Category Archives: Constitution

James Madison and the Making of America: The real story of the early American republic

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TAMPA, June 1, 2012 – Everyone has their version of the founding fathers and the U.S. Constitution. The most common is that the British colonies rebelled against their king because of “taxation without representation” and formed an independent republic. Their first try at a government didn’t work, so the best and the brightest among them met in Philadelphia and devised a new one. United in their desire to “form a more perfect union,” the delegates placed their trust in the “father of the Constitution,” James Madison, who masterfully wove “checks and balances” into a document that codified the limited government principles he would fight for the rest of his life.

That’s a nice, sentimental story, but the real one is far more interesting. If you want to know what really happened, then pick up a copy of James Madison and the Making of America by Kevin R. C. Gutzman.

Meticulously researched using primary and secondary sources, Gutzman’s book covers most of Madison’s life, concentrating on his key role in bringing about the constitutional convention and subsequent ratification of the Constitution itself. Gutzman follows the Philadelphia Convention almost day by day, managing to keep the story downright riveting without resorting to the “historical novel” format popular in recent decades. While doing so, he blows up just about every myth about Madison, his colleagues and the Constitution.

Continue at Washington Times Communities…

Can Ron Paul supporters accept Gary Johnson?

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TAMPA, May 15, 2012 — Ron Paul’s announcement today that he will “no longer spend resources campaigning in primaries in states that have not yet voted” may finally have some of his supporters considering the possibility that he will not be the Republican Party’s nominee. That may be overly pessimistic considering that Paul also stated that he will continue to pursue his delegate strategy, which has been far more successful than his quest for a primary win.

However, even the most ardent supporter may find it prudent to have a “Plan B,” especially in states where the rules on write-in candidates are onerous. There is one man who believes he’s wide open in the Plan B end zone. He’s former Governor of New Mexico Gary Johnson.

Johnson secured the Libertarian Party’s nomination for president at its national convention last Saturday in Las Vegas, winning over 70% of the delegate votes.

Johnson supports Ron Paul, but doesn’t think Paul will win the Republican nomination. He wants Ron Paul supporters to know that he represents an opportunity to vote for a lot of the things they believe in.

“Ron Paul has always been about a message and so have I and it’s the same message. It’s about liberty and it’s about freedom, first and foremost, and when Dr. Paul’s candidacy comes to an end, there’s a viable alternative and I don’t think it’s a handicapped choice. I think it’s reloading. There’s no concession.”

So, do Paul supporters have to compromise to vote for Johnson?

Continue at Communities @Washington Times.com…

Why can’t Romney win delegates like Ron Paul?

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TAMPA, May 10, 2012 – With his wins in Maine and Nevada last weekend and imminent wins at state conventions in six more states, it appears that some of us were correct when we said over a month ago that rumors of Ron Paul’s campaign demise were greatly exaggerated.

The media continues to insinuate that there is not only something underhanded about Paul’s strategy, but something fundamentally wrong with what Politico describes as “the country’s cumbersome and arcane system for nominating presidential candidates.” According to this narrative, Paul’s supporters are “undermining democracy” by using said “arcane rules” to nullify the wishes of the electorate.

One could argue that Paul’s strategy is perfectly legitimate and that the process is deliberately set up the way it is to ensure that only informed and committed voters become delegates and choose the nominee. It is a republican rather than a democratic electoral process.

This process doesn’t disenfranchise anyone because everyone has an equal opportunity to become a delegate. The rules are not “arcane.” Arcane means that the information is only available to some people. The rules for how one can become a delegate and how the nominee is chosen are published on the Republican Party website in each state and are equally available to everyone.

That brings us to the real question, representing the other side of all of the passive-aggressive attacks on Paul’s strategy and the nominating process itself.

Why can’t Romney simply employ the same strategy as Ron Paul? Why can’t he win delegate majorities in states where he won the popular vote?

Continue at Communities @ Washington Times…

Washington Times Communities link no longer active. Here is a recovered segment from quotation in Reason:

As far as I know, no one has conducted a poll of primary or caucus voters asking them why they did not participate in the delegate selection process. That means that one can only speculate as to why people who support Romney in the popular vote don’t tend to go on to become delegates…

for the most part, one need only be registered to vote in the primary or caucus. In some states, one must be a registered Republican to participate in the popular vote. In others, Democrats and independents can participate.

If one meets those minimal qualifications, one may cast a vote in the primary or caucus. One does not have to be informed on the issues or even know who is running. That doesn’t necessarily mean that all or even most participants in popular votes are uninformed. However, there is no requirement that they are informed and there is plenty of anecdotal evidence that this may be a problem.

For example, a CNN poll following the 2008 Republican primary found that John McCain had strong support from voters who said that they disapproved of the Iraq War, even though McCain had recently said that it would be fine with him if the U.S. stayed in Iraq for a hundred years. Were these voters unaware of McCain’s position?…

This could never happen in the delegate selection process. By the time that a candidate for the RNC delegation has participated in the local caucus, the district or county conventions, and finally the state convention, he not only knows who all of the candidates are but can likely recite their policy positions. He’s heard them over and over during that process…

Delegates are also required to be more committed to their candidates than primary voters. Those local, district, county and state conventions aren’t exactly exciting. In fact, they’re downright boring…

So, Romney does overwhelmingly better in contests that don’t require the participants to be informed on the issues or even know all of the candidates….All they have to do is register and make a 15-minute commitment to pull a lever behind a curtain.

Ron Paul does overwhelmingly better in contests that require delegates to commit months of their time to the process, to hear the arguments of the other candidates ad nauseum and make arguments for their own candidate in return, and sometimes even form coalitions with the delegates supporting other candidates in order to achieve common goals.

 

Tom Mullen is the author of Where Do Conservatives and Liberals Come From? And What Ever Happened to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness? Part One and A Return to Common Sense: Reawakening Liberty in the Inhabitants of America.

Ron Paul delegate strategy is perfectly legitimate

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For at least a month, the media have been ignoring compelling evidence that Ron Paul is doing much better in the Republican nomination race than he did in the primary/caucus popular votes. In their hurry to write the general election narrative, the media have forgotten to perform their primary function: to report the facts. The facts are that Ron Paul has won at least two states and will likely win more.

Now that Paul’s success is impossible to ignore, the media are writing a new narrative. Headlines like “Ron Paul’s stealth state convention takeover” and “Ron Paul People Playing Mischief with Delegates” indicate that instead of ignoring Paul’s victories, they now seek to imply that there is something sneaky or unfair about them. Some even suggest that his delegate success in states where he did not win the popular vote may even (gasp!) “undermine democracy.”

Undermining democracy would be a good thing.  If there is anything we have too much of in 21st century America; it’s democracy. The United States flourished as a free and prosperous society largely because it was founded as a republic. The reason for the bicameral legislature, the separation of powers, and the other so-called “checks and balances” was to protect us from democracy, which James Madison called “the most vile form of government.”

Based upon the belief that government “even in its best state, is but a necessary evil,” the American republic was built to check the will of the majority whenever it wished to confer more power on the government. That’s why there are two houses in Congress. In a democracy, there would be only one. Even after the House passes a law, it then has to pass the Senate, which originally represented the state governments, not the people. The 17th Amendment removed this important check on the power of the federal government.

Ron Paul’s strategy takes advantage of the republican nature of the nomination process. That process does not rely purely on a popular vote to determine who will be the nominee. Instead, voters must go through a multi-tiered vetting process of successive elections in order to become a delegate to the RNC.

This does not remove all of the dangers inherent in a pure democracy, but it helps. At least a delegate has been forced to hear the arguments of other candidates before blindly casting a vote. He also must have the commitment necessary to endure the long delegate selection process.

That the process is republican rather than democratic does not disenfranchise anyone. Everyone has an equal opportunity to become a delegate. Everyone has an equal opportunity to read the rules. That supporters of some candidates choose not to go through the process does not “nullify their wishes.” That they choose not to become informed on how candidates are actually nominated does not represent a deception. On the contrary, the whole process is intentionally designed to ensure that uninformed or uncommitted people do not directly choose the nominee.

Why Ron Paul also matters more than Romney, Santorum and Obama

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TAMPA, April 10, 2012 – Ron Paul matters much more than Newt Gingrich in this year’s Republican nomination race, according to The Washington Post. Both men trail frontrunners Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum by a wide margin in terms of primary victories.

As usual, The Washington Post was silent on the possibility that Paul may have far more delegates than most media outlets are reporting.

The thrust of The Washignton Post story is that Paul has much more leverage due to his growing following and potential for a third party run. Thus, he has already influenced Republican Party, including scrutiny of the Federal Reserve, more attention to the debt crisis and even some grudging concessions on foreign policy.

Just a few years back, none of this was part of the Republican platform.

However, the Post article misses the most important point. Ron Paul doesn’t just matter more than Newt Gingrich. He also matters more than Romney, Santorum or even President Obama. Ron Paul has already had a greater impact on America than any U.S. President in generations.

The Republicans have made unseating Obama a sacred quest in this year’s election. To listen to their rhetoric, you would think that Fidel Castro had been inaugurated in January 2009. Obama’s supporters operate under a similar delusion, although they feel differently about it.

It is apparent that both conservatives and progressives have completely lost touch with reality. Nothing has changed since Obama replaced George W. Bush. Nothing would change if Mitt Romney or Rick Santorum replaced Obama, either.

Americans elected Obama in 2008 to not be George W. Bush. Bush was reviled by voters for what they believed was an unnecessary war in Iraq, for spying on American citizens, for being too cozy with Wall Street, and for assuming executive powers not delegated to him by the Congress. Obama promised to change all of that.

Four years later, Obama has started at least three new wars while expanding the boondoggle in Afghanistan. He has continued spying on Americans and sought to expand this authority in the courts. He has filled his cabinet with Wall Street insiders and has bested George W. Bush on expanding executive powers.

Obama actually claims the right to arrest, to indefinitely detain and even to assassinate American citizens that he deems dangerous – all without due process.

Romney and Santorum both support all of this. Gingrich thinks it’s not enough. Progressives in the media who howled with righteous indignation at Bush’s depredations seem to have fallen asleep now that Obama is in.

Doesn’t anyone remember Keith Olbermann’s tirades about Bush’s dictatorial power grabs? Is there some reason that it is ok when a progressive does the same thing?

However, Obama did lead America down the path to socialism by expanding the government’s role in healthcare and imposing draconian regulations on the financial sector, right? Surely he departs from the “laissez faire” Bush here. Can you say “Medicare Part D” or “Sarbanes-Oxley?”

Nothing changes. Obama is no different than Bush. Neither Romney, Santorum, nor Gingrich would be any different than Obama. They don’t even propose to cut Obama’s spending. The spending “cuts” they propose are actually just reductions in spending increases in future years. In other words, they have no objection to Obama’s spending now. They all admit this, yet their supporters continue in their missionary zeal as if their candidates represent some sort of radical change.

Then there is Ron Paul. He doesn’t just talk about cutting spending. He published his first year budget, cutting $1 trillion dollars. He doesn’t just talk about individual liberty. He wants to end the failed drug war and repeal the Patriot Act. He promises to bring troops home from all over the world and allow young people to opt out of unsustainable entitlement programs. Ron Paul proposes real solutions to real problems, regardless of the political consequences.

Ron Paul is the first presidential candidate in my lifetime to actually use the words “role of government” as if the subject should be debated. He challenges the status quo – the whole, multi-trillion dollar monster in Washington, D.C. that purports to care for 300 million people from cradle to grave and police the entire world. Ron Paul has dared to speak the unspeakable and millions of people all over the world are listening.

That’s why Ron Paul is more important than whoever wins the Republican nomination or the presidency this year. Presidents have come and gone for decades while the federal government has continued to trample our liberties, loot our wealth, and propagate new enemies around the world, regardless of which party has been in power.

Then along came Ron Paul, an overnight sensation thirty-six years in the making. To those who understand what is happening, the presidential election seems almost irrelevant as Paul’s audiences explode into the thousands. Long after history has deemed Bush, Obama and this year’s winner indistinguishable postage stamps on the road to disaster, it will remember the man who planted new seeds during the election of 2012.

As George Washington once said, “Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth.”

Tom Mullen is the author of It’s the Fed, Stupid and Where Do Conservatives and Liberals Come From? And What Ever Happened to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness?

Everything the government does is a mandate

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TAMPA, April 4, 2011 – Despite the drama created by the two days of oral arguments on Obamacare, I’m sticking to my original prediction that the controversial law will be upheld by the Supreme Court.

Let’s face it, if the Court upheld a law limiting the amount of crops that someone can grow on their own land for their own consumption, they’ll find a way to uphold this. Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar of the Associated Press (AP) provides some of the possible reasoning that the Court may rely on.

The AP article points out that there are many other federal government healthcare mandates already in place. Medicare is an individual mandate. There is no option to “opt out.” Conservatives make the distinction that one is only taxed for Medicare if one has an income, while Obamacare forces you to buy a product just because you’re alive. That distinction is valid, but how what does it really mean?

If you choose not to have an income then you either starve to death or live off previously taxed income. Those living off savings and investments haven’t escaped the mandate. Those assets were acquired by previous income. If you’re living off public welfare, then the tax has simply been paid by somebody else. “Income” is necessary to human life. One cannot consume what one has not produced unless someone else produces it for you. Thus, you either comply with the Medicare mandate or die.

Lost in all of these minutiae is a core principle. Government itself is an individual mandate. You have no choice whether to purchase its services. You have no choice whether to obey its laws or pay its taxes. You either comply or you are dragged away by force or killed while resisting. Americans used to understand this.

Continue at The Washington Times Communities…

Do Republicans really want to defeat Obama?

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TAMPA, Fl., April 2, 2012 —The Republican Party has energized its base around the idea that Barack Obama must be defeated to save America from “socialism.” They won a majority in the House in 2010 by focusing on Obamacare. They claim that this election is a turning point. Obama must be defeated or America will be “fundamentally changed.”

There is only one problem. All of the candidates they are running will lose to Obama, with the exception of Ron Paul.

In order to win the general election, the Republicans need independents and Democrats. They also need a media narrative that shows a clear contrast between their candidate and Obama. They get all of this with Paul and none of it with Romney, Santorum, or Gingrich.

During the 2010 elections, Republicans pulled off a rhetorical coup. They successfully labeled Obamacare as “socialism” while at the same time mobilizing millions of senior citizens against the program because it would hurt Medicare. Hats off to their spin doctors. It won’t be that easy this year. If they want to attack Obama on Obamacare, they can’t run a candidate who signed the same program into law in Massachusetts (Romney), who supported its individual mandate for twenty years (Gingrich), or who voted for the Medicare prescription drug benefit (Santorum).

Santorum hasn’t endorsed the individual mandate, but Obama can argue that he’s all for government healthcare and “spreading the wealth around” because of Medicare Part D. The Republican base might swallow Santorum’s rebuttals, but for the rest Obamacare gets neutralized.

Continue at The Washington Times Communities…

God is a non-interventionist

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As technology has advanced and the world has “grown smaller,” it has become increasingly evident that little miracles don’t really happen. By “little miracles,” I mean people levitating, disappearing, parting seas, or making the sun stop in the sky. If they did occur, we’d be watching them on You Tube. But they don’t. That’s a good thing, because it leaves us less distracted from the real miracles: that we are here, that we live in a universe governed by natural laws that explain the world around us and that we have been blessed with reason to discover those laws.

In addition to the natural, physical laws that cause the planets to rotate around their stars and the plants to photosynthesize sunlight, there are also natural, moral laws. Like the physical laws, we are able to discover these by reason. First, we gather facts that we can observe directly with our senses. We then use reason to draw conclusions from those facts.

One observation we have made is that all human beings are created equal. No, they aren’t all the same color, height, shape, or sex. They don’t all run as fast or play the piano as well. There is a wonderful diversity to human life in that no two human beings are exactly alike. Yet, there is nothing so different about any one human being that gives him any innate right to exercise authority over another. In that respect, we are all truly equal.

From that observation, we can draw the conclusion that comprises the most basic, fundamental moral law of nature. As John Locke put it,

““The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges every one: and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind, who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions…”

Reason also leads us to the conclusions that life is good, that whatever promotes life is good, and that whomever or whatever created life, the world around us and the natural laws that govern it must also be good. Some people explain the miracle from a purely scientific point of view. We are here simply because certain materials interacted with others and started a chain reaction. Where those materials came from they do not know. Others insist that it is the work of not only a sentient being, but a loving God.

However, the latter group has always faced a philosophical dilemma. How could a loving God allow terrible things to happen to innocent people? How could he allow atrocities committed by humans, such as those by Stalin, Hitler, or Pol Pot? How could he allow natural disasters like earthquakes and tsunamis to kill thousands of innocent people, when he has the power to prevent them?

The only answer most of us are ever given is “It’s a mystery.” Indeed it is, but that isn’t very satisfying. We’ve been endowed by this creator with a natural curiosity about the nature of our existence. This compels us to ask “Why?” While no one can give a definitive answer, I’d like to suggest one that fits the facts. God is a non-interventionist.

What does that mean? It means that God does not override his own natural laws in order to prevent some of their consequences. Imagine if he did? At any given time, a good percentage of the nearly 7 billion people who inhabit this planet are asking him to violate the most fundamental natural law of cause and effect. Were he to grant even a small percentage of those requests, we would live in a chaotic world that would be impossible to understand or predict. One could not even know for sure that the next step would take one forward instead of backward. No human progress would be possible.

Similarly, God does not override the decisions of men, even if it would save lives or prevent suffering. That was the whole point of the Genesis story, wasn’t it? While Adam and Eve were in the garden, they did not know the difference between good and evil. There was no suffering, but no real joy either. God did not want robots that did his will merely because he programmed them to do it. He wanted sentient beings that would choose to do his will. In order to choose to do his will, they had to have the ability to choose not to. That has never changed.

So, God has the power to prevent suffering, but chooses not to because to override man’s free will or the immutable laws of nature would be worse. He has already provided everything necessary for human beings to live in peace, happiness and prosperity.  We need only use our reason to discover the natural laws, to continue to understand them better, and to follow them.

The United States is right now the most powerful nation on earth. Whether that will be true in fifty years, we do not know. However, today its government has the power to intervene in the affairs of almost any other nation. Often, there is the temptation to use this awesome power to intervene between a dictator and his people or between an aggressor nation and an ally. When have the consequences of intervention ever been better than those of non-intervention would have been? Never.

Yet, we continue to intervene in a most ungodly way, with those who claim to be most devoted to God exhorting us most vociferously. When will we ever learn?

Tom Mullen is the author of Where Do Conservatives and Liberals Come From? And What Ever Happened to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness? Part One and A Return to Common Sense: Reawakening Liberty in the Inhabitants of America.

Tom Mullen on Talkback (WVNJ New Jersey)

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Check out my interview with Dr. Lawrence Gelman and Rabbi Steven Rosenberg of the popular NYC/New Jersey area talk show, Talkback. The show focuses on today’s political, social, and economic issues from a traditional and unrelenting conservative perspective.

They are open to libertarian ideas, too. 🙂 Listen here.

Why is health care so expensive? (Washington Times Comm.)

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TAMPA, Fl., March 29, 2012 — The nation waits with baited breath while the high priests of the federal government prepare to issue a pronouncement on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare. The legislation purports to make health care more “affordable” by among other things, forcing every soul in the United States to purchase health insurance. It also mandates several other new government interventions into the health care market.

While conservatives are arguing that this represents some enormous crossroads between socialism and freedom and progressives are replying that it’s nothing more than “Medicare for all,” everyone has become distracted from the most important questions. Why is health care so expensive? Why does the price continually rise?

The proponents of Obamacare say that it’s capitalism; allowing health care to be delivered in a free market results in “putting profits before people” and other snappy alliterative slogans. In a word, the problem is the age old progressive boogeyman: greed.

That begs several questions. If capitalism is the problem, then why does the price of computers and cell phones continually go down? Aren’t the producers of these products greedy? Does anyone seriously believe that technology corporations “put people before profits?”

Continue at The Washington Times Communities…