Littlestuff Weekender-3-19-2011

Our final quickie analysis of the success or failure of Congress to abide by the enumerated powers in Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution of the United States.

Legislative oversight over the District of Columbia: They do it, but it stinks, big time. Too many buildings, too much cost, the District is high crime, high poverty, low educational achievement. As a laboratory and example of federal micromanaging, D.C. is illustrative.

Enabling legislation to execute Constitutional powers: They’ve done that (except for the control of the money) and more. They have gone insanely wild over the decades enabling too many extra-constitutional functions and interventions.

Thursday night at the North Central Ohio Conservative meeting in Tiffin, Jim Green had some puzzlers for us about Ohio history. I had them all except for one: When was the state motto “With God all things are possible” adopted? Give up?.....1959. Also, I believe the “under God” phrase in the Pledge of Allegiance was added in 1954. So, do these two occurrences indicate some pushback against the aggressive progressive agenda of the previous 40 years?

I heard a seismic geologist predict a major earthquake for the Pacific shore region of North America to occur between March 19^th and April 26^th. His calculation is based on the activity around the Pacific region Ring of Fire that commenced in South America 2010 and the latest activity was, of course, the Japanese disaster. Fervent prayer is always in order, but now might be a good time to up it a notch or two.

It was personally disappointing, but not unexpected, when the last Congressional Continuing Resolution cut spending by $6 billion, the debt increased by $72 billion on that day, and they left the illegal unconstitutional $105 billion Obamacare appropriation untouched and unmolested. The two old parties have been trading and sharing power for 150 years. They will not, they cannot radically alter the way things are done. It’s in their political DNA. Boehner, in my view, is a cynical unprincipled career politician. He detests the Tea Party-type “extremists” while giving them sugar-coated lip service. It’s to be expected from someone who has been in Washington for 20 years and never led a charge up the hill for a principled stand.

In Ohio, Governor Kasich has seemed to move quickly to get the budget under control. He hasn’t proposed a nickels and dime approach like in Washington, but has gone after it in one big bite. Two problems that I suspect may happen: The Ohio Senate has shown that they would rather play politics than save the state during the SB 5 action, and the Gov. could have cut or eliminated more unnecessary departments and agencies. As long as they continue to exist, we’ll go back to budget creep as they lobby the legislature to restore their funding. The best method for dealing with a cancer is to remove it, not contain it.

Buckeye Women’s Basketball opens their NCAA tourney action today at 1:30pm vs. Central Florida on ESPN2. Go…Jantel, Sammy, Taylor, Britanny, Ashley, Sara and the rest of the team. Continue the rush of the last nine games.

Buckeye Men’s team pounded the University of Texas San Antonio 75-46 to go 33-2. They’ll play George Mason at 5:15pm Sunday. Should be a blow out since George Mason has been dead for a really long time (219 years).

On Saturday, April 9^th, the Freedom Institute is having an exciting affair: Finding Common Ground and the Future of Conservatism.

It goes from 10:00am to 7:00pm with a smorgasbord lunch available. Profits will go to Erie County Right to Life.

Location: Lyman Harbor Marine, 1615 First Street, Sandusky, Ohio 44878

Cost: $5.00 per person

All day indoor rally for Tea Party types and other concerned citizens will feature speakers from across the spectrum of conservative activity. I’m honored to be on the program at (tentatively) 10:30am (the Egg Mcmuffin shift). Please come, help some great speakers, meet some fellow patriots, enjoy some tasty chow and go home inspired and even more committed to liberty.

Have a great weekend. Littlestuff-minoosha will return on Monday.

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Counting Heartaches

Old country songs are comforting for me. They take me back to an era of hope and optimism. Some of them, however, are rather melancholy and conjure up a number of “what-might-have-beens” in my mind. Here’s one of my favorites that provides the impetus for today’s column.

C:\Users\Charlie\Videos\RealPlayer Downloads\Ray Price Heartaches By the Number (original version 1959).flv

Now I’ve got heartaches by the number

Troubles by the score

Each time they’re in session

They give me many more.

Everything they try to fix

Turns out to be much worse.

They keep spending money

From an already empty purse.

They control my lightbulbs and my guns

And regulate my toilet too

They have their noses everywhere.

There’s not much that I can do.

Raising my taxes and fees and such

They make my life a trial

I am running out of money,

While others live in style.

They’re buying votes with the pork

That I am paying for

And giving it to others who

Keep asking them for more.

They keep passing rules and regulations.

They are rubbing me so raw

‘Cause every time I turn around

I break another sneaky law.

They ignore the Constitution of our land

Nearly each and every day

By doing things they should not do

And then forcing me to pay.

Lest you fear that I’ve forgotten

The President’s role in this cluster.

He’s so smug and arrogant

With no birth certificate to muster.

None of them care about the Founding,

The Framers and the liberty we savor.

They continue doing as they please,

And pretend its for my favor.

With all the heartaches I’m feeling now,

It sometimes seems more than I can bear.

The politicians are harming my nation,

And they don’t seem at all to care.

Our liberty is too important,

To allow them to take it away.

We must fight these venal S.O.B.’s,

And win a new Independence Day.

It breaks my heart to hear them speak.

Of all the words they can say to me,

They NEVER say the important ones,

“We will protect your liberty.”

“Constitution and freedom” are quaint

To the current political class.

Old useless and tired concepts

That echo from our past.

We need new leaders in this land

Who know what we want to be.

Not wards of the state or nation,

We simply want to be free.

So, dear leaders of the land

Take all these heartaches of mine.

Put them where your head is now.

That place where the sun doesn’t shine.

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Parsing Davy

It was a number of years ago, but I can recall when our family got its first television set. It was a black and white GE console with a 13 inch screen. As a six-year old, I marveled at the variety of entertainment options that our single channel provided (Channel 13, WSPD-TV). There were two programs that I didn’t want to miss (even in 1952, television addiction became an issue). The first show was a 15 minute Gabby Hayes program that was on daily at 4:15pm…just when my school bus (Willard Hipsher, driver) dropped me off. I would watch the show as I changed clothes to go to the barn and do my chores. The other favorite of mine was “The Wonderful World of Disney” which appeared on Sunday’s at noon. My imagination would run wild during the opening sequence that featured Tinker Bell and Fantasyland. My fertile mind filled in vivid colors on the black and white screen. Disney programming was always interesting, but my favorites were “Johnny Tremain” and “Davy Crockett.”  Tremain was an active, astute and accomplished young boy during the colonial-revolutionary period of America. I often identified with his exploits as he advanced the cause of Liberty.

Crockett was a true hero for a six-year old farm boy from North Central Ohio. Wearing my coonskin cap and clutching my junior-sized replica of “Betsy,” I watched the master frontiersman defeat the forces of evil and nature.  Fess Parker, who portrayed Davy, represented the embodiment of honor, courage and integrity. Nearly every boy of that era could sing “The Ballad of Davy Crockett,” and recite the famous Crockett motto: “Be sure you’re right, then go ahead.”

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We need a Davy Crockett today in the United States. Our political leadership has consistently failed us. To illustrate the difference between people of character like Davy Crockett and today’s statist political class, I will parse his motto for both major political parties. I choose to use the Democrats and Republicans for the parsing because they have shared power in our country for 150 years…ever since the Whig party went to that smoke-filled room in the sky. Let the parsing begin.

Be: For Republicans, “be” means living being… a definite pro-life message that is given lip-service and                               little action. 

 For Democrats, “be” means that you are alive, having escaped the abortionist’s knife, and are therefore entitled to the wealth of others.

Sure: For Democrats, “sure” equals certitude or that minorities, unions, leftists and the poor will ALWAYS vote for them…so take them for granted and abuse them frequently.

For Republicans, take the social conservatives, the fiscal conservatives, the small-government types, and the Tea Party activists for granted and abuse them constantly.

You’re: For both parties it means me, myself and I.

Right: For Republicans it means “don’t make waves” just initiate micro-movements toward the Constitution and blame Democrats.

For Democrats it suggests that “if it feels good, do it.” The fact that someone wants it, and it may generate votes makes it right.

Then: This is the linkage that both parties use to justify their theft and pillage plus their crushing of our liberty.

Go: For Democrats this word means to blindly go forward as in “we’ll find out what’s in the bill after we pass it.”

For Republicans the word suggests Chamber of Commerce meetings, corporate outings and international intervention. The word “go” never refers to repealing toxic legislation or reducing the size of government.

Ahead: For both parties this refers to the cranial portions of the citizens’ bodies “on a platter.”

For Republicans this also refers to enabling the progressive/statist agenda of the Democrats while limiting personal liberty.

For Democrats “ahead” is a synonym for bigger, more intrusive government.

When two parties have controlled the apparatus of government for more than a century and a half, it seems logical that they would become smug and elitist. Their primary concerns are partisan ones, and they have forgotten the concept of principle. Both parties would dismiss Davy Crockett as an unsophisticated rube, and would not offer him a seat at the table of power. To me, Davy Crockett represents the Tea Party, Liberty, Patriot and 912 movements. We need men and women like Davy Crockett to recapture the spirit of the United States. Davy and his legacy died at the Alamo. Our current gaggle of political hotshots may be leading us to Armageddon.

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Getting Along

Many of us are chagrined by the tone of political discourse in the United States today. Some who protest the loudest are the most egregious purveyors of strident speech. If one is familiar with our history of political discussion in this country, one is aware that we have always had an element of “over-the-top” language as we debate the issues and personalities of the day. We should not be surprised when the rhetoric becomes rough and personal because it has always been so when political advantage and policy directions are at stake. Personally, I prefer that my representatives use heated language when fighting for principles. I want the people who are my surrogates in the halls of government to give no quarter when defending my liberty. The state of our nation today demands that every battle for the hearts and minds of our fellow citizens must be waged as if it were mortal combat. We are in a fight to the death.

For more than a century those who favor the expansion of government have enjoyed the steady march of government growth. With a few blips and minor detours their objective for a large, controlling federal, state and local apparatus has been achieved. From local townships and communities to the vast reaches of the federal monolith, citizens are being overwhelmed by statism that is both benign and ominous. Benign because big government advocates want every need to be met by government. Ominous because the sheer size of the Nanny State has resulted in more control over the lives and liberties of the people.  It has become a trade-off…freedom exchanged for benefits. The problem with too many members of our political class is that they define their function as providing for the delivery of benefits to the populace. They go to Washington, the various state capitols, and local seats of government intending to assure that their constituents get everything that is due for them. Consequently, even the most “conservative” politician falls into the progressive/statist mode by enabling the growth of government.

For more than forty years I was a conservative activist. I served my party as a precinct committeeman, campaign manager and state legislator. As I witnessed the growth of government and the unwillingness of elected officials to confront it, I began to understand that partisan advantage was more important than principle for most public “servants.” The constant constraint of personal freedom which was the logical outcome of big government was particularly alarming for me. Although I had strong views in the social and behavioral arenas, I knew that a sudden transfer of power could radically alter the “approved” behaviors and lifestyles in our society. My reading of the Constitution led me to realize that personal freedom should not be contingent on which party controlled the reins of power. Freedom is freedom even though you may disagree with my choices. While watching the government grow, I saw my options diminished.

We’ve taken a somewhat circuitous route from uncivil political discourse to government growth and the limiting of personal liberty. Now we’ll move back to examining intense and heated language in the political realm. Sometimes when politicians are name -calling, it sounds as if a cluster of six-year olds are involved. Other times, very rare, a politician will speak forcefully and truthfully, and even if the language may be heated or intemperate, we find it refreshing. When my liberty, my property and my money are at risk, I want my representatives to be screaming from the housetops. As government continues to grow and smother the private sector, I want my representatives to head for the alleys with their brass knuckles in place. When the growth of big government threatens to drain my nation of resources, energy and creativity, I demand that my representatives be loud, be boisterous and be bold.

This is not the time for half-measures. We’ve gone too far toward establishing the statist dream. Our regulatory environment and our excessive rulemaking have severely curtailed our personal liberty. For those politicians who claim to be small-government constitutionalists, the time has come to end the compromising for every compromise costs us liberty and money. No more deal-making because the citizens get the dirty deal in the end, and the statists deal from the bottom of the deck. Listen up, small-government politicians, no more getting along, no more comity or collegiality…no more. We cannot afford your good nature. Our lives, our futures and our nation are at risk. No more.

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The Commerce Claws

The federal government with aid and assistance from the federal courts has for decades used crowbars and blasting caps to pry open the Commerce Clause of the Constitution of the United States. The Commerce Clause can be found in Article 1, Section 8, and is one of the enumerated powers of the federal government. When the Articles of Confederation was the fundamental document of national governance, various states engaged in trade wars to protect their local industries and enterprises. When the Constitution was devised, the Framers sought to eliminate the state versus state competition and open the national marketplace for everyone. In essence, the Commerce Clause was designed to assure that individual states would not erect trade barriers against other states. The purpose was to protect intrastate and interstate commerce. Times have changed.

Although states still cannot erect unfair obstacles today, the federal government has latched onto the Commerce Clause to justify its intervention into nearly every area of American life. The tempo for federal involvement while using the Commerce Clause as justification picked up during the 1930’s with FDR’s aggressive big government agenda. It has continued through today with Presidents and Congresses of both parties continuing to expand the federal role in our lives. As an example, education has been the responsibility of the states since the founding. Beginning in the Thirties the government began to provide some level of subsidies for the states and later for local districts. It was the George W. Bush administration that dramatically expanded the reach of the federal government with the passage of the “No Child Left Behind Act.” This legislation broadened the subsidy-goodie aspect of federal involvement to include a punitive element. Does public education qualify as interstate commerce? Well, if you are an overreaching Big Brother or Nanny State, you would cite the facts that textbooks move across state lines, students sometimes relocate with their families to other states  and every classroom has maps of the nation and the world hanging on the wall (just kidding about this one, but I expect some bureaucrat to use it someday).

Just like your nosy neighbor, Big Government wants to call the shots for every aspect of your life. There is a problem, however, and it’s that pesky Constitution. Our fearless leaders whom we’ve elected over the years and their bureaucratic flunkies searched diligently for a flaw in the document that would allow them to have their way with us. Apparently, they’ve found it with the complicity of the courts. Anything that involves commerce of any type at any time can be subjected to federal control and regulation. That covers just about everything, doesn’t it? Oh no, it does not. Ask Roscoe Fillburn.

Roscoe was a wheat grower. During the Depression the government set acreage limits on various crops to limit production in an attempt to increase prices. Roscoe Fillburn exceeded his acreage allotment, but he did not intend to sell his excess wheat. He wanted to feed it to his own chickens. He was NOT going to sell the wheat, but he was charged with violating the law. The rationale was that because he fed the excess wheat to HIS OWN chickens, he, in effect, was not purchasing wheat on the open market which he would have done if he had not violated the acreage limits. In other words, Roscoe was in violation of the rules and regulations justified by the Commerce Clause because he did not buy wheat. It started in the state court when Roscoe Fillburn challenged the charges, and ended with the Supreme Court of the United States siding with the government and against Fillburn (Wickard vs. Fillburn, 1942). So, friends and neighbors, for the past 70 years or so, failure to engage in commerce is open to regulation by the Nanny State. Once the government gets its claws into you, it never lets go. The only remedy is for the people to fight it en masse. If it is unconstitutional for the federal government to overreach and over-regulate in domestic commerce, how much more egregious is it for Big Brother to control and FORCE non-commerce. How’s that Obamacare working out for you? The GOP House must, absolutely must, stop the $105 billion appropriation that was hidden in healthcare enabling legislation. It must be stopped in the Continuing Resolution. If Boehner, Cantor, McCarthy and others do not address this for fear of a veto, they should be removed from office by any means possible…immediately.

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