Citizen Tom

This is post for those folks whose eyes light joyfully at the prospect that President Barack Obama might succeed in delivering upon his campaign promises.  Can you defend what Obama wants to do?

The Health Care Bill

Ostensively, the Democrats intend to provide health care for everyone.   That sounds nice, but someone has to pay for it.  So I have some questions.

• Is the Constitution relevant?  Where in the Constitution is Congress given empowered to set up a health system?
• Is health care a right?  What exactly is a right to health care?  Does this “right” give our government the authority to take money from one group of citizens and give it to another group of citizens?  What sort of health care is covered by this “right.”
• Do you think unreasonable to read aloud a bill hundreds of page long that no one has read (see 3rd UPDATE:Senate Health-Care Talks Come Down To Wire)?
• Do you think it appropriate to use government funds to pay for abortions?  You understand, of course, that some taxpayers believe each abortion murders an innocent.
• Does getting health care done before Christmas justify violating the rules of the senate (see here)?

Global Warming

Supposedly the science on global warming is settled.  Yet yesterday, snow fell on Copenhagen, Denmark for the first time in 14 years (see here).  So our president, Barack Obama, finds himself flying from one snowstorm to another.

• Is the science settled (see here and here)?  How is science “settled”?  What constitutes incontrovertible scientific proof?  Is it scientific consensus, or is something else involved? 
• Does global warming justify our government making “investment” decisions?  What qualifies Federal politicians, predominately lawyers, to make “green” investments with the taxpayer’s money (see here, here and here)?
• What if the costs of global warming “fixes” involves people starving and dying (see here and here)?  If the science is not settled, is that okay?

Education

With its attempt to pump ever more money into education, the Federal Government threatens to nationalize our education system.  This can be made to sound good.  See here, for example.  However, in the long run federal involvement enables spendthrift behavior by state and local governments (see here and here).  Ultimately, if the Federal Government is not restrained, all state and local governments must lose control.

• What in the Constitution justifies a Federal involvement in public education.  Do we really need or want an Education Czar?
• Because government both owns and operates the public education system, it is without any doubt a socialist institution. Because the public education system is a socialist institution, it must inevitably (by example) teach/promotes socialism to the children it instructs.  Is that a good thing?  Should we be promoting socialism?  Would national socialism be an improvement?  Why?
• Is school choice a better alternative?  If not, can you explain why you think politicians make better educational decisions for children than their parents?

Taxes

Democrats here of late seem to be using every opportunity to raise our taxes.  Outgoing Governor Kaine want to raise taxes (see here).  The Federal Government is burying tax increases in such things as the health care bill (see here) and in the so-called Cap and Trade bill (see here).

• The right to collect taxes is fundamental to the existance of government.   What do you think is the primary purpose of government?  We need taxes to fund government.  What should government be spending our money to do?
•  How does one morally justify taxes?  How do you morally justify the use of force to make people pay their taxes? 

When you are so ready to tax the stuffing out of your neighbors, is it not time you considered the morality of taxes?  What sorts of spending justifies government taking money from the citizens it is suppose to protect?

Take Your Pick

Nobody has to answer all the questions above.  However, if you are an Obama supporter, should you not have at least one reason for voting for that guy that you can explain?

Lawyers are wordsmiths.  Lawyers may know little about science, art, or theology, but the legal profession requires that lawyers understand the logic of words. That perhaps explains the latest piece of chicanery now working its way through Congress.

Earlier this week came news of the decision by the power-hungry Environmental Protection Agency that carbon dioxide, which all animals and people exhale with every breath, amounts to an “endangerment” of human health. Now comes Rep. James Oberstar, Minnesota Democrat and chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, to try to match a Senate committee that already advanced a bill to radically expand the scope of federal water regulations. Last week, Mr. Oberstar’s staff repeated his determination to do likewise by year’s end, with a bill misnamed the Clean Water Restoration Act (CWRA).

The Senate version of the legislation looks deceptively like a minor change. As confirmed in several recent U.S. Supreme Court cases, federal regulatory authority currently extends only to waters that are navigable or perhaps directly connected to navigable waters. The Senate bill would remove the word “navigable.” The significance of the dropped word is that any backyard fish pond or birdbath, any swimming pool or even a piece of low ground that is prone to forming puddles after rains, could be subject to the dictates of bureaucrats at the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers. (from EDITORIAL: Leave our fish ponds alone)

Just how big a power grab is this?   Imagine you live in an area with a rare mosquito.  One week you forget to drain your birdbath.  Moreover, you have also forgotten to remove the leaves from the gutters that wrap around the edge of your roof.   Making his rounds and inspecting your property, your friendly, local neighborhood EPA rep is trained to notice such things.  In fact, he observes that you have a fine crop of wigglers in both your birdbath and in your gutters.  Smiling joyfully, he then introduces you to the new joys home ownership.  He begins by congratulating you on your contribution to the environment.  Then he politely issues a warning.   Leave the precious wigglers alone.  Under the penalty of law, you must leave both your birdbath and your gutters alone. 

Because Humans are not an endangered species, this holy and anointed agent of the EPA will undoubtedly have less concern for you and your family than the endangered mosquitos.  So if these mosquitos bite and carry disease, you can count upon him not to adjust his priorities.  Instead, to ensure the survival of the mosquitos, he may suggest that you bare your flesh. 

Our president and the Democratic majority in Congress have a mission.   They are out to save the world.  All that matters is what the Supreme Court says is legal.  Moreover, they are not greatly concerned about the Court.  What the Supreme Court says is legal they can predetermine by selecting the “right” judges.

Fortunately, some people understand just how precious water can be.  In our nation, these folks reside primarily in the western states.  There will be a fight.

In a letter sent to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., members of the House and Senate Western Caucuses cited concerns over job loss and regulatory overreach in expressing their strong objections to the Clean Water Restoration Act (CWRA) (S. 787).

The letter, signed by 11 Western senators and 17 Western House members, stated, “In the West … where the frontier spirit of smaller government and individual liberty are still sacred traditions, there is overwhelming objection to this bill. We strongly object to any attempt to move this legislation, either as a stand alone bill or as an attachment to a bill, in the Senate or House of Representatives. More specifically, we cannot imagine any bill so important that we could support it with the Clean Water Restoration Act attached.” (continued in Western lawmakers oppose CWRA)

Nonetheless, consider the boldness of this grab for power.  Where in the Constitution did we give Congress this kind of power?  Do they care? 

Our elected officials swear to uphold and defend the Constitution.  Yet they seem indifferent to that oath.  When did we start allowing such to represent us?  Why?  If we have forgotten the importance of honesty, that should concern us most of all.

The First Amendment of our Constitution lists about six rights.  

Article [I.] (See Note 13)

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

One right that gets relatively short shrift is the right of the people peaceably to assemble.  What does this right involve?  Why did the Founders consider this right so important that they included it in the first amendment?  I think Alexis De Tocqueville one person who had a good answer to that question.  In his classic work, Democracy in America, Tocqueville wrote about the different types of associations Americans formed. 

What follows is a portion of the contents of Chapter V, Section 2 Volume 2 (of 2).  In this excerpt, Tocqueville explained the importance of Public Associations In Civil Life.

I do not propose to speak of those political associations—by the aid of which men endeavor to defend themselves against the despotic influence of a majority—or against the aggressions of regal power. That subject I have already treated. If each citizen did not learn, in proportion as he individually becomes more feeble, and consequently more incapable of preserving his freedom single-handed, to combine with his fellow-citizens for the purpose of defending it, it is clear that tyranny would unavoidably increase together with equality.

Those associations only which are formed in civil life, without reference to political objects, are here adverted to. The political associations which exist in the United States are only a single feature in the midst of the immense assemblage of associations in that country. Americans of all ages, all conditions, and all dispositions, constantly form associations. They have not only commercial and manufacturing companies, in which all take part, but associations of a thousand other kinds—religious, moral, serious, futile, extensive, or restricted, enormous or diminutive. The Americans make associations to give entertainments, to found establishments for education, to build inns, to construct churches, to diffuse books, to send missionaries to the antipodes; and in this manner they found hospitals, prisons, and schools. If it be proposed to advance some truth, or to foster some feeling by the encouragement of a great example, they form a society. Wherever, at the head of some new undertaking, you see the government in France, or a man of rank in England, in the United States you will be sure to find an association. I met with several kinds of associations in America, of which I confess I had no previous notion; and I have often admired the extreme skill with which the inhabitants of the United States succeed in proposing a common object to the exertions of a great many men, and in getting them voluntarily to pursue it. I have since travelled over England, whence the Americans have taken some of their laws and many of their customs; and it seemed to me that the principle of association was by no means so constantly or so adroitly used in that country. The English often perform great things singly; whereas the Americans form associations for the smallest undertakings. It is evident that the former people consider association as a powerful means of action, but the latter seem to regard it as the only means they have of acting.

Thus the most democratic country on the face of the earth is that in which men have in our time carried to the highest perfection the art of pursuing in common the object of their common desires, and have applied this new science to the greatest number of purposes. Is this the result of accident? or is there in reality any necessary connection between the principle of association and that of equality? Aristocratic communities always contain, amongst a multitude of persons who by themselves are powerless, a small number of powerful and wealthy citizens, each of whom can achieve great undertakings single-handed. In aristocratic societies men do not need to combine in order to act, because they are strongly held together. Every wealthy and powerful citizen constitutes the head of a permanent and compulsory association, composed of all those who are dependent upon him, or whom he makes subservient to the execution of his designs. Amongst democratic nations, on the contrary, all the citizens are independent and feeble; they can do hardly anything by themselves, and none of them can oblige his fellow-men to lend him their assistance. They all, therefore, fall into a state of incapacity, if they do not learn voluntarily to help each other. If men living in democratic countries had no right and no inclination to associate for political purposes, their independence would be in great jeopardy; but they might long preserve their wealth and their cultivation: whereas if they never acquired the habit of forming associations in ordinary life, civilization itself would be endangered. A people amongst which individuals should lose the power of achieving great things single-handed, without acquiring the means of producing them by united exertions, would soon relapse into barbarism.

Unhappily, the same social condition which renders associations so necessary to democratic nations, renders their formation more difficult amongst those nations than amongst all others. When several members of an aristocracy agree to combine, they easily succeed in doing so; as each of them brings great strength to the partnership, the number of its members may be very limited; and when the members of an association are limited in number, they may easily become mutually acquainted, understand each other, and establish fixed regulations. The same opportunities do not occur amongst democratic nations, where the associated members must always be very numerous for their association to have any power.

I am aware that many of my countrymen are not in the least embarrassed by this difficulty. They contend that the more enfeebled and incompetent the citizens become, the more able and active the government ought to be rendered, in order that society at large may execute what individuals can no longer accomplish. They believe this answers the whole difficulty, but I think they are mistaken. A government might perform the part of some of the largest American companies; and several States, members of the Union, have already attempted it; but what political power could ever carry on the vast multitude of lesser undertakings which the American citizens perform every day, with the assistance of the principle of association? It is easy to foresee that the time is drawing near when man will be less and less able to produce, of himself alone, the commonest necessaries of life. The task of the governing power will therefore perpetually increase, and its very efforts will extend it every day. The more it stands in the place of associations, the more will individuals, losing the notion of combining together, require its assistance: these are causes and effects which unceasingly engender each other. Will the administration of the country ultimately assume the management of all the manufacturers, which no single citizen is able to carry on? And if a time at length arrives, when, in consequence of the extreme subdivision of landed property, the soil is split into an infinite number of parcels, so that it can only be cultivated by companies of husbandmen, will it be necessary that the head of the government should leave the helm of state to follow the plough? The morals and the intelligence of a democratic people would be as much endangered as its business and manufactures, if the government ever wholly usurped the place of private companies.

In 1830’s America, citizens knew how to organize and form voluntary associations.  They look at their own resources, and understanding how limited those resources were, willingly joined forces with their neighbors.   In willing cooperation, they leverage each other’s labor and materials.    Since that time, unfortunately, we have allowed the power of government to grow.  We have stupidly listened to the glorious promises of politicians, and every year our leaders have promised us more than they did the last.  Every year they have delivered less.  Yet even though we can see before us their failures, we have let politicians greedily seize  more power and control.  They tax us to support programs and causes we do not support, and we docilely submit.  Is it because we were not taught what else to do?  Who is responsible for that?  Who runs our schools?  Why don’t we exhibit the same good understanding of civics that so impressed Tocqueville?

Under the messianic leadership of President Barack Obama, the problem of excessive government has never been more apparent.  This gives each of us a choice; we can freeze in terror or act. We must learn what the Founders well understood.   We must join in free associations with our neighbors. 

We can no long luxuriate lazily before the boob tube; we cannot count upon a Great Leader to speak and wisely command us.  We must each take the initiative.  We must each do our part to leave a better land for our children.  We must demand that politicians not be such busybodies.  We must substitute their ineptitude with our own hard work.  We must each find our cause.  We must participate in a political party, volunteer for a charity, work for our churches, tutor children….or we must learn to submit to the poverty and strangulation of serfdom.

Check out Raising an American flag on a free standing pole isn’t “aethetically pleasing” at Smash Mouth Politics.  

I first heard about the subject of John Doe’s post, an argument over taste and decor     , on the Mark Levin show.   Levin is caustic, but downloading his show is free, and his show is generally informative.  So I listen. 

When Levin mentioned what the Sussex Square homeowners’ association and their idiot lawyers  (Coates and Davenport) want to do to a 90-year-old veteran, I found myself shaking my head in disgust.   How can lawyers be so arrogant and stupid and still stay in business?  To make the affair impossibly absurd, the senior citizen these fools want to push around earned the  Medal of Honor.  Even at 90 years, Barfoot has more grit than any slick shyster.     

Other Views

United Conservatives of Virginia links to a poll, Take the Poll.  The site with the poll provides a little more background. UCV also has a couple of other posts on the subject.

Decision Virginia notes the politicians who are jumping on the bandwagon.  Here is the latest, Webb sends letter to HOA in defense of Barfoot.

VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local links to a good video, RHIP: Let him fly the flag.

The Lee Brothers Blog makes its position clear.  The Sussex Square community board of directors has No honor!  Honor.  That is a term we hear too little of these days, but we each should be willing to risk death for that in which we believe.  That is what Col Barfoot’s medal says about him.  He risked his life to protect us.  If we allow his service to be dishonored, we shame ourselves.

Since one of the main purposes of this blog is to encourage the study of American history, from time to time I excerpt interesting portions from our more important documents.   This time I  elected to excerpt a portion of Democracy in America by Alexis De Tocqueville.

Who was Tocqueville?   He was a Frenchman who visited the United States in 1831-32 to study our penal system.  In addition to his report on our penal system, Tocqueville wrote a book about America itself.  Because he was a keen observer and an excellent writer, the book became a remarkable success.

What follows is the chapter summary of Chapter 8, Part 1, Volume 1 (of 2).

History Of The Federal Constitution

The thirteen colonies which simultaneously threw off the yoke of England towards the end of the last century professed, as I have already observed, the same religion, the same language, the same customs, and almost the same laws; they were struggling against a common enemy; and these reasons were sufficiently strong to unite them one to another, and to consolidate them into one nation. But as each of them had enjoyed a separate existence and a government within its own control, the peculiar interests and customs which resulted from this system were opposed to a compact and intimate union which would have absorbed the individual importance of each in the general importance of all. Hence arose two opposite tendencies, the one prompting the Anglo-Americans to unite, the other to divide their strength. As long as the war with the mother-country lasted the principle of union was kept alive by necessity; and although the laws which constituted it were defective, the common tie subsisted in spite of their imperfections. *a But no sooner was peace concluded than the faults of the legislation became manifest, and the State seemed to be suddenly dissolved. Each colony became an independent republic, and assumed an absolute sovereignty. The federal government, condemned to impotence by its constitution, and no longer sustained by the presence of a common danger, witnessed the outrages offered to its flag by the great nations of Europe, whilst it was scarcely able to maintain its ground against the Indian tribes, and to pay the interest of the debt which had been contracted during the war of independence. It was already on the verge of destruction, when it officially proclaimed its inability to conduct the government, and appealed to the constituent authority of the nation. *b If America ever approached (for however brief a time) that lofty pinnacle of glory to which the fancy of its inhabitants is wont to point, it was at the solemn moment at which the power of the nation abdicated, as it were, the empire of the land. All ages have furnished the spectacle of a people struggling with energy to win its independence; and the efforts of the Americans in throwing off the English yoke have been considerably exaggerated. Separated from their enemies by three thousand miles of ocean, and backed by a powerful ally, the success of the United States may be more justly attributed to their geographical position than to the valor of their armies or the patriotism of their citizens. It would be ridiculous to compare the American was to the wars of the French Revolution, or the efforts of the Americans to those of the French when they were attacked by the whole of Europe, without credit and without allies, yet capable of opposing a twentieth part of their population to the world, and of bearing the torch of revolution beyond their frontiers whilst they stifled its devouring flame within the bosom of their country. But it is a novelty in the history of society to see a great people turn a calm and scrutinizing eye upon itself, when apprised by the legislature that the wheels of government are stopped; to see it carefully examine the extent of the evil, and patiently wait for two whole years until a remedy was discovered, which it voluntarily adopted without having wrung a tear or a drop of blood from mankind. At the time when the inadequacy of the first constitution was discovered America possessed the double advantage of that calm which had succeeded the effervescence of the revolution, and of those great men who had led the revolution to a successful issue. The assembly which accepted the task of composing the second constitution was small; *c but George Washington was its President, and it contained the choicest talents and the noblest hearts which had ever appeared in the New World. This national commission, after long and mature deliberation, offered to the acceptance of the people the body of general laws which still rules the Union. All the States adopted it successively. *d The new Federal Government commenced its functions in 1789, after an interregnum of two years. The Revolution of America terminated when that of France began.

It is perhaps true that Tocqueville underestimated the struggle that was the American Revolution.  Nonetheless, he is right to say that what followed was the greater and far more remarkable accomplishment.

When we think about history, we usually think about wars and horrific struggles.  The terrible things that men have done to each other — the flash, the fire and the screams of the dying — those draw our eye.   Yet when men choose to do what is right by each other, the terrible things we can do pale in significance.  And sometimes it is good to remember how many men and women spend their lives quietly, patiently, and decently working for the good of others.