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Obama Merely on Globalist/Internationalist Continuum
What the American elite and ruling class fears more than an end to deficit spending and a return to the gold standard, is that the United States return to an isolationist foreign policy.
Although the “globalist” precedent-setting and poll boosting that is the underlying purpose of Obama’s Libyan action has been mentioned elsewhere by the likes of Limbaugh and Mark Levin, the legal aspects of his action bear analysis because Obama has said some extraordinary things which suggest he feels he has no need couch the globalist nature of U.S. military action in the language of national defense nor “national interest.”
As he said in a speech given in El Salvador, “we have confidence that we are not going in alone, and it is our military that is being volunteered by others to carry out missions that are important not only to us, but are important internationally. ”
But despite the protestations of his conservative critics, the use of the American military for international, United Nations sanctioned warfare has been the law of the land since 1949. In that year Congress passed the United Nations Participation Act, which grants the President the authority to send American forces into combat merely in support of peacemaking missions approved by the United Nations. The UNPA allows the President to do this without obtaining the authority of Congress beforehand.
Section 6 of the UNPA states: “The President shall not be deemed to require the authorization of the Congress to make available to the Security Council on its call in order to take action under article 42 of said Charter (UN Charter).” To date, the courts have upheld this under the dictates of customary treaty law, where treaties supersede domestic law-yes, even the U.S. Constitution.
In light of this old law and the decades-long globalist orientation of the U.S. military, the question of constitutional war powers appears to be moot. The more important and poignant question should be “When were we asked to make it so?”
Perhaps the answer to that was given by the court historian of the liberal regime, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., in a 1995 symposium on American isolationism (for them a chronic problem). Notice in what he says that the isolationists tendencies of the people were suspect, so it is implied the question never would be directly put to the people. It would be engineered out of them. Do you expect anything less my dear readers? He said:
For President Roosevelt the great objective in 1943–1945, besides winning the war, was to tie the United States into a postwar structure of peace. The memory, still so vivid, of the repudiation of the League two short decades before was not encouraging. Isolationism had been the American norm for a century and a half; internationalism was only a two-year Wilsonian aberration. No one could assume that isolationism would simply wither away. It had, Roosevelt felt, to be brought to a definite end by binding American commitments to an international order. And he felt additionally that as many of these commitments as possible should be made while the war was still on, before peace could return the nation to its old isolationist habits. F.D.R. said privately, “Anybody who thinks that isolationism is dead in this country is crazy. As soon as this war is over, it may well be stronger than ever.”
So, while the war was still on, Roosevelt organized international meetings at Bretton Woods, Dumbarton Oaks, San Francisco and elsewhere to involve the United States in the international machinery that would deal with postwar questions. In particular, in the words of the diplomat Charles E. Bohlen, who served as White House liaison to the State Department, F.D.R. saw the United Nations as “the only device that could keep the United States from slipping back into isolationism.” And, as Winston Churchill said on his return from the Yalta Conference, this new international organization must “not shrink from establishing its will against the evildoer or evil planner in good time and by force of arms.” Once again, the ultimate guarantee of peace, the ultimate test of collective security and world law lay in military enforcement.
That the American people do not understand that their military is the spearhead of global governance and the United Nations is nothing new.
That they believe their law is purely derived from the U.S. Constitution and not from international legal institutions is nothing new either.
In a country that continues to celebrate a war (WW2) that had as its most important outcomes the enslavement of 1/3 of humanity under the iron heel of International Communism and the establishment of global governance by its “most popular” president, is it any wonder?
When the American people wake up and begin to understand that their corrupt elite has been using their blood, labor and treasure to subvert America and end its sovereignty in the name of the New World Order, I certainly hope there will be hell to pay.
I would not expect anything less.
(Hold on, it’s coming. Hold on, it’s almost here.)
Another History Based on KGB Archives Proves Extensive Communist Espionage into U.S.
…which along with the notion that Sen. Joe McCarthy was right, would have been most likely laughed at by the History Department from which I got my B.A. in the 1980s.
My favorite part of the review:
Nonetheless, in their concluding chapter the authors also make the very important point that ‘…Soviet espionage in the United States changed history. The espionage-enabled rapid acquisition of the atomic bomb emboldened Stalin’s policies in the early Cold War and contributed to his decision to authorize North Korea’s invasion of South Korea. Soviet espionage also led to the loss of America’s ability to read Soviet military communications and ensured that the Korean invasion was a surprise for which American forces were unprepared.’
You don’t say? You mean I went through an entire four-year History program (and some graduate school) only to find out now that just about everything I was taught about the Cold War (it was a massive deception and U.S. propoganda effort solely to justify imperialist wars) was wrong?
I want my money back!
John Earl Haynes, Harvey Klehr, and Alexander Vassiliev; Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America, Yale University Press: New Haven, CT,
-Review by Benjamin L. Landis
In the opening sentence of their preface, the authors John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr ask, “Is there anything new to be learned about Soviet espionage in America?” The answer is, of course, a resounding “Yes,” as they then demonstrate in the 500 plus pages of their text. Is their work the definitive history of KGB espionage in the United States? No. Nor can it be, as they themselves admit. “Frustratingly, archival information regarding intelligence and counterintelligence activities from the 1930s onward continues to be tightly held and parceled out in a miserly fashion.” One can say, however, that this book is as definitive a look at that history as we can hope for “until the likely far off day when Russian authorities open up the KGB’s archives for independent research.”
What gives this Spies its aura of historical authenticity and its aspiration to be “the most complete look at Soviet espionage in America we have yet had or will obtain” until the floodgates will be opened to Soviet archives? The answer: Alexander Vassiliev. Before plunging into the story itself the reader should definitely read the Preface and the Introduction. In the latter, Mr. Vassiliev, journalist and former KGB officer, explains how he was able to obtain access to KGB files and to prepare transcripts of KGB documents, which he later was able to take out of Russia after the breakup of the Soviet Union. His story is as fascinating as that of the Soviet agents and American spies whose activities are described in the Haynes, Klehr, and Vassiliev text.
The book is based to a large part on the facts reported by Mr. Vassiliev in his notebooks. The reader has every right to be very skeptical of the veracity and authenticity of what he reported. Messrs Haynes and Klehr certainly were. They had previously authored three other books on Soviet espionage and Communist activity in the United States. They were very familiar with the existing literature on the Soviet espionage covered by Mr. Vassiliev’s notebooks. As they explain in the Preface, they tested Mr. Vassiliev’s transcriptions thoroughly and became convinced that they were authentic. And so they have given us, with the collaboration of Mr. Vassiliev, as complete a history of KGB espionage in the United States from the 1930s to the early 1950s as we are likely to have in our lifetimes.
Messrs Haynes and Klehr are historians and they have written a serious history. The stories they recount are dramatic, melodramatic, oftentimes tragic, but they write with a historian’s detachment and matter-of-factness. Yet their telling is never bland, never dull. And the story they tell is fascinating. The reader is swept along, caught up in the tidal wave of Soviet espionage, captivated by the personalities of the Soviet KGB officials and the American spies.. The chapter titles indicate the various currents: “Alger Hiss: Case Closed”; “Enormous: The KGB Attack on the Anglo-American Atomic Project”; “The Journalist Spies”; “Infiltration of the U.S. Government”; Infiltration of the Office of Strategic Services”; “The XY Line: Technical, Scientific, and Industrial Espionage”.
In a conventional history with the title “The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America” a historian would have most probably concentrated on the organization of the Soviet espionage structure in the United States and on the actions of the members of that structure in developing and managing networks of spies. However, lacking access to the KGB files that would permit the writing of a conventionally organized, top-down history, the authors have, of necessity, adopted a bottom-up approach to their theme of rise and fall. They concentrate on the individual American spies recruited by the Communist Party, by Soviet officials, and voluntarily by the spies themselves. This technique renders their history more personal, less organizational, less procedural, and consequently more fascinating, more telling, and, yes, more agonizing. It is the story of a moment in American history when well meaning Americans for ideological reasons were willing, even eager, to betray their country for another in the belief that this latter country represented the fulfillment of the ideal human destiny.
One of the narrative techniques used by the authors that enhances considerably the impact of their story is the humanizing of these American “traitors” by telling the reader who they are, whence they came, what were their social, professional, and marital relations, what were their personalities. This is a history, not only of the rise and fall of the KGB in the United States, but also of the psychological anguish that coursed through American society in the 1930s and 1940s. Almost all of the American spies were ideologically motivated. The authors cite only two who were motivated by money, one of whom was unfortunately, a Congressman. They were from every stratum of American society: the wealthy, the privileged, the intellectuals, the well educated, the not well educated, the middle class, the poor, native-born, immigrants. Amazingly and happily the authors could identify only one African-American spy. The individual stories of these “lost” Americans make captivating and thought-provoking reading alongside the basic tale of the ups and downs of Soviet espionage in America.
In addition to its essential theme, the book finally puts to rest, or anyway, it should put to rest, the Alger Hiss story. The very first chapter is devoted to him and proves conclusively that he was, in fact, a Soviet spy. It also proves that Robert Oppenheimer was never a Soviet spy, although the authors recount the strenuous efforts made by the Soviets to recruit him. It also ends, or should end, any doubt about the guilt of the Rosenbergs. The book details the effectiveness of the spy network that Julius and Ethel Rosenberg managed. It also shows how unaware or unbelieving the American government was to the penetration of Soviet espionage throughout sensitive sectors of American society and government. It is difficult, if not almost impossible, to believe today that Whittaker Chambers, that much maligned bearer of bad tidings, as early as 1939 advised the Department of State that Alger Hiss was spying for the Soviet Union. It was not until almost 10 years later that he was finally brought to justice. Given the psychological atmosphere that developed in American society during the Cold War, and that is perpetuated today, it is also very difficult to realize that the FBI took almost no interest in the possibility of Soviet espionage until the late 1940s and then primarily because certain spies gave up their allegiance to the Soviet Union and turned themselves into witnesses against their former comrades. John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr expose all of these phenomena, as elements in their description of the rise and fall of KGB espionage.
In their concluding chapters they make two very important points.
In Chapter 9, “The KGB in America: Strengths, Weaknesses, and Structural Problems” they show that the real-life KGB did not live up to its romantic reputation as “a near superhuman organization, staffed by skilled officers carrying out sophisticated schemes designed by clever Moscow overlords…” They conclude from the case studies of the Soviet espionage efforts that comprise the substance of their book: “The KGB was not a ten-foot tall superman. In the world of intelligence, it was surely a strapping six-footer, but one that tripped over its own shoelaces from time to time and occasionally shot itself in the foot. And in the late 1930s, it turned into a paranoid schizophrenic who heard voices telling it to cut off its limbs, and it proceeded to do just that.”
Nonetheless, in their concluding chapter the authors also make the very important point that “…Soviet espionage in the United States changed history. The espionage-enabled rapid acquisition of the atomic bomb emboldened Stalin’s policies in the early Cold War and contributed to his decision to authorize North Korea’s invasion of South Korea. Soviet espionage also led to the loss of America’s ability to read Soviet military communications and ensured that the Korean invasion was a surprise for which American forces were unprepared.”
Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America captures the realities, the successes and failures of Soviet espionage in the United States as well as its eventual dismantling. It is history that is not well known by most Americans or badly understood by that minority who has acquired some knowledge of the phenomenon. But it is essential history, if we wish to fully understand not only the Cold War, but also American society of the 1930s and 1940s, out of which have grown much of the attitudes and beliefs that shape our actions in today’s world.
The Constitution and Health Care
The Federalist Blog explains the politics behind judicial decisions that have allowed the unconstitutional expansion of the Federal government in the United States.
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What Constitution?
If you think fighting the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is a matter solely devoted to filing lawsuits you are deeply mistaken. The reason lawsuits will have little effect is because the entire judicial system is a house of cards built upon a foundation of fiction and lies the court is willing to jealousy defend even if they must continue with deceit. Justices on the court are no longer concerned with defined limited powers or original meaning behind enumerated powers anymore then they are interested in why States refused to surrender domestic concerns over to the general government.
The court has increasingly grown in modern times to concern itself only in declaring what it feels the Constitution ought to have said instead of what it was approved by the people of the States to have said.
Lawsuits against Obamacare is by no means frivolous, but because the court in the end will always choose not to disturb the great centralization of power that has been judicially created by deferring to Congress. Example: When the Civil Rights Bill of 1964 was challenged, the court held that “The Civil Rights Act of 1964, as here applied, we find to be plainly appropriate in the resolution of what the Congress found to be a national commercial problem of the first magnitude.”
In other words, since a majority in Congress had decided discrimination was something they ought to regulate within State limits the court was not going to entertain any serious factual analysis to whether the regulation of commerce ever had anything remotely to do with intrastate discrimination. This act of judicial restraint has become a valuable defensive tool the court employs to protect the centralization of federal power within State limits.
Likewise, members of Congress will avoid the question all together by pointing to the courts past deference when the court would uphold the power of Congress to “regulate many aspects of American life” through the Commerce Clause. This deferring back-and-forth assures questions of limited powers and original meaning will go ignored by both branches.
Neither the court nor many members of Congress have any desire to defend their self-created powers publically over anything having to do with buying and selling because they know they cannot defend such powers in any open, honest public forum where facts can be presented to dispute the courts numerous instances of ignoring historical facts.
The court would consider it a nightmare to have to defend such positions as “the power to regulate commerce includes the power to regulate the prices at which commodities in that commerce are dealt in and practices affecting such prices” in the face of overwhelming evidence such nonsense was never part of the practice of regulating commerce. Price control never remotely had anything to do with the regulating the exchange of trade for that was something strictly left to the exclusive legislative powers in making rules for buying and selling – something Congress does not possess intrastate. The fact is the regulation of commerce was solely to protect or encourage domestic manufactures through imposts and duties on importable articles of trade insures the court will avoid any evidentiary analysis of its meaning and constitutional purpose. (See here for a historical analysis of the regulation of commerce.)
The court will almost assuredly resort to the great defense shield of denial known as “stare decisis” as a clever way of protecting the courts own judicial malpractice from scrutiny while at the same time leaving its vast centralization of power in Congress intact. Therefore, all the lawsuits in the world challenging Congress or the courts own erroneous interpretations of the past will fail.
A better way to attack Obamacare than with lawsuits will be to confront justices of the court and members of Congress indirectly with the truth. Wouldn’t take long before the media starts questioning why they court is not responding to questions of how their stated precedent could be so wrong.
An example for an indirect question for the court is a half-page Ad in the WSJ that asks the court and Congress how did the States and other Nations regulate their commerce with each other before and after the adoption of the Constitution? Answer: The Levying of imposts and duties on “goods, wares, and merchandizes” imported.
Billboards could quote James Madison on the purpose behind the power to regulate commerce among the States as growing “out of the abuse of the power by the importing States in taxing the non-importing, and was intended as a negative and preventive provision against injustice among the States themselves, rather than as a power to be used for the positive purposes of the General Government.”
Alternatively, how about quoting Madison on the understood meaning of regulating commerce: “The power (regulation of commerce) has been understood and used, by all commercial and manufacturing nations, as embracing the object of encouraging manufactures. It is believed that not a single exception can be named.”
As these two quotes show (find more here), the regulation of commerce was never understood to embrace laws on buying or selling. If it had meant that you could bet none of the original 13 States would had ever consented to adopting the Constitution.
While such tactics might not change anything over night, it could ultimately prove to influence the court enough to realize their bogus constitutional revisionism lacks critical factual analysis, and thus, makes them nothing less than a judicial accessory to despotism by continuing with their game of constitutional deceit.
Congress’ Limited Tax and Spend Power
Below is the full text of Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution:
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
To borrow money on the credit of the United States;
To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;
To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;
To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;
To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;
To establish Post Offices and Post Roads;
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;
To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offenses against the Law of Nations;
To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;
To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;
To provide and maintain a Navy;
To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;
To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;
To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings; And
To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.
Notice that there are a number of enumerated powers listed directly after the opening clause of the section containing the general welfare provision. It is also important to note, as James Madison pointed out in Federalist 41, that the listed enumerated powers and the opening clause are only separated by a semi-colon and not a period.
Also notice that the necessary and proper clause explicitly grants Congress the power to “make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States.”
For Madison, the meaning of both parts of this Section were obvious on their face: The Constitution granted Congress the power to tax and spend only for those national priorities listed in the Constitution. Madison believed that this was plainly made clear by the construction of the text because to assume the general welfare clause or the necessary and proper clause granted unlimited powers to Congress, would make the powers expressly listed in this section (and the rest of the Constitution) redundant.
Madison’s position is explained here:
According to Madison in Federalist #41, the statement of the power to tax and spend serves as the general statement with the manners in which that general power is to be exercised explicitly enumerated thereafter.
For example, if the portion of the clause “to provide for the common defense” was indeed a standalone power, why would the founders then explicitly list a power “To raise and support armies”? It would be redundant. Does providing for the “common defense” exclude the raising and supporting of armies? Absolutely not. Therefore the only reasonable construction is that the power to raise and support armies is the explicit enumeration of the manner in which the general power to provide for the common defense is to be carried into effect.
We can then deal with the “promote the General Welfare” portion of the clause in a similar manner. An example of the manner in which the General Welfare is to be promoted can be demonstrated by the power “To establish post offices and post roads”. Again, any alternative construction renders the enumerated power redundant.
Lastly, the founders were very precise in their wording. They used the words “person” or “citizen” when speaking of individuals and the phrase “United States” or the word “union” when referring to the federation of states. The general power to tax and spend in Article I, Section 8 clearly states that the powers are directed at the “United States” not “persons” or “citizens” therefore the power applies only to objects which will promote the solidarity and prosperity of the union of states, not its citizens.
It is beyond comprehension that any court could so disastrously misinterpret an entire section of the Constitution. As Madison predicted in Federalist #41, just such a construction has led to a Congress limited only by its own imagination rendering the Constitution itself completely irrelevant.
Given that one of the framers of the Constitution believed that Congress’ powers were so limited, shouldn’t the Courts revisit this interpretation given that through the health care reform bill, Congress has claimed vast new powers for itself?
Why Three Crazy Attacks Were Blamed on the Right
In the last post on this blog I included links to the website of Patrick Bedell. Because of the name of his blog, “Rothbardix,” and the content contained within, I concluded that Bedell’s politics were based on the libertarian philosophy of Murray Rothbard, a prominent thinker in the Austrian School of economics; a wing of the classical school of economics that has produced the essential conservative thinkers Ludwig Von Mises and Friedrick Hayek.
When I first conveyed the information about Bedell, I did so knowing that given the evidence about the sources of his political philosophy and the information contained on his website, that the Left would seize on this information in order to blame the Right and conservatives somehow for Bedell’s attack on the Pentagon. I did not think that there was any reason to defend Rothbard’s theories or to show whether Bedell had misinterpreted them or not. The fact that someone who was reportedly mentally ill decided to attack police officers at the Pentagon should speak for itself.
When I post such information my intent is to be as objective as possible, while I wait to see how far the Left will go in concocting their horror stories even before all the information is out. In the case of Bedell, the Left’s response was no different nor any more deliberative than the knee-jerk attacks blaming “right-wing” extremism for the death of census worker Bill Sparkman 2009 and the “falling down kamikaze” attacks committed by Joe Stack a few weeks ago. Without getting into a long list of examples, let this article by the Christian Science Monitor suffice to show the typical pre-fab template that is endemic to the liberal mind when it contemplates such events.
However, as has been proven here, Bedell was actually a registered Democrat.
Now, while it is tempting to rub their faces in it with this new information, much like I did in this post on the Sparkman case, like most conservatives, I am reluctant to play the blame game and infer by some massive stretch of credulity, that Bedell’s conspiracy theories and his registration with the Democratic Party proves that all such people and their philospohies are intrinsically violent and suggest they are a clear and present danger to the Republic.
Nevertheless, one must point out that the Left’s reactionary response to these three attacks and the fact they repeatedly followed the pre-fab template blaming “right wing extremism” without the evidence to prove it, suggests that there is something quite disturbed or disturbing about their world view. I think it has gotten to the point where we can see the results of living out the intellectual life on the squalls of theory, and it just may be that …dare I say… it has driven the Left a little crazy.
Is there any better explanation for those who continue to rely on an unproven invective and who, by doing so, are creating a very poisonous atmosphere for political debate in the country?
The Other McCain has written an article about this, and in it he suggests that in fact, the Left (yes, the entire Left) believes that their opposition is suffering from political psychosis. He writes:
Very little knowledge of Bedell’s personal story was necessary, however, for some people to construe his Pentagon attack as politically important. They had their explanations ready-made, thanks to an army of “experts” who had been warning since last year that political opposition to the Obama administration was inherently dangerous, rooted in irrational malevolence with an extraordinary potential for violence.
McCain then links back to an earlier article he published in the American Spectator where he discussed the origin of this belief amongst leftists. In December, Congressman Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island gave one of the most remarkable speeches in recent memory concerning health care reform. In that speech, Whitehouse relied on the theories contained in The Conspiratorial Style of American Politics by Richard Hofstadter written in 1965. He even read from the book while on the floor.
Ever since Obama was elected, the ideas contained in this book have been the preferred approach by the Left to attack conservative opposition to their agenda. There have been any number of left-wing pundits who have directly quoted from the book in attempts to explain the tea party and any number of others who clearly accept the book’s main premise. So much so, that it is clear that progressives use clinical psychology as a tool in their attacks against conservatives. For instance, here is one of the more..ahem.. extremist quotes from Whithouse’s floor speech:
Why all this discord and discourtesy, all this unprecedented destructive action? All to break the momentum of our young president. They are desperate to break this president. They have ardent supporters who are nearly hysterical at the very election of President Barack Obama. The ‘birthers,’ the fanatics, the people running around in right-wing militias and Aryan support groups, it is unbearable to them that President Obama should exist.
As McCain points out in his AmSpec article, Hofstadter based the theories contained in The Conspiratorial Style on the ideas of Theodor Adorno of the Frankfurt School. Adorno, a committed Marxist and leading light in the doctrine of Critical Theory, developed the convenient concept hat all political opposition to left-liberalism was rooted in psychological maladjustment; in effect that conservatism was pathological. In fact, Adorno’s most influential work, “the altarpeice” of the Frankfurt School, was his book The Authoritarian Personality, where he developed a subjective scale through which he claimed to be able to rate how those with middle class, conservative, or Christian values would support a racist and a pre- fascist politics.
The obvious subjectivity of Adorno’s theory has always posed a problem for empiricists. Many have questioned whether “authoritarianism” is a personality trait that can be measured scientifically at all. But others have challenged the theory on other levels. Shortly after The Authoritarian Personality was published, researchers in psychology recognized that the Frankfurt School failed to recognize authoritarian tendencies on the Left. This led to a whole range of studies-not necessarily rooted in psycho-analysis- that attempted to analyze political ideologies, some of which showed that adherents to left-wing ideologies displayed a higher tendency or degree of authoritarianism than the right-wing.
Due to the left-wing bias in American academia, many students have heard about Adorno, the Frankfurt School and Hofstadter’s The Paranoid Style. However, many have never been exposed to the field of psychological research that has shown left-wing ideology produces a high degree of authoritarianism. For instance, one of the most prominent studies was conducted in the 1950s by H.J. Eysneck. In his book The Psychology of Politics, Eysenck showed that the most authoritarian of the political groups studied were Communists. In other groundbreaking works, like The Uses and Abuses of Psychology and Sense and Nonsense, Eysenck showed how the application of psycho-analysis to social psychology was flawed. Eventually, Eysenck declared that Freudian psycho-analysis was a pseudo-science, and in light of the evidence, it should be dismissed as such. His 1992 book, Decline and Fall of the Freudian Empire, details this idea.
Even though Eysenck’s findings should have called into question the theoretical foundations of books like The Paranoid Style long ago, other objective studies of political ideology should have also challenged the Left’s obduracy on this subject. For instance, a study conducted by Rokeach in 1960 developed a scale for dogmatism, a characteristic he found was possessed by those from all political ideologies. In another study, Balik and Kubat showed how left wing authoritarianism could be defined. Characteristics of left-wing authoritarianism feature:
1. A high degree of submission to authorities which attempt to subvert the authorities currently ruling in the given society.
2. Generalized aggression towards the established elites or those who support them.
3. A high degree of dedication to the norms accepted by the revolutionary authorities. Left-wing authoritarians are also dogmatic and ethnocentric. Chiefly, left-wing authoritarianism correlates with its right-wing counterpart.
So, even though I have a huge problem with the application of science, or as Eysenck would have it “pseudo-science,” to determining the nature of political belief and using it to predict political behavior, in light of the research, it is obvious that the idea of the authoritarian personality cannot be isolated to analyze only the political Right. That is intellectual dishonesty and politicized science writ large.
The Left has been using The Paranoid Style ad nauseum in order to bludgeon conservative criticism of Obama’s radical social agenda, and it is clear that their tendency towards dismissing the tea parties and other opponents as “crazy” and “dangerous” comes directly from the Marxist perspective bred in the laboratories of the Frankfurt School of Social Research. It is ironic that when leftist supporters of Obama bash conservatives for labeling him a socialist, they do this through an ideological prism developed by German Marxists.
As The Other McCain has shown, it is this ideological prism which is the source of the Left’s reactionary impulse to blame conservatives for any violence that appears political. However, as I have shown, there are many violent incidents that go unreported and are impliedly acceptable or considered “understandable” by the Left as violence is indeed, an aspect of its strategy.
It remains a mystery why conservatives haven’t acquainted themselves with the research on the authoritarian personality that has developed since The Frankfurt School’s original. In light of the development of the theory conservatives can use it to show how much the radical, violent and totalitarian modern Left is the really dangerous political movement in our times.
Because it extends beyond the mere ironic, conservatives should be making the case that the Left’s obduracy in repeatedly blaming conservatism for the recent attacks despite the evidence, is itself, a characteristic of the authoritarian personality discovered by social psychology. Instead of always being on the receiving end of high theory, conservatives could also use these discoveries to point out the authoritarian, violent, paranoid, and dangerous tendencies of various Marxist and leftist groups in history.
Need an example? How about this:
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Honduran Generals Cleared for Actions During Crisis
…Or how the international Left got the crisis in Honduras completely wrong.
Honduras judge clears generals, coup amnesty OK’d
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras – A Supreme Court judge cleared Honduras’ military commanders Tuesday in the coup that toppled Manuel Zelaya, and hours later lawmakers approved amnesty for the ousted leader and all those involved in his removal.
The two measures — combined with Wednesday’s inauguration of a new president, conservative rancher Porfirio Lobo — appeared to spell the last chapter in the bitter political dispute that led to Honduras’ international isolation.
Supreme Court President Jorge Rivera ruled the country’s top generals did not abuse their power in ordering soldiers to escort Zelaya out of the country at gunpoint June 28.
“Prosecutors failed to prove the military chiefs acted with malice,” he said in a statement.
The prosecution’s case did not question Zelaya’s ouster itself — only whether the six members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff went too far in flying him to Costa Rica after he was arrested by soldiers in a dispute over a constitutional referendum.
Those charged included the head of the armed forces, Gen. Romeo Vasquez, and five other top-ranking officers, including the air force chief, Gen. Javier Prince, and the navy commander, Gen. Juan Pablo Rodriguez. The abuse of power charge carries a sentence of three to six years in prison.
Rivera said in his ruling that the commanders were justified in sending Zelaya into exile because their actions were aimed at preserving peace in Honduras and they did not intend to cause the leftist president any harm.
Late Tuesday, Congress approved an amnesty for all those involved in the coup as well as for pending charges against Zelaya.
The body voted along party lines, with Zelaya’s Liberal Party abstaining and Lobo’s National Party voting in favor.
The amnesty, expected to take effect Wednesday, freed the military and other forces of any legal responsibility in the coup, and absolved Zelaya of charges of treason and abuse of power stemming from his campaign to change the constitution, despite the fact that the Supreme Court had ruled his plans for a referendum illegal.
Zelaya sneaked back into the country in September to reclaim the presidency and finish out his term, but has been holed up in the Brazilian Embassy since then, facing the threat of arrest if he leaves.
A deal has been brokered for Zelaya’s safe passage into exile Wednesday, the day Lobo is sworn in.
With the threat of arrest eliminated by the amnesty, Zelaya could apparently leave the embassy at will Wednesday.
But Honduran chief prosecutor Luis Alberto Rubi said Saturday that he was investigating Zelaya for allegedly embezzling at least $1.5 million in government funds. Such a charge would apparently not be covered by the amnesty.
Zelaya is scheduled to travel to the Dominican Republic as a private citizen Wednesday under an accord signed by Lobo and Dominican President Leonel Fernandez.
Lobo said he would accompany Fernandez to the embassy when Zelaya exits the diplomatic mission. “Can you imagine starting a term with a president locked up in an embassy … that is not fair for a president,” Lobo said.
Lobo said at a news conference Tuesday that he believes the United States will re-establish normal relations with Honduras as soon as he is sworn into office and that he is confident other countries will soon follow suit.
“With the United States, starting tomorrow everything will be normalized … they are going to state that to me officially tomorrow, when I am president,” Lobo said.
The U.S. Embassy in Honduras had no immediate comment on that claim.
Only the presidents of three other countries are scheduled to attend the inauguration: Taiwan, Panama and the Dominican Republic.
Conservative Shadowlands: “Are you a ‘Birther'”? Hmmm…
I have a friend who is more informed about politics and current events than perhaps anyone else I know. I would like to claim that he is a conservative, but recently he has declared himself a “centrist” and even put up the results of a test he took on Facebook that confirms he inhabits the “center” of the political spectrum.
I think I know why my friend likes to inhabit that space.
First, it gives him more credibility and more room to operate politically. Declaring that you stand firm on one side of the political spectrum or the other taints what you have to say. People who identify with the opposite side of the political spectrum will tune you out automatically, and instead of listening to you, will try to defeat your argument without giving it a second thought. Life can suck when half the people (or more) in the office hate your guts.
Further, if you come out of the closet and declare that you are a “liberal” or a “conservative,” you are generally then forced to defend all liberals and all liberal policies, or all conservatives and all conservative policy, even though you may have good empirical ground to stand on for one or a host of issues that have made you a partisan. So, while you may be well-versed in the ideas of fiscal conservatism and voted Republican because of that, you may have to eventually defend the “conservative” position on gay marriage, immigration, et. al., and those may be issues you either don’t care much about, haven’t thought about, or have carved out your own position on. It sucks to be called a “racist” and a “homophobe” when your main concern was really the alternative minimum tax and the burgeoning cost of pensions for public employees.
For liberals a good example of this may be having to defend a belief in sound regulations against the idea that they are really a socialist scheme designed to eventually disable, then eradicate, the free market system altogether. It is perfectly reasonable to believe that there are some things that the government needs to do if there is going to be a modicum of protection for citizens. But, the radicals that liberals are aligned with make it difficult to propose these things without the necessity of reassuring opponents that it is about making the free-market system better. That can be a frustrating business.
The second reason I believe my friend is a “centrist” is because he disdains ideology (at times quite vigorously) and believes that the “truth” in politics is almost always found outside of the cacophony created by the clash between parties on the political battlefield. To some extent, he and other “centrists” are absolutely correct. There are plenty of examples we all could cite where one party accused the other of something, and it was only to be found out later that the accusatory party did the same exact thing itself.
I think a good example of this would be on the issue of corruption. It is senseless, the “centrists” would most likely maintain, for one party or ideology to claim any moral superiority over the other because, if you look close enough, no ideological commitment prevents the powerful from violating the public trust. In fact, there are times when ideology and the loyalty it promotes is the primary veil a scoundrel will hide behind. To a “centrist”, official corruption which uses ideology as a shield is probably one of the worst forms of hypocrisy there is.
I also believe that the “centrists” disdain ideology because it is dangerous. Let’s face it, ideology is the prime mover of fanaticism. Of course, it is very hard to imagine the politics of the 20th century and even of today without acknowledging the central role of ideological commitment. Ideology is the only way that political leaders can create a mass movement and impose upon a mob to act in their attempts to gain political power.
Ideology has been a great tool in the hands of politicians and will continue to be. Whenever there is a threat or an outflowing of political violence, one can be sure that there was someone who stood to gain from stoking the popular passions with an idea that instilled in aggressive and insistent mobs the seeds of action and intense loyalty by its claims to the absolute, unfettered truth.
I am pretty positive then, that my “centrist” friend, if asked about the case of Obama, his original place of birth, and his birth certificate, would most likely join the “anti-Birther” crowd; or those who believe that the people who continue to have questions about these things, have pending cases in court, and continue to research them are, at the very least, blinded by conservative ideology or are at worse, true-believing fanatics who have something pathologically wrong with them and are potentially dangerous.
Admittedly, to throw in with the “Birthers” is akin to social suicide. If half of the people in the office hate you because you have come out as a conservative, to admit you have questions about Obama’s origins publicly would probably earn you a multi-year banishment from all the office birthday parties, including your own. The only way you would ever get a piece of cake again is by convincing that nice administrative assistant in the other department to bring you one.
Yes, to ask questions about Obama’s birth place and thus, his constitutional eligibility for office, has become a dangerous thing to do; just talk to Lou Dobbs about it.
So, one would suspect, that given the amount of ridicule heaped on the so-called “Birthers,” the “idiocy”, the “fanatical frenzy” and utter stupidity of the claim that Obama has never proven his natural born citizenship in the U.S. should be readily obvious upon just a cursory review of the facts.
Well, I must admit, I don’t believe it is.
Thus, this would probably confirm both to my friend and other “centrists” that I am just another ideologue, uninterested in the truth and worthy of all the name-calling from the Left that is bound to come my way. They would probably question my motives and like conservative David Horowitz (a personal hero and a mentor of mine) has repeatedly insisted, “this tempest over whether Obama…was born on American soil is tantamount to the Democrats’ seditious claim that Bush “stole” the election in Florida and hence was not the legitimate president…is embarrassing and destructive.”
But I wonder: Despite all the verbal abuse heaped on the idea of questioning Obama’s natural born citizenship, has anyone offered a good explanation for the questions raised by the supposedly wing-nut, and wacko “Birthers?” I personally went through quite a number of websites that disdain the “Birthers”, and most of them just report the latest in “Birther” news while snarking and laughing at them.
Wikipedia undecided about Obama's place of birth.
Others do try to refute the arguments of the “Birthers” by pointing out that Obama released a certificate of live birth (COLB) from Hawaii and two officials from the state confirmed they had seen his original birth certificate. They also point out that Obama released a copy of the COLB to both Factcheck.org and fightthesmears.com and they verified the authenticity of the document. However, upon investigating the matter further, that is just not good enough.
For one reason, at the time of Obama’s birth in Hawaii there were four different ways for parents of a newly born child to obtain a legal birth certificate from the State. Out of those four methods, three did not require any proof at all that the newborn was born on American soil. Rather, all that was required for a parent to obtain a vault birth certificate was their own testimony either by letter or in front of a minor bureaucrat, that the child was born in Hawaii. And according to the Western Journalism Center:
if the original certificate is of [these]other kinds, then Obama would have a very good reason not to release the vault birth certificate. For if he did, then the tape recording of Obama’s Kenyan grandmother asserting that she was present at his birth in Kenya becomes far more important. As does the Kenyan ambassador’s assertion that Barack Obama was born in Kenya, as well as the sealing of all government and hospital records relevant to Obama by the Kenyan government. And the fact that though there are many witnesses to Ann Dunham’s presence on Oahu from Sept 1960 to Feb 1961, there are no witnesses to her being on Oahu from March 1961 to August 1962 when she returned from Seattle and the University of Washington. No Hawaiian physicians, nurses, or midwives have come forward with any recollection of Barack Obama’s birth.
Along with these things becoming far more important, so does the question of whether the originally COLB that was released on the internet in 2008 was a fraud or not. Ron Polarik has done extensive research on the internet version of the COLB and believes it is a fraud. As you can imagine, he has been met with much of the same vitriol and hysterical denunciations as have the “Birthers.” The story he tells about the attacks against him and the attempts at destroying his reputation is fascinating. It is available here.
I wonder, if the “centrists” are so concerned with dangerous fanaticism, why they fail to point out the unjustifiable language and scorn that is used to veil the fact that the concerns of a growing number of American citizens about the President’s place of birth, are legitimate. Until the question is answered and the truth is revealed, I see nothing wrong with keeping the question alive.
We are told time and again that the price of liberty is constant vigilance. We are being constantly cajoled to “get involved” and not to be apathetic. However, why are the intentions of some deemed honest and non-ideological, while the efforts of others are met with intimidation and mockery in order to keep them silent? Surely, by working through the courts the “Birthers” have been less disruptive and have proven to be less “fanatical,” ideological, confrontational, obnoxious, and self-righteous than have been Cindy Sheehan, Code Pink, the anti-globalization movement, the anarcho-communists at Copenhagen, or any other of a number of leftist protest groups who no one can deny have industrial-sized conspiracy theories of their own.
Finally, I want to reproduce an important and interesting battle between two versions of the law that have been applied in the controversy over Obama’s birth origins. It includes an original analysis written by a law student which was later critiqued by a practicing attorney who has been litigating cases based on Obama’s birth certificate and eligibility. I think the attorney, Philip Berg, says it all. However, pay particular attention to the rhetoric the law student uses in order to introduce her very flawed analysis.
Again, she assumes without knowing all the facts that anyone who believes that an issue remains about Obama’s birth are “incompetent idiots.” (What is it with leftists and the “I” word anyway?.) She snips at the “Birthers” and misrepresents their perspective even as Berg (who is gentler than he can be) goes on to prove how utterly incompetent and misleading her original analysis was. It should be obvious, as Berg subtly points out, that there are pending cases in various courts on the matter and that the law student hasn’t even bothered to argue based on the points of law contained in those bonafide cases. By itself, this is highly incompetent and would not have gotten her through a first year legal writing class.
Where does such audacity and intellectual dishonesty come from? Why do liberals believe that just because they hold a certain perspective, that anyone that does not agree with them must be insane…er, idiots?
Perhaps it’s a function of their ideology. Or their fanaticism. Maybe they are the ones who are idiotic.
Whatever it is, I believe they are dangerous and must be watched! You will agree with me if you read Berg’s response below.
_______________________________________________________________________
Emeritus posted a link to an article and asked me to address why the articles version of the laws are flawed. I am happy to do so.
Jamie Freeze, a law student, has called any of us who question Soetoro/Obama’s Citizenship status and Constitutional Eligibility to serve as U.S. President, a Constitutional Right of ours of course, incompetent idiots. However, Ms. Freeze may want to continue her education, part of being a lawyer, which is a very important part, is being able to comprehend what you read and to cite the correct law to collaborate it. Something Ms. Freeze has clearly failed to do. I will respond below to Ms. Freeze’s allegations, however, my responses are in bold. I also want to make very clear to all readers, none of the eligibility cases have been heard, litigated or dismissed based on the law pertaining to any of the issues raised. Instead, the eligibility cases have been dismissed on the basis of “STANDING” only.
This type of thing, by Ms. Freeze, is what gives folks the WRONG information and confuses them, it is a deception by Ms. Freeze (as a law student, I hope her professors teach her how to properly, honestly and with integrity, investigate, research the laws, properly cite the laws and argue issues before her). Otherwise, she will be unable to do her clients, when that time comes assuming she passes the bar, justice.
http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/freeze/091222
December 22, 2009
Facts are stubborn things: Obama is a natural-born citizen
By Jamie Freeze
I never will forget meeting former North Carolina State Senator Hugh Webster my senior year of high school. He came to my school and had lunch with the seniors. As he sat down beside me, I asked him to tell me what he most loved and hated about being in Raleigh. I don’t remember what he most loved, but I’ll never forget what he most hated. In the words of Mr. Webster, “I don’t deal well with incompetent people.”
Ms. Freeze, unfortunately, is showing her “INCOMPETENCE”, as Ms. Freeze would call it, but I feel “IGNORANCE” is the more appropriate word, as outlined below.
At that point, I knew Mr. Webster and I were kindred spirits. I too don’t deal well with incompetent people. As a matter of fact, I go out of my way to avoid them, but when dealing with them is inevitable, I can’t help but point out their incompetencies. As a law student, I am being trained to be meticulous, well-reasoned, and intelligent. After my final exam grades come back, we’ll see how well I’m doing. But that aside, I feel that I have been too longsuffering in letting the Birther Movement receive simply a few caustic remarks and jabs from me. It’s time for me to call a spade a spade. Here goes: If you believe that President Obama is NOT a natural-born citizen, then you are an incompetent idiot who is probably watching Glenn Beck while wearing a tin-foil hat. You probably think Obama’s a Muslim too.
Our lawsuits have nothing to do with Soetoro/Obama’s religion, they never have. Ms. Freeze seems to have lost a very important part of her education, we as people are entitle to redress, we as people are entitled to ask questions, especially of our elected officials. Incompetent Idiot? It appears that Ms. Freeze’s law school has taught her when you cannot counter something to call the opposing party names. That is not what I was taught in school. I do not see one shred of evidence that supports Ms. Freeze’s position. Ms. Freeze obviously forgot about Barry Soetoro’s name; Did she locate where he legally changed his name to Barack H. Obama? It is fraud to run for and serve as President under an “alias” name. What about Soetoro/Obama’s Indonesian citizenship? We have the School Record which Soetoro/Obama has admitted to.
If you are still reading (and not firing off angry emails), then allow me to offer you factual proof that Obama is a natural-born citizen who satisfies the constitutional requirements for Commander-in-Chief. My argument is two-fold: 1. Obama was born in Hawaii (a U.S. state for my incompetent readers). 2. Obama satisfies the requirements found in the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, which defines natural-born citizens.\\
Where is the factual proof? Ms. Freeze apparently forgot to attach it. What does Ms. Freeze have to back up that Soetoro/Obama was born in Hawaii? We have been unable to obtain verification of that, no long form birth certificate, only an image that has been deemed a forgery. Despite this, what about his Indonesian Citizenship? Had Ms. Freeze read our briefs, and retained the information, she would have seen that all we do is talk about the Nationality Act of 1940 revised in 1952.
1. Obama was born in Hawaii. Hawaii joined the Union in 1959. Barack Obama was born in 1961. Do the math. It works. Ok, so perhaps that argument is a bit over-simplified, but that is because I find the birth certificate question so ridiculous. The President released his birth certificate (which was verified by the Hawaii Health Department) yet conspiracy theorists refuse to see logic. “Big bad Obama must be hiding something. That certificate isn’t the long form. What’s he hiding?” What the naysayers fail to realize is that in 1961 the standard Hawaiian birth certificate was…wait for it…exactly the same length as Obama’s! The Hawaiian Health Department has said this, but as conspiracy theorists point out, they must be covering for Obama. Despite the facts, folks say that even if he was born in Hawaii, he is not a natural born citizen because his father was Kenyan. However, even if Obama was born on the moon, he would still be a natural born citizen under the Immigration and Nationality Act.
First, the “long version” birth certificate we are asking for has nothing do to with the size of the document itself, instead it has to do with the information on the document. We have never claimed Hawaii was not a State or Union, so this has nothing to do with the questions we are seeking answers too. Soetoro/Obama released two (2) images of a Certification of Live Birth, claiming it to be his birth certificate, which have been deemed to be forged and altered documents. Hawaii Health Department has NEVER verified the images placed on the internet. Law 101, no agency or person can look at an online image and state the document came from their agency or location, unless, the person making such statement was the one who personally printed the document in question (Soetoro/Obama’s Certification of Live Birth in this case) and handed it to Soetoro/Obama and can prove it is in fact the same document. In Soetoro/Obama’s case, his campaign office stated they mailed the application for his Certification of Live Birth to Hawaii and recieved this supposed document back from Hawaii. However, the date that Soetoro/Obama would have signed it, Soetoro/Obama was traveling and campaigning for the U.S. Presidency position. We are not disputing the length of Soetoro/Obama’s Certification of Live Birth, we have copies of other individuals actual Certificate of Live births from Hawaii within the same time period, these are two (2) completely different documents. Soetoro/Obama has never released a hard copy of any type of Certification of Live Birth or Certificate of Live Birth to anyone other than Factcheck.org which is part of Annenberg and yes who Soetoro/Obama has close ties with. I am wondering what Ms. Freeze is basing her unsubstantiated statements on. Maybe she will enlighten us. We are not questioning the British Father, as we are well aware of the fact if Soetoro/Obama was born on U.S. soil, which we do not believe, he would in fact be a U.S. “natural born” citizen. However, in fairness to Ms. Freeze, others have questioned the British citizenship of the father and claimed that even if Soetoro/Obama was born on U.S. soil he would not be a “natural born” U.S. citizen due to his father’s foreign citizenship status. I’m going to ask again, what about Soetoro/Obama’s legal name and his Indonesian Citizenship status? Ms. Freeze fails to address these very important issues. We have been unable to locate any legal documentation legally changing Soetoro’s name back to Barack H. Obama; where Soetoro/Obama relinquished his Indonesian Citizenship; and/or where Soetoro/Obama reclaimed any U.S. Citizenship status he may have once held. Again, hopefully Ms. Freeze will enlighten us.
2. Obama is a natural born citizen. In Scales v. INS, 232 F.3d 1159 (2000), we have a clear definition of what natural born citizenship is. Scales’ father was an American serviceman stationed in the Philippines where he met Scales’ mother. They married despite the fact that Scales’ mother was pregnant with him at the time. In all probability, the court said, Scales was a product of his mother’s previous relationship. However, he was born after Mr. Scales married his mother, and he was treated as Scales’ son. Later, Scales was facing deportation because of an aggravated felony involving drugs. He challenged his deportation saying he was a natural born citizen. The court determined that natural born citizenship depends on the statute in effect at the time of the child’s birth. Since Scales was born in 1977, he was a natural born citizen because a “person shall be a national and citizen of the United States at birth who is born outside the geographical limits of the United States and its outlying possessions of parents one of whom is an alien, and the other a citizen of the United States who, prior to the birth of such person, was physically present in the United States or its outlying possessions for a period or periods totaling not less than ten years, at least five of which were after attaining the age of fourteen years.” Id. at 1169; see 8 U.S.C. §1401(a)(7) (1976). Therefore, Scales was a natural born citizen despite the following: having been born in a foreign country, having been born to a non-citizen, having his American father later deny paternity (and prove non-paternity), and having claimed to be a citizen of the Philippines. Sounds like it is difficult to get rid of natural born citizenship. Let’s examine Barack Obama’s citizenship.
I would first like to note that Scales v. INS, 232 F.3d 1159 (2000) is not exactly on point as neither of Soetoro/Obama’s parents were in the U.S. Military, however, it does outline some of the issues we present. Some more appropriate cases are United States of America v. Cervantes-Nava, 281 F.3d 501 (2002), Drozd v. I.N.S., 155 F.3d 81, 85-88 (2d Cir.1998), Solis-Espinoza v. Gonzales, 401 F.3d 1090 (9th Cir. 2005). And, if Ms. Freeze would have read and retained what is in our briefs, she would have seen the laws we used. We believe Soetoro/Obama was born in Kenya, contrary to Ms. Freeze’s beliefs, Soetoro/Obama’s mother was not old enough to confer U.S. “natural born” citizenship status to Soetoro/Obama. Moreover, neither of Soetoro/Obama’s parents were in the U.S. Military at the time of Soetoro/Obama’s birth, her whole argument above, which was meant to mislead people and which is very ignorant for a law student, does not pertain. Ms. Freeze also forgets to mention the Nationality Act was revised in 1986 with a proviso regarding active Military, the only part of the code that was retroactive was the Proviso regarding the Military Status, nothing else. But again, neither of Seotoro/Obama’s parents were in the U.S. Military. Moreover, contrary to Scales, Soetoro/Obama’s father admitted paternity, the parents were married in Hawaii prior to Soetoro/Obama’s birth. Ms. Freeze has done nothing more than attempt to misapply the laws. And, once again Ms. Freeze also fails to address the legal name of Soetoro/Obama and Soetoro/Obama’s Indonesian citizenship.
Obama’s citizenship will be determined under the 1952 version of the Immigration and Nationality Act since he was born in 1961 and the Act wasn’t updated again until 1966. According to § 301(a)(5) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (66 Stat. 235), “a person born in an outlying possession of the United States of parents one of whom is a citizen of the United States who has been physically present in the United States or one of its outlying possessions for a continuous period of one year at any time prior to the birth of such person [is a natural born citizen].” According to § 305 of the same statute, any person born in Hawaii on or after April 30, 1900 was to be considered a natural born citizen. Obama’s mother was a citizen of the United States, and his father was a citizen of Kenya. They were married six months before Obama was born. There is no doubt that Obama’s mother resided in the United States or its possessions for at least one year prior to Obama’s birth. Therefore, Obama can’t be anything other than a natural born citizen. Combine this detail with his birth in an American State, you have a certified natural born citizen.
Ms. Freeze’s 1966 law fails and she completely contradicts herself. The law that is applied is the law in effect at the time of the birth, in Soetoro/Obama’s case, the Nationality Act of 1940 revised 1952. See Marquez-Marquez a/k/a Moreno v. Gonzales, 455 F. 3d 548 (5th Cir. 2006), Runnett v. Shultz, 901 F.2d 782, 783 (9th Cir.1990). Law in 1966 does not apply, unless Ms. Freeze can show me where it states it is retroactive, which she CANNOT. We are not disputing that Hawaii was a state, we are not disputing if in fact Soetoro/Obama was born in Hawaii he would be a U.S. “natural born” citizen. Further, Kenya is not an outlying possession of the U.S. The law used by Ms. Freeze once again does not pertain to the issues outlined in our cases; does not apply to Soetoro/Obama’s birth in Kenya; fails to address Soetoro/Obama’s legal name; and fails to address Soetoro/Obama’s Indonesian citizenship. Moreover, even if the 1966 version applied, which is does NOT, Soetoro/Obama’s mother was not present residing in the U.S. for a continuous year prior to Soetoro/Obama’s birth. We believe Soetoro/Obama’s mother was residing in Kenya and in fact gave birth to Soetoro/Obama in Kenya.
Important issues left out by Ms. Freeze in attempt to confuse the reader is the fact Soetoro/Obama became Barry Soetoro an Indonesian Citizenship. No records have been located legally changing Barry Soetoro’s name back to Barack H. Obama. No records have been located showing Soetoro/Obama relinquished his Indonesain citizenship, which was a requirement of Indonesia and outlined in their laws (Indonesia did not allow dual citizenship status) and reclaiming any U.S. citizenship status he may have once held. Thus, Soetoro/Obama is still Barry Soetoro an Indonesian Citizen.
One last question I have for Ms. Freeze, if in fact Soetoro/Obama was a U.S. “natural born” citizen and eligibile to serve as our United States President, why in the world would he spend in excess of a Million Dollars litigating these cases instead of just providing proof of his citizenship status? I’m curious to see how Ms. Freeze would respond. We know the answer, because Soetoro/Obama can’t.
And you thought the History Channel was going to stick to documentaries about UFOs, Bigfoot, the Hellfire Club. Well…
Tonight the History Channel will be airing the documentary The People Speak starring Matt Damon and Josh Brolin. The film is based on probably the worst history book you’ll ever read, Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States. The book, which I personally purchased and tried to read some years ago when I was a committed leftist graduate student in history, is pure drek and even back when I was looking for ideological purity and Marxist political guidance, I couldn’t take it seriously.
Perhaps this should be an alternative title to "The People Speak"?
But, I guess for Hollywood types like Matt Damon-who grew up next door to Zinn in Boston-and Brolin and the rest of the celebutards that have been employed to pitch this drivel, it is considered high scholarship. Unfortunately, A People’s History is one of the best-selling histories of all time and is still taught in high schools and colleges across the country, despite its lack of footnotes and other scholarly apparatus.
A nation of starf#*!ers and celebutards
To read A People’s History is an act of masochism, for Zinn casts American history in the worst and most cliched Marxist light imaginable. (And did I mention it has very little source material-I did. Just wanted to make that clear.) The book claims to present American history “through the eyes of workers, American Indians, slaves, women, blacks and populists” and Zinn has made no apologies for the overtly left-wing agenda in the book. In the 1995 edition of A People’s History he wrote:
I wanted my writing of history and my teaching of history to be a part of social struggle. I wanted to be a part of history and not just a recorder and teacher of history. So that kind of attitude towards history, history itself as a political act, has always informed my writing and my teaching.
Ok. But that doesn’t make Zinn a historian. In fact, proclaiming to have an overtly political agenda before doing your research should pretty much destroy your credibility as a serious historian and mark your work as a poltical manifesto, not history. Not having sources for your screed should also undermine the notion that your work is “history.” (OK, we’ve been there already. Just making sure you’re awake.)
Oh. I see, Zinn is not a historian, but professor of Political Science.
Alright, then.
(Excuse me while I vomit!)
Monster Quest! Yes!
Perhaps it is worth mentioning, as it is the purpose of this blog, that The People’s History was not taken seriously as a definitive work of history about the United States and was lambasted when it first came out in a critical review by Oscar Handlin, the Harvard historian. As the New Criterion explained in a 2008 article, Howard Zinn’s Fairy Tale, Handlin’s criticism should have been enough. A People’s History’s flaws were pointed out [by Handlin] with devastating precision. Handlin’s brief is-or should have been-fatal. Writing in the The American Scholar in 1980, he noted:
It simply is not true that “what Columbus did to the Arawaks of the Bahamas, Cortez did to the Aztecs of Mexico, Pizarro to the Incas of Peru, and the English settlers of Virginia and Massachusetts to the Powhatans and the Pequots.” It simply is not true that the farmers of the Chesapeake colonies in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries avidly desired the importation of black slaves, or that the gap between rich and poor widened in the eighteenth-century colonies. Zinn gulps down as literally true the proven hoax of Polly Baker and the improbable Plough Jogger, and he repeats uncritically the old charge that President Lincoln altered his views to suit his audience. The Geneva assembly of 1954 did not agree on elections in a unified Vietnam; that was simply the hope expressed by the British chairman when the parties concerned could not agree. The United States did not back Batista in 1959; it had ended aid to Cuba and washed its hands of him well before then. “Tet” was not evidence of the unpopularity of the Saigon government, but a resounding rejection of the northern invaders.
Oh sure, you say. Handlin was a typical bourgeois historian and besides there is no objectivity anyway, so why is his work better than Zinn’s ? Decide for yourself. In Handlin’s book The Distortion of America (1996) he discusses at length the distortions of history engaged in by Marxist intellectuals and their sympathizers until the fall of the Soviets in 90s:
The dismal record of falsification-sometimes naive, sometimes sinister- reached back to the 1920s. Although honest radical visitors like Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman perceived the repressive nature of the Soviet regime, other Americans launched blindly into a long, tortuous, course of self-deception, eagerly gulping down the fatuous account of the New Soviet civilization by Sidney and Beatrice Webb (1936)… The illusion about the benign Soviets survived after the war’s end and also after the appeasement that began at Yalta and called for the sacrifice of Eastern Europe. Cheerfully in 1971 the officers of the National Education Association concluded a two-week visit by blithely announcing that the Soviet Union had eliminated poverty within its borders.
The hapless sympathizers who ruled the media and the academic and entertainment worlds were not all stupid and ill-informed, but deliberately blinded themselves to the reality…Drawing upon a long tradition of intellectual anti-Americanism, fashionable journalists and academics from Madison Avenue to Hollywood and Ivy League Universities, who had learned to sneer at the Main Street “booboisie” slipped readily into the habit of denouncing their country’s greed, intolerance, racism, and general backwardness that would shortly lead to the total collapse of capitalism. Their distorted vision obscured what actually transpired both within the United States and in the world outside its borders. The tragic outcome-myopia about the Red threats to peace and freedom everywhere, along with failure to understand the underlying strength of the United States and its relevance to the world’s future.
(And he forgot to mention ignorance and/or complicity in the “Red Genocide” of almost 200 million people.)
Do you think Zinn figures into this lot? Yeah. I think so too.
And the people who admire Zinn’s work and A People’s History are part and parcel of the same Left that Handlin so skewers in his The Distortion of America. They are now engaged in a furious attempt to recapture political power and cultural prestige so that they can go on insulating themselves from the utter historical fact that socialism, their God, has failed. This is why there is so much pressure for radical social change and global governance schemes today. Any faith, when its light is about to be extinguished from the world, creates a vacuum amongst its true believers. It would be foolish to underestimate the lengths to which these people will go to hold onto their absurdities.
The best we can do here is quote Captain Kirk from the original Star Trek episode The Apple:
Native Man: But it was Val who put the fruit on the trees; caused the rain to fall. Val, cared for us.
Kirk: You’ll learn to care for yourself! And there’s no trick to putting fruit on trees; you might even enjoy it. You’ll learn to build for yourselves, think for yourselves, work for yourselves-and what you create is yours! That’s what we call freedom.
Indeed!
(the relevant dialogue begins at 7:11)
Poles Protest Plan for Stalin Memorial in U.S.
(from November 23, 2009 Polskie Radio)
Statue of Stalin being taunted and spit on during 1956 Hungarian Uprising
The Polish community in the United States is outraged by a plan to honour Josef Stalin by placing his bust on a pedestal at the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford, Virginia.
According to William McIntosh, the director of the Bradford museum, which is coordinating the project, the Soviet dictator deserves to be acknowledged alongside Winston Churchill and Franklin Delano Roosevelt has he was an ally of the US after Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union.
The plans have met with protests from Polish war veterans in New York. President of the Kosciuszko Foundation, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Alex Storozynski described the plans as a ‘misguided move’ that “will haunt millions of Ukrainians, Russians, Poles, Czechs, Hungarians, Jews, etc. whose families were massacred by this Soviet tyrant. Stalin’s killing machine slaughtered more people than Adolf Hitler and the Nazis did. ”
How the memory of Stalin is commemorated in Eastern Europe today. From Monument Park in Budapest.
Storozynski writes in an article at the Huffington Post web site: “Hitler and Stalin were allies and started World War II in 1939 by both attacking Poland at the same time. (…) Stalin only gave lip service to the allies so that they would attack Nazi Germany on the Western front. Stalin did not liberate Eastern Europe from the Nazis in 1945…”
(read more here. Also see Huffington Post article here.)
New European Union foreign minister faces questions over pro-Soviet sympathies
As the Lisbon Treaty, ostensibly the new constitution of Europe, is put into place, the newly appointed foreign minister-a position with vastly more powers than any EU foreign policy body has had in the past-faces questions about possible connections to the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
Baroness Cathy Ashton, the newly appointed EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs was the treasurer of the anti-nuke group the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in the early 1980s. Members of the British Independence Party have sent a letter to EU Commission President, Manuel Barrosso, asking him to investigate whether Baroness Ashton ever was party to payments from Moscow via the CND.
More here.
Also, for a comprehensive report of Soviet influence on the early 1980s anti-nuke movement, read here.
It is also interesting that Ashton was chosen by the “inner machinations of the Brussels elite” after a “byzantine” process of leader selection. Interesting.
Resistance Literature
(from First Principles)
We don’t just face a smug cosmopolitan elite, aggressive do-gooders, and an ever-growing welfare state. “Advanced liberal society,” Kalb writes, “is reproducing the error of socialism—the attempt to administer and radically alter things that are too complex to be known, grasped, and controlled— but on a far grander scale. The socialists tried to simplify and rationalize economics, while today’s liberals are trying to do the same with human relations generally.” Inevitably, the round peg must be pounded into the square hole. And we don’t even notice. “So dominant is liberalism,” Kalb worries, “that it becomes invisible. Judges feel free to read it into law without historical or textual warrant because it seems so obviously right. To oppose in any basic way is to act incomprehensibly, in a way only explicable, it is thought, by reference to irrationality, ignorance, or evil.” Dissent is medicalized as a psychological “fear of change,” an infantile desire to “escape from freedom,” or criminalized as “hate speech.” (Read more by clicking above link or here.)
Never Let Your Opponents Define You
Is Conservatism Dead? (from The New Criterion)
A Reply to Sam Tanenhaus’ new book The Death of Conservatism
The liberal analysis of conservatism that was passed down from the 1950s and 1960s has caused endless confusion about what conservatism in America is and is not. It is never a good thing for any philosophical movement to permit itself to be defined by its adversaries, but this is more or less what happened to conservatism in the post-war period, as liberals sought to define it in such a way as to guarantee its failure or ineffectiveness. For one thing, they created a combination of traps and paradoxes for conservatives that gave added meaning to Rossiter’s concept of “the thankless persuasion.” On the one hand, conservatives, if they wished to maintain that designation (at least in the eyes of liberals), were obliged to endorse all manner of liberal reforms once they were established as part of the new status quo. Thus, self-styled conservatives who attacked the New Deal were not acting like conservatives because they were in effect attacking the established order—and, of course, “real” conservatives would never do that. So it was that conservatives who wished to reverse liberal victories became radicals or extremists. Conservatives, moreover, could have no program of their own or, at any rate, any program that had any reasonable chance of succeeding, because any successful appeal to the wider public would turn them into populists and, through that process, into extremists and radicals. Not surprisingly, they viewed a popular conservatism as a contradiction in terms. Conservatives, in short, could only win power and influence by betraying their principles, and could only maintain those principles by accepting their subordinate status. Thus, in the eyes of the liberal historians, conservatism could never prosper in America because, if it did, it could no longer be called conservatism. (Read the rest at the link above or here.)
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Conservative Policy News 
Rage, Rage Against the Dying of the Light
A lot was made about the pro-life ad that ran during the Superbowl sponsored by Focus on the Family and featuring college QB Tim Tebow and his mother. Feminist and pro-choice groups came out against the ad and a lot of ink was spilled in an attempt to counter what some groups said was its “dangerous” message.
Of course, the message wasn’t “dangerous” at all, it was simply pro-life.
But, I was personally struck by the imagery of the ad. Why was it necessary to show Tebow tackling his mother?
Not that I was offended by the ad and I certainly understood that the intent was supposed to show the “toughness” of his mother, but why was it necessary that the ad show him taking her down in a full tackle? I don’t get it?
If you ask me, the ad failed on its own, because without the outside controversy, I wouldn’t have really known what it was about. In the context of the ad, I would have been forced to ask, “Does Tebow have a form of Turet’s Syndrome where he compulsively tackles his mother without warning from time to time?” Remember, in the text of the ad, she does say “I still worry about his health” just before he rams into her.
But, worse, the ad was one of many that were overtly violent, and dare I say, one of a number that were openly misogynist. I know, as conservatives we’re not supposed to get all uptight about such things lest we wander into the land of political correctness, but my concerns are not what you think; I am concerned here about the state of the culture.
Now, I know that Super Bowl ads do not make up the whole of the cultural output of contemporary Western civilization. I am constantly reassured that there is plenty of great art being produced today, and any “end is nigh” hysteria about the state of cultural production does not take into account the quantities of what is being produced these days.
However, I personally believe that these commercials are saying something and that something is an ominous sign of a failing civilization. With all due respect to “A Clockwork Orange”, when “ultra-violence”provides us with humor and fun, and open hostility to women is tolerated within a culture, something wicked this way comes.
Someone has put together a montage of the violent ads in the Super Bowl and it is below.
This video led Joe Carter at First Thoughts to comment:
Which got me to thinking about the movie the Idiocracy. Released in 2006, to a very limited run in movie theatres, Idiocracy is a not-so-concealed commentary on contemporary American culture. Despite it being set in the “distant” future, the director, Mike Judge, was no doubt aiming his sights on a dumbed-down, overly consumeristic American culture, which he obviously believes (using poetic license and not a little hyperbole to make the point) is producing a population that within the span of a few generations will become so incompetent that even the most basic knowledge necessary for survival will be lost to it. In the movie, for instance, the fact that water, and not Gatorade, is needed to grow crops is high science even to the country’s political leaders.
In this idiotic America of the future, the most popular television program is a show called “Ow, My Balls!”It features a guy who finds various ways to abuse his own testicles and films the self-injury in real time.
So, I wonder: Are we there yet? I mean, if this kind of stuff is being used to sell products and TV shows and movies now (think Jackass), where will the culture be in a few years? And what does it mean for society and politics in general? I think history shows that societies in such a state of decline are neither predisposed nor capable of self-governance. But, we’ll leave that discussion for a a later post.
Along with the violence exhibited in this year’s Super Bowl ads, most of it aimed at men, there was a concomitant and equally disturbing theme running through some of the ads during the game: There seemed to be a hint of hostility towards women. The best ad that exemplifies this is below:
This one too:
Both ads express an appeal to power for men, and sort of frustration with women and domestic life.If marketers have determined that this is the experience of a good number of men in modern society, and they can use the experience in order to sell more stuff, what is it saying about the state of male/female relationships and the traditional family altogether? What does it mean for the American dream-at least for men?
The answer to that question may take a lot more posts, but in brief, it is my opinion that these ads express a kind of pre-Fascist consciousness. According to historian Edward Veith, Fascism arose out of a cultural milieu of Europe which included an alienation from the 19th century positivistic and materialist worldview. The reaction to this alienation bred a form of romanticism or, a sort modern pantheistic paganism that reasserted the value of the natural world and insisted that it be experienced not through reason, but through experience and emotion.
According to Veith and other historians, this renewal of paganism led to a very open hostility to the established order which expressed itself primarily by violence and ugliness through art. And as eith has written, the aesthetic of pre-Fascist and Fascist art is visible in the culture today:
Well, I could go on. But it is also important to mention that culture and politics are inexorably intertwined. If our culture exhibits the “quintessence of the fascist aesthetic” I think we need to truly examine that culture and the state of our political life as it relates to human liberty. And I believe that phenomena like the personality cult that surrounds Barack Obama, is a part of something that is very wrong with Western civilization, but let’s leave that for future posts.
As for the culture, conservative philosopher and writer Roger Scruton has the cure:
“I think we are losing beauty, and there’s a danger that with it, we will lose the meaning of life!”
I just wonder if we aren’t too far gone for Beauty ever to have meaning in our lives again.