J Andrew Reid's Posts (14)

Sort by

At This Point, What Difference Does it Make?

“Important principles may, and must, be inflexible”.  Abraham Lincoln, April 11, 1865.

This was the reason for the Civil War, the principle that all men are created equal, and the reason for ending it, that a house divided cannot stand. 

 

Principles are important, particularly those found in the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution. The signers of the Constitution accepted the document as a contract stating the conditions under which they agreed to be bound together as These United States of America.  The signer’s expectation was that the Constitution would be the Supreme Law of the Land as stated in Article VI of that document.

The Constitution enumerates the different qualifications required of a person running for Assembly, Senate or President.

Assembly ( 2 year term): at least 25 years old; Citizen of the US for 7 years; resident of the State represented

Senate (6 year term): at least 30 years old; Citizen of the US for 9 years; Citizen of State represented

President (4 year term): at least 35 years old; 14 years a resident within the United States; natural born citizen

Vice President (4 year term): Not mentioned in the main body of the Constitution but in the last sentence of the 12th Amendment;  “ But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice President of the United States.” The founders realized that the VP could suddenly be the Commander in Chief if something happened to the President and they had neglected to insure that this person also would be a natural born citizen.

We have listened to many people insisting that you need only be a citizen to run for President.  The argument over Barack Obama was whether or not he was born in Hawaii and whether or not his birth certificate was a forgery.  The current discussion over Ted Cruz is whether or not he is a citizen because he was born in Canada of a single US citizen parent.

In the cases of Cruz and Obama, supporters are saying that there is no difference between “citizen” and “natural born citizen” that the one is the same as the other. If this is true then why doesn’t the Constitution simply say that the President must be a “citizen of the US for 14 years”?  Why did the founders suddenly become so careless with their language regarding the most powerful office when they are so meticulous about their language in the rest of the document? If qualifications for the Presidency were basically the same as those for the Senate except for the length of residency then why did they go to the trouble to add that last sentence to the 12thamendment making it clear that the Vice President must possess the same qualifications as a President?  

 

The answer to all of the questions is that the founders were not careless with their language because citizen and natural born citizen are not the same thing.  Both Obama, if his birth certificate is real, and Cruz were eligible to run for the Senate but neither is eligible to run for President of the United States. Why? Because in both cases their fathers were not United States Citizens at the time of their birth. Obama’s father never became a citizen and Cruz’s dad did not become a US Citizen until 2005.

Does it not strike you as interesting that most of the arguments claiming Cruz is eligible originate from liberal bastions like the Harvard Law Review, the same group from which Obama sprung? If liberals can convince everyone that Cruz is eligible then so is Obama.

 

You may be thinking that nobody seems willing to do anything about Obama’s eligibility so what is the big deal now that we are talking about Cruz?  We all know that our rights have been eroded a little at a time and we know that the Federal Government has taken powers that the States and we the people never gave them in the Constitution.  The problem is that many of our elected officials have participated in these raids on the Constitution and far too few have stood up to defend our rights or to protest government overreach. Every time we lose a right or government takes another step into our private lives it stays that way.  The result is that in the Heritage freedom rankings http://www.heritage.org/index/ranking  the US is not even listed in the Freecategory with Hong Kong, Singapore, Switzerland, New Zealand and Australia but in the Mostly Free listing right below Estonia and the UK.  The United States of America is number 11 on the list. We are listed as less free than England, the country we parted from in 1776 due to oppression.

Aren’t these  the problems that Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio say they will fix if we elect one of them? Maybe one will stop the abuses but what more should we give up to get the job done?  If we elect another President that is ineligible then another piece of the Constitution will be made irrelevant without the bother of amendment. We are already at the point where the Courts make law, the President enforces the laws he likes and ignores the ones he doesn’t, Congress has little power and what power they do have are afraid to use and the President changes whatever he wants through executive order because it takes too long to do it through Congress.

 

Compromise of Principle is Dangerous

 

It has long appeared to me that the difference between Republicans and Democrats is that the D’s seem to believe in two guiding principles: 1. that the end justifies the means so it is okay to cheat or lie if the end goal is seen as noble and 2.that winning is everything so it is okay to lie, cheat and do whatever is necessary. I am beginning to wonder if Republicans are not capable of the same.

 

I recall watching Hannity on a number of occasions when either Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio would be on the show. This was long before either had hinted at running for President. Sean would ask Cruz or Rubio if they would consider running for President and whichever one was there would sit stone faced and respond that it was way too early or some other noncommittal answer and I got the feeling that each was waiting to see what the public’s reaction to the suggestion would be, particularly with regard to their constitutional eligibility. 

 

Both of these men knew that Obama’s eligibility was in question and they knew that many in the Tea Party and elsewhere were upset about this point. I also believe that Cruz and Rubio both knew that they were not natural born citizens and thus ineligible but neither made any comment on that matter so I came to the conclusion that one or both would run eventually if nothing turned up to throw a wrench in the works.

 

Through all of those months nobody said a word until Trump came along and questioned Cruz’s eligibility. Cruz’s response was to regurgitate some left wing rhetoric from the Harvard Law Review and try to equate his situation to that of John McCain when there was no similarity at all between the two cases.  In fact, the Senate passed a resolution on April 30, 2008 stating that McCain was a natural born citizen because he “was born of parents who were American citizens on a military base in the Panama Canal Zone….”   You can read the text herehttps://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/110/sres511/text   Both Rubio and Cruz are Senators familiar with that resolution and must realize that there is no similarity between their situations and that of John McCain.

 

Recently we read headlines stating that “Illinois Board of Elections Certifies Ted Cruz Natural Born Citizen.”   The article I read recounting the decision makes it sound like this settles the matter but if you actually read the 190 page determination you find something quite different.  At the beginning of the document we find that  “…the hearing officer finds the Candidate is a “natural born citizen” by virtue of having been born in Canada to a United States Citizen, thereby not causing the Candidate to have to take any steps or undergo the naturalization process to become a United States citizen. The board deciding that there was no real difference between citizen and natural born citizen.

 

On page 8 of the document we read; “Though the meaning of Natural Born Citizen has never been decided by the Supreme Court, Justice Clarence Thomas has stated (and no other Justice has disagreed) that children born abroad to US parents, subject to some exceptions, are natural born citizens who do not need to go through the naturalization process.”   In both examples, the Senate resolution declaring McCain to be a natural born citizen and the private opinion of Clarence Thomas on the matter of who is a natural born citizen,  the word parents and not parent appears and if one looks at this logically it is easy to understand why this is so.

 

Imagine, if you can, that Vladimir Putin could marry a US citizen and they could have a child born in Russia. Sometime later the mother might move back to the United States where she and the citizen child could live for more than 14 years and the child then would be eligible to run for President of the United States after reaching the age of 35 years. Is this a person you believe the Founders had in mind as the Commander in Chief of the US Armed Forces?  If that is too modern, imagine a member of the British Royal family marrying  a woman who was a US citizen who then followed a similar course. Do you think that the Founders were stupid enough to set up a situation that anyone could see could leave us with a President loyal to the country we just declared our independence from? The reason for the two US citizen parent requirement is that they did not want a person with divided loyalty in charge of defending the country and Constitution against enemies foreign and domestic.

 

Consider that the reason the Cruz campaign picked Illinois as the testing ground for their premise is that this particular Election Board has a vested interest in supporting Cruz’s claim that a natural born citizen is a person born anywhere in the world to a single US citizen parent  because the same logic, if accepted, makes Obama’s Presidency legitimate.  

 

Ted Cruz is a very intelligent person and I know that he is trying to wordsmith his way past this Constitutional problem. I find it somewhat insulting that he thinks you or I are dumb enough to buy the notion he presented.  The second problem for me then becomes dealing with the fact that Cruz, the great constitutionalist, seems willing to compromise the Constitution to win the Presidency.  Didn’t we just go through this exact same situation? Isn’t the problem that the Constitution has been weakened by Obama and many before him who found its restrictions inconvenient? I thought we had all agreed that the return of Constitutional governance was the only way to save the Republic. Or have we decided that the Constitution only applies to the candidates we don’t support?  Perhaps this would be a good time to remind all that John Adams pointed out that “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” 

 

What you do is up to you but, as for me, I have decided I cannot help Cruz or Rubio gain the Republican nomination. If either should be the eventual nominee I will vote for them rather than stay home. Between now and then I will be praying that the nominee is someone who is constitutionally eligible so I don’t have to chose between someone who would reinforce Obama’s attempt to fundamentally change our country and someone who can’t see what difference it makes, at this point, whether or not we adhere to the Constitution.

Read more…

A Reminder on this 4th of July

I seem to have less and less time every day to appreciate the things that are truly important and many of us seem to be losing track of what those things are as we are constantly assailed by forces trying to dismantle what we have built. There is a movement afoot to conceal from young citizens the how and why of America’s founding and the principles that have made this country great.

 

Today the Ten Commandments must not be displayed on Public Property, not because they offend but because they remind us that freedom to worship God is why people came here to begin with; that our country was and is based on Christian principles no matter what those who want to tear it down say.  These beliefs are why 56 men with everything to lose appealed ”to the Supreme Judge of the World” …”with a full reliance on the protection of divine Providence”  and mutually pledged “to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor” in Congress on July 4, 1776 as they severed ties from England declaring our Independence. On that day they claimed “the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Natures God” entitle us and declared further that we “are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable Rights”.

 

Our founding and laws are clearly based on the principles in the Ten Commandments.  That is why the enemy within is trying to suppress them and convince people that the First Amendment means something completely different from the words printed in our Constitution, which are;

 

Amendment 1 December 15, 1791

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of people to peacefully assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

 

There are no restrictions in the First Amendment on citizens when it comes to Religion, Speech, Assembly or the Press.  The only restrictions I see are on Congress.  Since all Federal Law must be made by Congress, any Federal Law that restricts Religion, Assembly or the Press would be unconstitutional and invalid. If your conscience compels you to disobey laws restricting those things I think the spirits of Martin Luther King jr, Mahatma Gandhi, and the men who signed the Declaration of Independence would be cheering you on.

 

I wish you all a happy July 4th and hope this short reminder unleashes a little of the rebel spirit that started the amazing experiment that is the United States of America

 

J. Andrew Reid

Read more…

From the recent article in the Daily Signal reporting on freedom of the press around the world, we learned  “The United States disappointingly ranks 49thrankings are here ), having declined three places in 2014. This is due to the Obama administration’s heavy handed approach to certain journalists, including the New York Times’ James Risen, who came under pressure to reveal his sources.”

 Are you shocked to find that freedom of the press in the land of the free and the home of the brave is so far down the list? Does it bother you that we are 11 spots below France and that the press in  El Salvador is less restricted than here in the USA?

 Freedom of speech and religion are the 1st amendment to the Constitution. The right to keep and bear arms is amendment #2.  These are the rights the founders held most dear because they knew what happens when you lose them.  Have you thought about what would happen to you once we cannot complain about injustice or defend ourselves from it?

People today are losing their livelihoods and life savings because they would not bake a cake or provide flowers for a same sex wedding. Pastors are forbidden to include certain things in their sermons and officials have gone so far as to demand that their sermons be turned over to local government so officials could read and censor them prior to delivery. Fortunately citizen outrage stopped the sermon censure but that was this time. There will be other attempts.

 The Federal Government has said religion must be kept from anything supported, even in part, by Federal funds yet they have leaned on Pastors to sell ObamaCare from the pulpit. Meanwhile the FCC wants to control the internet and make it “fairer for all” in spite of the fact that the Courts and Congress have said they do not have the power to do that and we are to feel safer knowing that political correctness will be coming to a computer near you. Once the Internet becomes part of the mainstream media what value will it have for you?

 Then there is the fact that the Federal Government has tried to corner the ammunition market and when that didn’t do the trick they cut back on the legal number of bullets you can put in your gun while they armed themselves with AR15s and gave tanks and armored vehicles to the police.  Following that the Feds instituted Operation Choke Point where they tried to deny banking services to any business that manufactured or sold guns and many States, like New Jersey and New York, have gun laws that will send you to jail for a long time if you happen to have an unloaded antique flintlock pistol in your clove box when stopped by the police for a minor traffic violation.

 Do you see a pattern here? Can you predict what the end result will be if this is left unchecked? Is there something more important in your life than your freedom?  It is time to chose; freedom or tyranny - what's it going to be?

Read more…

I Love The Constitution - Most of the Time!

I just received an email from the Tea Party Command Center entitled  "2016 Poll:  Who is your choice for the Presidential Nomination" and the choices include: Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee, Bobby Jindal, Rand Paul, Sarah Palin, Rick Santorum, Allan West, Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, Rick Perry, Marco Rubio, Paul Ryan.  The truth of the matter is that any one of those people could do a better job than the person now occupying the White House, though I must admit,  Jeb Bush’s name on the ballot would have me quite upset.

There is a more important issue in play than the ability or conservative credentials of the names presented for your and my consideration. Our Republic is in dire straits now because we and our elected officials have not been faithful to our Constitution.  There are many reasons why that happened but it has become obvious to us all, I think, that the only way to regain our freedom is to return to a strict adherence to the Constitution of the United States of America. If we are to do that we must face reality and stop dancing around certain issues even though they are difficult to deal with or because they affect our favorite conservative whom we would like to see as President of the United States.

The qualifications for President include that the candidate must be a Natural Born Citizen.  That means that the person must be born in the US, a US possession or military base and have two parents who are citizens of the USA at the time of his or her birth. Our current President is not a Natural Born Citizen according to the birth certificate that he presented and is now on display on the White House website . Had we been faithful to our Constitution we would not now have a President who seems hell bent on destroying our country.

So the question is; will we obey the Law of the Land always or only when it suits us? Will we decide that it is okay for the President to be other than a natural Born Citizen if we like the person and he or she is from the party to which we belong?  Are we going to just pretend that the question doesn’t really matter or we didn’t notice?  The answer to these questions is important because three of the names offered, the ones in red above, are not Natural Born Citizens by the currently accepted definition established by the Supreme Court. This is the case according to everything I can find and sadly two of them would be among my first choices for the job.

This leaves us with three choices; refuse to vote for these people and hope that they do not end up on the ballot; work to change the Constitution through the amendment process; continue to stay quiet and pretend it doesn’t matter, support and vote for the person we like best regardless of that problem and join with those who only pay attention to the Constitution when it suits their purposes.

So far nobody is discussing this including those whose names appear as potential candidates. Personally I wish we would talk about this out loud and come up with a principled plan of attack. If we do not, three names would have to be crossed of my list of possible candidates. If someone finds that I have made an error determining the eligibility of those three individuals in red above, please let me know so I can quit agonizing about this issue. If I am correct, why do so may people keep putting those names forward in spite of this problem?

Read more…

A Warning from the Floor of the House!

We complain that our elected officials do not represent us. Sometimes that is because they do not see the problem in the same light we do and sometimes it is because their own self interest – getting elected – seems to take precedence. But what should we do when one of them gets up on the House floor and says we cannot save you, it is time for you to save yourselves?

 

You see, our form of government only works when all branches acknowledge the authority of and their responsibility under the Constitution of the United States. If one branch or another thumbs their nose at the Constitution what are the others to do?  The House of Representatives has the power to subpoena. They can call officials to answer for their activities but what if they are called and do not come or if they do come and simply lie or refuse to answer under this or that pretense? What if one branch just refuses to do their Constitutional duty as the Executive branch under Obama has done? What if the various department heads of the Executive Branch, which includes the Department of Justice, simply decide to stick together in ignoring the Constitution and also ignore any and all attempts by other branches to hold them accountable. Suppose they even defied the courts.

 

Though no one has yet had the courage to declare the truth of the situation, we have a Constitutional crisis with regard to the national debt and the budget in this country. We have had no real budget in years. The Executive has sent budgets but even his own party will not bring them up for a vote because the money he requests is way outside what is justifiable or affordable. His own party members know that if they attach their names to his budget they will never get elected again so they refuse to discuss it but most Democrats will do nothing to actually restrain spending or to protect their constituents.

 

As things currently stand there has been a coupe. The Executive Branch has, with the help of some in the Senate, taken control of our Federal Government and there is no one left to protect us.  The Republicans in the House of Representatives should be hopping mad and on the move to assert their authority but when faced with the Executive Branch’s lies they back down and acquiesce to the demands of the Executive who spins things to appear as though Republicans in the House are the cause of the impasse when actually it is he. The impasse exists because the House Republicans refuse to let the President bankrupt the country while he refuses to budge unless they let him do exactly that. 

 

One member of the House, Representative Tom McClintock (R-CA),  has had the courage to stand up and tell us we are wasting our time if we are waiting for that body to do something to protect us. Maybe he is admitting what the others do not have the courage to say; that they cannot do this alone.  He has told us that we, the interested public, must band together as the veterans did when they took down the “Barrycades” at the WWII memorial.  Perhaps it is time to ask our representatives what we can do to help them help us.  No, we are not going to send more money we need action!

 

The time has come for the public to do whatever is peacefully possible to stop the takeover of the United States of America by a crew of hijackers that is frighteningly close to successfully transforming our republic into a socialist state complete with national police force and a Gestapo like organization now known as the IRS. Step one should be for everyone to write to their members of Congress and simply say that we will back you up in any way they want but the time to assert their power is now. We cannot allow this lawlessness to proceed any further. If Congress still refuses to take concrete action then acts of civil disobedience up to and including a general strike would be in order.   With every passing day our options are diminishing.  “Let’s roll.”

 

 

Read more…

Shall We Wait Until They Come for Us?

The first American Revolution started with a few brave people. In the beginning most colonists were not ready to take on the world's best trained and equipped military.  And we forget that most of the people who pledged at the signing did lose either their lives or fortunes before it was all over but none lost their sacred honor. Today, few understand the concept of sacred honor.

As I write this there are forces drumming the concept of sacred honor out of the military.  Every day another right is quietly transformed into one that requires permission in order to be exercised. And still we go on thinking that things have not quite risen to the level requiring us to take action. 

So far, we cannot speak out of turn at a public meeting or we are arrested; we cannot wear apparel that has politically incorrect statements or pictures on it particularly in school; you cannot pass out literature on a college campus without permission even if it is a copy of the Constitution and it is Constitution day; you cannot shoot an imaginary gun at your own home from your own property without being expelled from school; we cannot carry a gun - even in States that have open carry laws- if it frightens someone; we cannot express our religious beliefs in public; if you are in the military you cannot discuss your faith with another soldier even if you are a Chaplain; you cannot write God Bless America and put that on Facebook or you will be kicked off; if you say anything derogatory about Islam you are islamaphobic, a term invented by leftists who want to write laws banning this breach of politically correct etiquette but there is no such word as Chritianophobic or Christophobic; If you are a Muslim you can teach lies but if you are a Christian you may not teach the truth.

Few remember, I am sure, that as Nazi Germany began to rear its head, one of the first manifestations was that school children had to fill out a questionnaire about their families. Among the questions were a few about each student's ethnic origins and that of their parents and relatives. The kids had to take them home and have them back the next day. Many parents recognized that what looked like a simple survey was indeed trouble, especially the Jewish parents. The Jewish parents were afraid to buck the system because by this time everyone had seen what the Brown Shirts did to people who did not comply and the parents who were of Aryan origins understood that this was not about them.

Not long after those papers were turned in, parents of the Jewish children were notified that their kids would not be allowed to go to college and later the bar was lowered to eighth grade and later still to 4th grade.  Along the way they had to turn in their guns then they were made to sew a star on their clothes so they were easily identifiable, then Aryans were not allowed to patronize their shops; then Jews were forced to sell their shops to Aryans for whatever they could get; then they had to sell their chattel to Aryans and give the money they got to the government and so on.  The last step for many was a Notice of Deportation which for most meant they were going to a camp from which most did not return.

Today the accusation of an infraction of an environmental or USDA law can result in being descended upon by armored personnel carriers loaded with heavily armed police in helmets and flack jackets and may result in employees standing against the wall not allowed to ask questions about their status while storm troopers rummage through file cabinets collecting evidence.  Now I realize this has not yet happened to you but I hope you know that these demonstrations of force are meant to let you know that if you do not stay in line, this and worse can happen to you.

 

We are witnessing the same progression today that occurred in pre second World War II Germany. Your rights are being curtailed a little at a time and you are being shown what will happen if you resist. Members of the press, and elected officials are being threatened implicitly and explicitly.  Every day another protection fades.  How long do you think we should wait?  There are a bunch of truckers and other groups coming together to clog up Washington with every kind of road gear they can find – cars, trucks, motorcycles, mopeds. They are fed up and plan to do something now!  You can read about this here https://www.google.com/search?q=truckers+to+washington&newwindo...

 

http://ridefortheconstitution.org/

http://www.bing.com/search?q=canadian%20truckers%20to%20shut%20down...

These people all welcome fuel money and help. You will note that the American Trucker's Face Book page may still be down as punishment for printing may God Bless America. 

Read more…

A Peaceful Protest with Teeth!

There are a lot of people here in the USA that understand where we are headed and many of them could be energized to do something. The government knows this and that is why they have been flexing their muscle with these heavily armed storm troopers raiding businesses over alleged violations of FDA milk regulations, endangered tree violations and any other trumped up reason they can think of.  They want you to know that if you cross them they will be merciless and you will not stand a chance. That is the message your elected executive branch wants to send to you.

The Feds also know that we can organize using the internet which is why they are hell bent on controlling it. They saw what social media accomplished in Egypt and they do not want that here. The Feds have gone through every possible scenario they can imagine that the people might employ to defy them and fight back and they have a plan for every one of those possibilities, including an armed rebellion. This is why they have plans to control, food, healthcare and all of the basic necessities of independent life.  They know that trouble is coming if they persist in following the course laid out but Obama does not intend to stop or slow down. They are amassing an army made up of SWAT teams from every agency in the government which at this time some estimate to be 120,000 heavily armed officers with special weapons training. This is why you find ammunition is in short supply. They are buying it all up so that they have plenty and you cannot amass a supply of your own.

The question is not could we successfully bring government to a halt but whether enough people will find the drive to act in time. Today we have a functioning House of Representatives and a Senate but they are becoming less relevant by the day.  If the guns were to come out and marshal law were to be declared then Congress would have little to say about what happened next. We need a means to peacefully bring the capitol to a screeching halt and do it without violence in a way that makes riot police and heavily armed thugs ineffective. 

So far the protests have been busloads of people heading to Washington to fill up the mall and protest this or that. Permits were taken out and  bus parking was provided so as to inconvenience local residents the least. No matter how many well mannered people you put on the mall, the mainstream media will under report the numbers and provide as little coverage as possible and the politicians will simply use routes that keep them clear of the ruckus. 

I am thinking we could make a bigger impression with fewer people if we didn't bother with permits and everyone came in their own car or truck and we simply clogged every street in DC bringing the entire place to a screeching halt.  It would simply be a remember your heritage pilgrimage but instead of the weekend we do it in the middle of the week. There is no permit required to see the sights or simply drive around Washington. 

People could see the monuments, visit their Representatives or Senators. They could clog up  visit the Supreme Court and every government office in town. It might even be fun to visit Reagan Airport to see the place named after our favorite President. The police could get as testy as they want but if there is no place for a car to move because of gridlock they would be stuck. Such an event would take planning because there are things that you would need but I think it could be done and be effective. 

Read more…

Government of the people, by the people and for the people is perishing from the earth. We have proven to be incapable of restraining the monster we created. We have ignored the Constitution which was the only thing that could have accomplished that restraint and now we are stuck with a Federal Government whose enemies list includes you and me.

Now we see why the President was to be a natural born citizen and what happens when you allow the protections put in place by the founders to be eroded - carried away a bit at a time by jackals and thieves - until today  we find ourselves fighting for the soul of our country.

The symptoms of the problem are legion, turning up as brush fires like those in today's headlines that distract our attention but the cause and the cure are one in the same. None of us will be secure in our lives, freedom or property until we return to the only form of government that has ever produced the prosperity we have enjoyed in this country.

We all know instinctively that there is no free lunch yet many gladly accept handouts from our elected officials without ever asking the cost. The cost is your life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.  If you think these statements harsh, may I remind you that on 9-11 this year, during the anniversary of an attack perpetrated by Muslim Jihadists that killed almost 3,000 people in New York, the government issued a permit for a Million Muslim March in Washington D.C. while at the same time refusing a permit for a patriotic Million Bikers event. The Bikers plan to go anyway.  We shall see how these two very different groups are treated by our government. My heart goes with the bikers.

Our attention must remain concentrated on the re-establishment of constitutional government. Elected officials who will not honor their oath of office must be exposed and replaced one by one. There is no other answer!

Read more…

The citizens of this country have been and continue to be subjected to an endless barrage of attacks on our culture, our rights, our government and the religious ethic that founded this country. This is a strategy calculated to keep us so busy and demoralized that we cannot get ahead of the curve, gain our footing and go on the attack against the foe that is busy destroying the foundation of our country, society and lives one brick at a time. The barrage is so blatant and relentless that it is difficult to tell which assaults are simply annoyances and which may be aimed at vital organs. All the while those who wish us harm declare that they have our interests at heart, that it is the best interest of the children or elderly, the homeless or the repressed minorities that concern them and that we are simply paranoid when we imagine otherwise.

 

This assault on our society is not new; it has been going on in earnest since the late 1960s. There were drugs and the promotion of alternate reality which made the concept of sexual freedom seem less like promiscuity than a matter of personal expression. It was then only a tiny step to feminism which asserted that there was something wrong with the traditional role of women resulting in a weakened family structure that left men wondering what their role was supposed to be in all of this.

 

Feminism demanded that women be master of their own lives and bodies so the right to an abortion became a major societal debate which divided us into the Pro-choice and Pro-Life camps. Abortion attacked the sanctity of and cheapened human life as we decided that we, not God, would decide when it was okay for a life to begin and when it was not and even decide when it should end, at least when it comes to life inside the womb!  This slippery slope has lead to suggestions from one member of the Obama team that “post birth abortions” or the murder of those born with deformities or mental incapacities that could burden society is acceptable up to a yet to be determined age.

 

There was relativism which insisted there were different truths and, therefore, different rights and wrongs for different people which meant that the Ten Commandments needed to be removed from schools and courthouses because they were in conflict with this notion.  The progressive’s reading of the First Amendment meant that religion could not be talked about in any institution that depended on public funds because that would be tantamount to the Government endorsing a religion. The Constitution actually says that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;…” but they successfully convinced society and some courts that their interpretation was the real meaning of the First Amendment so religion was banished from the public square.

 

Multiculturalism is the idea that we should be more aware and tolerant of or even celebrate and acquiesce to the cultural practices of the many peoples who come to America. It is the opposite of the melting pot theory that created this great nation. The original idea was that many people came here for the same reasons; freedom, equality of opportunity, to take part in the dream and to do better for themselves and their families.  They came to our country to share in what we had built. The melting pot required assimilation which meant that immigrants who came would bring something of value to the table and become an integral part of the America experience. They would come here to be Americans and they would be proud of their new status. When in Rome, do as the Romans do, as the saying goes. This way a nation retains its identity and everyone feels as though they are a part of it.

 

Multiculturalism suggests that we should treat immigrants as guests in a boarding house and cater to their desires. We should see that they have the food they like, cater to their customs and respect their culture.  In this arrangement the immigrant does not assimilate and remains a separate entity with different needs and desires from those of the host country. In many cases, as with Muslims, they may dislike the host country and not be there to join in the experience but to plot against it while taking advantage of the host’s hospitality and institutions viewing these as the wages of jihad.

 

Those who dislike this country and wish to fundamentally change it have used multiculturalism to dilute our society so that we are gradually being taken over from the inside. The chief tool in this effort is immigration both legal and illegal.

 

The progressives among us, both Democrat and Republican, have been increasing the legal immigration quotas for years to the point where there are more immigrants coming in each year than we can possibly assimilate. When questioned they say, don’t be silly, this country was founded by and needs immigrants. This may be true but it is also true that too much of a good thing can kill you and so it is with immigration and they know it!

 

Prior to 2008 these changes were being implemented slowly so that we would not become alarmed over the rate at which our country was being changed.  This was concealed mostly because the Federal Department of Education slowly changed what and how our children were taught so that successive generations were led to believe that all of this was as it should be. They taught our kids that sex was okay, even when it involved two people of the same gender and that just because you are born a boy, you don’t have to remain one. The kids are taught that they are in charge of their body so abortion is their right and they could get one on their parent’s health insurance without the doctor disclosing what procedure he had performed. Our kids were taught that they should feel good about themselves even if they were failing as long as they tried their best. Self esteem, we were told, is more important than accomplishment.

 

As the 2008 elections approached the progressives felt they had completed enough of the change to go for the kill and they had just the man waiting in the wings; Barack Obama, our first black president. They set out with a vengeance to finish the job they had started back in the days when Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn were in the Weather Underground intent on blowing up buildings and killing people.

 

By the time 2012 rolled around, in spite of the highest per pupil investment in the West, only 32% of high school students in Detroit graduate in four years and in New York City, 80% of graduates are not ready for the rigors of community college.

 

This being the state of our government controlled education system, this same government decided to fix the lack of skilled technical workers, not by fixing the education system and teaching our kids what they need to know to get those jobs but by suggesting we increase the H-1B visa program and import foreign labor to do those jobs. This program brings workers here for 3 years and is extendable to 6 years. People in the H-1B program are not here to become Americans and assimilate, they are here to work and send money home then return home where they can live high on that money for years where the cost of living is much lower. When asked, this is the goal of many who cross our borders from the south, as they also have no desire to stay here and contribute. They are just here for the money.

 

This is not to say that all immigrants view coming to America in the same way. There are many who come here for the opportunity and they resent those who sap the system that they, like all other working Americans, support with their taxes.

 

If you do not understand why the current administration is waging war against our southern border states trying to prevent them from enforcing our immigration laws; if you are wondering why legal immigration quotas have gone from a couple hundred thousand to over one million per year, this is the answer.  The progressives understand that they can overwhelm the culture using the immigration system and hide their reasons for bringing in more and more people with sound bites like ‘this is a nation of immigrants’, or ‘high tech industries cannot find enough qualified help’, ‘we need to legalize the children of illegals because it was not their fault they are here’, or ‘we need to find a path to citizenship for 11 Million illegals because we cannot simply deport then’. They can find a hundred reasons to overwhelm our society but can’t find one good reason to educate rather than indoctrinate our children or to enforce our existing immigration laws.

 

Do not be fooled; progressives bring out the victims of the Newtown shooting as an excuse to take away your second amendment rights, they use hurt feelings as an excuse to deny your First Amendment rights and they use the children of immigrants as an excuse to further their plan to overwhelm our society while expecting you not to notice that they are indoctrinating and miss-educating your children while giving away their future employment to workers from other countries.

 

The immigration fight now going on in Congress is where your attention and effort should be focused. Failure to bring immigration back to reasonable levels will leave you a minority in your own country. Failure to regain control of your country may result in spending your final days in a nursing home tended to by a person insufficiently schooled to figure out how to turn on your oxygen tank!

 

Comprehensive immigration reform, the importation of foreign workers, The Affordable Health Care Act, the giving away of Obama phones, 99 weeks of unemployment, food stamps for anyone even Mexicans living in Mexico, benefits for illegal aliens,  the various stimulus bills and Obama’s insistence on running up the debt ceiling, downgrading the military and ignoring the law are all designed to bring about the collapse of the free enterprise system in order to “fundamentally transform….” this country.  That is all you need to know to object to any legislation that is advertised as “fair”, to “level the playing field” to “spread the wealth around” or provide “comprehensive reform”. I would suggest you start by telling your Congressmen that we cannot discuss “comprehensive immigration reform” until they enforce the laws already on the books and honor the commitments made by previous Congresses.  Without those actions, we have no reason to trust them!

Read more…

If "Patriots" Will Not Step Up we are Lost!

It has come to my attention that Colonel Allen West has declined to help Joe Arpaio's cold case posse present the evidence they have collected regarding Barack Obama's credentials. I have written him this letter and urge others to also let him know how they feel about his apparent refusal to do the right thing.

Dear Colonel West

 

I have been a supporter since the beginning of your political carrier. I believe you lost the last election as a result of voter fraud and feel that we were all cheated. That being said, now I have a more pressing concern. I have always regarded you as a Patriot of the first order but feel let down by your refusal to help Joe Arpaio’s cold case posse expose the takeover of our government by an impostor and his criminal cohorts through fraud and deception.

 

I do not believe that there is much doubt as to the fact that Obama’s documents are forgeries but the thing that really galls me is that even if you accept that he was born in Hawaii and that his birth certificate is real, he is still not eligible to run for or be President because, he is not a natural born citizen since his father, according to the birth certificate he supplied, was not an American citizen at the time of his birth as required by the Constitution.  This requirement is not some technicality but is there to protect us from exactly what is now transpiring!

 

You have twice sworn an oath to protect and defend the Constitution; once in the military and once when you took office as a Representative in The House.  There can be no justification for shirking that duty: seeking to avoid bad press because you have political aspirations is not a valid excuse. There is no valid excuse. It simply means you have chosen to defend it only when convenient.  I know that many in Washington, DC have adopted this attitude but that is what is wrong there. Compromising your principles to win an election would be something for which you will be deeply ashamed in later life if you succumb to that temptation.  It was Lincoln who reminded us the certain principles may, and must be, inflexible. I know that, in your heart, you know this.

 

In the military you would have sacrificed your life for your men. This is not Afghanistan, this is the homeland. This is not yet an armed conflict but a battle of a different kind and we are your men now. I am counting on you to do what is right.  Failing that, I fear that you will lose more than my support.

 

J. Andrew Reid

Read more…

America We Have a Problem!

The title of this post is an obvious takeoff on the famous words "Houston we have a problem", which was the line attributed to the Apollo 13 astronauts who realized that they were in a life threatening situation that needed to be resolved fast. It was an understatement as is the title here.

By now most of you know that Homeland Security’s Janet Napolitano is REFUSING to answer questions about the agency’s purchase of 7000+ AR15s, 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition and nearly 3,000 armored personnel carriers with bullet proof glass capable of stopping 50 caliber rounds and solid tires that can take serious bullet penetration and keep going.

In a YouTube video a DHS spokesman said the armored vehicles were for serving warrants but did not say what kind of warrants DHS might have the occasion to serve. They are obviously expecting that someone will be shooting at them and have outfitted themselves to withstand heavy fire. Who do they expect to be doing the shooting?  These vehicles will carry up to eleven “operators” and there are firing slits so they can engage someone without leaving the vehicle.

We are well past conspiracy theories at this point. We have a serious problem. Everyone should be hounding their representatives for answers until Washington reveals the truth and disbands this army whose purpose they will not reveal.

It would appear that DHS, which has no connection with the armed services and would not be deployed outside the country, could only be deployed inside the USA but against whom? They will not say. They are using your tax money to create a standing army within the US which, common sense would indicate, is likely to be used against you. I think their refusal to be accountable is the answer and we had better take our government back as quickly as possible.

We really need to push for Obama’s impeachment.  I would like to ask every member of Congress these few important questions:

  1. Will you support the Constitution of the United States as your oath of office requires; yes or no?
  2. According to the Constitution, what are the qualifications to hold the Office of President of the United States? (they should answer  35 years old, natural born citizen Article 1, section 2, paragraph 6 of the Constitution)
  3. That being the case, and since the birth certificate Barack Obama posted on the internet clearly indicates that he is a citizen born in Hawaii but also that only one of his parents was a citizen of the United States and so has admitted that he did not have the two citizen parents at the time of his birth which is the requirement to be a natural born citizen, why haven’t you and your colleagues started impeachment proceedings?

 Barack Hussein Obama is the poster child to be used when someone asks why the President must be a natural born citizen! This is why!

http://www.teaparty.org/big-sis-refuses-to-answer-congress-on-bullet-purchases-21924/

 

Read more…

When Citizens Do Not Trust Government?

There is a disturbing trend that is hard to miss. It is one that nobody wants to think about but one that is becoming harder and harder to ignore. When Obama ran for President in 2008 he mentioned that we cannot depend on the military or police to defend us against national security threats. We need a National Security Force just as large an powerful as our military, he said: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=gwaAVJITx1Y  These days the internet is full of conspiracy theories; some seem a bit over the top, some of the claims seem questionable but underneath it all there is enough verifiable truth to be alarming.

Rand Paul asked the Senate why Federal Bureaucrats need SWAT Teams to enforce just laws?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=kT8waPM9yYw

The Department of Homeland Security is ramping up to fight something but it certainly is not illegal aliens. Who is DHS preparing to fight or defend against and who are they planning to defend?

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/01/26/if-assault-weapons-are-bad-why-does-the-dhs-want-to-buy-7000-of-them-for-personal-defense/

What kind of warrants will DHS be serving that requires a SWAT Team in an armored vehicle and what is it that must be done that the FBI, State Police and local SWAT Teams cannot handle?

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2013/03/obama-dhs-purchases-2700-light-armored-tanks-to-go-with-their-1-6-billion-bullet-stockpile/  

 

The Federal Government, originally intended to take care of things States could not handle in a way intended to avoid affecting our day to day lives, is now inserting itself into everything we say and do. In other words the Federal Government is, in fact, attempting to control everything about our lives. They want to decide what we eat, what healthcare we get, what we drive and they want to disarm the civilian population while ramping up the ability of every federal agency except the conventional military to handle an armed conflict.

 

What conflict might that be and who is the threat? If the danger is foreign wouldn't a well armed militia go a long way toward protecting our country from physical invasion or even Jihadists? If the danger were missiles, how would the hand held weapons and crowd control devices they seek help? If they seek to aid US citizens in emergencies or disasters wouldn't field hospitals, doctors, nurses, ambulances, rescue vehicles and vaccines be more important than bullets and armament?

 

Whatever the plan, “the most transparent administration in history” is not sharing it with us and that is enough to sound an alarm. At this point job one must be to do everything possible to protect our second amendment rights. To that end I would suggest you support theSecond Amendment Foundation which was instrumental in halting the gun confiscations in New Orleans following Katrina and The National Rifle Association  which has been our best defense and most powerful advocate for many years. Whatever you do, pretending that nothing is wrong can only lead to disaster.

 

PS

When considering whether or not you “really need” a semiautomatic personal defense weapon (assault riffle), think about whom you might have to defend yourself from. If you think you will need to defend yourself against someone who has one, you need one!

Read more…

The Hand that Rocks the Cradle

Many of us yearn for the America that went with Mom and apple pie. It isn't that those were easier times. People struggled as they do now and there was the threat of nuclear devastation then and the threat of human extinction over man made global warming now but things were a little bit more definite then. We knew who our enemies were and America was one nation under God; the Ten Commandments were displayed in public buildings and people, religious or not, understood the rules so there was a smaller percentage of the population in prison.  Dad went to work, mom stayed home, kids went to school and, though all marriages were not happy, many fewer families were fractured by divorce.  Family was the focus of American social life. People could spell, write a coherent sentence, make change without an adding machine, tell you where Africa and China were and most spoke English as their primary language. The Bible was the Good Book and its wisdom was freely taught in church and in school. Religious displays were expected especially at Easter and Christmas. People felt uneasy if the clerk at the local store did not say merry Christmas and those who refused to pledge allegiance to The United States of America or hesitated to sing the National Anthem were scorned not coddled. People immigrated here from all over the world because they wanted to be Americans, to live in a place where anyone could succeed by the sweat of their own brow. Immigration wasn't easy because numbers were controlled and gaining citizenship required time and study but things that come as a result of great effort are highly cherished.  Our border with Mexico had fewer fences and we had less illegal immigration.

The reason all of this changed is not that travel is easier, cheaper and faster or that we readily communicate around the world by phone and the internet. It is not because of a particular war as those have been regular events throughout human history.  It is not because of computers, cell phones or electronic gadgetry; these things are simply tools. Part of the problem is that being an American has lost its meaning. Though many more people come here now as a result of relaxed immigration quotas, they come not to be Americans but to feed at the trough of plenty often returning home with the loot like vultures picking the bones of a once great society.

If you are old enough to remember the America I described and have spent some time considering the changes then to now it might occur to you that while society was changing the Federal Government was growing in size and influence in our daily lives. A shift was occurring in which we went from a self-reliant people able to determine right and wrong to people more and more reliant on the Federal Government and its interpretation of what is correct.  There are many more laws now and we have more people in prison; the largest percentage of population in prison of any nation. Now, looking back, it is not hard to see that the greater the influence of the Federal Government, the less influence the individual has retained. We have been giving away our very souls, a little at a time, for temporary comfort and perceived safety but what have we really gained? We have succumbed to the very thing that Benjamin Franklin warned us about so long ago when he said; “Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both”. Anyone who objectively views our current state of affairs realizes the wisdom in that statement and recognizes that we have made serious errors in that regard, not the least of which was The Patriot Act. Now, each time someone shouts “Allahu Akbar” our freedom to travel is further restricted but we are told we are winning the war on terror.

We are told that we must go “Forward” and that the same old things that were tried in the past never did work. But logic asks; If the things that we would call ‘tried and true’ never did work, how did the United States of America become the great nation it has been? Instead of tweaking the tried and true methods we decided we were smarter than the founders and set off on a massive social experiment that really has not worked out very well.  I could now present a list of all the failed government programs, which would require much more time and space but the real question is do we have the will to go back and reclaim the American self-reliance that made us great or is it too late?  Do we have the willpower to go on a mental diet and shed the excess fat and government modified thought that occupies our brains or will we go merrily down the garden path to socialism and become part of the regimented, dependent collective?

There is a line in a poem by William Ross Wallace that says “The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world.” Originally it was a statement about the power of women in society but in South Africa it is a proverb slightly modified to read “The hand that rocks the cradle rules the nation and its destiny”.

With South Africa’s version in mind, let me ask you a few more questions. Who reveals the world to or conceals it from your children? Who tells them what is acceptable or important and what is not? Who defines tolerance and interprets history for your children and grandchildren? Who defines the role of Religion in society? Who is defining family composition and its role in society? Who teaches our children that the Constitution of the United States is an old document irrelevant in today’s modern society? Who tells your child that they can be anything they want to be and then provides them a faulty set of tools with which to accomplish their goals? Who wants every child to go on to “higher” education and who is seeking to provide you the “right” of free day care and an early start to your child’s education? Why does the Federal Government want to be the hand that rocks the cradle?

The key to reclaiming America is removal of the government’s hand from the cradle. Many concerned citizens have tried to regain control of text book content but that road is slow, full of compromise and does not intercept the constant onslaught of pamphlets touting gay rights, rainbow society, a modern non-morality that states everything is relative and history altered to reflect the way some people feel it should have been rather than as it was or invited speakers who say that religion is the problem or Islam is peaceful by nature.  While parents struggle to take back control more and more children are going through the education mill while society quietly loses, through attrition, the generations that understand what is going on.

Some parents have attempted to exercise their “legal” right to be notified in advance when controversial sexual topics are to be discussed so they can keep their children home that day and their attempts to protect their children have landed them in jail. This slow “reasonable” approach will not save our children from the government’s re-education day camps; only removal of the child from the government run school system will do that!

A growing number of parents are choosing to home school their children but that solution requires time and a level of education not available to everyone. Charter schools have been a growing alternative but they are still dependent on government funding to some extent, there are long waiting lists and the Obama administration has signaled its disapproval of charters favoring union run "public" schools.

There are many road blocks to escape from government education but some institutions like Hillsdale College have managed to do just that. Government maintains control of education by taxing you and then offering that money back to fund your local school if you comply with the official government standards. Hillsdale gets around that by refusing all government funding so they are in control of their curriculum. Students there are not eligible for government education loans but they have managed to provide loans through their alumni and associated institutions. They have removed the hand of government and are free to educate their students.  For these reasons, I have been a fan and supporter of Hillsdale for several years.

Hillsdale College has expanded its influence by offering online courses on The Constitution of the United States and various other inexpensive or free non credit courses for those seeking to educate themselves. Real education allows the individual to decide the truth by simply presenting them with the facts allowing them to draw their own conclusions.  More than that, real education allows students to question or challenge information presented without being excoriated for expressing views that differ from those of the instructor. This is the difference between education and indoctrination and the norm at Hillsdale.

This is not intended to be an advertisement for Hillsdale College but simply to make the point that it is possible to escape the influence of government on education.  I had been wondering why this same model could not be applied to home schooling when, on a recent trip to the airport, I noticed a billboard advertising an online home school.  An internet search revealed that there is a community of home schoolers that offers online resources to parents who want to take charge of the children’s education.  If you are interested, I found one source that allows you to pick a customized approach and could be a place for interested people to start investigating the online approach to home schooling their children. I do not have enough information to endorse this site and there are others so decide for yourself.

Many people have taken the attitude that the Federal Department of Education should be closed down since there is nothing in the Constitution that grants the Federal Government the power to be involved in education. This may be so but I would not expect the Constitution to save you when the current administration does not hold that document in high regard and the people of the United States just elected, for a second time, a person who announced to the world in writing that he is not a natural born citizen and therefore Constitutionally ineligible to be President.  What I am saying is the odds of closing that department or getting the government’s hand off of the cradle have become slim to none since November 8, 2012.  You are on your own.

The government has changed society by controlling education; by watering down or removing your influence over what your children believe. If you are wondering why they go off to college and never return to church or why parents and kids find sports more important than church, this is the reason.  Most young parents are themselves victims of government schools so they see nothing wrong with things as they are. The only way to change this is to raise successive generations of children who have been educated to think, reason and know how and were to find the truth. If you are a parent, grandparent or guardian of a school age child the power is in your hand until you relinquish it to the state run school. The hand that rocks the cradle truly does rule the nation and its destiny. Whose hand shall it be?

Read more…

The Value of Your Vote

We normally consider that one person’s vote is worth the same as the next but is that really the case? If a Republican votes for Mitt Romney, Mitt gets one vote and if a Democrat votes for Obama then he gets one vote.  If a dead person votes for Obama he gets one vote that he was never going to get so that helps boost turnout but it is still one vote.

 

A converted vote is another matter. If there are 100 Republican voters and 100 Democrat voters and I convert one D to an R this is what happens: The Rs end up with 101 and the Ds end up with 99. That is a difference of 2 or twice the impact of resurrecting a deceased voter. In the last election there were many voters who admitted that they had voted for Obama in 2008 but would not do so again.  Each of those people would account for a 2 vote shift when the votes were counted.

 

As you can see from the example above, it would take twice as many dead voters to make up for this problem and the Democrat’s surrogates were already in overdrive rounding up the voter group known as the dear departed. The chances of coming up with enough votes that way were slim and they knew this was going to be a close election. They needed a way to convert some Rs to Ds but television ads and stump speeches were not going to do that.

 

I believe that they figured out a way to convert those votes and did so electronically. We have all heard the stories of the electronic touch screen voting machines that changed a vote for Mitt to one for Obama. Some people have suggested that this was done by enlarging the size of the touch field for Obama and reducing the size of the one for Mitt so that an imprecise placement of the finger registered votes intended for Mitt as an Obama vote.  Each time that happened it made a 2 vote difference in the tally because it converted one of Mitts votes into a vote for Obama. (M-1, O+1= 2 vote difference). I believe that this is what brought an election that was the Republicans to lose close enough to be within the margin of theft.

 

If you are not outraged, you should be!

Read more…