As You See It; Obama, the Constitution, George Bush, Fascism and the Party of "No"

Well it was a rousing couple of days responding to the Santa Cruz Sentential "As You See It" response forum. It starts with an printed article of mine (September 2) pared down from a longer blog article titled "Not Quite the Truth"; following are some responses and my follow-up responses. Next on September 4, starts with my responding to a Party of "No" criticism of the Republicans, then bounced around from George Bush, to Constitutional Rights and fascism. This ends with another pared down letter I sent to the Sentential which may or may not be published.

September 2, 2010

Not quite the truth

The red herring being thrown out by the progressive left about the ground zero mosque is that this is all about the First Amendment and religious freedom; this could not be further from the truth. The reason is the Bill of Rights protects the citizenry from government, but does not restrain the citizenry. If we all agree that government has no say about building the mosque, then whatever the citizens say or demonstrate about has no attachment to the Constitution's protection against government intrusion. The citizenry is therefore protected by the First Amendment to protest the mosque; you can't claim one right to the exclusion of another. Thomas Jefferson said, "As long as you don't pick my pocket or kick me in the leg, I don't care what else you do."
Brad *******, Santa Cruz

Bradish wrote:
There is no link to progressives with any of mosque rights or appropriateness. Well, not until Brad admits the sin of professing WMDs resulted in the death and wounding of United States soldiers, as well as many thousands of innocent people. Thanks for personally bankrupting the USA, Brad.

brad responded;
Here again is the Progressive left trying to re-frame the argument. Like all progressives, you try to re-write history to fit your world view. Even without WMD's Iraq had consistently violated UN resolutions for weapons inspections and the decision to go to war was unilateral, including the UN and the vast majority of both sides of Congress. Congress also had all the intelligence information that Bush and Cheney had including Israel, Briton and Egypt. What was later determined was Iraq was in shambles and Saddam Hussein was afraid he was going to be attacked from Iran, which they share a 518k common border (remember they had a little war that lasted 8 years and was fought to a bloody draw). Hussein did not even consider the US would invade, as they did not with Bush41, but that was not the case with Iran. The false information of WMD's in Iraq, was an intelligence operation by Iraq to the purpose of which was to convince Iran not to invade. This is not to say that Cheney and the other Hawks in Washington were not looking for a reason to invade and did not question the universally consistent intelligence which should have been suspect, but it was hardly "Bush lied and people died". If this was true, why did not Cheney and Halleburton go bury some WMD's in the Iraqi desert for the military to find? This would have made Bush the hero. Your progressive narrative just doesn't make sense.

Give me a break responded:
Brad, The constitution binds us all, not just the government. It DOES empower the people to change the constitution, but not to ignore it.
On purpose, it's not easy to change ... otherwise passions of the moment would result in chaos ... the chaos that you are proposing.
I thank the forefathers for having the presence of mind to protect the country from the likes of you. I love America and will defend it from the radicals on either side!

brad responded;
It is a shame you are so ignorant of your own freedoms. The people are constrained by the rule of law, not the Constitutional restrictions from government intrusion. The first Amendment starts with, "Congress will make no law," there is no reference to the restricting the rights of the people. If you believe you have been wronged by the tyranny of the majority, an individual or corporation (if the violation does not raise to the level of a criminal statue), your redress is in Civil court, not the Constitutional constraints of the Federal Government. Please read the Federalist papers written by our founding fathers before you spout out on what the intent of our founding fathers were. Madison imagined a collection of self-governing states held together loosely by Federalism. The Constitution defined the powers and restrictions of this Federal government and it's interaction with the states. It was not until the 14th Amendment that these federal restrictions were transferred to the states (it's still an ongoing process) and Constitutional rights were applied to the citizenry. Regardless, our Constitutional rights protect the citizenry from a tyrannical government and these restrictions were never and have never been applied to the citizenry. The 1st Amendment says, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." How do you read that the citizenry's right to free speech and peaceably assemble is constrained by freedom of religion? Like I said before, you can't claim one right to the exclusion of the other.

September 4, 2010

Anne Marie Sorcenelli wrote:
The fact that our government is paralyzed by the tea party and the Party of No is unbelievable and unacceptable. The media is monopolized with lies, innuendo and bigoted spiels. I'm tired of being squeezed as a middle-class citizen. Health-care reform doesn't translate to any real protection from predatory practices. My health insurance was increased 40 percent September 2009 and it was increased another 13 percent yesterday. I, and many other self-employed citizens, am having trouble believing that we'll survive this mess. Our state and federal representatives have compensation and medical benefits for life. There's no real incentive to help the middle class except to benefit from their endorsements, campaign contributions and hence, their re-election. We keep hoping for change. Since industry sponsors write bills and our representatives shill them into law, our government has become a servant of industry. Most have lost faith. How do we change this system?

brad responded;
If the President were governing according to the will of the people than any party of "no" would be in the minority. The fact the Republicans popularity numbers are so high, even amongst those that are not aware of the Republicans bills that have been brought forth, can only be explained by the fact that the majority of the citizenry want to stop the Obama Juggernaut at all costs. Nancy Pelosi’s, “But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.” And now Health and Human Services Secretary, Nancy Sebelius saying ,“So, we have a lot of reeducation to do,”(As the citizenry discovers the truth and lies of healthcare reform) has made the American people wondering who is actually writing these bills. The President told us what his healthcare plan would look like and later we find out it looks nothing like he said it would, which seems consistent with most his policies and promises and proving the Democrat’s are voting on bills they know nothing about. When at anytime has re-education and re-distribution of wealth became common subjects in the American lexicon and freely discussed using positive rhetoric by the President of the United States? And yes, “The media is monopolized with lies, innuendo and bigoted spiels,” but primarily from the partisan left, which continually tells us to disagree with any left leaning policy is racism. It has become so partisan the many have started to look back at Bush 43 for guidance on how he managed a war against Islamic Terrorism, while using both terms so the world understood where our fight was and still defend the Muslin religion as peaceful and accepting. Before we can reform Washington we need to stop the bleeding, for now that means saying “no” until we can throw the bums out.

Doug Urbanus wrote:
Regarding Bill McCoy's letter, our federal Constitution is a mix of precise rules and abstract moral principles. The minimum age of our representatives is an example of a rule. The equal protection clause of the 14th amendment is an expression of abstract moral principle. Justice Elena Kagan in her Senate confirmation testimony considering the authors' intention said, "They didn't mean to constitutionalize all of their practices in 1868. They meant to set forth a principle of equality that would be applied over time." No matter one's politics, how the abstract moral clauses should be applied is a matter of interpretation. To complain that enacting a law to establish health insurance or indeed any law is constitutionally impermissible because it is not explicitly etched in the Constitution, reduces the Constitution to a document of dos and don'ts. Fortunately, even textualists, such as Justice Scalia, reject such a view.

brad responded;
What a bunch of Progressive pulp. Read the 10th Amendment carefully. "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." As much as you want to talk about the Constitution as a living, breathing document, it is nothing of the kind. It is a legal document whose precepts are to be used to weigh the formulation of new laws. The concept that Congress can force the citizenry, for the “privilege,” of living in the United States, to buy a private service is by definition fascist. The overreaching of an activist court’s use of Commerce clause, has allowed the federal government to influence practically every aspect of our lives, which is consistent with Hilaire Belloc, “The control of the production of wealth is the control of human life itself.” The Healthcare reform bill has now been declared a tax in the federal court cases now being heard in the various states that oppose it, because it would have been unconstitutional otherwise; but what tax demands that the citizenry again buy a private service (and note here that auto insurance is an aspect of the privilege to drive, not the right of federal residency). The Constitutional is not a document of Do’s and Don’ts; it is a document of the rights of the individual and restrictions on the Federal Government. The 9th Amendment says, “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people;” or the people have more rights than have been expressed in the Constitution, while the 10th Amendment says the only powers the Federal Government has are those specifically given by the Constitution and all other rights and powers are with the people. Nothing could be clearer.

rebel wrote:
Two years! That should have been plenty of time to fix all the problems generated by the abuse of the last eight! Those lazy democrats!

brad responded;
I'm still waiting to hear what we need to change that occurred during the 8 years of Bush. Is it deficits and debt? No way. Is it more regulation for Fannie and Freddie, nope, not in the Frank/ Dodd financial reform bill. Oh I know, it's the sub prime mortgages derivatives; nope still there. Is it ending a politically controlled war? Certainly not. Hey what about that nasty Patriot Act? no, still there. Oh, Oh, is it political corruption? Yeah, right.. How about the government right to assassinate American citizens any where in the world without a trail? Actually that is an Obama policy, even Bush didn't go that far. Maybe it's the sky high CEO wages and bonuses? no, pretty much the same . How about transparency and honesty in government, that's really all we want; no, still wanting. I've got it! It's 7% unemployment; that nasty President Bush just didn't care about the little guy. The truth is Presidents come and go but the entrenched policies of greed and corruption rarely change, and certainly not with Obama.

Government responded:
Brad said "The concept that Congress can force the citizenry, for the “privilege,” of living in the United States, to buy a private service is the definition of fascism. "
I don't think Brad has studied fascist governments, let alone ever lived under one. In my view, in the 20th century fascism rose in countries where the empowered few felt truly threatened by a coming revolutionary change in the power structure of their countries; and to turn back this change (socialism) they harnessed and promoted popular discontent and channeled it into powerful government/corporate alliance that, once entrenched, completely disempowered the individuals that they had harnessed to support it.
One can certainly dislike the idea that one might be required to buy private insurance - one can argue its propriety (or even its constitutionality) but tying it to "fascism" is so out of the blue!!!!!
Wacky!

brad responded;
If this is truly your understanding of fascism, then this forum does not allow enough room to explain what little you know about it (sorry, but your progressive revisionist history about the rise of fascism is frustrating. In Italy the Socialist refused to take power after 1920 "occupation of the factories" by the workers, for fear they would not be able to fulfill their Utopian promises in the post war chaos; this left the door open for Mussolini's Fascist party to take control two years later); 20th Century fascism was the revolutionary change, supposedly resulting from failed lassie fare Capitalism and a refusal of the Socialist to take power. Mussolini described his form of fascism as corporate government;it is a form of government that swallows up labor unions and any other impediments to production and creates state sponsored industries. Fascism is government run like a corporation where the economy is planned and truth is relative to the State’s perceived needs of the collective. Ron Paul has rightly described Obama as a corporatist. FDR had a fascination with fascism and particularly an admiration for Mussolini. “Comparisons are drawn between the cartelisation of Italian industry by Mussolini and the 'cartelisation' of American industry by Roosevelt under the National Recovery Act. Most fascist governments adopted economic policies favorable to big business”(Wiki); tell me how this is not the same as Obama's taking control of 2/3 of the American auto industry. There is also his back room deals with Big Pharma, Healthcare insurance companies and Medicare providers. In no other form of government besides fascism do you have forced consumption from a private entity; in socialism these entities are the government (they only exception to this was a short period of time under Lenin when he embraced a more corporate view until all industry was eventually nationalized; this blending of Marxism and fascism is sometimes referred to as neo-Leninism). The Healthcare reform system creates a defacto collective, under the guise of equal care and the elimination of competitiveness. In regards to your original concept that fascism was a reaction to socialism and not a form of socialism, I’ll leave you with the words of F. A. Hayek, “There is a great deal of truth that in the often heard statement that fascism and National Socialism are a sort of middle-class socialism- only that in Italy and Germany the supporters of these new movements were hardly in the middle class any longer. It was to a large extent a revolt of the new underprivileged class against the labor aristocracy, which the industrial labor movement had created.”

brad wrote:
If the President were governing according to the will of the people than any party of "no" would be in the minority.

uh Clem responded
Exactly. The "Party of No" will be the Party of November

You belcha responded:
right after you produce them WMDs.

brad responded;
We found the WMDs, apparently they were hiding in Obama's stimulus plan.

Letter to the Editor

Where are the Bridges and Dams?

What ever happened to the Presidents stimulus plan? You know the plan that was going to fund those shovel ready projects. Well, it turned out the stimulus wasn’t really a stimulus at all. Rather the stimulus was written by the ultra-left Apollo Alliance (a project of George Soros’ Tides Center, with Van Jones on the steering committee) to fund those areas of the economy that met with their political agenda. Even Paul Krugman had to agree, “..for all the talk of a failed stimulus, if you look at government spending as a whole you see hardly any stimulus at all.” No bridges, no dams, no highways and no jobs; apparently it was more important for the Apollo Alliance to fund its progressive agenda, than to create jobs and improve the economy, which makes this the coming attraction for Cap and Trade.