When Lincoln took office in March of 1861, then took our nation to war in April of that same year, he forfeited a golden opportunity to end the scourge of slavery in America without bloodshed. Due to the secession of seven Slave States, his party held a super majority in both the House and the Senate, which gave him a lot of latitude to take other actions to limit the exercise of slavery, or make it economically more expensive.
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Flag of Contention
In the wake of the Charleston, South Carolina Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church shootings on June 18, 2015, Governor Nikki Haley called for the removal of the Confederate Battle Flag from the State capital’s flagpole. Regrettably, even if her call for action is successful, it would do no more to change the reasons behind the hatred that drives one human to kill others than legislation to ban the “N” word would go towards closing the inaccurately named “racial” divide.
Slavery in America
Over one-hundred and fifty years after the Thirteenth Amendment[1] abolished involuntary slavery and servitude in America; slavery is still a very sensitive subject, especially for “African” Americans. Much of this apprehension has its origins in an historical view that Africans and their descendants are somehow less civilized, less intelligent or preposterously less “evolved” from assumed animal ancestors than their white counterparts. Yet, instead of looks of derision or treatment as second class citizens, all Americans owe the men and women who were enslaved in America and their descendants a debt of gratitude equal to the gratitude bestowed upon patriots who fought to secede from England in America’s war for independence.
IRS Double Standard
John Koskinen’s testimony before Congress on June 20, 2014, making no apologies for the loss of over two year’s worth of emails from Ex-IRS official Lois Lerner, who is at the center of the IRS scandal, was nothing short of appalling. It not only insulted the intelligence of millions of Americans who understand the difficulty of “losing” data in this age of technology, unless it is willfully destroyed, but the sheer arrogance in the way he sat there haughtily providing no answers and no apologies personified the very image of the IRS nearly every taxpayer experiences when we must provide detailed documentation about our personal affairs or face overbearing scrutiny from the IRS that seems to presume our guilt until we can prove our innocence.
Obama and Socialism
In 2008, Joe the Plumber correctly identified Obama’s policies as socialistic when Obama responded to Joe’s question concerning the candidate’s small business tax policy by saying, “when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.” This statement is a foundational tenant of socialism straight out of Marx’s Communist Manifesto.
The Audacity of Hopelessness
Five years into President Obama’s landmark administration, his campaign slogan of hope and change might as well be “He hopes there will be worthwhile change.” Like the Hindenburg, the hope Obama promised has gone up in flames and the wreckage is laid bare for everyone to see. While the audacity, about which he wrote, has manifested itself by his having Jay Carney stand behind a White House lectern, day-in and day-out, and tell America everything is fine, when obviously it is not. America is burning and Obama is playing a fiddle.
The Death of a Nation
Unfortunately, too many people today do not understand the actual historical causes of the war that set brother against brother and State against State. It is unfortunate, because that war encompasses many fundamental causes of current American problems and without understanding its true cause we will be unable to repair what went wrong or prevent it from happening in the future.
The Birth of a National Fraud
Dr. Dawinder S. Sidhu, professor of constitutional law and national security at the New Mexico School of Law, wrote an article[1] in which he presented the historical actions of Eldridge Gerry Spaulding, chairman of the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Banking and Currency, to create the fiat currency known as the greenback.
The advent of the greenback, green paper currency not backed by anything of intrinsic value, like gold or silver, created as a war measure in 1862, was a lawless act because it violated restrictions in the Constitution prohibiting such measures.
US Senate’s Brain Hemorrhaging Clout
Adam Liptak, in his March 11, 2013 New York Times article, Smaller States Find Outsize Clout Growing in Senate, makes a logical argument, about smaller State’s having disproportionate electoral power in the Senate, based on false premises.
Constitutional Relevancy
On December 30, 2012, the New York Times published an op-ed by Louis Michael Seidman, professor of constitutional law at Georgetown University, titled Let’s Give Up on the Constitution. The main premise of Seidman’s article is that “The American system of government is broken” because of “Our insistence on obedience to the Constitution, with all its archaic, idiosyncratic and downright evil provisions.” “Our obsession with the Constitution has saddled us with a dysfunctional political system, kept us from debating the merits of divisive issues and inflamed our public discourse.” Ironically, his comments and examples prove the opposite to be true.