If you walk by the National Archives on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington D.C. you will most likely see a line of people waiting to get just a glimpse of our Declaration of Independence and Constitution. These two aged documents are browned with time and sealed under layers of a secure glass enclosure in the domed lobby of the Archives. But they still manage to impress their visitors. The inked words of the Constitution, many of them carefully penned by Gouverneur Morris over 200 years ago, are now barely visible. While some foreign visitors may struggle to make them out, we Americans know them by heart. “We the people in order to form a more perfect union…” the Constitution starts, and what follows is one of the most awe inspiring and heartfelt treatises to freedom in the history of man. After all, this one document founded the most successful country the world has ever known. Unfortunately, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg doesn’t believe in the importance of the U.S. Constitution. Ironically, though her job is to “support the Constitution” ( Article 6, U.S. Constitution ) she instead did everything but uphold it last Wednesday. During an interview with Egyptian television network Al Hayat in Cairo, she was asked to give her opinion regarding the type of government Egypt should adopt as they try to rebuild their country following the Arab Spring. Her response? “I would not look to the U.S. Constitution, if I were drafting a constitution in the year 2012.” Though she extolled certain parts of the U.S. Constitution, she went on to propose Egypt instead use South Africa’s Constitution as a basis for their new government. I am deeply saddened and disappointed in Justice Ginsburg’s answer. As a Supreme Court Justice who daily delves into the U.S. Constitution looking for answers to the nation’s top cases, I would hope she would have developed a love for this crucial founding document. Yet instead, she implied its irrelevancy! Why would our Constitution not be just as good a foundation for a nation’s government today as it was in 1788? The answer is that it is, and always will be, an excellent foundation for the government of any nation. It was and still is the clearest legal protection of man’s freedoms on earth. Since our founding, our country’s unparalleled success and majestic display of human freedom has been a beacon of hope to the peoples of other nations. For years, immigrants from other countries have fled their oppressive or failing governments to come to our shores because they too sensed the meaning behind the words of our Constitution. I cannot think of another document I would more highly recommend to a country looking to make a fresh start. I would ask Justice Ginsburg to rethink her answer and reconsider her position as a “supporter of the Constitution.” Better yet, I would encourage her to consider why people from all around the world line up to see the distinctly American documents of freedom every day at the National Archives. I hope that one day she will come to understand what the patriotic Americans in line at the Archives understand: the protection and freedom the founding documents offered to the American people over 200 years ago is just the sort of protection every country in the world needs.
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Our Constitution is not Irrelevant, Justice Ginsburg
Rick Santorum had an excellent answer on a question from the audience about how faith would influence his decisions. He didn’t so much talk about his own faith but focused on the bigger picture. He described The Constitution as the how (or how to manual) but the Declaration of Independence is the why and thus our rights are God given, not government given. Santorum pointed out that if you believe rights are government given then all those rights can be taken away by government. Very nicely put.
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Santorum: Rights are God Given, Not Government Given
What is to blame for Americans ‘ economic woes? Why, Americans ‘ selfish desires, according to a school of thought that appears to be currently dominant in the White House. An excellent example of this line of thinking is former presidential economic advisor Robert Reich ‘ s recent article in the Financial Times , in which he claims America ‘ s ” insatiable consumers ” have destroyed the economy and the ” hubs of our communities ” with their relentless pursuit of ” great deals. ” The ” lure of the bargain, ” suggests Reich, is a destructive force. Well that ‘ s rich — Berkeley professor Reich, clearly a member of the 1 percent, attacking the 99. While Reich consider low prices a great evil, he ignores what they actually mean. Low prices indicate that a good or service has become more abundant — that is, more available . This availability of goods and services is the very definition prosperity. The pursuit of low prices, which so offends Reich, is just the pursuit of prosperity — the pursuit of happiness that the Declaration of Independence called ” unalienable. ” Reich blames Americans ‘ desire for lower prices, prosperity, and happiness for sending jobs ” elsewhere. ” But he ignores the fact that those lower prices mean we have more money available to buy other, costlier goods and services here in America. So rather than make snow globes and t-shirts, Americans develop advanced technology, manufacture airplanes and cars, and provide the world ‘ s best financial, health, and education services. They use iPads that put enormous competitive pressures on laptop manufacturers and publishers to provide more creative services to people who want them. It is enough to make on wonder whether Reich has ever read Schumpeter, who in 1942 pointed out: ” The capitalist achievement does not typically consist in providing more silk stockings for queens but in bringing them within the reach of factory girls in return for steadily decreasing amounts of effort. ” ( Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy , p. 67) Trade freed Americans from the sweatshop and now it is freeing them from the factory floor. It will do the same for Asians and Africans. Yet Reich would end trade with poor countries, since their environmental and working conditions ” offend common decency. ” Does Reich truly believe these workers ‘ usual alternative, subsistence farming, can gain them a ” decent ” standard of living? Does he really believe he knows better than the poor in developing countries what is best for them? Not allowing those workers to decide for themselves would keep them in poverty. Meanwhile, middle-class Americans are made worse off by higher prices. Reich isn ‘ t the only Obama ally who wants higher prices. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner wants more subsidies to raise housing prices — even after those policies created a housing bubble that led to the current financial crisis. Commerce Secretary John Bryson has championed the cause of higher energy prices since the 1970s, telling Justice Stephen Breyer during a 2010 panel discussion that ” energy prices are going to have to go up. ” Breyer responded by saying , ” We better get away from oil. That’ll help us. … Raise the price of oil! Raise it through the roof, and then people will look for substitutes. ” It ‘ s easy for rich liberals to ask for higher taxes and higher prices, but these policies dramatically damage Americans ‘ standard of living. President Obama ‘ s cap and trade bill would have cost each American family $1,761 per year, according to the White House ‘ s own figures . While that bill failed, Obama ‘ s anti-drilling, anti-pipeline, anti-energy agenda is already forcing Americans to spend more on gas as a percentage of their income last year than at any point in the last three decades. Higher prices can and do kill the American dream. Reich wants to ” protect jobs and wages ” with ” democratic institutions that shape and constrain markets ” — the very same institutions he claims are controlled by corporations. The reality is that large corporations do benefit from government meddling in markets. Regulations increase costs that large companies can absorb but that can drive small companies out of business. Low prices mean abundance and prosperity. High prices mean scarcity and privation. The dynamic capitalism that works to drive prices ever lower has helped make America the most prosperous nation on Earth. The high price economy the Obama administration and its supporters want will benefit no one — except, ironically, some of the 1 percent.
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The High Price Economy
Duke University Chapel is one of the great places in U.S. campus religious life. It is more cathedral than chapel, its gothic spires soaring high into the clear North Carolina air. Look closely, and you’ll notice that the carvings outside the cathedral doors are not medieval saints but Robert E. Lee, Thomas Jefferson, and Southern poet Sidney Lanier. John Wesley, with early Methodist Bishops Francis Asbury and Thomas Coke, also appears in the stone, as does 18th century revivalist George Whitfield, along with such heroes to Protestants as Martin Luther, John Wycliffe, and Girolamo Savonarola. On the lawn is a statue to Duke University’s founding philanthropist, tobacco mogul James Buchanan Duke, unsurprisingly clasping a cigar. Architecturally the chapel is simultaneously a Christian church, shrine to southern culture, celebration of America, ode to Methodism, and champion of Protestantism. Former First Things editor Jody Bottum, a Catholic, once commented that Duke’s campus was maybe one of the last locales where the old Mainline Protestant ascendancy can still be felt. Duke University is officially still owned by the United Methodism Church’s Southeast Jurisdiction, though it effectively operates without deep regard for the denomination, like most Mainline Protestant founded schools. The affiliation with the church was further stressed in 2000 when the school’s president insisted Duke Chapel host same-sex unions, which the denomination prohibits. Then Duke Chapel Dean Will Willimon, though not personally supportive, acquiesced. Duke’s Divinity School, which still graduates many Methodist clergy and is arguably the most orthodox of the church’s official seminaries, created its own separate chapel that would operate under church rules.
Cuba's Fidel Castro HAVANA, Cuba (The Blaze/AP) — Fidel Castro has never had a cohesive relationship with the United States. But in recent years, he has uttered some more lukewarm comments about the U.S. government under Barack Obama. But the Cuban leader is now mocking U.S. President Barack Obama for saying he’s open to changing U.S. policy toward Cuba if there is change on the island first. Castro writes sarcastically: “How kind! How intelligent!” He adds that such goodwill has not led Washington to end its five-decade-old economic embargo against the island. Castro says many things will change in Cuba, but it will happen organically and in spite of pressure from Washington. The ex-leader says “perhaps that empire will fall first,” referring to the U.S. Later he calls Obama “stupid.” These comments contrast some of Castro’s past praise for Obama. Back in 2010, following the passage of the Democrats’ contentious health care legislation, Castro called the development “a miracle” and wrote , “We consider health reform to have been an important battle and a success of his (Obama’s) government.” He continued: “It is really incredible that 234 years after the Declaration of Independence … the government of that country has approved medical attention for the majority of its citizens, something that Cuba was able to do half a century ago.” Castro’s most recent comments come in an article published in state media Thursday. Earlier this week he called Obama’s speech to the U.N. General Assembly “gibberish.” The rest is here: Fidel Castro Mocks Obama: Calls Him ‘Stupid’ & Says U.N. Address Was ‘Gibberish’
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Fidel Castro Mocks Obama: Calls Him ‘Stupid’ & Says U.N. Address Was ‘Gibberish’
