Winning the Cultural War

Charlton Heston's Speech to the Harvard Law School Forum    Feb 16, 1999

I remember my son when he was five, explaining to his kindergarten class what his father did for a living. "My Daddy," he said, "pretends to be people." There have been quite a few of them. Prophets from the Old and New Testaments, a couple of Christian saints, generals of various nationalities and different centuries, several kings, three American presidents, a French cardinal and two geniuses, including Michelangelo.
If you want the ceiling repainted I'll do my best. There always seem to be a lot of different fellows up here. I'm never sure which one of them gets to talk. Right now, I guess I'm the guy.
As I pondered our visit tonight it struck me: If my Creator gave me the gift to connect you with the hearts and minds of those great men, then I want to use that same gift now to reconnect you with your own sense of liberty of your own freedom of thought ... your own compass for what is right.
Dedicating the memorial at Gettysburg, Abraham Lincoln said of America, "We are now engaged in a great Civil War, testing whether this nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure." Those words are true again. I believe that we are again engaged in a great civil war, a cultural war that's about to hijack your birthright to think and say what resides in your heart. I fear you no longer trust the pulsing lifeblood of liberty inside you ... the stuff that made this country rise from wilderness into the miracle that it is.
Let me back up. About a year ago I became president of the National Rifle Association, which protects the right to keep and bear arms. I ran for office, I was elected, and now I serve ... I serve as a moving target for the media who've called me everything from "ridiculous" and "duped" to a "brain-injured, senile, crazy old man." I know ... I'm pretty old … but I sure, Lord, ain't senile.
As I have stood in the crosshairs of those who target Second Amendment freedoms, I've realized that firearms are not the only issue. No, it's much, much bigger than that.
I've come to understand that a cultural war is raging across our land, in which, with Orwellian fervor, certain acceptable thoughts and speech are mandated. For example, I marched for civil rights with Dr. King in 1963 - long before Hollywood found it fashionable. But when I told an audience last year that white pride is just as valid as black pride or red pride or anyone else's pride, they called me a racist.
I've worked with brilliantly talented homosexuals all my life. But when I told an audience that gay rights should extend no further than your rights or my rights, I was called a homophobe. I served in World War II against the Axis powers. But during a speech, when I drew an analogy between singling out innocent Jews and singling out innocent gun owners, I was called an anti-Semite. Everyone I know knows I would never raise a closed fist against my country. But when I asked an audience to oppose this cultural persecution, I was compared to Timothy McVeigh.
From Time magazine to friends and colleagues, they're essentially saying, "Chuck, how dare you speak your mind. You are using language not authorized for public consumption!" But I am not afraid. If Americans believed in political correctness, we'd still be King George's boys – subjects bound to the British crown.
In his book, "The End of Sanity," Martin Gross writes that "blatantly irrational behavior is rapidly being established as the norm in almost every area of human endeavor. There seem to be new customs, new rules, new anti-intellectual theories regularly foisted on us from every direction.
Underneath, the nation is roiling. Americans know something without a name is undermining the nation, turning the mind mushy when it comes to separating truth from falsehood and right from wrong. And they don't like it."
Let me read a few examples. At Antioch college in Ohio, young men seeking intimacy with a coed must get verbal permission at each step of the process from kissing to petting to final copulation ... all clearly spelled out in a printed college directive.
In New Jersey, despite the death of several patients nationwide who had been infected by dentists who had concealed their AIDs --- the state commissioner announced that health providers who are HIV positive need not ..... need not ..... tell their patients that they are infected.
At William and Mary, students tried to change the name of the school team "The Tribe" because it was supposedly insulting to local Indians, only to learn that authentic Virginia chiefs truly like the name.
In San Francisco, city fathers passed an ordinance protecting the rights of transvestites to cross-dress on the job, and for transsexuals to have separate toilet facilities while undergoing sex change surgery.
In New York City, kids who don't speak a word of Spanish have been placed in bilingual classes to learn their three R's in Spanish solely because their last names sound Hispanic.
At the University of Pennsylvania, in a state where thousands died at Gettysburg opposing slavery, the president of that college officially set up segregated dormitory space for black students. Yeah, I know … that's out of bounds now. Dr. King said "Negroes." Jimmy Baldwin and most of us on the March said "black." But it's a no-no now. For me, hyphenated identities are awkward ... particularly "Native-American." I'm a Native American, for God's sake. I also happen to be a blood-initiated brother of the Miniconjou Sioux. On my wife's side, my grandson is a thirteenth generation native American ... with a capital letter on "American."
Finally, just last month ... David Howard, head of the Washington D.C. Office of Public Advocate, used the word "niggardly" while talking to colleagues about budgetary matters. Of course, "niggardly" means stingy or scanty. But within days Howard was forced to publicly apologize and resign. As columnist Tony Snow wrote: "David Howard got fired because some people in public employ were morons who (a) didn't know the meaning of niggardly, (b) didn't know how to use a dictionary to discover the meaning, and © actually demanded that he apologize for their ignorance."
What does all of this mean? It means that telling us what to think has evolved into telling us what to say, so telling us what to do can't be far behind. Before you claim to be a champion of free thought, tell me:
Why did political correctness originate on America's campuses? And why do you continue to tolerate it? Why do you, who're supposed to debate ideas, surrender to their suppression?
Let's be honest. Who here thinks your professors can say what they really believe? It scares me to death, and should scare you too, that the superstition of political correctness rules the halls of reason. You are the best and the brightest. You, here in the fertile cradle of American academia, here in the castle of learning on the Charles River, you are the cream. But I submit that you, and your counterparts across the land, are the most socially conformed and politically silenced generation since Concord Bridge. And as long as you validate that ... and abide it … you are -- by your grandfathers' standards -- cowards.
Here's another example. Right now at more than one major university, Second Amendment scholars and researchers are being told to shut up about their findings or they'll lose their jobs. Why? Because their research findings would undermine big-city mayor's pending lawsuits that seek to extort hundreds of millions of dollars from firearm manufacturers.
I don't care what you think about guns. But if you are not shocked at that, I am shocked at you. Who will guard the raw material of unfettered ideas, if not you? Who will defend the core value of academia, if you supposed soldiers of free thought and expression lay down your arms and plead, "Don't shoot me."
If you talk about race, it does not make you a racist. If you see distinctions between the genders, it does not make you a sexist. If you think critically about a denomination, it does not make you anti-religion.
If you accept but don't celebrate homosexuality, it does not make you a homophobe. Don't let America's universities continue to serve as incubators for this rampant epidemic of new McCarthyism.
But what can you do? How can anyone prevail against such pervasive social subjugation? The answer's been here all along. I learned it 36 years ago, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC, standing with Dr. Martin Luther King and two hundred thousand people.
You simply ... disobey. Peaceably, yes. Respectfully, of course. Nonviolently, absolutely.
But when told how to think or what to say or how to behave, we don't. We disobey social protocol that stifles and stigmatizes personal freedom. I learned the awesome power of disobedience from Dr. King ... who learned it from Gandhi, and Thoreau, and Jesus, and every other great man who led those in the right against those with the might.
Disobedience is in our DNA. We feel innate kinship with that disobedient spirit that tossed tea into Boston Harbor, that sent Thoreau to jail, that refused to sit in the back of the bus, that protested a war in Vietnam.
In that same spirit, I am asking you to disavow cultural correctness with massive disobedience of rogue authority, social directives and onerous laws that weaken personal freedom.
But be careful ... it hurts. Disobedience demands that you put yourself at risk. Dr. King stood on lots of balconies. You must be willing to be humiliated ... to endure the modern day equivalent of the police dogs at Montgomery and the water cannons at Selma. You must be willing to experience discomfort. I'm not complaining, but my own decades of social activism have taken their toll on me. Let me tell you a story.
A few years back I heard about a rapper named Ice-T who was selling a CD called "Cop Killer" celebrating ambushing and murdering police officers.
It was being marketed by none other than Time/Warner, the biggest entertainment conglomerate in the world.
Police across the country were outraged. Rightfully so - at least one had been murdered. But Time/Warner was stonewalling because the CD was a cash cow for them, and the media were tiptoeing around it because the rapper was black. I heard Time/Warner had a stockholders meeting scheduled in Beverly Hills. I owned some shares at the time, so I decided to attend.
What I did there was against the advice of my family and colleagues. I asked for the floor. To a hushed room of a thousand average American stockholders, I simply read the full lyrics of "Cop Killer"- every vicious, vulgar, instructional word.
"I GOT MY 12 GAUGE SAWED OFF. I GOT MY HEADLIGHTS TURNED OFF. I'M ABOUT TO BUST SOME SHOTS OFF. I'M ABOUT TO DUST SOME COPS OFF..."
It got worse, a lot worse. I won't read the rest of it to you. But trust me, the room was a sea of shocked, frozen, blanched faces. The Time/Warner executives squirmed in their chairs and stared at their shoes. They hated me for that. Then I delivered another volley of sick lyric brimming with racist filth, where Ice-T fantasizes about sodomizing two 12-year old nieces of Al and Tipper Gore.
"SHE PUSHED HER BUTT AGAINST MY ...."
Well, I won't do to you here what I did to them. Let's just say I left the room in echoing silence. When I read the lyrics to the waiting press corps, one of them said "We can't print that."
"I know," I replied, "but Time/Warner's selling it." Two months later, Time/Warner terminated Ice-T's contract. I'll never be offered another film by Warner's, or get a good review from Time magazine. But disobedience means you must be willing to act, not just talk. When a mugger sues his elderly victim for defending herself ... jam the switchboard of the district attorney's office.
When your university is pressured to lower standards until 80% of the students graduate with honors ... choke the halls of the board of regents.
When an 8-year-old boy pecks a girl's cheek on the playground and gets hauled into court for sexual harassment ... march on that school and block its doorways.
When someone you elected is seduced by political power and betrays you...petition them, oust them, banish them.
When Time magazine's cover portrays millennium nuts as deranged, crazy Christians holding a cross as it did last month ... boycott their magazine and the products it advertises.
So that this nation may long endure, I urge you to follow in the hallowed footsteps of the great disobedience's of history that freed exiles, founded religions, defeated tyrants, and yes, in the hands of an aroused rabble in arms and a few great men, by God's grace, built this country.
If Dr. King were here, I think he would agree. Thank you.

How do we change the path before us?

"Almost too late, a consensus seems to be developing that we`d better get busy teaching our children moral values. We may not even be that far apart on what values to teach. But the idea seems to be taking hold that somebody ought to be teaching our children right from wrong-building their character." - William Raspberry, Washington Post, 1990

84% of of parents want moral values taught in schools, yet more than 50% of teachers refuse. Wall Street Journal, 1990

When a student found a large bank-bag of cash he was ridiculed, belittled and bullied for a fool. The teachers would not take a stand on the moral high ground that keeping found property is tantamount to theft.

When a governor was given the green light to establish guidelines for teaching morality in schools, topics like “Fidelity” and “Temperance” and “Chastity” were forbidden because they sounded religious.

“Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint; But happy is he who keeps the law.” Prov 18:12

We currently have an administration that is simultaneously rolling 4 flat tires on greased rails, and thundering through the Constitution like Freddy Kruger on prom night. We have a thousand, or more, legislators, advisers, judges and cabinet officials at all levels who are selfish, self-centered, out-of-control, arrogantly conceited suck-ups who have no interest in the jobs they were elected or appointed to aside from self gratification, self promotion and good-ole-boy partisan cheerleading. The president claimed that his chair was “occupied”, but he forgot that it is the people's chair, and that he lives in the people's house, and that he serves at the people's pleasure. That chair will always be occupied, just not by him.

Allow me to quote from former Congressional Candidate and former National Evangelical Association President Robert P Dugan in his best selling book, Winning the New Civil War.

“Despite constant grass-roots efforts, some politicians will prove impossibly stubborn when it comes to certain issues. Their minds simply will not be changed.

Fortunately, we need not be perpetually frustrated when, for example, when a senator's voting record shows that he inevitably prefers a woman's right to abortion over protecting the unborn. Nor are we limited to gnashing our teeth when a congresswoman's vote reveals that she prefers gay rights over a religious institution's right to practice its faith.

Under the Constitution, when we are unable to change our office-holders' minds, we can change the politicians themselves. Doing that, through elections, is not as difficult as most people think it is, and would be a whole lit easier if more citizens were willing to get involved. [Ed. Note: Elections, impeachments, recalls, etc. are powerful tools. Perhaps it's time they be used with their full force.]

It comes as a great surprise to most Americans that out nation's political course has so often swung on narrowly decided election. Did you know that Richard Nixon came very close to defeating John F. Kennedy for the presidency in 1960? (Kennedy won by 118,574 (50.07%) of the actual votes, though he carried 58% of the electors.) Or that Jimmy Carter just barely turned Gerald Ford out of the White House in 1976? (Carter won by 40,827,394 of the actual votes, but he carried 55.3% of the electorate.)

Since we never know for certain when our state or congressional district vote may be very close, our interests can be defeated by the narrowest of margins. The way to prevent that is by significant, personal campaign involvement. Significant campaigning could be something as simple as putting a bumper sticker on your car. It could also be much more than that—and easy to do, fun, and of great consequence.”

Who wins elections? The most attractive candidate? The candidate whose political views make the most sense? We are now convinced that this is not true. The candidates with the largest campaign treasuries? The answer is: None of the above.

Pastor Dugan goes on to explain why wealth, astuteness and attractiveness aren't all there is. Charisma is wonderful, but one look through the portrait gallery of America's political who's who readily shows that these are not, in and of themselves, clinching advantages. While it's true that being lackluster, impoverished and stupid will get you nowhere, poverty is no campaign killer. Former Senator Robert Kasten ran a race with 19 times and 10 times, respectively, less money than his two candidates, but public relations teach the Kasten Principle in campaign seminars. No one remembers his two opponents. Mario Cuomo won his election despite the full backing of mega-millions of personal campaign infusions by his opponent. Do you remember who he was?

The thing that wins elections is Organization. Organization begins with the individual voter. Wearing a bumper sticker on your car, attending rallies, promoting where ever possible, knowing the facts, understanding the issues well enough to explain them to a confused audience of one or one hundred.

Here's your chance to brainstorm. Come up with ideas that will put your candidate in the driver's seat.

Christians in Politics

While it is true that we are Christians first, we are obligated to participate in party politics for the simple reason that this effects out community just as much as it effects the way our local church functions.

Any pastor who says, “The Bible has more to say about being a Christian than it says about being a Republican, Democrat or Independent” is being overly simplistic and ill-serving of his church. The Bible has nothing at all to say about party affiliation, but to render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and unto God what is Gods. This means that it is the responsibility of the Christian to fulfill the obligations of a citizen. Informed involvement in politics is a Christians privilege, right, responsibility and obligation.

Who is Caesar? Not the president; the executive can be over-ridden by congress and the courts. Not the courts; their actions can be changed and adapted by congress. Not the congress; their laws can be changed and nullified by the courts. The only power greater than these is the supreme law of the land, the Constitution. Actually, that may not be accurate, either, because it can be changed by the states, and the power of the states can be changed by the people.

It is the first obligation of every Christian to pray for all those who hold public office. Intelligent and intentional intercession for politicians is our first responsibility. This may be difficult when some of those holding office are not worthy of the office or the trust that should go with the office. Therefore, it is our obligation to know who each office holder is. Generally, there are basically 9 in number. President and vice-president; senator; representative; governor; state senator; state representative; mayor and city councilman. Know each by name and pray for a specific burden or topic facing each. Intercessory prayer for our political officeholders is a clear political responsibility that Christians have overlooked to the detriment of the nation. Intelligent prayer has a byproduct that leads directly to our second duty.

-Second, we must become particularly aware of the voting record of each office holder. We may be well served by one, but the record of the other is alarmingly disappointing and deficient. Leading up to the voting record is the entire list of campaign promises and claims to moral values which should be compared to those which are put into practice.

-Third, we must identify the office and its requirements and qualifications.

-Fourth, we must know the stands, agenda, integrity and voting record of each one.

-Fifth, we must know all of our rights and responsibilities in the campaigns and elections.

-Sixth, we must vote at every opportunity. In the early 1800s, and Indiana farmer named Henry Shoemaker formed a ballot from a paper bag when his polling place had run out of ballots. He cast his vote for Madison Marsh for state representative; Marsh won by one vote. In those days, state legislatures elected U.S. Senators, so Marsh voted for a man named Harrigan to represent Indiana in the Senate. Harrigan won by one vote. In the Senate, Harrigan cast his roll call vote in favor of Texas' bid for statehood. Texas became a state by a margin of one single vote.

-Seventh, we should offer campaign support wherever possible. Anybody with a conscience would vote for the better of two candidates, so failure to vote was a failure to support the better candidate. The net effect would be helping the better candidate by the one vote not cast for his opponent. There was one less vote to overcome.

-Eighth, we must be vocal and urgent during the term and be pro-active to hold the politician accountable.

Each of us, as Christians, know so many things to be “true” that just aren't so.

-All politicians are crooks. That may be a valid assessment of politics in general, but it has little or nothing to do with Christians being involved in the political machine.

-You can't legalize morality. This should be “You can't legislate morality.”

-It is impossible for a Christian to serve in politics because politics demands compromise. Life demands compromise. Being a Christian means standing on the moral high ground regardless of the winds of politics.

-There's not a dime's worth of difference between the parties. It seems that the trend is toward socialism despite the idea that both claim to be moderates. That being said, their agenda on education, entitlement spending, abortion, homosexual rights, second amendment and many other rights are quite different.

-I'm only one person, and one person wouldn't make a difference. See #6 above.

-Preachers should stay out of politics. Render unto Caesar ...

-You can't fight City Hall. The cases proving this untrue are legion.

If you don't get involved, you won't make a change; if you don't make a change, you accept things as they are.

Successes of Gun Control

In 1929, the Soviet Union established gun control. From 1929 to 1953, about 20 million dissidents, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
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In 1911, Turkey established gun control. From 1915 to 1917, 1.5 million Armenians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
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Germany established gun control in 1938 and from 1939 to 1945, a total of 13 million Jews and others who were unable to defend themselves were rounded up and exterminated.
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China established gun control in 1935. From 1948 to 1952, 20 million political dissidents, unable to defend themselves were rounded up and exterminated
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Guatemala established gun control in 1964. From 1964 to 1981, 100,000 Mayan Indians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
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Uganda established gun control in 1970. From 1971 to 1979, 300,000 Christians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
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Cambodia established gun control in 1956. From 1975 to 1977, one million educated people, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
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Defenseless people rounded up and exterminated in the 20th Century because of gun control: 56 million.

A Tandem Ride With God

I used to think of God as my observer, my judge, keeping track of the things I did wrong, so as to know whether I merited heaven or hell when I die. He was out there, sort of like a president. I recognized His picture when I saw it, but I didn't really know Him.

But later on, when I met Jesus, it seemed as though life was rather like a bike, but it was a tandem bike, and I noticed that Jesus was in the back helping me pedal. I didn't know just when it was He suggested we change, but life has not been the same since I took the back-seat to Jesus, my Lord. He makes life exciting. When I had control, I thought I knew the way. It was rather boring, but predictable. It was the shortest distance between two points.
But when He took the lead, He knew delightful long cuts, up mountains, and through rocky places and at break-through speeds; it was all I could do to hang on! Even though it often looked like madness, He said, "Pedal!" I was worried and anxious and asked, "Where are you taking me?" He laughed and didn't answer and I started to learn to trust. I forgot my boring life and entered into adventure. And when I'd say, "I'm scared", He'd lean back and touch my hand.
He took me to people with gifts that I needed, gifts of healing, acceptance and joy. They gave me their gifts to take on my journey, our journey, my Lord's and mine. And we were off again. He said, "Give the gifts away; they're extra baggage, too much weight." So I did, to the people we met, and I found in giving I received, and still our burden was light.
I did not trust Him, at first, in control of my life. I thought He'd wreck it, but He knows bike secrets, knows how to make it bend to take sharp corners, jump to clear high rocks, fly to shorten scary passages. And I am learning to shut up and pedal in the strangest places, and I'm beginning to enjoy the view and the cool breeze on my face with my delightful constant companion, Jesus.
And when I'm sure I just can't do any more, He just smiles and says... "Pedal."

Court Unanimously Slaps Down Obama's Anti-Religion Doctrine

Lost in the political shuffle in New Hampshire was an epic U.S. Supreme Court decision this week in Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

By an astounding, unanimous 9-0 margin, the usually ideologically divided Supreme Court slapped down President Obama's radical doctrine that the federal government can tell a church who it must employ as a minister if the church violates anti-discrimination employment provisions.

The Obama administration's claim that there is no special protection for clergy in our Constitution, the majority ruled, "is hard to square with the text of the First Amendment itself, which gives special solicitude to the rights of religious organizations. We cannot accept the remarkable view that the Religion Clauses have nothing to say about a religious organization's freedom to select its own ministers."

Professor Douglas Laycock argued the case for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which defended the little Michigan church in court. Laycock is a longtime advisory board member of the organization (becketfund.org), which defends the religious liberty of all religions.

"This is a huge win for religious liberty," he said via a press release. "The Court has unanimously confirmed the right of churches to select their own ministers and religious leaders."

Kevin Seamus Hasson, who recently stepped down as the head of the Becket Fund, noted:

"This case is important on several levels, not the least of which is that unanimous opinion is an utter repudiation of the Obama administration's radical approach to this case. The Justice department actually stood up in the Supreme Court and said the First Amendment is essentially irrelevant to a church's ability to hire and fire its own ministers. They wanted to make it just another freedom of association case, as if whom to employ to teach a churches doctrine is no more remarkable than the decision of a local plumbers union on who should represent it on a weekly bowling tournament."

The Roberts majority opinions affirmed a "ministerial exception" exists, rejected the Obama administration's radical views, but left for a future day the question of how courts should determine who counts as a minister for the purpose of the constitutional protection.

Probably the strongest opinion for religious liberty was offered by Justice Clarence Thomas, whose concurrence said churches have unfettered freedom to decide in good faith who is a minister, and courts may not second-guess that decision.

Obama renegs on GMO food protection promise.

"We will immediately implement country of origin labeling because Americans should know where there food comes from. We'll let folks know whether their foods have been genetically modified." - Barack Obama primary campaign, 2007. Six years later in 2013, the presence of GMO is still a food industry secret. Where is the labeling the president promised?

The "Monsanto Protection Act" effectively bars federal courts from being able to halt the sale or planting of controversial genetically modified (aka GMO) or genetically engineered (GE) seeds, no matter what health issues may arise concerning GMOs in the future. Now it appears that even if those studies are completed and they end up revealing severe adverse health effects related to the consumption of genetically modified foods, the courts will have no ability to stop the spread of the seeds and the crops they bear.

The provision's language was apparently written in collusion with Monsanto. Lawmakers and companies working together to craft legislation is by no means a rare occurrence in this day and age. But the fact that Sen. Roy Blunt, Republican of Missouri, actually worked with Monsanto on a provision that in effect allows them to keep selling seeds, which can then go on to be planted, even if it is found to be harmful to consumers, is stunning. It's just another example of corporations bending Congress to their will, and it's one that could have dire risks for public health in America.

 Many members of Congress were apparently unaware that the "Monsanto Protection Act" even existed within the bill they were voting on. HR 933 was a spending bill aimed at averting a government shutdown and ensuring that the federal government would continue to be able to pay its bills.
“In this hidden backroom deal, Sen. [Barbara] Mikulski turned her back on consumer, environmental and farmer protection in favor of corporate welfare for biotech companies such as Monsanto,” Andrew Kimbrell, executive director of the Center for Food Safety, said in a statement. “This abuse of power is not the kind of leadership the public has come to expect from Sen. Mikulski or the Democrat Majority in the Senate.” [First: this is further proof that congress doesn't read the bills put before it. Second: the notion that democrats didn't know this backroom deal wasn't in the bill is absolutely ludicrous.]

The President did nothing to stop it, either. On Tuesday, Obama signed HR 933 while the rest of the nation was fixated on gay marriage, as the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument concerning California's Proposition 8. But just because most of the nation and the media were paying attention to gay marriage doesn't mean that others were not doing their best to express their opposition to the "Monsanto Protection Act." In fact, more than 250,000 voters signed a petition opposing the provision. And Food Democracy Now protesters even took their fight straight to Obama, protesting in front of the White House against Section 735 of the bill. He signed it anyway. [Once again the Obama administration took advantage of the focus of voters on one issue in order to slip their preferred issue through a vote.]

It sets a terrible precedent. Though it will only remain in effect for six months until the government finds another way to fund its operations, the message it sends is that corporations can get around consumer safety protections if they get Congress on their side. Furthermore, it sets a precedent that suggests that court challenges are a privilege, not a right.

“I think any time you tweak with the ability of the public to seek redress from the courts, you create a huge risk,” Seattle attorney Bill Marler -- who has represented victims of foodborne illness in successful lawsuits against corporations

We have to brainwash the American people ...

While Attorney General Eric Holder was still a U.S. Attorney, he said, "We have to brainwash the American people so they think differently about guns."

Now, as Attorney General, Holder says President Obama has asked him to expand the list of people "not entitled to have guns."

"Not entitled to have guns?" Where in the Second Amendment does it say the right to own and bear arms is guaranteed only if you are not on a government list of people not entitled to have guns? this idea is so convoluted it is difficult to write plainly.

The Second Amendment says, the right of the people, all people, to "keep and bear arms shall not be infringed," period.  Claiming and exercising the executive power to selectively determine who may and may not enjoy the protections of the U.S. Constitution is the act of a power-crazed politician, and it is grounds for impeachment. When Clinton was impeached, the definition of "high crimes and misdemeanors" was clarified by the special investigating committee. Violation of the Constitution in the means that the president is using, this activity is definable as a misdemeanor by any reasonable definition of the term.

The president has no constitutional lawmaking authority whatsoever—his constitutional role is to executive/implement the law, not make it. The job of the chief executive is to see to it that constitutional laws duly enacted by the Congress and signed by the president are faithfully executed.  Therefore, the president is always two steps removed from affecting any legitimate law. In the case of making, rules, regulations and restrictions affecting gun ownership he is flat out barred from doing so by the Second Amendment, period. 

The president has no constitutional authority whatever to make a list of people not entitled to have guns. when the president instructs the chief law enforcement officer of the country to draw up a list of people not entitled to have guns, he far exceeds any conceivable authority granted to him by the Constitution.

As reprehensible as the president’s directive to the Attorney General is, it is not surprising.  It is fully within character and just one more example of how this president holds the Congress, the Constitution and the American people in utter contempt. President Obama has demonstrated over and over, in word and in deed that he intends to govern by executive fiat, congress, the courts and the Constitution be damned.

No one should be shocked that President Obama claims the power to rewrite the Second Amendment to give himself the power to draw up a list of people not to be afforded the protection of the second amendment, or any other amendment.  He also claims the constitutional power and moral authority to use drones and assassination squads to kill U.S. citizens without even charging them with a crime, without trying them in a court of law or convicting them by a jury of their peers; and he claims the authority to act as prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner in these killings, unrestrained by constitutional requirements of due process or the protections afforded a person accused of a crime by the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Eighth Amendments.

Judge Andrew Napolitano exposed Obama's personal campaign of assassination for what it really is:

“The power claimed by kings and tyrants. This is about as un-American a power as one can imagine. This is in direct defiance of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees due process, a jury trial before the government can take your life or liberty. This is in defiance of federal law, state laws and treaties to which the United States is a party.”

Napolitano further described the secret, recently leaked Justice Department memorandum used to justify the presidential assassination program as "breathtaking and chilling in the cavalier way in which it suggests that the president—actually it doesn't even say 'the president'—it says any 'informed, high-level U.S. government official' can strip an American of his or her constitutional protections and order the killing of that American.'"

Yes, Barack Obama has gone into business stripping Americans of their constitutional rights. The President of the United States has gone rogue.

He must be stopped.

 In Liberty,

Larry Hunter
209 Pennsylvania Avenue, SE
Suite 2109
Washington, DC 20003

P.S. The most powerful forces in Washington and the media are aligned against your basic constitutional rights, first and foremost, your gun rights.

Blame thyself

They're standing on the corner and they can't speak English. I can't even talk the way these people talk: Why you ain't, Where you is, What he drive, Where he stay, Where he work, Who you be... And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk. And then I heard the father talk.

Everybody knows it's important to speak English except these knuckleheads. You can't be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth. In fact you will never get any kind of job making a decent living.

People marched and were hit in the face with rocks to get an education, and now we've got these knuckleheads walking around. The lower economic people are not holding up their end in this deal. These people are not parenting. They are buying things for kids. $500 sneakers for what? And they won't spend $200 for Hooked on Phonics.

I am talking about these people who cry when their son is standing there in an orange suit. Where were you when he was 2? Where were you when he was 12? Where were you when he was 18 and how come you didn't know that he had a pistol? And where is the father? Or who is his father?

People putting their clothes on backward: Isn't that a sign of something gone wrong? People with their hats on backward, pants down around the crack, isn't that a sign of something? Or are you waiting for Jesus to pull his pants up? Isn't it a sign of something when she has her dress all the way up and got all type of needles [piercing] going through her body?

What part of Africa did this come from? We are not Africans. Those people are not Africans; they don't know a thing about Africa. With names like Shaniqua, Taliqua and Mohammed and all of that crap, and all of them are in jail.

Brown or black versus the Board of Education is no longer the white person's problem. We have got to take the neighborhood back. People used to be ashamed. Today a woman has eight children with eight different 'husbands' - or men or whatever you call them now. We have millionaire football players who cannot read. We have million-dollar basketball players who can't write two paragraphs. We as black folks have to do a better job. Someone working at Wal-Mart with seven kids, you are hurting us. We have to start holding each other to a higher standard.

We cannot blame the white people any longer.

Dr. Bill Cosby, 17 May 2004

Obama waffles on debt ceiling - Again

In 2006, then a freshman senator from Illinois, Barack Obama made these remarks attributed to him during discussion in the U.S. Senate prior to the call for votes on raising the debt limit.

The full text of his remarks in the Senate on 16 March 2006 are:

Mr. President, I rise today to talk about America's debt problem.

The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can't pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government's reckless fiscal policies.

Over the past 5 years, our federal debt has increased by $3.5 trillion to $8.6 trillion.* That is "trillion'' with a "T.'' That is money that we have borrowed from the Social Security trust fund, borrowed from China and Japan, borrowed from American taxpayers. And over the next 5 years, between now and 2011, the President's budget will increase the debt by almost another $3.5 trillion.

Numbers that large are sometimes hard to understand. Some people may wonder why they matter. Here is why: This year, the Federal Government will spend $220 billion on interest. That is more money to pay interest on our national debt than we'll spend on Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program. That is more money to pay interest on our debt this year than we will spend on education, homeland security, transportation, and veterans benefits combined. It is more money in one year than we are likely to spend to rebuild the devastated gulf coast in a way that honors the best of America.

And the cost of our debt is one of the fastest growing expenses in the Federal budget. This rising debt is a hidden domestic enemy, robbing our cities and States of critical investments in infrastructure like bridges, ports, and levees; robbing our families and our children of critical investments in education and health care reform; robbing our seniors of the retirement and health security they have counted on. Every dollar we pay in interest is a dollar that is not going to investment in America's priorities. Instead, interest payments are a significant tax on all Americans - a debt tax that Washington doesn't want to talk about. If Washington were serious about honest tax relief in this country, we would see an effort to reduce our national debt by returning to responsible fiscal policies.

But we are not doing that. Despite repeated efforts by Senators Conrad and Feingold, the Senate continues to reject a return to the commonsense Pay-go rules that used to apply. Previously, Pay-go rules applied both to increases in mandatory spending and to tax cuts. The Senate had to abide by the commonsense budgeting principle of balancing expenses and revenues. Unfortunately, the principle was abandoned, and now the demands of budget discipline apply only to spending. As a result, tax breaks have not been paid for by reductions in Federal spending, and thus the only way to pay for them has been to increase our deficit to historically high levels and borrow more and more money. Now we have to pay for those tax breaks plus the cost of borrowing for them. Instead of reducing the deficit, as some people claimed, the fiscal policies of this administration and its allies in Congress will add more than $600 million in debt for each of the next 5 years. That is why I will once again cosponsor the Pay-go amendment and continue to hope that my colleagues will return to a smart rule that has worked in the past and can work again.

Our debt also matters internationally. My friend, the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, likes to remind us that it took 42 Presidents 224 years to run up only $1 trillion of foreign-held debt. This administration did more than that in just 5 years. Now, there is nothing wrong with borrowing from foreign countries. But we must remember that the more we depend on foreign nations to lend us money, the more our economic security is tied to the whims of foreign leaders whose interests might not be aligned with ours.

Increasing America's debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that "the buck stops here.'' Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better.

I therefore intend to oppose the effort to increase America's debt limit.

President Obama has undergone a change of heart regarding raising the debt limit.
In a 15 April 2011 Good Morning America interview, President Obama said this of his reasons for doing so. He admits on Good Morning America that he made a "newbie" vote, not in the best interest of the country.

"I think that it's important to understand the vantage point of a senator versus the vantage point of a president. When you're a senator, traditionally what's happened is, this is always a lousy vote. Nobody likes to be tagged as having increased the debt limit - for the United States by a trillion dollars. As president, you start realizing, you know what, we, we can't play around with this stuff. This is the full faith and credit of the United States. And so that was just an example of a new senator making what is a political vote as opposed to doing what was important for the country. And I'm the first one to acknowledge it."

In March of 2006 What made anyone, in their right mind, believe he could be the most powerful man in the world and do what was in the best interest of the country, a task he couldn't rise to a mere 30 months earlier?

Then on January 14, 2013 the president said:

“The issue here is whether or not America pays its bills,” Obama said at a press conference on Monday as he ratcheted up pressure on congressional Republicans to authorize an increase in the nation’s debt limit. “We are not a deadbeat nation.”

So, after all his fluff and bluster, Obama comes full circle and agrees with George Bush's policies - Again.

- Over the past 4 years under Obama our federal debt has increased by 6 Trillion to $16.2 Trillion.