The White House rejected various state petitions to secede from the Union, citing in part the War Between The States and a subsequent decision by the Supreme Court deeming secession illegal. So there you have it, secession is not allowed because the executive and judicial branches of the federal government say so. Please ignore that Great Britain also deemed secession from the empire illegal; that the federal government is merely a creation of the states; that the states exercised their sovereignty to create it; that in so doing they illegally seceded from the Articles of Confederation; that several states explicitly reserved the sovereign right to withdraw from the Union if they so chose; that Thomas Jefferson said that a state could and should leave the Union if it chose; that under the Constitution states may do anything not specifically prohibited, whereas the federal government may do only what is permitted, and the latter has no permission to prevent secession; and that the federal government has approved secession elsewhere in the world, such as Kosovo's secession from Serbia, even though a state such as Virginia has far more historical basis for independence and sovereignty.
The person calling himself President of the United States has claimed authority to curtail gun usage and gun ownership by executive order. Critics argue that doing this without congressional approval violates the Constitution, ignoring that it would violate the Constitution even with congressional approval. The federal government has no enumerated power to regulate arms, and the Second Amendment reminds us that the states, in order to remain free as against the federal government, must be able to organize militias of citizens whose right to keep and bear arms "shall not be infringed." The states, on the other hand, are not bound by the Bill of Rights and can regulate arms within their borders all they like. The Supreme Court once again has flouted this simple, clear distinction between state and federal power, holding that "reasonable" regulation is permissible by either one. Governor Cuomo of New York doubled down on the widespread ignorance by claiming that a hunter has no need for machine guns or high-capacity magazines, ignoring that the Second Amendment has nothing to do with killing animals.
Insurance behemoth AIG considered filing a lawsuit against the federal government for a declaration that the terms of the multi-billion dollar bailout were onerous and violated the Fifth Amendment, since those terms amounted to a "taking" of private property for public use without just compensation. A popular backlash made AIG back down, but apparently nobody has mentioned that the bailout itself violated the Fifth Amendment, and in an even worse way. Money was taken away from taxpayers and handed to a private company, which is not a "public use" of funds and is blatantly unconstitutional even if the taxpayers do receive adequate compensation. And once again, the Supreme Court has flouted this by holding that virtually any public purpose imagined by government qualifies as a public use.
The National Fathers' Day Council named Bill Clinton as father of the year. Fathers across the land now know that adultery and perjury are honorable paternal roles that they should emulate.
Colin Powell has announced that the Republican Party must alter its philosophy because of how America is changing demographically. There is a term for someone who claims that a person's philosophy is linked to that person's demographic, and it's "racist." Why, I myself have flirted with the notion that ideals such as limited government and the rule of law are the products of only a specific people and completely unattractive to most other peoples; now that Colin Powell has said it's perfectly okay to draw these sorts of conclusions, I feel at ease. But wait, I forgot that only white heterosexual Anglo males (WHAMs) can be racist! Thus any WHAM who heeds Colin Powell's advice and links philosophy with demography is still racist . . . but so is any WHAM who digs in his heels and clings to his principles regardless of what other demographics want. It seems that we WHAMs can't win, so we might as well just do what we like and let everyone else keep whining.
The news may give you facts, but I give you truth.
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