Who else is stepping up to watch the watchmen?
By Seth Grossman, Political Columnist
(Reprinted from March 3, 2010 Current-Gazette Newspapers in Atlantic and Cape May Counties, http://www.shorenewstoday.com/news.php?id=7560)
“While Mr. Grossman is a very nice man. . . his view on the role of government is tainted by the selection bias of facts often observed among conservatives and libertarians. Both groups. . . favor blank checks for corporations and churches, while they demonize the disenfranchised and civil rights entities.”?
Jeffrey Lehman, Northfield (Letter in Current Newspapers, February 24-25, 2010
Two years ago, Mr. Lehman supported me when I wrote that serious problems caused two of the best and brightest students at Mainland Regional High School (which serves Northfield, Linwood, and Somers Point), to talk about them in their commencement speeches. (Mainland?s administrators quickly stopped that by better indoctrinating and controlling its students?not by addressing the problems.)
But why does Mr. Lehman take such a dim view of my “conservative” and “libertarian” views on other issues? Why does he say we “favor blank checks for corporations and churches” as we fight the $400 million ($300 million state–$100 million County and local) taxpayer bailout of the Morgan Stanley Casino Project in Atlantic City? Why doesn?t he know that most conservatives and libertarians denounced all politicians, including Republicans ex-President George Bush and New Jersey’s ex-Governor Christie Whitman, when they bought votes by pouring taxpayer dollars into “faith-based initiatives”–the pet projects of religious leaders with political juice?
Do we “demonize the disenfranchised and civil rights entities” when we fight alone against Republican Assemblymen Amodeo and Polistina and Democrat State Senators Whelan, Sweeney, and Lesniak for retroactively gutting the law that let citizens in Atlantic City demand a public vote on that dirty deal for Morgan Stanley?
And where are those “civil rights entities” anyway? Who defended my civil rights when I was arrested for having a sign outside Democrat Governor Corzine’s toll hike “public town hall meeting”? Or when I was removed from a State Senate Committee hearing last month for telling the obvious truth?
The short answer is that for the past 50 years, it is we conservatives and libertarians who have been misrepresented, demonized and held in contempt by the popular culture. This is done almost daily by most TV networks and major newspapers, in most college and public school classrooms, and even in movies like Avatar. Mr. Lehman is not against who we really are, but for what everyone is constantly told we are!
Webster’s Dictionary defines “conservative” as “tending to preserve established traditions and institutions”. But America’s “tradition” is our Revolution! And its idea that we are all created equal and endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, including life, liberty, and our pursuit of happiness as we each see fit.
Our “institutions” are the federal and state governments established with written constitutions designed to keep politicians or anyone else from taking away those rights.
Most Americans since John Adams, Benjamin Franklin and Abraham Lincoln admitted that our original 1787 Constitution was defective in not protecting the “unalienable rights” of black Americans. But we are also proud that we fixed it when 300,000 mostly white Americans fought and died in the Civil War to give our nation a “rebirth in freedom” -and the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to our Constitution.
We “conservatives” and “libertarians” urge every American to own, read, and understand our Declaration of Independence and Constitution. You can find them on our website at http://www.libertyandprosperity.org. You can buy pocket-sized booklets of both documents for $2 at my law office or at any Saturday Liberty and Prosperity breakfast discussion.
You can get a free copy online from the Heritage Foundation at http://www.askheritage.org/premium.aspx. More than a million copies were requested in just the last two months!
Yes, there is and was injustice in this country. But most of that injustice, including laws that discriminated against blacks, happened when too many Americans ignored the plain and simple words of our Declaration of Independence and Constitution.
How can you read Article I, Section 8 of our Constitution so the federal government can bail out Wall Street crooks with tax dollars and money borrowed from China and Japan?
New Jersey’s motto since 1776 is still true. Only liberty creates prosperity. Liberty makes people smarter and more productive by rewarding good decisions and punishing bad ones.
Mr. Lehman complained of “selfish ambition” and “zero-sum gamesmanship” in the business world. But aren’t those bad qualities also found in many people who go into politics or work for the government? Aren’t those qualities even more dangerous there, where much more power and money are involved? And quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Who will watch the watchmen?
Somers Point attorney Seth Grossman appears live on WVLT-92.1FM heard throughout South Jersey 8-9 a.m. every Saturday. For information see www.libertyandprosperity.org, email grossman@snip.net or call (609) 927-7333. Breakfast discussions are 9:30-10:30 a.m. every Saturday at the Athena Diner, 1515 New Road, Northfield.