Gun Control Claims More Victims

Last year, Virginia Tech University successfully lobbied the state legislature to prohibit concealed-permit holders from carrying a sidearm on campus. At the time, university spokesman Larry Hincker commented,

I’m sure the university community is appreciative of the General Assembly’s actions because this will help parents, students, faculty, and visitors feel safe on our campus.

In June of last year, the university reemphasized its ban on carrying guns on campus by students, employees, and visitors. Last spring, it disciplined a student with a concealed-carry permit who brought his handgun to class. On April 16, 2007, 43 students and faculty members paid the price for such shortsightedness when a deranged student killed 33 and wounded the remainder with handguns.

Despite claims to the contrary, this is not the worst school killing in U.S. history. On May 18, 1927, a disgruntled school-board member killed 45 people and injured 58 – most of them second-grade to sixth-grade children – when he set off bombs at Bath Consolidated School in Bath, Michigan.

In response to the Virginia Tech incident, gun-control advocates predictably demanded more gun-control laws. Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.), author of the latest assault-weapon ban making its way through Congress, which is a more draconian version of the Clinton 1994 assault-gun ban that expired in 2004, suggested that we need to talk about guns on campus. For once, I agree with Representative McCarthy.

The gunman, Cho Seung-Hui, a Korean national with permanent resident status, had filled out the required forms and undergone the mandatory background check and waiting period, proving once again the uselessness of such laws.

The problem at Virginia Tech was not that there were guns on campus – only the campus police and gunman were armed – but that it was a “gun-free zone.” As a result, there were not enough people carrying guns to neutralize the gunman once he began his rampage. He should have been outgunned after his first shots. To a criminal or deranged person bent on killing, a gun-free zone is a free-fire zone. As is obvious from all such incidents, the police arrive too late to prevent multiple killings.

That’s not to disparage the police. In most cases, they act aggressively and competently. But they are rarely the first to arrive at the scene of a crime. The first ones there are the perpetrators and their victims. That’s when self-defense weapons are needed, not after the damage is done.

Consider that in all such incidents, the shooters are not so deranged as to attack police stations, shooting ranges, or gun shows. They have enough presence of mind to assail unarmed people in gun-free zones because they will encounter no effective resistance. (The one incident in which an individual was foolish enough to threaten to kill hostages where guns were prevalent was at a shooting club in California in July 1999. The gunman was promptly shot by an employee, without harm to the hostages.)

Test my hypothesis. Was anyone carrying a gun killed or injured in the Virginia Tech shooting? Only one, the perpetrator by his own hand. All the other victims were unarmed. They were unarmed because of state law, university policy, the success of gun-control advocates, and a false sense of security. The gun-control lobby has succeeded in stigmatizing gun possession and training; influencing legislators to pass laws making it difficult for law-abiding people to purchase, carry, and use firearms; and convincing people that they can depend on the police to protect them. The students are also at fault for believing the lie that they are not responsible for their own protection in the face of common sense and history.

Handguns and self-defense

Handguns are self-defense tools. They are designed to protect people from those who would harm them. In many cases, merely the appearance of a firearm dissuades an attacker. When you prevent people from carrying self-defense weapons, you are making them easy targets.

Let’s look at some examples to illustrate my point:

-In 1974, 34 Israeli students were gunned down in a bus on a school trip. Israel responded by arming teachers, administrators, bus drivers, and others to protect their children. Israel has not had a repeat of that tragedy. The U.S. government’s response? Prohibit guns within 1,000 feet of schools, as if criminals and deranged people obey laws.
-In October 1997, Assistant Principal Joel Myrick used a gun to stop a violent teen who was shooting up his high school in Pearl, Mississippi. The student killed two and wounded seven before Myrick could stop him. Why did it take Myrick so long to disarm the shooter? His gun was in his automobile, which was parked more than 1,000 feet from the school in compliance with the law.
-In January 2002, a disgruntled student at the Appalachian School of Law in Grundy, Virginia, shot and killed the dean, a professor, and a fellow student. He was disarmed and subdued before he could harm anyone else by two students who retrieved guns from their automobiles.
-Utah and Oregon allow concealed-permit holders to carry their weapons on campus. To date, no school shooting incidents have occurred in these states.
-The most heavily armed populations are the Swiss and the Israelis. Crime is negligible in both countries.
-The Luby Cafeteria shootings in Killeen, Texas, on October, 16, 1991, where a gunman killed 23 people, provide a stark example of the danger of gun-control laws. Suzanna Gratia Hupp, who was having lunch with her parents, left her gun in her car in compliance with state law. Her parents were among those killed. Two other diners also left their guns in their cars for fear of violating state law. Hupp had a clear shot at the killer several times as he reloaded and leisurely executed patrons.

“I was mad as hell at my legislators,” she said, “because they had legislated me out of the right to protect myself and my family.” Hupp is responsible for Texas’s having enacted a concealed-carry law in 1995.

How many more victims must be sacrificed on the altar of gun control? How many more Virginia Tech incidents must occur before common sense prevails? Blaming inanimate objects for criminal acts and legislating barriers to self-defense is foolish and self-destructive. The hostile atmosphere to gun possession and training fostered by gun-control advocates is costing lives. Frustration, pain, and other emotions shouldn’t drive legislation; reason should. Though we may not be able to prevent such incidents, we can limit the damage they do.

Instead of listening to gun-control advocates whose advice brings death and injury, we would do better to abide by the Boy Scout motto: Be prepared!


February 28, 2008 Benedict LaRosa

Cool Picture of the Day

Hat Tip: Shouts in the Piazza

Lesson of the Day

"Never argue with an idiot, they will drag you down to their level and stomp your ass with personal experience."

-Unknown

How About Competing Currencies?

Currency, or money, is what allows civilization to flourish. In the absence of money, barter is the name of the game; if the farmer needs shoes, he must trade his eggs and milk to the cobbler and hope that the cobbler needs eggs and milk. Money makes the transaction process far easier. Rather than having to search for someone with reciprocal wants, the farmer can exchange his milk and eggs for an agreed-upon medium of exchange with which he can then purchase shoes.

This medium of exchange should satisfy certain properties: it should be durable, that is to say, it does not wear out easily; it should be portable, that is, easily carried; it should be divisible into units usable for everyday transactions; it should be recognizable and uniform, so that one unit of money has the same properties as every other unit; it should be scarce, in the economic sense, so that the extant supply does not satisfy the wants of everyone demanding it; it should be stable, so that the value of its purchasing power does not fluctuate wildly; and it should be reproducible, so that enough units of money can be created to satisfy the needs of exchange.

Over millennia of human history, gold and silver have been the two metals that have most often satisfied these conditions, survived the market process, and gained the trust of billions of people. Gold and silver are difficult to counterfeit, a property which ensures they will always be accepted in commerce. It is precisely for this reason that gold and silver are anathema to governments. A supply of gold and silver that is limited in supply by nature cannot be inflated, and thus serves as a check on the growth of government. Without the ability to inflate the currency, governments find themselves constrained in their actions, unable to carry on wars of aggression or to appease their overtaxed citizens with bread and circuses.

At this country's founding, there was no government-controlled national currency. While the Constitution established the Congressional power of minting coins, it was not until 1792 that the US Mint was formally established. In the meantime, Americans made do with foreign silver and gold coins. Even after the Mint's operations got underway, foreign coins continued to circulate within the United States, and did so for several decades.

On the desk in my office I have a sign that says: “Don't steal – the government hates competition.” Indeed, any power a government arrogates to itself, it is loathe to give back to the people. Just as we have gone from a constitutionally instituted national defense consisting of a limited army and navy bolstered by militias and letters of marque and reprisal, we have moved from a system of competing currencies to a government-instituted banking cartel that monopolizes the issuance of currency. In order to introduce a system of competing currencies, there are three steps that must be taken to produce a legal climate favorable to competition.

The first step consists of eliminating legal tender laws. Article I Section 10 of the Constitution forbids the States from making anything but gold and silver a legal tender in payment of debts. States are not required to enact legal tender laws, but should they choose to, the only acceptable legal tender is gold and silver, the two precious metals that individuals throughout history and across cultures have used as currency. However, there is nothing in the Constitution that grants the Congress the power to enact legal tender laws. We, the Congress, have the power to coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, but not to declare a legal tender. Yet, there is a section of US Code, 31 USC 5103, that purports to establish US coins and currency, including Federal Reserve notes, as legal tender.

Historically, legal tender laws have been used by governments to force their citizens to accept debased and devalued currency. Gresham's Law describes this phenomenon, which can be summed up in one phrase: bad money drives out good money. An emperor, a king, or a dictator might mint coins with half an ounce of gold and force merchants, under pain of death, to accept them as though they contained one ounce of gold. Each ounce of the king's gold could now be minted into two coins instead of one, so the king now had twice as much “money” to spend on building castles and raising armies. As these legally overvalued coins circulated, the coins containing the full ounce of gold would be pulled out of circulation and hoarded. We saw this same phenomenon happen in the mid-1960s when the US government began to mint subsidiary coinage out of copper and nickel rather than silver. The copper and nickel coins were legally overvalued, the silver coins undervalued in relation, and silver coins vanished from circulation.

These actions also give rise to the most pernicious effects of inflation. Most of the merchants and peasants who received this devalued currency felt the full effects of inflation, the rise in prices and the lowered standard of living, before they received any of the new currency. By the time they received the new currency, prices had long since doubled, and the new currency they received would give them no benefit.

In the absence of legal tender laws, Gresham's Law no longer holds. If people are free to reject debased currency, and instead demand sound money, sound money will gradually return to use in society. Merchants would have been free to reject the king's coin and accept only coins containing full metal weight.

The second step to reestablishing competing currencies is to eliminate laws that prohibit the operation of private mints. One private enterprise which attempted to popularize the use of precious metal coins was Liberty Services, the creators of the Liberty Dollar. Evidently the government felt threatened, as Liberty Dollars had all their precious metal coins seized by the FBI and Secret Service this past November. Of course, not all of these coins were owned by Liberty Services, as many were held in trust as backing for silver and gold certificates which Liberty Services issued. None of this matters, of course, to the government, who hates to see any competition.

The sections of US Code which Liberty Services is accused of violating are erroneously considered to be anti-counterfeiting statutes, when in fact their purpose was to shut down private mints that had been operating in California. California was awash in gold in the aftermath of the 1849 gold rush, yet had no US Mint to mint coinage. There was not enough foreign coinage circulating in California either, so private mints stepped into the breech to provide their own coins. As was to become the case in other industries during the Progressive era, the private mints were eventually accused of circulating debased (substandard) coinage, and in the interest of providing government-sanctioned regulation and a government guarantee of purity, the 1864 Coinage Act was passed, which banned private mints from producing their own coins for circulation as currency.

The final step to ensuring competing currencies is to eliminate capital gains and sales taxes on gold and silver coins. Under current federal law, coins are considered collectibles, and are liable for capital gains taxes. Short-term capital gains rates are at income tax levels, up to 35 percent, while long-term capital gains taxes are assessed at the collectibles rate of 28 percent. Furthermore, these taxes actually tax monetary debasement. As the dollar weakens, the nominal dollar value of gold increases. The purchasing power of gold may remain relatively constant, but as the nominal dollar value increases, the federal government considers this an increase in wealth, and taxes accordingly. Thus, the more the dollar is debased, the more capital gains taxes must be paid on holdings of gold and other precious metals.

Just as pernicious are the sales and use taxes which are assessed on gold and silver at the state level in many states. Imagine having to pay sales tax at the bank every time you change a $10 bill for a roll of quarters to do laundry. Inflation is a pernicious tax on the value of money, but even the official numbers, which are massaged downwards, are only on the order of 4% per year. Sales taxes in many states can take away 8% or more on every single transaction in which consumers wish to convert their Federal Reserve Notes into gold or silver.

In conclusion, Madam Speaker, allowing for competing currencies will allow market participants to choose a currency that suits their needs, rather than the needs of the government. The prospect of American citizens turning away from the dollar towards alternate currencies will provide the necessary impetus to the US government to regain control of the dollar and halt its downward spiral. Restoring soundness to the dollar will remove the government's ability and incentive to inflate the currency, and keep us from launching unconstitutional wars that burden our economy to excess. With a sound currency, everyone is better off, not just those who control the monetary system. I urge my colleagues to consider the redevelopment of a system of competing currencies.


Congressman Ron Paul before the US House of Representatives, February 13, 2008

Facts to Ponder

Some interesting food for thought via To The Point News.

Doctors:
(A) The number of physicians in the U.S. is 700,000.
(B) Accidental deaths caused by Physicians per year are 120,000.
(C) Accidental deaths per physician is 0.171.

Statistics courtesy of U.S. Dept of Health Human Services.

Now think about this:

Guns:
(A) The number of gun owners in the U.S. is 80,000,000. (Yes, that's 80 million)
(B) The number of accidental gun deaths per year, all age groups, is 1,500.
(C) The number of accidental deaths per gun owner is .000188.

Statistics courtesy of FBI

So, statistically, doctors are approximately 9,000 times more dangerous than gun owners.

Remember, "Guns don't kill people, doctors do."

FACT: NOT EVERYONE HAS A GUN, BUT ALMOST EVERYONE HAS AT LEAST ONE DOCTOR.

Please alert your friends to this alarming threat. We must ban doctors before this gets completely out of hand!

Out of concern for the public at large, we have withheld the statistics on Lawyers for fear the shock would cause people to panic and seek medical attention.

Thought for the Day

"In the beginning of change, the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for it then costs nothing to be a patriot."

- Mark Twain

It's The Constitution, Stupid!

By Senator Bob Smith
U.S. Senator, New Hampshire, 1990-2003
1/21/2008


In the sweltering heat of Philadelphia from May 25th to September 17th, 1787 fifty-three delegates from twelve of the original thirteen colonies (Rhode Island refused to send any representatives) struggled mightily to come to an agreement to adopt a Constitution for the United States of America. When it was over, an exhausted Benjamin Franklin walked down the steps of the Pennsylvania State House and was asked, "What kind of government did you create Mr. Franklin?" To which he replied, "A republic, if we can keep it." Are our leaders of today respecting and protecting the Constitution that Franklin and his heroic and patriotic colleagues gave us in 1787?

Can we keep it?

If I hear any of our presidential candidates or elected officials call America a democracy one more time, I may be forced to use profanity! Something I do from time to time when I am really angry and frustrated!

New England town meetings are democracies. All the people who want to vote enter a room and vote. The majority determines the issue at hand. The government of the United States is a REPUBLIC. We ELECT representatives who vote in our absence and on our behalf. These representatives take only one oath when they are elected. That oath is to uphold the Constitution of the United States. The Constitution contains an oath of office only for the President, however, in 1789 the first congress added this requirement to include members of congress and other government officials because they knew that adherence to the spirit and intent of our Constitution was critical to the survival of our republic.

Elected officials do not take an oath to any political party. They do not swear allegiance to NAFTA or GATT or monolithic international organizations like the United Nations or the World Court! They do not solemnly swear allegiance to support and defend large international corporations and certainly not to large special interests, lobbyists and political donors!

The term "political party" cannot be found anywhere in the Constitution. Not in the body and not in the amendments. Yet, we allow this insane political party process to select the people who would become our next President! Candidates "win" delegates to party nominating conventions when states like Iowa and Nevada hold caucuses thus forcing people to publicly state who they vote for and excluding people such as our military men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan from even voting at all! States concentrate on "leapfrogging" one another to see who can be first, rather than working together to make the process more fair for the voters. The media and pollsters tell us who we are going to vote for before the election and candidates "put their fingers to the wind" to decide how to take a stand on an issue. Candidates who do not stand for something, stand for nothing. We suffer from electile dysfunction! This is hardly what our Founders envisioned in selecting our elected representatives.

So, if we do want to keep it, why do we continue to elect members of congress and presidents who place these entities above the document that they swore to uphold? When are we going to stop this madness? This precious document so carefully crafted is being trampled routinely every day! We cannot blame this on those we elect. We must accept the blame for continuing to elect them.

John Adams said that "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people." Ben Franklin added, "Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need for masters."

We are getting close to losing it all my friends! Our Republic is in very grave danger!

Things have gone seriously wrong and they are getting worse by the day.

The sovereignty of the U.S. is constantly subjugated to trade agreements, international ventures, alliances and treaties not approved by congress. Our worshipping at the altar of the "world economy" has contributed to the loss of our manufacturing base and the collapse of the value of the dollar.

The "neo-cons" lead us into perpetual wars with other nations without a "declaration of war" by congress. Yes, it is a requirement of the Constitution that we let congress vote before we send our troops into war!

Part of the oath taken by our elected officials is defend the constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic , yet they refuse to seal our borders from terrorists and those who come here illegally at a terrible cost to our taxpayers in crime and undeserved benefits. Our porous and uncontrolled borders threaten the very survival of America.

Unscrupulous defense contractors sell our weapons systems and secrets to our enemies forcing us to chase our own technology around the world to stay ahead and congress does nothing to stop it. Indeed at times supporting this treasonous action.

Even our own ports , where dirty bombs could easily be imported, have been "offered up" to the control of other nations!

Congress and the President continue to raise our national debt year after year with no attempt to control spending. There is no effort to rein in so called "entitlements" and other programs while mortgaging the future of our children. The growth and size of the federal government highlights programs, bureaus and departments that have no connection to the Constitution whatsoever.

Activist justices on the Supreme Court and judges on the lower courts have shredded much of the Bill of Rights and impose their personal views on the citizenry.

These judges impose gun control on honest citizens and routinely put violent criminals back on the streets to kill and rape again.

The justices appointed to the Supreme Court with the imposition of Roe vs. Wade have sanctioned and indeed promoted the slaughter of over 50 million of our unborn children since 1973. Is it possible that one or more of those children could have become a President or a researcher who found a cure for cancer? We will never know because those children never had a chance to live their dream. God bless these children for they had no voice. Those whom we elected took it away from them all. Their blood is on our hands. Where do we find "abortion rights" in the U.S. Constitution?

Judges take our property without fair compensation or respect for the rights of private property provided under our Constitution. As if this were not bad enough, they have taken God from our schools and public buildings and are determined to remove all mention of Him anywhere. Guess who placed these judges in their positions? When Ruth Bader Ginsburg came before the United States Senate for confirmation several years ago, "conservative" senators voted "aye" to please Bill Clinton leaving Jesse Helms, Don Nickles and me, alone, as the 3 votes against one of the most activist justices ever to be appointed to the bench.

Scandal and moral decay are rampant throughout our land. Larry Craig, Duke Cunningham, Mark Foley, Congressman Jefferson and the antics of Bill Clinton in the oval office betray the expectations of Adams, Franklin and the rest of our Founding Fathers. Is it possible to save this glorious constitutional republic that Franklin first informed us about in 1787?

George Washington already gave us the answer in 1796 when he said, "…It is essential that public opinion should be enlightened. In a republic, what species of knowledge…and what duty more pressing…than…communicating it to those who are to be the future guardians of the liberties of our country?"

Our elected officials have let us down. We must elect strong advocates for our constitutional republic at every level of government from school board to President of the United States. If an election is occurring in your community and no candidate meets that criteria , then we need to search and find one. If you cannot find one, write in your own name! We must change America from the bottom up.

Millions of Americans are beginning to figure this out. We have to harness them into a national political movement and we don’t have a lot of time! These folks can be found in the Constitution Party, in the Presidential campaigns of Duncan Hunter, Ron Paul, Tom Tancredo, Reagan Democrats and Republicans and on main street all over America. We cannot and must not limit our search for support from so-called "conservatives" or existing political parties. There are millions and millions of Americans who support the traditional values of the sanctity of life, religious freedom and family who are not affiliated with any party. They are rich and poor, young and old. They work in factories and offices, they live on farms and in suburbs, they attend churches by the millions and they are patriotic! They are sick of what is happening. They need to be informed of the mission to restore our Constitutional Republic by electing leaders who respect it. They can be harnessed! We need a revival. We must issue the clarion call to action to save our Republic. This is our last chance.

When the patriots needed to communicate with one another before and during the Revolutionary War they formed "Committees of Correspondence" to keep each other informed. They wrote the Federalist Papers to garner support for the Constitution. They were prepared to sacrifice their lives, fortunes and sacred honor. If they could do that for us, then we can do it now to save our Republic for our children .They communicated by horseback and newspapers, we have the internet. We can answer Franklin’s concern. Yes, we can keep the republic. We have the battle plan. It is the Constitution of the United States.

We all must be "teachers" of the Constitution and we must insist that it is thoroughly taught in our schools. We all need to be the authors of the "Constitution Papers." We must be uncompromising leaders and experts on this document and teach our friends, relatives, co-workers and neighbors that input equals output. Learn and teach what is constitutional and you will in turn get constitutionalists as leaders.

In the Presidential campaign of 2000 Pat Buchanan said, "Don’t wait for orders from headquarters, ride to the sound of the guns!" We are millions of Paul Reveres. We can take our republic back. Are you ready? I am! Let’s do it!

A Picture Worth a 1000 Words

The Born-Again Individualist

Reason Magazine interviewed Judge Andrew Napolitano a couple of years ago after the release of his bestselling book, Constitutional Chaos, and his take on governmental powers today. I just happened to stumble across it this morning and found it to be a great commentary and one I highly reccomend. Check out the interview/article here.

"Pro-Life" Candidates Should Put Up Or Shut Up

Please consider this scenario. Several youngsters are drowning in a neighborhood lake. They are thrashing the water and crying out for help. There is a large, heavy raft nearby that could be used to rescue the drowning youths, but it would take several people to haul it into the water and then row it out to the victims.

Now, as it happens, there are more than enough people standing around the lake whose combined efforts would be more than adequate to rescue the drowning young people. Instead of grabbing the life raft and heading out to save the victims, however, they all start making speeches.

One by one, the would-be rescuers holler out that they believe in life; they believe in saving the lives of the drowning young people. They are all "pro-life." The only problem is, none of them grabs the raft and actually attempts to save the victims. So, here is the sixty-four million dollar question: are these people really "pro-life"? Do they really want to save the victims, or are they simply pro-life pretenders who only want to talk about saving lives but not actually do anything about it?

There is no one reading this column who would accept the pro-life rhetoric of the people around the lake as justification for not grabbing the life raft and actually saving the lives of those who were drowning. Then, why do "pro-life" conservatives accept the rhetoric of Republican politicians when there is no action to back it up?

If Mitt Romney, John McCain, Fred Thompson, and Mike Huckabee are truly "pro-life," they need to do more than just talk. They need to put up or shut up!

Ladies and gentlemen, it doesn't take some magical Supreme Court appointment to overturn Roe v. Wade and end abortion-on-demand. If all the Republicans who keep telling us that they are "pro-life" (including President George W. Bush) were really pro-life, then why, in spite of having had ample time and opportunity to end the abortion holocaust, have they not done so?

In fact, the GOP has controlled the U.S. Supreme Court since the infamous Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion-on-demand was handed down in 1973. That means GOP appointments have dominated the Court for over thirty years, and yet abortion-on-demand is still the law of the land.

Beyond that, for six years (2000-2006), "pro-life" Republicans controlled the entire federal government. And, for six years, millions of unborn babies cried their silent screams as the abortionists' scalpels ripped their little bodies apart in abortuaries throughout America. And to use my opening analogy, all these "pro-life" Republicans did was stand by the side of the lake and talk "pro-life," while the youngsters drowned in front of their eyes. During all this time, the life raft sat unused on the shore.

Dear reader, the life raft for the millions of unborn babies victimized by abortion-on-demand is the U.S. Constitution. However, we have a bunch of arrogant and conceited imbeciles in Washington, D.C., who have neither the smarts nor guts to use this wonderful life raft. It seems that the vast majority of them have absolutely no knowledge of the Constitution--even though each and every one of them takes an oath to preserve, protect, and defend it.

The only presidential candidate who has a commitment to saving the lives of unborn babies and who understands the constitutional authority of Congress to end abortion-on-demand is Texas Congressman Ron Paul (with the exception of Alan Keyes, who recently announced his candidacy). You read it right. At this point, John McCain is all talk; Mitt Romney is all talk; Fred Thompson is all talk. And even Mike Huckabee is all talk.

Huckabee says that when he was Governor of Arkansas he required parental notification for abortions, required a woman give informed consent before having an abortion, and required a woman be told that her baby would experience pain and be given the option of anesthesia for her baby. (Source: Mike Huckabee's website) While this is commendable, none of Huckabee's actions did anything to actually end abortion-on-demand.

When it comes to ending abortion-on-demand and overturning Roe v. Wade, the only thing Mike Huckabee (and the rest of the Republican presidential candidates, save Ron Paul and Alan Keyes) will say is that they will appoint the right judges, as if they have no power as President to do anything else. (Good grief! Even Rudy Giuliani says as much.) My friends, these "pro-life" Republicans are either woefully ignorant themselves or they are pulling the proverbial wool over our eyes.

Ron Paul seems to be the only presidential candidate who understands that under Article. III. Section. 2., the Constitution gives to the Congress of the United States the power to hold rogue courts in check and to overturn outlandish rulings such as Roe v. Wade.

Accordingly, Ron Paul has introduced and reintroduced the Sanctity of Life Act (including in the current Congress). If passed, this Bill would recognize the personhood of all unborn babies by declaring that "human life shall be deemed to exist from conception." The Bill also recognizes the authority of each State to protect the lives of unborn children. In addition, this Bill would remove abortion from the jurisdiction of the Court, thereby nullifying the Roe v. Wade decision. The Bill would also deny funding for abortion providers. In plain language, the Bill would overturn Roe v. Wade and end abortion-on-demand.

Is it not more than interesting that "pro-life" President George W. Bush, along with the "pro-life" Republican Party leadership of both houses of Congress, refused--and continues to refuse--to support Ron Paul's Sanctity of Life Act? In addition, not a single "pro-life" presidential candidate outside of Ron Paul has even bothered to mention the Sanctity of Life Act, much less aggressively call for its implementation with a promise that, if elected President, he would sign it into law. Not Huckabee; not McCain; not Thompson; not Romney; none of them!

Why did John McCain not introduce Dr. Paul's Sanctity of Life bill in the U.S. Senate? Why have Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, and Fred Thompson not committed to use the power of the bully pulpit of the White House to push Congress to implement this Act? Again, either these men are ignorant of their constitutional duties and responsibilities (in which case, they are unqualified for the office of President) or they are not truly serious about overturning Roe v. Wade and ending abortion-on-demand (in which case, they are conservative phonies and frauds).

I say again, it is time for "pro-life" Republicans to put up or shut up!

Beyond that, it is time for Christian conservatives to stop being so gullible. We need to start looking beyond eloquent rhetoric and campaign clichés. We need to begin demanding results.

Every four years, Republicans trot out a conservative façade during an election season for the purpose of obtaining the votes of susceptible Christians. And every four years, conservative Christians--like starving catfish--take the bait: hook, line, and sinker.

"Save us from the monster," seems to be the cry of well-meaning--but easily manipulated--conservatives. The "monster" is whoever the Democrats nominate, of course. But, ladies and gentlemen, the Republican Party has done absolutely nothing to change the course of the country. Nothing! In fact, it has only gotten worse with Republicans in charge.

Ron Paul is the only candidate running against the status quo. He is the only candidate who takes his oath to the Constitution seriously. He is the only candidate who, if elected, would actually turn the country around. A Ron Paul victory would launch a new American revolution: a revolution of freedom and independence such as we have not seen since 1776. Furthermore, among the major Republican presidential contenders, Ron Paul is the only candidate whose pro-life commitment extends beyond rhetoric.

P.S. One further note regarding Mike Huckabee. He will not win the GOP nomination, but what he will do is wind up endorsing (or perhaps even being selected as the Vice Presidential candidate) whichever Republican candidate wins the nomination--even if he is a pro-abortion candidate. Thus, he will fulfill his role in this election: to bring Christian conservatives into the Republican fold, even without a commitment to the life issue by their standard-bearer. In other words, Huckabee is the establishment's guy to make sure that the Christian conservatives stay "in line."


By Chuck Baldwin
November 30, 2007
View the original article.