nChrist
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« Reply #1 on: August 29, 2011, 09:04:46 PM » |
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________________________________________ The Patriot Post Brief 8-29-2011 From The Federalist Patriot Free Email Subscription ________________________________________
Culture
"In a speech at Sichuan University, Vice President Joe Biden said 'Your [China's] policy has been one which I fully understand -- I'm not second-guessing -- of one child per family.' ... Biden didn't condemn the immorality or brutality of a system of forced sterilization and forced abortion -- he merely noted that the demographic consequences of thus drastically limiting the population would lead to problems for China's version of Social Security. ... Is the vice president truly unaware that children born in defiance of the one-child policy are not permitted to enroll in school or see a doctor? But many, many Chinese babies don't even get that far. They are ripped from their struggling mothers' wombs by government goons. ... The Chinese communist government, which has killed more people than any regime in the history of the world (65 million according to the Black Book of Communism), regards human beings as widgets to be manipulated or destroyed in the service of the state. ... The regime remains one of the most vicious on the planet. It is deeply shameful that the vice president needed to be reminded of that." --columnist Mona Charen7
Insight
"[Tyrannical] power is absolute, minute, regular, provident and mild. It would be like the authority of a parent if, like that authority, its object was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks, on the contrary, to keep them in perpetual childhood: it is well content that the people should rejoice, provided they think of nothing but rejoicing. For their happiness such a government willingly labors, but it chooses to be the sole agent and the only arbiter of that happiness; it provides for their security, foresees and supplies their necessities, facilitates their pleasures, manages their principal concerns, directs their industry, regulates the descent of property, and subdivides their inheritances: what remains, but to spare them all the care of thinking and all the trouble of living?" --French historian Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859)
Essential Liberty
"What laws are we morally obligated to obey? Help with the answer can be found in 'Economic Liberty and the Constitution,' a 66-page pamphlet by Jacob G. Hornberger, founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. Hornberger offers a hypothetical whereby Congress enacts a compulsory church attendance law that requires children to attend church service each Sunday. Parents are penalized if their children fail to comply. Would there be any moral or constitutional legitimacy to such a congressional mandate? The law would be a clear violation of one's natural, or God-given, rights to life and liberty. As to whether it would be constitutional, we have to see whether mandating church attendance is one of those enumerated powers of Congress found in Article 1, Section 8 of our Constitution. We'd find no such authority. Our anti-federalist Founding Fathers didn't trust Congress with religious liberty, so they sought to protect it with the First Amendment to explicitly deny Congress the power to mandate religious conduct. Suppose there's widespread popular support for a church-going mandate and the U.S. Supreme Court rules it constitutional; do Americans have a moral obligation to obey the law? ... One cannot avoid the conclusion that the liberties envisioned by the nation's founders have been under siege, trivialized and nullified. Philosopher Johann Wolfgang von Goethe explained that 'no one is as hopelessly enslaved as the person who thinks he's free.' That's becoming an apt description for Americans who are oblivious to -- or ignorant of -- the liberties we've lost." --economist Walter E. Williams8
Reader Comments
"I read Alexander's Essays every week and agree with The Patriot Post that we are in a battle with socialists who are very aggressive. In recent essays, like Ballots or Bullets?9 you seem to be escalating the alert that we need to be prepared to take up arms in our cause. This mystifies me somewhat. Against whom are we to take military action? Liberals? Politicians with whom we disagree? The president? The military or local police? The IRS? Labor Unions? The education establishment? I think that you are off base implying that we should take up arms." --Dean
Editor's Reply: Actually, if you have read my recent essays on the subject of revolution (The Next American Revolution10, Sunset or Sunrise on Liberty?11 and Restoration or Revolution?12), you will note the common theme in these essays is that I believe the Ballot Box option is still viable, and to the extent it fails, then we step up to measures of "civil disobedience" as our Founders did when dumping Tea into Boston Harbor. Beyond that, I will cross that bridge when we get there, remembering also that the "Shot heard 'round the world" was fired at at Concord's Old North Bridge, when oppressors of that era were in route to confiscate the arms of Patriots. As for the "need to be prepared to take up arms in the cause of Liberty," every Patriot should be so prepared in the best of times.
"You noted in Friday's Digest13 that the Congressional Budget Office is making debt predictions based on tax increases. Surely with all the historical data existing showing the positive impact on revenues after tax decreases are implemented, there is similar data showing what happens when taxes are raised? Does our great and powerful CBO look at this data when making their assumptions that revenues will skyrocket and growth will increase? More stimulus, less revenue, more debt, another downgrade, higher interest costs, a vicious cycle. We survived incompetence under Jimmy Carter. It's a different matter when ruining America is the plan." --Jon
"When Thomas Edison tried repeatedly in his quest to create a working light bulb, he was always using his own money. When Obama tries to stimulate the economy with one stimulus plan after another, he's using our money, only he's using it like it's play money, as if it never had to be paid back." --Paul
Correction: In Friday's Digest13 we said incorrectly that the Virginia earthquake was Monday. It was Tuesday. Apparently, our collective editing mind was jarred by the tremors.
The Last Word
Whenever anyone wants to prove that millions of Americans are either dumb or just plain nuts, they mention that 12% of the population is convinced that a badly scarred James Dean is living as a hermit and a 450-pound Elvis Presley is working at a 7/11 outside Nashville. I say that doesn't prove anything beyond wishful thinking. A far more convincing case can be made by pointing out that even now 40% of Americans believe that Barack Obama is doing a bang-up job. In a saner world, it's Obama who would be a hermit or working at a 7/11 in Chicago." --columnist Burt Prelutsky14
Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis! The Patriot Post Editorial Team
(Please pray for our Armed Forces standing in harm's way around the world, and for their families -- especially families of those fallen Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen, who granted their lives in defense of American liberty.)
Links
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904875404576530412322260784.html http://reagan2020.us/ http://patriotpost.us/opinion/matt-towery/2011/08/25/white-flags-and-swiss-cheese-how-gop-moderation-could-re-elect-obama/ http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/275603/remind-me-again-were-war-afghanistan-because-corrected-andrew-c-mccarthy http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/08/why_obama_cant_lead.html http://patriotpost.us/opinion/ben-shapiro/2011/08/25/the-language-of-socialism/ http://patriotpost.us/opinion/mona-charen/2011/08/26/bidens-moral-obtuseness/ http://patriotpost.us/opinion/walter-e-williams/2011/08/24/legal-obedience/ http://patriotpost.us/alexander/2011/08/25/ballots-or-bullets/ http://patriotpost.us/alexander/2011/08/04/the-next-american-revolution/ http://patriotpost.us/alexander/2011/05/12/sunset-or-sunrise-on-liberty/ http://patriotpost.us/alexander/2010/04/08/restoration-or-revolution/ http://patriotpost.us/edition/2011/08/26/digest/ http://patriotpost.us/opinion/burt-prelutsky/2011/08/29/the-holier-than-thou-billionaire/
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