The Foundation

“[J]udges, therefore, should be always men of learning and experience in the laws, of exemplary morals, great patience, calmness, coolness, and attention. Their minds should not be distracted with jarring interests; they should not be dependent upon any man, or body of men.” –John Adams

Re: The Left

“Pursuant to Elena Kagan’s expressed enthusiasm for confirmation hearings that feature intellectual snap, crackle and pop, here are some questions the Senate Judiciary Committee can elate her by asking: – Regarding campaign finance ‘reforms’: If allowing the political class to write laws regulating the quantity, content and timing of speech about the political class is the solution, what is the problem? – If the problem is corruption, do we not already have abundant laws proscribing that? – If the problem is the ‘appearance’ of corruption, how do you square the First Amendment with Congress restricting speech in order to regulate how things ‘appear’ to unspecified people? – Incumbent legislators are constantly tinkering with the rules regulating campaigns that could cost them their jobs. Does this present an appearance of corruption? – Some persons argue that our nation has a ‘living’ Constitution; the court has spoken of ‘the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society.’ But Justice Antonin Scalia, speaking against ‘changeability’ and stressing ‘the whole antievolutionary purpose of a constitution,’ says ‘its whole purpose is to prevent change – to embed certain rights in such a manner that future generations cannot readily take them away. A society that adopts a bill of rights is skeptical that 'evolving standards of decency’ always ‘mark progress,’ and that societies always ‘mature,’ as opposed to rot.‘ Is he wrong?” –columnist George Will

For the Record

“I know that more guns means – hold onto your seat – less crime. How can that be, when guns kill almost 30,000 Americans a year? Because while we hear about the murders and accidents, we don’t often hear about the crimes stopped because would-be victims showed a gun and scared criminals away. Those thwarted crimes and lives saved usually aren’t reported to police (sometimes for fear the gun will be confiscated), and when they are reported, the media tend to ignore them. No bang, no news. This state of affairs produces a distorted public impression of guns. If you only hear about the crimes and accidents, and never about lives saved, you might think gun ownership is folly. But, hey, if guns save lives, it logically follows that gun laws cost lives. … Today, 40 states issue permits to competent, law-abiding adults to carry concealed handguns (Vermont and Alaska have the most libertarian approach: no permit needed. Arizona is about to join that exclusive club.) Every time a carry law was debated, anti-gun activists predicted outbreaks of gun violence after fender-benders, card games and domestic quarrels. What happened? John Lott, in 'More Guns, Less Crime,’ explains that crime fell by 10 percent in the year after the laws were passed. A reason for the drop in crime may have been that criminals suddenly worried that their next victim might be armed. … McDonald v. Chicago is the big one, and the Supreme Court is expected to rule on that [this] week. Otis McDonald is a 76-year-old man who lives in a dangerous neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side. He wants to buy a handgun, but Chicago forbids it. If the Supremes say McDonald has that right, then restrictive gun laws will fall throughout America. … [S]triking down those laws will probably save lives.” –columnist John Stossel

Liberty

“Remember the popular motto ‘What would Jesus do?’ which was invoked by many Christians as a moral guidepost for daily living? President Barack Obama more likely adheres to ‘What would Saul Alinsky do?’ as most recently evidenced by his apparent defiance of a federal court order on his moratorium on offshore drilling. Politico reports that the drilling companies who secured the court order blocking the moratorium say the administration indeed is going to defy the court order. I’m quite sure that Alinsky would applaud this move: If at first you don’t succeed through proper legal channels, proceed anyway, because nothing is more important than the radical ends you seek, including the means that must be trampled in the process. Of course, shrewd Alinskyites like Obama will always have a plausible excuse for their deceitful tactics. In this case, they are alleging newly discovered facts. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said he intends to reimpose the drilling moratorium based on information that wasn’t ‘fully developed’ in May, when the six-month moratorium was imposed. Quite convenient.” –columnist David Limbaugh

Government

“[O]ur government is supposed to be ‘a government of laws and not of men.’ If our laws and our institutions determine that BP ought to pay $20 billion – or $50 billion or $100 billion – then so be it. But the Constitution says that private property is not to be confiscated by the government without ‘due process of law.’ Technically, it has not been confiscated by Barack Obama, but that is a distinction without a difference. With vastly expanded powers of government available at the discretion of politicians and bureaucrats, private individuals and organizations can be forced into accepting the imposition of powers that were never granted to the government by the Constitution. If you believe that the end justifies the means, then you don’t believe in constitutional government.” –economist Thomas Sowell

Calling All Patriots

As of this morning, we have raised about 68 percent of our 2010 Independence Day campaign budget. We still must raise $64,754 in order to meet budget.

Our mission and operations budget is a small fraction of other influential conservative organization budgets. (View our expense graphic here.) We are able to do this in large part because our dedicated staff members are motivated by mission, not the modest wages they receive.

Please, if you’re able, make a secure online donation today to The Patriot’s 2010 Independence Day campaign. If you prefer to support us by mail, please use our printable donor form.

Thank you and God bless!

Nate Jackson
Managing Editor

Reader Comments

“I just made a small donation to your wonderful organization, and I just wanted to tell you how it saddens me that I am unable to give you a much larger amount. We, like many other American families are suffering the monetary effects from the Obama Hope ‘n’ Change catastrophe. Please know that I will continue to pray for you, your families, and your organization through these difficult times. I pray that God will supply your every need.” –Paul

“I am a United States Marine currently serving in Afghanistan. Please allow me to take this opportunity to express my sincere gratitude to EVERY MEMBER of your staff for the hard work and diligence in protecting the country for generations to come. We’ll take care of fighting the enemy out here on the front; you take care of fighting on the home front, and together we will restore our nation. May God bless you and yours!” –Semper Fidelis, Michael

Political Futures

“The Obama administration made clear that America’s expanded commitment in Afghanistan had a short shelf life – just 1 ½ years. Under the current plan, the United States will remove its ‘surge’ of troops by July 2011, essentially restoring the status-quo ante and providing the Taliban with a date certain for when it can redouble its resistance. It’s no wonder Washington has had problems in recent weeks in its relations with Afghan president Hamid Karzai, who has become increasingly skeptical of long-term collaboration with an America that’s clearly eyeing the exits. Nor should it come as a surprise that U.S. allies in NATO are beginning to retract their support for the Afghanistan mission as well because they have no stomach for inheriting the conflict from Washington after next summer. The White House has, in effect, stacked the deck against lasting success in Afghanistan. In the process, it has placed its military leaders – Gen. McChrystal among them – in the untenable position of losing American lives to implement a strategy that, whatever the tactical successes in the short term, is increasingly likely to be a strategic failure in the long run. Gen. McChrystal’s conduct was unbecoming, and he paid the price, but it reflects a real and profound frustration on the part of the military about the current state of drift in America’s approach to Afghanistan.” –Ilan Berman, vice president of the American Foreign Policy Council

The Gipper

“[M]y highest duty as president [is] to preserve peace and defend these United States. … American strength is once again a sheltering arm for freedom in a dangerous world. Strength is the most persuasive argument we have to convince our adversaries to negotiate seriously and to cease bullying other nations. But tonight the security program that you and I launched to restore America’s strength is in jeopardy, threatened by those who would quit before the job is done. Any slackening now would invite the very dangers America must avoid and could fatally compromise our negotiating position. Our adversaries … respect only nations that negotiate from a position of strength.” –Ronald Reagan

Opinion in Brief

“[T]he idea that good people can be devoted Communists is grotesque. The two categories are mutually exclusive. There was a time, perhaps, when dedication to Communism could be absolved as misplaced idealism or naiveté, but that day is long past. … [T]here are no good and decent Communists – not after the Gulag Archipelago and the Cambodian killing fields and Mao’s ‘Great Leap Forward.’ Not after the testimonies of Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Armando Valladares and Dith Pran. In the decades since 1917, Communism has led to more slaughter and suffering than any other cause in human history. Communist regimes on four continents sent an estimated 100 million men, women, and children to their deaths – not out of misplaced zeal in pursuit of a fundamentally beautiful theory, but out of utopian fanaticism and an unquenchable lust for power. Mass murder and terror have always been intrinsic to Communism. … Communism is not, as its champions like to claim, an appealing doctrine that has been perverted by monstrous regimes. It is a monstrous doctrine that hides behind appealing rhetoric. It is mass crime embodied in government. Nothing devised by human beings has caused more misery or proven more brutal. … Good people do not embrace Communism, and Communists are not good.” –columnist Jeff Jacoby

Culture

“[R]ecently … I read a profoundly depressing story in the New York Times about how ‘some educators and other professionals who work with children’ don’t think kids should have best friends. ‘I think it is kids’ preference to pair up and have that one best friend. As adults – teachers and counselors – we try to encourage them not to do that,‘ said Christine Laycob, director of counseling at a St. Louis day school. 'We try to talk to kids and work with them to get them to have big groups of friends and not be so possessive about friends. Parents sometimes say Johnny needs that one special friend,’ she continued. ‘We say he doesn’t need a best friend.’ As a result of this thinking, best friends are broken up. Buddies are put on separate teams, assigned different classes, etc. It’s not quite the sort of thing cult leaders and North Korean prison guards do, but in principle it’s not too far off either. The response from across the ideological spectrum on the Web has mostly been outrage and disgust. … For the record, I think removing best friends from childhood is a barbarous and inhumane act, akin to amputating a limb from an athlete. You can still have a childhood without a best friend, just as you can still be an athlete without a leg. But why would you voluntarily make someone’s life so much harder? … The most offensive part of this whole enterprise is that it is aimed at making life easier for administrators, not better for kids.” –columnist Jonah Goldberg

The Last Word

“This, from an official Department of the Interior press release: ‘A Secretarial Order that [Ken] Salazar has signed renames the Minerals Management Service the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement ("Bureau of Ocean Energy” or “BOE”)’… Except all was not well. At about the same time a robotic submarine was knocking the collection cap off the top of the well, someone at ‘BOE’ got the word that MMS would NOT be known as ‘BOE’ but would, instead be known by the full acronym for its new name the ‘Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement’ or BOEMRE. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, these are the people whom Barack Obama has chosen to replace the first group of morons he had appointed to run the off-shore drilling program. I am told that there are BOEMRE employees who have done nothing since the change from ‘BOE’ but try and figure out how to pronounce it. BOOM-ray has gathered some fans, if only because it has something of a creole flair. Others have cut to the chase and begun referring to the organization they work for as ‘Bummer.’“ –political analyst Rich Galen