"Rights are always rights."

On August 11, 2009, President Obama held a town hall meeting in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Outside of the meeting place there were many people exercising their First amendment rights by protesting. One man, William Kostric, not only exercised his First Amendment Right, he exercised his Second Amendment right as well. Mr. Kostric was openly carrying a pistol and he had a sign that read, “It's time to water the tree of Liberty.” The sign also had an image of the coiled timber rattlesnake, most commonly seen on the Gadsden flag. Mr. Kostric's sign was a reference to a quote made by Thomas Jefferson, “The tree of Liberty must be watered from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”

Many who evidently do not believe in Freedom and Liberty tried to say that the sign was a veiled threat against the President. Many people, including John Gibson, that say they support the Second Amendment have said that Mr. Kostric was wrong for exercising his right. They say he should not have had a loaded firearm at a town hall, especially with the President in the area. If these people truly supported rights, they would know that rights aren't dependent on who may be around. Mr. Gibson even went so far as to say that “you shouldn't exercise your rights every minute of every day.” I guess Mr. Gibson would be okay with the police searching his house without a warrant if it was the right time of the day. That might be true, Mr. Gibson believes that warrant-less wire-taps of citizens under the Patriot Act did not harm the Fourth Amendment in any way. Since the Fourth Amendment is clear on warrant-less searches, I have to disagree with Mr. Gibson. It concerns me greatly when people say they support the Constitution yet their actions show this not to be true.

The people that criticize Mr. Kostric seem to be under the assumption that he was the only armed person at the town hall meeting and were also aware of Jefferson's quote as well as many other quotes from our founding fathers. New Hampshire is a free state whose motto is “Live Free or Die.” I can assure you there where many more people armed at that town hall meeting, above and beyond the Secret Service. The license plate on all New Hampshire vehicles display the state motto. I didn't hear a single suggestion that the drivers of these vehicles where threating the President. If someone were intent on harming the President, I seriously doubt that they would draw attention to themselves by openly carrying a firearm.

Chris “I have a tingle up my leg” Matthews verbally assaulted Mr. Kostric, trying to equate him to a Presidential assassin. He was one of the people that tried to say that Mr. Kostric's sign was a threat against the President. Obviously, Mr. Matthews must believe that President Obama is a Tyrant, otherwise, how would the sign be a threat against him? He said that he understood New Hampshire law and the Second Amendment. He also said that because of the history of Presidents being shot in America that you shouldn't bring a gun to a Presidential event. A right that shouldn't be exercised because of circumstance is no right at all. I could be wrong, but I don't recall Mr. Matthews having a problem with the Black Panthers having weapons outside of a polling place for “security.”

Some of Mr. Kostric's critics say that the Republican party should denounce such right-wing extremists. They say that the left will take this incident and use it as ammunition against them. However, why would a person that has harmed nobody, was not being violent, violated no laws, and did nothing but exercise rights granted by our creator and codified in the United States Constitution be considered a right-wing extremist and why would you want to denounce them? I guess if wining an election is the only goal and you don't believe in the Constitution, you might want to denounce an American citizen. The only violence at these town hall meetings has been perpetrated by the left via SEIU members. Conservative citizen, Kenneth Gladney was handing out Gadsden flags at a town hall meeting in St. Louis. He was not forcing the flags on anyone. Before he was beaten so badly that he had to go to the hospital, his attackers asked him, “What is a N...er like you handing out these flags?”

People have a right to say that Mr. Kostric was wrong. However, we should never buy into the notion that rights should only be exercised when someone else thinks it's okay. Stand up against these people. Let them know you won't let them infringe your rights just because they are too cowardly to exercise theirs. If they are afraid of a man with a firearm and a sign, there must be something fundamentally wrong with either their understanding of America or their thought process.

Lies and Constitutional Violations: Business As Usual.

Eric Holder is another of President Obama's cabinet nominees that obviously required a waiver of the President's high ethical standards. Not only did Mr. Holder help pardon fugitive, Mark Rich, he also helped pardon FALN terrorists. In his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Mr. Holder told Chairman Leahy that since the Supreme Court had found that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms, he would abide by that decision as Attorney General. The decision also says that banning any firearm that is in common use would be a violation of the Second Amendment. Attorney General Holder has now called for the reinstatement of the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban. Reinstating the ban would be a violation of the Second Amendment. Mr. Holder has now violated the Constitution of the United States, his oath of office and also lied to Senator Leahy. Will Senator Leahy now call for Mr. Holder to be removed from office or at least ask him to resign? Since most Congressmen have violated their oaths of office regularly, I doubt Senator Leahy or any Government official will do anything.

What you do is more important than what you say.

During President Obama's financial summit on Monday, he said that the Congressional majority must be inclusive of the minority but the minority must be constructive to the process. During the stimulus debate, the minority introduced an alternative bill. The Congressional Budget Office reported that this alternative bill would have created twice the jobs at half the cost of the bill pushed by the majority. The stimulus bill was more about paying back the people that made it possible for Obama to be elected.

Bush and the Republican controlled Congress spent just as foolishly. When control of the Congress shifted to the Democrats in 2006 the only way Bush could get what he wanted was to allow the Democrats to spend whatever they wanted.

During President Obama's speech Tuesday, he said that America's best days are ahead. I believe this is a true statement but it won't be during President Obama's single term as President. It also won't happen while any of the current corrupt Senators and Representatives are still holding office. It will take their Removal from office and it may even take the secession of a few states to return this country to the Constitutional Republic that our founding fathers fought to provide us. Our Senators and Representatives as well as the President all take an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States. I can't speak about all of the Senators and Representatives, bu the President, Vice-president and all of the Senators and Representatives that are constantly on the television have all violated their oaths of office. These violations should be grounds for immediate removal from office. The apathy of the public and the good-ole-boy culture in Washington prevent anything from being done about the growing Tyranny.

Cowardice and Race

A recent political cartoon showed a dead chimpanzee, shot by police officers. The caption of the cartoon said “They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill.” This was clearly referring to the people in Congress as monkeys. Al Sharpton immediately came out and said that because blacks have been referred to as monkeys in the past, this must be a reference to President Obama. It is clear from President Obama's comments on the stimulus bill that he didn't even read it, let alone write it. He even said in an interview that when you have 535 people in Congress that want to get their views in, the bill can't be perfect. I'm paraphrasing his comments. We have elected a black man as president for the first time in our history. We have had people of all races in Congress and all other levels of Government for quite some time. Most will admit that there are still problems in all directions. Al Sharpton always throws up race into everything he ever talks about. I can see where some could be offended by the cartoon, but no cartoon will please everybody. It's time for Americans to get away from the dangers of political correctness. I don't think Al Sharpton speaks for all black people in this country but the mainstream media is always giving him time in front of the camera.

Similarly, our new Attorney General, Eric Holder, recently said that America is a nation of cowards because we are afraid to talk about race. It's difficult to talk about race on a national level. When ever somebody tries to have any discussion, either Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton or Louis Farrakhan are there to call those people racists. If that is how we are to discuss the issue of race we will likely never have much progress. As I stated above, I don't believe these people speak for the whole of the black community and I've heard many blacks say that. However, as long as they are the only ones in front of the camera, discussions will be difficult at best.

This is change?

One of President Obama's first nominees was Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State. This nomination and the Senate's confirmation is a direct violation of Article 1, Section 6, Paragraph 2 of the Constitution of the United States. I contacted both of my Senators about this problem before the confirmation. The only one that responded was my Senior Senator. He said that Congress was talking about introducing legislation to reduce the salary of the Secretary of State so there wouldn't be a violation. The Constitution does not contain an exception policy that would eliminate the violation. Even if there were such and exception, to my knowledge no such legislation was introduced or passed. Both of my Senators voted for confirmation. This means that both my Senators and all the other Senators that voted for confirmation have violated their oath of office and the Constitution of the United States. If Hillary would have served out her term in the Senate which ends in 2012, she could have served as Secretary of State or any other post without violation.

Tom Daschle withdrew his name from consideration to become secretary of Health and Human Services for the Obama administration because of some unpaid taxes. After the withdraw, President Obama gave several interviews in which he said “there can't be the appearance of two sets of rules.” Obama's nominee for Treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner, also had some tax problems. In my view, his tax problems were much more substantial and likely, intentional. The statute of limitations had passed on a couple of the years that Geithner owed taxes. Would those taxes have been paid if he would not have been nominated? Doesn't the fact that Geithner was nominated and confirmed with tax problems also give the appearance of two sets of rules? I'm convinced that President Obama knew about the tax problems of all his nominees, he either didn't care or hoped we weren't paying attention.

It has been reported that President Obama has set the highest ethical standards of any recent administration. It has become obvious that what President Obama says and what he actually does are two different things. Even though they have the high ethical standards, they have written exceptions so that unethical people, that don't meet those standards, can still be in the administration. What good does it do to have the highest ethical standards in writing but have people that don't meet those standards in the administration? Doesn't this mean that you really don't have the highest ethical standards? The fact that he has nominated so many people that don't follow the tax laws or helped to pardon terrorists is a reflection of his judgment on the people he surrounds himself with. Many before the election brought this to the publics attention. He stayed in a church for twenty years with and had his children Baptized by a man who hates America and is a racist. He had terrorist Bill Ayers for a friend. Those patterns are continuing. He says that Geithner and Daschle are the best and the brightest and that we should over look their tax evasion. There are three-hundred-million people in this country. There is no way that Geithner and Daschle are the only ones that could do the job of secretary of Treasury and secretary of Health and Human Services. They may be the only people that can do it if you are stuck looking at the same pool of Washington insiders. Obama said he was going to change Washington, not just keep using the same corrupt crooks that have been their for years.