History

00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - History - Media Bias - News - Society/Culture - Warner Todd Huston

Take Your Apology and…

April 1, 2008 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

You know, outrage can be a good thing. It is often times useful for people to get outraged over a past slight so that a community might be spurred to action to correct real societal ills. But is the hanging of a “witch” or two over 300 years ago something we should waste our time being outraged over now?

Well, it seems to be a good idea as far as one outraged woman in Connecticut is concerned. Three years ago, Debra Avery discovered she was a direct descendent of one Mary Sanford, a woman hanged for being a witch in the Connecticut of 1692.

Yes, I said 1692.

Armed with the sudden knowledge that she is the eighth-generation great-granddaughter of Mary Sanford, Avery decided to take her case to the state legislature to have her ancestor exonerated. She claimed she was on a “personal mission” to wipe out a stigma on her family name. Legislators in Hartford said that they were considering a resolution to free descendants from that “stigma” of witchcraft accusations.

You’d be excused if you just rolled your eyes at the silliness of it all and you’d also be exhibiting the proper reaction to the whole business.

Continue reading “Take Your Apology and…”

00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Education - Elections - History - Media Bias - Nancy Morgan - News - President - Security/Safety - Society/Culture

My Husband, The Judge

March 14, 2008 by

-By Nancy Morgan

Living In Liberal La-La Land

As a child of the sixties, I was brought up in a time when there was still respect for America’s institutions. Be they banks, government, doctors, businesses, charities or churches. I accepted without question their authority, and assigned to them the respect due to the pillars and foundations of American society. I assumed they were honorable and above question.

Then life happened. Enron, pedophile priests, corrupt politicians, and the general politicizing of government and affiliated organizations. By the time I reached the age of 39, the only institution I accepted blindly and without question was the judiciary. The rule of law was set in stone. Or so I thought.

Then, along came Steve*. As a judge, he had society’s imprint as ‘Honorable’. He also had a sense of humor and a very nice physique. Best of all, he wanted me. Finally, a man with the two attributes I considered essential for marriage, trust and respect. We got married in April of 1992.

Steve presided over civil settlements in the Superior Court of ——–. Lawyers would come to him before trial on civil suits, to see if a settlement could be reached. Steve settled most of the cases before him, saving the costs and anguish of a trial. He would come home from work and over dinner, we would talk about the cases he had ruled on that day.
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00Publius Contributor - Business - Congress - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - History - News - Security/Safety - Thomas Brewton

For What Purpose Was the Fed Created?

March 12, 2008 by

-By Thomas E. Brewton

The role of the Federal Reserve has changed enormously, not for the good, since its creation in 1913.

Most people today assume that the Fed’s proper function is to manage the economy via monetary policy.

A quotation in today’s Wall Street Journal in the “Ahead of the Tape” column reflects that understanding.

“We may be going from bubble to bubble,” says Ed Yardeni, chief investment strategist at Yardeni Research. The problem is that the only other choice for the Fed is to do nothing and let the economy fall into a recession.

“The Fed was created to avoid financial crises and get us out of them when they happen, and that’s what they’re trying to do.”

In the March 8th edition, Wall Street Journal reporter Greg Ip writes:

The Federal Reserve, facing constraints on how much it can accomplish with lower short-term interest rates, is increasingly pressing alternative approaches to restore order to credit markets and combat the risk of recession.

On Friday, it fired its latest unconventional salvo, announcing it would pump as much as $200 billion into short-term funding markets through two separate mechanisms to ease strains on banks’ funding and on mortgage markets. That followed Chairman Ben Bernanke’s call Tuesday that both lenders and the federal government do more to write down the face value of troubled mortgages, forestalling foreclosures and helping stabilize the housing market, and his earlier support of fiscal stimulus.

None of this was envisioned by Congress in 1913.
Continue reading “For What Purpose Was the Fed Created?”

00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Elections - History - Media Bias - News - Patriotism - Selwyn Duke - Society/Culture

Why Most Voters Shouldn’t Vote

March 6, 2008 by

By Selwyn Duke

Often the most fanciful ideas become the least questioned assumptions. In this election season a few have made themselves apparent, such as the notion that “change” is good by definition and “experience” is definitely good. Yet an even better example is the oft-repeated platitude that greater voter participation yields a healthier republic.

Ah, I’ve transgressed against dogma, but let’s be logical. Most of us agree that having an educated populace is a prerequisite for a sound democratic republic. We also know that not everyone is well-educated. Thus, it cannot be a good thing for everyone to vote. For those of you who had trouble following that line of reasoning, please remember that Election Day is November 5.

And one needn’t be disenchanted with universal suffrage to agree. It’s one thing to have one man, one vote; it’s quite another to have one man, one obligation to vote. Yet we still hear that it’s our “civic duty” to go to the polls. Well, no, actually, it’s a civic duty to make ourselves worthy to do so.
Continue reading “Why Most Voters Shouldn’t Vote”

00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - History - News - Society/Culture - Thomas Brewton

Education for Slavery

March 2, 2008 by

-By Thomas E. Brewton

Aristotle spoke of people who, by their natures, are slaves. American educators are doing their best to make slavery part of their students’ natures.

Ironically, Jean Jacques Rousseau, a liberal-progressive of the 1789 French Revolutionary era, spoke of freeing men from the chains of social custom and morality, forged, in his view, by Judeo-Christianity. Yet it is today’s liberal-progressive educators who have assumed the role of blacksmith to hammer anew the chains of ignorance and slavery onto our children.

When the British North American colonists fought for their independence in 1776 and when they wrote the Constitution in 1787, equality meant equal economic opportunity, unfettered by government, to improve their lives and to pass along the fruit of their labors to their children and grandchildren.

The focus was upon political and economic freedom. Today the focus is upon imagined and undeserved rights to enjoy the fruits of others’ labors.
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00Publius Contributor - GOP - History - News - President - Society/Culture

Behind every great man

February 25, 2008 by

-By Michael M. Bates

Former first lady Nancy Reagan took a fall last weekend. She reportedly is doing well and I hope her recovery is swift and complete.

Nancy Reagan’s central role in the history of this country can’t be discounted. It’s possible, perhaps likely, that Ronald Reagan would never have been president were it not for his wife.

Their son Ron believes that’s the case: “I don’t think he would’ve gotten to where he got to (without her). Because I think she has more ambition than he does. I think if left to his own devices, he might’ve ended up hosting ‘Unsolved Mysteries’ on TV or something … I think that she saw in him the stuff that could be president, and she kept pushing.”

She kept pushing. And staring. Listening again and again to her husband’s speeches, when he was a private citizen, then as California governor, then as activist, then as president, she stared in rapt attention, as though never hearing the words before.

It became known as “the gaze.” At least one very close friend claimed that it was never phony; Mrs. Reagan truly was fascinated by what Mr. Reagan had to say, no matter how many times he said it.
Continue reading “Behind every great man”

00Publius Contributor - 2nd Amendment - Constitution - Democrats/Leftists - History - News - Security/Safety - Society/Culture - The Law - Warner Todd Huston

Why DC’s Gun Law Is Unconstitutional

February 23, 2008 by

David E. Young has written a fantastic, historical treatment of why a recent amicus brief in favor of the D.C. gun ban is way off base as well as based on bad historical research. Filed by “fifteen professional academic historians,” the piece makes all sorts of missteps and excludes fact all too often. These so-called historians are just plain wrong so often that one gets the feeling that they let agenda get in the way of truth and research.

This piece was originally published by the History News Network and is a must read for anyone interested in our 2nd Amendment rights.
******

Why DC’s Gun Law Is Unconstitutional

Historical arguments about American bills of rights are major points of discussion in the District of Columbia vs Heller case currently before the U.S. Supreme Court. At issue is exactly what the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution means and whether it was proper for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to overturn Washington D.C.’s handgun ban for violating the Second Amendment. An amicus brief in support of Washington D.C.’s handgun ban dealing with the historical issues in the case was filed by fifteen professional academic historians. One would expect such a brief to be historically accurate, address the Second Amendment in its proper Bill of Rights related context, and include the most relevant figures, statements, and actions for understanding any historical issues in the dispute. However, any such expectation is left largely unfulfilled in the historians’ brief.

The historians’ Heller amicus brief begins with a look at the English Bill of Rights, which limited only the king, not the legislative branch of government. James Madison indicated during his speech to Congress introducing the Bill of Rights provisions that the comparison was inapplicable. The reason was because their purposes were different. England’s Bill of Rights did not limit the legislative branch at all, while the fundamental rights protections in American bills of rights were understood as limiting all branches of government.

The historians’ brief bizarrely claims that only two states, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, actually made their declarations of rights a part of their state constitutions. This statement is factually incorrect. On the contrary, two other states, Vermont and North Carolina, copied verbatim the Pennsylvania Constitution’s language making their declaration of rights a part of their state constitution. Also, George Mason specifically stated in the Virginia Ratifying Convention that the 1776 Virginia Bill of Rights, which he was the author of, was part of Virginia’s Constitution. Mason’s statement was made to illustrate the need for a federal bill of rights based upon the state bills of rights because the proposed U.S. Constitution allowed Congress to violate the rights of the citizens that were protected in the state bills of rights. Other historical materials exist that directly contradict the historians in this matter as well.
Continue reading “Why DC’s Gun Law Is Unconstitutional”

00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - History - Media Bias - Morals/Sex - News - Patriotism - President - Society/Culture - Warner Todd Huston

Where Have you Gone George Washington?

February 18, 2008 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

I don’t celebrate “President’s Day.” I celebrate the presidents individually, not the whole gaggle of them at once. These days, George Washington has been relegated to that “truth telling guy” to be seen on the one dollar bill and on TV commercials at the end of February or that guy lumped in with Lincoln on “President’s Day.” And that is a shame, indeed, for, without George Washington, our presidency and nation might have had a far different attitude.

But, what made Washington such a giant for our times as well as his? For one thing, he knew how to act in public.

Back in the 1700’s

In the year 1759 a man named William Robertson wrote a book called The History of Emperor Charles V, a book some claim was the standard after which modern historical study and writing has come to be patterned. Mr. Robertson, who became Principle of the University of Edinburgh in later years, introduced a salient point into the era of the Scottish Enlightenment. That idea was that “Politeness” in society would result in becoming a civilized nation. And it was a politeness perpetuated and spread through capitalism that was the best avenue to achieving that civilized level.

He wrote “In proportion as commerce made its way into the different countries of Europe they successively … adopted those manners, which occupy and distinguish polished nations.” So, as the theory goes, man by his very nature craves material possession and property. To get that property he must work for it with his best skills. To make use of these skills he must rely on neighbors to get supplies to employ such skills as well as to become customers for his skills. This leads man to act in a solicitous manner of his neighbors so that they will be disposed to employ him and his abilities. This “politeness” employed by the individual inculcates the action in society at large which, in turn, enlarges that field of involved persons to counties and then the country in general, neighboring countries and, ultimately, the world and the governments they create.

Yet, even before the intelligencia of Scotland waxed eloquent on the reasons and why-fors of commerce, civilization, and conduct religions had already realized that such concepts, if only on a personal level, simply made sense. As early as 1559 the French Jesuits has compiled a series of maxims to govern human interaction many based on the Bible’s teachings. These maxims became all the rage in the mid 1600’s when they were spread throughout Europe.

So, with the theory of politeness in its various vestiges firmly entrenched in commerce and foreign and interpersonal relations it became obvious that one needed codes of conduct agreed upon by all to govern the rules of the game. This code of conduct became to be known as ethics in business and politics. In personal conduct it became known as etiquette. It is etiquette that underlies political ethics. Without etiquette, ethics struggles to exist. Unfortunately it is etiquette that seems to have died in modern society.

Today

A few months ago I was walking through an itinerant book store, an empty store front temporarily rented by entrepreneurs who have bought returned books or close out books at cut-rate prices to sell cheaply to the public. In the history section I saw there the usual Clinton apologist books and Bush Hatemonger’s screeds that no one wanted, the dry collegiate studies of the fall of the Roman Empire and the coffee table compilation books that have recently fallen out of favor. Suddenly I spied a spare little book edited and commented upon by Richard Bookhiser called Rules of Civility, The 110 Precepts That Guided Our First President In War And Peace. This 90 page hardback book sported the price of only $4.00 so I picked it up.

I took it home and spent the few minutes it took to read the Rules that were said to have governed the life of George Washington and found myself wondering what the heck happened to civility in this country? What happened to the etiquette that, once upon a time, governed civil society?

Washington was the best of both worlds in a revolutionary leader. He was able to lead a rebellion as well as govern the new country after the rebellion succeeded, as Mr. Brookhiser points out in his forward. It was once remarked by a European diplomat’s wife that Washington had, “perfect good breeding and a correct knowledge of even the etiquette of a court.” High praise, indeed, from a haughty European in the days when they were so sure the United States of America were doomed to ignominious failure.

Today many of the rules seem archaic as they laid out rules on how to eat in public, When to wear a hat and when not to, the correct posture and the like. But even in these seemingly pointless “rules” one gets the distinct impression that the training to be imparted by these precepts are meant to work from the personal to the interpersonal informing the whole man, not just the public man. A concept we seem to have totally lost in our day of “rights” and desires. We have come to an age where what we “want” supersedes good posture, delicate eating habits and proper dress. We tell ourselves we are more than what we wear or how good our table manners are and so we dispense with such “nonsense.” But is it nonsense? Do we give ourselves short shrift when we ignore such once common ideals of conduct in our arrogance? It might become obvious as we view how people treat each other in public, while we feel the palpable anger in the air as each person seems so sure that they are not getting the “respect” they deserve. But do they treat others with the same respect they are so sure they deserve in return?

As you read further into the rules you’ll find a road map to polite social discourse and comportment that you will just know have been lost to society. Here are a few of them for the purpose of comparison to today’s standards:

22) Show not yourself glad at the misfortune of another though he were your enemy … Be NICE, even when you win.

25) Superfluous compliment and all affectation of ceremony are to be avoided, yet where due they are not neglected … Real ceremony is a matter of respect not an end in itself, as Mr. Brookhiser notes.

36) Artificers and persons of low degree ought not to use many ceremonies to lords or others of high degree, but respect and highly honor them, and those of high degree ought to treat them with affability and courtesy, without arrogancy …. At first sight this might tend to enrage today’s man yet when you truly look at it this rule commands everyone, both high and low, to treat people with good grace and respect something that seems sorely lacking today.

80) Be not tedious in discourse or in reading unless you find the company pleased therewith … How many blow-hards do you find droning on about their theories and feelings today?( Hey wait a minute, don’t look at ME!)

81) Be not curious to know the affairs of others, neither approach those that speak in private … Don’t be a nosy gossip. That would erase most of TV and the newspapers report, I would imagine.

84) When your superiors talk to anybody hearken not, neither speak nor laugh … of course that would presuppose we HAVE superiors these days. It seems everyone assumes that no one is their “better” these days.

89) Speak not of the absent for it is unjust.

109) Let your recreations be manful not sinful.

Naturally these are just a few examples but don’t they all ring with a sense of delicacy, justice and common decency? Can you see how social discourse would improve with wide acceptance of such precepts? I would urge each of you to find this book or others like it and read General Washington’s maxims. It can do nothing if not improve your life.

Let me close this with the last rule in the series. One that is definitely forgotten these days …

110) Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience.

Happy birthday, sir, but where have you gone George Washington, indeed?

____________

Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer, has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and is featured on many websites such as newsbusters.org, townhall.com, New Media Journal, Men’s News Daily and the New Media Alliance among many, many others. Additionally, he has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events. He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the new book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture” which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of publiusforum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston

00Publius Contributor - Business - Crime - Democrats/Leftists - History - Media Bias - News - Society/Culture - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

Union Corruption Outpaces Watchdogs

February 13, 2008 by 3 Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

On Feb. 10th, the New York Times had an article pointing out that union corruption in the Big Apple grows faster than Federal officials can keep up with prosecuting it. To we in the anti-union thug movement this is not news. It does, however, conform to our own mantra that unionism means corruption by its very nature.

For more than a decade, federal officials and court-appointed monitors have strained to clean up two New York-area unions, representing cement truck drivers and construction laborers, that prosecutors say were long under Mafia control.

Indeed, prosecutors once described the cement truck drivers’ union, Local 282 of the Teamsters, as a “candy store” for the mob that they say funneled $1.2 million a year to John Gotti, the longtime Gambino crime family boss who died in prison in 2002.

Well, more indictments have been handed down on the truck drivers union and business owners. This time over the embezzling of large sums of money from the union’s health care and pension finds by a trucking company owner, and another involving the business manager of local 325 who took bribes for favors.

As former prosecutor Robert Luskin said to the Times:

“For as long as we’re around, we’re going to have to fight a ground war in New York and New Jersey,” Mr. Luskin said. “It’s like World War I. We take some ground and then we have to fight to take it back again.”

Well, a really, really good solution might be to get rid of the unions, wouldn’t it?

In any case, unionism brings a constant stream of corruption, theft, graft and criminality and we will continue to monitor it for you here.

Continue reading “Union Corruption Outpaces Watchdogs”

00Publius Contributor - Elections - GOP - History - Lee Culpepper - Media Bias - Military - News - President - Security/Safety - Society/Culture

What is a Hero?

February 9, 2008 by

-By Lee Culpepper

There are many heroes in this world, but the word “hero” itself has become a hackneyed label. Time and again it is circumstance that brings out an individual’s heroic qualities. Our military members who are serving our country and fighting for the freedom of people in a foreign land are undeniably heroes.

Frequently, many heroes pay the ultimate price while serving others, such as the brave firemen, policemen, and civilians who sacrificed their lives trying to save the victims of 9/11. For the heroes who survive their crucibles, they tend to continue serving with a degree of humility and meekness. How many heroes do we know that flaunt themselves as such? Heroes are modest, truthful, loyal, and selfless.

My previous article about John McCain mocked him for several reasons, including his constant reminder that he suffered as POW in Vietnam. I respect that John McCain served and sacrificed for our country. But I do not admire anything that is known about him before his time as a POW or after his release. It is impossible for us who have never endured such an experience to understand what McCain must have gone through. Having survived it, however, why does he so bitterly oppose the POW/MIA families (From Vietnam Veterans Against John McCain)? His actions and behavior are nothing short of disturbing. Why wouldn’t everyone question McCain’s motives concerning this subject?
Continue reading “What is a Hero?”

00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Education - History - Media Bias - News - Society/Culture - Warner Todd Huston

A College Paper Attacks Ronald Reagan, Misspells Name as ‘Regan’

February 8, 2008 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

Not that we need any more proof that our colleges and universities have degraded to near foolishness, but the Daily Collegian, a paper that bills itself as “New England’s largest college daily,” gives us one more reason to assume it is true. The paper, published at the University of Massachusetts, gives us an uninformed screed against Ronald Reagan that is a mere exercise in name calling as opposed to a cogent review of Reagan’s presidency. And, most ridiculous of all, the headline to the piece spells Reagan’s name “Regan.” Apparently this “school” doesn’t have an encyclopedia handy to find out about this “Regan” guy?

Like many college journalist wannabes they assume that petulance and bombast is the road to “journalism” and this fellow, Ted Rogers, is no different. He begins by smearing Reagan admirers as sexual perverts:

I think I might be the only person who still has this opinion, but I need to get it out there. I think the inappropriate loving of dead people, commonly known as necrophilia, is just plain wrong and weird. There, I said it.

I have a bit of advice to young Mr. Rogers. Get thee to a dictionary. Reverence of the dead is in no way similar to sexual interest in the dead. And, I should let you know, Mr. Rogers, you aren’t the “only person who still has” that opinion. You are the only one who has it at all. What’s more, you are the only one who ever has. And the fact that some 75% of the country disagrees with you, even by your own reckoning, should tell you that you are on the nut, fringe.

Then, young Mr. Rogers goes on to regurgitate all the old, hatemongering from the left that is left over from the rhetoric wars of the 1980s, none of which he has any real proof for, but just hands us as if it were patently true.

Continue reading “A College Paper Attacks Ronald Reagan, Misspells Name as ‘Regan’”

00Publius Contributor - History - News - Security/Safety

Were the Indians Noble Savages?

February 8, 2008 by

-By Don Boys, Ph.D.

The Indians in North America were sleeping peacefully in their hogans, wigwams, and long houses during the early hours of October 12, 1492. They were dreaming as they had for centuries, of flashing salmon, thundering herds of bison, an arrow striking a deer, and the sound of corn rustling in the evening breeze, with no idea of the events that would happen that day when Europeans would step out of a small boat into the pounding surf.

Columbus had arrived. He delivered civilization to this continent–and all that went with it, good and bad. As the Indians began to stir from a sound sleep, Columbus was nearing the island of San Salvador.

Columbus knew he was nearing land when he saw driftwood floating near his ship and land birds flying around the masts. He no doubt wondered what people were watching his ship from behind the screen of foliage as he neared the shore. Would the people be friendly, noble savages, or hostile, brutal savages? Both ideas would be promoted for many years back in Europe, but the idea of noble savages was popularized by humanist writers. It still is today.

Continue reading “Were the Indians Noble Savages?”

00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Family - History - News - Race - Religion

Black History Month, Martin Luther King, and Hypocritical Media!

February 7, 2008 by 1 Comment

-By Don Boys, Ph.D.

Martin Luther King, Jr. disgraced his race—the human race, and it is incredible that media moguls, black leaders, guilty whites, ad nauseam, continue to perpetuate the myth that he was a good man and one to be emulated, honored, respected, if not worshipped.

When I tell the truth about King and other black opportunists and criticize “Black History Month” my critics, rather than deal with my facts and conclusions, usually question my intelligence, my motives, if not my birth. They treat me the way I am accused of treating King. I simply ask people to deal with the facts, looking at his life not the color of his skin. My motives are important to me but do they really matter to others?

Every February it gets wearisome to hear Blacks tell us over and over how Black explorers, inventors, scientists, athletes, preachers, etc., have been the saviors of, if not the world, at least the U.S. Now, I am the first to admit that more black achievement should have been in our textbooks and much should be made of their work; however, all that should be included in American History, not Black History. And Afrocentrism should be considered nonsense.

If I were the hater and bigot I am accused of being then why are some of my dearest friends Black? Why would I have enormous respect for historical Blacks who make all Americans proud? Why would I be thrilled to have as neighbors Walter Williams, Thomas Sowell, or Clarence Thomas?

Continue reading “Black History Month, Martin Luther King, and Hypocritical Media!”

00Publius Contributor - Elections - GOP - History - News - President - Warner Todd Huston

Tony Blankley’s Curious Omission

February 6, 2008 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

I’m not going to get all crazy over this one, but I just thought it was odd that in today’s Washington Times piece, Tony Blankley made a flat out wrong historical claim. In his piece titled “The strange GOP nominating victory,” Blankley said:

Assuming John McCain gets the Republican nomination, it will show how whimsical history can be. It would be the first time in living memory that a Republican presidential nomination went to a candidate who was not merely opposed by a majority of the party, but was actively despised by about a half of its rank-and-file voters across the country —and by many if not most of its congressional officeholders.

This is not really true. Wendell Wilkie was widely despised by all the regular Republican party bigwigs when he won the nomination through popular acclaim in a dark horse candidacy. When he accepted the GOP nod to run against Frankiln D. Roosevelt in 1940 he had only recently declared we even was a Republican having voted Democrat his whole life until that point.

The main reason we ended up with Wilkie taking the top GOP spot waqs because some very powerful media moguls pushed his candidacy in all their publications and built a popular storm for Wilkie outside the Party proper.

So, it isn’t the only such times as Blankley seems to imagine.

Just correcting the record.

00Publius Contributor - 2nd Amendment - Abortion - Constitution - Education - Elections - Founders - GOP - Immigration/Immigrants - Islam - Islamofascism - Media Bias - Military - News - Patriotism - President - Society/Culture - Warner Todd Huston

…I Am A RINO

February 4, 2008 by 2 Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

That’s right, you read the title to this piece correctly. I am admitting that I am a RINO. I admit it openly, freely, with relish even.

For those unfamiliar, RINO is not only shorthand for rhinoceros, that great beast of the African plains, but it is also an acronym. It stands for, “Republican In Name Only” — RINO.

Now, I am not going to pull a fast one here and spell RINO out with other words. No, I’m happily sticking right with the words “Republican In Name Only.” So, there it is. I am a RINO.

Some of you reading this may already be feeling your stomach curdle at the very mention of the word RINO. After all, it’s really gotten some bad press. Rush Limbaugh and his brethren have really done a disservice to this fine descriptive word. Heck, even I have hurled it as an epithet when confronted with a politician who hasn’t lived up to my standards.

But, after reflecting on recent events, I realized that I myself am a RINO. At first I bristled at my own thoughts. But, after a time it appeared obvious that I am, indeed, a RINO.

I’m just going to have to accept it. Own it, as our pop psychology spewing friends on the left so earnestly say.

I am a RINO and here’s why…

  • I will vote Republican only when the situation is favorable to me.
  • I will not go with my party when I don’t like what is going on.
  • I will sometimes refuse to agree with my party on certain issues and will do so vocally.
  • If I find someone of another party that suits me, I will vote for them even if it is in lieu of voting for my party representative.

So, there you have it. The perfect definition of a RINO. That’s me. But, I am not going to lower my head in shame, no sirree. I am proud of this and am glad that I have finally come to terms with it. A little introspection never hurt anyone, ya know?

Let me explain further why I now feel ready to accept my RINOness. (Or is that RINOcity?)
Continue reading “…I Am A RINO”

00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - History - News - Security/Safety - Society/Culture - Taxes - Thomas Brewton

Maladjusted Managed Economies

January 25, 2008 by

-By Thomas E. Brewton

The experience of the Soviet Union, Japan, and China should, but will not, cause liberal activists to proceed with caution.

According to today’s New York Times:

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton said that if she became president, the federal government would take a more active role in the economy, to address what she called the excesses of the market and of the Bush administration…

Reflecting what her aides said were very different conditions today, Mrs. Clinton put her emphasis on issues like inequality and the role of institutions like government, rather than market forces, in addressing them.

The logical end of Senator Clinton’s prescription was first articulated by the followers of Henri de Saint-Simon, who in 1829 addressed the following to the President of the French Chamber of Deputies:

The sole effect of [the free market place] system is to leave the distribution of social advantages to a chance few who are able to lay some pretence to it, and to condemn the numerically superior class to deprivation, ignorance, and misery. [Socialists] ask that all the instruments of production, all lands and capital, the funds now divided among individual proprietors, should be pooled so as to form one central social fund…

Saint-Simonian socialists believed that their goal of socializing the production of goods and services would most effectively be achieved by abolishing all rights of inheritance, with property reverting to the political state upon the owner’s death. This, of course, is the underlying logic of our own inheritance taxes and the fight to the death by Democrats to preserve inheritance taxes.

Socialist China, with its rapid, centrally-controlled economic growth, is an example of the painful imbalances that inevitably occur when government planners intervene extensively in the workings of the free marketplace. On the Mises.org website, Robert Blumen describes the results.

Similar problems befell the Soviet Union, whose central planners over-allocated resources to production of armaments, the military forces, and heavy industry to support a militaristic foreign policy. In daily life, the citizenry had to wait hours in line for what little consumer goods were produced; they were not as well off as the lowliest of our welfare recipients.
Continue reading “Maladjusted Managed Economies”

00Publius Contributor - Constitution - Elections - GOP - History - News - Patriotism - Security/Safety - Society/Culture - Warner Todd Huston

All Done but the Moulderin’

January 22, 2008 by

What for Federalism With Thompson’s Loss?

-By Warner Todd Huston

The question many of us dreaded is upon us. Fred Thompson has shown he cannot capture enough primary victories in his race for the White House. This brings us to a seminal question; what does Fred Thompson’s withdrawing from the race — or his irrelevancy to it — mean for the conservative cause? Even more specifically, what does it mean for the concept of Federalism? There is only one answer possible and it is one none of us want to hear. It means that, for the foreseeable future and for all intents and purposes the concept of Federalism in particular and the conservative agenda in general are more or less back burner issues in Washington D.C.

Now, I am not saying that no conservative issues will ever again win the day in D.C. I am also not saying that we conservatives should pack our bags and go home. Staying in the fight is absolutely a must for sure. But winning in the big game by taking the White House, or leading the cause from out in front is seemingly out of the question for now. Unfortunately, we are nearly back to a similar situation as the conservative movement was in1979, a day when conservatism was barely able to gather enough forces to win at small issues in Congress and in the national debate. Only, this time, there will be no Ronald Reagan poised to lead the charge.

Fred Thompson was the last chance we will see for a very long time for a president that is a traditional, conservative, principled American presidential candidate. We will see from this point on candidates who are far more socialist than conservative with their base ideological philosophy. Sure they will pretend at being conservative, but they will not be and their records will prove it.

Candidates like the center, left Mitt Romney and Rudly Giuliani will be the norm for the GOP because it will be assumed both by pundits and political campaign operatives that the strictly conservative candidate is doomed to lose. No one of Reagan’s basic small government principles will be able to run for the White House for a very long time with Thompson’s bowing out.
Continue reading “All Done but the Moulderin’”

00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - History - Media Bias - Military - News - Patriotism - Society/Culture - Warner Todd Huston

Magazine Reports New Veteran’s Cemetery With Photo Of WWII Nazi Soldier

January 13, 2008 by 2 Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

**Updated below fold**

Lifestyle magazine, a publication that serves Pennsylvania’s Delaware Valley area, published a nice story this week reporting how a long awaited veteran’s cemetery is finally underway in Buck’s County, Penn. Oh, the story seems nice enough, but there is one problem. The photo accompanying the story shows a soldier, circa WWII, in near silhouette trotting across a wintry field, rifle in hand. That there is a photo of a soldier from WWII tacked onto a story about a new veteran’s cemetery isn’t the problem. The problem is that the photo is of a Nazi German soldier from WWII and NOT an American soldier! This is a shocking mistake that reveals many things about the folks at Lifestyle Magazine.

Why is a story about an American veteran’s cemetery being illustrated by a photo of a Nazi solder? The answer can only be that the folks at Lifestyle magazine are so unfamiliar with anything military that the glaring mistake went completely unrecognized by its Editors and designers.

Even the first paragraphs of the story are a bit odd. A story about the final resting place of our honored veterans is begun with two paragraphs about a Kris Kristofferson song!

“Caught in the action of kill or be killed, no greater love hath a man than to lay down his life for his brother.” These were the words that singer Kris Kristofferson said in his opening to the song by country music artists, Big & Rich entitled, “The Eighth of November.”

It was a ballad about a Vietnam veteran, Niles Harris, whom the two singers met in a bar, and they were so taken with his personal story of bravery and heroism they wrote a song in his honor.

Now, it seems to me that this is a rather flippant way to start a story about honoring our vets. Using an explanation of a pop song just seems so trivial when juxtaposed against the sacrifices of our military men in battle and the deserved construction of a suitable final resting place when they pass from this mortal coil.

I don’t know about you but I would not have started this story off with talk of Kris Kristofferson.

Still, the rest of this article is not so bad. But the glaring error of using a photo of a Nazi soldier when talking about our veterans is unforgivable here and the less than serious talk about a Kris Kristofferson song to kick the story off didn’t help much either. It all adds up to a magazine entering into unfamiliar territory; the military.

And, that is the saddest thing of all. That the folks at Lifestyle magazine are so out of their depth when discussing the U.S. military that they cannot tell the difference between a photo of a Nazi soldier and an American is outrageous. But it seems to be a mark of our times when folks in the media haven’t the slightest clue about our military and its history. It’s horrendous that they are so sloppy with their work that they don’t even know what an American soldier looks like but it is a situation that has sadly come to be expected of the media.

One last thing to show how ignorant the editors and writers at Lifestyle magazine are. Witness this line in the story (my emphasis)…

Currently, there are only three national veteran’s cemeteries in Pennsylvania. There is one near Pittsburgh, another northeast of Harrisburg, and the third, which is not taking any new internments, in Philadelphia.

Dear, dear editors of Lifestyle magazine. Cemeteries take interments NOT “internments”!!

**Update** 11AM 01/14/08

Well, there is a reason that I made a screen capture of the original picture that accompanies my article here. The photo on the Lifestyle website has now been changed to show American soldiers. Mysteriously, no correction notice or apology was made. The picture was just changed with no word about it.

Continue reading “Magazine Reports New Veteran’s Cemetery With Photo Of WWII Nazi Soldier”

00Publius Contributor - Constitution - Founders - History - News - Patriotism - Society/Culture - Thomas Brewton

Why Cicero?

January 10, 2008 by

-By Thomas E. Brewton

Progressive education, the liberal-socialist tool of choice for brainwashing young minds, has left recent generations in ignorance of the great Roman statesman’s role in the structure of our own government.

Gary Galles’s post on the Mises blog, Cicero on Justice, Law and Liberty, reminds us that today’s students will hardly ever learn what was essential fare in our schools from earliest days until the 1930s.

Underlying the legacy of Cicero is the concept of natural law, which tells us that everything in our world is part of a grand design in which everything and every creature has a highest purpose that reflects its true essence. In humans, that essence is the soul and its quest for truth and justice within the intelligent world design.

To take a near at hand example of natural law, our Declaration of Independence asserts:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

Writing to Richard Henry Lee in 1825, Jefferson said of his authorship of the Declaration of Independence, the essential thing was,
Continue reading “Why Cicero?”

00Publius Contributor - Constitution - History - Judges - Society/Culture - Thomas Brewton

The Judiciary: Tyranny’s Active Agent

January 3, 2008 by

-By Thomas E. Brewton

Have the Constitution’s checks and balances come unglued?

The First Things website carries a provocative essay by Richard John Neuhaus. The essay explores the contention that, as Anti-Federalists feared in the 1787-89 Constitutional ratification debate, the judiciary has come to be the dominant power in the Federal government.

Without exaggeration, it can be said that most of the activist, anti-traditional measures of government have been judicially imposed. Those have been predominantly aimed at outlawing Judeo-Christian morality, notably Roe v Wade and measures to banish spiritual religion from education and politics, while encouraging an accelerating descent into the cesspool of sensual gratification.
Continue reading “The Judiciary: Tyranny’s Active Agent”

00Publius Contributor - Constitution - Democrats/Leftists - Education - Elections - History - Media Bias - News - Patriotism - President - Society/Culture - Uncategorized - Warner Todd Huston

Why I Don’t Want Your Kid to Vote

January 2, 2008 by 2 Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

Every election year we are presented with stories about the vaunted “youth vote.” We are told how we must get the kids to the polls, we are told that the candidates are working hard to court the youth vote and we are given story after story of the efforts of one organization or another that is trying to excite young people to vote. We are presented with these stories as if it is a good thing that kids under 21 should vote, that it is somehow a desired thing. Well, I am going to say right here and now that I don’t want anyone under the age of 21 to vote. So, please, do keep your uninformed kid home on Election Day.

Many people will recall the reported words of the venerable Ben Franklin who said upon exiting the final session of the Constitutional convention that our representatives had created a republic “if we could keep it.” By this, Franklin meant that it is up to each of us to learn the issues, understand the principles upon which our system was created, as well as the mechanics of the system itself in order to cast an informed vote that will uphold those principles and keep our government orderly. This all means that it is incumbent upon each of us to stay informed and to educate ourselves.

I will not, of course, claim that all people under 21 are inherently incapable of becoming such a well-rounded and informed citizen. In some cases, there are surely 19 year-olds that are smarter, more informed, and trustworthy than certain 30 year-olds out there. This is beyond question. But one cannot make general rules for society by honing in on every individual case. One must strike for the best general rule and the general rule here is that people under 21 do not care a whit about government and will, therefore, make for uninformed — maybe even dangerous — voters.

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00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Family - History - News - Society/Culture - Uncategorized

Christmas Contemplations

December 24, 2007 by

-By Michael M. Bates

The Beatles were right when they sang money can’t buy me love. I guess if they’d wanted to be more precise, they’d have crooned that money can’t buy authentic love although in some instances it can acquire a reasonable facsimile of it, but that might have been tough to rhyme.

What money can buy are material possessions that may well bring some transitory pleasure. Far be it from me to disparage the enjoyment of such items. If someone wants to take away my high definition TV, they’ll have to pry it from my cold, dead hands. Not that I’m shallow or anything.

Still, it’s quite clear that money and the things you can buy with it often don’t bring lasting happiness. When a rich person kills himself, a typical question is why did he do it, he had everything he needed, everything to live for. Obviously, the deceased didn’t view it that way.

We see that also with celebrities who either take their own lives or engage in behavior that ineluctably will lead to an earlier than normal demise. Few exhibit the apparent self-introspection of George Sanders, an Academy Award winning actor who overdosed on pills in 1972. His suicide note read: “Dear World. I am leaving because I am bored. I feel I have lived long enough. I am leaving you with your worries in this sweet cesspool. Good luck.”
Continue reading “Christmas Contemplations”

00Publius Contributor - Constitution - Democrats/Leftists - Founders - News - Patriotism - Selwyn Duke - Uncategorized

How Free Are We Really?

December 17, 2007 by

-By Selwyn Duke

We Americans take great pride in our freedom. We call ourselves “the land of the free, home of the brave,” have Lady Liberty in New York Harbor and the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia. America is synonymous with freedom in the minds of most. Much of the rest of the world, however, is thought a land of darkness which doesn’t benefit from our unencumbered bliss. Thus do we speak of the free and unfree worlds.

In reality, it’s not that simple. There is neither such thing as a people with complete freedom nor one completely bereft of it; it’s a matter of degree.

While many realize this, few understand that there is a barometer with which liberty can be measured: The number of laws in existence.

By definition, a law is the removal of a freedom, as it dictates that there is something you cannot or must do. If the former, you’re not free to do it; if the latter, you’re not free to do otherwise.

Many rightly point out that some laws free us from the tyranny of our fellow man. Prohibitions against murder, rape and theft, for instance, provide us the freedom to walk down the street unmolested. Yet for two reasons this barometer of liberty is still valid. First, when we speak of how free a nation is, we refer to freedom from government intrusion. Second, while such laws are necessary and just, they do nevertheless deny us certain freedoms. Only, we’re not going to worry about freedoms whose removal only bothers Tony Soprano.

Yet we long ago transitioned from making just laws to just making laws, which is why I look forward with a sense of foreboding. Every year our nation enacts more and more laws but hardly ever rescinds any, which means every year we become progressively less free. I call this “creeping totalitarianism.”
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00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Founders - Media Bias - News - Society/Culture - Uncategorized - Warner Todd Huston

New York Times Discovers a Founding Father

December 14, 2007 by 2 Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

Fascinating story in The New York Times, the other day…

“Made for Washington, Given to Lafayette, a Medal Sells for $5.3 Million”, NY/Region Section, The New York Times

By GLEN CULLINS, Published: December 12, 2007

A gold medal that was created for George Washington, who was apparently our first president and richest, most vicious slave owner in America, and presented to the Marquis de Lafayette, a French man fooled into helping the nascent American rebellion, was auctioned at Sotheby’s in Manhattan on Tuesday for a record $5.3 million, and will remain in France after residing there for 183 years where it can be viewed by Americans seeking a better life in Europe.

The enameled patriotic badge was bought by the Fondation Josée et René de Chambrun at the Château La Grange, Lafayette’s historic home 60 miles east of Paris, the “City of Lights” and heart of all intellectual pursuits in the world today.

The medal, made for members of the Society of the Cincinnati, a legendary group of Revolutionary War rebels and vigilantes, “is a symbol of French friendship, and there are only two places where it should reside — La Grange and Mount Vernon,” said Christophe Van de Weghe, a Manhattan gallery owner who was the bidder for the Fondation Chambrun at Sotheby’s and has a really great sounding name that is not as base and gauche as is Fred, Rudy or even George. He was referring to Washington’s historic residence in Virginia where slaves were whipped and forced to labor until they dropped by the haughty and cold Washington.

The medal will be available to the public by appointment at Chateau La Grange “as soon as Sotheby’s gets it there,” he said, adding that “the Fondation would be happy to make the medal available on temporary loan to Mount Vernon, so the American public can see it as well.” Though it is doubted that anyone in the USA even knows who this Washington fellow is. We here at the New York Times offices were amazed by the news that this fellow even existed and we are ashamed to be from the same country he is from. We hope our friends in France realize this.

Continue reading “New York Times Discovers a Founding Father”

00Publius Contributor - Congress - Constitution - Democrats/Leftists - History - Media Bias - News - President - Religion - Society/Culture - Thomas Brewton - Uncategorized

Primary Perspective

December 13, 2007 by

-By Thomas E. Brewton

Presidential primary campaigns illustrate politics as manipulation of, as well as pandering to, public opinion, with no necessary connection to political wisdom.

Gail Collins, editorial page editor of the New York Times, in a December 8 edition op-ed article, reflects liberals’ embrace of mobocracy at the expense of Constitutional government.

She writes:

Romney’s message, which boiled down to let’s-all-be-religious-together, was certainly different from the John Kennedy version, which argued that a candidate’s religion is irrelevant. But then Kennedy was speaking to the country, while Romney had his attention fixed on the approximately 35,000 Iowa religious conservatives who will tip the balance in the first-in-the-nation Republican caucus.

Can I pause here briefly to point out that in New York there are approximately 35,000 people living on some blocks? If my block got to decide the first presidential caucus, I guarantee you we would be as serious about our special role as the folks in Iowa are. And right now Mitt Romney would be evoking the large number of founding fathers who were agnostics.

First, there was no “large number of founding fathers who were agnostics.”
Continue reading “Primary Perspective”

2nd Amendment - Constitution - Crime - Democrats/Leftists - History - Media Bias - Military - News - Security/Safety - Society/Culture - Uncategorized

The oh so controversial second amendment

December 13, 2007 by

-By Bruce Kauffmann
Special to the Terre Haute, Indiana Tribune-Star

I saw this and jsut had to get it on Publius’ Forum…

The oh so controversial second amendment

— When the Bill of Rights was ratified this week (Dec. 15) in 1791, the Founders never dreamed that centuries later the Second Amendment would become so controversial. To them, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed,” was fairly straightforward language.

How wrong they were, as evidenced by the Supreme Court’s recent decision to rule on whether Washington, D.C.’s strict firearms law violates the Constitution, “a decision,” The Washington Post wrote, “that will raise the politically and culturally divisive issue of gun control just in time for the 2008 elections.”

The main controversy is over the phrase “A well regulated militia,” and its relationship to the statement “the people’s right to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Gun-control advocates believe this language means that if you don’t belong to a “regulated militia” your right to own a gun can be “infringed.”

Gun-rights advocates counter by noting that the amendment does not grant a right; it recognizes a right already granted. The amendment does not say, “The people have the right to keep and bear arms.”

It says, “the (already established) right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” And they have a point. As even the Supreme Court has acknowledged, the right to own firearms precedes the Bill of Rights.

Gun advocates also note that because the amendment gives the right to bear arms to the “people,” not the states, claiming that this right is dependent on anything the states do or don’t do — including forming militias — is ludicrous. After all, the Bill of Rights mentions no specific rights that the states possess, but several the people do.

Two additional points: In 1791, most state militias did not give guns to militiamen when militias were formed. Militiamen brought their guns with them — from home. Indeed, the amendment says they can “keep” their firearms, not merely “bear” them during military service.

Finally, (my hero) James Madison’s original Second Amendment language was as follows: “The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well armed and well regulated militia being the best security of a free country.” Written that way, he is saying that if the people don’t have the right to arms, there can’t be a militia. That Congress reversed the order does not change Madison’s intent.

Granted, all constitutional rights, including free speech and gun ownership, are subject to reasonable restrictions — you can’t yell “Fire” in a crowded theater, and felons can’t possess firearms. But the general right to own firearms is constitutionally protected. We will see what the Supreme Court thinks.

Bruce Kauffmann’s e-mail address is bruce@historylessons.net

00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Health - History - Nancy Salvato - News - Religion - Society/Culture - Uncategorized

What If the Right to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness Was Relative?

December 12, 2007 by 1 Comment

-By Nancy Salvato

For thousands of years, people have pondered the age old question, why I am here and what happens when I die. Depending on the answers a person hears during this time on earth, there can be a variety of different explanations. For many of us, there is the notion that we are here to serve a higher purpose. For others, life is simply what we make of it and it’s over when our bodies cease to function. Which answer is correct and how do we know?

The secular position on this question could be summed up by saying that, “the human race [is] an accidental by-product of blind material forces.” [1] The secularists come to such a conclusion by employing scientific reasoning to prove what is knowable and justify their position by saying that there is no evidence to believe in what is unknowable. Non secularists use scientific reasoning to argue that there is a God which began the whole chain of events which resulted in the human race.

Stephen Barr, in Anthropic Coincidences suggests because, ìlife depends on a delicate balance among the various fundamental forces of nature,î [2] the seemingly random chain of events which led up to our existence were perhaps not so random and were only possible if there was some catalyst for our coming into being. “The laws of nature did not have to be as they are; and the laws of nature had to be very special in form if life were to be possible.” [3]
Continue reading “What If the Right to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness Was Relative?”

00Publius Contributor - Education - GOP - History - News - Patriotism - Society/Culture - Uncategorized - Warner Todd Huston

Has Conservatism Lost its Soul?

December 11, 2007 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

For those of you who feel that the conservative movement has lost its soul, the New Centurion Program has begun.

I quote from their webpage:

Typically, programs focus on either intellectual cultivation or communication skills. Our program seeks to synthesize both the wisdom of our conservative heritage as well as the most up to date practical experience from local experts in public policy and communication.

There are specific reasons The New Centurion Program is different from existing programs. First, it is locally based with a local concentration of students and lecturers. While there is certainly an over-arching theoretical basis to the coursework, that theoretical knowledge will be focused on local issues. Our Centurions do not have to travel to Auburn University or Washington D.C. – we bring the course to them. We plant roots in a community. Our students ages range from 18 – 70.

When a movement is lacking vision or a mission – as many conclude is the current state of the conservative movement; one must believe that by going back to the beginning and teaching the foundations of conservatism, providing individuals with a wealth of resources and reference materials and supportive relationships to facilitate that intellectual journey; it provides the analytical and practical tools necessary for individuals to grow and lead.

This is not a class for a grade. This is a course for an “experience;” a journey. This is not a campaign school. There are many other institutions that are great at providing these type of tactics and strategies – that is not our purpose.

So, what are we? In a nutshell – we provide the environment where “book smarts meet street smarts.”

I, for one, have always harped on education for conservatives being the bedrock upon which we can build. And that, without that knowledge, we are doomed to failure as well as doomed to be short lived. If we do not teach our young people the true values and underlying principles of the conservative movement, along with the logic and history to those principles, we simply cannot continue to create new conservatives into the future.

Conservatives have been the only ones with ideas since Barry Goldwater strode the national stage. Liberals have failed to keep up with scholarship and intellectual pursuits where conservatives have excelled, undermining the leftist movements world wide.

Check out this new group. It is sure to be worth your time.
Continue reading “Has Conservatism Lost its Soul?”

00Publius Contributor - Crime - Democrats/Leftists - History - Media Bias - News - President - Race - Security/Safety - Society/Culture - Uncategorized - Warner Todd Huston

Dick Simpson Whitewashing 60s Radicals

December 10, 2007 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

They always say that the passage of time sometimes dulls the memory of a person’s past, that oft times only the good memories remain. More often, though, time plus a large dollop of myth making and lies creates a whole new world out of the past. Dick Simpson is more evidence of the later than the former. In a whitewashing of the foolishness and destruction wrought by his anti-American comrades in the vaunted “summer of love,” Chicago Sun-Times columnist Simpson wonders “Can we revive ’60s-era ideals?” Surely, anyone who has a clear memory of those tumultuous days would quickly reply, “I sure hope not!”

To start with, Simpson ridiculously presents as fact at least one of the arguments for what the country “faced” in 1967 as framed by the radical leftists that formed the emerging counter culture of the 60s. He states in a factual way that the country, “faced three great crises: racial discrimination, the Vietnam War, and the imperial presidency in which all executive, legislative and judicial power was being gathered into the hands of the president.”

Now, who cannot agree with his first two issues? But that third one in retrospect is as silly as it gets. If LBJ — who was the Democrat president in 1967 and 1968, as you know — had created an “imperial presidency” in which was vested “all executive, legislative and judicial power” then why did he have to bow out of running for a second full term in the upcoming 1968 presidential election during those same years? LBJ did make a mash of Vietnam, it is true, but to imagine he had created the so-called “imperial presidency” that the country “faced” as a problem is not a rendition of the factual situation in 1967 but is merely a parroting of the uninformed opinion of the 60s hippies that began their efforts to undermine society at that time.

Now, the only real quibble Simpson’s uninformed contemporaries had with LBJ was his conduct of the war yet Simpson includes civil rights as an issue they protested for and an issue this legitimately nation faced. But LBJ was a leading figure in helping to push the civil rights agenda so Simpson’s protesters could hardly have had too much against Johnson on that count. State laws and practices were far more the obstacle to civil rights than Federal, in the final analysis. Yet, Simpson uncritically regurgitates the far left’s talking points even this far removed from the era when any unbiased review of the real history of the era proves those claims to be balderdash by now.

In his next colorful paragraph he continues to employ the failed assumptions of the losers in the counter culture movement quite despite sense and reality.
Continue reading “Dick Simpson Whitewashing 60s Radicals”

00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Education - Founders - Media Bias - Nancy Salvato - News - Religion - Security/Safety - Society/Culture - Uncategorized

In Defense of Freedom

December 8, 2007 by

-By Nancy Salvato

According to “Devilstower”, a blogger on the DailyKos website, human rights are more important than national security. She explains, “Even if it was sure to be lost in a terrorist attack today, my life is not worth the Constitution. The life of my child is not worth the Constitution.” This same blogger believes that presidents Bush, Roosevelt, and Lincoln set aside their duty to uphold the constitution in exchange for the illusion of security.

“Devilstower” seems to have missed the whole idea behind instituting a constitution, which is that government is instituted to protect the peoples’ right to life, liberty and property, and the right to defend themselves against those who would rob, enslave, or kill them. This right, which the Constitution is designed to protect, is derived from Natural Law* not from the Constitution itself.

Abraham Lincoln, in his Gettysburg Address, proclaims:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that “all men are created equal.”

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of it, as a final resting place for those who died here, that the nation might live. This we may, in all propriety do. But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow, this ground– The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have hallowed it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here; while it can never forget what they did here.

It is rather for us, the living, to stand here, we here be dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that, from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here, gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve these dead shall not have died in vain; that the nation, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people by the people for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

“Devilstower states, “The life of hundreds — thousands — is not worth setting aside the rights ensured to us by the Constitution. Because setting aside the Constitution is a defeat greater than any that can be delivered to us by any instrument of terror or war.” Isn’t it clear that those soldiers, of whom Lincoln spoke, gave their lives to preserve the union and to end the practice of slavery, a practice which had been under the protection of our Constitution?
Continue reading “In Defense of Freedom”