Response By Kevin M. Samartin, Chairman,  Conservative Party (Virginia)

Great program. David Barton is an excellent historian. I have a bunch of his work including a DVD where he goes through the faith of our Founders. It is an incredible ‘sermon’ that he gave as a guest of the great Pastor Charles Stanley. He explained the faith of many of the 56 signers, and pointed out an interesting fact that the two who were the least religious, are the two that we have been taught the most about in our public education system. Those 2 being Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin. Though they do deserve a great place in our country’s history, there is a reason why the others are discounted and that is to attempt to claim that our country was not founded upon Judeo-Christian principles and that our Founders were not religious.

The “slavery thing” [another FB responder's claim in his string in opposition to the Founder's]was mainly a southern issue. Particularly three states – North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. There were a majority of colonial inhabitants that were vehemently opposed to slavery. I am proud to say that my Baptist brothers and sisters were staunchly opposed to slavery. The Constitution itself did spell out the abolition of slavery in Article 5. This was a compromise to ensure the inclusion of the southern states as a mean of providing security for the new nation as a whole. Additionally, the 3/5 clause counted non-free blacks as 3/5 of a person as a protection to ensure that the southern states could not count their slaves in a census on a 1:1 as opposed to a free person. This was extremely important in that if the slave states were allowed to count their slaves in a census, the south’s representation in the House of Representatives would far exceed that the free states and in turn slavery would not be abolished. The 3/5 was achieved when the northern states explained that if the southern states were going to count what they deemed their “property” the northern states were going to include in the census their property as well, which included many more cattle, horses, and other livestock than their southern counterparts. The south agreed to the 3/5 number.

The Founder’s wanted to end slavery, but were having a difficult time with the logistics of it all. Upon George Washington’s death, his slaves were given large parcels of his estate. The US was clearly on a course to the abolition of slavery until the Missouri Compromise of 1820.

The history that David Barton has been able to find in the archives of many institutions and private collections is astounding. He has shown time and time again that there was not a “racist” thing going on between blacks and whites in the days of our Founders. The documents and data do not lie. We all need to search out our history because much of what has been provided over the past 40 years or more has had a skew which is detrimental to the health of our nation. Thomas Sowell, the great economist and Hoover Fellow, explained with incredible amounts of data showing that black people had begun a rise in personal income, education, and other factors that show an increase in what can best be described as their class in this country. Business ownership by blacks increased in the years leading up to the 60s. Once the 60s came around with “The Great Society” there was a systematic breakdown of family, an increase of out of wedlock births, and an increase in single parent homes among blacks. The government and other entities that made up this “Great Society” fed a notion that the government would provide for black families living at or below poverty and the need for a father in the home was not necessary. It is a sad commentary that so many had to suffer needlessly, families were broken apart orthey became non-existent in an attempt to improve their condition in America in what has been classified as “white guilt”.

It’s hard to be a conservative when there’s little left to conserve. The increasing pace of America’s progression from free markets to a command economy has reached such a pace and become so obvious the Russian Prime Minister used his spotlight time at the World Economic Forum to warn America not to follow the socialist path. Now the Russian newspaper Pravda, once the leading communist voice on earth published an article entitled, “American capitalism gone with a whimper.” People around the world can see the individual decisions of producers and consumers are being replaced by the form letters of a faceless central-planning bureaucracy even if the Obama boosters still haven’t swallowed the red pill and watched the matrix dissolve.

Pushed by the breathtaking speed of America’s devolution into a command economy some conservatives have entered the ranks of the radicals. They’re beginning to think about how to cure the systemic political problems precipitating the November Revolution. One solution some are embracing is known as the Sovereignty Movement. This is a movement of citizens and state representatives attempting to right the listing ship-of-state by appealing to the 10th Amendment which says, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

The 10^th Amendment addressed one of the most hard-fought points in the establishment of a central government. The states even though they surrendered some of their sovereignty didn’t want to lose it all. Specifically they didn’t want to lose the power to make internal decisions. They did not want to be powerless before a distant national bureaucracy. So as the cap-stone of the Bill of Rights the 10^th Amendment was meant to reassure the states they would remain sovereign within their borders. However, since the 1830s, court rulings have garbled the once universally accepted meaning of the 10^th Amendment as the Federal government extended its authority from roads to schools to GM.

Now some are turning to a resurrection of the straightforward meaning of the 10^th Amendment as a way to mitigate the ever expanding power of centralized-control and social engineering combined with perpetual re-election and runaway pork-barrel deficit spending. But, is this enough?

As a Historian I always believe even a little history might help push back the darkness swirling around us. In 1787, at the close of the Constitutional Convention, as Benjamin Franklin left Independence Hall a lady asked “Well Doctor what have we got a republic or a monarchy.” “A republic” replied Franklin “if you can keep it.”

Many have the mistaken idea that the United States is a democracy. It’s not. It’s a representative republic. The Framers distrusted unfettered democracy therefore they inserted several mechanisms into the Constitution which added some innovations between direct democracy and the power to rule.

One of the great innovations the Framers built into our system is the federal concept. Since this is an important component of our political legacy that has been overlooked in our contemporary education system let me define what is meant by federal. A federal system is a union of states with a central authority wherein the member states retain powers of government.

According to the Constitution the Federal Government cannot mandate policies relating to local issues such as housing, business, transportation, etc. within the states. However, through expansive interpretations by activist judges this gradually morphed into almost limitless Federal control of the domestic affairs of the States.

Another vital component of our Constitutional heritage is the protection provided by a system of “Checks and Balances” wherein each level or branch of government acts as a barrier to other levels or branches of government from acquiring too much power. The most important check on the power of the Federal Government in relation to the constituent States was the Senate. In the Constitution the people directly elected the House of Representatives to represent their interests, the various State legislatures elected the members of the Senate to represent the individual states.

The adoption of the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913 mandating the popular election of Senators fatally damaged this system. Since then, the States have been reduced from equal partners with the Federal Government to a group of individual lobbyists. Before this amendment senators remained in office based upon how they upheld the rights of their state. The hot-and-cold winds of populist considerations didn’t compromise the Senator’s ability to serve. This freedom to vote against populist sentiment allowed the Senators to balance the directly-elected House. Now we have two houses of Congress trying to spend enough of other people’s money to make political profits for themselves. So what do I propose? Resurrect the 10^th Amendment, repeal the 17^th and while we’re at it let’s drive a stake through the heart of the 16^th and all that’s still on the conservative side of radicalism. Restore the balance and save the Republic!

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, Religion, and Leadership for Southside Virginia Community College. Contact Dr. Owens. © 2009 Robert R. Owens http://www.robertrowens.com/

Dr. Owens is available for speaking engagements.

]]> http://www.conservativepartyusa.org/conservativepartyva/?feed=rss2&p=69 0 http://www.conservativepartyusa.org/conservativepartyva/?p=60 http://www.conservativepartyusa.org/conservativepartyva/?p=60#comments Wed, 20 May 2009 22:43:10 +0000 admin http://www.conservativepartyusa.org/conservativepartyva/?p=60

Some people act as if America is about to morph into a European- style socialist state by the time they wake-up tomorrow or at least before they finish reading the latest edition of the New York Times. These unreconstructed Reaganites have the nerve to walk around carping and complaining that the Constitution is being left in the dust. Acting as if some extreme leftist clique has somehow duped the American public into giving the executive branch to an inexperienced, unknown commodity backed-up by a shoot-from-the-lip knee-jerk liberal with a rubber-stamp Congress drooling at the prospect of getting five more Ruth Bater Ginsbergs on the Supreme Court. If you fall for their caterwauling you’d think we had a President who insulted our best friends the Brits, bowed to the Saudi King, and announced we’re no longer a Christian nation while apologizing for America’s arrogance in what he recognized as a Muslim nation. Or one who hung out with Chavez and Ortega as he opened the doors for Castro. How preposterous!

Where do these moss-back radical Founder worshipers get this stuff? Although with the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Fox News and the Internet shining lights into areas of government the poor unwashed just aren’t sophisticated enough to understand it’s little wonder there are Committees of Correspondence springing up all over the place. Maybe it is time for a new Fairness Doctrine or as America’s caricature of Foghorn Leghorn Senator Fritz Hollings used to say when speaking of people doing what they want without government guidance, “Letting y’all regulate yourselves is like delivering lettuce by way of a rabbit.” How can anyone expect the media to be free without the government telling them what to do? We need a Fairness Doctrine just to, you know, make it Fair. And if the Fairness Doctrine is too Orwellian for the squeamish perhaps we could accomplish some good old fashioned localism and control with neighborhood committees?

These politically incorrect finger pointers engage in crazy-talk like trying to make people think any move towards insuring the 40 to 50 million unfortunates who lack healthcare will lead inevitably to a nationalized single-payer system and the rationing of health services. They point to stories like the one about a woman suffering from lung cancer informed through a form letter from a faceless bureaucrat that her state-run Health Plan won’t pay for life-extending cancer drugs but will pay for doctor-assisted suicide. Haven’t they ever seen Sicko? Why even Cuba has better health care than we do!

How are we supposed to choose between the haters who don’t want children to have free lunches and those who want everyone to have everything? How will we know if we’ve fallen into the hands of a demagogue who’ll say anything and do anything to enact a radical agenda? Some road signs or red flags might help us to know if this ever happened. I must warn you I’m getting as far out as I can here. You might even laugh out loud at the thought of any of these things ever happening.

How about if we ever elect the chosen candidate of the Communist Party USA who appoints as White House Counsel the same person who represented Castro in the Elian Gonzalez case and as Attorney General the point man in seizing the boy and sending him back to enjoy the many benefits of growing up in Cuba.

Or maybe if we ever have a Chief Executive who wants to micro-manage our economy deciding how much money companies can spend on advertising. Or one who fires CEOs and seeks to influence the make-up of corporate Board of Directors. Perhaps if we ever find ourselves with a President who thinks the Constitution allows him to set the wages and compensation packages of employees in private firms. What about a President who bullies people using the tactics of intimidation and fear, people like bondholders, bankers, or one who effectively takes companies from those who own them and gives them to people of his own choosing stepping over the line, which traditionally separates American government from private enterprise. Or maybe if we ever see a President giving tax cuts to people who don’t pay taxes while actually raising taxes on everything in sight. Or one who orchestrates the return of welfare as we’ve known it buried in the belly of an unread pork-barrel stimulus package which includes stimulus checks for dead people.

Just for the record, the off-the-wall crazy-talk example of nationalized healthcare leading to rationing of life-giving care wasn’t from Communist China or the old Soviet Union. It wasn’t even from progressive Europe, England or Canada it’s from Oregon. Where are we headed? The destination may not yet be clear to those looking through Rose-colored Obama Lenses, but it should be apparent we’re sliding down a slippery slope.

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, Religion, and Leadership for Southside Virginia Community College. Contact Dr. Owens. © 2009 Robert R. Owens http://robertrowens.com/ Dr. Owens is available for speaking engagements.

]]> http://www.conservativepartyusa.org/conservativepartyva/?feed=rss2&p=60 0 http://www.conservativepartyusa.org/conservativepartyva/?p=49 http://www.conservativepartyusa.org/conservativepartyva/?p=49#comments Wed, 13 May 2009 12:29:52 +0000 DanShaw http://www.conservativepartyusa.org/conservativepartyva/?p=49 What’s the difference between nationalistic and federalist views of the federal government? Is there a difference? Does this change anything that congress does? What’s the conservative viewpoint?

C. S. Lewis, 1898-1963, was a noted Irish author and scholar, and an outstanding Oxford academic. In lectures given by him in the mid-1940′s, there are two quotations from his series, “Right and Wrong” that can be seen as a clue to the meaning of the Universe. Doctor Lewis first sets up an image with the rhetorical statement that “you can’t put the clock back.” He then comments, “Would you think I was joking if I said that you can put a clock back, and that if the clock is wrong, it’s often the sensible thing to do?”

He then follows with this brilliant statement: “If you’re on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man.”
I submit to you that the Conservative Party is now the most progressive political party because it is the first party to totally turn “soonest” to the noble documents, all the documents, offerred up by the Founding Fathers of this great nation. Our sole mission is to re-establish the limits and boundaries of Government as framed by the Founding Fathers of the United States of America.

Ladies and Genglemen, we are on the wrong road. Time to turn back before it’s too late.