, insurers collect the premiums and have far fewer pay-outs.  More money stays in their coffers accordingly.  My doctor fears a 30% reduction in his business next year just for this very reason.  Further, he said if it exceeds that number than he is likely out of business.

This is why it is absolutely vital that all aspects of Obamacare be repealed as soon as possible. Real reforms that will allow competition across state lines for insurers and meaningful tort reform must be enacted soon so as to reduce costs.

It will be interesting to see what the political fallout will be in this regards, as the Obama administration is holding fast to their fictional account that the Affordable Care Act is a good law that is reducing costs.  Indeed, Kathleen Sebelius, Obama's Health and Human Services Secretary sent out a warning letter to America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) and the National Association of Health Insurers telling them they had better cease and desist from telling the truth. 

In the September 9th letter, Secretary Sebelius wrote, "It has come to my attention that several health insurer carriers are sending letters to their enrollees falsely blaming premium  increases for 2011 on the patient protections in the Affordable Care Act... [T]here will be zero tolerance fro this type of misinformation and unjustified rate increases..." 

So the costs go up, as we knew they would, doctors plan on leaving their dying practices, and the Obama administration threatens anyone that dares speak the truth about the situation.  At least we have won the first critical battle in the dismantling of this horribly un-Constitutional law yesterday.  I only hope that the country can withstand the buffetts it will face before we finally have a WORKING law in place that actually does what this travesty of a law was supposedly crafted to do.