2010 June 23 « Maricopa County Republican Committee

Jun 232010

MCRC Briefs 6/23/10

MARICOPA COUNTY

REPUBLICAN BRIEFS

RepComm@cox.net

www.maricopagop.org

June 23, 2010

ATTN: GOP GROUP CHAIRMAN, CANDIDATES AND CAMPAIGN WORKERS –This is just a gentle reminder that FRIDAY NOON is the deadline the MCRC Calendar of events. Some of you are submitting announcements less than 24 hours before events or after deadline. Please submit your information by Friday noon. Thank you for your cooperation. Frosty Taylor – MCRC Communications RepComm@cox.net

USED POLITICAL BOOKS ARE AVAILABLE FOR ONLY $2 AT THE MARICOPA COUNTY REPUBLICAN OFFICE, 10050 W. Bell Road (99^th Avenue and Bell Rd). This is a fundraiser to help defray office operating expenses. If you have any politically related books to contribute, please bring them into the office. Phone: 623-977-4532

GOP Hdqtrs need volunteers at 9 a.m., Thurs, June 24 to move tables in preparation for a meeting tomorrow. – 3501 N. 24^th St., Phx. Contact: Carolyn Leff cleff@azgop.org or 602-957-7770.

Mexican Gangs Maintain Permanent Lookout Bases in Hills of Arizona http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/06/22/mexican-gangs-permanent-lookouts-parkland/

Jun 232010

“A Republic, if You Can Keep It”

Written by John F. McManus

Monday, 06 November 2000

The deliberations of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 were held in strict secrecy. Consequently, anxious citizens gathered outside Independence Hall when the proceedings ended in order to learn what had been produced behind closed doors. The answer was provided immediately. A Mrs. Powel of Philadelphia asked Benjamin Franklin, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” With no hesitation whatsoever, Franklin responded, “A republic, if you can keep it.”

This exchange was recorded by Constitution signer James McHenry in a diary entry that was later reproduced in the 1906 American Historical Review. Yet in more recent years, Franklin has occassionally been misquoted as having said, “A democracy, if you can keep it.” The NRA’s Charleton Heston quoted Franklin this way, for example, in a CBS 60 Minutes interview with Mike Wallace that was aired on December 20, 1998.

This misquote is a serious one, since the difference between a democracy and a republic is not merely a question of semantics but is fundamental. The word “republic” comes from the Latin res publica — which means simply “the public thing(s),” or more simply “the law(s).” “Democracy,” on the other hand, is derived from the Greek words demos and kratein, which translates to “the people to rule.” Democracy, therefore, has always been synonymous with majority rule.

The Founding Fathers supported the view that (in the words of the Declaration of Independence) “Men … are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.” They recognized that such rights should not be violated by an unrestrained majority any more than they should be violated by an unrestrained king or monarch. In fact, they recognized that majority rule would quickly degenerate into mobocracy and then into tyranny. They had studied the history of both the Greek democracies and the Roman republic. They had a clear understanding of the relative freedom and stability that had characterized the latter, and of the strife and turmoil — quickly followed by despotism — that had characterized the former. In drafting the Constitution, they created a government of law and not of men, a republic and not a democracy.

But don’t take our word for it! Consider the words of the Founding Fathers themselves, who — one after another — condemned democracy.

• Virginia’s Edmund Randolph participated in the 1787 convention. Demonstrating a clear grasp of democracy’s inherent dangers, he reminded his colleagues during the early weeks of the Constitutional Convention that the purpose for which they had gathered was “to provide a cure for the evils under which the United States labored; that in tracing these evils to their origin every man had found it in the turbulence and trials of democracy….”

Read the rest.

Jun 232010

Students Sue Over Removal of American Flag T-shirts

Four California high school students are fighting for their right to show their patriotism any day of the year, after they were forced to remove their American flag T-shirts on Cinco de Mayo.

While other students at the school wore clothing depicting the colors of the Mexican flag and other attire related to the holiday, the four students and one other were told by a school administrator that they could wear the shirts any other day but May 5, which celebrates the Mexican army’s victory over French forces at the Battle of Puebla.

They filed a lawsuit Wednesday against the Morgan Hill Unified School District.

Read the rest.

Jun 232010

Los Angeles City Council Makes Exemption to Arizona Boycott for Lucrative Traffic Camera Contract

Los Angeles council members voted Wednesday to make an exemption to its self-imposed boycott of Arizona, opting to extend a contract with an Arizona-based company that operates enforcement cameras at Los Angeles intersections — a program that earned the city $6 million last year.

Los Angeles has led the boycott against Arizona over its controversial immigration law, banning most city travel to the state as well as future contracts with Arizona companies. The city council has argued that the law, which allows local law enforcement to check the immigration status of any suspected illegal, is unconstitutional and could lead to racial profiling.

But council members on Wednesday made an exception to their boycott, voting to extend a lucrative contract with red-light camera operator American Traffic Solutions, based in Scottsdale.

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Jun 232010

Today 1780 – American Revolution: Battle of Springfield fought in and around Springfield, New Jersey (including Short Hills, formerly of Springfield, now of Millburn Township.

The Battle of Springfield was fought during the American Revolutionary War on June 23, 1780. After the Battle of Connecticut Farms, on June 7, 1780, had foiled Lieutenant General Wilhelm, Baron von Knyphausen’s expedition to attack General George Washington’s army at Morristown, New Jersey, Knyphausen and Lieutenant General Sir Henry Clinton, British commander-in-chief in North America, decided upon a second attempt.

This was one of the last major engagements of the Revolutionary War in the north and effectively put an end to British ambitions in New Jersey. Because the decisive battles of the war moved further south, Springfiield became known as the “forgotten victory.” Washington praised the role of the New Jersey Militia in the battle, writing, “They flew to arms universally and acted with a spirit equal to anything I have seen in the course of the war”.