Bullies: How the Left’s Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences America

BOOK REVIEW

Bullying!  Bullying!  Bullying! Bullying is rampant in the United States according to Obama's Left and the popular media.  In reality, there has been no increase in bullying across America.  "In fact, by all available statistics, bullying is down across the board with young Americans demonstrating particular tolerance for those of different backgrounds."

The Left propagandizes that bullying has morphed into a "brilliant gambit:  they appropriated bullying to apply only to anything remotely conservative."  Shapiro identifies the Left's ability to unify all Americans against bullying and then to redefine bullying as anything the Conservatives oppose.  "A unified coalition against bullying becomes a unified coalition against Conservatism."  Shapiro's bullying list of the Left includes the Tea Party, religious people, global warming unbelievers, defense hawks, venture capitalists, fans of voter identification, traditional marriage, opponents of affirmative action, right-to-work advocates, supporters of Israel, and haters of Glee!

Ben Shapiro is a brilliant, caustically humorous writer who presents with clarity the current nuanced political situation.  His thesis is fresh and is one that the American public must quickly comprehend if Conservatives and America are to survive.  "The Obama embrace of the anti-bullying cause, and the subsequent linguistic trick of conflating anti-bullying with anticonservatism, is the single best bully tactic in the history of American politics." Shapiro's insight could be the key in alerting Conservatives to wake up and smell the Left's deception.  Conservatives have only been playing a bewildered defense up to this point. This is perhaps our last opportunity to play offensive politics and to save our Republic.

In Shapiro's political evolution, his meeting with Andrew Brietbart was pivotal.  He first met his future friend and mentor through his Conservative column in the UCLA Daily Bruin. Leftist-turned-Conservative activist, Breitbart hated the bullying of the Left and considered political correctness the ultimate form of bullying.  The Left's passion for bullying and its use of the propaganda manufactured by the "Democrat-Media Complex" and Left-based sources such as Soros-funded Media Matters bring constant pressure to silence their political opponents. Breitbart's exposure of these bullying tactics brought down upon him the extreme enmity of the Left, who actually celebrated his unfortunate and untimely death.

Shapiro states, "Conservatives have allowed liberals to win the culture war because we're generally civil people.  When the left says we're uncivil, we tend to shy away from the fight rather than, as Andrew put it, walking toward the fire."  Ben Shapiro is today the editor-at-large at Breitbart.com.

Shapiro believes that bullying requires power which the Left wields through the growth of government, the media, Hollywood, the education system, and the nonprofits.  "The right thinks individually; the left thinks institutionally."

The author covers the vast array of bullying engaged in by the Left.  He treats it all in a thorough, fresh, and scholarly fashion.  Shapiro covers with documentation, examples, and illustrations the following types of bullies:  Institutional Bullies, Anti-Patriotic Bullies, Race Bullies, Class Bullies, Sex Bullies, Green Bullies, and Secular Bullies.

"This is the world the left has bequeathed to us.  It is filled with lies; it says that truth is thuggish, and obfuscation of truth a required element of civility.  It says that moral clarity is nasty and uncouth, and moral relativism morally preferable.  It reverses bullies and victims, emboldening the world's true bullies in the process."

It is past time to expose the bullies and stand up to them. This is, indeed, an enjoyable, eye opening and provocative read.

SOURCE




Cruz Lists Obama Admin's Lawless Actions in Legal Limit Reports

"Of all the troubling aspects of the Obama presidency, none is more dangerous than the President's persistent pattern of lawlessness," according to Texas Senator and Harvard Law graduate Ted Cruz.

Cruz exposed the Obama Administration’s illegal actions in four Legal Limit reports released Wednesday.

 Rule of law means that we are a nation ruled by laws, not men. No one—and especially not the president—is above the law. For that reason, the U.S. Constitution imposes on every president the express duty to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.”

Rather than honor this duty, President Obama has openly defied it by repeatedly suspending, delaying, and waiving portions of the laws that he is charged to enforce. When President Obama disagreed with federal immigration laws, he instructed the Justice Department to cease enforcing the laws. He did the same thing with federal welfare law, drug laws, and the federal Defense of Marriage Act.

The documents include a laundry list of the Administration's lawless actions relating to executive fiat, national security, free speech and privacy, Obamacare, executive nominees and personnel, and the economy. Two additional categories exist to encompass "other lawless acts" and "other abuses of power."

Here are two highlights:





Obama may have been a Constitutional Law professor back in the day, however, his actions as president reveal he knows very little about how to abide by the document.

SOURCE




Where has the money gone?

Most people, perhaps even the super-wealthy, who are usually accountable to auditors, want to know where their money goes. This is especially true when they detect money for which they can't account. Not so with the federal government.

Some recent headlines reflect a disturbing pattern that has contributed to our $17 trillion debt and to a growing cynicism among the public, which increasingly regards government in a negative light.

Here are just a few recent gems gleaned from reading newspaper stories and wire service reports: "Pentagon to destroy $1 billion in ammunition." This USA Today story says, "It is impossible to know what portion of the arsenal slated for destruction ... remains viable because the Defense Department's inventory systems can't share data effectively, according to a Government Accountability Office report..."

So in addition to nonfeasance add incompetence.

The New York Times reports on a modest medical office in Brooklyn that received $4.1 million in Medicare funds for "therapy." The Times says the money went to one person. Maybe the government needs therapy. Taxpayers certainly do.

A personal favorite, again from USA Today: "IRS workers who didn't pay taxes get bonuses."

Then there's this from the Washington Post: "Navy to award contract for Marine One helicopter fleet in shadow of previous failure." Why let failure get in the way of a government program?

"$6 billion goes missing at State Department," reports the Fiscal Times. I'm constantly misplacing billions, aren't you?

Again the Fiscal Times: "Government Blatantly Wastes $30 Billion This Year." The key word is "blatantly."

Just in time for this year's university commencement exercises we learn, courtesy of The Wall Street Journal: "Government programs to reduce (student loan) defaults are encouraging more debt."

Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) this week releases its 2014 "Pig Book" listing some of the outrageous spending by the federal government. The book focuses mostly on "pork," those earmarks added to a bill after the normal budget process. Earmarks have been outlawed since fiscal 2011, but members of Congress always seem to find ways around the many laws they pass.

This year's Pig Book has found earmarks attached to the 12 appropriations bills that fund the federal government. One paragraph from the introduction reveals the lengths to which some members of Congress will go to circumvent the law in pursuit of their own political interests:

"The 2012 Pig Book noted that although there were fewer earmarks than in prior years, the projects involved larger amounts of money and included fewer details. This is also true in 2014. For instance, a $25 million earmark for the National Predisaster Mitigation Fund appearing in the FY 2014 Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Appropriations Act corresponds to 58 earmarks totaling $24.6 million for the same program in the FY 2010 DHS bill. The 2010 earmarks appeared in the 'Congressionally Directed Spending' section at the end of the bill, which contained the names of the members of Congress requesting each project and its location, as required by the pertinent transparency rules. "This is in stark contrast to the FY 2014 earmark, which contains no such information."

When committing a crime, some criminals try not to leave fingerprints at the scene. Congress engages in criminality on a higher plain by not leaving "fingerprints" on their earmarks. Who will hold them accountable? Apparently not enough voters, too many of whom appear indifferent, or deliberately ignorant of it all.

To paraphrase the old Peter, Paul and Mary song: where has all the money gone? Long time passing. Gone to earmarks and down a sinkhole. When will we ever learn?

SOURCE




Federal Land Ownership: Is It Constitutional?

The ongoing Cliven Bundy situation in Nevada has raised awareness of the hazards of federal land management.

In Nevada, the federal government owns a stunning 81 percent of the land. On the land they manage, the feds are threatening to evict tenants who refuse to pay outrageous fees. Bundy is the last of a dying breed, the only holdout who hasn’t been driven off land in Clark County in recent years, land his family has utilized and improved for nearly a century.

This behavior raises and important question: Is this how the Founding Fathers intended for the federal government to manage land when they created the Constitution? A 2005 University of Colorado Law Review article by Robert G. Natelson of the Independence Institute titled “Federal Land Retention and the Constitution’s Property Clause: The Original Understanding” attempts to answer that question by carefully examining the historical record against conservative and liberal interpretations of the Property Clause of the Constitution.

The article begins by talking about the case of a Bozeman, Montana native by the name of Casey Emerson. Emerson wants the feds to cede their land holdings back to the people. He argues that the feds don’t tend to the land as well as local folks could, and make blunders that harm the environment and livelihood of Montana residents. Natelson argues that while Emerson’s opinion doesn’t reflect present case law, there is a strong historical basis for his argument against the excessive hoarding of land by the federal government.

This becomes clear when you examine the core principles that the Republic was based upon. It is widely recognized that the principles of republicanism and decentralization were crucial in founding the United States of America, but there were also some principles that fell by the wayside as time passed. While they aren’t necessarily acknowledged now, they were considered to be essential for the continuance of a well-functioning Republic by our predecessors. These principles are fiduciary government, sympathy and independence.

Fiduciary government refers to the idea of government officials as “guardians, agents, servants, or trustees of the people.” Sympathy meant that public officials and private individuals are meant to share an “identity of interest, rather than conflict of interest.” Government officials are therefore expected to serve the public as a whole rather than serve a specific faction or political party. Independence is necessary to prevent collusion between government actors, to keep them free from each other and dependent only upon the public. Knowing these bedrock principles upon which the Republic was founded is key in understanding the appropriate purpose of federal land management.

Natelson brought up an example to illustrate how these principles weren’t respected during the Articles of Confederation era. In the early Republic, an angry band of former soldiers who felt they weren’t properly compensated stormed Congress. This was when Congress still operated out of Philadelphia, rather than Washington D.C. The Congress didn’t have the means to defend itself. Delegates asked Pennsylvania to send militiamen to help, and the state refused. Although nobody was injured, this incident was harmful to the principle of independence. The founders did not want one state to receive preferential benefits over another. They didn’t want a mob of folks from Pennsylvania intimidating Congress into granting special favors to people of that state at the expense of others.

The Constitution therefore allows the federal government to possess land in three forms: territories, enclaves and other property. Territories referred to land that was owned by the federal government but had not been formally made into states. Enclaves referred to land within a state that was owned by the federal government for essential purposes such as ‘Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards.’ Other property refers to land holdings for enumerated purposes, and gives the federal government limited discretion to possess land.

However, the Constitution does not authorize permanent land-grabs by the federal government. It authorizes Congress to make “all needful Rules and Regulations” pertaining to land. ‘Needful’ was a word carefully chosen to indicate that the regulatory power only expanded to powers specifically enumerated in the Constitution. The feds were expected to sell off non-essential land and distribute the subsequent monies in ways that benefited the public good such as paying off the debt or tax cuts.

The current regime of federal land management is blatantly unconstitutional. The founding fathers never intended to create a Republic where the feds could impose draconian fees on peaceful individuals and force them from the land. As a matter of fact, that is exactly the arrangement that the Constitution was written to prevent, as it clearly violates the principles of fiduciary government, sympathy and independence.

When the historical record is examined, it makes it abundantly clear that the Republic has gone awry since the days of the founders. Systematic attacks on the property rights of Americans have been justified through deliberate misreadings of the Constitution. This will only be changed when the public wakes up, re-discovers their rights and takes action against unjust federal power. Natelson’s article can provide a kick start toward creating a proper understanding of the Constitution amongst the American people.

SOURCE

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