The Constitution Under Fire: First Things First

Today we are going to start looking at what the Obama Administration is doing that looks suspiciously like "remaking" the United States in ways the Constitution never envisioned. Some might call these initiatives "attacks" on the Constitution. I leave that up to you.

First, let's remember what the First Amendment says:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

That's rather meaty, but that hasn't stopped the new regime from attempting to re-design it.

Is religion under attack? Well, at the moment, there's no concerted effort to overtly violate the First Amendment on this issue, but there are some disturbing signs that the once-friendly atmosphere that supported, encouraged, and nurtured a religious sentiment might be on its way out.

For example, the President's new "Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Initiatives" has added "Neighborhood" to the office created by President Bush to help small faith-based programs compete with secular agencies in the race for federal grant dollars (of which, by the way, there are a lot more to be had in coming months, once the Stimulus Bill goes into effect.) This is in keeping with President Obama's Alinsky-style (you'll excuse the expression) "faith" in grass-roots initiative, and his near-deification of the community organizer.

For the president and his followers, "faith" is not the key to neighborhood sustainability; "community" is. In other words, where President Bush was constantly reminding us that government could not love you, and that only a human being, motivated by the love of neighbor that comes through faith, could minister to a person in need with "a cup of cold water and a kind word," the Obama vision is quite different.

Although he got his start in the churches of Chicago's South Side, he very quickly converted the power of faith into a political force, concentrating on the "Rules for Radicals" method of making demands on government. Where a normal faith-based institution centers on prayer and faith, the type of community organization Obama spent his Chicago time building sees faith as merely the tool by which to achieve community power.

In keeping with his belief that the government can easily replace (and is in fact preferable to) an institution of faith, the President has in mind to change the charitable donation rules so that people who fall into the category he determines to be "rich" cannot claim the full deduction for their charitable contributions. This will, no doubt, reduce the amount of money available to churches and charities--thus requiring Big Daddy government to step in and take over the functions of such organizations.

In re-shaping the new office, Obama is also planning to "review" the rules under President Bush which allowed religiously-based charities to hire people that agreed with their religious mission. The President and his staff believe these rules are unconstitutional and are planning to alter them so that religious organizations that compete with non-religious ones for federal dollars would be required to follow all the rules and regulations that ordinary businesses are susceptible to--including equal opportunity hiring rules that would force a church to hire someone who actively opposed the religious mission of the ministry.

In addition, most religious broadcasters believe that the "hate crimes" legislation pushed by the Administration will make it difficult to discuss the Biblical position on homosexuality over the public airwaves, to the point that even simply reading the Bible on air might be construed as "hate speech."

So, that's just a little on the religion part of the Amendment. What else is in there?

How about freedom of speech? How do we like that?

While the president has claimed that he is not interested in a revival of the Fairness Doctrine, and the Congress has legislatively closed off that possibility, the same day Congress voted on it, Dick Durbin got a different Amendment passed, which opened up the door to local content requirements that would, eventually, spell the end of national talk-radio programming--which is, in fact, its aim. The fact is that Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Michael Savage, Laura Ingraham, and others make the new Administration very very nervous.

Local content regulations would basically require that radio stations provide a specific number of hours in the day during which national programming would be pushed out by locally based programming.

But the fact is that Limbaugh and his compatriots are what make local affiliate stations profitable. Advertisers know they are getting millions of listeners, and they pay for the time. It is highly unlikely that audiences would stick around for local talent, especially if it were required to provide a "balanced" (which means "liberal") perspective. They would simply shut down all controversial programming, the national hosts would move to a pay outlet, like Sirius or XM, and the local station would revert to non-controversial music.

There is also the consideration that we could see a new effort to use the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE), passed during the Clinton Administration, which forbids protesters--as well as the volunteers that the pro-life movement calls "counselors"--from approaching women entering an abortion clinic. One could argue that this draconian legislation interferes with the pro-lifers' freedom of speech (as well as assembly).

Now, freedom of the press is also undermined by the "fairness doctrine" or any disguised version thereof. But these days it seems like it hardly matters any more. The "free" press has voluntarily enslaved itself to the current administration. Moreover, while it's not unconstitutional, we can look at the treatment of oppositional press persons during the campaign. If you recall, there were several incidents in which unflattering press treatment of the candidate was responded to with a stony wall of silence. Several reporters who had been less than complimentary to the Obama campaign were bumped off the campaign plane right at the end of the campaign, to make room for more friendly reporters.

What will happen to the press if they ever break free of their hypnotic attraction to the President?

We have yet to see an attack on tne freedom of assembly or petition--but, remember, it's only been a month.

Stay tuned for the next "Constitution Under Fire" report, "Disarming the Second Amendment."

What A Conservative Is--And Is Not

Rush Limbaugh gave a wonderful speech at the CPAC convention, as we all know by now. In it, he attempted to give a definition of "conservatism," which I won't go into here, but he well admits that his was what we in the academy used to call a "functional" definition of conservatism, rather than the type of strict definition one might find in a point-by-point explanation.

Since the fundamental premise of my blog is that I am a conservative, I now present to you the definition of "conservatism" that I am working with here.

But, first, what a conservative is NOT.

A conservative is not born that way; as with salvation, you cannot merely be raised to be a conservative, the child of conservatives, or the citizen of a conservative region or country. You must come to conservatism on your own, embrace it of your own free will, and practice it as an individual.

A conservative does not believe that government is the solution to most problems. As Ronald Reagan famously said, "too often, government IS the problem." A conservative who falls on hard times may find himself taking public money--but he will not prefer indolence to work, and he will not press the state to provide increasing stipends for his willingness to not work.

A conservative is not a member of any particular club, a person of any particular ethnicity, or a holder of any particular office. He or she is simply a person who is committed to the principles of conservatism.

So, what, exactly, are those principles?

The principles of conservatism can be found in the Founding documents of the American Republic--the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. They are summarized with great skill in the Declaration, the preamble to the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. However the principles pre-exist the documents, as they flow from the innate and God-given rights of man; it was merely the genius of the Founders to identify them.

Conservatism in a modern sense is encapsulated in the three-legged stool of ideology that Ronald Reagan brought with him to the White House: social, economic, and military. On the social leg, a conservative is one who holds the positions of traditional morality and culture--pro-life, pro-family, value-based judgments, moral absolutism, patriotism, faith, and freedom.

The second leg of the stool is economic, and consists of a loyalty to free-market capitalism and private enterprise. Free people, free markets, capital flowing freely according to its best interest. The "invisible hand" of the market will ensure the most profitable outcome,providing there is minimal regulation to facilitate entrepreneurship and innovation.

The final component is a commitment to a strong national defense. During the Cold War, that meant defenses to weaken and ultimately defeat the Evil Empire of the Soviet Union (the uterly vile, atheistic, anti-freedom, anti-capitalist nature of which was what made it evil, by the way). Once that task had been completed, new enemies arose, and by 2001, they made themselves known in a big way.

Thus, today, the conservative positions are against abortion, gay marriage, and the persecution of the church by the state and agents thereof. They are opposed to interference with the private market (bailouts, stimulus packages, nationalization of banks and car companies, socialized medicine, statism in any form.) And they are opposed to any reduction in our military forces, any retreat in the war on terror, precipitous withdrawal from Iraq and/or Afghanistan, failure to control the nation's borders or encourage or facilitate illegal immigration, any reduction in our traditional support for the nation of Israel, or the slightest movement toward undermining our precious right to bear arms under the Second Amendment.

Can you see why conservatives are not really big fans of the new administration?

It's not just that President Obama is who he is, though. It's also that he is who we said he would be--and the Democrats and fair-weather conservatives promised he wouldn't be.

People like Christopher Buckley swore he couldn't possibly govern from the left, while conservatives were screaming that he would increase the availability of abortion, pick up where Hillary left off in socializing the health care system, legalize marijuana (give it another three months, tops), and meddle unceasingly in the educational system.

We appear to have been right about what he would do once in office.

Now, would some of you disillusioned Obama voters who replied to our warnings not with "oh, there's nothing wrong with that," but with "oh, no, he won't do that," take the time to listen to us when we give you "the rest of the story?"

Because it's not going to be pretty, and it's not going to work. We don't have to "hope" he fails, because his policies are guaranteed to fail. We just have to pray he figures out his failure before he takes all of us down the socialist rabbit-hole with him.

And that God will have mercy on us all.

Thirty Days to Socialism

It's been a while since I posted here, and a lot has happened. First off, this "red zone" went blue in this past election, largely because of people who came over the state line to harass Hoosiers into voting for Obama, and because of the number of socialist college students that infest this once sensible state.

There is much to be said, and then there will be much more to be said, but for now I will just introduce the new order with a piece I recently did over at pardonmyenglish.com. It will help explain where we will be going this year in the Dispatches.

"Thirty Days to Socialism"

No, it's not a book. It's the life you and I and the nation are actually living. The American people are buying it hand over fist, and small groups to support the concept are springing in neighborhoods everywhere, led by cadres of loyal supporters of the present president and administration.

Oh, they don't call it that. They call it a "stimulus bill," and a "recovery package." They use code words like "transparency" and "accountability," but in the best Orwellian tradition, they don't mean either.

They mean socialism. Redistribution of income. Nationalization of industries and banks. Other societies have called them "five year plans" and "industrial policy." But they all mean socialism.

In just thirty days, the President has managed to bring the people to the trough he serves them from, filled to the brim with goodies and handouts. In just thirty days, he has persuaded America to spend more money than most of us can even understand, a debt that now must be monetized, because our friends the Chinese are no longer interested in our long-term bonds. The delirious Congress and three turncoat Republicans have handed over more than 700 billion dollars--which really is only a small portion of the nearly nine trillion in guarantees and bailouts and supports that have been flowing from DC since last October.

In just thirty days, using words like "crisis" and "impending" and "catastrophe"--by showcasing the "losers in life's lottery," who mewl and beg for their kitchens and their health care, knowing that only the great President can make them whole--the newly minted (literally--have you seen Montel hawking those coins?) president has made socialism palatable even to some Republicans.

Lindsey Graham--one of John McCain's staunchest supporters, one of Obama's former bitterest enemies, and yet always an undependable conservative--has said that nationalizing the banks should remain on the table. Now Alan Greenspan--husband of NBC's Andrea Mitchell--has made noises indicating he, too, might favor a nationalization of the banks.

How long before someone moves to repeal the twenty-second amendment, so we can live in the same "paradise" as the Venezuelans?

After all, getting this far only took thirty short little days.