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By Curtis Dahlgren

December 20, 2004
NewsWithViews.com

"Politics is a choice of comrades . . . My personal odyssey has given me much less respect for intellectuals. I respect street smarts." � David Horowitz

"Yet we barely notice as all these constitutional protections are being steadily eroded away by politicians and judges using heady words, dazzling visions, and runaway emotions." � Thomas Sowell

The career of Tommy Thompson sheds a lot of light on the difference between the "elitist Federalism" of the Blue America and the street smarts/horse sense of the individual 50 states. Upon resigning, Secretary Thompson let some federal "secrets" out of the bag: He joked that as governor, he could wake up at 3 a.m. with an idea and have people at work on it by noon.

"Out here, in this department, you get an idea and you have to vet it with all the division heads and the 67,000 employees. . . . then it goes over to the supergod in our society, and the supergod is O.M.B.," the Office of Management and Budget.

"And they turn you down nine times out of 10, just to show you who the boss is. Then it goes to the young intelligentsia of the White House, who don't believe that anything original or good can come from a cabinet secretary. And if you do get by them, it goes to the President. And if the President does agree with it, it goes on to the Congress, and if Congress ever does pass it, it's time to retire."

The long tradition of the states as laboratories or "proving grounds for ideas" has been superceded by totalitarian-style JUDICIAL FIATS by the Federal bench. Justice Felix Frankfurter said, "What rules is the Constitution, not what we have written about it." That was then � "Old 19th-century values"; NOW, our much "hipper" Courts are in the business of redefining words, inventing new words, and essentially ruling that if 2 + 2 equals 3 or 5, so be it, whatever it takes!

The street smarts/horse sense of the people is thus kissed off and overruled in the name of Progress and Societal Evolution. While some rulings � such as the Massachusetts Supreme Court "gay marriage" decision � are hailed by some as "States' Rights," many of us who are old enough remember the legalization of abortion, by just one or two states, and so we also remember how quickly the concept of abortion-on-demand was Federalized and taken out of the hands of the states completely. We know the drill; we've long seen a pattern here.

Thomas Sowell wrote (1999): "While it may be too close to call as to who deserves the 'honor' of being the worst of the worst in [the 20th] century, what is painfully clear is that these leaders all shared at least one characteristic that is still powerful . . . the ability to use words and manipulate emotions as a means of getting control of the levers of political power."

Under the guise of "New Morality," fads and fashion and "runaway feelings" by the Intelligentsia trump both Law and Traditionalism. The New Judicial Elites define trump; trump is whatever they say is trump at the moment. Their one "Absolute" is that "Judicial trump" trumps "legislative trump"!

Sowell says, "Ironically, the legislative act which gave [Hitler his] powers was sold as a bill "to relieve the distress of the German people. We might want to remember that the next time some political savior comes along and promises to relieve our distress."

One popular form of this is the obsession on the Left with so-called "Separation of church and state." This has become a coded phrase for many of their favorite concepts, including suppression of the freedoms of thought, speech, and religion in favor of the "Church of What's Happening Now": secular, humanistic globalism. This is no harmless abstraction.

One writer has said that its agenda lurks behind almost every headline we read today: "the remaking of the world into a liberal technocracy where freedom becomes individual willfulness and the rule of law becomes subservient to science. God has no part of all this; in the world of the humanist, He has become deceased."

I call your attention to recent headlines about "stem cell research," euthanizing of children in the Netherlands, and unceasing legal attacks upon groups such as the Boy Scouts in the name of euphemistic "equality"!

Talk about a sham and a disgrace! I just learned from Roger Hitchcock that a provision of a law written by our own Congress � United States Code 42, section 1988 � allocates Federal dollars to groups such as the ACLU anytime they allege "civil rights violations" and get a case into court. With just the "allegation" of such (Boy Scouts use of a city park in San Diego), the ACLU was given $90,000 up front for 'legal fees,' plus they eventually won an additional $750,000 in so-called "damages" from the tax payers of San Diego (the better to sue the NEXT alleged violator of "civil rights" and "equality" � as defined by our bureaucrats and our Courts)!

The election of President Bush notwithstanding, it becomes more difficult with each passing day to straighten out the American judicial system. There is a symbiotic relationship between the Congress, bureaucracy, and the Federal courts. One of the products of this symbiosis was "Campaign Finance Reform," because a more accurate title would have been: "the Incumbents' Protection Racket of 2003."

"This litigation is about preventing criticism of the government," declared Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, one of the four who dissented against the majority. "The first instinct of power is the retention of power, and, under a Constitution that requires periodic elections, that is best achieved by the suppression of election time speech."

"The better to eat you with," shouted the Big Bad Wolf. Too bad we can't call on a woodcutter to save the day. Woodcutters are becoming almost extinct, while the wolves of the forest, and in the Courtrooms, are THRIVING! Nothing breeds success like success (or power, POWER)! And power corrupts. ABSOLUTELY.

� 2004 - Curtis Dahlgren - All Rights Reserved

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Curtis Dahlgren is semi-retired in the frozen tundra of Michigan's U.P., and his career has had some rough similarities to one of his favorite writers, Ferrar Fenton. Curtis is listed as a University of Wisconsin-Madison "alumnus." He has a website at www.jcmquotations.com. He is also the author of No More Bull: America Please Call Home

E-Mail: treeman1776@yahoo.cam

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The street smarts/horse sense of the people is thus kissed off and overruled in the name of Progress and Societal Evolution. While some rulings � such as the Massachusetts Supreme Court "gay marriage" decision � are hailed