WHEN PENGUINS FLEW AND WATER BURNED This is the true memoir of one US Air Force navigator’s journey from the schoolhouses of Air Training Command to the nuclear alerts of the Cold War to combat in a 35-year-old anachronism called the B-52. It is a first-hand account of life during the last days of Strategic Air Command, the early days of Air Combat Command and the ensuing military drawdown of the 1990s. From peacetime training exercises across the globe to combat operations in Desert Storm, Jim Clonts takes the reader inside the cockpit where life and death are seconds apart. Often comical, sometimes heart-pounding, other times tragic, WHEN PENGUINS FLEW AND WATER BURNED takes you into the world of military aviation, a crucible where warriors learn the true nature of character, conscience and mortality.

Friends of Liberty VOL 9
by Jim Clonts, 2009

06/01/2009

Is Anything Unconstitutional Anymore?

Our Government believes the Constitution is nothing but a piece of old parchment. For over 100 years the Courts of the United States have been usurping the Constitution by simple interpretation. They read the carefully crafted words of the Founders, then extrapolate meanings never originally intended.

Although Congress and the Executive Branch has been assuming powers far beyond those outlined in Articles 1 and 2 for decades, the current regime is injecting taxpayer dollars into private companies, then dictating how they are to do business, and when they do not succeed, taking an ownership stake, putting themselves in competition with other private companies. Bankruptcy proceedings are being corrupted by the Federal Government, with secured bond-holders? investments being redistributed to the UAW, violating their property rights guaranteed under the 5th Amendment. Is any of this Constitutional? What grants this level of power? Nothing grants it, but nothing prevents it, either.

The Constitution enumerates the powers of the President and Congress. Today our leaders interpret that as "we can do anything not specifically forbidden." President Obama stated in an interview when he was a state senator in Illinois he feels "constrained" by the Constitution and that the document is a list of "negative" rights, stating what the Government cannot do to its citizens rather than what is should be able to do. In the same interview he said he said the Court have fallen short in the re-distribution of wealth. His recent Supreme Court nominee has stated "the Appeals Court is where policy is made", a view that runs contrary to Article III of the Constitution. If our leaders don?t respect and adhere to the Constitution, what good is it?

Laws are passed and executive orders issued every day that violate the Constitution or exceed Constitutional mandates. How is this possible? If the law or order is not challenged in the Courts---it just goes into effect and continues. If something seems like a good or popular idea, but is blatantly unconstitutional, it may never be challenged. Quite often politicians are too apt to accept popular sentiment rather than challenge a patently unconstitutional ruling. The Courts adjudicate what is brought before them and in some cases, if the topic is too controversial, the Supreme Court may decide to keep a particular case off their docket.

I worry that stapled to the back of the Constitution our leaders routinely ignore is the Bill of Rights. How long will it be before they ignore that, too? It will be easy once they get enough Justices who rule by empathy and social justice rather than our First Principles. In truth...this is already happening.

JC

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Quote of the Week

"There is hardly a political question in the United States which does not sooner or later turn into a judicial one."

Alexis de Tocqueville

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