The Arizona Immigration Law

Andrew McCarthy has written an interesting article on the Arizona immigration law for the National Review. Here is a part of his article:

It [Constitution] was to repel invasion by aliens who challenged our sovereign authority to set the conditions of their presence on our soil. For that reason, border security has always been the highest prerogative of sovereignty. Immune from judicial interference, it answers to no warrant requirement. At the border, the federal government does not need probable cause — or any cause at all — to inquire into a person’s citizenship, immigration status, or purpose for attempting to enter our country. Agents can detain immigrants and citizens alike. They can perform bodily searches. They can go through every inch of a would-be entrant’s belongings, read his mail, and scrutinize the contents of his computer. A person subjected to this treatment may find it degrading or unfair, but the courts have nothing to say about it. At stake, after all, is the irreducible core of a sovereign people’s power to protect themselves from intruders. At the southern border, however, the federal government has forfeited its power. As a result, Arizonans are imperiled by Mexico’s brutally violent warring factions. They are crushed economically as the magnet effect of our unsustainable welfare state falls disproportionately on their schools, hospitals, jails, and pocketbooks, to the tune of nearly $2 billion per year.

The question is, what does the Constitution say? It appears the text of the Constitution supports the immigration law:

Article I, Section 8-Powers of Congress

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions; To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

To repel invasions precisely pertains to the immigration problem Arizona is having. No one has the right to be here illegally. Does not the law prohibit racial profiling? Then why not provide ID upon probable cause?

Article IV, Section 4-Republican government

The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.

No doubt the general legislature has failed to protect Arizona from domestic violence. The burden of illegal immigrants has afflicted domestic violence; from drugs, increased tax burden, to health services. The government has been guilty of perpetuating this lack of security since John F. Kennedy.

People are incensed by this law. Is it too much to ask, to carry an ID on your person?

Chuck Norris, Holding Up The Fort

Not only does Chuck use the usual hard-core Christians to promote teaching the Bible in schools, I like how he shows George Washington's views, who, no doubt would be sick at our governments separation of church and state:

George Washington once addressed Delaware chiefs among the Lenape Indians who desired to train their young people in American schools, saying, "You do well to wish to learn our arts and ways of life, and above all, the religion of Jesus Christ. These will make you a greater and happier people than you are. Congress will do everything they can to assist you in this wise intention."[italics mine]

Chuck points out the Congress as a whole, promoted Bible Teaching in all schools:

In 1789, during the same time when the First Amendment was written, then President Washington signed into law the Northwest Ordinance, which states, "Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged."

The Supreme Court, or any court, to ignore this declaration by Washington and Congress, is disgraceful!

Chuck, correctly quotes Gouverneur Morris, singularly, perhaps the most influential delegate to the Constitution:

Gouverneur Morris, who represented Pennsylvania at the convention in Philadelphia in 1787 and subsequently signed the U.S. Constitution, said, "Religion is the only solid basis of good morals; therefore education should teach the precepts of religion and the duties of man towards God." [Gouverneur Morris, 1792, Notes on the Form of a Constitution for France.]

The myth of separation of church and state, mandating state office holders be Christians, and State Constitutions themselves, declare we were formed a Christian Nation.

More Lack of Constitutional Discernment from Justices Stevens, Ginsberg, and Sotomayor

The Supreme Court correctly supports a Cross on Federal Land in California. Justice Stevens dissented, along with Justices Ginsburg and Sotomayor. Stevens argued that it was proper for the district court to find that the land transfer statute violated its original injunction. He concluded that the land transfer statute did not end government endorsement of the cross:

First, after the transfer it would continue to appear to any reasonable observer that the Government has endorsed the cross, notwithstanding that the name has changed on the title to a small patch of underlying land. This is particularly true because the Government has designated the cross as a national memorial, and that endorsement continues regardless of whether the cross sits on public or private land. Second, the transfer continues the existing government endorsement of the cross because the purpose of the transfer is to preserve its display.[italics mine]

Effectively, Stevens would have to block the actions of the Continental Congress, and the framers as individuals:

[Calling for a day of thanksgiving and prayer for the victory at Saratoga] "Forasmuch as it is the indispensable duty of all men to adore the superintending providence of Almighty God; to acknowledge with gratitude their obligation to him for benefits received . . . [to offer] humble and earnest supplication that it may please God, through the merits of Jesus Christ, mercifully to forgive and blot [our sins] out of remembrance . . . and to prosper the means of religion for the promotion and enlargement of that kingdom which consisteth 'in righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.'"

-Continental Congress. Journals of the Continental Congress at Vol 18, p. 950.

"I do by and with the Advice of the Council appoint [11 Dec. 1783] to be religiously observed as a Day of Thanksgiving and Prayer, that all the People may then assemble to celebrate . . . that he hath been pleased to continue to us the Light of the blessed Gospel; . . . That we also offer up fervent Supplications . . . to cause pure Religion and Virtue to flourish . . . and to fill the World with his glory."

-John Hancock. Proclamation from Boston, November 8, 1783, from an original in the Evans collection, #18025, by the American Antiquarian Soc.

Here, John Adams promotes religion in all areas of society:

"Religion and virtue are the only foundations, not only of republicanism and of all free government, but of social felicity under all governments and in all the combinations of human society."

-John Adams, August 28, 1811. The Works of John Adams-Second President of the United States (Boston: Little, Brown, & Co., 1854), Vol. IX, p. 636.

These justices make the error equating government endorsing religion with an establishment of a particular sect. Common sense dictates prohibiting the latter.

Another Op-Ed From University of Chicago Law Professor Geoffrey Stone on Easter Sunday

Laurie Higgins has written a common sense article in the Chicago Tribune on Geoffrey Stone's "The crazy imaginings of the Texas Board of Education," which sought to warn an unsuspecting America that there is "a coterie of Christian evangelicals who are attempting to infiltrate our educational system to brainwash our youth."

Stone's knowledge of the Founding Fathers is typical of our leaders, and University Professors, however, the analogy Higgins makes is noteworthy:

It has become so commonplace to read denigrating comments about Christians that the offensiveness of such comments barely registers on our tolerance meters. Imagine hearing these words come from the mouth of a professor at a leading American university on Passover: "a coterie of Reform Jews is attempting to infiltrate our educational system to brainwash our youth." Or imagine these words appearing in the Trib on Eid al-Fitr, the Islamic celebration that concludes Ramadan: "a coterie of Muslims is attempting to infiltrate our educational system to brainwash our youth."

Stone's words almost sound bigoted and intolerant. When you look around at our leftist-dominated educational system, his words are laughable.

An Uninformed Judge?

National Review Online writer, David French, posted a National Day of Prayer that Franklin D. Roosevelt issued June 6, 1944. Interesting, or embarassing if you will, that U.S. District Court Judge Barbara Crabb recently struck down a National Day of Prayer; apparently, this uninformed judge would have struck down FDR's prayer.

Here is what the judge wrote:

It goes beyond mere “acknowledgment” of religion because its sole purpose is to encourage all citizens to engage in prayer, an inherently religious exercise that serves no secular function in this context. . . . In this instance, the government has taken sides on a matter that must be left to individual conscience.

Here is FDR's prayer, speaking to Americans for the first time about the D-Day landings:

My Fellow Americans:

Last night, when I spoke with you about the fall of Rome, I knew at that moment that troops of the United States and our Allies were crossing the Channel in another and greater operation. It has come to pass with success thus far.

And so, in this poignant hour, I ask you to join with me in prayer:

Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity.

Lead them straight and true; give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith.

They will need Thy blessings. Their road will be long and hard. For the enemy is strong. He may hurl back our forces. Success may not come with rushing speed, but we shall return again and again; and we know that by Thy grace, and by the righteousness of our cause, our sons will triumph.

They will be sore tried, by night and by day, without rest — until the victory is won. The darkness will be rent by noise and flame. Men’s souls will be shaken with the violences of war.

For these men are lately drawn from the ways of peace. They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate. They fight to let justice arise, and tolerance and goodwill among all Thy people. They yearn but for the end of battle, for their return to the haven of home.

Some will never return. Embrace these, Father, and receive them, Thy heroic servants, into Thy kingdom.

And for us at home — fathers, mothers, children, wives, sisters, and brothers of brave men overseas, whose thoughts and prayers are ever with them — help us, Almighty God, to rededicate ourselves in renewed faith in Thee in this hour of great sacrifice.

Many people have urged that I call the nation into a single day of special prayer. But because the road is long and the desire is great, I ask that our people devote themselves in a continuance of prayer. As we rise to each new day, and again when each day is spent, let words of prayer be on our lips, invoking Thy help to our efforts.

Give us strength, too — strength in our daily tasks, to redouble the contributions we make in the physical and the material support of our armed forces.

And let our hearts be stout, to wait out the long travail, to bear sorrows that may come, to impart our courage unto our sons wheresoever they may be.

And, O Lord, give us faith. Give us faith in Thee; faith in our sons; faith in each other; faith in our united crusade. Let not the keeness of our spirit ever be dulled. Let not the impacts of temporary events, of temporal matters of but fleeting moment — let not these deter us in our unconquerable purpose.

With Thy blessing, we shall prevail over the unholy forces of our enemy. Help us to conquer the apostles of greed and racial arrogances. Lead us to the saving of our country, and with our sister nations into a world unity that will spell a sure peace — a peace invulnerable to the schemings of unworthy men. And a peace that will let all of men live in freedom, reaping the just rewards of their honest toil.

Thy will be done, Almighty God.

Amen.

I would recommend Judge Crabb find a new occupation. It appears she's not very good at what she currently does.

The Top Founding Fathers

Mark in Spokane from American Creation, has written a post ranking the Founding Fathers. My list is more exhaustive; instead of the usual suspects, a more thorough investigation will send the popular names down the list.

Brian Tubbs said...

"I agree with your choice of GW to top the list. I don't see frankly how anyone could dispute that."

I can't see George Washington in the top three! He was more of a leader, and figurehead, rather than expositor of Founding principles.

Here is my list:

1) Roger Sherman. Sherman and Hamilton could be interchangeable, however, Sherman is the only man to sign all four governing documents of the Republic; The Continental Association of 1774; The Declaration of Independence; The Articles of Confederation; and The Federal Constitution. He was on the drafting board for the Declaration of Independence, presented the Great Compromise of 1787, resulting in a Senate and House of Representatives, was on the Committee which formed the First Amendment, and was a professor of religion at Yale. He served on many committees and held the most offices of anyone. He was also loved by everyone. Thomas Jefferson described Roger Sherman as "a man who never said a foolish thing in his life."

2) John Marshall. Presidents can head a governmental department for a maximum of eight years. Marshall led the Judicial Branch for thirty-four years! His decisions shaped our law for one-hundred years. He established the principal of Judicial Review, the power to strike down laws that violate the Constitution. He ended the Revolutionary War as a full Colonel, fighting at: Great Bridge, Brandywine, Germantown, and Monmouth. Some of his posts include: Minister to France, Secretary of State, Secretary of War, and finally Chief Justice. Marshall also ratified the Constitution.

3) Alexander Hamilton. Our financial system is from his mind. Revolutionary Captain, head of the storming party at Yorktown, Secretary of the Treasury, main expositor of the Constitution, etc.

4) James Madison. He helped draft the Constitution, however, was not the principal author, as some claim him to be. That title should go to Charles Pinckney. He was also President and Secretary of State.

5) George Washington. Although not college educated, he was the leader of the new nation. A fearless General, who James Monroe said, "If not for his leadership, the Convention would have adjourned unsuccessfully." Surprisingly, he had many enemies.

6) John Adams. A strong patriot; was President, Vice-President, signed the Bill of Rights, and Declaration of Independence.

7) John Jay. Mr. Jay's work for our nation is un-paralled. He would have signed the Declaration of Independence, but was busy writing the Constitution of New York. He served as President of the Continental Congress, Dec. 10, 1778, till he resigned September 28, 1779, to become Minister to Spain. He convinced Spain to give us $170,000 dollars for the revolution. Jay was one of the men who signed the Treaty of Paris on June 23, 1782. Was Secretary of State from 1784-1790. In 1789 Washington offered him any post in the Cabinet, he chose Chief Justice, a post he held until 1795. He was also Governor of New York, and the man behind the Jay Treaty.

8) Samuel Adams. The "Father of the Revolution." The British pardoned only two men during the Revolution; Samuel Adams and John Hancock. His circular letter of 1768 led to the Boston Massacre of 1770. That tells us he was the main instigator of the fight, and if captured, would certainly have been hung. He organized the Boston Tea Party, signed the Declaration, helped draft the Articles of Confederation, and ratified the Constitution.

9) John Dickinson. The "Penman of the Revolution" What Samuel Adams did by action, Dickinson employed with the pen. He gave the colonists the legal justification to break from Great Britain. Upon receiving news of his death, President Thomas Jefferson recognized him as being "among the first of the advocates for the rights of his country when assailed by Great Britain" whose "name will be consecrated in history as one of the great worthies of the revolution." He was the principal author of our first Constitution, that lasted from 1777 to 1790. He was the most famous man in the colonies, who would have wrote the Declaration of Independence had he not been for reconciliation. Dickinson was the Governor of two states.

10). Benjamin Franklin. Apparently, Franklin was a great Diplomat, who procurred vital assistance from the French. A strong supporter of liberty.

Thomas Jefferson was a relatively small player, especially regarding the Constitution and Bill of Rights. His treatment of Washington should not be ignored. He lied about the formation of the Declaration of Independence, writing, "I took from no other sources." However, he most definitely used Mason's Declaration of Rights.

Ron Paul's Flawed Interpretation

I am not unaware of Ron Paul's popularity, however, I feel his Constitutional Interpretation, thereby, his view, and the Republican Party view, of the health bill, is flawed. His Libertarianism was rejected by every Founding Father. The States should not be left alone to act as they please, thus, no law is Constitutional that violates The Laws of God.

Here is a synopsis of what I wrote on the latest post on his blog:

"Just ask Alexander Hamilton, George Washington, and the High Federalists, such as: Ames, Sherman, Read, Ellsworth, Bassett, King, et al. who passed the Bank of the United States."

Hamilton's defense of the Bank is in Article I, Section VIII, the last clause. Hamilton called it "implied powers" that shot down Jefferson's understanding, believing the government was unworkable if strictly left to enumerated powers, leaving us an agrarian society, which is what the infidel Jefferson wanted.

The Constitutional mandate for the bill is the same logic mandating taxes.

Hamilton said as long as a bill does not violate the Scriptures, or Divine Law, it's Constitutional.

Deutoronomy 15 mandates the government provide for the poor, and the text says, "you can trade with other nations."

How can people trade with a nation? If the context is "government" then the text appears to mandate Israel's government provide for the poor?"

Hamilton's defense of the Bank of the United States is excellent:

That every power vested in a government is in its nature sovereign, and includes, by force of the term, a right to employ all the means requisite and fairly applicable to the attainment of the ends of such power, and which are not precluded by restrictions and exceptions specified in the Constitution, or not immoral, or not contrary to the essential ends of political society... The whole turn of the clause containing it indicates, that it was the intent of the Convention, by that clause, to give a liberal latitude to the exercise of the specified powers. The expressions have peculiar comprehensiveness. They are thought to make all laws necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by the Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof."..This restrictive interpretation of the word necessary is also contrary to this sound maxim of construction, namely, that the powers contained in a constitution of government, especially those which concern the general administration of the affairs of a country, its finances, trade, defense, etc., ought to be construed liberally in advancement of the public good..The means by which national exigencies are to be provided for, national inconveniences obviated, national prosperity promoted, are of such infinite variety, extent, and complexity, that there must of necessity be great latitude of discretion in the selection and application of those means...

Hamilton continues:

...The truth is, that difficulties on this point are inherent in the nature of the Federal Constitution; they result inevitably from a division of the legislative power. The consequence of this division is, that there will be cases clearly within the power of the national government; others, clearly without its powers; and a third class, which will leave room for controversy and difference of opinion, and concerning which a reasonable latitude of judgment must be allowed. But the doctrine which is contended for is not chargeable with the consequences imputed to it. It does not affirm that the national government is sovereign in all respects, but that it is sovereign to a certain extent; that is, to the extent of the objects of its specified powers. It leaves, therefore, a criterion of what is constitutional, and of what is not so. This criterion is the end, to which the measure relates as a mean. If the end be clearly comprehended within any of the specified powers, and if the measure have an obvious relation to that end, and is not forbidden by any particular provision of the Constitution, it may safely be deemed to come within the compass of the national authority. There is also this further criterion, which may materially assist the decision: Does the proposed measure abridge a pre-existing right of any State or of any individual? If it does not, there is a strong presumption in favor of its constitutionality, and slighter relations to any declared object of the Constitution may be permitted to turn the scale.[bold face mine]

-Hamilton's Opinion as to the Constitutionality of the Bank of the United States : 1791

As long as any Act of Congress does not violate the Scriptures, nor contradict the very text of the Constitution, it may be legal. Furthermore, Hamilton gives a defense of corporations, that many neocons, and liberals have used to fleece this nation:

"To erect a corporation, is to substitute a legal or artificial for a natural person, and where a number are concerned, to give them individuality. To that legal or artificial person, once created, the common law of every State, of itself, annexes all those incidents and attributes which are represented as a prostration of the main pillars of their jurisprudence. It is certainly not accurate to say, that the erection of a corporation is against those different head's of the State laws; because it is rather to create a kind of person or entity, to which they are inapplicable, and to which the general rule of those laws assign a different regimen. The laws of alienage cannot apply to an artificial person, because it can have no country; those of descent cannot apply to it, because it can have no heirs; those of escheat are foreign from it, for the same reason; those of forfeiture, because it cannot commit a crime; those of distribution, because, though it may be dissolved, it cannot die."

Here, Hamilton shoots down the reasoning of enumeration, by another Jeffersonian; the Attorney General, Edmund Randolph:

"The Attorney General undertakes in the next place to show, that the power of erecting corporations is not involved in any of the specified powers of legislation confided to the national government. In order to this, he has attempted an enumeration of the particulars which he supposes to be comprehended under the several heads of the Covers to lay and collect taxes, &c.; to borrow money on the credit of the United States, to regulate commerce with sovereign nations; between the States, and with the Indian tribes, to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory of other property belonging to the United States. The design of which enumeration is to show, what is included under those different heads of power, and negatively, that the power of erecting corporations is not included. The truth of this inference or conclusion must depend on the accuracy of the enumeration. If it can be shown that the enumeration is defective, the inference is destroyed. To do this will be attended with no difficulty." [bold face mine]

He was a confident man. Here, Hamilton believed an individual, acting as a corporation could conduct interstate commerce:

The Secretary of State [Thomas Jefferson] objects to the relation here insisted upon by the following mode of reasoning: To erect a bank, says he, and to regulate commerce, are very different acts. He who creates a bank, creates a subject of commerce, so does he who snakes a bushel of wheat, or digs a dollar out of the Nines, yet neither of these persons regulates commerce thereby. To make a thing which may be bought and sold, is not to prescribe regulations for buying and selling. The Secretary of State further argues, that if this was a regulation of commerce, it would be void, as extending as much to the internal commerce of every State as to its external. But what regulation of commerce does not extend to the internal commerce of every State ? What are all the duties upon imported articles amounting to prohibitions, but so many bounties upon domestic manufactures, affecting the interests of different classes of citizens, in different ways? What are all the provisions in the Coasting Acts which relate to the trade between district and district of the same State? In short, what regulation of trade between the States but must affect the internal trade of each State? What can operate upon the whole, but must extend to every part? The relation of a bank to the execution of the powers that concern the common defense has been anticipated. It has been noted, that, at this very moment, the aid of such an institution is essential to the measures to be pursued for the protection of our frontiers."[bold face mine]

You can see why Jefferson called him a "Colossus." He could defeat the Jeffersonians all by himself.

Happy Birthday Thomas Jefferson; Hypocrite

Today, April 13th, is the 267th birthday of Founding Father Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826). The man who had the audacity to personally slander President George Washington, while working for him! Yes, it's true. Only an arrogant fool would attempt such a thing; only Thomas Jefferson. The principal author of the Declaration of Independence, but by the deferral of John Adams, hired James Madison's college buddy, Philip Freneau as his assistant to write public slanders against George Washington.

According to renowned biographer Paul Leicester Ford; the biographer of Washington, and excellent editor of Jefferson's works, the French Minister claimed the most slanderous public attacks were done by Jefferson himself! Late in life, Freneau claimed some of the attacks were written by the Secretary of State.

How unbelievable? Washington appoints him Secretary of State, even though he's from the opposite party, then, TJ begins to publicly slander the President who appointed him.

Another bit of sad commentary on this event, has James Madison in on the entire episode.

David Barton on Glenn Beck Show, April 9th, 2010

It appears David Barton is mis-representing the same letter written by John Adams; again. This is the second time he has done this on The Glenn Beck Show. Unless I am reading this wrong, Adams is not exalting Christianity, rather, he is mocking man, who is duped into believing a questionable part of it. Here is the portion of the letter David Barton is referring to:

"But my friend there is something very serious in this business. The Holy Ghost carries on the whole Christian system in this Earth. Not a baptism, not a marriage, not a Sacrament can be administered but by the Holy Ghost, who is transmitted from age to age by laying the hands of the Bishop on the heads of candidates for the Ministry. In the same manner as the Holy Ghost is transmitted from monarch to monarch by the holy oil in the vial at Rheims which was brought down from Heaven by a dove and by that other phial [vial] which I have seen in the Tower of London. There is no authority civil or religious: There can be no legitimate government but what is administered by this Holy Ghost. There can be no salvation without it. All without it is rebellion and perdition, or in more orthodox words damnation. Although this is all artifice and cunning in the secret original in the heart, yet they all believe it so sincerely that they would lie down their lives under the ax or the fiery fagots [wood used for burning individuals at the stake] for it. Alas, the poor weak ignorant dupe human nature. There is so much king craft, priest craft, gentlemen’s craft, people’s craft, doctors craft, lawyers craft, merchants craft, tradesmen’s craft, laborers craft and Devil’s craft in the world that it seems a desperate and impractical project to undeceive it."[bold face mine]

-John Adams to Benjamin Rush, December 21, 1809