Constitutional Elections and democracy, Democracy, DEMOCRACY!!!

There are two things I wish to comment on in this post. The first is that I’ve observed that there are a lot of American People who are somewhat deficient in understanding how the election system works. The second is the left’s sudden escalation of screaming about “defending our democracy!” These two subjects are, in the end, interrelated.

It is first necessary to understand how elections are supposed to be run in the United States. It’s kind of scattered and convoluted the way it is laid out in the Constitution. And there is one particular phrase in it that really will twist your wits unless you understand the terms. So I’m going to extract the relevant points and present them and explain them in modern layman’s terms. I offer my most sincere apologies to those who already know this, for explaining it to you again.

One thing you have to know in order to understand the Constitution at all, is that if a power is not specified as belonging to the federal government, within the Constitution itself, it is none of the federal government’s business to be involved with it. Thus we have the Tenth Amendment; “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

In the Constitution an Elector is a person who is qualified to vote for someone or something. If you vote in an election you are an Elector. An Elector is a voter.

The Constitution says that if you are qualified to vote for a State Senator or Representative, you can vote for a federal Senator or Representative. That’s pretty simple.

So who decides who can vote for the State Senators or Representatives? Well, the Constitution doesn’t specify that, so it’s a Tenth Amendment issue, which means the States decide who is qualified to vote for State and federal Congressmen.

This is what the Constitution says about electing members for the House: Article One, Section Two; “The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature.” [Emphasis mine]

This is what the Constitution says about electing members for the Senate: Seventeenth Amendment; “The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote. The electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State legislatures.” [Emphasis mine]

So the upshot of this is that members of the Congress are chosen by the States in State held elections. Got it? That’s more important than it seems!

Then there is this next thing from Article One, Section Four; “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations.” [Emphasis mine]

So the legislatures of the States set the regulations as to how an election is to be held, except for this little thing here: “…but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations.”

The States then, have the authority to regulate, under the Constitution, the Times, Places and Manner of the elections but the federal government can make or alter the Times, Places and Manner of the elections. The States also have the authority to regulate who can vote for their own legislatures and thus also the federal legislatures.

Anything not mentioned is by default a Tenth Amendment issue.

Thus, the federal government does not have any authority over who can be elected by the People of the States, how many times any individual can be elected, who is or is not qualified to vote for them or what any person has to do to be qualified to vote in an election. Those powers are all left to the States to decide. The only regulations the federal government can impose is with regards to the Times, Places and Manner in which an election is to be held.

It is very clearly up to each individual State, on their own determinism, to decide who is qualified to vote and who is to be sent from the State as a Representative of the People, or Senator, to the federal government.

For presidents elections are a bit more straight forward.

An elector for president is again a person who is qualified to vote for the president. It is very important to understand that a presidential elector is not the same thing as an elector for Congress!

Article Two, Section One; “Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors.” [Emphasis mine]

The key phrase here is “…in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct….”

They, the States, legislators could decide who the electors are in absolutely any way that they want. And I do mean ANY WAY THAT THEY WANT! They could choose the county dog catchers. They could choose the city mayors. They could decide who the electors are by the use of tarot cards, crystal balls or visions of psychics. They could toss coins, draw lots or roll dice. They could vote amongst themselves. They could decide based on the size of their respective investment portfolios. Or they could use the historical predictions of Punxsutawney Phil.

The most common method the States use in deciding who the Electors are is by popular vote of the People within that State. The People of the States vote to choose Electors to vote for who they want to be president.

The Twelfth Amendment; “The Electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President,” [Emphasis mine]

Now one may be inclined to wonder why I kept emphasizing the word “States” in the preceding paragraphs. Thus the first part of this blog post comes to a head.

The States decide, in State held elections, who the federal Representatives will be.

The States decide, in State held elections, who the federal Senators will be.

The States decide, in State held elections, who the president will be.

“What’s the point?” one might ask.

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A FEDERAL ELECTION.

That’s right. All elections are held by the States.

It is the People of the States, thusly, who rule over the federal government. It is the will of the People who decide who is sent to represent them, in service to them.

And that is an important distinction!

I said this in my last post and I will repeat it here because it is also the main thrust of the next part of this post: “It is a logical contradiction to say that we elect the people who rule over us. If that is the construct then sooner or later the people who you think you are electing to rule over you will just cut out the election part of the process and simply rule over you; because under that model the people you elect control the rules regarding their own elections.”

There are three things that I see in common practice, or requested by a lot of people who don’t understand how the election system is supposed to run, that could destroy our republican way of life in the United States.

You may have noticed that lately the Demoncrap Party has been screaming a lot about democracy, Democracy, DEMOCRACY!!! Save our democracy!

This is the first of the three ways.

Article Four, Section Four of the Constitution says; “The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government….”

Some people might try to tell you that a republic is a kind of democracy. I could go into that argument much further but I think I’ll just keep it short for now and say that it isn’t. The main component of a republic is that there are representatives who represent the public. REpresentatives who REpresent the PUBLIC. RE+PUBLIC. REPUBLIC.

As ridiculous as the way I just put it in the paragraph above seems, it does actually mean that, except originally in Latin. “Res” in Latin means “entity, concern” and “publicus,” also Latin, means “of the people.” Together republic means “entity concern of the people.” In other words, a person concerned with the People or a representative of the people.

That the People vote is what confuses some people into thinking that the United States is a democracy. Well, people vote in republics too. Just because people vote in several different types of government does not make them all into democracies. If a monarch occasionally allows people to vote, it does not make a monarchy into a democracy. The historical examples where different kinds of governments allowed voting would comprise a very long list. Even Iraq under the dictator Saddam Hussein had elections too.

This confusion is not by accident. Someone is out there pushing the false narrative that the United States is a democracy. And they recently are pushing this idea VERY hard.

Why they are doing this is very simple to understand. They are trying to undermine the Constitution to the point where the People can’t even properly identify what kind of government they have.

If it is widely accepted that the United States is a democracy all of the parts of the Constitution I’ve mentioned in this article get tossed aside as obsolete and we no longer have a constitutional representative republic.

The second way to undermine our republic is through federal voter ID laws. It is perfectly okay under the Constitution for States to decide who does and doesn’t vote. It is perfectly okay under the Constitution for the States to decide what form of ID would be required to vote within their State. But federal voter ID laws would also undermine all of the mentioned parts of the Constitution quoted above.

People might be tempted to argue that the elections can’t be trusted if people don’t identify themselves. Yes. I completely agree that the States should do it because they are State held elections.

In this day and age just imagine what it would be like if the federal government passed federally regulated voter ID laws. You would have to have a federally approved voter ID card. So you’ve got your voter ID card, complete with a chip in it. You stick it in the machine and that chip tells the machine who you are and records how you vote. That information is added to a national database where everybody’s voting history is recorded. It also counts the votes and decides which ones of them are valid and which ones aren’t. It also counts the votes from the voters that are defined within it as valid. The rules as to how it is decided which votes are valid or not, and how those regulations are enforced, are determined and enforced by exactly the same people who are running for reelection into the federal government.

What could possibly go wrong?

Well, I’ll tell you what could go wrong. The people in charge of the database, in the federal government, would decide the outcome of all of the elections to the federal government of the United States. Hell, if I had the hacking skills I could decide by myself that the semi-rotten potato in my kitchen cupboard would be a better president than Biden. While the preceding statement is completely true the point remains that I should not be making that decision.

The point is that you absolutely and emphatically do not want the people in the federal government deciding for themselves who is and is not qualified to vote in elections in which they are the beneficiaries of the outcome of the election. It’s an obvious conflict of interest. More generally you do not want the federal government to have any more power over the States as to who the States can elect to be part of the federal government.

This is why the Constitution was written with the States having election authority. It’s much more difficult (though not impossible) to cheat and corrupt enough State’s elections to swing the outcome one way or another.

Which brings me to the third thing that would destroy the constitutional election system in this fantastically successful republic of ours.

I know a lot of people, both Demoncraps and Republicans alike, are going to disagree with me on this. My oath is to protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies both foreign and domestic. So be it.

It is the States who decide who can and can’t run for a position within the federal government. It is the States who decide who can and can’t vote for someone running. These, as in the references from the Constitution above, are State powers.

Any of those powers transferred from the States to the federal government, with regards to elections, are unconstitutional.

It is unconstitutional for the federal government to decide for the States who should and shouldn’t represent them in Congress. That is power named to the States by the Constitution.

So what is the third thing, that people are screaming for, that would destroy our republic by undermining the constitutional election system?

Federally imposed term limits.

It’s perfectly okay, per the Constitution, for the States to decide who they do or don’t want to represent them. It is perfectly okay for the States to impose term limits on their own representatives that they elect for their State. I don’t think it would fix a damn thing, mostly because it is currently a two party system, but I am only one person, with one vote, in my own State.

It is not okay under the Constitution for the federal government to do it. It is not okay under the Constitution for the federal government to restrict who can and can’t serve in the federal government in any way other than the ways already mentioned within it.

I’ve written a lot previously about the problems with federal term limits. I do not wish to rehash all of those arguments here. The only thing I wish to add to them is what is above. It is the right of the States and People to decide who they want to represent them. For the federal government to regulate that, as term limits are really regulations that restrict who you and other people can vote for, would represent a huge transfer of power from the States to the federal government. By precedent federally imposed term limits would give the federal government even more power (unconstitutional) to regulate the States.

It has far too much power as it is.

I think that liberalism within this country has advanced to the point where they can almost take total control of the federal government and use that power over the States to toss aside anybody who might challenge them. The evidence supporting this supposition is all around us.

Controlling elections at the federal level is how they would grab that power.

I strongly urge you, do not give the federal government control of the constitutional election system.

What Liberals Think the Constitution Says

This is going to take a bit of setup so please bear with me.

I know I tend to think a little bit differently than most other people engaged in politics. Most people engage in politics on an issue by issue basis. This is what the subject of Political Science is. On border control the Demoncraps think this and the Republicans think that. On guns the Demoncraps think this and the Republicans think that. On abortions Demoncraps think this Republicans think that. On healthcare Demoncraps think this Republicans think that. Taxes, spending, energy, issue by issue on an everyday basis these guys beat each other up vying for our attention and support. This is the two party system hard at work, trying to divide the People and persuade them, usually on an emotional basis, into their own point of view so that the government will enforce their views on other people.

I tend to look at things more from a Political Philosophy point of view. To me there is a difference between liberals and Demoncraps, as there is a difference between conservatives and Republicans. Because of the dancing around from position to position and political gamesmanship with regards to the ever shifting sands of the above named political issues, plus any more that may come along the way, the lines have become rather blurred between the political parties. Thus we have the existence of RINOs.

Republicans and Demoncraps are political parties. They are groups of people joined together with some agreement on the many issues who want to see their point of view enforced through the national government as policies on the States and People.

Liberal and conservative are not political parties. They are political philosophies. They are what people believe with regards to how the government should or shouldn’t interact with themselves and other people. And really, when you study all of the possible variations and combinations according to all of the different political philosophers that have come and gone throughout time, they are the only two that make any kind of logical sense to the average person who is just trying to get along with his own life.

Thus their common use in political discussions in the modern day.

The illustration is an example of a gradient scale. On one side we have blue. On the other side we have red. All through the middle we have various shades of pink and purple.

Easy enough.

Liberal versus conservative is just like that. There are only two real possibilities along this gradient scale. blue and red. Everything in the middle is just some blend of the two.

Now let’s say that pure blue is 100% government control over the People’s lives and red is 0% control over the People’s lives, and we now have a workable definition of what liberalism is versus conservatism. It’s not really about borders, abortions, healthcare, taxes, redistribution of wealth, military or any other issue you can name, although the more of those issues you want the government in control of has everything in the world to do with it. It is about the degree of government control over your life.

This is how some Republicans are also very liberal.

Modern Republicans have a tendency to be more conservative than the Republicans of the 1860s who were very liberal. The Demoncraps of today are very different than the Democrats of the 1860s who were the real constitutional conservatives of the time. As the events of time changes so do the issues. And with the changing of the issues so changes the positions of the political parties on the scale above. They have very clearly switched sides on the spectrum several times.

They don’t do it according to any concept of ethical or philosophical right or wrong. They do it according to how they think they will gain the most support among the people as the people’s political interests change according to the issues. The Republican Party (previously the Whigs) has been all over this scale. So have the Demoncraps/Demoncrats.

“Yes Brett,” I hear you saying, “but what does that have to do with what liberals think the Constitution says?”

Well, dear reader, I’m very glad you asked!

This is what liberals think the Constitution says:

 

There is an obvious problem with this. This isn’t the representation of a republic. It’s not even a representation of a democracy. What this is is an oligarchy. All real power rests upon the decisions of the Supreme Court. The votes of five, six, seven, eight or nine people can override everything and anything and decide what ultimate truth is for the entire country.

If there are no objections from the clowns in the Court then the clowns in the White House and Congress decide what everybody below them are and are not allowed to do.

The federal government rules over the States which are just organizational divisions of the federal government, and the States in turn rule over the People.

One might be tempted to say with an obnoxious objection that because the People and the States elect the clowns in the federal government that the People are really in control. No, no, no, no. Once a ruling is made by the clowns in the Court, and those rulings are not made at the consent of the People, or a law is written and signed by the president, decades, lifetimes or even centuries can pass under this model before the objectionable situation can be corrected. And as I’ve shown in my Supreme Court series the clowns in the Court can decide on anything they want and don’t even have to use the Constitution to support it.

This is what the Constitution really says:

 

The reality of the Constitution is that it very literally and explicitly says what is and is not constitutional. Nobody needs to decide anything further. It’s already there and everybody in every level of government has agreed that that’s what they will do. They’ve sworn their oaths to do it. We and the governments of our respective States are in charge of them. They don’t tell us what to do. We tell them what to do. Their only major power is that they, clowns as they are, are representatives of the People and the States to other countries in the world and make the decisions on an international level.

There are very few valid powers listed in the Constitution to deal with the Citizens of the United States on any direct personal level. There are only a very few valid powers for the federal government to tell the States what to do. There are very few restrictions on what the States can do. The powers and restrictions are listed (mostly) in Article One, Sections Eight, Nine and Ten, plus the Bill of Rights, which are the First through Tenth Amendments.

Supporting my suppositions is the actual text of the sections of the Constitution named above. Additionally, and for those smart-ass liberals out there who disagree, I can provide this quote from the guy who wrote it; James Madison.

"The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce. … The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people."

Now I know that there’s going to be some wise guy liberal comment that the 14^th Amendment now gives the federal government control of the People’s lives. Yes. That would be true but if you study the rest of the Constitution, particularly the 10^th Amendment, and how the 14^th Amendment was illegally and unconstitutionally ratified, that, as a valid argument falls flat. The 14^th Amendment is a tyrannical, liberal abomination and should be repealed immediately. In my four decades long study of politics I have never seen a bigger and more blatant act of unconstitutional political corruption than the 14^th Amendment.

But I digress…

The Constitution as written, plus the first twelve amendments, is almost totally on the red side of the gradient scale of liberal versus conservative above. The Constitution as the liberals understand it, and as it has been taught to the American People, is almost all of the way to the blue end of the spectrum. There is very little in our lives in these times that is not regulated in some way by the whims of federal government.

So here’s the big twist; the entire Demoncrap Party believes in the liberal version above. That’s no surprise. But every time a Republican goes along with the premise he is also showing himself to be a liberal. What he is really saying is “the Demoncraps are right regarding the Constitution!” His only objection is that he himself does not control the power.

Right now I would say that, along with the Demoncraps, half to two thirds of the Republican Party agrees with what the liberals think the Constitution says regarding the construction and operation of the federal government. That puts those of us who believe in the federalist, constitutional republic model of the country clearly in the minority.

It is a logical contradiction to say that we elect the people who rule over us. If that is the construct then sooner or later the people who you think you are electing to rule over you will just cut out the election part of the process and simply rule over you; because under that model the people you elect control the rules regarding their own elections.

You can however elect people to serve you.

That model of the United States under the Constitution gets my vote every single time.

What is and is not Constitutional?

This, it would seem, is a very large and complicated subject. People argue and fight over it all of the time. It’s nothing to hear as many different opinions on this subject as there are people. One of the things that has caused this stems from over use of the word “unconstitutional” without really being clear on what it means. And if you read my series on theSupreme Court you’ll discover that they haven’t been helping the situation at all with their random and arbitrary rulings.

During the middle of the last century it had come to colloquially mean “everything you think is bad that you can name and think the federal government should get involved with fixing.” This practice continues to this day.

Example: “It’s too hot outside and my ice cream cone has melted! That’s unconstitutional! The government should do something about it!”

Example: “I want to kill my baby but the government is stopping me! That’s unconstitutional!”

Example: “Someone makes more than I do and I don’t get paid enough! That’s unconstitutional!”

Example: “I saw someone in a public place praying! That’s unconstitutional!”

Example: “I fell down and broke my weewee and now can’t afford my medical bills! That’s unconstitutional!”

Another part of the problem is the premise that the federal government of the country are the rulers above us and the States are just some lowly sub division below them. This is largely the problem since the times of Lincoln and the “Civil War” where the country was forced together again by lots of nice men with guns engaging in massive and unnecessary wholesale slaughter and destruction.

So, if you actually read the Constitution plus the first twelve amendments, and this is very easy to do, you would realize that the “Supreme Federal Government Model” of the country is very clearly wrong.

The very brief explanation of this is that there were, once upon a time, thirteen colonies. They created a mutual protection agreement in order to win their independence from Great Britain, called the Articles of Confederation. After Washington kicked their asses the colonies were granted their independence (The Treaty of Paris) individually. At that point the colonies became thirteen individual States. States that were united. Get it? Thirteen sovereign states, united under a mutual protection agreement.

It is important to understand that at that point these States were, for all intents and purposes, really different countries. They had different customs. Different morals. Different laws. Different armies. Different trade agreements. They even had different money. They could all pretty much do whatever they wanted to, right up until they were attacked. At that point the agreement was that they would unite their resources and fight to defend each other. They were very defensive about their independence and liberty. They were very defensive about having people over there decide what they should be doing over here.

I’ll say it again. They were different countries, also known as States, united to defend each other.

That’s it.

The problems they were having stemmed from other countries, and our own people, tended to view them then as we view the European Union today. Rather insignificant. So they decided to write a document which would unite them just a little bit more. This document is the Constitution.

The Constitution formed the federal government.

The Constitution was written by the States.

Thus it was the States who formed the federal government. And they did so with a very fierce defensiveness about their independence and liberty.

The important point being that all federal power comes from the States. Not the other way around.

So the federal government, as defined by the body of the text of the Constitution, is only an agency created by the States to serve them in doing only the things that all of the States at the time mutually needed and agreed upon. The federal government serves the States. Not the other way around.

In this, the United States is not one country. It is fifty different countries inside of a strong mutual protection and international relations agreement.

That agency known as the federal government, assembled by the States, is granted only the powers they need to accomplish the specific tasks named within the Constitution, and very emphatically not to rule over them.

Included in the Constitution are a bunch of things defining the form of the federal government, a few limitations on the States, how representatives, presidents and justices are to be elected or appointed, some things that they are not allowed to do and a rather specific list of things they are allowed to do and expected to do.

The most important parts of this are two sentences: 1) Article One, Section Eight, and 2) the Tenth Amendment.

Article One, Section Eight is the list of things they are allowed and expected to do.

In short they are allowed to tax, pay the debts, provide for defense, borrow money, regulate commerce, establish rule of naturalization, make laws on bankruptcies, coin money and regulate the value of it and of foreign coin, fix the standard of weights and measures, provide punishment of counterfeiting, establish post offices and roads, copyright laws, constitute tribunals inferior to the supreme court, write laws to punish pirates, declare war, authorize civilian ships to capture enemy ships during war, raise and support Armies, provide and maintain a navy, make rules for the land and naval Forces, provide for calling forth the militia, provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the Militia and its officers and training, do some stuff about the national capital, necessary government buildings, forts, arsenals, etc..

The last of these powers I am going to separate out and paste in exactly, and emphasize it, because it’s kind of important to the point I’m trying to make. “And To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.”

I call your attention to these words, “foregoing Powers.” This is a limiting factor to the powers of the federal government. It doesn’t say “any powers you frickin’ want, just because you think it’s a good idea for some supposed ‘general welfare.’” It says “foregoing powers.”

The Tenth Amendment, in layman’s terms, says that the federal government is not allowed to do anything else. “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

Everything the federal government is doing that has anything to do with the list of powers in Article One, Section Eight, is constitutional.

Everything else the federal government is doing that doesn’t have anything to do with the list of powers in Article One, Section Eight, is unconstitutional for the federal government.

On the list=constitutional for the federal government.

Not on the list=unconstitutional for the federal government.

Do you want to know what is constitutional for the federal government? Look at the list. Not there? That means it’s unconstitutional for the federal government to engage in it at all.

One of the things that is not on the list is any authority for the Senate to amend the Constitution to give themselves additional powers. Article Five (which specifies the process for amendment) notwithstanding, any amendment to the Constitution which gives more power to congress is unconstitutional.

Now that last sentence, I realize, is a new thought to a lot of you, but the Constitution cannot legally be amended to just give the federal government any power they want. Why do I say this? The Tenth Amendment forbids it!

As of the passage of the Tenth Amendment, until it is repealed, no more power can be legally granted to the federal government. They shouldn’t even be allowed to debate the idea.

As extreme as it may sound to say it, most of the amendments from the Thirteenth on are unconstitutional for the federal government.

Fifty States can, and certainly should, write laws to ban slavery but legally the federal government can’t. Fifty States can, and certainly should, write laws for women and people of different races to vote but legally the federal government can’t.

The federal government was not established to define what our rights are. It was established to provide fifty States with national relations, international relations and mutual protection. That’s it.

It is the States, if anybody, who should decide who is and isn’t free. It is the States, if anybody, who should decide privileges and immunities. It is the States, if anybody, who should decide who can vote. It is the States, if anybody, who should decide how to educate our children. It is the States, if anybody, who should decide if wealth distribution is appropriate. It is the States, if anybody, who should decide if Social Security is appropriate. It is the States, if anybody, who should decide if Medicaid or Medicare is appropriate. It is the States, if anybody, who should decide…well…every single thing that you can or can’t think of that isn’t specifically designated as a power of the federal government.

The federal government wasn’t created to lead us, rule over us, interact with us on an individual basis at all or dictate to us what the terms of our lives should be. Everything along those lines is none of their business.

What do you say we remember who we are, man up and tell them so?

Typically Liberal

I was confronted by a liberal with this meme the other day. I found that I agree with most of it, at least within the limits of how they are stated. (Yes, I know what you’re thinking conservatives, we’ll get to that!) It would be good practice to spend some time thinking about these so you can have the counter arguments ready when they are needed. Let’s go through them item by item.

1) “People working 40 hours a week should not live in poverty.”

True. In an ideal world nobody should live in poverty.

Here’s the thing—and you’ll see this pattern often—this is likely cover for something else that they can’t overtly say. This is typical liberal doublespeak; and personally, I can’t stand it when someone says one thing but really means something else.

What the typical liberal is thinking is that they should be able to take money from people who have more of it, unearned, and give it to people in poverty, again unearned.

I can’t even begin to list the problems that come up with that line of policy, and that’s not the purpose of this post. All I’ll say is that there is a reason why any civilized society has laws against theft. The results of such policy are in the society all around us.

The other variant of this is to force employers to pay more money. Again this leads to all sorts of other problems and unintended consequences. On the more philosophical side of the equation I have to wonder, is it any more ethical to use force to make someone give their money to someone else directly than it is to steal it outright and give it to someone else? Either way someone else controls what you earn while you don’t control what you earn.

2) “Everyone should have access to higher education.”

As stated, I agree. I suspect the typical liberal sub context is that someone else with money should pay for it and the benefactor of these funds should do nothing to earn it. They also want more pay for teachers, so they know someone somewhere has to pay for it. Buildings aren’t free. Staff isn’t free. Books and study materials aren’t free. The property that all of it goes on isn’t free.

So we are back to issue #1. Take money from someone unearned and give it to someone else unearned; by force if not by willing compliance.

3) “Healthcare should be given to all, not be a luxury for rich people.”

Here we have something that is again typical liberal. “Given.” So are we to assume that hospitals cost nothing? Staff costs nothing? Utilities cost nothing? Supplies cost nothing? Doctors, nurses and other healthcare specialist should work for nothing?

Where does the money come from to cover it?

And again issues #1 and #2. Take it from someone else. Give it unearned.

4) “No one, especially veterans, should be homeless.

As a veteran I’d agree with this too. The question here, again, is how to pay for it. Here we can go to the Constitution. I direct your attention to Article One, Section Eight:

Clause 1, “The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States;”

Clause 12, “To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;”

Clause 13, “To provide and maintain a Navy;

Clause 18, “To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers,”

This is the first of two things on the whole list that has any constitutional support within the federal government. I would say there should be some qualifiers. “Why is the veteran homeless?” would be the intelligent question. Just because a veteran served his country does not excuse him from the consequences of his own bad decision making. I’m willing to pay for a veteran who served honorably, got out, is positively trying to do his best, and is momentarily down on his luck. I’m not willing to pay for the guy who served dishonorably, got out, knocked of the liquor store to get drunk, pay for hookers and crack.

Nobody, regardless of prior service or status, should be rewarded for their lack of ethics in present time. Ever.

Additionally this one surprises me. The usual action of liberals regarding veterans is to spit on them and add them to their own terrorist watch lists. They hate the military.

5) “No child should ever have to worry about being shot at school.”

True. Unequivocally and without doubt or reservation.

That’s not a good justification for confiscating the property from someone who is not doing the shooting. I will add as a footnote to this that school shootings are a new thing. Guns are a very old thing. The problem isn’t the guns. It drugs. Particularly psychiatric drugs. That’s the new thing. That’s also the thing that aligns with the data points regarding the increase in school shootings and mass shootings in general.

But I digress.

6) “Politicians should not dictate medical decisions for women.”

True. Within that statement, without further context, I agree with it.

In typical liberal fashion I don’t think this says what they are really thinking of. I very strongly suspect that there is some subtext to it. In typical liberal fashion it doesn’t say exactly what it means but is a positive statement covering for something that is totally indefensible. I would think that politicians should not dictate medical decisions for men either, or children.

My best guess is that it is in defense of murdering unborn human beings. Politicians should definitely make the decisions regarding murder, especially when it comes to the defense of the lives of innocent people. That’s one of the very few valid reasons for a government; to help the people defend their physical lives.

7) “Companies should not be permitted to trash the Earth for profit.”

Okay. I agree. I don’t know of any company that is asking of its customers, “Hey, how much would you give me for polluting the Earth,” so I’m certain that this one is again, typical liberal, misstated. See, nobody is trashing “the Earth for profit.” What they are doing is providing goods that people want and need to better their lives. Yes, they should be as clean about it as they can. To state it as “trash the Earth for profit” is misleading at best, an overt lie at worst.

8) “Lobbyists should not be allowed to bribe our representatives.”

Here’s the one that as stated I’d disagree with.

Hold your emotion maker on a leash until you finish the next couple of paragraphs. Okay?

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution says, “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 the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Donating to someone’s campaign for doing something you want is freedom of speech. Lobbyist groups are formed when people petition the government for a redress of grievances. They are an integral part of freedom in the United States. Whether your lobbyist group is to “preserve a woman’s right to choose” or “preserve the 2^nd Amendment” you have a right to approach your representatives and donate to them in their bid for office. That is not bribery.

It only becomes an issue, bribery, when the representative accepts the money in support of something that is in violation of the Constitution, and his oath to defend it, or is offered the money under the table to put into his own pocket. The crime, and I would call it either contempt, perjury or treason, is the violation of the Constitution.

9) “CEOs should not receive 3000 times the pay of their workers.”

10) “Equal rights and equal pay should be the benchmark for all Americans.”

I’m going to handle #9 and #10 together, because really, they are the same subject.

I believe all people should be paid equally to the value that they provide for the company. If any person can provide 3000 times the value to the company as, say, a line worker putting a nut on a bolt or a janitor sweeping the floor, then they should be paid accordingly. If you can bring in 3000 times the profit for the company then you should be paid equally to the profit you make for the company. If you get paid one three thousandth of what the CEO gets paid, and you are resentful or envious of it, and want to make 3000 times what you do, then the solution is simple. Just make 3000 times the profit for the company as you currently do and you will rightfully have earned it.

If done any other way we then run into the last paragraph of issue #1. Either you control your money or someone else does. If there is a law that says “CEOs can’t make this much money,” and “companies have to pay their employees that much money,” then it is the government that controls the money, not the employees or the company that they work for. It’s either a value for value, free and willing exchange, or it isn’t. There is no middle ground on this.

11) “Wall Street gangsters should go to prison when they steal.”

Everybody who steals, defined as taking money from someone unearned, or through fraud, or threat of force, should go to prison.

As a footnote to this I would say that government gangsters should go to prison too. What is a government gangster? Someone who uses the government to take money from someone to give to someone else. Especially in exchange for political power.

12) “There should not be subsidies for profitable corporations.”

I agree completely. There should also be no subsidies for unprofitable corporations. There should also be no subsidies for anybody for anything at any time for any reason. It’s not the government’s job to take anybody’s money, unearned, from anybody and give it to anybody else. As in #11 above, government gangsters should also go to prison when they steal. This is basic 10th Amendment type stuff and as such is the second of two things on the list that have constitutional support.

Now there is one other thing that applies to most of these globally. I could have said it for each of the items that it applies to, over and over and over again. It’s much better to say it only once here at the end.

In #1 the government controls people and their working and pay. In #2 the government controls education and all aspects of it. In #3 the government controls all heath care, decisions, benefits, policies and decisions regarding your body because they are paying for it. In #4 the government controls veterans, their lives and where they live. In #5 the government controls all of the guns and schools, again. In #6, if the government controls medical decisions through funding of #3, then that means politicians would dictate medical decisions for women. So they would control that too. In #7 the government takes control of private companies. In #8 the government controls free speech and who you can support for office as well as how you can support them. In #9 the government takes control of private companies and all of their employees and what they can and can’t be paid. In #10, ditto. In #11 the government takes control of how all money is invested.

So with numbers one through eleven, what isn’t under government control? What isn’t subject to the whims and dictates of an out of control congress or president or court? Whoever the authority is in the federal government at the time, whether Biden, Trump or any other raging tyrant who achieves power is arguably in charge of every aspect of your life. Or at least all of the important ones.

You could decide which movie you want to see but because of the fact that movies are made by corporations and the government controls them through their money you can’t control how much you pay for it, or even if you can afford to go, because the government controls how much you can make. So even that is out of your control.

That’s not freedom.

And that leaves us with #12 as the only exception. ( Number 4 is already under government control constitutionally.) Surprisingly enough it is the only reduction of the government in the entire meme, assuming that the same rule applies equally to unprofitable corporations. I suspect that there is more to it though. Liberals do not like people who make profit—unless it is themselves at the expense of someone else.

And as most of these show, the liberals have either no knowledge of, or outright disdain for the Constitution. In fact the person who posted it was saying how obsolete the Constitution is immediately before posting this meme.

Hmmm…, typical.

Biden’s Speech on Democracy, 9/1/22

Occasionally I do this thing where I review presidential speeches and debates according to the Constitution. I mark the unconstitutional parts, the parts that no president should ever be involved with, in red along with a note showing which part of the Constitution it violates. I then do a word count of the constitutional versus the unconstitutional and come up with a percentage overall. More often than not it’s a violation of the 10^th Amendment that I’m commenting on. Frequently it’s Article One, Section Eight. Sometimes the 2^nd or 1^st Amendment. Regardless the idea is to be as objective in measurement as possible.

For anybody who wants to Make America Great Again, as I do, and anybody who is an honest constitutional conservative, I very highly recommend you do this. Learn the Constitution. It’s not hard. Then go through the speeches of any politician in office or running. Highlight things that are not constitutional in red. You’d be both surprised and enlightened. I guarantee that.

In reviewing the speech Biden made on September 1, 2022, I was somewhat astonished to give it a rating of 60% Constitutional. That’s very high according to the standards of today’s politicians regardless of party. I’ve seen Donald Trump score much less. A rating this high is unheard of given the content of the speeches of anybody in the Demoncrap… sorry… Democrat Party.

On closer examination I had to realize that a large volume of the ideas represented by the words of this speech were composed of ambiguous and patriotic sounding fluff. You know what I’m talking about. It’s stuff that could mean anything according to the perspective of the person listening to it.

This ambiguous fluff was also intertwined with things that are both overt and covert lies. I honestly don’t know how anybody with a human conscience could give a speech like this and look at himself in the mirror, let alone face anybody in public ever again.

Setting that completely aside there is one thing I notice that should stand out to anybody who is a constitutionalist. The word “democracy” appears in the speech thirty-one times. Often twice in a paragraph.

For those who don’t know it already, Article Four, Section Four of the United States Constitution says, “The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government….” The United States is not a democracy. It is a republic. “Yes, yes, yes,” some of you are going to say, “but a republic is a kind of democracy.”

Well, I suppose if you are thoroughly indoctrinated by the most liberal of Political Scientists ever spawned in the mind of Satin they might seem to be the same thing to you. But they aren’t. People get confused about this because in a democracy everybody votes. Well, in a republic people vote too, so, same thing. That’s like saying “People vote in Taiwan. People vote in the United States. Therefore Taiwan and the United States are the same country.” Or try this one, “Planets are round. Most fruit is round. Therefore planets are fruit.”

Aside from the logical arguments are the various statements of the various Founding Fathers as to why they avoided using the word “democracy” in any of the founding documents. I’ll leave that to the reader to independently look up.

Which leads us back to the speech from the pre… presid… p… pres….

I can’t say it. I’ll try again.

Which leads us back to Joe Biden’s hate filled, lying, misinformed, uneducated and divisive speech from the other night. I wish I could put a soundtrack to this blog post. If I could it would sound like “The Imperial March.”

There are a lot of comments to object to. As tempted as I was to comment on every single one of them I just couldn’t do it. Mark Twain’s quote became most prevalent in my thoughts. “Never argue with stupid people. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.”

I know when I’m being sold something. And I also, perceptive as I am, know when something is being falsely hammered into my head.

If you repeat a lie often enough it becomes the truth. This is axiomatic in propaganda. Fortunately for those of us who are truly freedom loving speakers of truth it works both ways. The way to fight it is to repeat the truth more often than the lies.

The only reason to repeat words over and over and over again is to forcefully drive it into your skull.

So, from the Dimwit in Chief’s speech, every time he said the word democracy:

1) “These two documents and the ideas they embody -- equality and democracy -- are the rock upon which this nation is built.”

2) “But as I stand here tonight, equality and democracy are under assault. We do ourselves no favor to pretend otherwise.”

3) “They refuse to accept the results of a free election. And they’re working right now, as I speak, in state after state to give power to decide elections in America to partisans and cronies, empowering election deniers to undermine democracy itself.”

4) “They look at the mob that stormed the United States Capitol on January 6th -- brutally attacking law enforcement -- not as insurrectionists who placed a dagger to the throat of our democracy, but they look at them as patriots.”

5) “That’s why respected conservatives, like Federal Circuit Court Judge Michael Luttig, has called Trump and the extreme MAGA Republicans, quote, a ‘clear and present danger’ to our democracy.”

6, 7) “But while the threat to American democracy is real, I want to say as clearly as we can: We are not powerless in the face of these threats. We are not bystanders in this ongoing attack on democracy.”

8) “And, folks, it is within our power, it’s in our hands -- yours and mine -- to stop the assault on American democracy.”

9) “We are still, at our core, a democracy.”

10) “And yet history tells us that blind loyalty to a single leader and a willingness to engage in political violence is fatal to democracy.”

11) “For a long time, we’ve told ourselves that American democracy is guaranteed, but it’s not.”

12) “That’s why tonight I’m asking our nation to come together, unite behind the single purpose of defending our democracy regardless of your ideology.”

13, 14) “Democrats, independents, mainstream Republicans: We must be stronger, more determined, and more committed to saving American democracy than MAGA Republicans are to -- to destroying American democracy.”

15) “We’re a big, complicated country. But democracy endures only if we, the people, respect the guardrails of the republic. Only if we, the people, accept the results of free and fair elections. Only if we, the people, see politics not as total war but mediation of our differences.”

16) “Democracy cannot survive when one side believes there are only two outcomes to an election: either they win or they were cheated.”

17) “American democracy only works only if we choose to respect the rule of law and the institutions that were set up in this chamber behind me, only if we respect our legitimate political differences.”

18) “Look, as your president, I will defend our democracy with every fiber of my being, and I’m asking every American to join me.”

19, 20, 21) That all deserve justice and a shot at lives of prosperity and consequence. And that democracy -- democracy must be defended, for democracy makes all these things possible. Folks, and it’s up to us.”

22, 23) “Democracy begins and will be preserved in we, the people’s, habits of heart, in our character: optimism that is tested yet endures, courage that digs deep when we need it, empathy that fuels democracy, the willingness to see each other not as enemies but as fellow Americans.”

24) “Look, our democracy is imperfect. It always has been.”

25) “Notwithstanding those folks you hear on the other side there. They’re entitled to be outrageous. This is a democracy. But history and common sense -- good manners is nothing they’ve ever suffered from.”

26) “But history and common sense tell us that opportunity, liberty, and justice for all are most likely to come to pass in a democracy.”

27) “And this work is the work of democracy -- the work of this generation. It is the work of our time, for all time.”

28) “And if we all do our duty -- if we do our duty in 2022 and beyond, then ages still to come will say we -- all of us here -- we kept the faith. We preserved democracy. We heeded our wor- -- we -- we heeded not our worst instincts but our better angels. And we proved that, for all its imperfections, America is still the beacon to the world, an ideal to be realized, a promise to be kept.”

29) “There is nothing more important, nothing more sacred, nothing more American. That’s our soul. That’s who we truly are. And that’s who must -- we must always be. And I have no doubt -- none -- that this is who we will be and that we’ll come together as a nation. That we’ll secure our democracy. That for the next 200 years, we’ll have what we had the past 200 years: the greatest nation on the face of the Earth.”

30, 31) “And may God protect our nation. And may God protect all those who stand watch over our democracy. God bless you all. (Applause.) Democracy. Thank you.”

That’s thirty-one times in less than a half an hour. Only once did he, as the Constitution does, call the United States a republic. Only three times in the whole speech did he mention the Constitution at all. And in none of those times did he actually cite something specific from it. It’s as if the Constitution, rather than a specific set of laws, is some sweeping generality for things he thinks of and anything he thinks is in fact constitutional.

So here is what he says and what the thrust of his entire speech was. “And here, in my view, is what is true: MAGA Republicans do not respect the Constitution. They do not believe in the rule of law. They do not recognize the will of the people.”

My question, other fluff and obvious lies notwithstanding, is to ask who is it who actually doesn’t respect the Constitution and the rule of law? Especially when he can’t even properly identify what form of government he is serving under? Or directly cite the document with any specificity at all?

My point is that if the Dolt in Chief can’t even get that right, what business does he have in the White House?

And if you are one of those people who think a republic and democracy are the same thing, yet still somehow call yourself a MAGA, ask yourself why it is that Biden, and the rest of everybody out there, keeps chanting the word "democracy" over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over...as if you should have no chance if you believe otherwise.