Oct 23, 2013 | Constitution, Economy, Healthcare, Liberty Articles, Taxes
Dr. Harold Pease
The great majority of our establishment press almost gleefully speak of the plummeting Tea Party image over its support of defunding Obamacare, which was linked to the partial government shutdown. This should not surprise us, as the vast majority of the press, excepting FOX News, has never been friendly toward this movement. The view that it instead may be soaring is treated nowhere in their coverage. That Senator Ted Cruz, a Tea Party senator, received an eight minute standing ovation from a large crowd when he returned to Texas is unheard of and certainly supports the view that many seem favorable to a member of Congress finally willing to fight; that he isn’t just there to protect his party or job.
So who is the so-called Tea Party? I know a little about it because I helped form it—as did you. It was one of the most spontaneous political movements in U.S. History somewhat similar to the spontaneous rise of the Republican Party, where people united in the 1850’s in their opposition to the extension of slavery; or the Populist Party movement in the 1890’s, based largely on its opposition to the gold standard and supported the Free Silver movement. In each, as with the Tea Party, there were no known original leaders. Tea Party founders, you and I, loved the Constitution, which limits government, and the free market philosophy, that together made us the freest most productive and prosperous nation on earth. Understood also was that both parties must get back to these philosophies lest freedom and prosperity be lost to future generations.
Actually the movement began in opposition to George W. Bush’s $700 billion stimulus bailout package at the end of his term, which received bi-partisan support from President-Elect Barack Obama and the Democrats. Both parties were on the same page and taking us in the wrong direction—bigger government and debt insanity. Tea Party groups began to spring up everywhere in early February 2009, each with their own leaders. Three city leaders in the East, learning of the simultaneous rise of sister cites, contacted each other to compare notes. They liked the name Tea Party because they wished, by that name, to emulate our founding philosophy. Even so, they were uncertain what their core values should be so they invited Internet submissions from the thousands who felt similarly. Still, there was no known single leader. My daily submissions encouraged getting back to the Constitution. The three most frequently submitted core values, and the one’s selected, were: limited constitutional government, free market and fiscal responsibility—precisely the collective views of our Founders.
In my community the leader of the movement was Julie Demos, a second grade teacher, who had had no prior political experience. She was perfect. This was the gathering of the people who no longer wished to use political party, but the Founders core values, in promoting good government. Between three and five thousand folks gathered at the Liberty Bell in April 15, 2009, many spoke, including myself. Over 600 cities throughout the nation had similar gatherings. The movement was not party based. We wished to attract those who wished to get back to these core values. Our own Congressman Kevin McCarthy and House Speaker John Boehner, were denied the podium for that reason. They attended and viewed the proceedings as spectators as did everyone else. This was not a Republican Party rally! Fifteen thousand heard myself and others speak on getting back to the Constitution at the Tulare Ag Center on July 4th in support of over a million who gathered in Washington DC. Two other times such numbers gathered in the capitol before years end.
When I was young I assumed that I would have been with the patriots at Lexington and Concord when the British came to take their guns, or with Patrick Henry when he gave his famous speech that was highlighted by the phrase, “Give me liberty or give me death.” I would have been at Valley Forge with George Washington. When I learned much later that only a third of the people were patriots, another third too apathetic to care, and yet another third Tories, who actually assisted the British during the war, I wondered whether I would have had the clarity of thought to have picked the right side. Would have you? It comes to this, if you share the core values of the Founding Fathers you will befriend the Tea Party movement, then and now; if you do not, then it is likely that you would have been a Tory, then and now.
The Tea Party fight is not just about defunding Obamacare, which turns over to the federal government one-seventh of the economy, it is this and so many other things that have been taken over by the federal government without clear constitutional language as per Article I, Section 8. Any other approach weakens the Constitution. It is about over-taxing one part of the population to feed the other. It is about over-spending to the point that the entire economy collapses. It is about liberty itself. Tories in the American Revolution could not see any of this and opposed liberty. Tories today, from both parties, are equally blind. Some of us value movements and people, like Ted Cruse, that actually fight for liberty and that is why he received the eight-minute standing ovation. So please don’t be angry at the Tea Party for standing for our founding principles, instead be angry with those who demean them.
Oct 17, 2013 | Constitution, Economy, Healthcare, Liberty Articles
By Dr. Harold Pease
The likelihood exists that before this column is read the republicans in both the House and Senate will have compromised themselves out of any real resistance to Obamacare. The House of Representatives first voted to fund the entire government minus Obamacare on September 20. It moved next to delaying it one year for everyone—not just Congress, the unions, and big business—to make it fair. The House then moved to delay the individual mandate for a year plus make Congress live under the same law rescinding the exemptions promised them earlier by President Barack Obama enticing them to go along. The House then abandoned its original cause, defunding Obamacare. To counter the blame given them for the shutdown by the openly hostile press they next funded 11 critical functions of the government. Harry Reid and Senate democrats rejected everything.
That republicans caved in so easily and that the democrats would not buy into the fairness argument (historically their strongest tenant—fairness) is very disturbing, but three other areas are even more so. First of these is the blatant media bias in favor of one party and the Senate and the universal villainization of the other party and the House in their non-neutral coverage. All pretense of neutrality is gone.
Second, the damage to the U.S. Constitution, which gives clear direction on this issue, that was ignored by the Senate and now also by the House who should be most protective of this power. “All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House.” By refusing to honor this clear constitutional prerogative of the House as the only body that can initiate taxes, which includes defunding originally funded items, such clarity is lost and the Constitution is damaged.
The third, and far more disturbing result of this battle, is that our spending addiction will never be solved and this inability heralds the likelihood of a future complete fiscal collapse of our economy and probably that of the world, as they are so dependent upon our dollar. A position once considered too extreme to voice I now hear everyday. If our leaders were intentionally making choices to collapse the economy how would they differ from those they now make?
What arguments support this view? Almost all evidence shows that Obamacare is going to be far more costly than promised with no real evidence that it will be any better for the vast majority. Our national debt rises between three and four billion dollars a day, which we without guilt pass on to the next generation. Even as I write this column the President is proposing a debt-ceiling raise of a million dollars per minute. He, and the Republican House of Representatives (they for not defunding things, like Obamacare and free cell phone for the poor, long ago) are responsible for seven trillion of our now 17 trillion-dollar debt. Before he leaves office he will have increased our national debt equal to the debt remaining unpaid by all previous presidents of the United States combined, and yet half of our folks remain mesmerized by his promises.
The debt ceiling has been raised 74 times since March 1962, including 18 times under Ronald Reagan, eight times under Bill Clinton, seven times under George W Bush, and five times under Barack Obama. This is our 12th debt raise in 12 years. We raise it every year to accommodate our need for a “fix.” Congress sadly never says no. Does anyone really believe that our debt-addicted government will ever stop the addiction on its own? Fully a third of our population do not earn their bread by the sweat of their brow but vote to get the government to take it from an-others labor and give to them. We are told that those receiving food stamps are now a third of our population having doubled under Obama’s watch.
Yes, we have a two-class society—the takers and the contributors. Takers will always vote for the party and politicians who will promise them more. When that number exceeds 51 percent we will never escape the takers and will have effectively made the contributing class the new slaves. Some believe takers to be very close.
So, go ahead and tell me that after the democrats win this debt crisis, their 7th time under Obama, that they will spend less hereafter and won’t need another income “fix” next year. Tell me that those who receive free cell phones or food stamps or other government handouts will wake up and see the damage that is being done to the productive base of this country. Tell me that after reading this column they will vote for a party or individual that advocates first reducing, then eliminating, these and so many other well meaning but bankrupting programs. Tell me!! The Tea Party provides the only resistance to this self-destructing philosophy and look at how the media and both parties vilify them.
When the real government shutdown comes, and it surely will unless we quickly change direction and get back to the Constitution, we may not have a President, Congress or Supreme Court. For a time we may have real anarchy, hunger and bloodshed. Notice what happened in Wall Mart this week by greedy food stamp recipients when they weren’t even hungry. And most likely The Constitution, now shredded by both parties, won’t be able to save us from ourselves as now. Let us not pretend any longer that what is now openly talked about on the street could never happen here. Would to God we wake up in time to “sober up” and make serious spending cuts so the the impending real government shutdown never happens.
Sep 24, 2013 | Globalism, Liberty Articles
By Dr. Harold Pease
With the Russians coming forth with a possible brokered agreement with President Bashar al-Assad of Syria for him to give up his chemical weapons in exchange for America not attacking him, America’s military threat has dissipated for the moment. But issues still need discussed. Is an attack warranted under international law and, if not, would we not be viewed by the world as an aggressor nation? A giant irony is that we would have punished Syria for violating international law by our also violating international law. Who says two wrongs do not make a right?
Consider the following United Nations Charter violations of the United States had we attacked Syria: Article 2, Sec. 4, “All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state….” Even our threat of the use of force is a violation. The only exception to the use of force is self-defense as stipulated in Art. 51. “Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security.”
Obama has yet to make a case to the United Nations for wanting to attack the sovereign country of Syria. He has not, and will not, because he would have to justify such action on the basis that Syria had first shown actual aggression toward us necessitating our responding in self-defense. This he cannot do. Were U. S. citizens gassed we could respond in self-defense but we were not. Such acts of aggression justifying self defense must immediately be provided to the UN Security Council who then decide “such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security.”
Other United Nation Charter rules also would have had to be satisfied. Article 39 stipulates that “the Security Council shall determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression and shall make recommendations, or decide what measures shall be taken in accordance with Articles 41 and 42, to maintain or restore international peace and security.” Even before this takes place Article 40 must be satisfied which reads: “In order to prevent an aggravation of the situation, the Security Council may, before making the recommendations or deciding upon the measures provided for in Article 39, call upon the parties concerned to comply with such provisional measures as it deems necessary or desirable. Such provisional measures shall be without prejudice to the rights, claims, or position of the parties concerned. The Security Council shall duly take account of failure to comply with such provisional measures.” So we see that in order for a state to use force in self-defense, it or some other state must have suffered an armed attack. Such has not been demonstrated.
There exists other complications; even had the UN ruled Syria an aggressor nation, which it has not, and sanctioned a coalition force against Syria, the President was unsuccessful in getting any other country to bomb with him. Nobody agrees with him enough to commit armed forces. The Syrian offense had already occurred so the mission was to punish the perpetrator, clearly not self-defense. Syria had signed only one of two treaties prohibiting the use of gas and it contained no enforcement provisions and no one made the United States the policeman of the world. Finally, although there is no doubt that chemical weapons were used on Syrians, the source of such, although presumed, has not been definitively proved. Everyone remembers the “proof” presented to the United Nations by Colin Powel, that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction when it did not. Assad maintains that his own men were gassed as well.
The Assad regime may well have gassed her own people, which Assad aggressively denies, but she has not attacked another country. We, on the other hand, would have done just that, had we bombed Syria. I think it likely that had the U.S. attacked, Russia, China or even Syria would have ask the United Nations to define the United States as the aggressor nation and Obama as a war criminal. That could have been followed by a “call upon the parities concerned,” the United States especially, “to comply with such provisional measures as it deems necessary or desirable,” which could include economic sanctions as has been used on other nations. Did we think when we signed the Charter, creating the “world government,” that the rules did not apply to us, that we could just bomb whomever, whenever, and wherever we wished as with our drone strikes. Unfortunately for President Obama, but fortunately for us, the U N Charter does not allow a military attack on a sovereign nation for punishment.
Apparently the Russians will be brokering, at least with Assad, the mess that we created for ourselves by not using the United Nations. The “slouch, looking kid in the back of the classroom,” as Obama recently referred to Vladimir Putin, has ironically saved the president from his own ignorance of international law.
Sep 17, 2013 | Constitution, Liberty Articles
By Dr. Harold Pease
This week commemorates Constitution day and week and as such it is well to remind our governments and elected officials, all of who have sworn under oath to abide by it, to reread and follow it. It is also well for our citizenry to do the same so that we can identify those who would take away our liberty and without regard to political party remove these dangerous people from their places of power.
Look around!! Our president spies on us through the NSA in complete disregard of the 4th Amendment to the Constitution and uses the IRS to intimidate and harass his political opposition, most notably conservative, religious and Tea Party groups. Moreover, he upends existing law as in 2012 when by executive order he refused to continue enforcing the deportation of a class of illegal emigrants. Or, in healthcare, some get a year to implement while others do not and Congress gets exempted. Today he no longer attempts to justify his numerous executive orders to any constitutional base and taken together his branch, including his over thirty unconstitutionally appointed czars, make far more rules on us than does our elected Congress. But he does want to take this nation into a totally unconstitutional war with Syria.
Look around!! Congress seems inept at best, unable or unwilling to investigate and bring to justice those in the government who deliberately allowed some 2,000 guns to go to the Mexican drug cartels who used these in some of the murders of over 70,000 Mexicans including our own border patrol Agent Brian Terry. They have shown themselves to be unwilling or unable to thoroughly investigate the four deaths of Americans in Benghazi, a scandal now a year old. Unwilling or unable to investigate, stop, and punish IRS agents using their positions to silence political opposition. Unwilling or unable to investigate, stop and punish NSA spying and storing indefinitely all electronic information on all Americans. Why? Because most who sit in Congress are party lap dogs justifying or condemning whatever on party lines instead of the Constitution.
As the President absorbs more and more of Congress’ law making powers, making Congress more irrelevant each day, they pretend all is well. While not guarding their own powers from an encroaching executive branch, they trample the rights of the states where all power not listed in the Constitution belongs. They have mocked the 10th Amendment and have been complacent in the demise of the first, second, fourth, fifth, sixth and ninth amendments as well. Indeed our liberties would have been better protected by the Boy Scouts of America who, in fact, may understand freedom better than they. There are a few members of Congress who do put the Constitution in front of party and career such as Rand Paul, Mike Lee and Ted Cruz but they are far too few.
Look around!!!! The Supreme Court no longer uses the Constitution, as understood by the Founding Fathers when written, as important. Past practice has replaced original intent and natural law as first consideration. Even international law has come to have more value then original intent in their rendered decisions. Even Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, advised Egypt to not modal their new constitution after ours because ours was too dated. The Court makes new law, a constitutional function of Congress alone, by ruling on an issue in such a way as to give it new meaning, thus new law. It is called judicial legislation. The laws of the land have been changed by dozens of such rulings the last fifty years.
Healthcare comes to mind. Congress never passed it as a tax and the political party passing it, and their President, Barack Obama, emphatically resisted any description of it as such. Nevertheless Justice John Roberts ruled it to be a tax, then argued that Congress can tax, therefore it was constitutional. The Court omitted the fact that the word health (or anything remotely similar) is nowhere in the Constitution and is therefore entirely a state issue, as per Amendment 10, until an Amendment to the Constitution ratified by three-fourths of the state legislatures moved health to the limited list in the Constitution. Healthcare by any previous combination of justices would have been 100 percent unconstitutional with or without the tax issue.
When the Supreme Court no longer protects the Constitution it falls upon the states to do so defending the 10th Amendment and using the Doctrine of Nullification (understood and endorsed by the Founders) and previously used in 1798, 1832, and 1852. But it is so poorly understood today that few can defend it, nevertheless it was and is the final check on an over reaching federal government.
When reading the Constitution this happy Constitution Day or Week, 226 years since its origin, please pay special attention to the list provided to each of these branches of the federal government. The concept of a list is so vital to our interpretation of the Constitution. If they were to do as they pleased no list would be needed.
Aug 27, 2013 | Constitution, Liberty Articles
By Dr. Harold Pease
Reuters reported last Saturday, August 17, 2013, “Nine men killed in Mexican drug war hotspot.” This is not new news. The day before, “eight people were found killed” and placed in a mass grave. Such happens frequently in a country where drug wars have resulted in the death of more than 70,000 people “between 2006 and 2012, and more than 6,000 have been killed since President Enrique Pena Nieto took office in December.
What is especially disturbing is that our government may have been involved with some of these murders. CBS News reported, August 14, of this month, “That three more weapons from Fast and Furious have turned up at violent crime scenes in Mexico.” Fast and Furious suspect Uriel Patino purchased two in “May and July of 2010. Sean Steward purchased a third,” all traced to “the Lone Wolf gun shop in Glendale, Arizona.” Just a few weeks ago, Luis Lucio Rosales Astorga, “a Mexican police chief and his bodyguard were killed by cartel members using Fast and Furious guns.”
Some may have forgotten the “Fast and Furious” scandal of 2010 in the flurry of new Barack Obama Administration scandals of late Spring, so a review might be necessary. Imagine being willing to do anything to destroy the Second Amendment to the U. S. Constitution. Since Americans will not willingly do so, imagine someone in power plotting to create the rationale that would turn most reasonable people against these rights. Evidence of such surfaced two years ago in the form of an email from a Justice Department agent that strongly indicated that the government’s “Operation Fast and Furious” was designed to do just that. Arizona U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke, charged with executing the “Operation Fast and Furious,” boasted to a colleague of the operation’s propaganda value, presumably to vilify gun shows. It read: “Some of these weapons bought by these clowns in Arizona have been directly traced to murders of elected officials in Mexico by the cartels, so Katie-bar-the-door when we unveil this baby” (“Will Holder’s Watergate Become Obama’s Waterloo?” Americas 1st Freedom, April 2012). They knew precisely what they could do with the propaganda value of their sales—destroy the gun shows.
Seemingly the intent was for the government, through the Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms Administration (ATF), to secretly sell illegal guns to the Mexican drug cartels, and then blame those sales on U.S. gun shows to discredit them. The administration, especially Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, had argued that 90% of the guns used by Mexican drug cartels had come from gun shows in the United States. The ATF gun sales, if undetected, would provide the government rationale and support to close down the gun shows making it more difficult for citizens to obtain a firearm. The story appears to be full of government intrigue, lies, conspiracy, and the murder of hundreds of Mexican citizens and an American Border Patrol Agent, Brian Terry.
The transfer of the illegal weapons was done without consulting U.S. law officers outside ATF or the Mexican authorities. The government would have succeeded with the scheme were not some of the illegal firearms found at the scene of murdered Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, one of which was actually the instrument of his death.
Wayne La Pierre, Executive Vice President of the NRA, best expressed the seriousness of this illegal operation, apart from defrauding Americans of their constitutional gun rights, when he wrote. “In that ‘gun-walking’ operation, Obama administration operatives encouraged, bankrolled, and oversaw repeated felonies at gun stores and at border crossings with criminals smuggling at least 1,700 firearms into Mexican drug-fueled criminal commerce.” Regular citizens, doing the same thing would be serving time.
The e-mail in question was a part of the 6,000 documents received from the 80,000 requested of the Justice Department by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform headed by Darrell Issa. The Justice Department yet refuses to honor a three-year request for the other 74,000 documents requested.
What has been released reportedly proves that U.S. gun shows were not the source of cartel firepower, as this administration had repeatedly contended, the ATF was, and that Holder intentionally lied when he told Congress he had heard about “Fast and Furious” from the media, as did other Americans. “One Justice Department official has claimed his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination and refused to testify,” elevating anticipation that, so far, we may have seen only the tip of the iceberg.
The Justice Department has acknowledged encouraging gun stores in the U.S. to sell weapons to purchasers who trafficked them to Mexican drug cartels but still refuses to release some 74,000 documents with respect to the scandal. Such refusal led to “a bipartisan vote in June 2012 to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress. The House Oversight Committee is suing for release of the material” so there will be more to come on this story. Meanwhile there will be more killing in Mexico from the 1,400 to 1,700 guns given the drug cartels by our government.
Aug 23, 2013 | Liberty Articles
By Dr. Harold Pease
I was not surprised last spring to hear a mother share with me her son’s fear that he did not wish to attended college because he did not wish to be politically indoctrinated. As the years go by I hear this more frequently. Two months ago, while purchasing an automobile, I had an all-to-frequent experience when the dealer asked my profession. I told him that I was a college political science professor. His look was, “Oh! Your one of those.” So, the assumption is that professors, especially those in political science, are socialists or worse.
Those who know me as a syndicated columnist or in my lectures realize that I seldom use the words liberal or conservative. I want my students to think for themselves and labels largely end that process, so, I won’t use labels here either. The principle is the same for either ideology or political party. No one should be afraid to go to college because either ideology has effectively placed the other on the endangered species list. College is supposed to be a big tent housing all types of thinking so that the student can gravitate to that which he thinks best. The liberal or conservative paradigm suggests that there is only one or the other. Why can’t you be a part of both, or a third, as for example a constitutionalists as am I?
Of course most colleges insist that they adhere to the idea of intellectual diversity, but the literature suggest otherwise, that too many colleges and universities, are vastly weighted in favor of one ideology and professors to one political party. This is not hidden. Virtually every political science textbook acknowledges that the vast majority of political science professors are of one political party and ideology.
There exists a consensus of what a good education consists. Students are immersed in race consciousness, feminism, multiculturalism, environmentalism, collectivism, political activism, class warfare, acceptance of sexual deviations as normal, and minimization of the importance of Christianity. The end product, the student, must come to accept the above script. It is also in virtually all textbooks. It’s not that any of these notions are bad in and of themselves but in the nearly universal absence of the opposing view that is most troubling the critics and they do not want the indoctrination. All this reminds me of a 1960’s tune. “Little boxes on the hillside. Little boxes made of ticky-tacky… And they all look just the same. And the people in the houses, all go to the university… And they all look just the same.”
It’s not fear of political science classes alone in most colleges and universities. Students can escape this indoctrination across the hall in a history or sociology class. Not so! Such bias permeates most academic areas. An English professor from a large Midwestern university, who did not wish to be identified because of possible retribution, spoke of English classes giving less emphasis on grammar, punctuation, or sentence structure and more on the political correctness. “Everything from Theater to Philosophy to History to English has, in effect, become sociology,” he wrote. “Teaching subject matter has become less important than teaching a very political perspective.” In the end, “They get taught the same thing over and over: a radical critique of the entire American social structure, an indictment of capitalism, anti-Christian propaganda, and collectivism over individuality.”
An extreme example of this was Professor Deandre Poole of Florida Atlantic University who, in his Intercultural Communications class instructed students to write the name “Jesus” on a piece of paper, place it on the floor, than stomp on it. Imagine his having done this to Mohammed. Another is the French Language and Culture class at Penn State University that required students to view the Michael Moore film, Sicko which focused on the inadequacies of the U.S. healthcare system and promoted Obamacare. In a French language class!?!
Of course, additional classes reinforce the “good education” and the result is that if students have not learned to think for themselves, or have some opposing information from home or church to think with, they graduate and carry the message (indoctrination) into every segment of society as gospel. New teachers from kindergarten to the universities will pipe the same, or similar, message.
Age and experience may alter the indoctrination but the twig is already bent in a prescribed direction and the student, like the twig, will give first consideration to returning to the indoctrination when confronted with anything in opposition. Colleges have so much power over “right” thinking.
The indoctrination begins, critics say, with “incoming freshmen in nearly 100 colleges with orientation where students begin by learning about the evils of ‘white privilege’ in a program called the ‘tunnel of oppression’ and sit through lectures informing them that they are part of a ‘rape culture’.” University of Delaware forced incoming freshmen to participate in a “treatment” program a part of which informed them that the word racism applies only to “all white people.” It also “blamed whites for having created the term racism” in the first place “to deny responsibility for systemic racism.” At Hamilton College in New York, fall 2010, male students were required “to attend a ‘She Fears You’ presentation to make them aware of the ‘rape culture’ of which they were allegedly a part and of the need to change their ‘rape supportive’ beliefs and attitudes” (New American, Aug. 5, 2013, pp. 23-27).
No wonder the young man did not wish to be subjected to what he saw as indoctrination. Because he knows that there exist other views there is hope for him, more especially if he selects professors who attempt to give alternative views of which there are still many, he will be fine. This is especially true at the community college level. It is the students who have no idea that there exists alternative views that are most endangered.
