The Constitution on Trial

Let us examine the current Obama policies and legislation being challenged and debated in the Supreme Court:

1. Healthcare Reform Individual Mandate (and at least 3 or 4 other healthcare reform laws)
2. HHS' declaration that everyone must provide contraception (including the "morning after pill") in their insurance health benefit packages (even organizations who are morally opposed to such things).
3. "Recess" appointments by the president when congress has declared that it is NOT in recess (therefore bypassing the Constitutional mandate that congress must approve appointments).

Keeping in mind that Supreme Court justices are sworn to "uphold and protect" the Constitution, all of the rulings on these issues are likely to go against the current administration. Examining recent decisions further enforces this opinion that even with 4 liberal leaning judges seated, when in doubt, the court has erred on the side of liberty as they are instructed to do by the Constitution.

In EEOC vs. the Lutheran Church for example, the EEOC filed a claim suing the Lutheran Church for firing a Bishop on "religious grounds". The lawsuit was rejected unanimously 9-0. The Supreme Court ruled that the federal government does not have the power to say who religious organizations can or cannot fire based on religious teachings.  Number 2: the "contraception" rule is far more intrusive and will probably be rejected unanimously as well.  

With these likely defeats on the horizon, what is the new strategy of the "Liberal Masterminds"? Attack the document being upheld by the Supreme Court, of course. Ever the elitists, they believe their socialist beliefs and agenda is flawless and therefore, it must be the Constitution that is flawed and not their utopian schemes. The Constitution should be "interpreted" the way the "masterminds" say it should… not as it was originally written.

Why is it the Constitution is the greatest document ever written when it upholds and protects liberal interests and policy, but when it actually protects individual liberty (it's primary purpose), it is "outdated", "limited" and "archaic".

Reading this particular article on the subject makes me think some of these loons actually crave an oligarchy-ish, monarchial system where our "betters" rule over us because they and other world leaders know what is good for us more than we do. Didn't we cross an ocean and fight a revolutionary war over 200 years ago to get away from that?

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/07/us/we-the-people-loses-appeal-with-people-around-the-world.html?_r=2&ei=5065&adxnnl=1&partner=MYWAY&adxnnlx=1328637613-+AkT3u1KQxLRuuqIyXFssA

I find it shocking that two seated Supreme Court Justices appear to have little to no regard for the very document they are sworn to uphold, but that is not what this particular blog is about.

Some of the more alarming criticisms from the NYT piece are as follows:

"Americans recognize rights not widely protected, including ones to a speedy and public trial, and are outliers in prohibiting government establishment of religion. But the Constitution is out of step with the rest of the world in failing to protect, at least in so many words, a right to travel, the presumption of innocence and entitlement to food, education and health care. "

This article (and this sentence in particular) shows just how ignorant some in liberal circles are when it comes to our constitution. The "rights" the Constitution enumerates are our natural "unalienable rights" granted by "our Creator" and therefore, not the government's to bestow. We are born with these rights, regardless what legislation is passed, who the current and temporary president is and what the current make up of congress is. We are not born with a right to food, for example. At the very minimum, we must work to clean, prepare and cook it (even if we did not have to work to earn it). The Constitution is a document laying out how the government is organized and designed and how this construct is meant to protect individual liberty in every way possible, from the three separate branches (who are suppose to be pitted one against the other limiting tyrannical rule by a select few) to the military's allegiance to the Constitution above all (rather than the commander in chief, for example).

Furthermore, the bill of rights is not about what the government MUST do for its citizens, it is about what the government CANNOT do TO it's citizens. The government cannot, for instance, limit or forbid free speech. It cannot make laws regarding religion or the establishment of a religion, prosecute a citizen without due cause (and even then, it must be a speedy and public trial… a wonderful "outlier", I'd say). It cannot ban firearms.  These are examples of what the bill of rights is all about. Despite what the utopian elitists would have you believe, rights and entitlements are not the same things.

Another fine example of liberal lunacy for the NYT article:

"Other nations routinely trade in their constitutions wholesale, replacing them on average every 19 years. By odd coincidence, Thomas Jefferson, in a 1789 letter to James Madison, once said that every constitution "naturally expires at the end of 19 years" because "the earth belongs always to the living generation." These days, the overlap between the rights guaranteed by the Constitution and those most popular around the world is spotty."

Again… rights are not granted by the Constitution… they are natural. Also, if you believe Jefferson is advocating the dissolution and rewriting of the Constitution every 19 years as the writer seems to think, read the article in its full context. This paragraph sums it up well:

"But with respect to future debts; would it not be wise and just for that nation to declare in the constitution they are forming that neither the legislature, nor the nation itself can validly contract more debt, than they may pay within their own age, or within the term of 19 years? And that all future contracts shall be deemed void as to what shall remain unpaid at the end of 19 years from their date?"

Furthermore, if the writer is so keen on the framers' take on constitutional law, perhaps he should read up on what Thomas Jefferson's also thought about the right to bear arms.

"And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."

Many people have forgotten (or simply not been taught) that the primary reason we have a right to bear arms is the very same reason a Constitution and Bill of Rights was written. To protect "We the People" from an overly powerful, tyrannical government.

Thomas Jefferson would be on a Homeland Security watch list today if he said such things.

The DOJ's Desperate Obamacare Defense

Two months from now, the Supreme Court will hear a case that will affect every citizen of this country for centuries to come. The ruling will either push the boundaries of government power even further in on us all, or they will re-assert the constitution’s specific and enumerated limitations on the federal government’s power.

The biggest obstacle to the "Affordable Care Act" becoming permanent law is the individual mandate… that is the portion of the law that requires every citizen buy insurance policies or pay a fine to the federal government.

In our 250+ year history, the federal government has never before forced citizens to participate in commerce with a third party. Many people (including the administration) claim precedence for this includes drivers being required to buy automobile insurance and automobile manufacturers being required to install seat belts in every car sold in America. The seat belt thing is nonsense and I can’t believe they even posit that as precedence (people are not all automobile manufacturers, nor are we all trying to sell goods to other people). The automobile insurance argument is also a flimsy argument (and has already been ridiculed by lower courts) as insurance laws are passed by the states and are therefore not subject to constitutional limitations on the federal government. Furthermore, powers not granted to the federal government in the constitution are specifically passed on to the states.

It should also be pointed out that automobile insurance is not a total mandate on every citizen. As a condition of driving on state and federal highways, you must buy automobile insurance. The health care bill sets a new and unprecedented standard that states that as a condition of being an American citizen and living and breathing, you must buy health insurance.

In a remarkable turn of events that bodes well for the proponents of the repeal of the health care reform bill, the Department of Justice has filed a brief with the Supreme Court of the United States in regards to the mandate.

In the memo, the DOJ is essentially arguing that if the mandate is ruled unconstitutional, most of the bill could and should remain intact. The DOJ even goes so far as to claim it was the intention of congress that the bill should stand if any part was ruled unconstitutional. A dumbfounding and astounding claim that will likely be laughed out of the building if the mandate is indeed ruled unconstitutional. Why, you ask? The bill has no “severability” clause. That is, a clause that specifically states that if any part (or just specific parts) of the bill are ruled unconstitutional; the rest of the bill can still stand because the legislation is not dependant on any particular part (or it is dependant, as the case sometimes is). Congress has been including such clauses in legislation for 200 years. It is not the DOJ's place to determine congress's intent. Congress wrote a two thousand plus page document laying out their intent.

In fact, early versions of the health care reform bill itself did included “severability” clauses. Somewhere along the line, the clause was intentionally removed. More than likely, one of the architects of the bill or one of their many advisers pointed out how bad it would be for the medical business in this country (and therefore, patients) if insurance companies were forced to cover preexisting conditions and every other arbitrary procedure forced onto them without the increased pool of members to share the risk. They knew the bill would absolutely not work without the forced participation of as many people as possible. Regardless of why the “severability” language was removed, it WAS removed.

 Imagine the DOJ lawyers trying to tell Supreme Court judges that congress intended the mandate to be severable after congress had specifically removed that clause. Add to that the many explicit statements of the bill’s architects that it will not work without the mandate, and you are left with the undeniable conclusion that the entire bill should (and almost certainly WILL) be struck down if the mandate is ruled unconstitutional. A proposition that seems more likely now that the DOJ appears to be hedging their bets in embarrassingly desperate legal memos.

The 15% Tax Meme

I’ve decided to take a break from my blogging exile, mostly to point out a recent problem I’ve seen in the Republican primaries that is driving me crazy. I’m talking about the 15% tax meme. While I’m not the biggest Mitt Romney fan, attacking him over his 15% tax rate is just plain stupid and takes a page from the Democrats’ class warfare playbook. 

The mainstream media and pundits get all they can out of this particular class warfare tactic. They never bother to explain how it is these people manage a perfectly legal 15% tax rate, though. 

Romney pays 15% on his INVESTMENTS income, which is all he has at the moment. If he had a paycheck, he'd pay payroll tax like everyone else. Think about this. You earn $1000. You pay taxes on that thousand dollars. You have about $700 left over and decide to invest it. A year later you decide to sell that stock... now you have to pay another 15% in taxes on the money you get from selling the investment. You've already paid taxes on the money you used to buy it! It's the called capital gains tax... and it's actually too darn high. Double taxation sucks. Just like income tax, it is a progressive tax meaning most people in the lowest income brackets pay 0% for their capital gains taxes. It is only the top brackets that even pay the 15%. 

If you start taxing any higher than that on the trade of stocks and bonds, who in their right mind would invest anything at all, unless it was an extremely long term investment, especially when you consider stocks can already be a risky investment. These stocks are what companies (both large and small) use to gather start-up capital, expand and grow. If you enforced a 30% tax rate on capital gains, the economy would collapse worse than it ever has because no one would invest. The odds that any stock would gain enough value in a reasonable amount of time (less than 20 years) to offset a 30% tax when you sell it are nearly astronomical. 


A stock certificate is nothing more than a piece of a company. An individual who owns stock in a company owns a piece of that company. Dividends are paid out to stock holders (owners) of said company based on the profits they made. Before that happens, however, those profits are taxed at the CORPORATE tax rate. The corporate tax rate in America is already among the highest tax rates in the world (depending on the state, it averages about 39% in the US). This doesn’t even take into account the myriad of taxes and fees associated with for normal operating expenses like gasoline for product transportation, property taxes on capital held by those companies and the many, many other fees paid to the government. As part owner of these companies he’s invested in, he’s already paid that tax on the “front end”. In addition to that 39%, he has to pay another 15% if he decides to sell the stock he has (and as I’ve already pointed out, the money invested into those stocks had already been taxed one time before). 

To insinuate that Romney or any other investor hasn’t paid their “fair share” is to buy into the “class warfare” philosophy of the modern Democratic Party, and it is why the economy will never grow or recover with these people in charge.

Candidates should try to build support for themselves by clearly communicating their own positions and policy intentions. Trying to build opposition to the other candidates by fueling resentment and class envy does not make you a more viable candidate. Like all personal attacks, it simply shows the weakness of your own platform. What Romney pays in taxes should be a non-story unless he breaks the law by not paying what he should. He has paid every penny of tax that was assessed against his income. Period.

Private Conversations on Display

A reminder: two years ago the CRU (Climate Research Unit) at East Anglea University had a few thousand emails and documents leaked to the public. I write “leaked” instead of “hacked” because almost everyone agrees that some of the documents that were released could not have been obtained by a simple hack. The source code for some of the modeling programs for instance. Indeed, the zip file containing all of the files to be released appeared to be a file being assembled in reply to freedom of information requests. It contained only the emails, documents and other files requested by the very specific freedom of information requests. Hackers are rarely that selective in the material they release.

Anyways: the CRU was responsible for most of the data and research for the United Nations Climate Change reports that many nations (including ours) has based most of their environmental policy and regulations on. Ever hear of the infamous “hockey stick” graph shown in Al Gore’s book and documentary: “An Inconvenient Truth”? That was based completely on CRU data.

These emails showed, quite damningly, that the researchers could not find any real change over the last fifteen years and they thought it was “a real travesty”. It furthermore shows how they had to “fudge” the data to show even a slight increase in temperatures in those same 15 years. They even actively and vigorously collaborated with other scientists and editors of Science Journals to discredit and smear scientists who disagreed with them. The emails seem to indicate that these men worked harder to hide and cover-up their corrupt, falsified science then they did actually “researching”.

A lot of mainstream media outlets, including The New York Times refused to publish the “Climategate” emails. The NYT tried to address the resulting criticisms in an article titled “Private Conversations on Display” in which they stated the emails were supposed to be “private” and that the writers did not realize they would be read by the public in general and therefore, they considered publishing the emails as “immoral”.

Fast forward to last week… and the New York Times seems to have changed their policy on private conversations. Not only do they not have any problem with publishing emails featuring emails not meant for public review, but they also recruited readers to help scour them for any potentially embarrassing conversations.

I am referring to the release of some 24,000 emails belonging to Sarah Palin while she worked as the Governor of Alaska. No doubt the NYT will try to defend this activity by pointing out that Sarah Palin was a government employee, received tax payer dollars and therefore, the emails should be subject to public scrutiny, but this argument is flawed when you consider how many of the scientists implicated in the Climategate emails work for publicly funded universities. Furthermore, I’d wager that the US government has diverted more tax payer dollars to the UN’s climate change panel, the CRU and climate change research in general than the entire state of Alaska, let alone the governor’s office.

This isn’t the first time the NYT has demonstrated such blatant hypocrisy, of course. They published the original Palin email hacking (BEFORE climategate). Those emails were not from government computers, but her private Yahoo account. Furthermore, they had no problem publishing the hacked cables from the Wikileaks website that damaged US foreign relations.

Everyone now knows that the 24,000 emails reveal something about Sarah Palin that the NYT and progressives in general will find alarming. She’s actually a normal, caring and honest person who seems to just want to do the right thing. The most damning email they could find was one in which she contemplates running for Vice President.

Think about that for a minute… how many politicians do you think would be able to say the same thing if they had 24,000 private emails released to the public for all to see. Do you think they would fair as well? Call me a pessimist, but I somehow doubt many would come out smelling like a rose, as Palin did.

I can’t help but wonder how many of the nightly news programs will even mention the 24,000 emails now that the release seems to have backfired? They sure thought the Paul Revere quote was news worthy. The NBC nightly news even dismissed the Weiner story on the same night they trumpeted what they thought was a Palin Faux Pas. They even forgot to mention the fact that according to historians, Palin was actually correct. 

I personally hope the mainstream media continues their slobbering, visceral, hatred-fueled campaign against Palin. With every attack, they expose themselves as the biased, progressive lapdogs that most people know they are.

Who Watches the Watchers (Revisited)

A full ten days before Rep Anthony Weiner (a married man) admitted to carrying on explicit relationships online with at least six different women, a story broke on Andrew Breitbart’s Biggovernment.com. A tweet had been sent from his twitter account to a woman in Seattle Washington. Weiner denied posting the tweet and claimed his account had been hacked.

Andrew Breitbart did what journalists are supposed to do (though they seem to lose that particular skill when the scandals or stories involve favored Democratic allies). He asked follow up questions. Why are you following all of these young women who aren’t in your district on Twitter? Why haven’t you demanded an FBI or even police investigation into the hacking? Why do you refuse to even answer the question “is that you in the photograph”?

Meanwhile, with few exceptions, the mainstream media collectively yawned and ignored the story. An incredible fact considering the story had everything the mainstream media loves in their stories. Sleaze, politics, social media and hacking. Anyone else remember how they attacked the Sanford story like pit bulls? Some in the mainstream media even tried to explain it away. Others even attacked Breitbart for even running the story in the first place.

For example: not only did Barbara Walters try to defend Weiner… she tried to somehow deflect any controversy by comparing Sarah Palin to Weiner.


Are you kidding me? Why would Palin’s touring in her bus have anything to do with a politician acting like a sleaze ball? How can Barbara Walters pretend to be a champion for women when she defends this slime ball while simultaneously attacking a woman with power for no good reason? Of course… as we all now know, Walters made a fool of her self with this statement. She really owes Sarah Palin an apology.

Anyways, back to the story. Breitbart once again scooped the mainstream media and delivered the truth. Weiner had been lying all along and had not only been acting inappropriately with this one woman, but six others as he finally admitted. 

The real story is not about Weiner’s sleaziness, though. The real story here is about the mainstream media’s ineptitude and outright dereliction. They ignored this story for ten days, despite all indications that it was a huge scandal. One man with a website scooped 3 national networks, 4 cable news networks with 24 hour a day news cycles and thousands of employees, countless syndicated news associations (the AP, Reuters to name a few), countless newspapers and online mudslingers like TMZ and EOnline. This isn’t the first time he’s done it. He’s been doing since the Clinton era.

If you’ve read his book (Righteous Indignation) you know this is what he lives for. He isn’t out to destroy sleazy politicians and corrupt public officials. Outing them is a nice little bonus, but they are small potatoes, none-the-less. He knows that liberal and socialist politicians aren’t the biggest threat to our freedom and liberty. The mainstream media that has almost completely been co-opted by these liberals and socialists is. So he’s out to expose the mainstream media. I would almost bet that he’s had those other photos for a week, just waiting and watching as the mainstream media embarrassed themselves.

He’s right about where the real danger is. The mainstream press has specific protections guaranteed in the bill of rights for a very good reason. They really are like a fourth branch of government. The fourth level of the separation of powers. They are supposed to protect the citizens of America from the potential corruption and tyranny of the government. When all other separations of power fail, the press tells the truth so that we, the people, can address the problems via our elections. Instead, they speculated that maybe he was just taking a picture to show how “much he missed” his wife and a hacker got  hold of it. Yes… that was Barbara Walters’ theory.

Thank God for men like Breitbart and for the internet. If not for them, we wouldn’t know about Clinton's gravegate, we would have never known about ACORN’s corruption, we would have never known about the Monica Lewinski debacle and we wouldn’t know about Weiner’s lies.

Next, we get to witness the very predictable spin and defense of Weiner in the mainstream media. “It’s his private life”. “Why does it matter”? Never mind the fact that they never seem to apply this spin to politicians on the right.

Just as I said Mark Sanford’s indiscretions mattered, Wiener’s matters because men who lie to their wives and constituents without reservation about something as stupid as racy photos will have no qualms about lying about the benefits of massive legislation designed to bail out certain campaign donors at the expense of the taxpayers. Furthermore, men who carry on adulterous, sleazy relationships are infinitely more subject to blackmail and corruption.

That’s why the press is supposed to be the biggest fear of every politician. Does anyone else find it humorous (and enlightening) how Weiner seemed to have no fear of the press? He attacked the few journalists who dared asked tough questions… he even called the police on a certain journalist. He knew the big boys wouldn’t pursue the story. Too bad for him that real journalists like Andrew Breitbart have other avenues to get their stories published, thanks to the internet.

Is it any wonder why these liberals want to “regulate” the internet so badly?

Letter to a Tea Party "Leader"

I recently sent an email to a local Tea Party "leader" to question his opposition to the temporary five year Amazon sales tax exemption. I am posting his reply and my followup. I have not secured his permission to post his letter, so I believe it best to allow him to remain anonymous.

Dear Mr. Martin,

Thank you for writing and expressing your concerns over my position on the Amazon.com tax safe harbor. 

I assure you no is paying me. I am not pro-tax, but I do support everyone working under the same set of rules. How is it just for Amazon to get a "safe harbor" exemption from collecting sales tax, which is an effective 7% price advantage, just because they can afford to hire lobbyist to go and negotiate the preferential treatment from the legislature. 

Don't we live in a country that was founded on equal treatment under the law? It is suggested that the 1249 jobs is worth it. I don't think we should gloss over injustice based on supposed benefits. That is situational morality. I don't think we, as conservatives, should justify situational morality. Right is right. Wrong is wrong. 

Standing on principle is what separates us from the liberals. I hope Amazon comes to Lexington... I have lived in Lexington nearly my whole life. But I can't sacrifice principle for benefit. If so, how would I be any different from those who ask for more government control and regulation for the supposed benefit it would bring. 

Some say, as you allude to, that regardless of where Amazon locates, they still won't by collecting SC sales tax. That may be true, but if they locate in South Carolina and make use of our infrastructure, police, fire department, trash facilities, etc. and not be required to suffer under the same price disadvantage that every other retailer is required to... that of the extra 7% increase in price due to sales tax they collect. 

How is that fair or just? I agree that taxes need to go away. But they need to go away for everyone equally. Not just for the well connected. Thanks for writing with your concerns and allowing me to respond! 

Best regards,

My Reply:

Dear Mr. xxxxxxxxxxxx,

I want to thank you for taking the time to answer my email. I appreciate your willingness to discuss this issue with me.

Like most conservatives, I am dubious about any policy position based solely on “fairness”, especially when they are applied to taxation. I will, for the sake of our debate, ignore the fact that nothing about taxation is "fair", “just” or “moral”. At its core, taxation amounts to forced confiscation of one’s private property by the state, generally with the purpose of giving it to someone else. A necessary evil, some taxation is needed, but equating the Amazon bill to some concept of “equal justice” is as flawed as justifying a progressive income tax simply by opining that the wealth earned by individuals making more than 250,000 is less important to them and therefore, taking more from them is the “fair” thing to do.

Conservative political policies are generally based on logic and reason. We learn lessons from the past and apply that knowledge to our political positions in order to “conserve” liberty and freedom. To say “because it is not right”, “because it isn’t fair” or “because it is the right thing to do” are not arguments based on logic or reason. This is the folly of the liberal. They do what they “feel” is right. Healthcare Reform is a prime example. In doing what they “felt was right”, they ignored the will of the people, increased healthcare costs on all of us and ignored the logical and reasonable arguments against such legislation. Now, as we have seen, those arguments against such legislation are being proven with each passing day. Logic tells us that if this legislation were sound, the Obama administration would not need to issue over one thousand waivers to prevent workers from losing their coverage. The “moral” argument from the left is that 5% of the population now has healthcare insurance (or will have it) who did not have it before and therefore, the cost increase to the rest of us is “justified”.

Without applying this arbitrary notion that the Amazon sales tax exemption bill is not “fair” or “moral”, how do you justify your opposition to it? 

Perhaps you feel the state legislature is “picking winners and losers”? Isn’t that what economic incentives are all about? Should we give up our right-to-work status so that we will not be “picking winners or losers” on a national scale? Does your measure of "morality" and "fairness" stop at our state borders? I’m fairly certain that the "fairness" debate would not go our way if the people of Washington State were the arbiters of “fairness” when it comes to that particular incentive to locate businesses to our state. I’m sure the unions in Washington State would agree with your declaration: “I do support everyone working under the same set of rules.”

I concur that standing on principle is what separates us from the liberals. I just have not seen which principle it is that would dictate we oppose the Amazon legislation. In fact, my understanding of conservative principles tells me that corporations are much more than just income sources for the state. They are not evil, soulless behemoths who just want to crush the “little people” in order to make a profit. This is another unreasonable, illogical position taken by the left. Corporations are simply groups of individuals: executives, shareholders and employees working for mutual benefit of the entire company. They enhance and enrich our communities… they do not rob them and crush them under their boots as liberals would have us believe. To reduce them to faceless, nameless entities less deserving of liberty than the average citizen is to prescribe to the propaganda of the left.

As to your opposition to the influence peddling of our legislators, I agree whole-heartadly. However, it is not Amazon who has spent the vast majority of money on this particular legislation. It is “The Alliance for Main Street Fairness”. Wal-Mart, Best Buy and Target have dumped millions into this special interest group to shrink Amazon's market share and to influence legislation not just in our state, but across the country, despite the misleading and dishonest name they have chosen for themselves. It is this influence peddling that benefits no one but themselves. They do not care about the unemployed people in our state or the poor economic conditions in the area which Amazon wants to build. Turning a blind eye to these lobbyists while condemning Amazon for lobbying is an odd position to take when the very basis of your position is “fairness”.

Again, I appreciate your willingness to debate this issue and I hope you will reconsider the position you have taken. As conservatives, we may disagree, but we are willing to discuss and debate rather than demonize and dehumanize those who oppose our positions. Treating Amazon as a soulless, bottom feeding source of tax revenue for the state rather than an employer and boon to our community wobbles towards that favored tactic of the left. A tactic I would rather not see associated with the Tea Party, especially when it used against the wealth creating businesses and free market principles we should be defending.  

Thanks,

Christopher Martin

Progressivism: If not by Candlelight

To me, Conservatism is an attitude about learning the lessons of the past. A philosophical attitude of caution because the history of the world is one of tyranny, poverty and suffering. Conservatism wants to, literally “conserve” the freedom and liberty we enjoy as a result of the great experiment undertaken by our founding fathers. An experiment that has as its heart, the theory that individuals can manage their lives far better than any government of monarchy, meritocracy or dictatorship. Only the most deluded malcontent would not concede that this great American experiment has been extremely successful.

Societies directly opposed to this notion have come and gone, leaving nothing more than dusty pages in historical tomes and the bones of citizens who never had a chance to experience the incredible freedoms Americans take for granted every day. The freedom to worship how we see fit, the freedom to both share and prosper from our ideas (both absurd and ingenious), the freedom to openly congregate and criticize our government and the freedom to participate in a free market. These are examples of activities the vast majority of the population of the world can never participate in.

Opposed to Conservatism, Progressivism is an attitude about an imagined future. A Utopian future where social justice and economic justice is attained through government regulation and state ownership of all wealth generation, or at least, total state regulation of wealth generating enterprise. Disregarded is the notion that the means and proposed form of governments to achieve this utopia have been proven disastrous, flawed and unworkable time and time again. The Soviet Union, Cuba, Venezuela, China and North Korea stand as recent examples of the failures of Socialism. Of course, many claim that these “Marxist” forms of Socialism is not the form of Socialism they want to implement. They believe the only reason that socialism has failed in every attempt (murdering and impoverishing countless billions along the way) is because it “wasn’t done the right way”. Some even claim to support a form of “capitalist socialism” (an idiosyncrasy, to be sure).

The truth is: there is no right way to achieve the “social justice” and “economic equality” promised by Socialism. Governments cannot forcefully pull people up from poverty and squalor… they can only bring everyone else down to equal levels of poverty and squalor through forced confiscation of wealth and private property. Government can guarantee only equal JUSTICE, and even that is dependant on human nature and the morality of those select few whom write and enforce the laws. There must be checks and balances on those who enforce the laws, and those who write the laws. The framers of our Constitution and Bill of Rights recognized this weakness in human nature and the ease which power can corrupt. This is why they implemented a separation of legislative, judicial and executive powers unlike any system implemented before. These checks and balances were essentially a recognition that centralized power inevitably leads to tyranny, a lesson the founders learned through the study of history and philosophy. Socialism has ultimately lead to centralization (and inevitably, tyranny) every time it has ever been tried.

North Korea currently employs the purest form of Marxist Socialism readily evident on the planet. One need only examine the remarkable photo embedded below to determine the horrific results of such systems of government. It is a nighttime satellite image of the Korean peninsula. The dark, desolate expanse in the north is North Korea. 

South Korea, by no means an example of capitalism in its purest form, but capitalist, none-the-less, glows with a bright light that brilliantly illustrates the differences of the two societies. The North Korean government has placed such an emphasis on military might that the people are not allowed to enjoy the safety that comes with something as simple as a reprieve from the darkness of night. The people have no say because the Communist government knows better than the proletariat: what is good for the “community”. The wasteful expenditure of costly energy for simple comfort when everyone should be sleeping anyways cannot be justified when nuclear arms are needed to combat the evil Capitalists in America.

In an embarrassing moment of teleprompter-less sincerity during his campaign, our progressive president willingly espoused the need to ensure “wealth is evenly distributed” to “Joe the Plumber”. Make no mistake; this professed need to “redistribute the wealth” has the same deep philosophical and Marxist ancestry as the Communist government policy that has millions of North Koreans shivering in the darkness with no hope to ever partake in an activity as simple as reading at night, if not by candlelight.