For all my Constitution loving friends who also love our current President

In 2001, our President Barack Obama, was serving as a legislator in Illinois. He went on the radio and gave an interview, which includes this statement.

"It didn't break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution, at least as it's been interpreted, and the Warren Court interpreted in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. Says what the states can't do to you. Says what the federal government can't do to you, but doesn't say what the federal government or state government must do on your behalf."

Now, this statement is shocking to me. I do not think the Constitution was flawed, but rather the people who wrote it and the environment in which it was written was flawed. Nonetheless, our President thinks that we have not broken free of its "essential constraints". What are these constraints? Apparently, the fact that it only refers to negative rights (unalienable rights) and does not refer to positive rights. Positive rights are contracts between a people and their government while negative rights are those unalienable rights that can't be denied you regardless of what your government is. Basically, Mr. President, the reason the Constitution does not deal with positive rights is because they aren't rights at all. After all, in order to determine what the "government must do on your behalf" you must be willing to curb someone's rights. If the government does something for one person, they affect everyone else. In doing so, they violate somebody's rights along the way (rights being the negative or unalienable rights guaranteed us in the Constitution). Furthermore, to say that the most radical Supreme Court in our nation's history, the Warren court, wasn't radical enough is astounding on its face. Nonetheless, perhaps I have this obviously socialist and possibly communist statement wrong. Perhaps it is taken out of context. Let's hear the recording of the quote in its proper context: ... oh right, every time I find a link purporting to have this link, clicking on it reveals that it "has been removed due to terms of use violations". I see, so somebody has declared a 4 minute audio recording with the President's picture on it a copyright violation. I wonder who has cause to do that????? Right, it must be the local radio station in Illinois who originally aired it. After all, the national publicity they'd receive from such a recording wouldn't do anything other than boost their listener base and increase their revenues due to increased listeners simply because of their association with the President. Oh wait, that would be helpful to them, so who would be harmed by such a recording? Nobody really. Just maybe the President, but he is such a nice guy, gonna change Washington, help out the little guy, so he has nothing to fear from such a recording. Whatever you say.

An odd way to run a coup

FoxNews is reporting on the events in Honduras with a bit more guarded tone than everyone else. It seems they don't want to rush to judgment about the specifics of what is going on there like the rest of the media seems to have done and certainly world leaders have done. Now, for the record, I think a democratically elected person who has not been proven to have rigged the election (*cough* Iran *cough*) should be allowed to finish their term as President. I am not a supporter of military coups. However, if a President has acted illegally, he should be impeached and removed from office. That said, Zelaya is a "friend and ally" of Hugo Chavez, was moving to change the constitution in Honduras and had ignored a Honduran Supreme Court order that stated his actions were unconstitutional. Usually, if someone ignores a court order, they are arrested and held in contempt of court. Apparently, the Honduran legislature either didn't have the means to impeach (I don't know what the Honduras constitution says) or didn't have the clout to do so. However, they were able to get a majority of the group together to claim that the President was violating the constitution and "request" the military to overthrow him. This is an odd military coup after all. Usually, when the military overthrows someone, they take over, at least for a time. This "coup" seems to have removed one guy from office but left the rest of the government in tact. An odd way to run a coup. So, am I for removing President's from office? No. Do I think, based on what I know of Zelaya, that the world is on the wrong side on this one? Probably. It is a tough situation that requires us (the observer) to let it play out without rush to judgment and with sound minds. So far, we have done everything wrong, rushing to judgment and ignoring "evidence" of the man's illegal activity. Calmer heads must prevail, but blindly supporting this ousted President seems to have no other outcome than to appease Hugo Chavez. If that is what the world is coming to, then I fear for Venezuela's neighbors.

An election mandate for Obama!

I will concede that the country voted for change! The significant win by President Obama was clearly predicated on the need for change in Washington. Change was one of the top reasons cited for voting for Obama after all. Sure, the economy tanked at the right time and he is a young new face, but he was voted into office because people are tired of politics as usual, of what typically happens in Washington. He ran on a platform of change. Did he bring it? You can decide that for yourself, but let me ask a few things. Has anything changed in Washington? Has anyone made attempts to change anything in Washington? I would submit the answers to both of these are no. Or are they? After all, we now have more czar positions than we have cabinet members. That's change (the most unelected and unvetted people in history participating in running the country). We now have Congress passing bill after bill of lengthy and complicated legislation that they haven't even read. That's change (I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt that they ever read any of it or that they even read at all). These two things certainly qualify as change in Washington, although I don't think very many people would consider it positive change. Have we done anything to limit the power of the lobbyists? Uh, that would be no. In fact, we have now gone to bed with the labor unions (at least in the auto business) in order to "save" that industry. Labor unions are not a wing of government, but are in fact lobbyists of the government, just to be clear. More change includes taking the census from the Department of Commerce (where it has been for over 100 years) and handing it over to a nationally known corrupt political hack organization, specifically, ACORN. That's certainly change we can believe in, huh? My point is this. Obama was given an election mandate, largely because people were fed up with politics as usual in Washington. He made a good speech and sounded like he wanted to change things. However, Congress and this administration seem to have missed the point. They seem to think that the mandate received in the election was for the liberal agenda. More bailouts, more stimulus, more spending, more government interference in health care and the largest tax increase in history (although they call it a "fee" and say it'll help the environment). The midterm elections will likely come as a surprise to Democrats and liberals because they have conducted business as usual in Washington rather than bringing about change. The mandate was for change, not the liberal agenda and certainly not for business as usual. In fact, this point is so lost on Democrats and the media that they belittle the "TEA" parties which are grass roots and bipartisan as nothing more than a FoxNews ploy. For the record, they aren't a FoxNews ploy but the main stream media likes to report it that way because otherwise, they'd have to do real journalism. These movements are only being positively covered by FoxNews. If that makes them sponsored by FoxNews, then I guess that means that NBC covering the olympics exclusively means they are in bed with China's communist government. See, the logic is faulty. Nonetheless, I suggest some people start waking up and realizing that our current leaders are doing their best to ramrod their own agendas and not what is best for the country. If they do, then perhaps we can really do something about it at the midterm elections.