Sam Houston, R.I.P.

Sam Houston (1793-1863) was the first and third President of the then-Republic of Texas.  After Texas joined the Union, Sam became United States Senator from the Lone Star State.

When during the Civil War Texas seceded from the Union, he refused to swear loyalty to the Confederacy, resigned as governor, but refused to use Union troops to suppress the rebellion.

As far as is known, Sam Houston was not a singer, actor, alcoholic or drug abuser.

He was not buried in New Jersey, with unseemly hoopla.

RICK SANTORUM: THE GREAT RIGHT HOPE?

 

Most people think that “altruism” means nothing more than being nice to people. Contributing to Haitian relief, or medical research.  Helping the poor, supporting the arts.

But the real meaning of “altruism” when used in an ethical/political context is significantly different.  Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language defines altruism as “the doctrine that the general welfare of society ¹ is the proper goal of an individual's action”² — the sacrificial antithesis of one acting in pursuit of his or her own interests.  Others, anyone, everyone—before me, or you.

Ayn Rand defined altruism in the ethical/political context more fully: “the ethical theory which regards man as a sacrificial animal, which holds that man has no right to exist for his own sake, that service to others is the only justification of his existence, and that self-sacrifice is his highest moral duty, virtue and value.”³  She elaborated:

Do not hide behind such superficialities as whether you should or should not give a dime to a beggar.  That is not the issue.  The issue is whether you do or do not have the right to exist without giving him that dime.  The issue is whether you must continue buying your life, dime by dime, from any beggar who might choose to approach you.  The issue is whether the need of others [“society”?] is the first mortgage on your life and the moral purpose of your existence. * * *⁴

Closely related to altruism is the concept of “collectivism.” 

Contrary to popular belief, collectivism has nothing to do with people who share common interests voluntarily coming together, as in a bowling league.  On the contrary, and antithetical to the principles of individual rights and limited government, “[c]ollectivism holds that the individual has no rights, that his life and work belong to the group (to ‘society,’ to the tribe, the state, the nation), and that the group may sacrifice him at its own whim to its own interests.”⁵  “Collectivism means the subjugation of the individual to a group— whether to a race, class or state does not matter.  Collectivism holds that man must be chained to collective action and collective thought for the sake of what is called the ‘common good’.”⁶

Because altruism and collectivism are ethical, not political/legal, doctrines, the only way to implement them is by brute force, of which the government has a monopoly. 

Necessarily, altruism and collectivism have a political/legal corollary, statism: “the principle or policy of concentrating extensive economic, political, and related controls in the state at the cost of individual liberty”⁷ and of limited government. 

Altruism and collectivism are the antithesis of the individual rights principle of the Declaration of Independence, the limited government created by the Constitution of the United States of America, and the enumerated and unenumerated rights protected by the Bill of Rights.

Not to see Rick Santorum—now anointed by many of the anti-Romney Republican primary electorate as “The Great Right Hope”—for the unapologetic altruist-collectivist-statist he is would be a huge, dangerous mistake.

Either woefully ignorant about the nature and consequences of altruism-collectivism-statism, recklessly indifferent to these ethical/political doctrines, and/or seeking any port in a storm, in the last several days too many Americans have fallen for Santorum’s rousing paeans to individual rights and limited government.

Despite the vigor with which he claims to stand up for liberty, individual rights, limited government, and property and contract rights, and despite wrapping himself in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights (how did he miss the Northwest Ordinance?), Rick Santorum is a cunning altruist-collectivist-statist of the worst kind. 

Don’t take my word for it.

On September 27, 2005, then-Senator Santorum gave a speech at “The First International Conservative Conference on Social Justice” entitled “The Conservative Future: Compassion.” 

That’s quite a mélange: “Conservative” (“in favor of preserving the status quo and traditional values and customs, and against abrupt change”⁸), “Social Justice” (often understood to mean “from each according to his ability to each according to his needs”⁹) and “Compassion” (“sympathy for the suffering of others, often including a desire to help.”¹⁰). 

The catchy title of his speech would have been more accurate had Santorum entitled it something like “The Future As Seen By This Compassionate Conservative: Sacrifice Of Some To The Needs Of Others, For The Common Good, Backed By Government Guns.”

Do I exaggerate?

Here’s Santorum in his own words (in Times New Roman), with my emphases, at the Conference:

“America’s conservative heritage never pursued a limitless freedom to do whatever one wants so long as no one is hurt. That kind of ‘freedom’ to be and do whatever we want, irrespective of the choice is a selfish freedom that cannot be sustained or afforded.  Someone always gets hurt when masses of individuals do what is only in their own self-interest.  That is the great lie of liberal freedom, or as I like to say, ‘No-Fault Freedom”—all the choice, none of the responsibility.

“We here today believe in something altogether different.  It is the liberty America’s Founders understood properly defined.  Freedom is liberty coupled with responsibility to something bigger or higher than self.  It is a self-less freedom.  It is sacrificial freedom.  It is the pursuit of our dreams with an eye toward the common good.  Freedom is the dual activity of lifting our eyes to the heavens while extending our hand to our neighbor.

“The only orthodox conservative philosophy that matches with this is compassionate conservatism.”

Indeed!  The above quotation is why every self-respecting free American should run as if from a plague from Santorum and other “compassionate conservatives” who, according to him, claim to understand the Founders’ intent and accomplishments better than they themselves.

In his speech, Santorum confessed that he and his compassionate conservative cohort scorn the individuality and personhood often called the “self.”  They do so because the individuals possessing those essential human traits are not selfless— meaning, that being selfish the latter don’t have the good grace to be complicit when they are, in Santorum’s own words, sacrificed for the common good.  No man or woman with stature and pride will willingly be complicit in their own destruction--let alone in the name of the "common good."

What does Santorum mean by “something bigger or higher than self”?  Probably mystical forces that drive him and other compassionate conservatives to make irrational and indefensible pronouncements about where rights come from, and how we are all our brothers’ keepers.

Have we not seen enough by now of what comes from sacrificing human beings for the “good” of others, rationalized by the mystical doctrines that give birth to altruism, collectivism and statism? 

Putting aside all of earlier recorded history, did not the Twentieth Century provide evidence enough of how much human suffering these doctrines produce?

Included in Isabel Paterson’ groundbreaking 1943 book entitled The God of the Machine is her essay The Humanitarian with the Guillotine.

I leave you with what Paterson’s title implies, as we hear more and more about Rick Santorum’s mystically-rooted belief that some of us, sometime, must be sacrificed by government to fulfill the needs of others.  But, all that killing and plunder, devastation and pain, is of course for the “common good.”

---

^[1] According to Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language, Second College Edition, a “society” is nothing more than “a group of persons . . . .”  Meaning, other people.

^[2] Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language, Second College Edition.

^[3] Ayn Rand, “Faith and Force: The Destroyers of the Modern World,” Philosophy: Who Needs It, 74.

^[4] Ibid.  Emphasis in original.

^[5] Ayn Rand, “Racism,” The Virtue of Selfishness, 175.

^[6] Ayn Rand, “The Only Path to Tomorrow,” Reader’s Digest, Jan. 1944, 8.

^[7] Dictionary.com.

[8] Encarta Dictionary. 

[9] See Wikipedia.

[10] Encarta Dictionary.

"Our Founders designed a system . . . ."

The full sentence uttered by Mr. Obama on February 6, 2012 was: "Our Founders designed a system that makes it more difficult for me to bring about change than I would like sometimes."


Perhaps the reason the Founders designed such a system was that they were dealing with a King.  


Note Jefferson's indictment in the second paragraph: "The History of the present King of Great-Britain is a history of repeated Injuries and Usurpations, all having in direct Object the Establishment of any absolute Tyranny over these States."  This statement is followed by a bill of particulars consisting of some thirty specific accusations.

Now note these provisions of the Constitution of the United States of America:


All legislative power in Congress (Article I), including the power "To declare War" (Article I), and all judicial power in federal courts (Article III)--not in the President.

Congress (Article I) and a Supreme Court decision) can suspend habeas corpus--not the President.

Presidential oath:  I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. (Article II, Section 2). 
 
The power of impeachment/conviction/removal resting in Congress is, at least in theory, a constraint on the President.  Ask the first President Johnson, who survived by a hair.  And, for that matter, President Nixon, who cut and ran before the House (pun intended) fell in on him.


Treaties with the "Advice and Consent of the Senate," if the President can muster a two-thirds vote of the Senators present.  Ditto with major federal officials, including judges, with a majority vote.


And the grandaddy of them all: "The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid for all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress."
(Article V of the Constitution of the United States of America.)

Yet Obama appoints Sotomayor and Kagan to the Supreme Court so that they can amend the Constitution without a nod to Article V.

"More difficult," indeed.  


Apparently not so difficult as to prevent him from unfaithfully going to war in Libya.  


Not so difficult as to prevent him from unfaithfully appointing "czars," and thus circumventing the "advise and consent" function of the Senate. 


Not so difficult so as to prevent him from unfaithfully making recess appointments when there was no Senate recess.  


Not so difficult so as to prevent him from unfaithfully instigating and then approving the largely unconstitutional Obamacare.

No, unfortunately, despite his whining protestation about how the Founders have constrained his good intentions, in fact much of what Obama has done has been "not so difficult."

It is frightening to think what else may be "not so difficult" if the alleged former constitutional law professor swindles another term out of a majority of the gullible American people.

COMING SOON: CONSTITUTIONAL LAW 101, FOR THE AMERICAN PATRIOT

“Our Founders designed a system that makes it more difficult to bring about change than I would like sometimes.”  Barack Obama, President of the United States, February 6, 2012.

*     *     *

Like many other Americans, for years I’ve been deeply concerned about our nation’s future.  My fears have been exacerbated in the past three years because of the often lawless, anti-American and incompetent reign of Barack Obama.  Worse, his presidency will continue for another year.  Even worse, he might be reelected.

In light of that possibility, consider a recent report in The Weekly Standard that a survey commissioned by the American Revolution Center found “when it came to a simple test of knowledge about the founding [of the United States of America], nearly 83 percent of . . . Americans failed.”

Many of our fellow citizens believe that the founding principles of this nation are passé, that the Declaration of Independence’s ringing endorsement of republican institutions, individual rights and limited government is outdated, that the Constitution’s creation of a representative republic belongs to a time gone by, and that the Bill of Rights is not a restraint on government but rather a source of newly invented “rights.”

Along with this woeful ignorance, and largely because of it, the Constitution of the United States of America and the Bill of Rights—rooted in republican institutions, individual rights and limited government—are under an unprecedented attack by Barack Obama and his far left Democratic Party, aided and abetted by the complicit mainstream media, unions, academia, and entertainment industry.  To say nothing of many courts, and in too many cases even by the Supreme Court of the United States itself.

Employing and legitimizing the exercise of statist power, the Supreme Court of the United States has facilitated Congress and state legislatures in their sacrifice of individual rights to the common good, and made a mockery of the Founder’s creation of a limited government.

With few notable exceptions, there is hardly any knowledgeable, explicit and principled defense of our Constitution and Bill of Rights to be found anywhere.

Not on radio, television, or in Hollywood.  Not in the press.  Not at the grassroots.  Certainly not in academia.  Nor, sadly, by many Republicans, Conservatives or Libertarians.  Most of the media’s pontificating so-called constitutional experts, especially those on national television, usually do more harm than good because they spread disinformation that is neither knowledgeable nor principled.  Note, for example, the Republican presidential candidates’ pitiful and embarrassing “debates.”

While many Tea Party activists and other patriots have been valiantly trying to fight for core constitutional values, many of them are disarmed because they’ve been taught little about American constitutional law.  Everyone fighting for America today, in order to defend the Constitution and Bill of Rights, is obliged to know as much as possible.  But most don’t.

Those who are committed to fighting for America’s future are obligated to acquire at least a basic understanding of the Constitution’s origins and birth, its written text, the manner in which it has been deliberately violated, and the consequences of how it has been misinterpreted by its enemies.

Because of the importance of our struggle, about eighteen-months ago I put aside most of my writing and legal work to offer a twenty-hour, ten lecture Internet course on American constitutional law.[*]  (Those unfamiliar with my credentials and my commentaries on legal and political issues are welcome to peruse my blog (www.henrymarkholzer.blogspot.com) and my website (www.henrymarkholzer.com)).  Although my Internet course was successful, some of the listeners expressed disappointment that the lectures weren’t available in a permanent text form.

They are now.

I have had the entire twenty hours of lectures transcribed, and have edited them for a less extemporaneous, more polished presentation, and added new material.

The result of my labors is this new, approximately 200-page,book Constitutional Law 101, for the American Patriot published by Madison Press.  It will be available within six weeks from the following sources, with more to be added in the future.  Because my goal is to maximize readership—especially during the nine months before the November 2012 election—Constitutional Law 101, for the American Patriot will be priced at close to the cost of production.

E-BOOKS

Kindle

Smashwords

Barnes & Noble

SONY

Diesel

Aldiko

KOBO

Stanza

HARDCOPIES/POD

Amazon

If you find Constitutional Law 101, for the American Patriot worthwhile, I have two requests.  One is that you inform everyone you know that it exists and how to obtain it, and ask them to do the same so that we can make the book known to as many Americans as possible.  This goes double for all Tea Partiers you know, because most of them have their own lists containing the names of like-minded folks.  Second, write a positive review on Amazon.

Extended Table of Contents

Preface

Fear of the future.

How to fight that fear.

Introduction

Why I’ve written Constitutional Law 101, for the American Patriot.

The underlying leitmotif running through American political philosophy and jurisprudence.

What led to my discovering and experiencing the consequences of that leitmotif, as law student, lawyer and law professor.

My formulation of the central question: What subverted America’s founding principles of individual rights and their corollary, limited government?

And the brilliant answer provided by the late Ayn Rand.

What is “constitutional law”?

1.  Formation of the American Republic

Genesis of the American Republic, before the Declaration of Independence.

The Declaration of Independence, as moral and political statement.

The text and meaning of the Declaration of Independence, with some little-discussed emphases.

Our Founding Fathers, among them some surprising figures.

First Continental Congress, an important but troubled beginning.

Constitutional Convention of 1787, off in another direction.

Structure and content of the Constitution, a brilliant conception.

The ratification battle in the Federalist and elsewhere, revealing amazing foresight by leading Founders.

James Madison’s monumental achievement in the first Congress.

Debates over the Bill of Rights’ ratification, and the sometime narrowness of its approval.

2. The American Constitutional System: Judicial review, federalism, separation of powers

John Marshall the judicial giant, and the genesis of judicial review.

Marbury v. Madison, where Chief Justice John Marshall established the principle of Judicial Review, the Supreme Court came to be the Constitution’s final arbiter, and the Supreme Court of the United States the “more equal” branch.

“Originalism” and other methods of constitutional interpretation, pragmatic and otherwise.

The “Living Constitution.”

Federalism.  The relationship and tensions between the federal and state governments, showing federal legislation affecting matters which should be within the Tenth Amendment powers of the states.  How the Court thwarted Arkansas voters, and how the Court’s conservatives thwarted Congress in the Brady Law gun case of Printz v. United States.

Separation of powers. The relationship and tensions between the three supposedly co-equal branches of government — legislative, executive and judicial — showing how the “more equal” Supreme Court refereed battles between the President and Congress and, in the bargain, expanded its own powers.  For example, President Truman’s seizure of the steel mills during the Korean War and the House of Representatives’ refusal to seat a playboy Congressman.

Griswold v. Connecticut, illustrating ignored federalism, violated separation of powers and run- amok judicial review.

 3.  Congress and its commerce and war powers

The source, nature, and scope of Congress’s seemingly unlimited power.

Early “Bank controversy,” with Washington refereeing between Jefferson and Hamilton.

Second bank of the United States, the “Necessary and Proper Clause” and birth of the Congressional-power monster.

Commerce Clause, steamboats, lottery tickets and home-grown wheat.

More Commerce Clause, Bobby Kennedy’s “moral wrongs,” hamburgers, motels, and how some Court conservatives won two small victories against the Clause’s tsunami.

Still more Commerce Clause, and buying health insurance or going to jail.

Congress’s war powers, including draftees dying in World War I trenches and the infamous Korematsu case’s incarceration of American citizens during World War II.

4. The President’s powers: Domestic, foreign and war

The President’s “chief executive” and “faithfully execute” power, including President Obama’s appointment of “czars.” 

The embargo on selling arms abroad during the Chaco War, loss of American sovereignty to the United Nations, one United States Senator's attempt to prevent the U.S. from becoming just another “state” on a planet with no individual countries, and the Supreme Court's “reassurance” that treaties and the dangerous “executive agreements” don't override domestic United States law.

The President as Commander-in-Chief, undercut by the Supreme Court in its four Twenty-First Century terrorism cases which have nearly emasculated his war-fighting powers by treating al-Qaeda terrorists like common criminals, granting them constitutional rights in defiance of controlling precedent and remaking the judiciary into America's ultimate Generalissimo.

5.  The Judiciary And Its Powers

The source, nature, and scope of judicial power, as provided in the Constitution and federal statutes.

Limitations, if any, on judicial power.  For example, are courts able to render opinions that are only advisory; may they simply decide not to decide; are there questions too “political” to be decided; can just anyone sue, and what do tomatoes have to do with the federal judicial power?

 6.  Intergovernmental relations

The “horizontal” relationship between the states.

State compacts.

The requirement of “full faith and credit” in our constitutional system of “joint sovereignty.”

Extradition.

Constitutional limitations on Congress"s power

Textual limitations on the power of Congress, including suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, to which alien terrorists now captured on the field of battle are apparently entitled.

Constitutional limitations on the power of the states

The few textual constitutional limitations of the power of the states, including the prohibition against impairment of contracts—which didn't prevent the Supreme Court from upholding the Minnesota Mortgage Death Act in the heyday of the New Deal.

Racially restrictive realty covenants.

7. Prohibitions On Both Congress And The States: The Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment

Introduction to the Bill of Rights.

By what trick of judicial legerdemain did the Bill of Rights—whose First Amendment begins “Congress shall make no law. . . .”—come to limit the powers reserved to the states under the Tenth Amendment?

The “Incorporation Doctrine.”

The myth of “Substantive” Due Process, and its impact on laundresses, anarchists,  killers; also, contraception, and abortion.

8. The First Amendment

Religion. Who's correct about “establishment of religion,” the Founders or the ACLU and the Supreme Court?  And to know whether the “free exercise” of religion is really free, ask the Mormons.           

Speech. Of the various categories of speech—political, obscene, threatening, commercial, symbolic, employee, defamatory, indecent—which are more, and which less, protected— and why?  What about subversive advocacy, and political campaigns?

9. The Eighth Amendment

Cruel and Unusual Punishment, including why drawing and quartering is no longer acceptable, but vegetarian meals for murderous prisoners might be required.

10. Equal protection of the law

The Emancipation Proclamation to the Fifteenth Amendment, including various Civil Rights.

Racial discrimination, white juries, and inter-racial marriages

The racism euphemistically called “affirmative action.”

Racial segregation, including Brown v. Board of Education (I), desegregation with “all deliberate speed,” and the dozen-year school desegregation case.

Does desegregating a school mean that it must then be forcibly integrated?

Conclusion

Political party platforms.

Final thoughts about Constitutional Law 101, for the American Patriot’s leitmotif, and the destruction wrought by the “inner contradiction.”

About the author

A brief biography of Henry Mark Holzer

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[*] Much of the substance of this book derives from that series of lectures and from my essays and books.