“Republics decline into democracies and democracies degenerate into despotisms.”
Aristotle was a wise man and I can’t help but wonder what he’d think about the “I won” excuse impolitely blurted out by President Obama. Surely one is entitled to a bit of gloating after winning what was truly an ugly, bitter campaign fight; however, to actually voice it usually means one has bigger cajones than brain cells.
“Absolute power and authority” and the wielding of same in fist-waving tyranny are those very things against which America was created and against which she has fought long and hard. She still fights for them today but if the enemy is within, well, the fight will surely cause even more angst and bloodshed and winning will be a hollow victory. Hollow because it is all so avoidable. The lessons are right in front of us, yet like bloated sheep too many have closed their eyes to them.
I love our Constitution. I love common sense just as much. While all men may be created equal, Louis Napper had it right when he said that none of us are entitled to anything more than the pursuit of happiness. The day we demand it as our due is the day the snake oil salesmen move into position and sweep our beloved freedoms and rights out from under us. And with far less grace than could David Copperfield in even his worst performance.
How many of you are familiar with the Global Poverty Act? I don’t see many nodding heads or raised hands. Even more frightening than this surface-level-only feel-good little piece of legislation is the fact that so few are aware of it and even fewer understand what it really means.
In a nutshell, the Global Poverty Act would require the U.S. President to deploy a “comprehensive strategy” to help reduce extreme poverty around the world. It calls for an increase in our nation’s Humanitarian Aid from 23 billion to 98 billion a year. Estimates place the 13-year total of the U.S. sending .7% of our gross national product out as foreign aid could cost $845 billion OVER AND ABOVE what we already spend. And none of these figures take into account apparently insignificant facts such as the one that Americans, with their big hearts, sent more money individually to victims of the Tsunami than did all other nations combined.
What we have here is little more than the President allowing…no, scratch that. What we have here is the President authorizing the United Nations to tax American citizens. This man who considers the United States Constitution a “flawed document” is willing to turn over our sovereignty to an organization that no longer serves its original purpose and instead acts as the grasping arms of those who would, quite literally, rule the world.
You think that’s crazy? Buried in the Millenium Development Goals of the U.N. are nice little tidbits that, among other things, commits nations to banning “small arms and light weapons”. Remember the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights? “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Justice Antonin Scalia, for the majority in District of Columbia v Heller (U. S. Supreme Court 2008) stated, “Undoubtedly some think that the Second Amendment is outmoded in a society where our standing army is the pride of our Nation, where well-trained police forces provide personal security, and where gun violence is a serious problem. That is perhaps debatable, but what is not debatable is that it is not the role of this Court to pronounce the Second Amendment extinct.” But Justice Scalia won’t always be speaking for a majority who respect the Bill of Rights; President Obama could be appointing as many as 3 Supreme Court justices and with an already questionable track record of selecting wise people for key positions (being smart doesn’t necessarily confer wisdom – or honesty – as has already been proven by both Geithner and Daschle) what has been termed by some as socialist and even Marxist agendas and what I purport are not-so-subtley shown by being an initial sponsor of the Global Poverty Act will almost certainly place the rights so many take for granted in real jeopardy.
It’s been a great 233 years, America. If we, the people of the United States of America, so many the descendents of men and women as wise as was Aristotle, don’t wake up soon, the question of whether “does that Star-spangled banner yet wave o’er the land of the free and the home of the brave” will be a sad, sad “no”.
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