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Judge Napalatano The Campaign for Liberty Tea Party Group is holding patriotic meetings throughout the USA. Libertarian icon Judge Andrew Napolitano is a frequent and much requested speaker at these meetings. In this speech, the third part of a three part series, the Judge calls out to this generation of patriots to stand up for freedom; to defend liberty. Excellent speech. A fitting conclusion to parts one and two. Many thanks to Frank for this find!

My experience with Napolitano, as a retired lawyer, is that his present role is as a propagandist, willing to lie to make his central point. I've often caught him saying things about the law that he either knows are false or knows that he lacks sufficient knowledge to claim that one of his legal conclusions is true. (He is, however, a very effective orator.) This speech is no different. His premise is false, that there is no language in the Constitution authorizing a host of general welfare laws. First, we find in the Constitution's Preamble it's statement of purpose: "We the People of the United States, *in Order to* form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, *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." Note the distinction made between "promote the general Welfare" and the securing of Liberties. So the Constitution has a purpose beyond securing liberties that falls in the category of promoting the general welfare. Next we move on to Article 1 section 8, which itemizes the Powers of the Congress. In that section's first clause we find: "The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and *provide for the* common Defence and *general Welfare* of the United States;" But Napolitano's speech mistakenly brands a host of general welfare laws as abuses of the Commerce Clause, which only supplements the General Welfare Clause in relevant regard. His discussion of the meaning of "regulate" at the time of the Constitution's adoption is irrelevant. The far more pertinent question is what was meant at that time by the term "general Welfare." Napolitano simply ducks that question by ignoring the General Welfare Clause and pretending that it does not exist. That is not principled argument, in my humble opinion. Moral o

"If Americans were honest with themselves they would acknowledge that the Republic is no more. We now live in a police state. If we do not recognize and resist this development, freedom and prosperity for all Americans will continue to deteriorate. All liberties in America today are under siege. It didn't happen overnight. It took many years of neglect for our liberties to be given away so casually for a promise of security from the politicians. The tragic part is that the more security was promised - physical and economic - the less liberty was protected. With cradle-to-grave welfare protecting all citizens from any mistakes and a perpetual global war on terrorism, which a majority of Americans were convinced was absolutely necessary for our survival, our security and prosperity has been sacrificed. It was all based on lies and ignorance. Many came to believe that their best interests were served by giving up a little freedom now and then to gain a better life. The trap was set. At the beginning of a cycle that systematically undermines liberty with delusions of easy prosperity, the change may actually seem to be beneficial to a few. But to me that's like excusing embezzlement as a road to leisure and wealth - eventually payment and punishment always come due. One cannot escape the fact that a society's wealth cannot be sustained or increased without work and productive effort. Yes, some criminal elements can benefit for a while, but reality always sets in. Reality is now setting in for America and for that matter for most of the world. The piper will get his due even if "the children" have to suffer. The deception of promising "success" has lasted for quite a while. It was accomplished by ever-increasing taxes, deficits, borrowing, and printing press money. In the meantime the policing powers of the federal government were systematically and significantly expanded. No one cared much, as there seemed to be enough "gravy" for the rich, th

Thanks to Marbux we have this extraordinary collection of facts and figures describing the economic catastrophe that has hit the USA.  excerpt: "What a year 2012 has been!  The mainstream media continues to tell us what a "great job" the Obama administration and the Federal Reserve are doing of managing the economy, but meanwhile things just continue to get even worse for the poor and the middle class.  It is imperative that we educate the American people about the true condition of our economy and about why all of this is happening.  If nothing is done, our debt problems will continue to get worse, millions of jobs will continue to leave the country, small businesses will continue to be suffocated, the middle class will continue to collapse, and poverty in the United States will continue to explode.  Just "tweaking" things slightly is not going to fix our economy.  We need a fundamental change in direction.  Right now we are living in a bubble of debt-fueled false prosperity that allows us to continue to consume far more wealth than we produce, but when that bubble bursts we are going to experience the most painful economic "adjustment" that America has ever gone through.  We need to be able to explain to our fellow Americans what is coming, why it is coming and what needs to be done.  Hopefully the crazy economic numbers that I have included in this article will be shocking enough to wake some people up. The end of the year is a time when people tend to gather with family and friends more than they do during the rest of the year.  Hopefully many of you will use the list below as a tool to help start some conversations about the coming economic collapse with your loved ones.  Sadly, most Americans still tend to doubt that we are heading into economic oblivion.  So if you have someone among your family and friends that believes that everything is going to be "just fine", just show them these numbers.  They are a good summary of the problems that the U

Throw the socialist out!  The full video of Col. Allan West's speech at the Lincoln Day Dinner in West Palm Beach Florida.  Incredible and well worth your time.  You will want to stand up and cheer.   Left lengthy note in the new Diigo Quick Note.  Wish i could do the same with EverNote!!!  Quick note is okay.  Very convenient, but no tags, groups or lists.  And the only HTML-Rich Text editing is at Diigo where you can edit a QuickNote.  No bookmarking either with QuickNote either.  Hopefully Diigo users will persuade QucikNote to improve this useful product.  And hopefully EverNote will come to see the advantages of Diigo. Need to edit the QuickNote with some quick definitions of the isms: Conservatism, the ,any Socialisms, Fascism, Nazism, Communism, Obammunism and libertarianism. My QuickNote discusses three corners: Libertarianism, Socialism and Fascism. Some quick comments:  Libertarianism differs from Conservatism in that conservatives champion conservative-judeo-christian social values.  The kind you think of when you hear God, Country, Community and Family.  The Libertarian champions the founding documents; the Declaration and the Constitution.  Here the only "value" the founding fathers desired to be embedded in the governing structure was that of "individual liberty".  Making the governing structure a Republic focused entirely on the objective of "ordered liberty". socialist are also focused on social values, but their primary objective is the welfare of the group.  More often than not, the individual's liberty is sacrificed to the welfare of the group.  In fact, in knee jerk socialism, the individual only exist to benefit the greater society.  When the individual becomes a drag, euthanasia is the tool of choice for a socialist.  Not though that as long as the individual is a voting and consuming member of the group that is overturning the Constitutional Republic, and clamoring to replace the Republic with mobocracy democracy, the

Peggy Noonan writes about Paul Ryan's "The American Idea" speech he recently gave at the heritage Foundation.  It's a beautifully written summary that goes right to the heart of the matter:  the ruling elites have been enriching themselves, feeding at the public trough of corporate welfare and crony capitalism.  Washington DC is corrupt and rotten to the core, and the hand maiden of Banksters, Global Corporatist, Big Unions, and Big Bearucracy.   One things for sure.  Congressman Paul Ryan is a brilliant thinker aho believes in the great promise he calls "The American Idea".   Funny how, as the presidential primary race rolls on, my hopeful attention is being drawn towards four men:  Herman Cain, Paul Ryan, Ron Paul and Marco Rubio.   Herman unfortunately is soft on Banksters, totally unaware and oblivious to the need to take back the currency, and end the Federal Reserve Bankster Cartel.  I also have some difficulties with the "revenue neutral" aspects of his 999 plan.  We need less government, not more.  The private sector needs to keep more money, not less.   Too bad because everything else about Herman excites me.  Especially his authentic, from the heart love of America, American exceptionalism and opportunity, and the founders truly unique "American Idea". Ron Paul has an awesome "American Recovery" plan.  Awesome.  But his remarks on terrorism and foreign policy stray far from his usual reliance on the Constitution and the 10th Amendment.   He's right about the connection between global corporatism and the never ending militarism they push.  But he's dead ass wrong about our enemies and their intentions.  And that's scary.  If RP had stuck to the Constitution and 10th Amendment, i would fully support him.   If it's not an enumerated power, it belongs to the States and individual citizens.  End of story.   Marco Rubio is awesome in the same way Herman is.  He connects with a special authenticity that screams the principles and val

"Conflicting Meanings of Freedom For a classical liberal, freedom means that each individual possesses as a human being certain inviolable rights, those being rights to his life, liberty and honestly acquired property. And that human relationships should be based on voluntary consent and mutual agreement. For my interlocutor, freedom means "empowerment" or the ability to do or achieve certain things, without which "freedom" is not complete. These include a minimum or "decent" standard of living and the ability to attain certain potentials in life, which are everyone's "right" as a member of society. For my fellow conversationalist, society is a shared "community" of human beings each of whom owes certain things to the others, just as the others owe certain things to us. Society might be viewed as an extended family, from this perspective, all the members of which have certain required obligations to support and give assistance to their social "relatives." I suggested that society is a network of human relationships formed between individuals based upon opportunities for mutual betterment, including both the economic and the cultural in the widest sense, the fundamental foundation of which derives from those essential individual rights. The "Social Contract": Individualist or Collectivist? My dinner companion raised the issue of "the social contract," to which we are all participants and benefactors, he said. He referenced the famous French eighteenth century philosopher, Jean-Jacque Rousseau, who reasoned that man began as savages in the wild threatened by both beast and other men. Everyone entered into a social contract and formed society for mutual safety and betterment by giving up a portion of their complete and unrestrained "freedom" in that earlier setting of savagery for the order and security of shared community. The freedom given up is compensated by safety and the security of mutual aid, including the modern welf

Interview with Hoppe where he once again pushes libertarian thinking forward.  Hoppe puts most of the blame on "democracy" itself, caling it "an insidious form of communism".  Good stuff.  Highlighted parts. excerpt: "That the whole democratic house of cards has not yet completely collapsed speaks volumes about the still tremendous creative power of capitalism, even in the face of ever-increasing governmental strangulation. And this fact also allows us to conjecture about what economic 'miracles' would be possible if we had unimpeded capitalism liberated from such parasitism. If, and when, this insight finally bears fruit will depend upon the class consciousness of the population. There is a Marxist myth, eagerly promoted by the state, of an irreconcilable clash of interests between employers (capitalists) and employees (workers), or between the rich and the poor. As long as this myth prevails in public opinion, nothing at all will change and disaster is inevitable. A fundamental change can only occur if, instead of this, the correct realization becomes generally accepted that the only antagonistic conflict of interest in society is the one between tax-payers, i.e. the exploited, and tax-consumers, i.e. the exploiters.: In other words, between the class of people on the one hand who earn their income and assets by producing something that is bought voluntarily and valued accordingly by others; and the class of those on the other hand who produce nothing considered to be of value, but who live instead by living off and enriching themselves from the incomes and assets of other, productive people, forcibly taken via taxation - that is to say all government employees and all recipients of government "welfare assistance", subsidies and monopolistic privileges. Only when the producer class clearly recognises this, and publicly speaks out; when the producers are finally confident to take the moral high ground and reject the insolent admonitions from the po

LIBERAL PROGRESSIVE SOCIALISM, BARAK OBAMAS AGENDA

"  1 THE LEGAL LIMIT: THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION'S ATTEMPTS TO EXPAND FEDERAL POWER  Report No. 4: The Obama Administration's Abuse of Power By U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) Ranking Member Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on The Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights Of all the troubling aspects of the Obama presidency, none is more dangerous than the President's persistent pattern of lawlessness, his willingness to disregard the written law and instead enforce his own policies via executive fiat. The President's taste for unilateral action to circumvent Congress should concern every citizen, regardless of party or ideology. The great 18th-century political philosopher Montesquieu observed: "There can be no liberty where the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or body of magistrates." America's Founding Fathers took this warning to heart, and we should too. Rule of law doesn't simply mean that society has laws; dictatorships are often characterized by an abundance of laws. Rather, rule of law means that we are a nation ruled   by laws, not men. No one-and especially not the president-is above the law. For that reason, the U.S. Constitution imposes on every president the express duty to "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed." R ather than honor this duty, President Obama has openly defied it by repeatedly suspending, delaying, and waiving portions of the laws that he is charged to enforce. When President Obama disagreed with federal immigration laws, he instructed the Justice Department to cease enforcing the laws. He did the same thing with federal welfare law, drug laws, and the federal Defense of Marriage Act. In the more than two centuries of our nation's history, there is simply no precedent for the White House wantonly ignoring federal law and asking others to do the same. For all those who are silent now: What would they think of a Republican president who announced that he was going to ignore th

"  1 THE LEGAL LIMIT: THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION'S ATTEMPTS TO EXPAND FEDERAL POWER  Report No. 4: The Obama Administration's Abuse of Power By U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) Ranking Member Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on The Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights Of all the troubling aspects of the Obama presidency, none is more dangerous than the President's persistent pattern of lawlessness, his willingness to disregard the written law and instead enforce his own policies via executive fiat. The President's taste for unilateral action to circumvent Congress should concern every citizen, regardless of party or ideology. The great 18th-century political philosopher Montesquieu observed: "There can be no liberty where the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or body of magistrates." America's Founding Fathers took this warning to heart, and we should too. Rule of law doesn't simply mean that society has laws; dictatorships are often characterized by an abundance of laws. Rather, rule of law means that we are a nation ruled   by laws, not men. No one-and especially not the president-is above the law. For that reason, the U.S. Constitution imposes on every president the express duty to "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed." R ather than honor this duty, President Obama has openly defied it by repeatedly suspending, delaying, and waiving portions of the laws that he is charged to enforce. When President Obama disagreed with federal immigration laws, he instructed the Justice Department to cease enforcing the laws. He did the same thing with federal welfare law, drug laws, and the federal Defense of Marriage Act. In the more than two centuries of our nation's history, there is simply no precedent for the White House wantonly ignoring federal law and asking others to do the same. For all those who are silent now: What would they think of a Republican president who announced that he was going to ignore the law, or unil

Incredible must read for all Americans. excerpt: By the end of March, Barack Obama's administration will face its destiny, its Brutus a pawn of the fates. In Jimmy Carter's presidency, the Wall Street Journal editorialized about "Ratcheting to Ruin." The title derived from the fact that each cycle high in unemployment was higher than previous ones, and each cycle high in inflation was also. "Stagflation" was the neologism coined to describe what up until then was believed to be impossible in the Keynesian world. This period ushered in a new era in both politics and economics. Carter was replaced by Reagan, and Keynes was replaced by Friedman. Thirty years later, Keynes is back in vogue, Obama has ascended to the White House, and times are reminiscent of the Carter era. The economy is awful. Fear and dissatisfaction prevail. Politicians are held in contempt. There is one major difference -- Carter did not face an "ides of March" event. ..... The problem is bigger than the numbers above might suggest. Budget forecasts show that the problem increases over time. In addition, 40% of existing debt matures in the next year. That means $2.8 trillion of debt has to be refinanced. The Treasury must sell on average $90 billion of debt a week! In five weeks, we need to sell $450 billion. That is equal to the largest full-year deficit in history, at least until Obama's first year. There are no plans to curb spending or cut deficits. President Obama just increased the debt ceiling by $1.9 trillion. To outsiders, we appear like a banana republic with ICBMs. Does anyone seriously believe that funding based on "the kindness of strangers" is workable much longer? ..... If Bernanke stops QE, he fulfills his role as an independent central banker. Presumably, that action stops the decline in the dollar and reduces the risk of future inflation. It was the course that Paul Volcker chose in the late 1970s. Volcker's action was bold, highly controversial, and highly criticized. Vol