tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-78046789127077135872024-03-13T20:17:54.030-07:00Reflections on the Revolutions in AmericaWestern civilization is in the midst of a crisis that threatens its very existence. It is a crisis born of success in which the boundary between optimism and hubris has been erased. The spirit of renewal to preserve and improve our small corner of the world lost to the passions of the present. This small space will seek to defend "the little platoon we belong to in society."John Suarezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11333798474560217548noreply@blogger.comBlogger33125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7804678912707713587.post-27663542466067697512021-11-24T06:48:00.002-08:002021-11-24T06:48:29.181-08:00Douglas Murray: Reflections on the Revolution in America<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4CR4f559SWk" title="YouTube video player" width="420"></iframe>
<p> <span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto">Douglas begins speaking at the </span><a class="yt-simple-endpoint style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CR4f559SWk&t=600s" spellcheck="false">10:00</a><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto"> mark.
'</span></p><p><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto">Douglas Murray is a best-selling author, an award-winning political commentator, and a senior fellow at the National Review Institute. He has written books on neoconservatism, terrorism and national security, freedom of speech, and the rise of woke culture and identity politics. </span></p><p><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto">His upcoming book, The War on the West: How to Prevail in the Age of Unreason, explores why in recent history it has become acceptable to discuss the flaws and crimes of Western culture, but celebrating the West’s contributions is condemned as hate speech.
Recorded on November 10, 2021, in St. Louis, Missouri</span></p>John Suarezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11333798474560217548noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7804678912707713587.post-24279731855078574742021-02-06T11:18:00.003-08:002021-02-06T11:18:31.835-08:00Ronald Reagan at 110: Great American<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCV_wjJaGy5-FcWLUOrxTZC29wUjpc-o2lVHxhtNe8-75y6ZOJiwKvT8b1_Y3tmuDHW5wLK9o1PgdQCnT7-up7CnSEOF9GdYKdZPj2fXoSpthcecwyIfkofBT1qPPb5-gLJADP9ZEjIR8/s400/RonaldReagan_1379799c.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="250" data-original-width="400" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCV_wjJaGy5-FcWLUOrxTZC29wUjpc-o2lVHxhtNe8-75y6ZOJiwKvT8b1_Y3tmuDHW5wLK9o1PgdQCnT7-up7CnSEOF9GdYKdZPj2fXoSpthcecwyIfkofBT1qPPb5-gLJADP9ZEjIR8/w400-h250/RonaldReagan_1379799c.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p>Still a teenager, had the opportunity to listen and meet Ronald Reagan
when he visited Miami, Florida on June 29, 1988 and spoke at the <a href="https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/archives/speech/remarks-campaign-fundraising-luncheon-representative-connie-mack-miami-florida">Omni International Hotel</a> to <a href="https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/archives/speech/remarks-campaign-fundraising-luncheon-representative-connie-mack-miami-florida">support the Senate candidacy</a> of Connie Mack. He actually came across better in
person than he did on camera. A treasured memory shared here on the 110th anniversary of his birth in Tampico, Illinois.<br /><br />Sadly,
since Ronald Reagan left the presidency the quality of political
leadership in the White House has been in decline, but now is a time to
celebrate the life of a great American and be grateful that the United
States had such a Chief Executive for eight years.<br /><br />Americans need
to be grateful because prior to 1980 Ronald Reagan was viewed by many
as too extreme to ever be President of the United States because he
refused to embrace "constructive engagement" and "detente" with a system
that he viewed as fundamentally evil. A large part of this nervousness
by the Left came from Ronald Reagan's first national political speech
that introduced him to the country in 1964.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">A Time for Choosing: "The Speech" (1964)</span></p><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_VBtCMTPveA" width="420"></iframe><p><span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-weight: bold;">An excerpt from Ronald Reagan's <a href="http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/ronaldreaganatimeforchoosing.htm">October 27, 1964 A Time for Choosing Speech</a>: </span></p><blockquote>Those
who would trade our freedom for the soup kitchen of the welfare state
have told us they have a utopian solution of peace without victory. They
call their policy "accommodation." And they say if we'll only avoid any
direct confrontation with the enemy, he'll forget his evil ways and
learn to love us. All who oppose them are indicted as warmongers. They
say we offer simple answers to complex problems. Well, perhaps there is a
simple answer -- not an easy answer -- but simple: If you and I have
the courage to tell our elected officials that we want our national
policy based on what we know in our hearts is morally right.<br /><br />We
cannot buy our security, our freedom from the threat of the bomb by
committing an immorality so great as saying to a billion human beings
now enslaved behind the Iron Curtain, "Give up your dreams of freedom
because to save our own skins, we're willing to make a deal with your
slave masters." Alexander Hamilton said, "A nation which can prefer
disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one." Now
let's set the record straight. There's no argument over the choice
between peace and war, but there's only one guaranteed way you can have
peace -- and you can have it in the next second -- surrender.<br /><br />Admittedly,
there's a risk in any course we follow other than this, but every
lesson of history tells us that the greater risk lies in appeasement,
and this is the specter our well-meaning liberal friends refuse to face
-- that their policy of accommodation is appeasement, and it gives no
choice between peace and war, only between fight or surrender.<br /></blockquote><p><span style="font-weight: bold;">1981 Inaugural Address</span></p><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/hpPt7xGx4Xo" width="420"></iframe><p><span style="font-weight: bold;">On January 20, 1981 Ronald Wilson Reagan was sworn in as the 40th President of the United States and what follows is an <a href="http://www.school-for-champions.com/speeches/reagan_1st_inaugural.htm">excerpt from the Inaugural Address</a>:</span></p><blockquote>To
those neighbors and allies who share our freedom, we will strengthen
our historic ties and assure them of our support and firm commitment. We
will match loyalty with loyalty. We will strive for mutually beneficial
relations. We will not use our friendship to impose on their
sovereignty, for or own sovereignty is not for sale.<br /><br />As for the
enemies of freedom, those who are potential adversaries, they will be
reminded that peace is the highest aspiration of the American people. We
will negotiate for it, sacrifice for it; we will not surrender for
it--now or ever.<br /></blockquote><blockquote>Our forbearance should
never be misunderstood. Our reluctance for conflict should not be
misjudged as a failure of will. When action is required to preserve our
national security, we will act. We will maintain sufficient strength to
prevail if need be, knowing that if we do so we have the best chance of
never having to use that strength.<br /><br />Above all, we must realize
that no arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is so
formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women. It is a
weapon our adversaries in today's world do not have. It is a weapon that
we as Americans do have. Let that be understood by those who practice
terrorism and prey upon their neighbors.<br /><br />I am told that tens of
thousands of prayer meetings are being held on this day, and for that I
am deeply grateful. We are a nation under God, and I believe God
intended for us to be free. It would be fitting and good, I think, if on
each Inauguration Day in future years it should be declared a day of
prayer.</blockquote><p><span style="font-weight: bold;">"Evil Empire" Speech (1983)</span></p><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/FcSm-KAEFFA" width="420"></iframe><p><span style="font-weight: bold;">On March 8, 1983 <a href="http://www.nationalcenter.org/ReaganEvilEmpire1983.html">Ronald Reagan addressed the National Association of Evangelicals in Orlando, Florida</a> and ended his speech as follows: </span></p><blockquote>During
my first press conference as President, in answer to a direct question,
I pointed out that, as good Marxist-Leninists, the Soviet leaders have
openly and publicly declared that the only morality they recognize is
that which will further their cause, which is world revolution. I think I
should point out I was only quoting Lenin, their guiding spirit, who
said in 1920 that they repudiate all morality that proceeds from
supernatural ideas -- that's their name for religion -- or ideas that
are outside class conceptions. Morality is entirely subordinate to the
interests of class war. And everything is moral that is necessary for
the annihilation of the old, exploiting social order and for uniting the
proletariat.<br /><br />Well, I think the refusal of many influential
people to accept this elementary fact of Soviet doctrine illustrates an
historical reluctance to see totalitarian powers for what they are. We
saw this phenomenon in the 1930's. We see it too often today.This
doesn't mean we should isolate ourselves and refuse to seek an
understanding with them. I intend to do everything I can to persuade
them of our peaceful intent, to remind them that it was the West that
refused to use its nuclear monopoly in the forties and fifties for
territorial gain and which now proposes 50-percent cut in strategic
ballistic missiles and the elimination of an entire class of land-based,
intermediate-range nuclear missiles.<br /><br />At the same time, however,
they must be made to understand we will never compromise our principles
and standards. We will never give away our freedom. We will never
abandon our belief in God. And we will never stop searching for a
genuine peace. But we can assure none of these things America stands for
through the so-called nuclear freeze solutions proposed by some.<br /><br />The
truth is that a freeze now would be a very dangerous fraud, for that is
merely the illusion of peace. The reality is that we must find peace
through strength.<br /><br />I would agree to a freeze if only we could
freeze the Soviets' global desires. A freeze at current levels of
weapons would remove any incentive for the Soviets to negotiate
seriously in Geneva and virtually end our chances to achieve the major
arms reductions which we have proposed. Instead, they would achieve
their objectives through the freeze.<br /><br />A freeze would reward the
Soviet Union for its enormous and unparalleled military buildup. It
would prevent the essential and long overdue modernization of United
States and allied defenses and would leave our aging forces increasingly
vulnerable. And an honest freeze would require extensive prior
negotiations on the systems and numbers to be limited and on the
measures to ensure effective verification and compliance. And the kind
of a freeze that has been suggested would be virtually impossible to
verify. Such a major effort would divert us completely from our current
negotiations on achieving substantial reductions.<br /><br />A number of
years ago, I heard a young father, a very prominent young man in the
entertainment world, addressing a tremendous gathering in California. It
was during the time of the Cold War, and communism and our own way of
life were very much on people's minds. And he was speaking to that
subject. And suddenly, though, I heard him saying, "I love my little
girls more than anything -- -- "And I said to myself, "Oh, no, don't.
You can't -- don't say that."<br /><br />But I had underestimated him. He
went on: "I would rather see my little girls die now, still believing in
God, than have them grow up under communism and one day die no longer
believing in God."<br /><br />There were thousands of young people in that
audience. They came to their feet with shouts of joy. They had instantly
recognized the profound truth in what he had said, with regard to the
physical and the soul and what was truly important.<br /><br />Yes, let us
pray for the salvation of all of those who live in that totalitarian
darkness -- pray they will discover the joy of knowing God. But until
they do, let us be aware that while they preach the supremacy of the
state, declare its omnipotence over individual man, and predict its
eventual domination of all peoples on the Earth, they are the focus of
evil in the modern world.<br /><br />It was C.S. Lewis who, in his
unforgettable "Screwtape Letters," wrote: "The greatest evil is not done
now in those sordid 'dens of crime' that Dickens loved to paint. It is
not even done in concentration camps and labor camps. In those we see
its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded,
carried and minuted) in clear, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted
offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and
smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voice."<br /><br />Well,
because these "quiet men" do not "raise their voices"; because they
sometimes speak in soothing tones of brotherhood and peace; because,
like other dictators before them, they're always making "their final
territorial demand," some would have us accept them at their word and
accommodate ourselves to their aggressive impulses. But if history
teaches anything, it teaches that simple-minded appeasement or wishful
thinking about our adversaries is folly. It means the betrayal of our
past, the squandering of our freedom.<br /><br />So, I urge you to speak out
against those who would place the United States in a position of
military and moral inferiority. You know, I've always believed that old
Screwtape reserved his best efforts for those of you in the church. So,
in your discussions of the nuclear freeze proposals, I urge you to
beware the temptation of pride -- the temptation of blithely declaring
yourselves above it all and label both sides equally at fault, to ignore
the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire, to
simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding and thereby remove
yourself from the struggle between right and wrong and good and evil.<br /><br />I
ask you to resist the attempts of those who would have you withhold
your support for our efforts, this administration's efforts, to keep
America strong and free, while we negotiate real and verifiable
reductions in the world's nuclear arsenals and one day, with God's help,
their total elimination.<br /><br />While America's military strength is
important, let me add here that I've always maintained that the struggle
now going on for the world will never be decided by bombs or rockets,
by armies or military might. The real crisis we face today is a
spiritual one; at root, it is a test of moral will and faith.<br /><br />Whittaker
Chambers, the man whose own religious conversion made him a witness to
one of the terrible traumas of our time, the Hiss-Chambers case, wrote
that the crisis of the Western World exists to the degree in which the
West is indifferent to God, the degree to which it collaborates in
communism's attempt to make man stand alone without God. And then he
said, for Marxism-Leninism is actually the second oldest faith, first
proclaimed in the Garden of Eden with the words of temptation, "Ye shall
be as gods."<br /><br />The Western world can answer this challenge, he
wrote, "but only provided that its faith in God and the freedom He
enjoins is as great as communism's faith in Man."<br /><br />I believe we
shall rise to the challenge. I believe that communism is another sad,
bizarre chapter in human history whose last pages even now are being
written. I believe this because the source of our strength in the quest
for human freedom is not material, but spiritual. And because it knows
no limitation, it must terrify and ultimately triumph over those who
would enslave their fellow man. For in the words of Isaiah: "He giveth
power to the faint; and to them that have no might He increased strength
But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall
mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary."<br /></blockquote><p><br /><br />"Enlightened"
opinion blasted the speech and warned of Reagan the warmonger, but his
strong, principled and moral stand backed up with moral toughness and
prudent conservative policies in solidarity with dissident movements
opposing international communism helped to turn the tide. By 1987 the
Russians were willing to negotiate for peace in real terms and Reagan
held them to it. The speech at the Berlin Wall indicates how he went
about it.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Reagan at the Berlin Wall (1987)</span></p><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5MDFX-dNtsM" width="420"></iframe><p><span style="font-weight: bold;">In this excerpt from his June 12, 1987 <a href="http://www.historyplace.com/speeches/reagan-tear-down.htm">address at the Berlin Wall Ronald Reagan provided</a>
both the history and economic realities that offered the context that
explained his optimism on behalf of freedom and challenging the Russians
to back up their rhetoric with action:</span></p><blockquote>In the 1950s,
Khrushchev predicted: "We will bury you." But in the West today, we see a
free world that has achieved a level of prosperity and well-being
unprecedented in all human history. In the Communist world, we see
failure, technological backwardness, declining standards of health, even
want of the most basic kind--too little food. Even today, the Soviet
Union still cannot feed itself. After these four decades, then, there
stands before the entire world one great and inescapable conclusion:
Freedom leads to prosperity. Freedom replaces the ancient hatreds among
the nations with comity and peace. Freedom is the victor.<br /><br />And now
the Soviets themselves may, in a limited way, be coming to understand
the importance of freedom. We hear much from Moscow about a new policy
of reform and openness. Some political prisoners have been released.
Certain foreign news broadcasts are no longer being jammed. Some
economic enterprises have been permitted to operate with greater freedom
from state control.<br /><br />Are these the beginnings of profound changes
in the Soviet state? Or are they token gestures, intended to raise
false hopes in the West, or to strengthen the Soviet system without
changing it? We welcome change and openness; for we believe that freedom
and security go together, that the advance of human liberty can only
strengthen the cause of world peace. There is one sign the Soviets can
make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the
cause of freedom and peace.<br /><br />General Secretary Gorbachev, if you
seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern
Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr.
Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!<br /></blockquote><p>During
Ronald Reagan's tenure the United States did not participate in any
major conflicts. The US military invaded and occupied Grenada in 1983 to
drive out Cuban troops building a military runway there, but on
Reagan's watch America was it peace and the Cold War was on its way to
being resolved peacefully.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Farewell Address (1989)</span></p><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/UKVsq2daR8Q" width="420"></iframe><p><span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span><span style="font-weight: bold;">On January 11, 1989, just nine days before the end of his Presidency, <a href="http://reagan2020.us/speeches/Farewell.asp">Ronald Reagan addressed the nation and offered a look back</a>. </span></p><blockquote>Well,
back in 1980, when I was running for President, it was all so
different. Some pundits said our programs would result in catastrophe.
Our views on foreign affairs would cause war. Our plans for the economy
would cause inflation to soar and bring about economic collapse. I even
remember one highly respected economist saying, back in 1982, that "The
engines of economic growth have shut down here, and they're likely to
stay that way for years to come." Well, he and the other opinion leaders
were wrong. The fact is what they call "radical" was really "right."
What they called "dangerous" was just "desperately needed."<br /><br />And
in all of that time I won a nickname, "The Great Communicator." But I
never thought it was my style or the words I used that made a
difference: it was the content. I wasn't a great communicator, but I
communicated great things, and they didn't spring full bloom from my
brow, they came from the heart of a great nation--from our experience,
our wisdom, and our belief in the principles that have guided us for two
centuries. They called it the Reagan revolution. Well, I'll accept
that, but for me it always seemed more like the great rediscovery, a
rediscovery of our values and our common sense.<br /><br />Common sense told
us that when you put a big tax on something, the people will produce
less of it. So, we cut the people's tax rates, and the people produced
more than ever before. The economy bloomed like a plant that had been
cut back and could now grow quicker and stronger. Our economic program
brought about the longest peacetime expansion in our history: real
family income up, the poverty rate down, entrepreneurship booming, and
an explosion in research and new technology. We're exporting more than
ever because American industry became more competitive, and at the same
time, we summoned the national will to knock down protectionist walls
abroad instead of erecting them at home.<br /><br />Common sense also told
us that to preserve the peace, we'd have to become strong again after
years of weakness and confusion. So, we rebuilt our defenses, and this
New Year we toasted the new peacefulness around the globe. Not only have
the superpowers actually begun to reduce their stockpiles of nuclear
weapons--and hope for even more progress is bright--but the regional
conflicts that rack the globe are also beginning to cease. The Persian
Gulf is no longer a war zone. The Soviets are leaving Afghanistan. The
Vietnamese are preparing to pull out of Cambodia, and an
American-mediated accord will soon send 50,000 Cuban troops home from
Angola.<br /><br />The lesson of all this was, of course, that because we're
a great nation, our challenges seem complex. It will always be this
way. But as long as we remember our first principles and believe in
ourselves, the future will always be ours. And something else we
learned: Once you begin a great movement, there's no telling where it
will end. We meant to change a nation, and instead, we changed a world.<br /><br />Countries
across the globe are turning to free markets and free speech and
turning away from the ideologies of the past. For them, the great
rediscovery of the 1980's has been that, lo and behold, the moral way of
government is the practical way of government: Democracy, the
profoundly good, is also the profoundly productive.<br /><br />When you've
got to the point when you can celebrate the anniversaries of your 39th
birthday, you can sit back sometimes, review your life, and see it
flowing before you. For me there was a fork in the river, and it was
right in the middle of my life. I never meant to go into politics. It
wasn't my intention when I was young. But I was raised to believe you
had to pay your way for the blessings bestowed on you. I was happy with
my career in the entertainment world, but I ultimately went into
politics because I wanted to protect something precious.<br /><br /></blockquote>Reagan also looked at the <a href="http://reagan2020.us/speeches/Farewell.asp">present situation with the Soviets under Gorbachev and spoke plainly as always</a>:<blockquote>Nothing
is less free than pure communism--and yet we have, the past few years,
forged a satisfying new closeness with the Soviet Union. I've been asked
if this isn't a gamble, and my answer is no, because we're basing our
actions not on words but deeds. The detente of the 1970's was based not
on actions but promises. They'd promise to treat their own people and
the people of the world better. But the gulag was still the gulag, and
the state was still expansionist, and they still waged proxy wars in
Africa, Asia, and Latin America.<br /><br />Well, this time, so far, it's
different. President Gorbachev has brought about some internal
democratic reforms and begun the withdrawal from Afghanistan. He has
also freed prisoners whose names I've given him every time we've met.<br /><br />But
life has a way of reminding you of big things through small incidents.
Once, during the heady days of the Moscow summit, Nancy and I decided to
break off from the entourage one afternoon to visit the shops on Arbat
Street--that's a little street just off Moscow's main shopping area.
Even though our visit was a surprise, every Russian there immediately
recognized us and called out our names and reached for our hands. We
were just about swept away by the warmth. You could almost feel the
possibilities in all that joy. But within seconds, a KGB detail pushed
their way toward us and began pushing and shoving the people in the
crowd. It was an interesting moment. It reminded me that while the man
on the street in the Soviet Union yearns for peace, the government is
Communist. And those who run it are Communists, and that means we and
they view such issues as freedom and human rights very differently.<br /><br />We
must keep up our guard, but we must also continue to work together to
lessen and eliminate tension and mistrust. My view is that President
Gorbachev is different from previous Soviet leaders. I think he knows
some of the things wrong with his society and is trying to fix them. We
wish him well. And we'll continue to work to make sure that the Soviet
Union that eventually emerges from this process is a less threatening
one. What it all boils down to is this: I want the new closeness to
continue. And it will, as long as we make it clear that we will continue
to act in a certain way as long as they continue to act in a helpful
manner. If and when they don't, at first pull your punches. If they
persist, pull the plug. It's still trust but verify. It's still play,
but cut the cards. It's still watch closely. And don't be afraid to see
what you see.</blockquote>Reagan <a href="http://reagan2020.us/speeches/Farewell.asp">ended his farewell address looking towards the next generations</a> and the challenges they face and again spoke plainly. Sadly, policy makers didn't listen. <blockquote>Finally,
there is a great tradition of warnings in Presidential farewells, and
I've got one that's been on my mind for some time. But oddly enough, it
starts with one of the things I'm proudest of in the past 8 years: the
resurgence of national pride that I called the new patriotism. This
national feeling is good, but it won't count for much, and it won't last
unless it's grounded in thoughtfulness and knowledge.<br /><br />An
informed patriotism is what we want. And are we doing a good enough job
teaching our children what America is and what she represents in the
long history of the world? Those of us who are over 35 or so years of
age grew up in a different America. We were taught, very directly, what
it means to be an American. And we absorbed, almost in the air, a love
of country and an appreciation of its institutions. If you didn't get
these things from your family, you got them from the neighborhood, from
the father down the street who fought in Korea or the family who lost
someone at Anzio. Or you could get a sense of patriotism from school.
And if all else failed, you could get a sense of patriotism from the
popular culture. The movies celebrated democratic values and implicitly
reinforced the idea that America was special. TV was like that, too,
through the mid-sixties.<br /><br />But now, we're about to enter the
nineties, and some things have changed. Younger parents aren't sure that
an unambivalent appreciation of America is the right thing to teach
modern children. And as for those who create the popular culture,
well-grounded patriotism is no longer the style. Our spirit is back, but
we haven't reinstitutionalized it. We've got to do a better job of
getting across that America is freedom--freedom of speech, freedom of
religion, freedom of enterprise. And freedom is special and rare. It's
fragile; it needs [protection].<br /><br />So, we've got to teach history
based not on what's in fashion but what's important--why the Pilgrims
came here, who Jimmy Doolittle was, and what those 30 seconds over Tokyo
meant. You know, 4 years ago on the 40th anniversary of D-Day, I read a
letter from a young woman writing to her late father, who'd fought on
Omaha Beach. Her name was Lisa Zanatta Henn, and she said, "We will
always remember, we will never forget what the boys of Normandy did."
Well, let's help her keep her word. If we forget what we did, we won't
know who we are. I'm warning of an eradication of the American memory
that could result, ultimately, in an erosion of the American spirit.
Let's start with some basics: more attention to American history and a
greater emphasis on civic ritual.<br /><br />And let me offer lesson number
one about America: All great change in America begins at the dinner
table. So, tomorrow night in the kitchen, I hope the talking begins. And
children, if your parents haven't been teaching you what it means to be
an American, let 'em know and nail 'em on it. That would be a very
American thing to do.<br /><br />And that's about all I have to say tonight,
except for one thing. The past few days when I've been at that window
upstairs, I've thought a bit of the "shining city upon a hill." The
phrase comes from John Winthrop, who wrote it to describe the America he
imagined. What he imagined was important because he was an early
Pilgrim, an early freedom man. He journeyed here on what today we'd call
a little wooden boat; and like the other Pilgrims, he was looking for a
home that would be free. I've spoken of the shining city all my
political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw
when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks
stronger than oceans, windswept, God-blessed, and teeming with people
of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that
hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls,
the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and
the heart to get here. That's how I saw it, and see it still.<br /><br />And
how stands the city on this winter night? More prosperous, more secure,
and happier than it was 8 years ago. But more than that: After 200
years, two centuries, she still stands strong and true on the granite
ridge, and her glow has held steady no matter what storm. And she's
still a beacon, still a magnet for all who must have freedom, for all
the pilgrims from all the lost places who are hurtling through the
darkness, toward home.<br /><br />We've done our part. And as I walk off
into the city streets, a final word to the men and women of the Reagan
revolution, the men and women across America who for 8 years did the
work that brought America back. My friends: We did it. We weren't just
marking time. We made a difference. We made the city stronger, we made
the city freer, and we left her in good hands. All in all, not bad, not
bad at all.<br /><br />And so, goodbye, God bless you, and God bless the United States of America.<br /></blockquote>Lawrence W. Reed, <a href="https://fee.org/articles/ronald-reagan-at-110-twenty-of-his-best-quotes-on-freedom-government-and-america/">in an essay remembering Reagan's freedom legacy</a> on the 110th anniversary of his birth observed that "for the most part, and more than any of his fellow presidents since
Coolidge, Reagan knew that there was no loftier achievement for any
society than freedom. We do ourselves a service to get re-acquainted
with that notion."In these challenging times it would do all Americans well to revisit the 40th President's legacy of freedom, and adapt and adopt them for today.<br /><p><span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span></p>John Suarezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11333798474560217548noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7804678912707713587.post-48167762506418248642020-09-11T02:10:00.006-07:002020-09-11T02:18:53.741-07:00 Young Americans for Freedom: The Struggle Continues <p></p><p><span style="font-style: italic;">In this time of moral and political
crises, it is the responsibility of the youth of America to
affirm certain eternal truths.</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">- <a href="http://www2.fiu.edu/%7Eyaf/sharon.html">The Sharon Statement</a>, September 11, 1960</span><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTWl3bKN7pC3wRvdTBZauVcwyMrHWI6UB0lqY4d5OB1mzerskwvUQrUDVQDOeMD0J_0dgOAsWfSXpimUofc_tjMom34cqAuK9KYYkDZF_GfE3F96QcJujk7MkrDQRowTvOb9k_BGT-qEQ/s1600/yaf-logo.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5528547111300290738" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTWl3bKN7pC3wRvdTBZauVcwyMrHWI6UB0lqY4d5OB1mzerskwvUQrUDVQDOeMD0J_0dgOAsWfSXpimUofc_tjMom34cqAuK9KYYkDZF_GfE3F96QcJujk7MkrDQRowTvOb9k_BGT-qEQ/s400/yaf-logo.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 155px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 155px;" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">"When
bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by
one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle." - Edmund Burke</span><br /><br />We
grew up in the midst of the aftermath of turmoil and revolution of the
1960s and 1970s only to find that the radicals were now high school
teachers and at university faculty members and Administrators. Using
their positions to indoctrinate and continue to advance a radical agenda
that had been rejected at the ballot box through the institutions. In
the case of Florida International University years <a href="http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/espionage/alvarez-jail.htm">later in 2007 a couple were arrested by the FBI and revealed to be agents of Fidel Castro's communist dictatorship</a>. Apparently, <a href="http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/cuban-espionage.htm">this was not an isolated incident</a>.<br /><br />It
was our natural reaction against this that led a group of college
students of different backgrounds to seek out and form a chapter of <a href="http://www2.fiu.edu/%7Eyaf/">Young Americans for Freedom at Florida International University</a> back in 1992. The first president of YAF-FIU was Craig Herrero, followed by John Suarez, and Cesar Vasquez.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVXNkjmomN2eMTRZeSC4XmyYt5ffmv_fDGs92_Myn4E6xmGFOAQxRN2tkY5JQssoDd1ry6jx2ORInZfZg73pNh8iBO8MNgXJfO5ejgLn05ogO7aJxOaG-0_ytiItqKGj1JQ8FwYd6HgC0/s1600/yafschlaflyfiu.JPG"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5528544842112530178" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVXNkjmomN2eMTRZeSC4XmyYt5ffmv_fDGs92_Myn4E6xmGFOAQxRN2tkY5JQssoDd1ry6jx2ORInZfZg73pNh8iBO8MNgXJfO5ejgLn05ogO7aJxOaG-0_ytiItqKGj1JQ8FwYd6HgC0/s400/yafschlaflyfiu.JPG" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 309px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a>Throughout
our years of existence, YAF-FIU attended Florida conventions
hosted by the Young America's Foundation, attended Leadership
Institute trainings as well as Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum
Collegiate's first annual leadership seminar. YAF-FIU also
lobbied to bring conservative speakers starting with <a href="http://www.phyllisschlafly.com/">Phyllis Schlafly</a>, with the help of Young Americas Foundation, Jack Kemp, and later <a href="http://buchanan.org/blog/">Pat Buchanan</a>.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDpk7AQ6uYMGwRbzBvuF6FjrjcMGkzlxAbbAUqnVqZMHHOl3qxEGKRj1YAz59Dc8UGKGDosjUaL8bqZIm1H0YvCrteYhYWY0bpzDcrTSBvNWvvU26ql1vxdG7mIMkViGJP9pijbMq4EzI/s1600/OfficersKemp.JPG"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5528544640487388866" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDpk7AQ6uYMGwRbzBvuF6FjrjcMGkzlxAbbAUqnVqZMHHOl3qxEGKRj1YAz59Dc8UGKGDosjUaL8bqZIm1H0YvCrteYhYWY0bpzDcrTSBvNWvvU26ql1vxdG7mIMkViGJP9pijbMq4EzI/s400/OfficersKemp.JPG" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 295px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a>Aside from our own newsletter, <b>VOX LIBERTAS</b>, which was regularly distributed, YAF-FIU also distributed <b>CAMPUS: AMERICA'S STUDENT NEWSPAPER</b>, <a href="http://www.isi.org/homepage.aspx">Intercollegiate Studies Institute</a> (ISI) publications and <b>Campus Report,</b> produced by <a href="http://www.academia.org/">Accuracy in Academia</a>.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWCM7ts40XdoIXCDXwGO2CQsrxcehgRuiAspmz2DXZKLTa69a2v4geD_yaBSrNN4cap-VvLKZ_B_jC304xEWgTKwd0ULKZqUgHRS2LkmQXtYPgGS19UicuDXgnrpjL16fYqyZnI95poR0/s1600/lifechain.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5528545353217473538" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWCM7ts40XdoIXCDXwGO2CQsrxcehgRuiAspmz2DXZKLTa69a2v4geD_yaBSrNN4cap-VvLKZ_B_jC304xEWgTKwd0ULKZqUgHRS2LkmQXtYPgGS19UicuDXgnrpjL16fYqyZnI95poR0/s400/lifechain.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 290px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 357px;" /></a>FIU-YAF
fought battles on the cultural and political front for more than a
decade before the increasingly restrictive university policies nibbling
away at student freedoms finally took their toll. FIU-YAF fought the
battles greatly outnumbered at times by faculty and administration with
an apathetic student body untroubled by the loss of their freedoms on
campus, and a student newspaper with a left-wing tilt.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn07XK4jXe-QG-gBvagfR-0p4eBUatysBaOM8Uwi6Ybm2uWeySX1ruS5k4sB_yfSz5bVanFthDMW8Q7SXByRBau36YsZrwscqi9llfX9tZrortXPDtiLCfO1ltzr1qqhgMpAwt1j3BfQ0/s1600/freelytong3.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5528545145756735922" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn07XK4jXe-QG-gBvagfR-0p4eBUatysBaOM8Uwi6Ybm2uWeySX1ruS5k4sB_yfSz5bVanFthDMW8Q7SXByRBau36YsZrwscqi9llfX9tZrortXPDtiLCfO1ltzr1qqhgMpAwt1j3BfQ0/s400/freelytong3.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 246px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 304px;" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">"The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedients, and by parts." -Edmund Burke</span><br /><br />In
many ways what took place at Florida International University mirrors
what has happened both in Miami-Dade County and in the country at large.
The question that gnaws is what can be done about this?</p><p></p><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0wbC-7cfPsA" width="420"></iframe><p></p><p><span style="font-weight: bold;">"We
must all obey the great law of change. It is the most powerful law of
nature, and the means perhaps of its conservation." -Edmund Burke</span><br /><br />There
are a number of texts and thinkers out there that provide a diagnosis
of the crisis and the onslaught against American freedoms and the <a href="http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/2010/10/07/october-7-1571/">West in general</a>.
Identifying the problem and recognizing that the America we group up in
is disappearing replaced with new generations that are much more
passive and obedient to bureaucratic controls. Continued mass
immigration combined with multiculturalism is fracturing the American
identity and whatever homogeneity existed before which is perfect for
the managerial elite because it gives them excuses for more bureaucracy
and more controls.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">"If you set
out to be liked, you would be prepared to compromise on anything at any
time, and you would achieve nothing." - Margaret Thatcher</span><br /><br />Much
of these revolutions undermining the United States have taken place
under Republican presidents and were not reversed even when both the
executive and the legislative were controlled by the Republican party.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">"Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe." -Edmund Burke</span><br /><br />Add
to that conservatives going along with the party line defending George
W. Bush as he trashed America's reputation abroad and demonstrated
incompetence (one hopes) domestically ending with massive federal bail
outs of companies "too big to fail" and as Herbert Hoover prepared the
ground for Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the 1930s so Bush did for Obama
today.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">"People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors." - Edmund Burke</span><br /><br />These failures on the political front pale in comparison to the failure to transmit <a href="http://www.kirkcenter.org/index.php/detail/what-are-american-traditions/">American traditions</a>
and concepts of liberty to the new generations in the public schools.
Conservatives have retreated into home schooling that is doing the job
with a select few children, but the vast majority have been lobotomized
by the education establishment and an <a href="http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/2010/04/20/the-eclipse-of-the-normal/">increasingly toxic popular culture</a>. This is what Gramsci described as the long march through the institutions by <a href="http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2006/06/political-correctness-revenge-of.html">cultural Marxism</a>.<br /><br />Sadly these trends are not new <a href="http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_F._Buckley,_Jr.">William F. Buckley Jr.</a>
identified it in 1955 stating "The largest cultural menace in America
is the conformity of the intellectual cliques which, in education as
well as the arts, are out to impose upon the nation their modish fads
and fallacies, and have nearly succeeded in doing so. In this cultural
issue, we are, without reservations, on the side of excellence (rather
than "newness") and of honest intellectual combat (rather than
conformity)."*<br /><br />The buzz word of today's Utopian is globalization but what is being globalized? <a href="http://reflectionsontherevolutionsinamerica.blogspot.com/2010/10/remarks-by-vaclav-havel-at-opening.html">Vaclav Havel offered the following observation last week</a>:
"We are living in the first truly global civilization. That means that
whatever comes into existence on its soil can very quickly and easily
span the whole world. But we are also living in the first <a href="http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/2010/08/12/where-the-demons-dwell-the-antichrist-right/">atheistic</a>
civilization, in other words, a civilization that has lost its
connection with the infinite and eternity. For that reason it prefers
short-term profit to long-term profit. What is important is whether an
investment will provide a return in ten or fifteen years; how it will
affect the lives of our descendants in a hundred years is less
important. However, the most dangerous aspect of this global atheistic
civilization is its pride. The pride of someone who is driven by the
very logic of his wealth to stop respecting the contribution of nature
and our forebears, to stop respecting it on principle and respect it
only as a further potential source of profit." What Havel is describing
is the triumph of cultural Marxism.<br /><br />Finally, <a href="http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig3/franke10.1.html">the Sharon Statement</a>
is as relevant today as it was in 1960 including its plank on
international communism. A large part of humanity continues to live
under Marxist-Leninist despots in <a href="http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/2010/07/06/yankee-utopians-in-a-chinese-century/">China</a>,
North Korea, Cuba, Vietnam and are threatened by executives that would
like to impose it in Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Ecuador undermining
basic political freedoms.<a href="http://www.northcarolinahistory.org/commentary/469/entry"> Jesse Helms in his memoirs</a>
written long after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the disappearance of
the Soviet Union in 2005 said it best: "It was never a mistake to give
our support to the person or group who did not embrace <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0674076087/freecubafoundati">Communism</a>
rather than a person or faction who did. Communism has been tried and
found wanting in countries around the world. In every case, the rule of
Communism brought the death of dissidents, the banning of religion,
the destruction of revered cultures and the devaluation of human life. …
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0674076087/freecubafoundati">Communism</a> is not truly dead.”<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMUhnMMHCfn7oBdVuvG3RruHhMn8k6t2geCh5VVq1lAlUrOrb0XRnHsk_15Nf9yjPQ0QMLhyce-JPWJHzAY9q4z_W9qLFmf8qaXiqTAQGoXAcosEBG8zx555YjKIwi1frm5fENrz4jb3E/s1600/yaferwedding.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5528545472399747890" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMUhnMMHCfn7oBdVuvG3RruHhMn8k6t2geCh5VVq1lAlUrOrb0XRnHsk_15Nf9yjPQ0QMLhyce-JPWJHzAY9q4z_W9qLFmf8qaXiqTAQGoXAcosEBG8zx555YjKIwi1frm5fENrz4jb3E/s400/yaferwedding.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 265px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a><br />Dear friends you are in my thoughts as you observe the six decade mark of <a href="http://www.yaf.com/">Young Americans for Freedom</a> but frankly there is much left to do if the United States is to be saved and if Western <a href="http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/2009/11/02/athens-and-jerusalem-iii-why-rome-fell/">Civilization</a> is to survive. A suggestion: pick up copies of <a href="http://conservativehq.com/home">Richard Viguerie's</a> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Conservatives-Betrayed-Government-Republicans-Conservative/dp/1566252857/ref=freecubafoundati">Conservatives Betrayed</a> and M. Stanton Evan's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Blacklisted-History-Senator-McCarthy-Americas/dp/1400081068/ref=freecubafoundati">Blacklisted by History</a> and read both carefully. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Americans_for_Freedom#1990s">Young Americans for Freedom</a> can still save the day.</p><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fA-mbSkQM6M" width="420"></iframe><p>Today, we are witnessing Maoists carrying out struggle sessions on the streets of the United States, and new generations of young Americans drawn to the siren call of communism. It can happen here, and friends of freedom of all generations need to step up.There is a link between the <a href="https://www.dademag.com/features/2020/6/23/op-ed-john-suarez-reform-or-revolution" target="_blank">Black Panthers</a> and the Maoists. William F. Buckley Jr. engaged some of their leaders back in the 1960s and is worth watching today.<br /></p><p><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5NPwk_Dbin8" width="420"></iframe></p><p>
We failed to contain and defeat our adversaries on college campuses and they are now wreaking havoc in the larger world off campus. Although YAF has not won the struggle for freedom in the United States, new generations of young conservatives continue to join the fight, and gives us OAFS (Old Americans for Freedom) hope for the future. Today, they are organizing acts of remembrance on the 19th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.<br /></p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p dir="ltr" lang="en">Congress has no planned moment of remembrance on the 19th anniversary of 9/11.<br /><br />Instead, <a href="https://twitter.com/yaf?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@YAF</a> will place 2,977 American flags in the lawn on the East Front—one for each victim—on Friday from 7:30am until 2:00pm.<br /><br />Stop by if you're in DC. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NeverForget?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#NeverForget</a>🇺🇸<a href="https://t.co/AJry6Xi4GP">https://t.co/AJry6Xi4GP</a></p>— Spencer Brown (@itsSpencerBrown) <a href="https://twitter.com/itsSpencerBrown/status/1304152495338516480?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 10, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script> <p><br /><br />*William F. Buckley Jr. "Our Mission Statement" in National Review (19 November 1955)
</p><p></p><p></p>John Suarezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11333798474560217548noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7804678912707713587.post-12176932429526400202017-09-25T00:41:00.002-07:002017-09-25T00:58:57.349-07:00The troubles with Karl Marx are legion: Antisemitism, Racism, Terrorism, and Genocide<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
"Fascism was the shadow or ugly child of communism… As Fascism sprang
from Communism, so Nazism developed from Fascism. Thus were set on foot
those kindred movements which were destined soon to plunge the world
into more hideous strife, which none can say has ended with their
destruction.<i>" - Winston Churchill, <u>The Second World War, Volume 1, The Gathering Storm</u></i> (1948) <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvDX6mNeMgj0ER8VTrNbQSzozGsRNay4j1XbZ2GQ1NbH40-_r7sltL9cnVvx5cCp0BPfe-qOgypJFbbeEiscAm9vxf1gEmoQbOabg015FXE6wQa91f_mmiujEr1ArwVbFhh7kdFdsosEo/s1600/nomarx.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="276" data-original-width="322" height="274" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvDX6mNeMgj0ER8VTrNbQSzozGsRNay4j1XbZ2GQ1NbH40-_r7sltL9cnVvx5cCp0BPfe-qOgypJFbbeEiscAm9vxf1gEmoQbOabg015FXE6wQa91f_mmiujEr1ArwVbFhh7kdFdsosEo/s320/nomarx.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<i> </i> <br />
Looking back at Karl Marx's writings demonstrates that by current standards the German philosopher falls far short. Marx's early formulation of communism is antisemitic and <a href="https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/jewish-question/">offers a "solution" to the "Jewish Problem</a>." <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Money is the Jealous God of Israel, beside which no other God may exist. Money abases all the gods of mankind and changes them into commodities. The god of the Jews has been secularized and has become the god of the world. In emancipating itself from hucksterism and money, and thus from real and practical Judaism, our age would emancipate itself...by destroying the empirical essence of Judaism, the Jew will become impossible."<i> Source <u>Karl Marx-Engels Collected Works</u> (London 1975ff),vol. iii,pp146-74</i></blockquote>
<br />
His early defense of <a href="https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Karl_Marx">using terror</a>, one of the key elements of Totalitarianism is also problematic.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"We are ruthless and ask no quarter from you. When our turn comes we shall not disguise our terrorism."<i><u> Marx-Engels Gesamt-Ausgabe</u>, vol. vi pp 503-5</i> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Far from opposing the so-called excesses, those examples of popular vengeance against hated individuals or public buildings which have acquired hateful memories, we must not only condone these examples but lend them a helping hand."<i><u> Marx-Engels Gesamt-Ausgabe</u>, vol. vii p 239</i></blockquote>
Karl Marx in the essay “Forced Emigration,” in the <i>New York Daily Tribune</i>, 22 March 1853 seems to view the elimination of classes and races as a necessary part of revolution:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Society is undergoing a silent revolution, which must be submitted to,
and which takes no more notice of the human existences it breaks down
than an earthquake regards the houses it subverts. <b>The classes and the races, too weak to master the new conditions of life, must give way.</b> </blockquote>
In a <a href="http://hiaw.org/defcon6/works/1862/letters/62_07_30a.html">July 30, 1862 letter</a> to Frederick Engels, his chief benefactor, Marx described nineteenth-century German socialist, Ferdinand Lassalle, in a <a href="http://hiaw.org/defcon6/works/1862/letters/62_07_30a.html">racist manner:</a><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The Jewish Nigger Lassalle . . .fortunately departs at the end of this
week . . . It is now absolutely clear to me that, as both the shape of
his head and his hair texture shows – he descends from the Negros who
joined Moses’ flight from Egypt (unless his mother or grandmother on the
paternal side hybridized with a nigger). Now this combination of
Germanness and Jewishness with a primarily Negro substance creates a
strange product. The pushiness of the fellow is also nigger-like.</blockquote>
Joshua Dill <a href="http://blog.victimsofcommunism.org/communism-a-bad-idea-even-in-1844/">has written an important essay</a> on how even with the early Marx one could see how things would turn out so badly when his theories were implemented.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
..."The year was 1844. Hoping to unite German and French radicals, Marx and
his colleague Arnold Ruge moved with their wives to Paris in order to
found a new theoretical journal, the <i>Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher </i>(German-French Annals)."</blockquote>
Ruge falls out with Marx and goes on to provide a nuanced analysis of what the communists <a href="http://blog.victimsofcommunism.org/communism-a-bad-idea-even-in-1844/">were offering and its shortcomings</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“What I’ve recently read, Fourier and the
communists, has much to say in the critical realm—in the organic realm
it is always highly problematic; and you are completely right, before
one sees the “how,” there is not much to be said for the idea of a new
reality. Heads are confused, and the socialist parties don’t speak much
more clearly than they think. Neither the complicated proposals of the
Fourierists nor the abolition of private property of the communists can
be formulated clearly. Both amount in the end to a veritable police
state or slave state. In order to free the proletarians both spiritually
and physically from need and the pressure of need, they think of an
organization that would make all people experience this need and this
pressure. One must accept the challenge of ending the neglect of man at
any price, and if it is necessary that the privileged suffer for this,
one must accept this too. But is the practical problem even solved in
this case? Is freedom achieved when both need for and abundance from the
state is evenly distributed? And would men become more humane if some
are relieved and some are burdened in that way? The communists say ‘yes’
and dream of a paradise as soon as the next revolution brings them to
the helm, as they believe will happen. The communists are so far removed
from humanity and from actual communism that living with them presents
no intellectual or social attraction.” </blockquote>
Those in 2017 who view Marx as having "<a href="https://twitter.com/NewYorker/status/911900569916379136">had it figured out all along</a>" need to have their head examined. One can diagnose a problem but providing a solution worse than the original problem should not be celebrated. The past century of communism in action, <a href="https://www.theepochtimes.com/communism-the-leading-ideological-cause-of-death-in-the-20th-century_2212529.html">with over a 100 million dead</a>, not to mention ideological offspring such as fascism, leaves a clear and negative record that is no cause for celebration. </div>
John Suarezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11333798474560217548noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7804678912707713587.post-75912690280011753882016-09-19T13:47:00.000-07:002016-09-19T13:59:36.354-07:00A Post-Constitutional United States<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWsDL7IohQl-3xO9b42XrTZGVuGzT8gUfXDx-crBraeYqvp3mJKn-kVtpQ3Lp0Ba1Lc5qTseas5r2NKCnUPHRvCKU16OxVqAVmV5_pbtHXowvg8-jQvfvnZgc-t1V3XlghCnfM5-k9tF0/s1600/united-states-constitution.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWsDL7IohQl-3xO9b42XrTZGVuGzT8gUfXDx-crBraeYqvp3mJKn-kVtpQ3Lp0Ba1Lc5qTseas5r2NKCnUPHRvCKU16OxVqAVmV5_pbtHXowvg8-jQvfvnZgc-t1V3XlghCnfM5-k9tF0/s400/united-states-constitution.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; font-family: acumin-pro-medium; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty — power is ever stealing from the many to the few. . . . The hand entrusted with power becomes . . . the necessary enemy of the people. ~<a href="http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/chron/civilwarnotes/phillips.html" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.3s ease; vertical-align: baseline;">Wendell Phillips</a></em></div>
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Imagine for a moment a state where your <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/id/8331097/ns/us_news/t/homes-may-be-taken-private-projects/#.UkNl5z9jMfg" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.3s ease; vertical-align: baseline;">home can be seized and sold</a> to another private entity, and the central government has the power to decide <a href="http://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3725&context=flr" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.3s ease; vertical-align: baseline;">who you as a community will do business</a> with — a place where your <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/17/us/aclu-license-plates-readers/index.html" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.3s ease; vertical-align: baseline;">movements are tracked</a> and recorded and your <a href="https://www.eff.org/nsa-spying" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.3s ease; vertical-align: baseline;">conversations recorded</a>. Imagine one man with the power to order mass surveillance, start wars, and <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/17/opinion/who-says-you-can-kill-americans-mr-president.html?_r=0" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.3s ease; vertical-align: baseline;">execute citizens without trial</a> anywhere in the world, including on American soil. The state that I am describing is the United States of America in 2013.</div>
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Individuals across the ideological spectrum have recognized this crisis for <a href="http://panampost.com/fergus-hodgson/2013/06/30/when-youd-rather-not-look-in-the-mirror/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.3s ease; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">US freedom</a> and have described it with a variety of terms: <a href="http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/europe-must-stand-up-to-american-cyber-snooping-a-906250.html" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.3s ease; vertical-align: baseline;">soft-totalitarianism</a>, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/apr/24/usa.comment" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.3s ease; vertical-align: baseline;">fascism</a>, and <a href="http://www.vdare.com/articles/anarcho-tyranny-where-multiculturalism-leads" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.3s ease; vertical-align: baseline;">anarchotyranny</a>, to name a few. Needless to say, this is a far cry from what the founders of the United States had in mind when <a href="http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution.html" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.3s ease; vertical-align: baseline;">the Constitution</a> was drafted and ratified in 1787.</div>
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The steady erosion of freedoms in the United States did not begin with the election of Obama in 2008, or with Bush in 2000, or even the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The latter did, however, accelerate the process with the war on terror and the cover of permanent interventionism abroad.</div>
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This is the first in a series of reflections that seek to understand what happened that led us to this lamentable state of affairs. In learning how we arrived here, the goal shall be to figure out how to carve a path back to a free society.</div>
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Let’s go back a generation and consider the role of the judiciary.</div>
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At one time, US Americans in their local communities and at the state level had the power to decide whether or not they wanted to do business with repressive regimes. In the 1970s and 1980s, the <a href="http://www.noeasyvictories.org/research/sadet_usa.pdf" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.3s ease; vertical-align: baseline;">anti-apartheid movement</a> sought to obtain boycotts from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disinvestment_from_South_Africa#cite_note-16" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.3s ease; vertical-align: baseline;">local and state</a> governments doing business with South Africa. This was at a time when the White House was advancing a policy of constructive engagement with the apartheid regime in South Africa. Over the long-run, successes at the local and state level translated into a policy change at the federal level. It was a classic bottom-up approach to governance.</div>
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Today, however, an anti-apartheid campaign like the one designed a generation ago would be impossible. In 2000 the Supreme Court in the <a href="http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/search/display.html?terms=protests&url=/supct/html/99-474.ZS.html" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.3s ease; vertical-align: baseline;">Crosby versus National Foreign Trade Council</a> decision stripped that power from states and localities and left it in the hands of the executive branch. Soon after, the Supreme Court forced Massachusetts to do business with companies that had done business with the military junta in Burma.</div>
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According to constitutional scholar <a href="http://www.utexas.edu/law/faculty/svl55/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.3s ease; vertical-align: baseline;">Sanford Levinson</a> in the <em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; font-family: acumin-pro-medium; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Fordham Law Review</em>, the Crosby decision compels state and local governments <a href="http://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3725&context=flr" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.3s ease; vertical-align: baseline;">to cooperate with evil</a>. It also concentrates power in Washington, D.C.</div>
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Then in 2005 the Supreme Court, in the <a href="http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/545/04-108/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.3s ease; vertical-align: baseline;">Kelo v. City of New London</a> case, stripped <a href="http://www.heritage.org/initiatives/rule-of-law/judicial-activism/cases/kelo-v-city-of-new-london-conn" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.3s ease; vertical-align: baseline;">private property rights</a> away from individuals and families. A majority of justices on the court claimed that cities and municipalities have <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/06/24/scotus.property/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.3s ease; vertical-align: baseline;">the right to seize properties from private individuals in order to promote private development</a> that could be put to “better” use to generate more tax revenue for their respective community.</div>
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In practice these local governments, often corrupt, declare good properties blighted and then seize them at bargain basement prices in order to sell them on to politically-connected parties. To make it a win for the local government, at the expense of the legitimate owner, these parties then redevelop the properties to provide a larger tax base.</div>
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Former Congressman Ron Paul (R-Texas) described <a href="http://www.lewrockwell.com/2005/07/ron-paul/we-have-no-jurisdiction-in-kelo/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.3s ease; vertical-align: baseline;">the importance of the decision at the time</a>:</div>
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The City of New London, Connecticut essentially acted as a strongman by <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/id/8331097/ns/us_news/t/homes-may-be-taken-private-projects/#.UkNl5z9jMfg" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.3s ease; vertical-align: baseline;">seizing private property</a> from one group of people for the benefit of a more powerful private interest. For its services, the city will be paid a tribute in the form of greater taxes from the new development. In any other context, what’s happening in Connecticut properly would be described as criminal. . . . The individuals losing their homes understand that stealing is stealing, even if the people responsible are government officials. The silver lining in the Kelo case may be that the veneer of government benevolence is being challenged.</div>
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In 2009, after the local government had the backing of the Supreme Court, they seized the property of private home owners and destroyed the homes — leaving empty acres where there was once a neighborhood. However, the company that was supposed to develop the property, Pfizer, then <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/13/nyregion/13pfizer.html?_r=1&" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.3s ease; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">decided to walk away</a> from the whole deal.</div>
<figure class="thumbnail wp-caption aligncenter" style="border-radius: 4px; border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; clear: both; font-size: 18px; line-height: 1.42857; margin: 0px auto 1.5em; max-width: 100%; padding: 4px; transition: 0.2s ease-in-out; width: 675px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidWWUGbfnKOMq5cJF0Cub78L2IUYiViP0wghdHQOytSCJ-d3sCC6cmx0KX01c7ofytyUG7adJJZoAcVM2Y8a4ekhGS2ENBgBxdt1cyhLkWeghEU3puz11AcGAA0ArZSJYgZ7uHXyWIXgY/s1600/kelo-featured-200x150.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: black;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidWWUGbfnKOMq5cJF0Cub78L2IUYiViP0wghdHQOytSCJ-d3sCC6cmx0KX01c7ofytyUG7adJJZoAcVM2Y8a4ekhGS2ENBgBxdt1cyhLkWeghEU3puz11AcGAA0ArZSJYgZ7uHXyWIXgY/s320/kelo-featured-200x150.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<figcaption class="caption wp-caption-text" style="box-sizing: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-weight: 600; line-height: normal; margin: 10px 0px 0px; max-width: 100%; padding: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="color: black;">Susette Kelo’s former home in New London, Connecticut — before and after.</span></figcaption></figure><div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 18px; text-align: left;">The misguided belief of government officials, that they could get more revenue, destroyed people’s homes and lives. They </span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/13/nyregion/13pfizer.html?_r=0" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.3s ease; vertical-align: baseline;">wound up destroying not just the community</a><span style="font-size: 18px; text-align: left;"> but losing even the prior tax revenue.</span></div>
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These Supreme Court decisions have two features in common. They (1) take power from a lower level and concentrate it the hands of fewer decision makers, who often impose unjust and immoral decisions, and (2) they allow a small group to profit from their contacts in government, to advance their economic self-interest.</div>
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Of course, these decisions were not shaped by national security issues but narrowly defined interests, seeking to use the state to take from others to enrich themselves. This is crony capitalism — or simply cronyism — and in other parts of the world it has led to rising poverty and less economic freedom. Not surprisingly, the United States is <a href="http://panampost.com/fergus-hodgson/2013/09/19/venezuela-dead-last-for-economic-freedom/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.3s ease; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">no longer the economically freest country in the world</a>, and the <a href="http://panampost.com/fergus-hodgson/2013/06/30/when-youd-rather-not-look-in-the-mirror/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.3s ease; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">severe plummet</a> has followed these cases. According to the Fraser Institute, the United States has now fallen to <a href="http://www.freetheworld.com/2013/091813_EFW%20INTL.pdf" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.3s ease; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">17th in the world</a>.</div>
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The weakening of private property rights in the United States and the centralizing of the right to decide who to do business with in the federal government strikes at the heart of the US American tradition of liberty. The late conservative polemicist <a href="http://www.sobran.com/articles/tyranny.shtml" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.3s ease; vertical-align: baseline;">Joseph Sobran</a>, who passed away in 2010, called the present system “<a href="http://www.sobran.com/articles/tyranny.shtml" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.3s ease; vertical-align: baseline;">Post–Constitutional America</a>,” and <a href="http://www.sobran.com/articles/tyranny.shtml" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.3s ease; vertical-align: baseline;">went on to say that</a> “the U.S. Constitution poses no serious threat to our form of government.”<br />
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<i><a href="https://panampost.com/john-suarez/2013/09/27/a-post-constitutional-united-states/">Originally published in The Panam Post</a></i></div>
</section></div>
John Suarezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11333798474560217548noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7804678912707713587.post-60384151471321198052016-09-06T13:48:00.000-07:002016-09-19T13:57:49.589-07:00Ron Paul statement on the passing of Phyllis Schlafly<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<i>Remembering a friend of freedom
</i><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx7Y0hJfADP4-eOc9ETPTKFtolBoFnmWGkF9jOt07jeR0nh95dt6IhhPbYd38ZtIf6rLNcpZFXrEoxJgradt0cYfmJjf8InYx0vCDOHzr03LGjbi-0rc5kS53-W1V2dz8dEhYoyhLuIyQ/s1600/b8c6cd6ea1936e034cd34a15ae2cd9b0.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx7Y0hJfADP4-eOc9ETPTKFtolBoFnmWGkF9jOt07jeR0nh95dt6IhhPbYd38ZtIf6rLNcpZFXrEoxJgradt0cYfmJjf8InYx0vCDOHzr03LGjbi-0rc5kS53-W1V2dz8dEhYoyhLuIyQ/s400/b8c6cd6ea1936e034cd34a15ae2cd9b0.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Phyllis Schlafly together with Ron Paul and his wife Carol</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Former Congressman Ron Paul <a href="http://www.campaignforliberty.org/ron-paul-statement-phyllis-schlafly-r-p">issued the following statement</a> regarding the passing of Phyllis Schlafly:<br />
<blockquote>
“My wife Carol and I join Phyllis Schlafly’s many friends
and admirers in mourning her passing and sending our deepest sympathies
and prayers to her family. While Phyllis and I did not always see
eye-to-eye, we were always willing to work together on those issues—such
as protecting the unborn, dismantling the Department of Education, and
protecting America’s sovereignty—where we agreed. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
Phyllis was also a valued ally of the liberty movement in our
battles with the GOP establishment. In 1996, when many Republicans and
even many so –called conservative leaders, where waging a well-funded
smear campaign to prevent my return to Congress, Phyllis defied the
establishment and endorsed me. In 2012, she stood with my supporters at
the Republican convention in opposition to the RNC rules
disenfranchising grassroots activists. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
I was honored when she asked me to write the forward to the fiftieth
anniversary of her classic work <u>A Choice Not an Echo</u>, which details the
underhanded tactics used by the establishment, with the support of many
inside-the-beltway conservatives, to maintain control of the
Republican Party. I hope that the new generation of liberty activists discover this book and learns form <a href="http://www.phyllisschlafly.com/">Phyllis</a> how to effectively offer
the American people a choice of liberty instead of an echo of
authoritarianism."</blockquote>
You can purchase a copy of A Choice Not an Echo <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/162157315X?ie=UTF8&tag=campaforliber-20&camp=1789&linkCode=xm2&creativeASIN=162157315X">here</a></div>
John Suarezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11333798474560217548noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7804678912707713587.post-52790266419866550642016-08-23T01:17:00.001-07:002016-08-23T09:27:02.601-07:00Remembering an American Country Music Legend<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<i><span style="font-size: small;">A great musician and a great American he will be missed. </span></i><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><a href="http://www.merlehaggard.com/">Merle Haggard</a> – April 6, 1937 to April 6, 2016 R.I.P.</b></span></div>
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/evw-vjclHg0" width="420"></iframe>
<br />
<b>"That's The News"</b><br />
<br />
<br />
<div>
Suddenly it's over, the war is fin'lly done<br />
Soldiers in the desert sand, still clingin' to a gun<br />
No-one is the winner an' everyone must lose<br />
Suddenly the war is over: that's the news.<br />
<br />
Suddenly celebrity is somethin' back in style<br />
Back to runnin' tabloid for a while<br />
Pain's almost everywhere, the whole world's got the blues<br />
Suddenly the war is over: that's the news.<br />
<br />
That's the news, that's the news<br />
That's the ever-lovin', blessed, headline news<br />
Someone's missin;' in Modesto, an' it's sad about the clues<br />
Suddenly the war is over: that's the news.<br />
<br />
Suddenly the cost of war is somethin' out of sight<br />
Lost a lotta heroes in the fight<br />
Politicians do all the talkin': soldiers pay the dues<br />
Suddenly the war is over, that's the news.<br />
<br />
That's the news, that's the news<br />
That's the ever-lovin', blessed, headline news<br />
Politicians do all the talkin': soldiers pay the dues<br />
Suddenly the war is over, that's the news...<br />
<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Hag's Editorial </b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
My closest buddy in 1951, had just got out of the Marine Corps, because they found out he was to young to be a Marine. Besides that, he received an undesirable discharge for whippin' his sergeant. He wanted to re-enlist because he was now 18. He straightened up his past don't you see. I was 14 and we thought it might be better to change our names. We enlisted under the names of Bobby Eugene and Roy Leslie Davis. Point being we wanted more than anything to be Marines during the Korean conflict. My older brother James L and cousin Gerald Harp were both decorated Marines and saw active battle in World War II in the battle of Okinawa, Iwo Jima, and Patalou, I went to both of their funerals with my family. I still get goose bumps when I think about the 21-gun salute and the Marine with a tear in his eye who handed the flag to my brother's wife, Fran. I doubt there are few who care more about the flag than I do.<br />
<br />
I went to volunteer for the Marines at the tender age of 14 and I'm convinced I would have given my life. I'm sure if necessary, I'd do the same today. But 14-year olds don't ask questions and they certainly don't begin to understand politics. This nation has a history of being a warrior. Young men always pay the dues, and it was America's way to always be behind what America was doing. And the issues and the reasons why were always argued after the fact. Speaking of after the fact, it's a national shame the way we treat our vets. You see, to be an American you want to respect everything you know about this great country. Those who have the gumption to investigate, know that the reputation of honesty between the government and the people cannot reflect the reason for a single man to have confidence in what were doing in current day conditions. I'm suspicious, I'm paranoid, and I'm afraid. And the person who says he isn't has not looked up or around lately.<br />
<br />
I don't even know the <a href="http://reflectionsontherevolutionsinamerica.blogspot.com/2016/08/a-conservative-appreciation-for-dixie.html">Dixie chicks</a>, but I find it an insult for all the men and women who fought and died in past wars when almost the majority of America jumped down their throats for voicing an opinion. It was like a verbal witch-hunt and lynching. Whether I agree with their comments or not has no bearing. And in the same breath let me say that I have become a fan of this new little kid, Toby Keith. There is some humor in me calling Toby Keith little. God bless this great country and I pray he keeps a close eye on us in these last days. And God knows the headlines of today surely indicate that were living in that time now. Seems lately we're awfully quick to criticize and pleased with ourselves to be part of the majority. As a country we need to look inward for the answers to the energy of the future. We need to bring down our demands for oil, rebuild some bridges and highways and allow the farmers to grow something that replenishes the soil. Those who don't know what that is, should do some research. The problem is not in Iraq and the answers are not in Iran. I hope were not buried alive beneath this pending financial collapse if the pipeline doesn't get through. Surely everything doesn't depend on oil!<br />
<br />
<i>- Merle Haggard June 2003</i><br />
<br />
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<b> </b><br />
<b>Lonesome Day </b><br />
<br />
When the men in black come kickin' in your door.<br />
And guitar-playin' outlaws lay spread-eagled on the floor.<br />
When our celebrated heroes have been cuffed and locked away.<br />
It's gonna be a lonesome day.<br />
<br />
Well out of all the crazy things them guitar players said.<br />
They talked about the workin' man and the troubled life he led.<br />
When everything is perfect and no rebel's in the way.<br />
It's gonna be a lonesome day.<br />
<br />
They'll be singin' up in heaven while we're livin' here in hell.<br />
Givin' up our liberty and buyin' what they sell.<br />
Who's gonna sing the Song of Freedom if freedom goes away?<br />
It's gonna be a lonesome day.<br />
<br />
When the big boys with the microphones just up and back away.<br />
And they're afraid to say the things they know they ought to say.<br />
When the symbol of our freedom like the eagle flies away.<br />
It's gonna be a lonesome day.<br />
<br />
A lonesome day lonesome day it's gonna be a lonesome day.<br />
A lonesome day lonesome day it's gonna be a lonesome day.<br />
<br />
Lonesome!<i><br /> </i><br />
<br /></div>
John Suarezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11333798474560217548noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7804678912707713587.post-46391929842256545472016-08-23T00:11:00.000-07:002016-08-25T13:06:18.625-07:00A Conservative Appreciation for The Dixie Chicks<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<i>Not ready to make nice </i><br />
<i> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicq_eXwi8w7GQ6Ez4ZM5CpgoPuXXvbduIuD6tt23MjHcuzjuicXrcCPT_O01Yg1XS8IEL_TIXmw3YmSxLts9O64m7cBwmxuXg-xr-YCftbKbPGKC_MH-OLsEvLcg3EUehXXxwlUvA0l1k/s1600/CqZwxTcW8AAvxkF.jpg+large.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicq_eXwi8w7GQ6Ez4ZM5CpgoPuXXvbduIuD6tt23MjHcuzjuicXrcCPT_O01Yg1XS8IEL_TIXmw3YmSxLts9O64m7cBwmxuXg-xr-YCftbKbPGKC_MH-OLsEvLcg3EUehXXxwlUvA0l1k/s400/CqZwxTcW8AAvxkF.jpg+large.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Dixie Chicks at West Palm Beach on August 20, 2016</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</i> <br />
On August 20, 2016 in West Palm Beach one of my favorite music groups Dixie Chicks put on a <a href="http://www.dallasobserver.com/music/unraveling-the-dixie-chicks-and-dallas-dysfunctional-relationship-8569852">great show</a> that will be cherished by those lucky enough to have attended. <a href="http://www.dcxtourclub.com/">Go see the show if you can</a> before the tour ends. Hopefully they will record a new album. However, in the midst of the current polarized political season the Texas based country rock band reminded me of events that had <a href="http://www.dallasobserver.com/music/unraveling-the-dixie-chicks-and-dallas-dysfunctional-relationship-8569852">taken place 13 years earlier</a>.<br />
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
<div dir="ltr" lang="en">
Good thing I'm not a told ya so kind of person or I might point out that 10 years ago today I said GWB was full of bull and I was right.</div>
— Natalie Maines (@1NatalieMaines) <a href="https://twitter.com/1NatalieMaines/status/310925745453137920">March 11, 2013</a></blockquote>
<script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>
I am a conservative, but I was not a supporter of the decision to invade Iraq in 2003 and thought that the war would be a disaster. Needless to say the Dixie Chick's lead singer criticizing the President of the United States at the time did not shock or upset me. Nor was I alone among conservatives in that reaction. <br />
<br />
Aaron D. Wolf on April 1, 2003 in the pages of <a href="http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/2003/May/27/5/magazine/article/10826221/">Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture</a> wrote an essay on the Dixie Chick's controversy titled "<a href="http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/2003/May/27/5/magazine/article/10826221/">A Divisive Statement</a>" reflecting on the reaction to <span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"> singer Natalie Maines on March 10, 2003 in London <a href="https://vimeo.com/26790078">stating</a>, “Just so you
know, we’re ashamed the President of the United States is from Texas.” The crowd that heard this statement roared with approval. Wolf described in the above essay how the Dixie Chicks were living up to their name as a group and the excerpt below outlined the aftermath and shameful behavior of those claiming to be "patriots".</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div style="margin: 1em 0px;">
<span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"> Reacting to the swell of press coverage concerning their singer’s lighthearted comment, the Chicks issued a statement on <span class="aBn" data-term="goog_295054147" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ">March 12</span></span>:
“We’ve been overseas for several weeks and have been reading and
following the news accounts of our government’s position. The
anti-American sentiment that has unfolded here is astounding. While we
support our troops, there is nothing more frightening than the notion of
going to war with Iraq and the prospect of all the innocent lives that
will be lost.” Maines added, “I feel the President is ignoring the
opinions of many in the U.S. and alienating the rest of the world. My
comments were made in frustration and one of the privileges of being an
American is you are free to voice your own point of view.”</span></div>
<div style="margin: 1em 0px;">
<span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">The
Dixie Chicks have been around since 1990, after sisters Martie and
Emily Erwin, young bluegrass virtuosos, teamed up with singers Robin
Macey and Laura Lynch. In 1996, Macey and Lynch were replaced by Miss
Maines, the daughter of pedal-steel legend Lloyd Maines, and the Chicks
reconfigured their sound to be more country and less bluegrass. Their
latest record, <i>Home</i>, contains more bluegrass and includes the
song “Traveling Soldier,” about a small-town boy dying in Vietnam after
writing several letters to his high-school love back home, echoing
Jimmie Rodgers’ “Soldier’s Sweetheart.”</span></div>
<div style="margin: 1em 0px;">
<span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">Whatever
you think of the Dixie Chicks (their music is too rock-’n’-roll, their
dress is often immodest, they sometimes associate with leftist musicians
of the Lilith Fair variety), one thing is clear: When Natalie Maines
made her infamous statement, the Dixie Chicks were living up to their
name. Contrary to the war drums of the reconstructed country-music
industry, our Connecticut-born President’s war of conquest in Iraq does
not reflect the spirit of Texas, let alone the land where old times are
not forgotten.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 1em 0px;">
<span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">On <span class="aBn" data-term="goog_295054148" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ">March 14</span></span>,
Miss Maines, without compromising her convictions about the war,
attempted to show deference to the Commander in Chief: “As a concerned
American citizen, I apologize to President Bush because my remark was
disrespectful. . . . While war may remain a viable option, as a mother, I
just want to see every possible alternative exhausted before children
and American soldiers’ lives are lost. I love my country. I am a proud
American.”</span></div>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div style="margin: 1em 0px;">
<span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">[...] </span></div>
<div style="margin: 1em 0px;">
<span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">Pop-country jingo Toby Keith, whose “Courtesy
of the Red, White, and Blue” has become the hee-haw anthem of pro-war
country fans, began to show a split-screen on his concert jumbotron,
featuring Miss Maines’ face next to Saddam Hussein’s. At the climax of
Keith’s Nuremberg rant, he declares, “We’ll put a boot in your a- - /
It’s the American way.” Now, wars of foreign aggression may have become
the American way, but they sure ain’t Dixie’s. Miss Maines later
replied that Keith’s lyrics “make country music sound ignorant.”</span></div>
</blockquote>
<span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">Following the <a href="http://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-cuban-black-spring-personal.html">March 18, 2003 crackdown in Cuba</a> I went on the air on an Irish radio station to discuss what was going on and the Castro apologist I debated wanted to argue the Dixie Chicks controversy.</span><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"> At the time I had
their album <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Home-Dixie-Chicks/dp/B00006BIMO">Home</a> in my car's CD player and enjoyed their music and was
against boycotting them, much less destroying their CDs.</span><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"> My response shut him down quickly and we continued debating what was going on in Cuba. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">Amidst the rising <a href="http://www.ew.com/article/2003/05/02/dixie-chicks-open-their-tour-hostile-south">wave of criticism</a>, boycotts, CDs destroyed, and <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/3/11/1193171/-Ten-Years-Ago-This-Week-the-Dixie-Chicks-Found-Free-Speech-Comes-at-a-High-Price">credible death threats</a>, <a href="http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/68723/haggard-speaks-out-like-never-before">Merle Haggard</a> and Bruce Springsteen both <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/2981853.stm">came to the band's defense.</a> Springsteen on April 22, 2003 and Merle Haggard in June of 2003 in <a href="http://reflectionsontherevolutionsinamerica.blogspot.com/2016/08/remembering-american-country-music.html">an editorial on his website</a>. Below is Springsteen's April 22, 2003 statement:</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"><b>A Statement From Bruce Springsteen </b><br /><br />The Dixie Chicks have taken a
big hit lately for exercising their basic right to express themselves,
To me, they're terrific American artists expressing American values by
using their American right to free speech. For them to be banished
wholesale from radio stations, and even entire radio networks,for
speaking out is un-American. <br /><br />The pressure coming from the
government and big business to enforce conformity of thought concerning
the war and politics goes against everything that this country is about -
namely freedom. Right now, we are supposedly fighting to create free
speech in Iraq, at the same time that some are trying to intimidate and
punish people for using that same right here at home. <br /><br />I don't
know what happens next, but I do want to add my voice to those who think
that the Dixie Chicks are getting a raw deal, and an un-American one to
boot. I send them my support. <br /><br /><a href="http://www.greasylake.org/the-circuit/index.php?/topic/2761-bruce-statement-on-dixie-chicks-and-free-speech-42203/">Bruce Springsteen </a></span></blockquote>
Three years later they released the album <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taking_the_Long_Way">Taking the Long Way</a> and the single "<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Ready-Make-Nice-Dixie-Chicks/dp/B000FQ5EGO">Not ready to make nice</a>" expressing <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/mar/25/usa.arts">their continued defiance</a> in their music. The album and tour that followed were a success.<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/pojL_35QlSI" width="420"></iframe>
<br />
In conclusion, don't agree with all their causes, but do appreciate their music and the rebellious stand taken by Natalie Maines and the rest of the band back in 2003, maintained in 2013 that is in the best tradition of both Texas and Dixie. The legendary country artist <a href="http://www.merlehaggard.com/index.html">Merle Haggard</a>, who passed away earlier this year, <a href="http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/68723/haggard-speaks-out-like-never-before">summed it up</a> best <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/merle-haggard-sounds-off/">back in June 2003</a> in an editorial <a href="http://reflectionsontherevolutionsinamerica.blogspot.com/2016/08/remembering-american-country-music.html">on his website</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"I don't even know the Dixie Chicks, but I find it an insult for all men
and women who fought and died in past wars when almost the majority of
America jumped down their throats for voicing an opinion. It was like a
verbal witch-hunt and lynching." </blockquote>
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHcZ0rXywc8GZHVwjj9eiMNnfJNGcUqHva6I_rmnmC73S6tLOCGBIvLReVlM9b9A5sI90e6XiNVt37faKs5rmwg-CikDm_hhKft1lshD0J6SJIwetK70y11moWs-IuFwwZ2Up6twgE6KQ/s1600/IMG_2197.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHcZ0rXywc8GZHVwjj9eiMNnfJNGcUqHva6I_rmnmC73S6tLOCGBIvLReVlM9b9A5sI90e6XiNVt37faKs5rmwg-CikDm_hhKft1lshD0J6SJIwetK70y11moWs-IuFwwZ2Up6twgE6KQ/s400/IMG_2197.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<b>West Palm Beach Setlist </b><br />
<br />
Let's Go Crazy
(Prince cover)<br />
Taking the Long Way <br />
Lubbock or Leave It<br />
Truth #2
(Patty Griffin cover)<br />
Easy Silence<br />
Some Days You Gotta Dance<br />
Long Time Gone<br />
Nothing Compares 2 U
(Prince cover)<br />
Video
Top of the World
(Patty Griffin cover)<br />
Goodbye Earl<br />
Travelin' Soldier
(Bruce Robison cover)<br />
Don't Let Me Die in Florida
(Patty Griffin cover)<br />
Daddy Lessons
(Beyoncé cover)<br />
White Trash Wedding<br />
Instrumental Bluegrass<br />
Ready to Run<br />
Mississippi
(Bob Dylan cover)<br />
Landslide
(Fleetwood Mac cover)<br />
Cowboy Take Me Away<br />
Wide Open Spaces<br />
Sin Wagon<br />
<br />
<b>Encore: </b><br />
Not Ready to Make Nice<br />
Better Way
(Ben Harper cover)
<br />
<br /></div>
John Suarezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11333798474560217548noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7804678912707713587.post-8411088495734355812016-07-04T03:11:00.000-07:002016-07-04T03:11:34.820-07:00Calvin Coolidge's "The Inspiration of the Declaration of Independence"<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<i>Calvin Coolidge Celebrates America's 150th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence</i><br />
<br />
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<br />
<br />
<i>Philadelphia, Pennsylvania July 5, 1926</i><br />
<br />
Fellow Countrymen: <br />
<i><br /></i>
We meet to celebrate the birthday of America. The coming of a new
life always excites our interest. Although we know in the case of the
individual that it has been an infinite repetition reaching back beyond
our vision, that only makes it the more wonderful. But how our interest
and wonder increase when we behold the miracle of the birth of a new
nation. It is to pay our tribute of reverence and respect to those who
participated in such a mighty event that we annually observe the fourth
day of July. Whatever may have been the impression created by the news
which went out from this city on that summer day in 1776, there can be
no doubt as to the estimate which is now placed upon it. At the end of
150 years the four corners of the earth unite in coming to Philadelphia
as to a holy shrine in grateful acknowledgement of a service so great,
which a few inspired men here rendered to humanity, that it is still the
preeminent support of free government throughout the world.<br />
<br />
Although a century and a half measured in comparison with the length
of human experience is but a short time, yet measured in the life of
governments and nations it ranks as a very respectable period. Certainly
enough time has elapsed to demonstrate with a great deal of
thoroughness the value of our institutions and their dependability as
rules for the regulation of human conduct and the advancement of
civilization. They have been in existence long enough to become very
well seasoned. They have met, and met successfully, the test of
experience.<br />
<br />
It is not so much, then, for the purpose of undertaking to proclaim
new theories and principles that this annual celebration is maintained,
but rather to reaffirm and reestablish those old theories and principles
which time and the unerring logic of events have demonstrated to be
sound. Amid all the clash of conflicting interests, amid all the welter
of partisan politics, every American can turn for solace and consolation
to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United
States with the assurance and confidence that those two great charters
of freedom and justice remain firm and unshaken. Whatever perils appear,
whatever dangers threaten, the Nation remains secure in the knowledge
that the ultimate application of the law of the land will provide an
adequate defense and protection.<br />
<br />
It is little wonder that people at home and abroad consider
Independence Hall as hallowed ground and revere the Liberty Bell as a
sacred relic. That pile of bricks and mortar, that mass of metal, might
appear to the uninstructed as only the outgrown meeting place and the
shattered bell of a former time, useless now because of more modern
conveniences, but to those who know they have become consecrated by the
use which men have made of them. They have long been identified with a
great cause. They are the framework of a spiritual event. The world
looks upon them, because of their associations of one hundred and fifty
years ago, as it looks upon the Holy Land because of what took place
there nineteen hundred years ago. Through use for a righteous purpose
they have become sanctified.<br />
<br />
It is not here necessary to examine in detail the causes which led to
the American Revolution. In their immediate occasion they were largely
economic. The colonists objected to the navigation laws which interfered
with their trade, they denied the power of Parliament to impose taxes
which they were obliged to pay, and they therefore resisted the royal
governors and the royal forces which were sent to secure obedience to
these laws. But the conviction is inescapable that a new civilization
had come, a new spirit had arisen on this side of the Atlantic more
advanced and more developed in its regard for the rights of the
individual than that which characterized the Old World. Life in a new
and open country had aspirations which could not be realized in any
subordinate position. A separate establishment was ultimately
inevitable. It had been decreed by the very laws of human nature. Man
everywhere has an unconquerable desire to be the master of his own
destiny.<br />
<br />
We are obliged to conclude that the Declaration of Independence
represented the movement of a people. It was not, of course, a movement
from the top. Revolutions do not come from that direction. It was not
without the support of many of the most respectable people in the
Colonies, who were entitled to all the consideration that is given to
breeding, education, and possessions. It had the support of another
element of great significance and importance to which I shall later
refer. But the preponderance of all those who occupied a position which
took on the aspect of aristocracy did not approve of the Revolution and
held toward it an attitude either of neutrality or open hostility. It
was in no sense a rising of the oppressed and downtrodden. It brought no
scum to the surface, for the reason that colonial society had developed
no scum. The great body of the people were accustomed to privations,
but they were free from depravity. If they had poverty, it was not of
the hopeless kind that afflicts great cities, but the inspiring kind
that marks the spirit of the pioneer. The American Revolution
represented the informed and mature convictions of a great mass of
independent, liberty-loving, God-fearing people who knew their rights,
and possessed the courage to dare to maintain them.<br />
<br />
The Continental Congress was not only composed of great men, but it
represented a great people. While its Members did not fail to exercise a
remarkable leadership, they were equally observant of their
representative capacity. They were industrious in encouraging their
constituents to instruct them to support independence. But until such
instructions were given they were inclined to withhold action.<br />
<br />
While North Carolina has the honor of first authorizing its delegates
to concur with other Colonies in declaring independence, it was quickly
followed by South Carolina and Georgia, which also gave general
instructions broad enough to include such action. But the first
instructions which unconditionally directed its delegates to declare for
independence came from the great Commonwealth of Virginia. These were
immediately followed by Rhode Island and Massachusetts, while the other
Colonies, with the exception of New York, soon adopted a like course.<br />
<br />
This obedience of the delegates to the wishes of their constituents,
which in some cases caused them to modify their previous positions, is a
matter of great significance. It reveals an orderly process of
government in the first place; but more than that, it demonstrates that
the Declaration of Independence was the result of the seasoned and
deliberate thought of the dominant portion of the people of the
Colonies. Adopted after long discussion and as the result of the duly
authorized expression of the preponderance of public opinion, it did not
partake of dark intrigue or hidden conspiracy. It was well advised. It
had about it nothing of the lawless and disordered nature of a riotous
insurrection. It was maintained on a plane which rises above the
ordinary conception of rebellion. It was in no sense a radical movement
but took on the dignity of a resistance to illegal usurpations. It was
conservative and represented the action of the colonists to maintain
their constitutional rights which from time immemorial had been
guaranteed to them under the law of the land.<br />
<br />
When we come to examine the action of the Continental Congress in
adopting the Declaration of Independence in the light of what was set
out in that great document and in the light of succeeding events, we can
not escape the conclusion that it had a much broader and deeper
significance than a mere secession of territory and the establishment of
a new nation. Events of that nature have been taking place since the
dawn of history. One empire after another has arisen, only to crumble
away as its constituent parts separated from each other and set up
independent governments of their own. Such actions long ago became
commonplace. They have occurred too often to hold the attention of the
world and command the admiration and reverence of humanity. There is
something beyond the establishment of a new nation, great as that event
would be, in the Declaration of Independence which has ever since caused
it to be regarded as one of the great charters that not only was to
liberate America but was everywhere to ennoble humanity.<br />
<br />
It was not because it was proposed to establish a new nation, but
because it was proposed to establish a nation on new principles, that
July 4, 1776, has come to be regarded as one of the greatest days in
history. Great ideas do not burst upon the world unannounced. They are
reached by a gradual development over a length of time usually
proportionate to their importance. This is especially true of the
principles laid down in the Declaration of Independence. Three very
definite propositions were set out in its preamble regarding the nature
of mankind and therefore of government. These were the doctrine that all
men are created equal, that they are endowed with certain inalienable
rights, and that therefore the source of the just powers of government
must be derived from the consent of the governed.<br />
<br />
If no one is to be accounted as born into a superior station, if
there is to be no ruling class, and if all possess rights which can
neither be bartered away nor taken from them by any earthly power, it
follows as a matter of course that the practical authority of the
Government has to rest on the consent of the governed. While these
principles were not altogether new in political action, and were very
far from new in political speculation, they had never been assembled
before and declared in such a combination. But remarkable as this may
be, it is not the chief distinction of the Declaration of Independence.
The importance of political speculation is not to be underestimated, as I
shall presently disclose. Until the idea is developed and the plan made
there can be no action.<br />
<br />
It was the fact that our Declaration of Independence containing these
immortal truths was the political action of a duly authorized and
constituted representative public body in its sovereign capacity,
supported by the force of general opinion and by the armies of
Washington already in the field, which makes it the most important civil
document in the world. It was not only the principles declared, but the
fact that therewith a new nation was born which was to be founded upon
those principles and which from that time forth in its development has
actually maintained those principles, that makes this pronouncement an
incomparable event in the history of government. It was an assertion
that a people had arisen determined to make every necessary sacrifice
for the support of these truths and by their practical application bring
the War of Independence to a successful conclusion and adopt the
Constitution of the United States with all that it has meant to
civilization.<br />
<br />
The idea that the people have a right to choose their own rulers was
not new in political history. It was the foundation of every popular
attempt to depose an undesirable king. This right was set out with a
good deal of detail by the Dutch when as early as July 26, 1581, they
declared their independence of Philip of Spain. In their long struggle
with the Stuarts the British people asserted the same principles, which
finally culminated in the Bill of Rights deposing the last of that house
and placing William and Mary on the throne. In each of these cases
sovereignty through divine right was displaced by sovereignty through
the consent of the people. Running through the same documents, though
expressed in different terms, is the clear inference of inalienable
rights. But we should search these charters in vain for an assertion of
the doctrine of equality. This principle had not before appeared as an
official political declaration of any nation. It was profoundly
revolutionary. It is one of the corner stones of American institutions.<br />
<br />
But if these truths to which the Declaration refers have not before
been adopted in their combined entirety by national authority, it is a
fact that they had been long pondered and often expressed in political
speculation. It is generally assumed that French thought had some effect
upon our public mind during Revolutionary days. This may have been
true. But the principles of our Declaration had been under discussion in
the Colonies for nearly two generations before the advent of the French
political philosophy that characterized the middle of the eighteenth
century. In fact, they come from an earlier date. A very positive echo
of what the Dutch had done in 1581, and what the English were preparing
to do, appears in the assertion of the Rev. Thomas Hooker, of
Connecticut, as early as 1638, when he said in a sermon before the
General Court that—<br />
<br />
“The foundation of authority is laid in the free consent of the people.”<br />
<br />
“The choice of public magistrates belongs unto the people by God’s own allowance.”<br />
<br />
This doctrine found wide acceptance among the nonconformist clergy
who later made up the Congregational Church. The great apostle of this
movement was the Rev. John Wise, of Massachusetts. He was one of the
leaders of the revolt against the royal governor Andros in 1687, for
which he suffered imprisonment. He was a liberal in ecclesiastical
controversies. He appears to have been familiar with the writings of the
political scientist, Samuel Pufendorf, who was born in Saxony in 1632.
Wise published a treatise, entitled “The Church’s Quarrel Espoused,” in
1710, which was amplified in another publication in 1717. In it he dealt
with the principles of civil government. His works were reprinted in
1772 and have been declared to have been nothing less than a textbook of
liberty for our Revolutionary fathers.<br />
<br />
While the written word was the foundation, it is apparent that the
spoken word was the vehicle for convincing the people. This came with
great force and wide range from the successors of Hooker and Wise. It
was carried on with a missionary spirit which did not fail to reach the
Scotch-Irish of North Carolina, showing its influence by significantly
making that Colony the first to give instructions to its delegates
looking to independence. This preaching reached the neighborhood of
Thomas Jefferson, who acknowledged that his “best ideas of democracy”
had been secured at church meetings.<br />
<br />
That these ideas were prevalent in Virginia is further revealed by
the Declaration of Rights, which was prepared by George Mason and
presented to the general assembly on May 27, 1776. This document
asserted popular sovereignty and inherent natural rights, but confined
the doctrine of equality to the assertion that “All men are created
equally free and independent.” It can scarcely be imagined that
Jefferson was unacquainted with what had been done in his own
Commonwealth of Virginia when he took up the task of drafting the
Declaration of Independence. But these thoughts can very largely be
traced back to what John Wise was writing in 1710. He said, “Every man
must be acknowledged equal to every man.” Again, “The end of all good
government is to cultivate humanity and promote the happiness of all and
the good of every man in all his rights, his life, liberty, estate,
honor, and so forth. …” And again, “For as they have a power every man
in his natural state, so upon combination they can and do bequeath this
power to others and settle it according as their united discretion shall
determine.” And still again, “Democracy is Christ’s government in
church and state.” Here was the doctrine of equality, popular
sovereignty, and the substance of the theory of inalienable rights
clearly asserted by Wise at the opening of the eighteenth century, just
as we have the principle of the consent of the governed stated by Hooker
as early as 1638.<br />
<br />
When we take all these circumstances into consideration, it is but
natural that the first paragraph of the Declaration of Independence
should open with a reference to Nature’s God and should close in the
final paragraphs with an appeal to the Supreme Judge of the world and an
assertion of a firm reliance on Divine Providence. Coming from these
sources, having as it did this background, it is no wonder that Samuel
Adams could say “The people seem to recognize this resolution as though
it were a decree promulgated from heaven.”<br />
<br />
No one can examine this record and escape the conclusion that in the
great outline of its principles the Declaration was the result of the
religious teachings of the preceding period. The profound philosophy
which Jonathan Edwards applied to theology, the popular preaching of
George Whitefield, had aroused the thought and stirred the people of the
Colonies in preparation for this great event. No doubt the speculations
which had been going on in England, and especially on the Continent,
lent their influence to the general sentiment of the times. Of course,
the world is always influenced by all the experience and all the thought
of the past. But when we come to a contemplation of the immediate
conception of the principles of human relationship which went into the
Declaration of Independence we are not required to extend our search
beyond our own shores. They are found in the texts, the sermons, and the
writings of the early colonial clergy who were earnestly undertaking to
instruct their congregations in the great mystery of how to live. They
preached equality because they believed in the fatherhood of God and the
brotherhood of man. They justified freedom by the text that we are all
created in the divine image, all partakers of the divine spirit.<br />
<br />
Placing every man on a plane where he acknowledged no superiors,
where no one possessed any right to rule over him, he must inevitably
choose his own rulers through a system of self-government. This was
their theory of democracy. In those days such doctrines would scarcely
have been permitted to flourish and spread in any other country. This
was the purpose which the fathers cherished. In order that they might
have freedom to express these thoughts and opportunity to put them into
action, whole congregations with their pastors had migrated to the
Colonies. These great truths were in the air that our people breathed.
Whatever else we may say of it, the Declaration of Independence was
profoundly American.<br />
<br />
If this apprehension of the facts be correct, and the documentary
evidence would appear to verify it, then certain conclusions are bound
to follow. A spring will cease to flow if its source be dried up; a tree
will wither if its roots be destroyed. In its main features the
Declaration of Independence is a great spiritual document. It is a
declaration not of material but of spiritual conceptions. Equality,
liberty, popular sovereignty, the rights of man — these are not elements
which we can see and touch. They are ideals. They have their source and
their roots in the religious convictions. They belong to the unseen
world. Unless the faith of the American people in these religious
convictions is to endure, the principles of our Declaration will perish.
We can not continue to enjoy the result if we neglect and abandon the
cause.<br />
<br />
We are too prone to overlook another conclusion. Governments do not
make ideals, but ideals make governments. This is both historically and
logically true. Of course the government can help to sustain ideals and
can create institutions through which they can be the better observed,
but their source by their very nature is in the people. The people have
to bear their own responsibilities. There is no method by which that
burden can be shifted to the government. It is not the enactment, but
the observance of laws, that creates the character of a nation.<br />
<br />
About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly
restful. It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of
progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences
which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and
that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something
more modern. But that reasoning can not be applied to this great
charter. If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are
endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive
their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No
advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone
wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in
which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward
the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no
rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not
lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more
modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers.<br />
<br />
In the development of its institutions America can fairly claim that
it has remained true to the principles which were declared 150 years
ago. In all the essentials we have achieved an equality which was never
possessed by any other people. Even in the less important matter of
material possessions we have secured a wider and wider distribution of
wealth. The rights of the individual are held sacred and protected by
constitutional guaranties, which even the Government itself is bound not
to violate. If there is any one thing among us that is established
beyond question, it is self-government — the right of the people to
rule. If there is any failure in respect to any of these principles, it
is because there is a failure on the part of individuals to observe
them. We hold that the duly authorized expression of the will of the
people has a divine sanction. But even in that we come back to the
theory of John Wise that “Democracy is Christ’s government.” The
ultimate sanction of law rests on the righteous authority of the
Almighty.<br />
<br />
On an occasion like this a great temptation exists to present
evidence of the practical success of our form of democratic republic at
home and the ever-broadening acceptance it is securing abroad. Although
these things are well known, their frequent consideration is an
encouragement and an inspiration. But it is not results and effects so
much as sources and causes that I believe it is even more necessary
constantly to contemplate. Ours is a government of the people. It
represents their will. Its officers may sometimes go astray, but that is
not a reason for criticizing the principles of our institutions. The
real heart of the American Government depends upon the heart of the
people. It is from that source that we must look for all genuine reform.
It is to that cause that we must ascribe all our results.<br />
<br />
It was in the contemplation of these truths that the fathers made
their declaration and adopted their Constitution. It was to establish a
free government, which must not be permitted to degenerate into the
unrestrained authority of a mere majority or the unbridled weight of a
mere influential few. They undertook the balance these interests against
each other and provide the three separate independent branches, the
executive, the legislative, and the judicial departments of the
Government, with checks against each other in order that neither one
might encroach upon the other. These are our guaranties of liberty. As a
result of these methods enterprise has been duly protected from
confiscation, the people have been free from oppression, and there has
been an ever-broadening and deepening of the humanities of life.<br />
<br />
Under a system of popular government there will always be those who
will seek for political preferment by clamoring for reform. While there
is very little of this which is not sincere, there is a large portion
that is not well informed. In my opinion very little of just criticism
can attach to the theories and principles of our institutions. There is
far more danger of harm than there is hope of good in any radical
changes. We do need a better understanding and comprehension of them and
a better knowledge of the foundations of government in general. Our
forefathers came to certain conclusions and decided upon certain courses
of action which have been a great blessing to the world.<br />
<br />
Before we can
understand their conclusions we must go back and review the course which
they followed. We must think the thoughts which they thought. Their
intellectual life centered around the meeting-house. They were intent
upon religious worship. While there were always among them men of deep
learning, and later those who had comparatively large possessions, the
mind of the people was not so much engrossed in how much they knew, or
how much they had, as in how they were going to live. While scantily
provided with other literature, there was a wide acquaintance with the
Scriptures. Over a period as great as that which measures the existence
of our independence they were subject to this discipline not only in
their religious life and educational training, but also in their
political thought. They were a people who came under the influence of a
great spiritual development and acquired a great moral power.<br />
<br />
No other theory is adequate to explain or comprehend the Declaration
of Independence. It is the product of the spiritual insight of the
people. We live in an age of science and of abounding accumulation of
material things. These did not create our Declaration. Our Declaration
created them. The things of the spirit come first. Unless we cling to
that, all our material prosperity, overwhelming though it may appear,
will turn to a barren sceptre in our grasp. If we are to maintain the
great heritage which has been bequeathed to us, we must be like-minded
as the fathers who created it. We must not sink into a pagan
materialism. We must cultivate the reverence which they had for the
things that are holy. We must follow the spiritual and moral leadership
which they showed. We must keep replenished, that they may glow with a
more compelling flame, the altar fires before which they worshiped.<br />
<br />
<i>Source: <a href="http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=408">http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=408</a></i></div>
John Suarezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11333798474560217548noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7804678912707713587.post-17845975709315070582016-05-08T15:06:00.000-07:002016-05-09T20:31:48.302-07:00Washington, Adams and Jefferson: No Entangling Alliances vs The Empire of Liberty<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<i>The long debate over America's role in the world </i><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0UySlWiroQWEabwuBUcOC9Ma7hLQqdc8I3gqmph6qNm1c2Fy0LoTklBZ5ajBebOrrSuh-IPNO_xHP3PzsX8TOkaP4ngi4R_JkwI43FbU5qVNb0fJLu9E5BMnakI75Kpy-N5jVQNl8v6g/s1600/thethreewisemen.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="158" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0UySlWiroQWEabwuBUcOC9Ma7hLQqdc8I3gqmph6qNm1c2Fy0LoTklBZ5ajBebOrrSuh-IPNO_xHP3PzsX8TOkaP4ngi4R_JkwI43FbU5qVNb0fJLu9E5BMnakI75Kpy-N5jVQNl8v6g/s400/thethreewisemen.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and John Quincy Adams</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Beneath the surface frivolities of the 2016 presidential election in the United States there are profound differences <a href="http://www.elblogdemontaner.com/whats-at-stake-for-the-world-in-the-u-s-elections/">being discussed</a> as to the proper role of the United States in the world that are long overdue and go to t<a href="http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/05/founding-fathers-2016-donald-trump-america-first-foreign-policy-isolationist-213873">he heart of American thought</a> and differences within the founding generation.<br />
<br />
220 years ago George Washington gave his <a href="http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/washing.asp">Farewell Address</a> refusing to run for the office of President for a third time and expressed some thoughts on the proper role of America in the world that are still remembered and reverberate to the present day <a href="http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/washing.asp">warning against permanent alliances and permanent hostility</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace
and harmony with all. Religion and morality enjoin this conduct; and can
it be, that good policy does not equally enjoin it
- It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and at no distant period, a
great nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example
of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence. Who can
doubt that, in the course of time and things, the fruits of such a plan
would richly repay any temporary advantages which might be lost by a
steady adherence to it ? Can it be that Providence has not connected the
permanent felicity of a nation with its virtue ? The experiment, at
least, is recommended by every sentiment which ennobles human nature.
Alas! is it rendered impossible by its vices? </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
In the execution
of such a plan, nothing is more essential than that permanent,
inveterate antipathies against particular nations, and passionate
attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them,
just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The nation
which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness
is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its
affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty
and its interest. </blockquote>
As Governor of Virginia Thomas Jefferson addressed the idea of an empire based in expanding freedom and explained what one the surface appears as a contradiction as follows in a letter to George Rogers Clark <a href="http://wiki.monticello.org/mediawiki/index.php/Empire_of_liberty">on December 25, 1780</a>: <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"...we shall divert through our own Country a branch of commerce which
the European States have thought worthy of the most important struggles
and sacrifices, and in the event of peace on terms which have been
contemplated by some powers we shall form to the American union a
barrier against the dangerous extension of the British Province of
Canada and add to the <b>Empire of liberty</b> an extensive and fertile Country thereby converting dangerous Enemies into valuable friends." </blockquote>
A month after leaving the Presidency, Thomas Jefferson again spoke of the empire of liberty within the context of the time <a href="http://wiki.monticello.org/mediawiki/index.php/Empire_of_liberty">in a letter to James Madison</a>. <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"we should then have only to include the North in our confederacy, which
would be of course in the first war, and we should have such an <b>empire for liberty</b>
as she has never surveyed since the creation: & I am persuaded no
constitution was ever before so well calculated as ours for extensive
empire & self government." </blockquote>
On July 4, 1821 <a href="http://loveman.sdsu.edu/docs/1821secofstateJQAdmas.pdf">Secretary of State</a> John Quincy Adams <a href="http://www.theamericanconservative.com/repository/she-goes-not-abroad-in-search-of-monsters-to-destroy/">gave a speech</a> that continued <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1784-1800/washington-farewell">George Washington's position</a> on <a href="https://www.masshist.org/blog/760">what the role of America</a> should be <a href="http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/speech-on-independence-day/">in the world</a>. Secretary Adams in this speech gave the answer to a question he raised "What has America done for the benefit of mankind?"<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Let our
answer be this–America, with the same voice which spoke herself into
existence as a nation, proclaimed to mankind the inextinguishable rights
of human nature, and the only lawful foundations of government.
America, in the assembly of nations, since her admission among them, has
invariably, though often fruitlessly, held forth to them the hand of
honest friendship, of equal freedom, of generous reciprocity. She has
uniformly spoken among them, though often to heedless and often to
disdainful ears, the language of equal liberty, equal justice, and equal
rights. She has, in the lapse of nearly half a century, without a
single exception, respected the independence of other nations, while
asserting and maintaining her own. She has abstained from interference
in the concerns of others, even when the conflict has been for
principles to which she clings, as to the last vital drop that visits
the heart.<br />
<br />
She has seen that probably for centuries to come, all the
contests of that Aceldama, the European World, will be contests between
inveterate power, and emerging right. Wherever the standard of freedom
and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart,
her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad in search
of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and
independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.
She will recommend the general cause, by the countenance of her voice,
and the benignant sympathy of her example. </blockquote>
Secretary Adams also provided <a href="http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/speech-on-independence-day/">in this speech</a> a warning that if America decides to take sides in foreign conflicts she would lose her freedom and no longer be self governing. <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
She well knows that by once
enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners
of foreign independence, she would involve herself, beyond the power of
extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual
avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the
standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would
insensibly change from liberty to force. The frontlet upon her brows
would no longer beam with the ineffable splendor of freedom and
independence; but in its stead would soon be substituted an imperial
diadem, flashing in false and tarnished lustre the murky radiance of
dominion and power. She might become the dictatress of the world: she
would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit.</blockquote>
These themes are being actively debated today and as citizens of the United States you owe it to yourself and your posterity to be engaged in this important conversation. </div>
John Suarezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11333798474560217548noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7804678912707713587.post-88667488776455882422016-05-03T22:09:00.000-07:002016-05-03T22:09:21.811-07:00Relevant for today: "Grow Up, Conservatives" Speech <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<i><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null">Barry Goldwater</a>
delivered this speech at the <a href="http://www.c-span.org/video/?4009-1/1960-republican-convention-address">1960 Republican National Convention</a> to
announce his decision to withdraw his name from consideration for the
party's nomination. During the speech, Goldwater blamed the Republican's
recent electoral losses on conservatives who decided not to vote
because they disagreed with the positions of individual candidates.
Goldwater, who led the party's conservative wing, attempted to rally
Republican support around <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null">Richard M. Nixon</a> in the 1960 election to present a unified front to the Democrats.</i><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuvvaMbFUD-5oc2qlNR2nLeN7XP0_BFqt4SyfmG6UFEj2vhUbwuYiZbLRZUghWks6Zr8W_ikqYy7dXgcSEe1vF78Rh4pTtKpyhZlHyY-k-Xl4kKSVK5HSAI89w7Q1Op2tDKHC_pJ5q_FA/s1600/131486-004-F7582433.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuvvaMbFUD-5oc2qlNR2nLeN7XP0_BFqt4SyfmG6UFEj2vhUbwuYiZbLRZUghWks6Zr8W_ikqYy7dXgcSEe1vF78Rh4pTtKpyhZlHyY-k-Xl4kKSVK5HSAI89w7Q1Op2tDKHC_pJ5q_FA/s320/131486-004-F7582433.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<i> </i>
<br />
<div class="dotRuleDivider1">
<br /></div>
<span class="recordDetailBodyText"></span><span class="recordDetailBodyText"><span class="recordDetailBodyText"><h2>
"Grow Up, Conservatives" Speech (1960)</h2>
</span></span><span class="recordDetailBodyText"><h3>
By Barry Goldwater</h3>
</span><span class="recordDetailBodyText"></span><span class="recordDetailBodyText"></span><span class="recordDetailBodyText"><h4>
July 28, 1960</h4>
</span><span class="recordDetailBodyText">
</span><span class="recordDetailBodyText"><div class="recordDetailBodyText">
Mr. Chairman, delegates to the convention and fellow Republicans:</div>
</span><span class="recordDetailBodyText"></span><span class="recordDetailBodyText"></span><span class="recordDetailBodyText"></span><span class="recordDetailBodyText"></span><span class="recordDetailBodyText"><div class="recordDetailBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="recordDetailBodyText">
I
respectfully ask the chairman to withdraw my name from nomination.
Please, I release my delegation from their pledge to me and, while I'm
not a delegate, I would suggest that they give these votes to Richard
Nixon.</div>
<div class="recordDetailBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="recordDetailBodyText">
Now, Mr. Chairman, with your
kind permission and indulgence, as a conservative Republican I would
like to make a few statements that will not take more than a few
moments, and I think might help in this coming election.</div>
<div class="recordDetailBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="recordDetailBodyText">
We
are conservatives. This great Republican party is our historic house.
This is our home. Now some of us don't agree with every statement in the
official platform of our party, but I might remind you that this is
always true in every platform of an American political party.</div>
<div class="recordDetailBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="recordDetailBodyText">
Both
of the great historic parties represent a broad spectrum of views
spread over a variety of individual and group convictions. Never are all
of these views expressed totally and exclusively in the platform of
either party.</div>
<div class="recordDetailBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="recordDetailBodyText">
We can be absolutely
certain of one thing. In spite of the individual points of difference
the Republican platform deserves the support of every American over the
blueprint for socialism presented by the Democrats.</div>
<div class="recordDetailBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="recordDetailBodyText">
Over
the years, however, it is clear what the historic position of both the
great parties has been. There has been a real difference over-all in the
two great parties.</div>
<div class="recordDetailBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="recordDetailBodyText">
I might suggest
to you that during the past thirty years it is true beyond any doubt
that those with more radical views have felt more at home in the
Democratic party, while those with strong historic beliefs have felt
more at home in the Republican party.</div>
<div class="recordDetailBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="recordDetailBodyText">
The
same condition prevails today. Yet if each segment, each section of our
great party, were to insist on the complete and unqualified acceptance
of its views, if each viewpoint were to be enforced by a Russian-type
veto, the Republican party would not long survive.</div>
<div class="recordDetailBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="recordDetailBodyText">
There
are tides of sentiment, tides of belief, that rise and fall inside the
party. And under these changes in emphasis the basic core convictions of
the party endure from generation to generation.</div>
<div class="recordDetailBodyText">
Now
radical Democrats who rightfully fear that the American people will
reject their extreme program in November are watching this convention
with eager hopes that some split may occur in our party.</div>
<div class="recordDetailBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="recordDetailBodyText">
I am telling them now that no such split will take place.</div>
<div class="recordDetailBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="recordDetailBodyText">
This
very morning the press carried a story that the nominee for the
Vice-Presidency on the Democratic ticket was speaking hopefully of a
split in the Republican party. Let him know that the conservatives of
the Republican party do not intend by any act of theirs to turn this
country over by default to a party which has lost its belief in the
dignity of man, a party which has come to believe that the United States
is a second-rate power.</div>
<div class="recordDetailBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="recordDetailBodyText">
I am proud
to call myself a Republican as well as conservative. And let me tell you
something and let me remind the members of the press who might think
otherwise:</div>
<div class="recordDetailBodyText">
I've been campaigning across this country for six years for Richard Nixon. And I see no reason to change my mind tonight.</div>
<div class="recordDetailBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="recordDetailBodyText">
Now
you conservatives and all Republicans, I'd like you to listen to this.
While Dick and I may disagree on some points, they're not many. I would
not want any negative action of mine to enhance the possibility of a
victory going to those who by their very words have lost faith in
America.</div>
<div class="recordDetailBodyText">
I know that conservatives
here and in November will show the strong sense of responsibility which
is a central characteristic of the conservative temper.</div>
<div class="recordDetailBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="recordDetailBodyText">
We
must remember that Republicans have not been losing elections because
of more Democrat votes—now get this—we have been losing elections
because conservatives too often fail to vote.</div>
<div class="recordDetailBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="recordDetailBodyText">
Why
is this? And you conservatives think this over—we don't gain anything
when you get mad at a candidate because you don't agree with his every
philosophy. We don't gain anything when you disagree with the platform
and then do not go out and work and vote for your party.</div>
<div class="recordDetailBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="recordDetailBodyText">
I
know what you say. You say, "I'll get even with that fellow. I'll show
this party something!" But what are you doing when you stay at home? You
are helping the opposition party elect candidates dedicated to the
destruction of this country!</div>
<div class="recordDetailBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="recordDetailBodyText">
We have
lost election after election in this country in the last several years
because conservative Republicans get mad and stay home. Now I implore
you. Forget it! We've had our chance, and I think the conservatives have
made a splendid showing at this convention!</div>
<div class="recordDetailBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="recordDetailBodyText">
We've
had our chance: we've fought our battle. Now let's put our shoulders to
the wheels of Dick Nixon and push him across the line. Let's not stand
back. This country is too important for anyone's feelings: this country
in its majesty is too great for any man, be he conservative or liberal,
to stay home and not work just because he doesn't agree. Let's grow up,
conservatives.</div>
<div class="recordDetailBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="recordDetailBodyText">
Let's, if we want to take this party back—and I think we can someday—let's get to work.</div>
<div class="recordDetailBodyText">
I'm
a conservative and I'm going to devote all my time from now until
November to electing Republicans from the top of the ticket to the
bottom of the ticket, and I call upon my fellow conservatives to do the
same. Just let us remember that we are facing Democrat candidates and a
Democrat platform that signify a new type of New Deal, far more menacing
than anything we have seen in the past.</div>
<div class="recordDetailBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="recordDetailBodyText">
Just
remember this: The Democratic party is no longer the party of
Jefferson, Jackson and Woodrow Wilson; it is now the party of Bowles,
Galbraith, and <span class="bodyTextHighlight2">Walter Reuther</span>.</div>
</span></div>
John Suarezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11333798474560217548noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7804678912707713587.post-47562607381839135742016-02-13T16:07:00.000-08:002016-02-13T16:07:28.300-08:00Requiescat in pace Antonin Gregory Scalia: A Constitutional Originalist <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<i>"What is a moderate interpretation of the text? Halfway between what it really means and what you’d like it to mean?" - Judge Antonin Scalia, <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0ahUKEwiz4J63-fXKAhXIQiYKHYkcBg8QFggjMAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cfif.org%2Fhtdocs%2Ffreedomline%2Fcurrent%2Fguest_commentary%2Fscalia-constitutional-speech.htm&usg=AFQjCNF945CnWd0Q40zfOTIt_32joVHAAA&sig2=iPcKK5-59Tvq2jNK-4Yfig">Woodrow Wilson International Center</a></i> <i>for Scholars in Washington, D.C., on March 14, 2005</i><br />
<i> </i> <br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fkChru9L3xA?list=PLA4b6_SCPsezteiM2etCdEqYwHhRER7vi" width="420"></iframe>
<br />
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Gregory Scalia was <a href="http://www.heritage.org/constitution/#!http://www1.heritage.org/introessays/3/the-originalist-perspective">a constitutional originalist</a> and over the course of his time on the Court his approach in practice meant that <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/26/magazine/26wwln_idealab.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0">he was a defender of civil liberties</a>. Friends of freedom and the rule of law will <a href="http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/us-world/article/Senior-Associate-Justice-Antonin-Scalia-found-6828930.php">mourn his passing</a> today in Texas. Scott Turow in <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/26/magazine/26wwln_idealab.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0">The New York Times</a> made the case for Justice Scalia, the civil libertarian:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Scalia is one of the intellectual godfathers of a strand of Supreme
Court decisions, crystallized by Apprendi v. New Jersey, that
revolutionized sentencing laws. Following a strict interpretation of the
Fifth Amendment’s guarantee of due process of law and the Sixth
Amendment’s right to trial by jury, Scalia has insisted that any fact
used to extend punishment beyond normal statutory limits must be
specified and proved to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. Despite his
fevered support for capital punishment, Scalia also joined a court
majority in holding that the Constitution requires a death sentence to
be decided by a jury, rather than by a judge, effectively setting aside
every capital sentence still on direct appeal in five states.<br />
Nor
are Scalia’s pro-rights decisions limited to one arcane area. In Kyllo
v. U.S. (2001), Justice Scalia, writing for the court, deemed police use
of heat-seeking technology to detect whether marijuana was being grown
inside a house a violation of the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on
unreasonable searches. In a 2004 opinion, Scalia spoke for a court
majority in finding unconstitutional the widespread practice of using
recordings or prepared statements to the police as a substitute for the
testimony of unavailable witnesses. And last term, supported by the
court’s four more liberal justices, Scalia held that a defendant wrongly
deprived of the lawyer of his choice gets a new trial, no matter how
overwhelming the evidence of his guilt.<br />
Justice Scalia is led to
these seemingly divergent positions by his unyielding adherence to a
school of constitutional interpretation called originalism. To Scalia,
the Bill of Rights means exactly what it did in 1791, no more, no less.
The needs of an evolving society, he says, should be addressed by
legislation rather than the courts.</blockquote>
In <a href="https://panampost.com/john-suarez/2013/09/27/a-post-constitutional-united-states/">2005 the United States Supreme Court</a>, in the <a href="http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/545/04-108/">Kelo v. City of New London</a> case, stripped <a href="http://www.heritage.org/initiatives/rule-of-law/judicial-activism/cases/kelo-v-city-of-new-london-conn">private property rights</a> away from individuals and families. A majority of justices on the court claimed that cities and municipalities have <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/06/24/scotus.property/">the right to seize properties from private individuals in order to promote private development</a> that could be put to “better” use to generate more tax revenue for their respective community. Justice's O’Connor, Rehnquist, Scalia and Thomas dissented from the majority. On October 17, 2011 Justice Scalia stated that the Kelo decision <a href="http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/scalia_lumps_kelo_decision_with_dred_scott_and_roe_v._wade/">was a mistake that would be overturned by a future Court</a>.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“My court has, by my lights, made many mistakes of law during its
distinguished two centuries of existence,” Scalia said. “But it has made
very few mistakes of political judgment, of estimating how far … it
could stretch beyond the text of the Constitution without provoking
overwhelming public criticism and resistance. <i>Dred Scott</i> was one mistake of that sort. <i>Roe v. Wade</i> was another. … And <i>Kelo</i>, I think, was a third.”</blockquote>
Thank you Antonin Gregory Scalia for your service to country and legacy of freedom. Requiescat in pace.</div>
John Suarezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11333798474560217548noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7804678912707713587.post-52130905712802731912015-12-31T00:29:00.000-08:002015-12-31T00:31:45.371-08:0050 years later: William F. Buckley Jr & James Baldwin debate the American Dream<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<i><span style="font-size: small;">"One of the things the white world does not know, but I know, is that black people are just like everybody else. We are also mercenaries, dictators, murderers, liars. We are human, too." - <a href="http://www.openculture.com/2015/08/james-baldwin-debates-malcolm-x-1963-and-william-f-buckley.html">James Baldwin</a> </span></i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i><span style="font-size: small;">“The trouble in Mississippi is that there are too many white people voting, not too few Black people voting.” - <a href="http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/27/qa-with-sam-tanenhaus-on-william-f-buckley/">William F. Buckley Jr.</a></span></i><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix5vJjlbR8oMiuES3ISo47mQXGZJNgDpw4_UNQVImCbELs4m5XI8vdb6N_0pb_yswAOtXbvFN5JEN4IZqH5s8QG544PNd227Yxsox47rvzYlQr3d9ETVO2aSLBJJBQOC_8l4011H0QDb8/s1600/baldwin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix5vJjlbR8oMiuES3ISo47mQXGZJNgDpw4_UNQVImCbELs4m5XI8vdb6N_0pb_yswAOtXbvFN5JEN4IZqH5s8QG544PNd227Yxsox47rvzYlQr3d9ETVO2aSLBJJBQOC_8l4011H0QDb8/s400/baldwin.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">James Baldwin and William F. Buckley Jr. debate Race and the American Dream</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The location was Cambridge University in England and the date was October 27, 1965 and two Americans joined by two undergraduates from this academic institution <a href="http://www.ozy.com/performance/buckley-vs-baldwin-the-greatest-debaters/6620">debated the motion</a>: "The American Dream is at the expense of the American Negro". For the motion was James Baldwin, a world renown author and public intellectual who also happened to be an African American. Contesting the motion was William F. Buckley Jr. editor of <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/">National Review</a> and a leading voice of conservatives in the United States. The motion was won by James Baldwin overwhelmingly by 544 votes for the motion, 164 against. A <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/images/blogs/papercuts/baldwin-and-buckley.pdf">full transcript</a> of Baldwin's and Buckley's presentations are available online in <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/images/blogs/papercuts/baldwin-and-buckley.pdf">PDF format</a>. However the full debate captured on video is available online and is embedded below.<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/oFeoS41xe7w" width="420"></iframe>
<br />
Between May 7th and 8th, 2015 Linfield College held a "<a href="http://www.jackmillercenter.org/symposium-on-james-baldwin-william-f-buckley-jr-and-the-american-dream-linfield-college/">Symposium on James Baldwin, William F. Buckley Jr., and the American Dream</a>" and the debates, speeches and discussions are <a href="http://www.linfield.edu/frederick-douglass-forum/events.html">available online</a>.</div>
John Suarezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11333798474560217548noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7804678912707713587.post-81248778840470655712014-04-29T15:08:00.000-07:002014-04-29T15:08:03.431-07:00Vaclav Havel's prophetic address to the U.S. Congress in 1990<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b>A Joint Session of the U.S. Congress</b></span>
<br />
<hr size="1" />
<b>Washington, D.C., February 21, 1990</b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGhYromkrDeHoHrVVg71ZS6ADJwT6kbvuz-Jkvc82hwqJzu5jT_PAyLPW-VsevOS8TCshB1gowx4Om375uH71YndCewHiqIdLFM4nH89w_y7h8tFfl7mgtB6pUuj7WqTsgBj7nk7_GjDU/s1600/Havel-in-Congress-1990.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGhYromkrDeHoHrVVg71ZS6ADJwT6kbvuz-Jkvc82hwqJzu5jT_PAyLPW-VsevOS8TCshB1gowx4Om375uH71YndCewHiqIdLFM4nH89w_y7h8tFfl7mgtB6pUuj7WqTsgBj7nk7_GjDU/s1600/Havel-in-Congress-1990.jpg" height="211" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<b>Full address available <a href="http://old.hrad.cz/president/Havel/speeches/1990/2102_uk.html">online here</a>. Below is an excerpt: </b><br />
<br />
<b>Ladies and gentlemen,</b><b>
</b><br />
<br />
I've only been president for two months, and I haven't attended any schools for presidents. My
only school was life itself. Therefore, I don't want to burden you any longer with my political thoughts,
but instead I will move on to an area that is more familiar to me, to what I would call the philosophical
aspect of those changes that still concern everyone, although they are taking place in our corner of
the world.
<br />
<br />
As long as people are people, democracy in the full sense of the word will always be no more
than an ideal; one may approach it as one would a horizon, in ways that may be better or worse, but
it can never be fully attained. In this sense you are also merely approaching democracy. You have
thousands of problems of all kinds, as other countries do. But you have one great advantage: You
have been approaching democracy uninterruptedly for more than 200 years, and your journey toward
that horizon has never been disrupted by a totalitarian system. Czechs and Slovaks, despite their
humanistic traditions that go back to the first millennium, have approached democracy for a mere
twenty years, between the two world wars, and now for three and a half months since the 17th of
November of last year.
<br />
<br />
The advantage that you have over us is obvious at once.
<br />
<br />
The Communist type of totalitarian system has left both our nations, Czechs and Slovaks as
it has all the nations of the Soviet Union, and the other countries the Soviet Union subjugated in its
time a legacy of countless dead, an infinite spectrum of human suffering, profound economic decline,
and above all enormous human humiliation. It has brought us horrors that fortunately you have not
known.
<br />
<br />
At the same time, however unintentionally, of course it has given us something positive:
a special capacity to look, from time to time, somewhat further than someone who has not undergone
this bitter experience. A person who cannot move and live a normal life because he is pinned under
a boulder has more time to think about his hopes than someone who is not trapped in this way.
<br />
<br />
What I am trying to say is this: We must all learn many things from you, from how to educate
our offspring, how to elect our representatives, all the way to how to organize our economic life so that
it will lead to prosperity and not poverty. But it doesn't have to be merely assistance from the
well-educated, the powerful and the wealthy to someone who has nothing to offer in return.
<br />
<br />
We too can offer something to you: our experience and the knowledge that has come from it.
<br />
This is a subject for books, many of which have already been written and many of which have
yet to be written. I shall therefore limit myself to a single idea.
<br />
<br />
The specific experience I'm talking about has given me one great certainty: Consciousness
precedes Being, and not the other way around, as Marxists claim.
<br />
<br />
For this reason, the salvation of this human world lies nowhere else than in the human heart,
in the human power to reflect, in human humbleness and in human responsibility.
<br />
<br />
Without a global revolution in the sphere of human consciousness, nothing will change for the
better in the sphere of our Being as humans, and the catastrophe toward which this world is headed,
whether it be ecological, social, demographic or a general breakdown of civilization, will be
unavoidable. If we are no longer threatened by world war or by the danger that the absurd mountains
of accumulated nuclear weapons might blow up the world, this does not mean that we have definitively
won. We are in fact far from definite victory.
<br />
<br />
We are still a long way from that "family of man;" in fact, we seem to be receding from the
ideal rather than drawing closer to it. Interests of all kinds: personal, selfish, state, national, group and,
if you like, company interests still considerably outweigh genuinely common and global interests. We
are still under the sway of the destructive and thoroughly vain belief that man is the pinnacle of
creation, and not just a part of it, and that therefore everything is permitted. There are still many who
say they are concerned not for themselves but for the cause, while they are demonstrably out for
themselves and not for the cause at all. We are still destroying the planet that was entrusted to us, and
its environment. We still close our eyes to the growing social, ethnic and cultural conflicts in the world.
From time to time we say that the anonymous megamachinery we have created for ourselves no
longer serves us but rather has enslaved us, yet we still fail to do anything about it.
<br />
<br />
In other words, we still don't know how to put morality ahead of politics, science and
economics. We are still incapable of understanding that the only genuine backbone of all our
actions if they are to be moral is responsibility. Responsibility to something higher than my family,
my country, my firm, my success. Responsibility to the order of Being, where all our actions are
indelibly recorded and where, and only where, they will be properly judged.
<br />
<br />
The interpreter or mediator between us and this higher authority is what is traditionally referred
to as human conscience.
<br />
<br />
If I subordinate my political behavior to this imperative, I can't go far wrong. If on the contrary
I were not guided by this voice, not even ten presidential schools with 2,000 of the best political
scientists in the world could help me.
<br />
<br />
This is why I ultimately decided after resisting for a long time to accept the burden of
political responsibility.
<br />
<br />
I'm not the first nor will I be the last intellectual to do this. On the contrary, my feeling is that
there will be more and more of them all the time. If the hope of the world lies in human consciousness,
then it is obvious that intellectuals cannot go on forever avoiding their share of responsibility for the
world and hiding their distastes for politics under an alleged need to be independent.
<br />
<br />
It is easy to have independence in your programme and then leave others to carry out that
programme. If everyone thought that way, soon no one would be independent.
<br />
<br />
I think that Americans should understand this way of thinking. Wasn't it the best minds of your
country, people you could call intellectuals, who wrote your famous Declaration of Independence, your
Bill of Rights and your Constitution and who above all took upon themselves the practical
responsibility for putting them into practice? The worker from Branik in Prague, whom your president
referred to in his State of the Union message this year, is far from being the only person in
Czechoslovakia, let alone in the world, to be inspired by those great documents. They inspire us all.<br />
<br />
They inspire us despite the fact that they are over 200 years old. They inspire us to be citizens.
<br />
When Thomas Jefferson wrote that "Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just
powers from the Consent of the Governed," it was a simple and important act of the human spirit.
<br />
What gave meaning to that act, however, was the fact that the author backed it up with his life.
It was not just his words, it was his deeds as well.
<br />
<br />
I will end where I began. History has accelerated. I believe that once again, it will be the
human spirit that will notice this acceleration, give it a name, and transform those words into deeds.<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
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John Suarezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11333798474560217548noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7804678912707713587.post-8873677791772739512013-12-02T19:08:00.001-08:002020-12-27T20:29:27.304-08:00Restoring Freedom in the United States: Dismantle the Welfare-Warfare State and Reform the Patriot Act<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<i>"Well, the truth is, there are simple answers, they just are not easy ones." ~ <a href="http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/govspeech/01051967a.htm">Ronald Reagan</a></i></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><i> </i></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><i><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZoZ-CS2HD1DMfCpwJJELrPaMMHnDeSTuPYc1PskWV1Jwa345L3WMnQZBIt5HUGTUP50GHELOsGWCp0jzhSJxy8JkJHLtiM2iZcW8cFsQh8R9O8FbuYdnmj4A3lh-9ySKBgDajZYOdqe4/s286/woodrowsghost.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="243" data-original-width="286" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZoZ-CS2HD1DMfCpwJJELrPaMMHnDeSTuPYc1PskWV1Jwa345L3WMnQZBIt5HUGTUP50GHELOsGWCp0jzhSJxy8JkJHLtiM2iZcW8cFsQh8R9O8FbuYdnmj4A3lh-9ySKBgDajZYOdqe4/s0/woodrowsghost.png" /></a></div><br /></i>Despite trillions spent on defense, terrorists on September 11, 2001, murdered 2,977 men, women, and children on US soil. The US military was only able to put two jets in the air to protect the entire Eastern seaboard and the two planes <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/f-16-pilot-was-ready-to-give-her-life-on-sept-11/2011/09/06/gIQAMpcODK_story.html">did not have live ammunition</a>. <i>Popular Mechanics</i>, in a <a href="http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military/news/debunking-911-myths-planes">report debunking 911 myths</a>, reports that on that day "there were only 14 fighter jets on alert in the contiguous 48 states" in a year when the military had a <a href="http://www.cfr.org/defense-budget/trends-us-military-spending/p28855">US$400 billion dollar budget</a> and hundreds of military bases in <a href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/sep/14/ron-paul/ron-paul-says-us-has-military-personnel-130-nation/">130 countries</a> around the world.
<i><a href="http://buchanan.org/blog/ron-paul-reactionary-or-visionary-4997">Frederick the Great</a></i>'s observation that <i>“He who defends everything defends nothing.” </i>was once again proven true.
Major Heather Penney, of the first District of Columbia Air National Guard, was one of the first two warriors to <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/f-16-pilot-was-ready-to-give-her-life-on-sept-11/2011/09/06/gIQAMpcODK_story.html" target="_blank">take to the air</a> on September 11, 2001, to defend the United States from a terrorist attack. In a 2011 <a href="http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/Penne">interview on C-Span</a>, she reflected on September 11 a decade later, <a href="http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/Penne">observing</a>:
<br />
<blockquote>
I often wonder if we have forsaken some of what it means to be Americans ... to try to assure our citizens of security. There is no such thing as perfect security. ... Have we been overzealous? Has the pendulum swung too far? Such that we are abdicating our value set...?</blockquote>
What led this courageous pilot to such a dire reflection? A month after the 9/11 attacks, Congress passed and George W. Bush signed the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Act">Patriot Act</a> into law that <a href="http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303559504579198370113163530">expanded</a> state power while <a href="https://www.aclu.org/blog/tag/patriot-act">undermining</a> individual freedoms. Since then, the United States has been <a href="http://panampost.com/john-suarez/2013/10/18/the-us-surveillance-state-and-the-totalitarian-tipping-point/">at a turning point</a>, and the options are clear: continued arbitrary rule in a bankrupt police state or the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/10/11/patriot-act-author-there-has-been-a-failure-of-oversight/">restoration of accountability</a> and limits. The first seems ominous, since history is littered with the <a href="http://www.brookings.edu/press/books/chapter_1/statefailureandstateweaknessinatimeofterror.pdf">wreckage</a> of states, including <a href="http://www.historytoday.com/richard-sims/japanese-fascism">democracies</a>, that <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/03/opinion/03iht-edkershaw.1.9700744.html?_r=0">overextended</a> themselves both <a href="http://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/cato-journal/1994/11/cj14n2-7.pdf">domestically</a> and internationally.
If we are to address root problems in the policy realm and save the United States from "abdicating its value set", we will have to end the <a href="http://www.independent.org/publications/tir/article.asp?a=954">welfare-warfare state</a>. <a href="http://mises.org/daily/author/299">Murray Rothbard</a>, a US American economist, historian, and political theorist, noted back in 1973 that the emergence of the <a href="http://www.antiwar.com/orig/rothbard_on_war.html">permanent welfare-warfare in the United States</a> was first observable following World War II with the Cold War.<br />
<br />
The underlying premise of the welfare-warfare state is that the <a href="http://www.lewrockwell.com/2013/05/charles-burris/how-life-became-regulated-regimented-and-overseen/">radical expansion</a> of the size and <a href="http://panampost.com/john-suarez/2013/11/01/slouching-towards-a-government-of-wolves-over-sheep/">scope</a> of the government and its <a href="http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303559504579198370113163530">intrusion on privacy</a> can resolve challenges to security. This has been demonstrated to be flawed. Paul Cianca's <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505263_162-57610645/how-lax-shooter-concealed-his-weapon/">shooting rampage at LAX airport</a> and <a href="http://www.latimes.com/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-china-bombings-20131106,0,6538711.story#axzz2kjbyd6FS">simultaneous terrorist bombings</a> in totalitarian communist China in early November 2013 reveal once again that giving up freedoms does not translate into a guarantee of security. The welfare-warfare state did not protect American lives and property on 9/11 and a further expanding security and surveillance under the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/29/nsa-overhaul-bill-legislation-usa-freedom-act">Patriot Act</a> <a href="http://www.nbclosangeles.com/video/#!/on-air/as-seen-on/Officials-Demand-Better-Emergency-Warnings-at-LAX/230924161">did not stop</a> one lone gun man from successfully <a href="http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/Alleged-LAX-Gunman-Had-Four-Minutes--231948831.html">killing a TSA official</a> and wounding at least one other or two young Muslim men on April 15, 2013 from bombing the Boston Marathon <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2013/04/15/us/boston-marathon-explosions/">killing three and seriously wounding many more</a>.<br />
<br />
It did not have to be this way.<br />
<br />
When the Cold War ended, Patrick Buchanan announced his candidacy for president in 1991, calling for a national discussion to, in effect, <a href="http://www.4president.org/speeches/1992/patbuchanan1992announcement.htm">end the welfare-warfare state</a>. Two decades later, and with the problem only ballooning, Buchanan summed up the policy <a href="http://www.thedailybell.com/exclusive-interviews/3501/Staff-Report-Pat-Buchanan-on-Ron-Paul-the-Internet-and-Ethnic-Politics-in-the-21st-Century/">he had wanted to see implemented at the time</a>: <span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: medium;">"</span>After the Cold War we should have downsized the empire dramatically and returned to become a more normal nation in a more normal time.<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: medium;">"</span><br />
<br />
There are <a href="http://panampost.com/author/john-suarez/">consequences</a> to the path taken, and Buchanan has <a href="http://www.lewrockwell.com/2011/05/patrick-j-buchanan/dismantle-the-empire/">outlined the cost in treasure.</a> At the same time the military footprint overseas while expensive and unsustainable also leads to more terrorists targeting the country. Buchanan offers an explanation of the <a href="http://www.wnd.com/2002/05/14055/">terror attacks</a> on the <a href="http://www.wnd.com/2002/05/14055/">United States</a> that the "mainstream" fails to make:
<br />
<blockquote>
Evil though they may be, Islamic killers are over here because we are over there. They are not trying to kill us because they dislike our domestic politics, but because they detest our foreign policy. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia. . . . As Osama bin Laden said, they want us to stop propping up the Saudi regime they hate, and to get off the sacred Saudi soil on which sit the holiest shrines of Islam. They want our troops out of Saudi Arabia – and if we don’t get out, they are coming over here to kill us any way they can.</blockquote>
<a href="https://www.aclu.org/reform-patriot-act">Reforming the Patriot Act</a> and making defending the lives, liberty and property of American citizens the main priority of American foreign policy not advancing the narrow <a href="http://panampost.com/john-suarez/2013/09/27/a-post-constitutional-united-states/">interests</a> of what President Eisenhower described in his <a href="http://youtu.be/7gahL5j4ack">farewell address</a> as the <a href="http://www.npr.org/2011/01/17/132942244/ikes-warning-of-military-expansion-50-years-later">military-industrial complex</a>.
There is still time to turn things around both restoring freedom and increasing security by dismantling the welfare-warfare state.<br />
<br /></div>
John Suarezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11333798474560217548noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7804678912707713587.post-29057562611171761672013-11-05T16:10:00.002-08:002013-11-05T16:10:33.007-08:00Why Beauty Matters: A documentary by Roger Scruton<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The revolutionaries have trashed beauty in favor of the ugly and the perverse. Philosopher Roger Scruton in the documentary "Why Beauty Matters" does just that explain why the beautiful is important.<br />
<br />
Please enjoy the video below and offer your comments. <br />
<br />
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John Suarezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11333798474560217548noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7804678912707713587.post-53105597128296417912013-11-01T20:45:00.001-07:002020-12-27T20:50:48.447-08:00Slouching Towards a US Government of Wolves over Sheep<p> <i>“I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery.” ~<a href="http://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/i-prefer-dangerous-freedom-over-peaceful-slavery-quotation">Thomas Jefferson</a></i></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisGcdOgIaenRuLFNP7K3UrUj5hvd9IrnZc0ZojqLq8l59zsjrSN7d6ZTmv_jWFXAQtTqF6za1zl9SnUVIDlSg8MuSYQmQGcZmq1iwbPXLoRDF5Sk49hqLZpdIxGTBQ4-Y5blsi_46sFXc/s300/Obama-300x148.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="148" data-original-width="300" height="197" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisGcdOgIaenRuLFNP7K3UrUj5hvd9IrnZc0ZojqLq8l59zsjrSN7d6ZTmv_jWFXAQtTqF6za1zl9SnUVIDlSg8MuSYQmQGcZmq1iwbPXLoRDF5Sk49hqLZpdIxGTBQ4-Y5blsi_46sFXc/w400-h197/Obama-300x148.jpg" width="400" /></a></div> American rebels listed King George III’s “<a href="http://www.fullbooks.com/The-Writings-of-Samuel-Adams-vol-III6.html">catalogue of crimes</a>”
on July 4, 1776, declaring the monarch a tyrant and independence from
the British crown. Eleven years later those rebels drafted a <a href="http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_transcript.html">Constitution</a> that delegated the power to make war to the Congress, not the President. Although <a href="http://www.religiontoday.com/news/is-the-us-constitution-a-dead-letter-11604081.html">formally observed</a> today, for all express purposes it is a <a href="https://www.lewrockwell.com/2008/11/roger-roots/constitutional-dead-letters/">dead letter</a>.<p></p><p>This is the third in a <a href="http://panampost.com/author/john-suarez/" target="_blank">series of reflections</a> on where America is headed and what key errors have led to the decline of the republic. The <a href="http://panampost.com/john-suarez/2013/09/27/a-post-constitutional-united-states/">first essay</a> looked at two recent Supreme Court decisions that usurped long held American freedoms. The second studied <a href="http://panampost.com/john-suarez/2013/10/18/the-us-surveillance-state-and-the-totalitarian-tipping-point/">the emergence of the surveillance state</a>. This reflection delves into the concentration of arbitrary power in the office of the president of the United States.</p><p>Beginning
with the Korean War, the courts and Congress ceded to the president the
power to initiate wars by reinterpreting “the commander in chief”
passage of the Constitution. After Vietnam, in 1973, Congress <a href="http://www.libertyclassroom.com/warpowers/">passed a War Powers Act</a>,
which sought to curve this. However, it still grants the president the
power to introduce military forces anywhere for any reason for 90 days.</p><p>This is a far cry from <a href="http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_transcript.html">Article I Section 8 of the US Constitution</a>: “The Congress shall have power to declare War.” Members of Congress like <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/campaign-spot/357180/there-war-powers-act-books-or-not-jim-geraghty">Representative Peter King</a> (R-NY) — who have sworn to uphold the Constitution — say the president doesn’t need Congressional authorization to wage war.</p><p>The record on civil liberties at home is no better.</p><p>When at war with the southern states, President Abraham Lincoln <a href="http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=69898#axzz2io60uurw">suspended basic civil liberties such as habeas corpus</a>
and, according to Ted Galen Carpenter, “detained confederate
sympathizers without trials or used military tribunals to prosecute them
. . . A year after the war, in Ex Parte Milligan the <a href="http://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-by-era/world-war-ii/resources/traitors-and-spies-time-war-how-supreme-court-determined-who-w">U.S. Supreme Court</a> rejected the executive branch’s promiscuous use of military tribunals, ruling such procedures unconstitutional.”</p><p>During World War I <a href="http://hnn.us/article/19113">President Woodrow Wilson</a> imprisoned anti-war activists, suppressed free speech, and imposed racial segregation on federal employees. In World War II, <a href="http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/archives/pdfs/internment.pdf">President Franklin Roosevelt</a>, in addition to rounding up Japanese Americans and <a href="http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/learning_history/japanese_internment/internment_menu.cfm">placing them in internment camps</a>
for the duration of the war, also won a case that would be seized on
decades later by the Bush Administration. Ted Galen Carpenter explains
in the October 2013 issue of <a href="http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/" target="_blank"><i>Chronicles</i></a>:</p><blockquote><p>The
focus of the Bush administration’s argument was the claimed authority
to detain “enemy combatants,” either aliens or U.S. citizens, without
providing them access to U.S. civilian courts. . . . That view relied
heavily on the <a href="https://www.loc.gov/rr/frd/Military_Law/pdf/Supreme-Court-1942.pdf">1942 Supreme Court decision <i>Ex Parte Quirin</i></a>.
. . . The Bush Administration extended the Quirin reasoning to cover
not just an active, specific terrorist mission (as in Quirin) [so] that
U.S. citizens accused of involvement in terrorist schemes were not
entitled to due process and other constitutional rights.</p></blockquote><p>Candidate Barack Obama blasted the Bush Administration’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/06/08/us/politics/08obama-surveillance-history-video.html?_r=0">record on civil liberties</a>, but <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/world/obamas-leadership-in-war-on-al-qaeda.html?_r=0">President Obama</a> asserts in a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/feb/05/obama-kill-list-doj-memo">2011 legal memo</a> the right to target <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/17/opinion/who-says-you-can-kill-americans-mr-president.html?_r=0">US citizens for execution</a>, without any charges or <a href="http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2012/mar/06/targeted-killings-holder-speech/">due judicial process</a>. This is something that no previous president has done.</p><p>The United States’ founders drafted a constitution to set up institutions that protected US American liberty and did not rely <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2013/02/08/171467519/death-by-drone-and-the-sliding-scale-of-presidential-power">on good politicians to save the day</a>. Judges and bureaucrats, by reinterpreting “<a href="http://www.law.uchicago.edu/alumni/magazine/fall10/strauss">the living Constitution</a>,”
have undermined institutional safeguards and centralized arbitrary
power in the presidency to the extreme that President Obama now has <a href="http://www.salon.com/2013/02/05/who_cant_be_on_obamas_kill_list/">kill lists</a> which include <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/barackobama/9913615/Barack-Obama-has-authority-to-use-drone-strikes-to-kill-Americans-on-US-soil.html">US citizens</a> listed.</p>
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WrRuNOaNYME" width="420"></iframe><p>The policies of the British government that American rebels considered despotic were <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/evolutionofparliament/legislativescrutiny/parliament-and-empire/parliament-and-the-american-colonies-before-1765/parliament-and-the-war-in-the-american-colonies-1767-83/">acts of parliament</a>, not arbitrary edicts by a monarch. <a href="http://www.royal.gov.uk/historyofthemonarchy/kingsandqueensoftheunitedkingdom/thehanoverians/georgeiii.aspx">King George III</a> <a href="https://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/presentationsandactivities/presentations/timeline/amrev/shots/address.html">declared war</a> on the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proclamation_of_Rebellion">American colonists</a>, but only because that is what parliament wanted. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glorious_Revolution">Since 1688</a>, parliament has held political power in the United Kingdom.</p><p>Thomas Jefferson, the American rebel who drafted the Declaration of Independence, <a href="http://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/i-prefer-dangerous-freedom-over-peaceful-slavery-quotation">observed that</a>:</p><blockquote><p>Societies
exist under three forms sufficiently distinguishable. 1. Without
government, as among our Indians. 2. Under governments wherein the will
of every one has a just influence, as is the case in England in a slight
degree, and in our states in a great one. 3. Under governments of
force: as is the case in all other monarchies and in most of the other
republics. To have an idea of the curse of existence under these last,
they must be seen. It is a government of wolves over sheep.</p></blockquote><p>Over
the past 150 years, the courts and the Congress in the United States
have concentrated power in the office of the president to an extreme
that undermines the original intent of the drafters of the Declaration
of Independence. The <i>American Heritage Dictionary</i> offers a definition of tyranny as “A government in which a single ruler is vested with absolute power.”</p><p>The president of the United States today sits in the Oval Office, reviewing <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/world/obamas-leadership-in-war-on-al-qaeda.html?_r=0">kill lists</a> and unilaterally ordering <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/jun/11/obama-drone-wars-normalisation-extrajudicial-killing">extrajudicial executions</a>, including <a href="http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/03/06/aclu-obamas-extra-judicial-killings-raise-profound-legal-and-moral-questions/">American citizens</a>. Are these the actions of a government in a free society?</p><p><a href="https://en.panampost.com/john-suarez/2013/11/01/slouching-towards-a-government-of-wolves-over-sheep/"> Originally published in the PanAm Post</a><br /></p><p> </p>John Suarezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11333798474560217548noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7804678912707713587.post-88884766339543876182013-10-21T15:52:00.004-07:002013-10-22T09:46:46.024-07:00Obamacare and the Ghosts of Future Past<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<script height="315px" src="http://player.ooyala.com/iframe.js#pbid=7dfd98005dba40baacc82277f292e522&ec=A2b3I0OTr8JRaKjAeLsW1nxPhxph-ul1" width="560px"></script>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">The future of healthcare in the United States can <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2450917/Scandal-hit-Staffordshire-NHS-Trust-admits-safety-breaches-death-diabetic-patient.html">already be seen</a> in the United Kingdom, and it is a cautionary tale. The <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/heal-our-hospitals/9782562/Stafford-Hospital-the-scandal-that-shamed-the-NHS.html">Stafford Hospital scandal</a> is a glimpse of the future in America and<a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2365120/Keogh-review-11-NHS-hospitals-placed-special-measures-Jeremy-Hunt-reveals-thousands-patients-needlessly-died.html"> the recent past</a> in Great Britain. Officials have <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-stoke-staffordshire-23508096">called for its dissolution</a> but the record of <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/heal-our-hospitals/9782562/Stafford-Hospital-the-scandal-that-shamed-the-NHS.html">shame</a> cannot be hidden. As many as 1,200 patients died, who shouldn't have, but <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/7310629/Bosses-at-scandal-hit-Stafford-Hospital-escape-scot-free.html">no hospital officials held responsible </a>for conditions that were inhumane.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">This is what an independent government review found when it examined conditions at the hospital and reported in <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/7310629/Bosses-at-scandal-hit-Stafford-Hospital-escape-scot-free.html">The Daily Telegraph</a> on February 24, 2010:</span></span><br />
<div class="fourthPar">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">
An independent report commissioned by the Government found that patients were
abused and neglected by hostile staff and were left in humiliating and
undignified conditions. The impact on them was “unimaginable”, the report
said.
</span></span></blockquote>
</div>
<blockquote>
<div class="fifthPar">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">
Patients, most of whom were treated at the trust’s main hospital in Stafford,
were “robbed of their dignity”, left in soiled bedclothes, unwashed and in
states of undress in full view of others, it found. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">
Families of patients had to clean lavatories and public areas themselves,
while food and drinks were left out of reach and, it was alleged, patients
drank out of vases.
</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">
Attitudes of staff were at times “uncaring”. Managers were “in denial” about
the problems and were concentrating on cutting costs and hitting targets to
achieve foundation trust status, the report said.
</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">
There was said to be a culture of fear and bullying with staff concerned they
would lose their jobs if targets were not hit.
</span></span></div>
</blockquote>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">Despite the public exposure the deaths continue and <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2450917/Scandal-hit-Staffordshire-NHS-Trust-admits-safety-breaches-death-diabetic-patient.html">The Daily Mail on October 9, 2013 reports</a> on how taxpayers are left holding the bag while those responsible are not held accountable:</span></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">A scandal-plagued hospital trust has
today admitted breaching health and safety law after a a patient died
when nurses failed to notice she was severely diabetic and needed
insulin.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">The Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust has pleaded guilty to failing to ensure the safety of Gillian Astbury, yet no staff will face the consequences in the courts.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">The
66-year-old lapsed into a fatal diabetic coma while being treated at
Stafford Hospital in April 2007, when staff failed to read her medical
history during a 10-day stay.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">After her death the NHS trust was prosecuted as an
organisation, meaning that individual nurses, doctors and managers will
not face jail for their failings.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">Today
it has pleaded guilty through its barrister to breaching the Health and
Safety at Work Act by failing to properly manage and organise hospital
services, including its systems for record-keeping, patient information
and communication between staff members.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">It
now faces a huge fine, funded by the taxpayer, because magistrates
sitting in Stafford committed the case to the town's Crown Court after
ruling that their sentencing powers for the offence were insufficient.</span></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">This is the future that awaits all Americans beginning in 2014 as Obamacare is fully implemented, but has already been experienced by <a href="http://newsroom.blogs.cnn.com/2010/06/30/veterans-exposed-to-hiv-hepatitis/">American veterans</a> for some time who are receiving government healthcare through the <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2013/jun/07/science/la-sci-sn-dirty-colonoscopy-20130607">Veterans Affairs Department</a>. Thousands of veterans in the United States have been <a href="http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/hospital-removes-chief-exec-after-dirty-tools-risked-2500-veterans/2011-11-18">unnecessarily exposed to disease</a> due to unclean practices in government hospitals.</span></span><br />
<br /></div>
John Suarezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11333798474560217548noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7804678912707713587.post-84105636218199401952013-10-18T20:36:00.000-07:002020-12-27T20:44:22.594-08:00The US Surveillance State and the Totalitarian Tipping Point<p><i>Only by continual oversight can the democrat in office be prevented from
hardening into a despot: only by unintermitted Agitation can a people
be kept sufficiently awake to principle not to let liberty be smothered
in material prosperity. ~<a href="http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/chron/civilwarnotes/phillips.html" target="_blank">Wendell Phillips</a></i></p><p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih0VWMu1Vaate52XaXNlLe0zgIuOyQcM65JK5bxOvGXmOP1NGjHoUFVXQkYxDhLnmcl9EbP46PSigth61vyrf7nyHejPo9CwNSn308nZfE2BGv9yVPYkNJwjNt1KAGAccWTR-YLwBYUBo/s300/american-surveillance-300x148.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="148" data-original-width="300" height="197" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih0VWMu1Vaate52XaXNlLe0zgIuOyQcM65JK5bxOvGXmOP1NGjHoUFVXQkYxDhLnmcl9EbP46PSigth61vyrf7nyHejPo9CwNSn308nZfE2BGv9yVPYkNJwjNt1KAGAccWTR-YLwBYUBo/w400-h197/american-surveillance-300x148.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p>In the 20th century, the United States reached <a href="http://www.roiw.org/2/3.pdf">levels of wealth</a>
for more people than had ever been seen in human history. However,
those in power whittled away at the nation’s basic freedoms, slowly and
over generations. Complaints were few because material prosperity
endured.</p><p>Today, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/31/opinion/sunday/sundown-in-america.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0">massive and unsustainable debts</a>
are maintaining the US standard of living. Freedom continues to be
whittled away at, but more US Americans are awakening to this hard
truth, because <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/31/opinion/sunday/sundown-in-america.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0">material prosperity for many is evaporating</a>.
One area that they view with growing alarm is the emergence of the
United States of America as a surveillance state, since, along with a <a href="http://www.copblock.org/23986/keene-nh-police-take-delivery-of-controversial-armored-vehicle/" target="_blank">militarized police force</a>, it is the infrastructure of totalitarianism.</p><p>This is the second in a series of reflections seeking to understand these negative trends in the United States. The <a href="http://panampost.com/john-suarez/2013/09/27/a-post-constitutional-united-states/">first essay</a>
analyzed the role of the US Supreme Court — in particular, its
decisions that undermined private property rights and forced taxpayers
to cooperate with evil. I concluded with the controversial proposition
that the present system in the United States is post-constitutional.</p><p>For generations, US Americans believed that the <a href="http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/rightofprivacy.html">first, third, fourth, and ninth amendments</a> found in the <a href="http://billofrightsinstitute.org/founding-documents/bill-of-rights/" target="_blank">Bill of Rights</a>
protected the privacy of citizens of the United States — that only a
small number engaged in criminal conduct would be subjected to
surveillance, following <a href="https://ssd.eff.org/wire/govt/wiretapping-authorization">a court order</a> permitting such activity by the authorities.</p><p>However, the arrival of <a href="http://learning.hccs.edu/faculty/tom.haymes/govt2302/content-module-5-civil-liberties/module-5.4-civil-liberties-the-right-to-privacy">new technologies</a>
provided the state with the means to circumvent these constitutional
provisions. In the state of Florida, for example, automated systems are
replacing toll operators, and they either process your information via
your <a href="https://www.sunpass.com/index" target="_blank">Sun Pass</a> or by photographing your license plate and sending you the bill. According to the pre-paid toll program <a href="https://www.sunpass.com/privacyPolicy">privacy policy</a>, “information concerning a SunPass account is provided only when required to comply with a subpoena or court order.”</p><p>In other words, they are compiling and storing information on your whereabouts.</p><p>Affirming this reality, the American Civil Liberties Union <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2013/07/17/us/aclu-license-plates-readers/index.html" target="_blank">stated</a>
on July 18, 2013, that “Police around the United States are recording
the license plates of passing drivers and storing the information for
years with little privacy protection. The information potentially allows
authorities to track the movements of everyone who drives a car.”</p><p>However, the Electronic Frontier Foundation <a href="https://www.eff.org/nsa-spying" target="_blank">makes clear</a>
that the federal and state governments are monitoring not only US
Americans’ physical movement, but also their telephone and e-mail
communications.</p><blockquote><p>The
government is mass collecting phone metadata of all US customers under
the guise of the Patriot Act. Moreover, the media reports confirm that
the government is collecting and analyzing the content of communications
of foreigners talking to persons inside the United States, as well as
collecting collecting [<i>sic</i>] much more, without a probable cause
warrant. Finally, the media reports confirm the “upstream” collection
off of the fiberoptic cables that Mr. Klein first revealed in 2006.</p></blockquote><p>The <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/edward-snowden">Edward Snowden</a> revelations expose a national government that is systematically <a href="https://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324108204579022874091732470.html">monitoring and recording</a> the communications of the entire US American people all of the time, <a href="http://panampost.com/charlette-sosa/2013/08/13/us-top-diplomat-leaves-colombia-heads-for-brazil/" target="_blank">and beyond</a>. From the <i>Wall Street Journal</i>:</p><blockquote><p><a href="https://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324108204579022874091732470.html">The National Security Agency</a>
— which possesses only limited legal authority to spy on U.S. citizens —
has built a surveillance network that covers more Americans’ Internet
communications than officials have publicly disclosed, current and
former officials say. The system has the capacity to reach roughly 75%
of all U.S. Internet traffic in the hunt for foreign intelligence,
including a wide array of communications by foreigners and Americans. In
some cases, it retains the written content of emails sent between
citizens within the U.S. and also filters domestic phone calls made with
Internet technology . . .</p></blockquote><p>What is equally disturbing
is that private companies are complicit in the behavior — when not
engaging in their own monitoring of internet communications — although,
to be fair, <a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2013/8/13/exclusive_owner_of_snowdens_email_service" target="_blank">their will</a>
is not always on the side of the spying. (See the video below.)
Further, even though the immense and illegal surveillance apparatus is
out in the open now, we see no remorse from the instigators and the
elected officials responsible. Rather, they are doubling down, and their
apologists are right there with them.</p><iframe allowfullscreen="true" frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://www.democracynow.org/embed/story/2013/8/13/exclusive_owner_of_snowdens_email_service" width="420"></iframe>
<p>Unfortunately, there is no plan; there is no conspiracy. This
expansion and centralization of power has continued under both
Republicans and Democrats in the United States and would most likely
continue under a third party. Centralized power has become an end unto
itself, and as the late Czech president Vaclav Havel <a href="http://www.vaclavhavel.cz/showtrans.php?cat=eseje&val=7_aj_eseje.html&typ=HTML">observed</a>:</p><blockquote><p>Once
the claims of central power have been placed above law and morality,
once the exercise of that power is divested of public control, and once
the institutional guarantees of political plurality and civil rights
have been made a mockery of, or simply abolished, there is no reason to
respect any other limitations. The expansion of central power does not
stop at the frontier between the public and the private, but instead,
arbitrarily pushes back that border until it is shamelessly intervening
in areas that once were private.</p></blockquote><p>The United States is
reaching a tipping point that leads into a totalitarian abyss and the
crackdown on privacy whistleblowers is one of many <a href="http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/06/20/194513/obamas-crackdown-views-leaks-as.html">ominous signs</a> regarding where this centralization of power is heading.</p><p><a href="https://en.panampost.com/john-suarez/2013/10/18/the-us-surveillance-state-and-the-totalitarian-tipping-point/">Originally published in the PanAm Post.</a> <br /></p><p> </p><p> </p>John Suarezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11333798474560217548noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7804678912707713587.post-11480068984400693062011-09-10T22:47:00.000-07:002011-09-11T20:44:13.455-07:00Ten years after 9/11: A horrible day followed by a horrible decadeNever Forget.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga1O4FXO27dNfQlLYtlPTXJu9i9ipVL0RqwRqnNcyZ0ZiNHX9vb9hqKwLjknpcDIYE_RdxEDb8fW6aDATFXTMiNrD6vPcW52kE2RlofYOoLSkWnf38NpP2vbxKT6ieLaoNq2u2N-bi6xc/s1600/victims-of-911.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 284px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga1O4FXO27dNfQlLYtlPTXJu9i9ipVL0RqwRqnNcyZ0ZiNHX9vb9hqKwLjknpcDIYE_RdxEDb8fW6aDATFXTMiNrD6vPcW52kE2RlofYOoLSkWnf38NpP2vbxKT6ieLaoNq2u2N-bi6xc/s400/victims-of-911.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5650991991202702898" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">2,977 victims of September 11, 2001 terror attacks</span><br /></div><br /><a href="http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/memorial/lists/by-location/">2,977 men, women and children</a> were murdered on September 11, 2001 over the course of a few hours on a sunny Tuesday morning. The victims were distributed as follows: 246 on the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11,_2001_attacks#Casualties" title="September 11, 2001 attacks" class="mw-redirect">four planes</a> converted into flying missiles. Two of the planes flew into the Twin Towers which collapsed and led to the deaths of 2,606 human beings in New York City in the towers and on the ground, and a third struck the Pentagon taking 125 lives. The fourth plane, heading to Washington D.C., never arrived and crashed into an open field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania as the passengers of the flight fought the terrorists over control of the flight.<br /><br /><iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/nY98jH8fdfY" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="345" width="420"></iframe><br /><br />Hours after the attacks on September 11, 2001 Thomas Fleming <a href="http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/2011/09/09/from-the-vault-terrorists-target-america/">posted a prescient essay on what had happened and what would follow over the next decade</a>. Essays by <a href="http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/2011/09/09/what-911-wrought-the-bush-legacy/">Pat Buchanan</a> and <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/sept-11s-self-inflicted-wounds/2011/09/08/gIQAfjm5FK_story.html">George Will</a> reflecting on the response to the attacks are chastened by failures of American policy makers. Will writes of <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/sept-11s-self-inflicted-wounds/2011/09/08/gIQAfjm5FK_story.html">self-inflicted wounds</a> and Buchanan offered <a href="http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/2011/09/09/what-911-wrought-the-bush-legacy/">his judgement</a> on the past decade: <blockquote>Looking back on the decade since 9/11, one appreciates Edmund Burke’s summary judgment of that generation of British leaders who lost the North American colonies. “A great empire and little minds go ill together.”<br /></blockquote>It is not only the pundits and talking heads questioning the response over the past decade but one of the first two warriors to take to the air on September 11 to defend Washington DC. Her name is Major Heather Penney, of the first District of Columbia Air National Guard, in an <a href="http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/Penne">interview on C-Span</a> reflecting on September 11 a decade later said beginning at <a href="http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/Penne">54 minutes and 31 seconds</a>: <blockquote>"I often wonder if we have forsaken some of what it means to be Americans - some of what it means to be America in our response to try to assure our citizens of security. There is no such thing as perfect security." [..] Have we been overzealous? Has the pendulum swung too far? Such that we are abdicating our value set in terms of what it means to be an American in our desire to be totally safe?<br /></blockquote> Later on in the same interview she seemed to be echoing a sentiment echoed by Benjamin Franklin over two centuries earlier: "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." The erosion of civil liberties, and the passage of the so-called "Patriot Act" are just two of the many shadows to emerge from that horrible day ten years ago that has had terrible consequences over the past decade. Terror and war are the tools that revolutionaries have always used to subvert and destroy established orders and do away with long cherished freedoms.<br /><br />Today is a day to pray, remember the victims, honor those who risked their lives to save others and <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/911-chronicle-of-a-catastrophe-foretold-2349247.html">also remember and process what happened and the response</a>. We owe it not only to those who died on September 11, 2001 but to the long departed and those yet to be born what kind of country will be passed on to the next generation.<br /><b><br /><br /><br /></b>John Suarezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11333798474560217548noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7804678912707713587.post-58456037412433824372011-08-09T18:41:00.000-07:002011-08-10T14:39:35.116-07:00Reflections on the troubles in the United Kingdom<span style="font-style: italic;">"When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle." - Edmund Burke</span>
<br />
<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP1GlByTJPubJQkK6kU7Ti2V160vAqMmoBjgZsBb-tfPhyJSgfMTkJfhXYcXu3043jPWsYUzRSBGjmjCaKuEpco_cay6WEeliKmdYH8mpl680mBW_dLqAIomnGdaiw_LMdtKzCJLGL-tQ/s1600/union-jack-flag-of-the-united-kingdom.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP1GlByTJPubJQkK6kU7Ti2V160vAqMmoBjgZsBb-tfPhyJSgfMTkJfhXYcXu3043jPWsYUzRSBGjmjCaKuEpco_cay6WEeliKmdYH8mpl680mBW_dLqAIomnGdaiw_LMdtKzCJLGL-tQ/s400/union-jack-flag-of-the-united-kingdom.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5639053135036903522" border="0" /></a>
<br />I have a profound affection for London and the United Kingdom and have been horrified by the riots there over the past few days and am praying that all of this can be resolved as peacefully as possible. <span class="messageBody" ft="{"type":3}">May justice and ordered liberty prevail over anarchy and destruction.</span>
<br />
<br />Barbarism is inside the gates of the United Kingdom and they are talking about insurrection and revolution to cover up their base motives but they do have a point. They are revolutionaries in the truest most Burkean sense. They are destroying everything around them and leaving a waste land behind. Some of the voices are driven by hatred of the rich and a desire to embrace lawlessness and legitimize it with nihilistic Marxist drivel. Others embrace Nazi ideology wanting their own brand of revolution in a race war. Either way the existing order that has endured for centuries and provided many with a decent standard of living and fundamental liberties these barbarians would destroy.
<br /><span style="font-size:100%;"><span id="eow-title" class="long-title" dir="ltr" title="White Guys in Orpington, Uk Looting Game Video game store - 2011">
<br /></span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"></span>Listening and watching the news accounts reproduced below the writings of Edmund Burke and the principles of conservatism are more relevant than ever in defending civilization and understanding this moment in the UK. I invite you to read <a href="http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/836210/posts">a 2003 essay by Roger Scruton originally published in the New Criterion</a> about the riots in France in 1968 and why he became a conservative:<span style=";font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;" > </span><blockquote><span style=";font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;" >I was brought up at a time when half the English people voted Conservative at national elections and almost all English intellectuals regarded the term “conservative” as a term of abuse. To be a conservative, I was told, was to be on the side of age against youth, the past against the future, authority against innovation, the “structures” against spontaneity and life. It was enough to understand this, to recognize that one had no choice, as a free-thinking intellectual, save to reject conservatism. The choice remaining was between reform and revolution. Do we improve society bit by bit, or do we rub it out and start again? On the whole my contemporaries favored the second option, and it was when witnessing what this meant, in May 1968 in Paris, that I discovered my vocation. </span><span class="ARTICLES_StoryText"><p class="ind"><span style=";font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;" >In the narrow street below my window the students were shouting and smashing. The plate-glass windows of the shops appeared to step back, shudder for a second, and then give up the ghost, as the reflections suddenly left them and they slid in jagged fragments to the ground. Cars rose into the air and landed on their sides, their juices flowing from unseen wounds. The air was filled with triumphant shouts, as one by one lamp-posts and bollards were uprooted and piled on the tarmac, to form a barricade against the next van-load of policemen. </span></p></span></blockquote><span class="ARTICLES_StoryText"><p class="ind"><span style=";font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;" ></span></p></span><blockquote>[...] Of course I was naïve—as naïve as my friend. But the ensuing argument is one to which I have often returned in my thoughts. What, I asked, do you propose to put in the place of this “bourgeoisie” whom you so despise, and to whom you owe the freedom and prosperity that enable you to play on your toy barricades? What vision of France and its culture compels you? And are you prepared to die for your beliefs, or merely to put others at risk in order to display them? I was obnoxiously pompous: but for the first time in my life I had felt a surge of political anger, finding myself on the other side of the barricades from all the people I knew. </blockquote><blockquote><span style=";font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;" ></span><span class="ARTICLES_StoryText"><p class="ind"><span style=";font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;" >She replied with a book: Foucault’s <i>Les mots et les choses</i>, the bible of the <i>soixante-huitards</i>, the text which seemed to justify every form of transgression, by showing that obedience is merely defeat. It is an artful book, composed with a satanic mendacity, selectively appropriating facts in order to show that culture and knowledge are nothing but the “discourses” of power. The book is not a work of philosophy but an exercise in rhetoric. Its goal is subversion, not truth, and it is careful to argue—by the old nominalist sleight of hand that was surely invented by the Father of Lies—that “truth” requires inverted commas, that it changes from epoch to epoch, and is tied to the form of consciousness, the “<i>episteme</i>,” imposed by the class which profits from its propagation. The revolutionary spirit, which searches the world for things to hate, has found in Foucault a new literary formula. Look everywhere for power, he tells his readers, and you will find it. Where there is power there is oppression. And where there is oppression there is the right to destroy. In the street below my window was the translation of that message into deeds. </span></p><p class="ind"><span style=";font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;" >My friend is now a good bourgeoise like the rest of them. Armand Gatti is forgotten; and the works of Antonin Artaud have a quaint and <i>dépassé </i>air. The French intellectuals have turned their backs on ’68, and the late Louis Pauwels, the greatest of their post-war novelists, has, in <i>Les Orphelins</i>, written the damning obituary of their adolescent rage. And Foucault? He is dead from AIDS, the result of sprees in the bath-houses of San Francisco, visited during well-funded tours as an intellectual celebrity. But his books are on university reading lists all over Europe and America. His vision of European culture as the institutionalized form of oppressive power is taught everywhere as gospel, to students who have neither the culture nor the religion to resist it. Only in France is he widely regarded as a fraud. </span></p></span></blockquote><span class="ARTICLES_StoryText"><p class="ind"><span style=";font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;" ></span></p></span>The offspring of Focault are speaking out:
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<br />BBC interviewed two girls who took part in Monday night's riots in Croydon have boasted that they were showing police and "the rich" that "we can do what we want".
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<br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Manners are of more importance than laws. The law can touch us here and there, now and then. Manners are what vex or soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine us, by a constant, steady, uniform, insensible operation like that of the air we breathe in. - Edmund Burke No. 1, p. 172 in </span><i style="font-style: italic;">The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke: A New Edition</i><span style="font-style: italic;">, v. VIII. London: F. C. and J. Rivington, 1815.</span>
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<br />Darcus Howe, a West Indian Writer and Broadcaster with a voice about the riots on the BBC. Calls it an insurrection not a riot.
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<br /><span style="font-size:100%;"><span id="eow-title" class="long-title" dir="ltr" title="White Guys in Orpington, Uk Looting Game Video game store - 2011"><span style="font-style: italic;">"Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites, — in proportion as their love to justice is above their rapacity, — in proportion as their soundness and sobriety of understanding is above their vanity and presumption, — in proportion as they are more disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good, in preference to the flattery of knaves.</span></span></span> <span style="font-size:100%;"><span id="eow-title" class="long-title" dir="ltr" title="White Guys in Orpington, Uk Looting Game Video game store - 2011"><span style="font-style: italic;">- Edmund Burke, Letter to a Member of the National Assembly (1791)</span></span></span>
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<br />Man laying in the street after being assaulted then falsely helped up and robbed.
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<br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe. - Edmund Burke</span>
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<br />Sky Reporter Mark Stone Films Dramatic Footage of looting, As London Riots Spread To Clapham Junction
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<br />Andrew Gilligan, from the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph was caught-up in the middle of the riots speaks of his experience.
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<br />Looters <span style="font-size:100%;"><span id="eow-title" class="long-title" dir="ltr" title="White Guys in Orpington, Uk Looting Game Video game store - 2011">in Orpington, UK Looting Game Video game store
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<br /></span></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span id="eow-title" class="long-title" dir="ltr" title="White Guys in Orpington, Uk Looting Game Video game store - 2011"><span style="font-style: italic;"> Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters."- Edmund Burke, Letter to a Member of the National Assembly (1791)</span></span></span>
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<br /></span></span>In 1780 following the Gordon Riots Edmund Burke made the following observation that applies today in the United Kingdom in the midst of an international economic downturn that have brought tough times to many that a few would like to take advantage of for great mischief:
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<br /><span style="font-style: italic;">"If I understand the temper of the publick at this moment a very great part of the lower, and some of the middling people of this city, are in a very critical disposition, and such as ought to be managed with firmness and delicacy."</span>
<br />John Suarezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11333798474560217548noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7804678912707713587.post-46374320877284076622011-07-16T16:57:00.000-07:002011-07-16T17:05:50.173-07:00Funeral Service for His Imperial and Royal Highness Otto von Habsburg<h3 class="post-title entry-title"><span><span style="font-size:100%;">Requiescat in pace and <span class="st">Sainthood Now! </span></span></span></h3> <object height="385" width="450"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/p/CF4F234AEA0811CC?version=3&hl=en_US&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/p/CF4F234AEA0811CC?version=3&hl=en_US&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="385" width="480"></embed></object><br /><br />Mourning the passing of a great and good defender of Christendom and civilization HIRH Archduke Otto von Habsburg whose funeral was today and portions have been saved to youtube and are available for viewing in the above playlist thanks to <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/cruxfidelisblog">http://www.youtube.com/user/cruxfidelisblog</a>.<br /><br />Two days ago was Bastille Day and it seems appropriate to recall Archduke Otto von Habsburg reflection on the significance of the French Revolution:<br /><br /><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-style: italic;">"When the Goddess of Reason was placed on the altar two hundred years ago during the French Revolution and when it was announced that God was dead or had never lived, there began the greatest crisis humanity had suffered up to then. This led in the twentieth century to the erection of the concentration camps of National Socialism and the Communist gulags. </span>- HIRH Otto von Habsburg, <a href="http://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2011/04/return-to-centers-lessons-for-cuba.html">Return to the Center</a><br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><h3 class="post-title entry-title"><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /><span class="st"></span></span></h3></div></div>John Suarezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11333798474560217548noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7804678912707713587.post-2530819034006172952011-07-05T19:39:00.000-07:002011-07-07T11:00:18.221-07:00HIRH Otto von Habsburg: Freedom's Holy Roman Emperor 20 November 1912 – 4 July 2011 Requiescat in pace<span style="font-style: italic;">"When the Goddess of Reason was placed on the altar two hundred years ago during the French Revolution and when it was announced that God was dead or had never lived, there began the greatest crisis humanity had suffered up to then. This led in the twentieth century to the erection of the concentration camps of National Socialism and the Communist gulags. </span>- HIRH Otto von Habsburg, <a href="http://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2011/04/return-to-centers-lessons-for-cuba.html">Return to the Center</a> pg. 217<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/royalty-obituaries/8616240/Archduke-Otto-von-Habsburg.html"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 250px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkgTgMFkZM2VtOUlzB7cb3XR7EgkLp2QxGfjKM5LvB7cmr-eWgzXhGcva4oaT7Di1bC1MxrkWxgI-rCG4fqoqrqs7tcdHRxRAXToE5vHDliFCOEHe6cTT4hvMUQNEGqyLWmiV_SOWvt-g/s400/habsburg_1937578b.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5626067902325176802" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_von_Habsburg">Archduke Otto von Habsburg</a> passed away on July 4, 2011 at the age of 98. The Archduke was a <a href="http://www.insidethevatican.com/articles/otto-von-habsburg.htm">Christian statesman</a> who fought the worse revolutionaries of the 20th century in defense of Christendom. He helped <a href="http://content.isi.org/node/1653#.ThOx7gMYZ3A.facebook">thousands of Austrians, among them many Jews escape</a> from the Nazis. He fought <a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jVKjF8v2vHrD6hGo0ZHHnMyNqckQ?docId=0eb1e4fec4b74bbfb2a1dc335faeb89f">against Nazism and Soviet Communism</a> and for an <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/royalty-obituaries/8616240/Archduke-Otto-von-Habsburg.html">integrated multinational Europe</a>.<br /><br /><iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/zVReppJEc3E" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="349" width="450"></iframe><br /><br />His Imperial and Royal Highness Otto von Habsburg played a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/05/world/europe/05hapsburg.html">prominent role in unifying a divided continent</a>. He <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/05/world/europe/05hapsburg.html">organized a picnic on August 19, 1989 that led to one of the first openings in the Berlin Wall</a> where 700 East Germans managed to pass through to freedom. This was accomplished through the <a href="http://www.insidethevatican.com/articles/otto-von-habsburg.htm">Pan-Europa movement</a> along with much more following the fall of the Berlin Wall which included the reunification of Europe.<br /><br /><iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/syO6hPh-Evk" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="349" width="425"></iframe><br /><br />Walburga von Habsburg describes the August 1989 picnic in the video above that generated one of the first openings in the Iron Curtain. In the video below at 1 minute and 40 seconds there is actual footage of the Pan Europa picnic and scenes of people crossing the Iron Curtain.<br /><br /><iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/M9DvFyKvxVE" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="349" width="450"></iframe><br /><br />When a great and good man such as Archduke Otto von Habsburg passes on, the world left behind seems diminished. Praying for him and his family I also find myself praying that he will be praying for those of us left behind in this gloomier place now that he has departed. Sincerest condolences to his family and friends.<br /><br />You can offer your condolences <a href="http://www.ottovonhabsburg.org/content.asp?lang=en"> here</a>.John Suarezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11333798474560217548noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7804678912707713587.post-73866210863778051892011-04-18T16:05:00.000-07:002011-04-18T17:20:21.721-07:00Requiescat in pace William Rusher: One of the Founders of Modern American Conservatism<span style="font-style: italic;">"For want of me the world's course will not fail: When all its work is done, the lie shall rot; The truth is great, and shall prevail,When none cares whether it prevail or not." - Coventry Patmore </span><br /><br /><iframe title="YouTube video player" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/5z631O81T0I" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="390" width="450"></iframe><br /><br />Conservative activist and writer <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/19/us/politics/19rusher.html">William A. Rusher died on Saturday, April 15, 2011</a> at the age of 87. His last <a href="http://townhall.com/columnists/williamrusher/">column</a> was published two years earlier on <a href="http://townhall.com/columnists/williamrusher/2009/03/03/the_final_column">March 3, 2009</a> and titled it the Final Column and began it with the following unsentimental statement:<br />I began writing these columns 36 years ago and have come to the conclusion that it's time to bring them to a close. It's certainly not a problem of lacking subject matter. It's simply that I am 85 now, and the energy and creative juices are just not what they used to be. Anyone in that age bracket will know what I mean.<br /><br />Prior columns laid out the conservative case for <a href="http://townhall.com/columnists/williamrusher/2009/01/13/lets_go_for_wind_power/page/full/">developing wind and solar power</a> as alternatives to oil and made the case that <a href="http://townhall.com/columnists/williamrusher/2009/02/09/obama_stiffs_the_left/page/full/">Obama had "stiffed" the Left</a>. All in all when looking at what passes for commentary today still full of both energy and creativity.<br /><br />Upon learning of the passing of Rusher, <span id="articleText"><span class="focusParagraph"><a href="http://www.conservativehq.com/">Richard A. Viguerie</a> one of the creators of the modern conservative movement <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/18/idUS170087+18-Apr-2011+PRN20110418">issued a statement</a> outlining his historical importance:<br /></span></span><blockquote>"In fact, Bill was the last of a relatively small group of conservatives whose intellect, energy, work, sacrifices, and passion for freedom came together in the 1940s and 1950s to launch, build, and nurture a cause that, in the 1940s, did not even have a name... <span id="articleText"><span class="focusParagraph"><span id="midArticle_3"></span><p>"Most conservatives today would not know of even a third of these men. But without them, there would have been no conservative movement in the 1960s, certainly no Goldwater presidential campaign, and probably no Governor or President <span class="xn-person">Ronald Reagan</span>...</p><p><span id="articleText"><span class="focusParagraph"><p>"A short but incomplete list of his achievements would include helping build <i>National Review </i>to be the leading conservative voice in America, Young Americans for Freedom, the New York Conservative Party, the American Conservative Union, the Draft Goldwater Campaign, Reagan for President, and many others."</p></span></span></p></span></span></blockquote><span id="articleText"><span class="focusParagraph"><p><span id="articleText"><span class="focusParagraph"><p></p><span id="midArticle_8"></span><p>The <a href="http://www.conservativehq.com/article/last-first-generation-conservatives-has-died">complete statement</a> is online at <a href="http://tinyurl.com/6hsousd">http://tinyurl.com/6hsousd</a></p><p>At the top of the blog entry is an <a href="http://youtu.be/5z631O81T0I">interview from April 25, 1990</a> and below from <a href="http://youtu.be/MbYIWHPzTRk">Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr.</a> on September 10, 1981.<br /><br /></p><p><iframe title="YouTube video player" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/MbYIWHPzTRk" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="390" width="450"></iframe><br /></p></span></span></p></span></span>John Suarezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11333798474560217548noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7804678912707713587.post-82840406635246182482011-04-13T19:02:00.000-07:002011-04-13T19:22:35.637-07:00In honor of Thomas Jefferson on the 268th anniversary of his birth<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg41o7EvYhy1Qn63ubLhR-4M03cqpj-3YnJss2aLNEuJpMWk97yko5spN8ws1NPJojZXsmW-XFYwErVYCmd29snm8IpQDBhDWkIJQmHZp5yHG3Oo3IsNkFkmuddOjvJf142cjFozC5n44o/s1600/tomjeff.jpe"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 309px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg41o7EvYhy1Qn63ubLhR-4M03cqpj-3YnJss2aLNEuJpMWk97yko5spN8ws1NPJojZXsmW-XFYwErVYCmd29snm8IpQDBhDWkIJQmHZp5yHG3Oo3IsNkFkmuddOjvJf142cjFozC5n44o/s400/tomjeff.jpe" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5595257310572641538" border="0" /></a><br />Thomas Jefferson was born on July 13, 1743 and today is the anniversary of his birth and to <a href="http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/04/13/268-candles-one-complicated-legacy-happy-birthday-thomas-jefferson/">honor him</a> the <a href="http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=JefLett.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=133&division=div1">following letter is reproduced</a> that he addressed to Dr. Benjamin Rush in which he wrote a sentence now inscribed on the Jefferson Monument in the District of Colombia: "I have sworn upon the altar of god, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."<br /><br />Yesterday, April 12 marked the start 15o years ago of the War Between the States. Somehow it seems a sad irony that the two dates are so close together on the calendar.<br /><br /><h3><i>To Dr. Benjamin Rush</i><br /><i>Monticello, Sep. 23, 1800</i> </h3><br /><br />DEAR SIR, -- I have to acknolege the receipt of your favor of Aug. 22, and to congratulate you on the healthiness of your city. Still Baltimore, Norfolk & Providence admonish us that we are not clear of our new scourge. When great evils happen, I am in the habit of looking out for what good may arise from them as consolations to us, and Providence has in fact so established the order of things, as that most evils are the means of producing some good. The yellow fever will discourage the growth of great cities in our nation, & I view great cities as pestilential to the morals, the health and the liberties of man. True, they nourish some of the elegant arts, but the useful ones can thrive elsewhere, and less perfection in the others, with more health, virtue<br />& freedom, would be my choice.<p> I agree with you entirely, in condemning the mania of giving names to objects of any kind after persons still living. Death alone can seal the title of any man to this honor, by putting it out of his power to forfeit it. There is one other mode of recording merit, which I have often thought might be introduced, so as to gratify the living by praising the dead. In giving, for instance, a commission of chief justice to Bushrod Washington, it should be in consideration of his integrity, and science in the laws, and of the services rendered to our country by his illustrious relation, &c. A commission to a descendant of Dr. Franklin, besides being in consideration of the proper qualifications of the person, should add that of the great services rendered by his illustrious ancestor, Bn Fr, by the advancement of science, by inventions useful to man, &c. I am not sure that we ought to change all our names. And during the regal government, sometimes, indeed, they were given through adulation; but often also as the reward of the merit of the times, sometimes for services rendered the colony. Perhaps, too, a name when given, should be deemed a sacred property. </p> I promised you a letter on Christianity, which I have not forgotten. On the contrary, it is because I have reflected on it, that I find much more time necessary for it than I can at present dispose of. I have a view of the subject which ought to displease neither the rational Christian nor Deists, and would reconcile many to a character they have too hastily rejected. do not know that it would reconcile the <i>genus irritabile vatum</i> who are all in arms against me. Their hostility is on too interesting ground to be softened. The delusion into which the X. Y. Z. plot shewed it possible to push the people; the successful experiment made under the prevalence of that delusion on the clause of the constitution, which, while it secured the freedom of the press, covered also the freedom of religion, had given to the clergy a very favorite hope of obtaining an establishment of a particular form of Christianity thro' the U. S.; and as every sect believes its own form the true one, every one perhaps hoped for his own, but especially the Episcopalians & Congregationalists.<br /><br />The returning good sense of our country threatens abortion to their hopes, & they believe that any portion of power confided to me, will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly; for I have sworn upon the altar of god, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. But this is all they have to fear from me: & enough too in their opinion, & this is the cause of their printing lying pamphlets against me, forging conversations for me with Mazzei, Bishop Madison, &c., which are absolute falsehoods without a circumstance of truth to rest on; falsehoods, too, of which I acquit Mazzei & Bishop Madison, for they are men of truth. <p> But enough of this: it is more than I have before committed to paper on the subject of all the lies that has been preached and printed against me. I have not seen the work of Sonnoni which you mention, but I have seen another work on Africa, (Parke's,) which I fear will throw cold water on the hopes of the friends of freedom. You will hear an account of an attempt at insurrection in this state. I am looking with anxiety to see what will be it's effect on our state. We are truly to be pitied. I fear we have little chance to see you at the Federal city or in Virginia, and as little at Philadelphia. It would be a great treat to receive you here. But nothing but sickness could effect that; so I do not wish it. For I wish you health and happiness, and think of you with affection. Adieu. </p><pre></pre>John Suarezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11333798474560217548noreply@blogger.com0