01 February 2005
Alleged Republican Legislature Attacks Constitutional Rights!
Under the influence of SD Senator Lee Schoenbeck (R - Watertown, SD) SB172 cleared committee on Monday this week as reported by the Rapid City Journal here. This bill imposes a cap of $5000 on donations to state PAC's. Before I go any further with this allow me to quote:
AMENDMENTS TO THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
It drives me absolutely crazy when Republocratic legislooters like Schoenbeck can casually ignore the clear and what one would expect to be easily understood words of the United States Constitution.
Of all things that the courts have twisted out of shape, admittedly the First Amendment has been transmogrified into silly putty. Both at the Congressional and now at the state level the so-called political pros feel that they can do all manner of legislating to limit what they, from their lofty perspectives consider to be unwarrented interference from private citizens using their own resources to oppose them, or to oppose what they would do. Meanwhile, back on the judicial bench, the "right to free speech" is stretched farther and farther to cover ever more egregious examples of pornography, sedition, and virtual treason as "protected".
The reason that free speech was included in the Bill of Rights was specifically and primarily to protect POLITICAL SPEECH, which to any rational and logically consistant mind MUST include the right to organize, raise funds, and then expend the funds in support of parties, candidates, and issues, WITHOUT PERMISSION, CONTROL, OR APPROVAL FROM THOSE IN THE GOVERNMENT!!!!! Anything less than this is a travesty, and is patently unconstitutional in spite of any legalistic games of twisted deconstruction from some Judge Gumby (the rubber guy).
Back to the issue at Pierre. I have long had the feeling that a lot of the Alleged Republicans in South Dakota are in reality RINOs (Republicans In Name Only), who fly false colors in order to get a boost in their quest for political advancement. This is nothing new. I grew up in south St. Louis (Gephardt's district) - where NO Republicans ever got elected to anything. The only way for Republicans to have a voice in the government there was to vote in the Democrat primary, since the primary winner was inevitably the election winner a few months later. South Dakota isn't THAT strong of a one-party state, not with as much effort as it took to oust the former Senator Daschle, but this sort of thing has to be at work here to some extent at least.
When one considers the overwhelming GOP registration lead, and then looks at the vote totals for Johnson in '02, or Daschle and Herseth this year, it is obvious that a lot of "squishy" Republicans have no compunction about voting for candidates that support many issues that are anathema to traditional Republican principles. Dare one describe such as RINOs? I would certainly dare so! TO ACTIVELY WORK TO SUPPRESS THE MOST BASIC OF OUR POLITICAL FREEDOMS VIA THE LEGISLATIVE PROCESS IS WHAT IS HAPPENING WITH SB172, (just as it happened with the so-called McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform in Congress) and is to betray the very basis of the modern Republican Party. Are you listening Sen. Thune?
As long as I'm on a roll here, I may as well end this post in a totally ballistic mode, and further suggest the heresy that perhaps the state, and the SD Republican Party would be much better off if a big slug of these RINOs would shift their allegiance to the Democratic party, or at LEAST to the "Independent" category. The rest of us who still pursue and respect basic Republican principles would know where we REALLY stand in the state, and bills like SB172 would perhaps be more readily recognized for what they are: a movement towards a creeping loss of the rights that our ancestors fought and died to institute and preserve.
'nuff said for now. ILLIGITIMATI NON CARBORUNDUM!
AMENDMENTS TO THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Amendment I.
It drives me absolutely crazy when Republocratic legislooters like Schoenbeck can casually ignore the clear and what one would expect to be easily understood words of the United States Constitution.
Of all things that the courts have twisted out of shape, admittedly the First Amendment has been transmogrified into silly putty. Both at the Congressional and now at the state level the so-called political pros feel that they can do all manner of legislating to limit what they, from their lofty perspectives consider to be unwarrented interference from private citizens using their own resources to oppose them, or to oppose what they would do. Meanwhile, back on the judicial bench, the "right to free speech" is stretched farther and farther to cover ever more egregious examples of pornography, sedition, and virtual treason as "protected".
The reason that free speech was included in the Bill of Rights was specifically and primarily to protect POLITICAL SPEECH, which to any rational and logically consistant mind MUST include the right to organize, raise funds, and then expend the funds in support of parties, candidates, and issues, WITHOUT PERMISSION, CONTROL, OR APPROVAL FROM THOSE IN THE GOVERNMENT!!!!! Anything less than this is a travesty, and is patently unconstitutional in spite of any legalistic games of twisted deconstruction from some Judge Gumby (the rubber guy).
Back to the issue at Pierre. I have long had the feeling that a lot of the Alleged Republicans in South Dakota are in reality RINOs (Republicans In Name Only), who fly false colors in order to get a boost in their quest for political advancement. This is nothing new. I grew up in south St. Louis (Gephardt's district) - where NO Republicans ever got elected to anything. The only way for Republicans to have a voice in the government there was to vote in the Democrat primary, since the primary winner was inevitably the election winner a few months later. South Dakota isn't THAT strong of a one-party state, not with as much effort as it took to oust the former Senator Daschle, but this sort of thing has to be at work here to some extent at least.
When one considers the overwhelming GOP registration lead, and then looks at the vote totals for Johnson in '02, or Daschle and Herseth this year, it is obvious that a lot of "squishy" Republicans have no compunction about voting for candidates that support many issues that are anathema to traditional Republican principles. Dare one describe such as RINOs? I would certainly dare so! TO ACTIVELY WORK TO SUPPRESS THE MOST BASIC OF OUR POLITICAL FREEDOMS VIA THE LEGISLATIVE PROCESS IS WHAT IS HAPPENING WITH SB172, (just as it happened with the so-called McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform in Congress) and is to betray the very basis of the modern Republican Party. Are you listening Sen. Thune?
As long as I'm on a roll here, I may as well end this post in a totally ballistic mode, and further suggest the heresy that perhaps the state, and the SD Republican Party would be much better off if a big slug of these RINOs would shift their allegiance to the Democratic party, or at LEAST to the "Independent" category. The rest of us who still pursue and respect basic Republican principles would know where we REALLY stand in the state, and bills like SB172 would perhaps be more readily recognized for what they are: a movement towards a creeping loss of the rights that our ancestors fought and died to institute and preserve.
'nuff said for now. ILLIGITIMATI NON CARBORUNDUM!
