Archive for the 'Federal Government' Category

The National ID Card Cometh…

Published by
MichaelC
at December 1, 2007 in Federal Government. 0 Comments

The REAL ID Act, signed into law in 2005, provides for nationally-standardized ID cards to be designated to residents of the US by each individual state.  It originally was scheduled to take effect in mid-2008, but that deadline has since been rescheduled for late 2009.  Ron Paul, as a congressman and as a candidate for president, has consistently opposed the measure.  This may not seem threatening to some people at the moment.  After all, it’s just a harmless card with your picture on it-right?  Wrong.  As Ron Paul has pointed out in his speeches, a national ID card is just another assault on civil liberties on the part of the federal government in the name of war.  Paralleling the issue of gun control, measures that require guns or a certain type of gun to be “registered” with the government may seem harmless.  After all, it’s no big deal-the government just wants to know where those guns are so they can fight crime better.  Right?  Afraid not.  Some time later when the government decided to ban assault weapons entirely, they simply used the registration list they compiled before to confiscate the guns from private law-abiding citizens and render them powerless against criminals who possess such guns illegally.  In the end the gun registration laws served as nothing but a tool to empower the government to infringe upon the rights of the people.  It did not help fight crime any more than the national ID card will help fight terrorism.  Rounding up registered guns may be mirrored by the rounding up of people unjustly.  And rest-assured, this “war-time measure” will not disappear when the war ends.  In the Shadow Children Series by Margaret Peterson Haddix, which I started reading a few years ago a futuristic totalitarian government keeps track of its citizens through an ID card, deprives them of virtually any inalienable right and pulls strings on their lives from behind the scenes without their knowing about it.  That is not the kind of society we want to become.

 

Besides the obvious threat to freedom, the REAL ID Act can be viewed as just another example of Big Government.  In practice the REAL ID Act would require an expansive and expensive bureaucracy to operate.  The bill for this would be sent to the common taxpayer-just another example of the Neoconservatives failing to live up to the limited government promises of the 1994 Contract with America.  The Act is also not in line with the principles of the Constitution-with the Federal Government over-imposing itself on state-run systems, which is counter to the spirit of the 10th Amendment.

 

There is hope for opposing the act.  18 states have already refused to comply with this law of the federal government and legislation is pending in 20 more.  This means that we may potentially have ¾ of all states challenging the National ID Card.  Not only does the REAL ID Act rely on the state governments to enforce it, but states have been able to nullify laws passed by the Federal Government in the past.  In the late 1790s, when Adams was President and Jefferson was Vice President, the Federal Government passed a law that prohibited criticism of the government by common citizens.  Jefferson, who was actually the political rival of Adams and his Vice President, due to the electoral system at the time, took it to the states and the states subsequently decided that the law in question was unconstitutional and therefore nullified it.  With Ron Paul as president, the executive branch would no longer pursue the standards of the REAl ID Act.  His term would begin in January 2009, almost a year before the Act takes effect-and plenty of time for action.

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Silent No More: How Ron Paul’s Adherence to the Constitution Will Return Government to the People

Published by
SueM
at October 16, 2007 in Federal Government, Abortion and Ron Paul Awareness. 5 Comments

I recently had a conversation with a good friend on the subject of agendas. Call it the “Moral Majority” or the “Christian Right,” whatever you call it, there is a political force in our nation that hesitates to support Ron Paul because there are several moral questions it would like to see settled at the federal level and Ron Paul won’t go there.

We were discussing the so-called “gay” marriage issue and I said “but what if they lose?” Silence. “Oh, you’re right,” my friend finally responded …. this is making sense now.“ That’s the point the Christian Right seems to be missing. It wants desperately to take the issues of abortion and gay marriage to the federal level for a constitutional amendment, where in fact it might lose.

If there is deciding to be done, why not at the state level? Instead of the proverbial eggs all in one basket, you put them in fifty, and while some of them may go contrary to Faith and Tradition, not all of them will, whereas at the federal level it becomes an all-or-nothing proposition with a resulting lock-step sameness across the land. Plus, with the fifty baskets idea you can simply move to a state that agrees with you if and when it comes to that.

And what’s with these marriage licenses anyway? Oh … they’re to show that one is married. Okay. I go to a church and get married. I have a record of this. Now, when someone asks me if I’m married, I show them the certificate.

Well, suppose I am gay and it is after the fifty battles have been fought and I live in one of the states that have come to recognize my desire to live as man and man or wife and wife (sorry, I don’t really know how to put that). In this case I simply go to the government to get the record I need because it is through the institution of government that this arrangement has been instituted. In other words, isn’t the problem that we have taken marriage out of the hands of one institution (the Church) and put it into the hands of another (the Government)? Why not simply put it back where it was in the beginning and let the people of each state decide on the “gay marriage” issue?

Ditto for abortion. Right now this has law-of-the-land status on the majority opinion of nine. The Christian Right would have it decided on the majority opinion of fifty. Ron Paul would simply uphold the Tenth Amendment which would have it uniquely decided by majorities in each and every state, either by Legislative Body or Referendum.

It seems that our Republic is quite democratic after all. You just have to do what the Constitution says, which is what Ron Paul has been saying for how many years?

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Congress, Just War and a Young Man’s Choice

Published by
SueM
at September 23, 2007 in Federal Government, Non-Interventionism, Iraq War, Foreign Policy and Ron Paul Awareness. 2 Comments

I have a friend whose son is grappling with the issue of our involvement in Iraq. In his late teens, he knows kids who have either signed up or are thinking about it and right now he supports the war. My friend recently wondered out loud what to say to her son in hopes of broadening his view. With the somewhat obsessive and very fruitful habit I’ve developed over the last several months, I volunteered to look into it. Here’s what I found:

First, a quote from from a speech given by the Hon. Ron Paul of Texas before the U.S. House of Representatives, September 7, 2006 entitled “Big Government Solutions Don’t Work/ The Law of Opposites”

With no consistent moral defense of true liberty, the continued erosion of personal and property rights is inevitable. This careless disregard for liberty, our traditions, and the Constitution have brought us disaster, with a foreign policy of military interventionism supported by the leadership of both parties. Hopefully, some day this will be radically changed.

Unfortunately it seems to be no longer common knowledge that “a foreign policy of military interventionism” is not allowed under the US Constitution. Of the young man or woman volunteering to serve in the US Armed Forces today, I would ask:

Going to war is serious business. Are you willing to do so for a war that has not been authorized by the People through their Representatives in Congress, whose members have taken a solemn oath to uphold the Constitution?

Ron Paul often frames the argument in terms of the just war theory. In his article Onward Christian Soldiers? Christian Perspectives on War, Timothy J. Demy, Th.D. Commander, Chaplain Corps, U.S. Navy lists seven principles or criteria for just war, five for the nation “on the way to war” (jus ad bellum):

Just cause
Just intention
Last resort
Formal declaration
Limited objectives

and two for the military forces “in the midst of war” (jus in bello):

Proportionate means
Noncombatant immunity

Commander Demy then continues:

The just war theory has three important functions. First, it seeks to limit the devastation and outbreak of war. Second, the just war theory offers a common moral framework and language with which to discuss issues of war in the public arena. As Christians and as citizens it gives us a starting point for discussion and cultural engagement. Third, just war theory gives moral guidance to individuals in developing their conscience, responsibilities, and response. When the war drums sound, they are often loud and there is frequently confusion, competition, and chaos rather than clear thinking about the moral and biblical consequences of what is occurring. Just war theory is a tool for responsible Christian living and citizenship

It is reasonable to suppose that when when our founders decided Congress shall have the Power to provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States, and with this the Power to declare War (Art I Sec 8), they had in mind the just war tradition developed over hundreds of years under the influence of not only Christianity but Roman law and Greek philosophy as well.

In these times we have plenty of destructive means at hand with which to wage war. Now more than ever we need the moral compass that limits their use, made plain by the just war tradition handed down through the ages for the good of all mankind.

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Ron Paul Wants To Eliminate What?

Published by
nonrate
at September 11, 2007 in Federal Government, Environment, Healthcare and Education. 7 Comments

I was on YouTube today and watched a segment of the interview Ron Paul did with George Stephanopoulos on ABC a few months ago. Scrolling through the comments, I read:

You realize Ron Paul will eliminate the dept. of Education, the dept. of transportation, FEMA, and the EPA. He voted against a bill trying to defend Network Neutrality. He wants health care solely in the hands of conglomerates! Are you shitting me? Wake the fuck up.

It’s funny because every time a fearful citizen brings up these points, they do so without understanding what they mean.

For example, I’ve heard the concern of losing the Department of Education come up quite a bit. I have to admit, when I first heard about Paul wanting to obliterate it, my ears perked up too –why would Ron Paul want to eliminate education?

No, Ron Paul doesn’t want to eliminate education. When one says “Eliminating the Department of Education,” many hear “Eliminate Education.” This most likely is due to people believing if a federal department exists for a particular societal function, that federal department controls all aspects of it across the country. This is an easy and almost natural assumption for one to take, but the reality is almost always untrue.

In fact, we super-smart Americans have allowed ourselves to be fooled into believing that all executive departments are solely responsible for their respective “named” functions in our society. Not only have we made asses out of ourselves for assuming as much, it goes against the American ideal to have such a centralized entity in the first place.

One problem is, most people don’t know what the federal departments’ do, are responsible for, or what their main objectives are. To shed some light on this, let’s explore the Department of Education.

The Department of Education, or it’s equivalent, was first enacted in 1867. It didn’t last very long – one year later, it had the misfortune of being downgraded to an office. That is until 1979, when Jimmy Carter broke the department level functions off of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare. Between 1868 and 1979, there was no department dedicated to education.

For those who find the elimination of this department preposterous today, Ronald Reagan himself promised to find a way to eliminate this department during his presidency. He did it with the support of the Republican Party, and its pundits. He did try, but failed to do so. In fact, in 1979, at the onset of the act to create this department, the Democratic party opposed it while the Republicans supported it. And yet, the same Republican Party believes it’s necessary today. A lot can flip-flop in twenty five years.

So what does the department actually do? I couldn’t find anything all too compelling, at least, nothing the states can’t or haven’t been doing on their own. Because education is almost exclusively managed at the state level, all this department’s main function is is to “formulate federal funding programs involving education and to enforce federal educational laws regarding privacy and civil rights.” It exists to play the role of policing the states’ own education police and to distribute taxpayer money that the states would do themselves if the additional funds weren’t diverted to the federal government for that purpose to begin with.

In other words, nothing we can’t live without.

Have they been doing a good job? In my opinion, absolutely not. Ask those around you if they believe public education in America today is better than it was before 1990. How about before 1980? In my experience, most agree the quality of education has diminished significantly in the last twenty seven years. So it would seem the Department of Education’s existence coincides with the decline of American public educational quality. And yet for many of the years before it existed on its own, educational quality seemed better.

So when others look at Ron Paul as some nutcase because he wants to eliminate departments and government functions that “sound” like they do something important, those individuals would benefit from actually understanding what it is the department does, before making such judgements. As in the example with the Department of Education, you can easily break down this logic for most or possibly all of these department’s. For example, consider some other areas people express fear or laugh at when Ron Paul discusses their elimination:

The IRS

Anyone who claims to understand what the IRS does and why it’s required for the good of the nation is a liar. Ask them if they have memorized the code of the IRS. When they say no, ask them to do so –they can’t. In fact, the odds of being able to do so are cosmic in scale. Then you’d have the challenge of understanding them. We had no IRS before 1913, and Ron Paul is not suggesting to eliminate revenue generation for the Federal government. He’s advocating not taxing individual income to get it. Period.

FEMA

They spoke for themselves during Hurricane Katrina, did they not? Citizens are responsible for helping citizens in the event of a disaster, at least in my opinion. Citizens can centralize a solution for this in private industry. Its being in government control has been a disaster. The concept of having an organized and funded group to assist in disaster recovery isn’t a bad one at all. In fact, it’s rather helpful to a functional society. But FEMA’s role is not centralized exclusively for this purpose as most would believe. And we’ve all seen how it’s been managed. I’d prefer to see a private industry take the reins on this one.

The Environmental Protection Agency

Having environmental regulations and laws for private industry to follow is one thing. Having a department act as a policing force for them is another. We don’t need it – removing the EPA doesn’t mean industry will be able to dump chemicals anywhere they want. We already have laws against harming individuals by contaminating the environment, so if you think eliminating the EPA eliminates the laws protecting the environment, stop being scared of that, it doesn’t.

Net Neutrality

Ron Paul most likely fears having the government micro-manage competition will stagnate growth on the internet, and simply doesn’t want government in control of maintaining neutrality. Think about it, if more competition were allowed in communications, the minute this happened a new company would be able to materialize without the unnecessary resistance or costs that exist today, to offer a better service, and people would have a choice to move to it. Simple. The problems with Net Neutrality are problems with other existing laws and not enough competition, and Ron Paul as president would help eliminate that restrictive red-tape.

Health Care

Although I agree that a socialized health care system is not in the interest of the federal government, I do agree health care has become a crisis of sorts for us. Unfortunately, much of this crisis is caused by poor judgment many Americans make concerning their own health and well being. Regardless, I would like to see a working solution myself. But as one would look at a resume and check references when hiring a new employee, I cannot in good faith hire the federal government to perform this function. Even though Ron Paul is against socialized health care, I have heard him state several times he also believes health care, at least for the elderly, is a necessity and is something he would work to promote a federal solution for. I will say this, I’d prefer to put a trillion dollars into my fellow citizens’ health care than bombs and ammunition to kill Iraqis.

Bottom line, if someone wishes to debate a Ron Paul over elimination of a Department based on its label, without knowing what it does, how it works, or how it contributes to the citizen… they do so foolishly. And from this point forward, you’ll be able to understand how much of a fool they appear. It’s like debating how my dad can cut metal with his teeth because he looks bigger than your dad. I know, it’s disturbing, but we live amongst a large group of adult kindergarteners who have the right to vote. I, for one, find that preposterous.

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Understanding Ron Paul’s Stance on Abortion

Published by
CorieW
at August 17, 2007 in Federal Government, Abortion, Political Issues and Ron Paul Awareness. 14 Comments

I am an avid Ron Paul supporter. I am also pro-choice whereas he holds strong pro-life views, yet I agree with him completely on abortion. Confused yet? Read on–this is the exact misunderstanding of abortion that I want to eradicate–you can be pro-choice and against the terms of Roe v. Wade. How? Because Roe v. Wade is unconstitutional, and Ron Paul recognizes this without a pro-life bias as I do without a pro-choice predisposition of my own.

To justify the terms of Roe v. Wade, a “constitutional right to privacy” is often referenced, but I challenge any reader of the Constitution to point out to me exactly where this supposed right to privacy is actually written–and how it possibly overrules the terms of the 10th Amendment, which specifically says: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved for the States respectively, or to the people.”

The supposed “Constitutional right to privacy” started with a Supreme Court case heard in 1965 called Griswold v. Connecticut. The facts of the case surround a Connecticut law that made it illegal for married couples to be counseled on the use of contraceptives. Absurd as the statute may have been, Constitutionally speaking, it shouldn’t have been struck down by the highest federal court, as it was a state issue. As the Supreme Court Justice I most admire, Judge Hugo Black (who never went anywhere without a Constitution in his pocket) puts it in his written dissent on this case:

I feel constrained to add that the law is every bit as offensive to me as it is to my Bretheren of the majority and my Brothers HARLAN, WHITE and GOLDBERG, who, reciting reasons why it is offensive to them, hold it unconstitutional. There is no single one of the graphic and eloquent strictures and criticisms fired at the policy of this Connecticut law either by the Court’s opinion or by those of my concurring Brethern to which I cannot subscribe - expect that their conclusion that the evil qualities they see in the law make it unconstitutional.

Taking a brave stance against activist judges, who characteristically bend the terms of the Constitution to justify their individual agendas, Justice Black sets aside his personal convictions to let the governmental process work as it was intended to, as Dr. Ron Paul would with abortion by revoking the privilege of making rather than interpreting law from the Supreme Court and restoring the specified Constitutional restraints on government. Abortion, as an infinitely complex scientific and moral issue, would then be left to the states - exactly what our Founding Fathers would have wanted, as they were as a whole quite weary of exactly what the federal government has become today: an uncontrollable and power driven centralized body of government with a disturbing disregard for state’s rights.

As a young female who has grown up in the typically “Blue State” of Massachusetts and recently spent two years at a very liberal private school in New York City, I’ve heard the feminist argument that it’s not the place of “nine men in robes to determine our fate.” Well ladies, you’re exactly right. What the nine judges did in Griswold and Roe is what I call “creating a shortcut to liberty”, because you may agree with their conclusions as a staunch pro-choice advocate, but the ruling is in effect violating your rights as an American citizen, because these judges were appointed to interpret law, not voted on to write legislation.

You vote for your representative in Congress as well as on a more local level, and that gives you a voice. Petition your city/town and state governments–vote, participate and if you’re pro-choice, don’t be a hypocrite and complain about these “old men” who know nothing about your body as a modern woman–because something tells me it would be these exact women who would be the first to become militant if Roe was to be revoked, yet it was the same “clueless old men” who set the terms of Roe into motion.

As my Dad puts it, democracy is cathartic to none other than we, the people, and as strongly as I believe a woman has a right to choose, another individual feels that life starts at conception and thusly that abortion is murder. Therefore, from a governmental standpoint, a moral issue such as abortion need be a battle between the people, and the dissenters in a specific state can admit defeat when local democracy works, not when a majority of Supreme Court judges bend the law to accomodate a “progressive” social agenda.

Knowing the complex medical and ethical details surrounding abortion is not the job of a Supreme Court judge, but understanding how our Constitutional Republic operates is; exactly why experts on local levels should be addressing abortion and any other issue not expressly discussed within the Constitution, not the federal government. In fact, Oyez.com, the fantastic website chock full of Supreme Court case information and MP3s of oral arguments that I generally use when referencing a case, states in a summary conclusion of Griswold v. Connecticut that “Though the Constitution does not explicity protect a general right to privacy, the various guarantees within the Bill of Rights create penumbras, or zones, that establish a right to privacy.”

That right there is all the information I need as a strict constructionist to determine, as Judge Black did, that the Griswold ruling seems to be a manipulation of the Constitution by a group of federal judges following their instincts rather than what is written in the Constituiton. If the people of Conneticut felt offended by this law, they should have petitioned to their state government, which is Constitutionally given the power to deal with the local laws to protect people from an overzealous federal government.

The infamous Roe v. Wade case of 1973, based highly on the unconstitutional precedent set in Griswold, became part of an equally as destructive precedent of the Supreme Court acting as lawmakers rather than interpreters. Again, refferencing Oyez.com, an effect of Roe v. Wade was that, “The decision gave a woman total autonomy over the pregnancy during the first trimester and defined different levels of state interest for the second and third trimesters. As a result, the laws of 46 states were affected by the Court’s ruling.” Constitutionally speaking, the Supreme Court defining rather than interpreting seems a bit out of line to me, as I would assume it does to Dr. Paul - or to any advocate of the Constitutional rule of law!

I ended a paper on interpreting the Constitution that I wrote for a class entitled “Law and Justice in America” last semester with the following statement and question:

“Fundamentally, the idea of letting the Man alone is integral to the basic intent inherent in the Constitution. But if one is to employ an analysis of historical jurisprudence it must be noted that if the Supreme Court votes in a way that seems to allow for more expansive freedoms, parallel to the intent of the Framers, it is in effect violating the indispensable balance of power between the three branches of government that is purposefully outlined in the Constitution. It is blatantly not the Supreme Court’s place to restrict state power to the extent that it sometimes has in the name of ‘freedom’, because what freedom is there when the American people themselves have no voice?”

I now respectfully ask my current readers to ponder the same question and to consider the importance of keeping the federal government at bay on ethical issues such as abortion, which are best suited to be dealt with locally, not nationally. Despite the fact that I disagree with Ron Paul on his contention that life starts at conception, I agree completely with his call to make complicated social problems state issues. Why? Because I’ve read the Constitution.

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