The pursuit of Constitutionally grounded governance, freedom
and individual liberty
"There is but
one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily." --George Washington
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Confronting America's Racial Divide By Scott Rasmussen
Sixty-four
percent of Americans say that it's possible to have an honest discussion about
race in America. I would like to believe that, but I am skeptical. My skepticism is rooted in a painful
recognition of the fact that white and black America have different histories and
different experiences with our justice system. Consider the
simple fact that, compared to white Americans, black Americans are three times
as likely to know someone in prison and twice as likely to know someone who was
murdered. It's not surprising that most black Americans view the justice system
with the same level of suspicion that the Tea Party has for the Internal
Revenue Service. The distrust is justified. So when a jury with no
blacks declared George Zimmerman not guilty in the murder of Trayvon Martin, most
white Americans agreed with the verdict, and most black Americans did not. Most
white Americans believe that such a jury can fairly consider a case involving
the shooting of a black man. Most blacks disagree. Most white Americans
believe Zimmerman was motivated primarily by concern about burglaries in the
neighborhood. Most black Americans believe he was motivated primarily by
racism.
Many
conservative pundits have pointed out that the prosecution simply couldn't
prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Zimmerman was doing anything more than
acting in self-defense. Even some on the political left, people like Slate's
William Saletan, have said that when you look at the evidence and the law, the
jury reached the right decision. Former President Jimmy Carter shares that
view, as well.
But
for many Americans, the technical analysis misses the point. Zimmerman made a
poor choice when he ignored the dispatcher, got out of the car and tried to be
a hero. As a result, a young black man ended up dead. Where's the justice in
that? Would it have been the same if the dead man were the son of a wealthy
white businessman? I cannot claim to speak for black
Americans, but what I see in the numbers is a deeply rooted belief that the
rules of the game in America are rigged against black Americans. Eighty-four
percent of black Americans believe the justice system in our country is unfair
to minorities. Most white Americans are appalled by such numbers.
This is why it is so difficult to have an honest discussion about race in
America. They just don't get it.
What
white Americans need to understand is that there's a reason most black Americans
believe our justice system is out to get them. The reason is that for
most of our history government in America was an organized conspiracy against
black Americans. The Constitution includes offensive language about black
slaves. Southern states implemented Jim Crow laws and provided inferior
educational options to keep blacks down -- laws that survived until the 1960s.
There's more to American history, of course, but we can't ignore those
realities. What black Americans need to understand, though, is that George
Zimmerman and his generation never lived in that world. America has changed,
but we have failed to honestly confront our past. If our nation
is ever to truly become a land of liberty and justice for all, we need to have
an honest discussion about race. The evidence of the past few weeks makes me
doubt we are ready for that today.
~~~~~~
A Better System for Picking Presidential Candidates
By Michael Barone
You
can get agreement from almost all points on the political spectrum that the
worst aspect of our political system is the presidential nomination process. It is perhaps no coincidence that it
is the one part of the system not treated in the Constitution. That's because
the Founding Fathers abhorred political parties and hoped that presidents would
be selected by something like an elite consensus. But we have political
parties, the oldest and third oldest in the world, and they are not going away.
Surely
a better system is possible. The current system of primaries, caucuses and
national conventions is the result of reforms initiated by Democrats in the
late 1960s and constantly fiddled with, mostly but not entirely by Democrats,
ever since. The resulting system
is replete with oddities. Nothing in the Constitution says that Iowa and New
Hampshire vote first, but they do. Any politician thinking of ever running for
president wouldn't dare suggest otherwise. Then suddenly a raft of states vote
all at once. All this means that candidates have to spend two years campaigning and
raising prodigious amounts of money. No other democracy chooses its chief
executive in anything like our system. That rules out many potentially
serious candidates who currently hold important government jobs or who lack an
appetite for permanent campaigning. This is all the more infuriating because
"today's mess," as Jeffrey H. Anderson and Jay Cost write in the
summer issue of National Affairs, "is the product of accident and afterthought."
Continue
Reading......
~~~~~~
Is Obama Stirring The Trayvon Pot to Distract from IRS,
NSA, DOJ and Benghazi Scandals?
Last Friday afternoon the
president injected himself into the Trayvon/Zimmerman mix again by doing what
he has done in the past, namely, increasing the racial divide, blaming,
condemning guns and upbraiding essentially everyone.
One
may not fault Obama for stirring the Trayvon pot again. You may have
yourself if you were in his shoes. “Why”, you ask? Well, it’s pretty
simple: it takes everyone’s attention off the huge scandals he’s boiling in right now, that’s
why. Of course he’s going to milk the
situation. He doesn’t want us tallking about the ubiquitous outrages he’s
enmeshed in; such as the IRS, NSA, DOJ, Benghazi, bankrupt Detroit or how much
ObamaCare is hated and not working. It’s called diversion. Most of us
learned how to do it when in trouble as a child. That’s what’s going down right
now with our President, ladies and gents. Diversion. Allan Erickson
points out that Obama would like us all to stop talking about stuff like …
-
NSA
leaks revealing unprecedented domestic surveillance some say far exceeds the original
intent of the Patriot Act. Feds in bed with 50 communications
companies to collect data on citizens.
-
The
Director of National Intelligence is accused of lying under oath.
-
IRS
intentionally harassing conservative groups, infringing on constitutional rights,
persecuting average citizens with the inappropriate use of FBI and ATF
investigators to suppress opposition voices.
-
DOJ
investigating journalists:
Rosen at Fox, hundreds of editors and reporters at the Associated Press.
The Attorney General is now accused of perjury.
-
Determining
to not enforce specific parts of laws or entire laws; AHA and Immigration.
The
tragedy of the Trayvon/Zimmerman situation is bad. The POTUS using it as a diversion is scandalous.
~~~~~~
Move over NSA, here comes the Obamacare database
Would
you trust thousands of low-level Federal bureaucrats and contractors with
one-touch access to your private financial and medical information? Under Obamacare you won’t have any
choice.
As
the Obamacare train-wreck begins to gather steam, there is increasing concern
in Congress over something called the Federal Data Services Hub. The Data Hub
is a comprehensive database of personal information being established by the
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to implement the federally
facilitated health insurance exchanges. The purpose of the Data Hub, according
to a June 2013 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, is to provide
“electronic, near real-time access to federal data” and “access to state and
third party data sources needed to verify consumer-eligibility information.” In
these days of secret domestic surveillance by the intelligence community, rogue
IRS officials and state tax agencies using private information for political
purposes, and police electronically logging every license plate that passes by,
the idea of the centralized Data Hub is making lawmakers and citizens nervous.
~~~~~~
Judge orders Detroit bankruptcy to be withdrawn, claims
it’s ‘not honoring the president’
Ingham
County Circuit Judge Rosemary Aquillina ordered on Friday that Detroit’s
bankruptcy be withdrawn, citing a concern that government employees’ pensions
would be endangered by federal bankruptcy proceedings, The Detroit News
reports. “It’s cheating, sir, and it’s cheating good people who work,” the
judge told assistant Attorney General Brian Devlin on Friday, adding that she
will ensure that President Barack Obama gets a copy of her order. “It’s
also not honoring the president, who took [Detroit’s auto companies] out of
bankruptcy.” At the same time, Aquillina voiced her confidence that
Obama would ensure that pension guarantees were protected and honored. Be
sure, she believes what she said.
~~~~~~
~~~~~~
Politicians and Unions Bankrupt Detroit
Add
another one to the list of bankruptcies because of ridiculous union pensions.
We really need to look at making pensions illegal and replacing them with
retirement accounts. This will prevent retires from getting the bum end when
these bankruptcies happen. If the residents of Detroit want to
blame any person or organization for its Chapter 9 filing, they only need to
look as far as the unions that controlled labor there and the politicians who
ran it the past four decades.
Detroit earned its bankruptcy the easy way — through greed, the desire for political power and poor planning.
Kevyn D. Orr, the city’s emergency manager, offered
interested parties a likely way to avoid the bankruptcy filing just weeks ago. Employees of Detroit, past and present,
could share the pain of the restructuring of financial obligations with bond
holders. Each blamed the other for the city’s problems. Each said the other
should absorb the brunt of a restructuring. Neither budged. Orr ran out of
options, as two city pension funds went to court to try to protect their
assets, motivated by a final grab for Detroit’s money. The media’s take
on Detroit was to post pictures of rundown and vacant homes and to publish the
estimates of Detroit’s obligations — about $19 billion. The press also has
pointed out the clear conclusion that bond owners will take cents on the
dollar. Unions will have parts of pension obligations voided. City workers will
lose their jobs. The two largest
employers in Detroit are the school system and the city itself. This is a problem in itself. Not auto manufacturers or businesses!
~~~~~~
"Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion
to complain of the want of time, who never loses any. It is wonderful how much
may be done, if we are always doing." --Thomas Jefferson,
letter to Martha Jefferson, 1787"If justice, good faith, honor, gratitude and all the other qualities which ennoble the character of a nation and fulfill the ends of government be the fruits of our establishments, the cause of liberty will acquire a dignity and lustre, which it has never yet enjoyed, and an example will be set, which cannot but have the most favourable influence on the rights on Mankind. If on the other side, our governments should be unfortunately blotted with the reverse of these cardinal and essential virtues, the great cause which we have engaged to vindicate, will be dishonored and betrayed; the last and fairest experiment in favor of the rights of human nature will be turned against them; and their patrons and friends exposed to be insulted and silenced by the votaries of tyranny and usurpation." --James Madison, Address to the States, 1783
"A constitution defines and limits the powers of the government it creates. It therefore follows, as a natural and also a logical result, that the governmental exercise of any power not authorized by the constitution is an assumed power, and therefore illegal." --Thomas Paine, Constitutions, Governments, and Charters, 1805
"It is our duty to endeavor always to promote the general good; to do to all as we would be willing to be done by were we in their circumstances; to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly before God. These are some of the laws of nature which every man in the world is bound to observe, and which whoever violates exposes himself to the resentment of mankind, the lashes of his own conscience, and the judgment of Heaven. This plainly shows that the highest state of liberty subjects us to the law of nature and the government of God."--Samuel West, On the Right to Rebel Against Governors, 1776
"Without
liberty, law loses its nature and its name, and becomes oppression. Without
law, liberty also loses its nature and its name, and becomes
licentiousness."--James
Wilson, Lectures on Law, 1790
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