An Intolerable Act

"To what purpose are powers limited, and to what purpose is that limitation committed to writing, if these limits may, at any time, be passed by those intended to be restrained?"        John Marshall.

 In almost surreptitious fashion, by the nearly unanimous passing of another un-debated bill, the Federal government has trod roughshod over several of our most basic freedoms. 

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-112hr347enr/pdf/BILLS-112hr347enr.pdf

The problem with the seemingly innocuous title: ‘‘Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011’, is that it has damn little to do with pointing the bricks and sprucing up the landscaping, and everything to do with limiting the First Amendment. It gives authority to the Secret Service to decide arbitrarily who does and doesn’t have access to the sight and hearing of the President, and other officials under their protection, by making it a Federal offense to be within any perimeter that they deign to establish. 

 No matter where on the political spectrum you reside, this is a chilling prospect. Handing over the 'context' under which we can express ourselves to arbitrary authority confers an unconstitutional control over the content. Free speech and the right of assembly are now at the sole discretion of the head of some politician’s security detail.  If they don’t want to hear you, or don’t want you in view of the cameras, you can now be forced away under threat of a prison sentence. 

 Are we merely to trust in the assurance that the intention is only to provide security, and that we won’t be silenced? I think not. When our rights are at issue the only safe course is to assume that the worst case scenario is inevitable. 

Going to the Dogs

 I don't think I've ever experienced a more ridiculous argument in a political campaign than the current controversy raging over dogs. If I didn't know that even a broken clock was right twice a day, it would pain me to admit that I'm actually forced to agree with Keith Olbermann: “It raises the level of absurdity to something exponential”  “With so many valuable questions going on, we’re wasting most of the time dealing with the dogs”.


  Allowing the media to channel the discussion into such nonsense as if it was the most momentous issue of the day doesn't augur well for the future reportage of the campaign. We deserve better, and should demand it, but as long as we let the carnival barkers lure us into side shows like this, it's all we're likely to get.

Fair? Taxes?

I was going to write about the Buffett rule, but Mark Steyn has already done a much better, and funnier, job of crunching both the numbers and the concept than I could, so I'll give you a link to him and take on a different aspect of Obama's presentation. The curious notion that our tax policies are somehow about "Fairness"


 Webster's lists 11 different definitions for the word 'fair', but when used in politics it's generally taken to mean just and equitable. Even children understand that usage. If I called my twin grand-daughters over to the cookie jar and hand the first, one cookie, and give the second, two you can bet the house the farm and the dog that I'm going to hear "That's not fair", and she'd be right to call me on it.


 Fair means the same for everybody, right? Isn't that why we have the 14th Amendment? Assuring everyone of the equal protection of the laws? So why do we have an unfair, unjust, and inequitable tax system that takes proportionately more from some of us than others? Why are 5% of our taxpayers stuck with 60% of the bill, ( while earning 30% of the income ) while 47% get a free ride and the rest of us divvy up the difference?


  Try rounding up 19 of your friends for a night on the town, and get them to agree to draw lots to see who gets stuck with how much of the tab using those numbers. Good luck with that.


 The 16th Amendment states: The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.


 And given our 'Progressive' income tax code, apparently without regard to the 14th Amendment 

Double Standard

It seems our President has something of a variable regard for majority rule. Mere hours after lecturing the Supreme Court on the deference due acts of Congress passed by, what he termed, "...a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress", his minions in the DOJ were in court in Massachusetts attempting to have the Defense of Marriage Act, signed into law by Bill Clinton in 1996, declared unconstitutional. 


 Obama-care passed the House by 7 votes, 219-212 with 30 odd members of his own party voting against it. It's passage in the Senate was bought at a price of several hundred billion pork barrels spread among half a dozen states.


 By comparison DOMA passed the House 342-67 and the Senate by a vote of 85-14


Dare we to think his only guiding principle is partisan political expedience?


http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/article/obama-legal-precedents-are-all-about-politics/466961