Joel's Rant

Just this past week Barack Obama told a gathering of Hispanic Americans that their “enemies” were fellow American citizens that did not necessarily share their beliefs about immigration reform and that those enemies should be “punished” at the polls on November 2nd.  That was a comment made by the President of the United States.

Barack Obama has refused to use the word “enemies” to describe Islamofascists, Iranian Mullahs, and various groups bent on killing as many Americans as possible, but he has no problem using that word to describe citizens of our country that hold a differing view; and he meant it. 

What does that say?  What does that mean?  How does one comprehend the enormity of that comment?  Where have we come as a country for our leader to say such a terrible and divisive thing?

But he says things like that all the time.  As a matter of fact, that’s his strategy whenever he talks to groups of followers or to folks watching him be interviewed by drones like Matt Lauer and Diane Sawyer.  He learned that strategy directly from the Saul Alinsky’s and Frank Marshall Davis’s of the world.  It’s the same strategy Joseph Goebbels and the Politburo used to control the message.  Essentially, make enemies of your fellow citizens; isolate them, freeze them, and attack them relentlessly in an effort to set up strawmen to “take the blame”.  It’s disgusting listening to Obama continuing to attack “Wall Street”, bankers, insurance companies, big oil, big pharma, big corporations, big business, CEO’s, mortgage lenders, millionaires, billionaires and on and on and on.

Are all private business people “enemies of the state?”  Do all private business people commit fraud and act in a corrupt fashion?  Is the business of business to destroy the population?  Has that been the experience of free enterprise in this country over the past 200 years? 

Isn’t it rather the case that free enterprise, free markets and capitalism have given this country the highest standard of living in the history of the world?  Isn’t it rather the case that entrepreneurs, unleashed by a Constitution that is supposed to limit or reject government intervention in the lives of its citizens, that has created and made affordable to even the poorest of our citizens things that only the rich of other countries have the ability to enjoy?  Only in America do the poor have cars, computers, cell phones, designer clothes, homes that they own, medical care, and the ability to travel anywhere, at any time, and return safely?

Does the President of the United States think that the history of our country began on January 20, 2009?  Doesn’t he know that great and wonderful and exceptional things occurred here before he took the oath to “…..preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States?”   Doesn’t he know that what made the United States the greatest country in world history was its charter as an “individual-centered society” and not a “government-centered society” like those of Europe and elsewhere and like he wants to “fundamentally transform” our country into today?

And where the fudge does he get the right to “fundamentally transform” this country into anything, for crying out loud?  His only job, and the only job of the Democrat drones that bow to him in Congress, is to follow the rules set out in Constitution.  There can be no fundamental transformation without first amending the Constitution and that ain’t happenin’.  The only thing going on is the seizing and shredding of our most important and cherished list of rules dictating exactly how the federal government is supposed to operate.

The Constitution was written to limit government.  The Constitution is a document that spells out the limited, minimalist things the federal government has the right to do.  The entire purpose of the Constitution was to keep the government out of the daily lives of the citizens.  Is that the government we have today?

I think we have traveled very far from the path the Framers of our Constitution had in mind when the states ratified that document in 1787.

Is it possible that James Madison believed that government has the right to tell people they must purchase a product from a third party or face government imposed sanctions?  Of course not.  Is it possible that Alexander Hamilton believed the government should pay people for a period exceeding 99 weeks not to work?  Of course not.  Is it possible that John Jay believed the government should control, own or direct the energy use or manufacturing of private companies or bail out any free enterprise in financial crisis?  Of course not. 

Were the patriots who fought in the Revolutionary War expecting that their new government would dictate what light bulbs they could use or how much water could run through their toilets?  Were John Adams and Thomas Jefferson hoping to take the income and resources of one citizen and give them to another?  Draw your own conclusions.

But all of that, and more, are happening today.  In fact, the words of the Constitution are being rewritten to include new meanings that have evolved since the document was originally written.  Take the commerce clause of the Constitution as an example.

That portion of the Constitution says the central government has the right and responsibility to “regulate” interstate commerce.  We use, today, the word “regulate” to mean to control, or stop, or fix, or make uniform or to set up procedures, or rules or block or any number of other negative actions.  You get the idea.  But that wasn’t the meaning of the word “regulate” back in 1787.  Back then, the word meant to “make normal”, to promote, to enhance, and that makes perfect sense, no?  The Framers wanted more commerce among the states, not less.  The Framers wanted more people involved in commerce, or business, not less.  The Framers meant for commerce to be streamlined, to enhance the living of the people, not to set limits on how business should operate.  But the word “regulate” has been bastardized over the years into something new and different and alien and dangerous when included in the Constitution.

Most of what the government does now is set up roadblocks to commerce, reduces commerce, makes commerce more difficult and costly, thereby limiting the number of people that can participate and limiting the benefits commerce can bring to the living standards of people.

Look at the Department of Energy (DOE).  It creates no energy and in fact does everything it can to limit our nation’s energy resources.  Instead of helping explore for oil, the DOE tries to decrease oil exploration.  Instead of enhancing and promoting nuclear energy use, the DOE makes it near impossible to file for a power plant license and setting up terms that make it financially unacceptable for investors.

Look at the Department of Education.  It doesn’t educate anyone or help in the actual education process of any child.  All it does is redistribute money from taxpayers to the teacher’s union.

And that’s just one word.  The words “welfare” and “militia” have also evolved and changed so their meanings are different from when first written.  And there are others too.

Take the phrase “separation of church and state”.  It does not appear anywhere in the First Amendment of in the Constitution at all, yet people will tell you that even the most innocent use of the word “God” must be stricken from the public square, that it’s unconstitutional for the government to support its use.   In fact, that’s total nonsense and such a misinterpretation had not occurred in the first century and a half of the nation’s existence.  In fact, read the First Amendment yourself.  All it says is that the government cannot set up its OWN religion and then compel you to support it.  It is completely silent on any other aspect of religion.  Do you actually think George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, deeply religious people who believed in God, and a “creator” that watched over them and helped guide their fates and that of the new nation, would insist that God had no place in the public square?  How ridiculous and stupefying is that? 

In fact, the entire misinterpretation and rewriting of the First Amendment, erecting a so-called separation of church and state, was first done by FDR’s appointee to the Supreme Court, Hugo Black.  It might be worth noting that about 10 years before being named to the court, Black had not only been a member of the Ku Klux Klan in Alabama, but was also their chief attorney.  He was a very hateful person, and in addition to hating blacks and Jews, Black had it in for Catholics big-time.

In a 1947 case, Everson v. Board of Education, Black meant to purposely and maliciously harm the Catholic Church by denying them any share of public monies that would otherwise have been used to support their activities, like supporting their schools.  Writing for a razor thin 5-4 majority, Black said “there can be no amount levied to support any religious activities……………….that the First Amendment has erected a wall between church and state.”   And there you have it; one hateful, disgusting person with a personal ax to grind and now we have a national spectacle that rips us apart each day.

If there were a separation of church and state, how is it that churches, synagogues and other religious organizations are tax-exempt?  If there was really such a separation, how is it they are treated differently than any other business enterprise?  How about “In God We Trust” on all of our money, and on and on.

The point is that what we need to do it get back to the Constitution the way the Framers wrote it.  There can be no other way.  Our salvation as a nation of laws, and the protection of individual rights, demands it.

If Barack Obama wants to fundamentally change this country into something it’s not, he should have to go through the amendment process, not issue proclamations, or pass unconstitutional laws or subvert the will and authority and oversight of Congress by pushing more and more power onto the plates of unaccountable czars.  This has to stop.

So here’s what you need to do.  You need to vote on Tuesday.  You need to vote like your very life depends on it.  And you need to vote Republican.

And that’s all there is to it.

This week Democrat Harry Reid said his senatorial opponent in Nevada, Sharron Angle, is so extreme she would have opposed the Emancipation Proclamation.  In fact, his exact quote was, “She wants to abolish social security, get rid of Medicare, she believes it’s unconstitutional, do away with the Department of Education, Department of Energy. She thinks that all Presidential proclamations — executive orders are unconstitutional — like the Emancipation Proclamation.” It’s all bullcrap!

Not to be outdone, Chris Coons, the Democrat senatorial nominee in Delaware, said his Republican opponent, Christine O’Donnell, was so extreme that she wants to repeal the 14^th Amendment, the one that established citizenship for former slaves, and also have the government establish a separate religion.  Also total bullcrap!

Why do these Democrats, and many others, think it’s good politics to spread completely unfounded lies and embellish half-truths and otherwise falsely paint their opponents as not only extreme but even anti-American when there’s no evidence to support their fabrications?  It’s all made up; concocted, if you will.  Maybe it’s because the President of the United States does the same thing all the time, and he does it so effortlessly and without a hint of any shame.  And isn’t that the definition of what is meant by a “pathological liar?”  Didn’t we see the same thing in Bill Clinton?

The latest from Barack Obama is the lie about the foreign money streaming into the Republican Party via the Chamber of Commerce.  This is a bald-faced lie with no evidence to back it up at all.  Even though Obama has been speechifying around the country spouting this liberal libel to every crowd he meets, liberal pundits like Bob Schiefer and Mark Shields, among many others who are not generally found on MSNBC but are nonetheless way out on the left but not as depravedly so as the MSNBC crowd, have called these comments out as completely fabricated and fictional; even concocted, again, if you will.  But Obama could care less.  It’s the “ends justifies the means” time and nothing like the truth is going to stand in his or the Democrat Party’s way.  So why shouldn’t every other Democrat similarly lie like hell; if it’s good enough for the President it’s apparently good enough for them too.

It’s sad to see how this president has lowered the “presidential character bar” to an unprecedented low, even lower than misogynist and debaucher Bill Clinton, from which Democrats may never recover.  But knowing Democrats, they may never want to.  If you don’t believe me let’s see what’s happening over in their liberal netherworld of thinking.

Let’s try Nancy Pelosi, speaking before the steelworkers union last week, in which she said, “we’re talking about addressing the disparity of income where the wealthy people continue to get wealthier and some other people are falling out of the middle class when we want to bring many more people into the middle class.  But that disparity is not just about wages alone, that disparity is now also about ownership and equity. It’s all about fairness in our country.” 

So now it’s not just about stealing your wages and giving it to other people.  Now it’s also about your ownership and equity of stuff and also giving that to other people as well.  Now it’s about your pensions, your 401k’s, your home, whatever property you own and on and on.  And doing exactly what with that?  What do you think?

There’s presently over $5 Trillion sitting in 401k’s right now, building interest and funding the retirements of working people who had the foresight to look after themselves in the future.  There’s over $2 Trillion sitting in corporate accounts, including small businesses, waiting for the business climate to improve and become stable so it can be invested in the free market economy, the backbone of American capitalism.  If it were not for the Constitution, what do you suppose Nancy Pelosi would do with those huge buckets of cash? 

Oh wait, Democrats and liberals don’t really follow the real Constitution the way it was written, which protected private property and required the government to enforce valid contracts.  No, she’s of the party that believes in the “living and breathing” Constitution which allows for new-age interpretations, at regular and convenient intervals, that fit neatly in with so-called present day liberal norms, which would include forcing you to buy a product from a third party with whom you don’t want to do business or face a severe penalty, or even force you to eat three vegetables a day, or maybe dictate how many times you’ll be allowed to flush your toilet.  With that kind of “Constitution” being the new law of the land, what kind of obstacles will be placed in Nancy Pelosi’s way to stealing your equity and private property?  For those that are blind to the dangers of totalitarianism and tyranny, the answer is none; there will be no obstacles, no pushback, not from Democrats or Marxists, or liberals or Barack Obama. 

Then there’s Obama administration Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announcing the end of its ban on oil drilling in the Gulf. “We are open for business. We have made, and continue to make, significant progress in reducing the risks associated with deep-water drilling.”  This is complete empty campaign-season rhetoric because oil companies still can’t resume drilling.  In fact, Michael R. Bromwich, director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, stated last week, “My sense is we will have permits approved by the end of the year, but how much before the end of the year I can’t say, and how many before the end of the year I can’t say.”  Or maybe they won’t be approved until next summer or maybe the summer after that or whenever…….or maybe even never.  They like the idea of being able to say the ban has been lifted, but if they make the license part impossible they get the best of both worlds; destroying the oil industry in this country but making it seem they had nothing to do with it.  Yeah, that’s the ticket!

And what about the 20,000 laid-off oil industry workers in the Gulf and the $4 Billion that the ban has cost the economies of the Gulf States and the oil rigs that have already left the Gulf and those that are making preparations for doing that?  The Obama administration doesn’t really care.  As Nancy Pelosi herself has stated unemployment benefits and food stamps are the fastest and easiest way to “stimulate” the economy, so this drilling ban is actually all good.  Only a Democrat, or anti-American, could think like that.

The point is that a ban on offshore drilling is exactly what the Obama administration, and the Democrats and liberals who follow blindly behind him, wants.  Destroying the energy industry in America is one of their plans.  Their only question now is how they can pull off the same sort of ban on coal mining. 

Michael Cooper, of The New York Times (NYT), recently wrote a column about all of Obama’s supposed tax cuts and asked “What if a president cut Americans’ income taxes by $116 billion and nobody noticed?”  What he was referring to, and what Obama and his drones like to similarly refer to, is the $400 respite for individuals, in the form of lower income tax withholding in regular paychecks, that was contained in last year’s $862 Billion (over $1.2 Trillion when interest is included) stimulus spending bill. What the NYT was trying to do is get Obama more credit than he’s getting for “cutting taxes” for the so-called “95% of individuals who received a tax cut last year.”  Unfortunately, what the NYT failed to notice is that Obama doesn’t deserve any gratitude for minimal tax cuts when his policies are responsible for dramatically raising taxes much more. 

In just two years, according to Americans for Tax Reform (ATR), Obama and the Democrats have been responsible for raising the total tax burden on the economy by $352 Billion over 10 years.  ObamaCare alone raises taxes by another $652 Billion before offsets, as documented by Congress’ Joint Committee on Taxation.  In addition, the NYT also failed to count the cost of Democrats in Congress failing to extend the George W. Bush tax cuts, which expire on January 1, 2011, just about two months from now, for crying out loud. 

In fact, with the aforementioned Nancy Pelosi casting the deciding vote, the House adjourned for the election season without continuing those cuts, a failure that could raise taxes $2.6 Trillion over the next decade.  Also overlooked is the expiration of small-business tax cuts, which will take another $2 Trillion from the economy and $560 Billion in projected added taxes in the dreaded alternative minimum tax (AMT) which could hit as many as half of all taxpayers next year. 

And yet Obama approval rating is still in the mid-40’s%.  How is it possible it could even be that high?  Who are those people?  From what toxic gene pool did they come from?

And finally, there’s the disgraceful display of Obama and his racist Justice Department (DOJ) not protecting the voting rights of military personnel stationed abroad. At least 16 states (all blue states but one) presently are in noncompliance with the law requiring military ballots be mailed at least 45 days before Election Day so they can reach troops stationed in remote locales.  Most of those military personnel will not have their ballots counted.  Why am I not surprised?

Think about that.  People protecting our country, many of whom live each day in harm’s way, will effectively not be allowed to vote, yet virtually every Democrat running for office wants to give convicted felons the right to vote, as well as illegal aliens.  The only logical conclusion to draw here is that Democrats will do anything, even illegal things, to win elections.  Depriving military voters, who tend to favor Republicans over Democrats, and supporting felons and illegal aliens, who favor Democrats over Republicans, is what Democrats do.  There can be no other way of looking at this, is there?

So what does all this mean?  It means if we don’t start electing people who believe in capitalism and the Constitution to office our country is gone.  I, for one, am already looking for a safe harbor.  Maybe capitalist Chile?

And that’s all there is to it.