We the People... Address 2020 Now, Otherwise Our Constitution is Just Another Crumbling Piece of Paper

A solid majority of Americans know that the 2020 election was fraudulent. That’s a big problem for a country with a representative government, one in which the leaders are supposed to represent the will of the people. We’re a nation of laws ostensibly flowing from a Constitution that sets out explicit limitations on the federal government’s powers and protects a variety of citizens’ rights upon which said government cannot infringe. To the degree that a significant majority of citizens feel that the leader of this government was not constitutionally elected, that’s a problem.

For all its importance, our Constitution is nothing more than a piece of paper. It doesn’t make laws. It doesn’t have an army. It’s not the police. It’s just words on paper. It functions because Americans have confidence in its words as the foundation for the laws of our country and the guideposts governing the actions of those who actually control the army and the police and write the laws.

When that confidence is shaken, society’s foundation is shaken. While the fraudulent election of 2020 is not the first example of that shaken confidence in government, it’s easily the most important. From the economic upheavals wrought by the Industrial Revolution to widespread hopelessness during the Depression to the perceived fecklessness during the Vietnam War and economic malaise of the 60s and 70s, confidence in government has been shaken before but never before has the government’s legitimacy been in widespread doubt.

That changed with the 2020 election. Americans watched as the fraud played out in real-time, right in front of them. With violent riots in the streets that went unrestrained in the months leading up to the election, with courts inexplicably ignoring countless unconstitutional changes to voting laws, and with the media and social media censoring true stories that harmed Democrat chances, it started to seem as if the scales were tipped to one side. On election night and during the following weeks it became clear that this was indeed the case.

When almost 60% of the American people feel as if the man who is both the leader of the country and the head of the federal government is illegitimate, what are they supposed to do?

There’s nothing to be done we’re told… Not true. The election can be overturned. Not that I imagine there’s sufficient internal fortitude among Republicans to do so but, ideally, they should make the attempt. But how?

The Constitution doesn’t address anything remotely close to reversing a fraudulently achieved election. That’s true, but then it also says nothing about the right to abortion, the government providing welfare payments to citizens (or non-citizens), government control of healthcare, the imposition of CAFÉ standards, or collective bargaining rules. Indeed, there is much that goes on in government that is not in the Constitution. In 1803, Thomas Jefferson worried that the Constitution did not give him the power to make the Louisiana Purchase, but today all or part of 15 states exist because of it.

Like John Marshall’s judicial review doctrine, which you won’t find anywhere in the Constitution, things don’t exist until they do. In this case, in states where fraud is proven or where voting laws were enacted unconstitutionally, the legislatures should withdraw their Electoral College votes and recast them based on accurate and lawful counting of the votes.

It’s true there’s no existing Constitutional mechanism to facilitate that remedy, and the likelihood of a Democrat-controlled Congress doing anything to further it is less likely than a healthy college student dying of COVID, but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be done. It should, and it should be driven by those states where fraud so clearly occurred and tipped the election; essentially ground zero for the coup: Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, all five of which have nominally GOP legislatures.

Many will say that this is extra-constitutional, and that may indeed be true. But what is beyond debate is the fact that the 2020 election itself was extra-constitutional. The Constitution states that elections are to be run according to rules set by state legislatures. That didn’t happen across the country.

If one is going to have an election run beyond the explicit parameters of the Constitution, I’d prefer to have it hew as close as possible to what the document actually says, rather than what some hack Secretaries of State or uber partisan jurists say that it is. Our Founding Fathers gave the power to craft election rules to state legislatures and that is where it should reside.

Now, assuming that the legislatures of these five states—and others as they choose—take seriously their duty to address the fraud of the 2020 election, Congress will have a decision to make. Congress can either engage with the states to address the issue or simply ignore them. Currently, there is zero chance of action, but after the 2022 midterms Congress will likely look different and the opportunity to address the issue can be revisited.  Although with spineless weasels Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy leading the GOP in Congress the outcome would likely be exactly the same as one led by Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer.  Nonetheless…

This may sound like spinning wheels, but it’s not. On the contrary, affirmatively excising the demons of the 2020 election should force all politicians or candidates to make their positions known. They either admit that the 2020 election was fraudulent and are willing to do something about it or they don’t, won’t, and should be primaried if GOP or defeated if Democrat. There can be no in between. If the flaws of 2020 are not admitted and addressed, then 2024 is gone before the campaign even begins, and almost every American understands that.

Why this matters is simple: The nation is changing, rapidly and not in a good or constitutional way. From vaccine mandates to CRT seemingly everywhere to locales providing COVID medicines based on race to transgender men competing in women’s sports to mayors and governors essentially giving their communities over to the homeless and violent criminals, America in 2022 is not one someone from even a decade ago would recognize. It’s changing, rapidly, and in most cases against the wishes of large majorities of the American population.

Importantly, though, we’re not a democracy, and the Constitution is built to rein in the passions of the majorities. It’s not a suicide pact. American citizens with confidence in their election system are willing to wait for the next election cycle to direct a change of course. Those same citizens, however, if they feel that the system is fraudulent and if they know the game is rigged against them, will find alternative means to stop the evisceration of the nation so many of them cherish. When the majority—and a growing majority, at that—of a population believe their leaders are illegitimate, bad things tend to happen.

Illegitimate regimes can stay in power for decades, but only with an army of stormtroopers and Gestapo to suppress a cowed population. The United States is not Germany in the early 1930s nor China today and Americans are not yet cowed. Indeed, they have 1^st Amendment, a 2^nd Amendment and a 250-year-old legacy of freedom most are wont to give up. This Democrat fascism will eventually come to an end. The question is how. The ideal solution is to be found at a ballot box, with all Americans confident their votes will be counted fairly. Let’s hope our leaders can find the courage to lead us down that path. 

The NFL has become the No Freedom League - How Wokeness Helped Bring America to the Brink of Revolution

I grew up in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, before they had satellite TV. As such, on the Monday after the Super Bowl everyone on the entire base would try and get through the day without knowing who won the game. That night, after a tape of the game had been flown down from the US, we'd watch the game and be riveted to our TVs. The military TV stations weren’t allowed to show private commercials so we would all greet a Pepsi or McDonalds commercial that might slip by the censors with wondrous applause. The NFL was my passion, along with my sainted Dolphins, with Gods Bob Griese and Dan Marino at the helm. Today however, I doubt I’ll watch another NFL game and most certainly won’t spend a penny on NFL merchandise.

Why? It’s simple. The NFL, helmed by men who are ostensibly some of the smartest businessmen in America, literally helped bring America to the brink of revolution, maybe even led the way. Of course we’re talking about Kaepernick and Black Lives Matter.

The NFL, and to a lesser degree, MLB and the NBA used to be oases from which all Americans could seek refuge from the slings and arrows of daily life. Monday at the office used to be “Did you see that catch?” or “The zebras blew another one!” Since Kaepernick started his grandstanding however the conversations became more about who was kneeling, what star was lecturing America about this grievance or that and ceased to be about the excitement or pain or joy of the actual games.

In a sad irony, Charlie Daniels once wrote an anthem called “In America” where he used an NFL team to demonstrate American's unity. 

And we may have done a little bit of fighting among ourselves, 

but you outside people best leave us alone...

Cause we'll all stick together, and you can take that to the bank,

that's the cowboys and the hippies and the rebels and the yanks...

You just go and lay your hand on a Pittsburgh Steelers fan and I think you're gonna finally understand”

It’s almost apropos that Daniels died in the very year when it’s not outsiders who have started a revolution, but other Americans, and they were set on that course by the NFL.

Had the “geniuses” who run the NFL understood anything about America and put a stop to Kaepernick’s on field preening four years ago, we wouldn’t be where we are today. Freedom of speech had nothing to do with anything. Kaepernick had and has every right to say what’s on his mind. The NFL however did not have to allow him to hijack their platform to trumpet it. Had they not helped him become a media darling, he probably wouldn’t have walked away from is multimillion dollar contract and become the least worthy “martyr” in the history of martyrs.

And just to be clear, it's not because they couldn't have done anything.  The NFL controls virtually every single thing about its games and programs. It choreographs everything!!! Uniform colors… check. Shirts tucked in… check. Fines for faux cellphone celebrations after a touchdown? Check. Yet somehow they weren’t able to tell players that they could not disrespect the American flag and National Anthem. They could have required standing, or required those not wanting to participate to stay in the locker room, or they could have kept all the players in the locker rooms and let the fans sing the song… But they didn’t. Instead, they allowed what would have been a flash in the pan to become a raging inferno that has the potential to turn the United States and its Constitution into ashes.  The fires and riots and attacks on police and federal buildings and America are simply the progeny of the boiling tempers fueled in part by the victim mentality emboldened by the NFL's wokeness.

Today in the United States the idea of free speech is vanishing and the NFL, by showcasing a struggling, marginal, spoiled quarterback with a chip on his shoulder helped make it so. Today in America, everything is political… science, education, healthcare and now, sadly, even sports. Sure politics in sports has been around for a while, go back to the 1968 Black Power Olympic protests or Muhammad Ali, but those were news, not everyday life.

Now politics has infested every corner of American life and you can’t help but see it everywhere from shopping to going to the movies to wedding cakes to science. Not to mention workplaces.  Up until about 2016 Americans had at least one refuge from the cancer of political rage… that was sports. Americans of different colors, of different religions of different national origins could get together and cheer for (or against) the Cowboys, the Raiders, the Patriots or the Steelers and feel like they were part of something bigger than themselves, members of the same team.  "How'd we do this weekend?" or "Where are we at this Sunday?" wasn't reserved for players or coaches... Fans were part of the team, the 12th man, they weren't just observers, they were family.  Sports made fans' differences inconsequential, even if only for as long as they were cheering together or drinking beer together or wearing the their matching Giants jerseys.

In putting politics front and center of their offerings, in letting their platforms become a cultural litmus test, in actively turning their sport into a vehicle for wokeness, the NFL has destroyed their brand as an American icon. Never again will many Americans look to it for a welcome respite from the chaos of everyday life. Never again will it have the capacity to change American life the way the Heidi Bowl did.

The NFL may continue to be a viable business for some time, but its place in history will be sealed by its engagement in wokeness. The thing about wokeness is that there are always new victims to be supported, new causes to be championed and new targets for expropriation and destruction. The geniuses who run the league shouldn’t be surprised that eventually they will be on the wrong side of some victims rights group and their businesses will be targeted, their directors will be hounded and eventually their assets will be taken, one way or another. When that happens they shouldn't be surprised that more than a few people might be whispering feelings of Schadenfreude.

First They Came...

With a respectful nod to Martin Niemöller, I present First They Came...

Barack Obama, Free Speech and Operation Choke Point... you'd better watch out, you might be next!

The Constitution guarantees every American the Freedom of Speech. The very first Amendment to the document says “Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech…” Of course, what is speech that it needs such protection? Speech is more than just saying what’s on your mind, regardless of how profound or silly it is. Speech is communication. That’s the speech that needed protection and was incorporated into the First Amendment. It was the communication of thoughts and ideas that needed protection. Speech needed protection because of the impact it could have on others. Kings don’t like their authority questioned and a freedom of speech could potentially rile up his subjects.

It is that very reason that our Founding Fathers sought to protect speech: For the people to keep the government in check.

So now, today, we are all lucky enough to have that freedom. But it’s not literally the words coming out of your mouth that need the protection. After all, you could stand in your shower and say whatever you want and no king or president would likely care. No, it’s your ability to communicate ideas to others that is real value and has the power to effect change.

Knowing that communication was such a central element of the Freedom of Speech, how would you feel if the government used its various powers to say “We’re not going to try and stop you from speaking, however we are going to threaten anyone who listens to you.” You’d be dumbfounded to say the least – no pun intended. That doesn’t make a bit of sense and it’s likely unconstitutional as it puts a dagger into the very heart of what free speech is about.

Thankfully the Obama administration has not yet decided to do quite that, yet… although the IRS scandal was certainly an attempt to accomplish the same thing. They are however using that very same tactic to shut down a wide range of legal businesses they don’t like. They are doing it to gun and ammunition dealers. They are doing it to the porn industry. They are doing it to payday lenders. They are doing it to Colorado marijuana retailers. In every one of these cases the administration is seeking to close down legal businesses by using its regulatory powers to stop banks from doing business with them. It’s called “Operation Choke Point” and it’s a joint effort by the Departments of Justice, Treasury and a handful of other agencies to effectively shut-down industries that the Obama administration doesn’t like.

How do they accomplish that? By contacting the banks servicing those businesses and “encouraging” them to stop doing business with the frowned upon businesses. Although the businesses are perfectly legal, the banks, recognizing that the price for not adhering to those “suggestions” would be a regulatory nightmare from which they might not be able to survive, acquiesce.

The problem however is that the government doesn’t have the legal right to coerce businesses out of business arbitrarily just because they don’t like them. That’s the whole point of the Constitution in the first place, particularly the 10th Amendment: "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." Government can not legally rule by executive fiat. But somehow Barack Obama thinks he can.

Maybe you support what he’s doing. Maybe you’re against gun ownership or porn. The question becomes however, what about the next president? Maybe he’s against different things, even if they are legal. Let’s say Rick Santorum becomes the next president and decides to use the Treasury Department to force banks to stop servicing abortion clinics and their employees. The 21st Amendment repealed prohibition, but what if the next president felt that thousands of innocent deaths annually due to drunk driving was too many and decided to use the Department of Agriculture to outlaw the growing of hops, barley and grapes? What if the next president decides that unions are a threat to the nation’s prosperity and uses Homeland Security to, while in line with the 1st Amendment, allow them to meet, but to limit them meeting in spaces no larger than a Starbucks? What if the next president thinks electric cars require too many resources to manufacture so he uses the Energy Department to tamp down demand by having power companies shut off electricity to owners’ homes? Where does it stop?

The whole point of the Constitution and the rule of law is that citizens know the bounds of what is legal and what is not and understand where government action is appropriate. Those who operate within those bounds should be free from arbitrary government coercion. If “Operation Choke Point” is allowed to stand then it changes the United States from a nation (government) of laws to a nation of men. That’s a big problem, and not only because we have statists like Barack Obama and Eric Holder controlling the reins of power.  More importantly,  it undermines the very foundation of the nation. Once that which defines legal becomes a moving target based on who’s in power, then no one can be secure in their businesses, their homes or anywhere in their lives. One of two things follow: anarchy or tyranny. People will choose to either do what they want regardless of what the law says or they will do what they think the people in power want, regardless of what the law says. One or the other will prevail. Neither of which is fertile ground for freedom or prosperity for anybody other than those in power.

Gay Wedding Cakes, Religious Freedom and the Return of Slavery in America

The most common definition of a slave is: A person who is the property of and wholly subject to another. There is another definition however: A person entirely under the domination of some influence or person. Slavery has been outlawed in the US for 150 years, but some people want to bring it back… but not necessarily in the form you might think. Uncle Sam of course is not a master and citizens are not his slaves. The government – at least not the government defined in the Constitution – doesn’t have the right to tell Americans who they have to work for or who their businesses have to serve.

It can however, at least according to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, demand that businesses that offer to provide services to the public not discriminate based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. That means however that if you are offering to sell cakes, you must not decide that you will sell cakes to men and not women, to Jews but not Christians, to blacks but not whites, or to a native born American but not a naturalized citizen born in Canada.

Interestingly, other than religion all of the limitations are innate, things that people are born with or had from birth. That prohibition also applies to the later characteristics defined by the Americans with Disabilities Act. The CRA says what a business can’t do, it can’t discriminate based on a clear set of criteria… but it says nothing about what they must do. A black chef can’t legally refuse to provide service to someone who walks in simply because he’s white. He can however choose not to provide service to him when the man tells him that the event is a celebration of KKK history. That’s discrimination, but it’s legal discrimination and its well within the chef’s rights.

The CRA lists specific criteria upon which a business is not allowed to discriminate: race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. But that’s it. Other than those reasons any business can choose who they would like to serve. A 7-11 store is well within its rights to say “No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service”. By the same token a gun store can choose not to sell a gun to a drunk person and business can choose not to hire people with tattoos. A community can limit its inhabitants to those over 55 or a storekeeper with a Napoleon complex can choose to never serve customers over 6 ft. These restrictions may or may not be prudent, but none of them are illegal as businesses have the right to choose to whom they provide services within the framework of the CRA, the ADA and the Equal Protection Clause upon which both are based.

Which brings us to the issue of bakers and photographers and others. The question is, working under the shadow of the Equal Protection Clause, do such businesses have the right to refuse to provide services for a gay wedding, something their faith tells them is a sin? Absolutely. Do they have the right to refuse to provide services for a gay wedding? Absolutely. Should they be protected from lawsuits for doing so? Of course.

The point is, in almost every one of these cases the service providers did not refuse service because someone was gay. Rather, they declined to participate in an activity their faith tells them is sinful. Indeed the baker in the case actually offered to let the gay couple purchase any one of the cakes in his shop. He was simply refusing to bake a gay themed wedding cake.

The distinction between the activity and a customer’s gayness or lack thereof may be a fine one, but it is an important one. The CRA says businesses cannot discriminate against customers based on various innate or unchangeable characteristics. Significantly, the characteristic of being gay is not among them. Which means that theoretically businesses have the right to discriminate against gays or 22 year olds or journalists with no threat of government sanction. Nonetheless, most Americans oppose discriminating against people for their sexual orientation and the businesses in question were not doing so. (Similarly, 85% of Americans believe service providers should be allowed to decline to participate in gay weddings.)  They were simply declining to participate in an activity that their faith says is sinful.

The jilted couples in these cases looked to the government to force the said businesses to provide the services they wanted. In all three cases the government obliged stating that the religious objections of the business owners were trumped by the couple’s equal protections. That is both unfortunate and absurd. If the government can force a Christian baker to bake a cake for a gay couple, can it force a Muslim grocer who does special orders to special order pork? Can it compel the aforementioned black chef to cater the KKK’s event? Can it force a vegan landlord to rent his building to someone wanting to open a steakhouse? The answer of course is no, no and no and the reason is because Americans are not slaves and the government has no right to compel them to do things that go against their moral convictions.

That is likely news to people in government (and their liberal enablers) who believe they are the masters of the American people. They are not. Americans are free and by constitution they have given government limited powers – even if the government is increasingly obliterating those limits. Of those freedoms,  religious freedom is among the most important.  It is what brought the Pilgrims to America 400 years ago and it’s been a hallmark of American society ever since. A government commanding its citizens to do things beyond its scope is never a good idea, which Obamacare demonstrates on a daily basis. A government commanding its citizens to do something that goes against their religious faith is even worse because it undermines the fundamental legitimacy of the government itself. If these rulings stand, if the most basic freedom to abstain from participating in activities your religion tells you are sinful is now largely gone, then the progressive barbarians are no longer at the gate… they’ve entered your home, taken control of your life and have carte blanche to force you to do whatever it is they demand – or face ruinous consequences otherwise. Such is the kindling with which revolutionary fires are often started…

From your Facebook passwords to Section 8 housing... why Barack Obama should be impeached for dismantling the very Constitution he swore to preserve, protect and defend.

We all know that Barack Obama was a Constitutional Law professor at the University of Chicago. He spent more than a decade lecturing on what is possibly the greatest document ever written by men. Later, when elected to the Senate and then the White House he swore to defend that same Constitution. Despite all of that, one has to wonder, does Barack Obama not actually understand the document he has spent a quarter century studying, teaching and “defending” or is he some kind of self directed progressive Manchurian Candidate? Whichever is the case, one thing is unassailable, Barack Obama is a using the power of the presidency to eviscerate the Bill of Rights. Not the whole thing mind you, but enough to turn the granite foundation of American freedom into a termite ridden balsa wood floor that could give way at any moment.

So how has Obama undermined the Bill of Rights? Let us count the ways…

1st Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press…”

Just to be clear, in this context the framers said Congress but meant the federal government because they expected Congress would make all laws and the President would execute and enforce them.

Freedom of Speech: President Obama used the IRS to quash the voices of the most rabid and politically dangerous of his opponents, the Tea Party and in doing so stole the 2012 election.

Freedom of the Press: Obama’s Justice Department purposely bypassed judicial review and secretly subpoenaed records from the AP as well as the personal phone records of a number of its editors and reporters in an attempt to discover the source of a leak about terrorist plots. This is the same Obama Justice Department that characterized routine reporting practices as criminal activity by labeling Fox News reporter James Rosen a "co-conspirator" for reporting on North Korea and then tracking both his professional and personal actions and emails. In these cases, and perhaps others yet unknown, the President and his team sought to use the police power of the state to intimidate the press.

2nd Amendment: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Right to keep and bear Arms:  The Obama administration has spent much time and effort seeking to find ways to limit American’s right to bear arms. From supporting UN treaties that require gun registration to floating the idea of forcing psychologists to report on your gun ownership, to talking about working on gun control “under the radar”, President Obama has made it clear that the 2nd Amendment is no barrier to his desire to eliminate our right to own guns.

4th Amendment: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

...to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects: This is one of President Obama’s favorite targets. We’ve all heard of the NSA gathering data on citizen’s phone calls and Internet surfing habits without warrants, which would seem a crystal clear violation of the 5th Amendment. Now we discover that the Obama administration is demanding that major Internet companies turn over users' stored passwords. required to have data collecting black boxes installed. Those boxes collect a variety of data from how fast you’re going to whether or not you’re wearing your seat belt to how long it took you to step on the brake. Add to that the fact that most cars will have OnStar like capabilities and the government could pull a NSA redux and easily know everything about every trip you ever make as well as listen to everything you say the entire time.

That means that potentially a phalanx of nameless, faceless bureaucrats from the IRS or the NSA or the DHS can sit there and scrutinize your every message or like or post on Facebook or Match.com or any other social media platform. And it’s not just online.  In 2012 the NTHSA proposed that by 2014 all cars be requiredto have data collecting black boxes installed.  Those boxes collect a variety of data from how fast you’re going to whether or not you’re wearing your seat belt to how long it took you to step on the brake.  Add to that the fact that most cars will have OnStar like capabilities and the government could pull a NSA redux and easily know everything about every trip you ever make as well as listen to everything you say the entire time.

5th Amendment: …Nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb, nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

This Amendment too has come under particular attack by the Obama administration.

Double jeopardy:  After the jury returned a not guilty verdict in the Trayvon Martin trial, the Justice Department actually set up an email address with the specific purpose of soliciting tips so that it might help them bring charges against George Zimmerman for the same act, only under a different statute.

...private property be taken for public use, without just compensation:  Then there is the Takings Clause that has been felled by Barack Obama’s hand. In 2009, after failing to intimidate two state retirement funds who held secured Chrysler bonds, the President ignored contract law and simply took their property for the government and the UAW without just compensation.

...private property be taken for public use, without just compensation:  Finally there is the administration’s plan to achieve their diversity goals by using a variety of tools to force communities – and indirectly owners of suburban rental properties – to accept government Section 8 vouchers. Section 8 is a welfare program where government pays most of the rent and utilities for low income renters. While some landlords may be happy in the short term to have tenants whose bill gets paid on time, in the long run they and their neighbors will experience a significant “taking” of their property as the introduction of Section 8 housing almost invariably leads to dramatic increases in crime rates followed by significant declines in property values.

And this of course is only a partial listing…

Barack Obama sees the Constitution in general as little more than a list of suggested rules to be considered and the Bill of Rights in particular as a Maginot Line to simply be bypassed whenever deemed necessary. The unfortunate thing about all of this is that federal power is like Pandora’s Box, once it is unleashed, it’s almost impossible to rein in. The perfect example of this was last week’s House bill seeking to limit the NSA’s power to spy on Americans. It failed.

What makes this particularly unseemly is the fact that the Bill of Rights was the key to the ratification of the Constitution in the first place. Had it not been for the Massachusetts Compromise it’s likely that the Anti-Federalists would have carried the day and the Constitution would never have been ratified.

Given the central role the freedoms codified in the Bill of Rights have played in the triumph and prosperity of the United States, it’s no wonder that Barack Obama seeks to disembowel it. In 2008 he promised to “fundamentally transform the United States”. He has achieved his goal. Thanks to Barack Obama, in 2013, before a citizen can begin thinking about setting off on some new adventure, begin solving some new (or old) problems, begin dreaming of new ideas or innovations, consider starting a new company or doing any one of the millions of things Americans have done for centuries, we must now stop and wonder what that act might look like if it were pulled out of context by some apparatchik, wonder how our private conversations might sound if heard by a government lawyer who knows nothing about us and for whom those words were not intended, wonder what might befall us if we criticize the government or what might become of our investments if they end up on the wrong side of some government redistribution scheme… In other words, we have to imagine we're living in George Orwell's 1984. 

All of that is by definition the opposite of freedom and they are the kinds of fears dictators seek to instill in their subjects. That is exactly why the Founding Fathers insisted on a Bill of Rights as the price for the ratification of the Constitution with its federal system. Barack Obama has driven a knife through the heart of the freedoms Americans fought and died for for centuries and he should be impeached for dismantling the very Constitution he swore to preserve, protect and defend.