By Paul Eidleberg
Going back to the original, the Boston Tea Party was the culmination of a resistance movement throughout British America against the Tea Act, which had been passed by the British Parliament in 1773. Colonists objected to the Tea Act for a variety of reasons, especially because they believed that it violated their right to be taxed only by their own elected representatives. The Boston Tea Party was a key event in the development of the American Revolution began near Boston in 1775.
Recall its famous slogan, “No taxation without representation.” This slogan is quite applicable to the people of Israel. The highly taxed citizens of this so-called democracy have had no real representation ever since the founding of the State 62 years ago. As I have often explained, Israel’s government makes the entire county a single electoral district. This compels citizens to vote for fixed party lists—really party oligarchs—and not for individual candidates. As a consequence, members of the Knesset are not individually accountable to the voters in regional elections. I am referring to geographical districts the size of which would make the voters more familiar with the character and abilities of the elected, while making the elected more familiar with the needs, opinions, and interests of their electors.
That the Tea Party is opposed to territorial retreat and the creation of an Arab Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria is of course commendable. But it hasn’t the foggiest notion of how to accomplish this objective, which a complete overhaul of the SYSTEM of government that has brought Israel to its present existential crisis. From the Tea Party we will get more of the old propaganda, more of the old like newspaper ads, more of the old demonstrations, to which add one or two futile conferences at some hotel in Jerusalem. Typically absent is a program of structural reform to preclude the path of treason on which the present government is treading.
If the Tea Party was serious, it would arouse the people by telling them the truth that Israel is not a genuine democracy. Israel is living a lie that only serves the interests of its ruling elites. While the Knesset may not be as far away as London, its members might as well be on the moon. It’s a demonstrable fact that Israel’s political parties—religious as well as non-religious—repeatedly betray the trust their voters. A few examples must suffice.
Against its pledge to the nation during the 1992 election campaign, the Labor Party engaged in negotiations with PLO in contravention of Israeli law. In that same election, the religious Shas Party, which had pledged it would not join a Labor-Meretz government, did so for government perks and positions. These betrayals of the voters precipitated the Oslo Agreement of 1993 and the subsequent murder and maiming of thousands of Jews.
In 1999, no less than 29 MKs betrayed their voters in the democratic state of Israel by hopping over to rival parties. But the prize for political betrayal in the only democracy in the Middle East belongs to the Likud Party, known by some fools as “the trunk of the nation.” In 2003, the Likud adopted the Labor Party’s policy of “unilateral disengagement” from Gaza, a policy the Likud had campaigned against, indeed, a policy rejected by at least 70 percent of the voters.
Returning to the Tea Party, one of its two organizers, whose name I deign to ignore, not only opposed direct personal election of Knesset members in regional elections—the practice of almost every democracy—but he also opposed raising the electoral threshold from 1.5 to 2 percents, a threshold that makes it impossible to form a majority government. Instead we have Israel’s divisive, irresolute, and corrupt system of multiparty cabinet government—a form of government that has enabled the United States to interfere more readily in the making of Israel’s foreign policies.
Yet the leaders of the Tea Party are called “nationalists”! They seem more concerned about making it easier for party hacks to enter the Knesset and stay there.
If Israel’s Tea Party was a genuine nationalist movement, it would want to make the PEOPLE sovereign, and for starters, this can only be done by making MKs individually accountable to the voters in multidistrict elections.
Other serious reforms are required to empower the people of Israel, which I have discussed innumerable times in articles, books, and in radio interviews. So I can’t get excited about the Tea Party. It needs a leadership that has not been compromised by being part of the SYSTEM. It lacks a well-thought out program of political reform. We need something stronger than tea to save Israel from what is nothing less than a terminal disease.
States’ Rights and Nullification?
By Andy Myers
Are you kidding me. Of course I’m for it. Why? Well for one thing it was paramount in establishing limited government so that we could enjoy what so eloquently was stated in the Declaration of Independence:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”
This of course was just a pretext leading up to even more limitations upon the government as the Constitution outlines in Article I Section 8.
So why then with the supreme law of limited government so expressly written by the founders could so many have such difficulty in understanding limited and government? Granted those two words define irony.
Fortunately though these statesmen came up with these amazing amendments to the Constitution called the Bill of Rights. Now these aren’t your rights. These are restrictions and limitations put upon the government so that you could enjoy the unalienable rights mentioned above. But wait. It gets even better. To make sure, as if it wasn’t clear enough that government was to be limited to the extent that the states and the people were to be sovereign, they included the ninth and tenth amendments which in a nutshell says, Article I Sect. 8 is ALL the powers you are granted and that if it isn’t in that clause..to bad Jack–the power is retained in the States and or the people. You really only need a grade school education and a little common sense to vindicate this side of the rule of law.
But the declaration above cannot survive the atmosphere of big government that we have today.
In his commentary published on Friday in Xenia Daily Gazette’s Opinion section, Steven Conn was correct when he said, “Lincoln was really the first ‘big government’ president.” And he was correct in pointing out the irony of the tea party folks holding a rally in front of a memorial of a president who shredded the “rule of law” which is what the tea party folks are supposedly championing-limited government, states rights, individual liberty, free markets and a limited foreign policy based on our charter documents.
I guess in today’s mental climate the above stated declaration and the rule of law is just some “blank piece of paper” according to a recent executive and too many others. All three branches have been treasonous and both major parties are guilty of crimes against the very documents they swore to uphold.
But, Mr. Conn is wrong in that “states rights” aren’t an avenue worth exploring. The Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions of 1798-99 proved the threat of nullifying or interposing unconstitutional laws gave the states-and the people the last say-so. Thomas Jefferson put it plain and simple when he said,
“When all government, domestic and foreign, in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the center of all power, it will render powerless the checks of one government upon the other, and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from what we separated.”
Folks, what makes America unique is are uniqueness. We are not a one-size fits all people. Human nature will never allow it and until we accept the fact that what may be good for you might not be good for me, government is going to continue to enslave us. States’ Rights and Nullification is a tool that brings power back to the people. It has worked in several states issues such as Real ID, Firearms Freedom Acts, Medical Marijuana Acts just to name three. You as an individual wouldn’t come onto my property and threaten me with force to live and do as you see fit. So why then would you appoint a group of people-government to do what you cannot or would not do as an individual? That is tyranny. Which even a fifth grader understands is the opposite of liberty
Andy Myers is a resident of Jamestown and is a policy analyst for The Ohio Freedom Alliance.
Leave a comment
Posted in politics
Tagged 10th Amendment, 9th Amendement, Abraham Lincoln, Bill of Rights, commentary, Declaration of Independence, Tea Party, U.S. Constitution