…but this Congress has us the closest to conflict that this nation has been since the lead up to the Civil War.
Last week, NRO’s The Corner told us about the plan by the House Rules Chairwoman Louise Slaughter to avoid the problems of a recalcitrant Senate in the passing of the Great Health Care Takeover of 2009 2010.
Slaughter is weighing preparing a rule that would consider the Senate bill passed once the House approves a corrections bill that would make changes to the Senate version.
So, in effect, the House would have the final say on the bill. Brilliant! Only, that isn’t how it works. In fact, it would be unconstitutional. I know that doesn’t trouble Nancy Pelosi too much. I’m sure “Getting rid of that pesky Constitution and its annoying restrictions on government power” is next on her list of things to do, but she is getting the cart before the horse, as anyone who ever read the Constitution knows. If the House could just make changes to any bill that went through the Senate without them having anything to say about it, then there wouldn’t be any point to having a Senate, because all that consideration and debate that occurs there would be for naught. What’s the point in having the greatest deliberative body in the world if you don’t give them their say?
There has been a lot of noise about the House using this “Slaughter Deem” to force the Bill through the House this week. I think that there is a concerted effort to fatigue the American people into accepting this. In an endless stream of speeches since last spring, President Obama has told us that “The time for talk is over; the time for action is now.” over and over and over and over and over and over and over. The message faithful have been inundating us with endless talk about how it is the moral thing to do, while failing to consider that having government do something, in its delightfully inefficient ways, is not the same thing as individuals or smaller voluntary associations doing something. Some of the more deluded ones have tried to tell us that “Jesus would support the health care takeover”. Various Congressmen and Senators have told us how we don’t know what is good for us, but they do, and they’ll give it to us, whether we want it or not. It all amounts to an endless, multi-pronged assault on the American people and their thinking. While change may not be possible, fatigue is, and I believe that is intended. If they burn you out, they don’t have to stop working to give it to us good and hard.
If they do the Slaughter Deem, I can envision several outcomes.
I can envision states looking at this and saying “No. Congress has over stepped its bounds.” Problem is, if the language giving the feds access to our bank account is still in the bill, a challenge from individual states doesn’t prevent the federal government from bending the citizens of those states over and giving them the business anyway.
I can envision court challenges, and perhaps even a direct appeal to the Supreme Court. And therein, my crystal ball gets really murky. I don’t know how that ends, or more importantly, when it ends.
But the more I consider the blatant usurpation of power that this intended bill represents, and what the Slaughter Deem does to the legislative process, the more I think that allowing these people to do such a thing and get away with it will only encourage even more (as if this wouldn’t be enough), and the steady incrementalism we have been suffering for about 80 years, the more I think about this:
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
I know. They are radical words, spoken in radical times.
Kind of like the ones we live in.
But it is still the charter of our freedoms.
If they do this, if they pull the trigger on the Slaughter Deem, and impose the tyranny of mediocrity upon us all, and make us pay for the privilege to destroy private enterprise, and the innovation that only it can bring, if they therefore redefine “equality”, and we, as citizens do not take to the street, causing Congressmen to flee the nation’s capitol in fear for their safety, if the voice of a once free people is not so stirred as to be raised from sea to sea in a resounding “NO!”, then we do not deserve the freedom we still have.
We need to decide who we are as a nation. Do we stand with these people, who gave the world its first free nation, conceived in liberty and a people who made the term “American Exceptionalism” a phrase reviled by those embittered in jealously over a righteous nation that they could never enslave without first subverting?
Or are we the people who cannot do for ourselves? The ones who cannot hope to succeed without the guidance and benevolent assistance of a government ruled by the likes of these?
Constantly reminded by the likes of this that we have no destiny separate of the tentacles of a government that find their way into every aspect of our lives, and that we can take no action without its approval?
Because if you chose the latter, there is no reason not to cut out the middleman and go straight for the real thing:
I guess “We The People” was a typo in Nancy and Harry’s eyes.
Yeah, the Slaughter Deem is scary, not only for what they will pass, but by how it will be used.
Obama, Reid, and Pelosi, if what they were doing to the heart and mind of this nation wasn’t so serious, they would be excellent as this generations version of the Three Stooges. (They don’t have nearly the talent to be Groucho, Chico, and Harpo.)
Surly, somewhere in Heaven, the tears of the Founding Fathers must be of some concern to one Heavenly Host or another.
Who would have thought one could look back on the Clinton years with something akin to wistfulness, were one of the biggest concerns we had was Bill’s dubious choice of a humidor.
It is time that some legislative blood was spilled in Washington, DC. At the very least, we should remove some of these people from office and strip them of their lifetime perks. They should be in the bread lines if they are allowed to live, not in jail where they will receive public food and housing but out on the street. Most of them have no skills at all, other than arm twisting and extortion; they should do just fine.
BiW, I was with you for most of the post. The more Congress’s behavior looks like shenanigans, the less credible the whole effort is.
But then you called for the citizenry to descend upon Washington and scare our elected officials into fleeing the capitol and that is where you lost me.
Calling for insurrection is irresponsible on your part and as someone who has taken an oath to uphold our justice system, I find it unprofessional of you as well.
BiW today …. Joe Stack tomorrow. Be careful for what you advocate.
Heaven forbid that our Founders would have called insurrection an irresponsible act. I, for one, am grateful we have men like BIC trained in the legal profession sticking to the ideals that have made this country the freest nation on earth.
America’s greatest was not constructed or defined by becoming dependent upon a government, or becoming indebted to a government, but by being suspicious of any personal intrusion of the government.
The fact that “We the People” have let our guard slip the last 40 years has given leeway to misguided thoughts by millions of the Rutherford ilk, is contrary to all that has made America great. We now choose to draw a line in the stand. And “We the People” further declare our own right of freedom to declare war on those that wish to deceive.
Now is the time to try their souls…. 🙂
“Calling for insurrection is irresponsible on your part and as someone who has taken an oath to uphold our justice system, I find it unprofessional of you as well.
BiW today …. Joe Stack tomorrow. Be careful for what you advocate.”
Blow that bullshit out your ass, Rutherford.
This is my goddamned country and a gutless liberal pussy like you isn’t going to deflect my rounds one fucking centimeter.
BiW today …. Joe Stack tomorrow. Be careful for what you advocate.
Although I see exactly what BiW wrote and now have some context for your comment at my post I still have to throw the yellow flag.
Sometimes I’m reminded of WWI veterans or MLK marching on Washington. I’m also reminded of Tip O’Neil et al getting their phones and fax machines jammed up from calls that came primarily due to a Presidents call.
So Joe Stack? No.
Let’s hope though that if We the People do march on DC Obama doesn’t exhume MacArthur.
Rutherford, calling the populace into the street is not insurrection. A general strike is not insurrection. Filling the streets in Washington with people, to make it a gridlock for days, is not insurrection.
Passing laws by fiat like Ms Slaughter proposes is a goddamn insurrection. It is the first step in a coup d’etat that Tom Clancy couldn’t dream up. Preventing such crap is an act of defense of the Constitution.
The military is sworn by oath to protect and defend this Document from all enemies, foreign and domestic. Not any person, not any seat in any branch. I darn well doubt it will carry the water of any elected person who’s breached the Constitution.
The left wants blood in the streets. They want their own Che, their own Mao, their own Soviet revolution. How do you torture a masochist? Don’t hurt him. How do you torture a leftist? Don’t give him his bloody revolution. But don’t let him win – quietly imprison him (replace him, if he or she is in office, with a replacement until one can be duly elected), repeat as necessary, and have the military enforce its oath and make the office holders operate by the law.
Let’s not play f*cking games here. BiW wrote:
I highlighted the key words. So no, BiW did not call for a run of the mill march on Washington. I’m all for peaceful protest. I am not for causing our legislators to flee the capitol because their lives are being threatened.
Bottom line, BiW, don’t write sh*t unless you mean it. I judged you on what you wrote. If you were using dramatic license, tell us all now. Otherwise, I stand by my Joe Stack comment.
Rutherford,
Simplistic doesn’t begin to describe you.
In his ‘manifesto’, Joe Stack made it clear he hated everyone. But his most intense hatred was reserved for a government department (IRS) that he felt unfairly taxed and cheated him.
Nobody advocated for Joe Stack to do violence – except Joe Stack.
You become more paranoid each passing day.
Rutherford,
We have survived this long because we have been a nation of laws.
What your crusading heroes in Congress (and the “Consititutional Scholar” in the Oval Office) propose is nothing less then the subverting of the Rule of Law in favor of the Rule of Men. And you cheerlead for it. (Your pathetic “By any means necessary” comment.) And now you want to claim lawlessness and rebellion at the serious reflection of what it means when Congress is brazenly contemplating dissolving the very law that is the basis of the social contract that has defined this republic and enacting the most sweeping intrusion of government into the lives of the average person ever undertaken? Support sidestepping the law and then claim it protects those who would do away with it? That’s kind of like criticizing a farmer when your mouth is full.
It is a wonder you haven’t died from irony poisoning yet.
And you put the emphasis on the wrong part of the quote, you dolt.
If you’re going to seek outrage, you should seek outrage over the right thing. The point is that if it happens that way, then the shame is something you share too, although I suspect that you’re too thick to understand it or you’re so delusional, you’ll never allow yourself to believe it.
I am not for causing our legislators to flee the capitol because their lives are being threatened.
Of course Rutherford it wouldn’t take much to scare the members.Reid doesn’t even like the way we smell.
BiW… Is that your personal troll that you been keeping? Or just a your regular run of the mill idiot?
This is some very very scary stuff indeed. Seems to me that something this impacting on ALL would be implemented completely above board.
Polarized isnt even the word I’de use for the USA right now…… and BiW is correct…… there are ALOT & I mean ALOT of voices on the net and elsewhere indicating that if they go with this “deem” & pass strategy … there will be violence. Not only are the american people tired of hearing the dems bullshit about this healthcare package (that no one wants) but they also recognise that the way it is being approached is “un-american” in that it violates our sensibilities regarding “fair” play and doing things the right way.
Look I know this is a POS legislation, they know this is a POS legislation…. yet they continue forward.. What does that say? They are saying openly they dont care what “we” think or want, that they know best. They have forgotten their place in this system… to REPRESENT US!
So I sit and watch and pray for reasonable men to prevail knowing that I will participate albeit reluctantly if the SHTF.
BiW… Is that your personal troll that you been keeping? Or just a your regular run of the mill idiot?
Troy, R is so rabidly partisan that if DOG bit him, you’d have to take DOG “for a walk”, IYKWIMAITTYD. However, he does prove to be more entertaining than the typical “opposing voice” that wanders into the pound over at the Rott.
You should stop by more often.
Rule of Men is how Vaticanism has operated since the Councils of Nicea and Trent, so we shouldn’t be surprised it is being used here, there being so many of the Harlot’s members in places of borrowing privilege in our government.
I am quite certain that inflicting this new socialist tyranny was the price Obama had to pay for his nomination and election. As they did with the Income Tax they will attempt to do with HITLERyCare.
Slaughter Deem is appropriately named, and I would not be at all surprised to learn she is both Papist and feminStaazi.
Not sure what the anti-Catholic vitriol is all about, and I don’t really want an explanation at this time. Never bought into the “Papist/Da Vinci Code” nonsense, and I’m not really of a mind to start now.
Its enough that it is unconstitutional, that they will still do everything they can to pass it, and that the net effect will be to get government into every aspect of our lives.
Rutherford,
Whether you wish to believe it or not, when people destitute of conscience presume to dictate to 250 million free individuals that they must AGAIN foot the bill for the lazy, dishonest and irresponsible, it’s not just asking for revolution, but begging for one.
Tyranny, like fire, knows no bounds and will stop at nothing unless quenched quickly, decisively and with an overwhelming flood. Continue to believe in your pristine delusions of worldly political authority being a godly thing, and you do so at your peril, for such blanket submission of personal freedom can do naught but call forth from the oppressor yet greater demands on the oppressed.
Do not be deceived because this oppression comes disguised as charity, for you cannot amend an Absolute Law like “Thou shalt not steal” to read “Thou shalt not steal, unless thou rationalizest thou canst use the loot to a more altruistic purpose than the victim of the theft.”
The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.
“Slaughter Deem is appropriately named, and I would not be at all surprised to learn she is both Papist and feminStaazi.”
Ted, are you just sort of lumping all your enemy groups together here? Got any sort of evidence to support any of this?
What Slaughter has proposed in Congress is quite sufficiently evil in and of itself, but that does not justify heaping on her every other condemnation you can think of her. Further, not all folks think Papist is a negative; did you realize that? Among feminist, being charged as a feminist is not a negative. In the DDR, the Staszi commanded a considerable respect, even though not love. What you you see as damnable, is not though so universally.
You do have better trolls here.
LOL What are you saying, Troy, that if the SHTF you’ll “reluctantly” resort to violence? You’re a typical internet blow hard. If the SHTF, you’ll run for cover (right after you make that call to the tax funded police to protect your ass). 🙂
You weren’t a blip on my radar Troy until I saw the word “troll” pop out of your condescending pie-hole one too many times.
A couple of years ago a blogger named ChenZhen started the WordPress Political Bloggers Alliance. I think we need a new alliance called the WordPress Big Talkers Alliance expressly reserved for cyberspace tough guys. Two immediate candidates “Terrible” (LOL) Troy and Tex Taylor. (Sorry Tex, I love you man but you belong there on your worst days.)
Ironic Rutherford. As you wish to talk of Big Talkers Alliance, I was thinking we need a “Woe is Me, I’m a Victim Alliance” with your hideous Twitter picture on the banner.
One can’t talk to you for fifteen minutes these days before one gets the speech of your overwhelming disabilities you have overcome, and the fact you’re an oppressed black with some imagined ancestry of dragging a 90lbs. cotton sack.
Double reparations for poor, poor Rutherford and his Rainbow Alliance.
Tex you know full well that’s total horseshit. But it’s consistent with you attacking when you feel attacked. I actually owe you an apology since tossing you into my rant was gratuitous. My gripe really wasn’t with you, it was with the “Terrible” one.
R,
I know Troy. A good guy, really. Just sick to death of being portrayed as a racist by people who don’t know anything about him other than he opposes people who express the opinions that you do.
And he would also go on the shortlist of people I would speak ill of without any knowledge. Some people talk tough because they deliver. He’s one of those people.
BiW, fair enough. I haven’t read enough of Troy’s comments to have any specific opinion of him other than that he throws the word troll around without ever having directly debated me.
I guess today I was as sick and tired of being called a troll as he is being called a racist. We’ll call it a draw and agree to start fresh.
I can vouch Gnome Rutherford isn’t a troll in the internet sense; just the kind that lives in caves, in the hills, or under bridges. 😮
😆
You had that coming. You know you can’t one up me in the game of cheap shots and despicable acts.
Rutherford, a guy like Troy would either clean your clock, or maybe just shoot you and be done with it. I’m the kind that will burn your over mortgaged house down, hoping you carry minimal home owner’s insurance. 😛
A couple of years ago a blogger named ChenZhen started the WordPress Political Bloggers Alliance.
I should visit his site some time. He came over to Nice Deb’s shortly after forming the (useless) Alliance, and was probably the brightest lib I’ve ever debated on the web. Wrong, but bright.
geoff,
I’m afraid Chenzhen retired for the most after we started teasing his worthless ass after the Obama victory. Chen was great at criticizing and propagandizing, but weak on defense. Occasionally, Chen will place a guest post over at http://www.theblogmocracy.com
Rutherford is the smarter of the two and at least had the guts to make the attempt at defending the indefensible, like say Obama. Chen headed for the nearest fox hole after the Dims were placed in charge.
Chen did have a nice looking website – the best I’ve seen on Word Press.
Weird coincidence – he just showed up at Nice Deb’s today. Hadn’t even thought of him in years and he happens to appear this very day.
Disappointing though – I remembered him as much more thoughtful. I guess you can never go back.