Enemy of the State?

A lot of outrage is now focused on the bonuses paid out to AIG executives, a company which has received over 170 billion in bailout tax-payer money. People are angry and rightfully so.

But less known is that the bonuses were previously approved by government officials whose names include Treasury secretary Geithner, Senator Dodd, and the Obama Administration, who are now making McCarthy-style inquires for the names of the executives receiving those legally contracted and government authorized bonuses .

In a move to deal with the outrage, the house has just passed a resolution bill to tax those bonuses to a tune of 90% to get that money back. Some say that is a creative use of government, some call it thuggery, but actually, according to Article 1, section 9, clause 3 of the US Constitution it is illegal.

What congress is passing now is called a bill of attainder which is an act or legislation that singles out a person or group of persons for punishment without the benefit of a trial. Bills of attainder are forbidden. The clause was intended by our forefathers to enforce the separation of powers, a way to protect the people from basically trial by legislature.

The bill of attainder AIG executives that the house is pushing and the BO administration has verbally yet unofficially approved is an exaggerated form of Obama administration politics, to single people or groups out who are political enemies, isolate them, then attack, i.e. Milt Rosenberg, Stanley Kurtz, WGN Radio, Rush Limbaugh, Rick Santelli, and Jim Cramer. What has been whispered as unprecedented and unpresidential, has now been elevated to unconstitutional, which begs the question, who really is the enemy of the state.

Time and again the founding fathers have proven themselves to be beyond their time. The clause for the bill of attainder was written in a timeless way because they realized it would be necessary...some day. It only makes sense to look further into the thinking of the founding fathers. Here are some more interesting and still relevant quotes from Thomas Jefferson:

1. The policy of the American government is to leave their citizens free, neither restraining nor aiding them in their pursuits.

2. The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.

3. It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.

4. I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretence of taking care of them.

5. My reading of history convinces me that most bad governments result from too much government.

6. To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which He disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.

7. To take from one because it is thought that his own industry and that of his father’s has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association—the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.

8. I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.

9. When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

10. The majority, oppressing an individual, is guilty of a crime, abuses its strength, and by acting on the law of the strongest breaks up the foundations of society.

11. To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.

And last but not least

12. The man who reads nothing at all is better than educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.

It’s amazing how timeless and relevant the wisdom of those men continue to be. They’ve so far showed us what America is and what it stands for, and more importantly the enemies it stands against. And based on the founder’s test...we’re not looking so good.

Let’s hope that isn’t the change that was promised!
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