Goals, Strategy, Tactics: Why the Right Keeps Losing

This election cycle (2016) has to be the most disgusting election that I have witnessed in my lifetime. I’m pretty certain I’m not alone in that feeling. Be that as it may it has given me a chance to learn something from the observation of it.

If we were to just set ourselves apart from the fray for awhile and survey the reasons why people vote for other people we would find that there are a lot of combinations of smaller reasons to choose a candidate or oppose one. A lot of them are ridiculous. For example; he’s black, he has funny hair, he is a woman, he put his dog on his car, he fixed an ice skating rink, he said something stupid or rude, etc. There is an endless supply of those. Some are kind of nice in people, in general, and some aren’t, but none show any kind of qualification or disqualification to be president. Even if the candidate is a very successful businessman it isn’t a qualification for high office in my way of thinking. Congressman, possibly, but president? No.

So for now I’m going to brush aside these kinds of arguments without any thought other than to classify them as “Trivial Issues,” just so I have a place to put them in my mind. Most of them fall into the line of thinking that causes a society to enter into a kind of cult of personality; never a very good thing for choosing a leader.

After we’ve thrown out the above Trivial Issues and thus separated the wheat from the chaff, to some degree, we would notice a lot of issues come to the surface. What do we do about: The boarders? Social Security? National security? The budget? Healthcare? Gay marriage? Welfare? The military? Economic policy? Taxes? Energy? Education? Gun rights? Global warming? Terrorism? Immigration? Abortion? Trade policy? International relations? There are more I’m certain but I think you get the idea of what I’m talking about so there is no need to list them all here.

Most of these issues are as old as mankind itself and the permutations and applications of the various issues as they intersect with our society, along with people’s imaginations in applying them could, in political theory, spawn a seemingly infinite number of political parties created to support the various combinations of them. That is to say, each candidate has his own thoughts on what to do about all of the political issues and no two of them match. Even within a single party, the Republicans for example, one wants to do “this” about Social Security, the other wants to do “that” and the rest of the seventeen who ran for the nomination want to do something else. One wants to do “this” about taxes, the other wants to do “that” about them and the rest all want to do something different. Even when you look at the party platform and compare the candidates most of them have some really strong violations of it, both in present time and historically. This is the cause of the disunity of the Republican Party and why many who support it, or formerly supported it, feel so betrayed.

So we have issues, issues, issues, issues, issues and issues, all across the political spectrum. Everybody feels different about them enough to fight over them and as a group the political right can’t unify in support of a single candidate. The party splits itself, starts in with the name calling, enter the Trivial Issues, and the left wins again.

Why?

I’m a big fan of the United States Military and like to study history, especially involving war, so I’m going to use a military/war-time analogy to explain this.

The two most basic and likely most used words in the military are strategy and tactics. They are very important words to understand for people who plan to win a war. If a nation’s wartime policy and planning is deficient in either of them the result is that they lose, unless, of course, the other side’s is worse.

Strategy, according to the Encarta Dictionary in my word processor is: “MILITARY the science or art of planning and conducting a war or a military campaign.” This is a big picture plan to achieve a specifically stated goal. “To free Europe from Hitler’s military forces,” is a specifically stated goal. The strategy to accomplish that would be the broad plans to achieve that goal. “First we invade Africa and chase his forces off that continent. Then we limit his ability to resupply his war efforts by using the Navy to control the Mediterranean Sea and Atlantic Ocean. We do this by operating out of England to defeat German Naval forces. We also take Sicily and Italy to establish force on the continent and further cut off access to the Mediterranean. Then we invade France …” Strategy is all very big picture stuff designed to accomplish the purpose of the war.

Tactics, as defined by the same dictionary, are: “the science of organizing and maneuvering forces in battle to achieve a limited or immediate goal.” An example of an immediate goal would be the taking of the various beaches in the amphibious assault of Normandy. “This kind of troops for Utah beach, that kind for Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword. The troops for Utah will be equipped with these weapons, the troops for Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword will have those. They will be landed using this kind of landing craft. They will be supported by this kind of naval force. Each force of invasion troops will have this or that specific objective …” Tactics are all specific, local items required to win a particular battle. They don’t have much consideration as to the overall objectives of the war beyond that specific battle and how to win it. Tactics can be as small as Buck Private Smith in hand to hand combat with German Private Jerry Sauerkraut fighting over three square feet of ground at its smallest. At its largest, in this example, it would never go beyond the Invasion of Normandy. Tactics would never properly include the defining of the overall goals of the war, or the strategy, outside of the fact that this battle is necessary to the accomplishment of the ultimate goal of defeating the enemies of America.

The thing to realize about tactics is that there has to be a specific strategy designed to achieve a specific goal in order for them to be coordinated enough to work at all. Without that strategy and ultimate goal to coordinate the tactics an army could, in theory, win almost every battle and still lose the war. You could have the best troops, with the best equipment and the best training and still put them in all the wrong places at all the wrong times. They would be surrounded, cut off, captured, or killed without the correct strategy to coordinate their movements with each other and keep them supplied.

There is a parallel to the application of goals, strategy and tactics in politics. Goals are goals in either war or politics. They are still a specific statement of what you wish to achieve in the end. What in wartime would be called strategy converts in politics to principles. The political equivalent to tactics would be the issues which the American People are so often concerned with and their attention is focused upon.

This is why the Republicans are experiencing so much disunity. That they could have seventeen major candidates with no two of them holding similar views on all of the most popular issues is both more and better evidence to support my suppositions than I could ever have concocted in my own mind.

There are no coordinating principles or goals. It’s all issues, issues, issues, issues, issues and issues. Even the platform is just a list of issues that they support and oppose with little reason or explanation as to why each issue is supported or opposed ever being talked about. That everybody feels different about them all, typically without ever exploring why, turns the whole organization into a fractured mass of wishy-washy Jell-O that seems unable to accomplish any long term goal or strategy.

Well to me, at any rate, life is pretty simple. I’ve reduced the entirety of politics down to only two principles. I’ve done this out of the realization that really there are only two possible options. The government can either be a big one out of our control or a little one under our control. That is really all there is to it. There is no other option regardless of all of the combined issues.

The underlying principle of the United States Constitution (at least up to the 12^th Amendment) is based on one idea. That single idea can be technically and philosophically expressed as, “The more dependent you are on other people, the less individual freedom you can have.”

For example if you go to work in the morning and punch the time clock you give your time to the owners of the company and are dependent on them for the compensation by which you seek to support the lives of you and your family. You have thus entered a state of dependency with your employer and so are subject in exchange for that support to his rules. You have sacrificed your freedom over the management of your time because of that dependency. While you are on the company’s time and property you are expected to behave in a certain way and towards a certain end; not all of which you will agree with. However if you own the company yourself your rules and freedoms are at your own determinism and the success or failure of your company depends only on your efforts and decisions.

Throwing out the technical and philosophical terminology this concept, in political terms, can be more easily expressed as, “Less government equals more fun.” These two seemingly dissimilar statements connect at the philosophical level because of the factors involved in dependency. We have become so dependent on the federal government that we can no longer be free.

Believe it or not, that is the fundamental principle of the United States Constitution. Every Article, Section, Clause and Amendment, prior to the 13^th Amendment, supports that simple idea. How do we, as States united in a common support agreement, create just the right amount of government at the federal level to protect us, hold us together and support each other, without at the same time creating a monster so big we can’t control it and thus lose our freedoms? In terms that are more expressive and entertaining; how do we keep the federal government from turning into Frankenstein’s Monster and running out of control?

The Democrats have a specific and universal goal. Nobody can make it within the party unless they instinctively agree to it. That goal is to create a tyranny of big government through which they can exercise total control over every aspect of our lives, from what we do with our money for our retirement to what kind of cars we drive, how we raise our children, even what kind of light bulbs we can buy, who we can marry, etc. Their stance on healthcare alone proves this. If the medical treatment of our own bodies is subject to federal regulation how can there be any control of the People over the government?

We now have the argument against the Republicans that they have no plan for federal government healthcare. That is as it should be. We also have within the Republican party large groups of people who think Obamacare should be repealed and replaced with something better. These are the people who are missing the point in just the same way as if Eisenhower’s commander over Utah Beach had the idea that the war should be won but the commander over Omaha Beach thought the war should be lost. The problem here in other words is really simple. There is no coordinating principle in operation between the two. Just as Ike should have, and did, appoint commanders who both wanted to defeat the Germans the Republicans should appoint only politicians who want to defeat the Democrat’s concept of big government tyranny.

Because the defining goal of limited federal power has been lost or forgotten and the strategy (principles) aren’t defined, the tactics (issues) all turn into a disorganized mess and the party falls apart and fails.

“A limited federal government in accordance with the United States Constitution,” would be a goal for the opposition of the Democrats. The general overall principles (strategy) of a party in opposition to the Democrats should be, “the elimination of all federal power not specified within the Constitution.” Then, and only then, will the issues (tactics) all be in alignment so the correct battles in the war for our freedoms can be properly determined, coordinated and won.

It all comes down to having the goals and principles with which to defeat the out of control federal government and having them well defined, articulated and taught at the grass roots level. Once that happens I think most thinking people would realize that most of the issues being discussed in this election should properly have nothing to do with the federal government.

Less government equals more fun. Until this is realized in the American public the only choice we will have is; which of the two out of control big government parties do we want to rule over us?

The 28th Amendment

A number of months ago in an uncharacteristic fit of being angry about the political situation in Washington DC I generated this meme suggesting an amendment to the Constitution. Given the popularity of this meme and the fact that I was recently asked to give some background to it, and since I've wanted to write a more full explanation of it, I thought this was as good of a time to comply as any.

There are a lot of people talking about an Article V Convention of the States to modify, amend or even rewrite the Constitution in its entirety. While I think an Article V is generally a pretty good idea most of the suggested amendment schemes are far too complex to come out as anything less than a total disaster at worst or total do nothing bust at the very best. I will explain that further as this post progresses.

The birth of the United States was pretty rough. In its early days, under the Articles of Confederation it almost collapsed. I don't want to dig too much further into this at this point and there are plenty of other resources to study as to what was happening in America at that time, prior to the adoption of the Constitution. For now it is sufficient to say that it wasn't very pretty.

After a couple of years of freedom from British rule the Founding Fathers got together and wrote the basic Constitution. By basic Constitution I mean the document itself without any amendments. They did this from the viewpoint that having a large, centralized and powerful federal government would be antithetical to the freedoms enjoyed by the States and the People. As a result they made it a very minimal document consisting of only five pages which outlined the total powers of the federal government.

You got that? FIVE pages. That's the total power of the federal government.

Within a couple of years the first ten amendments, as we all know them—The Bill of Rights, was added. The entire gist of these first ten amendments is to make absolutely certain that the federal government would never extend its power beyond those specifically named in the first five pages.

Now here's something to think about. The idea of a simple and streamlined, limited federal government, leaving as much freedom to the People and States, obviously was very appealing, and for the first time that I'm aware of in human history, the States and the People voted of their own free will to join the new country, without the use of force to get them to accept the form of the federal government framed under our Constitution. Let me say this part again in different words; it is the only time that I'm aware of in the history of mankind where the majority of people elected to join the country of their own free will rather than by the threatened force of weapons.

This country was established on a voluntary basis.

It is rather stunning to see just how quickly the idea caught on and grew. This GIF showing the growth of our country demonstrates exactly what happens when the idea of freedom catches on.

(Author Attribution: CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1750301)

As stunning as that is there is a less than obvious detail that I want to point out to you which is even more stunning. Notice the progress indicator at the bottom showing the timeline of the growth of our country. Divide it roughly in half at about the time (March 1, 1867) Nebraska joined the country. Now count the number of States joining the country to the left of the dividing line and compare that to the number of states on the right side of the dividing line.

Nebraska was the 37th State to join the country. After that only thirteen more States joined. That's thirty-seven in the first half of the history of the country, to thirteen in the entire second half. If you take the period of time from Delaware (US State #1 - 1787) to Nebraska (US State #37 - 1867) you get eighty years. Dividing that out you get a new State joining the country every 2.16 years. Extraordinary growth isn't it?

Compare that to how we've been doing ever since. From 1867 to present time—one hundred forty nine years—the United States has added only thirteen States! Only thirteen times since the post "Civil War Reconstruction" era has any group of People voluntarily decided to join the country. That's at a rate of 11.46 years per State and there is no sign of anybody in the world wanting to join this country in statehood anytime in the near future. There hasn't been a new State in this country in my entire lifetime of 54 (now 60) years!

What changed? We were flourishing, prospering and growing at a fantastic rate for a while then suddenly it slowed and finally stopped.

Anytime I'm doing statistical analysis and I see a graph moving upwards rapidly that suddenly turns downward I look just prior to the change of statistic to see what happened immediately prior to it that could have caused the change.

Remember what I established above as the sudden growth of our country due to the voluntary nature of People and States joining the country? Well, all of a sudden we have a "Civil War" which established the precedent that if any State or People seeks to leave the country they will be overrun by military might and at gun point be forced to return to the "Union" against their will.

If I were the People of a candidate State deciding whether or not to join this country I would be hesitant too! Once you get yourselves into it you can never get yourself back out of it and if you should try we will kill you. Just like, "Hotel California," you can check out any time you like but you can never leave. That is now the operating principle of the United States federal government.

You remember that voluntary principle of limited federal government outlined in the first five pages of the Constitution, plus the Bill of Rights, that caused us to so rapidly grow? Where is your limited federal government now? America? Where is it?

The first twelve amendments to the Constitution did absolutely nothing to add to the power of the federal government.

Then with the 13th Amendment the federal government took unto themselves the power to decide who should or shouldn't be free. Power is a double edged sword. If they have the power to decide who should be free then they also have the power to decide who is not free. Everybody should be free. This is an absolutely fantastic principle of existence for a country. So I wish to express that I have no objection to Section One of the 13th Amendment other than to say that the States should have individually ended slavery themselves.

It is in Section Two that has the problem that violated the fundamental principle of limited power for the federal government. "Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation." This is the first time a phrase like this happened in our Constitution but it most certainly is not the last. And this is the precise point in our country's history just before our growth began its decline.

The fundamental principle behind the majority of the Constitution, that of a federal government which is not allowed to expand its own power was clearly and completely tossed aside. A power, whether that power was right or wrong, that belonged to the States, was taken from them by the federal government.

Not only is this change a violation of the basic Constitution it is a violation of the 10th Amendment of the Bill of rights.

Following that the federal government continued its rampage against the States by passing the 14th, and 15th Amendments, both of which contain additional powers for the federal government which used to belong exclusively to the States and the People. Something that has to be mentioned here is that the passage of the 14th Amendment was mindbogglingly unconstitutional. Its text contains ex post facto laws which violate Article One, Section Nine of the basic Constitution and in order to get the numbers to pass it through Congress they had to eject the Senators from several States and stack them with shill representatives. This was also a gross violation of Article Five because, "no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate."

More than that though, if you look at the structure and function of the Privileges and Immunities Clause and how it has been used since the passage of the 14th Amendment you can begin to realize that there is nothing based on this that the federal government can't force on the individual People. The general effect is that the federal government, in the 14th Amendment, took the power of the States to protect and care for their own People and transferred it to the federal government. There is no limiting factor on the federal government regarding the People and no power of the States to protect the People from the federal government.

Again following that came the 16th Amendment wherein the federal government took upon itself the power to tax the People as individuals. The 17th Amendment takes the power of how Senators, the representatives of the governments of the States, are chosen, from the States. The 18th Amendment gives the power to the federal government to dictate the People's morality. The 19th Amendment strengthens the power of the federal government to decide who can and can't vote. The 21st Amendment reverses the 18th Amendment however the dictates of the federal government on our morality still lies in federal hands. The 24th and 26th Amendments are just more federal power over who can and can't be allowed to vote.

With more and more power being transferred from the States to the federal government is it any wonder why more people decide that they want nothing to do with us? Our federal government is going to take almost all of their freedoms to decide their own futures away from them! And once they are in it will literally kill them to try and get out!

I have to ask you America; can we please stop amending our Constitution to the effect of transferring our power as independent States and People to the federal government with the expectation that they will fix everything and make it all alright? Please? Can't we just get back to the original principle of freedom to decide for ourselves on which we were founded?

After exploring some of the major points of our history we can now get back to the top of this article regarding my own proposed constitutional amendment.

"Section One: Any and all previous amendments to this Constitution which were ratified in violation of the 10th Amendment, Article V or any other Article, Section or Clause of this Constitution are hereby null and void and are not to be enforced by any branch or department of the federal government of the United States."

This would remove the 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th, 21st, 24th and 26th Amendments from federal power and restore those powers back to the States. Subsequent to this, and quite obviously, the States themselves should incorporate some of these powers, particularly those regarding the banning of slavery and protecting voting rights into their own constitutions.

I have been thinking for quite some time now that one of the major problems our county has is that there is no enforcing mechanism within the Supreme Law of the Land regarding its violation. A congressman, president, senator, federal judge or justice can seemingly violate the Constitution with impunity. The Constitution has no teeth!

"Section 2: Any member of Congress, the Supreme Court or President who passed, rules on, or signs into law, or tries to enforce any provision, regulation, ruling or executive order in violation of any Article, Section or Clause of this Constitution, or any amendment ruled non-compliant under Section 1 of this Amendment, shall be charged with perjury or treason."

Originally I wrote Section 2 saying that the penalty for violation should be that they get hung for treason. That may be just a tiny bit over the top but I was really quite angry at the time and sometimes, particularly when I'm in a fit of temper, my sense of humor gets the best of me in an attempt to compensate. Anyway, I think most people would get the point.

I think it would be counterproductive to add a bunch of amendments to the Constitution. They seemingly tend to add more power to the federal government than they take away from them. Without any method of enforcement the federal government would just ignore the additional amendments in exactly the same way they are ignoring the 10th Amendment to the Bill of Rights; as well as they are ignoring the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th, etc.

With that said one of the big problems the country is having now is in overspending and it's to the degree that a lot of people are calling for a balanced budget amendment. Most of the current spending is on federal programs which are not specifically enumerated in the Constitution and are thus violations of the 10th Amendment. I think if there were a mechanism within the Constitution for its enforcement the States and the People would then have something to use against the federal government to stop their excessive overspending, thus making things such as a balanced budget amendment unnecessary.

We had something that worked pretty well for about eighty years. It would be an extreme mistake to toss those principles aside.

Isn't it about time that we stop the march toward more and more complicated and omnipotent federal powers and get back to the basics that were responsible for our largest period of growth?

The Domestic Enemy and The Oath

I know that there are a lot of people out there who have taken a military oath, whether officer or enlisted.

I was thinking about that oath I took when I enlisted into the United States Navy. It is just not in the nature of myself to swear to do something that I don't understand, so I made it a point to know it before I took it. Yet after all of these years there is something that suddenly jumped out at me which I've never spotted before. And it really is something quite striking when you think about it.

Let's take a look at it.

"I, (state name of enlistee), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God."

This oath is to the Constitution. It says so right there in very plain unambiguous English. When taking this oath you are not swearing to support and defend the president, the officers, any politician or political party. This was pointed out to me many years ago and I've long since grown accustomed to the idea.

So envision this if you will. You are being sworn into the military by a uniformed officer, likely on a military facility, surrounded by people in uniforms. What is likely going through your head, and admittedly what was going through mine, is that you are promising to defend the United States of America. Right? That's what you're thinking.

If it is what you think you are doing, you would be wrong.

Look at this part of the oath again; "I, (state name of enlistee), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same;"

Now tell me where it says to protect the physical United States?

That's right. Believe your eyes because it's right there in front of you; conspicuous only by its total and complete absence. This oath isn't to defend Ohio or Texas; although I think they should be defended. The promise isn't to defend New York or California; and well, the jury is out in my mind as to whether that would be beneficial or not. Be that as it may it isn't even a promise to defend the country!

The oath is nothing more or less than a promise to support, defend and bear allegiance to only the Constitution.

Now there is this other part you have to deal with. The second part where it says you will, "obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice."

Knowledge of the regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice is not exactly something that I'm particularly strong on. So I will leave the specifics of that part to anybody who has considered this oath to do their own research. My general understanding is, this is where they gain the authority and organizational structure to use you to defend the physical country; assuming the president decides that that's in the Constitution's best interest. After all, the president and the officers above you also swore to support (or protect) and defend the Constitution didn't they?

That is their job isn't it? And all of the three oaths; presidential, officer and enlisted are not to the physical country called the United States. They are to the Constitution; that set of ideas documented and agreed on by all States who decided to enter it, rather than the lines on the maps that outline where the states all are.

This is very important, so get this; the only part of this country that the military and president are promised to support, protect and defend, by oath, are America's founding principles which are documented in the Constitution.

In other words The United States of America is not a physical location on a map. It is an idea that people can be free and grow under a limited government. It is a very philosophical viewpoint.

If that seems like a radical concept I invite you to look at it more closely. When the Constitution was originally ratified there where only nine states in the country. The next four joined fairly soon after because the idea had already spread there. As the new country prospered more and more people formed states and entered, but their entry was the direct result of the spreading of a set of ideas embodied within the Constitution rather than physical force.

So it doesn't matter much where the lines of the States are drawn. They could be nine. They could be thirteen. They could be any number between thirteen and fifty. Guess what that means? They could also be a hundred. They could encompass the whole world and as long as the people within those lines believe in the ideas in the Constitution, it will be the United States.

America is not a set of borders and names on maps. America is an idea. It is the idea of freedom through limited government, wherever it happens to be on any map.

With this understanding of what the country is, I invite you to consider one of the more important points in the oath. Just what does it mean by, "all enemies, foreign and domestic"?

Foreign and domestic are pretty easy words to understand. They simply mean, "over there" and "over here." Or better yet, within the United States physical boarders or outside of them.

What is an enemy when what we are talking about, as something to be defended, is a set of ideas written in the Constitution on how the federal government is supposed to be run? In my way of thinking it would be the people who are entrusted with constitutional power of some sort who are either not following it and/or people who teach others that it shouldn't be followed.

The most egregious of these is the former. The person who would assume a federal office at any level is no better than Benedict Arnold if he violates the Constitution. He has been given a trust to defend and has sworn to do so. When he doesn't uphold his oath he betrays the country.

So here's the deal in other words; I swore to defend the Constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic. A person in office not following it is a domestic enemy.

This might seem to some that I am rather anti-government. Well, if the shoe fits I would only wear it when the federal government or anybody sworn to defend the Constitution violates it. I would be very much for the federal government if it stuck to doing only what it is supposed to do.

This, emphatically, does not mean that we should revolt and shoot them; at least prior to the point of their becoming a physical threat to us. What it does mean is that we should never provide support or defense to a person in political power who will not understand and follow the Constitution. We should vote against them and speak out against them at every opportunity. We have to make it fully and well known that the only people we will support are those who will follow it. More important than that we have to be able to teach our ideas to others.

Because the Constitution is an idea, our primary battlefield is in the arena of ideas. Our strength is our minds. Our weapons are our ideas. Our ammunition is our words. Because the Constitution is such a great idea, if you can become adept at defending those ideas from all enemies the real estate would take care of itself.

Politics, Football and Insanity

It has been often said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. I don't wish to quibble too much with the venerable Albert Einstein but I think that is more of a symptom of insanity rather than a precise and workable definition. Be that as it may, it works well enough to help illustrate why our country is in danger of losing its constitutional freedoms.

If you keep voting for the lesser of two evils you will never get different results. You are continuing to do the same thing over and over. Under Einstein's definition it would seem that those Conservatives who would like to support the Constitution but don't because they are afraid of the other guy winning have lost their minds. Yes, the left has always said our side of the aisle is insane; and under that definition they are somewhat correct, although not in the way that they are thinking.

Look at it this way; in football you win the game by moving the ball forward down the field towards the opposite end zone. You do not ever, under any circumstances, compromise with that goal if you expect to win. The other team does the same when they control the ball.

If you run plays that continuously give up several yards because you are so afraid the opposition is going to take more, and do it on every play, it is inevitable that you will lose the game. It would be irrational to think that the game could ever be won on such a basis. Just imagine how long the head coach would last if he said to the owners of the team that, "The offensive line of the other team is so strong and vicious and wants to get to that end zone so badly that I'm going to give them a three to five yard head start on every play in order to keep them from getting a first down." He'd be fired in the first season if he ever got the job to begin with.

The fans who believe in such a strategy would be the most disappointed and fearful group of people in the history of the sport. In fact they'd likely get used to losing and just think that that's the way it is; and they would never have any chance otherwise. The sports media would laugh at them, mock them and tell them that their team would never win. Sooner or later they wouldn't even bother to show up at the game because the team itself would have absolutely no confidence that they could ever win.

Regarding the players on the team itself; who of any talent would ever want to play on the team that is always willing to give up its position on the field and loses several yards every play?

In the game of politics in this country, our goal is the United States under the Constitution, in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The goal of the opposition is oppression, death and tyranny. Never doubt that; and never doubt their conviction that they want it with all of their heart and will unwaveringly attempt to do it at all costs. Their goal is to reach the end zone behind the Constitutional team; always, just as in football.

The most striking thing about this scenario is that THE LIBERALS KNOW THEIR GOAL IS TO MOVE THE BALL DOWN THE FIELD INTO THE END ZONE AND THEY NEVER LOSE SITE OF THAT GOAL UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE. They will never willingly yield any position on the field because they are oriented toward their goal. You can count on that more than the value of gold and from that, what they will do becomes as predictable as gravity. They never fear losing a couple of yards because they can be counted on to persist on the strategy of moving the ball down the field to the end zone that they are facing. Their candidates are always going to try to move towards tyranny as far and as fast as possible. Even if they occasionally lose a yard or two, or ten, or twenty, they will never lose sight of their orientation on the field. They will never compromise with that.

Compare that to the Conservative goal, which apparently is no longer to reach the end zone on the other side of the field, but to instead simply keep from losing even more yards. We've given up completely on the possibility of winning the game for the goal of keeping the next play from scoring a touchdown in the end zone immediately behind us. The apparent goal of our side is to give up a couple of yards, yet again, in order to keep from losing a couple more yards than that. This is the same as every election since Reagan; who was the last president to move the ball in our direction.

Now here's the reality of the situation. The argument that it will mean the immediate destruction of the country, and/or your freedoms, unless you vote for "Me" as opposed to "The Other Guy" has been used since Adams and Jefferson were running against each other in order to decide who was going to fill Washington's shoes. Yet somehow the country is still here. It will always be here as long as there are people who will uphold and defend the Constitution. This country can only end when We the People no longer believe in the principles of our founding documents and fail to support them.

Good and talented people will always accumulate around the attitude of people who are determined to win.  

If you believe it is impossible for us to win, I assure you, it will be. The only way out of this loop is to adopt the attitude that it is possible to reach the goal and win; and act accordingly. Never under any circumstance vote for or support someone who is going to move the ball toward the enemy's goal; and make it well known and beyond all doubt that that's exactly what you are doing and all that you are ever going to do.

Confidence is essential. Always plan to reach the other end of the field and know that if you continue with that postulate, no matter what may happen in the meantime, you will sooner or later reach the goal. Never plan out of fear of losing. Fear is an emotion, not a principle. Stand for something! Fear of losing is meaningless next to the confidence and determination to win.

The Constitution Matters

I am going to open this blog post with some words from the United States Constitution. This is the bulk of Article Six of that document.

"This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.

"The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."

What I am going to say in this post is not at all unique but it is certainly far too rare for my liking. I think the scarcity of people talking about what a president is really supposed to be has reached nearly tragic proportions and I think the country is in serious danger because of it.

These days I hear a lot of arguments centered on the point that, "Our Guy is better than Their Guy." "If you don't vote for Our Guy it is a vote for Their Guy." "The country will be destroyed if you don't vote for Our Guy." I fully get it that a lot of people think that Our Guy is great and he will save the country. I also fully get it that Their Guy would be a horrible president. But there is something all too frequently missing from them both which makes me unable to support either.

I'm not going to waste a lot of time in those sorts of arguments above. It seems rather pointless to me to support one candidate or the other when neither seems particularly fussed about trivial little things like the Constitution or the rule of existing law. Certainly neither one of them are mentioning it very much and both of them have supported some very gross examples of policy which I would not consider to be beneficial to the People of the country; letting alone completely their questionable legality. Furthermore any candidate who openly expresses any caring for the little niceties like laws and constitutions is openly mocked and lied about in the media.

People come up with a lot of reasons and rationale for their votes. They like his hair or don't like his hair. They like her history or don't like her history. His wife has nice arms. He's old. He's young. He can bring a fresh perspective to the office. He's black. He's "for the people." She is a woman. He's going to make deals with everybody to fix everything. He's going to make America great again. The other guy is a liar. He's not a professional politician. He is a professional politician. He is establishment. He is not establishment. He is a successful businessman. Years ago he gave his dog a ride on top of his car. Twenty-six years ago he got drunk. Nobody else contributed to his campaign so he can't be bought. He's a political outsider. Whatever.

They go on and on and on, and every single one of these points are totally and utterly ridiculous and they have all missed the point of voting for a president; and done so by a very wide margin. I'm just not going to go down that road at all because no matter what other issue any candidate is for or against, no matter what else they are or do, it has to be constitutional or America is lost. So my problems with either of the two most likely to become our next president are not personal at all. They lie exclusively in my deeply seated doubts that either of them have any intention at all of upholding the supreme law of the land.

When I take a look at the many and widely different reasons why people decide on who they want as president, two very strikingly important things occur to me. Everybody's standard for choosing a president is different and none of those standards has anything to do with the job a president of the United States is supposed to do. This is a very, very bad thing. It's no small wonder that we can't agree on who the winner of an election should be. There is no understanding of the uniform yardstick (Article Two of the Constitution) to measure the applicants of the highest job in the country!

Because of this lack of a standard to apply to the office, it is easy to see how people who support one candidate, could be totally baffled as to why anybody could possibly support the other. I've recently come to an understanding of how this has happened. I talk to liberals and they don't know, understand or care about the Constitution. That's kind of expected and so are their responses when I bring it up. I talk to hard line conservatives and Libertarians and they seem to know it and expect me, as well as everybody else, to understand it. The stunning revelation to me is that I've also talked to Republicans and while some of them clearly care about it, most of them seem to not understand it at all, let alone care about it. Just the other day I mentioned in an offhand way to some Trump supporters that I don't think his plans on healthcare are constitutional. I don't think the government has any business at all in healthcare. Man, by the reactions that I got to just this suggestion, you'd have thought I was a mass murderer. I can completely get the idea that given a choice between the Constitution and Trump, they would choose Trump no matter what he did, because no matter what he does the highest law in the land is that Donald Trump is right.

So here's the problem in one word; education. Specifically, accurate education about what is in the Constitution and more importantly why what is in it, is there.

Those who follow, understand and support the rule of law, as defined in our founding document, know that there are an awful lot of lies about it. "The Constitution says black people are only 3/5ths human!" is just one example. "The Constitution supports slavery!" is another. And yes, "The United States is a Democracy," is another. My personal choice for the worst lie is, "The Constitution is a living breathing document and can be amended or interpreted any way we want it to be." It's a huge lie. There is nothing in it that says any of these things. Go ahead and look if you don't believe me. I triple-dog-dare you!

It is quite obvious from the difference of standards for choosing a candidate, for any office, that something is wrong. So how do we fix our country?

I'm not going to debunk all or any of the lies about the Constitution here, that's not the point of this post, but it is important to understand that knowing the truth does matter, so we can make the correct and best choice. More than that it is of paramount importance that we know the truth so we can recognize and debunk the continuous streams of lies wherever we find them.

I am not going to take the time or use this space to explain the Constitution, other than to say it is the document that is a contract between us all, which is supposed to protect all of our rights. Whatever flaws people think it has—and I do think there are a few minor ones—it is the supreme law of the land, and it is critical to us all that we understand it and insist that everybody who is elected to federal office both understand it and follow it. Our human rights are at stake if the federal government becomes too much more untethered from it.

It is important to study it for ourselves and teach the Constitution to everybody, every single chance we get. The Constitution says what it says and it says it in simple language that anybody can understand; granting that the language is what was commonly spoken here two and a quarter centuries ago. It is also important not to take the words of constitutional scholars or Supreme Court rulings because they often have political or financial conflicts of interest with what it actually says. It is important to not take lengthy and extremely verbose interpretations of it. There is an old saying, "if you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bull," which applies here, so if what someone says about it is long winded and convoluted, it is very likely not true.

The Constitution is a simple document. Any honest evaluation of what it says and why is most likely going to be correspondingly brief.

Helpful references for its study, for use only when something seems ambiguous and you can't figure out what is meant, are "The Federalist Papers," and the notes of James Madison on the Constitutional Convention. I wouldn't go much beyond that; and even then, regardless of Madison's view, or the view of any other Founding Father, the Constitution is the supreme law of the land, not the opinion of Thomas Jefferson for example, who wasn't even in the country at the time of its writing, or any other authority. The views and authority of various Founders, constitutional scholars, and most especially the Supreme Court of the United States, are far, far below the actual text of the Constitution and are not legally binding. And yes, I did just say that the opinions of the Supreme Court are not legally binding unless there is something actually in the Constitution to support that opinion. As a general rule of thumb, when reading someone else's interpretation of any specific clause, if they can't do it in one or two succinct paragraphs that are direct and to the point, they are selling you a false bill of goods and should be immediately disregarded. Quite truthfully, there is not that much to say about any given specific clause.

If you have to use a dictionary be certain to use one which contains the definitions of words as they were used around the time the Constitution was written. Words like, "regulate," mean something quite different today than what they meant back then; and the difference in places like the Second Amendment and the Commerce Clause, are absolutely critical.

It is vitally important that you come to understand the Constitution in your own headspace rather than someone else's. That is the only place where absolute certainty can exist.

The reason why you want to do this is because when someone says, "Jonny Muckinfutch is going to fix the country with his health plan!" you can respond with, "Please state the Article, Section and Clause that grants the federal government the authority to do anything with healthcare." Of course you should be prepared to take the endless chain of irrational personal insults that don't relate to the subject at all. My standard response for these is, "Thank you for your opinion but personal insults are an argument for when someone has no valid point to make." To which you may get a response something like, "The Supreme Court says it's Constitutional! Dumbass!" My standard response is, "The Supreme Court is neither always right nor the highest law in the land though is it? So please name the Article, Section and Clause which authorizes that."

Sooner or later you will get someone who will know something of what the Constitution says but misunderstands it. I had a guy try to tell me the "General Welfare" clause authorizes federal government healthcare programs because the Supreme Court said so. You cannot do this if you are uncertain what the "General Welfare" clause is. So there are two points here. First is that the person usually cannot present any Supreme Court decision that says any such thing; and second, the context is completely incorrect for that interpretation. Your certainty on what it actually says must be absolute.

Now here is the most important thing to remember. You are trying to get people to read and understand the Constitution. If you keep asking, over and over, no matter what else happens in the conversation, if you stick to that point, sooner or later both that person, or any interested witnesses to the debate, will read the Constitution to find out what is actually in it; and if you are wrong or if you are right. They may do it out of your planting the seeds of curiosity or they may do it to try to prove you wrong. Either way the number of people whom you inspire to read it will increase.

If little tricks like this are done enough the Constitution, hopefully, will again take its rightful place as the standard for choosing our presidents.