Great Vocal Majority Podcast

How did America today become so divided?  This is first in a series explaining the origins of our current day divisions by looking at the historical roots.

THE EVOLUTION OF THE AMERICAN COUNTER-REVOLUTION

FROM THE FOUNDING TO THE EARLY 20TH CENTURY In 1776, Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence, "Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes." Speaking for the Continental Congress, Jefferson was making the point that the American Revolution was not the spontaneous uprising of a mob, but the result of a long series of events, culminating in the Declaration he largely authored. The result of our American Revolution was the establishment of the first new form of government in 5,000 years of human history. The United States of America was the first country established on the basis of an idea. It was the first time any country or any government anywhere or at any time gave recognition to the dignity and sovereignty of the individual. In monarchies rights flowed from the monarch who was the sole sovereign. In many cases, the monarch as sovereign was designated as such by God. In some cases, monarchs themselves were thought to be dieties. The American Revolution became the culmination of a movement away from monarchy and toward a new, more stable form of democracy. Democracy by itself is perhaps the worst form of government because it quickly descends into chaos and mob rule. Historically, attempts at democracy have disintegrated. One reason the American Revolution succeeded was that it borrowed elements of democracy without adopting it wholesale, thereby sidestepping most of its pitfalls. The American Founders also wanted a republic of laws. Here too, they sought to avoid the shortcomings of a purely republican form of government. The genius of the Founders was their ability to blend the legal framework of a republic with the the most cherished principles of a democracy, while at the same time maintaining the rights of those in the minority. The Founders saw individuals as sovereign and the rights to each as inalienable. That is, a birthright, not a grant of government or kings. These are our God given rights. They require no funding from governments to secure. They are the most critical and essential rights of all. The Declaration of Independence was something totally new. A statement that human beings, as individuals, have sovereignty of their own and rights that come along with that sovereignty which no one can grant or arbitrarily take away. This revolutionary idea in the Declaration of Independence enabled sovereign individuals to associate and organize their collective interests into a government of the people, comprised by the people and not a class of aristocrats or an ancient line of royalty, in order to act in the interests of the people, deriving their authority to act on the people's behalf through the consent of the people themselves. The Declaration of Independence and American Revolution makes every American faithful to those founding principles, partners in the Revolution and in the advance of the whole of humanity away from despotism and toward human liberty and freedom. Those principles which are embodied in the Constitution are the most unique and truly revolutionary statements ever made. The long train of history makes it quite evident that governments were almost exclusively a succession of powerful men or groups of men, imposing their will on all of society. The rule of men, not the rule of law. The newly formed United States of America stood as the sole departure from that historical trend. It alone was the light in the darkness. For the first time in all of human history, a country and government was organized around the principle of Individual Liberty. Since the Founding, enemies of the American Revolution and what it stood for, have sought to erode this Constitutional Republic. This was not altogether unforeseen by the Founders and the Framers. Indeed, one of their primary concerns was how previous governments of all varieties, tended to centralize power and authority into fewer and fewer hands over time. Among the countless challenges in fashioning a workable form of government, the power and scope of the central Federal authority was most concerning to them. If they were to be successful, they needed a design that would combat the trend toward centralization. Their very first attempt, The Articles of Confederation, failed because this concern over Federal power led to an unworkable design. The Constitution that was eventually passed empowered the Federal government just enough to hold the Union together. All questions of Federal authority were not settled. The divisive and controversial issue regarding the continuation of the slave trade and practice of slavery were not ripened enough to be tackled in the 1780s. Still, the original Constitution did contain a sunset provision for a large part of the slave trade. Article 1 Section 9 of the Constitution banned the importation of slaves 20 years after the Constitution was adopted. It is an often overlooked provision in the Constitution, but it makes clear that the Framers were not silent on the issue of Slavery at all. In fact, it underscores their acknowledgment that the institution of Slavery was abhorrent to a majority of them. The tragedy was that too much of the economy in the South was dependent on slave labor. This was a problem all over the Western world at the time. The abolitionist movement in Great Britain at the same time was grappling with the same questions: how to eliminate the institution of slavery without completely disrupting the economy? Abolitionists in America and Britain both believed a two step process was needed. First, to ban the importation and trading of slaves. Second, to ban the practice of slavery. Clearly, Article 1 Section 9 was a step toward the former. Though it had no effect of trading slaves inside the United States, it banned further importation of slaves. Settling the question of the trade and practice of slavery implied the imposition of a Federal solution at a time when Federal authority was at its low point. Notwithstanding the issue of slavery, there was proper cause to keep Federal authority as weak as it was. But the issue needed to be resolved one way or the other for the entire country. In the 1780s, there was no way to solve this dilemma and still have a united country. The Civil War, which broke out just 85 years after the Declaration was a test of Federal authority made necessary by what the Framers left unfinished. The Civil War was not only about the institution of Slavery. Ultimately, it was about who gets to decide momentous questions such as: is a negro a human being or property? The Southern slave states believed they had the right to determine whether slavery was appropriate for themselves. Abraham Lincoln had a different view. In 1854, Mr. Lincoln in response to Stephen Douglas said this:

"The doctrine of self government is right, absolutely and internally right; but it has no just application as here attempted. Or perhaps I should rather say that whether it has any application here depends on whether a negro is not or is a man. If he is not a man, in that case he who is a man may, as a matter of self-government, do just what he pleases with him. But if the negro is a man, is it not to that extent a total destruction of self-government to say that he, too, shall not govern himself? When the white man governs himself, that is self-government; but when he governs himself and governs another man, that is more than self-government, that is despotism." Lincoln understood that states do have the right to govern themselves. When it came to the question of slavery, however, faith and allegiance to the Declaration of Independence and our Constitutional principles demanded that we confront the obvious reality that black people are human beings entitled to all the same rights as white people or human beings of any other race. A few years later in 1858, upon being nominated to the United States Senate, Abraham Lincoln made another speech about the impending crisis: "A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently, half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved, I do not expect the house to fall; but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of Slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the states, old as well as new, North as well as South." For Lincoln, the question of Slavery was more than a moral question. It challenged the limitations of state's rights under the 10th Amendment as well as the central government's authority to impose adherence to the larger Constitutional protections for people. The divisions over Slavery that led to the Civil War centered on the question of who gets to decide whether there is or is not slavery in a state. It took a bloody war to settle the question. The principle established, resulting from the war, was the Federal government has a duty to ensure that the Constitutional rights of Americans are protected and that no state can enact laws which are determined to violate those rights. It seems like a simple and obvious answer today, but it wasn't in the mid-19th century. The Civil War resulted in a necessary extension of Federal authority over the states. In effect, it was the footnote to the Constitution missing at the Founding, written in blood. Over the past 230 years, the power of the Federal government has grown well past anything the Framers would have been comfortable with. Nevertheless, the Civil War was not an overreach of Federal authority, but rather the completion of the unfinished business left by the Framers of the Constitution. It established the conditions under which the Federal government was justified imposing on and overruling state authority.

The March for Science is supposed to be about science. It's about politics.

Fox News's firing of Bill O'Reilly was a victory for the crusading fascist left that seeks to silence all conservative voices in the media. The left poses a grave threat to freedom of political expression and that threat is growing.

The Washington Post Opinion Page

The College Fix

The NYC Commission on Human Rights has issued legal guidance regarding how to address transgenders, lest one become exposed to serious major legal liabilities, amounting to fines as much as $250,000.

What is the proper way to address a transgender individual?  The answer is, what ever way they demand you address them.  These new rules, however, are not restricted to transgenders and can be equally applied along lines of race and religion, as well.

The result of these new rules will be chaos because there is no objective determining factor deciding how a person is to be addressed.  A white, male, heterosexual, Catholic, could demand to be addressed as Miss Polly Prissypants because that person identifies himself as such. There is no limitation in this ruling by the NYC Commission on Human Rights because it's all determined by the individual themselves.

If this sounds insane.  Good.  You're of those folks who still has both feet on the ground, because this is outrageous.

While people can demand to be addressed however they wish to be addressed, it should not be within the power and scope of government to compel people to address others in such a way.  That is a clear violation of freedom of speech, which cannot be countenanced.

It is time for the LGBT movement to step back and reassess.  Despite great national controversy, that movement has made some substantial gains even in the face of great national division on their issues.

Not unlike the Prohibitionists of the 1920s, the LGBT movement is refusing to moderate their tone.  They are now pursuing ends that are so radical and repellent to people, they will place their entire movement in jeopardy.  The reason Prohibition failed was because it was unyielding in its extremism.  Like the Prohibition movement, the LGBT movement has the support of moderates.  But during the Prohibition, rather than consolidate their gains, and moderate their stand against alcohol, they remained steadfast and unyielding.  That turned the country against them.  And that is what will happen with the LGBT movement, too.  For, there is no indication whatsoever that they plan to moderate themselves in the least.

Frankly, that turnaround in public opinion cannot happen soon enough.

This is how the left engages in its assault on the fabric of the civil society.  They look for the "soft spots" and then pick a fight.  Men have been dressing as women and passing for them since dirt was new.  It's hardly an issue for a male passing himself off as a woman in dress and demeanor, to use a woman's rest room.  Who would even notice?

In their effort to undermine the civil society, the Left chooses its targets wisely.  The question is first posed to the public narrowly:

Should transgender people be permitted to use public restroom facilities they identify with, rather than be limited to the restroom of the gender they were born to?  

It seems almost ridiculous to be having the conversation for a number of reasons.  To begin with, what is the legal definition of transgender?  Is the controlling factor in this definition, the gender the individual identifies with or the one they were born to?  Is no consideration to be given to their anatomical and genetic circumstance?  Is transgender, at least for some, really more of a behavioral, rather than a physical condition?  Moreover, how many people are we really talking about here?  This is an important consideration, given the fact that 99.7% of all Americans who don't identify as transgender will be compelled to accommodate 3 out of every 1,000 people who at least call themselves, "transgender."

The most recent data from surveys including the 2006-2008 National Survey of Family Growth, the 2009 California Health Interview Survey and federal data such as the Decennial Census or the American Community Survey were analyzed by Gary Gates, a distinguished scholar at the Williams Institute of the UCLA School of Law.  Those surveys state that about 0.3% of the American population "identifies as transgender".  Here's the problem with that:  it's a subjective determination and the number of people who truly are transgender is likely to be much lower.

Without a clear, legal definition of what is transgender, how could we possibly know who is transgender?  In its efforts to dictate federal policy to the states regarding so called transgender people, the Obama Administration has not only politicized the use of bathrooms, but they have issued rules that will now place school children at risk.  The risk is not necessarily with a person who is genuinely transgender.  Rather, the risk derives from the consequence of not having an objective definition of what a transgender person actually is.  Until now, all the discussions have centered on how the individual identifies themselves, leaving that definition entirely in their hands.

As a practical matter, public school officials will have no way to prevent a male high school senior from showering with a 14 year old freshman female, provided the male declares himself as "identifying as a female."  On what basis could that ever be challenged?  It also creates conditions where rape and statutory rape are more likely.  How will school administrators and faculty police the school showers when they know the blunt instrumentalities of the federal government are arrayed against them?  The likely outcome is that school officials will not risk a legal battle that results in the draining of resources from the school system.  This will create even more chaos in the school system than already exists.

The current controversy over rest rooms and showers in public facilities and schools should come as no surprise.  Since he was first elected in 2008, Barack Obama has unleashed the most militant and radical pro-homosexual agenda on Americans.  It began surreptitiously in the school system.

Early in his first administration, Barack Obama appointed a "Safe Schools Czar" named Kevin Jennings.  The title "Safe Schools Czar" is very misleading.  Most would look at the term and feel comforted that the President cares about making schools safe for children.  But that isn't what the Safe Schools Czar was tasked to do.  His job was to make schools safe for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgenders.  It was part of Obama's pro-homosexual agenda that was hiding in plain sight and ignored by the mainstream media.

Kevin Jennings himself has quite an "interesting" background.  A transcript from a 1997 speech shows Office of Safe Schools chief Kevin Jennings in the U.S. Department of Education expressed his admiration for Harry Hay, one of the nation's first homosexual activists who launched the Mattachine Society in 1948, founded the Radical Faeries and was a longtime advocate for the North American Man-Boy Love Association, NAMBLA.

Obama appointed the most radical person anyone could have ever imagined into a position, the Congress wasn't required to approve.  Kevin Jennings had a past that was so completely off the charts radical, it's almost impossible to overstate.  Kevin Jennings was outspoken in his support of NAMBLA and the repeal of laws governing the age of sexual consent.

In 2002, after the death of Harry Hay, Jennings said, "NAMBLA's record as a responsible gay organization is well known. NAMBLA was spawned by the gay community and has been in every major gay and lesbian march. … NAMBLA's call for the abolition of age of consent is not the issue. NAMBLA is a bona fide participant in the gay and lesbian movement. NAMBLA deserves strong support in its rights of free speech and association and its members' protection from discrimination and bashing," he said.

Remember, this was Obama's first appointee for "Safe Schools Czar."

Kevin Jennings was the founder of  the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) organization of Massachusetts.  GLSEN held its 10 Year Anniversary conference at Tufts University in 2000. This conference was fully supported by the Massachusetts Department of Education, the Safe Schools Program, the Governor's Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth, and some of the presenters even received federal money.

During the 2000 conference, workshop leaders led a "youth only, ages 14-21" session that offered lessons in "fisting" a dangerous sexual practice, where the hand is forced into another person's anus.  Fisting kits were distributed to children by Planned Parenthood, another participant in the event (pictured here).

There was a heightened sense of security with many Tufts campus police being highly visible in order to stop parents from seeing what occurred at the conference.

All  of this was the handiwork of Kevin Jennings, the man Barack Obama appointed.  Fury erupted in Congress and eventually Jennings was forced to resign his position, but today's actions by the Obama Justice Department and Department of Education are clear indications that Obama's agenda to promote homosexuality in American society has not abated.

The Obama administration will send a letter to every public school district in the country telling them to allow transgender students to use bathrooms and locker rooms that match their gender identity as opposed to their birth certificate.

The letter, first obtained by The New York Times, is signed by officials at the Justice Department and Department of Education. It will be sent out to the districts on Friday.

While the letter does not have the force of law, it does warn that schools that do not abide by the administration's interpretation of civil rights law may face lawsuits or a loss of federal aid, The Times reported.

"There is no room in our schools for discrimination of any kind, including discrimination against transgender students on the basis of their sex," Attorney General Loretta Lynch said in a statement.

"No student should ever have to go through the experience of feeling unwelcome at school or on a college campus," Education Secretary John B. King Jr., said in his own statement. "We must ensure that our young people know that whoever they are or wherever they come from, they have the opportunity to get a great education in an environment free from discrimination, harassment and violence."

Under the guidance, schools are told that they must treat transgender students according to their chosen gender identity as soon as a parent or guardian notifies the district that that identity "differs from previous representations or records." There is no obligation for a student to present a specific medical diagnosis or identification documents that reflect his or her gender identity, and equal access must be given to transgender students even in instances when it makes others uncomfortable, according to the directive.

"As is consistently recognized in civil rights cases, the desire to accommodate others' discomfort cannot justify a policy that singles out and disadvantages a particular class of students," the guidance says.

The administration is also releasing a separate 25-page document of questions and answers about best practices, including ways schools can make transgender students comfortable in the classroom and protect the privacy rights of all students in restrooms or locker rooms.

The move was cheered by Human Rights Campaign, a gay, lesbian and transgender civil rights organization, which called the guidelines "groundbreaking."

"This is a truly significant moment not only for transgender young people but for all young people, sending a message that every student deserves to be treated fairly and supported by their teachers and schools," HRC President Chad Griffin said in a statement.

Earlier this week, the Justice Department and the state of North Carolina filed dueling lawsuits over the state's controversial "bathroom" law, with the Obama administration answering an early-morning lawsuit filed by Republican Gov. Pat McCrory with legal action of its own.

In their suit, the DOJ alleged a "pattern or practice of employment discrimination on the basis of sex" against the state over the law requiring transgender people to use bathrooms that correspond with the sex on their birth certificate.

McCrory, in his lawsuit, accused the administration of a "baseless and blatant overreach" in trying to get the policy scrapped.

"This is an attempt to unilaterally rewrite long-established federal civil rights laws in a manner that is wholly inconsistent with the intent of Congress and disregards decades of statutory interpretation by the Courts," the state's suit, filed in U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of North Carolina, said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.