Rand Paul is prepared to stop President Obama’s gun control plans. He says his gun control plans, especially the ones Obama thinks he can do via executive order, must be stopped. Rand Paul has come up with legislation - Separation of Powers Restoration and Second Amendment Protection Act - which would nullify Obama’s executive orders on gun control and preserve the 2nd Amendment.
Paul says his legislation will declare that “Any executive order by President Obama infringing on the Second Amendment rights of all Americans would be declared null and void” and “would prohibit federal funds to implement President Obama’s executive orders impacting the 2nd Amendment.”
Talking Points Memo has a more detailed outline of Sen. Rand Paul’s legislation.
President Obama has absolutely no authority under the Constitution to use his executive powers to pen an executive order which would infringe upon citizens 2nd Amendment rights.
Things are heating up in Michigan. Democrats threatened violence in response to Right-to-Work legislation, viaHotAir, and violence is indeed what we’re seeing. Watch as conservative activist Steven Crowder asks union thugs not to tear down the Americans for Prosperity Tent. The response to Crowder is violent, including a brutal sucker punch as he enters the AFP tent, near the end of the video.
First came the horrid Supreme Court decision on the Arizona law at the beginning of this week and now heaven help us with the latest horrendous Supreme Court decision on Obamacare. Most of Arizona’s anti-illegal immigration law was struck down and Obamacare in its totality was upheld by the Supreme Court. Both decisions are catastrophic for the cause of liberty.
The ruling on the Arizona law SB1070 was a devastating blow to states’ rights. Plus, the one part of the law which was upheld the Obama administration made it abundantly clear that they are unwilling to follow the rule of law and work with Arizona. Basically the Obama administration and the Supreme Court let Arizona know that the state is on its own. They are saying to Arizona: “You are not allowed to deal with the issue of illegal immigration even though there is a law on the books against coming to the USA the improper way and we are unwilling to enforce those laws since the more immigrants who cross the border the better it is for the Democrat Party. To heck with the laws of the land. We only will enforce the one’s we agree with.”
I haven’t read Justice Antonin Scalia’s entire dissenting opinion on the Arizona decision but the paragraphs that I have read are spot on.
The president said at a news conference that the new program is ‘the right thing to do’ in light of Congress’s failure to pass the administration’s proposed revision of the Immigration Act,” Scalia, a Reagan appointee, wrote in his dissent. “Perhaps it is, though Arizona may not think so. But to say, as the Court does, that Arizona contradicts federal law by enforcing applications of the Immigration Act that the President declines to enforce boggles the mind.
Arizona bears the brunt of the country’s illegal immigration problem. Its citizens feel themselves under siege by large numbers of illegal immigrants who invade their property, strain their social services, and even place their lives in jeopardy. Federal officials have been unable to remedy the problem,and indeed have recently shown that they are unwilling to do so. Thousands of Arizona’s estimated 400,000 illegal immigrants—including not just children but men and women under 30—are now assured immunity from enforcement, and will be able to compete openly with Arizona citizens for employment.
“Must Arizona’s ability to protect its borders yield to the reality that Congress has provided inadequate funding for federal enforcement—or, even worse, to the executive’s unwise targeting of that funding?” Scalia asked. Later, he added: “What I do fear—and what Arizona and the States that support it fear—is that ‘federal policies’ of nonenforcement will leave the States helpless before those evil effects of illegal immigration.”
The federal government “does not want to enforce the immigration laws as written, and leaves the States’ borders unprotected against immigrants whom those laws would exclude.”
When I heard the news that the Supreme Court upheld Obamacare let’s just say I was in shock and couldn’t believe it at first. Especially since they didn’t strike down the insurance mandate. Then when I was told that the justices who voted to uphold Obamacare inserted their own arguments in order so the law would be considered constitutional I became furious. They rejected Obama’s lawyer’s arguments and inserted their own so that the law would be considered constitutional. Obama argued that the penalty wasn’t a tax. But the Supreme Court justices who upheld Obamacare made the case for the Obama govt. that the fine is a really a tax. Geesh. That doesn’t make sense. Is definitely absurd.
Is this another nail in liberty’s coffin? With Justices Alito, Scalia, and Thomas’s dissent in voting to strike down Obamacare they stood for liberty and followed the Constitution as our Founding Father’s instituted it in our nation. The justices who upheld Obamacare did not follow the Constitution as it was envisioned by our Founding Fathers. They are okay with interpreting the Constitution in their own way and remaking America into a different America which is less free with federal expansion and overreach into our lives. Unfortunately the transformation of America into some socialists wet dream is taking place. Sadly, that “shining city upon a hill whose beacon of light which guides freedom-loving people everywhere” as Ronald Reagan described the United States in his farewell address to the nation is dimming…. fading…. and quickly. We have very little time to stop this nation from going further down the dark abyss of tyranny. Both decisions, but especially the Obamacare decision, makes it an apparent necessity for citizens to vote out the big government freedom-hating Obama. Libertarians, conservatives, independents, republicans, and democrats who love liberty must vote for Mitt Romney to stem the bleeding and start the recovery process to regain lost liberties.
I want to thank John Bascom for asking me to write this review of his debut novel, Caine’s Pestilence. I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book. This novel was a page-turner which piqued my interest to know what was coming next after each twist and turn of the plot. Caine’s Pestilence is a dystopian novel set in the near future in which there is a conspiracy by the government to influence its citizens by using its power to control their lives through every means possible. It gives us an idea of how things might look in the United States if we continue to allow government intrusiveness into our lives and permit it to expand like it has been steadily expanding and growing over at least the past 50 years or so.
The protagonist of the novel is a man named John Caine. John was just an “average joe” with a family living in Detroit, working as a bank manager, living the American Dream, when out of the blue he was contacted by an individual working for the National Institutes of Health who offered him the job of a lifetime, or so it seemed at the time. Reality was far from what it seemed for John Caine, for it was at the behest of the secret cabal within the government that he was hired in the first place. What happened next John could not have imagined in his wildest dreams, how drastically his life would be altered due to plans having already been set in motion.
As John Caine became more comfortable in his new position at the NIH laboratory he began to put his personal penchant for scientific tinkering to practice. He performed various experiments under the radar (which played into the conspirators’ sinister plans for him). The unexpected result, not anticipated by either John or those who were secretly setting him up, was something that might also be considered the title character of the novel. I called Caine the protagonist, and not the main character or title character, because there is another contender for those descriptives: the “pestilence” that Caine produced – a virus which functioned not so much as a new disease, but as a virally propagated cure for an already existing condition. More than that I cannot reveal without dropping a huge spoiler.
The action and suspense of the novel kicks into high gear as the government is willing to resort to anything to control the cure so that they can ensure that it stays hidden and is kept a secret from the ordinary citizenry, for they believed that the cure was worse than the disease, at least as far as it touched on their power.
I highly recommend Caine’s Pestilence as a fun and thought-provoking good read. This is one of the most intriguing and best novels that I have ever read. You can find John Bascom’s site here.
As a candidate gains in the polls they are scrutinized more and more, and rightly so. Candidates are scrutinized about their present political positions and the positions they held in the past, especially if those positions differ from one another. The candidates personal lives and other beliefs even come under fire. The fact that this happens is very healthy for the process of choosing the candidate who would be best qualified for the job of President.
Recently, Ron Paul has been gaining in the polls so one should expect that some of his political positions and past controversial statements or writings would come under increased scrutiny more so than before. Now he has come under fire for Ron Paul Newsletters which contained inflammatory comments on race in them. Here are a couple of examples from an article posted on Reason:
Dr. Ron Paul, a Republican congressional candidate from Texas, wrote in his political newsletter in 1992 that 95 percent of the black men in Washington, D.C., are “semi-criminal or entirely criminal.”
…we are constantly told that it is evil to be afraid of black men, it is hardly irrational. Black men commit murders, rapes, robberies, muggings and burglaries all out of proportion to their numbers.
“Order was only restored in L.A. when it came time for the blacks to pick up their welfare checks”
In 2008 Ron Paul repudiated the derogatory racist comments.
But there is a mystery behind who actually wrote these derogatory statements. There is no definitive knowledge as to who actually wrote these letters because no person has admitted doing so. But, the fact that Ron Paul’s name was on these letters and the probability that he didn’t have knowledge of what was stated in these letters is likely low concerns me. Some Paul supporters are up in arms that he is being scrutinized just like the other candidates. I think that the content of the Ron Paul Newsletters is fair game for the media. Whether Ron Paul has racist tendencies I am not sure one way or the other. But, I do think certain questions need to be answered with regards to the Ron Paul Letters.
In his post Conspiracy, Subsidiarity, and Zombie Economics, Morning’s Minion at Vox Nova takes a welcome critical look at our blog. He was provoked by its name into taking issue with the claim of compatibility of Catholic teaching with libertarian political philosophy. Excellent! That is just the sort of conversation this blog was intended to bring about, and why it was given a controversial word invention as its name.
MM equates libertarianism per se with individualism, specifically that which His Holiness Pius XI condemns with his Twin Shipwrecks metaphor as “what is known as ‘individualism’.” But, to our disappointment, MM does not elaborate on this, so we are left with a bald, unsupported assumption that what he (Morning’s Minion) means when he uses the word “individualism” is the same as what His Holiness meant by the phrase “what is known as ‘individualism’ ” (the pope put the word in quotes), and also the same as what we mean by the word “libertarian” when we conjoin it with Catholicism. That is hardly a fair scholarly assumption, let alone a charitable one, and we maintain that it is off the mark.
He claims that “There is no such thing as a ‘Catholibertarian’ “… obviously we do not agree! :) Perhaps he has failed to look at the component of the neologism “Catholibertarian” which is aligned with Catholicism. He claims that libertarianism is “heretical” but as we said above he confuses libertarianism with the individualism as condemned by Pope Pius XI. While we contend that the word “Catholic” has a fairly consistent, well-defined meaning (the Church has been drawing distinctions between true believers in Christ and heretics for almost the entirety of Her long history), the word “libertarian”, especially when used as the suffix of ”Catholibertarian”, is quite loose and flexible in its application. Libertarianism does not necessarily promote unfettered individualism, and any assumption that we promote unfettered libertarianism is a false one. While we do not fault anyone for making that assumption (indeed, we have almost just about invited such an assumption as a way to get an interesting conversation going), we will always point out the mistake. There are varying applications of the word libertarian and we believe that MM too rigidly pigeon-holes us into a heretical category by his insufficiently flexible understanding of that word.
Any philosophy that goes by the name “Libertarianism” will at least be based on intuitive the belief that there should be a limited amount of government intervention in both the economy and our personal lives. Defining those limits is a matter in which individual libertarians may differ significantly. Libertarianism does not necessarily imply that there should be absolutely no government intervention whatsoever. That would be anarchism, not libertarianism. Some who claim to be libertarians may believe in eliminating the role of government entirely, but there is a wide range of beliefs along the libertarian spectrum.
Libertarianism is unfairly reputed to be uncharitable. Libertarianism per se does not eschew charity, but it reminds people that charity, as such, cannot be coerced. Libertarians are for charity of the heart, the person’s choice to give out of charity rather than an excessive government role in forced charity. Forced charity is not charity at all. An excessive amount of government taxation used to fund a glut of failed social programs as we have today takes away the individual’s freedom to choose to be charitable responsibly.
At this point in the conversation we have decided to edit the text where we define the term that serves as our blog’s title in order to help people avoid the sort of understandable and innocent confusion into which Morning’s Minion has fallen. Here is our new, edited description of what constitutes a Catholibertarian:
The word Catholibertarian is a self-explanatory neologism invented by Kevin T. Rice, co-founder of this blog with his wife, Teresa Rice of Teresamerica. A Catholibertarian is someone who accepts both the Catholic faith and traditional Libertarian principles of limited government but not unfettered Libertarianism which hurts the poor, and which the Catholic Church condemns. As it is uncommon to find two Libertarians who agree on very much, there is a wide room for difference of opinion and degree of commitment to at least the latter part of this composite.
Moving on, Morning’s Minion says that claims of Vox Nova holding “heretical” views are unsubstantiated. That is why Teresa alternatively labelled them as quasi-heretical beliefs. (Morning’s Minion himself does the same with our embrace of the term “libertarian”). Vox Novans have clearly aligned themselves with a big government philosophy which is also aligned with Socialism, Communism, and Marxism. These types of economic philosophies are not ordered to the common good. These economic systems violate the common good. Socialism, Communism, and Marxism have been condemned by the Church throughout Her modern history. Here are some instances where Vox Novans have not condemned but in fact been sympathetic to socialism and put it in a positive light – here, here, and here. Henry Karlson thinks that no sovereign state or at least the United States has no right to secure its borders and demand that people come here via legal means, even though the Catechism points this out as being a legitimate demand for a State. In his folly Karlson equates wanting to enforce the rule of law with policies coming directly out of the Soviet Union. Karlson sure does like to cling to those extremes! Morning’s Minion derides Father Corapi’s attack on socialism, claiming that he is quoting Rerum Novarum “out of context” but fails to support that characterization by providing even one example of a misuse of the text that could be corrected by contextual cues.
Rerum Novarum is as strongly worded a condemnation of socialism as any that has ever been written, and in our reading of it (which is admittedly open to [reluctant] correction), there is not much ambiguity in Pope Leo XIII’s use of that word, nor has there been a definitively significant change in the meaning of that words in the 120 years that have elapsed since RN was written and the present day that would be sufficient to excuse the promotion of principles and philosophies that still fall esentially into that category by Catholics today. In any event, if the history of the 20th century makes anything clear, it is that all applications of that philosophy have been utterly calamitous and disastrous failures every time they have been applied on a Statewide scale.
Here is an interesting article on Ron Paul and his supporters which I found on the net. This goes into the nuttiness of many Ron Paul supporters. Now, I don’t think that all Ron Paul supporters are extreme in their views but many do espouse certain unconventional or utopian views with regards to certain political positions.
By Jeffrey Lord:
To bring about radical and permanent change in any society, our primary focus must be on the conversion of minds through education. — Congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul
Sigh.
Somebody needs to say this.
Does Ron Paul have a lot of interesting ideas he puts forward as a presidential candidate?
Yes. From his honestly libertarian views (he was the 1988 Libertarian presidential nominee, so he’s been at this a long time) to his willingness to challenge the status quo on economics (questioning the role of everything from sugar subsidies to the Federal Reserve) to his emphasis on the Constitution and the Founding Fathers, Congressman Paul has been fearless in sticking with his principles. And in bringing new ideas — or old ideas — to an American electorate that has been staggered by the far-left reality that is the Obama Administration.
But as complaints surface in the wake of his strong showing in the Iowa Straw Poll, complaints from Paul supporters and candidate Paul himself that he is not receiving the attention that is his due — someone should say the Congressman and his supporters are correct. There should be — must be — more attention paid to the Paul campaign.
Why?
Because the Paul campaign is not just a campaign for president. This is a campaign — a serious campaign — to re-educate the American people to an alternate universe of reality. A campaign that goes far beyond whatever will happen at the polls in 2012.
And sorry to say, this re-education campaign does not present a pretty picture of itself.
Looming over the interesting and appealing ideas of the Paul campaign is a veritable political tornado of allegations involving anti-Semitism, racism, pacifism, far left-wingism and, at the edges, a tiny flicker of intimidation.
So let’s spill it all out on the table and take a look.
Neoliberals and Quasi-Cons:
When it comes to foreign policy, Ron Paul and his supporters are not conservatives.
This is important to understand when one realizes that Paul’s views are, self-described, “non-interventionist.”
The fact that he has been allowed to get away with pretending to conservatism on this score is merely reflective of journalists who, for whatever reason, are simply unfamiliar with American history. Ironically, it is precisely because the Paul campaign has not been thoroughly covered that no one pays attention to the historical paternity of what the candidate is saying.
There is no great sin in Paul’s non-interventionist stance (or “isolationist” stance as his critics would have it). There have been American politicians aplenty throughout American history, particularly in the 20th century, who believed precisely as Paul and his enthusiasts do right now. (Paul touts his admiration for the Founding Fathers, but even that is very selective. James Monroe of Monroe Doctrine fame was a considerable interventionist, Washington as a general invaded Canada, and Alexander Hamilton gave rise to Paul’s idea of evil spawn — the Federal Reserve. Interventionists of all types have been with us right from the start.)
The deception — and it is a considerable deception — is that almost to a person those prominent pre-Ron Paul non-interventionist “Paulist” politicians of the 20th century were overwhelmingly not conservatives at all. They were men of the left. The far left.
From three-time Democratic presidential nominee and Woodrow Wilson Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan to powerful Montana Democratic Senator Burton K. Wheeler to FDR’s ex-vice presidential nominee Henry Wallace to the 1968 anti-war presidential candidacy of Minnesota Democratic Senator Eugene McCarthy to 1972 Democratic presidential nominee (and Henry Wallace delegate in 1948) George McGovern, non-interventionists have held prominent positions in the American Left that was and is the Democratic Party.
But of particular interest, and here is where the deception by Paulists is so considerable, the Ron Paul view of foreign policy has been the cornerstone of Republican liberals and progressives. Those who, using current political terminology, would be called the RINOs (Republican In Name Only) of their day.
Specifically this included the following prominent leaders of the non-interventionist/isolationist camp:
• Liberal Republican William Borah, the Senator from Idaho • Liberal Republican George Norris, the Congressman and Senator from Nebraska • Liberal Republican Gerald Nye, the Senator from North Dakota • Liberal Republican Robert LaFollette Sr., the Senator from Wisconsin • Liberal Republican Robert LaFollette Jr., the Senator from Wisconsin
To go back and re-read the arguments of these prominent GOP liberals as to why America should not intervene in World War I or World War II, striking dated references, and one would think one were reading the latest Ron Paul press release. George Norris and LaFollette Sr. were both vocal opponents of World War I, for instance, blaming “greed” (LaFollette) and “munition” makers, the early 20th century version of Paul’s attacks on “neoconservatives” or the military-industrial complex.
The one prominent exception on this score was the decided anti-New Dealer, Ohio Senator Robert Taft. Senator Taft was viewed as the pre-eminent conservative in his time in the U.S. Senate (elected in 1938, he died as the new Senate Majority Leader in 1953). But even Senator Taft ran straight into a part of the problem that Congressman Paul is encountering. While he was known as “Mr. Republican,” Taft’s non-interventionist streak — which was considerable and thoroughly cloaked in the language of constitutionalism — was seen by conservatives in the day as a confounding break with his conservatism. Snapped Taft’s thoroughly conservative Uncle Horace Taft (brother of Taft’s presidential father William Howard Taft) to conservative friends over his nephew’s unwillingness to understand the danger posed by Adolph Hitler: He (Robert Taft) was “one of the best fellows in the world [but] dead wrong on foreign policy.” As if to prove the point, Taft refused an endorsement request from Joe McCarthy — supporting the liberal Republican and McCarthy primary opponent LaFollette, Jr. McCarthy won anyway.
Why is this important now?
Because Ron Paul, as noted, has deservedly developed a reputation for fiscal conservatism. Just as all of those Liberal Republicans from days long gone by were able to run and get elected as Republicans by developing enough of a conservative reputation for something seen as the conservative position in the time — support for a tariff here or a government reform over there. All the while carrying the liberal flag for Bryan’s left-wing Populism or Wilson’s Progressive New Freedom or FDR’s New Deal.
So if Ron Paul is conservative on domestic issues, but of a like mind with liberal non-interventionists of both parties, what precisely is Ron Paul?
The right term is certainly not conservative.
From liberal Republicans Borah, Norris, and Nye to the liberal Republican father and son LaFollettes, not to mention non-interventionists on the Democrats’ side from Bryan to Burton Wheeler, Wallace, McCarthy and McGovern, some version of out-and-out liberalism was the order of the day for all. Liberal Republican LaFollette Sr. and liberal Democrat Senator Wheeler even teamed up to run on the Progressive Party presidential ticket in 1924, supported by no less than the Socialist Party.
The proper term for Paul and his followers, then, would take into account this political half horse/half man philosophical creativity. Conservative on domestic policy, a staunch advocate of historically liberal views on foreign policy.
Ron Paul is what might be called a “Neo-Liberal.” Or even a “Quasi-Conservative.”
A precise political book-end to those hated “Neo-Conservatives” Paul and company love to fantasize as everyone else in the political world who doesn’t support Congressman Paul.
So what?
While one is free to disagree with his views, taken alone there’s nothing off the tracks here. But unfortunately, Paul’s views are not a stand-alone. If, to get right to the point, one is a self-described “non-interventionist” in foreign policy, history shows non-interventionists have been historically incapable of resisting what they clearly see as the next step after making the non-interventionist case. That next step?
Finding someone to blame for the calls to intervene in this or that war or international situation.
And right here is where Paul and his neolibs, in the style of his neolib predecessors, begin going off the rails.
• Anti-Semitism
Disturbingly, the history of Neoliberalism is replete with charges of anti-Semitism.
While this is a charge in today’s political dialogue that has been thrown repeatedly at Paul and his neolib followers (more of which shortly), it has reared its ugly head with earlier neolibs long before Paul was on the political scene. It is a charge that appears to be inevitable when the core premise of non-interventionism is that some dark force somewhere is pushing America into an unconstitutional interventionist war.
All too often that dark force for the Neoliberals turns out to be the scapegoat of hard-leftists everywhere in the world: the Jews.
A story from history.
Before Pearl Harbor, as the war in America over going to war in Europe raged, the once fierce opposition by the American people to taking on Hitler and the Nazis began to change as Hitler’s relentless march through Europe picked up speed. This opposition also began to change in Hollywood, and soon a small raft of anti-Hitler, anti-Nazi films began to appear. These included Confessions of a Nazi Spy starring Edward G. Robinson (1939), Alfred Hitchcock’s 1940 Foreign Correspondent and, hilariously, Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator (1940).
A virus is spreading throughout the world. It affects the comprehension and common sense portion of the brain and leaves its victims dumbed-down and easily herded by the propaganda masters and their political cult. Carrie’s Take strives to provide an antidote to the mind-control and hopefully will stir up memories of long ago when our society demanded truth & honesty in journalism and expected it to be the guardian of facts, rather than PR mouth pieces for self-serving politicians and their personal agendas. ~Carrie K. Hutchens
"Imam al-Khomeini spent the night with the girl in his arms, and we could hear her crying and screaming" -- Husayn al-Musawi witness account of Ayatollah Khomeini raping a small 4-year old
Knowledge of history is the precondition of political intelligence. Without history, a society shares no common memory of where it has been, what its core values are, or what decisions of the past account for present circumstances.
