Where Constitutional Truth & Spirit Unite
H/T Gateway Pundit:
In a speech he gave in April 2007 Obama said that health care reform “would require tax hikes” and that “savings are just a theory.”
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The Undoing of American Constitutionalism
How a political revolution begun more than a century ago led to Sonia Sotomayor.
By Richard M. Reinsch
Those who were desperately confused, if not enraged, by candidate Barack Obama’s contention that the ideal federal judge should fashion his opinion in empathy with the more downtrodden and oppressed party in a case should consult Bradley Watson’s Living Constitution, Dying Faith: Progressivism and the New Science of Jurisprudence to understand how the man who has become president could assert the primacy of personal opinion over law. Watson’s book daringly asks what social Darwinism and pragmatism have to do with the progressivist evolution in American politics and jurisprudence during the 20th and 21st centuries. Together they were, Watson argues, akin to an intellectual tsunami that shaped, developed, and still informs, albeit in evolved modalities, the dominant understanding of the American constitutional order (or lack thereof) held by the judicial, academic, and political classes. Strange as it might seem, Watson convincingly shows how these philosophical schools flowed into the main currents of American political and judicial thinking.
The social-Darwinist ingredient in progressive jurisprudence is the notion of the state as an organic principle, informed by the general will of society and by the particular facts, circumstances, and history of a people. Subject to no fixed limits, eschewing belief in objective justice, the state follows a path of incessant growth and flexibility, limited only by the ever-changing needs of society. As dictated by the laws of progress and evolution, the state moves society along an inevitable ascent. By application of “scientific” expertise and rationalizing administration, government directs this growth. Expressly left behind is Madisonian constitutionalism and its notions of natural rights, limited government, the rule of law, prevention of faction, and vigilance against the possibility of overly centralized and unaccountable government.
Watson marshals the speeches and writings of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, and the jurisprudence of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, among others, as evidence for his claim of the pervasive influence of social Darwinism in the intellectual cocktail that is progressivism. As Wilson demonstrates, the progressives sought to move the energy of government from the democratic branches to the bureaucracy. Insulated from politics and popular opinion, federal bureaucrats would engage in the scientific administration of government — the overriding ethos of progressivism. The expert and, in time, the judge would supply regulations and orders to fill the multiplying and unruly (i.e., unregulated) gaps of modern industrialized society. Thus, the real purpose of politics under progressivism informed by social Darwinism is not justice, or the preservation of personal and economic liberty — those worthless dregs of past history — but the infusion into federal and state governments of the substantive powers needed to achieve the perfection of government administration.
There was, however, that second element informing progressive thought. Almost seamlessly interwoven with the evolutionary ideal of social-Darwinian ideology, pragmatism equally challenged the fixed understanding of America’s constitutional order. William James — the pragmatist par excellence — brilliantly summarized this school of thought with his statement that ideas “become true just in so far as they help us to get into a satisfactory relation with other parts of our experience.” More succinctly, “The reason why we call things true is the reason that they are true.” Virtually synonymous with the idea that state and society are to be subjected to ongoing experimentalism, pragmatism, like social Darwinism, embraced the idea of ceaseless adaptation and change. It presented the state as the entity most capable of selecting the optimal arrangements for meeting the challenges of new social, political, economic, and technological circumstances. Devastatingly absent was any consideration of the ends or purposes of democratic deliberation. For the pragmatist, the Constitution and its express limits on democratic energy must be negated lest necessary and positive change be wrongly arrested.
For the pragmatist, the importance of democratic thought and choice is not in the considerations of justice or law, not with final causes or transcendent purpose, which informs past understandings and meanings, but pure practicality. Moving with the inherent flux of the times determines the emphasis for law and politics. The truth of ideas and the validity of political and economic movements are now to be found in the actual successes these movements have in achieving practical operations. As Justice Holmes articulated the rationale for the protection of free speech, “If in the long run the beliefs expressed in proletarian dictatorship are destined to be accepted by the dominant forces of the community, the only meaning of free speech is that they should be given their chance and have their way.” In response to Justice Holmes’s constitutional nominalism, Watson deftly notes, “If the Constitution — or the presently established constitutional order — is itself neutral or indifferent on this question [i.e., legitimate government], what is the basis for a constitutional ruling in favor of a First Amendment claim?” Indeed, progressivism’s pervasive skepticism ends in denying the philosophical grounding of constitutionalism and its animating principle — the rule of law. This, Watson argues throughout the book, is the damage rendered to American constitutionalism by progressivism and its twinned social-Darwinian and pragmatist components.
Against these apostles of ceaseless adaptation, progress, and organic growth of the state loom the men who framed America’s constitutional order and its underlying philosophy. Watson synthesizes the varying rationales for liberty held by the Founders under the overarching understanding they held of man’s natural rights in his property and person, and the corollary that government must secure these rights and, in turn, defend citizens from the government itself. However, this conception of government as necessary to the protection of man’s natural rights, but also preternaturally dangerous because of man’s vice-ridden passions and propensity to form factions, is simply incompatible with progressivism. Under the latter’s dispensation, the citizen now joins in an undulating partnership with the government, under the administration of experts whose intervention actualizes the liberty and self-development of persons and groups. From this perspective, natural rights are seen more as the negation rather than the fulfillment of freedom. James Madison has been thrown into the dock.
Abraham Lincoln also stands athwart progressive ideology in his attempts to reground American politics on a firmer understanding of the singular dignity of the person. Through the spoken word and through his statesmanship, Lincoln rearticulated the natural basis of republican government, and the goods it must secure and the evils it must crush if it is to endure. Noteworthy is Watson’s contention that after the victory over the slaveholding South, Lincoln’s recovery of the political justice of the Declaration of Independence was rejected by the rising tide of progressivism in the decades following his presidency. The denatured person seen by progressivism requires an unlimited government to deploy the operations and powers necessary to unlock social progress.
The spillover to our time can be seen in Justice Sotomayor’s statement to a group of law clerks that the appellate courts are where policy is made. Justice Sotomayor was merely following her progressive teachers, who have risen to dominance in American law schools and courts. Their continuing attempt to replace constitutionalism now finds its purest and most honest expression with those federal judges who openly equate judicial power with politics and policy. Watson’s scholarship exposes the intellectual stair-stepping that has taken us to the brink of this dangerous precipice.
— Richard M. Reinsch is a program officer at Liberty Fund, and author of the forthcoming Whittaker Chambers: The Spirit of a Counter-Revolutionary, to be published by ISI Books.
Today is Constitution Day. It was on this day, September 17, 1787, that the Constitution emerged for the first time from the convention in Philadelphia, Pa. Our blessed Constitution that was written not by men of all the same political faction, however, a coalition of men of many political factions, working together to “Form A More Perfect Union” and it was up to ‘We the People” to ensure its long lasting existence.
Fast forward 222 years…
When political factions collide, there is bound to be discontent of some sort on one side or the other. Political factions also can be very dangerous to liberty if abused such as they are today. However, given time, the oppressing faction will soon be diminished in numbers if true liberty is let to run its natural course.
The Federalist Papers, a series of essays that the framers published in newspapers across the colonies, are the blue print to the Constitution. Hamilton & Madison wrote extensively on divide between political factions and the need for them to ensure liberty under the Constitutional Republic. In Federalist #10, Madison gives us a ‘right in your face’ clue as to the importance of keeping one political faction from taking over another:
“By a faction I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or minority of the whole, who are united in and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community…
…Liberty is to faction what air is to fire, an ailment without which it instantly expires…
…As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed. As long as the connection subsists between his reason and his self-love, his opinions and his passions will have a reciprocal influence on each other; and the former will be objects to which the latter will attach themselves.”
Today, the debate between the divides is at a critical crossroads. On one side, we have the progressive/socialist faction; who are seeking to extinguish the flame of liberty of the conservatives. Helping the socialistic faction are those in the middle who are content to remain oblivious until the day, they too, will wake up to liberties lost.
To wake up the sleeping centrists, we must turn to education. The education of our history and how the wheels of liberty are suppose to be turning in Washington.
For this we shall start back in 1772.
On November 20, 1772 in Boston, Ma., the colonists ratified the very first ‘Rights of the Colonists’. In correspondence to the Monarchy in Great Britain, the colonists also included a laundry list of violations of their individual rights. Reading the list of violations is like reading the laundry list of violations of the Declaration of Independence. This is no coincidence. I believe the original “Rights of the Colonists’ paved the way to the Revolution.
Here are a few snippets from that fateful correspondence:
“The natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man; but only to have the law of nature for his rule…
…It is the greatest absurdity to suppose it on the power of one or any number of men at the entering into society, to renounce their essential natural rights, or the means of preserving those rights when the great end of all civil government from the very nature of its institution is for the support, protection and defence of those rights: the principal of which as is before observed, are life, liberty and property. If men through fear, fraud or mistake, should in terms renounce and give up any essential natural right, the eternal law of reason and the great end of society, would absolutely vacate such renunciation; the right to freedom being the gift of God Almighty, it is not in the power of Man to alienate this gift, and voluntarily become a slave…
…The absolute rights of all free men, in or out of Civil society, are principally personal security, personal liberty and private property…
…The Legislative has no right to absolute arbitrary power over the lives and fortunes of the people.”
I could go on further, however, I leave you with the link for further reading. This was absolutely mind blowing to me to see in written word, several years before the revolution that the seeds of independence were sprouting amongst the colonists. The similarities of what happened those 237 years ago, when the colonists first wrote to Great Britain, to what is happening today is nothing short of a shout out to Americans today of what will come if we do not get the governments in our states and in DC under control and off the path of tyranny.
Returning back to the Federalist Papers, we again see the correlation of then and now when Madison speaks out in essay #84 of the dangers of an all intrusive central government into the most personal aspects of our lives.
“It is evident therefore, that, according to their primitive signification, they have no application to constitutions, professedly founded upon the power of the people and executed by their immediate representatives and servants. Here, in strictness, the people surrender nothing; and as they retain everything they have no need of particular reservations, ‘We the People of the United States, to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, so ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America…
… a Constitution like that under consideration, which is merely intended to regulate the general political interests of the nation, than to a constitution which has the regulation of every species of personal and private concerns…
…There remains but one other view of this matter to conclude the point. The truth is, after all the declamations we have heard, that the Constitution is itself, in every rational sense, and to every useful purpose, A BILL OF RIGHTS…
…This is done in the most ample and precise manner in the plan of the convention; comprehending various precautions for the public security which are not to be found in any of the State constitutions. Is another object of the bill of rights to define certain immunities and modes of proceeding, which are relative to personal and private concerns? This we have seen has also been attended to in a variety of cases in the same plan. Adverting therefore to the substantial meaning of a bill of rights, it is absurd to allege that it is not found in the work of the convention.”
Indeed, a limited government that has no power to circumvent the natural rights of man by passing legislation that would assume control over the most private aspects of our lives. I ask, is not the control over our physical well being not the most personal and private aspect of our God given inalienable rights? Where is it in the enumerated rights of Congress listed in Article I of the Constitution, that “We the People” gave up our right to make the most personal decisions of our lives? Was there an amendment passed that we do not know about?
What is happening today is nothing short of tyranny, however, the progressive / socialists try to pass it off as liberty. To them, liberty through tyranny is acceptable; because in their minds, they truly believe, they are liberating us from what they have now deemed an undue financial burden which ironically was created by none other than themselves, our elected representatives.
These representatives use trickery with words in which the founding fathers frequently refer to as ‘mischief’. They use lobbyists and lawyers to write legislation that is so obscenely obtrusive and of gigantic length to hide from the public, and themselves, the true dastardly ramifications of its contents. This problem is not limited to the progressive/socialistic faction; the so-called conservatives are just as guilty when it comes to kowtowing to political lobbyists.
In Federalist # 62, Hamilton calls out this problem of allowing such obscure and lengthy legislation to be passed.
“It is a misfortune incident to republican government, though in a less degree than to other governments, that those who administer it may forget their obligations to their constituents, and prove unfaithful to their important trust…
…The eternal effects of a mutable policy are still more calamitous. It poisons the blessings of liberty itself. It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws are so voluminous that they can not be read, or so incoherent that they can not be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or under go such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is today, can guess what it will be tomorrow. Law is defined to be a rule of action; but how can that be a rule, which is little known, and less fixed?”
What else did the founding fathers have to say of the contents of such tyrannical legislation you ask? What of the effects of legislation that excludes certain body politic from having to comply?
Again, Madison expounds on the tendency of the elected few to elevate themselves at the expense of the masses.
“I will add, as a fifth circumstance in the situation of the House of Representatives, restraining them from oppressive measures, that they can make no law which will have not have its full operation on themselves and their friends, as well as on the great mass of society. This has always been deemed one of the strongest bonds by which human policy can connect the rulers and the people together. It creates between them that communion of interests and sympathy of sentiments, of which few governments have furnished examples; but without which every government degenerates into tyranny.”
Never has it been more true than today, that we can unequivocally say that political elitists have usurped their duty to represent ‘WE the PEOPLE’. They were elected on false pretense and have now been exposed.
They are working to reduce our God given physical beings into nothing more than chattel. To them we are just another commodity to regulate for their own personal political and financial gain.
If such Orwellian legislation with mandates into the most intimate aspect of our personal lives passes, they shall have achieved the ultimate tyranny against God’s free people.
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2 Peter 2:18-20 (King James Version) ~ For when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through much wantonness, those that were clean escaped from them who live in error. While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage. For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning.
If nothing is required, how come it shows up 84 times in the current bill?
Here are a few of the requirements as stated by Betsy McCaughy at the 9-12 Rally in DC.
In Thursady’s post, we will take a visit to the past. We will see through their own words, just what the founding fathers thought of government intrusion into our personal lives and the unconstitutionality of legislation that ‘REQUIRES’ citizens to pay taxes/fines regarding ‘private & personal concerns’.
Thanks for all the comments to my 9-12 Rally post. I erred in posting a photo of another event and so please accept my apologies. It has been a strenuous week and here is why, so please be forgiving when commenting in the future if you do not know what is happening in the life of the person on the other end of the PC screen.
The Lord had his hand over this big rig. It was a single vehicle accident, the driver is ok, other than being a bit blind in one eye now for now until the surgery is done to re-attach his retna tomorrow, the 14 yr old dalmation is running chasing the farm cats as normal already and the customer’s load was not lost so life is good. God blessed us this past week and we are very greatful.
So, it has been a long week of tireless hours nursing a loved one and with that I ask you now for a bit of self reflection before posting and calling me something I am not. I made an honest mistake and that is that. If you want to go after corruption & liars…slam the e-mails of your representatives in DC..ALL OF THEM! JUST SAY ‘NO’ TO ANY TYPE OF HEALTH SCARE RIGHT NOW WHILE THE PROGRESSIVE LIBERALS ARE IN CHARGE!
Post Inauguration 1-20-2009
9-12-2009 Post Rally
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. These pictures are worth trillions.
If those that have no respect for others are allowed to illegally ram through their progressive, socialistic, fascist, marxist legislation then our entire country will soon look like this garbage filled wasteland instead of the pristine country she does when true constitutional conservatives at the wheel.
The last twitter report I read said that the DC police were reporting that the 9-12 rally numbers exceeded the inauguration numbers, so it will be interesting to see what the final numbers really are. There should be updates on FOX this evening.
Rep. Marsha Blackburn ~ “You have redefined ‘gridlock’ in Washington, DC!”
NRO Report ~ Perhaps the most interesting thing about the crowd was how friendly and civil it was.
UK MailOnline ~ Up to two million march to US Capitol to protest against Obama’s spending in ‘tea-party’ demonstration
Click Image for C-Span Coverage 2:50 minutes long
FROM COMMENTERS MIKE & BOB:This is the Stand in the Gap Photo from 1997 not the 9/12 event. SORRY IF THIS PHOTO CAUSED CONFUSION, I HAD PULLED THIS OFF A FREEPERS THREAD, SO PLEASE ACCEPT MY APOLOGIES.
A 9~12 message from Glenn Beck
Patrick Henry’s Peaceful Dissent
Those who were once united by the “Spirit of ’76,” or the Revolutionary generation, were not necessarily united in supporting the Constitution in 1787-88. We need only look to the state ratification debates to see the diversity of opinions regarding the new plan of government among faithful and once-united patriots. Acceptance of the Constitution was anything but a foregone conclusion.
Virginia patriot Patrick Henry, famous for his “give me liberty or give me death” speech which prompted Virginia (and eventually her sister states) to join besieged Massachusetts in the cause of independence, was one such devout Anti-Federalists, or one who opposed the new Constitution. His voice was often heard (and feared by Federalists) during the Virginia ratification debates.
Patrick Henry’s objections were not unfounded. After fighting off a British superpower, he feared a large national government with no declaration of rights to limit its power. He warned that if Virginia ratified, “the Republic may be lost forever,” and subsequently demanded to know “what right had [the delegates at Philadelphia] to say, We, the People.”
As the Virginia convention drew near a final vote on ratification, Henry stood to deliver his most impassioned soliloquy against the Constitution. He condemned an affirmative vote by saying it would negatively impact not just the fledging United States, but countries and even generations yet unborn but nonetheless present in the convention hall with the delegates in ethereal form.
“When I see beyond the horrison [sic.] that binds human eyes,” Henry began, “and look at the final consummation of all human things…I am led to believe that much of the account on one side or the other, will depend on what we now decide. Our own happiness alone is not affected by the event-All nations are interested in the determination. We have it in our power to secure the happiness of one half of the human race. Its adoption may involve the misery of the other hemispheres…”
Just as Henry finished his speech, a storm suddenly arose which combined with Henry’s rhetorical weaponry to have an eerie affect on his listeners. His final words were punctuated by thunder and lightning which “shook the whole building.”
Without calling for adjournment, the delegates—including such distinguished figures as George Washington, Governor Edmund Randolph, George Mason, James Monroe and James Madison—fled the convention hall. One listener explained why: “the spirits whom [Henry] had called, seemed to have come at his bidding.” Moreover, “[Henry] seemed to mix in the fight of his aetherial auxiliaries, and ‘rising on the wings of the tempest, to seize upon the artillery of Heaven, and direct its fiercest thunders against the heads of his adversaries.’”
Yet in spite of his vehement opposition, Patrick Henry demonstrated his commitment to the democratic process. Shortly after the Virginia Ratification Convention, he was approached by his Anti-Federalist colleagues to head a guerilla war against the ratified Constitution. Instead of continuing to oppose the Constitution outright, he declared “I will be a peaceable citizen.”
And he was. While Henry disagreed with some aspects of the new government, he also recognized that the Constitution left his head, hand, and heart free to advocate change “in a constitutional way.” He accepted the choice made by the American people and advocated for change within the system they had chosen. As a member of the Virginia House of Delegates, he ensured Virginia’s two U.S. Senators were Anti-Federalists, paving the way for the passage of the Bill of Rights.
In last night’s speech, Obama said that he would appoint Kathleen Sebelius, HHS Secretary to look into TORT reform legislation. The problem with that idea:
Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius’s resume includes eight years as director of the Kansas Trial Lawyers Association
YEP, we now will have more ‘SLIP & FALL’ legislation you can believe in. Legislation written by the ones who wrote the original US Codified laws and have written every corrupt law in this land ever since. A lawyers guild that was deemed to be a Communist Organization in 1950.
The National Lawyers Guild, affiliated with the American Bar ( British Accredited Registry) Association with state lawyers guilds as branches operates much like ACORN and it’s many entities.
81st Congressional Record, National Lawyers Guild (the bulwark of the Communist Party)begins on page 23 of the congressional record (page 29 of the PDF file):
Within moments of me posting this, my document on SCRIBD suddenly became unavailable, however a good blogger always has back-up:
annualreportfory1950unit_bwcommunistlawyersguid
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THE LAWYERS GUILD CONNECTION
Here is what happens. The American Bar Association is a franchise of the Lawyers Guild of Great Britain. The American Bar Association is not connected primarily with what happens in any case on the local level. However, when a case leaves the local level, by that is meant, the state court, city court or the justice of the peace, or even the federal court; and goes to the appeal’s court, it would appear that the American Bar Association takes notice of the case. It would seem that the American Bar Association must have an agreement that any action brought on appeal, must be reviewed by the American Bar Association. If this is true, it would make sense. How else would the American Bar Association, a branch of the Lawyers Guild of Great Britain, which is the legal arm of the Rothschild’s Dynasty, be able to monitor and administer the corporate bankruptcy. It would appear that the American Bar Association would be compelled to review all appeal cases and to make certain any case brought under common law or the constitutional law that would expose the bankruptcy, would be immediately stamped on the back that “this case is not to be cited or published.” I believe that this is the stamp origin and purpose of the stamp message in such cases. The justice department may be able to do that in Washington D.C.. I can’t see where any judge or lawyer could have the authority to stamp or label the case as one not to be cited for future cases. I think that is an official stamp from the American Bar Association.
1890 – New York state legislature passes first state act authorizing governor to appoint three commissioners. The American Bar Association (ABA)recommends that other states follow New York’s lead.
1891 – Connecticut’s Lyman D. Brewster named to chair newly-created ABA committee on uniform law. Pennsylvania, Michigan, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Delaware appoint commissioners.
1892 – First conference held in Saratoga Springs New York. Above states plus Georgia attend formal meeting.
1893 – Committees appointed on such subjects as wills, marriage and divorce, commercial law, descent and distribution.
1895 – Conference requests committee on commercial law be formed. Drafts, Negotiable Instrument Law, precursor to Article 3 of Uniform Commercial Code.
1896 – Negotiable Instrument Law approved by Conference. First time that a uniform act is adopted in every state and the District of Columbia.
1897 – For the first time, Commissioners urged to work toward enactment of uniform legislation in their states.
1898/1899 – Sessions devoted to the consideration of proposed divorce legislation.
1899 – At the end of the 1890s, 33 of the existing 45 states and two territories had appointed uniform law commissioners and eight uniform acts had been drafted, each enacted in at least one state. All these acts were subsequently superseded or declared obsolete.
1900 – Uniform Divorce Procedure Act adopted. Louis B. Brandeis begins five years of service as member of Massachusetts commission.
1901 – Woodrow Wilson begins tenure (until 1908) as commissioner from New Jersey.
1903 – ABA makes first appropriation in support of work of Conference. James Barr Ames of Harvard Law School commissioned to draft the Uniform Partnership Act.
1905 – Samuel W. Pennypacker, Pennsylvania Governor, invites other governors to send delegation to a national divorce conference–meets twice in 1906; three acts endorsed.
1906 – First roll call by states as Uniform Warehouse Receipts Act is approved. Legal scholar Roscoe Pound serves for one year as a commissioner from Nebraska.
1907 – Uniform Desertion Act and Non-Support Act and Uniform Marriage Act authorized. Act Regulating Annulment of Marriage of Divorce adopted. Also, Act Providing for the Return of Marriage Statistics, Act Providing for the Return of Divorce Statistics.
1908 – Work begins on Uniform Corporation Act.
1910 – Twenty uniform acts approved in decade of the teens. The Uniform Partnership Act, begun in 1906, was completed by William Draper Lewis, Dean of the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
1911 – Uniform Marriage and Marriage License Act and Uniform Child Labor Act approved.
1912 – Uniform Marriage Evasion Act adopted. Woodrow Wilson, commissioner from New Jersey from 1901 to 1908 elected U.S. President in a landslide.
1914 – Uniform Partnership Act completed. Will be adopted by all the states. Also Foreign Acknowledgement Act, Cold Storage Act, Workmens’s Compensation Act.
1915 – Name changed to National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws. Constitution and by-laws completely revised. Each act now must be considered section by section during at least two annual meetings.
1916 – Uniform Limited Partnership Act as well as Extradition of Persons of Unsound Minds Act approved, also Land Registration Act.
1917 – Uniform Flag Act approved.
1918 – Uniform Fraudulent Conveyance Act approved.
1920 – Certain Acts withdrawn; others declared obsolete. After pruning, 26 acts remain as recommended for passage in state legislatures.
1930 – During the 30s, Conference adopts 31 acts.
1935 – Conference entered into agreement with American Law Institute for cooperative drafting of acts in area of common interest.
1936 – After revisions, withdrawals and acts declared obsolete, 53 uniform acts remained as recommended for approval.
On April 25, 1938, the Supreme Court overturned the standing precedents of the prior 150 years concerning “COMMON LAW” in the federal government.
“THERE IS NO FEDERAL COMMON LAW, AND CONGRESS HAS NO POWER TO DECLARE SUBSTANTIVE RULES OF COMMON LAW applicable IN A STATE, WHETHER they be LOCAL or GENERAL in their nature, be they COMMERCIAL LAW or a part of LAW OF TORTS.” (See: ERIE RAILROAD CO. vs. THOMPKINS, 304 U.S. 64, 82 L. Ed. 1188)
The Common Law is the fountain source of Substantive and Remedial Rights, if not our very Liberties. The members and associates of the Bar thereafter formed committees, granted themselves special privileges, immunities and franchises, and held meetings concerning the Judicial procedures, and further, to amend laws “to conform to a trend of judicial decisions or to accomplish similar objectives”, including hodgepodging the jurisdictions of Law and Equity together, which is known today as “One Form of Action.” [See: Constitution and By Laws, Article 3, Section 3.3(c), 1990-91 Reference Book, see also Colorado Methods of Practice, West Publishing, Vol. 4, pages 2-3, Authors Comments.]
1939 – ABA gets more involved in approval of uniform law products. Thirty-nine acts are presented to the Board of Governors of the ABA for consideration and approval. During the same year, all acts on aeronautics and motor vehicles are eliminated as well as the Land Registration Act, Child Labor Act of 1930, Uniform Divorce Jurisdiction Act, Firearms Act, Marriage Act and more. Six acts are reclassified as Model acts.
1940 – At start of decade, after deletions, etc., 53 acts out of 93 which had been approved since the group’s founding remain on the books. Drafting committee for the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) approved.
1941 – Speaking of the Commercial Code project, the Conference president states: “….this is the most important and the most far reaching project on which the conference has ever embarked.” It would take the major part of the next 10 tear period to complete.
1942 – UCC effort begins in earnest with completion of work on the revised Uniform Sales Act.
1943 – Members of the conference participate in drafting committee in Washington, D.C. to work on legislation which the government might desire in connection with the war effort. No new acts.
1944 – Conference receives $150,000 grant from the Falk Foundation of Pittsburgh to support work on the UCC.
1945 – No annual meeting for the first time due to difficulties of civilian transport during the war.
1946 – Falk Foundation increases its support of the UCC with an additional $100,000.
1947 – Uniform Law Conference (ULC) and American Law Institute join in partnership to put all the components together for the UCC. Uniform Divorce Recognition Act approved.
1950 – Approval of the Uniform Marriage License Application Act, Uniform Adoption Act and the Uniform Reciprocal Enforcement of Support Act (URESA). The latter has been one of the most successful ULC products.
1951 – On May 18, during a joint meeting with the American Law Institute in Washington, D.C., the UCC was approved. Later that year the ABA formally approved the code as well. Considered the outstanding accomplishment of the Conference, the Code remains the ULC’s signature product.
One of the Uniform Laws drafted by the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws and the American Law Institute governing commercial transactions (including sales and leasing of goods, transfer of funds, commercial paper, bank deposits and collections, letters of credit, bulk transfers, warehouse receipts, bills of lading, investment securities, and secured transactions), The Uniform Commercial Code (UCC), has been adopted in whole or substantially by all states. (See: Blacks Law, 6th Ed. pg. 1531) In essence, all court decisions are based on commercial law or business law and has criminal penalties associated with it. Rather than openly calling this new law Admiralty/Maritime Jurisdiction, it is called Statutory Jurisdiction.
America as a bankrupt nation is owned completely by its creditors.
The creditors own the Congress, they own the Executive, they own the Judiciary and they own all the State governments. Do you have a Birth Certificate? They own you too.
1952 – Uniform Rules of Criminal Procedure approved—first venture of the Conference into this area of the law.
1953 – Pennsylvania the first state to enact the UCC. Uniform Rules of Evidence adopted.
1954 – Disposition of Unclaimed Property Act approved.
1956 – Gift to Minors Act approved. Will be adopted in every state. For the first time, ULC enters the field of international law.
1957 – Massachusetts becomes second state to enact the UCC, after revisions by the Editorial Board.
1958 – Uniform Securities Act approved.
1960 – Uniform Paternity Act passed. by 1960, UCC enacted in Kentucky, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Rhode Island.
1961 – Permanent Editorial Board on the UCC formed—8 more states pass UCC. Constitution amended to provide that all members of Conference must be members of the bar.
1962 – Four more states adopt UCC, including New York. Probate Code project approved.
1963 – Third comprehensive law project approved, on retail installment sales, consumer credit, small loans and usury. Eleven more UCC states. William H. Renquist begins term as commissioner from Arizona; serves until 1968.
1964 – Special Committee of Uniform Divorce and Marriage laws recommends that a study of divorce law be authorized and that funds be sought. One more UCC state.
1965 – Divorce and Marriage Law committee instructed to commence drafting if funds can be obtained for the project. Thirteen more UCC states.
1966 – Five more UCC states.
1968 – Much of annual meeting devoted to the Uniform Consumer Credit Code and the Uniform Probate Code —two projects nearing completion. By 1968, 49 states, the District of Columbia and U.S. Virgin Islands have enacted the UCC—only exception being Louisiana. A big year. Other developments in 1968: the Consumer Credit Code is approved as well as revisions to the Anatomical Gift Act, Child Custody Jurisdiction Act and revisions to URESA.
1969 – Probate Code approved. Preliminary analysis of the uniform marriage and divorce legislation distributed.
1970 – Controlled Substances Act and Uniform Marriage and Divorce Act approved.
1971 – Uniform Alcoholism and Intoxication Act approved.
1972 – Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act, Disposition of Community Property Rights At Death Act and UMVARA, the Uniform Motor Vehicle Accident Reparations Act approved.
1973 – Uniform Parentage Act supersedes Paternity Act. Uniform Crime Victims Reparations Act approved.
1974 – Conference approves Rules of Criminal Procedure and Eminent Domain Code. Louisiana, the only state not to adopt the Uniform Commercial Code due to difficulties in reconciling its provisions with those of the Civil Code, adopts Articles 1,3,4,5,7, and 8.
1975 – Uniform Land Transactions Act approved.
1976 – Major revision of the Uniform Partnership Act approved; also Uniform Simplification of Land Transfers and Uniform Class Action Acts.
1978 – Uniform Brain Death and Uniform Federal Lien Registration Act approved.
1979 – Uniform Trade Secrets and Durable Power of Attorney acts among those approved.
1980 – Determination of Death Act supersedes 1978 Brain Death Act. Uniform Planned Community Act, Model Real Estate Time-Share Act and Model Periodic Payment of Judgments Act also adopted.
1981 – Two important updated acts approved: new Model State Administration Procedure and Unclaimed Property Acts. Also two new acts: the Model Real Estate Cooperative Act and the Uniform Conservation Easement Act.
1982 – Uniform Condominium and Planned Community Acts and Model Real Estate Cooperative Act combined into the Uniform Common Interest Ownership act.
The enumerated, specified, and distinct Jurisdictions established by the ordained Constitution (1789), Article III, Section 2, and under the Bill of Rights (1791), Amendment VII, were further hodgepodged and fundamentally changed in 1982 to include Admiralty Jurisdiction, which was once again brought inland. This was the FUNDAMENTAL CHANGE necessary to effect unification of CIVIL and ADMIRALTY PROCEDURE. Just as 1938 Rules ABOLISHED THE DISTINCTION between Actions At Law and Suits in Equity, this CHANGE WOULD ABOLISH THE DISTINCTION between CIVIL ACTIONS and SUITS IN ADMIRALTY.” (See: Federal Rules of Procedure, 1982 Ed., pg. 17. Also see Federalist Papers, No. 83, Declaration Of Resolves Of The First Continental Congress, Oct. 14th, 1774, Declaration Of Cause And Necessity Of Taking Up Arms, July 16, 1775, Declaration Of Independence, July 4, 1776, Bennet vs. Butterworth, 52 U.S. 669)
1983 – Uniform Marital Property Act and Uniform Premarital agreement Act approved. Uniform Transfers to Minors Act replaces the uniformly enacted Uniform Gifts to Minors Act.
1984 – Uniform Statutory Will Act approved; new Uniform fraudulent Transfer Act supersedes Fraudulent Conveyance Act of 1918.
1985 – Uniform Health-Care Information Act, Uniform Land Security Interest act, Uniform Personal Property Leasing Act and Uniform Rights of the Terminally Ill Act approved.
1986 – New drafting effort to revise Articles 3 and 4 of the UCC and draft new provisions begins.
1987 – Approval of the revised Uniform Anatomical Gift Act approved as well as new Uniform Custodial Trust Act, Uniform Construction Lien Act and Uniform Franchise and Business Opportunities Act. Also revision of Rules of Criminal Procedure.
1988 – Final approval of amendments to the Uniform Securities Act and amendments to Article 6 of the UCC dealing with bulk sales. Conference also approves Uniform Statutory Form Power of Attorney Act and Uniform Punitive and Unknown Fathers Act and takes on the controversial issue of surrogate mother contracts with Uniform Status of Children of Assisted Conception Act.
1989 – Article 4A of the UCC, dealing with electronic funds transfers, approved. Also approved: amendments to the Rights of the Terminally Ill Act, authorizing withdrawal of life support by a surrogate decision maker; the Uniform Pretrial Detention Act, confining violent criminals before trial; the Uniform Non-probate Transfers on Death Act and amendments to Article VI of the Uniform Probate Code.
1990 – Major revision of 1970 Uniform Controlled Substances Act– the law in 46 jurisdictions– approved. Substantial revision of UCC Article 3 also approved, as well as an updated Article II of the Uniform Probate Code, to keep pace with current thinking on marital property.
This private corruption of the law has occurred despite the Constitutional responsibility conferred on Congress by Article I, Section 8 of the Federal Constitution which states that it is Congress that “makes all Laws.”
What does that have to do with anything? Uniform Laws seem to be a good Idea.
Well now, that is a good question. Let us continue…..
An Expose On The Legal Fraud Perpetrated On All Americans
THE COURTS RECOGNIZE ONLY TWO CLASSES OF PEOPLE IN THE UNITED STATES TODAY: DEBTORS AND CREDITORS
The concept of DEBTORS and CREDITORS is very important to understand.
Every legal action where you are brought before the court: e.g. traffic ticket, property dispute or permits, income tax, credit cards, bank loans or anything else government might dream up to charge you where you find yourself in front of a court. It is an equity court, administrating commercial law having a debtor-creditor law as the controlling law. Today, we have an equity court but not an equity court as defined by the Constitution of the United States or any other legal documents before 1938.
All the courts of this once great land have been changed starting with the Supreme Court decision of 1938 in ERIE V. THOMPKINS. I’ll give you background which led to this decision. There is a terrible FRAUD being perpetrated on all Americans. Please understand that this fraud is a 24 hour, 7 days a week, year after year continuous fraud. This fraud is constantly upon you all your life. It doesn’t just happen once in a while. This fraud is perpetually and incessantly upon you and your family.
U.S. INC. GOES TO GENEVA 1930’s
In order for you to understand just how this fraud works, you need to know the history of its inception.
It goes like this: From 1928 -1932 there were five years of Geneva conventions. The nations of the world met in Geneva Switzerland for 5 continuous years in order to set up what would be the policy of all the participating countries. During the year of 1930 the U.S., Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal etc. all declared bankruptcy. If you try to look up the 1930 minutes, you will not find them because they don’t publish this particular volume. If you try to find the 1930 volume which contains the minutes of what happened, you will probably not find it. This volume has been pulled out of circulation or is hidden in the library and is very hard to find. This volume contains the evidence of the bankruptcy.
Going into 1932, they stopped meeting in Geneva. In 1932 Franklin Roosevelt came into power as President of the United States. Roosevelt’s job was to put into place and administer the bankruptcy that had been declared two years earlier. The corporate government needed a key Supreme Court decision. The corporate United States government had to have a legal case on the books to set the stage for recognizing, implementing and supporting the bankruptcy. Now. this doesn’t mean the bankruptcy wasn’t implemented before 1938 with the Erie vs. Thompkins decision. The bankruptcy started in 1930-1931. The bankruptcy definitely started when Roosevelt came into office. He was sworn in during the month of January 1933. He started right away in the bankruptcy with what is known as ‘The Banking Holiday,” and proceeded in pulling the gold coin out of circulation. That was the beginning of the corporate United States Public Policy for bankruptcy.. Executive Orders 6073, 6102, 6111 & Executive Order 6260 “Trading With The Enemy Act.”
ROOSEVELT STACKS SUPREME COURT
It is a known historical fact that during 1933 and 1937 – 1938, there was a big fight between Roosevelt and the Supreme Court Justices. Roosevelt tried to stack the Supreme court with a bunch of his pals. Roosevelt tried to enlarge the number of justices and he tried to change the slant of the justices. The corporate United States had to have one Supreme Court case which would support their bankruptcy problem.
There was resistance to Roosevelt’s court stacking efforts. Some of the justices tried to warn us that Roosevelt was tampering with the law and with the courts. Roosevelt was trying to see to it that prior decisions of the court were overturned. He was trying to bring in a new order, a new procedure for the law of the land. See also The UCC Connection
THE CORPORATE UNITED STATES GOES BANKRUPT
A bankruptcy case was needed on the books to legitimize the fact that the corporate U.S. had already declared bankruptcy! This bankruptcy was effectuated by compact that the corporate several states had with the corporate government (Corporate Capitol of the several corporate states). This compact tied the corporate several states to corporate Washington D.C, (the headquarters of the corporation called “The United States”).
Since the United States Corporation, having established its headquarters within the District of Columbia, declared itself to be in the state of bankruptcy, it automatically declared bankruptcy for all its subsidiaries who were effectively connected corporate members (who happened to be the corporate state governments of the Union). The corporate state governments didn’t have to vote on the bankruptcy. The bankruptcy automatically became effective by reason of the Compact/Agreement between each of the corporate state governments and THE MOTHER CORPORATION. (Note: the liberty of using the term “Mother Corporation” to communicate the interconnected power of the corporate Federal government relative to her associated corporate States has been taken.
It is Historical knowledge that the original Union States created the Federal Government, however, for all practical purposes, the Federal government has taken control of her “Creators”, the States.) She has become a beast out of control for power. She has for her trade names the following: “United States”, “U.S.”, “U.S.A.”, “United States of America”, Washington D.C., District of Columbia, Feds. and Federal Government. She has her own U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Parks, Post Office etc. etc. etc. Because she is claiming to be bankrupt, she freely gives her land, her personnel, and the money she steals from the Americans via the IRS. and her state corporations, to the United Nations and the International Bankers as payment for her debt. The UN and the International Bankers use this money and services for various world wide projects, including war.
War is an extremely lucrative business for the bankers of the New World Order. Loans for destruction. Loans for re-construction. Loans for controlling people in her new world order.
THE U.S. INC. DECLARES BANKRUPTCY
The corporate U.S. then, is the head corporate member, who met at Geneva to decide for all its corporate body members. The corporate representatives of the corporate several states were in attendance. If the states had their own power to declare bankruptcy regardless of whether Washington D.C. declared bankruptcy or not, then the several states would have been represented at Geneva. The several states of America were not represented. Consequently, whatever Washington D.C. agreed to at Geneva was passed on automatically, via compact to the several corporate states as a group, association, corporation or as a club member; they all agreed and declared bankruptcy as one government corporate group in 1930. The several states only needed a representative at Geneva by way of the U.S. in Washington D.C. The delegates of the corporate United States attended the meetings and spoke for the several corporate states as well as for the Federal Corporate Government. And, presto, BANKRUPTCY was declared for all!
From 1930 to 1938 the states could not enact any law or decide any case that would go against the Federal Government. The case had to come down from the Federal level so that the states could then rely on the Federal decision and use this decision within the states as justification for the bankruptcy process within the states.
UNIFORM COMMERCIAL CODE EMERGES AS LAW OF THE LAND
Ah, Ha, are you beginning to get the picture?
By 1938 the corporate Federal Government had the true bankruptcy case they had been looking for. Now, the bankruptcy that had been declared back in 1930 could be upheld and administered. That’s why the Supreme Court had to be stacked and made corrupt from within. The new players on the Supreme Court fully understood that they had to destroy all other case law that had been established prior to 1938. The Federal Government had to have a case to destroy all precedent, all appearance, and even the statute of law itself. That is, the Statutes at large had to be perverted. They finally got their case in Erie vs. Thompkins. It was right after that case that the American Law Institute and the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws listed right in the front of the Uniform Commercial Code, began creating the Uniform Commercial Code that is on our backs today. Let us quote directly from the preface of the Official Text of the Uniform Commercial Code 12th Edition:
“The Code was originally approved by its sponsors and the American Bar Association in 1952, and was revised in 1958 to incorporate a number of changes that had been recommended by the New York Law Revision Commission and other agencies. Subsequent amendments that were deemed desirable in light of experience under the Code were approved by the Permanent Editorial Board in 1962 and 1966”
The above named groups and associations of private lawyers got together and started working on the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC). It was somewhere between 1938 and 1940, I don’t recall, but by the early 40’s and during the war, this committee was working to form the UCC and getting it ready to go on the market. The UCC is the Law Merchant’s code for the administration of the bankruptcy. The UCC is now the law of the land as far as the courts are concerned. This Legal Committee of lawyers put everything: Negotiable Instruments, Security, Sales, Contracts, and the whole mess under the UCC. That’s where the “Uniform” word comes from. It means it was uniform from state to state as well as being uniform with the District of Columbia.
It doesn’t mean you didn’t have the uniform instrument laws on the books before this time. It means the laws were not uniform from state to state. By the middle 1960’s, every state had passed the UCC into law. The states had no choice but to adopt newly formed Uniform Commercial Code as the Law of the Land. The states fully understood they had to administrate Bankruptcy. Washington D.C. adopted the Uniform Commercial Code in 1963, just six weeks after President John F. Kennedy was killed.
YOUR LAWYER’S SECRET OATH???
What was the effect and the significance of Erie vs. Thompkins case decision of 1938? The significance is that since the Erie Decision, no cases are allowed to be cited that are prior to 1938. There can be no mixing of the old law with the new law. The lawyers, who are members of the American Bar Association, were and are currently under and controlled by the Lawyer’s guild of Great Britain, created, formed, and implemented the new bankruptcy law. The American Bar Association is a franchise of the Lawyer’s Guild of Great Britain.
Since the Erie vs. Thompkins case was decided, the practice of law in this country was never again to be the same. It has been reported, that every lawyer in existence, and every lawyer coming up has to take a “secret” oath to support bankruptcy(Article 61 of the UN Constitution). As Officers of the Court they have sworn to uphold the law as it exists, and as they have been taught. In so doing, not only do the lawyers promise to support the bankruptcy, but the lawyers and judges promise never to reveal who the true creditor/party is in the bankruptcy proceedings (if, indeed, many of them are even aware or know). In court, there is never identification and appearance of the true character and principle of the proceedings. If there is no appearance of the true party to the action, then there is no way the defendant is able to know the TRUE NATURE AND CAUSE OF THE ACTION. You are never told the true NATURE AND CAUSE OF WHY YOU ARE IN FRONT OF THEIR COURT. The court is forbidden to tell you that information.
That’s why, if you question the true nature and cause, the judge will tell you “It’s not my job to tell you. You are not retaining me as an attorney and I can’t give you legal advice from the bench. I suggest you hire a lawyer.”
This is long but well worth reading.
This Texas lawyer, himself recipient of an Honorary Degree, is obviously opinionated, but to say what he does, in a commencement address a couple of weeks ago (January, 2008), in front of a class of Texas A & M graduates, and especially the faculty, is amazing. I would have loved to have been there just to see the faculty reaction.
This should be considered must-reading for every adult in North America . It is extremely rare that anyone speaks the truth like this at any College or High School Commencement Address.
Neal Boortz is a Texan, a lawyer, a Texas AGGIE (Texas A&M), and now a nationally syndicated talk show host from Atlanta . His commencement address to the graduates of this year’s A&M class is far different from what either the students or the faculty expected. His views are thought provoking:
“I am honored by the invitation to address you on this august occasion. It’s about time. Be warned, however, that I am not here to impress you; you’ll have enough smoke blown up your bloomers today. And you can bet your tassels I’m not here to impress the faculty and administration. You may not like much of what I have to say, and that’s fine. You will remember it though. Especially after about 10 years out there in the real world. This, it goes without saying, does not apply to those of you who will seek your careers and your fortunes as government employees.
This gowned gaggle behind me is your faculty. You’ve heard the old saying that those who can – do. Those who can’t – teach. That sounds deliciously insensitive. But there is often raw truth in insensitivity, just as you often find feel-good falsehoods and lies in compassion. Say good-bye to your faculty because now you are getting ready to go out there and do. These folks behind me are going to stay right here and teach.
By the way, just because you are leaving this place with a diploma doesn’t mean the learning is over. When an FAA flight examiner handed me my private pilot’s license many years ago, he said, ‘Here, this is your ticket to learn.’ The same can be said for your diploma. Believe me, the learning has just begun.
Now, I realize that most of you consider yourselves Liberals. In fact, you are probably very proud of your liberal views. You care so much. You feel so much. You want to help so much. After all you’re a compassionate and caring person, aren’t you now? Well, isn’t that just so extraordinarily special. Now, at this age, is as good a time as any to be a liberal; as good a time as any to know absolutely everything. You have plenty of time, starting tomorrow, for the truth to set in.
Over the next few years, as you begin to feel the cold breath of reality down your neck, things are going to start changing pretty fast… including your own assessment of just how much you really know.
So here are the first assignments for your initial class in reality: Pay attention to the news, read newspapers, and listen to the words and phrases that proud Liberals use to promote their causes. Then, compare the words of the left to the words and phrases you hear from those evil, heartless, greedy conservatives. From the Left you will hear “I feel.” From the Right you will hear “I think.” From the Liberals you will hear references to groups — The Blacks, the Poor, The Rich, The Disadvantaged, The Less Fortunate. From the Right you will hear references to individuals. On the Left you hear talk of group rights; on the Right, individual rights.
That about sums it up, really: Liberals feel. Liberals care. They are pack animals whose identity is tied up in group dynamics. Conservatives and Libertarians think — and, setting aside the theocracy crowd, their identity is centered on the individual.
Liberals feel that their favored groups have enforceable rights to the property and services of productive individuals. Conservatives and Libertarians, I among them I might add, think that individuals have the right to protect their lives and their property from the plunder of the masses.
In college you developed a group mentality, but if you look closely at your diplomas you will see that they have your individual names on them. Not the name of your school mascot, or of your fraternity or sorority, but your name. Your group identity is going away. Your recognition and appreciation of your individual identity starts now.
If, by the time you reach the age of 30, you do not consider yourself to be a libertarian or a conservative, rush right back here as quickly as you can and apply for a faculty position. These people will welcome you with open arms. They will welcome you, that is, so long as you haven’t developed an individual identity. Once again you will have to be willing to sign on to the group mentality you embraced during the past four years.
Something is going to happen soon that is going to really open your eyes. You’re going to actually get a full time job!
You’re also going to get a lifelong work partner. This partner isn’t going to help you do your job. This partner is just going to sit back and wait for payday. This partner doesn’t want to share in your effort, but in your earnings.
Your new lifelong partner is actually an agent; an agent representing a strange and diverse group of people; an agent for every teenager with an illegitimate child; an agent for a research scientist who wanted to make some cash answering the age-old question of why monkeys grind their teeth. An agent for some poor demented hippie who considers herself to be a meaningful and talented artist, but who just can’t manage to sell any of her artwork on the open market.
Your new partner is an agent for every person with limited, if any, job skills, but who wanted a job at City Hall. An agent for tin-horn dictators in fancy military uniforms grasping for American foreign aid. An agent for multi-million-dollar companies who want someone else to pay for their overseas advertising. An agent for everybody who wants to use the unimaginable power of this agent’s for their personal enrichment and benefit.
That agent is our wonderful, caring, compassionate, oppressive government. Believe me, you will be awed by the unimaginable power this agent has. Power that you do not have. A power that no individual has, or will have. This agent has the legal power to use force, deadly force to accomplish its goals.
You have no choice here. Your new friend is just going to walk up to you, introduce itself rather gruffly, hand you a few forms to fill out, and move right on in. Say hello to your own personal one ton gorilla. It will sleep anywhere it wants to.
Now, let me tell you, this agent is not cheap. As you become successful it will seize about 40% of everything you earn. And no, I’m sorry, there just isn’t any way you can fire this agent of plunder, and you can’t decrease its share of your income. That power rests with him, not you.
So, here I am saying negative things to you about government. Well, be clear on this: It is not wrong to distrust government. It is not wrong to fear government. In certain cases it is not even wrong to despise government for government is inherently evil. Yes … a necessary evil, but dangerous nonetheless … somewhat like a drug. Just as a drug that in the proper dosage can save your life, an overdose of government can be fatal.
Now let’s address a few things that have been crammed into your minds at this university. There are some ideas you need to expunge as soon as possible. These ideas may work well in academic environment, but they fail miserably out there in the real world.
First is that favorite buzz word of the media, government and academia: Diversity! You have been taught that the real value of any group of people – be it a social group, an employee group, a management group, whatever – is based on diversity. This is a favored liberal ideal because diversity is based not on an individual’s abilities or character, but on a person’s identity and status as a member of a group. Yes, it’s that liberal group identity thing again.
Within the great diversity movement group identification – be it racial, gender based, or some other minority status – means more than the individual’s integrity, character or other qualifications.
Brace yourself. You are about to move from this academic atmosphere where diversity rules, to a workplace and a culture where individual achievement and excellence actually count. No matter what your professors have taught you over the last four years, you are about to learn that diversity is absolutely no replacement for excellence, ability, and individual hard work. From this day on every single time you hear the word “diversity” you can rest assured that there is someone close by who is determined to rob you of every vestige of individuality you possess.
We also need to address this thing you seem to have about “rights.” We have witnessed an obscene explosion of so-called “rights” in the last few decades, usually emanating from college campuses.
You know the mantra: You have the right to a job. The right to a place to live. The right to a living wage. The right to health care. The right to an education. You probably even have your own pet right – the right to a Beemer for instance, or the right to have someone else provide for that child you plan on downloading in a year or so.
Forget it. Forget those rights! I’ll tell you what your rights are! You have a right to live free, and to the results of 60% -75% of your labor. I’ll also tell you have no right to any portion of the life or labor of another.
You may, for instance, think that you have a right to health care. After all, Hillary said so, didn’t she? But you cannot receive healthcare unless some doctor or health practitioner surrenders some of his time – his life – to you. He may be willing to do this for compensation, but that’s his choice. You have no “right” to his time or property. You have no right to his or any other person’s life or to any portion thereof.
You may also think you have some “right” to a job; a job with a living wage, whatever that is. Do you mean to tell me that you have a right to force your services on another person, and then the right to demand that this person compensate you with their money? Sorry, forget it. I am sure you would scream if some urban outdoorsmen (that would be “homeless person” for those of you who don’t want to give these less fortunate people a romantic and adventurous title) came to you and demanded his job and your money.
The people who have been telling you about all the rights you have are simply exercising one of theirs – the right to be imbeciles. Their being imbeciles didn’t cost anyone else either property or time. It’s their right, and they exercise it brilliantly.
By the way, did you catch my use of the phrase “less fortunate” a bit ago when I was talking about the urban outdoorsmen? That phrase is a favorite of the Left. Think about it, and you’ll understand why.
To imply that one person is homeless, destitute, dirty, drunk, spaced out on drugs, unemployable, and generally miserable because he is “less fortunate” is to imply that a successful person – one with a job, a home and a future – is in that position because he or she was “fortunate.” The dictionary says that fortunate means “having derived good from an unexpected place.” There is nothing unexpected about deriving good from hard work. There is also nothing unexpected about deriving misery from choosing drugs, alcohol, and the street.
If the Liberal Left can create the common perception that success and failure are simple matters of “fortune” or “luck,” then it is easy to promote and justify their various income redistribution schemes. After all, we are just evening out the odds a little bit. This “success equals luck” idea the liberals like to push is seen everywhere. Former Democratic presidential candidate Richard Gephardt refers to high-achievers as “people who have won life’s lottery.” He wants you to believe they are making the big bucks because they are lucky. It’s not luck, my friends. It’s choice. One of the greatest lessons I ever learned was in a book by Og Mandino, entitled “The Greatest Secret in the World.” The lesson? Very simple: “Use wisely your power of choice.”
That bum sitting on a heating grate, smelling like a wharf rat? He’s there by choice. He is there because of the sum total of the choices he has made in his life. This truism is absolutely the hardest thing for some people to accept, especially those who consider themselves to be victims of something or other – victims of discrimination, bad luck, the system, capitalism, whatever. After all, nobody really wants to accept the blame for his or her position in life. Not when it is so much easier to point and say, “Look! He did this to me!” than it is to look into a mirror and say, “You S. O. B.! You did this to me!”
The key to accepting responsibility for your life is to accept the fact that your choices, every one of them, are leading you inexorably to either success or failure, however you define those terms.
Some of the choices are obvious: Whether or not to stay in school Whether or not to get pregnant. Whether or not to hit the bottle. Whether or not to keep this job you hate until you get another better-paying job. Whether or not to save some of your money, or saddle yourself with huge payments for that new car.
Some of the choices are seemingly insignificant: Whom to go to the movies with. Whose car to ride home in. Whether to watch the tube tonight, or read a book on investing. But, and you can be sure of this, each choice counts. Each choice is a building block – some large, some small. But each one is a part of the structure of your life. If you make the right choices, or if you make more right choices than wrong ones, something absolutely terrible may happen to you. Something unthinkable. You, my friend, could become one of the hated, the evil, the ugly, the feared, the filthy, the successful, the rich.
The rich basically serve two purposes in this country. First, they provide the investments, the investment capital, and the brains for the formation of new businesses. Businesses that hire people. Businesses that send millions of paychecks home each week to the un-rich.
Second, the rich are a wonderful object of ridicule, distrust, and hatred. Few things are more valuable to a politician than the envy most Americans feel for the evil rich.
Envy is a powerful emotion. Even more powerful than the emotional minefield that surrounded Bill Clinton when he reviewed his last batch of White House interns. Politicians use envy to get votes and power. And they keep that power by promising the envious that the envied will be punished: “The rich will pay their fair share of taxes if I have anything to do with it. The truth is that the top 10% of income earners in this country pays almost 50% of all income taxes collected. I shudder to think what these job producers would be paying if our tax system were any more “fair.”
You have heard, no doubt, that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Interestingly enough, our government’s own numbers show that many of the poor actually get richer, and that quite a few of the rich actually get poorer. But for the rich who do actually get richer, and the poor who remain poor … there’s an explanation — a reason. The rich, you see, keep doing the things that make them rich; while the poor keep doing the things that make them poor.
Speaking of the poor, during your adult life you are going to hear an endless string of politicians bemoaning the plight of the poor So, you need to know that under our government’s definition of “poor” you can have a $5 million net worth, a $300,000 home and a new $90,000 Mercedes, all completely paid for. You can also have a maid, cook, and valet, and $ million in your checking account, and you can still be officially defined by our government as “living in poverty.” Now there’s something you haven’t seen on the evening news.
How does the government pull this one off? Very simple, really. To determine whether or not some poor soul is “living in poverty,” the government measures one thing — just one thing. Income. It doesn’t matter one bit how much you have, how much you own, how many cars you drive or how big they are, whether or not your pool is heated, whether you winter in Aspen and spend the summers in the Bahamas , or how much is in your savings account. It only matters how much income you claim in that particular year. This means that if you take a one-year leave of absence from your high-paying job and decide to live off the money in your savings and checking accounts while you write the next great American novel, the government says you are ‘living in poverty.”
This isn’t exactly what you had in mind when you heard these gloomy statistics, is it? Do you need more convincing? Try this. The government’s own statistics show that people who are said to be “living in poverty” spend more than $1.50 for each dollar of income they claim. Something is a bit fishy here. Just remember all this the next time Charles Gibson tells you about some hideous new poverty statistics.
Why has the government concocted this phony poverty scam? Because the government needs an excuse to grow and to expand its social welfare programs, which translates into an expansion of its power. If the government can convince you, in all your compassion, that the number of “poor” is increasing, it will have all the excuse it needs to sway an electorate suffering from the advanced stages of Obsessive-Compulsive Compassion Disorder.
I’m about to be stoned by the faculty here. They’ve already changed their minds about that honorary degree I was going to get. That’s OK, though. I still have my PhD. in Insensitivity from the Neal Boortz Institute for Insensitivity Training. I learned that, in short, sensitivity sucks. It’s a trap. Think about it – the truth knows no sensitivity. Life can be insensitive. Wallow too much in sensitivity and you’ll be unable to deal with life, or the truth So, get over it.
Now, before the dean has me shackled and hauled off, I have a few random thoughts.
- You need to register to vote, unless you are on welfare. If you are living off the efforts of others, please do us the favor of sitting down and shutting up until you are on your own again.
- When you do vote, your votes for the House and the Senate are more important than your vote for president. The House controls the purse strings, so concentrate your awareness there.
- Liars cannot be trusted, even when the liar is the president of the country. If someone can’t deal honestly with you, send them packing.
- Don’t bow to the temptation to use the government as an instrument of plunder. If it is wrong for you to take money from someone else who earned it — to take their money by force for your own needs — then it is certainly just as wrong for you to demand that the government step forward and do this dirty work for you.
- Don’t look in other people’s pockets. You have no business there. What they earn is theirs. What you earn is yours. Keep it that way. Nobody owes you anything, except to respect your privacy and your rights, and leave you the hell alone.
- Speaking of earning, the revered 40-hour workweek is for losers Forty hours should be considered the minimum, not the maximum. You don’t see highly successful people clocking out of the office every afternoon at five. The losers are the ones caught up in that afternoon rush hour. The winners drive home in the dark.
- Free speech is meant to protect unpopular speech. Popular speech, by definition, needs no protection.
Finally (and aren’t you glad to hear that word), as Og Mandino wrote,
- Proclaim your rarity. Each of you is a rare and unique human being.
- Use wisely your power of choice.
- Go the extra mile .. drive home in the dark.
Oh, and put off buying a television set as long as you can.
Now, if you have any idea at all what’s good for you, you will get the hell out of here and never come back.
Class dismissed.
A horrible tragedy occured at 8:46 Tuesday Morning September 11, 2001. There were 4 planes hijacked by terrorists. A senseless act of cowardness.
American Airlines Flight 11, crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York. There were 92 people aboard, including 9 flight attendants and 2 pilots.
At 9:03 a.m., United Airlines Flight 175 crashed into the South Tower, carrying 65 people, including 7 flight attendants and 2 pilots.
At 9:38 a.m., American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon in Arlington, Va. There were 64 people aboard, including 4 flight attendants and 2 pilots.
At 10:10 a.m., United Airlines Flight 93 crashed Southeast of Pittsburgh carrying 45 people, including 5 flight attendants and 2 pilots. It is believed that flight 93 was headed for the White House when some of the passengers rushed the terrorists, causing them to miss their intended target and crash into a field in Pittsburgh. We thank those aboard flight 93 for such a courageous act of selflessness and bravery for saving the many lives that would have been destroyed at the White House.
May God Bless the victims, their families and the heroes who lost their lives in helping save the lives of others.
Constitutionally Speaking 