The Founding Father's Real Reason for the Second Amendment
And remember the words of Thomas Jefferson "The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government." See Video of Suzanna Gratia-Hupp’s Congressional Testimony: What the Second Amendment is REALLY For, below (u-tube HERE).
The Leaders Are Here... Palin, Cruz, Lee, Paul, Chaffetz....
T'S A WONDERFUL LIFE
Can You Really Still Believe That None of These People Would Have Done a Better Job???
One of the worst things about totalitarian socialist type regimes is that they specifically target children to be their propaganda arms. Instead of trying to sell their ideas to the parents, they sell them to the kids, who then in-turn police their parents. Children are obviously the perfect spokespeople, since they’re blind to problems, corruption, and in the case of your public school educated kids…blind to history.
California is now sending money to schools to indoctrinate children into being spokespeople for ObamaCare.
The Los Angeles Unified School District (“LAUSD”) is receiving a $990,000 grant from the state of California (which is releasing prisoners right and left to help control their debt) to train teens to sell ObamaCare to their families. This money is just a part of the $37 million total California is spending to try to get people to cooperate with ObamaCare, despite its many and obvious problems.
American Thinker: So in another desperate attempt "the Obama administration created a marketing campaign for Obamacare that made it cool and hip" by "reaching out to the NFL, the NBA and Hollywood for help, and counting down the days to Oct. 1, when enrollment in the exchanges officially begins." Further, "The administration is in a good position to secure splashy endorsements, as Obama's 2008 and 2012 campaigns had a deep bench of celebrity surrogates."
Well ok, nothing personal but those who will be influenced by endorsements from sports figures and entertainment types are probably already in agreement with the President Barack Hussein Obama (D) agenda; these plugs will merely further validate and rationalize previously held beliefs. And for those who disagree, especially some of the owners and major stockholders, well, in true Chicago Way fashion the Obama administration has ways of making them agree.
We have responded to the letters we received from members of Congress to inform them we currently have no plans to engage in this area and have had no substantive contact with the administration about PPACA’s implementation.
But what is truly disturbing--actually repellent and frightening--is the government's plan to abuse the concept of public education by turning public schools into indoctrination factories, forcing children to spout the joys of Obamacare. Or else!
In California, the educrats of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), the second largest school district in the country with over 640,000 students, will be force feeding students to sell Obamacare to their families, funded by a nearly million dollar state grant (though the state is broke) from Covered California according to this article in Human Events
The district listed as a primary outcome for its project, "Teens trained to be messengers to family members."
Covered California spokeswoman Sarah Soto-Taylor said staff have not questioned this goal.
"We have confidence that the model LA Unified brought to the table will be successful in reaching our target population, which includes family members of students," she said.
LAUSD will also use tax-paid staff to promote ObamaCare through phone calls to students' homes, in-class presentations, and meetings with employees eligible for ObamaCare's taxpayer-covered healthcare, the grant award says.
Unpaid Propagandizers
The district listed adult education students, part-time, and contract employees as its target population. Teens will be trained to be messengers not to those groups, but to their own families, to get more people enrolled in taxpayer-subsidized healthcare.
If the project is successful, Los Angeles families can expect more use of students to push government-preferred messaging.
"Teens are part of a 'pilot' program to test whether young people can be trained as messengers to deliver outreach and limited education to family and friends in and around their homes," said Gayle Pollard-Terry, a LAUSD spokesman, in an email. "Teens will be educating adults that they already know (e.g., family or friends) and not other adults."
'Paid in the Rear'
Grant recipients like LAUSD will be held accountable by the state for fulfilling their promised activities for outreach, said Larry Hicks, another LAUSD spokesman.
"At a minimum, grantees will be required to submit to Covered California monthly, quarterly, and annual reports on their activities and progress towards agreed upon outcomes. If project benchmarks are not met, grantees may be required to submit additional ad hoc reports upon Covered California's request. Grantees will also be required to report any proposed adjustments to their approved outreach and education plan using the information management system... Additionally, field monitors will be assigned to grantees to verify their progress," Hughes said.
Disturbing comparisons with using children and government education facilities to deliver "government-preferred messaging" in the past and in other societies today instantly spring to mind. And so do the questions.
If the parents disagree with ObamaCare and their children's message will the children then be compelled to report them to the "field monitors...assigned to grantees to verify their progress"?
What if a parent hangs up on an intrusive government caller or worse not so politely, or even politely, argues with the "outreach" drone?" Can parents protest the "use of students to push government-preferred messaging"? If so, will the parentsr be compelled to attend parent-school meetings and labeled unfit and abusive?
And what will happen to the students if they mock their assignment of "educating adults they already know", or educate their trainers on the perils of Obamacare, or refuse "to be trained as messengers" or even just don't do their "homework" as students are wont to do? What if kids fail at "educating adults they already know"? All of these outcomes happen every day in homes and schools across America over minor issues. Will the students be shamed and punished by teachers and/or the school administration for their failure to do the assignment? Will the other kids make fun of them?
Perhaps even in California some teachers or administrators will have doubts about violating the basic education principles of a free society which prohibit political advocacy of only one viewpoint. If they voice their concerns about this misuse of the schools or if they too express concerns about ObamaCare will they be fired and sent to special in service workshops or re education camps, joining protesting parents and students? What will happen to their children, their families?
Unfortunately, these questions and others similar to them are not far fetched or speculative. Oh sure, the practices against dissenters will probably not outwardly mimic those of North Korea, Nazi Germany or Communist Russia - certainly no parent or student will be executed. But... Obama Youth is live and well!
Woe to those who publicly deviate from politically correct or government approved thought. Using vulnerable students "to push government-preferred messaging" though is a new low. And alas, this is probably not even the lowest of the desperate, all encompassing government mandates regarding ObamaCare, the environment or any other "government-preferred" thought or action.
Fury is brewing at Rocky Mountain High School, in Colorado, after a multicultural student group were encouraged to recite the Pledge of Allegiance over the loudspeaker in Arabic - replacing 'one nation under God' with 'one nation under Allah'.
Following Monday's pledge, Principal Tom Lopez has been inundated with complaints from outraged parents concerned that saying the Pledge in any language other than English is unpatriotic.
Standing by his controversial decision, Principal Lopez has said that despite the irate telephone calls and emails, he is not in any way or form trying to push an Islamic agenda at the Fort Collins school.
Rocky Mountain High School in Colorado was hit by controversy on Monday when a student group recited the Pledge of Allegiance in Arabic
'These students love this country,' said Lopez to Fox News.
'They were not being un-American in trying to do this. They believed they were accentuating the meaning of the words as spoken regularly in English.'
At the school, the Pledge of Allegiance is recited once a week and on Monday, a member of the Cultural Arms Club at Rocky Mountain High School read out an Arabic version.
The pupils sought the permission of Principal Lopez, who previously had allowed the Pledge to be read out in French and Spanish.
However, the backlash began from students hours after the recital and has continued through the week as angry parents have waded into the controversy.
'We understand not everybody would agree with the students’ choice,' said Danielle Clark, communications director of the Poudre School District to Fox News.
Pictured are members of the Cultural Arms Club at Rocky Mountain High School
'We’ve heard there are some who are upset.'
Clark said though, that the club has a history of reading the Pledge in different languages and some parents have emailed to say it 'was a great thing'.
And she added that the students had asked permission from the principal.
'We deferred to the students because it’s their deal,' she said to Fox News.
Students at the school rushed to the classmates defense, keen to highlight the motto of the Cultural Arms Club which seeks to 'destroy the barriers, embrace the cultures.'
'No matter what language it’s said in, pledging your allegiance to the United States is the same in every language,' student Skyler Bowden told The Coloradoan.
The issue for some parents and pupils at the school is that in an Arabic translation of the Pledge of Allegiance, 'one nation under God' is replaced with 'one nation under Allah'.
Rocky Mountain High School Principal Tony Lopez has been stunned by the level of vitriol directed at him and the students for the Arabic pledge
'Obviously in Arabic, you would use the word Allah, but Christian Arabs would use the word Allah,' said Ibrahim Hooper, of the Council on American Islamic Relations.
'It’s not necessarily specific to Islam and Muslims.'
Principal Lopez has borne the brunt of the criticism of the decision to allow the recital - and some have gone as far as to label him as a traitor.
'They claim they are outraged that this is blaspheming a real major tenet of our patriotism – which in their mind the Pledge of Allegiance is only in English,' said Lopez.
Other parents have accused him of 'pushing a Muslim Brotherhood agenda - to push Islam into the school.'
Solemn Duty: Young students recite the Pledge of Allegiance at a school in America
'How on earth is it un-American to recite the Pledge of Allegiance in another language,' said Hooper to Fox News. 'It doesn’t make sense unless the people complaining are anti-Muslim or anti-middle eastern bigots.'
Indeed, the embattled head is becoming wary at the number of complaints and level of abuse he has received. 'I’ve been shocked with prejudicial statements that have been made,' said Lopez.
'I’ve been shocked with the lack of seeking understanding. There’s definitely suspicion and fear expressed in these people’s minds. There’s some hate.'
Lopez says the school is a place of inclusion where one message can be communicated in many different ways.
'When they pledge allegiance to United States, that's exactly what they're saying,' Lopez said. 'They're just using another language as their vehicle,' he said.
Write this principal and the district with your outrage!!!! We MUST stand for America and our rights and against this outrageous trashing of what we hold dear!
We definitely should call and/or write this principal and ask questions like… what the heck is going on in Ft. Collins? But, perhaps the bigger question is: What the heck is going on in Washington, D.C.?
Michelle Obama Visiting Saudi National in the Hospital After Boston Bombing Right Before Allowing Him to Leave County
Michelle Obama visited the Saudi National “Person of Interest” in the hospital as the POTUS met with the Saudis and the Syrians… wanting to deport him as soon as possible. Why? He is related to Osama Bin Laden and was involved in the Boston Bombing! Huge News is coming. Sounds like one of those conspiracy theories? See: HAMZA IS KNOWN AS THE “CROWN PRINCE OF TERROR.
Think I am kidding… demand to discuss your child’s “SEX EDUCATION” with you children’s teachers and for that matter… pay attention to all the insertion of the MUSLIM crap in the textbooks!
Next they’ll be taught, you can marry at 7, men can sodomized boys and girls genitalia can be mutilated…all covered and promoted by SHARIA coming to a COUNTRY (ours) near you soon! …Victoria Baer~
Photo of the WeekSex Ed Hits the Road (April 2011) - Look at these CA 5th Grader’s Faces (They are watching real photos of a developing fetus inside the uterus while senior health educator Andy Wentling presents "Life Begins," at the Robert Crown Centers for Health Education…) and then ask yourself with a reaction like that to the basics… why are we talking about burdening and sexualizing Kindergartners with a “gay curriculum” (MSNBC has of course pulled this link)? and teaching 5th graders about oral and anal sex? Why? Stop over-sexualizing our children and over-stepping instructional bounds!!
And if this title and subject matter surprises you… you haven’t been paying attention!
Parents Furious After School Teaches Graphic Sex Class
Pannkuk and her husband sat their daughter down and asked her explain what she was taught in the class.
“You take a man’s penis and you put it in your mouth – that’s what the girls do to the boys,” their daughter told the couple. “The boys spread the girls legs apart and put their mouths down on the vaginas.”
Pannkuk said he became enraged as his 11-year-old daughter recounted what the principal had told the classroom.
“Steam was coming out my ears,” he said. “I was very, very upset. I understand that they need to teach these kids (basic) sex education – but 11-year-olds? I have a problem with that. The wife and I were very – very upset.”
Gilliland said another child explained to their parents that it “was basically like a lollipop.”
Gilliland said he has no problem teaching sex education – but this particular class went too far.
“It’s one thing to teach about reproduction,” he said. ‘She knows about breeding her guinea pigs, horses, dogs and so on. She knows how babies are born and how they are created, but when they go teaching them these extra acts – it’s appalling.”
Mrs. Gilliland said it’s important for parents across the nation to get involved and to pay attention.
“Be more involved in your school,” she said. “See what your kids are learning. Pay attention. Talk to your kids.”
She said many of the families are now dealing with the aftermath of the class.
“She should be bouncing on the trampoline, riding horses – doing normal kid stuff,” she said of her daughter. “We don’t need to talk about that stuff at that age.
This type of instruction as well as the gay lifestyle in graphic terms was being promoted by the Obama Administration from day one through their so-called ‘safe-schools’ czar, Kevin Jennings. I guess the question needs to be safe for whom?!? And who gives these people that right?
This is not an anti-gay issue… This is an anti-‘sexualizing’ our children and pro-parental rights issue!!
This topic hits home because I am a product of the California public school system and of the UC college system… And most of my friends and our children went to school and college in California as well. I was a college student in the early 1970’s, when Berkley radicalism was in its hay day and Angela Davis was teaching at UCLA. (Even in the 1970’s the focus was on politics and for the professors to publish… not on teaching the basics. I once had an English professor, who regularly said, “Once you are our of college and have time to get a real education, you should read this book…”) It was a time when all things radical were cool with the young and most parents thought it was just an unsettling fad… that would pass. Instead it was the first open test of the modern American Progressive Movement that changed America forever. But as the turbulent 1960’s and 1970’s drew to a close and the radicals went to work underground to promote their progressive ideas to eventually become mainstream enough to ‘become the man’, mainstream middle-America went back to sleep believing that it was just a minor flare-up.
The radicals of the 1970’s who were inspired by Saul Alinsky and his writings and Cloward & Piven and their strategies are still politically active and are still working to overthrow Capitalism and the American system as we know it. They are teaching in our universities where they have trained several new generations of radicals and are teaching them to agitate using the same techniques they used… to reach the planned endgame.
The next generation, inspired by these ‘60’s radical progressives, included the Clintons (Video: Remember Hillary’s famous debate comment in 2007: “I prefer to think of myself as a Progressive!”, after being asked if she was a liberal.) and Barack Obama and his Team in the White House. The newest generation are out in the streets as Occupy Wall Street or Occupy all over America and all over the world, being manipulated by Bill Ayers, Bernadine Dohrn, the Radke brothers, Andy Stern, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and many progressives in our government, including in the White House… and their disciples, people like Van Jones.
William Ayers, in a pep talk to an Occupy Wall Street gaggle, said he (still) wakes up every morning thinking about how he's going to end capitalism -- though he acknowledged he goes to bed "every night disappointed."
The co-founder of the radical, Vietnam-era Weather Underground was videotaped chatting up what was identified as an Occupy Union Square group this past week in New York City. He was out checking on the seeds of his American Bolshevik Revolution.
For anyone who missed it, Barack Obama started his political career in Bill Ayer’s home and now it seems that Ayers’ family helped Obama with college, as well as Ayers’s being involved in the writing if not the actual author of Obama’s 1995 memoir, Dreams from My Father. Yet Obama tells us he hardly knew him?!?
Berkowitz’s findings confirm what most non-progressives who have spent anytime on a college campus, in California or most anywhere else in the United States, or with college students already figured out. The universities (the UC system) are hot beds for radicals: Progressives, Communists, Marxists who generally proselytize their beliefs in the classroom and at activities on and off campus… and are encouraged to do so. (Conservative ideas, critical and free thinking and individualism are pretty much non-existent and not taught… if even tolerated.)
The politicization of higher education by activist professors and compliant university administrators deprives students of the opportunity to acquire knowledge and refine their minds. It also erodes the nation's civic cohesion and its ability to preserve the institutions that undergird democracy in America.
So argues "A Crisis of Competence: The Corrupting Effect of Political Activism in the University of California," a new report by the California Association of Scholars, a division of the National Association of Scholars (NAS). The report is addressed to the Regents of the University of California, which has ultimate responsibility for governing the UC system, but the pathologies it diagnoses prevail throughout the country.
The analysis begins from a nonpolitical fact: Numerous studies of both the UC system and of higher education nationwide demonstrate that students who graduate from college are increasingly ignorant of history and literature. They are unfamiliar with the principles of American constitutional government. And they are bereft of the skills necessary to comprehend serious books and effectively marshal evidence and argument in written work.
Hoover Institution fellow Peter Berkowitz on the politicization of higher education by activist professors:
This decline in the quality of education coincides with a profound transformation of the college curriculum. None of the nine general campuses in the UC system requires students to study the history and institutions of the United States. None requires students to study Western civilization, and on seven of the nine UC campuses, including Berkeley, a survey course in Western civilization is not even offered. In several English departments one can graduate without taking a course in Shakespeare. In many political science departments majors need not take a course in American politics.
Moreover, the evidence suggests that the hollowing of the curriculum stems from too many professors' preference for promoting a partisan political agenda.
National studies by Stanley Rothman in 1999, and by Neil Gross and Solon Simmons in 2007, have shown that universities' leftward tilt has become severe. And a 2005 study by Daniel Klein and Andrew Western in Academic Questions (a NAS publication) shows this is certainly true in California. For example, Democrats outnumbered Republicans four to one on University of California, Berkeley, professional school faculties; in the social sciences the ratio was approximately 21 to one.
The same 2005 study revealed that the Berkeley sociology department faculty was home to 17 Democrats and no Republicans. The political science department included 28 Democrats and two Republicans. The English department had 29 Democrats and one Republican; and the history department had 31 Democrats and one Republican.
While political affiliation alone need not carry classroom implications, the overwhelmingly left-leaning faculty openly declare the inculcation of progressive political ideas their pedagogical priority. As "A Crisis of Competence" notes, "a recent study by UCLA's prestigious Higher Education Research Institute found that more faculty now believe that they should teach their students to be agents of social change than believe that it is important to teach them the classics of Western civilization."
Some university programs tout their political presuppositions and objectives openly. The mission statements of the Women's Studies program at UCLA prejudges the issues by declaring that it proceeds from "the perspectives of those whose participation has been traditionally distorted, omitted, neglected, or denied." And the Critical Race Studies program at the UCLA School of law announces that its aim is to "transform racial justice advocacy."
Even the august American Association of University Professors—which in 1915 and 1940 published classic statements explaining that the aim of academic freedom was not to indoctrinate but to equip students to think for themselves—has sided with the politicized professoriate.
In 1915, the AAUP affirmed that in teaching controversial subjects a professor should "set forth justly without suppression or innuendo the divergent opinions of other investigators; he should cause his students to become familiar with the best published expressions of the great historic types of doctrine upon the questions at issue."
However, in recent statements on academic freedom in 2007 and 2011, the AAUP has undermined its almost century-old strictures against proselytizing. Its new position is that restricting professors to the use of relevant materials and obliging them to provide a reasonably comprehensive treatment of the subject represent unworkable requirements because relevance and comprehensiveness can themselves be controversial.
On the boundaries, they can be—like anything else. However, it is wrong to dismiss professors' duty to avoid introducing into classroom discussion opinions extraneous to the subject and to provide a well-rounded treatment of the matter under consideration. That opens the classroom to whatever professors wish to talk about. And in all too many cases what they wish to talk about in the classroom is the need to transform America in a progressive direction. Last year the leadership of AAUP officially endorsed the Occupy Wall Street movement.
Excluding from the curriculum those ideas that depart from the progressive agenda implicitly teaches students that conservative ideas are contemptible and unworthy of discussion. This exclusion, the California report points out, also harms progressives for the reason John Stuart Mill elaborated in his famous 1859 essay, "On Liberty": "He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that."
The removal of partisan advocacy from the classroom would have long-term political benefits. Liberal education equips students with intellectual skills valued by the marketplace. It prepares citizens to discharge civic responsibilities in an informed and deliberate manner. It fosters a common culture by revealing that much serious disagreement between progressives and conservatives revolves around differing interpretations of how to fulfill America's promise of individual freedom and equality.
It is certainly true that not all progressive professors intrude their politics into the classroom, but a culture of politicization has developed on campus in which department chairs and deans treat its occurrence as routine. "UC administrators," the California report sadly concludes, "far from performing their role as the university's quality control mechanism, now routinely function as the enablers, protectors, and even apologists for the politicized university and its degraded scholarly and educational standards."
In California, this is more than a failure of their duty as educators. It is also a violation of the law. Article IX, Section 9, of the California state constitution provides that "The university shall be entirely independent of all political or sectarian influence and kept free therefrom."
It is incumbent upon the UC Board of Regents, not to mention the governing bodies of other institutions of higher education across the country, to begin the long and arduous work of depoliticizing our universities and renewing liberal education.. and critical thinking.
Our daughter attended Chapman University, a small private college in California and went off to Semester at Sea as part of her college experience, a fabulous adventure of traveling around the world and studying along the way that we managed to provide for her. They even had Desmond Tutu join them onboard for one leg of the journey where he lectured and the students had one on one access to him. I think the vicarious journey was as exciting, if not even more exciting, for us as it was for her. The professors and staff onboard were rotational from all over the United States and in some cases the world. When our daughter returned home from her sail, she was full of exciting stories but our somewhat apolitical artsy daughter also came home espousing all that is wrong with America, our free-market system and an over-night expert on all that horrors and ills of the world either caused or not fixed by the country that her parents loved, gave her the opportunity to make this amazing journey and that her maternal grandparents sacrificed and left everything behind for to bring their families to the land of freedom and opportunity.
While mainstream America went back to sleep, was hypnotized by the left-controlled media and worked tirelessly to send their children to college, the likes of George Soros, the Rockefellers, Bill Gates and other wealthy progressives funded the radical transformation of America from college campuses to the White House that culminated in the election of Barack Hussein Obama in 2008 and has been working in overdrive ever since.
Ask Marion~
April's Whistleblower magazine, "THE COLLEGE ILLUSION," this almost sacrosanct belief in college is currently disintegrating before our eyes. It talks about why chasing a degree so often ends in financial and educational chaos. In light of this new study and what those of us paying attention realize, it seems they are right. Unless your child wants to be a doctor, lawyer, engineer or something that absolutely requires a specialized college education skills looking at trade school, entrepreneurship or working yourself up from the bottom and volunteering for internships may be better and definitely cheaper alternatives. And if college is the path, while the college system rebuilds itself, check out the institution you are sending your child off to. Hillsdale College is a good place to start.
It is time that Americans put aside their other activities and interests (including and especially TV) and take a stand. The subscribers to the Progressive Movement have been busy since the early 1900’s and even more so since the end of the open revolution of the 1960’s and 1970’s, now infiltrating every aspect of our lives… from media to education, to control of the food we eat to the White House and Congress… all the while dumbing us down generation by generation… radicalizing and sexualizing our kids. It is time for us all to stand and work or we will surely fall as we sit on our couches watching the hypnotic screen(s)… TV, computers, games…
Is This Really What You Want You Kindergartners and Lower Elementary School Kids Learning… and from Strangers?
Trailer for the new Welcoming Schools (www.welcomingschools.org) professional development film for educators and parents. Children talk about when they first heard about gay and lesbian people; language they hear from family, teachers and friends; and how teachers can create a safe school climate. Produced by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation. (Film length: 13 minutes)
NYC and California (and other school districts around the country) are beginning sexual awareness education as young as kindergarten, without parent’s opt-in permission. And then from there they move to full blown sex-education in elementary schools including sex positions, fisting, the gay life etc. Really? Is that what we want our children, especially young children, seeing and learning whether it is gay, alternative or traditional sex education?
It is part of the progressive program to take parenting decisions away from parents; a move toward sexualizing our kids and society and further intrusion into our families and family values, against freedom and against religion and Christianity.
h/t to @michellemalkin for the photo: I wanted to share this REFRESHING sign. I love this hardworking kid, whoever he/she is!
When other major stories are not crowding it out, the media occasionally gets around to a story or two on student loan debt. The college graduates of the last ten years or more are drowning in student loan debts. There is a radical solution to this problem.
What is it?
Abolish the student loan program.
Liberals will immediately scream that I am anti-education. I want to see the great masses of Americans stuck with 6th grade educations, forced to work the fields and flip burgers or hit the highlight of their career by being able to say, “Welcome to Wal-Mart.”
Actually, nothing could be further from the truth. I do object to state funded colleges and universities being used to indoctrinate students in liberalism and I do object to stupid programs like gay studies. But I believe the state university and college secondary education system is one of the best things that state government does. I believe the state college secondary education system should do what it was designed to do, namely provide a reasonably affordable college education to the tax paying residents of a state.
The unwashed liberals, in the case of Occupy Wall Street, that is literally true, just want student loans forgiven. There is irony in Bill Clinton endorsing the Occupy Wall Street anarchy and their demands for complete forgiveness of student loans. He was the President who signed the law making student loans non-dischargeable in bankruptcy.
In wanting student loans forgiven, the left is focusing on the symptoms and not the cause of the problem. Student loans are the problem. The easy access to student loans distorts and destroys the free market. Students to not realize the cost of what they are getting. They don’t write the check. They just fill out the paperwork. Sometimes instead of writing a check, they get a check back. The money they receive back is then spent on, hopefully living expenses. Back in the day when I was a college student, pizza and beer were considered living expenses. Somehow I doubt that has changed.
For colleges, the student loans take the sting out of the market place. Who cares if they have to raise tuition by twenty percent? Instead of students talking about alternatives to State U., they just ask for more student loans.
The student loan program is probably one of the worst programs for encouraging bad behavior. Since the federal government guarantees loans, it is a no lose proposition for banks. They can make the loans and make a profit when people pay them back and if they fail to pay them back, the government covers the loss.
What if banks made those loans without the government guarantee? For one thing, there would be many fewer loans. That is not a bad thing, as the banks would be asking some important questions.
For example, if someone wanted to borrow $100,000 to get a nice Ivy League degree, the bank might ask, what are you going to major in and what are you going to do after college and how much will you make? If the student said, well I am going to major in social work, become a social worker and probably make about $30,000 a year, the bank is going to turn that student down. With guarantees, the bank doesn’t care whether the risk is good or not. After all, the taxpayer will pay the bank back if the loan defaults.
The state college systems have a lot of affordable options. Maybe a student wants to go to State U., but does not have the money. Every state has affordable regional junior colleges where someone can start. Students can work and help pay for their college. There are many options if we abolish this really bad program.
One of the other benefits of abolishing Guaranteed Student loans is, it will deflate the education bubble and tuition will come down. Market factors will start to play a role in the cost of education again.
The Guaranteed Student Loan program is the classic case of a well intentioned government program that has destroyed the market, cost the tax payers a lot of money and is now hurting the very people it was intended to help.
Ronald Reagan was right when he said the most feared words in the English language are, “I’m from the Government. I’m here to help.”
For decades, governments have been promoting school as being necessary. Celebrities, probably thinking they are doing the “right thing,” often promote the message “stay in school,” from people like Mr. T. and NBA players and rappers.
No one ever thinks to ask, “Hey, Mr. T., did you learn to be an actor and how to work out and grow a mohawk in school?” Nor do they ask the same questions of a bunch of multi-millionaire basketball players and rappers. Did Michael Jordan learn to play basketball “in school”? For the rappers, I don’t remember there being Hip Hop 101 in college.
All public schools in the U.S. today are prep camps for jail or for being a cubicle rat for the rest of your life.
THE SCHOOL “SYSTEM”
Jim Rohn said, “formal education will make you a living. Self-education will make you a fortune.”
Today, however, formal education, often, does not even make you a living, as the cost of schooling has increased dramatically ever since the government subsidized it with grants, loans and tax benefits.
But education is not the real goal of the education system. As William Torrey Harris, U.S. commissioner of education in 1906, said, “Education… scientifically defined, is the subsumption of the individual.”
Johann Gottlieb Fichte, head of philosophy and psychology at Prussian University in Berlin, said it even more clearly: “Education should aim at destroying free will, so that after pupils are thus schooled, they will be incapable throughout the rest of their lives of thinking or acting otherwise than as their school masters would have wished.”
THE 99% HAVE HAD THEIR FREE WILL DESTROYED
The saddest thing I have seen in a long time is the “We Are the 99%” page.
And it’s not necessarily sad because of the tough situation these thousands of people have found themselves in.
What is sad is that you can see how broken they are as individuals. How they bought into a system and have had all their free will drained from them. This is particularly shown by the fact that thousands of people would take the time to write out on a piece of paper all of their concerns and unhappiness with the expectation that this will CHANGE anything!
I estimate over 90% of the people on that site appear to be in rough shape due to student loans. But not one of them sees the truth. They’ve all been brainwashed to think a college education is not only a good thing, but is a guarantee of having a great life.
One starving artist had $175,000 in student loans. $175,000 in student loans? To become an “artist”? But he sounds as though it is the system that let him down. He takes no responsibility for his massive error in judgment.
Another 99 Percenter is 47, penniless and in debt after her “college education,” yet what does she want for her daughters? To put them through the same system! She has been brainwashed to believe that a “college education” is a necessary and good thing despite all the evidence in her own life that has provided that it was not.
Rather than realizing their errors, many of these people figure that writing their problems on a piece of paper on the Internet may help! Or by chasing down rich Wall St. bankers (a symptom of the problem) with pitchforks while admonishing the government (the real problem) to play a bigger role in the economy.
STUDENT LOANS ARE SLAVERY
Rather than hoping the government helps them, many of these people with student debts should be looking at ways to get out of the country.
Why? First of all, student debt is the only debt in the U.S. that is not able to be defaulted on in a bankruptcy. In other words, the starving artist above with $175,000 in debt will never be able to remove that chain from his neck as long as he lives in the country. If he were to expatriate, he could at least start fresh somewhere else.
And now the U.S. government has dropped many hints that in order to get a passport in the future, you will need to have your government debts (taxes, loans, etc.) up-to-date.
It is not much of a stretch of the imagination for the U.S. government to demand that all those behind on their student debt will be ordered to report to duty with the military. Any opposition will be met with unlimited prison sentences.
There are plenty of opportunities in the world. Look for employment in places like the Canadian oil sands, where they can’t even find enough employees. Or in booming places such as the Middle East (try Qatar) or in Asia (plenty of finance-related jobs in Hong Kong — and a 15% income tax rate).
But remember, in life, there are no “sure things” or guarantees. The government fooled you into thinking there are, but there aren’t. In real life, you just have to get out there and do it.
KEEP YOUR KIDS OUT OF SCHOOL
For those with children, keep them out of school. Any school.
Real education, today, is all free and can be done via the Internet from anywhere. All you have to do is ensure your child can read and from there they can self-educate.
MIT’s entire curriculum is available online for free via MIT’s OpenCourseWare. As well, University of the People is a tuition-free online university. Not to mention there is a YouTube video or a Wikipedia article on any subject matter you’d ever want to know.
BE A COLLEGE DROPOUT… OR DROP-IN
I am not a college dropout. I’m a college drop-in. I dropped in to college, at the behest of my mother, for a few days and quickly got out of there. Consider doing the same.
Jeff Berwick, a self-described financial freedom fighter, is the founder of Canada’s largest financial website, Stockhouse.com. He now writes the libertarian, Austrian-economics based newsletter, The Dollar Vigilante and is a regular speaker at many of the world’s most important investment, resource and freedom-focused conferences where he is known as the most dangerous man in finance.
**Glenn Beck produced a personal preparedness and solution list and did a show based around it last week that he feels was given to him (divinely) as a warning. One of the things on it was Apprenticeships. We need to get back to having an apprenticeship system for the trades and stop pushing every child who really has no need, can’t afford it or isn’t college material to want, expect or feel they must attend college. Most of us are for or letting our kids go into major debt for a college degree that will never compensate them in salary or job status for the debt or cost and have allowed our kids to become indoctrinated in anti-American if not down right Marxist doctrine.
Under the school/education section of Beck’s list was:
COLLEGE/SCHOOL
APPRENTICESHIPS ARE THE FUTURE. DISCUSS THE VALUE OF SCHOOL FOR WHAT YOU CAN EARN. DO NOT LOOK FOR LABELS THEY WILL BECOME MEANINGLESS (YALE, HARVARD, Stanford…) FIND OTHER FORMS OF SCHOOL. ON LINE, JR COLLEGE, STATE SCHOOLS TEACH YOUNG CHILDREN NOW THAT COLLEGE IS NOT A GIVEN DEMAND MERIT FROM SCHOOL AND STUDENT OR PULL YOUR TIME AND $ EDUCATE YOURSELF AT ALL TIMES. ALWAYS READ. HAVE A HARD COPY OF IMPORTANT BOOKS AND DOCUMENTS LEARN OLD AND OR LOST PRACTICES. MENDING/CANNING/FARMING/ LEARN TO FIX AN ENGINE RE-LEARN READING A PRINTED MAP KNOW WHATS IN THE NEWS (AND WHAT’S BEHIND IT). LIFE CAN CHANGE QUICKLY. BE ABLE TO DEFEND YOUR POSITIONS BY KNOWING THE OTHER SIDE
Social services workers who had police snatch a 7-year-old boy from his parents while they were aboard a jetliner preparing to move to the mother's home country of India because he was being homeschooled have called for a court hearing where they apparently will seek to terminate the parents' rights completely.
That word has come from officials with the Home School Legal Defense Association,which along with the Alliance Defense Fund already has elevated the dispute involving Christer and Annie Johannson and their son, Domenic, of Sweden to the Europe Court of Human rights.
Christer Johannson told WND by email this week that he got a letter from the court explaining social workers wished "to move custody of Domenic to the foster family."
Domenic, now 9, has been in the custody of social services, and in foster homes, in Sweden ever since 2009 when he was snatched from a jetliner he and his parents had boarded in order to move to India.
Michael Donnelly, director of international relations for the HSLDA, told WND, "The only way I can think of describing the way the Swedish social and judicial systems have treated the Johansson family is barbaric – the harm done to them is beyond comprehension.
"Their most basic of human rights have been violated and no civilized country should permit this kind of treatment," he continued. "If the Swedish judicial system permits the termination of the Johansson's parental rights because of homeschooling, missed vaccinations and a few cavities it will have become the darkest of regimes for families in Western Europe."
Christer and Domenic Johansson
That would be an accomplishment, as homeschoolers who fled persecution in Germany already have been granted asylum in the United States because of that persecution.
"It is deplorable that the European Court of Human Rights has not acted on the petitions before it in this case and that other governments and human rights organizations have not called on Swedish authorities to investigate and correct this gross miscarriage of justice," said Donnelly.
"We are asking our members and friends to beg with Swedish authorities for this family's immediate reunification. The lives of this child and his parents depend on it."
"It is an outrage that a 'free' country would rip apart this family simply because they do not conform with the government's mold," the petition states. "The egregious human rights violation needs to be rectified IMMEDIATELY. The social workers who made this decision ought to be dismissed and Domenic restored to his parents with an official apology."
"Abducting Domenic and imprisoning him from the loving family he has known all his life is not helping him. Rather, it has most likely caused irreparable harm to him in all aspects of his being, the results of which he will have to suffer with for the rest of his life," wrote Linda Long as she signed the petition.
Others on the site accused the government of child abuse and described the situation as an outrage.
The issue also has been raised before the Organization for Security and Co-Operation in Europe at its annual human rights meeting.
WND has reported that several other cases where children were taken by authorities in Sweden were resolved over recent months when parents had a private detective literally abduct their own children from social services and reunite the families in another country.
That work drew the qualified praise of Ruby Harrold-Claeson, president of the Nordic Committee for Human Rights, which was founded in Copenhagen in 1996. The group aims to "increase the rights and freedoms of private individuals and their families and strengthen respect for basic human rights and fundamental freedoms in the Nordic countries."
Harrold-Claeson has been involved in some of the most notorious child-custody cases, includingthe Johansson case.In fact, her involvement so alarmed local judicial officials that they ordered the Johansson family to be represented by an attorney of the court's choosing instead of Harrold-Claeson.
WND also reportedthat the father, Christer Johansson, was jailed for two months for taking Domenic home from court-ordered foster care for a visit last Thanksgiving.
The case developed in mid-2009 when social services and police forcibly took custody of Domenic, then 7, because they worried he was homeschooled. The local courts later denied the parents the legal representation they sought from Harrold-Claeson, demanding instead they be represented by a government-approved attorney. The courts ultimately ruled the state must keep custody of Domenic.
Harrold-Claeson said it was strange that social service agents don't realize that their interventions in families by removing the children and placing them in foster homes among total strangers are more traumatizing than the eventual problems of the parents.
She also said Swedish authorities believe "children are the property of the state to be bought and sold as commodities. Taking children into care and placing them in foster homes is an … industry in which children's and the parents and relatives and their health – both physical and mental – is destroyed beyond repair."
She told WND that the state "has decided to usurp the powers of the parents and replace parental authority over children by delivering them into the hands of the civil servants, who per definition should be servants, not masters."
She called on Americans to condemn such practices and watch their own backs, since she's seen similar practices developing in the U.S.
Gustaf Hofstedt, president of the local social services board in Gotland, Sweden, where the family lives, earlier told WND by telephone from Sweden that there is more to the dispute than homeschooling, but he refused to explain.
"I understand the public debate has been that is a case that is only concerning the fact of homeschooling," he told WND. "But that is not the case."
Asked to explain, he said, "I can't answer that question because of secrecy."
Thought your kid was safe from indoctrination going to a notoriously conservative school? As Glenn Beck Program co-host Pat Gray found out, that's not always the case. Pat tells the story on radio today about how one of his kids at a supposedly conservative school began showing signs that leftists were beginning to have a little too much influence. What did Pat do? Find out HERE.
When school children start paying union dues, that’s when I’ll start representing the interests of school children.” - Albert Shanker, (President Teachers Union)
(John Stossel) School spending has gone through the roof and test scores are flat. While most every other service in life has gotten faster, better, and cheaper, one of the most important things we buy – education — has remained completely stagnant, unchanged since we started measuring it in 1970.
Why no improvement? Because K-12 education is a government monopoly and monopolies don’t improve.
The government-school monopoly claims: Education is too important to leave to the free market. At a teachers’ union rally, even actor Matt Damon showed up to deride market competition as “MBA style thinking.”
“Competition may be okay for selling movies and cell phones, but education is different,” says the establishment. Learning is complex. Parents aren’t real “customers” because they don’t have the expertise to know which school is best. They don’t know enough about curricula, teachers’ credentials, etc. That’s why public education must be centrally planned by government “experts”.
Those experts have been in charge for years. They are what school reformers call the “Blob.” Jeanne Allen from the Center for Education Reform says for years attempts at reform have run, “smack into federations, alliances, departments, councils, boards, commissions, panels, herds, flocks and convoys, that make up the education industrial complex, or the Blob.
Taken individually they were frustrating enough, each with its own bureaucracy, but taken as a whole they were (and are) maddening in their resistance to change. Not really a wall — they always talk about change — but more like quicksand, or a tar pit where ideas slowly sink.
And the most powerful part of the Blob is the teachers’ union. (read more)
Watching Rick Perry’s announcement from South Carolina that he was officially throwing his ten gallon hat in the ring, just as the Ames Iowa Straw Poll was underway, I really wanted to like him!! He looked and sounded presidential, shades of Ronald Reagan at first glance. The fact that Texas has produced half of all the jobs created in the past 10-years and 40% since Obama has been in office is also an enticing thought. And for those of us who are Christians, his prayer event where 44,000+ people gathered to pray for the Texas, rain for the state and for the healing of America was positive icing on the cake.
Perry’s team simultaneously released his first campaign commercial. And by entering the race, Rick Perry has just shaken up the contest for the Republican nomination for President and that is a good thing overall. During week one people have generally gone crazy for Perry!
But as soon as you look a bit closer at Rick Perry, you realize that there really is no middle ground. People either love him or hate him. And many of his fellow Texans are pretty luke warm, if not down right negative, about supporting him in his bid for the presidency; a fact that is a definitely disconcerting.
Many people in the tea party movement see Perry as a mixed bag. And if he ends up being the GOP nominee, he defeats Obama on one single issue: Jobs, and now even that story isn’t quite what it appeared.
America has been losing jobs, while Texas has been creating them. Jobs will be the central issue of this upcoming election. To update the great quote from Ronald Reagan, “A recession is when your neighbor loses his job. A depression is when you lose your job. A recovery is when Obama loses his job!” And making Obama a one-term president must remain the goal, no matter who the nominee ends up being.
Rick Perry is running as a conservative and certainly is more conservative than Mitt Romney, or at least that is what we are being told. And many people believe Perry could be the one candidate who can unite the Tea Party and the establishment GOP, as well as attract the independents. He is certainly not as conservative as Michele Bachmann, and many argue that he is more electable than Michele. However, on that same note, he is perhaps more conservative than Sarah Palin in some areas, who has a Libertarian streak, and he is less desirable than she in most other areas. (If you take an honest look at Palin’s record and beliefs and stop listening to the mainstream media, if she runs… Palin would be the candidate who is most like Ronald Reagan! And disappointingly to her detractors, the emails recently released by Alaska covering Palin’s governorship, show that Sarah is a smart and honest politician.)
How much Tea Party support does Perry have? That would depend on the tea party group and perhaps where they are geographically located, at least to a point. The Moore (South Carolina) Tea Party had a straw poll at their recent event where Michele Bachmann finished a weak second to Rick Perry. Rick Perry got 40% more votes than Michele Bachmann, but it is in an area that has been infatuated with the idea of a Perry run for years. And again, I would say that Palin in that same poll would have walked away with it even there, and let us not forget that fellow Texan Ron Paul, who was second in the Ames Iowa Straw Poll, is also a tea party candidate. Some even call him the father of the tea party. I’d say the Tea Party will only support him sporadically.
Perry is a good campaigner, a good speaker, has a very good organization, and is now a money-raising machine. And if Perry can pull well in at least some Tea Party groups he could draw enough votes to beat alleged front-runner Mitt Romney. He has already pulled into the front-runner spot, but many feel that he may just as quickly burn out as people get to know more about him.
And as much as we’d like to think that looks and presentation don’t matter in who we vote for, it definitely does to some people. And many think Perry is good-looking and presents himself well. However others have said that the way he puts himself together is odd; “the boots and tuxedo thing may be fine in Texas but outside of the lone star state it doesn’t travel very well.” And others think he comes across as an insincere televangelist. Some have also criticized Perry for mangling the history of Texas.
There are a lot of questions that need to be asked of Perry, a lot of concerns, including his stance on illegal immigration. Hopefully we learned our lesson with Barack Obama and we vet our candidates… all of them, plus we stop letting the media tell us who is good, bad or questionable… and the one to vote for. Look where that got us last time.
One thing is certain, given his strength as an unannounced candidate, there is that possibility that we may have just seen the future Republican nominee enter the race.
Many, including in an article in the WSJ, are still looking at the GOP field and saying, “If there is anybody out there still thinking about getting into this race… now would be the time!” Sarah Palin, Chris Christy, Paul Ryan, Rudy Giuliani, Thaddeus McCotter, John Bolton and even a re-emergence of Donald Trump are all on that list. And there are beginning to be those in the Democratic party saying the same thing about their party. Let us just pray the Trump does not try to jump in as a third party candidate; a disaster in the making for the GOP and America!
And before we get to the slug fest below… I will point out a few Perry positives:
Perry packs a concealed laser-guided pistol and has used it.
He is a fifth generation Texan, the son of hardscrabble west Texas tenant farmers. Democrats but conservatives through and through. He grew up in a farm town too small to be on the state map. Life was so hard that he was six years old before his house had indoor plumbing. His mother sewed his clothes, including the underwear he wore to college.
He is an Eagle Scout.
After Paint Creek High School, he attended Texas A&M, graduated, and was commissioned into the Air Force where he became a C-130 pilot where he served proudly for the U.S.
Now 61 years old, he has won nine elections to four different offices in Texas state government. In the first three elections he ran as a Democrat then switched to the Republican Party. He is currently the 47th governor of Texas, a position he has held for 11 years, the longest tenure of any governor in the nation. He has never lost an election. Rick Perry was the Lieutenant Governor to whom Governor George Bush handed over the office after winning the 2000 Presidential election.
He says it as he sees it, which so far is what I like about him most.
And you can say none of the above about Obama!
The only question, looking at his history is how can we depend on Perry really doing what he says?!?
14 18 Reasons Why Rick Perry Would Be A Really, Really Bad President
Supporters of Texas Governor Rick Perry are not going to like this part of the article at all. Right now, Republicans all over the United States are touting Rick Perry as the "Republican messiah" (where have we heard that before?), that is going to come charging in to save America from the presidency of Barack Obama.
Many believed that if Rick Perry entered the race, he would instantly become the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, and gosh darn if he hasn’t. Perry certainly looks the part and he knows how to give a good speech, but when ordinary Americans all over the country take a hard look at his record, they may not like what they see. The truth is that Rick Perry is a big-time globalist, he has raised taxes and fees in Texas numerous times, he has massively increased the size of government spending and government debt in Texas, he has been trying to ram the Trans-Texas Corridor down the throats of the Texas people and he tried to force young women all over Texas to be injected with the Gardasil vaccine. He also has strong ties to the some Muslim community elites, has a history of being a womanizer and skirt chaser (reports that his team always clean up)… which is pretty hypocritical if you are touting yourself as a good Christian and I just saw an article questioning whether Perry is sexist. No, Rick Perry is not going to save America. In fact, he would likely be very, very similar to both Bush and Obama in a lot of ways and that is something we cannot afford!
Right now, Rick Perry is trying to portray himself as a "good conservative" so he will be accepted by Christian conservatives and take votes from people like Michelle Bachmann, Rick Santorum and Sarah Palin, if she jumps in. And he would be an option to Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith, something I really cannot believe we are worried about after we have had a Muslim in the White House, who won’t even own up to it.!
If Rick Perry did win the Republican nomination, he would have a great chance of winning the general election because he would very much be an "establishment" candidate. But is that really what America needs or wants?
So before Republicans get too excited about Rick Perry, there are a whole lot of things that they should know about him and check out for themselves!!.
The following are 18 reasons why Rick Perry would be a really, really bad president....
#1 Rick Perry is a "big government" politician. When Rick Perry became the governor of Texas in 2000, the total spending by the Texas state government was approximately $49 billion. Ten years later it was approximately $90 billion. That is not exactly reducing the size of government. He also has a mixed record on regulatory robbery!
#2 The debt of the state of Texas is out of control. According to usdebtclock.org, the debt to GDP ratio in Texas is 22.9% and the debt per citizen is $10,645. In California (a total financial basket case), the debt to GDP ratio is just 18.7% and the debt per citizen is only $9932. If Rick Perry runs for president these are numbers he will want to keep well hidden.
#3 The total debt of the Texas government has more than doubled since Rick Perry became governor. So what would the U.S. national debt look like after four (or eight) years of Rick Perry?
#4 Rick Perry has spearheaded the effort to lease roads in Texas to foreign companies, to turn roads that are already free to drive on into toll roads, and to develop the Trans-Texas Corridor which would be part of the planned NAFTA superhighway system. If you really do deep research on this whole Trans-Texas Corridor nonsense you will see why no American should ever cast a single vote for Rick Perry.
#5 Rick Perry claims that he has a "track record" of not raising taxes. That is a false claim. Rick Perry has repeatedly raised taxes and fees while he has been governor. Today, Texans are faced with significantly higher taxes and fees than they were before Rick Perry was elected.
#6 Even with the oil boom in Texas, 23 states have a lower unemployment rate than Texas does.
#8 Between December 2007 and April 2011, weekly wages in the U.S. increased by about 5 percent. In the state of Texas they increased by just 0.6% over that same time period.
#11 Texas has the highest percentage of workers making minimum wage out of all 50 states.
#12 Rick Perry often gives speeches about illegal immigration, but when you look at the facts, he has been incredibly soft on the issue. If Rick Perry does not plan to secure the border, then he should not be president because illegal immigration is absolutely devastating many areas of the southwest United States.
#13 In 2007, 221,000 residents of Texas were making minimum wage or less. By 2010, that number had risen to 550,000.
#14 Rick Perry actually issued an executive order in 2007 that would have forced almost every single girl in the state of Texas to receive the Gardasil vaccine before entering the sixth grade. Perry would have put parents in a position where they would have had to fill out an application and beg the government not to inject their child with a highly controversial vaccine. Since then, very serious safety issues regarding this vaccine have come to light. Fortunately, lawmakers in Texas blocked what Perry was trying to do. According to Wikipedia, many were troubled when "apparent financial connections between Merck and Perry were reported by news outlets, such as a $6,000 campaign contribution and Merck's hiring of former Perry Chief of Staff Mike Toomey to handle its Texas lobbying work."
#15 Rick Perry is very good friends with the Agha Kahn and has an unusually cozy relationship with the Muslim community so could end up being a pro-Sharia candidate as well. He has made some It is certainly something worth investigating.
#18 Changing the U.S. Constitution… Perry style cause he is Fed Up! Some of these are good ideas and others are not!! But changing our founding document is a long process and must be done with care, reason and consensus! He and Obama may have more in common in this area than we’d like! Obama and his bunch want to write a whole second bill of rights and they just skirt around the Constitution if it doesn’t suit them.
Rick Perry has many ideas about how to change the American government's founding document. From ending lifetime tenure for federal judges to completely scrapping two whole amendments. The Constitution would see a major overhaul if the Texas governor and Republican presidential candidate had his druthers.
Perry laid out these proposed innovations to the founding document in his book, Fed Up!Our Fight to Save America from Washington. He has occasionally mentioned them on the campaign trail. Several of his ideas fall within the realm of mainstream conservative thinking today, but, as you will see, there are also a few surprises.
1. Abolish lifetime tenure for federal judges by amending Article III, Section I of the Constitution.
The nation's framers established a federal court system whereby judges with "good behavior" would be secure in their job for life. Perry believes that provision is ready for an overhaul.
"The Judges," reads Article III, "both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behavior, and shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services a Compensation which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office."
Perry makes it no secret that he believes the judges on the bench over the past century have acted beyond their constitutional bounds. The problem, Perry reasons, is that members of the judiciary are "unaccountable" to the people, and their lifetime tenure gives them free license to act however they want. In his book, the governor speaks highly of plans to limit their tenure and offers proposals about how to accomplish it.
"'[W]e should take steps to restrict the unlimited power of the courts to rule over us with no accountability," he writes in Fed Up! "There are a number of ideas about how to do this . . . . One such reform would be to institute term limits on what are now lifetime appointments for federal judges, particularly those on the Supreme Court or the circuit courts, which have so much power. One proposal, for example, would have judges roll off every two years based on seniority."
2. Congress should have the power to override Supreme Court decisions with a two-thirds vote.
Ending lifetime tenure for federal justices isn't the only way Perry has proposed suppressing the power of the courts. His book excoriates at length what he sees as overreach from the judicial branch. (The title of Chapter Six is "Nine Unelected Judges Tell Us How to Live.")
Giving Congress the ability to veto their decisions would be another way to take the Court down a notch, Perry says.
"[A]llow Congress to override the Supreme Court with a two-thirds vote in both the House and Senate, which risks increased politicization of judicial decisions, but also has the benefit of letting the people stop the Court from unilaterally deciding policy," he writes.
3. Scrap the federal income tax by repealing the Sixteenth Amendment.
The Sixteenth Amendment gives Congress the "power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration." It should be abolished immediately, Perry says.
Calling the Sixteenth Amendment "the great milestone on the road to serfdom," Perry's writes that it provides a virtually blank check to the federal government to use for projects with little or no consultation from the states.
4. End the direct election of senators by repealing the Seventeenth Amendment.
Overturning this amendment would restore the original language of the Constitution, which gave state legislators the power to appoint the members of the Senate.
Ratified during the Progressive Era in 1913 , the same year as the Sixteenth Amendment, the Seventeenth Amendment gives citizens the ability to elect senators on their own. Perry writes that supporters of the amendment at the time were "mistakenly" propelled by "a fit of populist rage."
"The American people mistakenly empowered the federal government during a fit of populist rage in the early twentieth century by giving it an unlimited source of income (the Sixteenth Amendment) and by changing the way senators are elected (the Seventeenth Amendment)," he writes.
5. Require the federal government to balance its budget every year.
Of all his proposed ideas, Perry calls this one "the most important," and of all the plans, a balanced budget amendment likely has the best chance of passage.
"The most important thing we could do is amend the Constitution--now--to restrict federal spending," Perry writes in his book. "There are generally thought to be two options: the traditional 'balanced budget amendment' or a straightforward 'spending limit amendment,' either of which would be a significant improvement. I prefer the latter . . . . Let's use the people's document--the Constitution--to put an actual spending limit in place to control the beast in Washington."
A campaign to pass a balanced budget amendment through Congress fell short by just one vote in the Senate in the 1990s.
Last year, House Republicans proposed a spending-limit amendment that would limit federal spending to 20 percent of the economy. According to the amendment's language, the restriction could be overridden by a two-thirds vote in both Houses of Congress or by a declaration of war.
6. The federal Constitution should define marriage as between one man and one woman in all 50 states.
Despite saying last month that he was "fine with" states like New York allowing gay marriage, Perry has now said he supports a constitutional amendment that would permanently ban gay marriage throughout the country and overturn any state laws that define marriage beyond a relationship between one man and one woman.
"I do respect a state's right to have a different opinion and take a different tack if you will, California did that," Perry told the Christian Broadcasting Network in August. "I respect that right, but our founding fathers also said, 'Listen, if you all in the future think things are so important that you need to change the Constitution here's the way you do it'.
In an interview with The Ticket earlier this month, Perry spokeswoman Katherine Cesinger said that even though it would overturn laws in several states, the amendment still fits into Perry's broader philosophy because amendments require the ratification of three-fourths of the states to be added to the Constitution.
7.Abortion should be made illegal throughout the country.
Like the gay marriage issue, Perry at one time believed that abortion policy should be left to the states, as was the case before the 1973 Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade. But in the same Christian Broadcasting Network interview, Perry said that he would support a federal amendment outlawing abortion because it was "so important...to the soul of this country and to the traditional values [of] our founding fathers."
Rick Perry has a record that should make all Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians and Independents cringe.
He is not the "conservative Republican" that he is trying to claim that he is. He is simply another in a long line of "RINOs" (Republicans in name only).
If Rick Perry becomes president, he will probably be very similar to George W. Bush. He will explode the size of the U.S. government and U.S. government debt, he will find sneaky ways to raise taxes, he will do nothing about the Federal Reserve or corruption in our financial system and he will push the agenda of the globalists and the United Nations at every turn, to our detriment.
Look, the truth is that another four years of Barack Obama would be a complete and total nightmare… if not the end of America as we know her. And almost everyone, except the leftist ideologues and the completely uninformed now agree that we need to elect anyone other than Barack Obama for a second term.
But from the sounds of it four years of Rick Perry, could be almost as bad.
America deserves better than the "lesser of two evils".
Unfortunately, the American people have been dead asleep and have been sending incompetents, con men and charlatans to Washington D.C. for decades.
Hopefully things will be different in 2012.
Unlike Perry, Obama is all hat and no cattle. There is no Obama thrust that Perry can't parry if he keeps his good humor and enthusiasm and reminds Americans that, yes, his flaws are large until you compare them with Obama's. So in the end, if he is the GOP choice he will get my support because one more term of Obama will destroy this country… but I have grave concerns about Perry!
h/t to The American Dream Jean Stoner, and Deonia Copeland, George King, Michael Carpenter and Anglo & Warbird from Sovereignty in Colorado. Sorry if I missed anyone. The negative information on Perry is just flying in as quickly or quicker than the positive!!
thecommunists, I remained silent; I was not a communist.
Then they locked up the social democrats, I remained silent; I was not a social democrat.
Then they came for the trade unionists, I did not protest; I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Catholics, I did not protest; I was a Protestant.
Then they came for the Jews, I did not speak out; I was not a Jew.
When they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me.
Election 2014 - What Is Really At Stake
Help Stop Voter Fraud!! Stand for the Constitution and God
Time to remember that: "We Surround Them", not the other way!
Stand Up Against Voter Fraud... Demand Re-Counts and Verification Until It is Right!! A Little Ink Goes a Long Way Toward Honesty... 1 Person 1 Vote... No More Mickey Mouse or Dead People Voting
"The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about IT! --Albert Einstein
Call Congress Today and Tell Them To Vote Against Cap and Trade
The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who in a period of moral crisis, maintain their neutrality -- Dante Alighieri / Often Quoted by Mark Twain
Thanks for calling the Congressional switchboard. Keep up the pressure: "NO on Cap and Trade"!!! "NO Vote on Obamacare", NO on another Stimulus Bill, NO to the never ending parade of "Power Grab Bills", and ABSOLUTELY NO on the Climate Change Treaty in Copenhagen!!
"No" on Cap and Trade and "No" on Government Controlled Healthcare!!! And Keep up the good fight! Keep up the Pressure on both the House and Senate! These are 2-fights the American People cannot afford to lose!!!
If you choose not to go this route… call and fax your Senator and as many of them on the list yourself, but don’t sit idly by!!
United States Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121
We apologize in advance for any Videos or links that are not functioning in these or other older posts. Internet information... like 'true' history in our student's textbooks are under constant attack by the Progressive Movement and even more so under the present administration. Try to save what you can to your own computer.
"...there comes a time, ladies and gentlemen, when ideology can cause death. I am so tired, so tired, of zealots, primarily on the left, putting their insane personal agendas above the safety of fellow Americans. Do you think the brave soldiers and Marines operating in dangerous areas right now want [unreleased photos of alleged abuse of prisoners] all over al-Jazeera and the terror websites? So let's look out for the military, OK? Nancy Pelosi has an obligation to get the loons in her party under control. If the Speaker can't do that, she doesn't deserve her position." ... Bill O'Reilly
Updated:If you'd like to contact Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, here's the contact information that you'll need.
translation of the Pledge of Allegiance, 'one nation under God' is replaced with 'one nation under Allah'.
