Aug 25, 2010 | Constitution
By Dr. Harold Pease
It seems ludicrous that a government would create laws and restrictions on it’s military that would virtually leave them fighting with one hand tied behind their back. And yet that is exactly what our government has done in the past, and continues to do now.
According to U.S News and World Report, June 30, 1975 citing the just released, formally top secret, “Rules of Engagement for the Vietnam War” (Congressional Record June 6, 1975, pp. S9897-S9904) our men had to fight under horrendous conditions not imposed from the enemy but from our own State Department. What follows are some of those rules. On-ground assaults in urban areas “known to shelter enemy forces generally had to be preceded by loud-speaker warnings and leaflet drops.” Our troops could return fire “only when the enemy was positively identified and in close contact. Sniper and mortar fire were not counted as ‘contact’ unless ‘such fire interferes with the scheme of maneuver or is inflicting casualties or damage to equipment.’ ” Only flat-trajectory weapons (rifles, machine guns, grenades and recoilless rifles) could be used in civilian-populated areas, which largely exposed our men, and “then only if there was a specific, identifiable target.” Obviously on the ground, U. S superiority in firepower was deliberately not exploited.
Nor was it in the air. Pilots were not allowed to fire where they thought the enemy was hidden- even when fired upon- until they were “sure the strike would be positively oriented against the source.” And in many areas there was the nightmare of getting approval at higher levels even if you spotted the enemy or you were taking ground fire. The chain of command often went through the “province chief, district chief, sector commander and a battalion or higher command” which by the time this was completed, the enemy had disappeared. Enemy airfields were off limits if a “plane with a third nation’s markings was present.” Dams, locks, dikes and targets within 11 1/2 miles of the enemy’s major cities were “banned without prior approval of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.” Good luck on that one.
These rules actually aided the enemy, and it is because of them that this 14-year-long-war lasted so long and was lost. (We base our date from our sending advisors’ under President John F. Kennedy to the Vietnam Treaty ending the war under President Gerald Ford.)
On another mission his unit suffered casualties from an exploding device that had been placed in their path minutes before. He said, “There were villagers laughing at the U.S. casualties and two suspicious individuals were seen fleeing the scene and entering a home.” A rule of engagement prohibits our troops from entering and searching a home without Afghan National Security Forces personnel present. Access to the house was denied, and the perpetrator escaped.
Placating the enemy by not using our full resources and imposing rules on us that actually aided the enemy in Vietnam led to our defeat. We were told then that we had to focus upon winning the hearts and minds of the people. It did not work then; why would we suppose that it would work now? Historians claim, “Those who fail to understand history are condemned to repeat it.” Apparently we are. Tell that to the dead in both wars.
Dr. Harold Pease is an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He has taught history and political science from this perspective for over 25 years at Taft College.
Aug 25, 2010 | Constitution, Take Action, Tea Party
By Dr. Harold Pease
For those of us who have been awakened to the onslaught of government control in our lives, a feeling of helplessness often pervades. We simply do not know what to do after recognizing the danger. Here I present six critical steps that you can take in the process of regaining freedom.
The first step is becoming aware that freedom is in jeopardy. Many of us are already there. The second is to become articulate in our founding documents, especially the U.S. Constitution. Give emphasis to Article I, Section 8 and the Tenth Amendment. The arguments they used for freedom are every bit as applicable today as they were then, for they are based upon natural law that does not change. Familiarity is easily acquired as almost no one reads these documents today.
Third, attach yourself to trusted organizations and websites ideologically in harmony with the Founders. Websites I suggest are NationalCenterforConstitutionalStudies.com, askHeritage.org, WallBuilders.com, TenthAmendmentCenter.com, and our own,LibertyUnderFire.org. Most media easily show their ignorance of the Constitution. Glenn Beck and Lou Dobbs were the only national shows with any Constitutional emphasis (CNN recently cancelled the latter show). The National Rifle Association is the major defender of the Second Amendment, which indirectly also protects all amendments.
Share their messages with others but send only well reasoned non-offensive material. Avoid derogative references to individuals or parties. To save our republic we will need both major parties. Remember some people may not be philosophically were you are. They will join you as they lose more liberty.
Fourth, participation in the Tea Party Patriot movement is now critical. Anyone serious about his or her liberty should be an active participant. The organization at the national level gives focus to the more dangerous freedom stealing bills and zeros in on the most vulnerable members of Congress prior to a vote on that particular issue. Their Action Alerts allow you to focus your concern with thousands of others.
Fifth, find candidates who support the Constitution. You can only do this if you understand the document yourself. Supporting the Constitution is far more than just using the word frequently. We must cease electing Constitutional illiterates.
Donating time might include other things as well. I have a friend who is attempting to establish liberty trees in every town, another who is attempting to get every city to adopt the slogan “In God we Trust”, and still another who is organizing the pastors to forget their theological differences and come together to protect the Constitution as the early patriots did.
I have friends, even relatives, who have said, “If you are going to tell me one more time to write my congressman, forget it. I’m not interested.” Upon inquiry I find that they have not even done that. Step one is not enough. You must do all seven. We need every soldier on the front lines and in the trenches. So far your “guns” are your time, talent, and money. By becoming involved now they can remain just these. We must have those who will do all seven steps and stay the course. It won’t be easy but if you need motivation for doing so look into the faces of your children and grandchildren. Your loss of liberty is also their loss. Let us not have their slavery on our hands.
Dr. Harold Pease is an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He has taught history and political science from this perspective for over 25 years at Taft College.
Jul 28, 2010 | Constitution
By Dr. Harold Pease
George Washington said, “Government is like fire, a dangerous servant and a fearful master.” The Founders understood that the biggest obstacle to freedom was the tendency of all governments to grow, absorbing power unto themselves. He also observed the natural inclination of the people to shove decision making power upward to the seat of government as they became more apathetic and indifferent. One force pulls and the other pushes, but in time they accomplish the same thing: eventually all significant power resides in Washington D. C. thousands of miles away, just as it was in Parliament in Colonial times, and the people are not free. The Founders planned to stop both forces by authorizing only a legislative branch to make rules. This legislative branch was limited to only specific grants of power, listed in Article I, Section 8.
Nothing better represents the tendency of government to grow like fire more than the following fictitious, but all too real, account written by an unknown author:
“Once upon a time the government had a vast scrap yard in the middle of a desert. Congress said, ‘Someone may steal from it at night.’ So they created a night watchman position and hired a person for the job.” Never mind that the yard had had no theft problems previously.
“Then Congress said, ‘How does the watchman do his job without instruction?’ So they created a planning department and hired two people, one person to write the instructions, and one person to do time studies.
“Then Congress said, ‘How will we know the night watchman is doing the tasks correctly?’ So they created a Quality Control department and hired two people. One to do the studies and one to write the reports.
“Then Congress said, ‘How are these people going to get paid?’ They created a time keeper, and a payroll officer, then hired two people.
“Then Congress said, ‘Who will be accountable for all of these people?’ So they created an administrative section and hired three people, an Administrative Officer, Assistant Administrative Officer, and a Legal Secretary.
“Then Congress said, ‘We have had this command in operation for one year and we are $18,000 over budget, we must cut back overall cost.’ So they laid off the night watchman.”
The reason this story is so powerful is that it is so readily apparent in any government run program; virtually everything it touches is wasteful and broken. In addition to adhering to the Enumerated Powers, The Founders’ collective view to never elevate to a higher level that which can be resolved at a lesser level would stop most waste. Instead of limiting their power, we gave them charge of education, energy, banking, part of the auto industry and now our healthcare–none of which are Enumerated Powers and thus unconstitutional. The recently passed Health Care Bill created 159 new committees and commissions to manage all the new power. And we wonder why we have lost so much freedom.
Dr. Harold Pease is an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He has taught history and political science from this perspective for over 25 years at Taft College.
Jun 30, 2010 | Constitution
By Dr. Harold Pease
Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan does not have bench experience or even much courtroom experience. She hasn’t even logged over three years of private practice as a lawyer. She has been a life-long academic and a far left ideologue, thus not likely to support anything remotely conservative in any decision for the next 40 years that she could be on the bench. She is anti-military and probably supports the Gay and Lesbian agenda. She also has distain for the Second Amendment. Any of these should bring question to her legitimacy as a justice. If such were offered by a Republican president with the opposite philosophy in place, the Democrats would go berserk and, rightfully so, would accuse the other party of ineptitude.
But has she read the Constitution? Has she written anything on it? Is she committed to the view of its Founders? Is The Federalist Papers the least bit important to her? These are all non-partisan questions. After all, being only 50 years of age, she is one of two generations that has received very little on The Constitution in school outside the 8th grade. Law school emphasizes case study, not the view of the Founding Fathers. So where is the evidence that she is qualified to defend it?
Where is the evidence that a “Justice” Kagan will confine Congress to the Enumerated Clause and the president to the list of areas cited in Article II? When President Obama goes into the back room and writes law through executive orders or creates new officers called czars (each without an ounce of Constitutional authority) will she say that is unconstitutional and condemn the practice, or will she defend him? Will she protect Federalism and the 10th Amendment, each absolutely critical to the continuation of freedom? Again non-partisan questions. We know that she will not be protecting your right to defend yourself with a handgun, and that should be a disqualifier by itself.
We have too many justices who, though they have by oath sworn to defend the Constitution, are content either by ignorance or intent to emasculate it because the Senate wrongly assumed in previous confirmation hearings that they knew and reverenced the Constitution.
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas said it best. “Let me put it this way; there are really only two ways to interpret the Constitution—try to discern as best we can what the framers intended or make it up.” On making it up he added: “No matter how ingenious, imaginative or artfully put, unless interpretive methodologies are tied to the original intent of the framers, they have no more basis in the Constitution than the latest football scores.”(Wall Street Journal Opinion, Oct. 20, 2008)
Today the Court is evenly divided between those who make it up as they go and those who follow what the Founders wrote. The only real question needed is, which side would a Justice Kagan support?
Kagan’s comments that she favors “interpreting the Constitution as a ‘living,’ malleable document” in fact makes her an opponent of original intent, thus out of harmony with the Founders. This fact alone should disqualify her from a seat on the High Court or any court.
Dr. Harold Pease is an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He has taught history and political science from this perspective for over 25 years at Taft College.
Jun 25, 2010 | Constitution
By Dr. Harold Pease
The Founding Fathers universally rejected democracy and hoped that posterity would never turn the United States into one. The word they used was “Republic,” which is not synonymous with “Democracy.” The word “Democracy” is not in the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, the Constitution, or the Bill of Rights. Even the Pledge of Allegiance is “to the Republic for which it stands.”
Benjamin Franklin defined democracy as “two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.”
So why did they reject Democracy? Because it is inherently flawed with the “share the wealth” philosophy, which only works as long as there is someone else’s money to share. Those receiving are quite pleased with getting something for nothing. But those forced to give are denied the right to spend the benefits of their own labor in their own self-interest, which creates jobs no matter how the money is spent. They also lose a portion of their incentive to produce.
Fraser Tyler, author of The Decline and Fall of the Athenian Republic authored more than 200 years ago said it best. “A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.”
Where does the money come from for all the “good” that government does? Answer, out of someone else’s pocket. If it is with his consent it is a form of charity. If forced, a form of tyranny. The more and the longer given, the more entitled the receiver becomes until he is quite willing to take to the streets and demand more of other people’s money, fully satisfied that he has every right to it. This works until those who have money are destroyed as a class and everyone is equally poor. The result is a diminished standard of living for everyone, as was the case under 20th Century communism.
A Democracy gives us the principles of majority rules and frequent elections with options, but little more. It does not protect us from the government’s redistribution of wealth philosophy, which entitles the less productive to get something for nothing.
A Republic includes frequent elections with options. It also gives place to majority rules, but only to a point, for as your mother told you growing up, the majority is not always right. A Republic is also based upon natural unalienable rights that come from a source higher than man (for example life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.)
Minority rights are protected from the majority in a Republic. A lynch mob is Democracy. Everyone voted but the man being lynched. A Republic rescues this man gives him a fair trial with a bona fide judge and witnesses for his defense. In a Republic there is an emphasis on individual differences rather than absolute equality. Such individual differences are seen as a strength in a Republic rather than as a flaw under Democracy, which equates sameness as equality.
Limited government is also a major aspect of a Republic. The government is handcuffed from dominating our lives. There is a list of functions and a clear process for obtaining additional power. Finally, there is a healthy fear of the emotion of the masses, destabilizing natural law upon which real freedom is based.
The Founders created a Republic, not a Democracy. The Constitution, as designed, is the mechanism to ensure we stay a Republic. We must demand from our leaders a strict adherence to that document in order to preserve our liberty, and that of future generations.
Dr. Harold Pease is an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He has taught history and political science from this perspective for over 25 years at Taft College.
Jun 8, 2010 | Constitution
By Dr. Harold Pease
The Constitution divided power between two separate but co-equal governing bodies: the states and the national government. This division is called federalism and is so important that the flow of power away from the people cannot be preserved without it. It is the concept that in most things the states are not subordinate to the national government but in fact immune from it.
The national government was to handle mostly foreign concerns, and the states were to handle internal concerns. The states never surrendered any power that they felt they could manage and any new powers subsequently given required three-fourths of the states’ permission, per Article V of the Constitution.
The Constitution then divided the power left at the national level into three branches of government: legislative, executive, and judicial branches, each a check on each other to prevent consolidation of power into one body. Collectively they were the national component while the states were the federal component hence the shared and equal concept known as federalism. Think of this relationship as a marriage, neither the servant of the other and each with different duties.
How would one know who had the power and when? Article I, Sec. 8 listed the powers of the national government and Amendment 10 noted that all other powers “belonged to the states and to the people.” Who would keep the national government in its place due to their natural tendency to grow? The clarity of the document and the states themselves protecting the interests of their own people would do so by failing to comply when their partner in marriage overstepped boundaries. But one other step was critical: the creation of a bicameral legislature, one representing the people (the House of Representatives), the other the states (the Senate).
The Senate was never actually created to represent the people. Why would they create two legislative bodies doing the same thing? It was created to protect the needs of the states that indirectly protected the needs of its citizens. All law would be reviewed from two perspectives and both must be satisfied before enactment. James Madison explained, “No law or resolution can now be passed without the concurrence, first, of a majority of the people, and then of a majority of the states.”
Today the states have no voice in the making of law, and federalism and freedom are dying proportionally because of who elects the senators. Initially, under the Constitution, the State legislature selected their two U.S. Senators. These were individuals who were familiar with and loyal to state issues, and were usually one of their own gifted in the articulation of their interests as well.
Today, because of the 17th Amendment, ratified early in the 20th Century, Senators are directly selected by the voters like their counterparts in the House and can appeal to solely popular perspectives and may know nothing of the state legislatures concerns of an overpowering national government. They may not even need to campaign in their state capital to get elected. For example, the national government has no constitutional jurisdiction over water use, or environmental issues within a state. A California senator should be arguing such in Washington D. C. Without this voice, the National government moves into State areas of power pretty much at will and no other government is powerful enough to stop them.
By mandating that the people rather than the states select the U.S. Senators, the 17th Amendment undid the benefits of a bicameral legislature: one specifically oriented to the needs of the masses, and the other oriented to the needs of the states. The result, whether intended or not, did great damage to federalism and the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution which ensured federalism.
The only real solution to taking the Tenth Amendment off life support is to rescind the 17th Amendment. Although it may have enhanced democracy, it also removed from the states their voice in the U.S. Senate and hence the ever-increasing growth of government at liberty’s expense.
Dr. Harold Pease is an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He has taught history and political science from this perspective for over 25 years at Taft College.
