Topic: Barack Obama Fiddles While Ferguson - and America - Burn
I. Is Barack Obama the Contemporary Roman Emperor Nero?
Regardless of whether this ever happened, the cliche remains the same. The tyrannical Roman emperor Nero was said to have fiddled during a massive fire along the Circus Maximus in Rome which started in the shops, which most claim was to construct his new villa. When I provide for you the details of Nero's notorious reign of terror, you might wish to ask yourselves,
"Is Obama the contemporary Nero?" courtesy of
Biography.
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| Lucius Domitus Ahenobarbus, a.k.a. Nero, Emperor of Rome, Theater Actor and Poet (37-68) |
Nero
Emperor, Theater Actor, Poet (37–68)
As Roman emperor, Nero’s reign was lavish and tyrannical. He killed his mother, persecuted Christians and is said to have "fiddled while Rome burned."
Synopsis
Nero was born in 37 A.D., the nephew of the emperor. After his father’s death, his mother married his uncle and persuaded him to name Nero his successor. Nero took the throne at 17, rebuffed his mother’s attempts to control him, and had her killed. He spent lavishly and behaved inappropriately. He began executing opponents and Christians. In 68, he committed suicide when the empire revolted.
Early Life and Ascent to the Throne
Nero was born as Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, the son of Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus and Agrippina, who was the great-granddaughter of the emperor Augustus. He was educated in the classical tradition by the philosopher Seneca and studied Greek, philosophy and rhetoric.
After Ahenobarbus died in 48 A.D., Agrippina married her uncle, the emperor Claudius. She persuaded him to name Nero as his successor rather than his own son, Britannicus, and to offer his daughter, Octavia, as Nero’s wife, which he did in 50 A.D.
Claudius died in 54 A.D., and it is widely suspected that Agrippina had Claudius poisoned. Nero presented himself to the Senate to deliver a eulogy in Claudius’s honor and was named Emperor of Rome. He took the name Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, and ascended to the throne at the age of 17.
Agrippina’s Influence
Agrippina was domineering and attempted to influence her son’s rule. She was angered by the more moderate advice of Nero’s advisors, his former tutor Seneca and the commander of the Praetorian Guard, Burrus.
Agrippina also tried to assert her authority in Nero’s private life. When Nero began an affair with Claudia Acte, a former slave, and threatened to divorce Octavia, Agrippina advocated for Octavia and demanded that her son dismiss Acte. Although he and Octavia remained married, Nero began living openly with Acte as his wife in spite of his mother’s protests.
After Nero spurned his mother’s influence in both public and private affairs, she was infuriated. She began championing Britannicus, then still a minor, as emperor. However, Britannicus died suddenly in 55, the day before he was to be proclaimed an adult. It is widely assumed that Nero poisoned Britannicus, although Nero claimed that he died from a seizure. Even after Britannicus had died, Agrippina tried to agitate the public against Nero, and Nero banished her from the family palace.
By 58, Nero had dismissed Acte and fallen for Poppaea Sabina, a noblewoman who was married to a member of the Roman aristocracy. He wanted to marry her, but public opinion did not look favorably upon a divorce from Octavia and his mother staunchly opposed it. Fed up with his mother’s interference and no longer content with her removal from the palace, Nero took matters into his own hands. Agrippina was murdered in 59 at Nero’s command.
Nero’s Reign
Until the year 59, Nero was described as a generous and reasonable leader. He eliminated capital punishment, lowered taxes and allowed slaves to bring complaints against their masters. He supported the arts and athletics above gladiator entertainment and gave aid to other cities in crisis. Although he was known for his nighttime frolicking, his actions were good-natured, if irresponsible and self-indulgent.
But after Agrippina’s murder, Nero descended into a hedonic lifestyle that was marked not just by lavish self-indulgence but tyranny. He spent exorbitant amounts of money on artistic pursuits and around 59 A.D., began to give public performances as a poet and lyre player, a significant breach of etiquette for a member of the ruling class.
When Burrus died and Seneca retired in the year 62, Nero divorced Octavia and had her killed, then married Poppaea. Around this time accusations of treason against Nero and the Senate began to surface, and Nero began to react harshly to any form of perceived disloyalty or criticism. One army commander was executed for badmouthing him at a party; another politician was exiled for writing a book that made negative remarks about the Senate. Other rivals were executed in the ensuing years, allowing Nero to reduce opposition and consolidate his power.
The Great Fire
By 64, the scandalous nature of Nero’s artistic antics may have begun to cause controversy, but the public’s attention was diverted by the Great Fire. The fire began in stores at the southeastern end of the Circus Maximus and ravaged Rome for 10 days, decimating 75 percent of the city. Although accidental fires were common at the time, many Romans believed Nero started the fire to make room for his planned villa, the Domus Aurea. Whether or not Nero started the fire, he determined that a guilty party must be found, and he pointed the finger at the Christians, still a new and underground religion. With this accusation, persecution and torture of the Christians began in Rome.
Political Demise and Death
After the Great Fire, Nero resumed plans for the Domus Aurea. In order to finance this project, Nero needed money and set about to get it however he pleased. He sold positions in public office to the highest bidder, increased taxes and took money from the temples. He devalued currency and reinstituted policies to confiscate property in cases of suspected treason.
These new policies resulted in the Pisonian conspiracy, a plot formed in 65 by Gaius Calpurnius Piso, an aristocrat, along with knights, senators, poets and Nero's former mentor, Seneca. They planned to assassinate Nero and crown Piso the ruler of Rome. The plan was discovered, however, and the leading conspirators, as well as many other wealthy Romans, were executed.
Just three years later, in March 68, the governor Gaius Julius Vindex rebelled against Nero's tax policies. He recruited another governor, Servius Sulpicius Galba, to join him and to declare himself emperor. While these forces were defeated and Galba was declared a public enemy, support for him increased, despite his categorization as a public enemy. Even Nero’s own bodyguards defected in support of Galba.
Fearing that his demise was imminent, Nero fled. He planned to head east, where many provinces were still loyal to him, but had to abandon the plan after his officers refused to obey him. He returned to his palace, but his guards and friends had left. He ultimately received word that the Senate had condemned him to death by beating and so he decided to commit suicide. Unable to carry out the deed by himself, however, his secretary, Epaphroditos, assisted him. As he died, Nero was said to have exclaimed, ‘What an artist dies in me!' He was the last of the Julio-Claudian emperors.
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Indeed, the similarities are not only frightening, but uncanny. And like all tyrants to ever rule as absolutists throughout human history, Nero fell. He committed suicide once it was clear that if he did not, he would be done in by his enemies. If John F. Kennedy was assassinated by the Chicago Mafia should one choose to believe the hitman named
James Files who claims to have fired the single bullet which killed him for obstruction of the corrupt organized crime and labor bosses, should one consider that one day, Obama might meet his demise that bullet's edge in the same light? After all, the Secret Service recently admitted that 40 instances of White House fence jumpers have occurred and were kept mum to the media. While on vacation in Martha's Vineyard, SWAT Team forces likely from Boston accompanied the Secret Service as part of the Obama family's security detail.
II. The Democratic Party and Orwellianism: All Animals are Equal, But Some Animals are More Equal than Others
"A house divided against itself cannot stand."
- Abraham Lincoln
"I have a dream that one day my four children will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
For nearly a century and a half, the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) has demonstrated its evil through intolerance of all to which it hates, among such peoples being the black community and Jews. Today, the white community is under attack for being guilty by dent of its skin color, and of more than 400 years of "white privilege" by our own government, which has successfully manufactured a socialist United States of America. How better could they achieve their goal of destroying popular sovereignty through Marxist-style class warfare than to employ The New York Times, who just metaphorically lynched Sgt. Darren Wilson for doing his duty as a police officer by placing in their newspaper his home address and information so that the rabid subhuman mongrels in Ferguson, MO can track him down and slaughter he and his family?
There was never any intent upon the rioters in Ferguson to stand down if the grand jury had decided to indict him. They were intent upon one goal only, which was to slaughter as many American citizens who were white, who shared his race and skin color with Wilson as a symbolic gesture that anarchy through far left-wing Jacobin designs would render social justice. Having spoken with several dear friends who are part of the black community, all of them share this common theme, that America is one nation under God. This includes one former NFL player, Albert Haynesworth, who has turned around his life after many years where he had lost his way, as he once was married to a dear friend of mine from high school. I have also spoken to others, also black, who declared that they have no intention of seeking an end to racial class warfare because then their cause is lost. Sadly, not only has Ferguson, MO proven that racial class warfare is a dead end street leading deeper into government's plantation, the Obama administration has usurped the role as both Jim Crow and Simon Legree while Revs. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson continue to demonstrate how they sold them down river to the worst slavery they will ever know.
If conservative black Americans like Sen. Tim Scott, who is the first popularly-elected U.S. Senator to win such an election of his race from the South, and Congresswoman-elect Mia Love from Utah as the first black female elected to her position in the GOP's history are considered "Uncle Toms" because "They are not black enough" by the Democratic Party as a whole, the black supremacists in the civil rights Politburo and finally those who suffer the most living in squalor amid morbid poverty, than America I fear has been lost because the house is divided in full.
I originally replied on my Facebook page this very commentary to an interview former U.S. Rep. Allen West, Ret. Col. U.S. Army, discussed on Fox News on the subject of Ferguson. I want to share with you what it is Col. West stated, a man who also attended the University of Tennessee just as I did and who could just as easily play the race card by a feckless declaration that he is a victim to history.
I have the utmost respect for Col. West and am ashamed that the Democrats used a common military tactic for interrogation as a show of violence against the Islamic jihadists by an Uncle Tom member of the black community. If I were to compare what we are being forced to witness across the nation today, this likely will metastasize into the American cover of the United Kingdom's Winter of Discontent of 1978/9. Rioting diffused overnight to large cities nationally, including protests just last night in downtown Knoxville and in Nashville about three hours to my west on I-40. The danger with the Ferguson protests is far worse than what Britain faced leading into the Thatcher Government in 1979, as multiple left-wing, communist, anarchists and yes, Islamic terrorist groups have deployed their minions to participate in what could destroy this nation. Why this will be worse than the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s-60s is due to the unending media coverage sensationalizing class warfare and guiding the left-wing lunatic fringe into acting dangerously as if mob rule is their mandate.
III. If Black Americans are Conservatives, Socialists Will Never Consider Them "True Blacks"
From 1863 through the 1968 elections, the issue of civil rights was dominated by the GOP. Insidiously, President Lyndon B. Johnson, a virulent racist with a track record that is an indictment upon his own character, signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1965, effectively ceding the South to the GOP while brokering the unholy partnership with Northerners who are still far more racist than any social contingent where I reside. His distrust of Martin Luther King, Jr. is noted today when one understands LBJ ordered the FBI to tap MLK's phones and to spy on him. Margaret Sanger, the whore of Babylon and supreme heroine of militant feminism nationally, might have been the most virulent racist in American history as she not only wanted to exterminated among others, "the unfit" black peoples of the world, but "morons", "human weeds" and many, many others. Having checked each quote to verify their authenticity, I want you each to read for just a moment what both LBJ and Sanger stated that doomed the black community to government's design to exterminate them through medical and social eugenics.
Margaret Sanger truly was a libertine type, marrying wealthy men to achieve her goals while sleeping promiscuously with multiple partners at a time. She also associated herself with the New Jersey women's KKK chapter, which you may find below as well.
Socialists would not approve how in this photograph, Sanger is delivering her speech before the KKK chapter of Silver Lake, NJ, which comprised of women. It would be, in echoing Al Gore, "an inconvenient truth" to demonstrate to the world that aborting the unborn child is not at all an act of compassion, but the intention of population control through mankind's racial selectivity.
The next one only proves she did not preclude all other races from her uncanny bigotry, treachery and deceit through her public persona:
There can be no doubt then that among the iconic figures of the radical American left-wing, Sanger may have set the standard for what would be to come. If anyone ever doubts that the Democratic Party is no longer the same one which fought to maintain the peculiar institution of slavery and manifested the enigma of Jim Crow, President Obama is the most emblematic of the Sanger legacy of any other politician in American history. The trouble therein lies in how he can conceal his true intentions as a man who claims he is what some today would claim as a racist term, a mulatto, or what political correctness today demand to be referred to as "of mixed race".
There should not be any question as to why Democrats grow virulently offended and taken aback by black men and women who are conservatives. This hearkens to the party's heritage predating the Civil War to the Age of Jackson. It always has declared itself as the party catering to "the common man", but that term has always been the most malleable, duplicitous term in the nation's political history. There are three videos I wish to present that demonstrate why conservative blacks who refuse to yield to socialist repression of compulsory votes for Democrats or face the wrath of the mass left-wing dominated media.
The first video is of Tim Scott on MSNBC. It is a beautiful answer from a man who is a true progressive, not a politician regressing to an American dominated by Jim Crow and a Confederacy bent upon maintaining its peculiar institution or to negate the rule of law and secede from the Union.
Mia Love, the congresswoman-elect from Utah, has faced far worse racism by socialists than even Sen. Scott, the South's first elected U.S. Senator. It is atrocious what she is enduring, a woman married to a white man, which has grown into a very hypocritical issue of consternation by Democrats.
You cannot teach class to people beyond a point of no return. Class is a trait instilled by one's parents. Dodging on multiple occasions questions of her race by speaking upon the core issues we conservatives champion - smaller government, lower taxes and a governing body which answers to we the people - she and Sen. Scott best exemplify the great movement that our generation born and raised during the Reagan Revolution now exemplify. We were the first who by history's gift of our birth to reject racism institutionally.
No one must ever kill another due to his or her skin, to target by race or creed and gender or to govern under the socialist duplicity of societal unity through demographic partitions.
Why then must the left-wing radicals continue to denounce black conservatives for their right to choice? It is because under socialism, the right to choose for the individual is not permitted. It is therefore why I choose to include Dr. King's epic speech from 28 August 1963,
"I Have a Dream". Dr. King wanted peace; Al Sharpton and Barack Obama are cashing in by hedging their bets that through violence, Atlas will be forced to shrug.
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IV. A Stern Warning by James Madison from Beyond the Open Grave
Most Americans with any breadth of historical knowledge understand that James Madison (1756-36) was not only our fourth president of the United States (1809-17), but the principle
"Father of the Constitution". He also served under the pseudonym PUBLIUS as one of the three founders who authored
The Federalist Papers. Perhaps no other American of yesterday will ever better echo the dangers we have breached than those which
"The Great Little Madison" warned. This piece,
Federal Papers No. 56, may perhaps have foretold the fall of our shining city upon a hill.
The Structure of the Government Must Furnish the Proper Checks and Balances Between the Different Departments
Independent Journal
Wednesday, February 6, 1788
[James Madison]
To the People of the State of New York:
TO WHAT expedient, then, shall we finally resort, for maintaining in practice the necessary partition of power among the several departments, as laid down in the Constitution? The only answer that can be given is, that as all these exterior provisions are found to be inadequate, the defect must be supplied, by so contriving the interior structure of the government as that its several constituent parts may, by their mutual relations, be the means of keeping each other in their proper places. Without presuming to undertake a full development of this important idea, I will hazard a few general observations, which may perhaps place it in a clearer light, and enable us to form a more correct judgment of the principles and structure of the government planned by the convention.
In order to lay a due foundation for that separate and distinct exercise of the different powers of government, which to a certain extent is admitted on all hands to be essential to the preservation of liberty, it is evident that each department should have a will of its own; and consequently should be so constituted that the members of each should have as little agency as possible in the appointment of the members of the others. Were this principle rigorously adhered to, it would require that all the appointments for the supreme executive, legislative, and judiciary magistracies should be drawn from the same fountain of authority, the people, through channels having no communication whatever with one another. Perhaps such a plan of constructing the several departments would be less difficult in practice than it may in contemplation appear. Some difficulties, however, and some additional expense would attend the execution of it. Some deviations, therefore, from the principle must be admitted. In the constitution of the judiciary department in particular, it might be inexpedient to insist rigorously on the principle: first, because peculiar qualifications being essential in the members, the primary consideration ought to be to select that mode of choice which best secures these qualifications; secondly, because the permanent tenure by which the appointments are held in that department, must soon destroy all sense of dependence on the authority conferring them.
It is equally evident, that the members of each department should be as little dependent as possible on those of the others, for the emoluments annexed to their offices. Were the executive magistrate, or the judges, not independent of the legislature in this particular, their independence in every other would be merely nominal.
But the great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department, consists in giving to those who administer each department the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachments of the others. The provision for defense must in this, as in all other cases, be made commensurate to the danger of attack. Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place. It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.
This policy of supplying, by opposite and rival interests, the defect of better motives, might be traced through the whole system of human affairs, private as well as public. We see it particularly displayed in all the subordinate distributions of power, where the constant aim is to divide and arrange the several offices in such a manner as that each may be a check on the other -- that the private interest of every individual may be a sentinel over the public rights. These inventions of prudence cannot be less requisite in the distribution of the supreme powers of the State.
But it is not possible to give to each department an equal power of self-defense. In republican government, the legislative authority necessarily predominates. The remedy for this inconveniency is to divide the legislature into different branches; and to render them, by different modes of election and different principles of action, as little connected with each other as the nature of their common functions and their common dependence on the society will admit. It may even be necessary to guard against dangerous encroachments by still further precautions. As the weight of the legislative authority requires that it should be thus divided, the weakness of the executive may require, on the other hand, that it should be fortified. An absolute negative on the legislature appears, at first view, to be the natural defense with which the executive magistrate should be armed. But perhaps it would be neither altogether safe nor alone sufficient. On ordinary occasions it might not be exerted with the requisite firmness, and on extraordinary occasions it might be perfidiously abused. May not this defect of an absolute negative be supplied by some qualified connection between this weaker department and the weaker branch of the stronger department, by which the latter may be led to support the constitutional rights of the former, without being too much detached from the rights of its own department?
If the principles on which these observations are founded be just, as I persuade myself they are, and they be applied as a criterion to the several State constitutions, and to the federal Constitution it will be found that if the latter does not perfectly correspond with them, the former are infinitely less able to bear such a test.
There are, moreover, two considerations particularly applicable to the federal system of America, which place that system in a very interesting point of view.
First. In a single republic, all the power surrendered by the people is submitted to the administration of a single government; and the usurpations are guarded against by a division of the government into distinct and separate departments. In the compound republic of America, the power surrendered by the people is first divided between two distinct governments, and then the portion allotted to each subdivided among distinct and separate departments. Hence a double security arises to the rights of the people. The different governments will control each other, at the same time that each will be controlled by itself.
Second. It is of great importance in a republic not only to guard the society against the oppression of its rulers, but to guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other part. Different interests necessarily exist in different classes of citizens. If a majority be united by a common interest, the rights of the minority will be insecure. There are but two methods of providing against this evil: the one by creating a will in the community independent of the majority -- that is, of the society itself; the other, by comprehending in the society so many separate descriptions of citizens as will render an unjust combination of a majority of the whole very improbable, if not impracticable. The first method prevails in all governments possessing an hereditary or self-appointed authority. This, at best, is but a precarious security; because a power independent of the society may as well espouse the unjust views of the major, as the rightful interests of the minor party, and may possibly be turned against both parties. The second method will be exemplified in the federal republic of the United States. Whilst all authority in it will be derived from and dependent on the society, the society itself will be broken into so many parts, interests, and classes of citizens, that the rights of individuals, or of the minority, will be in little danger from interested combinations of the majority. In a free government the security for civil rights must be the same as that for religious rights. It consists in the one case in the multiplicity of interests, and in the other in the multiplicity of sects. The degree of security in both cases will depend on the number of interests and sects; and this may be presumed to depend on the extent of country and number of people comprehended under the same government. This view of the subject must particularly recommend a proper federal system to all the sincere and considerate friends of republican government, since it shows that in exact proportion as the territory of the Union may be formed into more circumscribed Confederacies, or States oppressive combinations of a majority will be facilitated: the best security, under the republican forms, for the rights of every class of citizens, will be diminished: and consequently the stability and independence of some member of the government, the only other security, must be proportionately increased. Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been and ever will be pursued until it be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit. In a society under the forms of which the stronger faction can readily unite and oppress the weaker, anarchy may as truly be said to reign as in a state of nature, where the weaker individual is not secured against the violence of the stronger; and as, in the latter state, even the stronger individuals are prompted, by the uncertainty of their condition, to submit to a government which may protect the weak as well as themselves; so, in the former state, will the more powerful factions or parties be gradnally induced, by a like motive, to wish for a government which will protect all parties, the weaker as well as the more powerful. It can be little doubted that if the State of Rhode Island was separated from the Confederacy and left to itself, the insecurity of rights under the popular form of government within such narrow limits would be displayed by such reiterated oppressions of factious majorities that some power altogether independent of the people would soon be called for by the voice of the very factions whose misrule had proved the necessity of it. In the extended republic of the United States, and among the great variety of interests, parties, and sects which it embraces, a coalition of a majority of the whole society could seldom take place on any other principles than those of justice and the general good; whilst there being thus less danger to a minor from the will of a major party, there must be less pretext, also, to provide for the security of the former, by introducing into the government a will not dependent on the latter, or, in other words, a will independent of the society itself. It is no less certain than it is important, notwithstanding the contrary opinions which have been entertained, that the larger the society, provided it lie within a practical sphere, the more duly capable it will be of self-government. And happily for the republican cause, the practicable sphere may be carried to a very great extent, by a judicious modification and mixture of the federal principle.
PUBLIUS
Original URL: http://www.constitution.org/fed/federa51.htm
Maintained: Jon Roland of the Constitution Society
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During a time where America, like many other Western nations, still legalized slavery, such a tide was rising that rejected this scourge of human history. Slavery may be traced as far into the history of world civilizations as one dares to undertake, and no matter the purpose, one man or woman can never own the life of another and rule as a just governor. Upon the Missouri issues of balancing slave states with their free state counterparts some 10 years following his retirement from politics, Thomas Jefferson, by now a very old man retired to his home at Monticello, wrote the following in one of his 18,000 letters to John Holmes, dated April 22 1820. (Courtesy of
The Library of Congress)
Monticello Apr. 22. 20.
I thank you, Dear Sir, for the copy you have been so kind as to send me of the letter to your constituents on the Missouri question. it is a perfect justification to them. I had for a long time ceased to read the newspapers or pay any attention to public affairs, confident they were in good hands, and content to be a passenger in our bark to the shore from which I am not distant. but this momentous question, like a fire bell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror. I considered it at once as the knell of the Union. it is hushed indeed for the moment. but this is a reprieve only, not a final sentence. a geographical line, coinciding with a marked principle, moral and political, once concieved and held up to the angry passions of men, will never be obliterated; and every new irritation will mark it deeper and deeper. I can say with conscious truth that there is not a man on earth who would sacrifice more than I would, to relieve us from this heavy reproach, in any practicable way. the cession of that kind of property, for so it is misnamed, is a bagatelle which would not cost me in a second thought, if, in that way, a general emancipation and expatriation could be effected: and, gradually, and with due sacrifices, I think it might be. but, as it is, we have the wolf by the ear, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other. of one thing I am certain, that as the passage of slaves from one state to another would not make a slave of a single human being who would not be so without it, so their diffusion over a greater surface would make them individually happier and proportionally facilitate the accomplishment of their emancipation, by dividing the burthen on a greater number of co-adjutors. an abstinence too from this act of power would remove the jealousy excited by the undertaking of Congress, to regulate the condition of the different descriptions of men composing a state. this certainly is the exclusive right of every state, which nothing in the constitution has taken from them and given to the general government. could congress, for example say that the Non-freemen of Connecticut, shall be freemen, or that they shall not emigrate into any other state?
I regret that I am now to die in the belief that the useless sacrifice of themselves, by the generation of $76. to acquire self government and happiness to their country, is to be thrown away by the unwise and unworthy passions of their sons, and that my only consolation is to be that I live not to weep over it. if they would but dispassionately weigh the blessings they will throw away against an abstract principle more likely to be effected by union than by scission, they would pause before they would perpetrate this act of suicide on themselves and of treason against the hopes of the world.
to yourself as the faithful advocate of union I tender the offering of my high esteem and respect. Th. Jefferson
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There have been three separate but equal generations in American history which sacrificed all so that their progeny could have liberty. Liberty is not democracy; mob rule by anarchy like we watch to our horror in Ferguson and now even in my hometown of Knoxville, TN at this moment threatens to disquiet the peace for many decades to come. Progress in liberating our continent from our British masters, to fight a civil war and emancipate slaves and to finally prevent global annihilation by the same generation who won World War II and defeated Soviet communism are now threatened in multiple facets for the American people, but none so great as the one where we devour our own people due to racial prejudices and manufactured class warfare. With the rise of the Islamic State's caliphate and as Russia and China consummate their political entente, the currency is being devalued and the global economy threatens to collapses unless dire measures are undertaken soon, will it be my generation which, in Teddy Roosevelt's most famous phrase, "speak(s) softly and carr(ies) a big stick"? Or will America be the catalyst to the dying British Empire's Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in declaring ignominiously that "there is peace in our time"? Composing oneself from the position of strength will at least provide hope that a better solution is at hand; appeasement only rewards evil men and women per the governors' ignorance of the times by ceding away the world before their own turf is swept away with them on top. Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher won the Cold War not because of a final catastrophic global war where "us" kill "them", but through the Barry Goldwater phrase "peace through strength".
I again want to reiterate why I am proud to say I am an American citizen born on June 15, 1981, some five months into the Reagan presidency. When I was delivered, America reeled from a period of incompetence in our government, the expansion of Soviet communism and for the first time in modern history, the rise of radical Islam. The economy was the worst it had ever been, on par at least with the Great Depression, during the phenomenon history calls stagflation. America was a nation having accepted defeatism, living with the mentality that the Soviet Union had transcended human liberty in establishing itself as the most powerful nation on Earth. But history teaches us that with every crisis of confidence, brave men and women rise to the top to stand for those who no longer have a voice as a result. Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher did this for the United States and the United Kingdom, and our special relationship destroyed the most evil empire in human history. America and Britain never fired a shot at a Soviet military officer, but rather demonstrated why liberty and the rights of man will always crush totalitarianism and the suppression of the collective through individual opportunities and encouraged innovation that a free market economy will provide that communism never will. It was morning in America; in Britain, time ran out on socialism. Just two short weeks ago, the world celebrated the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the most enigmatic symbol of all that was wrong under communist dictatorship. We preached no manifest destiny, just the rights of free peoples to determine what course their societies should take under governments of their choices. Aside from the Christmas Day arrest, trial and execution of communist dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu in Romania of 1989, no Eastern Bloc nation that rejected Soviet communism did so through bloodshed. Solidarity defeated the communist establishment in Poland under the leadership of Lech Walesa; the human spirit crying out for liberty and freedom reunited the two Germanys away from Moscow and West German dictator Erich Honecker.
Socialism failed because the people were united as a mass of individuals, not a collective of empty faces and godless gets. The same is transpiring in Hong Kong today, defying the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in Beijing's will to crush its democratic right to self-determination as an autonomous locale. Yet just one short generation has slipped by and it appears that what was achieved in 1989 has now been forgotten. The narrative is not just the same; it is far worse than at anytime in human history due to so many diverse angles at which the evil seeks to achieve its dictatorships at the world's apex. The generation of the 1980s through this past November 4 appeared to reflect those from the 1960s that stood for prescribing justice for all, but liberty to none but a very vocal minority in power. But last month, an unusual phenomenon occurred, where there were more millennials - my age group - who support conservatism by voting Republican, according to
Harvard University Institute of Politics.
Likely Millennial Voters Up-for-Grabs in Upcoming Midterm Elections, Harvard Youth Poll Finds
In Contrast to Four Years Ago, Half of “Likely” Young Voters Prefer a Republican-controlled Congress.
While more 18- to 29- year-olds (50%-43%) surveyed in the IOP’s fall 2014 poll would prefer that Congress be controlled by Democrats instead of Republicans, the numbers improve dramatically for the GOP when only young people who say they will “definitely vote” are studied. Among these likely voters, the IOP’s latest poll shows the preference shifting, with slightly more than half (51%) preferring a Republican-run Congress and 47 percent wanting Democrats to be in charge – a significant change from the IOP’s last midterm election poll in the fall of 2010 when Democratic control was preferred among likely voters 55 percent to 43 percent
President Obama’s Job Approval Rating Decreases, Nears Low-Water mark.
Overall, President Obama’s job performance among America’s 18-29 year-olds has fallen from 47% (April 2014) to 43 percent (53%: disapprove), the second-lowest rating in the IOP polls since he took office (41%: November 2013). Among 18-29 year-olds saying they will “definitely be voting in November,” the president’s job approval rating is 42 percent, with 56% saying they disapprove.
Deep Political Divisions Harden Along Racial Lines.
The IOP’s fall poll finds young whites disapprove of President Obama’s job performance by more than a two-to-one margin (31% approve, 65% disapprove) while African-Americans continue to show a strong loyalty to the president, giving him a 78 percent approval rating (17% disapprove). This approval gap (47 percentage points) among Whites and African-Americans is significantly wider than the 36 percentage point gap in Obama’s approval rating between African-American and whites found in fall 2009 IOP polling. On the question of which party should control Congress, young whites preferred Republicans over Democrats by a 53 to 40 percentage point margin. African- Americans, meanwhile, said by a 68 to 23 point margin that they preferred Democrats running the legislative branch. Among Hispanics, Democrats also fared better, with 59 percent preferring a Democrat-controlled Congress with 34 percent wanting Republican control.
Millennial Interest in Midterm Voting Similar to 2010 Levels; Conservatives Seem More Enthusiastic.
Roughly one-in-four (26%) young Americans under the age of 30 say that they will “definitely be voting” in the fall, a very similar proportion to that seen during a similar time period prior to the 2010 midterm elections (27%: Sept. 2010). Further, compared to the last midterm election of 2010, traditional Republican constituencies seem to be showing more enthusiasm than Democratic ones for participating in the upcoming midterm elections and are statistically more likely to say they will “definitely be voting.” By a significant 12-point margin, 42 percent to 30 percent, a greater proportion of young Republicans say they are definitely going to vote in November than young Democrats, a wider margin that seen in Sept. 2010 IOP polling (38%: Republicans “definitely” voting;; 33%: Democrats “definitely” voting). Others who are more likely to participate than their counterparts include: college students (31% say they will definitely vote), college graduates (40%), males (31%), Romney voters (57%), Whites (29%) and African-Americans (28%) compared to Hispanics (17%).
Hispanic Support for President Obama is Weakening.
Support for the president among young Hispanics, who just two years ago supported Obama over Mitt Romney by 51-points (74% to 23%), appears to be weakening. The president’s job approval rating among Hispanics now sits at the lowest since the IOP began tracking the administration in 2009, with only 49 percent saying they approve (46% disapprove) – a significant drop from six months ago among the young Hispanic community (60%: April 2014) and a sharp slide from five years ago (81%: November 2009).
Concerns Over Terrorism Exist, as Support is Seen for Expanded U.S. Campaign Against ISIS.
Sixty-one percent of millennials say they are “a great deal” or “somewhat” worried about another terrorist attack. Women, by a 66 to 56 percent margin, are more concerned about it than men. Among ethnic and racial lines, Hispanics were most worried, with 66 percent fearing another attack, compared to 61 percent of whites and 54 percent of African-Americans. Republicans (73 percent) are more concerned about an attack than Democrats (62 percent). By nearly a two-to-one margin (39 percent to 20 percent), millennials approve of President Obama’s expansion of the US air campaign against ISIS (38%: unsure; 3%: refused). Men are more likely than women to support the expanded strikes, by a 44 to 33 percent margin, but outright opposition to the campaign is fairly similar, with 19 percent of men and 21 percent of women opposing the strategy.
Social Networking Preferences Vary by Race and Ethnicity.
Even in social media use – common among young people in general – the preferred method of communication differs. White millennials are substantially more likely than African-Americans to use Facebook and Snapchat, and are more than twice as likely as African-Americans to use Pinterest. African- Americans, on the other hand, are more likely than whites to prefer Instagram and Twitter.
The methodology of this study can be determined
here.
V. The Mission Statement for All Americans Wishing to Reclaim their Liberty: Restoring "Morning in America"
Reagan was a populist, but anyone can become one if the will is presence and enough care is undertaken. They called him "The Great Communicator", but in his own words, so eloquently enunciated:
Well, he - and the other "opinion leaders" - were wrong. The fact is, what they called "radical" was really "right"; what they called "dangerous" was just "desperately needed." 'The Great Communicator'
And in all that time I won a nickname - "The Great Communicator." But I never thought it was my style or the words I used that made a difference - it was the content. I wasn't a great communicator, but I communicated great things, and they didn't spring full bloom from my brow, they came from the heart of a great nation - from our experience, our wisdom, and our belief in the principles that have guided us for two centuries.
They called it the Reagan Revolution, and I'll accept that, but for me it always seemed more like the Great Rediscovery: a rediscovery of our values and our common sense.
Is America on the cusp of a new great awakening of the spirit, "a rediscovery of our values and our common sense", or are we being goaded into believing in the voice of the people is "the word", but all we really will be paid is in Fool's Gold? Political alchemy seems to have permeated our world's first experiment in democratic-republicanism, and no one seems certain just what the future might hold. But as I remain optimistic that the good permeates the human spirit overall evil forces, our great movement is just and will be everlasting so long as our progeny learned of our efforts. In closing, I wish to echo Ronald Reagan's Farewell Address of January 11, 1989 - when I was just eight years old - that will forever remain among the most heartwarming and positive speeches ever delivered.
The lesson of all this was, of course, that because we're a great nation, our challenges seem complex. It will always be this way. But as long as we remember our first principles and believe in ourselves, the future will always be ours.
And something else we learned: once you begin a great movement, there's no telling where it'll end. We meant to change a nation, and instead, we changed a world...
... My friends, we did it. We weren't just marking time, we made a difference. We made the city stronger - we made the city freer - and we left her in good hands.
If we the people succeed as the citizen foot soldiers for liberty and democracy, we will have met what President Reagan set as his standard. He will be in Heaven smiling down upon the American people, telling us all, "All in all, not bad. Not bad at all." God will still be blessing America because the American people will have restored His gift to us as a city upon a hill. Therefore, populism was not just a Reagan "thing". It is the moral right that makes might by a people proud of their families, their faith and culture and lastly, that through diffusing liberty as the right to choice, hope will always spring Eternal because God will forever bless America.
