Taking a Fist to a Gun Right? Another Sheriff the President Can’t Beat

January 30, 2013 in Ed Willing, Restoring Country, Uncategorized

By Ed Willing In light of the recent buzz surrounding Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke’s radio PSA on gun safety and crime-prevention, other local sheriffs have been brought into the mainstream with their own opinions. While a few law enforcement officers are vociferously opposed to the PSA and have thrown partisan attack jabs at the Milwaukee Sheriff, most have been supportive. One such local Sheriff is three-time elected Daniel Trawicki, from neigborhing County, Waukesha. On January 29th, he wrote an op-ed that was featured in the print edition of the Waukesha Freeman, a daily County newspaper. They feature the columns of many prominent, local leaders in the Conservative community. Below is one of the most reasonable and difficult-to-rebut cases for protecting the right to bear arms in a way that is normal, and wise. Not partisan, radical or dangerous. He joins Sheriff Clarke in trusting the people to be partners [...]

The Presumption of Government is Empowered by Ignorance

January 25, 2013 in Ed Willing, Education Policy, Restoring Country, Restoring Family, Tenth Amendment, Uncategorized

By Ed Willing   In today’s social media-endowed news machine, new Executive Orders or legislative drafts come out into the open and set off a flurry of viral screaming and bloodletting, without much vetting. True, the current administration has a clear disregard for the Constitutional traditions we’ve held for so long, but it’s hard to blame them outside of simply being wrong – they aren’t the first in our nation’s history to attempt or succeed at doing this. From John Adams, to Franklin Roosevelt, there were countless moves to subvert the Constitution as it were for various “emergencies” but were more often stopped, or limited because of that hallowed document that God himself seemed to ordain for passage. Imagine any such document being passed now, even in a very Conservative state on a local scale. Surely, the event of the Constitution’s ratification is perhaps as historically significant as the contents [...]

It’s Not About Hunting

December 19, 2012 in Ed Willing, Restoring Country

“I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory, and might I add, nor the bullet for its swift precision. I love only that which they defend.” – J.R.R. Tolkien The gun-control debate is once again on the front burner, as always, following a tragic media-gasm. Diane Feinstein is back to calling for bans of guns that aren’t even linked to the tragedies, Harry Reid is discussing debate on the Senate floor and NYC Mayor Michael “Big Gulp” Bloomberg is demanding the President take action without waiting for Congress. Meanwhile, at least one Congresswoman just flat out said “turn in your guns…” At least she had the spine to say such a witless thing. We want to protect the kids, no matter what. Left, Right, Democrat or Libertarian, everyone is appalled by the violence and wants to [...]

Pursue Conservative Health Care Reform: Fighting Predatory Federalism

November 16, 2012 in Ed Willing, Federal Taxation, Health Care, Restoring Country, Restoring Family

By Ed Willing Since the Supreme Court’s infamous 4-1-4 ruling on the Affordable Care Act in June, nearly two dozen states have grappled with whether or not to comply with the first of many forthcoming deadlines found in the rules written (and still being written) by the functionally unconstitutional entity known as the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). November 16th is the deadline, and a flurry of letters are finding their way to Kathleen Sebelius’ desk this afternoon telling her they will not comply with the requirement to set up an exchange. The great debate has been over the enticement written into the law: Either states create the exchanges, and the Feds will not only pay for the administrative costs but also the cost increases of expanding Medicare and Medicaid, or… The Federal government will set one up for them and not give states the authority to direct [...]

Federalism Isn’t Dead, and it’s Progressives Who Are Defending it

November 11, 2012 in Ed Willing, Restoring Country, Restoring Family, Restoring God

By Ed Willing Constitutionalists were far from confident that either result of the recent Presidential election would help restore the Founders’ intentions, but many were hoping that an Obama loss would at least slow the extinction. Especially in regard to Obamacare, Conservatives have put a lot of weight on winning federal elections to save what is left of our waning Republic. After a frustrating, suspect and humiliating loss, few noticed the victories for Federalism made across the country – by Progressives. While Obamacare looks to be intact, and in light of the Supreme Court ruling in June, the battles of Tuesday seemed to be the primary battlefield for Conservative reform. But consider something else, for a moment. The states of Colorado and Washington each approved the recreational use of marijuana, as a product to be regulated and taxed. This is in direct opposition to Federal statute (the Controlled Substances Act) [...]

Why Does the Left Want to Kill Public Education?

September 15, 2012 in Ed Willing

By Ed Willing ANSWERING A FALSE QUESTION Recently a community voice from Shorewood, WI asked why the political right seems so intent on ending public education? This article is a response to his own. Wisconsin is the epicenter of public sector reforms and the heaven (or hell, depending what you believe) of public education reforms. He used a misguided historical revue to support his premise. That premise: that public education (presumably as we have it now, or under his vision or reform) is what those Puritans desired. Otherwise, why would he make such a blatant endorsement of the first colonists for public education? “Public education was a major goal for the early colonists.” Clearly, he’s trying to use the Puritan arrival as a wedge to make a broader point that Conservatives are somehow contradictory in their policies and rhetoric. He is correct. The first public school was in the home of a pastor, [...]

Direct Corruption: The Seventeeth Amendment

July 5, 2012 in Ed Willing, Uncategorized

By Ed Willing No doubt, the last several years in America have been challenging to everyone, on all sides. It has both challenged those on the left as they see so many millions question their policies and principles, and has infuriated said millions on the right because they cannot believe how quickly America has turned away from its founding principles. Both sides agree there’s problems in education, costs of health care and national security – they differ widely in how to address them. Interestingly, their differences are not usually as wide as they think. In policy, yes; in principle, no. Experiments in government benevolence are nothing new, and neither are the poor and needy. Jesus of Nazareth said, “you will always have the poor among you,” and Apostle Paul said “your plenty will supply what they need.” So we as Americans, an overwhelmingly religious people have invented many ways to [...]

Wisconsin’s Revolt on Democracy

June 5, 2012 in Ed Willing, Uncategorized

By Ed Willing   DEMOCRACY: FREEDOM, OR COLLECTIVE SUICIDE? Almost 198 years ago to the month, April 1814, in a letter to John Taylor, the second President of the United States, John Adams made an astute observation amidst calls for more democratic reform: “Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There was never a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” Our nation was merely 25 yrs old at this point, and yet he was terrified of lessons history taught him about the so-called virtues of mass democracy. He worked his entire political life arguing for the true virtue of a Democratic Republic; a system in which the people created their government, but the minority and majority were both protected from the feverish winds of hysterical whim and epidemic-like, collective voices.” GROUND-ZERO Today, I sit in Wisconsin, a marvel of a state that has had [...]

The Founders’ Intent for the First Amendment

June 2, 2012 in Dan Hubert, Esq, Restoring God, Separation of Church and Culture, Uncategorized

By Daniel Hubert PART 1: THE HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” – The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution Four distinct liberties appear in the first amendment, protected by the strongest language one could devise. At first glance, it is simply several separate liberties.  But they are, in fact, one singular liberty with four inter-dependent parts.  Likely, a half-drunken clerk, pulling an all-nighter, penned the last draft of the First Amendment.  The author scribbled them down hastily, probably at a tavern, and certainly as his whiskey and candlelight dwindled. To suggest the clerk’s intoxication is by no means a slight on the clerk.  It just demonstrates that a drunken [...]

Immigration, and the “Boomerang” of State’s Rights

March 21, 2012 in Contributors, Dr. Yomi Faparusi, Sr. Esq, Education Policy, Immigration Policy, Restoring Country, Restoring Family, Tenth Amendment

By Yomi Faparusi Sr., Esq., MD, PhD One of the most significant issues of our day, and a virtual fourth rail in politics is immigration reform. Immigration is regulated under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) created in 1952 by the McCarran-Walter bill, Public Law No. 82-414.[1] Hence, it suffices to say that immigration is a federal issue and as such it would appear that States have no authority – or, colloquially speaking – no business legislating in this domain. IMMIGRATION IS REGULATED BY FEDERAL LAW, BUT… The question arises: is the preceding statement wholly factual, especially when the Federal Government has chosen to take a lackadaisical posture in enforcing the immigration laws in the books? If that indeed was the case, that the states had no enforceable interest, you would not be reading an article on the tenth Amendment and immigration here. We DO have a problem. It is not [...]