According to Robert Spencer of David Horowitz's Freedom Center, Senator Tom Cotton is requesting that the IRS investigate the tax-exempt status of the Southern Poverty Law Center. As a former contributor who was scammed into supporting them, I wholeheartedly support his request. As I have previously blogged, the SPLC is a racketeering organization that has engaged in partisan advocacy and extortion. The petition can be signed here. Spencer's email follows:
Mitchell, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has made its mission to blacklist and bankrupt conservatives like you and me.
All the while, they're raking in millions that they're storing in offshore accounts, paying no taxes, and protected by outdated laws that make it impossible for patriots like you and me to defend ourselves.
And finally, an elected official is doing something about it.
Rep. Tom Cotton formally addressed the IRS commissioner, urging him to investigate the Southern Poverty Law Center's tax-exempt status...
...and I'm calling on the Freedom Center's very best supporters to join me in thanking him with this Note of Support.
The truth is, this is one of the most important fights to the future of our country -- and no one knows that better than I do.
When big tech and big finance came after me last summer, completely shutting down my online fundraising, they used the SPLC's target on my back to justify their bans.
And I went months not being able to raise a single penny.
That's why I hope you'll sign this Note of Support to Rep Tom Cotton right away for leading the fight against SPLC.
Showing posts with label David Horowitz. Show all posts
Showing posts with label David Horowitz. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 3, 2019
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Anti-Semitic Indoctrination at UC Santa Cruz
Dr. Ken Marcus of the Institute for Jewish and Community Research sent me this link to a Scribd file copy of Tammi Rossman-Benjamin's 29 page letter of complaint date to the San Francisco Office of Civil Rights concerning systemic anti-Semitism at the University of California, Santa Cruz. The atmosphere at UCSC sounds terrifying and disturbing, but the facts are not surprising given the reception that I witnessed David Horowitz receive at Brooklyn College. Given the left-liberal orienation at most universities, anti-Semitism increasingly characterizes them. What is puzzling is that the majority of Jews continue to identify themselves as left liberals.
Ms. Rossman-Benjamin's complaint hit the headlines on Wednesday. CBS San Francisco reports:
"The U.S. Department of Education is investigating a faculty member’s complaint that a series of pro-Palestinian events at the University of California, Santa Cruz crossed the line into anti-Semitism and created a hostile environment for Jewish students.
"The department’s Office for Civil Rights notified the campus last week that it planned to look into allegations made by Hebrew lecturer Tammi Rossman-Benjamin dating back to 2001."
Ms. Rossman-Benjamin's complaint hit the headlines on Wednesday. CBS San Francisco reports:
"The U.S. Department of Education is investigating a faculty member’s complaint that a series of pro-Palestinian events at the University of California, Santa Cruz crossed the line into anti-Semitism and created a hostile environment for Jewish students.
"The department’s Office for Civil Rights notified the campus last week that it planned to look into allegations made by Hebrew lecturer Tammi Rossman-Benjamin dating back to 2001."
Saturday, March 12, 2011
David Horowitz at Brooklyn College
David Horowitz writes a long article about his talk at Brooklyn College on his online e-zine, Frontpagemag. Pamela Hall has graciously posted a video of Horowitz's entire talk. I introduce Yosef Sobel, the student who put the event together, at the beginning. The catcalls and disruptions of Horowitz's talk begin about twenty minutes in. I intervened at best semi-successfully. The security was excellent thanks to the hard work of Brooklyn College's security chief Donald Wenz, CUNY Trustee Jeffrey Wiesenfeld and Bill Barry. At the very end I ask the leader of the Palestinian Club protesters (the students do not identify themselves as such but Horowitz identifies them in his article) to state his response to Mr. Horowitz. He does not make a single substantive point in response. Instead, he hurls an inarticulate stream of invective, backed by his confederate across the room who calls everyone with whom he disagrees a Nazi.
Also see: Lucianne.com and here.
Also see: Lucianne.com and here.
Friday, March 11, 2011
I Thank Horowitz, Horowitz Thanks Us
Last night, David Horowitz spoke at Brooklyn College. I served as the faculty sponsor and introduced him to the audience. The audience was a mixture of sympathetic listeners and anti-Horowitz protesters. I wrote a blog about what occurred on the National Association of Scholars site. As well, American Rattlesnake describes the events. Pamela Hall is working on posting a video, which you will find interesting.
I had written David a thank you letter to which he graciously responded:
Dear Mitchell,
Thank you. I would like to use this email to convey my gratitude to all of you who helped make this possible and especially to Jeffrey Wiesenfeld who allowed us to have a civilized environment in which to express our point of view and who taught the Jewish students that if they will stand up for themselves others will step in to stand up for them too.
I have written an account of what happened and will send you all a copy and post it on the web as well.
David
On Mar 10, 2011, at 10:22 PM, Mitchell wrote:
Dear David:
I did not appreciate the sacrifices to which you have voluntarily subjected yourself until I saw the hate-filled protesters in last night’s audience. Since I am used to classrooms where small amounts of incivility are out of place, hearing the anger that you have chosen to expose impresses me. Your work is critical to the nation’s future. Without you, the incipient totalitarianism in America’s universities would avoid the light of publicity.
Everyone in our circle is most appreciative of your coming to Brooklyn College. We cannot thank you enough. As well, we thank you on behalf of future Americans who will benefit from your untiring efforts.
Sincerely,
Mitchell Langbert
Associate Professor
Brooklyn College
Saturday, February 12, 2011
David Horowitz at CPAC: Thumbs Up on Education Vouchers
David Horowitz argues that government needs to be taken out of the school business. Hear, hear. View the whole thing here (CPAC registration required).
Friday, February 4, 2011
Meshugana Jews Voted For Obama
In the recent past, Jews have been saddled with the holocaust, oppression in the Soviet Union and the dhimmi, embodied in the jizya tax, in many Islamic countries. Now that some have their own country, Israel, and others live in America, they are free from tyranny. Ironically, though, given American freedom, many if not most American Jews have supported reinstatement of the socialism that murdered them in Germany and the Soviet Union and from which they fled. The self-destructive support for "progressivism" is a martyr wish. The Jews' martyrdom is a biblical theme: the Jews sin, suffer penalties like the breaking of the tablets by Moses, and then are redeemed through suffering like the Babylonian captivity.
In voting for Obama 77 percent of American Jews aimed to induce a biblical cycle. The Jews' favored candidate, whether through incompetence or intent, is about to destabilize the Middle East and pose a serious threat to Israel's existence. In a recent letter David Horowitz writes:
The situation on the streets of Cairo is confusing, but so too is the message coming out of the Obama White House. The White House appears to be leaving Hosni Mubarak, an ally for three decades and lynchpin of Mideast stability, twisting slowly in the wind. And worse, it appears to be open to allowing the Muslim Brotherhood play a key role in a "reformed" Egyptian government, as long as the organization renounces violence and supports democracy... If the Obama White House really believes this is possible, it is even more hopelessly incompetent than we imagined...In suggesting that the Muslim Brotherhood can be a democratic partner in Egypt, the Obama White House has outdone even the Carter administration's destabilization of the Shah of Iran in 1979 and its welcoming of the theocratic fascist Khoumeni as a "saint."...From the Bolshevik Revolution, through Mao and the Ayatollah Khoumeni, the left has always seen figures who turned out to be monsters as "reformers."
There were probably some Jews who supported Hitler in 1932, before he got to power. The effects on Israel of the Obama administration's actions could turn out worse than I thought likely in 2008 (but not worse than I feared). His meshugana Jewish supporters bear responsibility for the threat that Muslim Brotherhood now poses to the Jews.Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Repeal Obamacare (and Lots More Too)
A flurry of e-mails are in my inbox calling for a repeal of Obamacare, law suits against it and efforts to unseat Blue Dog Democrats and other vulnerable Congressional flunkies who voted for it. I certainly hope these efforts, one and all, come to fruition. But if repeal is in the air, perhaps a few additional things can be repealed. Such as the Bush prescription drug plan; the bailout; the Department of Energy; the Department of Labor; and the Department of Education. As well, how about a 15% across the board cut in government payroll and a rescinding of 15 laws? Which laws? Heck, there are thousands to choose from. It shouldn't be hard. Pick the 15 most expensive.
David Horowitz
David Horowitz writes:
"You know the problem - the arrogant assault on our constitution by Barack Obama and his minions in the House and Senate. The way they forced the national takeover of our health care system is the greatest threat to our democracy since Russia placed nuclear missiles on Cuba.
"Yes! It's that serious. But as a longtime supporter of the Freedom Center, I'm certain you understand this.
"What I need today is for you to help me print more of the two most powerful and popular booklets the Center has ever published. I'm talking about Obama's Rules for Revolution and The Art of Political War for Tea Parties.
If you want to help David H. go to this link: https://secure.donationreport.com/donation.html?key=OMG7PRA9EQQA
American Center for Law and Justice
The ACLJ is a Christian rights organization. Jay Sekulow writes:
"I'm sorry to say, Congress and the President have let you down.
"The worst part is that this law includes a mandate that FORCES Americans to participate - meaning you could be forced to buy a health care policy that funds abortions!
"But let me assure you: THIS IS NOT OVER.
"If you want to join their efforts to fight the abortion provisions in the law click here.
Mitt Romney writes:
"President Obama's healthcare bill is unhealthy for America. Without a single Republican vote in the House or the Senate, he pushed through a bill that millions of Americans do not want, and for which we cannot conceivably pay.
"Health care reform shouldn't mean higher taxes, cuts to our seniors on Medicare, insurance price controls or greater federal involvement in our lives. But unfortunately that's just what we're getting.
"America has been taken down the wrong path by President Obama and the Democrats in Congress, which is why it's critical we elect fiscally-responsible conservative leaders in November who will repeal this bill and restore commonsense principles to healthcare.
"That is why I am writing to you today to announce a new initiative at my Free and Strong America PAC called "Prescription for Repeal." Over the coming weeks and months, my PAC will be providing GOP candidates with the support and funding they need to defeat Democrats who supported ObamaCare."
If you want to contribute to Mr. Romney's Prescription for Repeal PAC click here.
Americans for Limited Government
Robert Romano of Americans for Limited Government sent out a press release supporting Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (remember from last fall?) who is filing a law suit against the law's individual mandates. Romano writes:
"March 22nd, 2010, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson today condemned the House of Representatives for enacting what he termed "the government takeover of health care that will ration treatment, increase the cost of premiums, and force Americans onto government-run insurance.
"Last night, the House passed the Senate version of "ObamaCare" 219 to 212. Wilson encouraged states, like Virginia, to pursue their plans to sue against the constitutionality of the federal mandate that individuals purchase health insurance.
"Wilson said that the "Constitution does not permit Congress to enact any mandate for individuals to purchase anything, let alone health insurance.
"Wilson said that the "Constitution does not permit Congress to enact any mandate for individuals to purchase anything, let alone health insurance."
Amazingly Romano does not have a link asking for a donation.
Campaign For Liberty
John Tate of C4L writes:
"Late Sunday night, the U.S. House of Representatives abandoned the Constitution, made a mockery of the words of the Founders, and drew a line in the sand as it passed the Senate’s health care bill 219-212.
"The morning after the federal government acted yet again to increase its control over our lives, the freedom movement has two clear options.
"Option #1 is to give President Obama, Rahm Emanuel, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid exactly what they want by throwing in the towel, surrendering any hopes of free market health care reform, and taking the pressure off an exhausted Congress.
"Option #2 is to rededicate our efforts, work harder than ever to spread the message, turn up the heat, and give them the fight of their political careers.
"You see, our elected officials are used to enduring knockdown, drag-out battles over controversial issues, and the one thing they always count on after a contentious vote is that the phone lines will go silent and their inboxes will slowly be whittled down. After all, they know our side lost, and the bill will soon be signed into law.
"That may have been true about the legislative fights of old, but our Revolution must not allow this dangerous relic of past political thinking to continue.
"Read the roll call of the House vote here. Get contact information for your representative here.
"If your congressman voted for Nancy Pelosi’s power grab, contact him right away today by phone and email and let him know what you think of his failure to uphold his oath to the Constitution.
"Remind him that you’re watching and will do everything in your power to hold him accountable for his vote and to make sure his constituents know he believes they should either carry government-approved insurance or answer to the IRS.
"Tell him his actions have made you more committed than ever to fighting for free market health care reforms like those contained in C4L’s Operation Health Freedom.
"And make sure he knows this will be the first of many calls, emails, and faxes he can expect in the coming days and months.
"If you are able, please help Campaign for Liberty spread the word, hold our elected officials accountable, and carry on the battle for health freedom by donating today.
"Only your continued support will keep us at the forefront of the fight to push back against the statists’ advances and reclaim our liberties.
"I don’t know about you, but I’m sick and tired of being lectured on responsibility and fairness by reckless politicians who think money can be generated out of thin air forever and who believe the Declaration’s statement concerning “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” means we have to bow the knee to their every whim.
"They’ve staked their claim and left no doubt about where they stand.
"Now it’s our turn to prove we will never give up on our principles.
Principles that don’t include forcing your neighbor to buy whatever good or service you think they should have under penalty of IRS action. Principles that reaffirm the fundamental right of each American to live their life and pursue their dreams without constant government interference.
Please, contact your representative today and clearly state your independence from politics as usual.
Get Liberty.org
Get Liberty.org
writes:
"The die has been cast. Last night, despite overwhelming opposition by the American people to the government taking over the nation’s entire health care system, the House of Representatives voted 219 to 212 to do just that, adopting the Senate version of ObamaCare.
"Despite the victory lap House Democrats took on Capitol Hill last night, and Barack Obama at the White House, the American people should not be disheartened. It was for their efforts alone that this process divided the Congressional majority for a year, making it long, bloody, and costly.
"34 Democrats joined with 178 Republicans to cast bipartisan opposition to the measure. That is no mistake. Without the tenacity of the American people, expressed in the tea parties, at the town halls, and in hundreds of thousands of phone calls, emails, letters, and faxes sent to Washington and district-level offices, this bill would have surely passed a year ago.
George Phillips (Congressional Candidate NY 22nd CD)
"Despite widespread opposition from the American people and being brokered through a series of back room deals, Congress passed the Democrats' health care legislation yesterday.
"My opponent Maurice Hinchey came down in favor of the bill, and in a close vote, was one of the deciding voices.
"Hinchey refused to hold Health Care Town Hall meetings last summer, and in doing so I believe he refused to listen to the concerns of his constituents.
"I've signed a pledge stating I'll vote to repeal this bill when elected and fight for solutions that truly lower health care costs without a massive government take over.
"We're approaching an important March 31st fundraising deadline where a public report will be filed with the FEC.
"Send a message to Maurice Hinchey about your opposition to the bill by donating to our campaign today.
"Donate through clicking on our website or sending donations to our PO Box below.
"Thank you for your support.
"Sincerely,
"George Phillips"
Let us repeal health reform and file law suits. Let us go further and aim to repeal all of the legislation passed since 1970.
David Horowitz
David Horowitz writes:
"You know the problem - the arrogant assault on our constitution by Barack Obama and his minions in the House and Senate. The way they forced the national takeover of our health care system is the greatest threat to our democracy since Russia placed nuclear missiles on Cuba.
"Yes! It's that serious. But as a longtime supporter of the Freedom Center, I'm certain you understand this.
"What I need today is for you to help me print more of the two most powerful and popular booklets the Center has ever published. I'm talking about Obama's Rules for Revolution and The Art of Political War for Tea Parties.
If you want to help David H. go to this link: https://secure.donationreport.com/donation.html?key=OMG7PRA9EQQA
American Center for Law and Justice
The ACLJ is a Christian rights organization. Jay Sekulow writes:
"I'm sorry to say, Congress and the President have let you down.
"The worst part is that this law includes a mandate that FORCES Americans to participate - meaning you could be forced to buy a health care policy that funds abortions!
"But let me assure you: THIS IS NOT OVER.
"If you want to join their efforts to fight the abortion provisions in the law click here.
Mitt Romney writes:
"President Obama's healthcare bill is unhealthy for America. Without a single Republican vote in the House or the Senate, he pushed through a bill that millions of Americans do not want, and for which we cannot conceivably pay.
"Health care reform shouldn't mean higher taxes, cuts to our seniors on Medicare, insurance price controls or greater federal involvement in our lives. But unfortunately that's just what we're getting.
"America has been taken down the wrong path by President Obama and the Democrats in Congress, which is why it's critical we elect fiscally-responsible conservative leaders in November who will repeal this bill and restore commonsense principles to healthcare.
"That is why I am writing to you today to announce a new initiative at my Free and Strong America PAC called "Prescription for Repeal." Over the coming weeks and months, my PAC will be providing GOP candidates with the support and funding they need to defeat Democrats who supported ObamaCare."
If you want to contribute to Mr. Romney's Prescription for Repeal PAC click here.
Americans for Limited Government
Robert Romano of Americans for Limited Government sent out a press release supporting Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (remember from last fall?) who is filing a law suit against the law's individual mandates. Romano writes:
"March 22nd, 2010, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson today condemned the House of Representatives for enacting what he termed "the government takeover of health care that will ration treatment, increase the cost of premiums, and force Americans onto government-run insurance.
"Last night, the House passed the Senate version of "ObamaCare" 219 to 212. Wilson encouraged states, like Virginia, to pursue their plans to sue against the constitutionality of the federal mandate that individuals purchase health insurance.
"Wilson said that the "Constitution does not permit Congress to enact any mandate for individuals to purchase anything, let alone health insurance.
"Wilson said that the "Constitution does not permit Congress to enact any mandate for individuals to purchase anything, let alone health insurance."
Amazingly Romano does not have a link asking for a donation.
Campaign For Liberty
John Tate of C4L writes:
"Late Sunday night, the U.S. House of Representatives abandoned the Constitution, made a mockery of the words of the Founders, and drew a line in the sand as it passed the Senate’s health care bill 219-212.
"The morning after the federal government acted yet again to increase its control over our lives, the freedom movement has two clear options.
"Option #1 is to give President Obama, Rahm Emanuel, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid exactly what they want by throwing in the towel, surrendering any hopes of free market health care reform, and taking the pressure off an exhausted Congress.
"Option #2 is to rededicate our efforts, work harder than ever to spread the message, turn up the heat, and give them the fight of their political careers.
"You see, our elected officials are used to enduring knockdown, drag-out battles over controversial issues, and the one thing they always count on after a contentious vote is that the phone lines will go silent and their inboxes will slowly be whittled down. After all, they know our side lost, and the bill will soon be signed into law.
"That may have been true about the legislative fights of old, but our Revolution must not allow this dangerous relic of past political thinking to continue.
"Read the roll call of the House vote here. Get contact information for your representative here.
"If your congressman voted for Nancy Pelosi’s power grab, contact him right away today by phone and email and let him know what you think of his failure to uphold his oath to the Constitution.
"Remind him that you’re watching and will do everything in your power to hold him accountable for his vote and to make sure his constituents know he believes they should either carry government-approved insurance or answer to the IRS.
"Tell him his actions have made you more committed than ever to fighting for free market health care reforms like those contained in C4L’s Operation Health Freedom.
"And make sure he knows this will be the first of many calls, emails, and faxes he can expect in the coming days and months.
"If you are able, please help Campaign for Liberty spread the word, hold our elected officials accountable, and carry on the battle for health freedom by donating today.
"Only your continued support will keep us at the forefront of the fight to push back against the statists’ advances and reclaim our liberties.
"I don’t know about you, but I’m sick and tired of being lectured on responsibility and fairness by reckless politicians who think money can be generated out of thin air forever and who believe the Declaration’s statement concerning “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” means we have to bow the knee to their every whim.
"They’ve staked their claim and left no doubt about where they stand.
"Now it’s our turn to prove we will never give up on our principles.
Principles that don’t include forcing your neighbor to buy whatever good or service you think they should have under penalty of IRS action. Principles that reaffirm the fundamental right of each American to live their life and pursue their dreams without constant government interference.
Please, contact your representative today and clearly state your independence from politics as usual.
Get Liberty.org
Get Liberty.org
writes:
"The die has been cast. Last night, despite overwhelming opposition by the American people to the government taking over the nation’s entire health care system, the House of Representatives voted 219 to 212 to do just that, adopting the Senate version of ObamaCare.
"Despite the victory lap House Democrats took on Capitol Hill last night, and Barack Obama at the White House, the American people should not be disheartened. It was for their efforts alone that this process divided the Congressional majority for a year, making it long, bloody, and costly.
"34 Democrats joined with 178 Republicans to cast bipartisan opposition to the measure. That is no mistake. Without the tenacity of the American people, expressed in the tea parties, at the town halls, and in hundreds of thousands of phone calls, emails, letters, and faxes sent to Washington and district-level offices, this bill would have surely passed a year ago.
George Phillips (Congressional Candidate NY 22nd CD)
"Despite widespread opposition from the American people and being brokered through a series of back room deals, Congress passed the Democrats' health care legislation yesterday.
"My opponent Maurice Hinchey came down in favor of the bill, and in a close vote, was one of the deciding voices.
"Hinchey refused to hold Health Care Town Hall meetings last summer, and in doing so I believe he refused to listen to the concerns of his constituents.
"I've signed a pledge stating I'll vote to repeal this bill when elected and fight for solutions that truly lower health care costs without a massive government take over.
"We're approaching an important March 31st fundraising deadline where a public report will be filed with the FEC.
"Send a message to Maurice Hinchey about your opposition to the bill by donating to our campaign today.
"Donate through clicking on our website or sending donations to our PO Box below.
"Thank you for your support.
"Sincerely,
"George Phillips"
Let us repeal health reform and file law suits. Let us go further and aim to repeal all of the legislation passed since 1970.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Does Scott Brown Matter?
Jim Crum sent me an e-mail about David Horowitz's analysis of the Obama administration, which I enjoyed and copied below. The piece makes great points. But it ignores some history that might help us consider where we ought to be going. The Republicans need to develop a coherent game plan. I am celebrating the victory in Massachusetts like everyone else, but I did not hear anyone ask exactly what it is that Scott Brown believes other than his position on the current health care bill. It seems to me that the century-old Republican approach of voting for anyone who will keep the Democrats out is still in force. Look where it got us. Does Scott Brown believe in freedom, or is he a Progressive?
The missing link in the analysis below is the economic underpinning of the thrust toward socialism and centralization of power. It is not just because of the left. The left is a tool and an ally of more powerful advocates of centralization, the Wall Street-Military-Industrial Complex.
It is in fact the Republican Party that introduced big government. This was done by Theodore Roosevelt between 1901 (the year McKinley was shot) and 1908. The Federal Trade Commission Act was a cornerstone of Roosevelt's attempt to socialize big business. He was supported in this by a significant component of Wall Street and big business, notably JP Morgan's famous associate George Perkins, president of International Harvester. TR backed William Howard Taft in 1908, and Taft betrayed him, preferring to regulate trusts through the Sherman Anti-trust Act (itself an earlier boondoggle). This enraged Roosevelt. He ran against Taft in 1912 as a third party candidate, forcing the election of Woodrow Wilson. Wilson established the federal income tax and the Fed in 1913. The Fed was largely the result of pressure from the money center banks following JP Morgan's death in 1913. There was no public outcry or crisis resulting in its passage, and the law was passed during Christmas week in 1913.
Until Wilson the Democrats had offered the counterpoint to Republican centralization. In the 18th and 19th centuries the centralizers were the party of the rich--the Federalists, Whigs and Republicans. The Republicans were the big government party from Lincoln on. You will notice the real reason for the Civil War--retaining the federal governmental structure. The Democrats (preceded by the Democratic-Republicans) were the party of decentralization and laissez-faire.
In the post civil war era the Republicans adopted the laissez-faire philosophy but with a twist. In the pre civil war Jacksonian era, the Democrats preached the gold standard and laissez-faire as policies that benefit the common man. That was President Andrew Jackson's philosophy. In contrast, in the post Civil War era the Republicans associated laissez faire with the Social Darwinism of Herbert Spencer. This fit their claim that the big businesses that were coming into existence in that era reflected a natural process. As well, the early Republican pushes toward centralization besides the Civil War included: the greenbacks used to pay for it; the legal tender law that paved the way for the Fed; the Morrill and Homestead Acts; the National Banking Act; the Pendleton Act, creating the foundation of a civil service; and the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, which aimed to establish common law remedies against unfair monopolies at the federal level.
It is debatable how natural the growth of big business was. First, virtually all of the railroads were subsidized, as was the Standard Oil Company through a wide range of corrupt deals with state governments (small change in comparison with the corruption associated with Obama and the Fed nowadays). Second, government heavily protected business through very high tariffs, well above the amount needed to entirely fund the federal government. Third, although the Sherman anti-trust Act claimed to limit unfair competition it actually encouraged big business. For a period of about 15 years, the Supreme Court held that all combinations (all big businesses) were illegal. Then, in 1911, the Court abolished Standard Oil but said that big businesses were legal as long as they behaved in a reasonable manner (that they were "good trusts"). But the Sherman Anti-trust Act is unequivocal in saying that agreements between smaller firms are illegal, it is legal for them to combine to form a single company but not legal for them to reach agreements or "collude". Hence, the past 150 years have seen unending centralization and excessively large corporations. Previously, smaller firms engaged in unstable agreements not to raise prices. The Sherman Anti-trust Act illegalized these agreements but made it legal for them to merge.
Martin J. Sklar traces this history very carefully in a monumental book, Corporate Reconstruction of American Capitalism.
The upshot of my long winded discussion is that big business was institutionalized by the Sherman Anti-trust Act, the Fed, and by the impetus to centralize business and government. The New Deal also played a significant role, as did the explosion of regulation in the 1960s and 1970s. By institution of complex regulatory requirements and other legal barriers to entry in fields like banking, insurance, health care and education (note: all failed industries) competition was limited across increasing swathes of the American economy. If you add those four fields to government you probably have between seventy and eighty percent of the economy. And that leaves out numerous other pockets of socialized business in fields like human resource management, employee benefits, pharmaceuticals and food.
The result has been a 40-year-long stagnation in the real wage and increasing income inequality. As well, the widespread, fundamental innovation of the 19th century has drawn to a close, as manufacturing executives think of financial gimmicks and plant relocation as central to their business plans.
The Republican Party not only played a role in the trend toward centralization and socialization--through TR it was the leading impetus that was only supplanted in the 1930s by FDR's even more socialistic plans. The close links between the centrally planned big business core and the Republican Party make it unlikely that the GOP will favor freedom, free markets and decentralization unless there is some kind of radical change.
The role the left has played in this is that it has been allied with the interests of the Wall Street-Military-Industrial Complex. From the beginning, both left-wing socialists and big business Progressives had parallel goals. The Progressives wanted centralization so that economies of scale could be achieved, control rationalized, competition and innovation eliminated (what David Ames Wells called "overproduction" in his 1889 Recent Economic Changes). The left-wing socialist favored socialization because they believed that public control was desirable. Both advocated innovation-stifling, reactionary ideas that in practice were the same.
The good cop/bad cop routine has been quite effective. I do not hear many Republicans considering the possibility that their policies have neatly paralleled those of left-wing socialists. Rather, there is endless chimerical competition and hatred between the "left", which claims to be altruistic and favors centralization for altruistic reasons, and the "right" which claims to favor efficiency and favors centralization for supposedly productive reasons. The two sing the same song with slightly different tunes. Which side, the left represented by Obama or the right represented by Bill Kristol opposed the bail out and TARP? Shall we say both sang the same song? When it came down to giving trillions to the Street, Paul Krugman and George Bush gave each other a nice deep kiss.
The article is right about the media. Despite decades of P/progessive domination of the news media and left-wing control of education the American people retain elements of their Lockean heritage. But the news media has done much to confuse them. They are not asking the questions that they need to. For instance:
Will Scott Brown turn out to be a fighter for freedom, or is he a Roosevelt Progressive? If the latter, does his victory really make a difference?
>Important information for conservative thinkers. I would title this piece “Digest This And Decide For Yourself What To Do”
In the past few days, watching the fiasco for the left that revealed itself in Massachusetts, and realizing that conservatives not only have an opportunity to be heard, they have an opportunity to remake their vision of the fight for the country, I finally watched the Horowitz-produced links sent by a friend (actually a number of friends sent me the same link). Watching the speakers, including Horowitz and Pat Caddell, I realized that Caddell, a “classical Democrat” has a lot to say to conservative independents like me. This is not an "opinion piece." It is a call to action. Let me say first that the Republican Party, as currently organized and in its behavior, is not the avenue to salvation. For whatever reason, Republicans are totally unconscious of the dangers currently revealing themselves from the Congress and the White House. You can't "play nice" with progressive radicals. They don't understand "dialogue." They only understand their own goals. If you don't believe it, take the time to dissect the speeches of Barack Obama, from the campaign trail through his first year as president. They are a web of lies, woven skillfully together, but lies just the same. This is why many laughingly say that any promise by Obama should come with an expiration date. But it's more than that. He believes he can say anything to advance his agenda, and his speech at the Massachusetts campaign the other night makes it clear that he doesn't always stick to either his agenda or his oratory. The "truck" comments that made it to national TV are more revealing than most would think. He has contempt for anyone who is not on his agenda track. Yes, contempt. Revealing also was how little he said about the Democrat candidate for TV, in contrast to how much he said about her opponent. I'm surprised he even got her name right. Obviously, the people of Massachusetts noted it as well.
In the past months, during which for at least nine weeks I was absent, a number of factors are becoming clear. First, the Democrat Party has been “occupied” by radical leftists and their fellow travelling “useful idiots,” who actually believe that George Soros, Barack Obama and all the “czars” are a production of American politics (they aren’t), and second, the American people (independents and Democrats who feel betrayed, mostly) are waking up. A political tsunami may well be building in the heartland against the people who today dominate Washington politics. Thanks to Republican brain-dead policies and actions in the past decade, the real fighters in American politics, the Democrats, have been subsumed by a group of sinister destroyers, operating pretty much as the Capone mob ruled Chicago. The thing to remember is that those behind this movement are deadly serious, and willing to do anything, and I mean anything to achieve their aims, which are to remake American society, economics and culture in the image of Communism. The activists are indefensible and unabashed radicals, following the Rules for Radicals concepts of Saul Alinsky. They openly and publicly admit both their source of strategy and their aims. Americans are finally listening, but it is debatable how much damage can yet be done before these radicals are actually recognized for what their objectives are.
One observation should set the tone: David Horowitz observed in a recent presentation titled “What We Are Up Against” (see link below—I urge everyone who can to watch—it is important), that Alinsky 1) learned his organizing strategies by apprenticing with Frank Nitty, the Capone mob “czar” who ran the operations while Capone went to prison, and 2) Alinsky’s book “Rules For Radicals” was Originally titled “Rules For Revolution.” The book is a Communist/crime syndicate “how-to” book that is currently in use in the White House. This transfer of Chicago-style mob-influenced politics has been carried to a national level right from the streets of Chicago to the White House.
Horowitz, a very concerned and savvy analyst of radical tactics, strategy and agendas, points out that the reason these movement members are so influential today against the rest of the “sleeping nation” is that Democrats in general and radicals especially are fighters. Conservatives, he says, are “builders,” while the radical left are “destroyers.” This explains why the radical left, funded by numerous foundations, billionaires like George Soros, et al, are holding sway. They own big media by virtue of either being influential or by being physical owners of the resource. So, the major media and major educational operations, including a lot of national education policy, are dominated by those who have fabulous sums of money to throw at them. Conservatives, on the other hand, including the Founders of our nation, were and are uncomfortable with political power. It is not for nothing that Ronald Reagan, possibly the most influential conservative of modern times, quipped that “Those who have the most to lose have done the least to prevent its happening.” Another fact that bears on the current situation is that for the most part, it is citizens, born Americans, who are bringing on this movement for change that may (God forbid) actually bring on a civil war of some kind. One quote struck me as appropriate to describe the modus operandi of current leftist progressive members of our government, including the President: “We believe in the power of persuasion, but if that doesn’t work, we also believe in the persuasion of power.” This quote was attributed to Andy Stern, founder of the Weather Underground, current Obama Advisor, and friend of Bill Ayers, who also was a founding member of the Weather Underground and who is an unrepentant sixties terrorist bomber and currently is an influential educator, and who has received more than fifty million dollars from the hard-left Annenburg legacy to promote his radical agendas in education. This is the same Bill Ayers who Obama at first denied knowing “except to recognize in the neighborhood,” but who hosted a fundraising event at his home for Obama’s senatorial campaign. Additionally, John Holdren, an Obama “czar” has echoed George Soros’ words in saying, publicly, that “we have to deconstruct capitalism.” In the context of what is being done in the Congress and from the White House by presidential order, this makes clear that exploitation of energy resources, advancing American exceptionalism in any way, or even considering that Americans have to have time to “digest” some of the radical and rushed steps being taken by a radical dominated Congress and White House, are not in the cards. These people are not going to give up easily. In view of the Massachusetts election last night, where Ted Kennedy’s seat was, literally, returned to the people of Massachusetts, Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House, announced that she was not concerned about it. I believe her words were “We are going to have health care, regardless.” She is probably right. The structure for forcing the immensely unpopular bill, which is getting every day more unpopular, is still intact, whether there is a sixtieth senate vote for it or not. By parliamentary procedure, it can still pass. Remember this: They don’t think they can fail. They are willing to go the whole nine yards to pass this, and other bills like cap-and-tax, and other revenue producing penalizations of the American taxpayer for the advancement of elite political agendas, whether they retain the Congress in November or not. This is the dedication of radical progressive Democrats. We the citizens of the United States have to understand the stakes. They don’t believe we do.
Let me be clear here: Were it not for Glenn Beck’s use of Horowitz’ site listed below http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/default.asp , Van Jones would still be the “green jobs czar” with access to the White House. [An aside here: Those of us who have worked in government know about security clearances and access to classified information. During the “What We Are Up Against” broadcast, this question came up, and the answer seems to be that the FBI background checks that have been for years mandatory to have a White House Pass were summarily suspended by the Obama team. That means that all these radicals, who are advisors to the President currently in the White House, have access to both the White House and the President without ever having had their access scrutinized by any type of security procedure. Given the access from the White House to extremely classified information, we have to deduce that the Obama Team, including Barack Obama himself, has what can only be called a cavalier attitude towards both White House and national security. I consider this a grave oversight on the part of the government.] And all I can say is “Thank God for Glenn Beck. He has been a voice crying in the wilderness, but he just passed his first anniversary at Fox News, and continues his crusade on talk radio. And he’s “just an ordinary guy.” But he’s a patriot and a concerned American.
During the program, Democrat analyst and former presidential advisor Pat Caddell, who has been featured prominently on Glenn Beck’s recent analysis of the “czar” program, pointed out that the Apollo Alliance, and all “green jobs” militancy in the current administration, as well as ACORN and SEIU are a cover for radical operations. The green jobs hype is being used as a patronage system for Communists, in and out of government.
In the resources offered below, I have cited a couple of things that might help folks who read this brief attempt at warning to understand the gravity of our nation’s situation. This is not a game. These people are at war with our way of life and our economic system. They want to replace it with something else, and that something has already failed endlessly around the world in the last century. They hate American exceptionalism. Barack Obama is the first president in American history who does not believe that the United States is an exceptional occurrence in world history. He thinks we should all be part of a global “whole.” This is the Communist International talking. He is their mouthpiece—in the highest office in the land. This, to the ComIntern, is the opening campaign of a war of global conquest. They’ve been waiting for it since Stalin blew them off taking power in the USSR. It is the ideology of totalitarian communitarianism.
Conclusion: If we are going to save our country from this debacle, and if we are going to preserve any semblance of our way of life for those who come after, it now seems to me that we are going to have to get “engaged” in the process like never before. From the local to the national, concerned citizens of all parties are going to have to unite against this sinister attempt to subvert our entire nation and re-direct the largest economy in history off the precipice.
I can’t say it any stronger.
Bob B
The missing link in the analysis below is the economic underpinning of the thrust toward socialism and centralization of power. It is not just because of the left. The left is a tool and an ally of more powerful advocates of centralization, the Wall Street-Military-Industrial Complex.
It is in fact the Republican Party that introduced big government. This was done by Theodore Roosevelt between 1901 (the year McKinley was shot) and 1908. The Federal Trade Commission Act was a cornerstone of Roosevelt's attempt to socialize big business. He was supported in this by a significant component of Wall Street and big business, notably JP Morgan's famous associate George Perkins, president of International Harvester. TR backed William Howard Taft in 1908, and Taft betrayed him, preferring to regulate trusts through the Sherman Anti-trust Act (itself an earlier boondoggle). This enraged Roosevelt. He ran against Taft in 1912 as a third party candidate, forcing the election of Woodrow Wilson. Wilson established the federal income tax and the Fed in 1913. The Fed was largely the result of pressure from the money center banks following JP Morgan's death in 1913. There was no public outcry or crisis resulting in its passage, and the law was passed during Christmas week in 1913.
Until Wilson the Democrats had offered the counterpoint to Republican centralization. In the 18th and 19th centuries the centralizers were the party of the rich--the Federalists, Whigs and Republicans. The Republicans were the big government party from Lincoln on. You will notice the real reason for the Civil War--retaining the federal governmental structure. The Democrats (preceded by the Democratic-Republicans) were the party of decentralization and laissez-faire.
In the post civil war era the Republicans adopted the laissez-faire philosophy but with a twist. In the pre civil war Jacksonian era, the Democrats preached the gold standard and laissez-faire as policies that benefit the common man. That was President Andrew Jackson's philosophy. In contrast, in the post Civil War era the Republicans associated laissez faire with the Social Darwinism of Herbert Spencer. This fit their claim that the big businesses that were coming into existence in that era reflected a natural process. As well, the early Republican pushes toward centralization besides the Civil War included: the greenbacks used to pay for it; the legal tender law that paved the way for the Fed; the Morrill and Homestead Acts; the National Banking Act; the Pendleton Act, creating the foundation of a civil service; and the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, which aimed to establish common law remedies against unfair monopolies at the federal level.
It is debatable how natural the growth of big business was. First, virtually all of the railroads were subsidized, as was the Standard Oil Company through a wide range of corrupt deals with state governments (small change in comparison with the corruption associated with Obama and the Fed nowadays). Second, government heavily protected business through very high tariffs, well above the amount needed to entirely fund the federal government. Third, although the Sherman anti-trust Act claimed to limit unfair competition it actually encouraged big business. For a period of about 15 years, the Supreme Court held that all combinations (all big businesses) were illegal. Then, in 1911, the Court abolished Standard Oil but said that big businesses were legal as long as they behaved in a reasonable manner (that they were "good trusts"). But the Sherman Anti-trust Act is unequivocal in saying that agreements between smaller firms are illegal, it is legal for them to combine to form a single company but not legal for them to reach agreements or "collude". Hence, the past 150 years have seen unending centralization and excessively large corporations. Previously, smaller firms engaged in unstable agreements not to raise prices. The Sherman Anti-trust Act illegalized these agreements but made it legal for them to merge.
Martin J. Sklar traces this history very carefully in a monumental book, Corporate Reconstruction of American Capitalism.
The upshot of my long winded discussion is that big business was institutionalized by the Sherman Anti-trust Act, the Fed, and by the impetus to centralize business and government. The New Deal also played a significant role, as did the explosion of regulation in the 1960s and 1970s. By institution of complex regulatory requirements and other legal barriers to entry in fields like banking, insurance, health care and education (note: all failed industries) competition was limited across increasing swathes of the American economy. If you add those four fields to government you probably have between seventy and eighty percent of the economy. And that leaves out numerous other pockets of socialized business in fields like human resource management, employee benefits, pharmaceuticals and food.
The result has been a 40-year-long stagnation in the real wage and increasing income inequality. As well, the widespread, fundamental innovation of the 19th century has drawn to a close, as manufacturing executives think of financial gimmicks and plant relocation as central to their business plans.
The Republican Party not only played a role in the trend toward centralization and socialization--through TR it was the leading impetus that was only supplanted in the 1930s by FDR's even more socialistic plans. The close links between the centrally planned big business core and the Republican Party make it unlikely that the GOP will favor freedom, free markets and decentralization unless there is some kind of radical change.
The role the left has played in this is that it has been allied with the interests of the Wall Street-Military-Industrial Complex. From the beginning, both left-wing socialists and big business Progressives had parallel goals. The Progressives wanted centralization so that economies of scale could be achieved, control rationalized, competition and innovation eliminated (what David Ames Wells called "overproduction" in his 1889 Recent Economic Changes). The left-wing socialist favored socialization because they believed that public control was desirable. Both advocated innovation-stifling, reactionary ideas that in practice were the same.
The good cop/bad cop routine has been quite effective. I do not hear many Republicans considering the possibility that their policies have neatly paralleled those of left-wing socialists. Rather, there is endless chimerical competition and hatred between the "left", which claims to be altruistic and favors centralization for altruistic reasons, and the "right" which claims to favor efficiency and favors centralization for supposedly productive reasons. The two sing the same song with slightly different tunes. Which side, the left represented by Obama or the right represented by Bill Kristol opposed the bail out and TARP? Shall we say both sang the same song? When it came down to giving trillions to the Street, Paul Krugman and George Bush gave each other a nice deep kiss.
The article is right about the media. Despite decades of P/progessive domination of the news media and left-wing control of education the American people retain elements of their Lockean heritage. But the news media has done much to confuse them. They are not asking the questions that they need to. For instance:
Will Scott Brown turn out to be a fighter for freedom, or is he a Roosevelt Progressive? If the latter, does his victory really make a difference?
>Important information for conservative thinkers. I would title this piece “Digest This And Decide For Yourself What To Do”
In the past few days, watching the fiasco for the left that revealed itself in Massachusetts, and realizing that conservatives not only have an opportunity to be heard, they have an opportunity to remake their vision of the fight for the country, I finally watched the Horowitz-produced links sent by a friend (actually a number of friends sent me the same link). Watching the speakers, including Horowitz and Pat Caddell, I realized that Caddell, a “classical Democrat” has a lot to say to conservative independents like me. This is not an "opinion piece." It is a call to action. Let me say first that the Republican Party, as currently organized and in its behavior, is not the avenue to salvation. For whatever reason, Republicans are totally unconscious of the dangers currently revealing themselves from the Congress and the White House. You can't "play nice" with progressive radicals. They don't understand "dialogue." They only understand their own goals. If you don't believe it, take the time to dissect the speeches of Barack Obama, from the campaign trail through his first year as president. They are a web of lies, woven skillfully together, but lies just the same. This is why many laughingly say that any promise by Obama should come with an expiration date. But it's more than that. He believes he can say anything to advance his agenda, and his speech at the Massachusetts campaign the other night makes it clear that he doesn't always stick to either his agenda or his oratory. The "truck" comments that made it to national TV are more revealing than most would think. He has contempt for anyone who is not on his agenda track. Yes, contempt. Revealing also was how little he said about the Democrat candidate for TV, in contrast to how much he said about her opponent. I'm surprised he even got her name right. Obviously, the people of Massachusetts noted it as well.
In the past months, during which for at least nine weeks I was absent, a number of factors are becoming clear. First, the Democrat Party has been “occupied” by radical leftists and their fellow travelling “useful idiots,” who actually believe that George Soros, Barack Obama and all the “czars” are a production of American politics (they aren’t), and second, the American people (independents and Democrats who feel betrayed, mostly) are waking up. A political tsunami may well be building in the heartland against the people who today dominate Washington politics. Thanks to Republican brain-dead policies and actions in the past decade, the real fighters in American politics, the Democrats, have been subsumed by a group of sinister destroyers, operating pretty much as the Capone mob ruled Chicago. The thing to remember is that those behind this movement are deadly serious, and willing to do anything, and I mean anything to achieve their aims, which are to remake American society, economics and culture in the image of Communism. The activists are indefensible and unabashed radicals, following the Rules for Radicals concepts of Saul Alinsky. They openly and publicly admit both their source of strategy and their aims. Americans are finally listening, but it is debatable how much damage can yet be done before these radicals are actually recognized for what their objectives are.
One observation should set the tone: David Horowitz observed in a recent presentation titled “What We Are Up Against” (see link below—I urge everyone who can to watch—it is important), that Alinsky 1) learned his organizing strategies by apprenticing with Frank Nitty, the Capone mob “czar” who ran the operations while Capone went to prison, and 2) Alinsky’s book “Rules For Radicals” was Originally titled “Rules For Revolution.” The book is a Communist/crime syndicate “how-to” book that is currently in use in the White House. This transfer of Chicago-style mob-influenced politics has been carried to a national level right from the streets of Chicago to the White House.
Horowitz, a very concerned and savvy analyst of radical tactics, strategy and agendas, points out that the reason these movement members are so influential today against the rest of the “sleeping nation” is that Democrats in general and radicals especially are fighters. Conservatives, he says, are “builders,” while the radical left are “destroyers.” This explains why the radical left, funded by numerous foundations, billionaires like George Soros, et al, are holding sway. They own big media by virtue of either being influential or by being physical owners of the resource. So, the major media and major educational operations, including a lot of national education policy, are dominated by those who have fabulous sums of money to throw at them. Conservatives, on the other hand, including the Founders of our nation, were and are uncomfortable with political power. It is not for nothing that Ronald Reagan, possibly the most influential conservative of modern times, quipped that “Those who have the most to lose have done the least to prevent its happening.” Another fact that bears on the current situation is that for the most part, it is citizens, born Americans, who are bringing on this movement for change that may (God forbid) actually bring on a civil war of some kind. One quote struck me as appropriate to describe the modus operandi of current leftist progressive members of our government, including the President: “We believe in the power of persuasion, but if that doesn’t work, we also believe in the persuasion of power.” This quote was attributed to Andy Stern, founder of the Weather Underground, current Obama Advisor, and friend of Bill Ayers, who also was a founding member of the Weather Underground and who is an unrepentant sixties terrorist bomber and currently is an influential educator, and who has received more than fifty million dollars from the hard-left Annenburg legacy to promote his radical agendas in education. This is the same Bill Ayers who Obama at first denied knowing “except to recognize in the neighborhood,” but who hosted a fundraising event at his home for Obama’s senatorial campaign. Additionally, John Holdren, an Obama “czar” has echoed George Soros’ words in saying, publicly, that “we have to deconstruct capitalism.” In the context of what is being done in the Congress and from the White House by presidential order, this makes clear that exploitation of energy resources, advancing American exceptionalism in any way, or even considering that Americans have to have time to “digest” some of the radical and rushed steps being taken by a radical dominated Congress and White House, are not in the cards. These people are not going to give up easily. In view of the Massachusetts election last night, where Ted Kennedy’s seat was, literally, returned to the people of Massachusetts, Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House, announced that she was not concerned about it. I believe her words were “We are going to have health care, regardless.” She is probably right. The structure for forcing the immensely unpopular bill, which is getting every day more unpopular, is still intact, whether there is a sixtieth senate vote for it or not. By parliamentary procedure, it can still pass. Remember this: They don’t think they can fail. They are willing to go the whole nine yards to pass this, and other bills like cap-and-tax, and other revenue producing penalizations of the American taxpayer for the advancement of elite political agendas, whether they retain the Congress in November or not. This is the dedication of radical progressive Democrats. We the citizens of the United States have to understand the stakes. They don’t believe we do.
Let me be clear here: Were it not for Glenn Beck’s use of Horowitz’ site listed below http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/default.asp , Van Jones would still be the “green jobs czar” with access to the White House. [An aside here: Those of us who have worked in government know about security clearances and access to classified information. During the “What We Are Up Against” broadcast, this question came up, and the answer seems to be that the FBI background checks that have been for years mandatory to have a White House Pass were summarily suspended by the Obama team. That means that all these radicals, who are advisors to the President currently in the White House, have access to both the White House and the President without ever having had their access scrutinized by any type of security procedure. Given the access from the White House to extremely classified information, we have to deduce that the Obama Team, including Barack Obama himself, has what can only be called a cavalier attitude towards both White House and national security. I consider this a grave oversight on the part of the government.] And all I can say is “Thank God for Glenn Beck. He has been a voice crying in the wilderness, but he just passed his first anniversary at Fox News, and continues his crusade on talk radio. And he’s “just an ordinary guy.” But he’s a patriot and a concerned American.
During the program, Democrat analyst and former presidential advisor Pat Caddell, who has been featured prominently on Glenn Beck’s recent analysis of the “czar” program, pointed out that the Apollo Alliance, and all “green jobs” militancy in the current administration, as well as ACORN and SEIU are a cover for radical operations. The green jobs hype is being used as a patronage system for Communists, in and out of government.
In the resources offered below, I have cited a couple of things that might help folks who read this brief attempt at warning to understand the gravity of our nation’s situation. This is not a game. These people are at war with our way of life and our economic system. They want to replace it with something else, and that something has already failed endlessly around the world in the last century. They hate American exceptionalism. Barack Obama is the first president in American history who does not believe that the United States is an exceptional occurrence in world history. He thinks we should all be part of a global “whole.” This is the Communist International talking. He is their mouthpiece—in the highest office in the land. This, to the ComIntern, is the opening campaign of a war of global conquest. They’ve been waiting for it since Stalin blew them off taking power in the USSR. It is the ideology of totalitarian communitarianism.
Conclusion: If we are going to save our country from this debacle, and if we are going to preserve any semblance of our way of life for those who come after, it now seems to me that we are going to have to get “engaged” in the process like never before. From the local to the national, concerned citizens of all parties are going to have to unite against this sinister attempt to subvert our entire nation and re-direct the largest economy in history off the precipice.
I can’t say it any stronger.
Bob B
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Thoughts on The Certificate
I had previously written about David Horowitz's important Frontpagemag editorial concerning the birth certificate. Unlike most conservatives, I admire Saul Alinsky, and one of Alinsky's "rules for radicals" is that tactics that drag on too long become a drag. At the same time, variations on the birth certificate theme might be useful, but not everyone agrees. I solicited comments from some brilliant and insightful friends, and here they are:
Raquel Okyay writes:
The facts so far are "foggy", but what if the fog was lifted, and indeed Obama is shown not to be a natural born citizen, does he receive immunity from the constitution's requirement simply because he is a black man, and his election is historic? What you are proposing is to ignore facts and possibly permit a person to lie to the American people, and violate what is clearly enumerated in the U.S. Constitution (whether outdated or minor).
If you have an argument to change the Constitution to remove this requirement going forward, fine. But, for me changing the rules after the game is unfair and undemocratic. I do not think it is wrong for the electorate to question Obama's eligibility after the fact. Obama can simply produce the proper documentation and this controversy is over.
The very fact that the pissant media are completely ignoring this story is the most disturbing aspect and I think that in itself is a major point. And this is the essence of the argument -- liberty has to do with freedom from oppressive governments. When the government and their pissant media friends are hiding or confusing the truth, it is in fact, our liberty that is being ignored. True democracy only exists in truth of liberty!
Notwithstanding, David, you are still one of my favorite authors!
Cortes de Russy writes:
As Mitchell and I have discussed, I fall down on David's side of this argument for the primary reason that he states.
Where there are wrinkles to be ironed out in process, these can be readily managed through the tools at hand. Oklahoma's legislature, for example, has already proposed legislation that would require adequate proof of a candidate's legal and constitutional eligibility prior to a candidate being included on the ballot in that state. If only one state passes such a requirement, I believe, this issue will be put to bed forever.
Regarding the development of a political system and electorate that is more respectful of the original intent of the Framers regarding devolution of powers among the states, etc., the solution is not any "quick fixes" but rather a serious education effort that will convince and reinforce the principles which uphold individual liberty. For example, there was no discussion in the recent campaign regarding the appropriate role of government in the lives of its citizens. McCain had a perfect opening to ask the question when Joe the Plumber inadvertently prompted Obama's "spread the wealth" comment but he either missed it or he doesn't contemplate the question at any level.
Keeping this issue alive will only harden positions and make it all the more difficult to convince the majority of citizens that conservatives are not "kooks" but rather thoughtful and concerned actors on the American political stage.
David Horowtiz replies to Raquel:
What I am proposing is not to make further inquiries into the facts in this case. It's too late and the consequences of this debate are destructive to our nation and our constitution when we are fighting two wars and in the midst of the greatest financial crisis in our history. You say I am proposing to "possibly permit a person to lie to the American people." What president, legislator, political leader etc has not lied to the American people? This is a question that the 64 million Americans who voted for Obama will be asking if 5 unelected political appointees on the Supreme Court decide to disqualify him.
Second, when you say that "changing the rules after the game is unfair" you need to think about the fact that more than half the nation which still believes in Obama will be asking the same question.
Third, concerning your distress at the bias of the media. What else is new and why should its support for Obama on this minor issue be the point of your distress?
I apologize for speaking so bluntly -- and I do appreciate your graciousness in allowing me the latitude to be wrong -- but I really think this whole issue is an emotional one that boils down to conceding that we lost the election and now have to live with Obama as president. But I think the beginning of a conservative political revival lies precisely in accepting this fact.
Raquel adds:
Ok, David, I have tried to persuade you to the far side of the moon, and I have failed. :(
You are proposing that concerned citizens do not make further inquiries and I am proposing we inquire, inquire, and keep inquiring!
I concede to the fact that we lost the election, and whatever the outcome of this controversy, I agree that a new conservative revolution is in the workings. I have little doubt that Democrats will ultimately hang themselves, they don't need me and my silly questions.
A quick observation: both the mayor of Honolulu and the Chief Clerk (or whatever her title is) have stated that they have seen Obama's birth certificate and that it is valid. Unless they are criminals, that should suffice to settle the matter.
I, frankly, understand why the Obama people ignored this issue for, had they rushed to respond his interlocutors would have been encouraged to come up with other issues forcing him to respond further, etc. It would never have ended and would have done just what was desired: create an aura of doubt surrounding his candidacy.
I, too, am distressed at his victory but do not want to win by such means.
Phil Orenstein writes:
My comments are two words: cognitive dissonance. I've been avoiding this for the past week or so, but now I have to cough it up. When I first read David's 3 blogs arguing that the birth certificate issue was nonsense and conservatives should move on, and the hundreds of emotional responses that followed, I decided to put it on the back burner and not deal with it. To me and to those who had done their homework regarding the facts of the issue, we found it a straightforward issue of Obama's obfuscation and lying to the American people about his birth certificate as well as numerous other documents (college records, medical records, etc.) and by implication everything that he stands for including change, hope and transparency. Due to the legal hieroglyphics and intellectual gymnastics one had to go through to sort out the wheat from the chaff, even many conservatives just avoided it and admonished us to move on to the real issues. Mitch has done a yeoman's job in simplifying the issues. To put it simply, no document the Obama camp has so far revealed to the public is proof of his legitimate "natural born" status as required by the Constitution, including his COLB (Certification of Live Birth) which is not proof he was born in Hawaii. It is a stunning admission of guilt that Barack Obama would not, simply out of respect for the people he was elected to preside over, disclose the sealed "vault copy" of his birth certificate, which would have ended the debate for me, Mitch and others.
FrontPage is my computer's homepage, and I read David's blog every day. I respect him as my major intellectual hero, for having advanced the Academic Bill of Rights, taken the fight for our country's values and self defense directly into the schools with the IslamoFascism Awareness projects, wrote "the Party of Defeat", the only author I am aware of who unmasked the treasonous actions of the Democratic Party to sabotage our now victorious war in Iraq, and many more. To me David, having been on both sides of the political divide is a true visionary and great conservative voice for Americas future.
But when I read David's arguments for dropping the whole ball of wax, I was stunned...Or on the other hand am I missing something? Am I just obsessing over a silly issue that has no relevance to reality. If a terrorist struck on our soil tomorrow, would we still carry on over the vault copy? So I thought about David's main point that Obama had already won and that the continued frenzy of a fringe of us trying to point out the obvious truth to a majority of American's who don't do their homework and are seduced by ephemeral images, via the pissant media and academic indoctrination, is tantamount to banging our heads against the wall. So David's point, truth be dammed, is that we'll only be hurting ourselves by continuing along this road.
Now I am busy planning and promoting a great conservative event event in NY for Feb 2009 to rebrand the GOP as the true "Party of Lincoln." The key is to re-establish the image of our greatest leader, Lincoln in the American memory which has declined in the past few decades, since the guiding premise of teacher education is that members of minority communities are marginalized when national heroes are recognized. So Lincoln and our great heritage has been stripped from the curriculum. This is the travesty that is poisoning the Obama generation to be disconnected with our great past heritage and only find relevance is the messianic images Obama projects. Also, postmodernism has already made a mockery of everything sacred in the world including religion, our American heroes and the Constitution. So truth, history and facts to these majority of our fellow Americans schooled in progressive indoctrination, has little or no relevance. So in the end, while I agree with Mitch that Statism and lies have taken over both political parties, the addiction is so complete, that cold-turkey prescriptions for truth will be rejected by the body politic. Basically what I am saying is to move on. Obama will be haunted by the entire foul Chicago political machinery of Emanuel, Rezko and now Blagojevich following him into the White House to claim a piece of the filthy pie that Obama was groomed in. Let's put our heads together now and save our country!
David, I wrote this to get a load off my chest. However, I cannot in good conscience tell others to "move on" although I myself am too tied up to pursue the case further. I have to agree with my friends Raquel and Mitchell, that as long as their conscience compels them to pursue the truth, they should do so. Whether it gets to the justices or not, either the sealed vault copy shows he is natural born or not and the American people have a right to know. Take the Duke Lacrosse rape case. Now it's Blagojevich's and his connections to Emanuel and possibly both their resignations rather than staining Obama's record. So I applaud those who are still fighting since the same process of lies and cover-ups will continue for the next 4 years. Sorry, I can't honestly concede on this.
David Horowitz replies:
That last line is exactly right, and we need to be positioning ourselves to take maximum advantage of their mistakes...Well, the search for information is one thing, and I certainly am all for finding out the truth in these matters. The political act of seeking to void an election is quite another on a matter as de minimus as this, and that's what I object to...My point is not truth be damned, but with the election over there's no feasible way to establish the truth in a way that will persuade a majority of Americans, let alone a majority of the Obama voters that this is indeed the truth and Joe Biden should be president. Joe Biden???!!!! Are you sure you would want to go through with this even if you could which (I am convinced) you can't?
Vasos Panagiotopoulos writes:
David, I agree. As president of Columbia GOP 1982-83, Obama and I often debated at Ferris Booth Cafe, and I found him to be fair, decent and intelligent, even if he was persistently wrong and unable to stop talking. This issue makes conservatives look nasty and small. I think Dole, Giuliani and McCain are nasty and small and the big reason we were so badly defeated. Bush Jr, for all his failings, would have been an even match for Obama. Romney would have defeated him. Don't forget Bush was elected twice. McCain made the same mistake as Faso '06, Gore'08 and Nixon'60 and precisely the mistake Bush'88 avoided. Americans voted for Obama the decent chap, not the black, not the liberal. As a son of immigrants (and a grandson of illegals) and a Columbia alum (and a fellow student of Brzezinski) I am darned proud of Obama. I don't think it is a coincidence that those here in Queens who hate CPAC board member and national conservative icon Serf Maltese with a passion also hate Obama. They only betray their own nastiness and help Obama.
In 1996 my assemblyman, Jim Buckley's former driver, Doug Prescott, was defeated by a pretty young attorney who happened to be the niece of a powerful judge. No one took her seriously because she was a "little girl." So our older volunteers didn't work much. A week before elections, the campaign office was closed for lack of staff. (In fact when our state senator correctly sued the feds for the local cost of illegals, our district's influx of Italians saw this, in combination with Andy Beveridge's study of Italians being NYC's top illegals, as an assault on them and voted for the Italian-surname "little girl" as the senator was running unopposed.)
I kept arguing all along, if you make Obama to be Jimmy Carter (thanks to Brzezinski) you can defeat him. If you play the race card, we will be totally defeated. I know pleny of conseratives from Columbia wo helped Obama because they genuinely liked him as a person. I can tell you I have reason to believe some prominent former Reagan youth members also helped him because they found McCain and his Nixonian coterie to be a nasty, noxious piece of garbage. Because of these small minded people, we have given Richard Dailey and Zbigniew Brzezinski control of the White House and the world for at least then next two years, if not for two decades.
Mitchell Langbert replies:
Dear Cortes, Phil, Raquel, Vasos and of course David--Thanks so much for your thoughtful correspondence about David's blog. I hope you don't mind that I posted everyone's comments on my blog. David is likely right, although the law suits may be creating a useful tactical or psychological imbalance. The recent Blagojevich news seems to confirm my early conclusion that Obama is not a nice guy. I don't think the people he's associated himself with (Vasos, you're obviously the exception) have been nice people. Not just Wright and Pfleger but the likes of Blagojevich, Daley and the entire Chicago sludge machine. Since the media wasn't interested in asking questions, it's easy for him to look great. Also, the Republicans are in worse trouble than Vasos and Phil are saying. I don't think that today they have the necessary ideological grounding to win, and in order to gain it they would need to reject a large portion of their likely financial support. I think the country is in trouble and more than just tactical and strategic planning is necessary. The Republican Party has lost its vision. Phil's idea about the party of Lincoln sounds great, but where are Milton Friedman and Ludwig von Mises now that we really need them?
Raquel Okyay writes:
The facts so far are "foggy", but what if the fog was lifted, and indeed Obama is shown not to be a natural born citizen, does he receive immunity from the constitution's requirement simply because he is a black man, and his election is historic? What you are proposing is to ignore facts and possibly permit a person to lie to the American people, and violate what is clearly enumerated in the U.S. Constitution (whether outdated or minor).
If you have an argument to change the Constitution to remove this requirement going forward, fine. But, for me changing the rules after the game is unfair and undemocratic. I do not think it is wrong for the electorate to question Obama's eligibility after the fact. Obama can simply produce the proper documentation and this controversy is over.
The very fact that the pissant media are completely ignoring this story is the most disturbing aspect and I think that in itself is a major point. And this is the essence of the argument -- liberty has to do with freedom from oppressive governments. When the government and their pissant media friends are hiding or confusing the truth, it is in fact, our liberty that is being ignored. True democracy only exists in truth of liberty!
Notwithstanding, David, you are still one of my favorite authors!
Cortes de Russy writes:
As Mitchell and I have discussed, I fall down on David's side of this argument for the primary reason that he states.
Where there are wrinkles to be ironed out in process, these can be readily managed through the tools at hand. Oklahoma's legislature, for example, has already proposed legislation that would require adequate proof of a candidate's legal and constitutional eligibility prior to a candidate being included on the ballot in that state. If only one state passes such a requirement, I believe, this issue will be put to bed forever.
Regarding the development of a political system and electorate that is more respectful of the original intent of the Framers regarding devolution of powers among the states, etc., the solution is not any "quick fixes" but rather a serious education effort that will convince and reinforce the principles which uphold individual liberty. For example, there was no discussion in the recent campaign regarding the appropriate role of government in the lives of its citizens. McCain had a perfect opening to ask the question when Joe the Plumber inadvertently prompted Obama's "spread the wealth" comment but he either missed it or he doesn't contemplate the question at any level.
Keeping this issue alive will only harden positions and make it all the more difficult to convince the majority of citizens that conservatives are not "kooks" but rather thoughtful and concerned actors on the American political stage.
David Horowtiz replies to Raquel:
What I am proposing is not to make further inquiries into the facts in this case. It's too late and the consequences of this debate are destructive to our nation and our constitution when we are fighting two wars and in the midst of the greatest financial crisis in our history. You say I am proposing to "possibly permit a person to lie to the American people." What president, legislator, political leader etc has not lied to the American people? This is a question that the 64 million Americans who voted for Obama will be asking if 5 unelected political appointees on the Supreme Court decide to disqualify him.
Second, when you say that "changing the rules after the game is unfair" you need to think about the fact that more than half the nation which still believes in Obama will be asking the same question.
Third, concerning your distress at the bias of the media. What else is new and why should its support for Obama on this minor issue be the point of your distress?
I apologize for speaking so bluntly -- and I do appreciate your graciousness in allowing me the latitude to be wrong -- but I really think this whole issue is an emotional one that boils down to conceding that we lost the election and now have to live with Obama as president. But I think the beginning of a conservative political revival lies precisely in accepting this fact.
Raquel adds:
Ok, David, I have tried to persuade you to the far side of the moon, and I have failed. :(
You are proposing that concerned citizens do not make further inquiries and I am proposing we inquire, inquire, and keep inquiring!
I concede to the fact that we lost the election, and whatever the outcome of this controversy, I agree that a new conservative revolution is in the workings. I have little doubt that Democrats will ultimately hang themselves, they don't need me and my silly questions.
A quick observation: both the mayor of Honolulu and the Chief Clerk (or whatever her title is) have stated that they have seen Obama's birth certificate and that it is valid. Unless they are criminals, that should suffice to settle the matter.
I, frankly, understand why the Obama people ignored this issue for, had they rushed to respond his interlocutors would have been encouraged to come up with other issues forcing him to respond further, etc. It would never have ended and would have done just what was desired: create an aura of doubt surrounding his candidacy.
I, too, am distressed at his victory but do not want to win by such means.
Phil Orenstein writes:
My comments are two words: cognitive dissonance. I've been avoiding this for the past week or so, but now I have to cough it up. When I first read David's 3 blogs arguing that the birth certificate issue was nonsense and conservatives should move on, and the hundreds of emotional responses that followed, I decided to put it on the back burner and not deal with it. To me and to those who had done their homework regarding the facts of the issue, we found it a straightforward issue of Obama's obfuscation and lying to the American people about his birth certificate as well as numerous other documents (college records, medical records, etc.) and by implication everything that he stands for including change, hope and transparency. Due to the legal hieroglyphics and intellectual gymnastics one had to go through to sort out the wheat from the chaff, even many conservatives just avoided it and admonished us to move on to the real issues. Mitch has done a yeoman's job in simplifying the issues. To put it simply, no document the Obama camp has so far revealed to the public is proof of his legitimate "natural born" status as required by the Constitution, including his COLB (Certification of Live Birth) which is not proof he was born in Hawaii. It is a stunning admission of guilt that Barack Obama would not, simply out of respect for the people he was elected to preside over, disclose the sealed "vault copy" of his birth certificate, which would have ended the debate for me, Mitch and others.
FrontPage is my computer's homepage, and I read David's blog every day. I respect him as my major intellectual hero, for having advanced the Academic Bill of Rights, taken the fight for our country's values and self defense directly into the schools with the IslamoFascism Awareness projects, wrote "the Party of Defeat", the only author I am aware of who unmasked the treasonous actions of the Democratic Party to sabotage our now victorious war in Iraq, and many more. To me David, having been on both sides of the political divide is a true visionary and great conservative voice for Americas future.
But when I read David's arguments for dropping the whole ball of wax, I was stunned...Or on the other hand am I missing something? Am I just obsessing over a silly issue that has no relevance to reality. If a terrorist struck on our soil tomorrow, would we still carry on over the vault copy? So I thought about David's main point that Obama had already won and that the continued frenzy of a fringe of us trying to point out the obvious truth to a majority of American's who don't do their homework and are seduced by ephemeral images, via the pissant media and academic indoctrination, is tantamount to banging our heads against the wall. So David's point, truth be dammed, is that we'll only be hurting ourselves by continuing along this road.
Now I am busy planning and promoting a great conservative event event in NY for Feb 2009 to rebrand the GOP as the true "Party of Lincoln." The key is to re-establish the image of our greatest leader, Lincoln in the American memory which has declined in the past few decades, since the guiding premise of teacher education is that members of minority communities are marginalized when national heroes are recognized. So Lincoln and our great heritage has been stripped from the curriculum. This is the travesty that is poisoning the Obama generation to be disconnected with our great past heritage and only find relevance is the messianic images Obama projects. Also, postmodernism has already made a mockery of everything sacred in the world including religion, our American heroes and the Constitution. So truth, history and facts to these majority of our fellow Americans schooled in progressive indoctrination, has little or no relevance. So in the end, while I agree with Mitch that Statism and lies have taken over both political parties, the addiction is so complete, that cold-turkey prescriptions for truth will be rejected by the body politic. Basically what I am saying is to move on. Obama will be haunted by the entire foul Chicago political machinery of Emanuel, Rezko and now Blagojevich following him into the White House to claim a piece of the filthy pie that Obama was groomed in. Let's put our heads together now and save our country!
David, I wrote this to get a load off my chest. However, I cannot in good conscience tell others to "move on" although I myself am too tied up to pursue the case further. I have to agree with my friends Raquel and Mitchell, that as long as their conscience compels them to pursue the truth, they should do so. Whether it gets to the justices or not, either the sealed vault copy shows he is natural born or not and the American people have a right to know. Take the Duke Lacrosse rape case. Now it's Blagojevich's and his connections to Emanuel and possibly both their resignations rather than staining Obama's record. So I applaud those who are still fighting since the same process of lies and cover-ups will continue for the next 4 years. Sorry, I can't honestly concede on this.
David Horowitz replies:
That last line is exactly right, and we need to be positioning ourselves to take maximum advantage of their mistakes...Well, the search for information is one thing, and I certainly am all for finding out the truth in these matters. The political act of seeking to void an election is quite another on a matter as de minimus as this, and that's what I object to...My point is not truth be damned, but with the election over there's no feasible way to establish the truth in a way that will persuade a majority of Americans, let alone a majority of the Obama voters that this is indeed the truth and Joe Biden should be president. Joe Biden???!!!! Are you sure you would want to go through with this even if you could which (I am convinced) you can't?
Vasos Panagiotopoulos writes:
David, I agree. As president of Columbia GOP 1982-83, Obama and I often debated at Ferris Booth Cafe, and I found him to be fair, decent and intelligent, even if he was persistently wrong and unable to stop talking. This issue makes conservatives look nasty and small. I think Dole, Giuliani and McCain are nasty and small and the big reason we were so badly defeated. Bush Jr, for all his failings, would have been an even match for Obama. Romney would have defeated him. Don't forget Bush was elected twice. McCain made the same mistake as Faso '06, Gore'08 and Nixon'60 and precisely the mistake Bush'88 avoided. Americans voted for Obama the decent chap, not the black, not the liberal. As a son of immigrants (and a grandson of illegals) and a Columbia alum (and a fellow student of Brzezinski) I am darned proud of Obama. I don't think it is a coincidence that those here in Queens who hate CPAC board member and national conservative icon Serf Maltese with a passion also hate Obama. They only betray their own nastiness and help Obama.
In 1996 my assemblyman, Jim Buckley's former driver, Doug Prescott, was defeated by a pretty young attorney who happened to be the niece of a powerful judge. No one took her seriously because she was a "little girl." So our older volunteers didn't work much. A week before elections, the campaign office was closed for lack of staff. (In fact when our state senator correctly sued the feds for the local cost of illegals, our district's influx of Italians saw this, in combination with Andy Beveridge's study of Italians being NYC's top illegals, as an assault on them and voted for the Italian-surname "little girl" as the senator was running unopposed.)
I kept arguing all along, if you make Obama to be Jimmy Carter (thanks to Brzezinski) you can defeat him. If you play the race card, we will be totally defeated. I know pleny of conseratives from Columbia wo helped Obama because they genuinely liked him as a person. I can tell you I have reason to believe some prominent former Reagan youth members also helped him because they found McCain and his Nixonian coterie to be a nasty, noxious piece of garbage. Because of these small minded people, we have given Richard Dailey and Zbigniew Brzezinski control of the White House and the world for at least then next two years, if not for two decades.
Mitchell Langbert replies:
Dear Cortes, Phil, Raquel, Vasos and of course David--Thanks so much for your thoughtful correspondence about David's blog. I hope you don't mind that I posted everyone's comments on my blog. David is likely right, although the law suits may be creating a useful tactical or psychological imbalance. The recent Blagojevich news seems to confirm my early conclusion that Obama is not a nice guy. I don't think the people he's associated himself with (Vasos, you're obviously the exception) have been nice people. Not just Wright and Pfleger but the likes of Blagojevich, Daley and the entire Chicago sludge machine. Since the media wasn't interested in asking questions, it's easy for him to look great. Also, the Republicans are in worse trouble than Vasos and Phil are saying. I don't think that today they have the necessary ideological grounding to win, and in order to gain it they would need to reject a large portion of their likely financial support. I think the country is in trouble and more than just tactical and strategic planning is necessary. The Republican Party has lost its vision. Phil's idea about the party of Lincoln sounds great, but where are Milton Friedman and Ludwig von Mises now that we really need them?
Friday, December 12, 2008
David Horowitz on the Birth Certificate: An Anti-Federalist's Response
David Horowitz recently wrote an important Frontpagemag editorial that argued that conservatives should drop the birth certificate issue:
"64 million Americans voted to elect Barack Obama. Do you want to disenfranchise them? Do you think it's possible to disenfranchise 64 million Americans and keep the country? And please don't write me about the Constitution. The first principle of the Constitution is that the people are sovereign. What the people say, goes. If you think about it, I think you will agree that a two-year billion dollar election through all 50 states is as authoritative a verdict on anything as we are likely to get. Barack Obama is our president. Get used to it."
David and I exchanged several e-mails over this point last week. I disagree not so much with the possibility that the birth certificate may be ok (who knows?) but with David's claim that democracy ought to trump constitutional parameters and restrictions.
Majority rule was not contemplated when the nation was founded. The Progressives such as Herbert Croly argued for Rousseauean general will and unlimited democracy. Whether their agenda was this or whether Croly and his partner Walter Weyl were just re-processed Fabian socialists interested in furthering a Europeanized American elite is a matter for debate. But Croly's and the other Progressives' contempt for the founders together with their advocacy of unlimited, socialist-style state power reflected the essence of European statism and remain the essence of American P(p)rogressivism. Weyl's and Croly's Progressivism cannot be called conservatism in the American sense, yet the leadership of the Republican Party has discarded the last remnant of Jacksonian democracy, the "Reagan revolution", and adopted the Progressive platform. Thus, today we have no conservatives in Washington but rather a Progressive Party and a progressive one.
When the current Constitution was framed there were two schools of thought, the Federalists and the anti-Federalists. We remember the Federalists such as Hamilton and Madison, who wrote the Federalist Papers and the Constitution, but we don't have so clear a memory of the anti-Federalists, to include George Clinton, Robert Yates, Sam Adams and Richard Henry Lee. The anti-Federalists were in a number of senses more modern, or perhaps post-modern, than the Federalists.
The Federalists were proto-typical Progressives in the sense that they advocated centralization and a strong federal government. They were advocates of economies of scale that carried forward via the Progressives into the twentieth century. But the Federalists, like Madison, did not reject the basic notion of limited government. Madison argued that a durable Constitution would serve as a more potent limit on tyranny than would Jeffersonian generational revolutions.
The Federalists feared what de Tocqueville called "tyranny of the majority", and the most important theme that runs through the Federalist Papers, such as number 10, is fear of faction, specifically (emphatically) including majority faction. The Federalists did not advocate rule of the majority. They limited popular vote to vote for the House. The Senate was to be elected by state legislatures and the president by the Electoral College. Article II Section I of the Constitution does not provide for popular election of the president:
"Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector."
Although the Electoral College has received a great deal of criticism among pissant progressives, the recent election seems to me to confute the progressives' claims for unlimited democracy. The absence of a competent media in the United States means that popular opinion is misguided and that democracy necessarily devolves into a contemptible failure here. Conservatives ought to begin to fashion alternatives to the Progressive propaganda into which they have been indoctrinated at Columbia and elsewhere.
As unlikely supporters for ignoring the Constitution as were the Federalists, the anti-Federalists would have been much less likely to support ignoring Article II's natural born citizenship requirements (were they alive today) for they were opposed to a central government period. They would have scorned the idea that popular elections would have any meaning for the very reasons I adduce: the public has no way of evaluating candidates elected on so vast a scale, so large scale democracy must fail. 64 million Americans must be wrong because it is impossible to obtain good information. This is because of constraints on the media's ability to ask relevant questions, its cognitive limits on rationality, not just because it is owned by media conglomerates and biased in the progressive direction.
The anti-Federalists favored small batch production, small units, and local responsiveness. They were post-modern (as well as pre-modern). They favored local democracy in many cases, but not national democracy, an idea that they would have scorned.
There is a true question that no historian has asked as to whether adoption of hyper-decentralization in that early period, as the anti-Federalists favored, would have resulted in a more dynamic, more competitive and more productive American economy than the centralizing approach that Hamilton advocated. Progressivism has claimed that big business makes consumerism possible, but the facts do not seem to support this claim. Production methods of the 21st century are more consistent with the idea of "just in time" decentralization than with large-batch centralization. Perhaps the sub-optimal centralization of the Federalists and the Progressives could have been avoided. A more decentralized America would not have permitted as much lackadaisical big business, waste, railroad-related corruption and big city sleaze of the very kind that resonates today in Chicago.
Jefferson was on the fence. He was often a fellow traveler of the anti-Federalists and objected to centralization, but as president bought Louisiana and acted like a Federalist, establishing the navy and avoiding legislative restrictions on executive privilege and advocating use of state level sedition acts against his opponents.
The anti-Federalists lost the constitutional debate, although they are memorialized in the Bill of Rights, but the election of Jefferson in 1800 was a reassertion of a fossilized anti-Federalism within the Federalist system. Jefferson's election ended the Federalists as a political force, and both of today's political parties descend from Jefferson's Democratic Republicans. But both have rejected the decentralization in which Jefferson believed in principle.
Neither party has been perfect. The Democrats under Andrew Jackson smashed the central bank and emphasized states' rights, albeit for the wrong reasons. The centralizing, aristocratic, elitist element has always been present in American politics via the Whigs and the Republicans. But the decentralizing, anti-elitist element that started with the anti-Federalists and to which Jefferson and Jackson were sympathetic has all but died. This is the tragedy of American politics: our greatest tradition to which conservatism ought to be committed has been replaced by a pale copy of European monarchy, centralization and Fabian socialism via Weyl and Croly. The Republicans have become the Progressive Party and the Democrats the progressive Party. Meanwhile, the American people are scratching their heads.
The great confusion began with Abraham Lincoln, who was a Whig and a centralizer, but who adopted Jacksonian rhetoric that was carried forward by the Mugwumps. The Mugwumps such as Charles Sumner, EL Godkin and David Ames Wells adopted Jacksonian economics and favored the gold standard. But they had two interests that were consistent with their Whig roots and were the basis for the reassertion of centralization that was carried forward via the Progressives. These were a desire to rationalize government via civil service and an interest in establishing professions such as law and medicine.
The Mugwumps' fixation on professionalization and universities led directly to the modern American university's adoption of European standards, which in turn has been the major force for statism in American history. Thus, the modern university is a direct product of American political forces, notably the Republican Mugwumps' fascination with economic and sociological theory led them to send as many as 10,000 Americans to German and European graduate schools in the late nineteenth century. These young graduates came back and established anti-laissez faire centers at Johns Hopkins, Wisconsin and elsewhere via European-trained economists like John R. Commons and Richard T. Ely.
The Republicans thus reasserted themselves as a centralizing force in the late 19th century (the Republican cooptation of Jacksonian Democracy having lasted no more than 35 years, from the 1860s to the 1890s) and then the Progressives became the centralizing elitist force out of the remains of the late nineteenth century Mugwumps and Bourbon Democrats.
The Progressives were smart enough to assert European values in the name of the common man and trust busting, even though the effects of their programs were not so straightforward, and the Democrats then copied the Progressive Republicans in the 1930s, claiming to be for unions and the poor when they were really for Wall Street. The most important step Roosevelt took was abolition of the gold standard and freeing the Fed to create money, the greatest subsidization of business in American history.
Thus, by the 1930s the centralizing force had won, and the decentralizing, anti-elitist force ceased to be a political power except on the fringe. Of course, many and perhaps a majority of Americans still believed in the anti-elitism of Jackson and had decentralizing instincts, but the rhetoric of American politics became riddled with double talk, lies and deception ever since the Progressive era. The wealthy were able to pull off a centralizing coup, securing monetary-creation power for themselves while telling everyone, including idiots like William Greider, that the creation and handing of money to business interests was in the poor's interests. In a sense, through sleight of hand, a fringe elite has been running the nation ever since.
As a result, today we can truly say that America is a one party system, the Republicans who advocate for the Fed on behalf of the wealthy and say they are for free markets and competition, and the Democrats who advocate for the Fed on behalf of the wealthy but say they are for the poor.
So what does all this have to do with the Birth Certificate? The Constitution is in extremis. Ignoring Article II is one more nail in the Constitution's coffin. If you look back to the anti-Federalists, they warned of an over-powerful Supreme Court, fearing it would turn into a force for an aristocratic elite. Likewise, they opposed the central bank for the same reason. They were right. The Federalists believed that the Constitution would prove durable and serve as a restraint on centralized power.
But today even conservatives have forgotten that America is first a nation of liberty, not a democracy. Nor was it intended to be a democratic one, except according to the fringe Progressives who have come to dominate the central government, the very outcome against which the anti-Federalists warned.
"64 million Americans voted to elect Barack Obama. Do you want to disenfranchise them? Do you think it's possible to disenfranchise 64 million Americans and keep the country? And please don't write me about the Constitution. The first principle of the Constitution is that the people are sovereign. What the people say, goes. If you think about it, I think you will agree that a two-year billion dollar election through all 50 states is as authoritative a verdict on anything as we are likely to get. Barack Obama is our president. Get used to it."
David and I exchanged several e-mails over this point last week. I disagree not so much with the possibility that the birth certificate may be ok (who knows?) but with David's claim that democracy ought to trump constitutional parameters and restrictions.
Majority rule was not contemplated when the nation was founded. The Progressives such as Herbert Croly argued for Rousseauean general will and unlimited democracy. Whether their agenda was this or whether Croly and his partner Walter Weyl were just re-processed Fabian socialists interested in furthering a Europeanized American elite is a matter for debate. But Croly's and the other Progressives' contempt for the founders together with their advocacy of unlimited, socialist-style state power reflected the essence of European statism and remain the essence of American P(p)rogressivism. Weyl's and Croly's Progressivism cannot be called conservatism in the American sense, yet the leadership of the Republican Party has discarded the last remnant of Jacksonian democracy, the "Reagan revolution", and adopted the Progressive platform. Thus, today we have no conservatives in Washington but rather a Progressive Party and a progressive one.
When the current Constitution was framed there were two schools of thought, the Federalists and the anti-Federalists. We remember the Federalists such as Hamilton and Madison, who wrote the Federalist Papers and the Constitution, but we don't have so clear a memory of the anti-Federalists, to include George Clinton, Robert Yates, Sam Adams and Richard Henry Lee. The anti-Federalists were in a number of senses more modern, or perhaps post-modern, than the Federalists.
The Federalists were proto-typical Progressives in the sense that they advocated centralization and a strong federal government. They were advocates of economies of scale that carried forward via the Progressives into the twentieth century. But the Federalists, like Madison, did not reject the basic notion of limited government. Madison argued that a durable Constitution would serve as a more potent limit on tyranny than would Jeffersonian generational revolutions.
The Federalists feared what de Tocqueville called "tyranny of the majority", and the most important theme that runs through the Federalist Papers, such as number 10, is fear of faction, specifically (emphatically) including majority faction. The Federalists did not advocate rule of the majority. They limited popular vote to vote for the House. The Senate was to be elected by state legislatures and the president by the Electoral College. Article II Section I of the Constitution does not provide for popular election of the president:
"Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector."
Although the Electoral College has received a great deal of criticism among pissant progressives, the recent election seems to me to confute the progressives' claims for unlimited democracy. The absence of a competent media in the United States means that popular opinion is misguided and that democracy necessarily devolves into a contemptible failure here. Conservatives ought to begin to fashion alternatives to the Progressive propaganda into which they have been indoctrinated at Columbia and elsewhere.
As unlikely supporters for ignoring the Constitution as were the Federalists, the anti-Federalists would have been much less likely to support ignoring Article II's natural born citizenship requirements (were they alive today) for they were opposed to a central government period. They would have scorned the idea that popular elections would have any meaning for the very reasons I adduce: the public has no way of evaluating candidates elected on so vast a scale, so large scale democracy must fail. 64 million Americans must be wrong because it is impossible to obtain good information. This is because of constraints on the media's ability to ask relevant questions, its cognitive limits on rationality, not just because it is owned by media conglomerates and biased in the progressive direction.
The anti-Federalists favored small batch production, small units, and local responsiveness. They were post-modern (as well as pre-modern). They favored local democracy in many cases, but not national democracy, an idea that they would have scorned.
There is a true question that no historian has asked as to whether adoption of hyper-decentralization in that early period, as the anti-Federalists favored, would have resulted in a more dynamic, more competitive and more productive American economy than the centralizing approach that Hamilton advocated. Progressivism has claimed that big business makes consumerism possible, but the facts do not seem to support this claim. Production methods of the 21st century are more consistent with the idea of "just in time" decentralization than with large-batch centralization. Perhaps the sub-optimal centralization of the Federalists and the Progressives could have been avoided. A more decentralized America would not have permitted as much lackadaisical big business, waste, railroad-related corruption and big city sleaze of the very kind that resonates today in Chicago.
Jefferson was on the fence. He was often a fellow traveler of the anti-Federalists and objected to centralization, but as president bought Louisiana and acted like a Federalist, establishing the navy and avoiding legislative restrictions on executive privilege and advocating use of state level sedition acts against his opponents.
The anti-Federalists lost the constitutional debate, although they are memorialized in the Bill of Rights, but the election of Jefferson in 1800 was a reassertion of a fossilized anti-Federalism within the Federalist system. Jefferson's election ended the Federalists as a political force, and both of today's political parties descend from Jefferson's Democratic Republicans. But both have rejected the decentralization in which Jefferson believed in principle.
Neither party has been perfect. The Democrats under Andrew Jackson smashed the central bank and emphasized states' rights, albeit for the wrong reasons. The centralizing, aristocratic, elitist element has always been present in American politics via the Whigs and the Republicans. But the decentralizing, anti-elitist element that started with the anti-Federalists and to which Jefferson and Jackson were sympathetic has all but died. This is the tragedy of American politics: our greatest tradition to which conservatism ought to be committed has been replaced by a pale copy of European monarchy, centralization and Fabian socialism via Weyl and Croly. The Republicans have become the Progressive Party and the Democrats the progressive Party. Meanwhile, the American people are scratching their heads.
The great confusion began with Abraham Lincoln, who was a Whig and a centralizer, but who adopted Jacksonian rhetoric that was carried forward by the Mugwumps. The Mugwumps such as Charles Sumner, EL Godkin and David Ames Wells adopted Jacksonian economics and favored the gold standard. But they had two interests that were consistent with their Whig roots and were the basis for the reassertion of centralization that was carried forward via the Progressives. These were a desire to rationalize government via civil service and an interest in establishing professions such as law and medicine.
The Mugwumps' fixation on professionalization and universities led directly to the modern American university's adoption of European standards, which in turn has been the major force for statism in American history. Thus, the modern university is a direct product of American political forces, notably the Republican Mugwumps' fascination with economic and sociological theory led them to send as many as 10,000 Americans to German and European graduate schools in the late nineteenth century. These young graduates came back and established anti-laissez faire centers at Johns Hopkins, Wisconsin and elsewhere via European-trained economists like John R. Commons and Richard T. Ely.
The Republicans thus reasserted themselves as a centralizing force in the late 19th century (the Republican cooptation of Jacksonian Democracy having lasted no more than 35 years, from the 1860s to the 1890s) and then the Progressives became the centralizing elitist force out of the remains of the late nineteenth century Mugwumps and Bourbon Democrats.
The Progressives were smart enough to assert European values in the name of the common man and trust busting, even though the effects of their programs were not so straightforward, and the Democrats then copied the Progressive Republicans in the 1930s, claiming to be for unions and the poor when they were really for Wall Street. The most important step Roosevelt took was abolition of the gold standard and freeing the Fed to create money, the greatest subsidization of business in American history.
Thus, by the 1930s the centralizing force had won, and the decentralizing, anti-elitist force ceased to be a political power except on the fringe. Of course, many and perhaps a majority of Americans still believed in the anti-elitism of Jackson and had decentralizing instincts, but the rhetoric of American politics became riddled with double talk, lies and deception ever since the Progressive era. The wealthy were able to pull off a centralizing coup, securing monetary-creation power for themselves while telling everyone, including idiots like William Greider, that the creation and handing of money to business interests was in the poor's interests. In a sense, through sleight of hand, a fringe elite has been running the nation ever since.
As a result, today we can truly say that America is a one party system, the Republicans who advocate for the Fed on behalf of the wealthy and say they are for free markets and competition, and the Democrats who advocate for the Fed on behalf of the wealthy but say they are for the poor.
So what does all this have to do with the Birth Certificate? The Constitution is in extremis. Ignoring Article II is one more nail in the Constitution's coffin. If you look back to the anti-Federalists, they warned of an over-powerful Supreme Court, fearing it would turn into a force for an aristocratic elite. Likewise, they opposed the central bank for the same reason. They were right. The Federalists believed that the Constitution would prove durable and serve as a restraint on centralized power.
But today even conservatives have forgotten that America is first a nation of liberty, not a democracy. Nor was it intended to be a democratic one, except according to the fringe Progressives who have come to dominate the central government, the very outcome against which the anti-Federalists warned.
More Speculation from the Blagosphere
Diana West (h/t Larwyn) has a very cool blog over at Town Hall.com concerning Blagogate, perhaps to be annointed Obamagate in the near future. It is getting all too easy to mock the pissant propagandists, and she uses the taboo term "MSM" (there is nothing "mainstream" about them and they are not "media") but West makes some brilliant points:
>"The real news out of Chicago this week was that President-elect Barack Obama had nothing to do with it.
"And I mean nothing to do with any of it. There was an almost comical aspect to the spectacle of journalists across the mainstream media (MSM) suddenly, as if on command, assuming pretzel positions in a contortionist's effort not to seem at all curious, for instance, about the discrepancy between David Axelrod's recent declaration that the president-elect had discussed Senate-seat replacements with Blagojevich, and Obama's more recent declaration that he had done no such thing.
"The MSM instantly agreed: Obama had nothing to do with it. Such a message took Obama out of the story even before the story itself was clear."
>"The real news out of Chicago this week was that President-elect Barack Obama had nothing to do with it.
"And I mean nothing to do with any of it. There was an almost comical aspect to the spectacle of journalists across the mainstream media (MSM) suddenly, as if on command, assuming pretzel positions in a contortionist's effort not to seem at all curious, for instance, about the discrepancy between David Axelrod's recent declaration that the president-elect had discussed Senate-seat replacements with Blagojevich, and Obama's more recent declaration that he had done no such thing.
"The MSM instantly agreed: Obama had nothing to do with it. Such a message took Obama out of the story even before the story itself was clear."
Friday, May 9, 2008
David Horowitz's Legal Response to U Wisconsin Anti-semitism
We have sent the following attorney's letter to the University of Wisconsin in connection with the anti-Semitic attacks on me and the obstruction of my speech.
The Becker Law Firm
23801 Calabasas Road, Suite 1015
Calabasas, CA 91302
May 9, 2008
BY FACSIMILE AND BY REGULAR MAIL
Dr. Carlos E. Santiago, Chancellor
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
P.O. Box 413, 2200 E. Kenwood Blvd.
Milwaukee, WI 53201-0413
Re: David Horowitz
Dear Dr. Santiago:
This firm represents David Horowitz and the David Horowitz Freedom Center. Mr. Horowitz was invited by The Conservative Union, a student organization, to speak on your campus on April 30, 2008. His visit met with an unusually malicious campaign orchestrated by students aligned with the Muslim Students Association (“MSA”) to disrupt it and to prevent his message from reaching its audience.
Colleges and universities have a duty to protect free speech on campus and to take reasonable steps to protect on-campus speakers and organizations from conduct intended to obstruct and undermine peaceful expressions of viewpoints that may be unpopular. In all candor, the tactics employed by the agitators, as detailed below, distinguish your institution as particularly hostile and indifferent to civil liberties and First Amendment protections. The purpose of this letter is to request UWM’s rules, regulations, policies, procedures and guidelines pertaining to visiting speakers and hate speech, and specifically instructions for handling demonstrators, including investigation and arrest policies and procedures. As set forth below, we also request additional information about the University's relationship with MSA.
A search of UMW’s web site does not yield the university’s policies but does generate a revealing statement of university policy contained in a report from the late 1960s:[1]
“The University of Wisconsin has a long-standing and consistent record of support for civil liberties, particularly the First Amendment freedoms of speech, press, and assembly.
“The University’s commitment to civil liberties is not only a commitment to popular causes, but involves (1) freedom for controversial persons invited to the campus to speak, and to communicate, and (2) the freedom of those who would join together with them to talk, listen, and engage in dialogue.
“Such freedoms of assembly, speech, and press are violated when unpopular speakers are banned from campus [and] when controversial speakers invited to campus are not permitted to be heard. . . .
“University policy permits peaceful, non-disruptive, protest – even peaceful picketing which does not interfere with the University’s orderly conduct of its affairs. However, University policy does not – and cannot – condone those actions undertaken either by a tiny minority of students, or by an overwhelming majority, which would violate the rights of other students (or faculty) to assemble, speak,, and exchange ideas and information. . . .”
The report observed that the American Civil Liberties Union “considers it important to emphasize that it does not approve of demonstrators who deprive others of the opportunity to speak or be heard, or physically obstruct movement, or otherwise improperly disrupt … legitimate educational or institutional processes.”
The report also noted that a proposed draft of a student bill of rights of AAUP “takes precisely the same position” and that “this position has been endorsed by many other groups in higher education.”
Is this the university’s current policy, and if it is, where can it be found and how is it enforced?
These questions bear on the rights of Mr. Horowitz, the Conservative Union, who sponsored the event, the students who were deprived of attending the event due to obstructive activities, and those who peacefully attended the lecture, whether their rights were violated and whether university policy was ignored or selectively enforced.
According to Mr. Horowitz and to officers of the Conservative Union, the following disruptive activities occurred in connection with the event:
A flyer titled “Getting to Know David Horowitz,” and featuring a section headed “Who is David Whorowitz?” at the top of the page was posted on a bulletin board outside the office of the Muslim Students’ Association. The flyer additionally featured a cartoon depicting Mr. Horowitz as an anti-Semitic caricature of a Jew in the classic style familiar from the Nazi posters of the 1930s, which have become ubiquitous in the Arab world. The Jew in the cartoon was standing in a garbage can with the cover on his head, dressed in a Nazi uniform, with an armband marked “H” for “Horowitz.” The caption read “Horowitz Awareness Week.” On the side of the garbage can one could read a series of false statements concerning Mr. Horowitz that have been given currency by radical professors and the secular left on college campuses: “Muzzling Academics, Blacklisting, Hate Mongering, Race Baiting, Spying…” The flyer describes Mr. Horowitz as an “Israeli apologist” and “Judeofascist”, and incorrectly claims that he ran an ad in the university newspaper “alleging that a UWM student group, the Muslim Students’ Association, is an extremist organization engaged in violent jihad.”The character depicting Mr. Horowitz states in the cartoon: “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the most fascist of them all?” The flyer goes beyond legitimate parody or editorial comment and purports to imitate the views Mr. Horowitz develops through rigorous research and scholarship. However, while purporting to mock Mr. Horowitz’ claims concerning Islamofascism, it offers no evidence of legitimacy and, instead, maligns Jews while casting Mr. Horowitz in a false light. (The flyer is attached to this letter.)
Prior to Mr. Horowitz’s appearance, members of the MSA had torn down approximately 2,000 flyers that had been posted to advertise the event.
Members of the MSA surrounded students distributing the Conservative Union’s pamphlet at a table. They shouted,“cancel the speech.” Because of these tactics, a threat of violent behavior at Mr. Horowitz’s lecture was taken seriously, and campus security ordered metal detectors and a security force of a more than dozen officers and staffers for the event.
Numerous individuals interrupted Mr. Horowitz’s remarks with the goal of silencing him. More than a dozen individuals associated with the MSA tried to drown out Mr. Horowitz’s comments, were warned to stop, and had to be ejectedfrom the Student Union auditorium.
It is our understanding that the university funds MSA, whose activities involving Mr. Horowitz’s appearance clearly transgressed the rights of students, Jews, Mr. Horowitz and others. We request information concerning the university’s financial relationship with and support of the MSA chapter, which, by virtue of the cartoon and comments described herein, appears to promote, endorse and engage in hate speech as well as other activities that violate the constitutional rights of speech and assembly.
We are advised that although campus security took some steps to avoid violence and disruption, it failed to gather the names of individuals who disrupted the lecture or to otherwise discipline them. We would also like to know why university policy appears not to have been enforced in connection with this event, or why the individuals who disrupted a peaceful assembly evidently have not been investigated.
In the interest of promoting robust First Amendment protections on the UWM campus, we thank you in advance for your prompt attention to this matter.
Very truly yours,
The Becker Law Firm
William J. Becker, Jr.
cc: David Horowitz, David Horowitz Freedom Center
Manny Klausner, Individual Rights Foundation
wjb/gm
Attachment
The Becker Law Firm
23801 Calabasas Road, Suite 1015
Calabasas, CA 91302
May 9, 2008
BY FACSIMILE AND BY REGULAR MAIL
Dr. Carlos E. Santiago, Chancellor
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
P.O. Box 413, 2200 E. Kenwood Blvd.
Milwaukee, WI 53201-0413
Re: David Horowitz
Dear Dr. Santiago:
This firm represents David Horowitz and the David Horowitz Freedom Center. Mr. Horowitz was invited by The Conservative Union, a student organization, to speak on your campus on April 30, 2008. His visit met with an unusually malicious campaign orchestrated by students aligned with the Muslim Students Association (“MSA”) to disrupt it and to prevent his message from reaching its audience.
Colleges and universities have a duty to protect free speech on campus and to take reasonable steps to protect on-campus speakers and organizations from conduct intended to obstruct and undermine peaceful expressions of viewpoints that may be unpopular. In all candor, the tactics employed by the agitators, as detailed below, distinguish your institution as particularly hostile and indifferent to civil liberties and First Amendment protections. The purpose of this letter is to request UWM’s rules, regulations, policies, procedures and guidelines pertaining to visiting speakers and hate speech, and specifically instructions for handling demonstrators, including investigation and arrest policies and procedures. As set forth below, we also request additional information about the University's relationship with MSA.
A search of UMW’s web site does not yield the university’s policies but does generate a revealing statement of university policy contained in a report from the late 1960s:[1]
“The University of Wisconsin has a long-standing and consistent record of support for civil liberties, particularly the First Amendment freedoms of speech, press, and assembly.
“The University’s commitment to civil liberties is not only a commitment to popular causes, but involves (1) freedom for controversial persons invited to the campus to speak, and to communicate, and (2) the freedom of those who would join together with them to talk, listen, and engage in dialogue.
“Such freedoms of assembly, speech, and press are violated when unpopular speakers are banned from campus [and] when controversial speakers invited to campus are not permitted to be heard. . . .
“University policy permits peaceful, non-disruptive, protest – even peaceful picketing which does not interfere with the University’s orderly conduct of its affairs. However, University policy does not – and cannot – condone those actions undertaken either by a tiny minority of students, or by an overwhelming majority, which would violate the rights of other students (or faculty) to assemble, speak,, and exchange ideas and information. . . .”
The report observed that the American Civil Liberties Union “considers it important to emphasize that it does not approve of demonstrators who deprive others of the opportunity to speak or be heard, or physically obstruct movement, or otherwise improperly disrupt … legitimate educational or institutional processes.”
The report also noted that a proposed draft of a student bill of rights of AAUP “takes precisely the same position” and that “this position has been endorsed by many other groups in higher education.”
Is this the university’s current policy, and if it is, where can it be found and how is it enforced?
These questions bear on the rights of Mr. Horowitz, the Conservative Union, who sponsored the event, the students who were deprived of attending the event due to obstructive activities, and those who peacefully attended the lecture, whether their rights were violated and whether university policy was ignored or selectively enforced.
According to Mr. Horowitz and to officers of the Conservative Union, the following disruptive activities occurred in connection with the event:
A flyer titled “Getting to Know David Horowitz,” and featuring a section headed “Who is David Whorowitz?” at the top of the page was posted on a bulletin board outside the office of the Muslim Students’ Association. The flyer additionally featured a cartoon depicting Mr. Horowitz as an anti-Semitic caricature of a Jew in the classic style familiar from the Nazi posters of the 1930s, which have become ubiquitous in the Arab world. The Jew in the cartoon was standing in a garbage can with the cover on his head, dressed in a Nazi uniform, with an armband marked “H” for “Horowitz.” The caption read “Horowitz Awareness Week.” On the side of the garbage can one could read a series of false statements concerning Mr. Horowitz that have been given currency by radical professors and the secular left on college campuses: “Muzzling Academics, Blacklisting, Hate Mongering, Race Baiting, Spying…” The flyer describes Mr. Horowitz as an “Israeli apologist” and “Judeofascist”, and incorrectly claims that he ran an ad in the university newspaper “alleging that a UWM student group, the Muslim Students’ Association, is an extremist organization engaged in violent jihad.”The character depicting Mr. Horowitz states in the cartoon: “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the most fascist of them all?” The flyer goes beyond legitimate parody or editorial comment and purports to imitate the views Mr. Horowitz develops through rigorous research and scholarship. However, while purporting to mock Mr. Horowitz’ claims concerning Islamofascism, it offers no evidence of legitimacy and, instead, maligns Jews while casting Mr. Horowitz in a false light. (The flyer is attached to this letter.)
Prior to Mr. Horowitz’s appearance, members of the MSA had torn down approximately 2,000 flyers that had been posted to advertise the event.
Members of the MSA surrounded students distributing the Conservative Union’s pamphlet at a table. They shouted,“cancel the speech.” Because of these tactics, a threat of violent behavior at Mr. Horowitz’s lecture was taken seriously, and campus security ordered metal detectors and a security force of a more than dozen officers and staffers for the event.
Numerous individuals interrupted Mr. Horowitz’s remarks with the goal of silencing him. More than a dozen individuals associated with the MSA tried to drown out Mr. Horowitz’s comments, were warned to stop, and had to be ejectedfrom the Student Union auditorium.
It is our understanding that the university funds MSA, whose activities involving Mr. Horowitz’s appearance clearly transgressed the rights of students, Jews, Mr. Horowitz and others. We request information concerning the university’s financial relationship with and support of the MSA chapter, which, by virtue of the cartoon and comments described herein, appears to promote, endorse and engage in hate speech as well as other activities that violate the constitutional rights of speech and assembly.
We are advised that although campus security took some steps to avoid violence and disruption, it failed to gather the names of individuals who disrupted the lecture or to otherwise discipline them. We would also like to know why university policy appears not to have been enforced in connection with this event, or why the individuals who disrupted a peaceful assembly evidently have not been investigated.
In the interest of promoting robust First Amendment protections on the UWM campus, we thank you in advance for your prompt attention to this matter.
Very truly yours,
The Becker Law Firm
William J. Becker, Jr.
cc: David Horowitz, David Horowitz Freedom Center
Manny Klausner, Individual Rights Foundation
wjb/gm
Attachment
Friday, March 28, 2008
David Horowitz Freedom Center Fundraiser March 27
I attended David Horowitz's Freedom Center fundraiser at the Yale Club in Manhattan last night. I was pleased to meet David for the first time (we have corresponded a few times via e-mail). The speaker, Dennis Prager, is wonderful. I was delighted to learn that Mr. Prager is an alumnus of Brooklyn College and have extended an invitation to him to visit one of my classes. The esteemed Candace de Russy was there and I was privileged to dine with several outstanding students from Fordham, Columbia and NYU who work with David Horowitz. Horowitz originally comes from Sunnyside, which is not far from my neighborhood of Long Island City/Astoria.
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
ABOR Bill Referred to Higher Ed Committee in Albany
When Phil Orenstein and I met with aides to several state senators last summer I did not expect to see an actual bill proposed in the State Senate this legislative session. The following bill, S. 6336, has been proposed by Senators DeFRANCISCO, GOLDEN, JOHNSON, LARKIN, MALTESE, MEIER, MORAHAN, PADAVAN, TRUNZO, and WINNER. It is an important step for academic freedom in New York and in the nation. If the New York State Senate can propose ABOR, the rest of the country definitely can pass it.
Introduced by Sens. DeFRANCISCO, GOLDEN, JOHNSON, LARKIN,
MALTESE,
MEIER, MORAHAN, PADAVAN, TRUNZO -- read twice and ordered
printed, and
when printed to be committed to the Committee on Higher Education
AN ACT to amend the education law, in relation to creating an
academic
bill of rights
The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and
Assem-
bly, do enact as follows:
1 Section 1. The education law is amended by adding a new section
224-b
2 to read as follows:
3 § 224-b. Academic bill of rights. 1. A student enrolled in an
institu-
4 tion of higher education has the right to expect:
5 a. A learning environment in which the student has access to a
broad
6 range of serious scholarly opinion pertaining to the subjects
the
7 student studies in which, in the humanities, the social sciences
and the
8 arts, the fostering of a plurality of serious scholarly
methodologies
9 and perspectives has a significant institutional purpose;
10 b. To be graded solely on the basis of the student's reasoned
answers
11 and appropriate knowledge of the subjects the student studies and
to not
12 be discriminated against on the basis of the student's
political or
13 religious beliefs;
14 c. That the student's academic freedom and the quality of
education
15 will not be infringed upon by instructors who persistently
introduce
16 controversial matter into the classroom or coursework that
has no
17 relation to the subject of study and that serves no legitimate
pedagog-
18 ical purpose;
19 d. That the freedom of speech, freedom of expression,
freedom of
20 assembly and freedom of conscience of students and student
organizations
21 are not infringed upon by administrators, student government
organiza-
22 tions or institutional policies, rules or procedures; and
23 e. That the student's academic institution distributes student
fee
24 funds on a viewpoint-neutral basis and maintains a posture of
neutrality
25 with respect to substantive political and religious
disagreements,
26 differences and opinions.
EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in
brackets
[ ] is old law to be omitted.
LBD13937-01-5
S. 6336 2
1 2. A faculty member or instructor at an institution of higher
educa-
2 tion has the right to expect:
3 a. Academic freedom in the classroom in discussing subjects
while
4 making the students aware of serious scholarly viewpoints other
than
5 that of the faculty member or instructor and encouraging
intellectual
6 honesty, civil debate and the critical analysis of ideas in the
pursuit
7 of knowledge and truth;
8 b. To be hired, fired, promoted, denied promotion, granted
tenure or
9 denied tenure on the basis of competence and appropriate
knowledge in
10 the field of expertise of the faculty member or instructor and
not on
11 the basis of political or religious beliefs; and
12 c. To not be excluded from tenure, search and hiring committees
on the
13 basis of political or religious beliefs.
14 3. An institution of higher education shall fully inform
students,
15 faculty and instructors of the rights under this section and
of the
16 institution's grievance procedures for violations of academic
freedom by
17 notices prominently displayed in course catalogs or student
handbooks
18 and on the institutional publicly accessible site on the Internet.
19 4. The governing board of an institution of higher education
shall
20 develop institutional guidelines and policies to protect the
academic
21 freedom and the rights of students and faculty under this
section and
22 shall adopt a grievance procedure by which a student or faculty
member
23 may seek redress of grievance for an alleged violation of a right
speci-
24 fied in this section. A governing board under this subdivision
shall
25 publicize the grievance procedure developed pursuant to this
subdivision
26 to the students and faculty on every campus that is under the
control
27 and direction of the governing board.
28 § 2. This act shall take effect immediately.
NEW YORK STATE SENATE
INTRODUCER'S MEMORANDUM IN SUPPORT
submitted in accordance with Senate Rule VI. Sec 1
BILL NUMBER: S6336
SPONSOR: DEFRANCISCO
TITLE OF BILL:
An act to amend the education law, in relation to creating an academic
bill of rights
PURPOSE:
To ensure that students enrolled in institutions of higher education
receive exposure to a wide range of scholarly viewpoints, and to recog-
nize the academic rights of faculty members.
SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS:
Section 224-b (1) -- Outlines what a student enrolled at a higher educa-
tional institution can expect. Included in this portion of the bill are
provisions stating that a student can expect to be graded solely on the
basis of his/her work, student fee money should be distributed in a fair
manner, and a student's freedom of conscience shall not be infringed
upon by administrators or student government organizations.
Section 224-b (2) -- Outlines what a faculty member has a right to
expect. Included in this portion is a provision requiring that faculty
be hired, fired, or promoted on the merits of their work and not on
their political or religious beliefs.
Section 224-b (3) -- Higher education institutions are required to
inform students of their rights and of the institution's grievance
procedures for violations of academic freedom.
Section 224-b (4) -- The governing board of a higher education institu-
tion is required to develop and publicize a grievance procedure for
violations of academic freedom.
JUSTIFICATION:
Every institution of higher learning has a duty to promote intellectual
diversity on campus. Too often, students find many college classes
biased or one-sided. The ideas of all students and faculty members
should be treated with respect, and all ideas deserve to be represented
on campus.
Professors and administrators have an obligation to make students aware
of a broad range of viewpoints and perspectives. They are not hired to
teach only students who share their political or philosophical views,
and professors should never force their own views upon their students.
The classroom is not and should never be a soapbox for a professor to
promote his or her point of view.
The Academic Bill of Rights has been introduced as legislation in a
number of state legislatures, and a few states have already adopted a
form of the Academic Bill of Rights. In one of the most recent examples,
the Pennsylvania State House of Representatives -- in July 2005 --
passed a resolution supporting the principles of the Academic Bill of
Rights.
LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:
New bill.
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:
None.
LOCAL FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:
None.
EFFECTIVE DATE:
Immediately.
Introduced by Sens. DeFRANCISCO, GOLDEN, JOHNSON, LARKIN,
MALTESE,
MEIER, MORAHAN, PADAVAN, TRUNZO -- read twice and ordered
printed, and
when printed to be committed to the Committee on Higher Education
AN ACT to amend the education law, in relation to creating an
academic
bill of rights
The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and
Assem-
bly, do enact as follows:
1 Section 1. The education law is amended by adding a new section
224-b
2 to read as follows:
3 § 224-b. Academic bill of rights. 1. A student enrolled in an
institu-
4 tion of higher education has the right to expect:
5 a. A learning environment in which the student has access to a
broad
6 range of serious scholarly opinion pertaining to the subjects
the
7 student studies in which, in the humanities, the social sciences
and the
8 arts, the fostering of a plurality of serious scholarly
methodologies
9 and perspectives has a significant institutional purpose;
10 b. To be graded solely on the basis of the student's reasoned
answers
11 and appropriate knowledge of the subjects the student studies and
to not
12 be discriminated against on the basis of the student's
political or
13 religious beliefs;
14 c. That the student's academic freedom and the quality of
education
15 will not be infringed upon by instructors who persistently
introduce
16 controversial matter into the classroom or coursework that
has no
17 relation to the subject of study and that serves no legitimate
pedagog-
18 ical purpose;
19 d. That the freedom of speech, freedom of expression,
freedom of
20 assembly and freedom of conscience of students and student
organizations
21 are not infringed upon by administrators, student government
organiza-
22 tions or institutional policies, rules or procedures; and
23 e. That the student's academic institution distributes student
fee
24 funds on a viewpoint-neutral basis and maintains a posture of
neutrality
25 with respect to substantive political and religious
disagreements,
26 differences and opinions.
EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in
brackets
[ ] is old law to be omitted.
LBD13937-01-5
S. 6336 2
1 2. A faculty member or instructor at an institution of higher
educa-
2 tion has the right to expect:
3 a. Academic freedom in the classroom in discussing subjects
while
4 making the students aware of serious scholarly viewpoints other
than
5 that of the faculty member or instructor and encouraging
intellectual
6 honesty, civil debate and the critical analysis of ideas in the
pursuit
7 of knowledge and truth;
8 b. To be hired, fired, promoted, denied promotion, granted
tenure or
9 denied tenure on the basis of competence and appropriate
knowledge in
10 the field of expertise of the faculty member or instructor and
not on
11 the basis of political or religious beliefs; and
12 c. To not be excluded from tenure, search and hiring committees
on the
13 basis of political or religious beliefs.
14 3. An institution of higher education shall fully inform
students,
15 faculty and instructors of the rights under this section and
of the
16 institution's grievance procedures for violations of academic
freedom by
17 notices prominently displayed in course catalogs or student
handbooks
18 and on the institutional publicly accessible site on the Internet.
19 4. The governing board of an institution of higher education
shall
20 develop institutional guidelines and policies to protect the
academic
21 freedom and the rights of students and faculty under this
section and
22 shall adopt a grievance procedure by which a student or faculty
member
23 may seek redress of grievance for an alleged violation of a right
speci-
24 fied in this section. A governing board under this subdivision
shall
25 publicize the grievance procedure developed pursuant to this
subdivision
26 to the students and faculty on every campus that is under the
control
27 and direction of the governing board.
28 § 2. This act shall take effect immediately.
NEW YORK STATE SENATE
INTRODUCER'S MEMORANDUM IN SUPPORT
submitted in accordance with Senate Rule VI. Sec 1
BILL NUMBER: S6336
SPONSOR: DEFRANCISCO
TITLE OF BILL:
An act to amend the education law, in relation to creating an academic
bill of rights
PURPOSE:
To ensure that students enrolled in institutions of higher education
receive exposure to a wide range of scholarly viewpoints, and to recog-
nize the academic rights of faculty members.
SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS:
Section 224-b (1) -- Outlines what a student enrolled at a higher educa-
tional institution can expect. Included in this portion of the bill are
provisions stating that a student can expect to be graded solely on the
basis of his/her work, student fee money should be distributed in a fair
manner, and a student's freedom of conscience shall not be infringed
upon by administrators or student government organizations.
Section 224-b (2) -- Outlines what a faculty member has a right to
expect. Included in this portion is a provision requiring that faculty
be hired, fired, or promoted on the merits of their work and not on
their political or religious beliefs.
Section 224-b (3) -- Higher education institutions are required to
inform students of their rights and of the institution's grievance
procedures for violations of academic freedom.
Section 224-b (4) -- The governing board of a higher education institu-
tion is required to develop and publicize a grievance procedure for
violations of academic freedom.
JUSTIFICATION:
Every institution of higher learning has a duty to promote intellectual
diversity on campus. Too often, students find many college classes
biased or one-sided. The ideas of all students and faculty members
should be treated with respect, and all ideas deserve to be represented
on campus.
Professors and administrators have an obligation to make students aware
of a broad range of viewpoints and perspectives. They are not hired to
teach only students who share their political or philosophical views,
and professors should never force their own views upon their students.
The classroom is not and should never be a soapbox for a professor to
promote his or her point of view.
The Academic Bill of Rights has been introduced as legislation in a
number of state legislatures, and a few states have already adopted a
form of the Academic Bill of Rights. In one of the most recent examples,
the Pennsylvania State House of Representatives -- in July 2005 --
passed a resolution supporting the principles of the Academic Bill of
Rights.
LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:
New bill.
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:
None.
LOCAL FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:
None.
EFFECTIVE DATE:
Immediately.
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