Archives for February 2010
Mount Vernon Statement
Constitutional Conservatism: A Statement for the 21st Century
We recommit ourselves to the ideas of the American Founding. Through the Constitution, the Founders created an enduring framework of limited government based on the rule of law. They sought to secure national independence, provide for economic opportunity, establish true religious liberty and maintain a flourishing society of republican self-government.
These principles define us as a country and inspire us as a people. They are responsible for a prosperous, just nation unlike any other in the world. They are our highest achievements, serving not only as powerful beacons to all who strive for freedom and seek self-government, but as warnings to tyrants and despots everywhere.
Each one of these founding ideas is presently under sustained attack. In recent decades, America’s principles have been undermined and redefined in our culture, our universities and our politics. The selfevident truths of 1776 have been supplanted by the notion that no such truths exist. The federal government today ignores the limits of the Constitution, which is increasingly dismissed as obsolete and irrelevant.
Some insist that America must change, cast off the old and put on the new. But where would this lead — forward or backward, up or down? Isn’t this idea of change an empty promise or even a dangerous deception?
The change we urgently need, a change consistent with the American ideal, is not movement away from but toward our founding principles. At this important time, we need a restatement of Constitutional conservatism grounded in the priceless principle of ordered liberty articulated in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
The conservatism of the Declaration asserts self-evident truths based on the laws of nature and nature’s God. It defends life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It traces authority to the consent of the governed. It recognizes man’s self-interest but also his capacity for virtue.
The conservatism of the Constitution limits government’s powers but ensures that government performs its proper job effectively. It refines popular will through the filter of representation. It provides checks and balances through the several branches of government and a federal republic.
A Constitutional conservatism unites all conservatives through the natural fusion provided by American principles. It reminds economic conservatives that morality is essential to limited government, social conservatives that unlimited government is a threat to moral self-government, and national security conservatives that energetic but responsible government is the key to America’s safety and leadership role in the world.
A Constitutional conservatism based on first principles provides the framework for a consistent and meaningful policy agenda.
- It applies the principle of limited government based on the rule of law to every proposal.
- It honors the central place of individual liberty in American politics and life.
- It encourages free enterprise, the individual entrepreneur, and economic reforms grounded in market solutions.
- It supports America’s national interest in advancing freedom and opposing tyranny in the world and prudently considers what we can and should do to that end.
- It informs conservatism’s firm defense of family, neighborhood, community, and faith.
If we are to succeed in the critical political and policy battles ahead, we must be certain of our purpose. We must begin by retaking and resolutely defending the high ground of America’s founding principles.
February 17, 2010
Lincoln Day Dinner
Elbert County Republican Lincoln Day Dinner, Feb. 20, 2010
Videos:
Congressman Mike Coffman
Jon Caldara – Boulder Is An Odd Town
Jon Caldara – The Republican Brand
Jon Caldara – Compelled Health Care
Jon Caldara – Losing Parker
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Notice:
Elbert County Young Republicans will have an organizational meeting at their new office above the car wash in Kiowa, Monday, March 29th, 2010. Contact Linda Wyer at lwyer95@yahoo.com
Republicans v. Conservatives
We went to our local Lincoln Day dinner last night and got a full dose of Republican politics. It’s a lively time for the party with fresh candidates popping out of the woodwork everywhere you look. A lot of tea party energy was in evidence, however I sensed a retrenchment on the part of the GOP establishment. If they think they know best how to defeat the left, they “have some ‘splainin’ to do” about how their past leadership brought us a Democrat state government and two Democrat senators. Tea party candidates have no prospects as a third party, however it’s unreasonable to expect GOP guardians to just morph into constitutional conservatives and incorporate tea party fundamentals. Conservative principles have been on the table all along and they weren’t sufficiently compelling to the GOP the last time they had the majority. We will get Republicans elected next Fall because the left have scared the crap out of mainstream America with their Weather Underground/Ayers/Alinsky/Muslim Brotherhood/socialist revolution. But I worry that the self-interest of the GOP old guard will come before the “self-evident truths we hold.” Many battles lie ahead.
the system
The system works. It wouldn’t be the system long enough to become the system if it didn’t. That said, the system exists in a state of corrupt flux. As any human expression built with human fallibility and imperfect knowledge, only divine intervention could enable humans to create a more perfect existence than themselves. So we defer to our flawed nature, soldier on, and hope for the best. That’s the system.
Mike Rosen had a caller the other morning who wouldn’t accept Rosen’s point that political party trumps person. Pete Boyles would have agreed with the caller. He too votes for the person over the party. 2009 went down as a disaster for one party leftist government–an abject proof of Rosen’s thesis.
The system involves a lot more than casting votes in November. Our civic conscience and prescriptions for ethical society hinge on education, accurate perception, a true knowledge of the history of what has worked and what has not, and humility. Too many use their vote as a mirror for preening their self image. They’re the ones tuning up their self esteem with congratulatory back slapping and snippets of sound-bite love for the downtrodden. Notwithstanding civic duty, the system accepts all motivations including the most base and the most naive.
The left’s approach holds that the good is objectively obvious and that everyone should be required to contribute to it. Their systemic safety net sounds charitable, but in practice leads to unchecked corruption, the denial of free will, the prevention of moral choice, and a worsening of the human condition. While the good may be objectively obvious to many people, manifesting the good by force always makes things worse.
The right holds that what is good can only be individually and voluntarily created. They know that coercion nullifies moral choice–that it is the act of choosing the good over the bad that makes something good.
The left avoid this topic like the plague because it reminds them of their pro-choice position where they insist on preserving the legal license to choose to kill babies–which they think is a good thing. And so go the pitfalls of their relative morality.
Anyway, the right’s approach has in fact produced the greatest good for the greatest number of people whenever it has been the controlling philosophy. The left continues to attack it for want of a systemic safety net, even though the left have repeatedly demonstrated that systemic safety nets don’t work.
At the end of the day, the system that most empowers individuals to create their own good has the endorsement of the weight of history. George Will has observed in many columns that the brilliance of the American system lies in its’ ability to produce governmental gridlock. And who wouldn’t want to have the 800 lb. gorilla in the living room securely shackled?
Individual empowerment by default through the frustration of systemic government coercion may not be pretty, but it’s the system that works best for us. The Founders designed a self-limiting American government in order to protect our freedom to live and pursue happiness. They knew that only free people so engaged could build a great nation.
Since the founding of America, however, huge national mistakes harming millions of people have been repeatedly committed in the name of social progress in our country, and in many nations throughout the world. It’s time for the left to face the facts that it (a) has no monopoly on good intentions and that (b) good intentions do not justify forcing progressive programs on the country.
One definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing and expect a different result. The only thing progressivism (and it’s close cousins socialism, fascism and communism) ever delivered is destruction to the fabric of their societies. We can no longer afford to stand by while America consumes itself in the fire of progressive passion. The failed progressive experiment must end and we can use the system to do it.
Don’t wait for November to get into the system. By then, 99% of the political season’s governmental product will be formed. The American system is a continuum of free speech, critical analysis, study of history, and the endless task of trying to avoid repeating our mistakes. I believe the system can be operated so that we quit making the big progressive national mistakes that harm millions of people. We must end the experiments in the name of social progress. We are human beings, not lab rats for entertaining progressive social scientists.
2-13-10 Repub Breakfast
Speakers (click to enlarge)
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YouTube videos:
Scott Wills reporting on candidates for county offices in 2010
Hope Goetz on the state of the county
PJ Trostel breakfast sponsor and candidate
Rick Stone on Republican strategy
Jerry Bishop on getting back to the Constitution
Mike Holler:
The constitutional crisis caused by progressive Democrats and progressive Republicans
mornin’
rights of terrorists
Beth Shelly reports today,
PAGE 2A – WEST ELBERT COUNTY SUN – THURSDAY FEBRUARY 11.2010
“Early this morning on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” there was a discussion about our freedoms and who they are set aside for, particularly the 14th Amendment, which defines citizenship and keeps our civil and political rights from being abridged or denied.The Nation’s Chris Hayes . was speaking on the rights of suspected terrorists, particularly the issues of indefinite detention and whether should they be “Mirandized” or not. He stressed the point that the U.S. Constitution’s protection of legal rights not only applies to legal citizens, but, unpopular as that is today, it also applies to terrorist suspects, much as it does to illegal immigrants who are arrested on American soils.
But in the Bush administration, in the name of public safety, those legal rights were curtailed for certain terrorist suspects. A Feb. 9 editorial in the Wall Street Journal titled “Cheney’s Revenge” asserts that despite efforts little has been done by the Obama administration to move away ` from that stance. The editorial cites the President’s desired closing of the Guantanamo Bay detention facilities and his administration’s backing down of trying 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other enemy combatants in civilian court.
In response, Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough said, “I know Bush did it, but that doesn’t make it right,” adding it is something we are still “muddling through.” Meanwhile, Mort Zukerman of U.S. New & World Report counters, saying the Supreme Court allows for different rules to apply than what exist for U.S. citizens.
Forty years ago it was civil rights. Today it is the rights of terrorist suspects.An ongoing process, to be sure, on how to apply our legal protections. But it began more than 230 years ago with our first president and changed significantly with , the election of Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War.
Understanding the “muddling” and shifting public opinion that occurs over time, it is the basic concept of democracy and freedom that we celebrate with Presidents’ Day. Hope you all get a chance to sit back and reflect on it this weekend.”
Well , it won’t take a weekend to reflect on this. First, the 14th Amendment, “Citizenship Rights.”
“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
Was the Christmas day bomber born or naturalized in the U.S.? Was KSM? No. They’re not citizens of the U.S. Where do the Nation’s Chris Hayes and reporter Beth Shelly come up with the notion that 14th Am. protections were intended to apply to non-citizens? Certainly not in the text of the Constitution so amended.
The government’s legal authority to deal with non-citizen terrorists comes in the body of the Constitution under Article 1, Section 8, “Powers of Congress.”
“The Congress shall have Power ….
To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offenses against the Law of Nations;
To declare War … and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;
To …. repel Invasions;
To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.”
Article 1, Section 9, “Limits on Congress” also applies.
“The privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.”
Fruit of Kaboom and KSM are invading members of a multi-state Islamic religious sect who have declared war on the United States. The 14th Amendment body of law protects individual citizen rights against the government. It doesn’t protect members of invading armies who are in a fight to destroy the government. Yet the left would have us buy into this absurdity in order to create a public political forum for attacking conservative politicians. They would subvert the Constitution–that protects them too–to score political points in the modern media-charged democratic process.
Enjoy your weekend.
Essayists meet Commissioners
Winners of Elbert County Republican Women’s Essay Contest meet Commissioners.
Bonniwell on Voorhis
not the party of no
GOP Idea Man Charts Course For Solvency
By GEORGE F. WILL
Posted 02/05/2010 06:25 PM ET
In 2013, when President Mitch Daniels, former Indiana governor, is counting his blessings, at the top of his list will be the name of his vice president: Paul Ryan. The former congressman from Wisconsin will have come to office with ideas for steering the federal government to solvency.
Not that Daniels has ever been bereft of ideas. Under him, Indiana property taxes have been cut 30% and for the first time, Standard & Poor’s has raised the state’s credit rating to AAA.
But in January 2010, Ryan released an updated version of his “Roadmap for America’s Future,” a cure for the most completely predictable major problem that has ever afflicted America.
Some calamities — the 1929 stock market crash, Pearl Harbor, 9/11 — have come like summer lightning, as bolts from the blue. The looming crisis of America’s Ponzi entitlement structure is different. Driven by the demographics of an aging population, its causes, timing and scope are known.
Funding entitlements — especially medical care and pensions for the elderly — requires reinvigorating the economy. Ryan’s map connects three destinations: economic vitality, diminished public debt, and health and retirement security.
To make the economy — on which all else hinges — hum, Ryan proposes tax reform. Masochists would be permitted to continue paying income taxes under the current system. Others could use a radically simplified code, filing a form that fits on a postcard.
It would have just two rates: 10% on incomes up to $100,000 for joint filers and $50,000 for single filers; 25% on higher incomes. There would be no deductions, credits or exclusions, other than the health care tax credit (see below).
Today’s tax system was shaped by sadists who were trying to be nice: Every wrinkle in the code was put there to benefit this or that interest. Since the 1986 tax simplification, the code has been recomplicated more than 14,000 times — more than once a day.
At the 2004 Republican convention, thunderous applause greeted George W. Bush’s statement that the code is “a complicated mess” and a “drag on our economy” and his promise to “reform and simplify” it. But his next paragraphs proposed more complications to incentivize this and that behavior for the greater good.
Ryan would eliminate taxes on interest, capital gains, dividends and death. The corporate income tax, the world’s second highest, would be replaced by an 8.5% business consumption tax. Because this would be about half the average tax burden that other nations place on corporations, U.S. companies would instantly become more competitive — and more able and eager to hire.
Medicare and Social Security would be preserved for those currently receiving benefits, or becoming eligible in the next 10 years (those 55 and older today). Both programs would be made permanently solvent.
Universal access to affordable health care would be guaranteed by refundable tax credits ($2,300 for individuals, $5,700 for families) for purchasing portable coverage in any state. As persons under 55 became Medicare-eligible, they would receive payments averaging $11,000 a year, indexed to inflation and pegged to income, with low-income people receiving more support.
Ryan’s plan would fund medical savings accounts from which low-income people would pay minor out-of-pocket medical expenses. All Americans, regardless of income, would be allowed to establish MSAs — tax-preferred accounts for paying such expenses.
Ryan’s plan would allow workers under 55 the choice of investing more than one-third of their current Social Security taxes in personal retirement accounts similar to the Thrift Savings Plan long available to, and immensely popular with, federal employees. This investment would be inheritable property, guaranteeing that individuals will never lose the ability to dispose every dollar they put into these accounts.
Ryan would raise the retirement age. If, when Congress created Social Security in 1935, it had indexed the retirement age (then 65) to life expectancy, today the age would be in the mid-70s. The system was never intended to do what it is doing — subsidizing retirements that extend from one-third to one-half of retirees’ adult lives.
Compare Ryan’s lucid map to the Democrats’ impenetrable labyrinth of health care legislation. Republicans are frequently criticized as “the party of no.” But because most new ideas are injurious, rejection is an important function in politics. It is, however, insufficient.
Fortunately, Ryan, assisted by Republican representatives Devin Nunes of California and Jeb Hensarling of Texas, has become a think tank, refuting the idea that Republicans lack ideas.
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/ArticlePrint.aspx?id=520346
perspectives
Of course, it is not fair to compare our current American democratic leaders with the Bolsheviks.Yes, they both use the same slogans in their speeches.
Yes, they both stir up envy and class warfare to distract from their failures.
Yes, both political movements sought control of the banks as the foundation for their new egalitarian vision.
And yes, they are both opposed to free speech, as was made clear by the reaction of American leftists to the recent Supreme Court decision.
But you would never find a Czar anywhere in the Soviet government.
By SVETLANA KUNIN