Monthly Archives: February 2008

Presidential candidate Barack Obama, in the throngs of his campaign blizzard, may be growing a bit snow-blind.  A common theme you will hear from Senator Obama is the expansion of national programs, albeit universal health care, or his recent proposal to let those stuck in the Subprime Mortgage crisis to “be able to stay in their homes;” I guess I should have bought a house I can’t afford, too.

I would like to focus, however, on Obama’s specific proposals to expand national service, all laid out nicely at www.barackobama.com/issues/service/.  There, you will notice his intent to double the size of the Peace Corps, more than triple the size of AmeriCorps, create an Energy Corps, a Green Job Corps, but more importantly in this analysis, a Classroom Corps.  I guess at this juncture, it would be best to quote Obama himself, from his speech in Iowa, December 5, 2007:

“The third part of my plan will be integrating service into education, so that young Americans are called upon and prepared to be active citizens.  Just as we teach math and writing, arts and athletics, we need to teach young Americans to take citizenship seriously.  Study after study shows that students who serve do better in school, are more likely to go to college, and more likely to maintain that service as adults.  So when I’m President, I will set a goal for all American middle and high school students to perform 50 hours of service a year, and for all college students to perform 100 hours of service a year.  This means that by the time you graduate college, you’ll have done 17 weeks of service.  We’ll reach this goal in several ways.  At the middle and high school level, we’ll make federal assistance conditional on school districts developing service programs, and give schools resources to offer new service opportunities.  At the community level, we’ll develop public-private partnerships so students can serve more outside the classroom.  For college students, I have proposed an annual American Opportunity Tax Credit of $4,000 to make tuition affordable.  To receive this credit, we’ll require 100 hours of public service.  And we’ll amend the Federal Work-Study program, so that nearly $250 million will help more than 200,000 college students work in part-time public service jobs each year.”

While I agree that duty to country and citizenship are extremely important, there should be no Mandatory National Service, as hinted at here.  This suggestion, coupled with Senator Obama’s support for the House’s H.R. 393 (The Universal National Service Act of 2007), makes it quite evident what he would like to accomplish in his Administration.  Interestingly enough, he has stopped shy of publicly proposing Mandatory National Service, although this House Bill is just that.  Due to the “mandatory” nature of this proposed bill, it is inherently unconstitutional, and therefore, illegitimate, as the 13th Amendment, ratified in 1865, states, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime where of the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”

At this point, I would like to contrast these proposals with military service, and the active military draft that is now our nation’s history; while there are no references to a draft, or conscription, as it was, in the Constitution, there are Supreme Court rulings, circa World War I, that uphold the draft in accordance with the Constitution, Article I, Section 8 which states (and limits) the Congress’ explicit powers.  Here, the Constitution allows the Congress to “raise and support armies,” and military service is seen as a duty in order to support and defend the Constitution of the United States, along with the life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness of its inhabitants; therefore, the US Supreme Court case Butler v. Perry (1916), regarding this very issue, states:  “The great purpose in view was liberty under the protection of effective government, not the destruction of the latter by depriving it of essential powers.”  I would submit to Senator Obama that if he could make the case that “enlisting” the American people into public service was essential to the protection of our country, then he would not be out-of-bounds with his proposal.  Since you and I know that is not the case, his suggested proposal is, in turn, unconstitutional, as is Representative Charlie Rangel’s HR 393, which has a congressional precedence of being shot down for violating the 13th Amendment.

But, in his defense, Senator Obama has not explicitly stated this service would be mandatory.  Instead, he is proposing to hold local governments, and college students, over a barrel.  In order to combat the inflated college tuition costs in this country, Senator Obama would, as President, expand the federal government by enlisting the service of high school and college students and put more Americans on the payroll, essentially holding them hostage to national service, in a plan for ”shared responsibility.”  Buyer beware.

Turning this analysis a bit personal, it is interesting to note that Senator Obama is a lawyer, and was the president of his class at Harvard Law.  He was also a lecturer at a law school.  He lectured on constitutional law, as a matter of fact.  At the University of Chicago.  For ten years.  So I find it interesting that his proposal teeters on being unconstitional.  There are a couple of scenarios here.  Does Senator Obama not realize this is unconstitutional?  Did he not know this fact, while teaching students in law school about the Constitution, and thereby misinforming students at the nation’s sixth-ranked law school?  Or did he, in fact, know it then, and teach his students that this dang-near socialist policy issue would be “cool,” motivated by other factors?  Or, does he know this is unconstitutional, but instead is proposing this policy to gain easy votes on a “Yes, We Can” populist platform?  Or, is it even worse than all of these?  Does he honestly want to take our nation downward, into statism, put us all on the payroll, make us all even more dependent on the federal government, until one day, the door slams shut behind us?  Here’s hoping he’s just snow-blinded by his campaign, continually raging on.

Post Selection Blues:  Because before the election, comes the selection.  This is what we see happening on the right, as those on the far right reject John McCain as the presumptive Republican nominee.  This sentiment accounts for Mike Huckabee’s recent rise in the polls.  It’s the anti-McCain vote.  But it’s all good news for me, though.  I like Huckabee, but I like McCain more, as stated on this website.  I think the struggle at hand is ultimately positive for the moderate-right, where I personally fall ideologically.  I am having difficulty, though, calling myself Republican because I have problems identifying with the ultra-conservatives that oppose McCain.  This is due to the blues of having to narrow down the Party’s pick to one selection, and asking, “Oh, no, what have we done?”

So, I believe, the post selection blues on the right is about to spread over to the left.  Barack Obama is crushing Hillary Clinton, plain and simple, cutting deep into her constituency.  Last night, he swept the “Potomac Primary,” and surpassed Hillary in total delegate count.  He is effectively seizing the crown from Clinton, who supposed she was the Anointed One, the Liberal Savior of the country.  I believe Barack Obama is going to take this position, which will leave the Democrats asking the question, “Oh, no, what have we done?”

All of this, of course, is going to make Hillary Clinton a sad, sore loser.  Look at the David Shuster controversy for details.  She will prove to be so whiny when the tide officially turns, that her cold, calculating side will emerge, and she will do anything to defeat Obama; which brings up the Super Delegates argument.  Can you imagine the country’s reaction if Obama wins the Party’s popular vote, wins all General Delegates, but loses due to Super Delegates swinging the vote?  Merely being a Democrat, though, doesn’t necessarily make you a supporter of democracy.

At this point I would like to digress and discuss a large but silent presence on the left, former Vice President and Presidential candidate, Nobel Peace Prize winner, Senator Al Gore.  If Hillary is selected as the Democratic candidate, who would Al Gore endorse for President?  Think about it.  Let me use a simple equation of Gore’s sentiment:  Global warming concern + Lieberman – Clinton = McCain.

It’s difficult to assume though, because the parties think differently.  You may have heard it said before, that Democrats fall in love, and Republicans fall in line.  This is evident on both sides, at this point.  I like Obama’s hopefulness, but I fear his rhetoric.  Let me say this:  Be afraid of this march.  This is a march into tyranny, and I am not being facetious.  Where, exactly, is Obama on policy issues?  Furthermore, what, exactly, has he said about “Islamic extremism?”  Remember the “Talk with Iran, Invade Pakistan” platform he had six months ago?  How about his proposed sex-ed for preschoolers?  Nobody remembers this, because he doesn’t talk about it anymore.  Lately, he has proposed a National Service Program, giving college students scholarships in exchange for mandatory service to the U.S. government in the Peace Corps, doubling its size, and making 100 hours of national service mandatory.  This, however, is unconstitutional; see the 13th Amendment.  Is Obama the JFK of our generation, or is he the next Jimmy Carter?  Is there anything more to his policy than hope, or is it merely audacity?  But he gives great speeches!  “Oh, no, what have we done?”

I waited awhile before commenting on this presidential race; I guess that’s best, since I am actually not supposed to.  If you look at my first post regarding this nomination season, “The Race is On,” posted 10 January, I equated Hillary to LBJ and Obama to Robert Kennedy, and “endorsed” John McCain.  That was before John Edwards quit, before MLK Day, before Hillary compared herself to LBJ (and consequentially, Obama to MLK), and before Obama was endorsed by the Kennedys (by Senator Ted Kennedy and JFK’s descendents, at least).  That was also when there were five viable contenders in the Republican race.  After last night, barring disaster, there is truly only one, and that is John McCain.

But it’s “Bash McCain Time” back at the ranch.  Who needs these ultra-conservatives, or an American Conservative Union score (an absurdity), or some xenophobic anti-immigrant platform, complete with a language amendment (see earlier post), or social policies and its various amendments that will abandon Americans, when you can unite a country with common sense?  What means more to CPAC anyway; freedom, or conservatism?  John McCain bases his decision-making on freedom, something very dear to him for obvious reasons.  Freedom is more important than laws, and a march backwards in social freedoms is just as bad as a march backwards in economic freedoms; both will land you in the arms of tyranny.  Who needs Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, or Laura Ingraham, when you have a nation built around freedom and common sense?  Government is only supposed to do for people what they cannot do for themselves.  See my chart below to measure your own domestic ideology, and determine where the candidates might lie.  Consider the words of Ronald Reagan, in his 1964 speech, “A Time for Choosing”:  “You and I are told increasingly that we have to choose between a left or right, but I would like to suggest that there is no such thing as a left or right.  There is only an up or down–up to a man’s age-old dream, the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order–or down to the ant heap totalitarianism, and regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would trade our freedom for security have embarked on this downward course.”

Common sense is wisdom with its sleeves rolled up. – Kyle Farnsworth