Thursday, February 4, 2010
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Friday, October 23, 2009
You Might Be A Constitutionalist If . . .
October 20, 2009
I originally published this column back in January of 2005. Since then (and especially lately), many people have called and written with requests to republish it. So, with a few minor revisions, here it is.
More than thirty years as a student of American history, constitutional government, and the Holy Bible leads me to the conviction that the two major political parties in this country (at the national level) are equally culpable in stripping America of its founding principles. In my opinion, both the Democrat and Republican parties in Washington, D.C., have zero fidelity to the U.S. Constitution and zero respect for America's foundational precepts.
In my studied opinion, neither the Democrat nor Republican Party (at the national level) has any intention of slowing the out-of-control expansion of government. Neither party has demonstrated any loyalty to preserving and protecting our constitutional form of government.
Like National Socialists and Soviet Socialists of old, the only thing that concerns Democrats and Republicans today is who is in power. Both are equally willing to destroy the freedoms and liberties of people without conscience or regret as long as their party remains in control.
I am absolutely convinced that without a renewed allegiance to constitutional government and State sovereignty, there can be no resolution to America's current slide into socialism and oppression. Therefore, it is critical that we cast aside our infatuation with partisan politics and steadfastly stand firm for the principles of federalism and freedom, as did America's founders.
Might you be a modern-day Minuteman who understands the principles of freedom and federalism? I offer the following test. Read it and see if you, too, are a Constitutionalist. (Yes, Martha, this is another Jeff Foxworthy spin-off.)
1. You might be a Constitutionalist if you believe that every congressman, senator, President, and Supreme Court justice is required to obey the U.S. Constitution.
2. You might be a Constitutionalist if you believe that before the United States invades and occupies another country, Congress must first declare war.
3. You might be a Constitutionalist if you believe the federal government should live within its means, like everyone else is forced to do.
4. You might be a Constitutionalist if you think that taking away people's liberties in the name of security is not patriotic, nor does it make the country more secure.
5. You might be a Constitutionalist if you would like to see politicians be forced to abide by the same laws they make everyone else submit to.
6. You might be a Constitutionalist if you understand that we have three "separate but equal" branches of government that are supposed to hold each other in check and balance.
7. You might be a Constitutionalist if you believe that the federal government has no authority to be involved in education or law enforcement, or in any other issue that the Tenth Amendment reserves to the States, or to the People.
8. You might be a Constitutionalist if you believe that gun control laws do nothing but aid and abet criminals while trampling the rights and freedoms of law-abiding citizens.
9. You might be a Constitutionalist if you believe that the income tax is both unconstitutional and immoral, and, along with the I.R.S. and the Federal Reserve, should be abolished.
10. You might be a Constitutionalist if you believe the federal government had no authority to tell former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore that he could not display a monument containing the Ten Commandments in the Alabama Judicial Building in Montgomery; or to tell a Pace, Florida, high school principal that he could not pray before a meal.
11. You might be a Constitutionalist if you believe that Congress or the White House or any sovereign State is not required to submit to unconstitutional Supreme Court rulings.
12. You might be a Constitutionalist if you understand that freedom has nothing in common with illegal immigration.
13. You might be a Constitutionalist if you understand that outsourcing American jobs overseas is not good for America.
14. You might be a Constitutionalist if you believe that the United States should get out of the United Nations and get the United Nations out of the United States.
15. You might be a Constitutionalist if you believe that it is not unconstitutional for children in public schools to pray or read the Bible.
16. You might be a Constitutionalist if you believe that the Boy Scouts are not a threat to America.
17. You might be a Constitutionalist if you believe that the federal government should honor its commitments to America's veterans and stop using U.S. military personnel as guinea pigs for testing drugs and chemicals.
18. You might be a Constitutionalist if you believe that U.S. troops should never serve under foreign commanders or wear the uniform or insignia of the United Nations, and that they must never submit to illegal orders, such as turning their weapons against American citizens, or confiscating the guns of U.S. citizens.
19. You might be a Constitutionalist if you believe that the federal government has no business bribing churches and faith-based organizations with federal tax dollars.
20. You might be a Constitutionalist if you believe that federal agents who murder American citizens should be held to the same laws and punishments that any other citizen would be held to. (Can anyone say, "Waco" and "Ruby Ridge"?)
21. You might be a Constitutionalist if you understand that NAFTA, GATT, the WTO, and the FTAA (and similar agreements) are disastrous compromises of America's national sovereignty and independence.
22. You might be a Constitutionalist if you would like to see congressmen and senators be required to actually read a bill before passing it into law.
23. You might be a Constitutionalist if you understand that it is the job of government to protect and secure God-given rights, not use its power to take those rights away.
24. You might be a Constitutionalist if you understand that there is nothing unconstitutional about the public acknowledgement of God and our Christian heritage.
25. You might be a Constitutionalist if you believe that government bailouts and "stimulus" expenditures defy virtually every principle of free enterprise and are a flagrant leap into socialism.
26. You might be a Constitutionalist if you believe that airport screeners have no business touching women's breasts, using sophisticated machinery to look through passengers' clothing to see their naked bodies, confiscating fingernail clippers, or denying pilots from carrying handguns.
27. You might be a Constitutionalist if you believe that many public schools' "zero-tolerance" policies are just plain stupid.
28. You might be a Constitutionalist if you believe that parents have a right to homeschool their children.
29. You might be a Constitutionalist if you believe that governmental seizure of private property is plain, old-fashioned thievery.
30. You might be a Constitutionalist if you are personally determined to not submit to any kind of forced vaccination.
31. You might be a Constitutionalist if you oppose any kind of national health insurance.
32. You might be a Constitutionalist if you believe that U.S. troops are not the world's policemen, that they are not "nation-builders," and that their purpose is only to defend American lives and property, not to be the enforcement arm of international commercial interests or global elitists.
33. You might be a Constitutionalist if you understand that the county Sheriff is the highest law enforcement officer of his district and that federal law enforcement (much of which is unconstitutionally organized, anyway) is obligated to submit to his authority.
34. You might be a Constitutionalist if you are determined to oppose America's merger with any kind of regional, hemispheric, or international government, such as the North American Union.
35. You might be a Constitutionalist if you oppose sending billions of taxpayer dollars as foreign aid; the U.S. State Department meddling into the private affairs of foreign countries; and ubiquitous foreign entanglements that require vast sums of money, create animosity and hostility towards us, and expose us to foreign wars and conflicts in which we have no national interest.
36. You might be a Constitutionalist if you would like to meet one single congressman or senator besides Ron Paul who acts as if he or she has ever read the U.S. Constitution.
Well, how did you fare? Are you a Constitutionalist? If so, your country desperately needs you to stand up and fight for freedom's principles before they are forever taken from us. This means never again voting for anyone--from any party--who will not preserve, protect, and defend the U.S. Constitution. So, don't just take the test; make the pledge!
*If you appreciate this column and want to help me distribute these editorial opinions to an ever-growing audience, donations may now be made by credit card, check, or Money Order. Use this link:
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© Chuck Baldwin
Monday, March 16, 2009
Mises Admits The South Had it Right
The Confederate Constitution
By Randall G. Holcombe
Special interests have long used the democratic political process to produce legislation for their own private benefit, and the U.S. Constitution contains flaws that make this easier. One attempt to remedy these flaws was the Confederate Constitution.
The Confederate Constitutional Convention opened in February 1861. Robert Barnwell Rhett of South Carolina, called the "Father of Secession" for initiating his state's breakoff from the union, thought that the U.S. model was the best. The other 50 delegates agreed. He nominated Howell Cobb, a Georgia attorney and former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, to preside over the meeting, which was completed by March I 1, 1861. By the end of that year, 13 states had ratified the new Constitution.
In broad outline, the Confederate Constitution is an amended U.S. Constitution. Even on slavery, there is little difference. Whereas the U.S. Constitution ended the importation of slaves after 1808, the Confederate Constitution simply forbade it. Both constitutions allowed slave ownership, of course.
In fact, slavery only became a constitutional issue after the war had begun. In his 1861 inaugural address, Abraham Lincoln said, "Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the Southern States that by the accession of a Republican administration their property [is] to be endangered.... I have no purpose, directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of slavery in the United States where it exists.... I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclina6on to do so."
But the differences in the documents, small as they are, are extremely important. The people who wrote the Southern Constitution had lived under the federal one. They knew its strengths, which they tried to copy, and its weaknesses, which they tried to eliminate.
One grave weakness in the U.S. Constitution is the "general welfare" clause, which the Confederate Constitution eliminated.
The U.S. Constitution gives Congress the power to "lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts, and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States."
The Confederate Constitution gave Congress the power "to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, for revenue necessary to pay the debts, provide for the common defense, and carry on the Government of the Confederate States..."
The Southern drafters thought the general welfare clause was an open door for any type of government intervention. They were, of course, right.
Immediately following that clause in the Confederate Constitution is a clause that has no parallel in the U.S. Constitution. It affirms strong support for free trade and opposition to protectionism: "but no bounties shall be granted from the Treasury; nor shall any duties or taxes on importation from foreign nations be laid to promote or foster any branch of industry."
The use of tariffs to shelter domestic industries from foreign competition had been an important issue since tariffs were first adopted in 1816. Southern states had borne heavy costs since tariffs protected northern manufacturing at the expense of Southern imports. The South exported agricultural commodities and imported almost all the goods it consumed, either from abroad or from Northern states. Tariffs drastically raised the cost of goods in the Southern states, while most of the tariff revenue was spent in the North.
The Confederate Constitution prevents Congress from appropriating money "for any internal improvement intended to facilitate commerce" except for improvement to facilitate waterway navigation. But "in all such cases, such duties shall be laid on the navigation facilitated thereby, as may be necessary to pay for the costs and expenses thereof..."
"Internal improvements" were pork-barrel public works projects. Thus the Southern Founders sought to prohibit general revenues from being used for the benefit of special interests. Tax revenues were to be spent for programs that benefited everyone, not a specific segment of the population.
In another attack on pork-barrel spending, the Confederate Constitution gave the President a line-item veto. "The President may approve any appropriation and disapprove any other appropriation in the same bill." Anticipating the U.S. Constitutional amendment that would become necessary after Franklin Roosevelt's four terms, the President himself would serve only one, six-year term.
In many circumstances, Confederate appropriations required a two-thirds majority rather than a simple majority. Without the President's request, for example, a two-thirds majority of both Houses would have been necessary for Congress to spend any money. This one provision, if adopted in the U.S. Constitution, would eliminate much of the spending that goes on today.
The Confederate Founders also tried to make sure that there would be no open-ended commitments or entitlement programs in the Confederate States. "All bills appropriating money shall specify...the exact amount of each appropriation, and the purposes for which it is made," said the document. "And Congress shall grant no extra compensation to any public contractor, officer, agent, or servant, after such contract shall have been made or such service rendered." Such a provision would have eliminated the cost-overrun," a favorite boondoggle of today's government contractors.
The Confederate Constitution also eliminated omnibus spending bills by requiring all legislation to "relate to but one subject," which had to be "expressed in the title." There would be no "Christmas-tree" appropriations bills or hidden expenditures.
These changes would have had a profound effect in keeping government small and unintrusive. Their inclusion demonstrates much wisdom on the part of Confederate statesmen in improving on the Founding Fathers. Unfortunately, the federal government was not willing to let them give their system a try.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Who in DC Supports the Constitution?
The Freedom Index