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Champions of the Constitution Grassroots Network
CCGN
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"You are so on the right track!"
- Virginia FREE SPEECH PROJECT
5/15/19 Campus Free Speech Petition 5/14/19 News Round-Up 5/5/19 Michigan Hate Speech Database |
CHAMPIONS NETWORK - NOW IN 11 STATES!
- VA - Constitution Leadership Initiative
- VA - Potomac Tea Party
- VA - Linda, Eric, and 7 more
- AZ - Gail
- FL - Renée
- IA - Gregg
- MD - Jim
- MI - Larry NEW!
- MN - Nathan
- OK - Don
- PA - Diana, Steve
- SC - Debbie
- TX - William
Champions Network - Action Alerts
- Push Back / Make Some Noise!
BELOW
- 4/3/19: Hey AOC, Why Don’t You Learn About the Constitution Before Spouting Off?
- 2/28/19: ‘The Flag is a Rag’ - Shame on Nebraska State Sen. Ernie Chambers!
- 10/14/18: Don Lemon thinks there's an absolute right to protest "whenever and wherever you want". Let's have a little fun with that, shall we?
- 8/15/18: Yo, socialists! There are reasons we don’t have a unicameral legislature and the Constitution is not easy to amend. Ever think about that?
- Pushback on Ed Asner's Claim ‘The One-Percenters Wrote the Constitution’
- Shame! Former Justice Stevens calls for repeal of the Second Amendment, completely misunderstanding how it has helped preserve our liberty to the present day.
- Throw the Entire Constitution in the Garbage
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Hey AOC, Why Don’t You Learn About the Constitution Before Spouting Off?
April 3, 2019 It takes a special kind of person not to mind showing their ignorance in public without embarrassment. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently claimed the Republicans changed the Constitution to remove President Franklin Roosevelt from office. In point of fact, the 22nd Amendment was not ratified until 1951, six years after FDR died in office. Res ipsa loquitur - her stupidity speaks for itself, but here are some comments from the Champions of the Constitution Grassroots Network (CCGN) -
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‘The Flag is a Rag’ - Shame on Nebraska State Sen. Ernie Chambers!
February 28, 2019 Nebraska state Senator Ernie Chambers compared the American flag to the Nazi swastika on the floor of the legislature, recently:
Senator Chambers, where are the ovens? The 26 million dead? The totalitarian government? The euthanasia of the disabled? The master plan for world domination? |
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By comparing the American flag with the Nazi swastika, you accuse America of equal crimes or worse, yet you are quite content to take your salary from Americans. If you had the courage of your convictions, you would not take our ‘blood money’ and you certainly would not serve in a government institution as a tool of the very oppression you complain about. You, sir, are the hypocrite in this picture.
Moreover, you dishonor the memory of the black soldiers who fought and died for this country in the Revolutionary and Civil Wars. Over 36,000 black Union soldiers died in the Civil War alone, not to mention the countless other black U.S. soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice in other conflicts. They saw something in America worth fighting and dying for. Too bad your anger and your bitterness keep you from seeing it.
They saw a bad situation, rolled up their sleeves, and did something to make it better, unlike you. You’re just complaining and running your mouth when you really have very little to complain about. This country has given you a good life. What would you replace America with, exactly? Let’s hear it. It’s not good enough just to tear everything down. In fact, it’s downright irresponsible.
Nebraska state Senator Tom Brewer had this to say about your rant:
Comments from CCGN members around the country:
Moreover, you dishonor the memory of the black soldiers who fought and died for this country in the Revolutionary and Civil Wars. Over 36,000 black Union soldiers died in the Civil War alone, not to mention the countless other black U.S. soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice in other conflicts. They saw something in America worth fighting and dying for. Too bad your anger and your bitterness keep you from seeing it.
They saw a bad situation, rolled up their sleeves, and did something to make it better, unlike you. You’re just complaining and running your mouth when you really have very little to complain about. This country has given you a good life. What would you replace America with, exactly? Let’s hear it. It’s not good enough just to tear everything down. In fact, it’s downright irresponsible.
Nebraska state Senator Tom Brewer had this to say about your rant:
- It rips our heart out to hear someone say that they refer to the flag as a rag because for those of us that have brought home, those that we’ve lost, it’s hard to refer to the flag as a rag because you have to fold it and you have to give it to the parents - that’s awful hard to do.
Comments from CCGN members around the country:
- From a letter one (Major, USAF [Retired]) sent to Sen. Chambers:
- I would like to see that legislator look into the eyes of one our living recipients of the Medal of Honor and say that. I don't believe he could.
- If an elected Senator shows this blatant disrespect to our country’s flag, his constituents should not rest until he is out of office.
- Which flag do you prefer to wave? Why not spend a few years in other countries and wave their flags, and then compare that life to a life under the banner of the United States. [Read The Man Without a Country to get some sense of what it would really be like to disown America]
A Nice Quiet Dinner with the Unhinged Mob
October 14, 2018
CNN host Don Lemon showed his ignorance about the Constitution on national television this last week. He said it loud and he said it proud. The discussion was about the right to protest, specifically about an angry mob running Ted Cruz and his wife out of a D.C. restaurant. Lemon told his guest to “shut up” so he could pontificate about free speech:
Whenever and wherever you want. Don Lemon is flat-out wrong, as a matter of constitutional law. Free speech is not an absolute right. There are a number of well-established exceptions to the First Amendment right to free speech. You can’t yell ‘fire’ in a crowded theater (or in a crowded TV studio, for that matter). You can’t tell the enemy when our troop ships are set to leave. You don’t get to utter fighting words with impunity. You don’t have the right to tell falsehoods and ruin someone’s reputation – that’s called slander. You don’t have the right to lie under oath – that’s perjury and it’s a felony. You don’t have the right to incite violence or imminent lawless action. You don’t get to break windows at GOP offices as part of your right to protest – that’s a crime.
And you certainly don’t have the right to protest “whenever and wherever you want.” There are time, place and manner restraints that limit your right to protest. Every Tea Partier knows you have to obtain a permit to have a big demonstration on the National Mall. Every Tea Partier knows there are local ordinances that limit your right to protest. In my area, groups larger than 25 people have to get a permit to demonstrate. Smaller groups can’t block public sidewalks, you have to keep moving. You can’t protest on private property, like shopping malls or grocery store parking lots. Or in a restaurant, if the owner won’t allow it. The D.C. subway has rules, too. You can’t demonstrate inside stations, it’s too dangerous. You can’t block the entrance; you have to stay 15 feet away from it.
But Don Lemon has announced a principle: the absolute right to protest wherever and whenever you want. Let’s have a little fun with that, shall we?
I get to protest anywhere and whenever I want, right? I guess that means Don Lemon’s living room at 2 o’clock in the morning. Or a Democratic Socialists of America chapter meeting, or a Sunday service at an A.M.E church when people are trying to pray. Not just one Sunday, but every Sunday.
Now let’s talk about his own show. Don Lemon has a history of shutting off his guests’ microphones when he doesn’t like what they have to say. He did it to radio host John Fredericks and he did it to former Trump aide Jason Miller. In Miller’s case, Lemon specifically told him that being on CNN is a privilege, not a right. Apparently, consistency is not a requirement for being a CNN host. And they weren’t the only ones Don Lemon has silenced. He should be checked for Nazi tendencies.
But he announced a principle that I have an absolute right to protest wherever and whenever I please. I have half a mind to march into CNN’s studios, storm on to Don Lemon’s set with a few hundred of my closest friends and protest his history of antipathy towards free expression. Cut people off, how dare you.
Shame on Don Lemon for supporting mobs. Shame on him for invoking the Constitution when he clearly doesn’t know what he’s talking about. And shame on him also for thinking people only have a right to speak when it’s something he agrees with.
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Comments from the Champions of the Constitution Grassroots Network:
October 14, 2018
CNN host Don Lemon showed his ignorance about the Constitution on national television this last week. He said it loud and he said it proud. The discussion was about the right to protest, specifically about an angry mob running Ted Cruz and his wife out of a D.C. restaurant. Lemon told his guest to “shut up” so he could pontificate about free speech:
- In the Constitution, you can protest whenever and wherever you want. It doesn’t tell you that you can’t do it in a restaurant, that you can’t do it on a football field. It doesn’t tell you that you can’t do it on a cable news — you can do it wherever you want. (emphasis added)
Whenever and wherever you want. Don Lemon is flat-out wrong, as a matter of constitutional law. Free speech is not an absolute right. There are a number of well-established exceptions to the First Amendment right to free speech. You can’t yell ‘fire’ in a crowded theater (or in a crowded TV studio, for that matter). You can’t tell the enemy when our troop ships are set to leave. You don’t get to utter fighting words with impunity. You don’t have the right to tell falsehoods and ruin someone’s reputation – that’s called slander. You don’t have the right to lie under oath – that’s perjury and it’s a felony. You don’t have the right to incite violence or imminent lawless action. You don’t get to break windows at GOP offices as part of your right to protest – that’s a crime.
And you certainly don’t have the right to protest “whenever and wherever you want.” There are time, place and manner restraints that limit your right to protest. Every Tea Partier knows you have to obtain a permit to have a big demonstration on the National Mall. Every Tea Partier knows there are local ordinances that limit your right to protest. In my area, groups larger than 25 people have to get a permit to demonstrate. Smaller groups can’t block public sidewalks, you have to keep moving. You can’t protest on private property, like shopping malls or grocery store parking lots. Or in a restaurant, if the owner won’t allow it. The D.C. subway has rules, too. You can’t demonstrate inside stations, it’s too dangerous. You can’t block the entrance; you have to stay 15 feet away from it.
But Don Lemon has announced a principle: the absolute right to protest wherever and whenever you want. Let’s have a little fun with that, shall we?
I get to protest anywhere and whenever I want, right? I guess that means Don Lemon’s living room at 2 o’clock in the morning. Or a Democratic Socialists of America chapter meeting, or a Sunday service at an A.M.E church when people are trying to pray. Not just one Sunday, but every Sunday.
Now let’s talk about his own show. Don Lemon has a history of shutting off his guests’ microphones when he doesn’t like what they have to say. He did it to radio host John Fredericks and he did it to former Trump aide Jason Miller. In Miller’s case, Lemon specifically told him that being on CNN is a privilege, not a right. Apparently, consistency is not a requirement for being a CNN host. And they weren’t the only ones Don Lemon has silenced. He should be checked for Nazi tendencies.
But he announced a principle that I have an absolute right to protest wherever and whenever I please. I have half a mind to march into CNN’s studios, storm on to Don Lemon’s set with a few hundred of my closest friends and protest his history of antipathy towards free expression. Cut people off, how dare you.
Shame on Don Lemon for supporting mobs. Shame on him for invoking the Constitution when he clearly doesn’t know what he’s talking about. And shame on him also for thinking people only have a right to speak when it’s something he agrees with.
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Comments from the Champions of the Constitution Grassroots Network:
- Like most Americans, Don Lemon has an infantile view of the Constitution; apparently the document is his to interpret any way he wishes. "In the Constitution, you can protest whenever and wherever you want." Of course, the Constitution says no such thing. The word protest does not appear in the Constitution, "petition" does. And there is certainly a right to petition one's government for a redress of grievances, but "protest" is not mentioned. Perhaps protest is included in in the Freedom of Speech clause, perhaps it is not, that also is open to interpretation. Of course, America has a rich history of public protest, protest against government actions, not the mere appearance of a fellow human being at a public restaurant. That is simply a mob, and an uncouth one at that.
- Mobs, intimidation, and violence are redefined by the Left when it suits THEIR purposes. Remember when they had a conniption when one of Sarah Palin’s campaign ads had an opponent in the crosshairs?
- There is an obvious void in understanding the social contract. He ought to read some history, instead of putting out false histrionics. As citizens we have a right to be responsible for honoring others rights but that does not include volunteering to give up rights just to satisfy a "mob" which was the correct term for these paid political agitators.
Off with Their Heads! (Democracy in Action)
August 19, 2018
Week before last, two socialist authors were granted space in the august New York Times, no less, to push their poison that the U.S. Constitution is an “outdated relic” expressly intended to subvert democracy.
The authors are an editor and writer at Jacobin magazine, a socialist publication which doesn’t mind engaging in the quintessentially capitalistic practice of selling advertising.
The authors make a number of blithe assertions which I will demolish shortly. But, overall, to hear the authors tell it, you’d think the Constitution had unleashed a bloody Reign of Terror. Oh, wait a minute, that was the Jacobins in France in the socialist French Revolution of 1789. Thanks to the authors’ namesakes, France didn’t have a stable government again for 75 years.
The authors assert that the Constitution is “the foundation for a system of government that rules over people,” rather than a means of popular self-government. This shows a complete misunderstanding of the Constitution. The Constitution begins with “We the People” because we have popular sovereignty. We the People rule ourselves; we don’t have a King George ruling over us.
But the authors are right in one respect. The Constitution did not set up a pure democracy, and good thing it didn’t. The Founders were concerned with preventing mob rule and the tyranny of the majority, both of which develop under pure democracy. Even with all our system’s checks and balances, we’ve had instances in this country where one side has gotten too powerful and rammed stuff down our throats, like Obamacare and the New Deal. Do we really want modern-day Jacobins ramming single payer down our throats with real death panels this time - guillotine squads? That’s why the Founders gave us a Republic, as Ben Franklin famously said - to temper the passion of factions with ways for cooler heads to prevail. Warring factions gave England a dictator-for-life, Oliver Cromwell. The Founders knew this history and worked around it accordingly. Property rights, which the socialist authors criticize, actually reinforce self-government, because property gives people freedom and independence, power they wouldn’t have if the government owned everything as in a socialist system. Property rights are best understood as a pillar of popular sovereignty.
The authors say the Constitution prevents redistribution of wealth and the creation of new social guarantees. This is just crazy talk. The authors act as if as if the New Deal, the Great Society and other redistributionist programs never happened, and that we never racked up a $21 trillion national debt as a result.
The authors criticize “the Bill of Rights’s incomplete safeguards of individual freedoms.” There’s something bone-chilling about Jacobin socialists talking about safeguarding individual freedom. They are the self-proclaimed descendants of the French Jacobins who chopped people’s heads off after so-called ‘trials’ that didn’t have any due process whatsoever, or even pretend to dispense justice. When the masters of mob rule start talking about protecting individual rights, run for the hills.
Newt Gingrich just wrote about the horrors of the French Revolution for Fox News. He referred to a book in which the author recounts a story about the French Revolution that tells you everything you need to know about Jacobin socialists: “a woman was charged with the heinous crime of having wept at the execution of her husband. She was condemned to sit several hours under the suspended blade which shed upon her, drop by drop, the blood of the deceased whose corpse was above her on the scaffold before she was released by death from her agony.” This is the intellectual pedigree of the Jacobin authors, whether they want to admit it or not.
The authors don’t want to throw out the entire Constitution like their more revolutionary comrades farther Left, just amend it. Specifically, they recommend a unicameral one-house legislature, and making it easier to amend the Constitution through national referendum. There are good reasons why the Framers didn’t give us either one.
They had the example of the unicameral Pennsylvania legislature which ping-ponged between partisan extremes after each election. This experience and others convinced the Framers that an upper house representing economically successful people was necessary to tame the passions of the bulk of the population who were seen as represented by the lower house. The Framers had the wisdom of the ages on their side on this one. Read the history of political theory from antiquity on down and you will find something called the “mixed constitution” – a government that mixes democracy with meritocracy, that is, the elements of popular representation with some kind of contribution by people who are more versed in governance than the average Jane or Joe. The history of political theory shows that you can’t have political stability without allowing both these elements to participate in government. Leave either element out and you will have nothing but fractiousness and trouble. Our two-house Congress was the Framers’ version of a mixed constitution which succeeded, unlike the French Jacobins, in ensuring political stability.
As for amending the Constitution more easily through national referendums, that would be more problematic than democratic. The Founders deliberately made it hard to amend the Constitution, so people don’t get carried away. But it’s not THAT hard. As I mentioned in a previous webinar [March 19, 2017], it only took one college student 10 years to get the 27th Amendment passed and ratified.
Let me end with three cheers for our Republic and our mixed constitution. It is because of them we have limited government, not the stronger federal government the authors want. No guillotines here.
As for the authors - Off with their heads! Figuratively speaking, of course. Unless I can gather a big enough mob.... Just kidding!
August 19, 2018
Week before last, two socialist authors were granted space in the august New York Times, no less, to push their poison that the U.S. Constitution is an “outdated relic” expressly intended to subvert democracy.
The authors are an editor and writer at Jacobin magazine, a socialist publication which doesn’t mind engaging in the quintessentially capitalistic practice of selling advertising.
The authors make a number of blithe assertions which I will demolish shortly. But, overall, to hear the authors tell it, you’d think the Constitution had unleashed a bloody Reign of Terror. Oh, wait a minute, that was the Jacobins in France in the socialist French Revolution of 1789. Thanks to the authors’ namesakes, France didn’t have a stable government again for 75 years.
The authors assert that the Constitution is “the foundation for a system of government that rules over people,” rather than a means of popular self-government. This shows a complete misunderstanding of the Constitution. The Constitution begins with “We the People” because we have popular sovereignty. We the People rule ourselves; we don’t have a King George ruling over us.
But the authors are right in one respect. The Constitution did not set up a pure democracy, and good thing it didn’t. The Founders were concerned with preventing mob rule and the tyranny of the majority, both of which develop under pure democracy. Even with all our system’s checks and balances, we’ve had instances in this country where one side has gotten too powerful and rammed stuff down our throats, like Obamacare and the New Deal. Do we really want modern-day Jacobins ramming single payer down our throats with real death panels this time - guillotine squads? That’s why the Founders gave us a Republic, as Ben Franklin famously said - to temper the passion of factions with ways for cooler heads to prevail. Warring factions gave England a dictator-for-life, Oliver Cromwell. The Founders knew this history and worked around it accordingly. Property rights, which the socialist authors criticize, actually reinforce self-government, because property gives people freedom and independence, power they wouldn’t have if the government owned everything as in a socialist system. Property rights are best understood as a pillar of popular sovereignty.
The authors say the Constitution prevents redistribution of wealth and the creation of new social guarantees. This is just crazy talk. The authors act as if as if the New Deal, the Great Society and other redistributionist programs never happened, and that we never racked up a $21 trillion national debt as a result.
The authors criticize “the Bill of Rights’s incomplete safeguards of individual freedoms.” There’s something bone-chilling about Jacobin socialists talking about safeguarding individual freedom. They are the self-proclaimed descendants of the French Jacobins who chopped people’s heads off after so-called ‘trials’ that didn’t have any due process whatsoever, or even pretend to dispense justice. When the masters of mob rule start talking about protecting individual rights, run for the hills.
Newt Gingrich just wrote about the horrors of the French Revolution for Fox News. He referred to a book in which the author recounts a story about the French Revolution that tells you everything you need to know about Jacobin socialists: “a woman was charged with the heinous crime of having wept at the execution of her husband. She was condemned to sit several hours under the suspended blade which shed upon her, drop by drop, the blood of the deceased whose corpse was above her on the scaffold before she was released by death from her agony.” This is the intellectual pedigree of the Jacobin authors, whether they want to admit it or not.
The authors don’t want to throw out the entire Constitution like their more revolutionary comrades farther Left, just amend it. Specifically, they recommend a unicameral one-house legislature, and making it easier to amend the Constitution through national referendum. There are good reasons why the Framers didn’t give us either one.
They had the example of the unicameral Pennsylvania legislature which ping-ponged between partisan extremes after each election. This experience and others convinced the Framers that an upper house representing economically successful people was necessary to tame the passions of the bulk of the population who were seen as represented by the lower house. The Framers had the wisdom of the ages on their side on this one. Read the history of political theory from antiquity on down and you will find something called the “mixed constitution” – a government that mixes democracy with meritocracy, that is, the elements of popular representation with some kind of contribution by people who are more versed in governance than the average Jane or Joe. The history of political theory shows that you can’t have political stability without allowing both these elements to participate in government. Leave either element out and you will have nothing but fractiousness and trouble. Our two-house Congress was the Framers’ version of a mixed constitution which succeeded, unlike the French Jacobins, in ensuring political stability.
As for amending the Constitution more easily through national referendums, that would be more problematic than democratic. The Founders deliberately made it hard to amend the Constitution, so people don’t get carried away. But it’s not THAT hard. As I mentioned in a previous webinar [March 19, 2017], it only took one college student 10 years to get the 27th Amendment passed and ratified.
Let me end with three cheers for our Republic and our mixed constitution. It is because of them we have limited government, not the stronger federal government the authors want. No guillotines here.
As for the authors - Off with their heads! Figuratively speaking, of course. Unless I can gather a big enough mob.... Just kidding!