Memorial Day 2012

Please take a few moments this Memorial Day holiday to consider that instead of being the ‘official’ start to the summer season, and forgetting about the holiday sales event at the mall, Monday is the day we should remember the ultimate sacrifice made by our fellow citizens to insure we as a people and a nation would endure and that we would forever remain free.

We will return next week.

The Madison Conservative Platform - part 1

The primary act required of a citizen in a democracy is to vote, to have their voice heard; to partcipate. The Greeks, who had a particular affinity for democratic self rule, had a term for someone who voluntarily excused themselves from their primary civil duty, who kept themselves separate and apart from the responsibilities of citizenship: ’idios’.

The English term ‘idiot’ is derived from this word.

One who does not vote, therefore, could easily and fairly be called an idiot.

The issue today, however, is that the entrenched  incumbent holders of temporary political power, with the conspiratorial help and often at the behest of their financial backers,  have so warped the sanctity of the vote that many may be forgiven for opting out of electoral politics, the potential for conscious idiocy notwithstanding. There seems today to be little, if any, recognition or outrage that democracy must never be for sale to the highest bidder, as if it were just another commodity to be bought, sold and traded. The lesson needs to be learned by the body politic that the American people will not tolerate such conduct at the price of their freedom and the freedom for her  posterity.

Therefore, the first plank of the Madison Conservative platform will address the current absurdities and corruption of the electoral process on the federal level by the infusion of unregulated and unnamed sources of campaign financing.

The recent Supreme Court decision in what is being called the “Citizens United” case in essence  gave voter status to all entities to promote whatever political candidate or cause they chose without falling under the current, albeit shameful, guidelines in place for specific campaigns. This has allowed the creation of amorphous entities and of so-called ‘super-pacs’ that allow candidates full deniability on the substance of any super-pac ads.  The sheer stupidity of this process should outrage the electorate.

To address this particular issue, we propose a constitutional amendment. This process is not taken lightly, but given the Supreme Court’s decision, it must me done and done by a majority of the state houses; Congress will clearly bury this even before the proposal is fully written. The constitution allows that the states may amend our governing document on their own, given a three-fourths majority approve of the amendment.

The proposed amendment would be written, in its entirety, as follows:

“Any person who by law cannot cast a vote for any federal elective office may not provide any financial support for any federal elective campaign.  Any person who by law can cast a vote for any federal elective office may contribute whatever financial resources they deem appropriate for any federal campaign. All monies donated to any elective campaign must be disclosed as per the laws Congress shall mandate.”

These specific sixty-eight words would restore true electoral democracy to the American people. This amendment would remove nebulous ‘super-pacs’, unions, corporations and all non human influences from the political landscape.

It addresses the fact that the Supreme Court has ruled that money is equivalent to speech but would remove the ability for any organization to corrupt the process without definitive accountability.

A Change in Purpose

Throughout its short existence, The Madison Conservative has endeavored to bring a clarifying voice to the public discourse by attempting to provide a more constitutionally based perspective on issues of consequence to the long term prospects for America. We have avoided delving deep into the minutiae of what could be best described as passing fads of the body politic.

The depth of ignorance and outright stupidity exemplified by the full spectrum of our elected officials and their accompanying media flacks has been particularly outrageous this week, and so The Madison Conservative has opted to now use this blog, through the presidential election in November, to present a platform of policies we believe will address the fundamental issues facing this nation and her posterity. This decision was not arrived at easily, but the lack of intelligent discourse mandates that a constitutional voice be heard.

We will avoid those issues that fall under the generic umbrella of ‘social issues’.

The reasons are two-fold.

First, such social issues are best debated and resolved at a more local level and as such should never fall under the auspices of the federal government. The founders and the framers limited the power of the federal government for a reason; please note the tenth amendment to the United States Constitution.

Second, most of the ‘social issues’ more often than not are associated with the aforementioned ‘political fads’ and do not need any manner of intelligent clarification. Participants of all political stripes will raise a hue and cry on such issues, hoping to do little more than deflect attention from the true national concerns.

To wit:

The road show carnival that was the obsession of the media this week is a perfect example of a ‘political fad’ that should return the discourse back to within each given state.

President Obama this week stated it was his PERSONAL opinion that gay folks should be allowed to marry. Given that this is not a dictatorship, the personal opinions of a president upon public policy amount to nothing. There was absolutely no change in regards to same sex marriage anywhere in this nation given the presidents’ remarks.

The media labeled his comments as ‘historic’ and ‘enlightened’, given that he had ‘evolved’ on the subject.

This is not a serious dialogue. There was not one explanation of what exactly ‘evolved’ meant. The use and acceptance by the public at large of insipid language is an ever increasing threat to the body politic.

The media, of all political persuasions, heralded that the polling showed that an overwhelming majority of the American people, more than 60% we were told, agreed with the President’s opinion.

The fact, however, is that thirty two of the fifty states have had ballot initiatives offering their populace the right to vote on the issue of same-sex marriage. Simple math shows then that 64 percent of the nation has voted AGAINST same sex marriage.

{ N.B. – the issue of same-sex marriage is of great concern for public policy, but it must be debated at the state level – for that reason we will not discuss it here, save for the instance it becomes a national question}

Or in clearer terms, every time the issue has been put on a ballot for the electorate to decide the issue for their respective states, it has met with defeat.

So when the American people have had a voice on the subject, ONE HUNDRED percent of the time the issue has been refuted by the ‘unenlightened’ and apparently ‘un- evolved’ electorate.

The reality that these facts have not been clearly presented is the true impetus for the Madison Conservative to decide to present its platform, with firm constitutional rationale and reasoning behind the decisions made for the construct of the platform.

This nation has always worked best when there has been a chorus of intelligent dialogue, and the Madison Conservative will strive to be a strong voice within that choir.

The Forgotten Issue In Foreign Policy

The 2012 presidential campaign has now begun in earnest and the accompanying nonsensical charges have begun flying between the two principle candidates and their respective media flacks and political cronies.

The recent events surrounding the so called “blind dissident” in China should give all Americans pause and concern as the 2012 political theater traveling carnival show winds its way through America towards November.

It should be of concern to the American electorate, however, that the Republican Party seems to be ignoring what was once a fundamental political tenet.

To wit:

The criticisms of an incumbent administration stop at our shores; politicians used to stress that as a nation we spoke with a unified voice to the rest of the world.

It was akin to the popular commentary that ‘I can call him a bum, but don’t you dare try”.

The present day belief that it is more important to score nonsensical political points at the expense of the national good can be tracked back to the post 9/11 criticisms of President George W. Bush. In a cynical attempt to deflect the obvious cowardice of the Clinton administration in the aftermath of the al Qaeda attack on the active duty U.S.S.Cole, the despicable attacks began in earnest against President Bush, attempting to foist responsibility for missing the potential of the 9/11 attacks on the basis of of a briefing given the month prior.

Put aside the fact, again, that if one attacks and murders active duty military personnel serving aboard an active duty military vessel such action is as clear an act of war as is possible, the attempt to capitalize upon such actions for political advantage borders past the obscene and come dangerously close to treason.

The President of the United States is President of all the people and has access to information that those not in the office of the president  do not, and to attempt to comment on particular acts of foreign policy is an ignorant act. The Republican Party should and must explain their belief on the construct of a foreign policy, but that debate must end at criticizing that for which they by need and definition, do not have access.

The debate must be engendered, but must be done so intelligently. Those abroad who wish to do us harm to not see our political discourse as only the political theater it actually is, but rather is perceived as a nation in disarray, a nation weak, and ripe for terror.

There must be checks and balances in democratic self-rule, and our elected officials must be made to explain their policies and decisions made in our name, but it must be done with proper respect for both the office and the man.

Consider this theoretical option should the Madison Conservative find itself in a presidential debate and a question of foreign policy was proffered:

“A Madison Conservative administration would not engage in any military action that would result in American forces being utilized for nation building of any sort; such actions should be the realm of the United Nations. The Madison Conservative would focus our primary financial resources to retiring all foreign held debt so that we would, as a nation, be unencumbered by having our foreign policies managed by foreign purse strings”. It addresses the issues without devolving into absurd ad hominum attacks that do nothing but embolden our enemies.

America must never find itself in the position of accepting cheap political theatrics as harmless.

America In Space - A Commentary

This past week was marked by the shuttle Enterprise making her final flight, piggy backed on a modified 747 aircraft and heading to her final home at the Intrepid Museum in New York

This coming week will mark the fifty-first anniversary of the day Alan Shepard became the first American in space, becoming a ballistic missile on board Freedom 7.

The bookends of these two historical events saw the American space program land a man on the moon, begin the first serious study of our solar system and begin the inevitable march to the vast realm of space beyond our planet and our solar system.

Collectively as a nation, we shared the exhilaration as Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin fulfilled the dreams of millennia by landing on the moon on the Apollo 11 mission, while Michael Collins flew the command craft solo  around the dark side of the moon, being as alone as any human in history.

Collectively, we shared the heartbreak of the fire in Apollo 1 that killed astronauts Grissom, White & Chaffee. We grieved as one at the Challenger and Columbia disasters.

Together we marveled at the most successful disaster that was Apollo 13, the mission that gave legend to Gene Kranz’s’ almost anthemic statement that ‘failure is not an option’. Close examination of Mission Control photos and film during those several heart-stopping days shows not aged space veterans, but our young best and brightest drawing upon their education and training as they created solutions for situations none had ever contemplated.

In many ways, the space program gave America more ‘bang for the buck’ than any other government program. This blog is being written on a computer that has more computing power than Apollo 11. The technological advances that came out of our space program are too numerous to list here.

For all the positives that NASA as an entity has given to America, its detractors seem to have a single response, used almost as an epithet: “the money spent in space could be better spent here at home solving problems for the average American.”

The level of ignorance of such a position demands some manner of a response.

This nation spends more education dollars per student than any other industrialized nation on the planet, yet not only are the results lacking, the critical math and science scores needed for the future are woefully lacking with competing nations.

The war on poverty started almost fifty years ago has done little to help Americans, save for creating a welfare class that remains mired in poverty.

We are in need of scientific solutions for our future energy needs. Consider that the Apollo missions carried no conventional fuel to provide power for the voyages, but rather used fuel cell technology. A thriving space program would need to address long term power needs for the exploration of Mars, for example. That technology, when developed, would be able to be modified for use back here at home. The collateral advantages of the space program were unknown when it was created over fifty years ago, but the advantages are now taken as commonplace and not given their proper due as being a result of our quest to explore the heavens.

In an era when money is squandered in so many ways, there must be a national demand to fund a REAL space program, and not one dependent upon hitching rides from nations who do not have our national interest at heart.

To quote President John F. Kennedy – “we do these things not because they are easy, but because they are hard”.

Failure to reignite our space program is not, must not, and cannot be an option.

The Week That Was - 4-22-2012

There were three stories that garnered much of the media’s focus this week, yet the coverage of all three seemed to miss the more critical, central points in favor of demonstrating broadcast ignorance and pointless sensationalism.

To wit:

There was much coverage about the Secret Service agents and their conduct in advance of President Obama’s visit to Colombia. Their conduct, if as presented is true, will be dealt with under our laws and disciplined accordingly under those laws. There seemed to be no mention of two major points: these agents were not assigned to directly protect the president, and while their conduct, if true, was both reprehensible and beyond stupid, they did not directly put the life of the president at risk. There are indeed corollary possibilities to their conduct that held potential for the president’s safety, but the president’s safety is always at risk. There also seemed to be a historical lack of mention any anecdotal negative conduct exposure for the Secret Service, for which they should be applauded and not grouped with a few stupid agents in their ranks. The Secret Service agents assigned directly to the president are those who will jump in front of bullets to save the life of our president. The footage of President Reagan’s’ shooting is testament to that fact, and as a  people we should be grateful there is not more such footage and we should respect the work of the Secret Service and not make them the butt of Colombian prostitute jokes.

The highlight of the political theater of the absurd this week was watching the indignation of our elected officials during the hearings on the GSA squandering the taxpayers hard earned cash in order that they might have elaborate self-congratulatory parties. The feigned ignorance by those who have the fiduciary responsibilities under the United States Constitution would have been comical if not for the seriousness of the matter. The media went borderline apoplectic over the official from the GSA invoking his Fifth Amendment right against self-incriminations. The howls began almost immediately that by choosing to employ his constitutional protection he was crating a de facto confession.

It is of great concern that many of those entrusted with protecting and defending the Constitution apparently have no idea what it actually says:

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; 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

What apparently was not understood by many in Congress and ignorantly overlooked by the mass media was that you may not selectively invoke your fifth amendment protection. It is, in summary, a one size fits all, use it or lose it proposition. There is nothing nefarious in protecting yourself; it is dangerous to presume otherwise. Ignorance of the law is never considered a viable defense in court and should not be tolerated in the court of national discourse.

The third newsworthy event should be perhaps of the greatest concern to the American people. There was much fanfare over the Shuttle Discovery making its final flight piggy backed upon a 747. It was heralded as a major event as the craft circled around Washington D.C., en route to its final home at the Smithsonian Museum. There was a dearth of commentary, however, that there is not currently a manned United States Space Program. This nation needs to hitch rides with other nations when a return to space is required. In an era when there is much blather about investing in education, it is troubling that while the United States spends more per student than any other nation on the planet, our math and science scores are not competitive with other leading nations.

Should not we as a nation re-invest in teaching our children the subjects they will need to lead us to the next frontier; such is the nature of securing the future for ourselves and our posterity.

Presidential Political Politeness (more or less)

Rick Santorum has suspended his campaign for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.

This has allowed the self professed prognosticators, oracles of political wisdom, soothsayers, tea leaf readers and pundits in general to declare that Mitt Romney will be the Republican standard bearer in the presidential campaign against President Barack Obama.

Remove for a moment from this discussion the irrefutable fact that there is absolutely nothing contained in the Constitution that provides for a two party monopoly  on presidential candidacies, and that there are also no guidelines provided with our foundational document for dictating how said campaigns should be presented to the American electorate.

The people, however, have already been inundated with such nonsense as the election being a referendum on a mythological ‘war on women’, a ‘war on working mothers’, and that the respective candidates have a myriad of silliness attached to their records in public office.

The major media outlets have also begun their sycophantic alignments to their respective ideological dogma in an attempt to provide the greatest amount of imbecilic coverage and obfuscations so that their chosen candidate can deflect any attempt at an honest campaign dialogue with the American electorate.

As ridiculous as all of the political theater of the absurd seems to Americans this year, it is critical to consider two possible alternatives to this ritual of idiocy.

The first is to remember that the transfer of power does indeed take place at the ballot box. There are no tanks in the street, no protests where citizens are murdered at the whim of those in power. We may cringe at how our political election process is perceived by the world, but it is important to keep in perspective  that it is indeed able to be seen by the world, and not cloaked in dictatorial or tyrannical secrecy.

The other situation to ponder is that the character assaults between the two major camps could actually escalate to charges so outlandish as to be so wholly unbelievable by the electorate and such an embarrassment to the stature of this beacon of liberty.

Consider the potential charges that could be made between the two political candidates.

They could, and these are not being assigned to either party specifically but rather attributable to the campaign process at large, level the following charges:

That one candidate’s wife was a bigamist.

One candidate executed members of the army.

One candidate was a murderer.

One candidate procured American women to serve as prostitutes for a foreign monarch.

One candidate used taxpayer funds for gambling devices in the White House.

One candidate had used political prowess to steal a presidential election from the true winner.

If the potential for such charges seems far-fetched, these were but a few of the charges flying back and forth during the Andrew Jackson/John Quincy Adams election of 1828.

So if the current political debate climate seems to be amongst the ‘worst in history’, remember it has a way to go to rival some previous presidential contests, and that fact should reassure America that however outlandish our electoral process may appear to the rest of the world, the ridiculous has helped us endure and prosper for more than two hundred and twenty years, and that is something to be both envied and to be proud to present to ourselves and to our posterity.