For decades liberals have gotten away with posturing themselves as having some moral authority to preach at the rest of us about any array of rights that they purported to treasure.  The Age of Obama has finally put an end to that canard.

MYTH: It’s My Body

You know the line.  Many proponents of abortion rights make their argument based upon the idea that our bodies are our own and that government cannot regulate them.  The idea is that the baby, once born, enters the realm of government protections enjoyed by the rest of us, but up until that point it is none of its business.  “My body, my choice”, the mantra goes.  Over the years they have managed to position abortion rights as some sort of sacred canary in the gold mine indicator of individual liberty, even coining the oddly inapplicable phrase reproductive rights for the debate.  Proponents of abortion rights always position themselves as the ones who believe in individual freedom.

But then along came ObamaCare to shatter the myth that their position on abortion was based on a general philosophy of individual freedoms.  If the government can tell its subjects how and where they can get health care, that government effectively has complete control over their bodies.  Given that the Left has now implicitly admitted that we in fact do NOT have control over our own bodies, they can no longer make any parallel claims of self-ownership to justify abortion rights.  They gave that up in pursuit of third world socialized medicine.  They simply cannot have that one both ways, though with their typical intellectual dishonesty they will certainly try.

RESULT: BUSTED

MYTH: Liberals Revere and Defend Individual Rights

We all remember how liberals shrieked at the passage of the Patriot Act – when it was Bush, that is – they let it go when their Dear Leader renewed it.  They claimed that the Bush Patriot Act was a violation of our 4^th amendment rights (one of only two amendments with which most liberals are familiar) because it permitted the monitoring of foreigners who communicate with suspected overseas terror groups.  However, in the new Obama Age in which people have accepted that we are not free individuals but are instead simply livestock living on the government collective, such talk is ridiculous.  The freedom-loathing mindset that allows people to support ObamaCare requires that the government monitor all of us all the time.  You cannot have it both ways; either we are free or we are not.

RESULT: BUSTED

MYTH: Liberals Protect and Defend the US Constitution

Those of us who are familiar with the Constitution laugh when liberals try to refer to it because they routinely demonstrate a complete lack of familiarity with it.  Thinly veiled political groups like the ACLU act like several of the clauses and amendments do not even exist.  To most liberals, their grasp of the Constitution consists of a murky understanding of the first amendment and the fourth amendment but very few can speak about much of the remainder.  Admittedly, they do like to wrap up their ideology in Constitutionality when it comes to baseless things like claims of civil rights violations in the new Arizona law, but they can never have an informed discussion about the Constitution nor can they ever get beyond vague claims of “rights”.  Many liberals have put far more time into studying the Communist Manifesto than the Federalist Papers, and it shows.

In the Obama Age, liberals simply cannot even mention the US Constitution again.  From their ignorance of the text in general, to their denial of the very existence of the 10^th amendment, to their egregiously dishonest contortions of the Commerce Clause in order to seize more power over our lives, they have always thoroughly despised our founding document and typically trot it out only when they want to defend some immoral behavior.  Those of us on the libertarian side of conservatism have known that for decades.  But now they have shown once and for all that they view the Constitution merely as a hindrance standing in the way of implementing their immoral collectivist ideology.  Most recently, Elena Kagan’s unwillingness to answer whether Congress could make a law requiring that we all eat vegetables every day is as clear a window into their demented thought processes are you are likely ever going to get.  They genuinely think that government owns every one of us.

Liberals reject the Constitution and should be called on it even when they pay lip service to it.  They are enemies of Constitutional government and our historical individual rights.  We should never even humor them when they try to pretend otherwise.

RESULT: BUSTED

MYTH: Liberals Are Serious About Fiscal Responsibility

In the Obama Age, we have clearly seen that liberals are willing to throw all future generations under the bus in pursuit of their agenda.  The radicals running our country have no problem borrowing money from Americans not yet born in order to fund their vote-buying agenda today – after all, most of them will be dead and buried before the whole thing comes crashing down.  Though no clear thinking person has ever taken liberals seriously when it comes to spending restraints, with a $13 trillion debt and a $3.7 trillion budget they have forever lost any credibility when it comes to spending.  Just as important, they can never criticize anyone for over-spending, though their more likely class warfare laced insult is that we are under-taxing.

RESULT: BUSTED

MYTH: Liberals Care About “The Children” (It Takes A Village)

One common refrain from politicians of all stripes is that we need to do something “for the children”.  Though the Democrats love to tout welfare programs like SCHIP under the notion that they are compassionate and concerned about America’s children, the Democrat party and its continued supporters have shown via their out of control spending that they have absolutely no concern for today’s young people or for future generations of Americans.  To compare them to drunken sailors is an unfair insult to inebriated servicemen.  True to the core selfishness of liberalism, they only care about what is good for them today.  It is decidedly adolescent thinking, but all too often that is par for the course for liberals.

RESULT: BUSTED

MYTH: Liberals Protect Senior Citizens

Over the years liberals have played a dishonest but successful game involving senior citizens.  They claim to be huge proponents of Medicare and Social Security, but that myth was quietly busted decades ago when they started stealing every bit of the surpluses to spend on other vote-buying schemes, all the while knowing that they have created unfunded liabilities for the future generations about whom they simply do not care.

Then along comes ObamaCare, which will not only ration care for the elderly like other countries with Soviet-style health care – several of Obama’s advisors have made past statements confirming that reality – but it steals money from Medicare in order to prop up the preposterous notion that ObamaCare is budget-neutral.

The Left has thrown America’s senior citizens under the bus, and many of them do not even know it yet.  Though they will certainly not be called death panels when they arrive, such decision making panels are coming.  Liberals can never again pay lip service to the idea that they give a rodent’s posterior about America’s senior citizens.  Senior citizens and future generations are effectively cannon fodder for the Left’s agenda.

RESULT: BUSTED

MYTH: Liberals Care Deeply About the Environment

One long standing liberal myth involves their concern for the environment.  They all shrieked loudly when a biased and only partially truthful report about arsenic in water was used to slam the previous administration. But outside of a few liberals who hail from the Gulf region their silence on the Gulf Oil spill is truly deafening given the pathetic response and weak leadership from the White House.

President Obama intentionally dragged his feet in his initial response on the oil spill because he immediately saw it as a too-good-to-pass-up vehicle for his anti-energy agenda.  He wanted the mess to get big enough to be successfully used to strong-arm domestic energy policies, but he once again showed his incompetence by letting it go too far.  Adding insult to injury, he chose his allegiance to labor unions over his alleged concern for the environment when he refused to waive the Jones Act, which would have dramatically helped contain the damage from the oil spill.

The fact that the liberals are not going after Obama for his dismal performance on the oil spill shows that their alleged concern for the environment is just another political game for them.  Their silence in the face of the federal government keeping the press away from the oil spill mess speaks volumes about where liberals are really coming from.  They do not really care about the environment unless it can be used as a political bludgeon against their opponents.

RESULT: BUSTED

MYTH: Liberals Are Civil Libertarians

Though it’s undeniable that the Democrat party is historically the party of racism, including Jim Crow laws and the filibuster of the Civil Rights Act, with the aid of a complicit media they have managed to construct a myth involving an opposition to race-consciousness and bigotry.  But once again, their Dear Leader President has busted yet another myth.

The case against the New Black Panther Party members for voter intimidation was already won.  The defendants never responded and were found guilty.  After being found guilty, the Obama administration dropped the case.  The only conclusion that an objective observer can draw is that they only care about bigotry and intimidation when it is a white person doing the intimidating – they do not really care about equal rights or the Voting Rights Act at all.

RESULT: BUSTED

Thanks to President Obama, we no longer have to believe in these liberal myths.

ENVIRONMENT

Eliminate the special tax-exempt status granted to environmental groups, since they are not nonpartisan charitable foundations.

I had to do some non-trivial research here in order to understand the underlying issues and legal constraints on such organizations.  Like a lot of governmental nonsense this is really boring stuff, but put simply the IRS allows tax-exempt status for some non-profit groups if they meet certain requirements related to their activities and what they do with the money that they raise. The IRS 557 publication states:

The organization will not, as a substantial part of its activities, attempt to influence legislation (unless it elects to come under the provisions allowing certain lobbying expenditures) or participate to any extent in a political campaign for or against any candidate for public office.

Then the section on Lobbying Expenditures states:

In general, if a substantial part of the activities of your organization consists of carrying on propaganda or otherwise attempting to influence legislation, your organization’s exemption from federal income tax will be denied.

As mind-numbing as this stuff is, it is vital to understanding the subsequent discussion with respect to abuses and interrelated groups so let us briefly define the three main types of IRS-allowed groups that we will be examining: 501(c)(3), 501(c)(4), and 527.  501(c)(3) organizations can accept tax-deductible donations if the organization refrains from anything political, but if they cross the line into politics they lose their highly-desired ability to accept those deductible donations.  A 501(c)(4) organization is like a 501(c)(3) group but is permitted to be politically active as long as it is true to the organization’s purpose, however that political activity cannot be its primary focus.  The price that a 501(c)(4) group pays for the permitted political activity is a loss of the deductible donations.  The third group, a 527 organization, can support “issue advocacy” but cannot support or oppose a specific candidate without falling under some additional regulations.  Like the 501(c)(4) groups, donations to a 527 group are not tax deductible.  As you may already suspect, part of the game involves multiple related groups.

In 2004, the US Senate Environment and Public Works Committee published a report on the actions of several environmental groups who manage to maintain their tax-exempt status even though they are breaking the rules.  The groups singled out included The League of Conservation Voters, The Natural Resources Defense Council, the Sierra Club, and Greenpeace.  One problem pointed out in this report is the interconnected web of 501(c)(3), 501(c)(4), and 527 groups, with the latter two groups receiving money funneled from the 501(c)(3) organization (which is permitted to receive deductible donations).  None other than the very liberal Washington Post featured the Sierra Club as a good example of this potentially illegal web:

Perhaps no one better illustrates the host of interlocking roles than Carl Pope, one of the most influential operatives on the Democratic side in the 2004 election.  As executive director of the Sierra Club, a major 501c (4) environmental lobby, Pope also controls the Sierra Club Voter Education Fund, a 527. The Voter Education Fund 527 has raised $3.4 million this election cycle, with $2.4 million of that amount coming from the Sierra Club. A third group, the Sierra Club PAC, has since 1980 given $3.9 million to Democratic candidates and $173,602 to GOP candidates.

 These activities just touch the surface of Pope’s political involvement. In 2002-03, Pope helped found two major 527 groups: America Votes, which has raised $1.9 million to coordinate the election activities of 32 liberal groups, and America Coming Together (ACT), which has a goal of raising more than $100 million to mobilize voters to cast ballots against Bush. Finally, Pope is treasurer of a new 501c (3) foundation, America’s Families United, which reportedly has $15 million to distribute to voter mobilization groups.

 ‘I am in this as deeply as I am,’ Pope said, ‘because I think this country is in real peril.’

The US Senate Environment and Public Works Committee report, titled POLITICAL ACTIVITY OF ENVIRONMENTAL GROUPS AND THEIR SUPPORTING FOUNDATIONS concludes:

This report does not represent the totality of environmental groups engaged in political activity in this election year or prior election years. It does not even represent all the actions taken by the environmental groups that are highlighted in this report each election year. However, this report provides examples of some of the actions taken by these groups and clearly questions any claims these groups make concerning being “non-partisan.”

…

Moreover, these groups’ activities demonstrate the concern expressed in the Washington Post article regarding political money this election year – money “slithering through on other routes as organizations maintain various accounts, tripping over each other, shifting money between 501(c)(3)’s, (c)(4)’s, and 527′s.” 

Today’s environmental groups are simply political machines reporting millions in contributions and expenditures each year for the purpose of raising more money to pursue their agenda. Especially in this election year, the American voter should see these groups and their many affiliate organizations as they are – the newest insidious conspiracy of political action committees and perhaps the newest multi-million dollar manipulation of federal election laws.

Since the game involves collecting that easy-to-get deductible money through a 501(c)(3), then funneling it through to more political groups, there must be serious transparent and auditable firewalls placed between the groups.  More to Levin’s point, the regulations clearly state that a group “may qualify for exemption from federal income taxes if it is organized and operation exclusively for one or more of the following purposes”:

• Religious
• Charitable
• Scientific
• Testing for public safety
• Literary
• Educational
• Fostering amateur sports competition

Since a group like Greenpeace is obviously not one of those organization types it seems fairly clear that it should not qualify for tax-exempt status.

Eliminate special statutory authority granting environmental groups standing to bring lawsuits on behalf of the public, since their main purpose is to pursue the Statist’s agenda through litigation.

The definition of “legal standing” seems fairly cut and dry at first and as is typical it only got complicated once judges started redefining the term to better suit their own particular ideologies.  The idea of legal standing is simply that in order for you to sue you have to be someone who is being harmed or will be harmed by the law and that a favorable court decision must be likely to redress the injury.  For example, I would not have the legal standing to simply step up and sue to overturn the D.C. laws that severely restrict firearms, but Dick Anthony Heller, being subject to those laws, had standing to bring that landmark case (Heller v D.C.) which ultimately overturned many of the D.C. laws as being in violation of the second amendment.

While the Supreme Court denied standing for environmental groups in Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife (1992), saying that among other things it was a violation of the Separation of Powers, they did allow standing in Friends of the Earth v. Laidlaw (2000).  In his dissent, joined by Justice Thomas, Justice Scalia wrote:

We have certainly held that a demonstration of harm to the environment is not enough to satisfy the injury-in-fact requirement unless the plaintiff can demonstrate how he personally was harmed. E.g., Lujan, supra, at 563. In the normal course, however, a lack of demonstrable harm to the environment will translate, as it plainly does here, into a lack of demonstrable harm to citizen plaintiffs. While it is perhaps possible that a plaintiff could be harmed even though the environment was not, such a plaintiff would have the burden of articulating and demonstrating the nature of that injury. Ongoing “concerns” about the environment are not enough, for “[i]t is the reality of the threat of repeated injury that is relevant to the standing inquiry, not the plaintiff ’s subjective apprehensions,”

Article III’s mention of “cases” and “controversies” has been defined by the courts since the very beginning (i.e. President Washington and Chief Justice Jay) as being a requirement that the plaintiff suffer injury or a legitimate threat of injury.  In this case the plaintiffs did not make that case effectively, though the majority did not see it that way.

In another case, Massachusetts v. EPA (2006), Justice Roberts issued a scathing dissent based upon a lack of standing associated with the Court granting special status to Massachusetts:

Before determining whether petitioners can meet this familiar test, however, the Court changes the rules. It asserts that “States are not normal litigants for the purposes of invoking federal jurisdiction,” and that given “Massachusetts’ stake in protecting its quasi-sovereign interests, the Commonwealth is entitled to special solicitude in our standing analysis.” Ante, at 15, 17 (emphasis added).

The nuances of legal standing are complex and I cannot even begin to scratch the surface of this, but the fact is the environmental movement has succeeded in having the courts redefine the definition of standing in order to bring many of their suits.

Fight all efforts to use environmental regulations to set governmental industrial policies and diminish the nation’s standard of living, such as “cap-and-trade” to regulate “man-made climate change.”

This one is hard to argue against. 

The environmental movement is as much about left wing politics as it is about the earth.  You may have heard many environmentalists described as “watermelons”, meaning that they may be green on the outside but are red (politically) on the inside.  There is a lot of truth to that.

What I have observed is that if you have a group of people, all of whom are informed about the science (or lack thereof) of anthropogenic climate change, the dividing line between the believers and the skeptics is which side of the ideological spectrum that they are on.  Many leftists realized years ago that a sure path to the soft-tyranny that they seek is to hide their real motives in an environmental agenda.

Cap and trade is about politics, not the environment.