Rep. Diane Watson said, in praising Cuba’s health-care system, “You can think whatever you want to about Fidel Castro, but he was one of the brightest leaders I have ever met.” W.E.B. Dubois, writing in the National Guardian (1953), said, “Joseph Stalin was a great man; few other men of the 20th century approach his stature. ... But also – and this was the highest proof of his greatness – he knew the common man, felt his problems, followed his fate.” Walter Duranty called Stalin “the greatest living statesman ... a quiet, unobtrusive man.” George Bernard Shaw expressed admiration for Mussolini, Hitler and Stalin.

John Kenneth Galbraith visited Mao’s China and praised Mao and the Chinese economic system. Gunther Stein of the Christian Science Monitor admired Mao Zedong and declared ecstatically that “the men and women pioneers of Yenan are truly new humans in spirit, thought and action,” and that Yenan itself constituted “a brand new well integrated society, that has never been seen before anywhere.” Michel Oksenberg, President Carter’s China expert, complained that “America (is) doomed to decay until radical, even revolutionary, change fundamentally alters the institutions and values,” and urged us to “borrow ideas and solutions” from China.

Even Harvard’s late professor John K. Fairbank, by no means the worst tyrant worshipper, believed that America could learn much from the Cultural Revolution, saying, “Americans may find in China’s collective life today an ingredient of personal moral concern for one’s neighbor that has a lesson for us all.” Keep in mind that estimates of the number of Chinese deaths during China’s Cultural Revolution range from 2 to 7 million people. Mao Zedong was admired by many academics and leftists across our country. Just think back to the campus demonstrations of the ‘60s and ‘70s when campus radicals, often accompanied by their professors, marched around singing the praises of Mao and waving Mao’s little red book, “Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong.” Forty years later some of these campus radicals are tenured professors and administrators at today’s universities and colleges, as well as schoolteachers and principals indoctrinating our youth.

The most authoritative tally of history’s most murderous regimes is in a book by University of Hawaii’s professor Rudolph J. Rummel, “Death by Government.” Statistics are provided at his website. The Nazis murdered 20 million of their own people and those in nations they captured. Between 1917 and 1987, Stalin and his successors murdered, or were otherwise responsible for the deaths of, 62 million of their own people. Between 1949 and 1987, Mao and his successors were responsible for the deaths of 76 million Chinese.

Today’s leftists, socialists and progressives would bristle at the suggestion that their agenda differs little from Nazism. However, there’s little or no distinction between Nazism and socialism. Even the word Nazi is short for National Socialist German Workers Party. The origins of the unspeakable horrors of Nazism, Stalinism and Maoism did not begin in the ‘20s, ‘30s and ‘40s. Those horrors were simply the end result of long evolution of ideas leading to consolidation of power in central government in the quest for “social justice.” It was decent but misguided earlier generations of Germans, like many of today’s Americans, who would have cringed at the thought of genocide, who built the Trojan horse for Hitler to take over.

Few Americans have the stomach or ruthlessness to do what is necessary to make their governmental wishes come true. They are willing to abandon constitutional principles and rule of law so that the nation’s elite, who believe they are morally and intellectually superior to the rest of us, can have the tools to implement “social justice.” Those tools are massive centralized government power. It just turns out last century’s notables in acquiring powerful central government, in the name of social justice, were Hitler, Stalin and Mao, but the struggle for social justice isn’t over yet, and other suitors of this dubious distinction are waiting in the wings.

Robs comments jogged my memory of a case many years ago when someone in Texas appealed his conviction for not wearing a seat belt.  Although he lost his appeal, one of the judges sharply dissented writing the following:

In adhering to the principle that government can legitimately punish behavior only when it inflicts harm on another, but not when it is self-harmful or merely unwise, I echo the view expressed by both Louis D. Brandeis and John Stuart Mills.  Brandeis evaluated the ‘right to be left alone’ as ‘the most valued by civilized men’. .... John Stuart Mill wrote in his political discourse ‘On Liberty’, ‘The sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection… The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others…The only part of the conduct of anyone for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others.  In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute.  Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.

Because I am afraid that if we uphold the authority of the State to punish one’s failure to use a seat-belt, we are one more step on our way to an Orwellian society in which the State can punish merely for smoking cigarettes, for not brushing one’s teeth, or for being foolish, I must dissent.

Considering that this was written in 1987 before there were bans on tobacco use, one can see how prophetic the judge was in his dissenting decision.  Have we already reach the Orwellian society he predicted?  As we seem to have become comfortable with the various restrictions in our personal lives, I can’t see anything impeding us from that nefarious achievement.

Vladimir Putin is no longer president but he is de facto czar. And he thinks it’s past time to reconstitute the old empire – not formally (yet), but certainly as a sphere of influence from which the Yanks keep their distance. President Obama has just handed the Russians their biggest win since the collapse of the Iron Curtain. Indeed, in some ways it marks the restitching of the Iron Curtain. When the Czechs signed their end of the missile-defense deal in July, they found themselves afflicted by a sudden “technical difficulty” that halved their gas supply from Russia. The Europe Putin foresees will be one not only ever more energy-dependent on Moscow but security-dependent, too – in which every city is within range of missiles from Tehran and other crazies, and is, in effect, under the security umbrella of the new czar. As to whether such a Continent will be amicable to American interests, well, good luck with that, hopeychangers.

In a sense, the health care debate and the foreign policy debacle are two sides of the same coin: For Britain and other great powers, the decision to build a hugely expensive welfare state at home entailed inevitably a long retreat from responsibilities abroad, with a thousand small betrayals of peripheral allies along the way. A few years ago, the great scholar Bernard Lewis warned, during the debate on withdrawal from Iraq, that America risked being seen as “harmless as an enemy and treacherous as a friend.” In Moscow and Tehran, on the one hand, and Warsaw and Prague, on the other, they’re drawing their own conclusions.

What is not generally known is that Kennedy collaborated with the Soviets well before Reagan was elected, and had a direct hand in crafting the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. As a result of his efforts—which appear in retrospect to have been crafted to prevent detection of his seditious activities—the FBI was prevented from accessing critical intelligence that could have warned of 9-11.

The restrictions that Kennedy successfully put in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act were so tight that when the FBI arrested Zacarias Moussaoui (the so-called 20th highjacker) in August 2001, they could not get permission to download his computer since FBI headquarters understood that they did not have enough evidence to get a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

After 9/11 when they did download his computer they found, among other interesting things, information on the air currents over New York.

It is worthwhile to reflect that while Republicans and Democrats alike lionize the fallen “Lion of the Senate,” with their silence they implicitly condone potentially seditious activities that may have contributed to the loss of 2,998 American lives, the most costly single attack on American soil in U.S. history.

The general welfare clause is the last part of Article I, Section 8, Clause 1 of the Constitution. This provision grants Congress the power “[t]o lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States.”

Pursuant to this Clause, Congress can only impose taxes for three purposes. First, to “pay the debts… of the United States.” This provision was inserted, primarily, to give the federal government the ability to extinguish the existing debts of the United States [pre Constitution] and was not intended to grant Congress the discretionary power to incur new debts. Second, to “provide for the common Defense… of the United States.” This provision enumerates the primary purpose of the federal government and grants Congress the power to raise the needed revenue. Third, to “provide for the general welfare of the United States.”  This provision, which was intended to limit the ability of Congress to tax and spend, has been radically expanded, with the help of the federal judiciary, and is now the constitutional basis for the myriad of federal spending programs that consume the bulk of the taxes extracted from the American people every year. It should be noted that if the
federal government was not usurping power through this clause and spending money like drunken sailors, there would be no need for a federal income tax.

The introduction of this clause in the constitution was controversial with James Madison opposing anything but the narrowest interpretation.

Following the close of the Federal Convention of 1787, a controversy arose over the meaning of the general welfare phrase. The Anti-Federalists, who opposed ratification of the proposed constitution, were vehemently opposed to this provision because they believed it was an abstract term and Congress alone would determine its scope and meaning. They also asserted that this provision amounted to an unlimited grant of legislative power.

The Federalists asserted that its critics had misconstrued the construction of this
provision. James Madison, who is recognized as the father of the Constitution, argued that the general welfare phrase was a qualifying term, not an independent grant of power. He claimed the general welfare provision could not be construed as an unlimited grant of legislative power because it was followed by an enumeration of particular powers. Since the federal government was a government of limited powers, Madison asserted the power to tax and spend was confined to the enumerated legislative fields committed to Congress by the Constitution.

Alexander Hamilton was on the other side of the argument although his interpretations were also somewhat limiting.

In his 1791 “Report on Manufactures,” Alexander Hamilton asserted the general welfare provision conferred a power separate and distinct from the specific grants of legislative power contained in the Constitution. He also claimed the specific grants of legislative power did not qualify or limit the meaning of the general welfare phrase. Therefore, Congress, according to Hamilton, had an independent and unspecified power to tax and appropriate money for the general welfare.

Even though Hamilton asserted that the appropriation of money for the general welfare is
totally within the discretion of Congress, he cautioned that there are several limitations
on this power. First, the appropriation must be applied to the whole [general] and cannot be local or particular. Second, Congress cannot use this provision as a pretext to legislate
for the general welfare generally. It can only tax and spend for the general welfare of the
United States. Third, Congress cannot use the power of appropriation to do things not
authorized by the Constitution, “either expressly or by fair implication.” It should be
noted that Hamilton did not profess this interpretation in his writings in the Federalist
Essays [1787-1788].

Even with slightly broader interpretations, the govenment largely stayed within its desiginated constitution limits until Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal era.

Few americans realize that up until 1937 the Congress of the United States conducted its
business within the boundaries of seventeen enumerated powers granted under Article I
Section 8 of the United States Constitution. [Appx. 1] these powers defined clearly the
areas of national purposes over which Congress could enact legislation including the
allocation of funds and levying of taxes. Anything not set down in the enumerated powers was considered outside the purview of the national government and hence, a matter for the
states. There were occasional challenges to the concept but it was not until Franklin Roosevelt’s new deal that it was attacked in deadly earnestness.

Initially the supreme court resisted FDR’s New Deal welfare measures but when FDR threatened to get his way by stacking the court with new appointees loyal to him, the court caved in.

The supreme court at the time consisted of four conservatives, three liberals, one moderate, and one swing. The liberals were; Stone, Cardozo and Brandeis. The conservatives were: McReynolds, Sutherland, Butler, and Van Deventer. The moderate was Hughes. The swing was Roberts.

Hughes prevailed on Roberts to desert the conservative camp, swing over with him and join
the three liberals in declaring the social security cases [Steward Machine Co. v. Davis (301
us 548, May 24, 1937)] Constitutional.[4] [P.56] This Roberts did, and by so doing, took the
wind from the sails of the President’s court packing plan. It went back to committee and
died. one Administration official called the court’s action, “the switch in time that saved
nine.” 

This decision said in effect, Congress would no longer be held to enumerated powers but instead could tax and spend for anything; so long as it was for “general welfare.”

Following the New Deal, Congress stayed relatively quiet largely because of the war and conservative presidents, than along came Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society.

Nothing much happened immediately after these decisions because of WW II; then post war reconstruction with a strong conservative Republican leadership under Bob Taft and a
coalition of conservative democrats;  then Korea; then the Eisenhower years; then Kennedy
[who basically was a fiscal conservative]; then Dallas; then Lyndon B. Johnson and the Great Society, [1965] the arrival of which signaled the commencement of the full implementation of “Stewart Machine Co. v. Davis”—1937.

Enjoy..

If you attend any of the townhall meetings or tea parties, make sure that there are some of your people video taping the whole thing.

references:
Michelle Malkin
Gateway Pundit

But there is an abundance of evidence found in the acts of the Constitutional Convention, and in the construction of the Constitution by the early Presidents, to show that it was not the intent of the framers of the Constitution, under the power to regulate interstate commerce, to clothe Congress with the power to prohibit commerce, or to own and operate canals and post roads. On September 14, 1787, a motion was made by Franklin in the Constitutional Convention that Congress be given power ” to provide for cutting canals,” and
the motion was defeated. Edmund Randolph, who presented to the Constitutional Convention the Virginia plan, while Attorney-General under the administration of Washington, gave his opinion to Washington, February 12, 1791, on the extent of the power in Congress to regulate commerce, saying that its extent was ” little more than to establish the forms of commercial intercourse between the states, and to keep the prohibitions which the Constitution imposed upon that intercourse undiminished in their operation; that is, to prevent taxes on imports or exports, preference to one port over another by any regulation of commerce or revenue, and duties upon the entering or clearing of the vessels of one state in the ports of another.” It is evident that the United States cannot under the Constitution open any road or canal without the consent of the state through which said road or canal must pass.”

The unfortunate use of the word ‘regulate’ in the Interstate Commerce clause ‘To regulate commerce with foreign Nations, and amoung the several states..’ without specifically defining the regulatory limitations has lead to the broadest possible interpretation by the Federal legislation and the judiciary in the most liberal sense and as is sharply evident, the Federal government with the consent of the judicial branch has dramatically overreached the intended limitations of the Commerce clause.

In short, the national government, with few delegated powers, is going back to the old world views of the functions of government, and, through the interstate commerce act, is
establishing a Federal police power which follows the footsteps of every citizen by licenses
and restraining laws into every avenue of life, and practically supplants the police powers
reserved to the states.

If the United States Supreme Court sustains all these powers, the national government will become omnipotent. An ambitious President, through his right to execute the laws, can perpetuate his power in spite of the people. But the President seeks powers still greater than these. He asks Congress to confer upon the Interstate Commerce Commission the right to discriminate between good and bad trusts; to allow certain railways to form combinations; and to punish those which it desires, and to exempt those which it thinks it wise to refrain from punishing.

The dreary predictions in the above quotes written in 1908 have come to fruition today as we
have descended to the hell of total government control.  The vast number of Federal agencies
that control almost every aspect of our lives all have their basis in the liberal interpretation of the Commerce clause.  The systems of checks and balances intended by the countries founders has abysmally failed as the Supreme court who should have put a stop to most of this government expansiveness has become little more than an approval stamp on whatever regulation powers the Congress and president wishes to acquire.

Afterword: Virtually all government regulations have been enacted ‘for the good of the people’ but it boggles my mind how depriving the ‘people’ of the freedom of choice is a good thing.  Our country today has severely departed from the ideals envisioned by its founders.  After 4 years of Obama’s rule we shall have completed the transition of free nation to a country under absolute rule which has names like ‘nanny state’ and ‘police state’.

Freedom is messy. In free societies, people will fall through the cracks – drink too much, eat too much, buy unaffordable homes, fail to make prudent provision for health care and much else. But the price of being relieved of all those tiresome choices by a benign paternal government is far too high.

References:
Federal usurpation By Franklin Pierce
Mark Steyn

1.  Immediate revision of taxes on capital gains and undistributed profits in order to free investment funds.
2.  Reduced expenditures to achieve a balanced budget, and thus, to still fears deterring business expansion.
3.  An end to coercion and violence in relations between capital and labor.
4.  Opposition to “unnecessary” government competition with private enterprise.
5.  Recognition that private investment and enterprise require a reasonable profit. 
6.  Safeguarding the collateral upon which credit rests.
7.  Reduction of taxes, or if this proved impossible at the moment, firm assurance of no further increases.
8.  Maintenance of state rights, home rule, and local self-government, except where proved definitely inadequate.
9.  Economical and non-political relief to unemployed with maximum local responsibility.
10.  Reliance upon the American form of government and the American system of enterprise.