Posts Tagged ‘jon fournier’

The Pilgrims nearly starved to death thanks to their experiment with Socialism

Posted: November 25, 2021 by Jon Fournier in Uncategorized
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Thanksgiving 2021 offers many parallels to events and conditions that led up the first Thanksgiving.  Rampant inflation and supply chain problems have led to the most expensive Thanksgiving ever, by a wide margin, along with shortages of traditional Thanksgiving staples.

This is a bit reminiscent of conditions in Plymouth Plantation leading up to the first Thanksgiving, where about half of the colonists starved to death that first year.  Check out this article, John Stossel: Thanksgiving – What the pilgrims knew about socialism and private property, for details and an explanation.

The Pilgrims were religious, united by faith and a powerful desire to start anew, away from religious persecution in the Old World. Each member of the community professed a desire to labor together, on behalf of the whole settlement. In other words: socialism. But when they tried that, the Pilgrims almost starved.

Their collective farming — the whole community deciding when and how much to plant, when to harvest, who would do the work — was an inefficient disaster. “By the spring,” Pilgrim leader William Bradford wrote in his diary, “our food stores were used up and people grew weak and thin. Some swelled with hunger… So they began to think how … they might not still thus languish in misery.”

Socialism nearly did in the Pilgrims, as it could do us in if we continue on the path the Biden regime has set us on.  A rapid course change to freedom and private property by the first governor of the Plymouth colony not only saved the colony from starvation, it led to abundance and prosperity.  This miracle is chronicled here in the manuscript William Bradford: from History of Plymouth Plantation, c. 1650 in the section Private and communal farming (1623)

All this while no supply was heard of, neither knew they when they might expect any. So they began to think how they might raise as much corn as they could, and obtain a better crop than they had done, that they might not still thus languish in misery. At length, after much debate of things, the Governor (with the advice of the chiefest amongst them) gave way that they should set corn every man for his own particular, and in that regard trust to themselves; in all other thing to go on in the general way as before. And so assigned to every family a parcel of land, according to the proportion of their number, for that end, only for present use (but made no division for inheritance) and ranged all boys and youth under some family. This had very good success, for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been by any means the Governor or any other could use, and saved him a great deal of trouble, and gave far better content. The women now went willingly into the field, and took their little ones with them to set corn; which before would allege weakness and inability; whom to have compelled would have been thought great tyranny and oppression.

The experience that was had in this common course and condition, tried sundry years and that amongst godly and sober men, may well evince the vanity of that conceit of Plato’s and other ancients applauded by some of later times; and that the taking away of property and bringing in community into a commonwealth would make them happy and flourishing; as if they were wiser than God. For this community (so far as it was) was found to breed much confusion and discontent and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort. For the young men, that were most able and fit for labor and service, did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men’s wives and children without any recompense. The strong, or man of parts, had no more in division of victuals and clothes than he that was weak and not able to do a quarter the other could; this was thought injustice. The aged and graver men to be ranked and equalized in labors and victuals, clothes etc., with the meaner and younger sort, thought it some indignity and disrespect unto them. And for men’s wives to be commanded to do service for other men, as dressing their meat, washing their clothes, etc., they deemed it a kind of slavery, neither could many husbands well brook it. Upon the point all being to have alike, and all to do alike, they thought themselves in the like condition, and one as good as another; and so, if it did not cut off those relations that God hath set amongst men, yet it did at least much diminish and take off the mutual respects that should be preserved amongst them. And would have been worse if they had been men of another condition. Let none object this is men’s corruption, and nothing to the course itself. I answer, seeing all men have this corruption in them, God in His wisdom saw another course fitter for them.

A return to freedom, private property, and free market capitalism will very rapidly return the United States to its true glory as the freest and most prosperous nation that ever existed.

The Right of Conscience is being obliterated by vaccine mandates

Posted: November 18, 2021 by Jon Fournier in Uncategorized
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The right of conscience is one of our most fundamental God-given natural rights, so fundamental that it is one of the rights enshrined in the Bill of Rights.  The framers and ratifyers of Bill of Rights universally understood the right conscience to be an integral component of the free exercise of religion clause of the First Amendment. 

For more than a century prior to the drafting of the Bill Rights, the right of conscience was considered to be one of our most important rights.  This is abundantly clear from this quotation from A Letter concerning Toleration by John Locke, which also provides a very detailed definition of the right of conscience. 

Now that the whole jurisdiction of the magistrate reaches only to these civil concernments, and that all civil power, right, and dominion, is bounded and confined to the only care of promoting these things; and that it neither can nor ought in any manner to be extended to the salvation of souls, these following considerations seem unto me abundantly to demonstrate.

First. Because the care of souls is not committed to the civil magistrate, any more than to other men. It is not committed unto him, I say, by God; because it appears not that God has ever given any such authority to one man over another, as to compel any one to his religion. Nor can any such power be vested in the magistrate by the consent of the people, because no man can so far abandon the care of his own salvation as blindly to leave to the choice of any other, whether prince or subject, to prescribe to him what faith or worship he shall embrace. For no man can, if he would, conform his faith to the dictates of another. All the life and power of true religion consist in the inward and full persuasion of the mind; and faith is not faith without believing. Whatever profession we make, to whatever outward worship we conform, if we are not fully satisfied in our own mind that the one is true, and the other well pleasing unto God, such profession and such practice, far from being any furtherance, are indeed great obstacles to our salvation. For in this manner, instead of expiating other sins by the exercise of religion, I say, in offering thus unto God Almighty such a worship as we esteem to be displeasing unto him, we add unto the number of our other sins those also of hypocrisy, and contempt of his Divine Majesty.

In the second place. The care of souls cannot belong to the civil magistrate, because his power consists only in outward force; but true and saving religion consists in the inward persuasion of the mind, without which nothing can be acceptable to God. And such is the nature of the understanding, that it cannot be compelled to the belief of anything by outward force. Confiscation of estate, imprisonment, torments, nothing of that nature can have any such efficacy as to make men change the inward judgment that they have framed of things.

No author influenced the framers of the Constitution and Bill of Rights more than John Locke.  He wrote this letter in 1689.

The Virginia Declaration of Rights, written by George Mason in 1776, was a primary model for the Bill of Rights.  As you can see from this quote, the right of conscience was an integral component of free exercise of religion

That religion, or the duty which we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence; and therefore all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience; and that it is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian forbearance, love, and charity, towards each other.

Many states agreed to ratify the Constitution only if a Bill of Rights was included. Each of the states proposed very similar amendments.  The next quote is from Virginia Ratifying Convention.  All of these ideas were incorporated in the free exercise of religion clause of the First Amendment.

Twentieth, That religion or the duty which we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence, and therefore all men have an equal, natural and unalienable right to the free exercise of religion according to the dictates of conscience, and that no particular religious sect or society ought to be favored or established by Law in preference to others.

This next quote is from the Transcripts of the debates from the House of Representatives during the drafting of the Bill of Rights.   This particular debate took place on August 15, 1789.  From this quote it is self evident that the right of conscience is an integral component of the free exercise of religion clause of the First Amendment.

The House again went into a Committee of the Whole on the proposed amendments to the constitution, Mr. Boudinot in the Chair.The fourth proposition being under consideration, as follows:

Article 1. Section 9. Between paragraphs two and three insert “no religion shall be established by law, nor shall the equal rights of conscience be infringed.”

Mr. Sylvester had some doubts of the propriety of the mode of expression used in this paragraph. He apprehended that it was liable to a construction different from what had been made by the committee. He feared it might be thought to have a tendency to abolish religion altogether.

Mr. Vining suggested the propriety of transposing the two members of the sentence.

Mr. Gerry said it would read better if it was, that no religious doctrine shall be established by law.

Mr. Sherman thought the amendment altogether unnecessary, inasmuch as Congress had no authority whatever delegated to them by the Constitution to make religious establishments; he would, therefore, move to have it struck out.

Mr. [Daniel] Carroll As the rights of conscience are, in their nature, of peculiar delicacy, and will little bear the gentlest touch of governmental hand; and as many sects have concurred in opinion that they are not well secured under the present constitution, he said he was much in favor of adopting the words. He thought it would tend more towards conciliating the minds of the people to the Government than almost any other amendment he had heard proposed. He would not contend with gentlemen about the phraseology, his object was to secure the substance in such a manner as to satisfy the wishes of the honest part of the community.

Mr. Madison said, he apprehended the meaning of the words to be, that Congress should not establish a religion, and enforce the legal observation of it by law, nor compel men to worship God in any manner contrary to their conscience. Whether the words are necessary or not, he did not mean to say, but they had been required by some of the State Conventions, who seemed to entertain an opinion that under the clause of the Constitution, which gave power to Congress to make all laws necessary and proper to carry into execution the Constitution, and the laws made under it, enabled them to make laws of such a nature as might infringe the rights of conscience and establish a national religion; to prevent these effects he presumed the amendment was intended, and he thought it as well expressed as the nature of the language would admit.

The Bill of Rights does not restrain the state governments in any way.  The constitution of each state contains a Bill of Rights which protects the rights of the people living in that state from abuses of the state governments.  Here is Article II of the Massachusetts Constitution, which protects the right of conscience of everyone in this state

It is the right as well as the duty of all men in society, publicly, and at stated seasons to worship the Supreme Being, the great Creator and Preserver of the universe. And no subject shall be hurt, molested, or restrained, in his person, liberty, or estate, for worshipping God in the manner and season most agreeable to the dictates of his own conscience; or for his religious profession or sentiments; provided he doth not disturb the public peace, or obstruct others in their religious worship.

As you can see from all of the quotes I’ve provided, the right of conscience of every single individual is an absolute right.  All that matters is the conscience of each and every individual.  Like all rights, the permission of the government is not needed for each individual to exercise their right of conscience.  If government permission was needed it would not be a right.  Any restrictions placed on the right of conscience is an infringement of the right of conscience because it is a fundamental right.

The right of conscience is not a collective right, assigned by the government collectively to those who belong only to a certain church or religion. That would violate the establishment clause of the First Amendment. It is an individual right, based solely on the conscience of each individual, government approval in neither needed or warranted.

The federal government is trampling on the right of conscience of every individual with Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate because extreme restrictions are placed on this right,  States are doing the same.  Written permission from states and the federal government is needed for those seeking religious exemptions from vaccine mandates.  That is most definitely an infringement of the right of conscience of everyone. 

Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate is unconstitutional in the extreme

Posted: November 11, 2021 by Jon Fournier in Uncategorized
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Joe Biden, the illegitimate president of the United States, issued his federal vaccine mandate last week.  The actual text proved to be just as tyrannical, unscientific, and unconstitutional, as we’ve all been led to expect.   It is impossible to fully chronicle all of the ways this egregiously oppressive mandate violates the Constitution of the United States in anything short of a book.  In this article I will concentrate on the most important few.

I am far from alone when ot comes to individuals and accurate news sites documenting the ways that Biden’s vaccine mandate violates the US Constitution.  Check out this article, Mark Levin: Vaccine Mandate ‘Unconstitutional’ — ‘Federal Government Doesn’t Have Plenary Police Powers — The States Do’, from one of the most accurate constitutional scholars I’ve encountered.

LEVIN: What’s happening throughout this country — listening to those wonderful patriots there — is that the government is weeding out people who just don’t go along with authoritarianism. They’re weeding out people through these vaccine mandates. Many people who have the natural immunity, they’re going to be fired with an unconstitutional legal mandate from Joe Biden. The federal government doesn’t have plenary police powers. The states do.

And OSHA has no statutory authority, that is the Labor Department, over vaccines. If any department did and they don’t, it would be HHS. And notice they didn’t issue any regulation. So this will be defeated. But it’s the mentality, it’s the totalitarian mentality.

Mark Levin is absolutely correct when he states that the Federal government does not have the authority to issue this vaccine mandate, or any type of mandate.  He is also correct that the individual states may have the authority under our constitutional system, the deciding factor would be the constitution of each state. 

The United States Constitution did not create an all powerful national government, which has complete control over the states.  Instead the Constitution created a mostly federal government where the states are generally sovereign nations, tied together by a weak central government. 

The federal government is only granted a discreet set of clearly defined powers, which are plainly spelled out, or enumerated, in the Constitution.  All of the powers granted to the federal government are listed in Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution, in the section titled Powers of Congress.  All powers not granted to federal government, and not specifically denied to the states in Article 1 Section 10, remain with the individual states.  This is discussed in great detail in Federalist Paper Number 45 by James Madison

The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected.

The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State. The operations of the federal government will be most extensive and important in times of war and danger; those of the State governments, in times of peace and security.

OSHA should not exist at all because the United States Constitution does not grant the federal government the power to regulate businesses in any way.  The federal government granted itself that power by distorting the plain text of the Interstate Commerce Clause, which only grants the federal government the authority to regulate the large scale flow of commerce between the individual states, not the commerce inside of each state.  Since OSHA should not exist, it does not have the authority to issue a vaccine mandate.  As you can see from Article 1 Section 8, Congress is not granted the authority to issue vaccine mandates, therefore the federal government does not have the power to do so. 

The United States Constitution granted each branch of the federal government separate and discrete powers.  The Legislative Branch rights laws, the Executive branch executes laws, and the Judiical Branch interprets laws.  In Federalist Paper Number 47 James Madison commented on dangers of the branches of the federal government ignoring the separation of powers

The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, selfappointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny. 

In the legislation that created OSHA, or any subsequent legislation, that unconstitutional body is not granted the authority to mandate vaccines.  Joe Biden is violating the separation of powers by rewriting the OSHA laws to grant that body the authority to do so.

The Kentucky Resolutions draft by Thomas Jefferson. written in 1798, is a fantastic resource for understanding the United States Constitution.  In section 1, Jefferson discusses the relationship between powers granted to federal government versus powers retained by the states. He also mentions clearly what happens when the federal government oversteps its authority.

Resolved_, That the several States composing the United States of America, are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their General Government; but that, by a compact under the style and title of a Constitution for the United States, and of amendments thereto, they constituted a General Government for special purposes, — delegated to that government certain definite powers, reserving, each State to itself, the residuary mass of right to their own self-government; and that whensoever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force; that to this compact each State acceded as a State, and is an integral party, its co-States forming, as to itself, the other party: that the government created by this compact was not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself; since that would have made its discretion, and not the Constitution, the measure of its powers; but that, as in all other cases of compact among powers having no common judge, each party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress.

In Section 9 Jefferson laws out the best method for states to deal with unconstitutional usurpations by the federal government.  It is called Nullification, which the states can do themselves, completely independent of the Supreme Court, which has abandoned the Constitution many decades ago.

Resolved_, That a committee of conference and correspondence be appointed, who shall have in charge to communicate the preceding resolutions to the legislatures of the several States; to assure them that this commonwealth continues in the same esteem of their friendship and union which it has manifested from that moment at which a common danger first suggested a common union: that it considers union, for specified national purposes, and particularly to those specified in their late federal compact, to be friendly to the peace, happiness and prosperity of all the States: that faithful to that compact, according to the plain intent and meaning in which it was understood and acceded to by the several parties, it is sincerely anxious for its preservation: that it does also believe, that to take from the States all the powers of self-government and transfer them to a general and consolidated government, without regard to the special delegations and reservations solemnly agreed to in that compact, is not for the peace, happiness or prosperity of these States; and that therefore this commonwealth is determined, as it doubts not its co-States are, to submit to undelegated, and consequently unlimited powers in no man, or body of men on earth: that in cases of an abuse of the delegated powers, the members of the General Government, being chosen by the people, a change by the people would be the constitutional remedy; but, where powers are assumed which have not been delegated, a nullification of the act is the rightful remedy: that every State has a natural right in cases not within the compact, (casus non foederis,) to nullify of their own authority all assumptions of power by others within their limits:

The Democrats lost big in Virginia because they let their Marxist masks slip off

Posted: November 4, 2021 by Jon Fournier in Uncategorized
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The margin for victory was so great for the Republican gubernatorial candidate, Glenn Youngkin, that it was impossible for the Democrats to steal the election.  I am absolutely sure that if the margin of victory for Youngkin would have been narrower, the Democrats would have executed one of their all too familiar election steals, and the Republicans would have done nothing about it

The statewide elections in Virginia proved to be a clean sweep for the Republicans.  Check out this Breitbart article for more details.

Youngkin was running alongside former Del. Winsome Sears, a Jamaican immigrant and military veteran running for lieutenant governor, and Del. Jason Miyares, a Cuban American angling to unseat incumbent Attorney General Mark Herring (D). Both of the Virginia Republicans had also been declared winners by Decision Desk HQ as of the time of this writing.

Despite the victories of Winsome Sears and Jason Miyares in Virginia, the mainstream media is, of course, blaming the Republican wins in that state on racism.  Check out this Newsbusters article: (emphasis is from the original article)

Minutes after polls closed in Virginia on Tuesday, MSNBC’s election night co-hosts made it clear that they were pessimistic about their chances as they instead continued to lie about gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin, his voters, and Republicans writ large by calling them “dangerous” human beings “to our national security” and racists “in fleece” peddling “lies” about critical race theory (CRT).

ReidOut host Joy Reid was, not surprisingly, the worst. Five minutes after polls closed, Reid peddled the lie that Youngkin ran a racist campaign to ban Toni Morrison from schools and held out hope for Democrat Terry McAuliffe on the basis of Black voters who were scared that Youngkin “would purge” books about W.E.B. DuBois and Martin Luther King Jr. from schools.

The Democrat candidate for governor, Terry McAuliffe, has no one to blame for his crushing defeat other than himself.  He made a statement that was completely at odds with everything the United States stands for,  It was a statement that only holds true in Marxist, and other totalitarian, nations.  Here is a video of that so infamous statement:

McAuliffe doesn’t want parents to have a say in their child’s education – YouTube

Ever since the Democrats successfully stole the 2020 presidential election from President Donald Trump, they have become so emboldened that they are now saying the silent parts out loud.  Up until the steal the Democrats were careful to not give too loud a voice to their Marxist beliefs.  That sentiments expressed by McAuliffe is deeply rooted in Marxist and other totalitarian philosophies, where children are viewed as property of the state.  That is completely the polar opposite of the way things have always been here in the United States, where parents have always been the ultimate decisions makers for their children.    MaAuliffe lost the election primarily because his statement, most understandably, provoked a stupendous wave of outrage amongst the parents of Virginia.  The parents of Virginia, along with the parents of most other states, were already outraged by so many other things Democrats have been doing to school children for the past several years.  This tweet by Tom Cotton perfectly captures the parental outrage that led to Youngkin’s victory.

Parental rights and outrage over progressive indoctrination is very much a winning issue for the Republicans because they are on the right side of these most fundamental issues.  If they run with them during the midterm elections and the 2024 presidential election, they should have a much easier path to victory. 

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