Statists have a racket going that too few people seem to have figured out.  Though many Americans oppose Obama and his allies based upon specific policy issues, they continue to be naïve about the tactics of these genuine enemies of freedom.  These power-hungry people seek to destroy our historical institutions and principles in order to remake America under an immoral collectivist ideology, but they must acquire more power over our lives and over the states in order to succeed.  As ridiculous as it sounds, their modus operandi involves the simple act of intentional failure.  While their consistent use of this approach demonstrates their low view of the intelligence of Americans, their success with this tactic suggests that they are on to something.

How To Seize More Power By Failing

Step 1: Intentionally let a problem become a “crisis” by either refusing to enforce laws or by enforcing laws that only worsen the situation.

Step 2: Insult every American’s intelligence by pretending to ride in on a white horse to save us from the problem that was in fact intentionally created by the same group of egregiously dishonest con men.

We see this simple statist pattern repeatedly in America, and astute readers may realize that this tactic is right up Saul Alinsky’s alley.  This approach has certainly been co-opted at times by statists in the GOP, but it is now the default MO of the Democrats in their relentless assault on American limited constitutional government.

The Broken System

The Broken System approach involves refusing to enforce good laws that would help solve a particular problem.  The statist knows that the problems associated with non-enforcement will ultimately snowball into something that he can label as a crisis, therefore nothing that could help the problem will be attempted or permitted.  When the problems predictably fester into something that can no longer be ignored, the statist demonstrates Obama-like audacity by claiming that “the system is broken.”  Remember, the statist has refused to enforce laws that would help the problem because he is using his own intentional failure to seize more power and freedom from the people he undoubtedly sees as ignorant proles.

The Broken System fallacy is perfectly displayed in the illegal immigration debate. We have enough laws on the books to close the border, deport those here illegally, and severely punish those who employ illegal aliens.  But the plain truth is that the statist has no intention of enforcing those laws.  The purported failure of those “mean” laws is intended to be used as a vehicle for the Left’s agenda to “fundamentally remake” our country into something that the founding fathers would not recognize.

The President opposes the Arizona law not out of concerns about racial profiling but instead because he knows that the law will work.  If Americans see the Arizona law working, they will reject Obama’s call for a full amnesty, which he euphemistically refers to as Comprehensive Immigration Reform.

Exactly why does the President oppose the Arizona law?  Ignore his rhetoric; Barack Obama is always selling some new snake oil.  The President opposes the Arizona law not out of concerns about racial profiling but instead because he knows that it will work.  If Americans see the Arizona law working, they will reject Obama’s call for a full amnesty, which he euphemistically refers to as Comprehensive Immigration Reform.  Don’t ever forget that so-called Comprehensive Immigration Reform is nothing less than utter capitulation and amnesty.  Why does the President of the United States want this?  He simply seeks the vote inflation that comes with stamping out another 10 or 20 million poor and uneducated citizens.  It’s all about power to the statist.  They are willing to throw anyone and anything under the bus along the way.

Saved by the Antagonist

Another statist tactic involves passing laws that severely undercut the free market system.  When the economics play out just as anyone could predict, the statists claim that this “unencumbered free market” is out of control and that greedy corporations must be reined in.  They write restrictive new regulations that always seem to have special rules and exemptions for people and companies that donate money to these politicians.  Once again, the very people whose actions caused the crisis in the first place claim that they are here to save us.  This statist tactic very clearly played itself out in our debate over socialized medicine.

Government at many levels, though mostly the federal level, put so much onerous legislation and protectionism in place with regard to medical care that the system could not function properly.  Laws against purchasing insurance across state lines, refusal to rein in the trial lawyers (who positively own the Democrat party), and government imposed mandates on coverage constructed an artificial environment that was most decidedly not a free market.  Then, completely true to the original plan, when this system predictably fails to provide reasonably priced health care the statist steps in to take the system over, castigating the “greedy” companies that the statist claims caused the problem.

Another example of the Saved By The Antagonist approach is the housing crisis and subsequent financial meltdown.  On the front-end, the government and rabble-rousers like our current President strong armed financial institutions into making bad but politically correct loans to people who previously would not have qualified for a loan.  On the back-end, they used their control of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to require that a certain percentage of purchased loans be so called sub-prime loans, creating a huge market for these bad loans.  Our financial crisis was clearly created by our federal government’s policies, but now people like the deeply corrupt Senator Chris Dodd – who has been called “the Senator from Countrywide Mortgage” – claim that it was all greedy bankers and that the people who really caused this are going to fix it with more market-skewing regulation.

Think about the reality of what is happening.  Imagine an old western movie.  A bad guy rides in to town, shoots the place up, and storms out of town after robbing the bank.  Then he pauses in the woods to change horses and clothes and rides into town telling the people how he can save them from such future problems if they just let him take charge of everything.  Our politicians do not even bother to change disguises when they pull this game with us.

Let’s learn from their failures, even the unintentional examples.  When they fail, we should replace them rather than giving them more power.  Let’s throw them out in November and hold their replacements’ feet to the fire every single day.

During a regular O’Reilly Factor segment with Lis Weil and Kimberly Guilfoyle last night (March 30^th), Bill mentioned the legislation recently passed in Idaho that will require that the state’s Attorney General sue the federal government to block any insurance mandate included in President Obama’s health care takeover.  When he was discussing it, O’Reilly actually said that if two-thirds of the states did this then it would add a Constitutional amendment!  I am not kidding, and neither of the lawyers sitting with him on the segment questioned him on it.  I was pretty stunned.

On the next segment, which included Charles Krauthammer, he admitted that Dr. Krauthammer had corrected him during the break and Bill said that it requires three-fourths of the states in order to ratify an amendment.  I have no doubt that Krauthammer knew full well how completely wrong Bill O’Reilly was in that segment.  You probably do as well.

In fact, as readers of this blog are likely aware, there are only two ways to get a Constitutional amendment on the table for potential ratification by the states.  Only one of them has ever been used.  The unused method is a Constitutional Convention, which many reasonable people believe to be highly inadvisable because everything is essentially on the table – it is not limited in scope.  The only other method requires that both houses of the United States Congress pass a specific proposed amendment with a two-thirds majority.  Regardless of how the amendment is proposed to the states, three-fourths of the several states must then ratify the proposed amendment in their state legislatures for it to become a Constitutional Amendment.  This process is intentionally difficult and lengthy, providing a long time for analysis, criticisms, and reflection.  Contrast that with the “living and breathing” nonsense of the non-Originalist crowd…

I think that Bill just got confused about the ratio required for the States’ to call a convention and what the Idaho state legislature actually did.  But since we are all sharpening our rhetorical swords here to take part in this peaceful constitutional revolution, let’s take this opportunity to clarify the facts.

Here is the actual text of Article 5 of the US Constitution from the US Constitution Online:

The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.

Let’s break it down just to be clear.

• Amendments can be proposed by either:
  • A vote of two-thirds majority in both the House and Senate.
  • The never used Constitutional Convention, which will be called when two-thirds of the states’ legislatures apply for it.
• Amendments can only be ratified with the agreement of the legislatures of three-fourths of the states.

I think that the biggest chance that we have of rolling this back is going to come as a result of push-back from the states themselves.  Does anyone else remember the 10^th amendment?  Lefties can spare me the tortuous and consistently tyrannical Commerce Clause claims until they can defend something like Wickard v. Fillburn.

The federal government was granted very few enumerated powers in Article 1, Section 8 for a reason.  That reason is becoming clearer and clearer to more and more Americans watching the Obama Government Love onslaught.

But let’s ask an honest question.  Who are the real revolutionaries here?

Several months ago I was listening to a Mark Levin show podcast and was reminded that because of our nation’s birth in a revolution, all Americans are in effect revolutionaries.  History is certainly full of examples of groups of people rebelling against a colonial power, but our birth was not just a revolt against the nation-state of England.  The birth of the United States of America and the evolution of what became our Constitution in the years that followed represented a revolution against an otherwise accepted notion of the appropriate role of government in the lives of free people.  Unlike so many other revolutions in history, which end up enslaving the populace in the false freedom of central control and collectivism, our revolution freed up individuals to excel and succeed in ways unprecedented in world history.  America is not great because of government but because of the things that free people can do if government will stay out of their way, acting as an umpire instead of a parent.

Those on the left who are now briefly in power are in effect counter-revolutionaries revolting against the principles of the Constitution.  Nothing in either the specific words of the Constitution, nor in the well documented debates or the arguments in the Federalist Papers, could even come close to supporting the notion that the legitimate enumerated powers of the federal government include instituting a national health care system.  It requires a ridiculously expansive interpretation of the Commerce Clause – one that accepts that the Congress can regulate anything anywhere as long as it gets bought or sold – to support most of the mechanisms of the modern liberal welfare state.  Interestingly, American Thinker published an article today comparing some quotes from The Federalist Papers to Obama Care.

Concerning Article 1, Section 8(3) of the Constitution that “Congress shall have the power to regulate Commerce with foreign nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes,” Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist 17:

“The administration of private justice between the citizens of the same state; the supervision of agriculture, and of other concerns of a similar nature; all those things, in short, which are proper to be provided for by local legislation, can never be desirable cares of a general jurisdiction.”

 (Note: if a transaction between a doctor and patient is not local and therefore subject to local and not general jurisdiction, like buying produce from a farmer, then I don’t know what is. Article I, Section 8 was clearly focused on regulating commerce with foreign nations, eliminating multiple currencies within the states and removing inter-state tariffs in place during the Articles of Confederation. The Founding Fathers are turning in the graves at this massive intrusion into individual liberty.)

The counter revolutionaries have certainly achieved a huge victory.  There is no denying it.  Somehow, even though we have all been making our voices heard in this debate, they remain on the offensive and we are still playing defense.  But remember who is defending what.  We are defending the Constitutional principles that made this country the freest and most successful country in the history of human kind.  They are leading a counter-revolution against the principles of the American Revolution.  They are the revolutionaries.

November is Trenton.  Yorktown is a long way away.

We all know that we are going to enjoy significant wins at the polls in November.  What we need to remember is that our gains in November will only be analogous to Washington’s victory at Trenton on the day after Christmas in 1776.  It will be the first victory in what should be planned as a long, multi-front counterattack on the gains already made by the Constitution-hustling American statists.  We have a tough row to hoe.

Though I found the American Thinker article quoted above after writing this post because I was looking for Federalist Papers references, Jakeway’s article ends with the same basic (though more stirring) call for patriots to come to the aid of their country that I attempted last night in American Up.

From that American Thinker article:

The Founding Fathers defined the citizens as the natural guardians of the Constitution. Ultimately, it comes down to us. Remember the immortal motto of Gen. Nathaniel Greene who led his rag-tag militia across the Carolina in 1779-1780, “lost” every battle until providing the Continentals their first major victory at Kings Mountain and cut down Cornwallis’ troops from 30,000 to 15,000 before he quit Charleston and headed to Yorktown:

“I fight, I am defeated, I rise and fight again.” 

It is precisely now that one must not despair. Now is the time for lovers of liberty to throw themselves into the national scale. You are the natural guardians of the Constitution. Now is not the time for Summer Soldiers and Sunshine Patriots; now is the time for the heirs of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, John Hancock, Ben Franklin, James Monroe, John Adams, John Paul Jones, Patrick Henry, Nathaniel Greene and Ethan Allen.

You have a choice. What will it be? Acquiescence? Submission? Defeat? Where would we be if all the aforementioned had quit when they faced a little headwind (and, comparatively speaking, this is light breeze next to Valley Forge). Be ashamed; be very ashamed if you choose to go gently into that dark neo-Soviet night.  Be assured; a new dawn of American liberty will rise as American Patriots resolve to protect their Constitution and use all of its provisions to protect their liberties.

Yep.

Has the legislative branch ever so blatantly gone against the wishes of the American people with such landmark legislation that oh, by the way, increased their own power so exponentially?  I was already thinking what many pundits were saying, that this would prove to be a pyrrhic victory for the Democrats.

Like you I was really pissed off Sunday night after Stupak caved, and I am glad that being behind in my coding kept me from commenting on things before I had calmed down a little.  Don’t worry,  I am going to stay pissed off (I am southern), and I hope that all of you do as well.  But we need to redirect our justifiable anger and outrage.  Remember the old phrase: Don’t get angry, get even.  Freedom took one on the chin last night, but the people on our side are not the glass-jawed crowd, and we did not even merit the standing eight count.  It’s time to get the hell back up.  If it was just us guys, like the pro-gun movement in the early 90s, I would say that it is time to seriously man up, but this is bigger than that.  Every country has men, but only we have Americans.  It’s time to American Up.  I like the sound of that.

Last night when I was working and trying to avoid Twitter, which is hard to do in the best of circumstances, I saw one from a good guy by the name of @CalebHowe:

So it turned out to be Asculum rather than Waterloo.

I admit that even though I had been thinking that this was a pyrrhic victory for the Democrats, I could not place the battle to which he was referring.  It was of course the very battle won by Pyrrhus with such great cost, giving rise to the phrase so often uttered in the last few days.  Caleb’s point was that while this did not end up being Obama’s Waterloo – as was hoped by the excellent Sen. Jim DeMint – it will be his Asculum.  But I am absolutely certain that it will be up to us to make that a reality.

This challenge is about whether or not our children and grandchildren will enjoy a prosperity and freedom that was given to us by previous generations of Americans.

We need to stay focused and even more active.  I think that we all know that we are playing for keeps, and perhaps more importantly, we know the other side is.  This battle is not about some slight tax increase or a new regulation about how much water our toilets can hold.  This is about an attempt to redefine the historical American perspective on the appropriate relationship between the State and the Individual.  This is about a government that accepts absolutely no limit, constitutional or otherwise, on its spending or its acquisition of new powers over us.  This challenge is about whether or not our children and grandchildren will enjoy a prosperity and freedom that was given to us by previous generations of Americans.

There are always a few around who will talk about bailing and going to Costa Rica or New Zealand.  I invite them to go ahead now so that we do not foolishly count on them when things have gotten worse.   May posterity forget that you were our countrymen.  Many better men and women than me have sacrificed and died to hand me this America.  I’ll be damned if I am about to make it about me and walk away from the greatest country in the history of mankind.

The rest of you: enough said.  I know you’re with me.  I’ve got your back.  It is time for us to finally earn the label of American that we are lucky enough to share with people like Dr. Joseph Warren and Nathan Hale.  The actions and sacrifice of Americans like that are what gave the words patriot and American the very meaning for us that they possess.  Are we up to it now that our country needs us?

We can peacefully retake our country.  It’s finally time for us to reassert the United States Constitution.

It’s time to American Up!

So, Scott Matheson appears to have the credentials to be a judge, but was his nomination used to buy off his brother’s vote?

Consider Congressman Matheson’s record on the health care bill. He voted against the bill in the Energy and Commerce Committee back in July and again when it passed the House in November. But now he’s “undecided” on ramming the bill through Congress. “The Congressman is looking for development of bipartisan consensus,” Matheson’s press secretary Alyson Heyrend wrote to THE WEEKLY STANDARD on February 22. “It’s too early to know if that will occur.” Asked if one could infer that if no Republican votes in favor of the bill (i.e. if a bipartisan consensus is not reached) then Rep. Matheson would vote no, Heyrend replied: “I would not infer anything.  I’d wait to see what develops, starting with the health care summit on Thursday.”

The timing of this nomination looks suspicious, especially in light of Democratic Congressman Joe Sestak’s claim that he was offered a federal job not to run against Arlen Specter in the Pennsylvania primary. Many speculated that Sestak, a former admiral, was offered the Secretary of the Navy job.

Obama and his henchmen are corrupt Chicago thugs (which is odd given that they are a gaggle of beta males) who will stop at nothing to seize more control over the lives of Americans.

In the video below from Larry King Live, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) calls for an independent investigation while pointing out that this is just the latest in a line of underhanded deals wielded by a corrupt Democrat Party in their increasingly brazen attempt to ram their unpopular statist health care agenda down the throats of an angry citizenry.

We really need to have a independent investigation into this matter because we have seen the Cornhusker Kickback, the Louisiana Purchase, the Union Loophole, and now the big question is is the White House trading health care votes for judgeships?  This is a pretty serious issue, Larry.

Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) responds like the Kool Aid drinking one termer that he is, calling it simply a “distraction” and a ”tangent”.  I wonder if Mr. Grayson would have given the previous occupant of the White House the same benefit of the doubt?

Responding to Grayson’s trite dismissal of this as a “tangent”, Ed Morrissey over at Hot Air had this to say:

Besides, which candidate for President promised to change the way Washington works?  Which candidate promised “Hope and Change,” and a new era of transparency?  Which political party promised in 2006 to provide “Open, Honest Government”?  Those weren’t “tangents” in 2006 or 2008.

That being said, the likelihood of an independent probe into this is about the same as Barack Obama suddenly announcing that he’s converted to supply-side economics and proposing the elimination of the Department of Education.  The Department of Justice under Eric Holder will treat it with the same urgency as voter-intimidation tactics in Philadelphia, and the current Congress will get right on this obvious bribe immediately after looking into Nancy Pelosi’s power grab on Ways and Means.

Once it becomes automatic to more skeptically analyze the arguments that people make, it becomes quite apparent that there is no shortage of people who stubbornly hold beliefs based on fallacious logic.  Though a seemingly harmless result like believing in ghosts or psychics is often the outcome of such flawed reasoning, it ceases to be entertaining when one absorbs the reality that nation-changing decisions are being made on the basis of what amounts to illogical half-thinking.  American politics and punditry are rife with examples of logical fallacies that are routinely utilized to skew our perspectives.  More often than not the results are unwise, ill-informed decisions with long lasting unintended consequences.

The slick and relentless utilization of one such logical fallacy, the false dichotomy, is a key part of an attempted wholesale destructive change to the historical American philosophical view of the proper relationship between the State and the Individual.  The SGU list referenced above defines a false dichotomy as “arbitrarily reducing a set of many possibilities to only two”, in other words claiming that there are only two choices in situations where multiple alternatives exist.  An argument can be made that statists long ago perfected an art form implementing this particular logical fallacy, and this flawed logic is regularly on display during our ongoing great debate about the socialization of health care in America.

Those who have debated the so-called Health Care “Reform” now being foisted upon an unwilling American populace have seen this false-choice tactic employed time after time.  Virtually every socialized medicine debate of any depth or duration will ultimately demonstrate the last-ditch logical fallacy that underpins proponents’ fierce support for any piece of legislation that manages to be labeled as health care reform.  Even after yielding on cogent criticisms involving costs and historical government inefficiency, proponents of socialized medicine quite often fall back on one consistent but intellectually bankrupt response:

“Doing nothing is not an option.”

That statement encapsulates the knowingly dishonest statist myth that there exist only two choices in this debate.  The arguments from many supporters of socialized medicine strive to reduce the debate to one of choosing between massively increased governmental intrusions into our health care system or simply leaving the status quo in place.  As employed in this case and in many other proposals from American progressives, that classic false dichotomy argument attempts to force people into choosing between socialism or inaction, soft tyranny or nothing.  Various counterproposals have been discussed at great length in many other places, but it is safe to say that the collection of alternative ideas from conservatives including tort reform, portability, easing of mandates, and interstate sale of health insurance certainly constitutes a middle ground that does not conform to the dishonest false dichotomy presented.

In Atlas Shrugged the author admonished readers to check their premises in order to ensure that the things that are “known” are not built on false ideas or flawed logic.  Unfortunately, much of what many people “know” is often based upon sets of rationalizations and positions that too many of those people intellectually cemented in place long ago, never to be reexamined.  In the current health care debate this phenomenon is often demonstrated when people continue to repeat the allegation that 46 million Americans cannot get health insurance even though that claim has been consistently proven to be flawed and deceitful.  Clever politicians are very adept at contriving proposals based upon flawed premises, always subtly manipulating the public in the direction of increased government power. 

Public opinion polls continue to show increasing opposition to any government health care plan.  At the same time there is a frantic partisan push in the Senate to get this egregious bill passed, including Landrieu-like bribes being thrown around to buy votes.

It is clearer than ever that the sole aim of so-called health care reform legislation is to significantly increase government power over the lives of its subjects.  Nothing else makes logical sense.

[I originally posted this on my other blog but decided to cross-post it here as well]

Rasmussen’s latest numbers show only 47% in favor of their health care takeover, but it is more important to note the intensity factor.  While 25% strongly favor the plan, 39% strongly oppose the plan.  That is hardly a mandate from the American public for a government takeover, but that will not stop these statists from attempting to seize control of our health care.  Seizing more control over their “subjects” is the raison d’etre of the Marxist ruling junta in our country and they are going for broke.

As everyone has heard by now, the statist Democrat leadership bribed Sen. Landrieu (D-LA) with our money in order to get her vote.  One hundred million dollars of our money bought her cloture vote and she will now attempt to insult the intelligence of 300+ million Americans by then voting against it when it comes to the floor, but the Marxists can lose 9 votes and still pass this egregiously offensive assault on the constitution and our freedoms.  Make no mistake, a vote for cloture was a vote for the health care takeover.  Mary Landrieu is one of the fake moderates who, along with Bayh, Lincoln, and Nelson, has chosen to make this her last term as a Senator.  Additionally, I cannot adequately express my disappointment in Sen. Lieberman (alleged I-CT).  Joe, you are a dishonest piece of excrement.  THAT’S RIGHT I SAID IT!

What would the founding fathers say about this health care takeover being rammed down the throats of Americans who do not want it?  Not that I am suggesting or condoning this yet, but there is no doubt that they would think that it is time to “alter or abolish” this government.

“when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security” - The Declaration of Independence

Just who do these freedom-loathing dependency whores think that they are?  Have they forgotten about that little dose of Yosemite Sam that so many of us in flyover country possess?  It would seem that they think that we are like the meek sheep who dominate their party.  They are in for a rude awakening.

They serve us, not the other way around.  They have forgotten that.