Sunday, May 28, 2006

Cradles not sinks!

Where I think many people lose the point is in where the debate on abortion should be held. I subscribe to State’s Rights on this issue. Abortion is not a Federally guaranteed freedom at all and I challenge anyone to show me where in the Constitution it is. Read Justice Blackmun’s majority opinion and see how he is reduced to subterfuge and rationalization in his opinion of the issue at: http://members.aol.com/abtrbng/roefl-o2.htm where his very first sentence is, “The Constitution does not explicitly mention any right of privacy.” Then read the clear reasoning of Associate Justices Byron R. White (a democrat!) and William H. Rehnquist (a republican) in their descent at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roe_v._Wade (the decent is around midpoint; but the entire article is noteworthy.) They say what I’ve been saying, only more eloquently, detailed, and rationally.

Putting this back where it used to be would not end abortion nationwide but just in those states where the people decide it shouldn’t be. This has happened in S. Dakota; but most assuredly, states like NY, CA, and MA (among many others) would doubtlessly endorse it. Women who want an abortion but live in a ‘ no abortion’ state would have to add the price of a bus ticket (etc.) to the price of the procedure.

Like so many things taken over by the Federal government, that has not the authority to do so, it has become the debacle that it has. The states have lost many of their right since the signing of the fourteenth amendment; and it’s time they got them back. We are supposed to be a society of many semiautonomous states overseen by the Federal government, not ruled by it. The federal government role is strictly defined in Article I, section 8 of the US Constitution. That role is to see to it that the states ‘play nice’ with one another, that the states treat their people fairly and uniformly (in the way the Bill of Right define), and to protect us all from foreign aggression. In a nutshell, that’s all the federal government’s role is. Each state is to be left alone to govern the people therein as those people decide.

Some states could be near-socialists, some ultra conservative, most would be somewhere in the middle. If a person doesn’t like his state’s government they are free to move to one that more suits their temperament. (Don’t even get me going on the hardships for some to move; if poverty stricken Mexicans (and others) can do it, so can anyone with strong motivation.) Nothing is ideal but the stronger the central government gets the weaker the states and by extrapolation, the people become until we are all enslaved by the federal government. We see a taste of that now, in that from January first until sometime in May, we are all pretty much enthralled to the government – that’s how long it is taking to pay for all the taxes, federal, state and local (mostly federal) that we pay.

Prior to the sixteenth amendment, the federal government consumed about 3% of the nations GDP; now it is consuming over 20% - that can be equated to how enslaved we are.
In a way I am wondering far from the original topic; but this is all interrelated. The federal government is out of control and we are being victimized by it!

I am not in favor of the federal government banning abortion either, that is not anywhere near what I’ve been saying. There are too many people opposed to that, however, to leave it in the hands of the judiciary. That is why I’d like to see Roe v Wade overturned. All that would do is put it back into the various states to decide for themselves. This issue is tearing the country apart and the people have never had an opportunity to vote on it! What kind of democratic society does that make us? At the very least, make a constitutional amendment that clearly states this ‘right to privacy’ and let the people (or their representatives) vote on it and get it done with, once and for all time!

Don’t even get started on things like personal responsibility, the ‘right to privacy’ overrules any of that nonsense; and for a lot of things.

I’ve got to go clean the ‘foam’ off of my mouth now; I’ll talk to y’all later…

Friday, May 19, 2006

Your government at work! Not!

Gas prices seem high? “Tough!” says your government. Just blame the oil companies for gouging their $0.09 a gallon, is their solution. Does that make you feel better? It better, because that’s all this Congress is going to do for you.

While Cuba is cozying with China to drill for gas and oil 75 miles off of Key West, our wonderful Congress has decided to protect tourism (well, that’s what they said). It doesn’t matter that tourists can’t afford to go there, our coasts are ‘safe’ from the blight of drilling companies (that would otherwise be so far out of sight that you’d need a passport to get to them, never mind see them).

Click over to: http://www.local6.com/news/9243096/detail.html to see how we’re being saved from ourselves (and, of course, those ‘gouging’ oil companies who are actually trying to do something positive about the problem of spiraling energy prices). Have I mentioned, lately, that there hasn’t been a new refinery built in over thirty years? Congress won’t allow them either!
We need to get all the incumbents out! We don’t want more democrats, though; that would be more disastrous. What we need to do is exchange the republicans who are ‘in’ with the primaries; and outright replace the democrats with fresh, new republicans who, with the new leadership arising in Congress, will BE conservative! I know, I know, there isn’t much difference in them as it is; but at least the republicans are not promising to further liberalize the government. We just need to get new republicans in with the message that if they don’t follow through, they, too, will be replaced. (God help us, sooner or later they will get the message.

This will be hard to do, of course. The McCain/Feingold campaign finance “reform” (attack on the First Amendment) is making it harder and harder to dig the incumbents out of there! (Well, that’s why it was passed, after all is said and done: to protect the incumbents!)

For some straight talk on what needs to be done, in the long and short run, look at what former Speaker Newt Gingritch is saying, at: http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=14837 He, at least, is talking plainly about what needs to be done, and what can be done, if we can get the Congress and White House filled with people who have some real balls! (Which is why no democrat need apply; and we need some new republicans, or more to the point, conservatives! Joe Lieberman is the one exception I could tolerate.)