Patriot Post Daily Quote

"There are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations." --James Madison, speech to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, 1788

Re-Posted In It's Entirety

Alexander's Essay – July 8, 2010
Barackracy, Part 1
Breaking the Back of Free Enterprise

Folks with extensive training in strategic analysis tend to have a very different viewpoint of the macro-political machinations from that of folks in the trenches who have a more tactical perspective. As such, strategic viewpoints are many times received with great skepticism.

At ground level, for example, one might have a problem with the following strategic analysis: It would appear that Barack Hussein Obama's macro agenda for the U.S. economy is to break the back of capitalism and, in the ensuing crisis, use government intervention to replace it with a more refined socialist economic framework than the one currently in place.

If that analysis makes you uncomfortable, prepare to become far more so if his agenda succeeds.
As one with excessive formal training in the art of strategic analysis, I can assure you that Obama's plan, as outlined above, is progressing on schedule.

In regard to the failing economy, Obama recently said, "Make no mistake, we are headed in the right direction, but ... we're not headed there fast enough for a lot of Americans."

Many people hear those words and interpret them to mean that we're progressing toward economic recovery. However, the strategic analyst hears that the Left's objective of a socialized economy is just upon the horizon, that Obama and company would like to bring it to dock at a much faster pace and with such forceful momentum to ensure that the "fundamental transformation of America" can't be undone.

House Minority Leader John Boehner gets it. In regard to House Democrats' passage of Obama's so called "economic reform plan," Boehner responded, "The writing is on the wall for President Obama's 'stimulus' policies and everyone -- taxpayers, economists, and the rest of the world -- sees it but him. How much longer are we going to continue with this disastrous spending spree that is scaring the hell out of the American people and piling debt on our kids and grandkids?"
Answer: As long as it takes to fulfill their Leftist agenda.

"We had to take some tough steps to pull the country out of the free fall we faced when I took office," says the blame-shifting Obama.

For the record, the current economic debacle began with a crisis of confidence in the U.S. housing and security markets -- a crisis largely driven by Democrat policies and their refusal to rein in the government-sponsored mortgage enterprises known as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
The ensuing financial market collapse in the weeks ahead of the 2008 presidential election resulted in the selection of a charismatic radical Leftist community organizer as president of the United States.

Commenting on the agenda of his newly elected boss, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said infamously, "Never allow a crisis to go to waste." And they haven't.

It is no small irony that on the very day Obama asserted the economy is "headed in the right direction," the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office reported, based on the implementation of Obama's "economic recovery" agenda thus far, that the current accumulation of debt will exceed 100 percent of gross domestic production by 2025, and will total almost twice GDP by 2035.

But not to worry, I suspect our economy will collapse long before our national debt reaches that level. The burden of debt accumulation at current levels makes the current economic problems of socialist European states seem like gnats on an elephant's ... uh, rear.

The CBO report concludes, "Large budget deficits would reduce national saving, leading to higher interest rates, more borrowing from abroad, and less domestic investment -- which in turn would lower income growth in the United States. Growing debt would also reduce lawmakers' ability to respond to economic downturns and other challenges. Over time, higher debt would increase the probability of a fiscal crisis in which investors would lose confidence in the government's ability to manage its budget, and the government would be forced to pay much more to borrow money."

In other words, unless Obama's agenda is overturned, the U.S. will one day be a subsidiary of Red China.

On the principles of free enterprise, Obama proclaims, "We already tried the other side's ideas. We already know where their theories led us. And now we have a choice as a nation. We can return to the failed economic policies of the past, or we can keep building a stronger future. We can go backward, or we can keep moving forward. I don't know about you, but I want to move forward."

Obama apparently hopes a majority of Americans have no idea where the Left's theories led in places like the Soviet Union. Unfortunately, he's probably right, given that many of his constituents are little more than sycophantic lemmings, having been sufficiently dumbed down in our government-run education institutions.

Obama's primary co-conspirator in this extra-constitutional folly to undermine the economy is House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, she of the following ridiculous claim: "When I became Speaker of the House, the very first day we passed legislation that made Paygo the rule of the House. The federal government will pay as it goes."

In other words, she promised that Congress would not pass unfunded spending bills. But that would mean either radically reining in spending, or implementing vast new tax initiatives on virtually all income earners, which she and Obama promised they would not do. Thus, Pelosi's Congress has added more than $1 trillion to the national debt, taking the U.S. Debt Clock beyond the $13 trillion mark.

To put their plan into perspective, national debt was about 40 percent of GDP when Obama took office, but with the economic recession resulting in greatly reduced tax revenues, the national debt will be 62 percent of GDP by the end of this year. That would be an increase of more than 50 percent in just two years. (I recommend you read this paragraph at least twice!)

For a complete analysis of federal waste, see the Heritage Foundation's study, "30,543 Reasons Spending Is Out of Control."

To make matters worse, Obama continues to inflate the bloated central government beyond any recognition of its constitutional authority even as American families and businesses must cut back to make ends meet. Adding insult to injury, non-military federal employee salaries are now 40 percent higher than private sector salaries on average, and while private sector benefit packages average $9,882, government employee benefits average $32,115.

This week, Obama laughingly launched his annual "SAVE" Award dog and pony show, ostensibly encouraging federal employees to recommend how to save taxpayer dollars. I have more than a few ideas, but Obama did not ask taxpayers how to save taxpayer dollars.

That old sage Will Rogers once quipped, "Be thankful we're not getting all the government we're paying for." If he only knew...

Demonstrating the extent to which government has exceeded its constitutional mandate, my colleague Walter Williams wrote, "In 1794, when Congress appropriated $15,000 to assist some French refugees, James Madison, the acknowledged father of our Constitution, stood on the floor of the House to object, saying, 'I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.' He later added, '[T]he government of the United States is a definite government, confined to specified objects. It is not like the state governments, whose powers are more general. Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government.'"

Professor Williams concludes, "Two hundred years later, at least two-thirds of a multi-trillion-dollar federal budget is spent on charity or 'objects of benevolence.'"

Is there still time to restore the primacy of Free Enterprise over Socialism and turn back Obama and his Leftist ilk?

The short answer is, yes. Next week Part 2 of this essay, "Reversing Course and Restoring Liberty," will clearly outline how to restore the constitutional role of government.

Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!
Mark Alexander
Publisher, The Patriot Post

A New Declaration of Patriotism

The Patriot Declaration

Across our great nation, there is a groundswell of protest against the leftist agenda of those now holding power in the Executive and Legislative branches of the central government.

The tenor of this grassroots movement is growing louder as its number swells and its purpose becomes defined. It is a protest characterized not by a roar for revolution, but by a clarion call for restoration -- repair of our Constitution's authority and return to its standard for Rule of Law.

George Washington proclaimed, "The Constitution, which at any time exists 'till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole People, is sacredly obligatory upon all."

Further, as Alexander Hamilton made clear in Federalist No. 81, "[T]here is not a syllable in the [Constitution] which directly empowers the national courts to construe the laws according to the spirit of the Constitution...."

Much less so is there any provision for the Executive or Legislative branches to rely upon interpretation of such language as that in the "Commerce Clause" to justify all manner of government intrusion, such as the newly implemented nationalization of health care.

The rest of it is here.

Step by Step Inch By Inch

It's very easy to follow when you actually see it happening.

Stage One- Take over the legislative and executive branches of government by posing a social reformers, friends of the poor and offering greatly expanded government services financed by taxing the “rich”. (DONE)

Stage Two- Demonize and marginalize the opposition and the opposition press. As the majority of the population begins to question the government and its so called reforms, use the state controlled media to characterize the majority as a tiny extremist fringe. (IN PROGRESS)

Stage Three -Declare that opposition is a danger. People attending opposition rallies are denounced. The opposition party and opposition media of are accused of advocating and encouraging violence. Demands made that all such incitement to violence stop. (IN PROGRESS)

Stage Four- Opposition newspapers and broadcast outlets are closed. Government thugs disrupt opposition rallies and assault participants. (DONE) Government takes over election boards and ballot counting. (DONE)

Stage Five - Establishment of large para-military internal security force and mass arrests of opponents. (Including ‘liberals’ who supported the initial government takeover).(BEING PLANNED AS WE SPEAK)

Mark Alexander-The Patriot Post

Second Amendment -- Still 'The Palladium of Liberties'
Mark Alexander

Now more than ever, armed Patriots must stand ready, in the words of Patrick Henry, to "Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel."

"The ultimate authority ... resides in the people alone. ... The advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation ... forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition." --James Madison

James Madison's words regarding the "ultimate authority" for defending liberty (Federalist No. 46) ring as true today as in 1787, when he penned them.

Likewise, so do the words of his appointee to the Supreme Court, Justice Joseph Story, who wrote in his 1833 "Commentaries on the Constitution," "The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them."

In recent decades, the "enterprises of ambition" and "usurpation and arbitrary power" among Leftist politicians and their corrupt judicial lap dogs have become malignant, eating away at our Essential Liberty and our constitutional Rule of Law.

This has never been more so than since the charlatan Barack Hussein Obama duped 67 million Americans into seating him in the executive branch.Much of the debate about the need to infringe upon the right to bear arms is framed in terms of safety.

Gun-control advocates argue that more guns equal more crime.

Those advocating for more lenient gun laws argue that more guns equal less crime. Only one of these diametrically opposed views can be true.

While the latter group is factually and demonstrably correct, basing Second Amendment arguments on the issue of safety is as fallacious as attempting to assert the 14th Amendment argument.

In an editorial this week, the conservative Washington Times opined, "The year after the Supreme Court struck down the District of Columbia's handgun ban and gun-lock requirements, the capital city's murder rate plummeted 25 percent. The high court should keep that in mind..."

No, they should not. After all, violence is a cultural problem, not a gun problem, and certainly not a Second Amendment problem.

What each member of the Supreme Court must only keep in mind is the plain language of the Constitution, the Second Amendment and the First Principle of his or her oath: "To support and defend our Constitution," as should everyone who has taken that oath.

Accordingly, the High Court should find that the gun restrictions in Chicago, and by extension, those in any other state, are in direct violation of the inherent rights of the people "to keep and bear arms."

Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!

Mark AlexanderPublisher, PatriotPost.US

How Politicians Should Act

I had read this story before, and even made an attempt to find it a few weeks back. I knew someone would put it out again before we were through with the current issues.

Leave to Mark Alexander to use it as it should be used. An example of what this country was and what we will eventually return it to.

Not Yours To Give
"I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents..." --James Madison

David Crockett
My paternal ancestors settled in East Tennessee about 10 years before it was admitted to the Union (1796). Not far from where they settled lived a fellow who was the region's most famous frontiersman.
David Crockett was his name.

He has been immortalized as a folk hero, known for his battles with the Red Stick Creek Indians under Andrew Jackson, and his last stand at the Alamo with fellow Patriots James Bowie from Kentucky and William Travis from South Carolina.

Crockett battled the Creek side-by-side with fellow Tennessean Sam Houston, but both men were friends to the Cherokee clans, which were composed of highly civilized native peoples living in the border regions between Tennessee and North Carolina.

At the end of his formal service as a soldier, he was elected Lieutenant Colonel of the Tennessee Militia.

Crockett is less known for the several terms he served in Congress between 1827 and 1835 during the presidency of his old commander, Andrew Jackson. Crockett's friend, Sam Houston, had been elected governor of Tennessee. (Houston, who would later become governor of Texas, is the only American in history to serve as governor of two states.)

Though he had little formal education, Crockett exuded a commanding presence and was feared, if not loathed, by his more refined congressional colleagues for his backwoods rhetoric.
In one of his more legendary orations, Crockett proclaimed: "Mr. Speaker ... the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Everett] talks of summing up the merits of the question, but I'll sum up my own. In one word I'm a screamer, and have got the roughest racking horse, the prettiest sister, the surest rifle and the ugliest dog in the district. I'm a leetle the savagest crittur you ever did see. My father can whip any man in Kentucky, and I can lick my father. I can out-speak any man on this floor, and give him two hours start. I can run faster, dive deeper, stay longer under, and come out drier, than any chap this side the big Swamp. I can outlook a panther and outstare a flash of lightning, tote a steamboat on my back and play at rough and tumble with a lion, and an occasional kick from a zebra."

Crockett continued, "I can take the rag off -- frighten the old folks -- astonish the natives -- and beat the Dutch all to smash, make nothing of sleeping under a blanket of snow and don't mind being frozen more than a rotten apple. I can walk like an ox, run like a fox, swim like an eel, yell like an Indian, fight like a devil, spout like an earthquake, make love like a mad bull, and swallow a Mexican whole without choking if you butter his head and pin his ears back."

What I wouldn't give to hear a tad more of that on the floor of the House these days!

Though his rhetoric may have been unorthodox, Crockett was a man of principle.

His fervent opposition to Andrew Jackson's Indian Removal Act of 1830 (forcing removal of the peaceful Cherokee tribes along the infamous "Trail of Tears") cost Crockett his congressional seat, but he declared, "I bark at no man's bid. I will never come and go, and fetch and carry, at the whistle of the great man in the White House no matter who he is."

But it was Crockett's stalwart opposition to unconstitutional spending that is most worth noting given today's congressional penchant for such spending in the trillions.

According to the Register of Debates for the House of Representatives, 20th Congress, 1st Session on April 2, 1828, Crocket stood to challenge the constitutionality of one of the earliest welfare spending bills.

While the exact text of his speech was not recorded in full (as that was not the practice of the time), the spirit of his words was captured years later under the heading "Not yours to give" in the book "The Life of Colonel David Crockett" by Edward Ellis.

Ellis wrote, "One day in the House of Representatives a bill was taken up appropriating money for the benefit of a widow of a distinguished naval officer. Several beautiful speeches had been made in its support. The Speaker was just about to put the question when Crockett arose..."
According to Ellis, Crockett said, "Mr. Speaker; I have as much respect for the memory of the deceased, and as much sympathy for the sufferings of the living, if suffering there be, as any man in this House, but we must not permit our respect for the dead or our sympathy for a part of the living to lead us into an act of injustice to the balance of the living. I will not go into an argument to prove that Congress has not the power to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member upon this floor knows it. We have the right, as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right so to appropriate a dollar of the public money. Some eloquent appeals have been made to us upon the ground that it is a debt due the deceased. Mr. Speaker, the deceased lived long after the close of the war; he was in office to the day of his death, and I have never heard that the government was in arrears to him.

"Every man in this House knows it is not a debt. We cannot, without the grossest corruption, appropriate this money as the payment of a debt. We have not the semblance of authority to appropriate it as charity. Mr. Speaker, I have said we have the right to give as much money of our own as we please. I am the poorest man on this floor. I cannot vote for this bill, but I will give one week's pay to the object, and if every member of Congress will do the same, it will amount to more than the bill asks."

Though the measure was expected to receive unanimous support, after Crockett's objection, it did not pass.

Be sure you are right...

Ellis recounts that Crocket was later asked by a friend why he had opposed the appropriation, and he replied: "Several years ago I was one evening standing on the steps of the Capitol with some other members of Congress, when our attention was attracted by a great light over in Georgetown. It was evidently a large fire. We jumped into a hack and drove over as fast as we could. In spite of all that could be done, many houses were burned and many families made houseless, and, besides, some of them had lost all but the clothes they had on. The weather was very cold, and when I saw so many women and children suffering, I felt that something ought to be done for them. The next morning a bill was introduced appropriating $20,000 for their relief. We put aside all other business and rushed it through as soon as it could be done."

Crocket explained, "The next summer, when it began to be time to think about election, I concluded I would take a scout around among the boys of my district. I had no opposition there, but, as the election was some time off, I did not know what might turn up. When riding one day in a part of my district in which I was more of a stranger than any other, I saw a man in a field plowing and coming toward the road. I gauged my gait so that we should meet as he came to the fence. As he came up, I spoke to the man. He replied politely, but, as I thought, rather coldly.
"I began: 'Well, friend, I am one of those unfortunate beings called candidates, and..."

His constituent interrupted, "Yes I know you; you are Colonel Crockett. I have seen you once before, and voted for you the last time you were elected. I suppose you are out electioneering now, but you had better not waste your time or mine, I shall not vote for you again."

Crockett replied, "This was a sockdolager ... I begged him to tell me what was the matter."

The farmer said, "Well, Colonel, it is hardly worth-while to waste time or words upon it. I do not see how it can be mended, but you gave a vote last winter which shows that either you have not capacity to understand the Constitution, or that you are wanting in the honesty and firmness to be guided by it. In either case you are not the man to represent me. But I beg your pardon for expressing it in that way. I did not intend to avail myself of the privilege of the constituent to speak plainly to a candidate for the purpose of insulting or wounding you. I intend by it only to say that your understanding of the Constitution is very different from mine; and I will say to you what, but for my rudeness, I should not have said, that I believe you to be honest. But an understanding of the Constitution different from mine I cannot overlook, because the Constitution, to be worth anything, must be held sacred, and rigidly observed in all its provisions.

The man who wields power and misinterprets it is the more dangerous the more honest he is."
Crocket responded, "Well, my friend; I may as well own up. You have got me there. But certainly nobody will complain that a great and rich country like ours should give the insignificant sum of $20,000 to relieve its suffering women and children, particularly with a full and overflowing Treasury, and I am sure, if you had been there, you would have done just as I did."

But the farmer fired back, "It is not the amount, Colonel, that I complain of; it is the principle. In the first place, the government ought to have in the Treasury no more than enough for its legitimate purposes. But that has nothing with the question. The power of collecting and disbursing money at pleasure is the most dangerous power that can be entrusted to man. ... So you see, Colonel, you have violated the Constitution in what I consider a vital point. It is a precedent fraught with danger to the country, for when Congress once begins to stretch its power beyond the limits of the Constitution, there is no limit to it, and no security for the people."

Thus, Crockett explained of his opposition to support the widow of that distinguished naval officer: "Now, sir, you know why I made that speech yesterday."

Today, there are but a handful of Senate and House incumbents who dare support and defend the Constitution as Crockett did. But there are candidates emerging around the nation who, with our support, will deliver orations as brazen and eloquent, and stand firm behind those words.

Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!