on our Declarational legacy

  The United States of America was founded on such principles and organized in such form as to make the People Safe and Happy. In order for us to preserve for future generations even a shred of this nation's potential, we must redirect her course to honor and perpetuate the aims of the Declaration of Independence, and the promise of the Constitution. While this may sound complicated, the founders of our nation designed a relatively simple system with clearly defined parameters and expectations, those being: bestowing upon all mankind the inalienable Right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness; forming a more perfect Union; establishing Justice; insuring the domestic Tranquility; providing for the common defence; providing for the general Welfare; and securing the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.

  Current conditions in our Union of States infringe upon the Liberty of the People by dictating how we might dispose of our bodies (by consuming drugs or aborting unwanted fetuses), and by allowing the People to indenture themselves to undemocratic and totalitarian corporations that offer the shallow promise of monetary gain at the expense of individual pride and self-sufficiency. These conditions undermine the general Welfare by eliminating funding for public schools, and by leaving us exposed, lacking a national health care system, to the ravages of sickness and disease. These conditions infringe upon the Safety of the People by exposing us to hostility from without (due to our continuing occupation of countries that Muslims consider holy), by allowing too young citizens to drive, by polluting the atmosphere through the burning of fossil fuels, and by granting privileged status to the economic interests of the top 20% at the expense of the economic Safety of the remaining 80% of the population, a privilege that furthermore does injury to Justice and the general Welfare alike when one considers that many millions of American children go hungry every day (see here).

  These self-contradictory conditions are tearing apart our country from within. We have made our government bloated and inefficient by adding layers of bureaucracy to Homeland Security and by paying corporations interested solely in their own bottom line exorbitant sums to supply and assist our troopers deployed overseas; we as a People have lost our way, capable neither of compromise for the sake of national progress nor of peaceful cooperation with fellow citizens who do not share our political or religious opinions. As long as our nation persists, however, the Constitutional parameters are the benchmarks against which all legislation and all government actions must be weighed. Any legislation or acts that infringe thereupon (such as the Patriot Act, and the 1970 Controlled Substances Act) are estimable to tyrants only, and, as they violate the very essence upon which America was founded, must be repealed immediately.

  Neither the Constitution nor the Declaration call for the dominion of one religion over the remaining religions or over the federal or state governments. Therefore, efforts by Sarah Palin and Rick Perry to spread like a suffocating blanket the teachings of their New Apostolic Reformation over our various halls of government can not, and will not, be successful. Similarly, any persons or groups calling for the incorporation of the rules of a specific religion into the laws of the land have no right to carry out their goals; indeed, any such efforts seek to abolish the Blessings of Liberty, and are thus intrinsically anti-American. The only acceptable actions that the various governments existing in these United States might initiate are those that satisfy the parameters of the Constitution and the Declaration alike.

  For us as a People to realign ourselves with the founding parameters and principles, we should: ensure the general Welfare by extending Medicaid to all citizens, by pursuing medical research (stem cells) that exhibits significant potential for healing, and by making affordable and high-quality education available to all persons equally; reinstate Liberty by granting women full custodianship over their bodies, and by extending to all grown citizens the right to consume whichever drugs they think best; provide for the common defence by recalling our armed forces from territories not our own, so that they might defend the motherland; create and expand domestic markets so that our citizens might pursue a decent Happiness on their own soil; form a more perfect Union by abolishing electoral laws that favor a few states (Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Florida) at the expense of the remaining forty six states; rekindle the dying flame of Justice by retraining our police forces to protect rather than circumvent the rights granted the individual by the Constitution, and by altering the current rules of electoral fund-raising, rules that amplify well-funded interests while making irrelevant the voice of the common man; recalibrate the three branches of government so that they might once again gain the tender balance between executive, legislative, and judicial powers, a balance central to the (Constitutionally) correct functioning of our nation.

  There are many more changes that must be made before we will have met the parameters of our founding documents, but the few suggestions mentioned above will put us back on track. As Benjamin Franklin said, We have created a republic, but only if we can keep it. In order to regain this grasp, we must break down existing legal and moral conditions, so that we and our Posterity might once again enjoy the full, unbridled joy of the Blessings of Liberty.

  p.s. requiescat in pacem, Steven Paul Jobs, 1955-2011

Ultima Ratio Regum - 場黑麥 John Paul Roggenkamp

on paying the price

  During a recent conversation with a middle-aged woman of the conservative mind-set, she said, “The Europeans are paying the price for tolerating Islam.” When I pressed the issue, my counterpart explained that Europeans have been exposed to bombings (see here), murders (Theo van Gogh murder, see here), and extremist rhetoric (see here) emanating from the Muslim communities that have been allowed to flourish in their midst. I tried to explain to her that it was foolish to vilify an entire religion based on the actions of a few of its radical members, but she stood fast, her mind soon locked up in obvious Fear of an impending Worldwide Caliphate.
  She was reluctant to offer any kind of solution to this supposed problem, beyond the solutions I deduced by reading between the lines of her general outlook, those being either the forced emigration of any and all Muslims to places outside of Europe, or the sequestering thereof into controlled and separated communities (otherwise known as concentration camps).
  In response, I stated that America has suffered also from the decision to tolerate any and all religions, foremost among them Christianity, a religion that has spawned its fair share of murderous and extremists individuals. When pressed, I gave the examples of the 2009 abortion clinic murders perpetrated by a Christian extremist (Dr. Tiller murder, see here), the Oklahoma city bombings (see here), and the marked increase in religiously conservative and extremist rhetoric, including the widespread disillusionment that has lead many Americans (see here) to believe that this country was founded as a Christian nation (it was not – read my blog series No American Theocracy).
  I am not saying that Christianity is solely responsible for our country's woes, or that those who believe in it are necessarily bad or dangerous people, although it is true that much of the fear-based and xenophobic rhetoric heard today (see here) and a considerable number of attacks against innocent civilians (see here) emanate from the greater envelope of the Christian religion. What I am saying is that religion requires of the individual a relinquishment of his ties to clear thinking and to reason, and, with its frequent reliance on the belief that it alone is the road to the salvation of the soul and that all others are false roads that lead to eternal death and endless suffering, one can easily get carried away and do something foolish in the belief that one's actions are somehow providing pleasure or satisfaction for That Force Which Cannot Be Named.

  In these times of increasingly frequent political and economic crises, we have seen the rise of supposedly Christian politicos who loudly express their often extremist political views. When we read or hear the rantings of Islamic extremists, we are alarmed; the rational and clear-thinking American should be just as alarmed hearing some of the more radical Islamic rhetoric as he would be hearing the fundamentalist Christian views being expressed by prominent individuals such as Michelle Bachmann and Sarah Palin (see here). Any extremist religious opinion is a danger to society as a whole: weak-minded individuals are easily swayed by those they think are speaking to them the words of some unseen god, and the gullible will gladly participate in violence against innocents so long as they believe it might secure their place, after they die, in some fictitious realm of edible joy and eternal conga lines.
  If Europeans are paying the price for their tolerance of Islam, Americans are paying the price for our tolerance of Christianity. But to outlaw one religious practice or the other would be to destroy the fabric of our democracy and to trammel the most sacred rights granted by the Constitution, among them being freedom of religion and, more importantly, liberty of thought and deed.
  Pay the price we must, for violent acts by religious extremists will not end until religion itself has ended. To tolerate one religion is to tolerate them all; we are stuck with our extremists, Christian or Muslim, Jewish or Mormon. So if you are worried about Muslim extremists wreaking havoc over in Europe, remember that there are Christian extremists here in America who are wreaking havoc too.

  The next time some religious zealot starts screaming at you on the street corner, tell her to take a nap, and to practice her crazy beliefs at home, by herself.

Ultima Ratio Regum - 場黑麥 John Paul Roggenkamp