Posts
State Representative Paul Opsommer announced today the introduction of HB 6075, which he said was a necessary step to regulate abortion coverage under national healthcare if the Cox lawsuit is not successful.
"I do not trust a temporary executive order to make sure we're not using taxpayer money to perform abortions", said Opsommer.
Either do we!
Posting from a remote location deep in the Hiawatha National Forest in the beautiful Upper Peninsula of Michigan (on vacation at last :)
HB 6075
Monday, April 26, 2010
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Tea Party News and Pictures..
34% Say They Or Someone Close To Them Part of Tea Party Movement
Twenty-four percent (24%) of U.S. voters now say they consider themselves a part of the Tea Party movement, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. That’s an eight-point increase from 16% a month ago. .....TO READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE CLICK HERE
Sights and Sounds of a Lansing Tea Party
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
TAX DAY TEA PARTY AT YOUR STATE CAPITOL
When: April 15, 2010 Noon-2:00pmWhere: The State Capital Building
100 N. Capitol Ave, Lansing, MI
April 15th marks the day when many Americans pay more than their fair share in taxes. Grass roots patriots in Michigan will join thousands across the state of Michigan and the nation to voice our opposition to big government and spending that has pushed the federal deficit to record levels as part of the continuing movement of nationwide “Tea Parties.”
The protest is one of hundreds to be held at the same time in cities and towns all across Michigan and the United States. Tea parties will also be held in Chicago, Washington, Atlanta, Anchorage, Honolulu, Phoenix, Sacramento, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Fort Worth, San Diego, Portland, Ore., and at hundreds of other locations.
Joan Fabiano of Grassroots in Michigan says, “As Michiganders we have seen the results of progressive tax and spend policies. After eight years Michigan is in shambles. Unemployment is at almost 15%, the Car Capitol of the World has seen a government take over of GM, jobs evaporate, foreclosures rise and families leave.”
Fabiano, goes on to say,” 2010 is the year that We the People will "Take Michigan Back" from the politicians and progressive policies that have brought Michigan down a road towards ruin and economic destruction.”
BE THERE!
BRING YOUR STATE OF MICHIGAN FLAG
Just in..Bernanke Warns of Dangers Posed by Deficit
Bernanke on the topic of deficits and government spending: “To avoid large and unsustainable budget deficits, the nation will ultimately have to choose among higher taxes, modifications to entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare, less spending on everything else from education to defense, or some combination of the above”. Republicans are opposed to raising taxes, and democrats are loathe cut cut entitlement programs, the combination of which help to explain why our country has such massive debt problems......
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
TODAY! MAKE A CALL FOR MICHIGAN SOVEREIGNTY
I spoke with Rep. Opssommer yesterday and he informed that he would be having a meeting with Mark Meadows THIS WEDNESDAY about HJR YY
As you recall HJR YY would amend Michigan's Constitution by creating a Federalism Commission to charged with monitoring and reviewing federal laws and mandates to determine if they violate the Michigan Constitution or if they violate such areas as the 9th and 10th Amendments of the US Constitution. If any law is considered unconstitutional then legislation is introduced to nullify it. HJY YY also includes Memorandums of Understanding which have created a “shadow government” by contacts that often exceed authority.
HJR YY is in House Judiciary Committee now.
Committees can be where bills go to die.
We need to get it out and on the committee calendar!
YOU CAN HELP BY CALLING OR E-MAIL TODAY
Tell Rep Meadows you want HJR YY to be put on the Committee Calendar for a hearing
Rep. Mark Meadows, (Chair)
Phone: (517) 373-1786
Fax: (517) 373-5717
Email markmeadows@house.mi.gov
Together we can Take Michigan Back!
Monday, April 12, 2010
AFTER ACTION REPORT: Tea Party Express Michigan
You'll have to excuse my brevity here but I am still recovering from a whirlwind and demanding tour schedule as a guest speaker for the Michigan leg of the Tea Party Express. Ten cities and over 500 miles in 4 days! Great turnout in all cities and Bart Stupak resigns...Perfect :)
Well every picture tells a story doesn't it? So I'll let the pictures do that PHOTO ALBUM OF TEA PARTY EXPRESS MICHIGAN TOUR
Just a few pictures of the many uploaded to the album...
Escanaba, MI
Sault Sainte Marie, MI
Cheboygan, MI
Petoskey, MI
Traverse City, MI
Grand Rapids, MI
State Capitol, Lansing, MI
Metro Detroit (Clinton Township, MI)
Well every picture tells a story doesn't it? So I'll let the pictures do that PHOTO ALBUM OF TEA PARTY EXPRESS MICHIGAN TOUR
Just a few pictures of the many uploaded to the album...
Escanaba, MI
Sault Sainte Marie, MI
Cheboygan, MI
Petoskey, MI
Traverse City, MI
Grand Rapids, MI
State Capitol, Lansing, MI
Metro Detroit (Clinton Township, MI)
Friday, April 9, 2010
LIVE Blogging from the Tea Party Express!
Friday, April 9
Just left Escanaba, wonderful turnout of Yoppers Patriots and another sunny day, Mike Cox featured speaker...along with candidates vying for the retiring Bart Stupak's seat, Daniel J. Benishek, Tom Stillings and Don Cooperalong with candidates vying for the retiring Bart Stupak's seat, Dan, Tom Stillings and Don Cooper
Friday, April 9 Live Updates from the Tea Party Express Tour ....up early buses roll out of Ironwood at 7:15am! Great rally....fired up patriots ready to replace Stupak! On our way to Escanaba..
I will live blogging from the Tea Party Express bus so check back for updates
I just arrived in Duluth, MN and at a Rally before heading into Michigan.great sunny day here!
Just left Escanaba, wonderful turnout of Yoppers Patriots and another sunny day, Mike Cox featured speaker...along with candidates vying for the retiring Bart Stupak's seat, Daniel J. Benishek, Tom Stillings and Don Cooperalong with candidates vying for the retiring Bart Stupak's seat, Dan, Tom Stillings and Don Cooper
Friday, April 9 Live Updates from the Tea Party Express Tour ....up early buses roll out of Ironwood at 7:15am! Great rally....fired up patriots ready to replace Stupak! On our way to Escanaba..
I will live blogging from the Tea Party Express bus so check back for updates
I just arrived in Duluth, MN and at a Rally before heading into Michigan.great sunny day here!
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
HOPE TO MEET YOU! Come on out to a location near you
Besides being a speaker, I will be on the Tea Party Express bus doing a daily blog as well as other social networking activities such as Face Book, (search for "Grassroots in Michigan") on Twitter as "apackof2" And MIgrassroots look for the hashtags #mitcot and #TPEXMI hashtags in addition to our Grassroots in Michigan Ning site and our Grassroots in Michigan site
UPDATED Tea Party Express Flier with All MI Cities
UPDATED Tea Party Express Flier with All MI Cities
Friday, April 2, 2010
Liberal "reporter" and homosexual Activist Tries to Bully His Way Into Private Meeting!
Many in the tea party movement are aware of the increasing attempts by liberals (progressives) to try and smear tea party activists or tie the whole movement to a few extremists. We are also aware of the intimidation tactics often used by the left to bully or scare tea party activists or even in some cases use physical violence
We are also well aware that these nefarious attempts are because the leftist are genuinely afraid of the affects the tea party movement has had in countering the socialist/fascist agenda by the current administration as evidence by the Unconstitutional abomination commonly known as the health care bill.
Last night, the tea party group, Grassroots in Michigan experienced a taste of these intimidation tactics at a private meeting held for members
First of all it is important to note that citizens have a right to gather at voluntary members meetings. Grassroots in Michigan is not a government entity, non-profit, 501(c) (3) or (4), or incorporated in any way. Grassroots in Michigan is a true grassroots group consisting of like-minded Michigan citizens and as such we have a right to gather and have simple rules.
One such rule is that we do not allow reporters at our meeting. Never have. The reasons are simple, the meetings are for members to discuss various topics without feeling that are under a microscope or that they may be mis-quoted. We want to foster the exchange of ideas within a safe and private environment, which is our prerogative and right.
However that changed last night, Thursday as a “reporter” from the liberal online blog Michigan Messenger, Todd Heywood attempted to bully his way into our meeting and use” ambush” Style interview tactics on our unwary members as they came to the meeting. Questions such as, “Why won’t she let me in and "What is going on in there!” to members who were unaware of that had been transpiring over a period of several days.
I have had a previous experience with Mr. Heywood hostile and un-factual “reporting” in January when he posted this below. The statements in red are attributed to me by Mr. Heywood when they are in fact made by another. My response is below where I point out that fact.
Michigan tea bag protestors won’t join national protest at Detroit Auto Show
I would post the link buy why give them the hits?
By Todd A. Heywood 1/11/10 10:20 AM
As the Detroit Auto Show gets underway this week, thousands are expected to attend the event, including U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
That announcement lead the national Tea Party movement to call on their supporters to converge on the auto show to protest “Government Motors.” The folks in the movement are opposed to the bailouts which helped the Chrysler and GM move in and out of bankruptcy quickly last year.
But this weekend, Joan Fabiano from the Michigan grass roots tea party and based in the Lansing area, issued a facebook statement saying the national folks could not count on the Michigan “patriots” to join them in Detroit.
In conclusion it is my opinion that this protest is ill-conceived and quite frankly an attempt at attention grabbing grand standing by those outside and unfortunately inside of Michigan.
Fabiano in her statement reminds the national movement that she is a “Christian” and that there are thousands of Christians who had nothing to do with the bail out but work for GM. To this revelation she asks:
Why must some Americans boycott G.M. and throw INNOCENT people, such as myself, out on the street trying to find another job in this economy? Did I do something wrong? Would you like to see yourself out of a job if your company’s leadership made the errors and you had NOTHING to do with it?
There is irony at work here. Fabiano is a retired General Motors employee who would likely have lost a lot had the Obama administration not stepped in to prop up the nation’s largest automaker and guide it through bankruptcy proceedings. And now she’s shocked — shocked! — that anyone would protest such a bailout.
And yet Fabiano herself rants against the government bailout of the banks. At the July 4 tea party at the state Capitol in Lansing she shouted, “We are tired of the out-of-control spending, tired of the socialization of our government, tired of the erosion of our personal liberties.”
She appears in a movie that protests the similar bailouts of banks. Does she not realize that banks have employees too and that failing to help the banks would also have harmed innocent employees of those banks who were not responsible for the behavior of the company’s leadership?
On her own blog, Fabiano regularly inveighs against government bailouts. It just doesn’t seem to apply when a bailout benefits her.
My Responce:
Joanfabiano 2 months ago
In the interest of truth, which appears to be a foreign concept here judging by this post.......the comments attributed to me by this web site are NOT mine, but were left on a public web site as quoted in my letter by another poster, a current GM worker..."Additionally, I believe this comment left by a current GM worker on yet another “national site” speaks volumes to us Michiganders."Why must some Americans boycott G.M. and throw INNOCENT people, such as myself, out on the street trying to find another job in this economy? Did I do something wrong? Would you like to see yourself out of a job if your company’s leadership made the errors and you had NOTHING to do with it?"
If anyone would bother to actually take a few minutes on my blog, it would become obvious that I favored bankruptcy over a government take over of GM, potentially incurring a loss of income and benefits to myself...But why bother with facts when cherry-picking is easy and fits your agenda?
And first you rail against tea party protests, now you rail when a tea party doesn't protest..so very fickle! Or perhaps it interferes with your "lock step" theory of the tea party movement
However thanks for the PR for my blog and the new film documentary that your low readership may generate
Joan Fabiano
What had transpired over several days was this:
I had posted our Grassroots in Michigan Meet Up on Face Book
I received a message from Todd Heywood asking for the location stating he intended to come to the meeting. Todd Heywood is not my friend on Facebook, however evidently one of my friends passed who was, passed along the invite to our meeting
I replied to him that we allow do not allow reporters at our meetings.
On Thursday I received a phone call from him and as was just getting ready to step into the shower, I told him to call back. He called back and evidently I missed his call. He left a message stating he WAS coming to our meeting.
Additionally he called the church that we rent for our meetings to confirm the location.
Because of his aggressive stance and that he obviously did not respect our rights, we were rightfully concerned that he may try to force his way in, or cause a disturbance to “create” a story.
In order to protect our members and our right to privacy, we went into a “lock down” mode, locking the front door and manning it with a “beefy” patriot allowing invited members entrance. Mr. Heywood, asked several times, why he was disbarred, knowing full well why and continued to “interview” unwary members coming to our meeting. (See video below) It is important to note also that Mr. Heywood positioned himself in front of the church, which is private property. We could have called the police but we knew this was probably what he wanted, to "create” a scene then report on it.
I suspect Mr. Heywood's interest in coming to our meeting was because of our invited speaker, Joe Folland, Michigan Director of Oath Keepers
Recently an extremist group in Adrian,Michigan calling themselves “christain” were arrested by the FBI. There have been attempts by the liberal media to connect these extremists to the tea party movement or other lawful militia groups in a organized campaign to smear the whole tea party movement.
Or perhaps it was because Mr. Heywood knew that I was invited on the Michigan leg of the Tea Party Express III “Vote Them Out Tour Or perhaps both.
The bottom line here is that liberals do not respect the privacy and rights of others. That reported attempts to smear, and intimidate tea party groups are a reality and ARE happening.
However as citizen patriots, these attempts are BACKFIRING and only increases our desire to fight for our country, our form of government, a representative Republic and our way to life and have increased the public awareness of these despicable actions.
"I have not yet begun to fight" John Paul Jones
Naval officer of the American Revolutionary War
We are also well aware that these nefarious attempts are because the leftist are genuinely afraid of the affects the tea party movement has had in countering the socialist/fascist agenda by the current administration as evidence by the Unconstitutional abomination commonly known as the health care bill.
Last night, the tea party group, Grassroots in Michigan experienced a taste of these intimidation tactics at a private meeting held for members
First of all it is important to note that citizens have a right to gather at voluntary members meetings. Grassroots in Michigan is not a government entity, non-profit, 501(c) (3) or (4), or incorporated in any way. Grassroots in Michigan is a true grassroots group consisting of like-minded Michigan citizens and as such we have a right to gather and have simple rules.
One such rule is that we do not allow reporters at our meeting. Never have. The reasons are simple, the meetings are for members to discuss various topics without feeling that are under a microscope or that they may be mis-quoted. We want to foster the exchange of ideas within a safe and private environment, which is our prerogative and right.
However that changed last night, Thursday as a “reporter” from the liberal online blog Michigan Messenger, Todd Heywood attempted to bully his way into our meeting and use” ambush” Style interview tactics on our unwary members as they came to the meeting. Questions such as, “Why won’t she let me in and "What is going on in there!” to members who were unaware of that had been transpiring over a period of several days.
I have had a previous experience with Mr. Heywood hostile and un-factual “reporting” in January when he posted this below. The statements in red are attributed to me by Mr. Heywood when they are in fact made by another. My response is below where I point out that fact.
Michigan tea bag protestors won’t join national protest at Detroit Auto Show
I would post the link buy why give them the hits?
By Todd A. Heywood 1/11/10 10:20 AM
As the Detroit Auto Show gets underway this week, thousands are expected to attend the event, including U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
That announcement lead the national Tea Party movement to call on their supporters to converge on the auto show to protest “Government Motors.” The folks in the movement are opposed to the bailouts which helped the Chrysler and GM move in and out of bankruptcy quickly last year.
But this weekend, Joan Fabiano from the Michigan grass roots tea party and based in the Lansing area, issued a facebook statement saying the national folks could not count on the Michigan “patriots” to join them in Detroit.
In conclusion it is my opinion that this protest is ill-conceived and quite frankly an attempt at attention grabbing grand standing by those outside and unfortunately inside of Michigan.
Fabiano in her statement reminds the national movement that she is a “Christian” and that there are thousands of Christians who had nothing to do with the bail out but work for GM. To this revelation she asks:
Why must some Americans boycott G.M. and throw INNOCENT people, such as myself, out on the street trying to find another job in this economy? Did I do something wrong? Would you like to see yourself out of a job if your company’s leadership made the errors and you had NOTHING to do with it?
There is irony at work here. Fabiano is a retired General Motors employee who would likely have lost a lot had the Obama administration not stepped in to prop up the nation’s largest automaker and guide it through bankruptcy proceedings. And now she’s shocked — shocked! — that anyone would protest such a bailout.
And yet Fabiano herself rants against the government bailout of the banks. At the July 4 tea party at the state Capitol in Lansing she shouted, “We are tired of the out-of-control spending, tired of the socialization of our government, tired of the erosion of our personal liberties.”
She appears in a movie that protests the similar bailouts of banks. Does she not realize that banks have employees too and that failing to help the banks would also have harmed innocent employees of those banks who were not responsible for the behavior of the company’s leadership?
On her own blog, Fabiano regularly inveighs against government bailouts. It just doesn’t seem to apply when a bailout benefits her.
My Responce:
Joanfabiano 2 months ago
In the interest of truth, which appears to be a foreign concept here judging by this post.......the comments attributed to me by this web site are NOT mine, but were left on a public web site as quoted in my letter by another poster, a current GM worker..."Additionally, I believe this comment left by a current GM worker on yet another “national site” speaks volumes to us Michiganders."Why must some Americans boycott G.M. and throw INNOCENT people, such as myself, out on the street trying to find another job in this economy? Did I do something wrong? Would you like to see yourself out of a job if your company’s leadership made the errors and you had NOTHING to do with it?"
If anyone would bother to actually take a few minutes on my blog, it would become obvious that I favored bankruptcy over a government take over of GM, potentially incurring a loss of income and benefits to myself...But why bother with facts when cherry-picking is easy and fits your agenda?
And first you rail against tea party protests, now you rail when a tea party doesn't protest..so very fickle! Or perhaps it interferes with your "lock step" theory of the tea party movement
However thanks for the PR for my blog and the new film documentary that your low readership may generate
Joan Fabiano
What had transpired over several days was this:
I had posted our Grassroots in Michigan Meet Up on Face Book
I received a message from Todd Heywood asking for the location stating he intended to come to the meeting. Todd Heywood is not my friend on Facebook, however evidently one of my friends passed who was, passed along the invite to our meeting
I replied to him that we allow do not allow reporters at our meetings.
On Thursday I received a phone call from him and as was just getting ready to step into the shower, I told him to call back. He called back and evidently I missed his call. He left a message stating he WAS coming to our meeting.
Additionally he called the church that we rent for our meetings to confirm the location.
Because of his aggressive stance and that he obviously did not respect our rights, we were rightfully concerned that he may try to force his way in, or cause a disturbance to “create” a story.
In order to protect our members and our right to privacy, we went into a “lock down” mode, locking the front door and manning it with a “beefy” patriot allowing invited members entrance. Mr. Heywood, asked several times, why he was disbarred, knowing full well why and continued to “interview” unwary members coming to our meeting. (See video below) It is important to note also that Mr. Heywood positioned himself in front of the church, which is private property. We could have called the police but we knew this was probably what he wanted, to "create” a scene then report on it.
I suspect Mr. Heywood's interest in coming to our meeting was because of our invited speaker, Joe Folland, Michigan Director of Oath Keepers
Recently an extremist group in Adrian,Michigan calling themselves “christain” were arrested by the FBI. There have been attempts by the liberal media to connect these extremists to the tea party movement or other lawful militia groups in a organized campaign to smear the whole tea party movement.
Or perhaps it was because Mr. Heywood knew that I was invited on the Michigan leg of the Tea Party Express III “Vote Them Out Tour Or perhaps both.
The bottom line here is that liberals do not respect the privacy and rights of others. That reported attempts to smear, and intimidate tea party groups are a reality and ARE happening.
However as citizen patriots, these attempts are BACKFIRING and only increases our desire to fight for our country, our form of government, a representative Republic and our way to life and have increased the public awareness of these despicable actions.
"I have not yet begun to fight" John Paul Jones
Naval officer of the American Revolutionary War
Thursday, April 1, 2010
ASSERT MICHIGAN'S SOVEREIGHTY! SUPPORT HJR YY!
Why is HJR YY so critically needed?
If enacted into law and formally approved by voters, HJR YY would:
Amend the state Constitution to Create a Federalism Commission bicameral and bipartisan commission
charged with monitoring and reviewing federal laws and mandates to determine if they violate the Michigan Constitution or if they violate such areas as the 9th and 10th Amendments of the US Constitution
The "why" behind HJR YY is two-fold:
Firstly, in cases where the Joint Federalism Commission determines a violation exists, the law will provide for an expedited process for the commission to then push appropriate legislation to nullify to the floor for voting by all members within 10 session days.
The second "why" that makes this legislation necessary is:
Because of the increasing role of so called "Memorandums of Understanding," "Compacts," and other agreements between Michigan and other governments, most notably at the federal level.
Most voters are not aware of what a "Memorandum of Understanding" is, or that they can carry the formal force of law.
In many cases such memorandums are created under dubious authority. In other cases, the legislature does vote to grant authority for a memorandum to be entered into, but then what the memorandum actually does often exceeds that authority, or delves into areas that are beyond the scope of the authorizing legislation.
HJR YY has been Referred to Judiciary Committee
IMMEDIATE ACTION TO TAKE:
Call the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee to have HJR YY placed on the calendar for a meeting
Rep. Mark Meadows, (Chair)
Phone: (517) 373-1786Fax: (517) 373-5717
Email markmeadows@house.mi.gov
Request that legislation to put on calendar
BE COURTEOUS WHEN CONTACTING THE OFFICES
We will monitor the JudiciaryCommittee Calendar when HJR YY is placed on the Committee Calendar to implement the rest of the ACTION PLAN.
CHECK BACK FOR AN UPDATE
ACTION PLAN WITH LINK TO HJR YY CAN BE PRINTED OUT AND DOWN-LOADED
ACTION PLAN FOR HJR YY PASSAGE
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Michigan Tea Party Organizer to Join Tea Party ExpressIII “Vote Them Tour”
Exciting News! I have been invited to be on the Michigan leg of the Tea Party Express “Vote Them Out” Tour!(On the "About" page under “Special Guests”) The Michigan leg of the tour is April 8-11, and the bus will be coming to Ironwood, Escanaba, Sault Sainte Marie, Traverse City Grand Rapids, Lansing and Detroit. This is a tremendous opportunity to bring the message of "Take Michigan Back" to Michiganders across the state!
Besides being a speaker,I will be on the Tea Party Express bus doing a daily blog as well as other social networking activities such as Face Book,Search for "Grassroots in Michigan" on Twitter and MIgrassroots look for #mitcot and #TPEXMI hashtags.
Our own Michigan Sovereignty logo is displayed on the Tea Party Express main page under "Sponsors"
Please help to get the word out! A printable Flier for distribution with all Michigan Rally information can be found by CLICKING THE FLIER PICTURE
Besides being a speaker,I will be on the Tea Party Express bus doing a daily blog as well as other social networking activities such as Face Book,Search for "Grassroots in Michigan" on Twitter and MIgrassroots look for #mitcot and #TPEXMI hashtags.
Our own Michigan Sovereignty logo is displayed on the Tea Party Express main page under "Sponsors"Please help to get the word out! A printable Flier for distribution with all Michigan Rally information can be found by CLICKING THE FLIER PICTURE
LET'S HAVE A BIG MICHIGAN TURN OUT!
The leftist are out in full force to prevent our 1st Amendment Rights! Andrew Britbart describes the attempt by leftists to prevent people from coming to the Stop Harry Reid kick off Tea Party Express Rally and throwing eggs at the bus!
Friday, March 26, 2010
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Kill or Nullify Health Care Flash Rally-Protest THIS SUNDAY!
Time: March 21, 2010 from 2pm to 3:30pmLocation: Capitol Ave in front of the State Capitol
Street: 100 N. Capitol Ave
City/Town: Lansing
The US Congress is poised to "deem and pass" one of, if not the most damaging bill in US history. They are doing this despite the fact that an overwhelming majority of Americans are against it.
WASHINGTON IS NOT LISTENING TO US
It's time to put pressure on our elected officials in Michigan!
If there is no way to kill this bill, then Michigan needs to exert its 10th Amendment Sovereignty and
NULLIFY this bill!
A number of states, like Idaho, are passing provisions that would either prohibit it from becoming a law in their state, or would require the state to file a suit.
Michigan has such a provision. House Joint Resolution, HJR YY introduced by Rep. Opsommer, that is in the Judiciary Committee.
Click to Learn More About HJR YY
This Joint Resolution would amend Michigan’s Constitution to create a Federalism Committee charged with monitoring and reviewing federal laws and mandates to determine if they violate the Michigan Constitution or if they violate such areas as the 9th and 10th Amendments of the US Constitution. Federalism Commission determines a violation exists, the law will provide for an expedited process for the commission to then push appropriate legislation to the floor to nullify.
Rep. Paul Opsommer will be joining us!
**BRING SIGNS, STATE FLAG!**
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
EXPEL SLAUGHTER!
CONTACT YOUR MICHIGAN HOUSE REP ASK THEM TO START EXPULSION OF SLAUGHTER ACCORDING TO Article 1, Section 7 of the Constitution says that in order for a "Bill" to "become a Law," it "shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate.
Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y
We're not sure American schools teach civics any more, but once upon a time they taught that under the U.S. Constitution a bill had to pass both the House and Senate to become law. Until this week, that is, when Speaker Nancy Pelosi is moving to merely "deem" that the House has passed the Senate health-care bill and then send it to President Obama to sign anyway.
Under the "reconciliation" process that began yesterday afternoon, the House is supposed to approve the Senate's Christmas Eve bill and then use "sidecar" amendments to fix the things it doesn't like. Those amendments would then go to the Senate under rules that would let Democrats pass them while avoiding the ordinary 60-vote threshold for passing major legislation. This alone is an abuse of traditional Senate process.
But Mrs. Pelosi &
So at the Speaker's command, New York Democrat Louise Slaughter, who chairs the House Rules Committee, may insert what's known as a "self-executing rule," also known as a "hereby rule." Under this amazing procedural ruse, the House would then vote only once on the reconciliation corrections, but not on the underlying Senate bill. If those reconciliation corrections pass, the self-executing rule would say that the Senate bill is presumptively approved by the House—even without a formal up-or-down vote on the actual words of the Senate bill.
Democrats would thus send the Senate bill to President Obama for his signature even as they claimed to oppose the same Senate bill. They would be declaring themselves to be for and against the Senate bill in the same vote. Even John Kerry never went that far with his
This two-votes-in-one gambit is a brazen affront to the plain language of the Constitution, which is intended to require democratic accountability. Article 1, Section 7 of the Constitution says that in order for a "Bill" to "become a Law," it "shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate." This is why the House and Senate typically have a conference committee to work out differences in what each body passes. While sometimes one house cedes entirely to another, the expectation is that its Members must re-vote on the exact language of the other body's bill.
As Stanford law professor Michael McConnell pointed out in these pages yesterday, "The Slaughter solution attempts to allow the House to pass the Senate bill, plus a bill amending it, with a single vote. The senators would then vote only on the amendatory bill. But this means that no single bill will have passed both houses in the same form." If Congress can now decide that the House can vote for one bill and the Senate can vote for another, and the final result can be some arbitrary hybrid, then we have abandoned one of
Yes, self-executing rules have been used in the past, but as the Congressional Research Service put it in a 2006 paper, "Originally, this type of rule was used to expedite House action in disposing of Senate amendments to House-passed bills." They've also been used for amendments such as to a 1998 bill that "would have permitted the CIA to offer employees an early-out retirement program"—but never before to elide a vote on the entire fundamental legislation.
We have entered a political wonderland, where the rules are whatever Democrats say they are.
Mrs. Pelosi and the White House are resorting to these abuses because their bill is so unpopular that a majority even of their own party doesn't want to vote for it. Fence-sitting Members are being threatened with primary challengers, a withdrawal of union support and of course ostracism.
Democrats are, literally, consuming their own majority for the sake of imposing new taxes, regulations and entitlements that the public has roundly rejected but that they believe will be the crowning achievement of the welfare state. They are also leaving behind a procedural bloody trail that will fuel public fury and make such a vast change of law seem illegitimate to millions of Americans.
The concoction has become so toxic that even Mrs. Pelosi isn't bothering to defend the merits anymore, saying instead last week that "we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it." Or rather, "deeming" to have passed it.
Although the White House called for a "simple up or down vote" before Louise Slaughter came up with the idea to use the Constitution like so much toilet paper, Nancy Pelosi in 2008 blocked an up or down vote on drilling, closed down the House and went on a book tour! But for progressives a simple up or down vote is so “yesterday” as they continue their onslaught on our Constitution and our Republic.
However, we, The People, will not slumber nor sleep in our Battle for the Republic!
"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance."
-- Thomas Jefferson
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Stupak Waffles on the Health Care Bill!
Fax and Call Stupak!
From Fox News
Stupak had said last week that nothing had changed and he didn't think the House leaders had the votes to pass the bill.
But on Monday (are we really surprised?) he said he will resume talks with House leaders this week in a quest for wording that would impose no new limits on abortion rights but also would not allow use of federal money for abortions.
"I'm more optimistic tha
n I was a week ago," Stupak told The Associated Press.
Call Bart Stupak and tell him even if all the provisions for abortion are removed you are still against this Bill.
According to The Hill
The "Cornhusker KickBack” is out “President Barack Obama’s healthcare reform proposal released Monday eliminates controversial funds given to Nebraska as part of a deal to win the support of centrist Sen. Ben Nelson (D).”
But the ”Louisiana Purchase” is still in. “Obama’s bill, however, does not specifically remove $300 million of Medicaid funds pegged for disaster relief for which Louisiana is the only state eligible.”
Tell Stupack THIS BILL NEEDS TO BE KILLED, PERIOD!
Rep. Bart Stupak Contact Information
Washington, D.C. Office
Phone: (202) 225-4735
Fax: (202) 225-4744
Petoskey Office:
Phone: (231) 348-0657
Fax: (231) 348-0653
Marquette Office:
Phone: (906) 228-3700
Fax: (906) 228-2305
Alpena Office:
Phone: (989) 356-0690
Fax: (989) 356-0923
Escanaba Office:
Phone: (906) 786-4504
Fax: (906) 786-4534
Houghton Office:
Phone: (906) 482-1371
Fax: (906) 482-4855
Crystal Falls Office:
Phone: (906) 875-3751
Fax: (906) 875-3889
West Branch Office:
Phone: (989) 345-2258
Fax: (989) 345-2285
From Fox News
Stupak had said last week that nothing had changed and he didn't think the House leaders had the votes to pass the bill.
But on Monday (are we really surprised?) he said he will resume talks with House leaders this week in a quest for wording that would impose no new limits on abortion rights but also would not allow use of federal money for abortions.
"I'm more optimistic tha
n I was a week ago," Stupak told The Associated Press.Call Bart Stupak and tell him even if all the provisions for abortion are removed you are still against this Bill.
According to The Hill
The "Cornhusker KickBack” is out “President Barack Obama’s healthcare reform proposal released Monday eliminates controversial funds given to Nebraska as part of a deal to win the support of centrist Sen. Ben Nelson (D).”
But the ”Louisiana Purchase” is still in. “Obama’s bill, however, does not specifically remove $300 million of Medicaid funds pegged for disaster relief for which Louisiana is the only state eligible.”
Tell Stupack THIS BILL NEEDS TO BE KILLED, PERIOD!
Rep. Bart Stupak Contact Information
Washington, D.C. Office
Phone: (202) 225-4735
Fax: (202) 225-4744
Petoskey Office:
Phone: (231) 348-0657
Fax: (231) 348-0653
Marquette Office:
Phone: (906) 228-3700
Fax: (906) 228-2305
Alpena Office:
Phone: (989) 356-0690
Fax: (989) 356-0923
Escanaba Office:
Phone: (906) 786-4504
Fax: (906) 786-4534
Houghton Office:
Phone: (906) 482-1371
Fax: (906) 482-4855
Crystal Falls Office:
Phone: (906) 875-3751
Fax: (906) 875-3889
West Branch Office:
Phone: (989) 345-2258
Fax: (989) 345-2285
Monday, March 8, 2010
MARCH MADNESS
A vote to pass the Health Care Bill could come as soon as March 11
MICHGANDERS WE ARE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER
Despite the pledge to repeal this by some members of Congress, if this Bill passes, it’s nearly impossible to push back an entitlement once it passes. This Bill truly sends America down THE ROAD TO SOCIALISM
THIS IS IT.
After months of calls, faxes, protests and town halls THIS IS THE FINAL PUSH
The progressives are working hard now to get the Bill passed
WE NEED TO WORK HARDER
Michigan Congressional House Representatives NEED to hear from their constituents!
Calls a
re best, then faxes and then e-mailsIf you call, please ask the person answering his or her name, and use their name during your call. Ask that he/she please add this call as a number to count as AGAINST the Health Care bill.
Give them your name and city.
To find your Michigan Congressional House Representative CLICK HERE
Provisions for abortion are still in the Bill
"In total, the Senate bill is the most pro-abortion single piece of legislation ever to reach the floor of the House of Representatives," said Douglas Johnson, federal legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee.
"The so-called abortion limits that are in the Senate bill are all very narrow, loophole ridden, or booby-trapped to expire," he said. He cites as an example a last-minute addition to the bill of $7 billion for community health centers, "from which abortions could be paid with no restriction."
Special Attention to Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich. Who along with 11 other Democrat House members have said they will not vote for the health care bill unless it includes more stringent language to prevent federal funding from going toward abortion services.
Call Bart Stupak to encourage to him and his colleagues to continue to hold the line for life and vote “NO” Tell him even if all the provisions for abortion are removed you are still against this Bill.
Rep. Bart Stupak Contact Information
Washington, D.C. Office
Phone: (202) 225-4735
Fax: (202) 225-4744
Petoskey Office:
Phone: (231) 348-0657
Fax: (231) 348-0653
Marquette Office:
Phone: (906) 228-3700
Fax: (906) 228-2305
Alpena Office:
Phone: (989) 356-0690
Fax: (989) 356-0923
Escanaba Office:
Phone: (906) 786-4504
Fax: (906) 786-4534
Houghton Office:
Phone: (906) 482-1371
Fax: (906) 482-4855
Crystal Falls Office:
Phone: (906) 875-3751
Fax: (906) 875-3889
West Branch Office:
Phone: (989) 345-2258
Fax: (989) 345-2285
ALSO:
According to The Hill
The "Cornhusker Kick Back” is out “President Barack Obama’s healthcare reform proposal released Monday eliminates controversial funds given to Nebraska as part of a deal to win the support of centrist Sen. Ben Nelson (D).”
But the ”Louisiana Purchase” is still in. “Obama’s bill, however, does not specifically remove $300 million of Medicaid funds pegged for disaster relief for which Louisiana is the only state eligible.”
And ACROSS THE NATION:
In addition to Michigan Representatives please considering calling, Swing Vote Congressmen PHONE NUMBERS FOR SWING VOTE CONGRESSMEN
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Ten Conservative Principles
From time to time I believe we need to re-visit the roots and foundations of Conservatism especially today as we are engaged in this great battle with modern progressives who seek to transform our form of government,a Representative Republic into another form of government.
And not just for those new to Conservatism but for those of us who have long been engaged in the battle. We need to be able in the battle of ideas to articulate the principals of conservatism that is the foundation and springboard of our activism.
Russell
Kirk is considered one of the pioneers of modern Conservatism His 1953 book, The Conservative Mind, gave shape to the conservative movement, giving special importance to the ideas of Edmund Burke. Kirk was also considered the chief proponent of traditionalist conservatism.
The Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal is a nonprofit educational institute based in Mecosta, Michigan, home of the American writer and thinker Russell Kirk (1918–1994).
Ten Conservative Principles
by Russell Kirk
Being neither a religion nor an ideology, the body of opinion termed conservatism possesses no Holy Writ and no Das Kapital to provide dogmata. So far as it is possible to determine what conservatives believe, the first principles of the conservative persuasion are derived from what leading conservative writers and public men have professed during the past two centuries. After some introductory remarks on this general theme, I will proceed to list ten such conservative principles.
Perhaps it would be well, most of the time, to use this word “conservative” as an adjective chiefly. For there exists no Model Conservative, and conservatism is the negation of ideology: it is a state of mind, a type of character, a way of looking at the civil social order.
The attitude we call conservatism is sustained by a body of sentiments, rather than by a system of ideological dogmata. It is almost true that a conservative may be defined as a person who thinks himself such. The conservative movement or body of opinion can accommodate a considerable diversity of views on a good many subjects, there being no Test Act or Thirty-Nine Articles of the conservative creed.
In essence, the conservative person is simply one who finds the permanent things more pleasing than Chaos and Old Night. (Yet conservatives know, with Burke, that healthy “change is the means of our preservation.”) A people’s historic continuity of experience, says the conservative, offers a guide to policy far better than the abstract designs of coffee-house philosophers. But of course there is more to the conservative persuasion than this general attitude.
It is not possible to draw up a neat catalogue of conservatives’ convictions; nevertheless, I offer you, summarily, ten general principles; it seems safe to say that most conservatives would subscribe to most of these maxims. In various editions of my book The Conservative Mind I have listed certain canons of conservative thought—the list differing somewhat from edition to edition; in my anthology The Portable Conservative Reader I offer variations upon this theme. Now I present to you a summary of conservative assumptions differing somewhat from my canons in those two books of mine. In fine, the diversity of ways in which conservative views may find expression is itself proof that conservatism is no fixed ideology. What particular principles conservatives emphasize during any given time will vary with the circumstances and necessities of that era. The following ten articles of belief reflect the emphases of conservatives in America nowadays.
First, the conservative believes that there exists an enduring moral order. That order is made for man, and man is made for it: human nature is a constant, and moral truths are permanent.
This word order signifies harmony. There are two aspects or types of order: the inner order of the soul, and the outer order of the commonwealth. Twenty-five centuries ago, Plato taught this doctrine, but even the educated nowadays find it difficult to understand. The problem of order has been a principal concern of conservatives ever since conservative became a term of politics.
Our twentieth-century world has experienced the hideous consequences of the collapse of belief in a moral order. Like the atrocities and disasters of Greece in the fifth century before Christ, the ruin of great nations in our century shows us the pit into which fall societies that mistake clever self-interest, or ingenious social controls, for pleasing alternatives to an oldfangled moral order.
It has been said by liberal intellectuals that the conservative believes all social questions, at heart, to be questions of private morality. Properly understood, this statement is quite true. A society in which men and women are governed by belief in an enduring moral order, by a strong sense of right and wrong, by personal convictions about justice and honor, will be a good society—whatever political machinery it may utilize; while a society in which men and women are morally adrift, ignorant of norms, and intent chiefly upon gratification of appetites, will be a bad society—no matter how many people vote and no matter how liberal its formal constitution may be.
Second, the conservative adheres to custom, convention, and continuity. It is old custom that enables people to live together peaceably; the destroyers of custom demolish more than they know or desire. It is through convention—a word much abused in our time—that we contrive to avoid perpetual disputes about rights and duties: law at base is a body of conventions. Continuity is the means of linking generation to generation; it matters as much for society as it does for the individual; without it, life is meaningless. When successful revolutionaries have effaced old customs, derided old conventions, and broken the continuity of social institutions—why, presently they discover the necessity of establishing fresh customs, conventions, and continuity; but that process is painful and slow; and the new social order that eventually emerges may be much inferior to the old order that radicals overthrew in their zeal for the Earthly Paradise.
Conservatives are champions of custom, convention, and continuity because they prefer the devil they know to the devil they don’t know. Order and justice and freedom, they believe, are the artificial products of a long social experience, the result of centuries of trial and reflection and sacrifice. Thus the body social is a kind of spiritual corporation, comparable to the church; it may even be called a community of souls. Human society is no machine, to be treated mechanically. The continuity, the life-blood, of a society must not be interrupted. Burke’s reminder of the necessity for prudent change is in the mind of the conservative. But necessary change, conservatives argue, ought to he gradual and discriminatory, never unfixing old interests at once.
Third, conservatives believe in what may be called the principle of prescription. Conservatives sense that modern people are dwarfs on the shoulders of giants, able to see farther than their ancestors only because of the great stature of those who have preceded us in time. Therefore conservatives very often emphasize the importance of prescription—that is, of things established by immemorial usage, so that the mind of man runneth not to the contrary. There exist rights of which the chief sanction is their antiquity—including rights to property, often. Similarly, our morals are prescriptive in great part. Conservatives argue that we are unlikely, we moderns, to make any brave new discoveries in morals or politics or taste. It is perilous to weigh every passing issue on the basis of private judgment and private rationality. The individual is foolish, but the species is wise, Burke declared. In politics we do well to abide by precedent and precept and even prejudice, for the great mysterious incorporation of the human race has acquired a prescriptive wisdom far greater than any man’s petty private rationality.
Fourth, conservatives are guided by their principle of prudence. Burke agrees with Plato that in the statesman, prudence is chief among virtues. Any public measure ought to be judged by its probable long-run consequences, not merely by temporary advantage or popularity. Liberals and radicals, the conservative says, are imprudent: for they dash at their objectives without giving much heed to the risk of new abuses worse than the evils they hope to sweep away. As John Randolph of Roanoke put it, Providence moves slowly, but the devil always hurries. Human society being complex, remedies cannot be simple if they are to be efficacious. The conservative declares that he acts only after sufficient reflection, having weighed the consequences. Sudden and slashing reforms are as perilous as sudden and slashing surgery.
Fifth, conservatives pay attention to the principle of variety. They feel affection for the proliferating intricacy of long-established social institutions and modes of life, as distinguished from the narrowing uniformity and deadening egalitarianism of radical systems. For the preservation of a healthy diversity in any civilization, there must survive orders and classes, differences in material condition, and many sorts of inequality. The only true forms of equality are equality at the Last Judgment and equality before a just court of law; all other attempts at leveling must lead, at best, to social stagnation.
Society requires honest and able leadership; and if natural and institutional differences are destroyed, presently some tyrant or host of squalid oligarchs will create new forms of inequality.
Sixth, conservatives are chastened by their principle of imperfectability. Human nature suffers irremediably from certain grave faults, the conservatives know. Man being imperfect, no perfect social order ever can be created. Because of human restlessness, mankind would grow rebellious under any utopian domination, and would break out once more in violent discontent—or else expire of boredom. To seek for utopia is to end in disaster, the conservative says: we are not made for perfect things. All that we reasonably can expect is a tolerably ordered, just, and free society, in which some evils, maladjustments, and suffering will continue to lurk.
By proper attention to prudent reform, we may preserve and improve this tolerable order. But if the old institutional and moral safeguards of a nation are neglected, then the anarchic impulse in humankind breaks loose: “the ceremony of innocence is drowned.” The ideologues who promise the perfection of man and society have converted a great part of the twentieth-century world into a terrestrial hell.
Seventh, conservatives are persuaded that freedom and property are closely linked. Separate property from private possession, and Leviathan becomes master of all. Upon the foundation of private property, great civilizations are built. The more widespread is the possession of private property, the more stable and productive is a commonwealth. Economic levelling, conservatives maintain, is not economic progress. Getting and spending are not the chief aims of human existence; but a sound economic basis for the person, the family, and the commonwealth is much to be desired.
Sir Henry Maine, in his Village Communities, puts strongly the case for private property, as distinguished from communal property: “Nobody is at liberty to attack several property and to say at the same time that he values civilization. The history of the two cannot be disentangled.” For the institution of several property—that is, private property—has been a powerful instrument for teaching men and women responsibility, for providing motives to integrity, for supporting general culture, for raising mankind above the level of mere drudgery, for affording leisure to think and freedom to act.
To be able to retain the fruits of one’s labor; to be able to see one’s work made permanent; to be able to bequeath one’s property to one’s posterity; to be able to rise from the natural condition of grinding poverty to the security of enduring accomplishment; to have something that is really one’s own—these are advantages difficult to deny. The conservative acknowledges that the possession of property fixes certain duties upon the possessor; he accepts those moral and legal obligations cheerfully.
Eighth, conservatives uphold voluntary community, quite as they oppose involuntary collectivism. Although Americans have been attached strongly to privacy and private rights, they also have been a people conspicuous for a successful spirit of community. In a genuine community, the decisions most directly affecting the lives of citizens are made locally and voluntarily. Some of these functions are carried out by local political bodies, others by private associations: so long as they are kept local, and are marked by the general agreement of those affected, they constitute healthy community. But when these functions pass by default or usurpation to centralized authority, then community is in serious danger. Whatever is beneficent and prudent in modern democracy is made possible through cooperative volition. If, then, in the name of an abstract Democracy, the functions of community are transferred to distant political direction—why, real government by the consent of the governed gives way to a standardizing process hostile to freedom and human dignity.
For a nation is no stronger than the numerous little communities of which it is composed. A central administration, or a corps of select managers and civil servants, however well intentioned and well trained, cannot confer justice and prosperity and tranquility upon a mass of men and women deprived of their old responsibilities. That experiment has been made before; and it has been disastrous. It is the performance of our duties in community that teaches us prudence and efficiency and charity.
Ninth, the conservative perceives the need for prudent restraints upon power and upon human passions. Politically speaking, power is the ability to do as one likes, regardless of the wills of one’s fellows. A state in which an individual or a small group are able to dominate the wills of their fellows without check is a despotism, whether it is called monarchical or aristocratic or democratic. When every person claims to be a power unto himself, then society falls into anarchy. Anarchy never lasts long, being intolerable for everyone, and contrary to the ineluctable fact that some persons are more strong and more clever than their neighbors. To anarchy there succeeds tyranny or oligarchy, in which power is monopolized by a very few.
The conservative endeavors to so limit and balance political power that anarchy or tyranny may not arise. In every age, nevertheless, men and women are tempted to overthrow the limitations upon power, for the sake of some fancied temporary advantage. It is characteristic of the radical that he thinks of power as a force for good—so long as the power falls into his hands. In the name of liberty, the French and Russian revolutionaries abolished the old restraints upon power; but power cannot be abolished; it always finds its way into someone’s hands. That power which the revolutionaries had thought oppressive in the hands of the old regime became many times as tyrannical in the hands of the radical new masters of the state.
Knowing human nature for a mixture of good and evil, the conservative does not put his trust in mere benevolence. Constitutional restrictions, political checks and balances, adequate enforcement of the laws, the old intricate web of restraints upon will and appetite—these the conservative approves as instruments of freedom and order. A just government maintains a healthy tension between the claims of authority and the claims of liberty.
Tenth, the thinking conservative understands that permanence and change must be recognized and reconciled in a vigorous society. The conservative is not opposed to social improvement, although he doubts whether there is any such force as a mystical Progress, with a Roman P, at work in the world. When a society is progressing in some respects, usually it is declining in other respects. The conservative knows that any healthy society is influenced by two forces, which Samuel Taylor Coleridge called its Permanence and its Progression. The Permanence of a society is formed by those enduring interests and convictions that gives us stability and continuity; without that Permanence, the fountains of the great deep are broken up, society slipping into anarchy. The Progression in a society is that spirit and that body of talents which urge us on to prudent reform and improvement; without that Progression, a people stagnate.
Therefore the intelligent conservative endeavors to reconcile the claims of Permanence and the claims of Progression. He thinks that the liberal and the radical, blind to the just claims of Permanence, would endanger the heritage bequeathed to us, in an endeavor to hurry us into some dubious Terrestrial Paradise. The conservative, in short, favors reasoned and temperate progress; he is opposed to the cult of Progress, whose votaries believe that everything new necessarily is superior to everything old.
Change is essential to the body social, the conservative reasons, just as it is essential to the human body. A body that has ceased to renew itself has begun to die. But if that body is to be vigorous, the change must occur in a regular manner, harmonizing with the form and nature of that body; otherwise change produces a monstrous growth, a cancer, which devours its host. The conservative takes care that nothing in a society should ever be wholly old, and that nothing should ever be wholly new. This is the means of the conservation of a nation, quite as it is the means of conservation of a living organism. Just how much change a society requires, and what sort of change, depend upon the circumstances of an age and a nation.
Such, then, are ten principles that have loomed large during the two centuries of modern conservative thought. Other principles of equal importance might have been discussed here: the conservative understanding of justice, for one, or the conservative view of education. But such subjects, time running on, I must leave to your private investigation.
The great line of demarcation in modern politics, Eric Voegelin used to point out, is not a division between liberals on one side and totalitarians on the other. No, on one side of that line are all those men and women who fancy that the temporal order is the only order, and that material needs are their only needs, and that they may do as they like with the human patrimony. On the other side of that line are all those people who recognize an enduring moral order in the universe, a constant human nature, and high duties toward the order spiritual and the order temporal.
Adapted from The Politics of Prudence (ISI Books, 1993). Copyright © 1993 by Russell Kirk.
Additional reading from Russell Kirk
And not just for those new to Conservatism but for those of us who have long been engaged in the battle. We need to be able in the battle of ideas to articulate the principals of conservatism that is the foundation and springboard of our activism.
Russell
Kirk is considered one of the pioneers of modern Conservatism His 1953 book, The Conservative Mind, gave shape to the conservative movement, giving special importance to the ideas of Edmund Burke. Kirk was also considered the chief proponent of traditionalist conservatism.The Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal is a nonprofit educational institute based in Mecosta, Michigan, home of the American writer and thinker Russell Kirk (1918–1994).
Ten Conservative Principles
by Russell Kirk
Being neither a religion nor an ideology, the body of opinion termed conservatism possesses no Holy Writ and no Das Kapital to provide dogmata. So far as it is possible to determine what conservatives believe, the first principles of the conservative persuasion are derived from what leading conservative writers and public men have professed during the past two centuries. After some introductory remarks on this general theme, I will proceed to list ten such conservative principles.
Perhaps it would be well, most of the time, to use this word “conservative” as an adjective chiefly. For there exists no Model Conservative, and conservatism is the negation of ideology: it is a state of mind, a type of character, a way of looking at the civil social order.
The attitude we call conservatism is sustained by a body of sentiments, rather than by a system of ideological dogmata. It is almost true that a conservative may be defined as a person who thinks himself such. The conservative movement or body of opinion can accommodate a considerable diversity of views on a good many subjects, there being no Test Act or Thirty-Nine Articles of the conservative creed.
In essence, the conservative person is simply one who finds the permanent things more pleasing than Chaos and Old Night. (Yet conservatives know, with Burke, that healthy “change is the means of our preservation.”) A people’s historic continuity of experience, says the conservative, offers a guide to policy far better than the abstract designs of coffee-house philosophers. But of course there is more to the conservative persuasion than this general attitude.
It is not possible to draw up a neat catalogue of conservatives’ convictions; nevertheless, I offer you, summarily, ten general principles; it seems safe to say that most conservatives would subscribe to most of these maxims. In various editions of my book The Conservative Mind I have listed certain canons of conservative thought—the list differing somewhat from edition to edition; in my anthology The Portable Conservative Reader I offer variations upon this theme. Now I present to you a summary of conservative assumptions differing somewhat from my canons in those two books of mine. In fine, the diversity of ways in which conservative views may find expression is itself proof that conservatism is no fixed ideology. What particular principles conservatives emphasize during any given time will vary with the circumstances and necessities of that era. The following ten articles of belief reflect the emphases of conservatives in America nowadays.
First, the conservative believes that there exists an enduring moral order. That order is made for man, and man is made for it: human nature is a constant, and moral truths are permanent.
This word order signifies harmony. There are two aspects or types of order: the inner order of the soul, and the outer order of the commonwealth. Twenty-five centuries ago, Plato taught this doctrine, but even the educated nowadays find it difficult to understand. The problem of order has been a principal concern of conservatives ever since conservative became a term of politics.
Our twentieth-century world has experienced the hideous consequences of the collapse of belief in a moral order. Like the atrocities and disasters of Greece in the fifth century before Christ, the ruin of great nations in our century shows us the pit into which fall societies that mistake clever self-interest, or ingenious social controls, for pleasing alternatives to an oldfangled moral order.
It has been said by liberal intellectuals that the conservative believes all social questions, at heart, to be questions of private morality. Properly understood, this statement is quite true. A society in which men and women are governed by belief in an enduring moral order, by a strong sense of right and wrong, by personal convictions about justice and honor, will be a good society—whatever political machinery it may utilize; while a society in which men and women are morally adrift, ignorant of norms, and intent chiefly upon gratification of appetites, will be a bad society—no matter how many people vote and no matter how liberal its formal constitution may be.
Second, the conservative adheres to custom, convention, and continuity. It is old custom that enables people to live together peaceably; the destroyers of custom demolish more than they know or desire. It is through convention—a word much abused in our time—that we contrive to avoid perpetual disputes about rights and duties: law at base is a body of conventions. Continuity is the means of linking generation to generation; it matters as much for society as it does for the individual; without it, life is meaningless. When successful revolutionaries have effaced old customs, derided old conventions, and broken the continuity of social institutions—why, presently they discover the necessity of establishing fresh customs, conventions, and continuity; but that process is painful and slow; and the new social order that eventually emerges may be much inferior to the old order that radicals overthrew in their zeal for the Earthly Paradise.
Conservatives are champions of custom, convention, and continuity because they prefer the devil they know to the devil they don’t know. Order and justice and freedom, they believe, are the artificial products of a long social experience, the result of centuries of trial and reflection and sacrifice. Thus the body social is a kind of spiritual corporation, comparable to the church; it may even be called a community of souls. Human society is no machine, to be treated mechanically. The continuity, the life-blood, of a society must not be interrupted. Burke’s reminder of the necessity for prudent change is in the mind of the conservative. But necessary change, conservatives argue, ought to he gradual and discriminatory, never unfixing old interests at once.
Third, conservatives believe in what may be called the principle of prescription. Conservatives sense that modern people are dwarfs on the shoulders of giants, able to see farther than their ancestors only because of the great stature of those who have preceded us in time. Therefore conservatives very often emphasize the importance of prescription—that is, of things established by immemorial usage, so that the mind of man runneth not to the contrary. There exist rights of which the chief sanction is their antiquity—including rights to property, often. Similarly, our morals are prescriptive in great part. Conservatives argue that we are unlikely, we moderns, to make any brave new discoveries in morals or politics or taste. It is perilous to weigh every passing issue on the basis of private judgment and private rationality. The individual is foolish, but the species is wise, Burke declared. In politics we do well to abide by precedent and precept and even prejudice, for the great mysterious incorporation of the human race has acquired a prescriptive wisdom far greater than any man’s petty private rationality.
Fourth, conservatives are guided by their principle of prudence. Burke agrees with Plato that in the statesman, prudence is chief among virtues. Any public measure ought to be judged by its probable long-run consequences, not merely by temporary advantage or popularity. Liberals and radicals, the conservative says, are imprudent: for they dash at their objectives without giving much heed to the risk of new abuses worse than the evils they hope to sweep away. As John Randolph of Roanoke put it, Providence moves slowly, but the devil always hurries. Human society being complex, remedies cannot be simple if they are to be efficacious. The conservative declares that he acts only after sufficient reflection, having weighed the consequences. Sudden and slashing reforms are as perilous as sudden and slashing surgery.
Fifth, conservatives pay attention to the principle of variety. They feel affection for the proliferating intricacy of long-established social institutions and modes of life, as distinguished from the narrowing uniformity and deadening egalitarianism of radical systems. For the preservation of a healthy diversity in any civilization, there must survive orders and classes, differences in material condition, and many sorts of inequality. The only true forms of equality are equality at the Last Judgment and equality before a just court of law; all other attempts at leveling must lead, at best, to social stagnation.
Society requires honest and able leadership; and if natural and institutional differences are destroyed, presently some tyrant or host of squalid oligarchs will create new forms of inequality.
Sixth, conservatives are chastened by their principle of imperfectability. Human nature suffers irremediably from certain grave faults, the conservatives know. Man being imperfect, no perfect social order ever can be created. Because of human restlessness, mankind would grow rebellious under any utopian domination, and would break out once more in violent discontent—or else expire of boredom. To seek for utopia is to end in disaster, the conservative says: we are not made for perfect things. All that we reasonably can expect is a tolerably ordered, just, and free society, in which some evils, maladjustments, and suffering will continue to lurk.
By proper attention to prudent reform, we may preserve and improve this tolerable order. But if the old institutional and moral safeguards of a nation are neglected, then the anarchic impulse in humankind breaks loose: “the ceremony of innocence is drowned.” The ideologues who promise the perfection of man and society have converted a great part of the twentieth-century world into a terrestrial hell.
Seventh, conservatives are persuaded that freedom and property are closely linked. Separate property from private possession, and Leviathan becomes master of all. Upon the foundation of private property, great civilizations are built. The more widespread is the possession of private property, the more stable and productive is a commonwealth. Economic levelling, conservatives maintain, is not economic progress. Getting and spending are not the chief aims of human existence; but a sound economic basis for the person, the family, and the commonwealth is much to be desired.
Sir Henry Maine, in his Village Communities, puts strongly the case for private property, as distinguished from communal property: “Nobody is at liberty to attack several property and to say at the same time that he values civilization. The history of the two cannot be disentangled.” For the institution of several property—that is, private property—has been a powerful instrument for teaching men and women responsibility, for providing motives to integrity, for supporting general culture, for raising mankind above the level of mere drudgery, for affording leisure to think and freedom to act.
To be able to retain the fruits of one’s labor; to be able to see one’s work made permanent; to be able to bequeath one’s property to one’s posterity; to be able to rise from the natural condition of grinding poverty to the security of enduring accomplishment; to have something that is really one’s own—these are advantages difficult to deny. The conservative acknowledges that the possession of property fixes certain duties upon the possessor; he accepts those moral and legal obligations cheerfully.
Eighth, conservatives uphold voluntary community, quite as they oppose involuntary collectivism. Although Americans have been attached strongly to privacy and private rights, they also have been a people conspicuous for a successful spirit of community. In a genuine community, the decisions most directly affecting the lives of citizens are made locally and voluntarily. Some of these functions are carried out by local political bodies, others by private associations: so long as they are kept local, and are marked by the general agreement of those affected, they constitute healthy community. But when these functions pass by default or usurpation to centralized authority, then community is in serious danger. Whatever is beneficent and prudent in modern democracy is made possible through cooperative volition. If, then, in the name of an abstract Democracy, the functions of community are transferred to distant political direction—why, real government by the consent of the governed gives way to a standardizing process hostile to freedom and human dignity.
For a nation is no stronger than the numerous little communities of which it is composed. A central administration, or a corps of select managers and civil servants, however well intentioned and well trained, cannot confer justice and prosperity and tranquility upon a mass of men and women deprived of their old responsibilities. That experiment has been made before; and it has been disastrous. It is the performance of our duties in community that teaches us prudence and efficiency and charity.
Ninth, the conservative perceives the need for prudent restraints upon power and upon human passions. Politically speaking, power is the ability to do as one likes, regardless of the wills of one’s fellows. A state in which an individual or a small group are able to dominate the wills of their fellows without check is a despotism, whether it is called monarchical or aristocratic or democratic. When every person claims to be a power unto himself, then society falls into anarchy. Anarchy never lasts long, being intolerable for everyone, and contrary to the ineluctable fact that some persons are more strong and more clever than their neighbors. To anarchy there succeeds tyranny or oligarchy, in which power is monopolized by a very few.
The conservative endeavors to so limit and balance political power that anarchy or tyranny may not arise. In every age, nevertheless, men and women are tempted to overthrow the limitations upon power, for the sake of some fancied temporary advantage. It is characteristic of the radical that he thinks of power as a force for good—so long as the power falls into his hands. In the name of liberty, the French and Russian revolutionaries abolished the old restraints upon power; but power cannot be abolished; it always finds its way into someone’s hands. That power which the revolutionaries had thought oppressive in the hands of the old regime became many times as tyrannical in the hands of the radical new masters of the state.
Knowing human nature for a mixture of good and evil, the conservative does not put his trust in mere benevolence. Constitutional restrictions, political checks and balances, adequate enforcement of the laws, the old intricate web of restraints upon will and appetite—these the conservative approves as instruments of freedom and order. A just government maintains a healthy tension between the claims of authority and the claims of liberty.
Tenth, the thinking conservative understands that permanence and change must be recognized and reconciled in a vigorous society. The conservative is not opposed to social improvement, although he doubts whether there is any such force as a mystical Progress, with a Roman P, at work in the world. When a society is progressing in some respects, usually it is declining in other respects. The conservative knows that any healthy society is influenced by two forces, which Samuel Taylor Coleridge called its Permanence and its Progression. The Permanence of a society is formed by those enduring interests and convictions that gives us stability and continuity; without that Permanence, the fountains of the great deep are broken up, society slipping into anarchy. The Progression in a society is that spirit and that body of talents which urge us on to prudent reform and improvement; without that Progression, a people stagnate.
Therefore the intelligent conservative endeavors to reconcile the claims of Permanence and the claims of Progression. He thinks that the liberal and the radical, blind to the just claims of Permanence, would endanger the heritage bequeathed to us, in an endeavor to hurry us into some dubious Terrestrial Paradise. The conservative, in short, favors reasoned and temperate progress; he is opposed to the cult of Progress, whose votaries believe that everything new necessarily is superior to everything old.
Change is essential to the body social, the conservative reasons, just as it is essential to the human body. A body that has ceased to renew itself has begun to die. But if that body is to be vigorous, the change must occur in a regular manner, harmonizing with the form and nature of that body; otherwise change produces a monstrous growth, a cancer, which devours its host. The conservative takes care that nothing in a society should ever be wholly old, and that nothing should ever be wholly new. This is the means of the conservation of a nation, quite as it is the means of conservation of a living organism. Just how much change a society requires, and what sort of change, depend upon the circumstances of an age and a nation.
Such, then, are ten principles that have loomed large during the two centuries of modern conservative thought. Other principles of equal importance might have been discussed here: the conservative understanding of justice, for one, or the conservative view of education. But such subjects, time running on, I must leave to your private investigation.
The great line of demarcation in modern politics, Eric Voegelin used to point out, is not a division between liberals on one side and totalitarians on the other. No, on one side of that line are all those men and women who fancy that the temporal order is the only order, and that material needs are their only needs, and that they may do as they like with the human patrimony. On the other side of that line are all those people who recognize an enduring moral order in the universe, a constant human nature, and high duties toward the order spiritual and the order temporal.
Adapted from The Politics of Prudence (ISI Books, 1993). Copyright © 1993 by Russell Kirk.
Additional reading from Russell Kirk
Thursday, February 25, 2010
From Across the Pond: Descendants of Our Founders Rise UP!
Telegraph.co.ukI do love this one and oh so British,with the "please dos"
The inaugural British Tea Party will take place on Saturday in my home town of Brighton, and I’ll be speaking. Do try to come: here are the details.
Labour has raised more than a trillion pounds in additional taxation since 1997. Yet, unbelievably, Gordon Brown has still managed to run up a deficit of 12.6 per cent of GDP (Greece’s is 12.7 per cent). A far lower level of taxation brought Americans out in spontaneous protest last year.
If you happen to be coming to the Conservative Spring Conference, do please pop in: the Tea Party is five minutes’ walk from the conference venue. It is, however, outside the security zone, and anyone is welcome to come. Oh, and this being England, we’ll be serving actual, you know, tea. I hope to see some of this blog’s readers there.
Good Show!
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Pure Michigan: Michigan Dog Wins Westminster!
The Westiminster Kennel Club Dog Show is the Olympics of the dog world and Michigan Scottie, Sadie walked off with the top prize, the gold medal, Best in Show!A four-year-old Scottish terrier from Michigan has been named Best in Show at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show. The dog named Sadie is owned by Amelia and Dan Musser of Mackinac Island.
Sadie's official name with the American Kennel Club is Roundtown Mercedes of Maryscot.
If you are not from Michigan, Mackinac Island is truly a magical place where motorized vehicle have banned for more than a century and it remains a charming living Victorian community.
It is home to a pre-Revolutionary fort, Fort Mackinac built in 1780.
And Mackinaw Island is also home to the world famous Grand Hotel built in 1887 and boasts the longest Front Porch in the world
I recently
was up on Mackinac Island and I can personally testify of the beauty and charm of the island and the magnificent Grand Hotel (picture taken on the porch of the Grand Hotel, Sept. 2009)Well it just so happens that the owners of the Grand Hotel, are Amelia and Dan Musser!
Does that mean we may get a glimpse of Sadie lounging on the porch of the Grand Hotel?
Let's hope so!
Congratulations Sadie, to the Musser's and Michigan
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