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Are We still Fighting over the Civil War’s Crater? Newt might Think So!

By Dr. Phil Taverna

Newt and Forstchen (left) signing books at Nixon Library California.

Newt Gingrich and his partner Forstchen have come up with another great Civil War Novel. If you haven’t experienced the read, it is quite fascinating to read a book that puts you in the middle of this battle. The Battle of the Crater by Gingrich and Forstchen.

When I look at history I try to compare it to things that are happening today.

Let’s assume Newts novel is 100% accurate. The Battle of the Crater was the perfect storm. By that time both sides were pretty tired of fighting. And the battles turned into trench warfare with a cost of a great deal of casualties just to try to extricate the trench inhabitants.

They were trenched out near Richmond and if they could win this battle, the Union could cut off Lee’s supply lines and probably end the long war. There was this big honking fortress in the middle of the Confederate lines and they came up with the perfect plan.

A bunch of Union folks blessed with being miners, decided that in several days they could tunnel under the fortress, blow it up in the middle of the night. They would cause such a ruckus and a giant crater. By the time the rebels recovered, the well trained Black troops would lead the entire White Union troops to finish off the Rebs.

The plan was all worked out and accepted by all. General Meade was not real happy with the plan. Like Obama he wanted the credit to go to him, and him alone. And General Burnside who ended up being Governor of Rhode Island, wasn’t the John Wayne of the day. When Meade changed all the plans at the last minute, Burnside basically sat on his hands and watched as thousands of Americans went into battle. Burnside took the blame, but eventually Meade was reduced to General Grant’s puppet for the remainder of the war.

President Lincoln was concerned, because his re-election was coming up and a victory would help him win the election and finish what he started.

After weeks of planning the real question is why would Meade change the plan with less then 24 hours before the battle?

He reduced the amount of the explosion. He provided fuses that were not reliable and timely. And the Black troops who never saw battle trained vigorously until they were well equipped and trained to accomplish the impossible. After the explosion that was to take place at 3:30 AM they were trained to attack with very little light and were all set and equipped to break down the trench barriers and run the Rebs all the way back to the supply lines.

At the last minute Meade orders Burnside not to use the Black troops. Instead a bunch of White troops led the charge. They were not trained. They were not properly equipped. They were not even briefed as to what they were supposed to do. Instead of taking over the trenches at 3:30 AM, the faulty fuses did not go off until there was daylight. And the Union troops ended up fighting from the Crater rather then the Rebel trenches.

As a result after a while it was like shooting fish in a barrel. Unfortunately the fish were the Union soldiers, and instead of shooting canon fire into the crater, they just had to light the fuses and lob them into the crater. Only about 865 Americans died that day. But why did Meade change the orders and caused the defeat?

There are several thoughts. Meade didn’t want Burnside to get the credit. Meade didn’t want the Black troops put in a position to win the battle. Maybe he didn’t trust the Black troops to actually go into battle as new recruits rather then veterans.

Quote from the book:   “The point is, we Irish have had to claw every inch of the way for what this country claims is the right of all men, but those rights get forgotten by a lot of people once they get the rights for themselves.”

Another quote: “Two hundred thousand like them (black soldiers) now serve and they at least, as Frederick Douglass has said, have shown to the world the right of citizenship and no one will ever dare to take it away from them.”

When Obama ignores and makes fun of Our Constitution, is he like General Meade? Does Obama want this country to win? We know what ever happens tomorrow, Obama will find a way to take credit for things he had nothing to do with.  And Obama works real hard to make sure that President Bush and the Republicans get all the blame and no credit.

In the end the newspapers wrote that it was the Blacks that caused the defeat of the Battle at the Crater.  Newt tells the story in an all together different manner. Many Blacks were sacrificed that day because of the bad decisions of Meade and the lack of John Wayne qualities in Burnside. If Burnside was John Wayne: “Hey Partner” the battle would have ended differently. Can you Court Marshal a Hero? Obama has tried on several occasions.

It is always a shame and wasteful when politics get in the way of winning wars. But what about the Black stuff? Just the other day Costas couldn’t resist pointing out that Gabby the gymnast who won Gold was the first African American. As if none of us knew she was Black. Then he goofed. He said wouldn’t it be great if some Black child sitting at home today is inspired by this and takes up gymnastics (paraphrased). I am sure there were a few sitting in the ghetto and just couldn’t wait to find a coach. Do we have Public Housing funding for Olympic Training… Yet!

The point is wouldn’t a White girl be inspired by a Black girl winning the gold! Assuming Costas is a liberal, it appears that since the Civil War the liberals just can’t resist pointing out when one is Black. I think maybe it is time that these liberals understand that the color of skin makes no difference. They are all Americans and should be treated the same.

Since the time of General Meade, there has always been this need for liberals to point out the difference. And back then the liberal media blamed the loss on the cowardice of the Black Soldiers.  It was a lie. It was the generals that lost the battle but they survived the day. Many of the Black soldiers did not. They made the ultimate sacrifice along with many of their white brethrens.

So we can only hope that the True Americans and the Patriotic Americans can see the political and liberal lies that infect our airways and print on a regular basis. It has been a long time since the Battle of the Crater. But       

Please register to vote so real hope and change can occur in a capitalistic manner. Don’t let the liberals take Your American Dream Away again!

YourDemocracyChange.Com

Mr. Obama may not be the only President we have ever elected who has little real world experience, but he may be the first who has none.  And hopefully he will be our last.

President Obama’s latest insult to hardworking Americans has drawn massive press, at least in the portion of the Media that isn’t consumed with repeating and debating his false allegations concerning Romney’s business record.  It isn’t hard to understand how a Marxist would consider the accomplishments of a capitalist to be criminal.  It also isn’t hard to understand how a Marxist would believe that no one can accomplish something on their own; they do believe it takes a village to raise a child after all.  What is hard to understand is how America was gullible enough to elect a Marxist president when the evidence of his beliefs, his associates, and his political activities were so easy to see.

What will be utterly beyond comprehension is a majority of our fellow voters drinking the kool-aide a second time when it is obvious from Mr. Obama’s rhetoric that he is selling a blatantly anti-capitalist and anti-American line of constitutional suicide.

With serial apology tours, bowing to foreign leaders, and abandoning our surrogates to help install the Muslim Brotherhood throughout the Middle East, it is obvious Mr. Obama is a walking disaster for America’s foreign policy.  It is also obvious from the recession he has managed to turn into the Great Recession that his spread around the wealth transfer policies are an unmitigated disaster on the domestic front.  His record wouldn’t inspire anyone except a fellow American hating Marxist to vote for him, so his only viable tactic is to make the other guy totally unacceptable.  In the coming months watch as the President, his fellow traveler mouth pieces, and the Corporations Once Known as the Mainstream Media turn squeaky clean bland, boring Mitt Romney into a nefarious arch criminal who has built a massive criminal enterprise on the backs of exploited victims.

Even if President Obama really believes personal accomplishments, except his own of course, are merely the trophies of exploitation that doesn’t mean the rest of us should accept this as a legitimate premise for discussion.  The Democrat Media may want to spend endless hours asking Mitt to explain why he threw grandma off the cliff after stealing her Social Security check, but that doesn’t mean any sane person should waste time considering it.

A better question might be if capitalists have claimed personal success unfairly while using roads and electric grids built by others why is it fair for Mr. Obama to claim as his own the  fame for killing Osama when someone else started the campaign and someone else executed it?  Why aren’t the failures of his forays into venture socialism such as Solyndra, the Volt, or anything else his fault?  Our Dear Leader is a walking example of socializing the costs while personalizing the profits.  If it goes bad it was someone else’s fault, but if it goes right it was all him.  He has changed the famous Truman quote to “The Buck Stops with You” and since the teleprompter told him to say it he was able to do it with a straight face.  The saddest thing of all is that the dumbed down crowds he wows probably don’t know he changed the quote at all.

All of this is shaping up as a surreal election cycle.  We have a Democrat doing everything imaginable to lose.  He is abandoning the white middle-class, attacking capitalism, and lavishing insult after insult upon anything and everything Americans have always held dear including our founding principles.  We have a Republican who passed the template for Obamacare and can’t generate as much excitement as a Saturday night of rearranging your sock drawer.

America hangs in the balance.

If we re-elect a Marxist on a platform of class warfare and soak the rich, I imagine we will see class warfare and soak everybody.  If we elect a middle of the road Massachusetts Republican with a veneer of conservatism who is enamored of the foreign affairs advice of John Bolton, the angriest  of the neo-con war hawks I imagine we might get a reprieve on the Marxism as the government grows to sustain more wars for peace.

What’s a patriot to do?   Are we teetering on the edge, past the tipping point, or already careening into the Abyss?  Do we throw away our vote on someone with no chance to win?  Do we choose the lesser of two evils knowing that we will still be choosing evil?  Do we do as one of my oldest friends is doing: sell everything and leave the country before all this progressivism hits the fan?  Do we store food, bury guns, and wait for the zombie apocalypse?

The answers could be so simple.  Domestically we could cut taxes, cut regulations, and let the economy surge.  In foreign affairs we could follow the direction laid out by the founders: a friend to all and an enemy to none, withdraw our far flung international police precincts, make our homeland an impregnable fortress and let trade be our currency and peace be our policy.

Instead we face a future of austerity and contraction based upon a bloated government swallowing ever more of the American pie no matter who wins.  We face endless interventions and undeclared wars in quagmires defending a status quo that is no longer tilted in our favor.  China, the rising dragon of the East, is playing chess as our dithering Progressives moan about chickens coming home to roost, and political correctness prevents us from doing what we should do when we should do it.

We are truly between Barack and a hard place with every forward indicator pointing down.

These are times when I draw upon the true source and summit of my being and remember that the God of Heaven and Earth has not left us without understanding.  We face these problems because we have forsaken Him, and the only way back is through Him.  He told us long ago, “if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”  That isn’t just an observation it is a promise.  And unlike our fickle politicians who merely want to tickle our ears, God always keeps His promises.

Therefore as we turn to face the change don’t be discouraged, don’t be depressed, and don’t worry.  God has our back if we will give him our faith. For He also told us, “A thousand may fall at your side, and ten thousand at your right hand; but it shall not come near you.”

Keep the peace.  Keep the faith.  We shall overcome.

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College.  He is the Historian of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2012 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com  Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights that among these are Life, Libertyand the pursuit of Happiness.” Please notice that this, the foundational sentence of the American way of life does not say “endowed by the Supreme Court.”

Ever since the Supreme Court took unto itself the power to void laws passed by the representatives of the people in Marbury V. Madison the black-robed Justices have acted, and Americans have accepted them as if they are the source and the summit of what is and what isn’t allowed in America.  In most cases since the middle of the 20^th century, the high court has sided with whatever the central government wanted to do in the way of extending its power and curtailing rights which any person who can read plainly sees protected in the document they are sworn to defend.

However, in Article Three of the Constitution, the one that outlines the judicial branch, after specifically enumerating which types of cases the Supreme Court shall try it says, “In all the other Cases before mentioned, the Supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.”

We often hear of obscure clauses of the Constitution which have been stretched and strained to sweep more power and authority into the never satisfied maw of the Federal Leviathan such as:

• The “Necessary and Proper Clause” which is found in Article I, Section 8, Clause 18 states, “To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the [enumerated] Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.”  This is also known as the “Elastic Clause” because Congress and Presidents have stretched it to give them powers the Founders never would have dreamed possible outside a tyranny.
• The “Commerce Clause” found in Article I, Section 8, Clause 3 states, “to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among several States, and with the Indian Tribes.”  This is the go-to clause for the Progressive’s conquest of America.  This is the clause that was used in the 1930s by FDR to implement most of the New Deal.  It was used by LBJ in the 1960s to impose the Great Society.  And it is being used by BHO in the 21^st century to shackle us with the social democracy brand of socialism which has devastatedEurope and which has been repudiated by our former adversaries in the Cold War.

In the Supreme Court decision Wickard v. Filburn in 1942 it was handed down from on   high that wheat farmer growing wheat on his own property for his own use can be         legally regulated under the commerce clause because not selling your wheat and using it           yourself is actually competing with wheat that is sold and is therefore commerce.  This is the same clause the Obama Administration originally used as a defense to say they can fine people for not buying insurance arguing that not buying insurance is commerce.

Yes, these two clauses have been stretched and interpreted beyond any semblance of rationality to restrict and restrain Americans in the enjoyment of the freedom and liberty which should be our birthright, yet the clause which clearly states that Congress has the power to reign in the Court has been ignored.

Forget all the posturing about abortion by all the so-called conservatives in Congress. Has there ever been a concerted, protracted or sustained effort to remove abortion from the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court?  No there hasn’t.  And yet tomorrow, or even today Congress could pass a law stating that abortion is an exception to the court’s jurisdiction and with the signing of this law by the president Roe V. Wade would be null and void, and all state laws affecting abortion would once again be in effect.  And this same procedure could be used for the representatives of the people to take back control of the law and the country from the Court.

The Congress is elected. The Supreme Court is appointed.  Congress can be replaced. The Justices of the Supreme Court serve for life.  They could be impeached and removed; however, none have ever been removed and the likelihood of that happening is remote.  There are checks and balances in the process of passing laws.  The Senate is a check on the House and the House on the Senate.  The President is a check on Congress and Congress is a check on the President.  There is a check designed to restrain the Supreme Court from becoming a black-robed committee of kings: Article 3, Section 2, Clause 2 giving Congress the power to create exceptions to the Court’s jurisdiction.  However, tradition and the desire of professional politicians to demagogue about issues instead of solve them keeps the perpetually re-elected from reigning in these want-a-be demigods.

Thursday June 28, 2012 will live in the memory of all patriotic Americans as a day of infamy along with Pearl Harbor, and 9-11. This is the day the Supreme Court ruled that if the Central government can’t force American citizens to do what they want them to do one way they can do it another.

When the Obama Administration and their co-conspirators, the Progressive Democratic Party in Congress, rammed Obamacare through Congress they argued that the fines imposed under the individual mandate upon anyone who didn’t purchase health insurance wasn’t a tax, but that it was penalty allowable under the Commerce Clause.  According to the Constitution all tax bills must begin in the House.  Obamacare began in the Senate; however, that was all right since the fines weren’t taxes they were penalties.

When the issue got to court and it became clear there wasn’t a majority ready to declare not buying insurance was commerce the Obama Administration argued there was no standing to litigate the individual mandate and the fine it imposed because it is a tax.  Through the looking glass inside the beltway and behind the curtain it’s a penalty when that argument works and it’s a tax when that argument works.

Sophistry is defined as “Reasoning that appears sound but is misleading or fallacious. In Metaphysics, Aristotle defines sophistry as ‘wisdom in appearance only.’”  When we look at that definition from now on it will be hard not to see the face of Chief Justice Roberts who today showed his true colors as the midwife of totalitarianism.  While declaring unconstitutional the very arguments used to pass the law the majority declared the law constitutional based upon the very arguments its opponents used to try and defeat the bill.  Up is down, right is wrong, and the government can do whatever it wants.

During the ratification debate when addressing the Supreme Court one of the leading Anti-Federalists wrote, “There is no power above them to control any of their decisions.  There is no authority that can remove them, and they cannot be controlled by the laws of the legislature.  In short, they are independent of the people, of the legislature, and of every power under heaven.  Men placed in this situation will generally soon feel independent of heaven itself.”

The balance between the central government and the once free citizens it is attempting to turn into dumbed down helpless dependents has been significantly changed.  As predicted by the Anti-Federalists, the courts have been used over and over to expand the power of the central government to the detriment of the States and the citizens.  Today we crossed a threshold; we passed a tipping point and are no longer at the edge of the abyss. We are careening down the cliff into the fearful embrace of totalitarianism.  An over the top Supreme Court has given the green light to an out of control Progressive Administration, and as of today there are no checks and there is no balance.

Those of us who love liberty and are dedicated to limited government must contact our representatives and demand that the Supreme Court be brought under control.  Something must be done to preserve liberty or the United States we have loved will become the one we have dreaded.  An all-powerful central government will continue to grow and bend all things to its will.  We must return to the literal definition of constitutional government or this living document will be the death of freedom and the graveyard of liberty.

Keep the faith.  Keep the peace.  We shall overcome.

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College.  He is the Historian of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2012 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com  Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens

The Federal Reserve System (the Fed) was established in 1913 as one of the cornerstones of the Progressive agenda.  They said it was a way to stop the boom and bust cycle which has always been a fixture of capitalist economies.  The Fed is America’s third Central Bank.  The First and Second Banks of the United States were born out of Alexander Hamilton’s ideas as expressed in his famous Second Report on Public Credit in 1790.  The first bank was allowed to expire and the last was ultimately killed by Andrew Jackson in 1833. Jackson believed the Bank had too great an influence politically and economically.

TheUnited   Statesgrew to become the greatest industrial power on earth in the next eighty years without a central bank.

Established in 1913, the Federal Reserve is America’s central bank.  It is semi-independent/semi-public depending on which role is needed to justify its actions.  It is run by a board of seven Governors.  These Governors are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate.  Led by a Chairman who is also appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate these eight people control a system of twelve Regional Federal Reserve Banks which have numerous branches throughout theUnited States. The Fed can expand or contract the money supply in many ways.  They print money both physically and digitally, they set interest rates, they can loosen or tighten the regulations for lending, and they can purchase debt from the Treasury.  Most of these measures are neither understood nor noticed by the general public.  This helps build and maintain the impression of a mysterious institution behind a curtain pulling levers and pressing buttons secretly controlling the economy.  In many ways this impression is correct

Ben Bernanke is the current Chairman of the Federal Reserve.  Some believe that this is the most important post in the United States because the Federal Reserve controls our economy through its control of the money supply.  Mr. Bernanke acquired the nickname Helicopter Ben from a speech he delivered in 2002 entitled, “Deflation: Making Sure “It” Doesn’t Happen Here.”

In this famous speech he said, “The sources of deflation are not a mystery. Deflation is in almost all cases a side effect of a collapse of aggregate demand – a drop in spending so severe that producers must cut prices on an ongoing basis in order to find buyers. Likewise, the economic effects of a deflationary episode, for the most part, are similar to those of any other sharp decline in aggregate spending–namely, recession, rising unemployment, and financial stress.”  This is a well stated summation of the problem of deflation.

As a defense against the ravages of deflation the future Chairman of the Federal Reserve never actually said he would drop money from a helicopter.  What he said was, “The U.S. government has a technology, called a printing press (or today, its electronic equivalent), that allows it to produce as many U.S. dollars as it wishes at no cost.”  Which was coupled by later analysts and pundits with the statement, “A money-financed tax cut is essentially equivalent to Milton Friedman’s famous ‘helicopter drop’ of money.”

In the popular imagination this has been shortened into the oft misquoted belief that he said he would get in a helicopter and drop bales of money to combat deflation.

The collapse of the Housing Bubble in 2008 brought the American economy to a standstill and threatened to escalate into a systemic collapse of major banks and other financial institutions.  To stop the wheels from coming off the commercial cart the politicians reacted with unusual speed and vigor.  George Bush famously said, “I’ve abandoned free market principles to save the free market system” when he advocated and passed the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) which was designed to buy mortgage backed securities in an effort to inject money into the American banking system and thus restart the economy.  This 700 Billion dollar fund (later resized to 475 Billion) was eventually used instead to bailout major banks, AIG, and buy GM and Chrysler with only 22 billion ever going to buy toxic assets.

This was followed by President Obama’s stimulus bill which cost another 800 billion and was supposedly designed to kick start the economy by providing jobs.  The Congressional Budget Office eventually evaluated that these shovel-ready jobs cost 4.1 million each.  But then again as our President later joked, “Shovel-ready was not as shovel-ready as we expected.”

Spending government money to prime the economic pump cannot work.  The government doesn’t produce anything.  It must either take the money out of the economy through taxation taking from the productive for the benefit of the unproductive or print the money thus causing inflation.  All the government can do is redistribute wealth; it does not create it.  And when the government is in the business of picking winners and losers we all lose freedom, liberty, and opportunity.

Inflation is a rise in the general level of prices related to an increase in the volume of money and the resulting loss of value of currency.   The Progressives didn’t invent inflation.  The Obama Administration isn’t the first to resort to inflation to keep the ball rolling without the pain of tax increases.  America was born in inflation.  During the Revolution one of the greatest problems was how to finance the war.  America was effectively blockaded by the massive British fleet and unable to trade with the rest of the world.  So the government printed the money they needed, and printed and printed and printed until the money was effectively worthless coining instead of wealth the shameful saying, “Not worth a Continental.”  These early ancestors to our dollar were eventually redeemed at 100 to 1.

Helicopter Ben has already overseen two rounds of monetary inflation referred to by the mysterious name of Quantitative Easing (QE) which is a fancy way of saying the Fed floods the banks with money.  The staggering size of these have only now begun to come to light showing that since the 2008 collapse the Fed has flushed more than 16 trillion dollars out of the pockets of taxpayers and into the hands of banks and corporations both foreign and domestic designated by the Federal Government as too big to fail.  That is more money in four years than the entire national debt which has taken 236 years to accumulate and QE 3 is on the way.

While running for office and telegraphing his distributive goals Mr. Obama said we need to spread the wealth around. Chairman Bernanke has said the government can produce as many U.S. dollars as it wishes at no cost.  However, no matter what these two wannabe puppet masters may believe there is no free lunch.  In their insolated ivory-tower gated community world they may never have to pay the tab for their misguided attempts to create wealth with the wave of their hand.  Those of us who work for a living who live in the world of family budgets will.  The money we earn will be worth less and less and less until it is worthless.  The money we have saved will lose value day by day.  Someday people may not say, “It’s not worth a Continental.” They may instead say, “It’s not worth a dollar.”

The problem with getting older is you can remember when what we now pay at the pump was a car payment, and what we now pay for groceries was a house payment.  The central-planers behind the curtain in OZ may tell us there is no inflation, but our eyes and our wallets tell us something else: the truth.

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College.  He is the Historian of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2012 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com  Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens

The Federal Reserve System (the Fed) was established in 1913 as one of the cornerstones of the Progressive agenda.  They said it was a way to stop the boom and bust cycle which has always been a fixture of capitalist economies.  The Fed is America’s third Central Bank.  The First and Second Banks of the United States were born out of Alexander Hamilton’s ideas as expressed in his famous Second Report on Public Credit in 1790.  The first bank was allowed to expire and the last was ultimately killed by Andrew Jackson in 1833. Jackson believed the Bank had too great an influence politically and economically.

TheUnited   Statesgrew to become the greatest industrial power on earth in the next eighty years without a central bank.

Established in 1913, the Federal Reserve is America’s central bank.  It is semi-independent/semi-public depending on which role is needed to justify its actions.  It is run by a board of seven Governors.  These Governors are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate.  Led by a Chairman who is also appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate these eight people control a system of twelve Regional Federal Reserve Banks which have numerous branches throughout theUnited States. The Fed can expand or contract the money supply in many ways.  They print money both physically and digitally, they set interest rates, they can loosen or tighten the regulations for lending, and they can purchase debt from the Treasury.  Most of these measures are neither understood nor noticed by the general public.  This helps build and maintain the impression of a mysterious institution behind a curtain pulling levers and pressing buttons secretly controlling the economy.  In many ways this impression is correct

Ben Bernanke is the current Chairman of the Federal Reserve.  Some believe that this is the most important post in the United States because the Federal Reserve controls our economy through its control of the money supply.  Mr. Bernanke acquired the nickname Helicopter Ben from a speech he delivered in 2002 entitled, “Deflation: Making Sure “It” Doesn’t Happen Here.”

In this famous speech he said, “The sources of deflation are not a mystery. Deflation is in almost all cases a side effect of a collapse of aggregate demand – a drop in spending so severe that producers must cut prices on an ongoing basis in order to find buyers. Likewise, the economic effects of a deflationary episode, for the most part, are similar to those of any other sharp decline in aggregate spending–namely, recession, rising unemployment, and financial stress.”  This is a well stated summation of the problem of deflation.

As a defense against the ravages of deflation the future Chairman of the Federal Reserve never actually said he would drop money from a helicopter.  What he said was, “The U.S. government has a technology, called a printing press (or today, its electronic equivalent), that allows it to produce as many U.S. dollars as it wishes at no cost.”  Which was coupled by later analysts and pundits with the statement, “A money-financed tax cut is essentially equivalent to Milton Friedman’s famous ‘helicopter drop’ of money.”

In the popular imagination this has been shortened into the oft misquoted belief that he said he would get in a helicopter and drop bales of money to combat deflation.

The collapse of the Housing Bubble in 2008 brought the American economy to a standstill and threatened to escalate into a systemic collapse of major banks and other financial institutions.  To stop the wheels from coming off the commercial cart the politicians reacted with unusual speed and vigor.  George Bush famously said, “I’ve abandoned free market principles to save the free market system” when he advocated and passed the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) which was designed to buy mortgage backed securities in an effort to inject money into the American banking system and thus restart the economy.  This 700 Billion dollar fund (later resized to 475 Billion) was eventually used instead to bailout major banks, AIG, and buy GM and Chrysler with only 22 billion ever going to buy toxic assets.

This was followed by President Obama’s stimulus bill which cost another 800 billion and was supposedly designed to kick start the economy by providing jobs.  The Congressional Budget Office eventually evaluated that these shovel-ready jobs cost 4.1 million each.  But then again as our President later joked, “Shovel-ready was not as shovel-ready as we expected.”

Spending government money to prime the economic pump cannot work.  The government doesn’t produce anything.  It must either take the money out of the economy through taxation taking from the productive for the benefit of the unproductive or print the money thus causing inflation.  All the government can do is redistribute wealth; it does not create it.  And when the government is in the business of picking winners and losers we all lose freedom, liberty, and opportunity.

Inflation is a rise in the general level of prices related to an increase in the volume of money and the resulting loss of value of currency.   The Progressives didn’t invent inflation.  The Obama Administration isn’t the first to resort to inflation to keep the ball rolling without the pain of tax increases.  America was born in inflation.  During the Revolution one of the greatest problems was how to finance the war.  America was effectively blockaded by the massive British fleet and unable to trade with the rest of the world.  So the government printed the money they needed, and printed and printed and printed until the money was effectively worthless coining instead of wealth the shameful saying, “Not worth a Continental.”  These early ancestors to our dollar were eventually redeemed at 100 to 1.

Helicopter Ben has already overseen two rounds of monetary inflation referred to by the mysterious name of Quantitative Easing (QE) which is a fancy way of saying the Fed floods the banks with money.  The staggering size of these have only now begun to come to light showing that since the 2008 collapse the Fed has flushed more than 16 trillion dollars out of the pockets of taxpayers and into the hands of banks and corporations both foreign and domestic designated by the Federal Government as too big to fail.  That is more money in four years than the entire national debt which has taken 236 years to accumulate and QE 3 is on the way.

While running for office and telegraphing his distributive goals Mr. Obama said we need to spread the wealth around. Chairman Bernanke has said the government can produce as many U.S. dollars as it wishes at no cost.  However, no matter what these two wannabe puppet masters may believe there is no free lunch.  In their insolated ivory-tower gated community world they may never have to pay the tab for their misguided attempts to create wealth with the wave of their hand.  Those of us who work for a living who live in the world of family budgets will.  The money we earn will be worth less and less and less until it is worthless.  The money we have saved will lose value day by day.  Someday people may not say, “It’s not worth a Continental.” They may instead say, “It’s not worth a dollar.”

The problem with getting older is you can remember when what we now pay at the pump was a car payment, and what we now pay for groceries was a house payment.  The central-planers behind the curtain in OZ may tell us there is no inflation, but our eyes and our wallets tell us something else: the truth.

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College.  He is the Historian of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2012 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com  Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens

Source: FoxNews.com

Posted: June 7th 2012

The first doctor to reach President Abraham Lincoln after he was shot in a Washington theater rushed to his ceremonial box and found him paralyzed, comatose and leaning against his wife. Dr. Charles Leale ordered brandy and water to be brought immediately.

Leale’s long-lost report of efforts to help the mortally wounded president, written just hours after his death, was discovered in a box at the National Archives late last month.

This photo of a document from the National Archives by the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library & Museum in Springfield, Ill., shows the third page of an original copy of a 21-page clinical report by Dr. Charles A. Leale, who was the first doctor to treat President Abraham Lincoln after he was shot at a Washington theater on the night of April 14, 1865. The report is not in Leale's hand, but is a "true copy" written in the neat and legible hand of a clerk. It was found in May 2012 by a researcher for the Papers of Abraham Lincoln Project, which is dedicated to finding and saving all documents written by or about the 16th president during his lifetime. (AP Photo/National Archives document via the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library & Museum)

The Army surgeon, who sat 40 feet from Lincoln at Ford’s Theater that night in April 1865, saw assassin John Wilkes Booth jump to the stage, brandishing a dagger. Thinking Lincoln had been stabbed, Leale pushed his way to the victim but found a different injury.

“I commenced to examine his head (as no wound near the shoulder was found) and soon passed my fingers over a large firm clot of blood situated about one inch below the superior curved line of the occipital bone,” Leale reported. “The coagula I easily removed and passed the little finger of my left hand through the perfectly smooth opening made by the ball.”

The historians who discovered the report believe it was filed, packed in a box, stored at the archives and not seen for 147 years. While it doesn’t add much new information, “it’s the first draft” of the tragedy, said Daniel Stowell, director of the Papers of Abraham Lincoln.

U.S. Form Of Government

By Burt Keefer AmericaWorking.Org

If you love your country and are thankful for what our founding forefathers gave us, then we should do the same for our children and theirs for centuries to come. In all of history the only form of government that coincides with freedom, that stands and defends freedom, that protects WE THE PEOPLE according to the law of the land is a Constitutional Conservative Republic.

It is time to restore our land. One flag, one language, one country. Watch the 10 minute video above on U.S. Form Of Government.

Share and Enjoy http://www.americaworking.org/us-form-of-government/

All bubbles burst.  This is a law of nature.  No matter from what material the bubble arises.  No matter what forces propel its expansion.  All bubbles burst.

Actually the science of bursting bubbles has recently popped into the forefront of scientific discovery.  Conventional wisdom has taught since the beginning of time that when a bubble bursts it simply vanishes.  However, recent observations using high speed cameras has revealed that when a bubble bursts it leaves a circle of miniature daughter bubbles that pop so fast the eye cannot catch it.  There is even the thought that each daughter bubble leaves a ring and each daughter bubble leaves a ring ad infinitum.   All happening so fast it cannot be seen.  And yet, each succeeding bubble bursts.

The physics of bubbles tells us that the pressure on the inside works against the tension on the surface and a ratio between the two determines when the bubble will burst.  No matter how it bursts, no matter why or when it bursts one thing is certain: all bubbles burst.

In economics a bubble is the term commonly used for a cycle characterized by rapid expansion followed by rapid often dramatic contraction.  What causes economic bubbles is often a matter of dispute among economists.  Some believe they are a natural part of the economic cycle: everything goes up, and everything eventually comes back down.

Others believe they are caused by inflation.  In this scenario everything has a natural price which is the intersection of cost and demand.  The Bubble is the artificial rise of price over the natural price.  Eventually the economy must correct itself and the inflated product will return to its natural price.

No matter which theory you subscribe to, one thing is certain: all bubbles burst.

Remember theClintonyears?  Today the official History as dispensed constantly by the Corporations Once Known as the Mainstream Media is that the wise and benevolent rule of the man from Hope was a time of plenty.  There was solid growth and balanced budgets.  As the Progressive narrative goes, President Clinton alone was responsible for the growth of the nineties which Bush the Younger proceeded to destroy leaving a mess for President Obama who has fought valiantly to restart the economy and save the day.  At least that’s the story as dispensed by the headlines and the talking heads.

The reality is approximately 180 degrees opposite of the spin.

President Clinton won a three way election with less than 50% of the vote (twice) and called it a mandate both times.  The policies he opposed for his entire career had recently won the Cold War, and President Clinton reaped the rewards.  He gutted the military and called it a Peace Dividend which he proceeded to spend on social engineering projects pumping up the economy with government spending.  Then the Dot-com Boom turned into the Dot-com Bubble and the economy was roaring.  Another plus for Clinton was the defeat of Hillarycare which would have torpedoed the economy just as Obamacare is now.  He also profited by the election of a Republican House in 1994 which kept the promises in the Contract With America and led the way in cutting spending and building a budget that at least appeared to be balanced.

Everything was coming up roses. The economy was growing and so was the Dot-com Bubble, which everyone just knew would go on forever even though anyone older than the milk in the fridge should have known that all bubbles burst.

In 2000 George II won a contested election, and before he had time to change the drapes in the Oval Office the Dot-com Bubble burst.  This led to a short sharp recession; this was the one that Bush didn’t blame on Clinton.  He instead passed the now infamous Bush tax cuts and mailed out what he called rebates in the form of free money to spur the economy.  All the while behind the scenes the housing bubble was beginning to inflate to epic proportions.   Federal spending grew, the government grew, and the bubble grew.

During the go-go years people with no job, no money, and sometimes no ID were able to buy McMansions for no money down and walk out with cash in their hands.  How could this ever go wrong?  I remember hearing of people bidding on houses, offering 10% over the asking price and losing out to someone who offered more.  Prices went up and up and up and somehow even sane people apparently thought it would never end.

Things looked good.  Things looked very good.  Following the recession which began seven weeks after President Bush took office,America had six years of uninterrupted economic growth.  There were fifty two straight months of job creation producing more than eight million new jobs, the unemployment averaged 5.3 %, after-tax income per capita increased by11%, from 2000 to 2007, and GDP grew by more than 17 % adding almost $2.1 trillion.  Exotic ways to paper over the fact that people with no money were buying houses fueling the boom kept everyone smiling and the bubble expanding.

The only problem was that eventually all bubbles burst.  And when it did John McCain suspended his presidential race to fly back toWashington and add his hearty, “Me Too” to the bailout and seal his fate.

President Obama took office as the economy crashed into the deepest recession since World War Two.  He immediately began blaming President Bush and hasn’t stopped yet.  He passed the largest stimulus bill in American History, began a record expansion of the Federal government, and the largest spending binge since the beginning of time.  All in the name of cleaning up the mess from the bursting of the housing bubble.

And what are all these trillions of dollars in reckless spending doing?  Are they inflating another bubble?  Change the words and you change the perception: spending becomes investment and responsibility becomes austerity.  Those who are manning the pumps aren’t blowing up a financial bubble they are showing compassion for their fellow man and investing for the future.  Anyone who warns of a coming crash or tries to slow the rate of spending is pushing grandma off the cliff for the benefit of millionaires and billionaires.

No matter how this mad dash to nowhere is spun one thing is certain: all bubbles burst

On the brighter side President Obama has perfected the cure for illegal immigration.  The economy has taken such a massive hit that the illegal immigrants are leaving looking for greener pastures.  And he has also brought the solution to a 10%+ unemployment rate.  So many people have become discouraged that they have dropped out of the labor market, and according to our current administration this is good news.  Perhaps we should take a cue from Mr. Obama’s favorite pastime and just consider his first term a mulligan.

Maybe the slogan for President Obama’s second term shouldn’t be “Forward.” Perhaps it should be “I deserve a re-do.”

Just remember: all bubbles burst.

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College.  He is the Historian of the Future and the author of the History of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2012 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com  Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens

When taxes become destructive they’ve surpassed the consent of the governed bending to the will of tyranny.  When regulations strangle competition instead of securing it from evil combinations they’ve become counterproductive and defeat the very purpose for which they were proposed.  When foreign entanglements bleed the nation but do not secure the peace or defeat the enemy they’ve become interventionist vehicles for vested interests.  When spending becomes a hemorrhaging of assists leading to national bankruptcy those who continue to pile debt upon debt seek not the good of the nation but instead its destruction.  When leaders selected to unite instead do all they can to divide they no longer advance the interest of the whole and are instead partisan leaders in a factional fight.

A social contract is one made between a people and their government.  It is an agreement whereby the people surrender certain aspects of their independence for the guarantee of corporate security and the enjoyment of a general welfare.  In the case of most countries this is an unwritten and unconscious arrangement built upon tradition and precedent as in the case of England.  However in the United States we have an actual contract, the Constitution.  This was ratified by the original states and the subsequent states were formed under it and admitted as full partners to it.

All contracts may be legitimately changed over time as long as there are mechanisms either within the document or established by the document to do so.  Within our Constitution there is an amendment process and it has been amended 27 times so far.  Whether we agree with those amendments or not they have been legally ratified and accepted becoming part of the document.  However, over the years our government structure has been changed and our manner of life transformed more by the informal changes than by the formal.  Nowhere in the Constitution is the central government given the power to wage unending undeclared war.  Nowhere is the central government given the right to ignore the requirement to protect the states from invasion.  Nowhere is there found any basis for executive orders, signing statements or bureaucratic regulations to have the force of law without legislative action by Congress.

Well-connected rabble rousers now say equality will not be achieved until everything is equal in everybody’s house.  Leveling the playing field has finally thrown off its cloak of deceit and exposed itself as, “From each according to their ability to each according to their need.”  The professional civil rights entrepreneurs who’ve extorted vast amounts of personal wealth with threats of boycotts and demonstrations have been unmasked as the true purveyors of prejudice seeking to keep race and gender differences alive for their own benefit.  Union bosses build political empires using the legally forced dues of members with more money spent on political activity than on member service.  The union bosses ride in limousine comfort from board meetings to political rallies while their members lose jobs.  The pensions of the bosses are golden parachutes while the pensions of the members are underfunded.

The Land of the Free is held captive, locked in a two party system where both parties are merely two heads on the same bird of prey.  Both parties are dedicated to more spending and bigger government.  Both parties exploit gerrymandering of districts and overwhelming corporate donations to ensure a hierarchy of the perpetually re-elected using a system of seniority to enhance their power.  Legal barriers exist at every turn to stop any new parties from gaining the access that might deflect the central government from its ever increasing growth towards totalitarianism.

When will enough be enough?  When will citizens rise in their righteous anger and demand not a New Deal, not a Great Society, a New Frontier or a Fundamentally Transformed America but instead their original deal.  The one we wrested from the hands of the tyrant King George.  The one we’ve fought to establish and defend from Yorktown to Kandahar and the right of a people to be free to live as they desire, to work for their own benefit and choose their own destiny.  Free from the smothering governmental control which has been the lot of most people in most places since the beginning of time.  When will the yoke of tyranny become too heavy to be borne?  What will be the spark that lights the torches and brings the incensed villagers to the gate of the castle demanding, “Bring the monster out!” so that a stake can be driven through the heart of tyranny and freedom can return to the land?

When that day comes what will we the people do?  Will we try to resurrect the government of old that ultimately brought us full circle or will we be bold enough to forge a new the social contract and design better ways to ensure that the beast of tyranny doesn’t once again break the chains of restraint.

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College.  He is the Historian of the Future and the author of the History of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2012 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com  Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens

World Trade One (left), and the Empire State Building. (CBS/AP)

Source: CBSNews.com

Posted: April 30th, 2012

The new One World Trade Center – under construction on the site of the original World Trade Center, destroyed in the 9/11 terror attacks – has surpassed the height of the Empire State Building to become New York City’s tallest building.

Workers erected steel columns that make the unfinished frame of the building a little more than 1,250 feet high – the level of the Empire State Building’s highest observation deck.

The tower still isn’t as high as the antenna that sits on the Empire State Building, but when complete will stand at 1,368 feet, beating out the midtown skyscraper that was for decades the world’s tallest. When counting a 408-foot-tall antenna spire that will sit on its roof, the “Freedom Tower” will measures 1,776 feet.

Discounting the antenna, it will still be the second-highest building in the U.S., after the Willis Tower in Chicago. (Experts usually don’t count antennas or flagpoles when measuring building height.)

Completed in 1931, the Empire State Building was the tallest free-standing structure in the world until 1967 (when Moscow’s Ostankino Tower was completed), and lost its status as New York City’s tallest building when the original World Trade Center (at 1,368 feet high, plus a 359-foot antenna) was completed in 1972.

Now it is being demoted again.

Experts and architects have long disagreed about where to stop measuring super-tall buildings outfitted with masts, spires and antennas that extend far above the roof.

If the Empire State Building were measured from the sidewalk to the tip of its needle-like antenna, it actually stands 1,454 feet high, well above One World Trade Center’s elevation today.

Read More: CBSNews.com

Saturday, April 28, 2012

President James Monroe and the “Natural Born Citizen” Clause

By Mario Apuzzo, Esq.
April 28, 2012

James Monroe Fifth President

I received an email today regarding our fifth President, James Monroe. What struck me as being applicable today was the article that was attached to the email. The article was a little biography on President Monroe. In that article is contained a part that included President Monroe’s concern about possible usurpation in our government. Below is my reflection on this article.

Indeed, President James Monroe, in his First Inaugural Address of March 4, 1817, warned:

“What raised us to the present happy state?…The Government has been in the hands of the people. To the people, therefore…is the credit due…

It is only when the people become ignorant and corrupt, when they degenerate into a populace, that they are incapable of exercising the sovereignty.

Usurpation is then an easy attainment, and an usurper soon found. The people themselves become the willing instruments of their own debasement and ruin…

President Monroe then stated on December 7, 1824, in his 8th Annual Message:

“For these blessings we owe to Almighty God…with profound reverence, our most grateful and unceasing acknowledgments….

Having commenced my service in early youth, and continued it since with few and short intervals, I have witnessed the great difficulties to which our Union has been exposed, and admired the virtue and intelligence with which they have been surmounted…

That these blessings may be preserved and perpetuated will be the object of my fervent and unceasing prayers to the Supreme Ruler of the Universe.”

Source: Monroe, James. Dec. 2, 1817, First Annual Message. James D. Richardson (U.S. Representative from Tennessee), ed., A Compilation of the Messages & Papers of the Presidents 1789-1897, 10 vols. (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, published by Authority of Congress, 1897, 1899; Washington, D.C.: Bureau of National Literature & Art, 1789-1902, 11 vols., 1907, 1910), Vol. II, p. 12, as found at http://www.americanminute.com/ .

President Monroe was most dedicated to preserving the great nation that the United States had become. He saw usurpation as a most serious threat to that preservation.

Why was President Monroe so concerned about usurpation? To whom could Monroe have been referring when he spoke about “an usurper?” How could such a person become “an usurper?” Actually, Monroe answered this question by telling us that it was when the people became “ignorant and corrupt” that an usurper will come to power which in the end would produce the “debasement and ruin” of those same people.

What would make some political leader “an usurper” in the eyes of President Monroe? If it was the President and Commander in Chief of the Military that concerned Monroe, was it lack of being at least 35 years of age, of having at least 14 years of residency in the United States, or not being a “natural born Citizen” (the Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 eligibility requirements) that so worried him? Who else other than the President could be so important and powerful in our government to give Monroe such concern about “an usurper?” Given the structure and balance of power in our government, it could only have been the President to whom Monroe was referring. And would Monroe be so concerned about age and residency or was it lack of being a “natural born citizen” that so worried him? After all, is it not from being a “natural born Citizen” that sole allegiance to and love of only one country from birth come from? Such love and attachment to only one country from birth would surely have been something that Monroe thought was needed for the well-being, happiness, and preservation of the United States.

This concern by Monroe makes the point about how important it is for us as a nation to assure that the “natural born Citizen” clause is not only honored and protected today, but preserved for the well-being and happiness of future American generations. But for this to occur, the nation must make sure that ill-informed or corrupt people do not allow such an usurpation to occur or to continue.

Our current putative President, Barack Obama, does not meet the constitutional definition of an Article II “natural born Citizen.” That definition is a child born in the United States to two parents who at the time of the child’s birth were both either “citizens of the United States” or “natural born Citizens.” Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162 (1875) (“all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also.  These were natives or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners”); United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898) (acknowledging and confirming Minor’s American common law definition of a “natural-born citizens” but adding based on the English common law that “‘[t]he child of an alien, if born in the country, is as much a citizen as the natural-born child of a citizen, and by operation of the same principle [birth in the country]’” (bracketed information supplied)). This American common law definition of a “natural born Citizen” has never been changed, not even by the Fourteenth Amendment, and therefore still prevails today.

When Obama was born, wherever that may be, he was born to a father, Barack Obama Sr., who was a British citizen, and to a mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, who was a “natural born Citizen.” Under both U.S. and British statutory and U.S. common law existing from the time the Constitution was adopted and to the present, Obama was born an English “natural born subject.” Being born an English “natural born subject,” the Founders and Framers and our early Congresses, as they expressed in the Naturalization Acts of 1790, 1795, 1802, and 1855, would not even have considered him to be a “citizen,” let alone an Article II “natural born Citizen.” If he was born in the United States, a fact that he has yet to conclusively show, he can be a “citizen” under the Fourteenth Amendment and 8 U.S.C. Sec. 1401(a), which as interpreted by U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark, granted constitutional birthright citizenship to persons born in the United States to one or two domiciled alien parents, just like a person can be a “citizen” under Congressional Acts which grant statutory birthright citizenship to persons born out of the United States to one or two U.S. citizen parents. But not being born to two U.S. citizen parents, Obama is not and can never be an Article II “natural born Citizen.”

Not being a “natural born Citizen, either because he was not born in the United States or because he was not born to two U.S. citizen parents or both, is Obama the usurper of whom President Monroe warned us?

Mario Apuzzo, Esq.
April 28, 2012
http://puzo1.blogspot.com/
####

Copyright © 2012
Mario Apuzzo, Esq.
All Rights Reserved

If I Wanted to Make America Prosperous Again

By Dr.Robert Owens

First, I would ask myself how did our ancestors build America from an agricultural colony on the edge of civilization into the number one manufacturing and commercial nation the world had ever known.

Why reinvent the wheel if round ones still roll?

The early American colonies of the British were founded based upon the economic ideas of Mercantilism.  Governmental regulation of industries, trade, and commerce characterized Mercantilism as every aspect of the economy was utilized for national policy. This was especially true with foreign trade, which was determined more by national aims rather than individual or local interests.

The definition of wealth began to change in the sixteenth century.  During the Middle Ages, wealth was defined by the amount of productive land a nation possessed.  As transportation, especially by sea, improved so did the ability to conduct foreign trade bringing with it an increase in the amount of cash generated by that trade.  The definition of wealth came to be the amount of cash a nation possessed.  Therefore every nation sought to have a favorable balance of trade.  They also sought to develop monopolistic type environments wherein they provided their own raw materials thus avoiding imports which meant money flowing out and fostering the export of finished goods raising the level of money flowing in.  Defining wealth as the accumulation of cash, the nations of Europe desired to conduct foreign trade on a larger scale, and they began looking for foreign sources of gold, silver, and raw materials.

This brings us to the British effort to develop North Americas a source of wealth.

The Chesapeake colonies of Virginia and Maryland were the first successful British colonies in what was to become the United States of America.  Though the initial colonists came looking for gold they soon learned that prosperity came not from a shovel but instead from a plow.  It was tobacco that primed the pump and lifted the colonies from a burden to a benefit for the mother country.  After years of mounting expenses for the British and years of starvation for the colonists the cultivation of tobacco brought prosperity. Virginia’s production of tobacco grew from 200,000 pounds in 1624 to 3,000,000 pounds in 1638 overtaking the West Indies as the number one supplier of tobacco for all of Europe thus boosting Britain’s balance of trade.

The cultivation of tobacco fostered a plantation system based upon indentured and slave labor.  A gentrified class of great planters sought to replicate the social structure of Britain with a small number of very rich ruling a large number of small land holders who prospered to a certain extent but never enough to challenge the status quo.  The wretched poor of Britain who had come to the Chesapeake colonies to find a better life did find more opportunity and the ability to advance from the landless poor to the ranks of yeoman farmer.  However, there was little opportunity to enter the ranks for the gentry which became a type of American nobility.

New England, because of the soil, the climate, and the fact that there was no major cash crop that grew well in the area, did not lend itself to large plantations.  Most farmers were operating at a subsistence level.  If they did generate a surplus it was in crops that were not easily transported across the ocean, and they were also crops that could be grown in England and were not needed as imports.

This climatic and environmental adversity did not condemn New England to being a poor relation to the Chesapeake nobility.  Instead the New English diversified, innovated, and used individual enterprise to not only match but to surpass Chesapeake and every other colony in the British Empire.  Those who settled New England were Puritans who sought to purify the Anglican religion of ceremony and return it to what they saw as the simplicity of early Christianity.  They did not believe that good works brought salvation but they did believe that salvation brought good works.  Therefore they sought to occupy their time with productive activity to glorify God through their labors.  This was a manifestation of what the sociologist Max Weber later called , “The Protestant work ethic.”  Whatever you choose to call it, it was this drive to succeed no matter what the adversity that led the New English to look beyond the soil, beyond the climate and to the opportunity.

First they exploited the fisheries of the Northeast.  In 1641 the New English caught 600,000 pounds of fish much of which was exported to Britain.  By 1645 they were catching more than 6,000,000 pounds per year employing more than a thousand men on 440 ships.  They came to dominate the fish trade shipping not only to Britain and its empire but also to Spain,Portugal, the Azores, Madeira, and the Canary Islands.

By the end of the 1600s the merchants of the New English coast began to circle the globe trading the fish, surplus crops, and lumber of their area to all parts of the British Empire.  They became such shrewd traders that soon American ships were carrying trade from one colony to another even when the cargo didn’t originate in New England.  This secondary carrying trade generated a growing profit that in turn rebounded in a number of ways.  The increased profits brought home financed increased industry and growth at home, and it also spawned a shipbuilding industry which exploited the vast resources of the northern forests.

Between 1674 and 1714 the New English built more than 1200 ships, totaling more than 75,000 tons.  By 1700 there were fifteen shipyards in Boston which produced more ships than all the rest of the British colonies combined.  Only London had more shipyards.  This was a significant engine of economic growth.  To build one 150 ton merchant ship required as many as 200 workers, mostly skilled craftsmen.  The shipyards also supported the growth of numerous enterprises to supply their needs such as saw mills, smithies, barrel makers, sail makers, iron foundries, and rope makers. In addition, the farmers of New England benefited by feeding the craftsmen, supplying the ships, and providing the timber.

By 1700 Boston was the third city of the Empire, behind only London and Bristol and the New English shippers were earning freight charges for carrying produce and material that was neither produced, shipped to, or shipped from their home colony.  The enrichment of the area spread prosperity far beyond the sphere of shippers, sailors, and their sundry suppliers.  According to Boston shipping register for 1697-1714 over 25% of the adult males in Boston owned shares in at least one ship.

All of these linkages produced an economy filled with diversification and development as opposed to the stratified monoculture of the Chesapeake colonies.

These trends continued as time went on leading to the industrial North eventually overwhelming the agricultural South.  The expansion and growth of America was based upon a foundation of hard work and innovation born of adversity.  Finding themselves in a hard place Americans found a way to prosper and grow like a young plant reaching for the sun.  Freed from the rigid restraints of the home country and then guaranteed freedom by the constitution and the limited government it provided America surged to the front ranks of nations.

Today, America labors under self-imposed adversity.  We are in the grip of an oppressive Progressive Movement that after 100 years of incremental advance is poised to transform America from what she has always been into what they want her to be.  America has traditionally been a constitutionally limited Republic operating on democratic principles providing individual liberty and economic opportunity.  The Progressives envision America as a centrally planned highly regimented social democracy where the wealth is spread around from each according to their abilities to each according to their needs .

If I wanted to make America prosperous again I would take off the self-imposed shackles of a central government on steroids, stop imposing new regulations, and reduce taxes everywhere on everyone.  Then I would stand back and watch our economy takes off like a rocket and we take our place beside our ancestors as free people with economic liberty and a will to succeed.

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College.

He is the Historian of the Future and the author of the History of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2012

Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com

Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens

Americawas founded as a FederalRepublic.  This means our nation was designed to have two levels of sovereignty.  The States which pre-date the central government and which created the central government is to be one level and the central government they created was to be the second.   The separate States first combined to found a central government when they drafted and ratified the Articles of Confederation in 1781.  This combination was strengthened and expanded in the writing and ratification of the Constitution in 1789.  However, in both of these new beginnings it was always stated and assumed that the States were the building blocks out of which the whole was built.

The Anti-Federalists sought to safe guard the inherent rights of the Sovereign States in the face of a proposed national government which concentrated power and superseded the primacy of the States.  The Anti-Federalists are often dismissed by those of succeeding generations who have been educated by the victorious philosophical descendants of the Federalists, as mere obstructionists and people of no-account.  However, their ranks were filled by some of the greatest names of the Revolutionary times such as Samuel Adams, George Mason, Thomas Paine, and Thomas Jefferson.

Another well-known leader of the Antifederalists, Patrick Henry, questioned the very legitimacy of what are possibly the most famous words in the document: “We the People” when he said, “I have the highest veneration for those gentlemen; but, sir, give me leave to demand, What right had they to say, We, the people? My political curiosity, exclusive of my anxious solicitude for the public welfare, leads me to ask, Who authorized them to speak the language of, We, the people, instead of, We, the states? States are the characteristics and the soul of a confederation. If the states be not the agents of this compact, it must be one great, consolidated, national government, of the people of all the states.”

Once the Constitution was maneuvered through the ratification process most of the Anti-Federalists faded into the background.  Forgotten were their war time services and forgotten were their warnings that a central government once established would inevitably grow in power to eclipse the States.

In the early days of the Republic the former Anti-Federalists attempted to keep alive the idea that it was the States which had created the central government and that the States therefore had the authority to determine if the central government had overstepped the authority which had been delegated to them by the States.  They proposed to do this through a process known as Nullification.

Nullification is the process through which they believed a State could suspend a federal law within its borders. In opposition to the Alien and Sedition Acts of the Adams Administration Thomas Jefferson and James Madison first enunciated this concept in1798. The tactic was accepted as a legitimate tool of the States by the Hartford Convention in 1814.  It was seen as a logical and legal protection against the encroachment of the central government upon the sovereign rights of the States.

The idea that a state or a combination of States could nullify what they perceived as unconstitutional laws passed by the central government which exceeded the delegated powers granted to it remained a point of contention until it reached a crisis in 1832.

The enactment of tariffs which were believed to be advantageous to the rapidly industrializing North and injurious to the agrarian South brought the question to a head.  South Carolinaled the way by adopting an Ordinance of Nullification which stated that the tariffs, “are unauthorized by the constitution of theUnited States, and violate the true meaning and intent thereof and are null, void, and no law, nor binding upon this State.”  

This was countered by President Jackson’s Proclamation Regarding Nullification, December 10, 1832.  In this proclamation President Jackson stated, “I consider, then, the power to annul a law of the United States, assumed by one State, incompatible with the existence of the Union, contradicted expressly by the letter of the Constitution, unauthorized by its spirit, inconsistent with every principle on which It was founded, and destructive of the great object for which it was formed.”  

Immediately after the President issued his proclamation Congress passed the Force Act.  This law authorized the use of military force against any state resisting the tariff acts. The President being the man of action immediately sent warships to Charleston harbor and ordered the strengthening federal fortifications there. The situation staggered towards war as both the central government and the government ofSouth Carolina prepared to dispute the Doctrine of Nullification on the field of battle. 

It was at this critical juncture that Henry Clay who had not been able to find any other State willing to join South Carolina earned his reputation as the Great Compromiser. On the same day the Force Bill passed, Clay negotiated the passage of the Tariff of 1833. This law provided for the gradual reduction of the tariff over ten years until it reached the levels which existed in 1816.  Jackson signed both measures thus priming and holstering the Federal power at one time.  In response South Carolina repealed its Ordinance Nullification while at the same time reaffirming its belief in the legality of Nullification by nullifying the Force Bill. President Jackson knew he had won a victory and sought to move on by ignoring this face saving action.

After this crisis the issue of nullification died down.  However, the belief that this was a viable and legal recourse for the States did not disappear, it instead evolved into the belief that the States which had created theUnioncould or should be able to nullify the union itself.  This in turn led to the secession of Southern States beginning withSouth Carolina.

This next crisis precipitated the Civil War.  This most deadly of all American wars destroyed the balance.  The power of the States was crushed by the overwhelming power of the central government.  Since that time the central government has grown, and grown, and grown until today it has become Leviathan.  Not the sea monster referred to in the Bible but the soul crushing all controlling political and social government described by Thomas Hobbs.

Today this debate over the relationship between the central government and the States has resurfaced.  As an administration moves aggressively to transform America beyond any semblance of a federal structure into a centrally-planned and totally controlled socially engineered society citizens from sea to shining sea are searching for ways to return to the limited government won by the Revolution and supposedly safe-guarded by the Constitution.

One of the most revolutionary proposals is a direct descendant of the Doctrine of Nullification.  The Repeal Amendment is supported by citizens and their representatives in every State and in the Federal Congress.  This proposed amendment states, “Any provision of law or regulation of the United States may be repealed by the several states, and such repeal shall be effective when the legislatures of two-thirds of the several states approve resolutions for this purpose that particularly describe the same provision or provisions of law or regulation to be repealed.”  As of today, no State has passed the Amendment, and it has not gained enough support in Congress to advance past the proposal stage.

This proposed amendment is designed to restore the validity of the 9^th and 10^th amendments which have been fundamentally supplanted and submerged by the ever growing power of the central government.

The 9^th Amendment states, “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”  The 10^th Amendment states, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

Unless we rebuild the reality of a balanced federal system we will soon find ourselves locked in the embrace of an all-powerful central government.  This Leviathan will seek to regulate the smallest details of our lives and the spirit of totalitarianism we spent the last half of the twentieth century fighting will win by default as the change our fellow citizens voted for brings the death of hope.

Keep the faith.  Keep the peace.  We shall overcome.

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College.  He is the Historian of the Future and the author of the History of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2012 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com  Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens

This week the eyes of everyone concerned with the continuance of limited government were riveted on the Supreme Court.  For three days the nine Justices heard arguments by the Solicitor General in favor of ruling the individual mandate which is the keystone of Obamacare constitutional.  They also heard the representatives of twenty-six States argue that it is unconstitutional.  This is the first time that a majority of the States have combined to protest an act of Congress.  Now We the People must wait while the fate of our Republic is decided in secret by our Black Robed rulers from whom there is no appeal.

How did we get here?

We elect our representatives and they enact laws which are supposed to be within the framework of the Constitution.  It should be the expectation of Americans that those we entrust with our delegated sovereignty would craft laws in accordance with our wishes as expressed in the founding document of our government.  These laws should reflect our desire for limited government, personal liberty, and economic freedom.

And the unicorns danced with the elves until the cow jumped over the moon.

The perpetually re-elected who control the two houses of our legislature make law with no regard for the limits, the spirit, or the letter of our Constitution.  In this case they have decreed not participating in Commerce is commerce, and that a penalty is not a tax, that is a tax, and then isn’t again.  After years of stepping so far over the line they have forgotten there was a line.  The Party of Power has finally legislated us to the point of no return.  If the court of last resort gives this power grab the green light what limits are left?

Since the law was passed over the overwhelming rejection of the voters its validation would cement the dictatorship of the Party in the transformation ofAmericafrom what we have known into what we would never choose.  The Court appears to be our last line of defense.  But where does the Supreme Court get its power?

The Supreme Court is principally occupied in a task that has no basis in the Constitution.  The nine justices spend their time judging what is constitutional and what isn’t through a process known as judicial review.  However, when the delegates of the thirteen original States drafted the Constitution they decided after much debate not to delegate such a power to the judicial branch or any other branch of the new Federal Government.

If the Constitution doesn’t give this power to the Court how did they get it?  The surprising answer is that they assumed it unto themselves, and since no one stopped them they just kept doing it.  The process began in 1794 when for the First time they declared an act of Congress unconstitutional.  Then in 1803 they used a minor case Marbury v Madison to outline their justification for the process.  Since that time the belief that the Supreme Court is the ultimate judge of the constitutionality of anything and everything has become such a cornerstone of the American System that the average person erroneously believes the power was granted in the Constitution. Thus the first power grab has become our last defense against what could be the final power grab.

In other words we who want to see the rebirth of limited government are hoping the Supreme Court will use an unconstitutional power to save the Constitution.  We stand hat in hand waiting patiently to find out if the Commerce Clause can be stretched to give the central government unlimited power or will we step back from the precipice and wait for the Party of Power to try again.

Across the country we have watched as everything from abortion to gay marriage has been imposed upon us by the black robed tyrants of the Federal Bench.  We have watched as popularly passed referendums were overturned, and common sense laws such asArizona’s immigration statutes cast aside by activist jurists determined to force our nation into their mold.  Unelected and almost unaccountable these imperious lawyers on steroids hand down pronouncements from Olympus on the Potomac as the sons of pioneers meekly accept the rule of tradition and the arbitrary decrees of men instead of the rule of law our ancestors fought and died to establish and preserve.

Now the arguments are over.  The talking heads endlessly dissect what was said telling us what it means.  For months we will hear rumors and hints as we wait until June for the word from on high.  Is not purchasing insurance commerce?  Does the government have the power to compel a citizen to enter into a contract?  Is a contract made under duress valid?  Does Congress have the power to make the purchasing of a product necessary to maintain the status of a law abiding citizen?  If the answer to what should be rhetorical questions is not a resounding “NO!” we have strayed beyond the pale of liberty and are adrift in the seas of arbitrary power.

As we look to an unconstitutional process to save the Constitution perhaps we should reflect on the state of our Republic.  I would also recommend a deep study of the works of our Anti-Federalist fathers.  Since we are living in the world they predicted maybe we should take a second look at what they recommended as an alternative to what we have become?

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College.  He is the Historian of the Future and the author of the History of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2012 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com  Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens

PROVISION 15 (From Article I, Section 2, Paragraph 2) A person cannot be elected to the House of Representatives unless he is an inhabitant of that State which he will be representing. This provision gives the people the right to not have any person sitting in Congress representing a State unless he is an inhabitant of that State. Taking the lesson from the British parliament, the founders did not want a person to represent a district without living there. At first, the Representatives were elected at large. It wasn’t until 1842 that Congress required the States to form Congressional districts so that each region of a State would be more adequately and fairly represented. George Mason had anticipated this necessity in the Constitutional Convention, saying …

[The House of Representatives] ought to know and sympathize with every part of the community; and ought therefore to be taken not only from different parts of the whole republic, but also from different districts of the larger members in it; which had in several instances … different interests and view arising from difference in produce, of habits, etc. We ought to attend to the rights of every class of the people. … The requisites in actual representation are that the representatives should sympathize with their constituents; should think as they think, and feel as they feel; and that for these purposes should even be residents among them.

PROVISION 14 (From Article I, Section 2, Paragraph 2) A member of the House of Representatives must have been a citizen of the United States for at least seven years. This provision gives the people the right to not have any person sitting in the United States Congress unless that person has been a citizen for at least seven years. Recommended by the committee on detail, it was agreed that an immigrant should be exposed to American institutions and values for a time before being allowed to make decisions in Congress. George Mason commented …

I was for opening a wide door for emigrants, but did not choose to let foreigners and adventurers make laws for us and govern us. Citizenship for three years was not enough for ensuring that local knowledge which ought to be possessed by the representative. … It might also happen that a rich foreign nation … might send over her tools, who might bribe their way into the legislature for insidious purposes.