CONSTITUTIONAL LAW'S TYRANNY OF COMPLEXITY

Never before in our history have we seen such assaults on our Constitution. But, never in our history have the far left radicals had the power in all three branches of government, with the Executive Branch run in Chicago style fashion. They cannot push through new legislation fast enough, before they lose their power, but the damage may be irreparable.

An excellent explanation of how Congress is violating the Constitution, aided by the liberal radical left court system by Adam Graham in PajamasMedia.

Constitutional Law's Tyranny of Complexity
If we don’t stop rewriting our basic law into gobbledygook that the average person can’t understand, this country faces a dark future.
by Adam Graham, November 27, 2009

Senator Ben Nelson (D-NE) recently said that, as he is not a constitutional scholar, he could not say whether it is constitutional or not to require an individual mandate to purchase health insurance. Nelson’s statement is problematic for many reasons.

The Constitution is a simple document. I read through it for the first time when I was eight. The Constitution is 4,400 words long and takes fifteen to twenty minutes to read through carefully. It was made so that it could be understood by a New England plow boy. This is important considering that Senator Nelson is a two-term United States senator and former two-term governor who four times has sworn to uphold this document he can’t quite understand. Not only that, but he is a University of Nebraska-trained lawyer.

Is the reason for Senator Nelson’s uncertainty merely that we’re not as bright as we once were? To a degree, this might be part of the problem. In The Truth Project video series, Del Tackett recounts the story of a law professor who assigned his constitutional law students the Federalist Papers. One student complained that the papers were hard to understand. The professor responded that this was understandable, as the Federalist Papers were written for the average 18th-century New York farmer and encouraged the law student that he might someday attain their level of understanding.

But there’s a greater problem that leads to a situation where a sitting senator can’t review the list of seventeen powers granted to Congress in the Constitution and see if forcing individuals to buy health insurance is on the list.

The problem is that complexity has been introduced over the past century. It has not come through the passage of constitutional amendments, but rather through those who have wanted to accomplish ends that the Constitution does not allow the federal government to do. To do so, they’ve come up with novel and complex theories to justify government interference that the Constitution never condoned.

This isn’t to say these efforts were malicious. Many were as well-intentioned as an elderly woman writing bad checks to give money to charity. Many meant well in backing things like Social Security, the war on drugs, or the New Deal. But the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

What all of these well-intentioned efforts have created is a labyrinth of a convoluted “constitutional law” that has nothing to do with the written text of the Constitution. Rather, it keeps score of all the ways in which courts have let Congress get away with violating the plain text of the Constitution. Those folks without specialized training in the legalese of “constitutional law” will find their plainspoken objection to a violation of the Constitution greeted with babbling legalese.

Fans of this redefinition of the Constitution claim the Constitution is a living document that changes to suit the times. While this may sound very progressive, it’s scary when you consider the purpose of the Constitution is to set boundaries for the government to protect the freedoms of the people.

The Constitution is like a wall. Who wants a living wall surrounding their home? One day, the wall protects your house, another it expands into the neighbor’s yard, and on yet another day it contracts and breaks through the wall of your extra bedroom. It sounds like a low-grade horror film, but it’s the reality of our constitutional law.

Complexity and uncertainty are the enemy of liberty. Those who play with the boundaries to make it so no one but the “experts” can understand what’s going on are akin to the clerics of the Middle Ages, who kept the Bible out of the mother tongue, so it could not be understood by the common man. Working to create incomprehensibility out of plainness in order to make yourself powerful goes back thousands of years. It was Christ who said to the scholars of his day, “Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge.” (Luke 11:52a)

The key of knowledge has been taken away under this current speaker as bills are rushed to the floor with reckless abandon, with members herded to vote without even knowing what they’re voting on. Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) and Senator Tom Carper (D-DE) scoffed at the idea of reading the bill and knowing what’s in it. Most disturbing about this is that Carper’s committee wrote one of the Senate bills.

Democrats complain that provisions being touted by opponents are misunderstood or, less charitably, misrepresented by opponents. I have to chuckle when people who haven’t read something criticize others for mischaracterizing it. If the bill has been misunderstood, it’s because it was not written to be understood.

Unlike the writers of the 2,000-page monstrosity making its way through Congress, the writers of our Constitution wanted to be understood. So the answer to the question asked of Senator Nelson as to whether individual mandates are constitutional is “no.” But then again, most of what Congress does is unconstitutional.

The danger to our republic is clear. If we don’t stop rewriting our basic law into gobbledygook that the average person can’t understand, let alone respond to, we face a dark Orwellian future. Like at the end of Animal Farm, we’ll discover that “all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.” The bulwark that once protected our liberties will become our prison wall.


Adam Graham is a contributor at Race42012.com and host of the Truth and Hope Report podcast. His personal site is Adam's Blog.

WORDS MEAN THINGS

As if this government-run health care bill isn't horrific enough in its assaults on our liberty, an analysis of its words is truly telling. Makes you wonder what goes on inside the mind of these left wing radicals running our congress. Liberalism is definitely a mental disorder.

An interesting study in word choices in RedState:


Words Mean Things
by Hogan, November 24, 2009

The Senate healthcare bill has numerous flaws – but you needn’t know the details to know that it erodes freedom, restricts your ability to care for your family according to your wishes, costs trillions of dollars, increases taxes, increases premiums and is so massive that it is impossible to comprehend fully. In fact, the 2074 page behemoth in the Senate is an interesting study in word choices that tell you all you need to know about the bill. See below for a list of select words – and I am not the only one to do such a review (I noticed, e.g., Lee DeCovnick over at American Thinker from yesterday here).

The word “shall” appears 3607 times, but “freedom” only twice. The word “penalty” and its various forms 163 times, but “liberty” doesn’t appear at all. The word “require” and its forms 1025 times, but the “Constitution” is absent both literally and figuratively. The word tax and its forms appears 183 times, fee 234 times, and “Internal Revenue” 104 times. Other words like apply, rule, culture, diverse, enforce, provide, authority - all words that appear repeatedly, while a word like “own” appears only 11 times. See the full list below. It is quite telling.

   Words in the Senate healthcare bill:

(including the various forms of each, e.g. plural)

Pages = 2074
Shall or Shall Not = 3607
Provide = 1910
May or May Not = 1047
Secretary = 2500
Penalty = 163
Sanction = 8
Oversight = 39
Study = 150
Report = 789
Require = 1025
Authority = 115
Culture = 40
Allow = 162
Cost = 562
Fund = 563
Fee = 234
Tax = 183
“Internal Revenue…” = 104
Enforce = 47
Government = 117
Qualify = 482
Apply = 1741
Monitor = 55
Rule = 310
Certify = 177
Law = 283
Authorize = 408
Reasonable = 61

Compare to:

Freedom = 2
Free = 15
Liberty = 0
Choice = 40
Choose = 4
Own = 11
Constitution = 0
Federalism = 0

ELECTION '09: CHANGE I CAN BELIEVE IN !

Considering the odds, conservatives can hold their head high. Doug Hoffman came out of no where, with less than a month to let himself be known, and came admirably close to victory. Had Scozzafava acted like an adult, instead of licking her wounds, he would be the new congressman that Republicans desperately need in Congress.

America definitely let the world know that our heritage is alive and well, and the 2008 election was an ephemeron. People who got caught up in the hoopla, do not like the direction this man is taking our country. History has shown that America is a center right country -- freedom was hard fought, it's in our blood, and we are not going to succumb to tyranny.

An excellent piece by the ever brilliant Ann Coulter from World Net Daily:


Election '09: Change I can believe in!
by Ann Coulter, November 4, 2009

• MSNBC, Aug. 31, 2009, Keith Olbermann on Robert F. McDonnell, Republican candidate for governor of Virginia:

"In (McDonnell's master's thesis), he described women having jobs as detrimental to the family, called legalized use of contraception illogical, pushed to make divorce more difficult and insisted government should favor married couples over, quote, 'cohabitators, homosexuals or fornicators.' Wow. When did he write this? 1875? No, 1989. Wow, 1989.

"Goodbye, Mr. McDonnell."

• MSNBC, Sept. 22, 2009, Rachel Maddow also on McDonnell:
"And here's where the conservative movement and the Republican establishment smash into each other like bumper cars without bumpers. Here's where Republican electoral chances stop being separate from the wild-eyed excesses of the conservative movement.

"Part of watching Republicans try to return to power is watching ... the conservative movement eat the Republican Party, eat their electoral chances over and over and over again."

On election night, conservatives-eating-Republicans resulted in an 18-point landslide for McDonnell, who beat his Democratic opponent 59 percent to 41 percent – winning two-thirds of all independent voters and ending the Democrats' eight-year reign in the Virginia governor's office.

Republicans swept all statewide offices for the first time in 12 years, winning the races for lieutenant governor and attorney general, as well as assembly seats, garbage inspector, dog catcher and anything else Virginians could vote for.

To paraphrase a pompous blowhard: Goodbye, Mr. Democrat.

And that's not the most exciting news from election night! Astoundingly, Jon Corzine, the incumbent governor of heavily Democratic New Jersey – a state that Barack Obama won by 16 points just a year ago – lost by 5 points.

At 49 percent for Republican Chris Christie versus 44 percent for Corzine, the election wasn't even close enough to be stolen by ACORN. (Although Corzine did extremely well among underaged Salvadoran prostitutes living in government housing.)

The biggest winner election night was pollster Scott Rasmussen, who – once again – produced the most accurate poll results. New York Times poll: Corzine 40, Christie 37; Quinnipiac poll: Corzine 43, Christie 38; Rasmussen poll: Christie 46, Corzine 43.

The biggest loser was President Obama, who campaigned tirelessly for Corzine, even giving up golf on several occasions and skipping a quarter-million-dollar "date night" with Michelle to stump for the Democrat.

Just two days before the election, Obama was at a rally in New Jersey assuring voters that Corzine was "one of the best partners I have in the White House. We work together. ... Jon Corzine helped get this done."

Except the problem is that voting for Obama a year ago was a fashion statement, much like it was once a fad to buy Beanie Babies, pet rocks and Cabbage Patch Kids. But instead of ending up with a ridiculous dust-collector at the bottom of your closet, the Obama fad leaves you with higher taxes, a reduced retirement fund, no job and a one-year wait for an MRI.

That is why Corzine's defeat sounded the death knell for national health care.

The good news: Next time Corzine is in a major car accident after speeding on the New Jersey Turnpike, he'll be able to see a doctor right away.

The media will try to rescue health care by talking about nothing but the 23rd district of New York, where the Democrat won Tuesday night. Congratulations, Democrats – you won a congressional seat in New York! Next up: A Catholic elected pope!

Far from an upset, the Democrats' winning the 23rd district was a long-term plan of the Obama White House. That's why Obama made John McHugh, the moderate Republican congressman representing the 23rd district, his secretary of the Army earlier this year. The Democrats thought McHugh's seat would be easy pickings.

Only in the last week has everyone acted as if a Democratic victory in the 23rd district would be a shocking surprise – an upset victory caused by puritanical Republicans staging inquisitions against "mainstream" Republican candidates like Dede Scozzafava, the designated "Republican" candidate in the special election.

This is preposterous – there was absolutely nothing Republican about Scozzafava. As a supporter of partial-birth abortion, card-check union schemes and massive government spending programs, she was less Republican than John McCain.

Even Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos called Scozzafava the most liberal candidate in the race – which may explain why she was the choice of George Soros' Working Families Party and why she promptly endorsed the Democrat after withdrawing from the race last weekend.

Conservative opposition to Scozzafava hardly suggests that they plan to impose litmus tests on every Republican candidate in the 2010 elections.

Speaking of litmus tests, on MSNBC recently, liberal blogger Jane Hamsher said of the possibility that a blue dog Democrat would oppose national health care: "I dare Blanche Lincoln – I dare Blanche Lincoln to join a filibuster. She'll draw primary opponents so fast it would make your head spin."

While I'm sure an out-of-touch liberal blogger from Hollywood knows more about Arkansas than an elected senator from that state, Hamsher's threat sounds more like an intra-party civil war than conservatives opposing a George-Soros-supported Republican candidate in a New York congressional race.

Not only do conservatives not pick insane fights – such as staging a 2006 primary fight against a recent vice presidential candidate because he supported the war in Iraq – but conservatives are more popular than Republicans.

By contrast, liberals are less popular than Democrats. When conservatives take control of the Republican Party, Republicans win. When liberals take control of the Democratic Party, Democrats end up out of power for eight to 12 years.

Get Ann's new book "GUILTY: Liberal 'Victims' and Their Assault on America" here.

DINNER AT THE WHITE HOUSE

Ever get the feeling everything you've worked for is simultaneously being stripped away? This is a story that will hit home, and there IS something that can be done to keep your life in tact. Reminds me of the old Aesop's Fables -- read and learn! It's a humorous parable, but in a nutshell....

From Tuscany Circle


Dinner at the White House - a parable
By Richard Gleaves, July 8, 2009


Once upon a time, I was invited to the White House for a private dinner with the President. I am a respected businessman, with a factory that produces memory chips for computers and portable electronics. There was some talk that my industry was being scrutinized by the administration, but I paid it no mind. I live in a free country. There's nothing that the government can do to me if I've broken no laws. My wealth was earned honestly, and an invitation to dinner with an American President is an honor.

I checked my coat, was greeted by the Chief of Staff, and joined the President in a yellow dining room. We sat across from each other at a table draped in white linen. The Great Seal was embossed on the china. Uniformed staff served our dinner.

The meal was served, and I was startled when my waiter suddenly reached out, plucked a dinner roll off my plate, and began nibbling it as he walked back to the kitchen.

"Sorry about that," said the President. "Andrew is very hungry."

"I don't appreciate..." I began, but as I looked into the calm brown eyes across from me, I felt immediately guilty and petty. It was just a dinner roll. "Of course," I concluded, and reached for my glass. Before I could, however, another waiter reached forward, took the glass away and swallowed the wine in a single gulp.

"And his brother Eric is very thirsty." said the President.

I didn't say anything. The President is testing my compassion, I thought. I will play along. I don't want to seem unkind.

My plate was whisked away before I had tasted a bite.

"Eric's children are also quite hungry."

With a lurch, I crashed to the floor. My chair had been pulled out from under me. I stood, brushing myself off angrily, and watched as it was carried from the room.

"And their grandmother can't stand for long."

I excused myself, smiling outwardly, but inside feeling like a fool. Obviously I had been invited to the White House to be sport for some game. I reached for my coat, to find that it had been taken. I turned back to the President.

"Their grandfather doesn't like the cold."

I wanted to shout- that was my coat! But again, I looked at the placid smiling face of my host and decided I was being a poor sport. I spread my hands helplessly and chuckled. Then I felt my hip pocket and realized my wallet was gone. I excused myself and walked to a phone on an elegant side table. I learned shortly that my credit cards had been maxed out, my bank accounts emptied, my retirement and equity portfolios had vanished, and my wife had been thrown out of our home. Apparently, the waiters and their families were moving in. The President hadn't moved or spoken as I learned all this, but finally I lowered the phone into its cradle and turned to face him.

"Andrew's whole family has made bad financial decisions. They haven't planned for retirement, and they need a house. They recently defaulted on a subprime mortgage. I told them they could have your home. They need it more than you do."

My hands were shaking. I felt faint. I stumbled back to the table and knelt on the floor. The President cheerfully cut his meat, ate his steak and drank his wine. I lowered my eyes and stared at the small grey circles on the tablecloth that were water drops.

"By the way," He added, "I have just signed an Executive Order nationalizing your factories. I'm firing you as head of your business. I'll be operating the firm now for the benefit of all mankind. There's a whole bunch of Erics and Andrews out there and they can't come to you for jobs groveling like beggars."

I looked up. The President dropped his spoon into the empty ramekin which had been his creme brulee. He drained the last drops of his wine. As the table was cleared, he lit a cigarette and leaned back in his chair. He stared at me. I clung to the edge of the table as if were a ledge and I were a man hanging over an abyss. I thought of the years behind me, of the life I had lived. The life I had earned with a lifetime of work, risk and struggle. Why was I punished? How had I allowed it to be taken? What game had I played and lost? I looked across the table and noticed with some surprise that there was no game board between us.

What had I done wrong?

As if answering the unspoken thought, the President suddenly cocked his head, locked his empty eyes to mine, and bared a million teeth, chuckling wryly as he folded his hands.

"You should have stopped me at the dinner roll," he said.

The Obama Resistance Grows

"We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others, the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men's labor. Here are two, not only different, but INCOMPATIBLE things, called by the same name -- liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatible names -- liberty and tryanny." Abraham Lincoln in 1864


AMERICAN THINKER
The Obama Resistance Grows
By Lee Cary, August 4, 2009

Spontaneous, uncoordinated, passionate -- citizen resistance to Obama socialism grows by the day.

America is no stranger to resistance. The nation was born from citizen resistance that had mixed support among the colonists. About one in five was loyal to the King. Some of the bitterest fighting in the American Revolution was between Loyalists and Patriots. And all of it was between Americans in the Civil War. We know how to resist.

There was a spontaneous resistance after December 7, 1941. It shook America out of its flirtation with isolationism. In that case, it was largely Republican politicians who were slow to see the danger from international tyrants. Edwin Bodley of East Chicago, Indiana was a junior in engineering at Purdue University when he joined the students who, upon hearing the news of Pearl Harbor, spilled out of their dormitories in a spontaneous demonstration of resistance. The next day Edwin enlisted in the Air Force. After flying 56 missions over the "Hump," he volunteered to go back to the war and rescue downed flyers in the Pacific. Lieutenant Bodley died on August 13, 1945, hours before the war ended, the navigator on the last US crew aircraft lost to hostile action in World War II. The resistance never died in him. His name was Legion for there were many like him in those days.

So we Americans understand resistance. We don't hunger to engage in it. We can be slow to respond to the non-violent circumstances that provoke it. But once it begins, it takes its own course among us. Like water pulled by gravity seeking its own level. It's happening now.

The internet has shortened the gestation period for resistance. Nearly every day a new video surfaces on the web showing an angry crowd of ordinary citizens talking back to their member of Congress, or to some Cabinet person, as the pol morphs from confident and officious to stunned and stupefied. (Obama's czars, on the other hand, like their Russian predecessors, never face public scrutiny. They butterfly float in an ether world of inbreed wonkishness in search of purpose, doing who knows what. Hopefully, little.)

The April 15th Tea Parties, belittled by the legacy media, were collectively the coming-out event of a new American resistance. The cause then was out-of-control government spending. Today, it's shifted to a wider focus on Obama's brand of socialism for America. When the cover of the February 16, 2009 issue of Newsweek proclaimed "We Are All Socialists Now," it was a barely visible comet streaking across a news cycle. Not now. "Like hell we are!" is the rising antiphonal response today as a litany of proposed socialist legislation lines up in Congress.

Barack, Nancy, Harry, Rahm, Barney, Waxman et al have been cattle-driving a legislative cramdown since the TARP bill passed in George W. Bush's final days. They mistook victory against a tepid Republican presidential candidate for a mandate to reconstitute the United States of America. Slow to awaken, her citizens now grow angrier. It's not the loss of land and lives they fear, but of freedoms. Accustomed to trusting any new president, they're quickly losing confidence in this one. Seduced by his artful use of the spoken word, they're growing attuned to the nuances within his words. When he begins a sentence with "Let me be clear about this," our listening becomes acute, for it's not clarity that often follows, but evasiveness through circuitous parsing.

As members of Congress go home for recess it won't be to playground games. Some will hide from their constituents, not wanting to face them. Why bother? They plan to vote as Rahm and their party leaders tell them anyway, for their only ideology is to remain in power. Others will think, "The people have short memories; soon they'll be back watching reruns of Law & Order." They'll underestimate the resistance. Meanwhile, the legacy media will attribute it to right-wingers and belligerent extremists incited by their demonized arch enemies, conservative talk show hosts. They don't get it either.

Others, the bolder pols, will face their constituents and be so foolish as to presume to tell them what they, the voters, should think. Tell them what's good for them, whether they know it or not. This will be a mistake. Unless they represent the uniformly like-minded, these members of Congress will face spirited resistance. More of it than most will have encountered in their political careers. When it comes, their faces will assume fault lines of shock-and-awe in the face of citizen audacity. Some will paper over it with thin smiles and louder talk. That won't work.

Vocal opposition from their constituents differs from what they're accustomed to hearing from colleagues on the floor of the House or Senate. There it's, "I respectfully take exception to the position expressed by the honorable member from the state of bla bla bla." The ruling class speaks the language of the ruling class when citizens might be watching on C-SPAN. But in the public forum, people speak plainly, in a language with which some members of Congress are not used to being addressed. The resistance doesn't speak Beltway.

Regardless of the decibel-level of the opposition to Obamacare and Cap & Tax that Congress hears back home, many will return to their Safe Zone inside the Capital and vote against the wishes of their constituents. They are, after all, wiser and more knowledgeable in these matters than the voters. They may chose not to give us the government we want, but the government they think we should want. And would want, if we knew what was good for us. Such is the timeless arrogance of power.

If that happens, stand-by. For the American resistance will continue to mount, and soon begin to register on the Richter scale.