Fraud

According to Merriam Webster...
1 a: deceit, trickery ; specifically : intentional perversion of truth in order to induce another to part with something of value or to surrender a legal right
b: an act of deceiving or misrepresenting : trick
2 a: a person who is not what he or she pretends to be : impostor ; also : one who defrauds : cheat b: one that is not what it seems or is represented to be

I would add some more examples.

H. R. 2454: American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009

The Waxman-Markey carbon tax bill is a massive fraud, founded on the lie that Americans are altering the climate through use of fossil fuels, framed with the perversion that government can manage the resources of the nation more ably than the free market, and capped with the shameless deception that the levies the government will make on energy not only will not throttle the economy, but also will usher in a nirvana of "green" energy. Nancy Pelosi puts it plainly, "are you going to believe me or your lying eyes?"

Utterly devoid of any factual basis for man made global warming, the bill asserts that combustion of carbon (you know, that thing you do when you breathe) must be diminished, and that Congress has the lawful power to set a limit on the amount of carbon that Americans may burn in a year. Congress, having plucked this power from some adumbration of the penumbras of the Constitution (that's a place where the Sun doesn't shine), will decide just who may burn carbon. However, given the humility that befits such an institution, it will allow trading of the authority to burn carbon, so long as Congress gets the proceeds of such trades. These proceeds will, of course, go to the noble cause of reducing the amount of carbon burned (the same way tobacco taxes help reduce consumption... right!). Of course, there may be a little growth in the bureaucracy to make all this groovy kind of love come to fruition. Recent experience in Spain with this approach has cost 2.2 real jobs for every temporary "green" job created to date.


Why doesn't this bother Idi Amin Obama, the One?

Maybe because he is today's second example. Have you recently encountered anyone more inclined toward intentional perversion of truth in order to induce another to part with something of value or to surrender a legal right?

Election night -

Let us resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long. Let us remember that it was a man from this state who first carried the banner of the Republican Party to the White House – a party founded on the values of self-reliance, individual liberty, and national unity. Those are values we all share, and while the Democratic Party has won a great victory tonight, we do so with a measure of humility and determination to heal the divides that have held back our progress. As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours, “We are not enemies, but friends…though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection.” And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn – I may not have won your vote, but I hear your voices, I need your help, and I will be your President too.

Well, we have seen partisanship, pettiness, and immaturity... pretty much confined to the president and his party. After all, in the words of the president, "I won."

Inauguration day -

For everywhere we look, there is work to be done. The state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act - not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology's wonders to raise health care's quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. And all this we will do.

How's that hope and change working out for you? Unemployment is on course for 10%. New jobless claims continue at more than 600,000 every month. The currency supply has doubled since Inauguration Day, while the actual worth of the economy has fallen. Inflation is certain to ravage our country. Regulation is up; freedom is down. After transferring billions to General Motors and Chrysler, those firms are nevertheless in staged bankruptcy aimed at stripping rights from their lenders and transferring ownership to organized labor. Forty-five banks have failed, and the overall worth of bank stocks continues to slide.

But the actual culprits in the real estate bubble, the central bankers who artificially lowered the cost of borrowing, Representative Barney Frank who badgered the quasi-private Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to underwrite loans to borrowers who could never repay them, rating agencies that magically converted bundled junk debt - based on these subprime mortgages - into AAA-rated securities, investment advisors that relied on the ratings despite the obvious falsework, and brilliant economists who swapped credit default guarantees, who among these perpetrators of economic collapse has been shamed, arrested, and convicted? Isn't Barney Frank guilty of fraud at least as grand as Bernie Madoff?

And the biggest fraud of all is Barack "the Messiah" Obama. Although he will "only raise taxes on 5% of taxpayers," the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 will tax everyone who uses energy to cook, heat or cool, or ride to work by increasing the cost of energy. Of course, today's 300-page amendment(!) will make direct subsidies to low income persons (whether they be lawful residents or not). And while the former shareholders of General Motors and Chrysler (once known as "widow and orphan" stocks because of their absolute safety and certain dividends) may not have been "taxed" out of their former worth, the effect is pretty much the same. Obama's biggest supporters - organized labor - bankrupted these companies (with help from Congress, regulators, and gutless, witless management). Obama rewards unions with control of a huge share of our nation's dwindling industrial core.


And the coup de grace, health care reform.

Although we can't actually locate victims who are denied health care, not even among foreign invaders who live in America in defiance of our laws, Barack Hussein Obama the Compassionate has decreed an emergency and - wait for it - the solution to the crisis will actually lower the cost of health care in America by spending trillions more through government programs!

When I was earning a tenth-grade education, every one of my schoolmates could see right through this kind of bald-faced lie. I have to guess that later students were more focused on Black History Month, the vital contributions of Sacagawea, the evil of Tommie Jefferson's dalliances, the depredations of American soldiers (Gengis Khan reincarnated) in southeast Asia, and their own self-esteem (don't confuse this with the sanctity of human creation by the one, living God). These later students have a new math approach to government finance. They all know that tax cuts cost jobs, but tax increases create jobs. They know that the Compassionate One has "saved or created" 150,000 jobs... while 6.7 million have been lost!

Some of you are old enough to remember when your employer stopped providing support for health insurance and moved you into managed care to control their costs. Costs were rising, because the government's Medicare and Medicaid programs paid less than the going rate for drugs and procedures, so providers had to raise prices to others to make up for the loss (and the slow payment). Naturally, the managed care companies followed government's lead, and bilked the providers, too. So only people who don't belong to PPOs or HMOs, or don't claim indigence at the emergency room, actually pay providers what they ask. And what providers ask must increase to compensate for all the discounts extorted and late payments by the government and the managed care companies.

What do you think your employers will do when the "penalty" for not providing insurace to employees is less than the cost of providing managed care? Only the most worthy firms will be able to resist the siren song of the "government option."

And when the majority of health care is paid for the same way government now bilks Medicare and Medicaid providers, what will happen to the supply of doctors, nurses, physicians assistants, clinics, and hospitals? Where will the profits of pharmaceutical companies come from to fund research into more effective cures? Where will you go to appeal the bureaucrat's decision that you are too old for a hip replacement, for prostate cancer therapy, or for an organ transplant? If you have "unhealthy habits" like smoking, alcohol use, or excess weight, do you think a government scrambling to lower health care costs will authorize treatment for you... unless you conform to their behavioral mandates?

Newport News, VA, October 4, 2008

So if you have insurance you like, you keep that insurance. If you have a doctor you like, you keep that doctor. The only thing that changes for you is that your health care costs will go down.

Or maybe we should believe this one from the All Barack Channel (ABC) web site after the Health Care Obamathon of June 24, 2009:

Last week, the president gave a speech where he made a more sweeping guarantee: "If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period. If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan, period."

But -- as the president acknowledged at his news conference Tuesday -- that's not really a pledge he can promise to deliver on. Private companies are always free to choose different health plans for their employees, and that's not something Obama's plan would change.

"When I say if you have your plan and you like it, . . . or you have a doctor and you like your doctor, that you don't have to change plans, what I'm saying is the government is not going to make you change plans under health reform," the president said Tuesday.

What he really meant to say is that he plans to drive the private sector out of health care funding the way he has "reformed" the auto industry and plans to deal with power generation in America. And just as GM and Chrysler will make little cars that nobody wants, health care will lack resources and impose rationing on you when you fall ill.

Perhaps, like so many people who have never been responsible for profit and loss, he imagines the private sector will continue to overcome the dead weight of taxes and regulation - no matter the imposition. (Think Atlas Shrugged.) Or perhaps he is indifferent to the general erosion of national welfare and security, so long as rich white men give back the wealth they have "stolen" from the worthy downtrodden. Maybe he just craves power, and is using his alliance with the angry and the envious to secure his position.

It's pretty clear he doesn't want the United States exercising hegemony in the world by resisting Islamic cultural expansion or by denying the demands of any faker who claims to speak for labor or the oppressed. It seems Barry Soetoro is, like most bullies and liars, just plain chicken.

One thing is certain, you can judge his actions by his words. If little Barry O told me the sun would rise tomorrow morning, I would stock up on flashlight batteries.

Theft

Every two weeks, a sneak thief takes something of value from me (theft: taking without my freely-given consent). In most states, this act constitutes grand theft, because the value of the appropriation exceeds $400. In addition, four times a year this thief deprives me of several thousand dollars all at once. Twice a year, my state compounds this felony by collecting a tax on the imputed worth of my automobiles at registration renewal, over and above the licensing fees.

Oh, you don't think taxation is theft. Why would that be?

Is is because the levying and collection of taxes is permitted by the fourth amendment? Not really; the due process clause refers to proper court proceedings, not to mere enactment of statutes by Congress and the legislatures. Is it because the same act is permitted by the sixteenth amendment? Now you are closer, but since the federal taxation is progressive, it runs afoul of the equal protection clause.

As to the state's property tax, that's a lost cause. There is nothing in the U. S. Constitution that prohibits states from taxing income or wealth, so long as the taxes do not violate the equal protection clause.

Lawyers will disagree with both of the preceding paragraphs. They believe the acts of Congress and the courts to trample the promise of equal treatment under Constitution have been allowed by case law, and that the status quo is completely lawful. But if one sets aside the craft of lawyering and thinks clearly about what is really happening in this nation, it becomes very clear that a great many of our citizens are being gravely wronged by our government.

We must all admit that some government is necessary. Men are not angels, and this would be a poor nation and a challenging place to live without the armed forces to protect us from foreign enemies and police to protect us from the criminals among us. The Founders envisioned specific responsibilities for the federal government, chiefly related to protecting our borders and preventing internal commercial mischief among the states. To accomplish these duties the Constitution provides for certain excises and Customs duties. Only when Congress acquired a taste for dominion over the states did the need arise for a large federal budget.

Sadly, that taste for power now extends far beyond the suppression of states' rights into the control of the wallets, diets, habits, education, and every other public and private aspect of citizens' rights. And, like sheep to be sheared, Americans wait dumbly to be deprived of their wealth and their freedom.

Taxation is theft. Nothing about paying taxes is voluntary. If you do not submit, men with guns will take everything you have. Now, you can search in vain through the Constitution for the vesting of police power in the federal government. But that government grew a lot of police power in the 20th Century, and it's not through growing. Armed agents have the power to freeze your assets, take your real property, and jail you if you don't give them what they say you owe. Their position is that you are subject to the laws and regulations of the federal government, regardless of whether you could or did vote for the folks who enacted them. No judge will hear any argument to the contrary. So, in fact, you are a serf to the government, or you are an outlaw.

The majority of persons in the United States are not victims of progressive taxation. While they may pay sales taxes on purchases, direct or indirect property tax on the place they live, and tax on their income for "Social Security" and "Medicare," they pay no federal income tax. The majority of wage earners pay nothing in income tax. This may be the reason that politicians can so easily seduce voters with entitlements. If I won't pay for it, why shouldn't I approve of federally funded (fill in the blank)?

Folks, Obama and the Congress have levied a 50% tax on everything you earn and possess! It's called inflation, and it is coming right at us all like a freight train. Since January 20, the federal government has doubled the money supply. That means the dollar in your pocket will shortly buy 50 cents worth of goods. Why are oil prices rising? Speculation? Nope, just dealers realizing that when they are paid in the future for delivery of that oil, they will be paid in dollars worth less than they are now. About the only thing you may own that won't be hammered by inflation is a commodity like precious metal, raw food stock, or land. These will fluctuate with the general level of economic activity in the land, but will generally keep pace with inflation, for their underlying worth will not change.

But the value of your labor is not immune to the cheapening effect of inflation. As the economy suffers the dislocation of wealth that takes place when currency value falls, your salary and tips won't keep pace with inflation. The value of your stocks, interest earnings, and dividends will lag behind inflation. You will be poorer, because inflation is the tax that attacks everyone.

This is the greatest theft of all. Obama is just fine with it. After all, we can't just keep driving our SUVs and set our thermostats at 72 when the rest of the world is poorer than we are. We need to spread the wealth around. We need to be as poor as they are. We need to pay back the terrible wrongs we did to our Islamic fellow beings in the Middle East. We need to befriend the regimes that hate America and the freedom we formerly cherished and shared with others. We need to become more like the dictatorships in Cuba, North Korea, and Saudi Arabia.

And we are, day by day.

To all you Obama voters: Thanks a bunch. Go straight to Hell, and the sooner the better!

Right

Right is:

• not wrong
• the opposite of left
• something to which I am entitled without the consent of others
• an angle of 90 degrees

Unless you are deranged, you probably want to be - and think you are - right most of the time. You probably are embarrassed when someone points out that you are not right. You might put a good deal of energy into trying to convince yourself and others that you are right. Caring about what is right is generally regarded as desirable. We reward others when we say about their action, "it was the right thing to do."

We distinguish the work of crusaders in our minds when we say they are campaigning for rights, rather than for liberties.

A civil liberty is not necessarily a right. If it were a right, that's what we would call it. This begs the question of why the American Civil Liberties Union calls itself that name. If medical care, jobs, housing, homosexual marriage, man-boy love, pornophilia, or a good many other disputed entitlements are rights, why is the organization that campaigns for them focused on liberties, not rights? Maybe the ACLU was founded by people who knew that they were advocating for something other than civil rights.

I think it is right to obey the ten commandments. That is to say, I accept that the commandments are not wrong, and that one who obeys them is right. Of course, there has been only one Person who lived an entire life without breaking one of those commandments, so no matter how hard we labor to be right, we will often be wrong. We can't take much pride in the part of our life we are not wrong, since we spend so much of our lives in transgressions, large and small.

There is a movement afoot in the United States to relegate the ten commandments and the Source of their authority to the dustbin. If this weren't so sad for the future of the nation and those on the left who are making this push, it would be amusing. The Author of Liberty gave us all the freedom to make stupid mistakes, and to ignore Him and His law. He sent His love one time in the person of Jesus Christ to absolve us of our sins, and commissioned His followers to tell the world about God's love. Any society that turns its back on this truth will fail miserably. Any society that denies the Creator a voice in the public square is founded on folly. Any society that claims that the public acknowledgement of God is "establishment of religion" is ignorant beyond imagination and merits contempt.

The same is true of a society that enshrines envy as a basis for government. If you believe government should ensure the more even allocation of resources among the populace, you have fallen prey to an insidious social weakness that defies human nature, centuries of experience, and simple economics. If you claim that taking (by force of law) from those who "can afford to pay" to give to those with less is "the right thing to do," you are deluding yourself. It is right that everyone - not just the rich - should give freely to the poor, the ill, the widowed, and the imprisoned. What is wrong - just plain wrong - is for government to take from the rich and the middle class to redistribute to others. Here is why:

1. Government of men can only be just if it reflects the will of the people. A government that has the power to take from only some of the people and redistribute to others has been taken over by a minority. Today in America, more voters pay no income tax than pay any. The ability of elected officials to pander to the entitled is no longer subject to restraint by the vote of taxpayers.
2. Government cannot act charitably. The donor is not willing and the recipient is not getting charity, but an entitlement. Entitlements are demeaning and socially destructive. This is why we have third generation poor on public assistance after the enactment of the Great Society 45 years ago. Meanwhile, taxation drives out true charity by reducing the disposable income available for it.
3. Government cannot reliably channel resources to those who need them. Most in need are far more lacking in human reinforcement than in money. Consider the public schools. Well intentioned, they perform much worse than private schools and at much greater cost because they are in the hands of politically correct administrations that will not enforce discipline and cannot provide love or instruction in the faith and values that built our nation.
4. Government is frequently suborned to pernicious causes that imperil the nation. What sort of country provides greater "rights" to foreign invaders than to its own citizens? What sort of country rewards sloth and indolence and punishes productivity? What sort of government ignores the simple truth of nature and follows unproven science to impoverish its citizens in pursuit of environmental causes that would only affect the world if all other nations also participated?

None of these truths is new to 2009, but the elected leadership of the United States is new. This "leadership" has debased our currency, doubling the amount in circulation since January 20. It has vitiated the meaning of legal rights by deforming the bankruptcy courts to steal the legitimate position of bondholders. It has forced banks into a form of federal receivership and rearranged the executive ranks of these firms. It has announced its intention to abdicate world leadership. It has appointed cronies to high office and fired those with the temerity to challenge it.

Are we not astonished that the handicraft of Barack Hussein Obama has gone unchallenged by the citizens of this once-great nation? How can we not have risen up as one and driven this incompetent tyro from office? Are we so enthralled by the sycophantic media as to ignore his usurpation of the right? Are we so deracinated that we no longer cherish the freedoms that enabled the United States to lead free men and women around the world for more than 60 years? Do we no longer remember the sacrifices made by those who prised our freedom from the grip of no less a tyrant than this Obama - George III?

I waken daily in the hope that some ill has befallen this unforgivable buffoon. I pray that we will be liberated in my lifetime from the penury and class-envy that he brought to office. Let us all strive to put him in his place - which is most certainly not the White House. His political precursors, Wilson and Roosevelt, were stricken down. Perhaps a merciful God will strike Obama as well.

Shame

One of the most rewarding things about following Jesus Christ is assurance that our sins are forgiven. This forgiveness is not something we earn. It is a gift from our Savior, that we receive when we acknowledge Him as our lord and follow His ways. The truth that Christ died for the sins of all makes Christians different from everyone else on Earth.

We won't spend eternity in Heaven because we are righteous nor because we earned our reward through our actions in this life. We will be rewarded because we acknowledge the redeeming truth from the lips of the Son of Man: ""I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die."

There is no shame in the world of Christians. Though I may sin and dismay the Creator in this life, my sins are washed away and I will be blameless on Judgment Day, because I have given my life to the Savior.

There is shame in the rest of the world. The world of Islam is built on a culture of shame and honor. Loss of honor is shameful. And no matter what you hear from advocates for Islam, there is no room in their world for the gift of grace we Christians have received. Jews strive for righteousness, and lament their shortcomings. Agnostics and atheists pursue honor and nobility, and know shame when their shortcomings are made public (well, those who don't hold public office seem to be able to be ashamed).

Where does shame come from for those who haven't embraced Christ? Shame is a normal human feeling when one thinks one should have behaved differently. It is particularly acute for many people when their shortcomings are made public. If you belong to the Muslim Brotherhood, and you hear the President of the United States tell you "Unlike Afghanistan, Iraq was a war of choice that provoked strong differences in my country and around the world," you will hear an admission that the Great Satan erred and that its president just acknowledged his shame over that error.

What about pride? When you hear President Obama say, "Israelis must acknowledge that just as Israel's right to exist cannot be denied, neither can Palestine's," you will certainly hear the latter part of the sentence loud and clear, untroubled by the first part, and your Arab pride will swell.

Islam is a culture where the religious follow a false prophet (Matthew 24:10-11 "At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people.") and the character of life is defined by a choice between shame and honor. It is shocking that a president who acknowledges he knows the Qur'an and claims to respect the culture of its adherents would deliver a speech without considering how it would be heard by Islamics.

Then again, if you have the messianic self-image that Barack Hussein Obama has made evident since he first appeared in the Illinois state legislature, you evidently know better than anyone else how to make friends with a Medieval culture bent on eradicating the culture of your nation. If you are Obama, you think Muslims - who know without any doubt that abortion is sinful - will overlook your history of defending the heinous practice of partial-birth abortion and hear your uplifting message of reconciliation between the United States and the Muslim world. You will be untroubled by the charging of interest on loans made in American banks, in violation of the tenets of Islam. You will ignore the films your political donors make that exploit and demean women and depict licentious behavior and the use of alcohol. The shame these behaviors rain down on you in the eyes of your audience means nothing to you.

Nor, if you are President Obama, will you be bothered to point out to the audience with justifiable pride the blood and treasure the United States has spent defending Muslims around the world - never once taking territory or treasure in return for this help.

And above all, you will not point out to your Muslim audience that the reason the United States is a safe place for 1.5 million adherents to their religion to live is that the government was founded on Christian principles.

There is hope for President Obama's soul. It is the hope available to all. Know and repent your error, ask God for forgiveness, and walk in Christ's footsteps. I am reliably informed it takes all three. Based on his behavior to date, he still has some distance to go.

Justice

What is justice?

Plato said justice is one of four cardinal virtues, the proper balance between self-interest and the rights or needs of others. The other virtues are prudence, temperance, and courage. These are civic, not moral, virtues.

Justice is usually portrayed as a woman holding a balance scale. A balance scale can only determine whether the weight of the two sides is equal or unequal. If the weights on one side are calibrated, we can know the weight of the other side, and then only if the scale is balanced. This is an interesting analogy to the concept of civic justice.

We have broad axioms about self-interest and the rights or needs of others. Free speech does not include the right to shout "fire" in a crowded theater when there is none. My freedom to swing my fist stops at the tip of your nose. When we examine the matters that come before the United States Supreme Court, these axioms shed little light. The stakes when comparing an individual or group's self-interest are not easily compared to the rights or needs of the "others" on the opposite side of the scale. That is why we depend on equal administration of the law for the foundation of civic justice.

The justices of the Supreme Court are authorized by Article III of the Constitution to hold their offices during "good Behaviour" as an appellate court for matters of fact and law, with few exceptions (when they can be the original venue, or in cases of impeachment), and subject to the regulation of Congress. We are told the decisions of this court are "the supreme law of the land," but you will not find this intent in the Constitution or the deliberative papers at the time of its adoption. The Supreme Court was designed to be a co-equal branch to Congress and the Executive, and the final decider of facts at issue and interpreter of laws in light of the Constitution. Chief Justice Marshall arrogated more authority to the Court, and Congress has yet to undo his error.

By their very title, justices of the Supreme Court embody the civic virtue of justice. To determine the fair and proper balance between one party's self-interest and the rights and needs of others, the justices must act impartially, in full knowledge of the facts at issue and the applicable laws, and without influence from the wealth, poverty, privilege, low estate, or other attribute of the parties. That may be why modern depictions of justice are blindfolded.

The continued health of our nation depends on the Court's role in preserving the rule of law instead of the rule of men. Only if the law is the basis of deciding between outcomes in the courts can the governed have confidence in government. To the extent the law becomes the servant of men, the government becomes fickle, untrustworthy, and a potential enemy of the common welfare of citizens. A Justice of the Supreme Court who substitutes personal perspective about outcomes or foreign legal opinion for the laws of the United States betrays his oath of office. A little departure from fidelity to the law begets a little distrust and disregard. Think of the national evasion of the 55 mph speed limit in the 1970s, or the commonplace violations of Prohibition. A large departure from fidelity to the law begets lawlessness, tyranny, and ultimately revolution.

Shortly after adoption of the Constitution, the government of the United States fell into the hands of professional politicians. The self-interest of these politicians leads them to view the apparatus of government through a prism of outcomes rather than principles - quite foreign to the intention of the nation's founders. Increasingly, politicians see the relationship between outcomes and their continued electoral success. If they tilt the playing field to favor a group of voters, they expect those voters to retain the politicians in office. If they stay true to the nation's founding principles, those voters may choose another politician who promises to serve the particular voters' interests over the common good. We know this as "identity politics." Politicians are far too clever to confess this aloud - rather, they claim that tilting the playing field to favor some is actually an effort to be fair to all.

With the growth of government in the 20th Century, the unhindered ability of politicians to secure reelection by ignoring the Constitution produced awesome distortions and expansion of political power. The courts become political, too, and many judges have legislated from the bench. The outcome of Brown v. Board of Education, however desirable, is not supported by law-based findings of the Supreme Court. Read the decision. The outcome of Roe v. Wade, however undesirable, is similarly rootless, torturing an earlier whole-cloth invention of a right to privacy that is found nowhere in the Constitution.

Little wonder, then, that presidents, the Senate, and the press view the appointment and confirmation of Supreme Court justices and inferior court judges through a political prism.

The current president has made a career of telling us in calm, measured tones just how unjust our nation has been to the poor and downtrodden at home and abroad. He has nominated a candidate for the Supreme Court who shares those views and is willing to act on them. This particular candidate is on record that the right to keep and bear arms - though confirmed by the Supreme Court to be an individual right - may be restricted by the states. It seems she has not yet read Amendments IX and X to the Constitution. She has made overtly racist statements claiming superior ability to dispense justice based on her race and social origin. She has stated that courts make public policy. She is clearly aligned with President Obama in her views.

The Supreme Court is no place for a justice with such publicly announced disregard for the obligations of a judge. A nominee merits lifetime appointment to the highest court in the land only after demonstrating:

1. knowledge of and fidelity to the Constitution;
   
2. a record of faithfully examining case facts and applicable law, then ruling impartially based on the evidence in accordance with the Constitution and the laws of the nation; and
   
3. clarity of argument and communication in service of justice in the United States.

Judge Sonia Sotomayor fails on all three counts.

Despite her manifest unfitness for the job, it is likely that Senate politics will lead to Judge Sotomayor's confirmation. Most Democrat senators want President Obama to triumph on any matter that will not harm their personal chances of reelection. Long ago, most Republican senators also shed their allegiance to the Constitution for political expediency. It is vain to hope that the Senate will suddenly waken to the need to limit the national government to its Constitutional role, much less insist that they and others in government behave with the humility the founders expected.

So we must take comfort that Judge Sotomayor is a less effective a proponent of President Obama's malicious doctrine than other potential nominees for the post. With God's help, the nation will have turned on President Obama before his next opportunity to nominate a justice, and we will be spared another, more effective voice for statist, secular humanist fascism.

Memory

Wouldn't it be great if Americans spent the Memorial Day weekend remembering those who sacrificed for our freedom?

For a little background on this particular observance, visit http://www.usmemorialday.org/backgrnd.html. It's great to thank God for our noble forbears who sacrificed so much for us. They preserved not only our freedom, but also liberated tens of millions around the world. They ended slavery in the United States and in many occupied lands.

My father and my next older brother served this country in time of war. Neither of these men sought careers in the military - they would gladly have avoided service. They were like most men who have fought for our nation - reluctant.

My father was a combat correspondent in the US Marine Corps and made three invasions during World War II, including Okinawa. He joined the Marines when "his number was up" in the draft, and used his skill in photography to win a berth in a service he preferred. He spoke little about his time in the Marines, but he won a citation from the Navy Department for his work, and you have probably seen his film. You see, the Marines had color movie film, and he shot a great deal of spectacular combat footage. Until budgets and computer graphics permitted another approach, many war films used combat footage from men like my father. My dad took a low-paying civil service job during the Korean War to avoid a return engagement. With three little boys, he just couldn't give Uncle Sam more than three years in combat.

My older brother joined the Army and attended Officer Candidate School, because his effort to join the Peace Corps to avoid military service during the Viet Nam War didn't work out. After billets around the world, he got sent to Saigon and commanded a truck company. He, too, said very little about his time in the war zone.

One of my junior high school classmates died on the USS Liberty in the Six Days War on June 8, 1967. His loss was part of the amazingly small minority of American warriors who die in action. Many more are wounded and continue to pay with their personal sacrifice until they reach the end of their days.

Both my father and my brother have gone home to God, passing away many years after they ended their military service. This is the normal cycle of events for Americans who serve in war. My schoolmates had fathers who flew bombers, served in the Signal Corps, were quartermasters in Australia, and so on. Millions of American men and women served honorably to defend our nation in war and in peace, and returned to America to live out their lives with the rest of us, fortunate to be free in a world that is far better for their efforts.

When you pick up the tab at the airport Starbucks for the uniformed soldiers in line ahead of you, or make your contributions to the many worthy charities that help them and their families, what a tiny repayment you make for the work they do.

Here is a pitifully incomplete list of places you can put in a helping hand:

Air Force Aid Society
Coast Guard Foundation
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On Monday, May 25, 2009, flag etiquette calls for us to fly the flag at half staff until noon, then raise it fully.

That flag flies over the only land our nation claims in countries around the world where Americans have given the last, full measure of sacrifice for the freedom of complete strangers - our military cemeteries. It also flies over cemeteries here at home where the honored dead bear testament to the willingness of this great nation to rescue those who cannot survive without our help. It flies over court houses and legislatures where Americans have for more than two centuries governed themselves by mutual consent. It flies over schools, where the future of the nation rests on the lessons being learned. It flies on the moon, where the only nation on earth that ever landed human beings and brought them home again visited in peace.

Oh, how I pray on this Memorial Day that the flag may continue to fly over a free land! How I fear it will not! It would be an incalculable tragedy for all the sacrifice made by so many millions of uniformed soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen, and coast guardsmen to be squandered by the current generation of Americans.

Do not let the great work of so many men and women living and dead be lost to the usurpers who would steal your freedom, cheat your children of their inheritance, and surrender our culture to vandals from abroad. Stand up for the freedom we knew not so long ago, and turn these sorry wretches out of office. Start with your municipal elections this fall. Make them a referendum on freedom. Send the politically correct, tax-and-spend progressives packing. Don't elect school board members who celebrate "winter holiday" instead of Christmas. Don't approve of school books that revise American history. Continue in 2010 to the state and federal elections to support only those who believe in your freedom. Vote with your pocketbook. Contribute to the campaigns of honest Americans who want only those who follow the law to live here, and who want the law to follow the Constitution.

Let us on Memorial Day thank God for the sacrifices that our loved ones, living and dead, have made for our nation through military service. And let us dedicate our lives to preserving the heritage they served to defend.

Virtue

I had an interesting discussion with an experienced university professor the other night. He knew with absolute certainty that he was right about many topics: He makes no charitable contributions, because since not everyone may be relied upon the be virtuous only the state should provide charity. He is certain that Ronald Reagan was an idiot and that the Soviet Union collapsed of its own internal failings. Jesus Christ is a myth to this learned man. National Health is an unalloyed blessing to Great Britain and all its clients receive excellent care. Those who earn more should pay a larger share of their earnings in tax, because it is most fair. I am relieved to report we did not discuss former President George W. Bush. He holds these views with - shall we say - religious fervor. He is virtuous.

The root of virtue is a Latin word for manly strength. Through the miracle of common use, the word has become emblematic of moral excellence. We accomplish something by virtue of some attribute or behavior, and the virtue in this case means through the strength of that attribute or behavior.

Notably, strength is neither innately good nor bad. "He robbed the widow by virtue of his cupidity and her naivete." "He built a charitable foundation by virtue of his communication skills and the nobility of its cause." Virtue is apt in both examples.

Inasmuch as I believe with equal certainty: that taxation is theft and should only be permitted for the fewest reasons imaginable; that our Savior commanded us to share with the poor, the orphaned, the widowed, the sick, and the imprisoned - and not through taxation but through personal volition; that President Reagan authored the collapse of the Soviet Union by announcing defense build-ups while causing the price of petroleum (the Soviet Union's principal cash export) to fall in a deal with the Saudi Arabian king; that Jesus Christ is the son of God who died that all may be freed of sin and spend eternity in heaven if only they repent and accept His grace; that socialized medicine is structurally incapable of providing decent health care over the long term because human nature and economic principles make this impossible; and that only taxes levied uniformly on all who consume are just... you may conclude I do not share the views of the learned professor.

Our conversation led to no moderation in the views of either participant. We are both virtuous. We both hold strongly to our views, and each considers his views morally superior. We also had a moderate observer who congratulated himself on his personal virtue: not having a strongly held view on these topics.

From this condition stems the great hazard of our nation at this very difficult moment. Led by a man with no moral compass other than the drive for personal power and a feel-good intent to get even with all those dead and living white men who stole our national weal from the deserving downtrodden, most Americans do not take seriously the peril we face every day when we are dissuaded from speaking up about our rights, and about right and wrong. With the national government so strong it can take giant corporations away from their owners with scarcely a whimper of protest, so omnipresent that no personal slight in the workplace is so small that your offended co-worker cannot have your job for your offense, with the public square dominated by those who will not countenance the thought that the medieval pagans who worship the moon god and follow a false prophet constitute a physical threat to the well-being of Americans, and who think the human race can somehow alter the earth's climate, is it any wonder we think virtue has become vice?

Vice is fault, pure and simple. It is something that does not work. It is like homosexual sex, which cannot result in procreation and may result in disease. It is like theft, which deprives the victim and debases the perpetrator. It is like lying, which often harms someone and morally corrupts the liar. It is like envy, which cheapens the envious and may lead to harm of the envied. All these behaviors do not work. At the very least, they harm the one who performs the act.

I marvel at generations of clergy who have labored to educate their flocks about the difference between virtue and vice. At the core of their mission rests the need to inculcate faith. The choice of the flock to believe ultimately rests not on being convinced by logic or example, but on the willingness of the believer to hope for the unseen, and to act on trust in the truth of that which cannot be proven.

In a sense, their mission is akin to the role of an elementary school teacher, a college professor, or a community organizer. We believe that 2+2=4 (in an appropriate base system). We believe that Washington accepted the sword from Cornwallis at Yorktown to end the American Revolutionary War. And the president believes that any position that accretes power to his purpose is sound. Each of these beliefs is attained through repetition, through the absence of disproof, and by effectiveness, but in the end they remain beliefs.

If we are to restore the right in America, we must speak forcefully to our neighbors about our beliefs, about the truth of the virtues that made this a great nation. We must argue that God gave America an exceptional role in the world, and that we cannot shirk our duty without great risk. We must not be constrained by political correctness that tolerates only the views of a vocal, secular humanist minority that rules the public square today. We must resist the siren song of moral equivalence. We must say, "I support your right to voice your view, but don't expect me to agree or go along with you."

It is vital to speak up. We live in an echo chamber that denies the holiness of God, the sovereignty of contract, the rights of property owners, and our heritage as Americans. Only if our voices drown theirs out will we stem their advance. You may recall that scene in Casablanca when Paul Henried leads the patrons of Rick's Cafe Americain in singing Le Marseillaise. They drowned out the German soldiers who were singing their patriotic song. The scene showed the moral superiority of the resistance leader, and the threat that resistance posed to the occupying power.

We are the resistance, and our nation is occupied by power-hungry secular humanists who deny God and worship a false god of progressivism. These occupiers have no interest in your personal freedom, only in their ability to force you to behave as they see fit. They are offended by your belief in the freedom that lets them act as they will without forcing you to match their behavior.

Stand up for the right, or be consigned to slavery. Your virtue will be its own reward, when you join the resistance that defends our American tradition.

May God bless you, and may He also bless the United States of America.