As I reflect on the meaning of Independence Day, I cannot help but to see the stark contrast between the freedoms which we as Americans have come to take for granted and the situation in Romania, where the Romanian people struggle to live day by day under the capricious and self-serving will of oligarchs and authoritarians and a corrupt and impetuous government.
Never you mind that the 2008 NATO Summit was held in Bucharest.
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We the people of the United States, in order to form a
more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic
tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote
the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty
to ourselves and our posterity.
United States Constitution
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The purpose of human government is to enable the people to obtain, individually, for themselves every good and moral opportunity to pursue and enjoy the common good.
Regardless of geographical differences, the purpose is everywhere the same. This, the human spirit has taught us in its longings, triumphs, and struggles through human history. And this wisdom is made more compelling by our own tears, hopes and prayers.
George Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Martin Luther King, Jr. understood themselves as instruments of human destiny. They saw that the implications of their efforts, sacrifices and triumphs were not limited to their time; they understood that the things for which they struggled for must also belong in a wider sense to humanity and the future.
In America, the rights of the individual prevail today over the sometimes questionable prerogative of state and government.
The U.S. Supreme Court reaffirmed the constitutional right of an American to have a gun and, especially, for the purpose of self-defense in one’s home. This individual right has been clearly acknowledged independent of the necessities of military or militia service, duty and training. The ruling comes out of the Court’s review of District of Columbia v. Heller. Additionally: Washington, D.C.’s many year ban on handguns and a mandatory requirement for gun locks was deemed unconstitutional.
District of Columbia v. Heller is the most important Second Amendment case in American history. Today’s decision is a historical decision that will guide the way courts and States consider questions about the American right of responsible citizens to own a gun for a long time to come. The American right of an individual for self defense is more clearly defined as a Constitutional right.
This historical decision represents the deeply considered and powerful reasoning of Justice Antonin Scalia who led the majority opinion. According to Georgetown University Law Professor Randy Barnett, Justice Scalia’s opinion “is the clearest, most careful interpretation of the meaning of the Constitution ever to be adopted by a majority of the Supreme Court.”
This opinion, writes Barnett in The Wall Street Journal, “is the finest example of what is now called original public meaning jurisprudence ever adopted by the Supreme Court.”
A friend shared a story with me that made me deeply feel the significance and importance of the oral arguments that I reviewed regarding District of Columbia v. Heller. I had to share it with you. Fortunate for us… the kind author, Victoria Lloyd, gave me permission. I’ll admit this: I was so excited about this personal story that I waited eight hours to find out who the author was and how to get in touch.
Below, a little patriotic clip, in case, you can’t continue without video.
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Or, background music from Janis Joplin and Woodstock (Try)… for your reading:
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Number Sixty Four
by Victoria F. Lloyd
It was six o’clock in the evening on the Seventeenth of March when I drove by the United States Supreme Court to scout the line of people that had gathered on the sidewalk. They were strewn about in an unkempt line starting at the base of the marble steps of the court. I could see several people dining on Armand’s pizza and a delivery man with bags of Chinese food being paid by a young man bundled in a sweatshirt, jeans, and a North Face jacket. It was clear that these people were in for the long haul. Read the rest of this entry »
Reaffirming the Second Amendment does not mean we should not discuss the problems of violence in our culture or the tragedies and horrors that we have observed in our schools, streets and low income neighborhoods. As Americans, we are smart enough, creative enough and passionate enough to find compelling solutions that do not infringe upon our obligations and rights as Americans… and as prominent an important members of an international community.
Below, a trailer for a documentary on the Second Amendment:
Below, Clip from Bloomberg News (November, 2007): David Tice, Fund Manager for Prudent Bear Fund said stock market would decline 50-60%.
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Next Steps
Over here in Europe, economies seem to be responding positively to a flat income tax. That’s the official story. We are told that when corporate profits are unburdened by heavy taxes, the money goes into things like employment, consumption and investment in innovation. In other words, the money keeps moving.
Russia went to a 13 percent flat tax on personal income in 2001 and some economists claim this facilitated the recovery of Russia’s economy without the help of the oil boom. Slovakia was the first to adopt a 19 percent flat tax on corporate and personal income. Romania followed with a 16 percent flat tax on corporate profit and personal income.
In the United States, the Republican and Democrat parties have not made any serious commitment to the concept of flat taxes. Jerry Brown (D) and Steve Forbes (R) were among the only presidential candidates (1992 campaigns) to forcefully advocate such a sweeping tax policy change. Generally speaking, Democrats and Republican seem to be stuck in a way of federal spending that only allows them to think about slightly raising and slightly lowering taxes.
The problem remains, however. How do we support and encourage small and medium size business start ups and growth in order to get the money moving again in now-vulnerable middle class circles? Getting American money moving again in the right places is one factor among several that are needed to turn around a global economic downturn.
Below, background noise for reading: David Gahan (of Depeche Mode), Kingdom:
Bill Gates, Co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Chairman of Microsoft, put a featured question to Linkedin professionals:
“How can we do more to encourage young people to pursue careers in science and technology?”
After two days, there were 2500+ and counting answers from leaders, managers and professionals from across the planet. Below is my published answer to Bill Gates and my many unknown colleagues at Linkedin:
Education
Reading C.S. Lewis’ The Abolition of Man, I came to the consideration that the moral relativism that accompanies modern math and science education in the West may have taken the life and spirit out of math and sciences.
Is it possible that we have alienated several generations from these disciplines because the young have an instinctive, unconscious rejection of a delusion with no value and affect?
The implicit philosophy of math and science is that all statements of value are merely subjective statements and tell us nothing truly about the object. On the contrary, we can know things as they are to some objective extent and our actions can be understood as objectively good or evil. Math and science have been misused as a deconstructive tool used to undermine human values and affections, confuse right from wrong and plunge those who self-examine… into nihilistic despair and the untrustworthy comfort of hedonism.
As Plato and Aristotle believed, Lewis reminds us that we must train the young to like and dislike what they ought, to love the good and hate the bad. Emotion and intuition must be integrated with intellect and perception (as Carl Jung suggests) or they will grow up into something strange, pursuing intellectual conclusions and technological solutions that are heartless OR pursuing what feels good without the capacity to discern which goods are truly good and which are temporarily pleasing. Read the rest of this entry »
This patsak will finally admit that for nth time, I have viewed will.i.am’s video for The Yes We Can Song. Based on an inspiring speech by Senator Barack Obama at a New Hampshire event, the video amplified the inspiration and it has went viral at warp speed.
The video is a masterpiece. It’s from the heart. It’s art. will.i.am, front man for hip hop phenomenon Black Eyed Peas and Director Jesse Dylan are media masters- will’s success in music already says as much. As a musical artist, will has demonstrated a strong feel for the pulse of a generation several times. The video has the the ingredients to move people to action. In my humble opinion, you can’t get better viral than this.
will.i.am schools Ogilvy - all of the big ad agencies, in fact. Naturally, Republicans and Hillary Clinton are not very happy about this triumph.
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Senator Obama, a Democrat, served eight years in the Illinois State Senate and since 2005 as a U.S. Senator for Illinois. Among his many achievements, he was the first African American president of the Harvard Law Review. As everyone knows, Obama is running for president and Obama’s candidacy for president is endorsed up and down from celebrities to senators including Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA). Described as a socialist by the right and all talk by Hillary Clinton, “the Illinois prophet” speaks clearly and down-to-earth with powerful words and wisdom like a Baptist minister.
What is surprising is that his mix of spiritual and political message does not seem to be offending liberals. Often quoting the bible by verse and number, he is an evangelist that speaks often about human dignity, empathy and compassion for our fellow man- not to mention the possibility of change, of healing America and repairing the world.
Yes, we can.
Here’s the message that I left on that blog:
I’m going to suspend my disappointment, suspicion, disillusionment and hesitation. will.i.am gave something strong from his heart and from his hope. We all need to give something strong from our heart and hope- if we are to change.
That change must be that we will join together in a common cause and hope as one people and one nation to further pursue the cause of Freedom.
This does not mean that I or you should abandon what we believe as individuals to be true, good and beautiful.
We must follow our conscience, each of us, but we must also work together and speak together because there are things that we can agree upon and accomplish together.
And, together, we can believe again that we are one people, one nation and one will for a common good, for a DREAM, and a freedom that embraces responsibility.
Here’s something from my heart and my hope to you…
Yes, we can.
Stan Faryna
Editor-in-chief of “Black and Right: The Bold New Voice of Black Conservatives in America” (Praeger, 1996) Read the rest of this entry »
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