A September 12th Do-over

Sometimes I fantasize about what I wish George W. Bush had said and done following the 9/11 attacks. My alternative version goes something like this:

My Fellow Americans;

My heart goes out to the victims of yesterday’s horrific attack at the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington D.C. It swells with deep admiration and gratitude for the courage and determination of the passengers of Flight 93, whose heroism defies description. It also mourns the death of the innocence of the American people, whose security and confidence have been so severely shaken.

I have spent the night in solemn prayer on behalf of the victims and their families, whose shock and anger I share and whose grief I can only begin to comprehend. Please know that the American people stand - and kneel –in complete sympathy and solidarity with you. This attack on Americans on American soil will not go unanswered and we promise your loved ones have not died in vain.

Over the past twenty-four hours I have consulted my foreign policy team as well as my own understanding of this event and my feelings about it. I have spent much time in deep reflection about what this tragedy means to the United States today and her many tomorrows. I humbly acknowledge that how we respond to this attack will have serious consequences for our nation and the world. Because of the gravity of this situation, and its potential to influence American policy for many years to come, I will use the utmost care in my response.

There is a temptation in such circumstances to respond in kind, quickly and fiercely. A people in as much pain as the American people naturally desire the satisfaction of striking back and exacting revenge. Yet we must think as well as feel if we are to truly avenge this despicable act. Though the deaths of three thousand innocent Americans cries out for vengeance, we must be sure that our response ultimately makes us stronger as a nation and ensures the continuation of our role as a leader in the cause of human liberty.

With that being said I would like to announce at this time the withdrawal of all foreign monetary aid to nations that do now or have in the past harbored or supported terrorists such as those ones behind yesterday’s attack and many other attacks against American citizens and service men and women over the past three decades. We are beginning to comprehend this killing of military personnel, as well as innocents, has been sanctioned, even ordered, by the leaders of these terrorist organizations. Men such as Osama Bin Laden, in fact, claim the murder of American citizens is a religious duty. As recently as May of this year Bin Laden said “Allah ordered us in this religion to purify Muslim land of all non-believers.” It is insulting to the American people that their tax dollars may help prop up the very people who want to kill them. Therefore, we will honor Mr. Bin Laden’s desire that the United States stop meddling in the Islamic world by stopping all non-trade related financial interference in that region.

As for a military response, let me say now that we will not be provoked into a response that will ultimately hurt the United States more than the enemy. I have too much respect for the men and women who wear the uniform of the United States to use them thoughtlessly and recklessly and so I promise you any future military action we might take will be carefully planned and then swiftly and effectively executed. The full wrath of the United States is an awesome and terrible thing and we will do all we can to make sure it is demonstrated against our true enemies.

At the same time, it has been said that war is the health of the state so we hope to resolve this situation decisively and then return to a secure and certain peace as quickly as possible. I would like to also assure the American people that the United States’ government will not use this event as an excuse to grow and take more power unto itself. Past wars have provided despotic leaders the opportunities to infringe upon and restrict civil liberties – I make a firm commitment to you now that this will not happen. Marcus Aurelius Antoninus said “The best way of avenging thyself is not to become like the wrong-doer” and I pledge that the document which has made America a great and open society, the Constitution, will not be sacrificed to this cause.

I thank you, my fellow Americans, for your examples of courage and compassion, for your prayers on my behalf and your willingness to stand together as a nation. May we always remember and display the unity and love of country we feel today. God bless you. And God bless America.

Vermont Campaign for Liberty's Core Principles: Limited Constitutional Government

Surprisingly one of the hardest plank in the VTC4L's "platform" to get across to people is the idea of limited Constitutional Government. Whenever it is mentioned, the average Joe's eyes glaze over and a hint of fear washes over their faces. This reaction is understandable given that we live in an age of Santa Claus politicians, entitlements, and the ubiquity of the Statist attitude. However, in each exchange with our fellow Vermonters there is hope that minds are changing.

An old friend of the family stopped by the fair booth last night. Though he knew about my work with the Campaign, he was never really interested to learn more. After taking the World's Smallest Quiz, and scoring exactly like I thought he would (conservative statist), we started to talk about the conditions our nations finds itself.

In his seventies, my friend grew up in a world of ever-growing entitlement programs and expansive government. For most of his lifetime, he had been told that all of the troubles in the world could be solved by governmental action. However, since his birth during the Roosevelt administration until the era of "Hope and change", these problems seemed to have never gone away and still more problems were caused by the very entity that was to cure them. He honestly admitted a sense of hopelessness and impotence in the face of this growing wave of troubles. "If the government can't fix it, how can we?" He asked. I replied, "did it occur to you that many of the problems we face today has been the result of governmental attempts to fix everything?" He was taken aback by my observation, but the thought clearly struck a chord deep within him.

The Vermont Campaign for Liberty honors and cherishes the Constitutions of this State and the Nation. We believe that they were well-crafted and deliberate documents which were created with great care and forethought. Looking at contemporaneous documents (among them the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights), we find that the spirit and the philosophy of a limited government is readily apparent.

The founders created a Federal Government with a complex system of checks and balances. The three branches curbing the impulses toward power in each other. The power of the Federal Government restrained by the sovereignty of the several states. The people being the ultimate check on all government, intervening when any of them becomes destructive to their liberty.

Looking specifically at the Federal Constitution, we know that the document envisioned a limit on its power through the enumeration of its authority in Article One, Section Eight. Under the traditional protocols of legal interpretation, whenever there is such an enumeration, it is assumed that such a list of powers serves as a limitation of authority. For if it were otherwise, then the enumeration would be rendered meaningless. Therefore, faced with this guide to interpretation, one would have to wonder why the Founders included such a list if it was not meant to act as a restraint upon the powers of the Federal Government.

Turning to the Bill of Rights, we have further evidence of this intent to limit the power of the Federal Government in the provisions found there, especially in Amendments IX and X. It has long been established that the Bill of Rights is not a statement of what rights you have. In fact, this document clearly set further limits on the Federal Government regarding what they can do while interacting with the average citizen. The Government can not restrict your rights to speak as you wish, pray or not as you wish, publish what you like, and gather together. The government can not prevent you from defending yourself. Your home is your castle, a domain which the government can't invade without just cause. The evils of a darker age in the law are abolished and the State must try you in open court, before a jury of your peers, and must find you guilty before punishing you. And when punishing you, the government can not use methods which are inhumane or bizarre. Finally, this document concludes with two reminders that the power of government is limited and the rights of the people are absolute. The Ninth Amendment clearly indicates that nothing mentioned before, either in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights, serve as a limit on the unnumerated rights that all people are born with. The Tenth Amendment further holds that those powers not specifically granted the Federal Government belong to the States and the people.

These fine-crafted documents created a government meant to perform specific things and to do so in a manner that is not destructive of the liberties of its people. Government was to be the referee in the game of society and commerce. It was to serve as the foundation and framework for our activities. It was to be the defender of our safety and liberty in the face of dangers both domestic and foreign. Government was to be the necessary evil that allowed civil society to function. However, time, ignorance, greed, covetousness, and apathy has lead us to this age of mega-government.

We, as a nation, have forgotten that the very wealth and opportunities we enjoy today came from the individual initiative of our fellow citizens, and not the government. We have been condition to consider every problem we face in the world around us as something government is best able to address. "There outta be a law!" has been the mantra of the people for way too long.

Long ago, it was observed that the government which governs least, governs best. With all of the failures, mishaps, waste, and fraud that plagues this nation due to the bloated bureaucracy of our governments, both state and national, this axiom has been proven true over and over again. Our government races to intrude more and more upon our daily lives, creating poorly thought out and financially unsustainable programs, all of which endanger our liberties, our labors, and our futures. The tidal wave of debt, regulations, and economic mismanagement must be stopped before it washes away all for which we have worked.

Our system, which no longer has the confidence of the average American, is out of balance. It no longer serves the long term interest of our nation and its people. The States, once sovereign and proud, are little more than financial junkies pitifully begging for another hit of stimulus dollars just to get by. Citizens of this great republic have become pliant servants of the grand scheme of the elites.

It is up to us to restore the balance. We must work to return our government to its constitutional foundations. It will not be done by protest or voting alone, but by the consistent effort of those who see the danger and can no longer standby and do nothing.

During the Constitutional Convention of 1787, the Founders assumed that the American people would be the ultimate restraint on the government they were creating. They feared the power and the passion of the average person. They knew that the American was jealous of his liberties and would take on anyone who sought to infringe upon them. It is time to fulfill that assumption and restore our Republic. It is time to return our government to its limited, constitutional role.

P Stands for Pravda in VPR

Pravda  
By Deborah T. Bucknam

Recently I read a story about a young American who stayed with a family in Leningrad during the Soviet era. The family would gather around the TV set every night to watch the news. The young man reported that the news was unvarying: great news from the Soviet Union, good news from Eastern Europe, and bad news from the West. 


Vermont Public Radio follows the Soviet era model. A review of its morning and evening news broadcasts over the last several months reveals that VPR reports great news about Democrats and particularly our Democratic congressional delegation, good news from the Progressive party, and in the rare instances it reports on Republican candidates, bad news. 


Now that the campaign season is in full swing, VPR has ramped up its congressional happy talk. VPR broadcasts stories directly from Sen. Leahy, Sanders and Rep. Welch’s press offices, with quotes from our congressional leaders, including almost daily "news" about federal funds coming into Vermont, complete with a member of our Congressional delegation praising the worthiness of the funded programs. Other stories showcase Leahy, Sanders and Welch as fighters against greedy capitalists and gargantuan oil polluters. There were several "news" stories about Sen. Leahy in the "spotlight" as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and two glowing articles about Leahy’s nearly 15 year unsuccessful "fight" for a landmine treaty. Another favorite VPR technique is to approvingly broadcast "news" about a member of our congressional delegation introducing bills in Congress. Never mind that introducing a bill is a non-event and the bill may never get past a subcommittee. 


None of these "stories" are newsworthy. They are merely congressional news releases dutifully re-broadcast by VPR. 


Stories about Republican campaigns are usually either negative or non-existent. For example, recently, after broadcasting stories about government stimulus funds coming to Vermont, thanks to Sanders and Welch, VPR broadcast a story that the largest campaign war chest in Vermont was funded by donors who were not aware that it was operated by a Republican Governor’s committee. The only comment VPR broadcast about the matter was from VPIRG, a far left advocacy organization (although VPR never names it as such) complaining that the fund should be "transparent". VPR also recently broadcast a Democrat’s criticism of Republican Auditor of Account’s campaign finance filing; negative remarks between Republican Secretary of State candidates, and two mistakes on Sarah Palin’s Facebook page when she endorsed a New Hampshire Republican candidate. Negative stories about Republicans are never too insignificant for the VPR news team. 


VPR has instituted a virtual news blackout of the U.S. Senate and House races here in Vermont. Thanks to VPR’s news embargo, for example, many Vermonters have not heard of the sole Republican Senate Candidate Len Britton, an attractive young Vermont businessman whose political views more closely mirror Vermonters’ opinions than do those of the antediluvian Sen. Leahy. Britton’s clever Youtube videos about our burgeoning national debt have caught national attention, including CBS news, but VPR has refused to broadcast any stories about this phenomenon. 


With Sen. Leahy’s campaign war chest at almost $3.5 million, the chances of Len Britton being heard above the Leahy din in the paid media are small. Similarly, Rep. Welch’s campaign war chest is also substantial, unlike his opponents. Because of Leahy’s and Welch’s rich store of campaign funds coupled with the their nearly daily free broadcasts from VPR, and VPR’s news blackout of Leahy’s and Welch’s opponents, Vermonters, like Soviet era citizens, have practically no opportunity to hear dissenting voices or to meaningfully participate in Vermont’s U.S. Congressional races.


VPR has become a well-behaved appendage of the Vermont Democratic political establishment instead of a vigorous First Amendment practitioner. Our Vermont democratic process suffers as a result. 

Deborah T. Bucknam, Esq.
Law Offices of Deborah T. Bucknam & Associates, PC