What is an originalist, anyway?

Justice Antonin Scalia once stated, "If you think the Constitution is some exhortation to give effect to the most fundamental values of the society as those values change from year to year... If you think it is simply meant to reflect the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society - if that is what you think it is, then why in the world would you have it interpreted by nine lawyers? What do I know about the evolving standards of decency of American society? I’m afraid to ask." 

Justice Scalia is one of the Supreme Court's most vocal originalists.  Originalists are sometimes called "textualists" or "literalists".  They believe that the Constitution should be interpreted according to the original intent of the Framers.  For some reason, such a view horrifies liberals.   In fact, liberals are scared to death that Judge Samuel Alito might turn out to be an originalist.

Judge Alito, President Bush's latest Supreme Court nominee, begins his inquisition this week; with Chuck Schumer, Ted Kennedy and Patrick Leahy playing the role of collective Torquemados.  Of course, they will be attempting to trip up Judge Alito on the issue of abortion, NSA wiretapping and the like; but underlying that whole line of assault is the question of whether Judge Alito is an originalist.

Why does that word frighten liberals so?  Justice Stephen Breyer, a liberal's liberal if there ever was one, explained in a speech given at Harvard Law School.  He said,  "...textualist and originalist doctrines may themselves produce seriously harmful consequences...."

Seriously harmful consequences according to whom?  Why the leftist elites who know what is best for us, that's who.  You see, leftists believe the law is nothing more than a tool for them to achieve the social objectives they believe should control society.

That is why, when they talk in terms of judges, they talk about whether the judge ruled in favor of the government, big corporations, "the little guy" etc.  Everything to them is about furthering the agenda, and they believe everyone else operates in the same way.  In fact, leftists didn't know what to make of Chief Justice Roberts' statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee when he said, "If the Constitution says that the little guy should win, the little guy's going to win in court before me. But if the Constitution says that the big guy should win, well, then the big guy's going to win, because my obligation is to the Constitution."

That is what an originalist believes.  The Constitution is paramount.  His obligation is to the Constitution, the actual words, as written.  Where the Constitution says that the executive power lies with the President, the executive power lies with the President.  Since the Constitution grants the power to legislate to the Congress, originalists believe that courts shouldn't legislate. 

Originalists don't make allowances for liberal elites to engage in social engineering.  Originalists don't care what the law in France or Belgium is when the case involves the law of the United States.

Leftist elites don't trust the masses they profess to love.  You see the masses do stupid things like vote for Republicans, support tax cuts, oppose gay marriage and believe that parents should be told if  their minor daughter is about to have an abortion.  Liberals can't allow that.  Enlightened elites must make the rules.

You see, the Framers believed in limited government, state's rights and community control of values and standards.  The essence of original intent is trust in the people and distrust of the Federal government.  Of course, to people like Justice Breyer, that is asking for "harmful consequences".

For those of us who believe in originalist thinking, trusting the Constitution and trusting the people is the essence of who we are as Americans.  We're a scary bunch.  Aren't we?

If Left Wingers Could Time Travel

I have always been fascinated by the idea of time travel.  I recently began thinking about what would happen if today's Cindy Sheehan, Nancy Pelosi, Michael Moore, John Kerry crowd went back in time to some important points in our history and were able to influence events.

For example, what if our modern peace loving leftists were the leaders of the colonies prior to the American Revolution?  Without question, fighting the Revolutionary War would be seen as a "war of choice"(one of their favorite terms).  It was nothing more than some rich white businessmen whining because King George and Parliament raised taxes to pay for the French and Indian War.  Your average subsistence farmer or indentured servant certainly was not going to benefit from a war for independence from England.  The same rich white people would run things just as before.  Why should the poor masses have to suffer, bleed and die just to help a bunch of white aristocrats who are going to keep them oppressed anyway?

If by some miracle, we were able to keep Cindy and Mikey's time machine from stopping the Revolutionary War, what would have happened if they had landed in 1861?  You might say, "oh these lovers of social justice would have been on the side of the abolitionists, demanding war with the South."  You would be wrong.  Remember how Cindy, Nancy, Mike, John and the rest feel about the United States.  In their eyes, war requires the moral authority to wage a "just" war.  The United States would never pass the test.  In Northern factories, the Irish and other ethnic minorities were treated little better than the slaves were in the South.  The factory owners in the North profitted from the cotton produced by the slaveowners.  What right would someone from Ohio have to force his views of right and wrong on someone from Alabama?  To paraphrase John Kerry's immortal testimony before Congress in 1971, "we can't fight slavery all over the world."

Fast forward to the World War II era.  Right off the bat, our modern enlightened leftist would have had a problem with us preventing Japan from importing petroleum, in response to its invasion of China.  First, what gives the United States the right to hold all the power over such a vital resource.  Second, Chiang Kai Shek was a right wing dictator, so we would be wrong to side with him.

Well, the use of our Navy to stop Japan from receiving oil led to its attack on Pearl Harbor.  Yes, that's right.  We brought it on ourselves with our selfish, arrogant foreign policy.  Japan responded as would any European power of the day.  Michael Moore could even use the same slogan.  "No blood for oil."  If our modern pacifist leftists had their way, we wouldn't have been able to respond to the attack, and we know they would have never permitted President Truman, in 1945, to drop the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Do you think Hanoi and John and company would have behaved differently toward Hitler?  First, thanks to Lend Lease, Great Britain had made it almost impossible for Hitler to begin an invasion of the British Isles.  Mussolini had so botched up North Africa that any thought of expansion there by the Axis powers was a long shot at best.  What am I saying?  You've got it, good people.  Hitler was CONTAINED.  Russia was a buffer on the Eastern Front.  Invasion of England was only a fantasy, and there was little chance of moving from North Africa.

We were protected by two oceans from a madman who was in a box anyway.  It was Europe's war.  It wasn't our war.  Further, invading Fortress Europe would result in nearly 450,000 casualties on both sides, just to take Normandy.  Do you really think Cindy Sheehan, Michael Moore, Nancy Pelosi, Ted Kennedy and John Kerry would think that removing a contained dictator in someone else's war was worth that much bloodshed?  You know better.

There wouldn't be a United States today if the shrill modern Left had existed and had power back at the points in our history where survival depended upon the correct choice.  Why should we even consider listening to them today?  They haven't changed and our survival is still at stake.

Christ a leftist?

Merry Christmas fellow conservatives, libertarians, constitutionalists and free market advocates.  It's the time of year where we are repeatedly told by leftists how selfish we are for not supporting Jesus' message of socialized medicine, 70% top marginal tax rates and governmental nannyism.  You didn't know Jesus preached those things?  Just ask the nearest liberal and he or she will explain how government mandated social justice is the essence of the Messiah's mission on Earth.

The problem is that Jesus never advocated such positions.  Yes, Jesus wanted the poor fed, the widows and orphans cared for, the naked clothed, but he never demanded that either the local authorities or the Roman Empire institute such programs and certainly never advocated giving government the powerful bureaucracies necessary to do such noble things.

We have all heard Jesus' parable about the Good Samaritan who took it upon himself to see to the urgent needs of a stranger who had been beaten and robbed.  Jesus didn't have any government official provide the injured man's needs.  He had a compassionate individual take care of the situation and then Jesus finishes by telling us that everyone we come in contact with is our neighbor.

Something else in that parable, when the Good Samaritan took the man to the inn to recuperate, he didn't put a sword to the innkeepers throat and demand that he care for the man without compensation.  The Good Samaritan paid for the care out of his own pocket.  In other words, Jesus taught us to GIVE.  He didn't teach us to create an entity with the power of jail and sword to TAKE from those unwilling to give.  Leftists don't seem to understand the distinction.

We, on the right, believe that there are only certain functions that should be performed by government.  We don't believe this out of selfishness or greed.  We believe this out of a deep seated love of liberty and the recognition that every time we give government power, we give up some liberty.  Liberty is a concept perfectly in line with Jesus' teachings.  Revelation 3:20 says, "Behold I stand at the door and knock..."  Jesus did not teach forced obedience.  It was to be our choice.  We have free will, liberty if you will.  Coerced giving isn't giving.  It is taking by force.  It is the complete opposite of liberty and the complete opposite of Jesus' plan of compassion.

Yes, we as Christian individuals and churches have a moral duty and heavenly obligation to take care of our fellow humans.  We are to provide shelter for the homeless.  We are to provide food and clothing where needed; even to the point of doing without ourselves.  We are not, though, supposed to abdicate that duty to a secular government.

The church and individual Christians are Christ's instruments on this earth.  Secular governments are not.  Secular governments are what they have always been, takers of liberty and enforcers of order.  Government is a necessary evil with certain specific jobs to perform.  Right wingers recognize that. 

So the next time some leftist calls you a greedy, selfish hypocrite, remind him or her about Christian duty and liberty.  It won't change their attitude, but they need to hear it anyway

America IS Exceptional

The differences between American leftists and American conservatives are many, but none are more pronounced than their differences regarding foreign policy and the role of the United States in the world.  In this area, the differences are as sharp as night and day.

American conservatives are strong believers in American exceptionalism.  American leftists cringe when they hear the term.  We believe that this nation is a peculiar entity in the world and that, through our ideals and our attempts to live up to those ideals, we are exceptional.  The model that other nations should aspire to emulate.  The Left sees us as, at best, simply one nation of 200, and at worst, the focus of evil in the modern world.

Leftists ignore the fact that we were the first modern nation to be founded on the ideas of freedom and the rights of man.  Were our Founders perfect?  No, but they stand head and shoulders above all others throughout history.  We've had our hiccups, like the Civil War, our treatment of Indians and Jim Crow, but no nation on earth has ever handled such a hodge podge of races and ethnicities, championed freedom and stayed strong.  See the Balkans.

Leftists ignore our history of championing the cause of freedom throughout the world.  Note to leftists, opposing Communist thugs masquerading as anti-colonialist revolutionaries IS championing the cause of freedom.  An individual enslaved by communism is no more free than a nation controlled by a colonial power.

Leftists just can't see the good where  this nation is concerned.  They don't even see us as better and more moral in comparison to Islamist terrorists.  Do you think I'm exaggerating?  Let's take a closer look.

In 1993, Samuel Huntington, around the time of the first World Trade Center bombing, put forth the idea that we, the United States and the West, were facing a "clash of civilizations" with the Islamic world.  Huntington, rightly, connected the dots of history of Islam, the words of the Qu'ran, the fatwas of the clerics, the targets of terrorism and the unfinished goals of the Islamic Crusaders to determine that a confrontation between the Islamic world and the Judeo-Christian secular West was inevitable.

The brilliant left wing minds of academia scoffed and ignored him until after September 11, 2001.  Was he embraced then?  Not by the "enlightened leftists".  In October of 2001, The Nation, now there's a publication that's unbiased, published an article called "The Clash of Ignorance", to dismiss Huntington's views.

The author, Edward Said, was quick to point out that we have had our own extremists, Jim Jones and Jonestown, etc.  Of course, the fact that none of these groups ever attempted to wipe out 3000 innocents, simply because of where they lived, was completely ignored.

Further, Said pointed out that it did no good to describe conflicts in terms of "good vs. evil", or to assume that WE, the United States, held the moral high ground.  He stated, "These are tense times, but it is better to think in terms of powerful and powerless communities, the secular politics of reason and ignorance, and universal principles of justice and injustice, than to wander off in search of vast abstractions that may give momentary satisfaction but little self-knowledge or informed analysis."

In other words, we need to understand what motivates them.  They ( the Islamofascist terrorists) have a point of view, too. 

Do you think that such a view is a minority, even on the left?  Don't be so naive.  It's the same view that had John Kerry state to Congress, "we can't defeat communism everywhere".  It's the same view that caused Democrats to work for nothing more than a stalemate with the Soviet Union.  It's the same view that questions our right to liberate 27 million Iraqis.  It's the same view that causes Kerry and others to demand that we seek validation from the United Nation before acting.  It's the same view that causes Howard Dean to say we CAN'T win in Iraq.

Conservatives are called simpletons when they don't accept the leftist view.  Ronald Reagan calls the Soviet Union "the Evil Empire" and the Left faints like a Southern belle.  Reagan demands that Gorbachev tear down the Berlin Wall and he is viewed as a senile fool.  George W. Bush discusses spreading democracy throughout the world and he is termed "stupid", "arrogant" and a liar.

Thanks to Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, Eastern Europe was liberated from the clutches of communist oppression.  The United States of America did that.  Thanks to George W. Bush, Afghanistan and Iraq are well on their way to freedom. 

This week, an enormous turnout, including Sunnis and Christians, voted in Iraq.  Terror and defeatism were crushed in a landslide of liberty.  The United States of America did that.  No, the fight isn't finished, but victory was proven to be attainable.

These things could have only been accomplished by the acts, determination, and ideals of an EXCEPTIONAL nation.  American exceptionalism stands triumphant again.  The Left will never get it.

 

Random Thoughts

My wife hit the nail on the head the other day while we were watching coverage of the bipolar man who was killed by an Air Marshal on an American Airlines flight in Florida.  Katherine teaches severely emotionally disturbed teenagers and said, "I tell my kids, all the time, the real world doesn't have the time or the inclination to feel sorry for you when you don't take your meds."

Left wing idiots like Katie Couric prove daily they shouldn't be in charge of foreign policy.  She asked why  the Air Marshal couldn't have shot him in the leg or something short of killing him.

This incident is a perfect analogy for why we were right to invade Iraq and remove Saddam Hussein from power.  It turned out this guy didn't have a bomb.  After 9/11 and after shoe bomber, Richard Reid, we don't have the luxury of waiting for certainty anymore.

The economy keeps growing at a record pace and  the Democrats still want to act like it's 1932.  The New York Times, last week published an article singing the praises of the economy, only to reach the conclusion that it's all an illusion and the country is full of suffering and on really weak economic footing.

If I believed that things were as bad as the Democrats claim they are I would be suicidal.  To hear the Democrats tell it, we are under the control of an evil cabal that is capable of stealing multiple elections, trick leaders like Tony Blair of Great Britain to do its bidding, is determined to starve children and old people and WANTS to see the United States lose manufacturing jobs.  Everything, according to the current crop of Democrats, is the result of a nefarious conspiracy.  Yes, paranoid delusion is the platform of today's DNC.

Isn't it amazing how the mainstream media completely ignores Joe Lieberman, who has returned from Iraq with positive news, while it listens to John Kerry rehash his Winter Soldier testimony like he was the Oracle at Delphi?  Nah, the press isn't liberal.

Dan Rather's phony AWOL papers were going to destroy Bush.  The Downing Street Memo was going to destroy Bush.  Cindy Sheehan was going to destroy Bush.  Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation regarding Valerie Plame was going to destroy Bush.  Since 2001, the Democrats have had at least 40 pseudo scandals that was goingto get rid of "the arrogant little cowboy".  He's still President and they're still in disarray. 

I saw that Congressman Earl Pomeroy said that Howard Dean should "shut up" saying that the United States can't win in Iraq.  I hope Screamin Dean doesn't listen.  Howard Dean's idiocy is the best thing that can happen to the Republican Party between now and 2006.

I saw the vigils marking the 25th anniversary of John Lennon's murder.  While his murder was a tragedy, why would we honor a guy whose most famous song expresses a desire to see national borders eliminated, capitalism defeated, antagonism toward religion, and the complete outlawing of ownership and possesions?  Now that I think about it, "Imagine" is the ultimate leftist fantasy.

Winter Traitor...er ...Soldier Strikes Again

I have got to stop allowing him to get to me.  I was all set to write about something else, and the Senator from Hanoi says something so outrageous that I can't let it pass.  He commited treason in 1971 and sullied the reputations of an entire decade of American soldier.  Did it cause him to be an outcast?  Nope.  It fueled his political career.  In the 1980s he advocated a unilateral nuclear freeze and told the world that the pro-communist Sandinistas were nice guys.  Did his countrymen wake up and decide he was the enemy?  Nope, he parlayed his actions into a Senate seat from the People's Republic of Massachusetts.  Yes, I'm talking about John Kerry, and the sonofabitch is at it again.  Please forgive my profanity.

Yesterday on Face the Nation, I didn't realize that show was still around, Mr. "we can't defeat communism" was discussing his "plan" for Iraq.  In  the midst of justifying his cut and run approach, Kerry accused American soldiers of "going into the homes of Iraqis in the dead of night, terrorizing kids and children...."  I couldn't believe it.  Well, for about five seconds I couldn't believe it; then I remembered who it was saying it.

Who could forget the "eloquent" young man speaking before Congress comparing your average American soldier to (J)enghis Khan?  When Kerry spoke before Congress after the Winter Soldier farce he made it clear that American atrocities weren't isolated incidents.  They were the typical behaviors of American soldiers in a foreign country.  He was one of the primary reasons that spitting became a common form of greeting returning GIs.

Now, here he is, supposedly the spokesman for the Democrat party, saying the same crap about today's GIs.  This is a man whose life's ambition is to be the Commander in Chief of our armed forces and he STILL believes they are monsters.  Worse than that, while we are fighting a war against Islamofascist  terrorists, he accuses our own fighting men and women of terrorism.

At some point, doesn't enough have to be enough?  At some point, don't we have to develop the gonads to call a traitor a traitor?  For 35 years we have allowed this lowlife piece of poodle excrement to make a career by trashing this nation.  Even politically correct conservatives are quick to say "I won't question his patriotism."  Question it?  Hell, I know he's a patriot.  Just pick the enemy of the United States and he's on their side without hesitation.

John Kerry is incapable of patriotism where the United States is concerned.  Apparently, he learned from his father too well.  Richard Kerry was an American diplomat who wrote a book criticizing American foreign policy, especially the idea of American exceptionalism.  Not only does John not believe in American exceptionalism, he believes that almost any other nation or group in the world is more moral than we are.

John Kerry keeps commiting treason and the mainstream media lets him get away with it, and the Democrat party either embraces it or ignores it.  This man picked up 48% of the vote last November.  48% that were either misinformed or disloyal themselves.  I hope they were merely misinformed.  I really, really hope that.

 

Winning By Giving In?

Yesterday, in response to President Bush's speech outlining a plan for victory in Iraq, Senator John Kerry, who served in Vietnam for the United States before he served in the United States for the North Vietnamese, announced that no Democrat had ever advocated a "get out now" or "cut and run" strategy in Iraq.  That, in and of itself, would be laughable given the statements of the past four weeks by John Murtha, Nancy Pelosi and others; but for John Kerry to make this statement is conclusive proof that he is either the biggest liar in Washington or suffering from multiple personality disorder.

As recently as October 26, at Georgetown University, Senator Kerry (D- Hanoi) stated, "To undermine the insurgency, we must instead simultaneously pursue both a political settlement and the withdrawal of American combat forces linked to specific, responsible benchmarks. "  Yes, he means what he says.  He believes that in order to defeat the insurgency we must give the terrorists what they want.  They want us, as infidel kafir, to leave Iraq with our tails between our legs.  John Kerry says that if we let them win, then that is a good thing.

In other words, Neville Kerry, or is it John Chamberlain, believes that if we give Hitler the Sudetenland then we will have peace in our time.  Never mind that in the Middle East we have the reputation, as Osama Bin Laden stated, of being "a paper tiger".  Never mind that our withdrawal from Vietnam, thirty some years ago, under similar circumstances, led to an entire decade of America viewing itself as a defeated power, believing that we deserved whatever evil befell us.

Kerry and his band of comrades believe that if we walk on eggshells and don't make the Islamic terrorists mad, then they won't attack us.  Of course, appeasement didn't keep the German, Canadian and other pacifists safe.  Appeasing evil never works.  Yes, these terrorists are evil and we are the good guys.  Is that so hard for the Kerry and the rest of the Left to understand?

John Kerry, though, keeps talking about political solutions.  What he doesn't understand is that Al Zarqawi, Al Qaeda in Iraq, the Swords of Righteousness Brigade and all those who are committed to suicide bombing and the murder of Westerners are no different than Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer.  Would a political solution have helped their victims?

John Kerry and the majority of the Democrats want to see the Islamic terrorists as reasonable people with nothing more than a different view.  They believe that compromise with their goals is worth the effort.  Yes, the Democrats support giving in to terrorists but would never give Republicans the same courtesy.

Do they really think that giving in to the terrorists is the way to win?  Do they really think that admitting that we are a paper tiger will stop Islamic terror?  Do they really think that we cannot defeat this enemy?  Do they even want us to defeat this enemy?

I've asked the question.  I really want to know.  Do the John Kerrys of this nation even want us to win?