THE ROBERT W. WHITAKER ARCHIVE

THE NADER VOTE | 2000-11-04

Nader presently has five percent of the vote in most polls. That would get the Green Party Federal funding in the next election. If they get Federal funding, they will, like everything else the government funds, become permanent.

There will be people who will want that Federal funding, and that will make it certain that there will be a Green Party next time. The old hippies are alive and well. There are a lot of kids who like the Green Party, but the real base is the 1960s hippies and Hollywood lefties.

The media, which is largely run by these overage hippies, still likes to say the old New Left, now the Green Party, is a Young People's Movement. They still think they're Flower Children. Actually, even in the Sixties, the New Left was largely made up of the children of limousine liberals. All the kids these old time rich leftists saw were leftists, so the media thought all the young people were.

Actually, the World War II generation was much more liberal politically than the actual mass of young people in the 1960's. I saw lots of young people at Wallace rallies, but you never saw A SINGLE ONE in the media.

So the old hippies like Phil Donahue might have a platform from now on. That is worth thinking about. And I don't see how it can be anything but good for us, as it pulls the Democrats to the left and splits liberals.

WORDISM CANNOT BE FREEDOM | 2009-11-04

A society which is based on a particular set of beliefs, no matter how much it cries "Freedom!" cannot in the long run be free. This is such a simple truth it is hard to state and even harder to deny.

Freedom is the right to believe what you will. A society which is based on a belief, no matter what that belief may be, cannot allow it to be doubted. Anyone who says "That is what America is a all ABOUT!" is an enemy of freedom, even if, in fact especially if, he declares America is all about Freedom.

That is why the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence are such perfectly opposite documents. The Declaration was a propaganda document written in wartime. Those who confuse the two documents or find any continuity between them has no historical perspective at all.

That is why the Declaration was a unanimous declaration. The Constitution went into effect with two states still out. In the Declaration, slave states, which included most of them, cheerfully declared that all men were created equal and experts in British Law cheerfully declared that the King alone was responsible for almost everything Britain did.

No literate adult in 1776 would have believed either statement. But there was a WAR on.

There is not a single principle declared in the entire United States Constitution. "The people" were writing a CONTRACT. The President swore to uphold the Constitution. Today we are told this means Constitution "as interpreted by the Supreme Court." That is an oath no on who wrote or adopted the Constitution would have accepted:

"I swear to uphold and defend the latest opinion of the United States Supreme Court."

We al know that, if we give it the slightest thought.

But we do not give it the slightest thought.

We BELIEVE.

We believe in something that "America is all about," multiracialism, multiculturalism, Religious Truth, Freedom. And on each of these subject we read tomes which explain how only the set of beliefs set forward in the tome represent goodness and truth, the ONLY goodness and truth.

Documents like the Declaration are a dime a dozen. The Declaration of Rights in France a few years later led to a terror and tyranny worst than the Bourbon one, which was really awful. The Soviet Declarations led to a uniquely awful tyranny.

In fact, the Soviets not only had their Liberation Declaration, they adopted a Constitution in 1936 which announced FAR more freedom than the American one did. It even allowed secession.

But, just as our Constitution now has that little rider, "as interpreted by the Supreme Court," the 1936 Soviet Constitution took on a little rider which was not included in its words: "as interpreted by Comrade Stalin."

And, of course, the Soviet was "all about" Communism."

In fact, the National Socialists acted under the Weimar Constitution, which officially ruled Germany until May 8, 1945. It contained an Emergency Provision which gave the government the right to take ANY emergency measure, ACCORDING TO ITS OWN INTERPRETATION.

So both Hitler and Stalin demanded loyalty to the Constitution, subject to interpretation. Both Hitler and Stalin just said what Germany or the USSR was All About.

No one at the US Constitutional Convention would have allowed any one branch of level of government to say what America was all about. If you look at the Federalist Papers, the idea that any one branch, least of all the "least powerful of them," the Judiciary, would INTERPRET it.

What America was about from the get-go is not allowing anyone to say what America is all about. They had Stalin and Hitler figured out a century before they were born.

TELL THE TRUTH BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE! | 1999-05-29

As Vice President Gore announced his tie-breaking vote for new gun-control legislation, there were two senators standing with him. One of these was the liberal Democratic from New York, Senator Charles Schumer. In New York State a woman who uses a can of mace to protect her from an attacker gets a mandatory one year in prison. The attacker usually gets probation. New York liberals like Schumer have always been famous for, 1) freeing repeat felons, and 2) prosecuting anybody who defends himself.

The point is that Schumer supports laws that are the nightmare of every legitimate gun owner. He is a nut. That is why we must oppose all gun legislation. This has nothing to do with the merits of the specific legislation. This has to do with the fact that we cannot discuss compromises on gun availability with people who have no intention of sticking by their compromise.

So Schumer (Democrat-New York) is ON RECORD as demanding that all honest people in New York who have guns for self-defense be sent to prison. You will never hear a word about this from Orrin Hatch (Respectable-Utah) or John McCain (Respectable-Arizona). You will never hear a word of this from pet conservative commentators on CNN. You will never hear Pat Buchanan tell a liberal that to his face.

Conservative spokesmen -- ALL conservative spokesmen -- simply refuse to make and REPEAT arguments that could wreck the liberals. I discussed this in the February 6 Whitaker Online article, "The Left repeats, So the Right Loses." Conservative spokesmen -- ALL conservative spokesmen -- are so desperate to gain liberal approval that they simply will not repeat anything that makes liberals really uncomfortable.

It wouldn't be respectable, you see.

On May 8, in "Armed Switzerland and the Colorado Shootings," I pointed out how conservatives in the media -- ALL conservatives in the media -- refuse to use and repeat effective arguments against liberals on gun control. This includes the Pat Buchanans every bit as much as it does standard respectable conservatives.

On May 15, in "Respectable Conservatives never Say 'I Don't Believe You' To A Liberal's Face," I explained that ALL conservative spokesmen refuse to point out what nut-cases liberals are when it comes to gun control. This includes the NRA and people like Buchanan just as much as anybody else.

As the pressure builds up for gun legislation over the Colorado shootings, anti-gun control spokesmen simply refuse to get serious. For them, for ALL of them, personal respectability is far, far more important than principle. Unless their spokesmen finally get serious, all gun-owners will lose. Unless gun-owners start demanding that their spokesmen get serious, they will DESERVE to lose.

With every incident, public demands for gun control increase. Each time our absolute refusal to discuss any rules on gun distribution looks more irrational. But respectable conservatives will never say what must be said about the liberal nutcases with whom we cannot compromise.

Unless we start telling the truth about our opponents, we will lose.

And we will deserve to lose.

Please write the commentators, please write your congressmen, and TELL THEM TO TELL THE TRUTH!

WE SEEM TO BE TEMPORARILY BACK ON! | 2006-03-04

For some reason the giant attack on Bob's Blog which crippled us has been rolled back by somebody, but don't count on it.

I don't have the resources to counter the hundreds of computers European governments are aiming at us, so we can go out any time.