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REAGAN
REPUBLICANS ARE PRO-CHOICE There are no sacred cows and anybody's ox is fair game for goring in the Reagan Wing of the Republican Party. While you might be tempted to think this article is going to be primarily a discussion of the abortion issue, an issue that will be secondarily discussed, this article is actually about ensuring that every American has the right to choose his or her own retirement plan. Social Security is a mandatory (compulsory) retirement scheme established in 1935 by FDR and a Democratically controlled Congress. There was and is no Constitutional authority that grants Congress the power to establish such a scheme. Nor does Congress have any authority to operate any type of insurance program. The Tenth Amendment states: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." Clearly any type of government retirement scheme or insurance programs for the American people would have to be enacted and operated by the states, local governments, or the people because there is no Constitutional authority for Congress or the Federal government to engage in any of these activities. Any retirement schemes enacted by the states or any other government entity should be voluntary. The words mandatory and compulsory are obscene in a "free" country. Any such programs that are mandatory would risk violating either the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence, if not in fact at least in spirit. The Constitution can be thought of as a contract in which the people have delegated certain powers to government with the express intent of setting boundaries like the area of a playing field and for establishing rules for what is fair (the proverbial level playing field for all participants) in the game. Contrary to what socialists seem to believe, the people have not granted any power to governments to actually run, plan or play the game itself. If the government of the state of New York wants to establish some type of retirement scheme in New York, that is the business of the people of New York and a question of whether there would be enough New Yorkers silly enough to let it happen. But if New Yorkers wanted to make it a nationwide program compelling Texans to pay or participate in it, I would suggest that New Yorkers deserve and are likely to get an attitude adjustment. New York was not indiscriminately chosen for this illustration: Governor
of New York, Franklin D. Roosevelt 1930: That brings us to a discussion of the referees. The Constitution does not grant Federal courts the unilateral power to interpret the Constitution. The Court has usurped this prerogative on its own volition. Under the Constitution, Congress and the President each have a duty to determine for themselves what government activities fall within the limits of the Constitution. But in any challenge or dispute, the Constitution makes the Court the final arbiter until such time as the States, acting in behalf of We the people, exercise power through Article V. The truth is the Constitution is plainly written for the specific purpose of limiting and restricting the activities of the Federal government to the greatest extent possible in order to preserve the maximum amount of freedom and liberty for the people. To the greatest extent possible, the Constitution does not require interpretation; it requires enforcement and carries this implied duty for all branches of government. Therefore any "need" for interpretation is logically more likely to be an effort to circumvent the plain language of the Constitution by a Court driven by its own political agenda. The Court, through its opinions that have circumvented the Constitution, has greatly expanded the power of government at the expense of the freedom of the people. The Founders recognized the duel threats to the people posed by the President and Congress, but were blinded to the threat posed by the Court. I don't know the time or the origin of the doctrine of legal precedent, but it is a flawed doctrine based on flawed logic. The first lecture that we were given in medical school was the fact that everything they were teaching us at the time, would on average, be proven to be wrong within five years after our graduation. To a great extent, science and the progress of man depend on the belief that everything that is known is either wrong or can be improved and even that which seems to be correct is only true until such time that it is ultimately proven to be wrong. The idea that a prior Court's interpretation of the Constitution must be accepted as true is plainly flawed. Any current Court should have a broader base of knowledge and understanding than any prior court. Every Court's duty is to look to the Constitution first and the facts at hand. On these their opinions should be formed. Only then should the opinions of prior Courts be considered and the opinions of prior Courts should not necessarily be considered determinative. It is in trying to remain within a prior Court's agenda-driven misinterpretations that has lead to the bizarre decisions like the one involving the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Act. Congress, the President, and the Court could not have given We the people of the United States a more vivid demonstration that all three branches of the Federal government are operating beyond the clearly defined limits of the Constitution. The idea that "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech.." is ambiguous, offers latitude or requires interpretation is blatantly absurd and justices that believe otherwise need to be removed from the bench by Impeachment or through TERM LIMITS. Members of Congress should also be subjected to TERM LIMITS. We can correct the Founders' blind spots. For the benefit of skeptics, a second illustration is included. Where is the latitude or ambiguity in "...the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed,"? People that own and operate air planes clearly have the right to set conditions on who gets on their airplane, but judges or members of Congress that think the government has or should have this authority have not read or do not want to understand the plain language of the Second Amendment. I have not read any of the Federal Firearms Laws or any of the Court's decisions regarding them. It would clearly be a waste of anyone's time. There are no Constitutional Federal Firearms Laws until the Second Amendment has been amended, no matter how much, who, or how many people wish it were not so. The President, as Commander in Chief, may impose a doctrine of pre-emption on the rest of the world with regard to the development of WMD elsewhere, but the Constitution does not permit such a doctrine within the United States. Many of those laws also contradict the concept of a presumption of innocence until proven guilty. More than eighty Americans died in a conflagration as a result of an abuse of power when an Attorney General with poor judgment and an unscrupulous President wanted to make a political statement regarding their views on firearms. Turning our attention to a Court decision that made Pro-life a household word brings to mind a quick question between the Pro-life issue and our Pro-choice issue regarding Social Security. If American women have a right to choose, why don't American workers have the right to choose their own retirement program? I don't know when the first D&C and the first subsequent abortion were performed. However in 1966, the year before the first state-legalized abortion, it has been reported that there were about 120 abortion-related deaths. As a retired physician, my medical career spanned this period and I have seen first hand the tragedies and atrocities committed on desperate women at the hands of criminal abortionists. Zealous pro-lifers ask who will speak for the unborn? But these same zealots turn a deaf ear to the hundreds or thousands of dead women who were victims of criminal abortions and can no longer speak for themselves. And that ignores the countless millions who suffered injuries, hemorrhage or infection at the hands of criminal abortionists, but who are unwilling to speak out for reasons of fear or embarrassment. Regardless of any decision by the Court, the Constitution is silent with regard to the specifics about abortion, but it is not silent regarding the proper dispensation of the issue. Turning again to the Tenth Amendment: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." Here are a few excerpts from Roe:
Here are links to the Constitution, and the Amendments. Search for yourself and compare the language of the Court to the language of the Constitution. Do some word searches for "privacy", "right" and "rights". Does this look like a judicial opinion ruling on the language of the Constitution and its Amendments? Or does it look more like legislation that preempts the plain language of the Tenth Amendment? Or are these simply the edicts of a dictator? Republicans need to adopt a strategy that encourages pro-life, but one that also recognizes that the Constitution offers the latitude for prospective mothers, together with prospective fathers, and the states some room to define for themselves where the line should be drawn. Congress, the President, and the Court do not have this authority, no matter what the members of the various branches of the federal government would have you believe. With the proper understanding and background, it will not be a contradiction of terms for Republicans to be both, Pro-life and Pro-Choice. Circumventing the Constitution gave us Federal Reserve Notes, Social Security and finally Medicare. Now the people of the United States have lost most of the freedoms that allowed them to govern their own lives and the ability to ensure their own safety. Laws for which there is no Constitutional authority now threaten us with bankruptcy or a financial melt down. If the United States government lives by circumventing the Constitution, surely there is at least some measure of poetic justice that unless the Reagan Renaissance or something like it is successful, the Federal government is going to die as the direct result of these circumventions. Why Should Americans Have a Choice? In addition to there being no Constitutional authority for Social Security and the fact that its mandatory or compulsory nature rapes any concept of freedom, Social Security is not even a rational retirement program. Social Security is nothing more that a Ponzi or pyramid scheme that has run its course. WordIQ.com's encyclopedia describes Ponzi Scheme as follows: "A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that involves paying returns to investors out of the money raised from subsequent investors. It is illegal in most countries. The scheme is named after Charles Ponzi...Are state pensions a Ponzi scheme? It has been suggested that some state pension schemes, e.g. the U.S. Social Security/Medicare and the U.K. State pension schemes, are actually large-scale Ponzi schemes. Under these schemes, the taxes paid are not saved or invested to pay for future benefits; rather, the taxes go into general government revenues, which pay for current benefits along with other outlays. This also explains why the aging of the Baby Boomer generation presents a threat to the U.S. Social Security system: as more of the Baby Boomers retire, there will be more people collecting Social Security benefits and fewer workers generating payroll taxes." The death of socialism is a certainty; the only question is whether it will be sooner and by the choice of individual Americans with the creation of new opportunities, or not much later in an involuntary catastrophe. The eve of the 2004 Republican Convention would be a fitting time for all Americans to learn that the Reagan Wing of the Republican Party is planning to put a Pro-choice plank in a future party platform. Pro-choice is the first step on the path that will eventually take the United States to the Reagan Renaissance. The death of socialism will ensure that the socialists in the Democratic Party are headed for the Ash-heap of history alongside the socialists in the Soviet Union. Without socialism, the Democrats have virtually nothing else to offer. Using Pro-choice, every American that opts out of Social Security and chooses freedom could effectively be putting what amounts to another nail in the coffin of the Democratic Party. Phase Two of the Reagan Renaissance is about to get underway. Finding the path to the Reagan Renaissance will require some tour guides and some white knights. Have you contacted your friends and families? Have you sent a link to these articles to Republican office holders and candidates that represent your district? Have you informed them of your views on socialism and that you are Pro-choice? Are you a New Yorker or going to attend the Republican Convention? Create some BZZZZ at the Convention-Print this article and make a few hundred copies to pass out as leaflets on the convention floor. Please email a link to this article and one to the Reagan Renaissance Archive to your favorite conservative third party, web site, political analyst, talk show host or any other conservative organization that might have an interest in turning up the heat in order to melt the ice. One man standing on the dock pushing on the bow of the Titanic will eventually push the ship away from the dock. Avoiding the iceberg in our future is going to take a lot of hands on deck. And time is of the essence.
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