Filed under: Freedom, History, Military, The Constitution, The United States | Tags: Photographic Essays, The American Civil War, The Origins of Memorial Day
It was after the worst war in our history that we began to officially celebrate Decoration Day, when the graves of the fallen were decorated with flowers, and ceremonies of remembrance were held. It was three years after the Civil War ended on May 5, 1868 that Major General John A. Logan, head of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR), declared that Decoration Day should be Observed, and the last Monday in May was chosen because flowers would be in bloom all across the country.
The first national observance was held that year at Arlington National Cemetery, just across the Potomac River from Washington D.C.. The Arlington Mansion, the former home of General Robert E. Lee, was draped in mourning. Mrs. Ulysses S. Grant presided over the ceremonies, and after the speeches, children from the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Orphan Home and members of the GAR made their way through the cemetery strewing flowers on both Union and Confederate graves, reciting prayers and singing hymns.
There were so many fallen, the traditional numbers were 618,222 — 360,000 from the North, 258,000 from the South. Demographic historian J.David Hacker combed through newly digitized census data from the 19th century, and recalculated the death toll and increased it by more than 20 percent — to 750,000. At that, Dr.Hacker made assumptions and the numbers are only an educated estimate. The data suggested that 650,000 to 850,000 died as a result of the war. He chose 750,00 as the midpoint. That meant 37,000 more widows and 90,000 more orphans.
Here is a fascinating photographic essay about the places of the Civil War 150 years ago, with 48 images. Photography was still in its infancy, but war correspondents produced thousands of images bringing the harsh realities of the frontlines to those at home in a new way. Remember that the United States was only 85 years old at the time. Here are some of the people of the War, the generals and the ordinary soldiers, the slaves, the President, the heroes and the dead.
I lost four great, great uncles in the Civil War, two on each side. One in the battle around Richmond where he was badly wounded and died from his wounds. His older brother and brother-in-law drove a wagon up from South Carolina, near the Georgia border, across South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia to bring his body home. His brother was killed at Snickers’ Gap, the only Confederate to die in that exchange. Their younger brother was in the South Carolina Calvary and survived the war.
On the Union side, the Ohio soldiers fought in the war down the Mississippi valley. One, I know only as “Uncle Frank who was killed in the war” for I have a tintype portrait. The other, I believe from the dates, was wounded at Chickamauga and died from his wounds.
War is terrible, and none was ever more terrible than the War between the States. but the nation healed slowly, and remained a strong union. “As we here highly resolve, these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
Filed under: Capitalism, Economy, Freedom, History, The Constitution, The United States | Tags: "Profit" is Not a Dirty Word, Job Retraining, Misunderstanding
Forgive me, but this is so embarrassing. Barack Obama has just carefully explained that he has no understanding whatsoever of business. Like many leftists, he regards profit as something rather distasteful. The good things are when government retrains all those who have lost jobs due to private enterprise laying people off. Government investing money to encourage investment, encourage innovation, those are good things, aren’t they?
The only reason for a business to exist is to earn a profit, whether for the sole businessman or for huge groups of investors. If there is no profit, the business cannot operate. You have to earn enough to pay expenses, and have a little left over to live on, and to keep the business going until the next day when the process begins again.
Without a profit, a business cannot pay the wages of the workers. Without wages, the workers cannot pay taxes. Without taxes, there in nothing with which to enable a government to exist.
All those wise bureaucrats in government are there because of the profit in private business. Their comfortable offices, fancy buildings, government cars and hefty salaries come from business profits distributed in wages to workers who pay taxes to support the government. The government has no money of its own. The whole caboodle is supported by a vast array of taxes and fees and payments and charges, regulations and mandates that come from the profits of ordinary people making voluntary exchanges in the hopes of making a profit. Profit is not a dirty word. It is the essential driving force.
Mr. Obama also misunderstands the job of a president. It is not his job to figure out how to retrain people who lose their jobs. Most of the job losses have been caused by government in the first place. The government does not care to admit it, but this recession was caused by government’s good intentions to get everybody into owning their own homes — whether they could afford it or not. That was the vast gasbag that puffed-up a vast housing bubble that the banks and mortgage industry and Wall Street tried to swallow, but in the end, couldn’t.
The government is remarkably unsuccessful at job training. There are currently 47 duplicative, or overlapping job programs that are mot particularly successful. It is not a president’s job to retrain people, nor to pick companies to favor with taxpayer money, nor is it his job to pick winners and losers among businesses. It is not the president’s job to decide what form of energy the country needs or should have. The market will decide. If the marketplace will not willingly pay for a newer or cleaner form of energy, then its time has not come. It is not a president’s job to decide what kind of cars we should drive nor if we should abandon our cars for some other form of transportation.
Our government is divided into three equal branches, for good and historically careful reasons. The powers of each branch are delineated in the Constitution. There are limits to the expansion of government allowed under the commerce clause. The Supreme Court is going to be kept very busy. It would be wise to read the fusty old document. that will be 275 years old this September. I know that the left believes that it should be a “living document” so they can adjust it to their very own tastes, but it is meant for all generations — not just the current temporary one. It has survived good generations and less good ones as well, and it will, with our help, survive this one.
Filed under: Freedom, Health Care, Law, Politics, The Constitution, The United States | Tags: Cardinals Speak Out, Catholic Institutions, Obama Administration
Twelve legal challenges have been filed today by 43 plaintiffs against the ObamaCare regulation that requires health care plans to include abortion-inducing drugs, contraceptives, and sterilization procedures. The University of Notre Dame was prominent among the challengers. Many religious institutions object on religious or moral grounds to providing, paying for and facilitating coverage for such procedures.
In addition there are several other institutions that have already filed lawsuits, with the Becket Fund for religious Liberty: Belmont Abbey College, Colorado Christian University, Eternal Word Television Network and Ave Maria University. Hercules Industries has filed suit as a family owned business that would be forced to violate its religious beliefs in February in Newland v. Sebelius in the U.S. District Court for Colorado.
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has called the ObamaCare mandate an “unprecedented” violation of religious freedom by the federal government.
The case seems very strong that the mandate is in direct conflict with the freedom of religion guaranteed by the First Amendment.
Aside from that ObamaCare does grant religious exemptions to the mandate to Muslims, the Amish, American Indians and Christian Scientists. Then there is the famous Supreme Court decision in Youngstown Steel &Tube v. Sawyer in 1952. The Court held that “the president may not rule by decree, conscripting private industry to carry out his commands. The chief executive may only execute laws passed by Congress, according to their terms. He may not make up laws of his own and then enforce them.” That would seem to squash this particular mandate, and Obama’s personal revision of it, quite thoroughly.
The plaintiffs have a lot to complain about. Freedom to practice one’s own religion is one of America’s most cherished freedoms. It is not about contraception, abortion-inducing drugs , or sterilization. These services are widely available in the United States, and nothing prevents the government from making them available. But Barack Obama may not decree that religious institutions must violate their beliefs. The first phrase of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights, reads “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” And only Congress gets to make laws. That is not a power of the Executive Branch.
The administration clearly thought that this fit right into their silly “War on Women” theme. They assumed that the Catholics would fall in line, and claims that conservatives were trying to deny women the right to contraceptives because they objected to taxpayers being forced to pay for something that women should pay for themselves at $9 a month or less, would emphasize how conservatives were against women’s health.
Notre Dame’s president Fr. John Jenkins stated firmly:
Many of our faculty, staff and students — both Catholic and non-Catholic — have made conscientious decisions to use contraceptives. As we assert the right to follow our conscience, we respect their right to follow theirs. And we believe that, if the Government wishes to provide such services, means are available that do not compel religious organizations to serve as its agents. We do not seek to impose our religious beliefs on others; we simply ask that the Government not impose its values on the University when those values conflict with our religious teachings. We have engaged in conversations to find a resolution that respects the consciences of all and we will continue to do so.
This filing is about the freedom of a religious organization to live its mission, and its significance goes well beyond any debate about contraceptives. For if we concede that the Government can decide which religious organizations are sufficiently religious to be awarded the freedom to follow the principles that define their mission, then we have begun to walk down a path that ultimately leads to the undermining of those institutions. For if one Presidential Administration can override our religious purpose and use religious organizations to advance policies that undercut our values, then surely another Administration will do the same for another very different set of policies, each time invoking some concept of popular will or the public good, with the result these religious organizations become mere tools for the exercise of government power, morally subservient to the state, and not free from its infringements. If that happens, it will be the end of genuinely religious organizations in all but name.
If this case winds up before the Supreme Court, Solicitor General Donald Verrilli will have his hands full trying to defend this governmental usurpation of powers.
Filed under: Capitalism, Democrat Corruption, Economy, Election 2012, Law, National Security, Politics, The Constitution | Tags: Honor the Constitution, Stop the Spending, Trust the Free Market
Filed under: Capitalism, Conservatism, Economy, The Constitution, The United States | Tags: Free Enterprise, Ideas That Work, Small Government
Conservatives keep talking about “Big Government” and the disaster that it means for the American people. But what’s wrong with Big Government, and why is Small Government better? The Occupy people are rioting in the streets against Capitalism and Free Enterprise. Why are they wrong, and how do you argue with a liberal. Bill Whittle is always great at explaining what Conservatives believe.
Filed under: Democrat Corruption, Election 2012, History, Law, The Constitution | Tags: HHS Secretary Sebelius, ObamaCare Contraception Mandate, Youngstown Steel & Tube
When Obama spoke warmly about hope and bipartisanship and cooperation in Congress, both houses of Congress were controlled by the Democrats. When the 2010 election put Republicans firmly in control of the House of Representatives, Obama lost interest in cooperation.
Instead he determined to accomplish what he wanted done by executive orders, presidential memoranda and proclamations, and of course, regulations and mandates from the various agencies that were more or less authorized by some legislation. He just wouldn’t bother with Congress anymore.
Ruling by decree was just the way Obama wanted it. In February, President Obama announced his intention to order private insurance companies to provide contraception and abortion drug coverage free, as his way of accommodating religious institutions’ conscientious objections to being forced to provide coverage of those items for their employees, under the terms of ObamaCare.
The president just doesn’t get to rule by decree, taking over private industry, installing his own people to carry out his wishes. Oh, wait….
Back in 1952, during the Korean War, Harry Truman, an unpopular president, conducting an unpopular war, was faced with a political problem in a presidential election year. A looming steelworker’s strike could shut down the country’s steel production for months. The industry was under wartime price controls and could not raise their prices, yet could not meet the demands of labor without raising steel prices. The federal Wage Stabilization Board recommended a wage increase, but the federal Office of Price Stabilization denied the companies’ request for a price increase. Nobody would budge, and a strike was imminent.
Steel production was important to the war effort. Congress had rejected the idea of direct government interference in labor disputes. Truman ordered his secretary of commerce to seize and take over operation of the nation’s steel companies, in order to give steelworkers a wage increase and avoid a strike threatening steel production in the middle of a war. This became one of the most famous and most important of all modern Supreme Court decisions: Youngstown Steel & Tube Co.v. Sawyer. The Supreme Court held that the president may not rule by decree, conscripting private industry to carry out his commands. The chief executive may only execute laws passed by Congress, according to their terms. He may not make up laws of his own and then enforce them.
The presidents of three evangelical colleges have filed suit with the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty and the Alliance Defense Fund against the mandate, which is clearly in violation of the religious clause of the First Amendment.
In addition, it appears that HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius did not consult Supreme Court decisions on religious liberty, nor have a legal memo prepared before she drafted the mandate. On Thursday Secretary Sebelius appeared before the House and was questioned by Congressman Gowdy (R-SC) a former federal prosecutor.
I suspect that Obama’s overreaching mandate may be in trouble.
Filed under: Democrat Corruption, Freedom, Progressivism, Socialism, The Constitution | Tags: First Amendment Freedoms, Liberal's Attack First Amendment, The "People's Rights" Amendment
What a strange period in history we are living in. Democrats in Congress, looking forward to the elections in November, have announced that they want to amend the Constitution to replace all those freedoms in the First Amendment. Liberals have always been at odds with freedom of speech, and the press, freedom of religion, the right of people to peaceably assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
They have even written a new First Amendment, called The People’s Rights Amendment:
Section 1. We the people who ordain and establish this Constitution intend the rights protected by this Constitution to be the rights of natural persons.
Section 2. People, person, or persons as used in this Constitution does not include corporations, limited liability companies or other corporate entities established by the laws of any state, the United States, or any foreign state, and such corporate entities are subject to such regulation as the people, through their elected state and federal representatives, deem reasonable and are otherwise consistent with the powers of Congress and the States under this Constitution.
Section 3. Nothing contained herein shall be construed to limit the people’s rights of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, free exercise of religion, and such other rights of the people, which rights are inalienable.
So Congress could ban the speech of nonmedia business corporations, it could ban publications by corporate-run newspapers and magazines, the religious practices of most churches which are generally organized as corporations, most universities, incorporated unions and non-profits. All corporate entities would be stripped of all constitutional rights. All corporate entities would be treated as artificial creatures of the state. Congress could ban speech about elections and any other speech about religion, politics or anything else. It could ban speech on viewpoints that they didn’t like.
State legislatures and local governments could do the same. They could seize corporate property without providing compensation and without providing due process. All corporate entities would be stripped of all constitutional rights.
As Chief Justice Roberts wrote in his Citizens United opinion:
The government urges us in this case to uphold a direct prohibition on political speech. It asks us to embrace a theory of the First Amendment that would allow censorship not only of television and radio broadcasts, but of pamphlets, posters, the Internet, and virtually any other medium that corporations and unions might find useful in expressing their views on matters of public concerns.
The Left— Liberals, Progressives, Democrats— doesn’t like to be disagreed with. They want to shut down opposing voices. They have long wanted to eliminate freedom of speech. Witness the recent campaign to get Rush Limbaugh off the air because he said something rude about Sandra Fluke, while they completely accept any and all rude things said about Sarah Palin. Witness the outcry against Fox News particularly, but any other Right-leaning publication. Congressional Democrats want the power to shut down opposing voices.
As far as that goes, they aren’t too crazy about the other First Amendment freedoms. They were outraged when Tea Party people exercised their constitutional right to peaceably assemble. The Occupy people camping out and vandalizing public and private property were simply nice young people righteously protesting. And morphing ‘freedom of religion’ into a ‘separation of church and state’ has tried to eliminate any sign of public religion from the public scene.
Perpetually discontented, they don’t like what is, and want something — that they like better. A Utopian world where no one will disagree with them, and where they will always be in charge and have the power to do what they want without interference or objection.
Like every other law, the Constitution must bind officials, not empower them.
Filed under: Domestic Policy, Education, Energy, Environment, Health Care, Law, Politics, The Constitution | Tags: Advisers?, Policy Makers?, The Czars
Law Professor Glen Reynolds tackles the mystery of all those Czars in the White House. There are a lot of them, and they manage mysterious aspects of the American economy without the usually required confirmation by Congress. Why are they there and what do they do? At least two — Carol Browner and Van Jones— self-identified as a socialist and a communist respectively, have departed. Are the Czars just advisers or do they make policy? Very curious.
Filed under: Freedom, History, Law, Politics, The Constitution, The United States | Tags: 225 Years Old, Preserve Protect and Defend, The Constitution
*The Constitution of the United States of America is 225 years old and in all that time amended only 27 times. It is the oldest constitution in the world, and has served us remarkably well.
So when all these other countries are writing constitutions and organizing new governments, how come they all form parliamentary governments of one sort or another? Even our very own Supreme Court Justice Ruth Ginsberg advised the Egyptians that if they were going to write a new Constitution, they ought to imitate the constitution of South Africa, which is precisely 16 years old. James Lileks explains Justice Ginsberg’s appreciation for the South African Bill of Rights.
When French President Valery Giscard d’Estaing wrote the new constitution for the European Union, he studied the Constitution of the United States carefully, and wrote a constitution described as “a badly organized 855 page, 156,447 word document written at a 16th grade level”. It was elsewhere described as” the Constitution of a Dictatorship.”
It’s not too hard to figure out. Constitutions are written by politicians. Our Constitution is a document that says “We the People” grant these limited powers to the government, and anything else we reserve to ourselves. What politician is going to go for that kind of official limitation on their power? Some of us might say that politicians do a pretty good job of gathering power to themselves in spite of the limitations of the Constitution, and we’d be right. But the Constitution guarantees us a hearing when the politicians have gone too far, and we can call them to account.
Governments don’t want a populace that can talk back. When our new government was first formed, European countries were horrified. It was inconceivable to them that we should so elevate the common man. They had centuries of the Divine Right of Kings, and landed aristocracy, peasants and shopkeepers. Remember what an earthquake it was in the Middle East when triumphant Iraqis went to the polls to vote, men and women, and waved their purple-stained fingers in the air for newsmen to photograph.
The president and all officers of the government as well as the Congress and the Courts take an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution. Obama’s aggressive disregard for any constitutional limit on what he wants to do has had the effect of sending Americans back to the Constitution. Conservative complaints are directed to all areas of Obama’s policy, foreign, economic and social. The fear that Mr. Obama was changing the rules led to the founding of the Tea Party movement.
On foreign policy, Obama’s claim that firing rockets in Libya were somehow not a war was troubling. Obama’s hiring of all sorts of ‘czars’ to manage aspects of national policy without congressional approval was disturbing. The notion that Obama could decide whether or not Congress was in session or in recess so he could make recess appointments of someone who could not get Congressional approval, angered many. The administration’s argument that the protections of the First Amendment do not extend to the Catholic Church’s freedom of conscience, while simultaneously granting freedom from participation to Muslims is sure to engender another Constitutional challenge. The administration’s EPA has been losing one court case after another, so there has been some welcome check on the agency’s activities.
Ordinary Americans who had never previously heard of the Commerce Clause are perfectly capable of understanding the argument that if the federal government can require a citizen to buy a product in the marketplace, there is nothing that the citizen cannot be forced to do. How startling then, to discover that way too many liberals could not grasp that argument.
Liberals do not like the Constitution and would prefer to have it rewritten. They would much prefer a document that spells out the rights that the government grants to citizens and one that puts no limits on what government can do. Then they can all work for government, and they could keep the rest of us from disagreeing with them. Not my idea of Utopia, but I don’t believe in unicorns either.
* The marvelous Michael Ramirez daily comes up with perfect visual analogies. I don’t know how he does it, but you can see his work daily at Investors.com, and even purchase his book on his best political cartoons. A wonderful record of what we were thinking at a particular moment in time.
ADDENDUM: Here is Obama, agreeing with me about liberals Constitutional preferences. He goes even farther, to state that the Constitution should certainly contain rights about redistribution of wealth. At least this was his opinion on
January 6, 2011.
Filed under: Politics, Foreign Policy, The Constitution, Economy, Conservatism, Freedom, Capitalism, United Kingdom, National Security, The United States, Iran | Tags: Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Strategy and Tactics
This week on Uncommon Knowledge with Peter Robinson, Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell discusses why the glacial pace of deliberations and decisions in the Senate is a feature, not a bug.
“Once it was clear the president was going to try to turn us into a Western European country as rapidly as he could, about the only strategy you have left when your opposition has a forty-seat majority in the House. . . . We knew we couldn’t stop the agenda. But we thought we had a chance of creating a national debate about whether all of this excess was appropriate. And the key to having a debate, frankly and candidly, was to deny the president, if possible, the opportunity to have any of these things be considered bipartisan.”
This interview will do a lot towards explaining American politics and American government— at least the Senate version. Why the Founders created the Senate the way they did.
Filed under: Domestic Policy, The Constitution, Economy, Energy, News the Media Doesn't Want You to Hear, Junk Science | Tags: EPA Overreach, Slapped Down in Court, A Very Bad Week
EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson
— Bad Days at the EPA. First the Supreme Court unanimously slapped down the EPA’s vast overreach in the case of the Sacketts who simply wanted to build their dream home on a normal residential lot in Priest Lake, Idaho when the EPA descended on them with orders and fines — $70 something thousand a day, and denied them any possibility of a hearing in court. That was last Wednesday, March 21.
— March 23, the U.S.. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled in the case of Mingo Logan Coal v. EPA. The court said the EPA’s interpretation of its authority to enforce the Clean Water Act was erroneous. The EPA tried to withdraw permission to use two streams as discharge sites. The permission was granted three years earlier by the Army Corps of Engineers. Mingo Logan filed the lawsuit because the company believed the EPA did not have the authority to modify or revoke the permit. They also thought the revocation was unlawful and the permit was still valid
Judge Amy Berman Jackson, an Obama appointee, wrote that “the EPA exceeded its authority.” She also said the EPA’s action was extraordinary.” This attempt to withdraw the specification of discharge sites after a permit has been issued is unprecedented in the history of the Clean Water Act.” Ouch.
— In Texas, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals on March 27, slapped down the Out-of-Control EPA, and not too kindly. There are restrictions on major sources of pollution, according to law. There are “minor sources” noted in the law as well, fo which there are only minimal standards. This sort of pollution is left up to the states, except that they must comply with the minimal requirements of federal law. The EPA has 18 months to approve or disapprove the states plan. The EPA decided to disapprove a plan Texas submitted four and a half years ago. Then they created their own “regulations” for minor source pollution, deciding that they could pass their own laws, outside the normal Constitutional framework.
The Fifth Circuit did not look kindly upon this double contempt of actual written law. The EPA also created three extra-statutory standards out of whole cloth — in the context of a federalism regime that gives sweeping discretion to the states, and assigns only to the EPA the narrow task of ensuring that the state plan meets the minimum requirements of the law. An agency literally has no power to act…unless and until Congress confers power upon it.
— Undeterred, the EPA proceeds. In the press release announcing their proposed MY 2017-25 fuel economy standards, EPA administrator Lisa Jackson and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood boast that they are bypassing Congress. “Today’s announcement is the latest in a series of executive actions the Obama administration is taking to strengthen the economy and move the country forward because we can’t wait for congressional Republicans to act.” Claims that the fuel economy standards which will rise to 54.5 mpg in 2015 will produce net benefits ranging from $363 billion to $358 billion suggest that considerable skepticism is in order.
A legislative proposal boosting average fuel economy to 54.5 miles per gallon would not pass in the 112th Congress. They didn’t need to propose standards for MY 2017 until 2014. Obama is big on going around Congress. He doesn’t like disagreement, and is not interested in persuasion. Under Congress’s statutory scheme, one agency, the NHTSA regulates fuel efficiency through one set of standards, according to the Energy Policy Conservation Act. Yet today three agencies — the EPA, NHTSA and the California Ar Resources Board regulate fuel efficiency via three sets of standards, under three different standards. The EPA’s grasp for power contains all sorts of funny business, a protection racket, and Carol Browner’s order “never to put anything in writing.” The EPA really doesn’t have any such authority, but perhaps if the court can continue to slap them down, someone will restrain the power grab.
— Now the EPA has released a new rule to regulate CO2 emissions from power plants, which will effectively ban new coal power plants, as its emissions standards are too low to be met by conventional coal-fired facilities. The rationale is extremely shaky, and claims about endangerment are preposterous.
You may have noticed that President Obama is bragging at every campaign venue about his “all of the above” energy strategy which does not meet the most minimal standards of veracity. Obama said early on that he intended to bankrupt the coal industry. The fact that coal plants produce almost half of our electricity seems to have missed their notice. He wants us to depend on “clean energy” but the clean-energy industry isn’t producing any significant amount of energy. Obama seems to have forgotten that natural gas is a fossil fuel, so perhaps he expects that to take over.
Our economy depends on cheap, abundant power. High gas prices are increasing inflationary pressure, as everything is transported by plane, train or truck, all powered by gasoline. The increased costs — inflation is running at over 8.3% — are a real burden on an economy that is not noticeably recovering, and where unemployment is sky-high. This is Obama’s effort to go around Congress and establish the cap-and-trade that they would not pass. But actions have consequences, and closed power plants mean more unemployment, higher prices, and potential brownouts and blackouts.
Congress needs to rein in this out-of-control agency, and with it the President’s attempt to rule without regard for the other two branches of government or the Constitution.
