What’s Your Constitutional IQ?

By M. Richard Maxson


    As our country lurches to the left and Civics, Government, and the American Constitution are no longer a part of many school systems cirriculum. As truths of our founding fathers gave us becomes a speck in our rear view mirror we needed a way to re-educate our youth. Here is an arictcle by Becket Adams about a new board game that is starting to catch on among true Americans. Constitutionals want it, the rest need it.

 by Becket Adams

    Pam and Dave Barret have long been concerned with what they call “constitutional literacy.”
And with their extensive backgrounds in education, it was only a matter of time before they came up with Constitution Quest, an innovative twist on teaching people the fundamentals of the supreme law of the United States.
    “For years, we had been talking about what we would do in our retirement years, and we knew we would continue to implement our very successful experiences as educators, So our creative efforts went into high gear to produce a product with real value…and with the help of our very creative and brilliant children, we made a family project of it,” it adds.
    But they saw more than a want for their product. They saw a real need for it.
   “The average American’s lack of familiarity with the U.S. Constitution coincides with an existential threat to the continuance of government of, by and for the people. Literacy empowers self-government, but the challenge, as well as the opportunity, is that in many ways our society has been moving toward a post-literate culture,” the Barrets say, “where there’s an abundance of rhyme but less reason, and  sophisms, and sound bites rule.”
    “We believed we could offer something of substance that would capture and sustain the interest of a distracted generation by making it fun,” it adds.
    Armed with a stack of constitution-related questions dating back to 2010, the Barrets set out to design a game that would teach players the basics of the critical document. “What we came up with was a beautiful, functional, interactive piece of art: an educational board game that people actually think is fun,” they said.

Cognitive Square, INC.

  
     It wasn’t long that they launched Constitution Quest that Cognitive Square, INC. In May 21, 2012, roughly 1,022 games have been sold. “The Constitution Quest Game is selling successfully at the James Madison’s Montpelier Museum Store, the Nixon Library Museum Store, the Reagan Library Museum Store, and DAR Constitution Hall in Washington D.C. (in addition to small ‘mom and pop’ shops around the country),” they said. “These stores have ordered and reordered multiple times!”

Cognitive Square, INC.

    They aren’t the only ones who are excited about the game. Sales have exceeding all expectations.
“Since it went into the shrink-wrap, we have sold nearly 5000 units across America — covering ALL 50 states, and are already halfway through the second production run!” they said.

    With an enthusiastic and growing customer base, the Barrets’ creation has become a small business success story. “We took an idea and ran with it — we were passionate about it and we made something happen. That’s what being an American entrepreneur is all about,” they said. “We wanted the game to be beautiful, and Constitution Quest had to be made in America.

The De-industrialization of America

Guest Column  
            By G. Sontag 
    
    The United States is rapidly becoming the very first "post-industrial" nation on the globe. All great economic empires eventually become fat and lazy and squander the great wealth that their forefathers have left them, but the pace at which America is accomplishing this is absolutely amazing.
    
    It was America that was at the forefront of the industrial revolution. It was America that showed the world how to mass produce everything from automobiles to televisions to airplanes. It was the great American manufacturing base that crushed Germany and Japan in World War II.
 

    Now we are witnessing the de-industrialization of America . Tens of thousands of factories have left the United States in the past decade alone. Millions upon millions of manufacturing jobs have been lost in the same time period. The United States has lost approximately 42,400 factories since 2001. About 75 percent of those factories employed over 500 people when they were still in operation. In 1959, manufacturing represented 28 percent of U.S. economic output. In 2008, it represented 11.5 percent.


    The United States has become a nation that consumes everything in sight and yet produces increasingly little.  In 2008, 1.2 billion cell phones were sold worldwide. So how many of
them were manufactured inside the United States ? Zero. Do you know what our biggest export is today? Waste paper. Yes, trash is the number one thing that we ship out to the rest of the world as we voraciously blow our money on whatever the rest of the world wants to sell to us.  In the United States today, consumption accounts for 70 percent of GDP. Of this 70 percent, over half is spent on services.

    The United States has become bloated and spoiled and our economy is now just a shadow of what it once was. Once upon a time America could literally out produce the rest of the world combined. Today that is no longer true, but Americans sure do consume more than anyone else in the world.

    If the deindustrialization of America continues at this current pace, what possible kind of a future are we going to be leaving to our children? Any great nation throughout history has been great at making things. So if the United States continues to allow its manufacturing base to erode at a staggering pace how in the world can the U.S. continue to consider itself to be a great nation? 

    The deindustrialization of the United States should be a top concern for every man, woman and child in the country. But sadly, most Americans do not have any idea what is going on around them

    We have created the biggest debt bubble in the history of the world in an effort to maintain a very high standard of living, but the current state of affairs is not anywhere close to
sustainable. Every single month America goes into more debt and every single month America gets poorer.
    So how many tens of thousands more factories do we need to lose before we do something about it? How many millions more Americans are going to become unemployed before we all admit that we have a very, very serious problem on our hands?
 
    How many more trillions of dollars are going to leave the country before we realize that we are losing wealth at a pace that is killing our economy? How many once great manufacturing cities are going to become rotting war zones like Detroit before we understand that we are committing national economic suicide?

The deindustrialization of America is a national crisis. It needs to be treated like one.

Socialism Destroys

 Guest Column
          
           by Zeno Potas
  
    During the mid-20th century, Detroit was a vibrant city with a population of almost 2 million. Today, it

stands near ruin. The number of residents has now been estimated at just over 700,000. According to the Chicago Tribune, "The city has a crushing debt of $14 billion, and a budget deficit of as much as $327 million. The pay and benefit structure of public employees can't be sustained. ... The city could run out of cash in a matter of weeks." And yet the city's main courthouse reports having $280 million worth of uncollected fines and fees.
   
    The initial response to all of this sad news was denial. Some tried to change the subject by playing the race card. The majority of those who live in Detroit are African American. Michigan's governor, Rick Snyder, is white, as are a majority of the state's residents. But crime, corruption, malfeasance and misfeasance are not exclusive to a single race. Ask New Jersey. The problem for Detroit is something no one wants to address: one-party rule. And that would be the Democratic Party.
   
   While the road to Hell may be paved with good intentions, the road to corruption and municipal failure seems to have been paved by Detroit's Democratic monopoly. Political monopolies invite bribes, kickbacks, misuse of funds, cronyism and a sense of entitlement.

    Many businesses have fled Detroit for the usual reasons, including crime. In 2009, Time Magazine reported the city's functional literacy rate was near 50 percent and its unsolved murder rate was nearly 70 percent.

    Michigan law provides for an emergency manager with the authority to prevent local elected officials from making financial decisions. That person also would be granted the power to alter labor contracts, shut or privatize departments and, reports The New York Times, "
 
    Altering labor contracts caused quite the controversy in neighboring Wisconsin, but it had to be done. Democrats there (and in Detroit) had given away too much of the store in exchange for votes.
Shrinking government and encouraging personal responsibility can be a win-win and not only for Detroit.
   

    "We can't go on like this," is starting, however slowly, to become clear to more and more people.

     Some years back, Detroit leaders announced a "Renaissance" for the city. There's a hotel there by that name, but that's about it. Detroit needs more than a Renaissance. It needs a revival, but that is not likely to happen as long as Democrats maintain their political stranglehold.

How Well Do You Know
the U.S. Constitution?

Click on the link below for a short 10 question quiz.

How do you rate?

 

 

http://us5.campaign-archive1.com/?u=47cd36a1956bf228a389e44ef&id=e4d8f2d1a4&e=3ef72a603e 

 

 

The Rise of Bolshevik America?

By 

       M. Richard Maxson

    Tell me where have you heard this in America's press? In his recent presidential directives President Obama has ordered that  doctors, and other health care providers be forced to ask questions regarding gun ownership of patients. What could possibly be the motive behind such an order? It reeks of the same system of informants the KGB used. If health care providers are required to ask invasive questions, other federal employees in different spheres certainly will be asked to.
    The KGB employed informants and quotas to counter anti-revolutionary measures. The American government is already preparing itself for revolution, with CDC concentration camps and the ability to create martial law, and removing constitutional laws enabling the American people to change their form of government if they so choose. This new network of required informants is yet another step in the direction of repressive regimes reminiscent of the former Soviet Union. How far is America from asking students about their parents activities at home?
   The news media in America has been almost completely taken over by people who share Communist/Socialist ideals. Everything in my lifetime has turned 180 degrees. First you  have to understand propaganda comes in two forms- political and cultural. There are those in the news media that have an agenda - they want to see a certain world-view. The entertainment media are more powerful than the political media today.  The political propaganda comes from the news media. 

 Look at some of the comments from Americans in Russian newspapers:

•    "I must confess, the irony of history. I was born in 1958. I remember the Soviet Union, I remember reading the Gulag Archipelago. Oh how things have changed. Here we have people leaving the west for Russia. Just 30 years ago Russians fled to the US for freedom.  I used to read Pravda for laughs. I used to listen to Radio Moscow for kicks. Now I turn to Pravda for a voice of freedom. Well done Russia, well done, you have proven that freedom will never die." - Philip Rauschert · Wheaton College

•  USA television networks are all owned by 6 liberal  families who have Bolshevik sympathies so clueless uninformed USA voters voted in a Bolshevik who is wrecking USA. Even President Putin recently warned Obama he is following a failed Soviet strategy that led to an economic collapse. - John Richard Walsh

• I often wondered the same thing: who really owns America? That's right the media must be owned by someone who directs the thoughts and beliefs of clueless Americans who just eat it up thats how Obama got re-elected, by adoring sheeple who love their free stuff that he promises them! Where are they going with this?? They already are taking our guns away, freedom of religion is going next. I am afraid of what is coming next. The constituion is being ripped to shreds. Remember that a lot of Americans did not vote for BHO and are not buying his bull. - Joanne Albrecht

•   What is happening in America today is the beginning of what liberal democrats have planned since the 60's and earlier. They are much more patient in "transforming" america than we conseravtives are at restoring it. The republican establishment is on board with this transformation...only they are stealthier today about it. Our nation is being purposefully destroyed by a small group of people but they are supported by a large group or people. They will remake america into a socialist, marxist, communist state the likes of which has no been seen in human history. The answer to this problem does not lie in emailing, writing calling elected representatives or protesting and marching. The answer has been given to us by the founders. The answer has been shown to us by history. The answer...the ONLY answer is all out armed civil war. Like it or not! - Mark Greene

     There is also the cultural propaganda that comes from the entertainment media. The entertainment media ultimately are more powerful than the political media because so many more people watch it. You have those in the entertainment media who have an agenda- they want to see a certain world-view. Ask Michael Moore. He’s just the most blatant of them all, but just about everyone in Hollywood these days has an leftist agenda- they have a mission. If you expose' Constitutionalism, you may be out of work.

Warping the Constitution

 Guest Column

 

        by G. Sontag  
  
    What socialism, fascism and other ideologies of the left have in common is an assumption that some very wise people -- like themselves -- need to take decisions out of the hands of lesser people, like the rest of us, and impose those decisions by government fiat. The left's vision is not only a vision of the world, but also a vision of themselves, as superior beings pursuing superior ends. In the United States, however, this vision conflicts with a Constitution that begins, "We the People..."

                                             
     That is why the left has for more than a century been trying to get the Constitution's limitations on government loosened or evaded by judges' new interpretations, based on notions of "a living Constitution" that will take decisions out of the hands of "We the People," and transfer those decisions to our betters.
    

     So how secure is any freedom when there is this kind of arbitrary power in the hands of one man? 

    The checks and balances of the Constitution have been evaded time and time again by the Obama administration, undermining the fundamental right of the people to determine the laws that govern them, through their elected representatives. Let's look at the record so far under the current leadership of the Social- Democrats recently.
   

• What they have been pushing for, and moving toward, is more insidious: government control of the economy, while leaving ownership in private hands. That way, politicians get to call the shots but, when their bright ideas lead to disaster, they can always blame those who own businesses in the private sector. 

•  For those of us fighting for our traditional rights, the US 2nd Amendment is a rare light in an ever darkening room. The government will use the excuse of trying to protect the people from maniacs and crime, but in reality, it is the bureaucrats protecting their power and position. is about power and a total power over the people…Do not be fooled by a belief that progressives, leftists hate guns. Oh, no, they do not. What they hate is guns in the hands of those who are not marching in lock step of their ideology.  [Emphasis added]They hate guns in the hands of those who think for themselves and do not obey without question. One of the first things [the Soviets] did was to disarm the population. 

  

       A recent Gallup poll said that 53 Percent of Democrats Have ‘Positive Image’ of Socialism. We are becoming a culture of dependency. We are becoming a neo-socialist experiment. We are becoming a dumbed-down nation unappreciative of its founders. We are losing touch with the Constitution and the very concept of liberty.

    It wasn't supposed to be this way. Every elected official has pledged to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic." I promised I would "bear true faith and allegiance to the same." Notably, the words promise loyalty not to a political party or a particular individual but to the Constitution, which enshrines our liberties and the limits and responsibilities of those who govern us like no other foundational document on earth.

Obama v. the Constitution

 M. Richard Maxson *

    A look at President Obama’s first term shows his repeated disregard for the Constitution that he has sworn to preserve, protect, and defend. Since taking office, Obama has betrayed contempt for our constitutional system of separation of powers. Our framers established three distinct branches of government so that each would serve as a check on the others, and so that none could trample on individual liberty. Obama has continually circumvented Congress’s constitutional role and he has denigrated the job of the judiciary. These repeated infractions seem to stem from a fundamental disregard for the rule of law and the text of the Constitution.

    President Obama, like many leftist constitutional law professors, subscribes to the view that policy results are more important than law. For instance, our Constitution gives the Senate a key check on executive power by requiring the president to seek Senate approval to appoint senior officials. Article II provides that the president “shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate shall appoint ... officers of the United States.”

     The president may bypass the Senate under only one circumstance: “The President shall have power to fill up all vacancies that may happen during the recess of the Senate.” This winter, the Senate did not go into recess and on January 3 conducted a pro forma session. But the next day, the president simply declared the Senate to be “in recess,” though it plainly was not. Then, he purported to appoint several officers, evading the Senate’s constitutional role. It was the first time in U.S. history that a president attempted to make recess appointments when the Senate -- by its own lights -- was not in recess. Obama flouted the plain language of the Constitution, pronouncing a naked assertion of power: “I refuse to take ‘no’ for an answer.” These appointments have been challenged in court, and it is likely that they will be declared unconstitutional.
Making illegal appointments is just one way Obama has undermined the separation of powers. He has also infringed on freedom of speech by banning all disruptive demonstrations around (his) political events

    When he is not denigrating the work of the judicial branch, Obama has found it convenient to sidestep the judiciary altogether. Last September, the administration targeted and killed U.S. citizen Anwar al-Alwaki in Yemen without any judicial review whatsoever. This violates the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution, which provides that “no person shall be deprived of life . . . without due process of law.”

    The Obama administration stated very clearly that they have the right to kill anyone they please. http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/constitutional-expert-%E2%80%9Cpresident-obama-%E2%80%A6-says-he-can-kill-you-his-own-discretion-without   Five months after al-Alwaki was killed, Attorney General Eric Holder asserted unchecked power to target and kill U.S. citizens. He claimed that judicial review was not needed because the executive branch had done its own internal evaluation. But due process is essentially a judicial check on executive power, which safeguards citizens’ life and liberty. As Alexander Hamilton explained, “the words ‘due process’ have a precise technical import, and are only applicable to the proceedings of courts of justice.”

    Because the Constitution creates a unitary executive, vesting all executive power in a single person, it follows that an intra-executive check on executive power is no check at all. Indeed, recent reports have revealed just that; Obama makes the final targeting decision acting as judge, jury and executioner. The administration’s position undermines the judiciary’s constitutional function and turns the Due Process Clause into a dead letter, eliminating a core constitutional right. And Obama’s manipulation of “due process” – like his manipulation of “recess” and “hostilities” – undermines another fundamental check on executive power.

    Again and again, President Obama bypasses the Constitution to enhance his own power, sidestep the other branches, and reach the outcome he wants. This should come as no surprise. Obama believes that the law should not always be dispositive, and that one’s “deepest values” and “core concerns” should carry the day.

    But this outcome-based theory breeds lawlessness. A results-oriented approach is purely subjective; a good result to one person is usually a bad result to another. And putting one’s “deepest values” and “core concerns” above the law leads to the exploitation of power that our founders sought to prevent.

    The notion that public servants – who take an oath to uphold the Constitution – may substitute their own judgment for the rule of law subverts the axiom that our country is “a nation of laws, not of men.” We have agreed to be governed by an objective body of law that our elected officials have a duty to evenhandedly uphold and apply. Our framers understood this concept, which is why they created a system where no person – including the president—is above the law.

The Constitution grants Congress the authority to enact legislation but requires the president to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” Obama failed to do this when adherence to the law would not reach his desired result. If the President cherry picks which parts of the Constitution to obey and which to ignore, our Constitution becomes nothing more than a piece of paper. It is time to restore the rule of law and end the rule of Obama.                          

  


 * Many thanks to Stephanie Hessler who is a major contributor to this piece .