Back to Basics

We mandate no belief in this country. We are free to believe or not believe whatever we want. Yet our country and its laws were established on the fundamental belief that our individual rights comes not from government, but from God. The recognition of this fact by our Founding Fathers and by citizens throughout the years has allowed this nation to prosper beyond its wildest dreams.

The Tampa Liberty School was founded last year to provide an opportunity for children learn about these principles, and I have been privileged to be its Director. The school is run by adult volunteers from the community, and is dedicated to educating, enlightening, and exciting children to the values on which this country was established.

Children are taught that beginning in the 1600s, many settlers came to what they considered this new Promised Land seeking religious freedom. They could relate to the biblical Jewish Exodus from Egypt because they had left an oppressive Old World seeking the blessings of liberty in this New World. Ours was the only country to identify with Old Testament Jewish beliefs, and is why we are called a “Judeo-Christian” nation. These values include the importance of laws, fighting for justice, and a belief in judgment by loving and forgiving God.

By the 1770s, colonists were seeking freedom from the British Crown with reliance upon, what the Declaration of Independence calls, “Nature’s God,” the “Creator,” and “the Supreme Judge of the World.” The Founders understood there is a divine order that rises above the human order.

They recognized that there is a Natural Law in which individual rights do not come from a king, a congress, a court, a president, or any other form of government. These unalienable rights can only come from a Creator. Under Natural Law, the government works for the people, and not the other way around. These rights include the rights of life and liberty, the right to own private property, the right to self-defense, to assemble peaceably, and so on.

While Natural Law may have been forgotten over the years, the Framers recognized it and established it as the basis of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. They knew that if we, as a people, ever lost our biblical foundation, no amount of Constitutional protection could preserve the republic. They recognized that without Divine Providence, their struggle for freedom would be lost.

John Adams wrote, “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Our constitution was made for a moral and religious people.”

Adams and the other Founders knew that without God there could be no prompting of the conscience. And only those humble enough to admit they are imperfect before God could bring to an imperfect democracy the tolerance it requires to endure.

God’s authority and eternal laws are therefore prerequisites for or way of governing. Children instinctively know that people should have equal rights under the law, and that we should have the freedom to try new things, and to fail sometimes. We should expect equal rights, but not to expect equal results. The Framers knew these concepts. So should we. This is what we teach at our school.

Barack Obama has gone from the “one we’ve been waiting for” to the one we can’t wait to kick out. No one ever thought one man could bring the nation to its knees, but here he is living in the White House. And on our knees we have been praying for the day that he leaves.

The audacity of a president hell-bent on destroying our great nation has truly been a stunning spectacle to observe. No lie is too ridiculous to tell about anyone who opposes him. With a compliant media behind him, the smears this Demagogue-in-Chief promises to unleash on his opponent this fall could divide the county so badly that it becomes ungovernable.

The societal tensions Obama promised to ease have worsened by his politics of envy. The racial healing he promised has been made worse. Despite overwhelming opposition, he forced a health plan on the people that few want. He has trampled on the Constitution, and infringed on powers granted to Congress. He has bailed out auto companies, investment bankers and insurance companies. He has given Constitutional rights to terrorists.

Obama’s greatest transgression, however, has been the explosion of government spending to the point where we are enslaved to a mountain of debt that can never be repaid. He has given us $1.6-trillion deficits, and will have added more than $6 trillion to the debt by the end of his term. He has risen the percentage of GDP consumed by government to 25 percent. And all his spending has stimulated nothing.

If you believe what the government reports, total unemployment is currently 15.2 percent as measured by U-6. During Obama’s tenure, true unemployment has been running greater than 20 percent and is near Depression Era levels. In sum, Obama’s presidency has hastened a financial disaster upon the nation.

Obama calls his policies “transformation.” In an earlier age, they would have been considered something akin to treason. Our enemies could not have planted someone to have caused more damage. And now, with financial collapse on the horizon, our very way of life is threatened.

Altogether, Barack Obama will probably go down in history as the worst president of all time. Until now, historians have long given that dubious distinction to James Buchanan, who left office to Abraham Lincoln as the nation was falling apart and headed toward civil war. It is no exaggeration to say the 2012 election is every bit as important as was the 1860 election. James Buchanan at least had good intentions. The same cannot be said for Barack Obama. His intent is not to build up, but only to tear the nation down, and then to cover his tracks. There is no other way to explain his actions.

Millions of Americans, however, have finally had enough. A counterrevolution is rising to a level rarely seen in our history. There hasn’t been this intensity of grassroots activity since the abolitionist movement of the 1850s. People are making themselves visible in the community. They are organizing rallies and call-in campaigns. They are studying the Constitution, and will not be silenced by charges of racism or any other falsehood uttered by the Left.

And when the new president is sworn in, collective relief will be felt across the land.

Hedge fund traders had a great year in 2008. That year, hedge fund short sellers were instrumental in the spike in fuel prices, the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, the banking crisis, and the stock market collapse. While extremely wealthy hedge fund traders engineered each of these calamities, and made billions of more dollars short selling each one, the American people collectively lost trillions of dollars in the value of their homes and savings.

And, as amazing as it is, no one went to jail. Why? Well, perhaps it is because in 2007 the perpetrators had some laws changed to their liking. And perhaps it is because these people are politically connected to the Obama Administration and Congressional liberals. Our government is protecting them, and there needs to be a public investigation into this matter.

The hedge fund short sellers who were at the root of the mayhem are found primarily at the Managed Funds Association (MFA), the so-called “voice of global alternative investment community.” MFA members include George Soros, John Paulson, Jim Chanos, James Harris Simons, and others.

When Democrats took control of Congress in January 2007, MFA lobbyists soon began pressuring Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox to remove safeguard regulations that provided the conditions for stable markets. Such regulations had been in place since 1938. Cox eventually yielded to their requests to repeal the uptick rule, circuit breakers, and trading curbs. The Federal Accounting Standards Board also instituted mark-to-market accounting. Short ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds) were introduced that year as well. Collectively, these changes fomented the resulting financial disaster.

The next year was a tumultuous one for investors. Early in 2008, the stock market was trending lower as news of the subprime mortgage crisis began to unfold. In July, oil prices spiked to $147 per barrel sending ripples through the economy. One of those ripples was to hit Lehman Brothers. The double whammy of subprime mortgages and soaring oil prices put them under.

On Monday, Sept 15, Lehman filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy while other lending institutions lined up like dominoes teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. On Thursday of that week, a $550 billion electronic run on banks occurred within an hour or two, going mostly to offshore accounts. Instantly, there became a liquidity crisis within the banking industry. In an unprecedented move, the Treasury and the Federal Reserve had to act together to stop what had become a full-fledged panic. No one has ever investigated who withdrew the money or to where it went.

Up to that week, John McCain was ahead of Barack Obama in some polls by about 3 percent. By Oct. 10, the S&P 500 Index had lost 25 percent of its value from what it had been a month before and the McCain campaign was doomed. Hedge fund short sellers effectively handed the election to Barack Obama.

Declining markets occur all the time. Hypothetically speaking, it would be an outrage to the American people if someone were to induce a market panic in the midst of a presidential campaign. Could this be what happened in 2008? We may never know. The evidence is admittedly lacking, and is at best circumstantial. This could possibly be the perfect crime of all time.

We knew the day Barack Obama announced the release of his Birth Certificate that the document would be checked nine ways to Sunday for authenticity. Well, the Internet sleuths have done their work and preliminary indications are that it is not only fake, it is not even a good fake. I am about Obama’s age and my Birth Certificate is yellowed, creased and wrinkled. I wonder why Obama’s looks brand new? Maybe that is because it is brand new. Perhaps this is why he spent millions of dollars over three years to prevent its release only to hastily let it out when he started to lose the PR battle over the issue.

Three websites will give you the basics on the forensic details of the document. Check them out here, here and here. The evidence is so overwhelming that the Birth Certificate is a fake, it is as if he is toying with us. Obama seems to be daring anyone to verify the document and apply it to a Constitutional standard. It’s like, “Yeah, it’s fake. What are you going to do about it?” His intent is obviously to stir up infighting between his opponents and throw them off track.

Assuming the Birth Certificate was real, another issue regarding his constitutionality to be president that is often overlooked is the definition of a natural born citizen. Until 2008, the common understanding of a natural born citizen was that all persons born within the U.S., of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty, were natural born citizens. Obama’s father (being Kenyan and in 1961 being a subject of the British Crown) would by this definition exclude Obama as a natural born citizen. He would be classified a naturalized citizen.

If this case ever came in front of the Supreme Court, however, it is likely the court would disregard all previous definitions and rule that Obama is a natural born citizen. They would likely disregard any evidence of a fake Birth Certificate as well. Obama was sworn in as president two years ago, and they would not have the nerve to remove him from office after all this time.

More details about his Birth Certificate will surely come out over time. There are many things about his past, school records, a Connecticut Social Security Number, and passport records (to name a few) that are unexplained or hidden from public view. Most of his life before 2004 has been covered up. In time, probably after he leaves office, it will all come out. It always does.

There is no political advantage for Republicans to pursue the false Birth Certificate. That should have been done in 2008. To do so now, in fact, would be a disservice to their efforts to defeat him politically. Obama is just a figurehead for the Progressive movement, and the GOP will need to defeat him on the issues or their calls for a return to conservatism won’t really matter anyway.

The U.S. federal debt is our nation’s greatest strategic weakness.  As the debt continues to grow, our military posture around the globe is threatened.  Defense cuts are coming, and with that reduction must come a reduced mission.  In this environment, what our nation’s strategic mission should be, and what the corresponding defense funding should be to meet that need, are open questions.  They are questions that need to be openly explored by politicians and the American people alike.

In a recent speech to the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), Defense Secretary Robert Gates said, “A smaller military, no matter how superb, will be able to go fewer places and do fewer things.”  Ever the public servant, Gates seeks to kindle a debate the country seems reluctant, but needs, to have.  It would be an invitation to disaster if we kept the same mission with reduced funding, or a reduced force.  By bringing the issue to the public forum, Gates apparently seeks to avoid that calamity.

The core Pentagon budget is now about $530 billion, and accounts for roughly 20 percent of federal spending, and roughly half of discretionary spending.  Defense cuts are coming, that much we know for sure, and the easiest of them have already been made.  Gates acknowledged that over the past two years, “more than 30 programs (weapon systems, etc.) were canceled, capped, or ended that, if pursued to completion, would have cost more than $300 billion.”

After a comprehensive review, the Pentagon hopes to find additional savings.  Whatever those might be, however, they will not be enough to meet their goal of saving $400 billion over 10 years.  The pressure on the Pentagon’s budget is part of the GOP’s larger effort to cut the overall budget deficit by $4 trillion over the same time period.  To meet that goal, the Pentagon is already suggesting that military missions and troop levels be reduced.

For a historical perspective, our defense budget hit a postwar high of 14.2% of GDP in 1953 during the Korean War.  At the height of Vietnam in 1968, it was 9.5%, and it was 6.8% in 1986 at the height of the Reagan buildup.  In 2000, military funding reached the lowest point on 3.0%.  Today, 10 years into the Global War on Terror, we are spending 4.7% of GDP on defense.

In the 1980s, the Army had 18 combat divisions.  Today they have ten.  Many of the Army’s weapons have already missed several rounds of modernization.  Many of its soldiers are on their fourth or fifth tour of duty in Iraq or Afghanistan.  And the Army Reserves have been on repeated deployments overseas since 9/11 as well.