Liberals just don't KNOW!

The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government, are few and defined.

James Madison - The Federalist No. 45

Governor Deval Patrick, Governor of Massachusetts, speaking during a forum at Suffolk Law School's Rappaport Center on Monday commented on Republican opposition to President Obama’s agenda saying, "on my worst day, when I’m most frustrated about folks who seem to rooting for failure," he doesn't face anything like the opposition faced by the president. "It seems like child’s play compared to what is going on in Washington, where it is almost at the level of sedition”


Opposition and saying "NO" are quite the inverse of sedition. They are enshrined in the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

The Preamble to The Bill of Rights: "THE Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and ***RESTRICTIVE CLAUSES*** should be added:"

Amendment I: Congress shall make *** NO *** law
Amendment II: *** SHALL NOT *** be infringed
Amendment III: *** NO *** Soldier shall
Amendment IV: shall *** NOT *** be violated
Amendment V: *** NO *** person shall be held
Amendment VII: *** NO *** fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined
Amendment VIII: Excessive bail shall *** NOT *** be required
Amendment IX: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall *** NOT *** be construed
Amendment X: The powers *** NOT *** delegated

Our Constitution and Bill of Rights were designed to limit the Federal Government, slow and restrict the political process through a system of checks and balances, create gridlock, and give those saying NO the upper hand. The left thinks that calling Republicans the party of NO is an insult, when in fact it is high praise. Liberals just don't KNOW!


P.S. Today in history, May 25, 1787, the Constitutional Convention opened in Philadelphia.

Why Everyone in the Civilized World Must Support ‘Everybody Draw Muhammad Day’

This is copied in full from http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/bthor/2010/05/19/why-everyone-in-the-civilized-world-must-support-everybody-draw-muhammad-day/

I just couldn't have said it any better. (I might have left out the Star Trek stuff.)

Why Everyone in the Civilized World Must Support ‘Everybody Draw Muhammad Day’
by Brad Thor

Many people have asked if I am supporting “Everybody Draw Muhammad Day” tomorrow, May 20th. I am and two of the most moving arguments of why you should too come from the Huffington Post and Reason Magazine.

In response to Islamic reaction over the movie Fitna, which juxtaposes images of Muslim violence with passages from the Qur’an (the same passages Islamic terrorists cite as justification for their violence), writer Sam Harris at the Huffington Post penned one of the best critiques of Islam (and our refusal to engage it) I have ever read: Losing Our Spines to Save Our Necks. In it, Harris rightly points out:

The controversy over Fitna, like all such controversies, renders one fact about our world especially salient: Muslims appear to be far more concerned about perceived slights to their religion than about the atrocities committed daily in its name. Our accommodation of this psychopathic skewing of priorities has, more and more, taken the form of craven and blinkered acquiescence.

There is an uncanny irony here that many have noticed. The position of the Muslim community in the face of all provocations seems to be: Islam is a religion of peace, and if you say that it isn’t, we will kill you. Of course, the truth is often more nuanced, but this is about as nuanced as it ever gets: Islam is a religion of peace, and if you say that it isn’t, we peaceful Muslims cannot be held responsible for what our less peaceful brothers and sisters do. When they burn your embassies or kidnap and slaughter your journalists, know that we will hold you primarily responsible and will spend the bulk of our energies criticizing you for “racism” and “Islamophobia.”

Our capitulations in the face of these threats have had what is often called “a chilling effect” on our exercise of free speech.

In Mark Goldblatt’s Reason Magazine article this week The Poet Versus the Prophet he expands on many of Harris’ arguments and states:

[O]ur tip-toeing around Islamic sensibilities is nothing more than plain, old-fashioned cowardice…. We lack the moral courage to walk the walk, to put our individual lives on the line in order to defend the principles of free thought and free expression—the very principles that allowed the Judeo-Christian West to leave the Islamic East in the dust, literally and figuratively, three centuries ago.

Goldblatt makes multiple excellent points throughout his piece and closes with:

Since 2001, many Americans have asked how they can contribute in a direct way to the war against totalitarian Islam. Now we have an answer. If it’s legal, and likely to offend the radicals, just do it. That seems straightforward enough. But how many of us will have the nerve to stand up to a million or so Muslim dirtbags, and to scores of millions, perhaps hundreds of millions, of their fellow travelers and psychic enablers, and say in unison, “You want to kill the Enlightenment, you’re going to have to come through me.

Islam is not above question, criticism, critique, or examination. In fact, Islam is fourteen centuries overdue for some serious questioning, criticism, critiquing, and examination. People the world over need to be reminded that the freedom of speech most certainly includes the freedom to offend. The right of non-Muslims to draw pictures of Muhammad is equaled by a right just as powerful, the right of Muslims to ignore pictures they find offensive.

Though I can’t believe I am going to quote Captain Jean Luc- Picard, there is no better way to express why tomorrow’s world-wide event is so important:

“We’ve made too many compromises already, too many retreats. They invade our space and we fall back. They assimilate entire worlds and we fall back. Not again. The line must be drawn here! This far, no farther!”

While Picard goes on to say that he will “make them [the Borg] pay,” that’s not our job. Our job is to stand and defend free speech. No more outrageous outrage and Muslim grievance theater over cartoons, operas, and videos.

We will no longer retreat. We will no longer fall back. We will no longer demand from every other community on the face of the planet that they meet us on the playing field of civilized, rational discourse, yet carve out a special, protected, no-holds-barred zone for Islam.

It’s over. This far and no farther. No more special treatment. It is time for Islam to come into the 21st century.
This is why I support “Everybody Draw Muhammad Day.”

I Need A Spiritual Bailout -

This morning I went to a friend's house to meet up with him and go to a juvenile detention facility to mentor teens in need. My friend got sick last night and was unable to go. Since this was to be my first trip, we agreed it would be better to not go by myself.

As I was returning home I was pulled over for not wearing my seat belt. I also have expired tags on the car, as I am still unemployed since returning from Iraq and can't afford to pay DMV what is owed. I also found out that I have an unpaid ticket from 2007 that I was honestly unaware of, thinking that I had paid the speeding ticket, and therefore my licence is suspended.

The officers were very kind and courteous. I was very respectful to them, and they to me. I told them the truth, and they were kind enough not to haul me off to jail. They told me what to do in order to get this taken care of. The only issue is I still do not have the money to do the right thing.

At the end of my time in Iraq I became very depressed, almost suicidal. This didn't get better as soon as I arrived home, but has been an ongoing process. I've had my ups and downs.

Two weeks after I arrived home a 17 year old attempted to rape my 12 year old daughter while she was babysitting at a home in our neighborhood. We decided for the safety of our children we had to move, and move NOW. As it turns out, the boy was not punished by the legal system, only getting probation.

Just over a month after we moved, this same boy and another broke into our then empty house and did thousands in vandalism. The officers were not able to prove anything, as they couldn't get any usable fingerprints. This was payback for having reporting him to the authorities.

We were finally able to sell the house last month, but 14 years of equity are gone, and we emerged owing nothing, but having nothing to show either.

Meanwhile I've been going to counseling for the depression, continue with AA, and things in general were looking up. I had a promising job interview and was told that the company is going to hire me, as long as I can get and keep a top secret clearance. Now with our credit mangled from the house, and now this issue with my licence, that seems more and more unlikely.

I'm trying to remain positive, keep active and continue my sobriety. Today is one of THOSE days, and it is tough. I think I am a good man, but a flawed and imperfect man. I know that life isn't fair, and it never will be. I do sincerely want to do the next right thing, but feel overwhelmed at the moment. I'm not asking for pity, nor do I expect it, but I sure could use some encouragement.

My beautiful wife has been sympathetic, and more than patient as I try to overcome my problems. I worry that I have become a horrible example for our children. It's hard to say if in dealing with my depression that I have done all I can do to the best of my ability. So I might be in denial, or I might be doing the best I can with what I have at the moment. I'm usually the last person to KNOW something about myself.

SCOTUS Nominee Kagan & Thurgood Marshall, Birds of a Feather

SCOTUS Nominee Elena Kagan doesn't have much of a paper trail, having never been a federal judge. This doesn't mean we have no insight on how she would interpret the US Constitution.

As a former clerk to Associate Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall it may be rightly inferred that Kagan agrees with, and has in fact never tried to distance herself from his views on judicial activism. Marshall said:

"You do what you think is right and let the law catch up." Stanford Law Review, summer 1992

This is the same Marshall that was known for being lazy, skipping deliberation to watch "Days of our Lives". He once told his friend Justice Brennan that there was a "lot to be learned about life" from soap operas. Apparently not so much about law was to be learned from the US Constitution.

Kagan has already shown her own willingness to invalidate the plain meaning of texts in her time at Harvard. As Dean of Harvard Law School in 2004 and 2005 she gave two professors (Larry Tribe and Charles Ogletree) a smack on the wrist when they were outed for plagiarism. Well no, not even that. Kagan said "Nevertheless, we regard the error in question as a significant lapse in proper academic practice." Any student would have been suspended at the very least, if not expelled, as per Harvard's written policies. Tribe and Ogletree were not suspended or fired, as leftist lawyers they are above such rules in Kagan's world.

Kagan will not interpret the Constitution as written nor even try to, but will in fact do all in her power to make it a nullity as she legislates from the bench in order to push an ideology that would never be accomplished by legal means through the legislature.

My Favorite Books (Part 1) - A Conflict of Visions by Thomas Sowell

A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggle, Thomas Sowell

"Extraordinary on several counts...There is nothing tendentious or one-sided about his argument... He makes his case fairly, lucidly, and persuasively."  The New York Times Book Review

You see things; and you say "Why?" But I dream things that never were; and I say "Why not?"
The Serpent in "Back to Methuselah" by George Bernard Shaw.


Here we have the concise difference between two opposing visions. The constrained and unconstrained visions are the basis for all political conflicts in the West for the last 200 plus years.

Sowell is one of my favorite authors. He was written many books, and in others he does take sides in the argument, but in this his goal is to explain how we have come to the argument, and why it is that almost no matter the subject, the same people end up on opposite sides. When we talk about "justice" or "equality" or "power", we may be using the same words, but with very different internal meanings.

Why do those on the left and right seem to be arguing not against the other but past each other?

Sowell's thesis is that prior to paradigms, world-views, theories or any rationally articulated models there is an underlying vision, defined (quoting Joseph Schumpeter) as a “pre-analytic cognitive act”. Sowell further defines a vision, “It is what we sense or feel before we have constructed any systematic reasoning that could be called a theory, much less deduced any specific consequences as hypotheses to be tested against evidence." A vision, according to Sowell, is our sense of how the world works and of reality and causation.

Visions are a sense of the possibilities of human reason and power to act purposefully to achieve desired ends and are broadly defined by Sowell as Constrained and Unconstrained.

Appreciation of the role of visions in shaping worldviews can help make sense of opposing views for those who disagree and shows us that opposing views are not capriciously chosen or necessarily stemming from ulterior motives, but are internally self-consistent within the framework of the underlying vision.

Sowell discusses this book in a series of interviews here:
(Part 1).
(Part 2)
(Part 3)
(Part 4)
(Part 5)

Supplies Needed For Injured Veterans' Visit - Southern Maryland Vacations for Vets

Southern Maryland Vacations for Vets is hosting its first weekend event for disabled veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts and their families from May 14 to 16 at Greenwell State Park in Hollywood.

The foundation is looking for volunteers to assist the veterans with kayaking, horseback riding, cookouts and other events. Donations of ready-to-eat foods and other items can be turned in by next Thursday, May 13, in order to prepare the participants' rooms and gift packs prior to their arrival.

Southern Maryland Vacations for Vets, in partnership with the Greenwell Foundation, requires a massive amount of "people power." Volunteers are needed for every aspect of this program – whether you have one hour to give or a hundred.

The Weekends

Each weekend begins on Friday afternoon and ends on Sunday after lunch. Transportation is available from the medical centers to Greenwell State Park and back. During these weekends, service members and their families can participate in activities such as horseback riding, kayaking, hiking, picnicking, fishing, sailing, etc. While activities are offered, the weekend is loosely structured to allow families time to relax and be together in whatever way is most comfortable for them.

Because of Greenwell’s universally accessible facilities there are no limitations on participants with physical disabilities. Accessible equipment, such as golf carts, adaptive fishing poles and all terrain wheelchairs, is available so that everyone can experience the park as independently as possible.

Most of the veterans currently are undergoing treatment for their wounds at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and Bethesda Naval Regional Hospital. Call 301-737-8102.

info@greenwellfoundation.org

America, why was I alone?

People were rightly outraged when the show South Park was censored because they tried to poke fun at Mohammed. Comedy Central bowed to Muslim extremists and chose to enforce dhimmitude on themselves, so now I'll refer to the network as Comedhimmi Censored.

Now Arizona has passed a law to protect it's citizens from illegal aliens. Predictably the illegal aliens mount a protest. I went to Washington DC on "May Day" to see the "immigration" protest in Lafayette Park just across the street from the White House. I didn't dare counter-protest because I've seen what happens when just one person dares to stand up for the rule of law. (The near riot in Phoenix just after the SB1070 bill was signed.) Not that I'm a wimp, I volunteered and went to work in Iraq to help protect our soldiers from roadside bombs.

In a nation of 300 million, not one voice was heard in our nation's capitol in favor of the rule of law. I didn't see a single person stand up for Arizona, Governor Jan Brewer, the sheriff that was shot just the day before by drug smugglers, the Constitution, or the citizens of this country. I was alone and justifiably worried for my well being. (I was asking people to sign a bogus petition that was against illegal immigration.)

I spoke to many of the protesters. Not one said they were worried about being arrested or harassed as an illegal alien. Nor were they concerned that ICE would round up any foreign nationals. How is it that a foreign national feels secure complaining about the laws of this nation in front of the White House, but a citizen that supports the rule of law must remain camouflaged?

Many complained when President Obama bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia. A chorus of, "America doesn't bow to anyone!" went up from lots of folks. Well, as it turns out we bow very well. We bow to the politically correct crowd of multiculturalists every time they complain about the USA. We don't stand up to these people that demand open borders and the ruin of our society. How can our citizens win a fight they refuse to show up for? Forfeit is not a winning plan.

America, why was I alone? Where were you when I needed you?