Hillary Clinton

Huh? Where to even start with this statement by Hillary Clinton? Letâ€s begin with the fact that the erstwhile prohibitive favorite to win the Democratic presidential nomination seems to have confused the United States Constitution with, um, another document.

Thomas Jefferson was a great many things, but an author of the Constitution was not one of them.

Regarding the very first part of her statement, she certainly couldnâ€t have cleared it ahead of time with Planned Parenthood. Stating that there is a right to life is, Iâ€m quite sure, nowhere in their charter. Not that the Constitution even states that, but never mind.

And Iâ€m pretty certain that everyone has a right to life, regardless of what the Constitution doesnâ€t say about it, except, perhaps, Dodgers fans, Bernie Sanders supporters (if you ask Hillary) and a certain recently terminated University of Missouri professor who looks suspiciously like the comedian Carrot Top.

And except, of course, for the not yet born. As Hillary Clinton might say – sorry kids, er, unborn fetal tissue clumps, youâ€re on your own.

Next, about that whole constitutional right to liberty. Well, there is plenty in the Constitution about what the government can do and also what it canâ€t do. Unfortunately, Hillary Clinton and her cohorts seem pretty unconcerned about the part that explains what the federal government canâ€t do. You know, like the 10^th Amendment. As a matter of fact, there seems to be nothing that the government canâ€t do, if you ask her.  Now she wants the feds to get involved in school discipline.  Geesh!  Naturally, school kids are not taking this lying down.  Several school districts across the country have recently reported a growing Seventh Graders Matter movement in their midst.

All of this seems to suggest that she has a bit of a problem with the whole liberty concept, especially if you are, you know, a one-percenter. (Bill and Hillary Clinton excluded, of course.)

Lastly, there is the bit about the pursuit of happiness. Say what you want about the political left in the United States, but a happy bunch they arenâ€t. Never have we heard such whining. Never mind that there is no constitutional right to be happy. Really, I looked it up.

Honestly, with all of Billâ€s fooling around, how happy can Hillary be? And if Hillary becomes president, how happy will the rest of us be?

James Madison, the father of the Constitution, was a bit of a sourpuss. And Dolly Madison, except for the snacks that you can get at most convenience stores, didnâ€t provide a lot of cheer either. Not only didnâ€t they believe happiness was a constitutional right, they didnâ€t even think it was a remote possibility.

Progressives donâ€t really believe that people should be happy either, but just in case, they want to make sure itâ€s the government that doles it out. One cannot, you know, be happy on oneâ€s own.

On that note, should Clinton become president, we can expect her to create a new cabinet level department of Happiness, Resplendence and Cheer. That the initials of the new department will be HRC is a mere coincidence.

And nobody exudes happiness, resplendence and cheer more than Hillary Rodham Clinton. Just ask Bill.

But, you say, happiness isnâ€t guaranteed, just the pursuit thereof, according to Clinton. True, but again, it isnâ€t found anywhere in the Constitution. Besides, for Left itâ€s important that everybody be unhappy. You know, shared misery. We call it socialism or binge watching past seasons of The Bachelor.

Now weâ€ve got Clinton and Bernie Sanders telling us about the right to free healthcare, free college and “affordable” housing. Not even Jefferson included those “rights” in the Declaration of Independence. He did not say that a condo in Boca Raton was an unalienable right. And he certainly expected students at the University of Virginia to pay tuition, espeicially the social justice majors.

Unfortunately, Clinton canâ€t claim sole possession of constitutional illiteracy. GOP front-runner, Donald Trump, gets to weigh in as well. During a recent GOP debate, Trump claimed that his sister, a judge of some sort, signed the same bill that Justice Alito signed.

Now Iâ€m really confused. Obama has spent the last seven years ignoring the other two branches of government. You know, the branches that are mentioned in the Constitution. Now Trump tells us that when it comes to the legislative and judicial branches, whatâ€s really the diff?

Maybe he was referring to picking up a check. Thatâ€s something that judges probably do from time to time, but a real politician would never do. Thatâ€s what lobbyists are for.

Itâ€s a little depressing when the two leading presidential candidates are about as familiar with the Constitution as they are with who won last yearâ€s Oscar for sound editing.

No, it was not Thomas Jefferson.

At any rate, after reading through the Bill of Rights, Sergei asked me for a link to an article about the founders and founding of the United States.  He seemed genuinely surprised/intrigued by the purpose of the first ten amendments – that of limiting governmental power.  Even this U.S. president has a good understanding of that,

.. generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. It says what the states canâ€t do to you, it says what the federal government canâ€t do to you, but it doesnâ€t say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf. And that hasn’t shifted.

Although he finds it a great “tragedy,”

One of the I think tragedies of the civil rights movement was because the civil rights movement became so court focused, I think that there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributed change and in some ways we still suffer from that.

Talking to Sergei, I realized how odd this must be for much of the world.  The Russian constitution is full of grandiose promises of positive rights, much like those proposed by FDR. At first glance, both of these sets of “rights” might seem appealing. In practice, the Russian state has never been bound in the slightest by the rights it has “granted” to its peoples.

That’s the difference, in the United States rights are inherent in the people, and it is the government that is granted limited authority – not the people a delineated set of rights.

I still don’t have a good article for my friend Sergei.  Suggestions welcome.

The federal government is now hiring a “Behavioral Insights Team” to find ways to manage citizen behavior.

Psychologist B.F. Skinner coined the term operant conditioning in 1948 to refer to any behavior that generates consequences. For example, the promise of a reward spurs a child to complete his or her homework in a timely manner.

Skinner used a special cage (the Skinner box) to train a rat to do what Skinner wanted it to do. The cage had a bar on one wall that, when pressed by the rat, caused a mechanism to release a food pellet. The rat learned to press the bar and get his pellets. Behavioral scientists call that “positive reinforcement.â€

The Obama administration has been exchanging “pellets” for votes since it came to power. Count among the pellets increased food stamp enrollment (see A Country On The Dole), (due in no small measure to the huckstering of the USDA) free cell phones (see Panem et Circenses), government “investment” in “green” companies and most recently the announcement that Obama Care will not verify consumer eligibility for subsidies.

But I digress. The focus now is on “scientifically” managing behavior.

Obamaâ€s Behavior Insights Team is going to research ways to reinforce “good” behaviors (the ones the government approves). It already knows about negative reinforcement as the individuals and groups targeted by the IRS and other federal agencies can testify (and have).

According to a document obtained by Fox News.com,

The White House is already working on such projects with almost a dozen federal departments and agencies including the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Agriculture.

The above information was obtained from an email sent by Maya Shankar, a White House senior advisor on social and behavioral sciences.

Senior advisor? How many advisors on social and behavioral science are there? Whatever their number, apparently they are too “essential” to qualify for sequester.

The email was sent to a university professor with the request that he distribute it to people interested in “joining the team.”

The project is based on a program already operating in Great Britain. The email  states in part::

A growing body of evidence suggests that insights from the social and behavioral sciences can be used to help design public policies that work better, cost less, and help people to achieve their goals. The practice of using behavioral insights to inform policy has seen success overseas. In 2010, UK Prime Minister David Cameron commissioned the Behavioural Insights Team (BIT), which through a process of rapid, iterative experimentation (“Test, Learn, Adapt”), has successfully identified and tested interventions that will further advance priorities of the British government, (emphasis ours) while saving the government at least £1 billion within the next five years (see previous Annual Reports 2010-11 and 2011-12). The federal government is currently creating a new team that will help build federal capacity to experiment with these approaches, and to scale behavioral interventions that have been rigorously evaluated, using, where possible, randomized controlled trials. The team will be staffed by 4-5 experts in behavioral science and experimental design and evaluation.

The email goes on to say that although part time applicants will be considered,  “Our preference is for individuals who are willing to serve full time…”

Moreover, several agencies are looking to recruit expert academics to sit directly within their agencies and to help inspire, design, and execute on specific policy projects, and so it is possible to serve in this capacity as well…

So, having pushed Obama Care and other programs and regulations down our collective throats, we must now learn to love them.

This project is the logical extension of the Marxist theory that human behavior can be improved  (controlled) by selectively altering the environment. It assumes, as other critics have observed, that government can make better choices than the people who will be affected by them.

Behavioral science has more tools now than in Skinnerâ€s day, due in part to the voluntary gush of personal information on social media and the governmentâ€s ability, recently revealed, to ferret out the involuntary. All of which provide “behavioral insights” useful for efficient “operant conditioning.”

Perhaps this commentator is not alone in thinking that the attempt to “scientifically” control Americans  is inherently insulting. It is also politically contradictory. The term “government service” means that government is employed by and does the bidding of citizens, not the other way around.

That is not to say that a majority of Americans will succumb to manipulation.

However, a majority isnâ€t necessary if combined with the number already hooked on government pellets.

On the bright side, (this is the bright side?) the project may be a costly flop. After all, this is the same federal behemoth that runs FEMA with such efficiency.

The object of power is power. – George Orwell, 1984

Dan Henninger recently wrote a WSJ column titled Obamaâ€s Creeping Authoritarianism.  Henninger observed that the presidentâ€s authoritarianism does not surprise. In 2008, candidate Obama stated he would “transform America” and he is doing exactly that. Obama voters did not bother to ask him what he meant or how he intended its accomplishment. Now, he is again stating his intentions.

“Toward the end of his speech last week in Jacksonville, Fla., he said: “So where I can act on my own, I’m going to act on my own. I won’t wait for Congress.” (Applause.)<

“The July 24 speech at Knox College in Galesburg, Ill., has at least four references to his intent to act on his own authority, as he interprets it: “That means whatever executive authority I have to help the middle class, I’ll use it.” (Applause.) And: “We’re going to do everything we can, wherever we can, with or without Congress.”

Henninger points out that in both speeches Obama vilifies Congress much as he did the judiciary in his 2010 State of the Union address and continues to do when the court renders decisions he doesnâ€t like.

“The political left, historically inclined by ideological belief to public policy that is imposed rather than legislated, will support Mr. Obama’s expansion of authority.

“The rest of us should not.  The U.S. has a system of checks and balances. Mr. Obama is rebalancing the system toward a national-leader model that is alien to the American tradition.

Vilifying those who seek to constrain him is a well-worn Obama technique. The result being that federal agencies, whether by explicit direction (so far not proved) or by example, have assumed that using their regulatory powers against those individuals and groups publicly demonized by the president will earn White House Brownie points.

The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse. -Edmund Burke

John H. Cochrane, professor of finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, writes about E-Verify, a central provision of the Senate immigration bill and a further extension of federal power.

“If this part of the bill passes, all employers will be forced to use government-run Web-based system that check potential employees immigration status. That means every American will have to obtain the federal governmentâ€s prior approval in order to earn a living.”

Although seemingly harmless now, he warns, “missions creep and bureaucracies expand.”

“Permission to work inevitably will rely at least in part on he judgment calls of an army of bureaucrats. Political abuse is just as inevitable. Consider Catherine Engelbrecht, reportedly harassed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Internal Revenue Service, the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, all for starting a Tea Party group.“

In The Roots of American Order, Russell Kirk provides a succinct description of the Founderâ€s plan to thwart tyranny.

“The men who drew up the Constitution declared that they had framed a government of laws, not men; and of laws which must be applied on a regular and impartial process. Stability and security in the Republic, and protection of the citizens against arbitrary power, received equal attention in the Constitution.”

The Founders also understood that without an enlightened citizenry who value liberty, the Constitution is just the outdated parchment the president says it is.

Below, please find an excerpt from Madison’s address to the Congress introducing legislation to incorporate a “bill of rights” to the newly ratified Constitution.  Emphasis WWTFT.

It has been said, by way of objection to a bill of rights, by many respectable gentlemen out of doors, and I find opposition on the same principles likely to be made by gentlemen on this floor, that they are unnecessary articles of a Republican Government, upon the presumption that the people have those rights in their own hands, and that is the proper place for them to rest. It would be a sufficient answer to say, that this objection lies against such provisions under the State Governments, as well as under the General Government; and there are, I believe, but few gentlemen who are inclined to push their theory so far as to say that a declaration of rights in those cases is either ineffectual or improper. It has been said, that in the Federal Government they are unnecessary, because the powers are enumerated, and it follows, that all that are not granted by the Constitution are retained; that the Constitution is a bill of powers, the great residuum being the rights of the people; and, therefore, a bill of rights cannot be so necessary as if the residuum was thrown into the hands of the Government. I admit that these arguments are not entirely without foundation; but they are not conclusive to the extent which has been supposed. It is true, the powers of the General Government are circumscribed, they are directed to particular objects; but even if Government keeps within those limits, it has certain discretionary powers with respect to the means, which may admit of abuse to a certain extent, in the same manner as the powers of the State Governments under their constitutions may to an indefinite extent; because in the Constitution of the United States, there is a clause granting to Congress the power to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution all the powers vested in the Government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof; this enables them to fulfil every purpose for which the Government was established. Now, may not laws be considered necessary and proper by Congress, (for it is for them to judge of the necessity and propriety to accomplish those special purposes which they may have in contemplation,) which laws in themselves are neither necessary nor proper; as well as improper laws could be enacted by the State Legislatures, for fulfilling the more extended objects of those Governments? I will state an instance, which I think in point, and proves that this might be the case. The General Government has a right to pass all laws which shall be necessary to collect its revenue; the means for enforcing the collection are within the direction of the Legislature: may not general warrants be considered necessary for this purpose, as well as for some purposes which it was supposed at the framing of their constitutions the State Governments had in view? If there was reason for restraining the State Governments from exercising this power, there is like reason for restraining the Federal Government.

It may be said, indeed it has been said, that a bill of rights is not necessary, because the establishment of this Government has not repealed those declarations of rights which are added to the several State constitutions; that those rights of the people which had been established by the most solemn act, could not be annihilated by a subsequent act of that people, who meant and declared at the head of the instrument, that they ordained and established a new system, for the express purpose of securing to themselves and posterity the liberties they had gained by an arduous conflict.

I admit the force of this observation, but I do not look upon it to be conclusive. In the first place, it is too uncertain ground to leave this provision upon, if a provision is at all necessary to secure rights so important as many of those I have mentioned are conceived to be, by the public in general, as well as those in particular who opposed the adoption of this Constitution. Besides, some States have no bills of rights, there are others provided with very defective ones, and there are others whose bills of rights are not only defective, but absolutely improper; instead of securing some in the full extent which republican principles would require, they limit them too much to agree with the common ideas of liberty.

It has been objected also against a bill of rights, that, by enumerating particular exceptions to the grant of power, it would disparage those rights which were not placed in that enumeration; and it might follow by implication, that those rights which were not singled out, were intended to be assigned into the hands of the General Government, and were consequently insecure. This is one of the most plausible arguments I have ever heard urged against the admission of a bill of rights into this system; but, I conceive, that it may be guarded against. I have attempted it, as gentlemen may see by turning to the last clause of the fourth resolution.

It has been said that it is unnecessary to load the Constitution with this provision, because it was not found effectual in the constitution of the particular States. It is true, there are a few particular States in which some of the most valuable articles have not, at one time or other, been violated; but it does not follow but they may have, to a certain degree, a salutary effect against the abuse of power. If they are incorporated into the Constitution, independent tribunals of justice will consider themselves in a peculiar manner the guardians of those rights; they will be an impenetrable bulwark against every assumption of power in the Legislative or Executive; they will be naturally led to resist every encroachment upon rights expressly stipulated for in the Constitution by the declaration of rights. Besides this security, there is a great probability that such a declaration in the federal system would be enforced; because the State Legislatures will jealously and closely watch the operations of this Government, and be able to resist with more effect every assumption of power, than any other power on earth can do; and the greatest opponents to a Federal Government admit the State Legislatures to be sure guardians of the peopleâ€s liberty. I conclude, from this view of the subject, that it will be proper in itself, and highly politic, for the tranquillity of the public mind, and the stability of the Government, that we should offer something, in the form I have proposed, to be incorporated in the system of Government, as a declaration of the rights of the people.

Congressional hearings on IRS harassment of selected individuals, groups and business owners revealed what happens when politics trumps the rule of law.  Those who expressed opinions critical of the Obama administration found themselves at the mercy of legions of unelected bureaucrats from an alphabet soup of agencies apparently working in concert with the IRS.

Now the already suspect IRS is preparing to take charge of health care. It is not a confidence inspiring thought especially since Lois Lerner, the IRS Director complicit in the targeting of conservative groups, will be in charge of the enforcement division the Affordable Health Care Act.

According to a Treasury Department audit, the expansion of IRS power under ACA is daunting.

“The Affordable Health Care Act (ACA) represents the largest set of tax law changes in more than 20 years and presents a major challenge to the Internal Revenue Service.”

Based on IRS additional fund requests House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) calculated that the IRS would hire an additional 16,500 agents.

When ACA goes into effect in 2014 all Americans who file tax returns will have to fill out an additional form disclosing personal identifying health information. This is to prove to the IRS that the filer has “qualifying” health coverage. “Qualifying” means that what is covered complies with the list approved by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

“Itâ€s all part of a new Obama Care rule that was issued late on Friday, June 14, just as offices were closing for the weekend break. The new rule requires state, federal and local agencies, as well as health insurers, to swap protected personal health information about anybody seeking affordable health insurance on an exchange that will be enforced by the IRS.”  – emaxhealth.com

To collect this data, the IRS will be assisted by the new Federal Data Services Hub which will officiate over the collection and shared access of information between the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, the Social Security Administration, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the several states, the IRS and the janitor (just kidding about the latter). However, if Americans ever awake from their torpor, they may not see any humor in another huge digital warehouse of their personal information.

“He has elected a multitude of new Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our People, and eat out their Substance.”

And it doesnâ€t end there. An article (A Toxic Combination) in the June 3rd issue of the Weekly Standard reveals that Americans, henceforth, will be required to…

“update the IRS regularly on whatâ€s going on in their lives. Marriages, divorces job changes, moves, pay increases, even changes in number of hours worked– these are all things on which the IRS will expect to be well informed.”

Last August, in testimony before Congress, IRS official Nina Olson explained the changes that ACA will bring to citizens†responsibilities to the IRS. Michigan Republican Rep. Tim Walberg asked Olson:

“Do you believe that most Americans are going to update the IRS or state exchanges when they change jobs, get married, move states, whatever?”

Olsonâ€s reply echoes the arrogance demonstrated by other administration officials appointed by the president.

“I think itâ€s going to be a very great learning curve. If Americans donâ€t keep the IRS up to date on their financial status, they might incur penalties, which the IRS will collect by withholding income tax refunds. I think it will be a surprise to taxpayers if they donâ€t update their information.”

In other words, Americans who fail to comply will receive a financial colonoscopy courtesy of the IRS.

If that doesnâ€t penetrate the somnolent population perhaps the reach and insularity of the ACA Independent Payment Advisory Board will. The board of political appointees is tasked with reducing health care costs. In addition to being able to cut Medicare payments it has…

“the power to regulate all health care in the U.S., including private health care and private health insurance, so long as such action is deemed to “help reduce the growth rate [of national health expenditures] while maintaining or enhancing [Medicare] beneficiary access to quality care.” – Forbes

The ACA also stipulates that there …

“shall be no administrative or judicial review” of the boardâ€s decisions. Its members will be nearly untouchable, too. They will be presidentially nominated and Senate-confirmed, but after that they can only be fired for “neglect of duty or malfeasance in office.” WSJ

Becky Gerritson, president of one of the groups harassed by the IRS, concluded her testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee by observing:

“Many of the agents and agencies of the federal government do not understand that they are servants of the people. They think they are our masters. And they are mistaken.”

But maybe they arenâ€t.

Stephen A. Douglas and Antebellum Democracy
By Martin H Quitt

This book is part biography and part social and political history. Quitt draws on previously untapped sources to try to do justice to a complex man now little more than a footnote to history. The irony is that, in his time, Douglas was widely admired and thought much more likely to ascend to the presidency than the man whose election relegated him to the shadows. If Douglas is remembered at all, it is for debating Lincoln in 1858 when Lincoln ran for Douglasâ€s Senate seat. Lincoln is reputed to have won the debates, but Douglas won the election.

By turns Douglas was prodigy, opportunist, pragmatist, patriot and more. Regarding the prodigy, the author draws on three different versions of Douglasâ€s early years in Vermont. Predictably, Douglasâ€s autobiography (written when he was 25) is more flattering to its author than his older sisterâ€s memories of the same period.

The facts, if not the motivations behind them, are that Douglas was a gifted boy, unwilling at 14 to pursue further schooling, despite his motherâ€s wish that he do so. Instead, he apprenticed himself to a cabinetmaker in a neighboring town. The apprenticeship lasted less than a year because, according to Douglasâ€s account, he refused the cabinet-makerâ€s request to perform “some menial service in the house.” Another apprenticeship, this one cut short by illness, resulted in a physicianâ€s advice that Douglas was “too feeble” to be a cabinetmaker and should seek another vocation. At that point Douglas returned to school.

His biographers agree on one fact. Douglas lacked the physical stamina for carpentry. He was only 5 ft 4 inches tall and weighed perhaps 100 pounds, but his ambition was king-sized. He decided to become a lawyer but lacked the patience to pursue a law degree in the conventional manner. After two more years of schooling in New York, where the family had moved after his widowed motherâ€s remarriage, he joined the Hubbell law firm. After 6 months he despaired of another four years before he could qualify as an attorney. He determined that it was much easier to become a full-fledged legal practitioner in “the great west ” where the requirements were much less demanding.

He would settle where he could become a lawyer the fastest and where he would not have to compete with the credential of his legal mentor in Canandaigua, Walter Hubbell, who graduated from Union college.

Douglas moved to Cleveland and began a year of legal study with a local attorney to satisfy the Ohio requirement. However, illness intervened again and, when recovered, he moved on, finally settling in Jacksonville, Illinois. There attorney Murray McConnel advised him that obtaining a law “license was a matter of no consequence, that I could practice before a justice of the peace without one, and could get one at any time I desire to do so.”

His lack of constancy seems anything but admirable. Yet, as the author points out, Douglas had a prodigious intellect when sufficiently motivated to employ it. He undertook a self-study regimen that encompassed reading “congressional debates reported in newspapers and a number of political books.”

Before he was old enough to vote, Douglas had immersed himself in all of the available printed records surrounding the ratification of the Constitution and the constitutionality of the national bank, the great issue of Andrew Jacksonâ€s second term.

Samuel Lockwood, justice on the Illinois Supreme Court, licensed the 20-year-old   Douglas as a lawyer in 1834, despite commenting, “Douglas was not as prepared as he should have been.” The new lawyer then opened his law office.

Douglasâ€s political career commenced on March 29, 1834. That was the day he delivered a one-hour speech at the Jacksonville Courthouse to defend Jacksonâ€s war on the national bank. The speech gained him notoriety in the anti-Jackson press and the attention of fellow Democrats. Within months he was a mover and shaker within the new Democratic Party of Illinois.

He was appointed as one of the stateâ€s attorneys in 1835 but did not finish his term. In 1836 he ran and won election to the state legislature where he served along with Abraham Lincoln.  Again he did not complete his term but resigned to accept President Van Burenâ€s appointment as register of the Federal Land Office in Springfield. Eight months later he was (an unsuccessful) candidate for Congress.

Explaining this meteoric rise the author writes that Douglas was both  “charismatic” and calculating. By his own admission, Douglas did not have time for “personal friends” only for “political friends” whose solicitation for votes he credited with pushing him ahead. Similar to a Democrat politician in our time, Douglas “bathed in the adoration of the crowd, which gave him what he did not get from private relationships.”

The similarity goes even further.

Douglas was shrewd. Taking the time at age 25 to fashion a compelling life narrative itself is evidence of his strategic thinking….He undertook the writing of his biography in order both to preserve his story and to connect it with the electorate. Those two ends were not inconsistent for someone whose very identity was now intimately tied to the people he needed.

In addition to charisma, Douglas displayed a physicality with his audiences that is difficult to imagine even in todayâ€s permissiveness culture. “He would “sit on the laps of men” and  “clap them on their backs.” The author explains this behavior was not sexual but “within the context of the egalitarian ethos of his times…It signified that the ‘Little Giant†did not think himself so high and mighty that he could not repose on a manâ€s knees. It figuratively brought him down to the level of his peers.” It was part of his public performance.

Douglas was named to the Illinois Supreme Court in 1841 but did not serve out his term, although thereafter he preferred to be addressed as Judge Douglas. He was elected to US House of Representatives in1843 and became a U.S Senator in 1846 where he served until his death at age 48.

Antebellum lawmakers at the state and federal levels needed to know the written constitution applicable to their jurisdiction. This was the great legacy of the founders of the Republic: congressmen were obliged to justify their positions in terms of the Constitution.

The author writes, “His legislative record over seventeen years in Congress was anchored in constitutionalism.” The difference between the Democrat party then and now could not be more stark.

Douglas was rooted in his conviction that the federal government should respect the diversity of states and territories and the slavery issue should be democratically decided in those locales. He was a member of the powerful Committee on the Territories in the US Senate where he moved major legislation involving the new western territories. He helped pass the Compromise of 1850 and was the architect of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854, dealing with slavery in the new territories.

Historians, writing from the vantage point of more enlightened times, have condemned Douglas for his belief in the inferiority of the black race. However, it was a belief shared by most of the antebellum generation and, as Thomas Fleming points out in his book ”A Disease in the Public Mind” by Thomas Jefferson.

The morality of slavery did not concern Douglas. Lincoln, who was pressed during the debates to deny the charge that he believed in equality of the races, was convinced that slavery was morally wrong. He challenged Douglas to declare himself on the moral issue. Douglas refused to do so.

â€Lincoln tells you that I will not argue the question whether slavery is right or wrong. I tell you I will not do it. I hold under the Constitution of the United States, each state of the Union has a right to do as it pleases on the subject of slavery.â€

Which was the greater sin, secession or slavery? To Douglas the answer was clear. He denounced the proposition to dissolve the American Union as ‘moral treason.†For more than a decade he foresaw civil war if the question of slavery in the territories was controlled by the ultras on either side. He wanted to remove the issue from Washington politics because it endangered national coherence. He believed the overriding purpose of the Constitution had been to achieve the Union; therefore, its preservation was the highest constitutional value.

Douglasâ€s vaunted ambition peaked with his desire to be president. Having won the candidacy of a splintered Democratic Party he undertook the first overtly political presidential campaign. The custom against personal campaigning by presidential candidates dated from George Washington who considered it improper to openly pursue election and detrimental to the dignity of the office. Douglasâ€s decision to ignore it was risky. The conventional wisdom was that “talking and touring could only hurt the candidate.”

Douglas campaigned openly and energetically in both the North and South, the latter at considerable personal risk. When in the North he attacked abolitionism and in the South he spoke against disunion. But his consistent message, regardless of audience, was that the people in the states and territories should decide the slavery issue without federal interference. He visited 24 states, drawing enormous crowds. It was a remarkable feat in an age lacking todayâ€s communication technology and transportation options.

But for all his energy and effort, Quittâ€s analysis shows ”little correlation between Douglasâ€s personal campaigning and his performance Election Day.” This lack of connection “reveals an important fact of antebellum democracy – the widespread acceptance of the president as a leader who did not subject himself to screening by the people.” The crowds that flocked to Douglas sought entertainment, not political enlightenment.

After losing to Lincoln, Douglas declared his support for the president and attempted to find compromises that would stop secession. But, as the author points out, the patriotic Douglas did not eclipse the shrewd politician.

Douglas was eager to make visible his rapport with the new administration and at the same time make clear that he remained an important player.

Lincoln, however, was no novice at the political game.

Each was ready to use the other: Douglas wanted to be in the presidentâ€s inner circle; Lincoln wanted the Democratic standard bearer to broaden support for succession.

Quitt extracts Douglas from Lincolnâ€s shadow and succeeds in illuminating both the man and his time. This is a compelling book that challenges each reader to decide Stephen Douglasâ€s proper place in history.

At least thatâ€s the way the system is supposed to work. However, this president sees things differently.  By President Obamaâ€s directive illegal immigrants from the ages of 15 to 31 will no longer be apprehended and deported as the law requires.  His decree enables them to apply for work permits, obtain Social Security numbers and driverâ€s licenses and apply for financial aid for college.

According to the Arizona Republic, “The Department of Homeland Security said in updated guidelines for Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that undocumented immigrants who receive deferred action are authorized to remain in the U.S. and, therefore, ‘are lawfully present‘ even though they still do not have ‘lawful status.’”

That thumping you hear is George Orwell turning cartwheels in his grave.

(Note that the subjects have morphed from illegal to undocumented immigrants.) Orwell said political speech and writing corrupt language, but noted that language also corrupts thought. The “updated guidelines ” are a case in point.

This blogger is not arguing against reform of immigration laws, but only for reform that respect the rule of law and are accomplished through the constitutional process that has served he nation well for more than 200 years.

In his book “The Totalitarian Temptation, (1976) Jean-François Revel warned that the monopolization of the media and the means of enforcing obedience represent a great temptation for tyrants who wish to transform societies quickly and on a mass scale.  He also observed that those efforts havenâ€t worked out well.  Revel condemned liberals of his day for rejecting capitalism, which produces wealth and freedom but is imperfect, while being drawn to communist ideology despite its record of misery and slaughtered innocents.

John Gray, professor emeritus at the London School of Economics, expanded on Revelâ€s view, “Communist regimes engaged in mass killing in order to achieve these transformations, and paradoxically it is this essentially totalitarian ambition that has appealed to liberals…  liberals have seen the Communist experiment as a hyperbolic expression of their own project of improvement; if the experiment failed, its casualties were incurred for the sake of a progressive cause.  To think otherwise – to admit the possibility that the millions who were judged to be less than fully human suffered and died for nothing – would be to question the idea that history is a story of continuing human advance, which for liberals today is an article of faith.  That is why, despite all evidence to the contrary, so many of them continue to deny Communismâ€s clear affinities with Fascism.  Blindness to the true nature of Communism is an inability to accept that radical evil can come from the pursuit of progress.”

What else will President Obama decree the “right thing to do?” We have four years in which to find out.

Purportedly, the children in the photo spontaneously wrote letters to Obama in favor of gun control. Maybe so, or maybe the letters were a class project initiated by some well meaning but clueless teacher.

The left is not interested in facts, and children are ignorant of them. Emotion is the currency of the left and children are especially vulnerable to manipulation. It is a fact that states that allow registered citizens to carry concealed weapons have lower crime rates than those that donâ€t. It is a fact that, “With just one single exception, the attack on congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson in 2011, every public shooting since at least 1950 in the U.S. in which more than three people have been killed has taken place where citizens are not allowed to carry guns.” So said John Lott, author with William Landes of a 1999 study that found that mass shootings most often occur in places where guns are banned, such as shopping malls and schools.

Itâ€s not as though outlawing guns, whether a certain kind or all guns, would stop people from killing other people. Chicago with some of the most restrictive gun laws in the nation also has one of the highest violent crime rates in the nation. So much for the argument that gun control keeps guns out of the hands of criminals or loonies.

Gutting the Second Amendment has been on the wish list of the radical left for decades. Now, with the tragedy at Sandy Hook, they have the opportunity and one of their own in the Oval Office.

So letâ€s cut to the chase. The effort to ban guns is only superficially about guns. Decreasing citizenâ€s ability for self-defense increases dependence on the state. An armed citizenry is able to defend themselves against all comers; criminals who seek to rob them or otherwise do them harm, the mentally ill whose reasons are often unfathomable, and last but not least, rapacious  government.

The Bill of Rights was amended to the Constitution because members of the state ratifying conventions wanted assurance that government was prohibited from infringing upon the peopleâ€s liberty.  The Bill of Rights, and most especially the Second Amendment, was intended as a protection against government itself.

No wonder the bigger-the-government-the-better left wants to be rid of it.

Sobering stuff.

The Future of the Supreme Court in Obamaâ€s Second Term: What Would the Founders Think? – by Timothy Roth | ELGARBLOG.