WorldNetDaily: Let's do some detective work

Walter Williams cites some Constitutional experts on what's wrong with today's national government.

WorldNetDaily: Let's do some detective work

The case against gun locks

Dr. John Lott makes a strong case against locking up guns.

TCS: Tech Central Station - Bound to Misfire

Germany's slippery slope: is it happening in the U.S.?

William Federer reviews the 1930 German Weimar Republic's adoption of the "quality of life" concept in place of the "sanctity of life."

The national socialist government decided to remove "useless" expenses from the budget, which included the support and medical costs required to maintain the lives of the retarded, insane, senile, epileptic, psychiatric patients, handicapped, deaf, blind, the non-rehabilitatable ill and those who had been diseased or chronically ill for five years or more. It was labeled an "act of mercy" to "liberate them through death," as they were viewed as having an extremely low "quality of life," as well as being a tax burden on the public...

The next whose lives were terminated by the state were the institutionalized elderly who had no relatives and no financial resources...

The next to be eliminated were the parasites on the state: the street people, bums, beggars, hopelessly poor, gypsies, prisoners, inmates and convicts...

The liquidation grew to include those who had been unable to work, the socially unproductive and those living on welfare or government pensions. They drew financial support from the state, but contributed nothing financially back. They were looked upon as "useless eaters"...

The next to be eradicated were the ideologically unwanted, the political enemies of the state, religious extremists and those "disloyal" individuals considered to be holding the government back..

Can this holocaust happen in America? Indeed, it has already begun. The idea of killing a person and calling it "death with dignity" is an oxymoron. The "mercy-killing" movement puts us on the same path as pre-Nazi Germany...

In biblical comparison, Jesus showed mercy by healing the sick and giving sanity back to the deranged, but never did he kill them...

Will America chose the "sanctity of life" concept as demonstrated by Mother Teresa, or will America chose the "quality of life" concept championed by self-proclaimed doctors of death – such as in the case of the court-ordered starvation of Terri Schiavo – and continue its slide toward Auschwitz? What kind of subtle anesthetic has been allowed to deaden our national conscience? What horrors await us? The question is not whether the suffering and dying person's life should be terminated; the question is what kind of nation will we become if they are. Their physical death is preceded only by our moral death.

WorldNetDaily: Auschwitz in America

Kevin McCullough: Terri Schiavo's parents could never have imagined

Kevin paints a poignantly maddening picture of the plight of Terri Schiavo and her parents.

Could [Terri's parents] have imagined that... Michael Schiavo would begin an extramarital relationship with another woman and father two children by her – all while remaining married to their Terri...

Could they imagine that most likely because of his extramarital interest and the substantial cash settlement he had received that their Terri would have become such a nuisance to Michael that Michael would wish her dead?

Could they have imagined that judges in the United States of America... would find Terri to be "a life not worth living"?

Could they have imagined that because the court had ordered them not to give "therapeutic support" and barring them from video taping, that they themselves would have to defy a court order for the public to see that Terri was not brain-dead?

Could we ever imagine that the day would come when someone would be allowed to starve and dehydrate to death simply because they had become an inconvenience to the husband who had promised before God and man, "in sickness and in health"?

Terri began starving two days ago. Doctor's say she will be dead within 10 to 14 days of
when it began..

WorldNetDaily: Terri Schiavo's parents could never have imagined

Ilana Mercer: republic or democracy?

Ilana Mercer makes some excellent points in the following article.

We were once a Federal Republic – now we are a centralized democracy. But while the founding idea of a republic was beautiful, the reality of a democracy is repugnant...

Madison, in fact, denounced democracy as "incompatible with personal security or the rights of property." That's because in a democracy, the power of the central government isn't curtailed...

Democracy, like leftism, is un-American...

The (real) Right prefers society – namely, voluntary associations and private contracts. The Left favors the state – that is, coercion and control in the service of a common, collectivist decree. The Right is about individualism; the Left is about statism...

WorldNetDaily: Exporting democracy

Legalized murder in Florida

This article by Barbara Simpson pretty well captures my thoughts on the deplorable state-authorized murder of Terri Schindler Schiavo by dehydration and starvation, while her husband lives with another woman not his wife, mother of his two children.

WorldNetDaily: 'Murder is legal if we say so'

Pray for Terri Schiavo

If you are so inclined, please join me in praying that God will intervene to prevent the state of Florida from killing this disabled woman by dehydration and starvation, at her husband's request, and against the wishes of her family.

WorldNetDaily: Starvation begins for Terri Schiavo

Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation

Murray Rothbard on "Just War"

I find a number of excellent points in this article based on the talk given by the late Murray N. Rothbard at the Mises Institute's Costs of War conference in Atlanta, May 1994.

My own view of war can be put simply: a just war exists when a people tries to ward off the threat of coercive domination by another people, or to overthrow an already-existing domination. A war is unjust, on the other hand, when a people try to impose domination on another people, or try to retain an already existing coercive rule over them...

[W]ar, in the penetrating phrase of the libertarian Randolph Bourne in World War I, has always been "the health of the State," an instrument for the aggrandizement of State power over the health, the lives, and the prosperity, of their subject citizens and social institutions.

[T]he classical international lawyers developed two ideas, which they were broadly successful in getting nations to adopt: (1) above all, don't target civilians... (2) Preserve the rights of neutral states and nations...

[N]eutrality was considered not only justifiable but a positive virtue. In the old days, "he kept us out of war" was high tribute to a president or political leader...

In real life, however, it's not so easy to identify one warring "aggressor..."

To get Americans stirred up about intervening in a war thousands of miles away about which they know nothing and care less, one side must be depicted as the clear-cut bad guy, and the other side pure and good; otherwise, Americans will not be moved to intervene in a war that is really none of their business...

The second Wilsonian excuse for perpetual war, particularly relevant to the "Civil War," is even more Utopian: the idea that it is the moral obligation of America and of all other nations to impose "democracy" and "human rights" throughout the globe...

A nation's highest and most moral course was to remain neutral; its citizens might cheer in their heart for A's just cause, or, ... if champions of country A were sufficiently ardent, they could go off on their own to fight, but they could not commit their fellow countrymen to do the same...

"Rights may be universal, but their enforcement must be local"... A group of people may have rights, but it is their responsibility, and theirs alone, to defend or safeguard such rights...

Government is not something imposed from above, by some divine act of conferring sovereignty; but contractual, from below, by "consent of the governed..."

All taxes, by their very nature, are paid, on net, by one set of people, the "taxpayers," and the proceeds go to another set of people, what Calhoun justly called the "tax-consumers," [a]mong [whom] are the politicians and bureaucrats who live full-time off the proceeds...

Just War by Murray N. Rothbard

Happy 45th Birthday John Birch Society!

"Less Government, More Responsibility, And – With God’s Help – A Better World."

In 1964, John Birch Society founder Robert Welch declared, "I want for our country enough laws to restrain me from injuring others, so that these laws will also restrain others from injuring me. I want enough government, with enough constitutional safeguards, so that this necessary minimum of laws will be applied equitably to everybody, and will be binding on the rulers as well as those ruled."

Still a pretty good vision!

A Better World - The New American - October 20, 2003

Walter Williams on the enumerated powers of Congress

A hearty "ditto's" to Walter Williams on the limited, enumerated powers of Congress and the federal government.

Walter writes:

"Whether it's a good idea or not is irrelevant. The relevant issue is: Is it permissible, under the U.S. Constitution... The fact of business is that Congress is authorized to do only those things enumerated by the Constitution... The general welfare clause has become the standard excuse for controlling our lives, and as such, it shows how ignorance and deception have become an important part of today's America."

As even Thomas Jefferson wrote, "Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated."

WorldNetDaily: Is it permissible?

Hurray for federal judges

I have found a couple of court decisions this week to be quite a breath of fresh air.

These decisions are those handed down by the two federal judges who blocked the U.S. Federal Trade Commission national "do-not-call" registry on constitutional grounds. I hope that they have the fortitude to stick to their guns against the fury of a Congress and people scorned.

I am a bit surprised to find myself so pleased about these decisions, as I am generally no fan of federal judicial activism and usurpation of legislative responsibilities, and I certainly do not enjoy unwanted telemarketer phone calls, but this is exactly the type of ruling against well-meaning, but unconstitutional, federal legislation of which we are so sorely in need these days.

I have skimmed through the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights a few times, and I am sure that there is no enumerated federal power to protect the U.S. people against interruption at the supper table by telemarketers. The 10th Amendment says, "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."

Clearly this is one of the many areas reserved to the states or to the people by its lack of specific mention in the Constitution.

Fortunately, my home state of Indiana has recently passed a fine state law implementing a "do not call" list. This is the appropriate level for this sort of legislation to be passed, if it is to be passed at all.

Personally, I have been quite pleased for the last several years with a private free-market solution to this problem, requiring no governmental legislation at all. We have an answering machine. Coupled with call-waiting service from the phone company, and the facts that telemarketers almost always block their outgoing phone number, and that they nearly always hang up when reaching an answering machine, we hardly ever find it necessary to speak with a telemarketer at all, without having to use the answering machine to screen calls from people we know.

Now, if only we could get the federal judiciary to start blocking the other 90 percent or so of federal laws and regulations for which there is no justification in the Constitution.

WorldNetDaily: Defending the Ten Commandments monument

Samuel Blumenfeld (author of eight books on education) points out that removing the Alabama Supreme Court Ten Commandments monument is as much about educational freedom as about religious freedom.

WorldNetDaily: Defending the Ten Commandments monument

Paying the price for pushing Ritalin

One of the prices our culture apparently pays for pushing Ritalin on students in the lower grades is increased availability of the drug on the black market where it is used (abused?) by college students looking to stay awake.

Ritalin abuse hits students looking for an exam kick

The federal courts should stay out of Alabama's business

Alan Keyes hits the nail on the head:

The First Amendment to the Constitution plainly states: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion ..." Since there can be no federal law on the subject, there appears to be no lawful basis for any element of the federal government – including the courts – to act in this area.

Moreover, the 10th Amendment to the Constitution plainly states that "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." This means that the power to make laws respecting an establishment of religion, having been explicitly withheld from the United States, is reserved to the states or to the people.

Taken together, therefore, the First and 10th Amendments reserve the power to address issues of religious establishment to the different states and their people.

Now, the 14th Amendment... lays an obligation upon state legislatures, officers and officials to... resist federal encroachments that take away the right of the people to decide how their state governments deal with matters of religion...

Chief Justice Roy Moore['s] refusal of the order... is his duty under the Constitution of the United States. Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor, the eight associate justices of the Alabama Supreme Court, and indeed any other state officials in Alabama who submit to the judge's order are, by contrast, in violation of the federal Constitution, as well as their duty to the constitution and people of Alabama.

WorldNetDaily: On the establishment of religion: What the Constitution really says

U.S. should follow Geneva Convention too

'When Iraqi military officials paraded five captured U.S. soldiers in front of television cameras last fall, this indignity was immediately denounced by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who correctly observed that "it is against the Geneva Convention to show photographs of prisoners of war in a manner that is humiliating for them."

But those provisions would also apply to captured Taliban fighters held by the U.S. in Cuba, some of whom were photographed kneeling on the ground, with their hands behind their back, wearing hoods or blacked-out goggles...'

See the following article for additional examples of U.S. hypocrisy on this issue.

Ends and Means - The New American - Insider Report - August 25, 2003

Judge Roy Moore: embattled constitutionalist

I concur with the letter from Dr. D. James Kennedy which is posted on the August 22, 2003 weblog of Doug Phillips. Dr. Kennedy writes:

Martin Luther King, Jr., wrote in 1963 in his Letter from the Birmingham Jail, that “A just law is man-made code that squares with the moral law of God. Unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law.” That distinction is lost on those members of the Alabama legal establishment who have announced that, as Attorney General Bill Pryor put it, “My responsibility is to uphold the Constitution and the rule of law, and I will be doing my duty...”

Let’s not forget that this country was founded when some very brave state officials gathered together to defy the “rule of law” of King George III. The Founders said his “rule of law” was aimed at “absolute tyranny” over the states. So they acted in a fashion consistent with a long Western legal tradition that dates at least to St. Augustine, who said, “An unjust law is no law at all...”

But when, as in America at its founding, the state recognizes a higher law — the “laws of nature and of nature’s God” — liberty endures, as our own history powerfully demonstrates...

But, in the exceptional instance where a court usurps the will of the people and acts in a manner intended to destroy the foundation on which our freedom rests, it is the right, indeed the duty, of elected officials to call that act what it is, tyranny, and to refuse to obey...

Doug's Blog

Dr. Martin Luther King: the rest of the story

Today is the 40th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King's widely-remembered "I Have A Dream" speech. Less well know is that "the real Martin Luther King, Jr. colluded with Communists, plagiarized his doctoral thesis, and led an immoral lifestyle." Check the following articles for more details.

The New American - Socialist "Saint" - February 11, 2002

The New American - Honoring the King Myth - January 4, 1999

Drugging Our Kids in the government schools

Our government tells our young people to "Just Say No". But what if "the drug pusher happens to be your school social worker or psychologist, and they’re telling you your child either takes their drugs or they won’t be allowed in school — or, even worse, that [they’re] going to charge you, the parent, with neglect? What do you do then? Do you ‘just say no’? Can you say no?"

Drugging Our Kids - The New American - August 25, 2003

Get US out of Liberia

I strongly agree with Congressman Ron Paul's sentiments in his speech of 23 July 2001: "There is no US national security interest at stake in the conflict."

"Stay out of Liberia!"