T-13; 2.1: Thirteen Reasons to Jump on the Fredwagon

I generally hold my nose and keep my hand firmly on my wallet whenever I smell a politician. The field for the presidency is narrowing, but it’s still chock full of enough pork manure to gag a maggot. *sigh* Still, of all the candidates, one has at least made clear he understands the Constitution… and has committed himself to stemming the tide of political effluvia that has been steadily eroding the Constitution for lo these many years. Yep. Fred. So, 13 reasons to support Fred Thompson:

1. He’s not an android, dreaming of electric sheep. (My apologies to the shade of Phillip K. Dick for alluding to his work in the same sentence as Romney. Bah.)

2. Nor is he a wolf in sheeps’ clothing (although Rudy would look better in a rug than he does dressing up as a “conservative”).

3. He’s not certifiably loony (and besides, who can trust a guy who won’t even reveal his last name. Paul? Paul who? *heh*).

4. He’s not a greasy Southern Baptist preacherboy who–if his record and his mouth are any indications–believes his opinions have God’s stamp of approval… just because, well, he’s a greasy Southern Baptist preacherboy, so naturally God is on his side (Huck, go fish in a different hole, boy). Huck for dogcatcher? Free-ranging strays (given his record on illegal immigrants in Arkansas).

5. Fred has his priorities straight: “The first responsibility of government is to protect the American people, the homeland, and our way of life.”

6. Education:

At a time when America is behind other developed countries in education excellence, the federal role in education is too intrusive and too bureaucratic, and has become part of the problem. State and local governments are closest to the parents, the kids, and the schools, and best situated to implement changes and innovations that best educate children. I am committed to:

Giving parents more choices in education and schools less bureaucracy.
Reviewing federal programs for cost-effectiveness, reducing federal mandates, returning education money to the states, and empowering parents by promoting voucher programs, charter schools, and other innovations that enhance education excellence through competition and choice.
Encouraging students and teachers to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and math—fields that are crucial to our security, competitiveness, and prosperity.
Promoting transparency to assess performance, promote accountability, and share innovations in education at all levels.

7. Understands the Constitutional role of the judiciary: “Appointing strict constructionist judges who will interpret the law, not impose their views on us by legislating from the bench.”

8. Second Amendment: “I strongly support the Second Amendment of the Constitution, which protects an individual’s right to keep and bear arms. Gun control is touted as a major crime-control measure. But some of the places with the strictest gun-control laws also have high violent-crime rates. Disarming law-abiding citizens does not prevent crime.” [Emphasis added]

9. On “Nannystate-ism”–“We must allow individuals to lead their lives with minimal government interference…”

10. And expanding on that, “Government must be strong enough to protect us, competent enough to provide basic government services, but limited by the delineated powers in the Constitution.”

12. Federalism

Our Constitution innovatively guarantees our liberties by spreading power among the three branches of the federal government, and between the federal government and the states. In considering any action by the government, we must always ask two questions: is the government better equipped than the private sector to perform the task and, if so, what level of government (federal or state) ought to do it. Washington is not the seat of all wisdom. (More on Federalism)

READ the “Federalism” link above. Fred seems to be the ONLY sane candidate who has the slightest idea that the Constitution actually means something…

13. He’s not Billary Hussein Obama. Heck his “White Papers” on ” Border Security and Immigration” and “Education” alone show Billary Hussein Obama (as well as, sadly, all the Republican’t runners) up as the intellectual, moral and ethical midgets they are.

CLICK the pic below, view Fred’s latest ad and give Fred a hand, OK?

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Noted at the Thursday Thirteen Hub.

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Well, in comments, Nicholas, of A Gentleman’s Domain, opined:

“#9 sounds like an excuse to let people starve and die.”

And I thought to myself, “Self, the response you made to Nicholas [who has a fine, well worth reading blog] probably belong on the front page,” so…

nicholas–

An understanding of the powers and responsibilities of the Federal government should start with the Founders, who demonstrated far, far more intelligence and wisdom than any of the goons, poltroons, thieves, liars and crooks who inhabit Washington D.C. today, let alone the Academia Nut Fruitcakes and Mass Media Podpeople who have no sense of history and little–if any–literacy* to inform their “feelings” about what they want government to be and do:

“With respect to the two words ‘general welfare,’ I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators.”–James Madison

In 1794, when Congress appropriated $15,000 for relief of French refugees who fled from insurrection in San Domingo to Baltimore and Philadelphia, James Madison stood on the floor of the House to object saying_*_, “I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.”
-James Madison, 4 Annals of congress 179 (1794)

“…[T]he government of the United States is a definite government, confined to specified objects. It is not like the state governments, whose powers are more general. Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government.”
-James Madison

“If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the general welfare, the government is no longer a limited one possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one subject to particular exceptions.” James Madison, “Letter to Edmund Pendleton,”
-James Madison, January 21, 1792, in The Papers of James Madison, vol. 14, Robert A Rutland et. al., ed (Charlottesvile: University Press of Virginia,1984).

Further, a little understanding of the Constitutional limits of a government ruled by law might be nice, as well as an understanding, which the Founders had and which we as a society have ignored to our peril, of the nature of mob rule, would be useful (which is why only ONE candidate talks reasonably about the role of the Federal government–the others want only to appeal to their slice of a mob, hoping to stampede anough of the herd to win more power for themselves):

“An elective despotism was not the government we fought for; but one in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among the several bodies of magistracy as that no one could transcend their legal limits without being effectually checked and restrained by the others.”
-James Madison, Federalist No. 58, February 20, 1788

“There are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.”
-James Madison, speech to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 16, 1788

“When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.”
-Benjamin Franklin

“To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.”
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Joseph Milligan, April 6, 1816

“A wise and frugal government … shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government.”
-Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801

“Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated.”
-Thomas Jefferson

But, of course anyone who both can read and has taken the time to read even a little history recognizes both the sentiments and reason of these few statements (of many) about the role of the Federal government–and recognizes the weight of history the Founders felt so strongly when they devised the best system they could to mitigate the dangers of rampant democracy.

#9 “an excuse to let people starve and die”? No, Nicholas: a call to stand up and be counted, to stop playing “steal from the productive to cater to the sloths” and to place the responsibility for charity where it belongs: on individuals and private organizations who can handle such things much better than the feds.

Yes, I said that. The weight of decades watching (and being involved in) the process–gov’t “charity” v. private charity–informs my opinion there, not simply the weight of history or worse, as with most who make the disingenuous argument for government charity, simply “feelings”.

*BTW, “literacy” is used above not in the degraded sense contemporary educrats, Mass Media Podpeople and politicians *spit* who want literacy thought of as being able to puzzle words out laboriously, whether the “reader” understands what they read or not. (Yes, I make that as an informed statement of fact: read the underlying data in the latest national assessment of adult literacy sometime, for but one example of many of the lies about literacy promoted by educrats, et al.) No, I use literacy here to refer to reading with understanding, and not even merely being able to read with understanding but actually DOING it.