Time is flying by:

Friday – January 7, 2011

Time is flying by:

It’s already the seventh day of the New Year. We have spent around three and a quarter million dollars per minute of this New Year. At years end – well, you do the math. This is the scary thing about government.

Ask yourself what have you gotten for the money that Washington has spent? If you can’t answer that, then ask your Senator or Congressman. They will tell you that all sorts of benefits were given to you and what they have done to deliver your states fair share of the federal budget. This is the problem.

Next week, the new Congress will debate repealing Obama care. This should be repealed, because it doesn’t pass the constitutional test that should have been applied to the law in the first place. In the coming weeks, the new Congress will debate raising the debt ceiling. This should not be raised. If it is it will be another license to spend our posterity’s wealth. If you didn’t know, our founding documents talk about our posterity and guaranteeing their rights and their prosperity.

I remember the movie “Dave”. It starred Kevin Kline and Sigourney Weaver. Regardless of their real life political preferences, the movie has a message in it. Kevin, who played “Dave”, was a look alike to the President. Long story short, the President suffered a stroke. After a crazy story line, “Dave” was enlisted to step in and pretend he was the president. He then started to realize what the president must do. “Dave” became a leader and slashed the budget to keep a much needed educational program solvent.

This is a simple story that only Hollywood could produce. But there is a message here. In the movie, the president, along with Cabinet and Congressional leaders, addressed where every dollar was spent on every program. In the end, they balanced the budget and made government work for the people. There should be a moratorium on starting new programs while the old ones are reviewed and or discontinued.

This would be a monumental task to ask of anyone. However, this is what our leaders are getting paid to do. The salaries of our representatives come from us and we should demand that this moratorium be put into action while a real review is done. The supposed debt commission has filed their report but it didn’t address the problem. The problem lies in the way the Federal Government does their business. The problem is we support programs that have never worked and create new ones that pretend to work.

Each piece of legislation going forward will now have a constitutional litmus test applied to it. This is a good thing because many of the programs and the manner in which the funding is appropriated probably are unconstitutional. Certainly many aspects of Obama care are. The Democrats are now complaining that there are no hearings on the repeal of Obama care. My response is: where were the hearings when they passed Obama care behind closed doors at the midnight hour?

The U.S. Constitution was read on the floor of the House yesterday; the first time in our history. This doesn’t surprise me, because the majority of our law makers probably don’t want to follow it, because it restricts them from deliberating and making good decisions. The Constitution was designed to restrict government form enacting bad legislation and robbing us of our liberty and freedom when it is followed. This is the inherent problem with how government is run today. There is no deliberation and there is no allowance of Constitutional authority.

The Constitution was radical in its day and it was created by radical men who had conservative beliefs. It’s no wonder that Representative (D) Gerald Nadler of New York scoffed at the idea that the Constitution was being read in Congress. FOX News reported that Nadler said this was “nonsense” and it was “propaganda.” It is not wrong to read the Constitution in the Halls of Congress. The document is supposed to uphold the body of laws that the nation was founded on. I question Nadler’s patriotism and his agenda. I wrote about Barney Frank yesterday and his remarks on The O’Reilly Factor more than a year ago. I also question his patriotism and his agenda.

Our Constitution affords every man, woman and child equal rights. The Constitution affords the men and women that serve the right to serve and their right to hold office. It also affords us the right to vote them out of office. Unfortunately, the Nadler and Frank constituency must be ignorant or not care about their comments.

As we wrap up the first week of the year, we must realize that our work in restoring the meaning of the Constitution is just beginning. The Constitution lays out the framework of our society and it places limits on government. The Constitution is the framework of our moral code. It is the framework by which our values, rights and our responsibilities reside.

The document is on our side and the arguments in support of the document are on our side. What are not on our side are those in government that pay no attention to the things that I just outlined.

We need to trust the Constitution, we need to deliberate and we need to have confidence in our leaders who enforce what is in the document. The first two things are easy it’s the third one that I worry about.

To understand what went on in the creation of our country and the Constitution, we must go back in history, as John Adams said. Adams was a Federalist, but he also knew the boundaries of government and he brought the Constitution into view, as our nation was just beginning. He fought for and maintained the idea of freedom. Though he believed in a strong government, he was opposed by Jefferson, but none the less a patriot. He said in 1815, “As to the history of the revolution, my ideas are peculiar, perhaps singular. What do we mean by the Revolution, the war? That was no part of the revolution. It was only an effect and consequence of it. The revolution was in the minds of the people, and this was affected, from 1761 to 1775. In the course of fifteen years before a drop of blood was drawn at Lexington. The records of thirteen Legislatures, the pamphlets and Newspapers in all the colonies ought to be consulted, during that period, to ascertain the steps by which the public opinion was enlightened and informed concerning the authority of Parliament over the colonies.”

Time is flying by. In the next year, we must regain the confidence in our Constitution by using it. We must learn our history and we must insist that our leaders do the same. Our Constitution guarantees this right. If we don’t use it then we will loose it!

Gregory C. Dildilian
Founder and Executive Director
Pinecone Conservatives

A footnote: See the movie ““Dave””. He knew that his time was flying by and something needed to be done. Tell me if I am wrong about how ““Dave”” approached a government problem. Then read the quote by Adams again.