Peace Voter Survey

I have received a number of emails from people identifying themselves as "A Peace Voter" asking me to take a survey. Here is a copy of the letter (they are all identical) followed by my reply.

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Subject: A Peace Voter Wants You to Answer the GNA Survey
[Sender's Name]
[Address]
[City, MO Zip]

[Date]

Kevin Craig
PO Box 179
Powersite, MO 65731

Dear Mr. Craig:

I'm a Peace Voter, and before I give you my support I would like to know where you stand on the burning issues of war, peace, and liberty, the climate crisis, health, economics and trade, and democracy.

I would like to read your answers to the Grassroots Netroots Alliance questionnaire. Please fill it out online at:

http://www.grassrootsnetroots.org/survey2008/gnasurvey.cfm

The Grassroots Netroots Alliance is a new non-partisan nationwide campaign using a multi-issue questionnaire to identify outstanding local, state and federal elected officials and candidates.

Thank you for taking time to complete the survey. I hope this will serve as a valuable tool in communicating your positions to voters like myself.

Sincerely,


[Name]
[phone number]

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Dear [name],

Thanks for letting me know about the GNA survey.

I am a pacifist:

http://KevinCraig.us/peace.htm

I oppose the war in Iraq:

http://KevinCraig.us/iraq.htm

I oppose every war in American history -- even the War for Independence, which America will celebrate this coming 4th of July:

http://KevinCraig.us/july4th1776.htm

I do agree with the claim of the Declaration of Independence that we have a "duty" to abolish tyrannical governments, I just believe we should do that without firing muskets and cannons at other human beings. I believe the government of the United States has become the greatest source of violence in the world today. We would do well to abolish it. However, I also disagree with those who are planning to abolish the United States and merge it into a "North American Union" along with Mexico and Canada:

http://KevinCraig.us/abolish.htm

This super-government would only be a source of greater violence. I strongly oppose all violence:

http://KevinCraig.us/violence.htm

Since you identified yourself as "A Peace Voter," I assumed I'd score pretty well on your survey.

Alas, I scored fairly poorly.

Here is my explanation.

This is the very first question on the survey:

Do you support a rapid withdrawal of all U.S. military forces and armed private contractors from Iraq & Afghanistan (within 120 days), the full restoration of national control over their natural resources, including oil, and a redirection of war funding to social and environmental needs at home, as well as humanitarian and reconstruction aid to the Iraqi & Afghan people?

There are TWO reasons why I oppose "war funding." Obviously, I oppose it because it funds acts of military violence. Not as obvious is the fact that "war funding" is itself an act of violence. Many people who oppose war are forced to pay for "war funding" because they are threatened by the government with unspeakable acts of violence if they don't pay:

http://KevinCraig.us/prison.htm

Here is the 5th question on the survey:

Would you support an immediate 50% reduction of U.S. military spending and a transfer of these funds to pressing domestic needs?

I interpret these and other questions on the survey to read something like this:

Do you support ending government-initiated
force and threats of violence to fund Project A
and replacing it with government-initiated
force and threats of violence to fund Project B?

I oppose all threats of violence for all projects, even peaceful projects that I agree should be funded. I believe government taxation to fund projects is an act of violence:

http://KevinCraig.us/taxation.htm

This is why I am running as a Libertarian. To become a member of the Libertarian Party one must take the following pledge:

I do not believe in or advocate the initiation of force as a means of achieving political or social goals.

http://KevinCraig.us/what_is_the_libertarian_party.htm

It seems to me that at many points the GNA survey advocates the initiation of force as a means of achieving political or social goals.

Most Democrats supported the War in Iraq. Of all the candidates for Congress in Missouri's 7th District, I believe I am the candidate with the strongest claim to be "the Peace Candidate." I am confident that I am the best candidate a Peace Voter in Southwest Missouri can support for Congress.

Thanks again for writing, and I hope you'll forward this email to everyone you know who doesn't want to waste their vote by supporting another candidate who endorses government violence.



Kevin Craig
Libertarian Party Candidate
U.S. House of Representatives, MO-7th
Powersite, MO 65731-0179
http://www.KevinCraig.us
blog.KevinCraig.us
http://www.StoptheSPP.us

Republicans and Polls

There can be no doubt that Republicans attempted to elevate their standing in the polls rather than elevate their adherence to principle when they pushed Medicare prescription drug coverage through Congress in 2003. Read James Bovard's chronicle of the events in Congress. Unbelievable. Take note especially of how Republicans who stood on principle were blackmailed by fellow Republicans.

The results were laughable (were socialism not so tragic). A CBS News/New York Times Poll asked two years later:

"Regardless of how you usually vote, do you think the Republican Party or the Democratic Party is more likely to make prescription drugs for the elderly more affordable?"

Republican Party - 18%
Democratic Party - 61%

All the labor Bovard describes -- not just in Congress, but the propaganda designed to "educate" voters on the benefits of the Republican prescription drug plan -- produced zero results in the polls. Is this because voters are not rational?

The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies: Bryan Caplan

Or is it just because voters listen to the "small government" rhetoric of the Republicans and don't hear about all the socialism Republicans vote for in smoke-filled rooms?

The Libertarian Party bills itself as "the party of principle." But many Libertarians think like Republicans. They think that if Libertarians appear more moderate (less principled) that millions of voters will vote Libertarian.

True leadership means standing on principle and educating and inspiring others to follow the principled lead. If nobody is ready to follow the path that leads to liberty, it's irrational for leaders to claim to be in favor of socialism just to get their votes, while secretly pledging to move toward liberty once in office.

L. Neil Smith describes "the inevitable cowards and temporizers" within the Libertarian Party who demand "that we 'radicals' (defined as those who remain consistent to the principles that are the reason for having created the Libertarian Party in the first place) 'tone down' our rhetoric and pursue a policy of lying to the public about what we believe, so as to fool them into becoming free."

Bob Barr: Libertarian?

L. Neil Smith writes:

Those within the Libertarian Party who support Bob Barr see him as the key to winning more publicity and more votes than they've ever managed to get before now, and they evade the questions, "Publicity for what?" and "Votes for what?" Certainly they will not be publicity and votes for libertarianism, or even — if we examine Barr's record — for more freedom.

They are always willing — eager — to tell us what the public thinks, what it wants to hear, although how they know is anybody's guess. (Beware the guy who's eager to tell you what other people think. Ask him if he took a poll — or if he's telepathic.) Mostly they are projecting their own timidity, an abject fear of being ridiculed if they ran for office on a platform of undiluted libertarianism. What they haven't understood, and refuse to understand even today, is that the real danger any third party faces is being ignored. And the only way to overcome that is to make your rhetoric as flamboyant as you can within the principles that drive and guide you.

Now a very simple (if somewhat depressing) truth is that we can't influence the outcome of the 2008 election, and neither can Barr and his hangers-on. One way or another, a right-wing or left-wing socialist scumbag will be chosen in November by a hundred million products of the public education system to rule them and suck them dry.

However we can use this time to render the Libertarian Party useless to Barr and anybody like him, now or in the future. We can reset the drifting definition of libertarianism and decrease Barr's electoral effectiveness — even if he's "successful" what will it mean, if it's at the expense of everything the Libertarian Party was created to stand for? — by forcing him to waste time and effort disavowing real Libertarians and distancing himself from what we stand for.

The key to getting rid of pests like Barr is simply outshouting them — you might call it the "Big Truth" — a relatively easy task, since the LP has such a low public profile and the media have no reason to raise it. Real libertarians can make more noise, and without breaking a sweat. We're used to it. We can use the megaphones we have developed over the years to tell the voting public what libertarians really believe, and then stand back and let Barr try to explain it away.

Of Course You Know, This Means War, by L. Neil Smith

Are Libertarians anarchists? It's time to decide

HT: Kn@ppster: Of our elaborate plans, the end ...

Risking One's Sacred Honor

This campaign for Congress is principally designed to promote the idea of "Liberty Under God." This is the Declaration of Independence boiled down to three words.

Technically, legally and officially, we'll be celebrating the signing of that document in about 10 days, even though practically, in reality, and under color of law, it is illegal to teach or believe that document and its message of "Liberty Under God."

If you insist on publicly promoting the message of the Declaration of Independence, or publicly acknowledging your belief in its message, you risk your reputation, your business, your home, your career, and maybe even your life. Or as the Signers of the Declaration of Independence put it, "our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor."

America is an atheistic dictatorship.

Guilty of Believing or Promoting Liberty

If you believe the idea of Liberty in the Declaration of Independence, you can be denied admission to the Bar and the right to practice law. This is the lesson of The Quest of George Anastaplo. Anastaplo put individual liberty ahead of the State, and it cost him his career.

Raphael Konigsberg is another law student who, fully qualified to become a licensed attorney, was denied admission to the Bar. He wrote an editorial stating,

"Loyalty to America, in my opinion, has always meant adherence to the basic principles of our Constitution and Declaration of Independence - not loyalty to any man or group of men. Loyalty to America means belief in and militant support of her noble ideals and the faith of her people. Loyalty to America today, therefore, must mean opposition to those who are betraying our country's traditions, who are squandering her manpower, her honor and her riches."

Obviously, the State Bar concluded, this man is unqualified to be an attorney.

Next time you get called for Jury Duty, tell the judge you believe in the Declaration of Independence and the right of the People to put their conscience ahead of the State. Tell the judge that if the Defendant is being charged with violating an unconstitutional law, you will vote as your conscience tells you to vote, not as the judge instructs the jury to vote. You will find yourself quickly "excused" from jury duty.

If you believe the government is created by the People, and the People have the right to abolish the government if it becomes destructive of their God-given rights, you can be denied American citizenship if you seek naturalization.

In his opinion in the case of American Communications Assn. v. Douds, Justice Robert Jackson, who never graduated from law school (never even graduated from college - he apprenticed in a Jamestown, NY law office and then passed the bar exam), wrote:

The men who led the struggle forcibly to overthrow lawfully constituted British authority found moral support by asserting a natural law under which their revolution was justified, and they broadly proclaimed these beliefs in the document basic to our freedom. Such sentiments have also been given ardent and rather extravagant [p440] expression by Americans of undoubted patriotism.

A surprising catalogue of statements could be compiled. The following are selected from Mencken, A New Dictionary of Quotations, under the rubric "Revolution":

Whenever any government becomes destructive of these ends [life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness], it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundations on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.
Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776.

The community hath an indubitable, inalienable, and indefeasible right to reform, alter or abolish government, in such manner as shall be by that community judged most conducive to the public weal.
The Pennsylvania Declaration of Rights, 1776.

It is an observation of one of the profoundest inquirers into human affairs that a revolution of government is the strongest proof that can be given by a people of their virtue and good sense.
John Adams, Diary, 1786.

What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms.
Thomas Jefferson, Letter to W. S. Smith, Nov. 13, 1787.

"An oppressed people are authorized whenever they can to rise and break their fetters."
Henry Clay, Speech in the House of Representatives, March 4, 1818.

Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government and form a new one that suits them better.
Abraham Lincoln, Speech in the House of Representatives, 1848.

All men recognize the right of revolution: that is, the right to refuse allegiance to, and to resist, the government when its tyranny or its inefficiency are great and unendurable.
H. D. Thoreau, An Essay on Civil Disobedience, 1849.

This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it.
Abraham Lincoln, Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861.

Whenever the ends of government are perverted, and public liberty manifestly endangered, and all other means of redress are ineffectual, the people may, and of a right ought to, reform the old or establish a new government; the doctrine of nonresistance against arbitrary power and oppression is absurd, slavish and destructive of the good and happiness of mankind.
Declaration of Rights of Maryland, 1867.

The right of revolution is an inherent one. When people are oppressed by their government, it is a natural right they enjoy to relieve themselves of the oppression, if they are strong enough, either by withdrawal from it or by overthrowing it and substituting a government more acceptable.
U.S. Grant, Personal Memoirs, I, 1885.

Quotations of similar statements could be multiplied indefinitely. Of course, these quotations are out of their context and out of their times. And despite their abstract theories about revolt, it should also be noted that Adams, Jefferson, Lincoln and Grant were uncompromising in putting down any show of rebellion toward the Government they headed.

The revolutionary origin of our own Government has inclined Americans to value revolution as a means to liberty and loosely to think that all revolutionists are liberals. The fact is, however, that violent revolutions are rare which do more in the long run than to overthrow one tyranny to make way for another. The cycle from revolt to reaction has taken less than a score of bloody years in the great revolutions. The Puritan Commonwealth under Cromwell led but to the Restoration; the French by revolution escaped from the reign of Louis XVI to the dictatorship of Napoleon; the Russians overthrew the Czar and won the dictatorship of Lenin and Stalin; the Germans deposed the Kaiser and fell victims of a dictatorship by Hitler. I am convinced that force and violence do not serve the cause of liberty as well as nonviolence. See Fischer, Gandhi and Stalin, passim.

Justice Jackson is correct. Violent Revolution never works. But our opposition to violent revolution should be more than pragmatic; it should be a moral opposition to all violence, on the part of revolutionaries as well as the violence of the State. Anyone prayerfully contemplating the teachings of the Bible must conclude that the State is evil, and we must submit to it non-violently.

If the Declaration of Independence adds to this indictment of the State the right of individual revolution, it proves that the People are sovereign over the State. The mere belief in Liberty and individual sovereignty, even when combined with a firm repudiation of violent revolution, makes one an enemy of the modern State.

Guilty of Believing in A Nation Under God

It is illegal to teach students in a public school that the Declaration of Independence is really true when it says America is a nation "under God."

• that the existence of God is a "self-evident truth"
• that our rights are the product of intelligent design (not the government)
• that all Americans are duty-bound to conform their lives to "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God"
• that our actions must one day pass judgment with "the Supreme Judge of the world"
• that conforming our lives to the laws of Nature and of Nature's God should give Americans "a firm reliance on the Protection of Divine Providence."

The Federal Government says that teachers in government-operated schools paid for by your property taxes cannot "endorse" or "promote" these ideas.

And we wonder why the more government-education a person has, the more likely he is to be illiterate, anti-social, peer-dependent, easily-misled, and amoral. America's Founding Fathers would see government-run education as perhaps the greatest threat to the Republic they created. Government schools are certainly the greatest threat to the idea of "Liberty Under God."

Many Americans still think they are free, but that's only because they are unwilling to risk their career, their liberty, or their social standing. They keep quiet.

To such quiet, risk-averse people, Samuel Adams said:

Contemplate the mangled bodies of your countrymen, and then say, What should be the reward of such sacrifices? Bid us and our posterity bow the knee, supplicate the friendship, and plow, and sow, and reap, to glut the avarice of the men who have let loose on us the dogs of war to riot in our blood and hunt us from the face of the earth? If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquillity of servitude than the animating contest of freedom--go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen!

Why Congressional Elections Matter

The web is buzzing about an article by Charley Reese on "The 545 People Responsible For All of U.S. Woes," as a Google search reveals. Reese's article was actually written 25 years ago, back when Tip O'Neill was Speaker of the House, but today's readers think he's talking about Nancy Pelosi. Some things never change. (Here's a photocopy of the original article.)

The mainstream media focus on the office of the President and the "real" campaign of Obama vs. McCain, but the Constitution gives Congress more power than the President.

Many of the more politically savvy voters think the choice of President is important because of the opportunity he will have to nominate Supreme Court Justices in the coming years. But the Constitution gives the Legislative Branch more power than the Judicial Branch, and regardless of who wears the robes, Congress can reign in the Courts. All of the problems blamed on the Courts (e.g., abortion, banning The Ten Commandments and prayer in schools, imposing same-sex marriage, etc.) can be overcome by Congress, according to the Constitution.

Here is the most recent version of Reese's article making the rounds, with references to Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neill changed to reflect the gender of the current Speaker, and a reference to Iraq added:

THE 545 PEOPLE RESPONSIBLE FOR ALL OF AMERICA'S WOES

BY CHARLEY REESE

Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.

Have you ever wondered why, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits?

Have you ever wondered why, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes?

You and I don't propose a federal budget. The president does.

You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does.

You and I don't write the tax code, Congress does.

You and I don't set fiscal policy, Congress does.

You and I don't control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does.

One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president, and nine Supreme Court justices 545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.

I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank.

I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a president to do one cotton-picking thing. I don't care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator's responsibility to determine how he votes.

Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.

What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits. The president can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it.

The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes. Who is the speaker of the House? She is the leader of the majority party. She and fellow House members, not the president, can approve any budget they want. If the president vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to.

It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million can not replace 545 people who stand convicted -- by present facts -- of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can't think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.

If the tax code is unfair, it's because they want it unfair.

If the budget is in the red, it's because they want it in the red.

If the Army & Marines are in IRAQ , it's because they want them in IRAQ.

If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it's because they want it that way. There are no insoluble government problems.

Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power. Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like 'the economy,' 'inflation,' or 'politics' that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.

Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible.

They, and they alone, have the power.

They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees.

We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess!

The "Two Americas"

From the Heritage Foundation, Two Americas: One Rich, One Poor? Understanding Income Inequality in the United States, August 24, 2004

Class warfare has always been a mainstay of liberal politics. Politicians frequently depict the United States as a nation starkly divided between the rich and poor. For example, vice presidential candidate John Edwards decries "two Americas...one privileged, the other burdened...one America that does the work, another that reaps the reward. One America that pays the taxes, another America that gets the tax breaks."

The Census income distribution figures are the foundation of most class-warfare rhetoric. On the surface, these figures show a high level of inequality: The top fifth of households have $14.30 of income for every $1.00 at the bottom.

However, these figures are flawed by the exclusion of taxes and social safety net spending and by the fact that the "fifths" do not contain equal numbers of people. Adjustment for these factors radically alters the picture of income distribution: The top fifth of the population has $4.21 of income for every $1.00 at the bottom.

The remaining inequality in society is heavily influenced by the lack of work at the bottom. If working-age adults in the lower quintiles worked as much as their higher-income counterparts, the income disparity of the top to the bottom quintiles would fall to $2.91 to $1.00.

Still, the top fifth of U.S. households (with incomes above $84,000) remain perennial targets of class-warfare enmity. These families, however, perform a third of all labor in the economy. They contain the best educated and most productive workers, and they provide a disproportionate share of the investment needed to create jobs and spur economic growth. Nearly all are married-couple families, many with two or more earners. Far from shirking the tax burden, these families pay 82.5 percent of total federal income taxes and two-thirds of federal taxes overall. By contrast, the bottom quintile pays 1.1 percent of total federal taxes.

In one sense, John Edwards is correct: There is one America that works a lot and pays a lot in taxes, and there is another America that works less and pays little. However, the reality is the opposite of what Edwards suggests. It is the higher-income families who work a lot and pay nearly all the taxes. Raising taxes even higher on hard-working families would be unfair and, by reducing future investments, would reduce economic growth, harming all Americans in the long run.

Walter Block on Religion and Libertarianism

I just read Religion and Libertarianism by one of my favorite writers, Walter Block. Block is an atheist, but not against religion, something that can't be said about many atheistic libertarians. Prof. Block teaches economics at Loyola University, a Jesuit institution. The LewRockwell.com webpage bills Dr. Block's essay as: "Ayn Rand Was Wrong on religion and liberty, says Walter Block."

Even though I might be called a "fundamentalist" because I'm a Bible-believing Christian, there's a sense in which I'm against "religion." Dr. Block draws the contrast between the State on the one hand, and religion and the family on the other, noting that the State is often the enemy of religion and the family. I agree: the State wants a monopoly on community, and the family and the church are rival sources of community, rival objects of allegiance.

But so is the mafia, and I'm no defender of the mafia.

It's one thing to try to defend the institutional Church against the libertarian criticisms of Ayn Rand. Defending the Christian Faith against Rand's atheism is a completely different assignment. I would happily draw the connections between Christianity and Liberty, but I would dread having to draw the connections between the Church and Liberty ("Church" here not being limited to the Roman Catholic Church, but encompassing "the institutional church").

If I had been assigned the task of writing Dr. Block's article, I would have entitled it "Faith and Libertarianism." The Christian Faith is against archism, but the Church is archist. The Church is not the Faith, even if it claims in some sense to be the protector of the Faith. "Religion" is often defined as loyalty to the Church (though I admit that the Bible doesn't always use the word this way; see the magnificent use of the word in James 1:27).

Faith is not just belief; the Christian Faith is a lifestyle; it is community arrayed against archism.

The Christian Church has not always been the enemy of the State, but the Christian Faith will always be.

Guns in Churches

Doug Newman has quoted an article from Friday’s Denver Rocky Mountain News. The headline reads, “More Churchgoers Carrying Firearms.” The opening paragraph reads:

“Ever since a gunman went on a deadly shooting rampage at a missionary training center in Arvada and a Colorado Springs megachurch, law enforcement and security officials are encountering what they believe is a growing dilemma - people packing firearms when they go to worship.”

Most readers won't notice that this sentence is logically incomplete.

What is the "dilemma" here? According to Wikipedia,

A dilemma (Greek δί-λημμα "double proposition") is a problem offering at least two solutions or possibilities, of which none are practically acceptable; one in this position has been traditionally described as being impaled "on the horns of a dilemma," neither horn being comfortable.

How is a law enforcement officer faced with a "dilemma" when his prior failure to protect church-goers from mass-murderers results in church-goers taking steps to protect themselves?

If my employer ordered me to break into a competitor's office and steal corporate secrets, I would "encounter a dilemma": should I commit a crime or should I lose my job?

If I follow my boss' orders, I'll be a criminal. If I don't follow my boss' orders, I'll be fired.

That's a "dilemma."

What is the "growing dilemma" that Colorado law enforcement officers are encountering?

This is all I can think of: "Should I violate the Constitution or should I lose my job?" Law enforcement officers must be thinking about taking away arms from church-goers. Otherwise, there's no "dilemma." (Of course, we could be needlessly dissecting the routinely-misused words of an ordinary secular journalist who is a victim and a supporter of government dumbing-down and educational malpractice.)

Law enforcement officers take an oath to support and defend the Constitution, including the Constitution's Second Amendment, which says,

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

This Amendment, in the context of the Declaration of Independence, was not designed to protect the right of church-goers to defend themselves against murderers. The Amendment was demanded as a condition of ratification to protect the right of church-goers to abolish the U.S. government if it became a tyranny. The Second Amendment was not designed for hunters, antique gun collectors, or even for personal self-defense against private-sector criminals. The Second Amendment was designed to protect the colonists' right to armed revolution against the State.

I don't believe in this or similar "constitutional rights." The Bible clearly teaches that we have a duty to submit to tyrants.

Matthew 5 (“Resist not evil” “Turn the other cheek” “go the second mile”)
Romans 12-13 (“Do not avenge yourselves – Vengeance is Mine”)
1 Peter 2 (“Submit to every human statute – follow His steps”)

The Bible says we are to pay the taxes demanded of us by the Red Coats (Romans 13:1-7).

For these reasons I believe the American War for Independence was unChristian.

The purpose of schools in the colonial era was to teach "religion, morality, and knowledge." See footnote 9 of Justice Douglas' concurring opinion in Engel v. Vitale, 370 US 421 at 443, the case which removed voluntary prayer from public schools. He admitted:

Religion was once deemed to be a function of the public school system. The Northwest Ordinance, which antedated the First Amendment, provided in Article III that
"Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged."

It is "unconstitutional" in our day for a public school teacher in Colorado to warn a future mass-murderer that God says "thou shalt not kill."

[W]e have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. . . . Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
John Adams, The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States, Charles Francis Adams, editor (Boston: Little, Brown, and Co. 1854), Vol. IX, p. 229, October 11, 1798.

If the government cannot contend with morally unbridled mass-murderers, neither can armed church-goers. The answer to crime is not a relaxation of conceal-and-carry laws (though they should be relaxed). We will never be safe from crime (or to use the words of the Declaration of Independence, we can never have a "firm reliance on the Protection of Divine Providence") as long as religion and morality and the Declaration of Independence are all banned from public school classrooms.

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Why I am a "pacifist."

Doug Newman quotes Luke 22:36 in support of lethal force by Christians. Why he's mistaken, along with many others.

No Change, No Matter What

Part of Al Gore's announcement of his endorsement of Barack Obama is Gore's statement that

Over the next four years, we are going to face many difficult challenges -- including
• bringing our troops home from Iraq,
• fixing our economy, and
• solving the climate crisis.
Barack Obama is clearly the candidate best able to solve these problems and bring change to America.

"Change?"

What change?

No Change in Iraq

There will be no change in the "war on terrorism." McCain And Obama Are No Different On Iraq, neither will remove U.S. permanent bases in Iraq, and there will be no change from the interventionist, global hegemony-seeking foreign policy of the Bush-Clinton regime. There is every reason to believe that Obama will intervene to expand "democracy" into Africa.

Zbigniew Brzezinski was the foreign policy adviser for John McCain's presidential campaign in 1999-2000. Brzezinski is one of the most instrumental members of the Council on Foreign Relations and a founding member of the Trilateral Commission. Now Brzezinski is Obama's Adviser. Nothing has changed, nothing will change.

Brzezinski’s unconvincing antiwar posturing

In his 1979 memoir, With No Apologies, Senator Barry Goldwater noted:

When a new President comes on board, there is a great turnover in personnel but no change in policy. Example: During the Nixon years Henry Kissinger, CFR member and Nelson Rockefeller’s protégé, was in charge of foreign policy. When Jimmy Carter was elected, Kissinger was replaced by Zbigniew Brzezinski, CFR member and David Rockefeller’s protégé.

No Change in the Economy

Ron Paul would have brought real change to the economy, by ending the government's Inflation Tax and The Debt Bubble that has already dragged us into a recession, and will eventually lead to an even Greater Depression. This change would come about by abolishing the unconstitutional Federal Reserve.

Both Obama's advisors and McCain's advisors are Keynesians, followers of John Maynard Keynes, who said the government can bring prosperity by manipulating a nation's currency and credit and redistributing a nation's wealth from the People to the government. President Richard Nixon was one of the first in Washington D.C. to admit the decades-old fact that "We are all Keynesians now." President Obama and/or President McCain will carry on Richard Nixon's Keynesian legacy. There will be no change: that you can believe in.

No Change in Climate

Both Obama and McCain believe the mythology of global warming, and even if their plans are completely implemented, and we only drive our cars every third day and only use our refrigerators and air conditioners on the weekends, and a hundred million Americans lose their jobs, and a billion people around the world are permanently consigned to bitter poverty, and another billion of earth's human beings die outright, global temperature will only be affected by decimal fractions of one degree. It's All Cost, No Benefit, and no change: that you can believe in.

Neither Obama nor McCain are "able to solve these problems." The federal government can only cause problems. Every dollar the government confiscates, whether directly or through the inflation tax, distorts the Free Market, and moves us further from the solution. The only way things will change is if we understand that government is not the Messiah, Washington D.C. is not our Savior, and that politicians are the problem, not the solution.

From time to time we've been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule, that government by an elite group is superior to government for, by, and of the people. Well, if no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else?
In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.

-- President Ronald Reagan, First Inaugural Address

Gore Endorses Obama

The Democratic National Committee is carrying this announcement from Al Gore:

Tonight, I will step on stage in Detroit, Michigan to announce my support for Senator Barack Obama. From now through Election Day, I intend to do whatever I can to make sure he is elected President of the United States.

http://my.BarackObama.com/GoreVideo

This is obviously a clever ploy in Gore's long-term strategy to gain the nomination in a brokered convention, as I infallibly predicted last year.

Bill O'Reilly: Fascist

When it comes to gas prices, Fox News icon Bill O'Reilly is a fascist.

I can agree with maybe a majority of things O'Reilly says, and that doesn't make me a fascist, and when Adolph Hitler was painting a still life, he was not in that act a fascist. But Bill O'Reilly is a fascist when it comes to gas prices, and this is seen in his latest column for Human Events entitled "Oil and Trouble." He begins,

This week, Republican senators blocked a Democrat-sponsored bill that would have imposed a "windfall profits" tax on the five major oil companies. Since these companies made about $36 billion in profits in the first quarter alone, "windfall" may be understating it.

"Windfall" is defined by InvestorWords.com as:

Money received which was not expected and not a direct result of something the recipient did.

It's ridiculous to ignore all the human labor involved in exploration, drilling, shipping and refining billions of barrels of oil a day, humans whose paychecks have to be cut before a single dollar in profit is received from a gas pump, and the cost of billions of dollars invested out of profits into drilling, shipping, and refining infrastructure to provide oil products in the future.

Calling oil profits "windfall" profits is immoral.

O'Reilly continues:

The GOP says the bill would not have lowered gas prices as any tax punishment would be passed along to gasoline consumers. But let me break this to the Republicans gently: Folks are angry with the oil companies. Unless you guys can help bring some relief to beleaguered American working people, the Democrats will wipe you out.

"Folks are angry with the oil companies." And Bill O'Reilly is whipping up this anger. Read my paragraph above about why oil company profits are not "windfall" profits. Why is it folks are not grateful to the oil companies for all they do? This question of character, virtue and morality is possibly one of the most important issues facing our nation. The politics of both Democrats and Republicans, fed by demagogues like O'Reilly, is rooted in envy rather than Godly character.

And O'Reilly panders to and feeds this ignorant anger.

Oil Prices, when adjusted for inflation, are not much higher today than they were 20 years ago. Most price spikes have been caused by U.S. military actions in the middle east.

Americans have been trained to blame corporations for "higher prices," when the real culprit in the long run is the declining value of "federal reserve notes." If Washington bureaucrats were following the Constitution (like they took an oath to do), then only gold and silver would be legal tender in this country, and gas prices would not be much higher than they were decades ago. The U.S. Constitution prohibits paper money, or the emitting of "bills of credit." (Art. 1, § 10, ¶ 1) That provision of the Constitution reads:

No State shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation; grant letters of marque and reprisal; coin money; emit bills of credit; make any thing but gold and silver a legal tender in payment of debts; pass any bill of attainder, ex-post-facto law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts; or grant any title of nobility." ...

In Federalist Paper No. 44, possibly the most authoritative source for constitutional interpretation, Madison explained the provision:

The extension of the prohibition to bills of credit must give pleasure to every citizen, in proportion to his love of justice and his knowledge of the true springs of public prosperity. The loss which America has sustained since the peace, from the pestilent effects of paper money on the necessary confidence between man and man, on the necessary confidence in the public councils, on the industry and morals of the people, and on the character of republican government, constitutes an enormous debt against the States chargeable with this unadvised measure, which must long remain unsatisfied; or rather an accumulation of guilt, which can be expiated no otherwise than by a voluntary sacrifice on the altar of justice, of the power which has been the instrument of it. ... No one of these mischiefs is less incident to a power in the States to emit paper money, than to coin gold or silver. The power to make any thing but gold and silver a tender in payment of debts, is withdrawn from the States, on the same principle with that of issuing a paper currency.

Paper money is immoral. Washington D.C. is the greatest source of immorality and ignorance in our country, if not the world. As a result, the average American citizen today lacks a "love of justice and [a] knowledge of the true springs of public prosperity."

Here's what passes for economic analysis from the mainstream media:

The oil apologists say it's a "supply and demand" thing. Sure. Here's a bulletin: When you limit the supply, as OPEC is doing, the demand will skyrocket. Yeah, China and India are using more oil. Yeah, the U.S. dollar is weak. But in most competitive businesses, if your customers want more product -- you put out more product. Not in oil. OPEC keeps production down to maximize profits.

Economics bores readers, but ignorance costs more at the pump. Even the most basic law of economics -- the law of supply and demand -- isn't understood by the leaders of America (Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, et al). O'Reilly says if you limit supply, demand will skyrocket. Suppose my business annually produces one thousand Drivers Test Manuals in braille, and (surprisingly) one hundred are actually purchased. If I limit the supply to one hundred produced each year, will the demand for braille driving manuals "skyrocket" as a result?

What O'Reilly presumably meant was that if you reduce the supply produced while consumer demand stays the same, the price will skyrocket.

O'Reilly ignores all this: "Yeah, yeah," he says.

Then O'Reilly compounds the confusion by bringing in the issue of profit, claiming that OPEC keeps production down to maximize profits. This is a fallacy.

When automobiles were first manufactured, only a few were produced, and only the rich could afford them because the price of the first few cars was very high. Henry Ford changed all that with his process of mass production, which increased the supply of cars, lowered the price (making cars available to the middle class), and made Ford a billionaire. On O'Reilly's theory, Ford would have made more profit and become richer by only making few cars for the rich instead of millions of cars for a million times more people. Who was right, Ford or O'Reilly?

Now, based on this middle-school level understanding of economics, O'Reilly goes on to make public policy proposals that would have made Hitler proud:

Congress must mandate by law that American car and truck manufacturers begin to produce a high percentage of flex-fuel vehicles. Once that law is passed, gas stations will begin installing alcohol-based fuel pumps. Congress must also drop import tariffs on alcohol-based fuel so countries like Brazil can sell them to us.

I'm all for dropping tariffs. Let consumers decide what kind of gas they want to buy, not Congress. But it's precisely because I believe in choice that I'm astounded at the pure fascism proposed by O'Reilly. Congress should tell Americans like Henry Ford what kind of cars they can make? The schoolboy dream that begins, "I want to grow up to be . . ." is interrupted by "whatever Congress tells you to be"?? This is utterly astounding. Fascism is actually a form of slavery -- indentured servitude.


O'Reilly wants every car to be a Volkswagen, which literally means, "The People's Car." The government will tell your business what kind of car to make, and the government will tell you what kind of car you can buy. Welcome to the land of the "free" and the home of the envious.

Ultimately, liberty depends on morality. Liberty depends on gratitude. Covetousness and envy cloud out gratitude, and send us howling to Washington for "the government" to be our Savior.

Impeach Bush

On June 9, 2008, on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) introduced 35 articles of impeachment against President George W. Bush. These articles describe a wide variety of actions George W. Bush has taken as president in violation of the law and the Constitution.

The next step is for the House to refer the articles to the House Judiciary Committee. The Judiciary Committee will then determine -- by majority vote -- whether the grounds for impeachment exist. An objective review of the articles would undoubtedly demonstrate that many, if not most, of the articles prepared by Rep. Kucinich are backed up by sufficient grounds to proceed with the impeachment process.

Now is the time to let your U.S. representative know that you strongly support impeachment hearings before the House Judiciary Committee and further proceedings on the House floor. Please take a moment to let your U.S. representative know that you support the impeachment of George W. Bush by using the following link:

http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/2165/t/1027/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=24900

The founders of our country feared more than anything else the prospect of an executive who put his own power and desires above the Constitution. Congress was given the power of impeachment so that it could remove any president who committed the high crime of violating the Constitution during his term in office.

A strong case can be made that no president in the history of this country is more deserving of impeachment than George W. Bush. If he is not impeached, the bar for impeachment will have been raised so high that it might as well no longer exist. Future presidents will know that they can violate the Constitution at will, confident in the fact that Congress does not have the courage as an institution to do anything about it.

We cannot allow this to happen. Please send an E-mail to your representative today urging immediate action on the impeachment of George W. Bush.

http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/2165/t/1027/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=24900

Thank you for standing up for your country and the Constitution.

====================

Here are the 35 articles of impeachment introduced by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) on June 9, 2008. If you're a Republican, imagine the following being done by Bill Clinton in Bosnia or Barack Obama in ???:

Article I
Creating a Secret Propaganda Campaign to Manufacture a False Case for War Against Iraq.

Article II
Falsely, Systematically, and with Criminal Intent Conflating the Attacks of September 11, 2001, With Misrepresentation of Iraq as a Security Threat as Part of Fraudulent Justification for a War of Aggression.

Article III
Misleading the American People and Members of Congress to Believe Iraq Possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction, to Manufacture a False Case for War.

Article IV
Misleading the American People and Members of Congress to Believe Iraq Posed an Imminent Threat to the United States.

Article V
Illegally Misspending Funds to Secretly Begin a War of Aggression.

Article VI
Invading Iraq in Violation of the Requirements of HJRes114.

Article VII
Invading Iraq Absent a Declaration of War.

Article VIII
Invading Iraq, A Sovereign Nation, in Violation of the UN Charter.

Article IX
Failing to Provide Troops With Body Armor and Vehicle Armor

Article X
Falsifying Accounts of US Troop Deaths and Injuries for Political Purposes

Article XI
Establishment of Permanent U.S. Military Bases in Iraq

Article XII
Initiating a War Against Iraq for Control of That Nation's Natural Resources

Article XIIII
Creating a Secret Task Force to Develop Energy and Military Policies With Respect to Iraq and Other Countries

Article XIV
Misprision of a Felony, Misuse and Exposure of Classified Information And Obstruction of Justice in the Matter of Valerie Plame Wilson, Clandestine Agent of the Central Intelligence Agency

Article XV
Providing Immunity from Prosecution for Criminal Contractors in Iraq

Article XVI
Reckless Misspending and Waste of U.S. Tax Dollars in Connection With Iraq and US Contractors

Article XVII
Illegal Detention: Detaining Indefinitely And Without Charge Persons Both U.S. Citizens and Foreign Captives

Article XVIII
Torture: Secretly Authorizing, and Encouraging the Use of Torture Against Captives in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Other Places, as a Matter of Official Policy

Article XIX
Rendition: Kidnapping People and Taking Them Against Their Will to "Black Sites" Located in Other Nations, Including Nations Known to Practice Torture

Article XX
Imprisoning Children [and torturing them]

Article XXI
Misleading Congress and the American People About Threats from Iran, and Supporting Terrorist Organizations Within Iran, With the Goal of Overthrowing the Iranian Government

Article XXII
Creating Secret Laws

Article XXIII
Violation of the Posse Comitatus Act

Article XXIV
Spying on American Citizens, Without a Court-Ordered Warrant, in Violation of the Law and the Fourth Amendment

Article XXV
Directing Telecommunications Companies to Create an Illegal and Unconstitutional Database of the Private Telephone Numbers and Emails of American Citizens

Article XXVI
Announcing the Intent to Violate Laws with Signing Statements

Article XXVII
Failing to Comply with Congressional Subpoenas and Instructing Former Employees Not to Comply

Article XXVIII
Tampering with Free and Fair Elections, Corruption of the Administration of Justice

Article XXIX
Conspiracy to Violate the Voting Rights Act of 1965

Article XXX
Misleading Congress and the American People in an Attempt to Destroy Medicare [wrong: should be impeached for expanding medicare]

Article XXXI
Katrina: Failure to Plan for the Predicted Disaster of Hurricane Katrina, Failure to Respond to a Civil Emergency [wrong: the federal government has no constitutional authority to intervene in Louisiana's problems. All attempts to do so are impeachable offenses.]

Article XXXII
Misleading Congress and the American People, Systematically Undermining Efforts to Address Global Climate Change [wrong: all attempts by the federal government to address this "problem" are outside of constitutionally enumerated powers.]

Article XXXIII
Repeatedly Ignored and Failed to Respond to High Level Intelligence Warnings of Planned Terrorist Attacks in the US, Prior to 911.

Article XXXIV
Obstruction of the Investigation into the Attacks of September 11, 2001

Article XXXV
Endangering the Health of 911 First Responders

-----=====******O******=====-----

I wish I had time to provide links on all the charges. It's 2am and I had a colonoscopy today (now yesterday).

The Audacity of Liberty

Now don’t get me wrong. The people I meet — in small towns and big cities, in diners and office parks — they don’t expect government to solve all their problems. They know they have to work hard to get ahead — and they want to.

Go into the collar counties around Chicago, and people will tell you they don’t want their tax money wasted by a welfare agency or by the Pentagon.

Go into any inner city neighborhood, and folks will tell you that government alone can’t teach our kids to learn — they know that parents have to teach, that children can’t achieve unless we raise their expectations and turn off the television sets and eradicate the slander that says a black youth with a book is acting white. They know those things.

People don’t expect government to solve all their problems. But they sense, deep in their bones, that with just a slight change in priorities, we can make sure that every child in America has a decent shot at life, and that the doors of opportunity remain open to all.

They know we can do better. And they want that choice.

In the end, that’s what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or do we participate in a politics of hope?

John Kerry calls on us to hope. John Edwards calls on us to hope.

Hope in the face of difficulty. Hope in the face of uncertainty. The audacity of hope! In the end, that is God’s greatest gift to us, the bedrock of this nation. A belief in things not seen. A belief that there are better days ahead.
Barack Obama -- 2004 Democratic National Convention Keynote Address

The rhetoric is almost libertarian, but it's betrayed by one line. "Just a slight change in priorities," he says.

That's the only "change he can believe in."

But a government that's taking two-thirds of everything you make, and imposing regulations on every area of life and thought, is not a government that needs a "slight change in priorities."

America's Founding Fathers would see the need for revolutionary change, in order to re-capture the hope of "Liberty Under God."

Who "sent" Obama?

D-Day: June 6, 1944

Today is the anniversary of "D-Day," the Normandy Invasion.

The anniversary is receiving nowhere near as much coverage as it did four years ago, which might be expected, and very little coverage from conservative commentators. Most of the coverage is biographical: personal stories from the individual soldiers who were there, and from those who are still alive.

Perhaps the lack of coverage stems from the ongoing killing in Iraq, which creates in many observers a feeling that wars never solve anything.

Some readers may be familiar with the Normandy invasion depicted in the opening scenes of Saving Private Ryan,

where young American men are cut down like so many cattle in their landing crafts by machine-gun fire. Where men run around with their severed arms in their hands, men are shot in the head as they take off their helmets to marvel at near misses, men drown from the weight of their equipment, and men are burned alive as their flamethrowers are hit with machine-gun and rifle fire.

And yet some American citizens, politicians, and pundits – in their zeal to "make the world a better place" by any means possible, and in their desire to get their way right now – are eager to destroy the homes, lives, and property of people living thousands of miles away, as well as the lives of an "acceptable" number of American pawns.
David Dieteman, "Warmongering Defined"

If we go back to the days when the U.S. Constitution was signed, and compare western civilization in general, and American government in particular, with what Europe is like today, it doesn't seem like World War II preserved anything good, or prevented anything bad. The days of small government and Christian character have been replaced with omnipotent government and atheism/multiculturalism.

Pat Buchanan asks, "Was It 'The Good War'?" His recently-published book Churchill, Hitler, and The Unnecessary War: How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World, questions the necessity of WWII and the thousands slaughtered on the Omaha beaches: the Allied forces lost 46,000, with 173,000 wounded and missing.

John Lukacs in his monograph, June 1941: Hitler and Stalin, reports that "the best military experts throughout the world predicted the defeat of the Soviet Union within a few weeks, or within two months at the most" following Hitler’s invasion of Russia on June 22, 1941.
Paul Craig Roberts, "Anglo-American Ascendancy Lost in Unnecessary Wars"

Could it be that Roosevelt believed these "experts," and committed the U.S. to help defeat Germany so that Roosevelt's buddy "Uncle Joe" Stalin could continue building Russia's New Deal?

Who Won World War II?

Paul Craig Roberts says,

The Normandy invasion in June 1944 played little, if any, role in Germany’s defeat. By the end of 1942 Hitler had lost World War II at Stalingrad, long before any American troops appeared on the scene.

If this is true, then all the American deaths in the Normandy invasion were as necessary as the deaths in the Battle of Verdun, in World War I, in which

Germans and Frenchmen slaughtered each other relentlessly because their governments told them to. Germany "won" after losing 330,000 soldiers to France’s 350,000. It was all over a worthless piece of land, which, by the end of the battle, was littered with corpses and with about 1,000 rifle shells per square meter. Neither side gained any true strategic victory from the battle.
Anthony Gregory, "Forgetting Armistice Day"

Both World Wars could have ended in the spirit of Christmas, but war-profiteers refuse to learn the lesson of The Story of the World War I Christmas Truce. The real lesson is that there is no rational justification for not beating our swords into plowshares.

Iron Ink - Memorial Day -- The Honored Dead

Bush's invasion of Iraq in March 2003 bears an ominous parallel to Hitler's attack on Russia.

Adam Smith, 1723-1790

According to the Julian Calendar under which he was born, Adam Smith was born this day in 1723. His book, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, was published the same year as the Declaration of Independence, and his "Inquiry" was answered in a very Jeffersonian way: Nations become wealthy to the degree they are independent of the State and its regulations. Nations become wealthy to the degree they depend only on "the Invisible Hand" of providence to guide their economy.

One reason why Americans look to the State for salvation is because they are victims of educational malpractice, and have never learned how the economy works under Divine Providence, as the Declaration of Independence points out.

If the doctrine of Divine Providence were taught once again, Americans would be ready to denounce tyranny and abolish it. Read about it here:

http://www.AstonishingProvidence.com/invisiblehand.htm

30 Days to Independence Day

July 4th is now one month away. Americans will be shooting off fireworks, watching parades, listening to politicians politicians will be speaking, and everyone will be enjoying a summer holiday.

Back in 1776, Americans were dying. And killing.

If those Americans could travel through time to our day, they would undoubtedly be outraged that they had risked "our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor" only to see everything they fought for lost.

Most Americans today would be perplexed by that anger. We think we are free. We think we are prosperous.

On the other hand, today's political leaders tell us that we are in a "crisis," that we're all poor, that the rich are ripping us off, that our "rights" to free medical care, high-paying jobs, and low gas prices are being trampled by corporate-controlled government. These leaders are telling us we need stronger government, more government benefits, more government control.

Leaders in 1776 were telling us we needed to abolish the government. Thus far, I would agree with America's leaders in 1776, not those in 2008.

But America's leaders in 1776 were also telling us to take up arms. Patrick Henry, were he alive today, would say something like:

Is life so dear, or "Homeland Security" so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!

How small the number of Americans today who would really agree with those words.

I reject the call to arms, but I accept the call to defeat tyranny, slavery, and dependence.

Americans today do not believe any of the essential features of Independence Day. They do not believe that government tyranny is bad, and they do not believe in making sacrifices to preserve liberty (freedom from government).

The complete repudiation of Independence Day and everything colonial America stood for is, we are told, "Change We Can Believe In."


The repudiation of Independence Day is being advocated by both Democrats and Republicans. Both parties advocate complete dependence on government.

Abortion: No Hard Cases

The Denver Post is reporting a proposed Constitutional Amendment which would define unborn children as "persons" under the law.

Unborn Personhood on November Ballot - The Denver Post

DENVER, May 30, 2008/Covenant News Wire Service/
"For the first time in forty years of 'legalized' child killing, pro-lifers have moved an entire state to consider the God-given right to life of the unborn," said Brian Rohrbough, president of American RTL.

The Colorado Secretary of State's office validated 103,000 signatures on human life petitions, 27,000 more than required to force a statewide vote. If passed, the Colorado constitution would define 'person' as "any human being from the moment of fertilization."

"Abortion is wrong because it's a baby; it's always wrong to intentionally kill a baby," said Rohrbough, "even when its father is a criminal, as with incest."

American RTL has launched its Colorado personhood campaign with a rebuttal to the so-called 'hard cases' of abortion for incest.

"The abortion clinic covers up the crime of incest, and typically sends the victim back home to her rapist," the group's website states. "Even worse, they often send her home with her rapist, the criminal who brought her to the clinic."

"There are no 'hard cases,'" said Steve Curtis, the group's vice president and former chair of the Colorado Republican Party. "Abortion for incest
emboldens a criminal to rape his young relative, helps him escape being caught, tempts him to repeat his crime, and is not compassionate because it kills a baby and increases the woman's suffering."

Rohrbough added, "Personhood for the unborn helps people understand there are no hard cases when deciding to protect a baby; you don't kill the baby because her father is a criminal."

"Abortion clinics nationwide refuse to comply with mandatory reporting laws for suspected child rape," said Jo Scott, director of Pro-Life Colorado. "We
brought audio taped evidence provided by Life Dynamics of that failure to the Colorado attorney general's office, and they choose to look the other way; personhood for the unborn will reduce crimes against women and children."

"American RTL applauds the dozens of Colorado politicians and candidates who have publicly endorsed the personhood amendment," says AmericanRTL.org, "and urges all Christians, pro-life leaders and organizations to support personhood as the only foundation on which to reverse the de-criminalization of killing unborn children."

www.personhood2008.com