All That Is Necessary

Contraceptive Mandate Is Not The Real Issue

The big fight over the contraceptive mandate in obamacare is not the real issue.  The real issue is Obamacare itself.  To argue about the contraceptive mandate is to accept the premise of Obamacare in the first place.

I do not accept Obamacare so any argument over the details is a waste of time to me.

The individual mandate is simply unconstitutional.  If the government can FORCE you to buy healthcare simply because you are alive then there is nothing they cannot FORCE you to do.  It is no different than FORCING you to buy a Chevy Volt.  NO DIFFERENCE!

Supreme Court Obamacare Decision Should Be A No-Brainer

The lawsuit by 26 states against the Individual mandate is headed for the Supreme Court.  Should be a no-brainer, but it won't be.  We have at least four complete idiot liberals who will probably use international law or sharia law to determine that the mandate is totally OK.

If the majority finds that it is OK for the federal government to force people to buy something than we simply have no Constitution at all.  The state of the Constitution will go from comatose to dead.  This will be a huge decision.

My frame of mind right now is that I am waiting for two things; first, the result of the next election, and, second, the result of this Obamacare decision.  Taken together they will let me know if the USA still has a chance.  We'll see.

Do You Trust Our Government?

Simple question.  Do you trust our government? 

I do not trust our government.  Why? 

My distrust is based on 50+ years of actually living under our government, watching its actions, seeing the results of these actions, watching the character of the politicians, seeing the inexorable growth of its power and reach into every aspect of our lives, knowing that people do not become angels upon their election to office.  That's only a partial list of why.

Based upon the above, and just general knowledge of history, our government has done absolutely NOTHING to earn my trust.  In fact, they generally do the exact opposite.

If you do not trust the government then you must continually vote and do everything in your power to reduce the power of the central government.  That means NEVER voting for a democrat, liberal, socialist, RINO or ANY big government person.

Ask yourself - do you trust our government?

Government Handouts Life Blood For Most Americans

You've probably seen the report that:

Welfare State: Handouts Make Up One-Third of U.S. Wages

"Government payouts—including Social Security, Medicare and unemployment insurance—make up more than a third of total wages and salaries of the U.S. population, a record figure that will only increase if action isn’t taken before the majority of Baby Boomers enter retirement.

Even as the economy has recovered, social welfare benefits make up 35 percent of wages and salaries this year, up from 21 percent in 2000 and 10 percent in 1960, according to TrimTabs Investment Research using Bureau of Economic Analysis data."

Now, add in the number of people who work for the various governments and you get an additional 8-10%.  This excludes education and hospitals.  So, we're up to about 45% dependent on government income.  I'm sure if you add in teachers, contractors, etc., we are bumping up to, if not over, 50% of the income of Americans.

This is not a good things.  When most people get their income from government how do you think they will vote?  To cut government?  Nope.  Honestly, we may be past the point of no return in our ability to stop the gravy train before it heads off that proverbial cliff.

Government need to shrink drastically.  Like 75% drastically.  I know - never happen.

Obamacare & Waivers - Not For You, Peon

With Obamacare currently the law of the land you would think it will apply to everyone, right?

Ummmm.......no.

The list is now up to 729 companies, unions and other entities, plus 4 States, that have received "waivers" to big parts of the Obamacare plan.  We also know congress-critters aren't subject to these government health-care laws either.

The companies are the bigs ones, like McDonalds.  Lots of unions in there, too.  About 2.2 million workers at these companies and unions now have waivers.

Must be nice to be politically connected.  For the rest of us peons?  Tough luck!!  You'll eat this crap sandwich and like it!

Even those of you who are big government types, can you name one, just one, government-run program that has ever improved anything they have taken from the private market?

If Obamacare is not repealed our health-care system will no longer be the best in the world.  You WILL get less care, die earlier, and pay more for the privilege.

I like George Carlin's line about "clubs" like the ObamaCare Waiver Club":

It's a big club and you ain't in it!!!!!

Michelle Malkin as been doing a fantastic job tracking all this garbage.

The Ruling Elite vs. Us Little People, Once Again

This has been going on for months, I know, but have you seen all these big companies and Unions getting waivers from certain provisions of ObamaCare.

There is a current list at the Health & Human Services website.  It shows 222 companies and unions receiveing the waivers, as of this morning.

If ObamaCare is so damn good why do these companies and UNIONS(!) need waivers?  This just shows another example of the Ruling Class and their willing accomplices living under one set of rules and the rest of us living under an entirely different, and much more costly, set of rules.

This is one more straw on the law-abiding citizen's back.  At some point the the law-abiding citizen will decide he/she has had enough and stop being a law-abiding citizen.

Just How Much Freedom Are You WIlling To Give Up?

When you sit back and think about the last 50 or 100 years in the United States, I would like you to think about just how free you are compared to way back then.  To me it appears bit by bit we have ceded our freedoms to the various levels of government, but mostly to the federal government. 

Each time the federal government grabbed a little bit of freedom we were told it was due to some crisis, or for our own good.  Some of us complained a little but we had lives to lead so we shrugged and continued trying to provide for our families.  Besides, it was only a little bit of freedom, and the government said it was important.

Now, in the past few years, we have seen an enormous power grab by the federal government in ALL areas of our lives.  With the election of the ONE, with democrat house and senate, it was like all pretenses were withdrawn and the collectivists came out in force.  The ObamaCare bill was their high point.  (We all lost a lot of freedom with that monstrosity.)

With the latest election we showed as a people that enough of us didn't like this powergrab.  We will see what happens.

I have written many times that the government never voluntarily shrinks, it always grows.  We'll see if this time the republicans can do something right and shrink this monster.

 

Why I Say "All that Is Necessary"

OK.  From time to time I try and remind myself of why I write this small blog.  Here is the quote that underlies it all:

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."

Edmund Burke

What is my definition of evil?  At the moment there are a lot of things that are evil in this world, but the "evil of the moment" here in the USA is the growth of collectivism under Obama and the liberals in power throughout the country.  Why is this evil?  Well, collectivism, of which socialism is the start, believes in the "collective" rather than the individual.  The individual exists to serve the state and the state feels free to enact whatever laws are necessary to FORCE the individual to do so.  Freedom, liberty, personal responsibility do not exist under collectivism.  The individual is robbed of his natural rights.  This is evil.

Collectivism has been the normal status of civilization throughout history.  The Founding Fathers knew this and fought a bloody war to bring about a new type of country, based on the individual, with drastically limited government.  This was pretty much unknown in human history.  The result was the growth of the richest, most powerful nation this world has ever seen.

But the forces of collectivism never sleep.  Early in the 1900's collectivism began its slow march in the USA.  It made huge leaps under Roosevelt and Johnson.  But it is relentless.  Under Obama, with Pelosi and Reid, it is making another huge leap.

Each time it would advance and some people would would rise up and say "no!".  However, collectivism never gave up all it accomplished, so each decade saw us becoming more and more collectivist.  Now we are at the point where there may be no stopping it.

That is why good men and women can no longer "do nothing".  We must fight the forces of collectivism now.  We must not just stall it, we must turn it back and crush it.

For those thinking, what can I do?  For starters, stop being quiet about your belief in freedom, liberty and individualism.  There are more of us out there than you think.  And don't worry if you think it is not enough.  Edmund Burke has another quote about that:

"Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little."

My blog may be little, but maybe, just maybe, someone might read something I write and join the fight.

Fight the evil.  You saw what we could do at the election just a few weeks ago.  That is only a start.  Get involved, stay involved.

General Welfare Clause

It is once again time to visit the "general welfare" clause and what was intended by the Founding Fathers.  Here goes:

The general welfare clause in the Constitution (Section 8, Article I).  This is the clause used by Congress to justify all their spending:

"The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States"

I have mentioned repeatedly that most spending by the U.S. government is unconstitutional.  The general welfare argument is important in this matter.  Liberals use it to justify all their spending, claiming it is constitutional.  So, I thought I would see what some of the Founding Fathers said.  Take a few minutes to read them so you will be armed when you liberal friends bring it up.

"Thomas Jefferson explained in a letter to Albert Gallatin, “Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated.”

"[Congressional jurisdiction of power] is limited to certain enumerated objects, which concern all the members of the republic, but which are not to be attained by the separate provisions of any." - James Madison, Federalist 14

"The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined . . . to be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce." - James Madison, Federalist 45

"If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one, subject to particular exceptions." - James Madison, 1792

“The Constitution allows only the means which are ‘necessary,’ not those which are merely ‘convenient,’ for effecting the enumerated powers. If such a latitude of construction be allowed to this phrase as to give any non-enumerated power, it will go to every one, for there is not one which ingenuity may not torture into a convenience in some instance or other, to some one of so long a list of enumerated powers. It would swallow up all the delegated powers, and reduce the whole to one power, as before observed" - Thomas Jefferson, 1791

"Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated." - Thomas Jefferson, 1798

"This specification of particulars [the 18 enumerated powers of Article I, Section 8] evidently excludes all pretension to a general legislative authority, because an affirmative grant of special powers would be absurd as well as useless if a general authority was intended." - Alexander Hamilton, Federalist 83

"Hamilton uncategorically states that all congressional powers are enumerated and that the very existence of these enumerations alone makes any belief that Congress has full and general legislative power to act as it desires nonsensical. If such broad congressional power had been the original intent, the constitutionally specified powers would have been worthless.  In other words, why even enumerate any powers at all if the General Welfare clause could trump them?"

I like the section in bold, "why even enumerate any powers at all if the General Welfare clause could trump them?".  This one idea gives a huge amount of strength to the notion that the general welfare clause is NOT to be used for everything under the sun.

This would lead me to believe that the vast majority of what the U.S. government does is unconstitutional.  But, then again, I am just one of the simpletons held in disdain by our Ruling Class. 

Ruling Class/Country Class

You must go to the link below and read the article by Angelo M. Codevilla.  It is:

America's Ruling Class -- And the Perils of Revolution

This article is long and worth all the time you take to read it.  I printed it out (18 pages using Notepad) and am re-reading it.  I first saw it several days ago and heard Rush Limbaugh talking about it today, so I figured I would add to the chorus.

It speaks about what has become the Ruling Class, made up of the upper levels of government, unions, academia, newspapers, Hollywood, etc.  A self-perpetuating, self-awarding collection of people who believe in their own innate superiority and their "duty" to reign over the unwashed masses.

It also speaks of the Country Class.  That would be the rest of us.  Of course, it is much more "deep" than my short description.  It explains, at least to me, how we got into this mess we are in.

While it doesn't provide solutions, at least it helps bring into daylight the problem we have to face.  Recognizing the enemy will make that enemy easier to fight.

Read it!  You will be very glad you did.