Posts Tagged ‘2012 Election’

Honesty is always the best policy because when you’re fooling yourself you’re not fooling anyone else.  The recent election should have been a wake-up call for everyone committed to the traditional principles of our great Republic: constitutionally limited government, personal liberty, and economic freedom.  The weeping has lasted for a night, and now it is time to be honest with ourselves to face the cold clear light of day and to prayerfully find our way in this brave new world.

Obviously the dismal election results have captured the attention of everyone who hoped to avoid the triumph of the Progressives and their utopian statist agenda.  Every conservative pundit whether neo or old school either on the only non-progressive news channel or online is evaluating the election results and offering their prescription to heal the weaknesses of the Grand Old Party.  Some say embrace amnesty with limits, some say moderate the abortion plank, others say come out for legalization of drugs.  In other words continue the slide of the one-time bastion of traditional values into a mushy, touchy-feely Democrat-Lite.

This commentator is taking a different route.  I believe it is time to abandon the Republican Party as the empty shell it has become. Personally after a lifetime as a card-carrying, active, and contributing member of the GOP, I quit the Party back in the 1990s after the Congressional majority I had worked so hard to help achieve slid into tandem with Bill Clinton giving us a bigger government and sham surpluses.

I endorsed Mitt Romney in the recent election for the one reason I repeated over and over, he might have driven us to the poor house a little slower giving patriots some more time to rally round the flag.  That didn’t happen, and instead we are on the Obama Express to Fascism disguised as an American version of Euro-Socialism.  This may sound harsh to anyone who is unfamiliar with the actual definition of Fascism: socialism with a capitalist veneer.  It is typified by private ownership and government control, crony capitalism and the exploitation of the productive for the benefit of protected and promoted classes loyal to the regime.

Patriots may brand this as un-American and say that the American people will never accept the regimentation and control needed to implement such a system; however, the truth is the majority of the voting public just voluntarily chose it instead of a blatant appeal to free markets and love of country.  It is time to accept the new normal; generations of progressives have educated generations of Americans not only to believe they are entitled to cradle-to-grave government support but also to demand it as their right.  Combine these home grown supporters of free stuff over freedom with the import-a-voter immigration policies since the Kennedy Immigration Bill of 1965 and the Democrat entitlement machine has finally achieved the permanent majority they have been making down payments on since FDR.

Either through neglect or a stubborn belief that it can’t happen here we have stood by while the Progressives successfully changed our nation from one founded upon a rock-solid constitution to one built upon the sand of a living constitution which is a dead letter.

How do we put the tooth paste back in the tube?  How do we changeAmericaback to what it was?  The only way to do it is one mind at a time.  We must concentrate on raising our children with a clear understanding of limited government and personal freedom.    We must work to gain influence in our local school boards and communities so that we can ensure that the knowledge of American History and our heritage of freedom isn’t lost or corrupted.  And I believe we must abandon the GOP as the shadow of its former self that it has become.

Personally, I identify most closely with the Constitution Party.  This party states its mission clearly:

The mission of the Constitution Party is to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity through the election, at all levels of government, of Constitution Party candidates who will uphold the principles of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of theUnited   States, and the Bill of Rights. It is our goal to limit the federal government to its delegated, enumerated, Constitutional functions.

There are other parties that we as freedom loving Americans can join and I encourage everyone to explore their options.  One option I reject is re-arranging the deck chairs on the good ship GOP-Titanic as it pulls further into the Progressive harbor.

That is the political side of a conservative way forward.  And while the political side is filled with work and hope for a better tomorrow the spiritual side is filled with joy, opportunity, and eternal reward.

The victory of the secular humanists and the triumph of the political expression of their man-centered philosophy: Progressivism, will empower their war against faith in general and Christianity is particular.  This will increase the soft oppression which works to remove every vestige of Christ from the public square.  It may also usher in the type of persecution that generally accompanies the fall of a Christian nation to the secular religions of the Left, Socialism, Communism, and Fascism.

All of which will open the greatest door for the Gospel of Jesus Christ in the memory of any living American.  Evil may come in like a flood, but the Lord will raise a standard against it.  We don’t need to worry about evil doers for they may flourish for an hour but they will also fade like a flower.  Proclaim Christ as the One who not only lived to show us the way but who is Himself the Way, who died to pay the price for our sin and who rose to give us life.  If we will confess Christ before men He will confess us before His Father who is in heaven.

This night may be dark, the way may be perilous, but joy comes in the morning.  If we remain true to Him no one can snatch us out of His hand.  Stand up for the freedom Christ has won for us!  Refuse to be silent in the face of tyranny!  Share the History of our great Republic and shout from the rooftops, Jesus is Lord!

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion.  He is the Historian of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2012 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com  Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens / Edited by Dr. Rosalie Owens

 

 

 

 

The recent re-election of our Glorious Leader Barack Husain Obama has sent shock waves through the patriotic and conservative communities.  Everyone from Libertarians to fervently Pro-Life activists from Log cabin Conservatives to those advocating traditional values have accepted the narrative force-fed to a waiting public by the media.  Day after day on the one network all conservatives watch we have swallowed the intellectual gruel ladled out by the select group of anointed talking heads whose opinions Fox must believe are the only ones we ever want to hear.  From the Liberal Juan to the Neo-Con Charles from the Libertarian John to the funny Dennis we have been told that demographics defeated us.

Yes there has been a massive demographic shift in the make-up of our country since the suicidal adoption of the Kennedy Immigration Act in 1965.  Pat Buchannan has warned us for years that this was a demographic time bomb implanted by the Progressives in the very heart ofAmerica.  Yes the massive amnesty which is soon to turn tens of millions of illegal immigrants into citizens and loyal democratic voters will effectively spell the end of any possibility for a supporter of limited government, personal liberty, and economic freedom to win the White House.

Our newly re-elected rule-by-decree president will use executive orders to incorporate a new voting majority if he can’t get the perpetually re-elected leaders of the Republicans to join him in driving this final nail into the coffin of the Constitution.  Mr. Buchannan warned us, crying out like a prophet in the wilderness, it is impossible to incorporate millions of people from the third world who have never known anything except authoritarian rule and expect them to become born-again supporters of Enlightenment political theory.  All they have ever known was oppressive central-planning and all powerful leaders wielding vast bureaucracies, in other words ideal Democrat voters.

This is all true.  This last gear is about to be installed in the Democrat re-election machine but this is not what happened in the pivotal election of 2012   However, there is another story that no one on Fox is telling us.  Instead they parrot the conventional wisdom of the Democrat controlled media.  We hear the same thing whether we tune to Fox or MSNBC: unless the Republican party embraces amnesty and softens its stance on certain social issues they will never have a chance to win the white House again.  The diagnosis may be correct but the prescription will kill the façade that the Republican Party supports constitutionally limited government.

The real story behind the defeat of the media chosen Romney isn’t that this Northeast big government father of Romneycare couldn’t beat the worst president in American History riding the worst economy since FDR.  It isn’t even the fact that millions of self-identified Republicans stayed home or that millions of liberty loving constitutionalists followed their conscious and voted third party.  Even with these handicaps I believe Mr. Romney would have defeated Mr. Obama except for the one factor no one seems willing to voice: massive and systemic voter fraud.

The Democrats in general and their professional civil rights hucksters in particular have spent endless hours howling about voter suppression finally pointing to the long lines of millions of new voters as proof that their vote had been suppressed.  That’s like saying, “Nobody goes there anymore because it’s too crowded.”

In this column over the last four years I have pointed out the Progressive ways of Chicago-on-the-Potomac.  I have pointed out that Mr. Obama was the representative of the Chicago Outfit and that everything he was doing had already been field tested for generations in the City that Works for the Outfit.  I have also pointed out that theChicago political machine doesn’t lose elections.  With the Obama campaign headquartered in theWindyCity and run by professionalChicago operatives, to this writer it was a forgone conclusion: they would steal the vote.

The massive political machines the democrats have constructed in major cities act as vote faucets that swing their states predictably into the blue column.  The irregularities with voting machines, the hundreds of precincts that went 99 to 100 % for Obama, and the legions of voters who couldn’t even speak let alone read English all point to the arrival of third world elections to the greatest democracy ever known.

At a recent gathering I heard two progressives irately attacking the audacity of the Republicans for seeking voter ID laws.  They saw this as an attempt to stop poor and elderly voters, who all have IDs, from voting.  They also bemoaned the fact that the voter ID supporters claimed they wanted to stop voter fraud.  To this claim they wailed, “What voter fraud?  Where is it?  There is no voter fraud!”

Knowing that my earlier statements will elicit the same wail let me respond with some facts gleaned from the post-election observations as chronicled in the Worldnet Daily:

Chicagoelections worker Steve Pickrum, an equipment manager for the elections system, told Worldnet Daily (WND) he was called when a voting machine malfunctioned. “On early voting when I did work on the floor when voters needed help using the equipment, I was able to see the preference of the voter, and every time that I saw [a] voter voted for Romney a ‘voter save failure’ message came up on the screen,’” he reported. Then when he went on election day to vote himself, he picked Romney and experienced the same error message. He reported he never experienced the error message when the voter was choosing Barack Obama.

Another poll worker assigned at the University of Michigan reported to WND a list of irregularities including that the precinct captain told her at one point, “You go sit down, you are bothering me,” when she was trying to observe the proceedings. “I was only standing there and looking at voter documents,” she told WND. “It was clear that what bothered him was my very presence.” She said a short time later a young man arrived and identified himself as a Democrat poll challenger. “The first time he said anything was to object to my challenge of a voter. He tried to anger the voter by telling her ‘She does not believe you are who you say you are.’ He was trying to create a scene. It then happened again and I told him ‘You are not here to challenge me!’ His reply was a very loud ‘Yes I am! You are a Republican and you are here to prevent people from voting. You are holding up the line and creating obstructions,’” she reported. She told WND in fact no one waited more than about fifteen minutes to vote the entire day, and there were no obstructions.

And in Florida, the Sun Sentinel reported that election workers a week after the election said they found 963 unaccounted-for ballots – in a warehouse. “How can you lose them? This is terrible,” candidate Chickie Brandimarte told officials. Election supervisor Brenda Snipes, however, said it’s routine for various vote totals to be adjusted up until the Nov. 18 final certification.

Also in Florida, residents began demanding changes in the electoral system that handed voters chaos, frustration, and delays at polling stations. The Florida League of Women Voters and other groups are demanding from Gov. Rick Scott a plan to draft reforms for the state’s elections.

A poll watcher told WND up to 10 percent of the ballots cast at a polling station in Pennsylvania reverted to a default, which gave Barack Obama a vote no matter who the voter had selected. The incident took place in the state where officials claimed Obama got a total of 19,605 votes in 59 voting divisions to zero for Mitt Romney and not far from the 100 precincts in Ohio where Obama got 99 percent of the vote, a feat not even achieved by third-world dictators. It was inUpperMacungieTownship, nearAllentown,Pa., where an auditor, Robert Ashcroft, was dispatched by Republicans to monitor the vote on Election Day. He said the software he observed would “change the selection back to default – to Obama.”

Stand up to fight against voter fraud right now!

Fox News reported that voters inNevada,North Carolina,Texas, andOhio also said they had pushed a button on a touch-screen voting machine for Romney, but the machines recorded their vote for Obama.

At the White House website, a report in the Examiner explains, there was a petition posted seeking a recount of the race. “In one county alone inOhio, which was a battleground state, President Obama received 106,258 votes … but there were only 98,213 eligible voters. It’s not humanly possible to get 108 percent of the vote,” the petition claims.

Fox News reported that two election judges were replaced after illegally allowing unregistered voters to cast ballots.

The Columbus Dispatch estimated that more than twenty percent of registeredOhio voters aren’t eligible. “In two counties, the number of registered voters actually exceeds the voting-age population,” the report said. And, it said, in 31 other counties, registrations are above 90 percent of the population, “a rate regarded as unrealistic by most voting experts.”

Fox News also documented how Senate candidate Wendy Long, an attorney who was a clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, recounted her voting experience. “A poll worker who was at the scanner studied my private ballot and proceeded to tell me that it was rejected because I did not ‘fill in every space.’ She then proceeded to indicate that I should mark the Democratic line all the way down.”

The Market Daily News reported on those 100 precincts inCuyahoga County,Ohio, that on election day gave Romney zero votes, and Obama got 99 percent. “In more than 50 different precincts, Romney received two votes or less,” the report said. “One would think that such improbable results would get the attention of somebody out there.”

According to Philly.com, 59 voting divisions inPhiladelphia produced a “head-spinning figure,” not one vote for Romney. “The unanimous support for Obama in these Philadelphia neighborhoods – clustered in almost exclusively black sections of West and North Philadelphia – fertilizes fears of fraud, despite little hard evidence,” the newspaper said.

The Washington Times reported that officials in Florida banned observers from seeing the absentee ballots being opened and “there was no way to know whether the absentee ballots that were produced were the same ones that were opened, or if all the ballots were produced.”

Human Events claimedOhio voters who are native toSomalia were being given a slate card saying, “Vote Brown all the way down” – an apparent reference to the Democratic senator.

WND’s newest forum is your opportunity to report voter fraud

The Washington Times reported its suspicions of voter fraud inPennsylvania, including that “inPhiladelphia, the [New] Black Panthers are currently standing outside polling booths, intimidating voters just like they did in 2008.” It said, too, that seventy Republican polling inspectors were blocked from access.

A blog, Punditpress, reported “In Florida: Obama Got Over 99% in Broward County Precincts”

The same site reported: “What Luck! Obama Won Dozens of Cleveland Districts with 100% of the Vote”

There also was the report about “Good News: Obama Won County in Ohio with 108% Voter Registration”

And Punditpress also reported: “BREAKING: St. Lucie County, Florida Had 141.1% Turnout; Obama Won County”

Further, it said: “Fraud in PA: Obama Got Over 99% of Vote at Polls Where GOP Inspectors Were Removed; Turnout Somehow ’30%’ Above Gov’t Numbers”

“Out of 175,554 registered voters, 247,713 vote cards were cast in St. Lucie County, Florida, on Tuesday”

To the Progressives who fight voter ID I want say, “This voter fraud.  Here it is?  There was massive and systemic voter fraud!”  To those who refuse to call a spade a spade, hiding their heads in the sand and pretending this election was the result of a demographic shift, the power of negative advertising, or anything else besidesChicagostyle politics as usual I want to ask, “Why are you so quiet about something that is so obvious?”  What’s to be gained by lending our silence to endorse the legitimacy of a stolen election?  If you are afraid to be called a conspiracy theorist let me quote a man who has ended up being right many times when everyone thought he was wrong, “It’s not paranoia if they’re really out to get you.”

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion.  He is the Historian of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2012 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com  Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens / Edited by Dr. Rosalie Owens

 

Listening to the lies of the politicians as presented by the prattle of the biased it is easy to lose hope in a secular sense.  My hope in an eternal sense is founded on the rock of an unshakable faith in Jesus, and so it cannot be shaken.  However, in the secular resting, as it must upon the shifting sands of man inAmericatoday, hope as a measured commodity is all too often hopeless.  Seeking for hope in current events, a diamond among the discards and a point of light in a sea of darkness, is seeking something positive among the gathering gloom of an empire in eclipse.

I don’t know about you, but I cannot focus on the negative trends of our current situation for long without at least contemplating depression and I don’t mean the economic kind.  I am thankful I have a peace that passes all understanding and a hope that cannot be taken away, and I am also glad that I have a sense of History which gives me a context to frame the Now.  For if all we have is the Now it can always be changed with the next headline, the next news bulletin, or the next press release.  Having a historical context brings things into focus fitting the events of today into flow of time from yesterday to tomorrow.

Truth often becomes the victim of expediency.  For what seems true at the moment may end up as the lie of the hour.  Politicians bend truth like gravity bends light: the heavier the perceived need the greater the unperceived distortion.  Lies can become so widely believed that truth is swallowed in truism. Lies become the accepted wisdom of professional pundits chattering endlessly, supporting that which ultimately must fall for those who seek to surf a tsunami into a safe harbor.  The news is filled with half-truths and as my second favorite philosopher, Anonymous, once said, “Beware of half-truths, you may have gotten the wrong half.”

We live in a twilight time.  Twilight by definition is a time when two sources of light pierce the gloom. It is that quivering moment when both the sun and the moon hold back the darkness.  The darkness of confusion is dispelled by the brightness of the sun of truth, but it is disputed by refracted light of the moon of opinion masquerading as truth.

Casting about for something solid in the midst of the swirling fog of conflicting facts, shifting observations, and contradictory visions in the secular sense I must focus on one thing: the people.  I trust the American people.  I trust them to make the right choice when presented with unvarnished reality.  I trust them to do what must be done to preserve the bequest of our forefathers for the inheritance of our posterity.

The Declaration of Independence was written to proclaim the righteousness of the actions of “One people” with the courage to declare to a world sold into bondage that our liberty was founded upon truth. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights that among these are Life,Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

We the People wrote the Constitution in order to perfect that which had been founded upon the truth.  “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

It is to this one people, this “We the people” that I look for secular hope, political peace, and the eventual solution to our current cultural conundrum. The popular definition of a conundrum is a problem without a solution.  However it also has another meaning: a riddle whose answer is or involves a pun.  Since I am referring to the second meaning I will present the riddle, “How is liberalism the solution to the problem of liberalism?”

In our through-the-looking-glass world, politicians use actual truth to obscure the obvious truth.  Congressman Joe Early (D-Mass) at a press conference to answer questions about the House Bank scandal said, “They gave me a book of checks. They didn’t ask for any deposits.”  While I’m sure it is true he was given a book of checks, obviously one needs to make deposits if one is to honestly write checks.  In this same manner the leaders of our free country promote socialism as the solution to the problems socialism has caused knowing that you cannot honestly write checks if you don’t make deposits.  Capitalism makes the deposits and socialism wants to write the checks.  As Churchill said “Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.”

We are awash in polls.  Every campaign and every major news source constantly trumpet polls many of which contradict each other.  No matter what the polls say I believe that the American people still believe in freedom.  I believe they still believe in the equality of opportunity and the opportunity of equality.  We all aren’t the same.  Each of us is born with a particular set of talents and each of us uses those talents in a certain way.  It is my belief, that given the level playing field of individual liberty and economic freedom, the vast majority of Americans will work hard to earn what they deserve.  This is my secular hope. Heaven on earth is not possible but given individual liberty and economic freedom inherently promised in the perfect union we the people sought to create we can at least avoid remaining in the hell of socialism the Progressives are currently foisting upon us, as Churchill also said “If you’re going through hell, keep going.”

Oh, by the way, the answer to the riddle is that Classical Liberalism promotes the general welfare by promoting the limitation of government and the liberty of the individual in order to better serve the whole. Welfare Liberalism erodes the general welfare by expanding the government at the expense of the individual in order to better serve the individual.  Thus Classical Liberalism is the solution to the problems caused by Welfare Liberalism.  And that’s the truth which brings me to one last Churchill quote for the day, “The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it. Ignorance may deride it. But in the end, there it is.”

Hope and change may have convinced our fellow citizens to sell their birthright of freedom for the savory red stew of give me more; however, November is coming and things may change. At least we can hope.  For without hope we are hopeless and we are a hopeful people.

Don’t be discouraged by the blather of the pontificating politicians or confused by the conflicting ruminations of the professional talkers. When all is said and done we can trust us.  We the people will eventually come down on the side of truth, justice, and the American way.

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion.  He is the author of the History of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2012 Robert R. Owens. Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens  You can contact Dr. Owens at drrobertowens@hotmail.com

 

 

The two major political parties have a lock on power in the United States.  The election laws, the media and family voting patterns all collude to make the election of a third party candidate to the Presidency a near impossibility.  The closest in the lifetime of anyone reading this happened in 1992 when Ross Perot garnered 18.91% of the vote and not one electoral vote.  He has long been blamed for causing the defeat of Bush the Elder and the election of Clinton the Last.  Whether Mr. Perot did have such a dramatic effect on the presidential election is still debated.  Just as in most theological debates both sides offer well-constructed arguments supported by what they consider irrefutable scripture references or in this case, the life’s blood of political statements: statistics.

One certainty that cannot be debated is that Perot did not have an honest man’s chance in Washington to be elected.

Consequently either Barak Obama will continue as America’s president or he will be unseated and Mitt Romney will replace him.  There may be others running.  There may be better qualified people.  There may be someone who could inspire and lead us all into a second century of American ascendance; however, despite whomever else there may be it will be either the Democrat Obama or the Republican Romney.  Life may not be fair but it usually is predictable, and this is as predictable as the sun rising in the East and setting in the West.  One of the two parties of power will win.

Given this preordained outcome is there really any hope of change?  Or will we continue to watch helplessly as the perpetually re-elected parties continue to spend us into oblivion?

With Mr. Obama’s second term there is no doubt that all we can expect is more of the same, on steroids.  Mr. Obama has said, “I think that after this election, we’ll be in a position to once again reach out to Republicans and say that the American people have rendered a judgment, and the positions we’re taking are well within what used to be considered bipartisan centrist approaches.”

A divided government, if the Republicans maintain control of the House, might slow things down, however Mr. Obama has shown he is ready, willing and with the silence of Congress able to rule by decree.  If Congress won’t pass the Dream Act he imposes it.  If Congress won’t pass Cap-N-Trade he regulates it into being.  So we know that if he wins a second term it will be his way or the highway.   His agenda will continue to be the national agenda and four more years might be enough to sink the ship of state in a Cloward–Piven Strategy overwhelming the system scenario.

Four more years of the Obama led Democrat Progressives and we may be fundamentally transformed beyond recognition.  The heritage of our Founding Fathers may become the lost cause of a failed experiment in individual liberty and economic freedom as America descends into the morass of a welfare state based on re-distribution and political correctness.  In other words, the dream of Obama’s father.

That is one side of the coin.  What about the other?

If we get Tweedledee instead of Tweedledum will it be morning in America again?  Will the ghost of the Gipper lead us from the government’s shovel-never-ready Great Recession into a new era where things are made in America again and everything’s coming up roses?

There is no way from where we are: 16 trillion in debt, a decimated industrial base and a large proportion of our population addicted to government handouts, back to being the largest creditor in the world, the largest manufacturer, a land of self-reliant patriots without major dislocations, and dare I say it, austerity.

Mr. Romney’s fifty nine point plan to save the economy is a well-crafted and well-presented plan to revitalizeAmerica’s economy through a pro-capitalist free market approach.   It is however not as easy to explain or present as tax the rich and give everyone else free stuff.  Since it is better known and has been more widely and perhaps more eloquently presented the Republicans appear to be fronting with Paul Ryan’s plan to save America.  Both the Romney and the Ryan plan are a clear step away from the plunder policies of Mr. Obama and his Progressive shock troops.

However, neither Republican plans adequately addresses the entitlement time bomb.  Neither projects a balanced budget in any timely fashion and neither proposes any way to ensure that future Congresses live by any restraints imposed.  Both promise to preserve our imperial defense spending needed to support two wars and more than 100 foreign bases.  Both rattle sabers in the direction of Syria and Iran.  What we have is an effort to slow the growth of the debt by reducing the yearly deficits.

Slowing the growth is decidedly better than accelerating but the debt keeps growing and the abyss that looms ahead of us is the unsustainability of the debt.  A future rise in interest rates will sink the ship as the service on the debt wipes out the government’s ability to keep its promises or meet its obligations.  This is the very scenario the Progressives have been progressing towards.  The people who tell us never to let a crisis go to waste have long worked incrementally to lead us to the crisis at the end of the Constitution.  A final crisis when limited government will be completely unshackled and the central planners will triumph.

If Romney wins he and his administration may put a speed bump on the expressway to the poor house, but unless they are ready to shut down the gravy train and turn off the spigot of re-distribution we will merely postpone the day of reckoning.  Slower is better than faster when it comes to assuming room temperature; however, unless we turn this ship around we’re headed for the shoals of bankruptcy and the reefs of insolvency either way.

Even though Mr. Obama makes the Carter Administration look like the good old days don’t count out the machines ability to pull an election out of their hat.  From no voter IDs and Black Panthers patrolling the polls, from polling places in cemeteries, to every obstacle imaginable in the way of people in our armed forces voting this will be a no-holds-barred Chicago-style campaign by the Democrats.  The Progressives know this is the one they need.  This is the election that will seal the deal and finally transform America into a re-distribution center with them picking all the winners and losers.  They win…America loses.

As one example of how the institutions the Progressives have built over the years will line up to re-elect Barack Obama, look at the recent moves of the Federal Reserve.

The Federal Reserve is moving to inject massive amounts of money into the economy, while keeping interest rates near zero, before the election in a clear move to help re-elect President Obama.  How are they going to do this?  Will they just print more money?  No, they wouldn’t do anything so crude or easy to see as that.  Instead, they will announce an open ended mandate to purchase Treasury Bonds and mortgage backed securities.  This is QE (Quantitative Easing) 3 in all but name.  In QE1 the Fed bought $2.3 trillion of securities and in QE2 $600 billion of Treasuries.  How big will this round of pump priming be?  According to San Francisco Fed President John Williams, since this is an open ended authorization it  could eventually be, “at least as large as QE2 or arguably even larger again.”  The casino stock market will soar, and the Fed, through its Chairman, will continue to assure us inflation is small, negligible, and nothing we won’t be able to handle.  Then again, what’s a little inflation if it helps re-elect a president whose goal is to swamp the system.

Expect an October surprise such as action against Iran or Syria.  Expect an encouraging jobs report right before the election that will be revised lower later.  Expect the Obama Administration to do whatever it takes to win.

Romney’s road may still lead to the poor house but Obama’s is a bullet train to nowhere.  Is there any hope for change?  Not with what we’ve heard so far.  Maybe there is a chance to switch from the certainty of near term collapse to the promise of at least a few more stations and a few more track changes before we hit the wall.  Who knows with enough time maybe enough people will get up off the couch, turn off the game, and pay attention to make a difference.  At least that would be a change we could all hope for.

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion.  He is the Historian of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2012 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com  Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens

 

Think ofAmerica’s Founders.  These were real rebels.

Sam Adams agitated against the imposition of taxes.  He penned the petitions which brought forth the rallying cry “No taxation without representation!”  While avoiding violence he led the effort to organize resistance to tyranny.  He founded the Committee of Correspondence inMassachusetts and inspired its spread to the other colonies.  He organized boycotts of British goods and the public trial of the British soldiers involved in the Boston Massacre.

In a world of divine right kings where the common man was a pawn to be exploited and demeaned James Madison made these revolutionary statements, “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined.  Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.”  And, “An ELECTIVE DESPOTISM was not the government we fought for; but one which should not only be founded on free principles, but in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among several bodies of magistracy, as that no one could transcend their legal limits, without being effectually checked and restrained by the others.”

Patrick Henry did more than say, “Give me liberty or give me death.”  Before the Revolution, as a member of the Assembly in Virginia he led in the formation of a resistance movement against the tyranny of the British crown.  During the Revolution he served in the Continental Congress that passed the Deceleration of Independence.  After the Revolution he was not afraid to stand up against the desire of many to impose a Constitution without a Bill of Rights leading in the fight to maintain the greatest amount of individual liberty and the strongest limits to the central authority possible under the new Federal Government.  As if he could see the convolutions which currently threaten to swallow the Republic Mr. Henry reminded us at the beginning of our national experiment in limited government, “When the American spirit was in its youth, the language of America was different: Liberty, sir, was the primary object.”

Today the world is turned upside down.  The so called radical rebels of the sixties now own or control most things including the government.  The anti-establishment has become the establishment and the silent majority is being told to remain silent while this progressive minority transforms our nation into what their collectivist programmers have taught them it should be.  And yet they still see themselves as the rebels fighting a faceless bureaucracy for freedom never realizing they have met the enemy, and they are them.

All of this made me think about my old friend the professional revolutionary and something hit me.  He has always considered himself a rebel.  And considering he has made a living out of being a spokesman for the movements dedicated to destroying theAmericawe have always known that kind of made sense at one time. 

But in reality he is now and has consistently in the past loyally spouted the logical progression of the anti-American, anti-capitalist garbage that many of the teachers at our good old public High School tried to shove into our young skulls full of mush.  He also sounds exactly like all of our contemporaries who have spent a lifetime drinking at the well of the Corporations Once Called the Mainstream Media. Though they see themselves as deep thinkers it has always been obvious they receive their programming, their news and views from the major networks, and the transcripts in the print media.  They spout the same anti-traditional values pro-socialism talking points time after time.

Their representatives have spent decades chipping away at the America we love in the movies, on television, and in songs.  They have gained control of one component of society at a time: education, the media, the board room, the Congress, and finally the White House.   Through patience and planning they have gained control of the entire federal government and the elites of most areas of society.  Therefore I cannot see why we should continue referring to them as rebels merely because they see themselves that way.  When you listen to their current spokesmen such as the Daily Show, Bill Maher, or any of the MSNBC line up they come off as so hip and so cutting edge when in fact they agree 100% with the current administration and its collectivist anti-life New Age agenda.  What’s rebellious about that?  That’s like saying Pravda was a radical spokesman for change when they parroted whatever the leaders of the formerUSSRhad to say.

Today my friend the professional rebel is actively helping recruit and train the brown shirt Occupy troops?  They may rail against Wall Street but that same Wall Street promotes and funds the very people these protesters vote for.  Someone is being used for something, but they never seem to wake up to ask, “Why should we pay no attention to the man behind the curtain?”

I can no longer consider myself a conservative.  What is there left to conserve?  I am a radical and a rebel, because I advocate for limited government, personal liberty, and economic freedom.  These 1960s retreads who continue to advocate for the progressive collectivists who have won their revolution and now occupy the seats of power are faux rebels: organizational apparatchiks spouting the party line.

Look at how revolutionary some of our real rebels still sound today:

Sam Adams said, “The Constitution shall never be construed… to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms.” And “The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil constitution, are worth defending against all hazards: And it is our duty to defend them against all attacks.”  He also said, “Our contest is not only whether we ourselves shall be free, but whether there shall be left to mankind an asylum on earth for civil and religious liberty.”

Patrick Henry said, “Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined.”  And, “We are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of Nature has placed in our power… the battle, sir, is not to the strong alone it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave.”  When thinking of his most famous statement we should keep it in context and recall the whole quote, “Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!”

So the next time the nightly faux news shows are filled the antics of the faux rebels demonstrating for more government power, or the next time one of your relatives or old friends wants to fill your ear with their oft repeated mantras for the collectivist establishment tell yourself, “This is the time for real rebels and the counter revolution.”

And if pointing out the transparent hypocrisy of the faux rebels of today should ever be considered too rebellious for the faint of heart let me share one more quote from Patrick Henry, “If this be treason, make the most of it!”

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College.  He is the Historian of the Future and the author of the History of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2012 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com  Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens

What does History tell us about the impeachment of an American President?  It has only happened twice. 

Today Lincoln is an icon.  His Roman style temple and oversized statue dominate one end of the National Mall.  But in 1864 he was an embattled president caught in a war he couldn’t win and running against George B. McClellan, a popular general who said he could end it.  Even History was against Lincoln. No president had won a second term in over thirty years.  Mr. Lincoln needed all the allies he could muster to win.  So the first Republicans led by the President tried to split the opposition.  They changed the party name to the National Union Party and chose a Southern Democrat as a running mate.  In a surprise to everyone including Lincoln, he won re-election positioning Johnson one heartbeat away from the Oval Office. 

After the worst mistake by a Southern sympathizer since the attack on Fort Sumter, the assassination of Lincoln, Andrew Johnson assumed the presidency and almost immediately ran afoul of the Radical Republicans who had a three to one majority in Congress and who wanted to punish the South.  Johnson was the only Southern Senator to remain loyal to the Union.  He served as the Union imposed military governor of Tennessee until chosen to run for Vice President.   A mere forty one days into Lincoln’s second term Johnson was sworn in.  When he sought to allow the South a path back into the Union that re-imposed limitations upon the freed slaves and ensured the rise of ex-Confederates to power, he was impeached for breaking a law concerning the firing of appointees.  After a contentious trial he was acquitted by one vote. 

Johnson and his presidency survived, barely.  He was afterwards relegated to irrelevancy and served as a mere caretaker until General Grant came along to become the face of Reconstruction.  In this first impeachment battle the President was acquitted, but Congress won. 

If you ask the average person who lived through the national ordeal President Clinton was impeached because of his scandalous tryst with a young intern in the Oval Office.  Though this was a shameful betrayal of trust, it was not the reason he was impeached.  He was impeached for perjury and obstruction of justice in a legal matter that had nothing at all to do with Monica Lewinsky.  And even though Clinton was later found in contempt by a federal judge for lying under oath and was later disbarred for ethical violations it was the leadership of the House that impeached him that paid the political price.  The Senate which on a strict party line vote (all the Progressives voted to acquit), came out relatively unscathed.  Today we are constantly told by the Progressive Press Mr. Clinton is a beloved elder statesman. 

Etched upon the memory of the Republican wing of the party of power is the knowledge that unless there is a Senate willing to convict there is no glory in being a House ready to indict. 

Republics rise and republics fall.  They rise due to the explosion of creativity and production which always accompanies freedom, and they fall when demagogues convince a majority that they deserve a free ride at the expense of a minority. The good thing about History is that if we are wise enough we can learn from other people’s mistakes.  And if we aren’t going to allow History to instruct us we should at least be wise enough to allow it to warn us. 

Our History teaches us that the impeachment process is possible to initiate but difficult to consummate.  So what are we to do if History warns us that what we are witnessing is the fall of our republic?  Have we learned enough from History to navigate our way through to a safe harbor, or are we helpless in the face of a hurricane of transformation? 

Due to the information developed by the American intelligence community and the bravery of Navy Seal Team Six we learned that the leader of Al Qaeda, the fraternity of terrorists America finds itself endlessly destroying, was not hiding in a cave.  He was instead living in a compound barely 1,000 yards from the military academy of our principle ally in our decade long undeclared war.  Today’s Hitler is dead, yet the war goes on as if nothing has happened.  We have victory after victory with no conclusion and no peace in sight.   

Looking at our current economic and social situation America appears more like an occupied nation than the victor of the Cold War and the sole remaining Super Power on Earth.  Perhaps it is time to conceptualize the idea that our existential enemy is not a rag-tag group of malcontents dedicated to turning back the clock by six centuries.  The enemy that poses a mortal threat to our way of life is instead the homegrown Progressive Movement that has labored for more than a century to subvert our education, corrupt our politics, and evolve their way from constitutionally limited government to central planning and total control. 

The visible head of the Progressive Movement today is President Barack Obama.  As portrayed by the Corporations Once Known as the Mainstream Media he is not just an Alinsky style community organizer, he is a constitutional scholar.  We are told endlessly that he was a professor of constitutional law at the University of Chicago.  Leaving the reality of these claims aside suffice it to say that this constitutional scholar professes to believe that the constitution is a flawed document because it does not provide for positive rights such as guarantees of housing, jobs, etc.  The kind of rights that the constitutions of the Soviet Union did and of Red China does provide its slaves, I mean citizens.  Not to worry our constitutional scholar-in-chief also believes that our Constitution, written to set strict limits on the federal government is a living document that each generation is free to interpret: that is, change at will.   

President Obama has presided over the most calamitous decline in American prestige and influence since his fellow Progressive Jimmy Carter disgraced the office.  Mr. Obama’s apology tours, his over-the-top spending which are nothing less than cross generational theft are eclipsed by his blatant assaults upon the very core of his responsibility: the integrity of the Constitution. 

The president of the United States is sworn to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution, but instead Mr. Obama has trampled upon the letter as well as the spirit of this document meant to define the perimeters of federal power.   

Unconfirmed Czars rule like potentates over shadow departments dispensing huge budgets while creating a parallel government outside of citizen scrutiny or control.  Appointees at the National Labor Relations Board work at subordinating the nation to organized labor.  A rogue justice department provides guns to Mexican cartels, refuses to prosecute obvious instances of voter intimidation, gives a pass to Islamist groups,  and stonewalls Congress, while aggressively going after peaceful pro-life demonstrators and America’s Sheriff Joe Arpaio.  They sue states that try to enforce immigration laws they ignore and seek to try the perpetrators of 9-11 in a New York trial that would parade itself through our national consciousness like a Broadway production of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Superstar.  

Beyond these abuses of power there are two glaring examples of the type of blatant transgressions of clear constitutional limits which, if not addressed set a precedent that may stand in the future as signs of the times that were missed at the time.  If not addressed, they will point accusing fingers at a generation asleep at the switch when the bounds of limited government were finally breached. 

Ruling by decree from Chicago-on-the-Potomac our Leader has taken us to war without even consulting Congress and made recess appointments while Congress was in session.  

Mr. Obama has said he can rule without Congress because he can’t wait.  He travels the country at tax payer expense campaigning for four more years to seal the deal, inflaming class warfare, and dispensing government giveaways to buy votes.  These two egregious affronts to the Constitution lie at the feet of the Washington Monument passed over by the media and explained away by the government’s propaganda arm.  And what does the loyal opposition do?  They huff and they puff but actually they do nothing. 

Only two Congressmen had the integrity to point out that presidents are not allowed to take us to war by whim. And only one had the courage to point out that making high level appointments without Senate confirmation while the Senate is in session is more than bad form: it is unconstitutional and more compatible with a dictatorship than a republic. 

We stand before the yawning maw of collectivism presided over by a self-proclaimed transformational president seeking to change us from what we have been to what he thinks we should be.  Mr. Obama is supported by what amounts to a personality cult in the media and a legion of fellow citizens addicted to either distributing or receiving the dole.  The Republican candidates are standing in a circular firing squad working hard at allowing the Progressive Media make them look like the bar scene from Star Wars.  At the same time the media gives the President a pass for everything from gas prices to artificially deflated unemployment figures.  If America as we have known her is to survive, we must elect a Congress with enough courage and enough votes to do what must be done.  The Congress we have now is passive in the face of serial provocations and outright illegality.  They will not call Mr. Obama to account on anything so he feels free to do everything. 

If he wins again we all lose unless we replace those who merely go along to get along with those who are willing to speak the forbidden word…Impeach! 

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College.  He is the Historian of the Future and the author of the History of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2012 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com  Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens