Arms Of Obama
Filed under: International Reflections, National Party Politics, Presidential Watch, Social Commentary
With the 2011 budget compromise behind us, finally, we can now concentrate on what America’s future will look like. And the foundation of that future will be the perpetuation of America’s military dominance throughout the world.
The presidential election of 2012 will determine how we will meet the fiscal challenges of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security for the next 30 years. And it is only by resolving these seemingly mundane mandates that we will be able to continue to maintain our armed forces so that our nation can continue to be the beacon of freedom throughout the world.
President Obama does not yet grasp the relationship between our fiscal health and our world mission. I don’t think he ever will because the core of his beliefs stem from the bankrupt ideology of statism and government control. He views this nation as one that selfishly delivers benefits to its own people not as an angel for freedom.
If the Constitution of the United States represents our nation’s rule of law it is our Declaration of Independence that represents our soul. And it is to our soul, to our core beliefs, the very sinews of our existence as a great nation, which freedom loving peoples throughout the world look for comfort and support.
I refer to Sarah McLachlan’s moving rendition:
“In the arms of an Angel, far away from here, …..
In the arms of an Angel; may you find some comfort here.”
Obamstitution
Filed under: Presidential Watch, Social Commentary, United States at War
On March 19th President Obama, without provocation, authorized the use of military force in Libya resulting in the United States of America and Libya being at war. Yesterday Congressman from Ohio Dennis Kucinich charged that the President acted in violation of the U.S. Constitution and should be impeached. The debate begins.
So here we go again. Pundits, theorists, generals and just ordinary Americans like me start reaching for that revered document called the Constitution of the United States of America. Since it came into existence in 1789, 222 years ago to be exact, and the fact that we got into enough wars during this period of time to provide us some understanding as to how this Constitution addresses the reality of war that we wouldn’t have some Congressman from Ohio, a member of the President’s own party no less, raging that the President, by starting an unprovoked war with Libya, violated the Constitution and should be thrown out of office summarily.
And then of course you have pundits on the right, like Shawn Hannity, who would take any opportunity to rage against the President even if he were buying flowers for his wife and therefore loses all credibility when he opines that the President had an obligation to go to Congress for approval before he committed American troops to engage the Libyan armed forces.
And then finally you have the American people, for who going to war with Libya is like watching their prized Mercedes going over a cliff with their arch enemy behind the wheel. What it all boils down to is this…trust. Americans know, better than pundits or theorists or even Congressmen for that matter that when we elect a president we want him to have the authority to send our troops into harm’s way if he deems that that’s the right thing to do. And as for the U.S. Constitution we’ll sort it out later.
This country has been blessed with forefathers who drafted this beloved document, our Constitution, with the knowledge that this nation lives in a very dangerous neighborhood. They figured that if the American people voted for this person, if it’s a guy, who puts his pants on every day or a woman her make-up, that he or she should have the general idea what this means: “I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
Who’s Country Is This?
Filed under: International Reflections, Presidential Watch, Social Commentary, United States at War
President Obama has led us to a place where the tragedy unfolding in Libya presents for the first time the question whether America wishes to rely on international organizations and potential enemies for its national security.
Article II of the U.S. Constitution states: “The President shall be the Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States;” This provision has provided the President with the power and authority to act with alacrity to protect the nation and its sovereignty. At the very inception of this nation we have jealously guarded our sovereignty letting no other nation interfere with it. However, God knows that throughout our history nations have tried. Especially in the early development of our nation, the War of 1812, the Black Hawk War, the Mexican-American War, being examples of such attempts, America held fast against those nations that wished to direct our future to their interests and not ours.
In response to Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 Congress declared war. Congress did not seek the advice or consent of any of other nation. When North Korea attacked South Korea in 1950 President Truman saw the attack as a question of our national security stemming from considerations of America’s policy toward Japan. The United States wanted to shore up Japan to make it a viable counterweight against the Soviet Union and China, and Korea was seen as part of that strategy. The Vietnam War was another example of America’s desire to contain communism in South East Asia and though we had allies in that campaign the United States took the lead in its prosecution. The American people were highly ambivalent about America’s involvement in the Vietnam War but there was never a question that we entered it seeking the approval of any other nation.
Today the United States has a president who is highly educated but one who lacks, with respect to our foreign policy, the necessary gyroscope to identify what is truly in America’s national security interest. The events occurring in Libya is a perfect example. Because of this lack he has no strategic plan and finds himself relying on countries to provide for him a direction which promotes their national security interest, but not ours.
How Did We Get So Far Away From God’s Law?
Filed under: International Reflections, Social Commentary, Terrorism
“…the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Most Americans recognize this as a right derived from the 2nd Amendment found in our Constitution. But it is in fact an unalienable right of self defense.
This is Roger Madon and this is what I think.
Gun control laws in the United States are an exception to the Constitution. They exist on the simple minded belief that if a society keeps guns out of the hands of its people fewer people will die. Notwithstanding that statistics prove otherwise those that promote gun control laws ignore these findings and continue to argue in their favor. However among this group of Americans that promote these laws we find a group of people who really should know better. They are American Jews who oddly, throughout their history in Europe, have been victims of those who possessed guns while restricting Jews, in particular, from owning them. There should be little debate that had Jews possessed firearms during the time the Nazis began rounding them up to be placed in death camps perhaps the Holocaust may not have happened.
The question that arises is why Jews in Germany did not own guns in the first place? The answer to that is that in 1928, long before Nazis took control of the German government, Germany passed a law requiring all Germans to register their firearms. Sound familiar? One of the first things the Nazis did after taking power was to require all Germans to give up their firearms, Jews included. By November 1938 the Nazis felt comfortable enough to ransack Jewish homes, shops and entire Jewish towns and villages. Civilians destroyed Jewish owned buildings with sledgehammers, leaving the streets covered in pieces of smashed windows—the origin of the name “Night of Broken Glass” or “Kristallnacht.” Ninety-one Jews were killed and 30,000 Jewish men—a quarter of all Jewish men in Germany—were taken to concentration camps, where they were tortured for months, with over 1,000 of them dying.
Yet today, in spite of the history of the Holocaust, most Jews living in America do not believe that the 2nd Amendment protects their right to own a hand gun or a rifle. Jews are known as the “People of the Book” the Old Testament and yet, at least with respect to God’s law of self-defense, they have scrapped it for an idea that is unambiguously in violation of it. What is it going take, another Holocaust, to teach not only Jews but all Americans the truth that we can live by God’s law or die by Man’s law?
This is Roger Madon and that’s what I think.
Justice Alito’s Political Acumen
Filed under: National Party Politics, Presidential Watch, Social Commentary
The U.S. Constitution provides that “[The President] shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient;” Tonight is such a time but Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito will be in Hawaii.
This is Roger Madon this is what I think.
At last year’s State of the Union President Barack Obama provided the American people an opportunity to get a good idea as to how expert he is on matters constitutional, being a constitutional law professor and all that. Well, at last year’s State of the Union speech when he chastised the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission in that it would allow foreign companies to spend without limit Justice Alito, who was attending and obviously listening carefully to the professor responded by mouthing “Not true.” The professor has been undaunted in his criticism concerning Citizens United and has, at other times predicted that it will create “a stampede of special-interest money in our politics,” “drown out the voices of everyday Americans,” and “strike at our democracy itself.” One thing we citizens should never do is underestimate the professor’s political acumen. However what President Obama failed to explain to the American people is that it would do all that he predicted to his own party and its candidates in the last year’s November election. I refer you to a real professor of law Bradley Smith’s article in today’s Wall Street Journal just how much Citizens United effected last year’s election.
But tonight Justice Alito will be spending his time in Hawaii, perhaps with drink in hand, assured again that our Ship of State which holds our beloved Constitution shall sail through the dangerous rocks of Scylla and Charybdis, in spite of the opinions of one particular pin headed adjunct law professor who just happens to be president of the United States.
This is Roger Madon and that’s what I think.
How Well Do You Know The U.S. Constitution?
Filed under: Courts, Local Party Politics, National Party Politics, Social Commentary
So, during her last debate, Christine O’Donnell, Republican candidate for Senate in the State of Delaware blurted out in response to a question, “Where in the Constitution does is say ‘separation of church and state’?” and Progressives all over the country started laughing. Well, boys and girls, where in the Constitution does it say “separation of church and state?” It doesn’t.
This is Roger Madon and this is what I think.
For Progressives the U.S. Constitution has always been an impediment to their stated principals: a large and overarching government which provides numerous social benefits at the expense of individual liberty. That’s what the current election is all about and why the Tea Party movement, which supports limited government, fiscal conservatism and individual liberty has acquired such an influence over its outcome. So for Progressives to react risibly to Ms. O’Donnell’s statement about the Constitution, a document which they consider seriously flawed is truly ironic.
Unlike our President, I am not a professor of Constitutional Law. But I am an American and I take the reading of the U.S. Constitution very seriously. If Ms. O’Donnell asked rather, “Where in the Constitution does it say ‘freedom of speech’ or ‘the right [to] peaceably assemble’ or ‘the right [to] bear arms’” I would be forced to join the Progressives in their criticism. However I wouldn’t be laughing, I would be concerned that a Tea Party candidate didn’t know some fundamental facts about our beloved Constitution.
But there is nothing in our Constitution that refers to the separation of church and state. That concept is one that the U.S. Supreme Court interpreted into the First Amendment of the Constitution in 1878 in Reynolds v. U.S. almost 90 years after the Constitution was ratified by the States. In that case the court adopted the phrase, “separation of church and state” upon referring to a letter written by Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptists in 1802 wherein he stated that the establishment clause and the free exercise clause as found in the First Amendment which refer to religion build “a wall of separation between church and state.” The U.S. Supreme Court has been visiting this matter ever since even as recently as 2002 when it addressed the question of the Pledge of Allegiance. So Ms. O’Donnell is not technically right she is absolutely right And as for the Progressives they should stay out of subject for which they have little if any credibility.
This is Roger Madon and that’s what I think.
Republicans Brings Down DADT
Filed under: National Party Politics, Social Commentary
Yesterday, a Federal District Court Judge ordered the Military to provide homosexual service members equal rights under the U.S. Constitution and to stop enforcing the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law signed by a Democrat president 17 years ago. It took a Republican group to bring this case to court and win.
This is Roger Madon and this is what I think.
Liberals love to depict Republicans as some sort of pre-historical creatures who are to be barely tolerated. They think that to be a Republican means you are pro-life and to be pro-life means that you have not yet joined the 20th Century no less the 21st. What Liberals fail to consider is that at least half of those that identify themselves as Republicans are pro-choice . Liberals think, for example, that because Republicans are generally against the minimum wage law that they have no sympathy for poor working people. But Liberals fail to consider, as Republicans do, that the minimum wage law restricts young workers from entering the work force and unnecessarily increases the cost of doing business.
And of course Liberals believe that Republicans are homophobic and view homosexuality as sociopathic. But after 17 years of Congressional dithering to repeal the “don’t ask, don’t tell” law it took the Log Cabin Republicans to navigate a complex case through the Federal court system and argue it to victory.
Republicans do a fairly poor job in explaining to the American public why they support certain policies and reject others. So this is a great opportunity for Republicans to remind the American people that it took a Republican group, the Log Cabin Republicans, to oppose a long standing government policy that was fundamentally unfair and wrong.
This is Roger Madon and that’s what I think.
The Right To Bear Arms
Filed under: International Reflections, International War, Social Commentary, Terrorism
Last Sunday we celebrated the most revered of all American holidays, July 4th. Perhaps in anticipation of that holiday last week the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that all Americans have the individual and constitutional right to own a gun.
This is Roger Madon and this is what I think.
It was Abraham Lincoln, in his Gettysburg Address, who reminded the American people they those who signed the Declaration of Independence represented them and not the American states, since the states had not yet come into existence. Thirteen years later when representatives of the American drafted the U.S. Constitution they included in the Bill of Rights “…the right of the people to keep and bear arms..”
Now why the history lesson? Because there are people in this country that have become comfortable in believing that Americans ar incapable of taking care of themselves. And they cannot take care of themselves in the most fundamental aspect of humanity: self defense.
These are the same people that believe that free Americans join the armed forces because they are poor, uneducated and without opportunity, not because of their love for this country and their desire to protect it.
These are the same people that believe that free Americans are incapable of providing for their own retirement and that the government should make retirement decisions for them.
And these are the same people that insist on giving terrorists (enemy combatants) the right to remain silent when captured but have no compunction in muzzling the free speech Americans.
This is Roger Madon and that’s what I think.
Obama Makes a Smart Move WRT General Stanley McChrystal
Filed under: International War, Presidential Watch, Social Commentary, United States at War
The removal of General Stanley McChrystal as Commander of American Forces, Afghanistan by President Barack Obama last week was a choice between battlefield progress in Afghanistan and the constitutional authority of the Commander-in-Chief.
This is Roger Madon and this is what I think.
The removal of generals by American presidents goes as far back as Abraham Lincoln when he removed General George McClellan during the Civil War for what Lincoln described as a serious case of the “slows” or lack of aggression. General Douglas MacArthur was removed by President Truman for insubordination and most recently in the middle of the Iraq War President George Bush forced the resignation of Admiral William Fallan, head of the U.S. Central Command for making statements inconsistent with administration policy. However this is the first time in American history that a general, or admiral for that matter, was removed at the eve of battle for the offense of ridiculing his Commander-in-Chief.
Article II, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution states that the president “…shall be the Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States..” This provision describes the power of the president in perhaps the clearest of all presidential powers found in the Constitution.
The drafters of the U.S. Constitution may have been purposely both ambiguous and restrictive with respect to the powers of the Executive Branch. However when it came to the defense of the nation they wanted no such doubts to exist on the part of the other 2 branches of government nor the American people or for that matter any miscalculation on the part of foreign enemies.
I happen to believe that Barack Obama’s presidency is weak, uninformed and promotes an economic system that has been roundly rejected by Western economic liberalism. Further I support General McChrystal’s strategy in Afghanistan. However no American president is allowed to tolerate the insubordination of any member of the armed forces, especially a flag officer and at the same time uphold his oath of office “…to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the U.S.”
This is Roger Madon and that’s what I think.
Proud Conservative
Roger on iTunes
Affiliates
Subscribe
