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Showing posts with label Voting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Voting. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 24, 2015

La Raza's Growing Influence: Gaining clout and tax dollars in all branches of government

Come the resurgence to launch the NAU, La Raza and its political subversives including the Republican Party will be a tremendous tool for the NWO to ensnare the non-thinking citizenship. Afterall, who would oppose "reform"?

CRC Staff | February 23, 2015

By Barbara Joanna Lucas, Organization Trends, February 2015 (PDF here)


Summary: President Obama’s stunning reversal of his own views on deportation policy is only the most prominent example of influence enjoyed by the National Council of La Raza, which calls itself “the largest national Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States.” In addition to its sway with the president, the group has seen its government revenues rise with help from a high-level White House staffer and also seen a former member be named to the Supreme Court.

Before President Barack Obama told a prime-time TV audience on Nov. 20, 2014, that he was going to bypass Congress and shield 5 million illegal aliens from deportation, he confided the details of his sweeping plan to Janet Murguía, president and CEO of the National Council of La Raza. “I knew a lot of what he was going to say before he said it,” Murguía bragged in a C-SPAN interview on Dec. 5. “I met with the president that day, that afternoon.”

It’s hardly a surprise that Obama’s address to the nation sounded like something a La Raza staffer might have written, full of emotional appeals and framing the enforcement of immigration law as an inherent cruelty. 

“Are we a nation that accepts the cruelty of ripping children from their parents’ arms? Or are we a nation that values families, and works to keep them together?” Obama said in the speech.

Obama added that the Department of Homeland Security would focus on recent illegal border crossers, criminals, terrorists, and gang members. “Felons, not families, criminals, not children, gang members, not a mother who’s working hard to provide for her kids,” would be targeted, he said.

La Raza demanded that Obama “go big” in his executive actions on immigration because the president had been unable in previous years to push a comprehensive immigration reform bill—which critics deride as “amnesty”—through Congress. Obama went big indeed. In addition to focusing on criminals facing deportation, he expanded the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, raising the age cap to 31 in order to include anyone who came to the United States from 2007 through 2009.

Less than a year before announcing these actions, hecklers at a San Francisco rally demanded that Obama take similar executive actions to stop deportations. “You have the power to end [deportation],” a heckler told Obama on Nov. 25, 2013.

Obama responded, “Actually I don’t,” as other audience members chanted “stop deportations.” Obama added, “I respect the passion of these young people because they feel deeply about the concerns for their families. Now what you need to know, when I’m speaking as President of the United States, and I come to this community, is that if in fact I could solve all these problems without passing laws in Congress, then I would do so.”

This means that a year before the president unveiled his unilateral immigration plan, he recognized that the Constitution purposely created a pesky separation of powers and that Congress serves in more than an advisory role in American governance. So what happened in the intervening year?

La Raza happened.

The Rise of La Raza

The National Council of La Raza was founded in the stormy days of 1968 and has one of the most questionable names in the political realm. La Raza can be translated as “The Race.” (NCLR disputes this translation, saying it is more properly translated as “the people.”) It has gone from a fringe organization that many would view as outright racist to a leading voice on policy making, influential in the Obama administration and corporate America. It has used this clout to claim it speaks for all Hispanic Americans. But that’s not always the case. The politically connected organization claims 300 affiliates in 41 states, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia. Headquartered in the nation’s capital, it has state and regional offices in Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Phoenix, and San Antonio, Texas.

La Raza has pushed for immigration amnesty, opposed workplace enforcement, and fought against even the most basic voter integrity and national security proposals. (La Raza was previously profiled in the December 2007 Foundation Watch.)

President Obama, a longtime ally of La Raza, has been taking friendly fire from the group of late, but the drama is left-wing kabuki theater. As President Franklin Roosevelt told his left-wing allies after winning the election in 1932, “I agree with you, I want to do it, now make me do it.”

That’s what La Raza is doing.

A year ago Murguía seemed to turn against the president. “For the president, I think his legacy is at stake here,” Murguía said. “We consider him the deportation president, or the deporter-in-chief” (Politico, March 4, 2014).


“Deporter-in-chief” was an epithet hurled at Obama by amnesty activists throughout the year. The Obama administration frequently touted the speedy clip of enforcement action since 2009, and so the slogan was calculated to shame the president into slowing the pace. 

But it wasn’t true. Deportations have actually fallen under Obama. The administration has manipulated the numbers by changing the definition of “deportation.”
 
“We respectfully disagree with the president on his ability to stop unnecessary deportations,” Murguía continued. “He can stop tearing families apart. He can stop throwing communities and businesses into chaos. 

He can stop turning a blind eye to the harm being done. He does have the power to stop this. Failure to act will be a shameful legacy for his presidency.”


After Obama unveiled his executive action, Murguía decided to walk back the “deporter-in-chief” phrase. 

Janet Murguía, NCLR
“When we had seen the deportations, the number of deportations hit two million—a historic high and much higher than the previous administration under George Bush—there was a lot of frustration and anger in our community, but I actually used that term to really highlight how off-based Speaker [John] Boehner was when he said that the reason he couldn’t move a bill forward on comprehensive immigration reform is because he couldn’t trust President Obama to enforce the laws when in fact, and the fact is, at least two million people have been deported in this fifth year of the Obama presidency,” she said.

Brian Bennett of the Los Angeles Times debunked the left-wing claim that Obama is keen on deporting illegal aliens in an April 1, 2014 article:
“Expulsions of people who are settled and working in the United States have fallen steadily since his first year in office, and are down more than 40% since 2009. On the other side of the ledger, the number of people deported at or near the border has gone up – primarily as a result of changing who gets counted in the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency’s deportation statistics. The vast majority of those borders crossers would not have been treated as formal deportations under most previous administrations. If all removals were tallied, the total sent back to Mexico each year would have been far higher under those previous administrations than it is now.”
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) publishes an annual Yearbook of Immigration Statistics. Jessica Vaughn of the nonpartisan Center for Immigration Studies wrote in a December 2013 report that “because the Obama administration has blurred the lines of which agencies can take credit for deportations, the only fair way to assess their performance is to count all deportations done by all the DHS agencies.” The DHS Yearbook showed at the time that Bill Clinton’s administration holds the record for deportations. In the Clinton years, an average of 1,536,363 deportations were carried out.

Vaughn writes that “the total number of aliens ‘sent back’ under [the] first four years of the Obama administration is just over 3.2 million.” This represents an annual average of 800,863 deportations. During the presidency of George W. Bush, there were a total of 10,328,850 deportations, which works out to an average of 1,291,106 deportations per year.

Obama is clearly not hellbent on deporting illegal aliens, but the imagery is politically useful, which is why La Raza and its allies promote it.
 
Murguía herself was long active in Democratic politics before becoming head of La Raza in 2005. She worked in Bill Clinton’s White House, eventually serving as deputy assistant to the president. Murguía went on to be the deputy campaign manager and director of constituency outreach for the Al Gore presidential campaign in 2000.
 
From there, she became vice chancellor for university relations at the University of Kansas in 2001. She was an activist in 2004 against the voter-approved Proposition 200 in Arizona, which required residents to prove citizenship before registering to vote or legal immigration status before applying for public benefits.
 
Murguía does well for herself at La Raza. Her salary alone was $330,513 for the year ended Sept. 30, 2013, and she also received an additional $81,112 in other compensation from La Raza and its related entities. That lands Murguía well into the ranks of the much-maligned 1 percent.
 
Under her tenure at La Raza, the organization has advocated for speech restrictions. The organization led a campaign in 2008 against advocates of immigration law enforcement, urging that they be taken off of cable TV news networks. A “We Can Stop the Hate” campaign was initiated by La Raza, Center for American Progress, Media Matters, and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF). It targeted amnesty opponents, who were described as “hate groups, nativists, and vigilantes” (Discover the Networks).
 
Borrowing a page from Marxist theoretician Herbert Marcuse, Murguía has also “argued that hate speech should not be tolerated, even if such censorship were a violation of First Amendment rights,” according to a New York Times report of a speech she gave at the National Press Club (Feb. 1, 2008).
 
Murguía hopes to continue to have the same sway with the next president, and expects Obama’s executive actions to continue in force. “I believe that the next president of the United States will have to come right through the Latino community to get to the White House, and they have to be very thoughtful of how they position themselves on immigration, and I think they have to stay away from this executive order and not try to undo it if they want to be president,” Murguía said during the December C-SPAN interview.
 
The historic Republican victory in 2014 congressional elections came without the GOP taking any clearly discernible position on comprehensive immigration reform. Still, Murguía said the party wouldn’t win the presidency without supporting amnesty, claiming that in 2016, “the demographics of the Electoral College will come home to roost for Republicans.”
 
“If they continue on this trajectory, Republicans will have elected their last president for the foreseeable future. Latino voter priorities must be reflected in Republican policy priorities,” Murguía said (Breitbart, Nov. 6, 2014).
 
Murguía cited the questionable Latino Decisions poll after the 2014 election that said immigration was the top issue with 45 percent of Hispanic voters, ahead of the economy, which registered just 34 percent.
 
“This is a call to action for both parties,” Murguía said after the Republican tsunami. “We fully expect the president to act boldly, but that action should spur Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform at long last. It’s not an either/or situation. For the good of the nation, we need both the president and Congress to act now. Latinos will expect the GOP to use its majority position to not only make inroads with our community but, most importantly, do what’s in the best interest of our country.” (TheBlaze, Nov. 11, 2014)
 
La Raza takes part in sophisticated get-out-the-vote operations. Part of that voter-mobilization has come through the “ya es hora ¡VE Y VOTA!” (“It’s Time, Go Vote!”) project, which describes itself as “an historic non-partisan Latino civic participation campaign launched as the Latino community’s action-oriented follow-up to the immigrant mobilizations of 2006.  The campaign represents the largest and most comprehensive effort to incorporate Latinos as full participants in the American political process.  Unlike past approaches which focused on one component of civic engagement, this multi-layered campaign takes a comprehensive approach that links naturalization to voter participation and Census enumeration under a single message: ‘it’s time.’”
 
This project is the child of multiple “national Latino organizations including Mi Familia Vota, the NALEO [National Association of Latino Elected and appointed Officials] Educational Fund, the National Council of La Raza and Spanish language media companies Entravision Communications, ImpreMedia and Univision Communications.”
 
In January 2014, La Raza teamed with the Mi Familia Vota Education Fund for the “Mobilize to Vote 2014” campaign. The goal was to register more than 250,000 new Hispanic voters by mail for that year’s midterm elections. The effort involved three targets: 
18-year-olds, registered voters who moved, and the broader Hispanic voting-age public in Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, Florida, and California (Discover the Networks).
As it turned out, this didn’t help Democrats stay in power. In many cases, Republicans did well with Latino voters. But La Raza’s influence lies in bending policymakers on Capitol Hill and—especially—the White House.
 
Capital Research Center reached out to National Council of La Raza providing the group opportunities to respond to this article. At press time no response had been received.
 
Conservatives may not be enthusiastic about La Raza’s political activities, but supporters say it does perform some good works. In a July 23, 2013 speech at La Raza’s annual conference, First Lady Michelle Obama called La Raza a “great American organization” that for more than four decades “has served as a powerful voice on the most important issues of our time — from voting rights to health care, from education to immigration. 

Because of all of you, your steadfast work, we have seen such great progress for the Latino community and for our country.”
 
NCLR boasts that it “conducts applied research, policy analysis, and advocacy, providing a Latino perspective in five key areas — assets/investments, civil rights/immigration, education, employment and economic status, and health. In addition, it provides capacity-building assistance to its Affiliates who work at the state and local level to advance opportunities for individuals and families.”
 
Finances and Organizational StructureRead more

Friday, February 20, 2015

Why Not One Governor Is Qualified to Be US President

 "If only we had a governor with the guts of a good sheriff."

Thursday, 19 February 2015
Written by  Selwyn Duke

Our Constitution has become a suicide pact.

That’s the view of Thomas Jefferson, expressed in an 1819 letter to jurist Spencer Roane, when he said “If this opinion be sound, then indeed is our constitution a complete felo de se” (suicide pact). The opinion Jefferson referred to is the legitimacy of judicial review, the idea, as he put it, that “gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what not, not only for themselves in their own sphere of action but for the Legislature and Executive also in their spheres.” He warned that accepting such a doctrine makes “the Judiciary a despotic branch” that acts as “an oligarchy.”

That “opinion” has been accepted. The despotism has befallen us. The oligarchy reigns.

In recent times federal judges have ruled that Arizona must provide driver’s licenses for illegal aliens, states such as Utah and Alabama must allow faux marriage, and a Wisconsin voter-identification law is unconstitutional. 

And these are just a few examples of judicial usurpations that continue unabated and go unanswered. But the answer, which needs to be given first and foremost by governors, is simple:

“No.

No — I will not abide by the court’s unjust ruling. The Constitution is the supreme law of the land and, insofar as the central government or judiciary violates it, it renders itself illegitimate. As the governor of my state and head of its executive branch, I am charged with the enforcement of its laws. And we will recognize no more unconstitutional juridical or federal dictates.”

(Note: while my main focus here is our much abused judicial review, I’m advocating the same course with respect to all unconstitutional dictates.)

If this seems radical, note that even Abraham Lincoln agreed, saying in his first inaugural address, “If the policy of the government, upon the vital questions affecting the whole people, is to be irrevocably fixed by the decisions of the Supreme Court … the people will have ceased to be their own masters, having to that extent resigned their government into the hands of that eminent tribunal.”

The process I’m advocating here is known as nullification. 

And should anyone still think it radical or unprecedented, know that we’d only be taking a leaf out of the Left’s book. Explanation?

What do you think “sanctuary cities” are?

They’re places where liberals have decided they’re simply going to resist federal immigration law.

What do you think is happening when states (e.g., Colorado) and leftist municipalities ignore federal drug laws? Nullification is happening.

Yet no matter how egregious, un-American, unconstitutional, and despotic the federal or judicial usurpations, the conservative response is typified by what Utah governor Gary Herbert said — feeling oh-so principled, I’m sure — after the federal faux-marriage ruling: “Ultimately we are a nation of laws and we here in Utah will uphold the law.” Yes, we’re supposed to be a nation subject to the rule of law.

Not the rule of lawyers.

And our governors are allowing subjection to the latter, feeling noble playing by rules the Left laughs at.

It’s not surprising that revolutionary spirit has been cornered by liberals. The only consistent definition of “liberal” is “desire to change the status quo” — it is revolutionary by definition. In contrast, the only consistent definition of “conservative” involves something antithetical to revolution: the desire to maintain the status quo. Of course, it completely eludes conservatives that today’s status quo was created by yesterday’s liberals. And one modern status quo is to lose culture-war and political battles to the Left. And, boy, do conservatives ever maintain that one. They’re like a guy who goes into a fight, gets poked in the eyes and kicked in the kneecaps, loses, and then the next time still thinks he’s got to follow Queensbury rules.

We hear a lot of talk about “states’ rights.” Ex-Texas governor Rick Perry was a good example of a big talker. 

But where’s the beef? Merely flapping lips doesn’t sink big-government ships. There have been nullification efforts by state legislatures, mainly regarding federal gun-control law, and many sheriffs across the country have vowed not to enforce such law. And Alabama’s Judge Roy Moore is currently defying a federal faux-marriage ruling. This is laudable, but why are the chief executives MIA? If only we had a governor with the guts of a good sheriff.

We’re meant to be a nation of states, not a nation state. But rights mean nothing if you’re not eternally vigilant in their defense, if you don’t actively stand against those who would trample them. In 2013, Attorney General Eric Holder threatened Kansas with legal action over a new anti-federal-gun-control state law. If the courts ruled against the state, what would Governor Sam Brownback do? Make some “principled” comments about the rule of law(lessness) and then assume the prone position?

This is why I say not one governor is truly qualified to be president: If a chief executive will not oppose federal tyranny while the head of a state government, why should we think he’d oppose federal tyranny once head of the federal government?

History teaches that entities don’t willingly relinquish power; it didn’t happen in 1776 and it won’t happen now. 

People are generally quite zealous about increasing their power, though. This returns us to the courts’ usurpations. Do you know where the power of “judicial review” came from? It was declared in the 1803 Marbury v. Madison decision — by the Supreme Court.

That’s right: the Supreme Court gave the Supreme Court the Supreme Court’s despotic power.

Of course, unilateral declarations of power are not at all unusual historically. It’s what happened whenever an agent of tyranny — whether it was a conquering king, communist force, or crime syndicate — took over. But these despotisms were enforced, as Mao put it, “through the barrel of a gun.” It wasn’t usually the case that the subjects rolled over like trained dogs lapping up lawyer-craft. Oh, it’s not that I don’t see the crafty lawyers’ position. I might like to crown myself Emperor of America, but, should I insist I possess this unilaterally-declared status with enough conviction, I may get a stay in a mental institution. The courts get to dictate to everyone else and spread insanity all the way around.

Perhaps it needn’t be stated, but the power of judicial review isn’t in the Constitution. So is it any wonder that a federal court, concerned about Barack Obama’s comments relating to the judiciary, asked his administration in 2012 to submit a formal letter indicating whether or not it recognized the power? 

Judicial review, being an invention, is dependent upon the acquiescence of the other two branches of government.

Oh, and what is Obama’s actual position? He believes in the court’s power — when it serves his agenda. 

Otherwise, he’s willing to ignore court rulings himself, as he did when suing Texas over voter ID in 2013. (In fact, never mind the courts. Obama ignores duly enacted federal law he doesn’t like.)

The lesson?

We can even learn from Obama.

The idea of judicial review is thoroughly un-American. As Jefferson also pointed out, judges are not morally superior to anyone else, having “with others the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps.” Despite this, he wrote in his letter to Roane, while we’re meant to have “three departments, co-ordinate and independent, that they might check and balance one another,” judicial review has given “to one of them alone, the right to prescribe rules for the government of the others”; moreover, he continued, this power was given to the very branch that “is unelected by, and independent of the nation.” Jefferson then warned that this has made the Constitution “a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist, and shape into any form they please.” And our country is being twisted along with it as patriots twist in the wind.

Jefferson’s position is just common sense. We cannot be a government of, by, and for the people if nine unelected Americans in black robes can act as an oligarchy and impose their biased vision of the law on 317 million Americans. That is not what the Founding Fathers intended.  

Nonetheless, most conservatives are waiting for the next election or the next court ruling or the next president to right the ship, but they and their republic will die waiting when remedial action can be taken now. Nullification — when properly exercised, it’s a fancy way of saying “standing up for the law of the land.” Were I a governor, I’d tell the feds to pound sand and that if they didn’t like it, to send in the troops. I might ultimately end up in federal prison, but I’d light a fire and spark a movement — and become a hero and martyr to millions.

It’s waiting there for you, governors, glory and God’s work. We just need a leader, someone with greater passions for principle than “for party, for power.” It’s waiting.

Rise, American hero, rise.

via thenewamerican

Wednesday, February 11, 2015

America, You are Hated Because of What You've Allowed Politicians to do to other Countries

Tim Brown , 02.11.15

A bold declaration was made on Monday from Sons of Liberty Radio show host Bradlee Dean. Dean warned his audience of more corruption and more infringement upon their God-given rights unless they stand up and right the wrongs that the criminal administration of Barack Hussein Obama and the accomplices in Congress have done.

"America, you are hated because of what you've allowed politicians to do to other countries!" Dean declared. "That's it, period!"

"This explains why Obama is apologizing to other nations," he added.

Until America turns from her wicked ways, she will continue to tolerate corruption from within, which then sends its tentacles out into the world. Thus, this is why Bradlee Dean takes the message to both young and old and calls them back to the old paths of righteousness.

Dean then pointed out how the current curriculum that is pushing Islamic indoctrination in the public schools is working to his advantage as he targets the vote of the younger generation.

In providing an example of someone that stands up against such indoctrination, Dean pointed to the attacks that his ministry came under while taking the message of America's godly heritage, the Law of God and the Gospel of Jesus Christ into the belly of the beast, America's public schools.

"Three to five times a week I was getting hit by the state-controlled media," said Dean.

He then went on to thank the useful idiots in the media for what they did in promoting his ministry nationally.

"Without you Rachel Maddow and the New York Times and all you other people that attacked me for doing what God commanded me to do and what our forefathers established through our founding documents, if it wasn't for you, I wouldn't have a national platform!" Dean thundered.

And, in keeping with the command of the Lord Jesus, who said, "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you," Dean said, "God bless ya!"

He then proclaimed the same message he carries across the country to Tea Party meetings, in the public schools and on radio and television.

"Jesus said, if I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto me," he said as he recounted that his message has not changed in the thousands of times he has presented it.

Though Christ is lifted up and draws men unto Him, Dean said that men must respond to Christ's wounds and to His cross. They cannot remain unchanged after an encounter with the Risen Christ.

"God forbid that I should glory except in the cross of Jesus Christ," Dean told his audience. "And I'm not drawing attention to myself, but I am telling you that's where I glory… is in the cross."
Dean then gave a warning.

"For you to use a little prudence, friends, to wake up as to what's going on, this is only going to get worse if you allow it," he concluded.

Tying it all back in, Dean pointed back to the fact that everything that is being conducted in the federal government at this point is illegal under the Constitution. The attacks against America's foundations and Christianity are making way for America's enemies to take over from within as Americans are either at leisure, complaining or going along with the criminals in Washington.

In the end, the message is as it always is: A call to repentance and a restoration of the foundations. Are you doing that?

via freedomoutpost

Tuesday, February 10, 2015

The Morality of Capitalism: Liberty, Honesty and Humility



By Richard Ebeling - February 10, 2015

In American culture there is one persistent villain portrayed as the enemy of humanity, the perpetrator of deception, and the agent for social corruption and human harm: the businessman.

Whether in news commentaries or on the movie screen, the businessman is presented as a heartless, greedy manipulator so concerned with squeezing the last possible dollar out of anything he does, that he is willing to destroy the planet, kill his competitors, poison little children, and sell his own mother "down the river" if it will serve his material and financial purposes.

The only thing that saves us from the end of the world at the hands of these criminal private enterprisers is either some righteous individual who refuses to "take it any more" or the virtuous hand of a government agent dedicated to protecting mankind from those who, clearly, care nothing for the common good of humanity.

Critics of Capitalism Want to Abolish or Regulate It

This imagery of the businessman's way of gaining profits has been extended by many intellectuals, academics, and public policy pundits into a general criticism and, indeed, condemnation of capitalism.

What can be praiseworthy, ethical or just in a social and economic system that fosters people to focus only on their self-centered personal interest in the pursuit of material gain with little or no thought to the betterment and improvement of mankind?

The conclusion that many of these critics have reached over the years and decades is that the entire capitalist system must be done away with and replaced with an alternative social and economic system such as socialism; or, at a minimum, business enterprise has to be placed under the detailed supervision and regulatory hand of government bureaucrats presumed to be concerned with and devoted to the general welfare of the country as a whole instead of individual private interest.

I beg to differ from this interpretation of businessmen and the free enterprise system in general. Instead, I would argue that a truly free enterprise, competitive capitalism is the most moral and humanely beneficial way for people to live together that has ever been stumbled upon by mankind.

Capitalism's Premise: Individual Rights and Liberty

There are basically two way human beings can interact and associate with each other: through the threat or use of force or by mutual agreement and voluntary consent.

When have you ever walked into a shoe store looked around and, maybe, tried on a pair of shoes, but when you decided to leave without buying anything a gruff and intimidating character with a club or a gun said, "The boss says you ain't leaving without buying something"? I doubt it any of us have had any such experience.

Why? Because the philosophical and moral premise underlying transactions in the marketplace is that each participant has the right to say, "Yes" or "No" to an offer and an exchange.

Why does every person have this implied right to "Yes" or "No" without attempted physical intimidation or use of force to make him act against his will? This is due to the fact that the foundational American principle is that every one of us has an inviolable individual right to their life, liberty, and honestly acquired property.

Virtually every other philosophical and political system throughout human history has been based on some version of the opposite. That is, that you do not own yourself; your life and property are at the disposal of the primitive tribe or the medieval king, or the social, national, or racial group or "democratic" community to which you've been designated as belonging.

That is the premise of all forms of political and economic collectivism. You work for the group, you obey the group, and you live and die for the group. The political authority claiming to speak and act for the group presumes to have the right to compel your acquiescence and obedience to the asserted needs and desires of that collective group.

Only liberal, free market capitalism as it developed in parts of the Western world, and especially in the United States, broke free of this age-old collectivist conception of the relationship between the individual and others in society.

The modern ideas of individual liberty and free enterprise that began to develop and be argued for about 350 years ago transformed the way men lived and earned a living, and the ethical premises underlying human association in society.

A new morality emerged under which human relationships became based on mutual consent and voluntary agreement. Men could attempt to persuade each other to associate and trade, but they could not be compelled and plundered so one person could get what he wanted from another without their consent.

For Americans, it is heralded as the fundamental principle under which our country was based: It is held to be a self-evident truth that all men are created equal and endowed with certain unalienable rights among which are their individual rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Capitalism Fosters Honesty and Good Manners

As a consequence of this principle of liberty, in the marketplace of the free society individuals learn and practice the etiquette and manners of respect, politeness, honesty and tolerance. This naturally follows from the fact that if violence is ethically and legally abolished, or at least minimized, in all human relationships, then the only way any of us can get others to do things we would like them to do for us is through reason, argument, and persuasion.

The reason why the shoe salesman is motivated to act with courtesy and deference toward us when we are in his store is precisely because he cannot force on us to buy a pair of the shoes he wants to sell. We can walk down the mall corridor and buy those shoes from another seller interested in winning our business, or we can just go home without buying anything that day.

The clichés of "serve with a smile," or "the customer is always right," in fact are inescapable resulting manifestations of the voluntarist principle at the basis of all market transactions.

No businessman is likely to keep his market share or even stay in business in the long run if he earns a reputation for rudeness, deception and dishonesty in his dealings with either other businesses or his consumer customers.

The famous Scottish economist of the 18th century, Adam Smith, long ago explained that the motivation for respectful, polite, honest and deferential behavior on the part of any businessman is his own self-interest. If he doe not, he may not long remain in business, as every private enterpriser knows who had learned to appreciate the importance of gaining and maintaining his brand-name and personal reputation in the eyes of all those with whom he has dealings.

Such polite, courteous, honest and deferential behavior may start out as the self-interested conscious and intentional attempt to merely succeed in the market pursuit of profits, when voluntary and free market dealings and transactions become the common and everyday way in which people associate.

But, over time, such rules of "good behavior" become habituated, a part of the routine of regular day-in and day-out interactions, until, finally, they are transformed into the customs and traditions expected in any and all human encounters, whether in the marketplace or not.

Thus, the practice of self-interested good manners and respectful tolerance fostered first in commercial buying and selling become embedded and reinforced as the general societal rules and ways of civilized and "polite society." And, thus, capitalist conduct makes its contribution to a more cultured and humane civilization.

Capitalism Creates a Spirit of Humility, Not Political Arrogance

Monday, February 9, 2015

Why the Voters Don't Win: Big business crushed ballot measures in 2014



Haven't we all on at least one occasion been puzzled how we (the people) could lose such a vote in our legislature? It had been a slam-dunk we'd thought.

Well, here's your answer, and you won't like it. Washington's corporate corruption has run down hill, and now in our backyard - - many made possible by taxpayer-subsidized IRS non-profit tax-exempt charters!
How could anyone miss their own foot from a range that close!

  • Business interests among the top 50 donors were almost always successful, winning 96 percent of the time.

  • Four out of every five dollars that the top contributing business groups gave to ballot measure fights went to the sides trying to defeat the proposals.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Here's a California example. Some of the individual state corporate donors follow at bottom...

Feb. 5, 2015

Anthem Inc. quickly mounted its defenses when consumer advocates pushed for a 2014 ballot initiative in California that would have made it more difficult for the nation’s third largest health insurer to raise rates.

The company, based in Indianapolis, Ind., shelled out $12.8 million to back television ads and a website that warned voters the measure would “give one politician too much power,” “create more bureaucracy” and “interfere with your treatment options.”

Anthem’s money, combined with millions from other interested parties, swamped efforts by Consumer Watchdog, the advocacy group that spent four months gathering the signatures to put Proposition 45 on the ballot. Opponents of the bill together gave more than $31.5 million — dwarfing supporters’ $2.6 million.
In November, Anthem and the other big business interests won at the polls, with nearly 59 percent of the vote. 

Anthem, formerly known as WellPoint, was the second-biggest donor to groups fighting over ballot measures in the nation last year, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis. The donors gave the money to political committees that advocated for or against the propositions. The health insurer did not respond to requests for comment.

Anthem’s victory on Proposition 45 was part of a pattern that played out across the country: Business interests poured money into ballot question fights, largely to protect their own revenue, with overwhelmingly positive results.

More than three-quarters of the $266 million given by the top 50 donors to ballot measure groups nationwide came from corporations or business trade groups, according to the analysis. They gave most of their money to defeat proposals and were almost always successful, winning 96 percent of the time.

“There’s no question that when business or corporations or entities that are affected by ballot initiatives give to the ballot initiative process, they're not doing so out of altruism," said Joe Tuman, a professor of political and legal communications at San Francisco State University. "They’re doing so out of rational self-interest." 


February 5, 2015
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Monday, January 26, 2015

Republican Leadership Fast-track Constitutionally-INELIGIBLE Candidates for President!


Sorry to pop your balloons friends, but most of you didn't do your homework; but instead took the word of the Party bullies as gospel. Naughty, naughty. So, what does it mean when you copy your classmate's paper? The whole school system fails. Admittedly, you were a flop, and know it. Don't be the last  dunce standing.

 CPAC - Conservative Division and Desperation on Parade

10 March 2014 10:59
Written by JB Williams

Many of us could see that we hit the bottom of the conservative talent pool when George W. Bush had to be recruited from Texas just to avoid John McCain in 2000. Fourteen years later, conservatives are quite literally grasping at straws in the latest CPAC Presidential Straw Poll for 2016.

The results of the 2014 CPAC Straw Poll is shocking to say the least, highly disturbing at best. 27% of CPAC voters voted for a constitutionally ineligible candidate – 11% Sen. Ted Cruz – 7% former Senator Rick Santorum – 6% Sen. Marco Rubio – 2% Gov. Bobby Jindal and 1% Gov. Nikki Haley… none of whom are Natural Born Citizens of the United States under Article II requirements for the office.

The mere fact that CPAC placed these names on their ballot at all is very telling… On the same day CPAC and Drudge poll results were issued, Fox News reported that Ted Cruz is “not eligible” for high office, based upon a false definition of Natural Born Citizen which leaves Obama presumed eligible.

CPAC has been running a straw poll since 1976 and over the thirty-eight years since, the CPAC poll correctly identified only three GOP nominees, Reagan, George W. Bush and Mitt Romney, only two of whom became president. Not a great track record in terms of influence or predictions…and that may be a good thing.

Drudge Report ran their own straw poll at the same time and the results were equally troubling. Sen. Ted Cruz, who is a Natural Born Citizen of Cuba and Canada, not the United States, received support from 29% of Drudge readers. Libertarian freshman senator Rand Paul, the first US Senator to attempt to legislate by campaign data basing petitions, topped the Drudge results at 31% of the vote.

Like the CPAC poll, Drudge offered no less than three “constitutionally ineligible candidates” to voters and 33% of Drudge voters cast their ballot for one of those three ineligible candidates. Amazing!

Barack Hussein Obama is the first constitutionally ineligible candidate to win the most powerful political office on earth, not once but twice, thanks to an ever increasingly ignorant electorate. Five years later, the term Natural Born Citizen has been so bastardized by people on all sides of the political debate that the term literally has no meaning at all today. Partisanship trumps the Rule of Constitutional Law, even amongst so-called “constitutionalists.”

Of course, once words lose meaning, our Constitution and Bill of Rights lose all meaning as well.

Senators have never made good executive branch leaders in 227 years of U.S. history and despite the fact that congressional approval has been in the single digits for years now, a large percentage of “right-wing” voters seem to think that two freshman senators are the best we can do, even if one of them isn’t even eligible for the office.

To say the least, it is a very disturbing sign of things to come, an electorate in which no group has respect or reverence for the founding principles and values that once made America the greatest nation on earth.

Thomas Jefferson warned – “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.” – and he further explained, “We in America do not have government by the majority. We have government by the majority who participate.”

What is America’s future when the majority of those who participate are too ignorant to participate?

The international left is in the closing hours of their total destruction of the Constitutional Republic. Not a single member of the U.S. Congress has lifted a finger to stop the destruction that nearly every American is able to see today. Communists no longer have to work in the shadows. Under more progressive sounding titles like liberal, they are able to drive America off a cliff without so much as a fight…

And those who pretend to resist, now participate in the same set of evils as their alleged opponents, advancing ineligible candidates, violating more than 300 million legal American citizens in favor of 20 million illegal invaders, authorizing debt levels that no nation can survive, and sitting on their hands as anti-American leftists seize control of nearly every private industry and asset in America.

The salvation will come from CPAC, who is promoting a couple freshman senators with pretty words and an otherwise empty résumé, one of which is not even eligible for office? The salvation will come from Drudge readers doing the same?

God help us if these groups are to be the beacon of truth, justice and the American way…. They are just as corrupt as the corrupt politicians in D.C. that they claim to oppose.

Half of our nation’s eligible voters don’t even bother to vote and the other half are in a race to the bottom of the political cesspool, both totally discarding the Constitution and Bill of Rights as if they no longer apply.

In 2008, many Tea Party folks were so focused on disqualifying John McCain, who is a Natural Born Citizen of the United States, that they left the door wide open for an anti-American communist from Kenya to seize the White House.

McCain became the GOP nominee with 1575 primary delegates, Huckabee receiving 278, Romney 271 and Ron Paul 14. CPAC had chosen Mitt Romney in the 2008 straw poll. McCain was below the bottom of the talent pool… the pool was drained empty in 2000.

In 2012, CPAC chose Mitt Romney again and Romney became the nominee with 1462 GOP delegates, Santorum receiving 234, Ron Paul 154 and Gingrich 137 delegates. The GOP was more divided than ever and when conservative evangelicals and Ron Paul libertarians refused to vote for “the Mormon” in the general election, America’s most anti-American unconstitutional White House resident was re-elected with at least 49% of the nation opposed.

All of this spells serious trouble for the 2016 presidential election cycle. If Hillary Clinton decided to run, she will essentially run unopposed for the DNC nomination. The Democratic Socialists will once again be united in their assault on America…

Meanwhile, it looks like the deep divisions in the so-called resistance or opposition party, the GOP, run deeper than ever.

If ineligible candidates like Cruz, Rubio or Santorum somehow win the nomination, they will be obliterated in the general election and GOP voters will deserve another national spanking.

If freshman libertarian legislators with no record of accomplishment like Rand Paul, somehow become the GOP nominee, the RNC will lose by historic margins and the Republican Party will cease to exist beyond 2016.

Now, before libertarians and unconstitutional “constitutionalists” write to attack what I am saying here, realize that what I said in 2006, 2008, 2010 and 2012 was dead on the mark. I said that the right was in self-destruct mode and they were. I said that the so-called “right” was so internally divided that they were easy prey for the Marxist left.

I said that 2008 was very likely to be the “point of no return” for America, wherein 51-49 became 49-51 for the foreseeable future, at least several generations, if not forever. I was right on all predictions…at a time when I prayed every day that I was wrong!

Today, more than ever before, the political right is poised to commit national suicide, driving the final nail in the coffin of a once great nation. Sadly, the political right now shares a condition once reserved only for the political left… facts don’t matter when they don’t suit your agenda.

As a result, the right is dooming itself to failure, and in doing so, they are dooming the nation to total collapse. Do I have to be proven right again for people to listen?

JB Williams is a business man, a husband, a father, and a writer. A no nonsense commentator on American politics, American history, and American philosophy. He is published nationwide and in many countries around the world. He is also a Founder of The United States Patriots Union and a staunch conservative actively engaged in returning the power to the right people in America.