A Conventional Perspective

The Madison Conservative has long attempted to make the fundamental point that political parties, any and all of them, are not government and should have no input or connection with government. The mass media and their ignorant flacks continually attempt to convey that America as founded is a two party system.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Consider for a moment President Washington’s’ farewell address wherein he warned the fledgling nation of the baneful effects of party. To allow the polarizing effects of politicians to infect the body politic is anathema to freedom and American democracy.

That point being made, it is unavoidable to assess the two national conventions as they unfold over the next few weeks.

The Madison Conservative will gauge the conventions from the perspective of which major political party will keep to the principles set forth in our founding document, the greatest set of governmental limitations the world has ever known – the United States Constitution.

We willl return after the conventions to provide commentary and perspective on what should be the adopted policies from each political platform.

To further make the point, however, that those in elective office do not seem to understand that America is not a nation of political parties, but a nation of free people, the following article posted on a local CBSNEWS.com site, presented here in an edited form to keep to the more salient points, provides valuable insight into the underlying differences between the political parties and their respective presidential campaigns.

To wit:

The Democratic National Committee has informed a Connecticut town it will not be reimbursed for the thousands of dollars the city spent on costs for President Obama's fundraising visit earlier this month.

Gordon Joseloff, the first selectman of Westport, says he was informed this week the town's request to have the DNC and Obama for America cover the $14,812 the city paid in police and fire overtime was denied.

The president traveled to the area on Aug. 6 to attend a fundraiser in Stamford and a $35,800 per person dinner at the Westport home of movie producer Harvey Weinstein.

Local officials even shut down two popular public beaches to accommodate the president. They closed the 238-acre Sherwood Island State Park so the president's helicopter could land, and also closed the roughly two-acre Burying Hill Beach -- adjacent to Weinstein's mansion.

The New Haven Register reports that an executive of the Democratic National Committee wrote that as a private organization it did not participate in security, traffic control, fire or emergency planning. She referred questions to the Secret Service.

Joseloff tells CBS New York he knew not to expect reimbursement for security costs during a private presidential visit, but pointed out the president raised $2 million for his re-election campaign during the trip.

"I think if somebody really wanted to do a good deed for the president, they could make a donation to cover the cost, get a tax deduction," Joseloff said according to CBS New York. "We'll be happy and hopefully they'll be happy."

This isn't the first time local officials have gotten in a dispute over payments for security costs to accommodate presidential candidates. The city of Newport Beach, Calif., for months has been trying to get the Obama campaign to pay $35,000 in security costs for a fundraiser earlier this year. According to the Los Angeles Times, though, the Romney campaign did reimburse the city for security costs at a Republican fundraiser.

In Westport, Joseloff added the president also had the opportunity to soften any hard feelings in the town about the visit's costs by holding a public event, such as visiting a nearby 9/11 memorial. He noted that though the memorial was just yards from where the president's helicopter landed, Obama did not visit it.

Two Days in November

It is perhaps by unique coincidence or American design that two essential events happen within ten days of each other in early November, each and every year.

Those two events are Election Day and Veterans Day and given the state of governments on most every level and the national discourse in the body politic, this particular convergent happenstance should be cause for reflection.

A brief history of what was originally called Armistice Day – the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, signaling the end to the ‘war to end all wars’ – perhaps is in order.

In November 1919, President Wilson proclaimed November 11 as the first commemoration of Armistice Day with the following words: "To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country’s service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations…"

Acknowledging the service of all Americans who wore the uniform of their nation subsequently apparently became a minor inconvenience to some elected officials and thus a circuitous route was taken for the holiday subsequently named ‘Veterans Day’.

To wit:

The Uniform Holiday Bill (Public Law 90-363 (82 Stat. 250)) was signed on June 28, 1968, and was intended to ensure three-day weekends for Federal employees by celebrating four national holidays on Mondays: Washington's Birthday, Memorial Day, Veterans Day, and Columbus Day. It was thought that these extended weekends would encourage travel, recreational and cultural activities and stimulate greater industrial and commercial production. Many states did not agree with this decision and continued to celebrate the holidays on their original dates.

The first Veterans Day under the new law was observed with much confusion on October 25, 1971. It was quite apparent that the commemoration of this day was a matter of historic and patriotic significance to a great number of our citizens, and so on September 20th, 1975, President Gerald R. Ford signed Public Law 94-97 (89 Stat. 479), which returned the annual observance of Veterans Day to its original date of November 11, beginning in 1978.

Regulated by the United States Constitution and thus immune from the meddling hands of bureaucrats, Election Day in the United States of America is the Tuesday following the first Monday in November.

The fortuitous nature of these two days falling so close together on the calendar should give us pause to remember when standing in the isolation of the voting booth that the right to vote, to have a say in our future, is ours solely because of the Americans who have, are, and will fight to protect and defend the greatest democracy the world has ever known.

The Madison Conservative does not promote any candidate or political faction; it asks only that come Tuesday you exercise your right and responsibility as a United States Citizen to take an hour out of your day to have your voice heard.

Those who have worn the uniform of your country and taken up arms in her defense deserve no less.

Vote!

“In order to form a more perfect union…”

There is little disagreement or debate that from the time of its inception and implementation that the United States Constitution was flawed, and did not completely or accurately reflect the intent of the framers and the founders.

What is also not in dispute was that the men who wrote our founding documents held a firm belief that the American citizen would understand their fundamental constitutional rights and exercise them at will- the thought of abdicating them was anathema to them.

Today, either through ignorance, self serving political motivations or outright stupidity politicians and media commentators are trying to hoist the canard that somehow fringe elements from throughout the political spectrum will try to suppress the vote of the American electorate by creating nefarious scenarios that cannot exist.

This is not possible if the electorate has even a cursory understanding of and an understanding of the history behind the right to vote under the Constitution.

Initially the Constitution afforded the right to vote only to white men. This was based upon the mores of the time; it was not an attempt to disenfranchise the populace.

The march towards that more perfect union then began with amending the constitution.

The fifteenth amendment extended that right to all men, regardless of race, color or condition of servitude, language specifically written to allow for the right of former slaves to vote. That right did not effectively become inclusive until almost 100 years later, with the Civil Rights voting Act of 1964.

The nineteenth amendment further expanded the right to vote to women, forbidding exclusion based upon gender.

Certain areas of the nation attempted to circumvent the federal protections afforded the electorate by imposing poll taxes upon the citizenry. This ridiculous attempt to suppress the free exercise of the fundamental tenet of a democracy was permanently removed by the passage of the twenty-fourth amendment. It strictly forbids any type of poll tax or any financial encumbrance in order to vote.

The most recent constitutional amendment to extend the inclusive nature of the vote was the enacting of the twenty-sixth amendment, lowering the age to participate in the electoral process to those who have attained the age of eighteen.

These four amendments have by their design had the intent of expanding the size of the electorate and insuring that the right to vote cannot be limited by anything other than the Constitution.

The health and well being of a thriving democracy lays solely within its populace exercising their democratic rights. There can be no suppression to vote unless by an individual choice of apathy.

Recent legislative activity has diminished the sense of responsibility that comes with United States citizenship. Attaching the enrollment to vote with the department of motor vehicles is absurd on the face of it yet it is now the accepted norm. Once a fundamental right is so diluted, it can be manipulated at will and we as a nation must not allow the voting booth to become a vestigial organ in the body politic.

We must as a nation stand up and declare that each and every citizen has a right to vote, and that they must exercise that responsibility at every opportunity, be it for dog catcher or president.

A Lesson to Learn From History

The axiom that those who do not learn from the mistakes of history are forever doomed to repeat them holds painfully true in the context of the events currently sweeping throughout countries that for decades have been governed under oppressive and dictatorial regimes. It appears that the American electorate is coming perilously close to repeating the historical mistakes of the past while attempting to remain the shining light of liberty we must be in the world.

A generation ago, people throughout South and Central America who were voicing their opposition to the tyrannical governments in the region were dealt with by those  regimes in a manner that resulted in those patriots collectively becoming known as “Los Desaparecidos” – ‘the disappeared ones’. Simply for speaking out, they were taken in the night – never to be seen again.

These people were simply asking for the right to vote in a democratic election. They gave their lives simply for the possibility that their children, their grandchildren , might one day have the right to vote, to have a say in the future of their country, to be given a political voice: to live in freedom.

Today, in a groundswell of populist uprisings, people are freely giving up their lives, on the hope that one day freedom may come to their descendants.  The regimes that came to power in those countries did so with the acquiescence of the populace – that permission given mostly by their silence.

In this new media saturation age, given the cable news networks, the internet, social networks and the like, the struggles and loss of life by peoples who have the yearning to be free are continually broadcast to our televisions, computers and portable devices. There can be little way of ignoring their plight, of seeing it all in real time. This country was founded upon the right to be free, and subsequent generations have willingly fought and died to protect the freedoms this country has come to stand for. It is troubling to think that were the American revolution held today, viewed in real time, that there would people who would opt not to fight to win the freedoms they today enjoy, that a consensus majority would choose to remain in silence.

The nature of that silence is the absence of, on average, more than forty percent of the electorate; their choosing not to give voice to their freedom by relinquishing their right, and more importantly, their responsibility to vote.

The presidential election of 2008 was termed ‘historic’ in terms of the percentage of the electorate that voted: it was approximately 63 percent of the voting eligible population. We have in recent memory been electing Presidents of this country, leaders of the free world, with less than a true majority of 30 percent of the country.

It is hard to fathom how the freest people in history can hope to spread that gift to the rest of the world if they make a conscious decision to not defend it.

So when we do not learn the lessons, that freedom cannot be gained without giving voice to that desire, and that it can be lost in the same manner we put into tenuous play our historical place  as the leading voice for democratic self rule in the world: we cannot, must not, remain silent in maintaining our own freedom.

Someone, somewhere, TODAY, is giving up their life for their descendants to have the possibility of our freedoms.

A lesson for and from  history we must learn and never forget.