Articles tagged as

Constitution

MicroInterview: author Dr. Tom E. Woods

Dr. Tom Woods is the author of 11 books, holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Harvard and a Masters of Philosophy and Ph.D from Columbia University.  A senior fellow at the Ludwig von Mises Institute, ("…the world center of the Austrian School of economic [free markets] and libertarian political and social theory…". He is … Read more

Guest post: “Our Elastic Constitution in Crisis and the GOP”

Guest post by ‘Grok friend, Matt Kittredge

Our Elastic Constitution in Crisis and the GOP

In 1803, after much thought, Jefferson signed a treaty with France, purchasing the Louisiana Territory without express Constitutional Authority. When he sent the treaty to the Senate, it was ratified. He later wrote, "[a] strict observance of the written law is doubtless one of the high duties of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation. To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to the written law, would be to lose the law itself, with life, liberty, property and all those who are enjoying them with us; thus absurdly sacrificing the ends to the means."

I agree with Jefferson, especially in time of war, but with some caveats. Our elastic Constitution can and has been abused. And ‘justifying’ crises manufactured, as well.  Think about the internment of Japanese Americans without a shred of evidence in WW2 by FDR, who, among other assaults on our Constitution, seized monetary gold and devalued our currency by 43% and essentially destroyed the right of property. The bar seems to get lower and lower each time the ‘crisis’ passes, with Federal authority returning ever less and less to the ante pro ante limits of original wording and intent.

Jefferson’s reasoning is an underlying the premise of the…

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Guest Post- Richard Olson Jr.: “House Bill 125: Asserting The Tenth Amendment Rights”

House Bill 125-FN, commonly referred to as the, Lawful Commerce In Firearms Act eminently faces a house vote. Much has been said about the bill while, at the same time, much has not been said about this bill.

Simply stated, this bill exempts firearms, accessories and/or ammunition manufactured in New Hampshire, and remains in New Hampshire, from Federal Regulation under the National Firearms Act.

Similar to New Hampshire’s pending legislation, Eight other States (Idaho, Montana, South Dakota, Utah, Wyoming, Arizona, Tennessee, and Alaska) have already passed  a Firearms Freedoms Acts bill and twenty-one other states currently have active and pending legislation. Three states are proactively crafting FFA legislation.  

The New Hampshire version of the Firearms Freedom Act allows Granite-Staters to assume responsibility on a limited basis, the self-regulation as well as some freedom from the overly burdensome yolk of bureaucratic and restrictive federal firearms regulations.

(Keep Reading…)

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Who is being schooled, again?

(H/T: Townhall) In the same vein, Senator Mike Lee (R-UT), a TEA Party favorite, showed once again that this freshman class may not have to work long to show that it has already earned its chops.  With the decision of Judge Vinson in Florida that since the Individual Mandate in Obamacare is unconstitution, the whole … Read more

Is Leadership Opposing The Recall Bill? (HB 73)

Seal of the US SenateSources in the State House have suggested to me that Dan Itse’s HB 73, ‘An Act establishing a process for recall of US Senators from New Hampshire, may be opposed by the Republican House leadership.

This information comes quickly after an article in the Union Leader yesterday in which the usual suspects on the left assumed that the bill was meant as an attack on Jeanne Shaheen.  That thinking stems from the root of evil that is in side the Lefts party leadership.  If the democrats had proposed it, it would be to unseat a Republican Senator so they naturally assume that this is the intention.

Sorry.  We really do not think that way.

I am not Senator Shaheen’s biggest fan, but I agree with Dan Itse whose response to that was no.  It is not to unseat anyone. Six years is simply too long for any elected representative to be in office without any real sense of accountability and US senators, be they Shaheen, Gregg, Ayotte, or whomever, have far too much time to exercise far too much power without any regard for its actual relevance or effect on the state they are meant to represent in that body.  The history of the Senate since the institution of direct election is one of corruption, self enrichment, and political fiefdoms.

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Show Your Support For HB 89 -To Challenge Obamacare

Rep. Al Baldasaro’s committee, the Committee on State and Federal Relations and Veterans Affairs, is going to be holding a subcommittee hearing tomorrow at 10:30 a.m. in Room 203 of the Legislative Office Building for HB89,

You know, sometimes they just

 Given that the Republicans in the US House just had their Constitution reading, many of the Liberals have brought out the canard that since Republicans (and by association, TEA Partiers) with to go back to when Constitutional values held sway, we all must be in favor of going back to slavery at worst, and at … Read more

Reading The Constitution…

Reading the Constitution to progressives on the floor of the US House is like a priest reading from the bible at an exorcism. They scream out and writhe, swear, insult, spew hatred, and do everything in their power to intimidate you before you can get to the end. They started screaming days ago, actually.

Conventional Wisdom – The Republican DEMolition made us safer. Skip’s wisdom – au contraire; and let me tell you why!

Many of us on the Right breathed a sigh of relief when we saw that the majority of the US House swung to the Republicans.  While not booting Reid out of the Majority Leader’s seat in the Senate, the gains by Republicans there got an approving nod as well.  Why not?  America expressed its political will, showed its disdain for Progressive policies, and changed its political leadership. 

We all thought: good, all these crazy laws and policies will now be stopped.  The Republic is safe.  Boy, are we all wrong! 

Nothing less than the Rule of Law and the fundamental philosophy undergirding our Republic are now under attack by the Obama  Administration.  Given the failure of the Democrat controlled House and Senate, and with the Obama Presidency, the Progressives are resorting to put into effect what was their main goal all along:

The Administrative State

This has been the la creme de la creme of all Progressive fantasies – an ordered society, not popularly governed by The Rule of Law and the full expression of  Constitutional values set by the Founding Fathers, but by the opposite: The Rule of Man via bureaucratic technocrats, well versed in the science of ruling and society, that would rule by administrative fiat.

As I wrote in an email this morning, look at what the Executive Branch is doing all on its own: 

Just look at the tyranny that the Feds are doing via the Administrative State:

  • HHS Secretary saying, with no authority to do, that a 10% rise (or more) in premiums announced by some insurance companies (some in reaction to Obamacare law and regulations she is penning) is "unreasonable" with no single legal basis on which to state that.  Further, she has administratively put back in the "Death Panels" that were removed from the Obamacare law because of the public furor. 
  • The EPA is "tailoring" current law to fit its agenda of regulating anything economic under the guise of global warming (even as the actual law gives them no leeway to do it). 
  • The FCC, against the expressed will over 300 members of Congress and with no legal basis, and having already been rebuffed by the Court system, has decided on it’s own that it can regulate the Internet simply on its own say so.
  • The Dept. of Agriculture, via Michelle Obama’s "we can’t leave it to the parents" nanny food law, can determine if Moms can send cupcakes for a school bake sale.  True, a law was passed, but much of the actual effects of the law will be determined by bureaucrats and not legislators
  • The Interior Department, with no input from Congress, has now effectively killed off all new exploration for energy in the Gulf of Mexico by either not leasing new plots or by making the permitting processes so onerous and time consuming, it is unprofitable for any drilling or spectating to be done.  Ditto for land exploration for oil or exploitation of our newest discoveries of natural gas

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Revisiting Censorship In the Wake Of “Nickel And Dimed..”

The dust up in Bedford over the Book ‘Nickel and Dimed’ continues to linger in the local news–which reminded me that back in 2009 we had a similar situation in the sleepy town of Litchfield where  comments by locals and students emerged in defense of the material on the grounds that its exclusion would constitute book banning and or violate protected free speech rights.

This was (and is), of course, total rubbish.

So I wrote at least two articles on the subject back in 2009, this one–from June 20, 2009 on the bankrupt educational-industrial culture that leads to this kind of moronic nonsense, and then a followup on censorship in general after a local ACLU lawyer felt the need to add her two cents.

What follows on the jump is my response, the article from July 5th, 2009–originally posted at NH Insider.  I believe it (and my comments in the previously mentioned post here) are equally relevant to what has transpired in Bedford over the past few weeks, and demonstrates a lack of understanding by the public (and progressives) of the differences between first amendment speech and censorship.  That this keeps coming up in the context of the public school curriculum is nothing short of ironic.

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Separation From Power

Kathy Sullivan used her scheduled rant in the Union leader this week to warn us about the Republican controlled NH House and its anticipated legislative agenda.  The serpentine theme manufactured to tie her fear-mongering together is a sudden (and I’ll admit unexpected) adoration for the concept of "Separation of Powers."   This is the idea that by dividing authority the vessels of power would jealously guard each of their own and in the process prevent the others from advancing tyranny.

So I guess the Union Leader does publish left wing fantasy fiction in the opinion section.  It’s almost like a riddle.  "If an avid pro government socialist democrat pretends to be concerned with the abuse of government power what does it mean?" 

"It means they are not the ones in power."

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There Are No “Rules” For Radicals

The democrat leadership loves to project their feelings and intentions on others.  By their calculus, if it is happening inside their obsessed little minds everyone has to feel that way.  It is why they can’t help claiming that anything anyone does or says in opposition to them or their agenda does so from a position of fear or hate.  That is how they think and feel.  It is what drives them.  It must also drive you. 

They then filter that misconception into populist rants demanding that everyone within a 100 mile ideological radius of some perceived slight denounce whomever or whatever they have painted as ill will. 

 This is classic Alinsky with a twist.  Rules for Radicals demands that you hold your opponents to their own moral standards, make them follow their own rules, and pummel them (and anyone near them) relentlessly at every opportunity.  They do this knowing humans are flawed and incapable of perfection on their own which is amusing because in their preferred secular state there is only one source of power to guide us and it is them and the same rules do not apply to democrats.

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Food For Thought

Over here, you’ll find Senator Shaheen crowing about how great the new food safety bill is, and how she, Senator Jeanne Shaheen, helped pass it. (It’s crap like all the other dem bills but that’s not why she’s an ass.)
She is an ass because (and if it makes you feel better Judd Gregg is an ass for being both a co-sponsor and a yeah vote) there are provisions in this Senate bill (S510) that….raise taxes.

A Real Separation Of Powers

Separation of powers is something of a throw-away phrase for the Socialist-Democrat-Progressives.  They hand it out like a comfort object to the public, a sort of well-worn teddy bear for the masses.  It is meant to remind you that no matter what they do (or did) that bear will be there to help you feel better.

So what if it is a highly regulated bear, made by dues paying  union workers, stuffed with warning labels, wearing a little red hat with a hammer and sickle on it, and maybe even an Obama T-shirt for good measure.

Separation of powers is also this idea where the three branches are divided to ensure that the tyrannical might of the federal government is divided to protect the rights of the people.  This used to work, right up until someone wrote the seventeenth amendment, and then politicized the national court system.  At that point we no longer had separation of powers just the separation of parties, except where the two parties agree; in which case we are looking at an Oligarchy by direct democracy, which is one of the shortest paths by which little Red Totalitarian-Riding hood arrives at Comrade Grandma’s house.

Why do you think both parties appear to be moving to opposite extreme’s?  Why are states rebelling against the federal government?  Because the system was broken on purpose, by progressives, who need direct democracy so that fear and intimidation can drive the polity to allow top down federal rule as the only viable solution.

So our central planning friends view separation of powers to mean separating you from their power, so they can go about the business of managing your lives, and no one has worked harder or longer to excise the power from the people than democrats, though the ruling class Neo-Cons have done plenty to help fill the picnic basket for grandma.

But there is a solution to this problem, one that can relieve the pressure of special interests, the boys club mentality, and the lack of responsiveness by the federal legislature to the state and the people.

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New Hampshire Exceptionalism

The voters on this Granite island took a democrat majority government and turned it into a Republican super-majority, making the historical re-election of democrat John Lynch historical for it’s inability to stop anything the legislative super majority can agree is in the best interest of the people who elected them.

Article 11 v. Elliot Lasky – Smackdown!

I do not profess to know the finer details of New Hampshire election law, though more perhaps than the husband of the former State Senator who sat on the election law committee, Elliot Lasky.  Mr. Bette Lasky was caught stealing political signs, a clear violation of election law.  (I guess Bette didn’t bring that work home with her.)

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The purpose of yesterday – achieved?

Yup.  Like her or not, Sarah Palin had an answer, based on yesterday’s results, to President Obama’s promise as to what he was going to do before his inauguration; her tweet: Very clear message to Pres Obama: we’ll send our representatives to DC to stop your fundamental transformation of America. Enough is enough We are … Read more

Separation Of State…from Church.

Let me be clear.  My towns middle school does not do all that bad a job covering the US constitution.  I can say this mostly because they actually cover it for a few weeks, during an exploration of American history and the founding of the nation.   But being either a victim of or party to the kinds of support materials embedded into the public education system, I still manage to find a few ringers that make me shake my head and smile.

Not too long ago I regaled you on these pages with the tale of just such a ringer on the Middle Schools ‘citizenship quiz,’ where it asked the question, where does free speech come from?  The correct answer is of course, ‘our creator,’ who provided us with a set of unalienable rights that exist even in the vacuum of the necessary evil of government.  But that’s not the answer they were looking for.  They expect you to write ‘The 1st amendment.’ This is of course incorrect.  It assumes people could not speak freely prior 1791 when the bill of rights was ratified which is why I  am forever reminding my children that the US Constitution does not give rights, it protects them.

Which brings me to this newly discovered Gem. Yesterday I came across a series of poorly worded essay questions—my second sons homework–the worst of which was this; What part of Article VI of the US constitution supports the idea of separation of church and state? Explain. (Go ahead and roll your eyes or make a grunting noise, or whatever it is you do when confronted with such nonsense.)

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Ten Minutes Of Your Day

Courtesy of Dave Carney on Facebook.  Ten minutes with Bob McEwen, who does an exemplary job of boiling down the differences between people who want and need big government, and those who do not.    

A British Politician Addresses the People of the Free State of New Hampshire

Daniel Hannan is a member of the European Parliament, representing Great Britain. He spoke in the video below to the American Legislative Exchange Council…but don’t be fooled! He was REALLY addressing those of us who are lucky enough to be blessed by virtue of being citizens of the Free State of New Hampshire. H/T to … Read more

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