Missouri Lt. Governor Peter Kinder addresses the general meeting of the Pachyderm Club of Gasconade County, MO on 01/06/2011.
Lt. Governor Peter Kinder (R) Missouri, began his presentation by speaking about the sweeping Republican victories both in Missouri and throughout the country and how these victories are directly related to the numerous Constitutional issues that have come out of Washington DC over the past 2 years.
Lt. Gov. Kinder spoke about the US Constitution’s 10th Amendment which explicitly states the Constitution's principle of federalism by providing that powers not granted to the federal government nor prohibited to the states by the Constitution of the United States are reserved to the states or the people.
Lt. Gov. Kinder reminds the audience that “it was the States that created the Federal Government and not the other way around.” Lt. Gov. Kinder then and spoke of his debate, both of which took place in the same day, at Columbia University Law School and Yale University Law School with a debate topic of the Federal Health ‘Control’ Law (as Kinder refers to the Federal Health Care Law).
In each debate Kinder stood up for the “rights of the States and the rights of individuals and the rights in which 71% of Missourians in all 114 counties stood up for and voted for the Health Care ‘Freedom of Choice’ Act”.
Lt. Gov. Kinder goes on to say, “We here in Missouri were the first in the nation to get a chance to render our judgement on what they in Washington have been doing to us over the previous 15-18 months. And there have been many defining moments within that period. I see Senator McCaskill today has been trying to change her spots and get back towards the mainstream”.
Lt. Gov. Kinder went on to remind the audience of the Health Care Bill town hall meetings in August of ‘09 where Senator Claire McCaskill met with her constituents. “McCaskill’s constituents, who had read the Health Care Bill, and brought with them the Constitution, sited pages and sections of the HC Bill and demanded to know where in the Constitution is this HC Bill Constitutional . Lt. Gov. Kinder went on to remark on McCaskill’s reply to those in attendance at the town hall meeting: ‘what’s wrong, don’t you trust us?’
Lt. Gov. Kinder points out that , “The person who would ask that question has disqualified herself to be a United States Senator, because the answer was supplied not by anyone in that room that day, nor was it supplied by me, it was supplied by the founders. The Framers of the Constitution, James Madison, Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, and the rest, as Jefferson put it drawing on biblical wisdom out of the book of proverbs, ‘trust no man’, says the proverbs, ‘we will bind you down with the chains of the constitution’”.
Lt. Gov. Kinder goes on to say, “that is what they have gotten away from in Washington, DC under Nancy Pelosi. When she was ask about the Constitutional issues concerning the Health ‘Control’ Law, she laughed at the question, couldn’t believe it was serious, she showed her contempt for the question”.
Lt. Gov. Kinder describes what he told the audience during the debate at Columbia and Yale, “there is a great story that is illustrative of every point I’m trying to make here, from the revolutionary period when we were subjects of the British King in the American Colonies. In 1774, two years before the Declaration of Independence, we had the Stamp Act and in response the Colonists instituted a boycott of British Goods saying we are not going to buy British Goods. The legal advisor to the King advised the King and Parliament that the American Colonists were ‘within their rights’ to institute their boycott. Keep in mind; this came two years before our Declaration of Independence. That makes what I’m telling you an ‘original principle’ of the American founding.”
Lt. Gov. Kinder goes on with this revealing statement: “Before the founding we had the ‘right to boycott’ British Goods, that is to say, we can say to a King I’m not going to buy something that you want me to buy, be it Tea or anything else.”
“And so, fast forward to today, we have Congress lead by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid and the President who have asserted powers over us to deny us rights that the King of England did not have the power to do when we were his subjects”.
“I said to that audience at Yale and my worthy opponent the distinguish Professor of Jurisprudence of the First Amendment , I guess you would have to go back to the Pharaohs of Egypt and the absolute Emperors and Sultans of the Middle East to find an absolute Monarch who could claim this kind of power that Nancy Pelosi, the President, Harry Reid and Claire McCaskill say they have.”
Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder has filed suit against the Obama Health ‘Control’ Law and in his words, “In the law suit that I filed in the Rush H. Limbaugh Sr. Courthouse in Cape Girardeau, MO on behalf of all Missouri, but not suing as the State of Missouri, but as an individual citizen of Missouri and in my official capacity as Lt. Governor and joined by 5 other individual citizens in Missouri who each in their different way they say to the Federal Government ‘no you may not do this, your infringing on our rights, you’re going to ruin our health care, you’re going to lessen health care and lessen health care for special needs at-risk children, like the autistic boy who is one of my plaintiffs with his mother suing on his behalf, and the more elderly folks who are on Medicare Advantage and want to keep their Medicare Advantage and this will knock them off that and put them on Medicaid’.”
Lt. Gov. Kinder informs everyone, “My lawsuit is funded by generous private donors that will allow for this suit to go all the way to the United States Supreme Court and overturn this by Constitutionality.”
This law suit is Kinder v Geithner, Kinder v Holder, Kinder v Sebelius, and Kinder v Geithner et al.
“Who could have ever thought we would see this kind of radical transformation of our country that we have seen in the last 24 months”, Lt. Gov. Kinder says. “Who would have ever thought any Congress could pile up $5.7 Trillion debt since Pelosi has been Speaker of the House. If we had something to show for it that might be one thing. We do not. We have close to 10% unemployment. Yet, it’s been good for government jobs”.
“If they had taken the money and put in on payroll tax cuts for the employer and employees we would have a robust recovery going instead of the anemic one we have now. The American people understand that. These people in Washington DC do not”.
Lt. Gov. Kinder spoke of his trip to the White House two years ago, where he met the economic advisor to the Vice President , Jerrod Bernstein, who was also the Chairman of Middle Class Families. “I asked him how his Cap and Trade plan and doubling the cost of energy would help the people of Missouri? He had no real response except to say we need to do it.”
Lt. Gov. Kinder describes his personal belief of the current order within Washington as, “I’m a short term pessimist about what they are going to do to the country, but I’m a long term optimist when I see the reaction of Missourians at Claire McCaskill’s town hall meeting just a few months later”.
Lt. Gov. Kinder believes in welcoming and embracing our brothers and sisters in the Tea Party movement into the Republican cause because they want to limit government under a constitutional republic. He believes their natural home is the Republican Party.
“At the national level some of our people have disappointed them over the last 4 years”. Lt. Gov. Kinder states, “We have been given one more chance and our country has been given one more chance to stop the generational theft that has been going on, with the piling up of debt on our young people and Grandchildren and Great Grandchildren not yet born”.
Further the Lt. Gov. states: “I am so heartened to see Congress beginning, as they did yesterday, with the speech by our new Speaker, John Boehner, that was marked by his remarkable humility. This is a humble man, who is serious about doing the people’s business. He said,’ it’s not about us here, it’s about The American people back home’”.
“And, today, they read the Constitution, and it infuriated the Democrats! The idea, it’s an affront to them (the Democrats). They view the Constitution as their Document, infinitely elastic, capable of finding new rights that never existed, like the right to kill unborn babies on a whim, rights that never resided there (in the Constitution) for many decades and centuries since our country’s existence, but which they have found since the last 3-4 decades”.
Lt. Gov. Kinder emphasizes; “this is not going to be the work of one year, and it is not going to be the work of one election cycle. I think our friends in the Tea Party are helping us realize that this was not just about the 2010 elections. If this precious thing we call ‘American Liberty’ means anything to us, it means that we have to stay in the fight, it means that some of us have to be willing to make the kind of sacrifices that we saw candidates make, like Dave Schatz (MO Rep 111 Dist.) and Dr. Dan Brown (MO Senate) make this year. They could both be home enjoying their families, enjoying leisurely life, Grandchildren, extended families, and other community activities of which we all like”.
“But they were willing to put it all on the line, like our American Colonists were, back in 1774 when they instituted the boycott against British Goods, like the Minutemen were in Lexington and Concord with shots heard around the world, like Washington’s Army at Valley Forge with that awful winter and the Christmas night when they attacked the British regiment at Trent, when he cross the Delaware”.
“They put it all on the line! A lot is being asked of us, but nothing as compared to what was asked of those men who walked in the snows, without shoes and you could see the trail of blood that exemplifies their sacrifice”.
Referring to the Republican’s current victory and political position, Kinder states, “This is a battle that is worth waging, it is worth waging for another election cycle through 2012, to consolidate and build on the gains just achieved this time. To return our nation to its Constitutional moorings and to do so right here in the Great State of Missouri that showed the country the way with our vote in August with the Health Care Freedom of Choice Act”.
Lt. Gov. Kinder believes if we do not step up and fight Washington DC and vindicate our Constitution principles and stop this Health ‘Control ‘Law, there will be no limiting principle left in the federal government that a misguided majority can do to Americans. The federal government could pass a law that states you must by a certain car brand and that brand only. Lt. Gov. Kinder suggests federal government could then fine Americans for not buying and eating asparagus or broccoli.
Lt. Gov. Kinder asks, “Where is the ‘limiting principle’ if they can fine you for not buying health insurance on some crack pot theory of what might happen 20 or 30 years from now if you don’t?”
“Apparently, there is no limit to their theory. So our cause is about getting us get back to those Constitutional moorings, getting us back to the principles in the Constitution that were explained in the Federalist Papers by Madison, Hamilton and further explained elsewhere by Thomas Jefferson and the other founders”.
Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder states that all he has said tonight is his personal motivation for being a leader in the fight against the Health ‘Control’ law and will continue to speak before audiences like the Pachyderm Club for at least the next 2 years, throughout the State of Missouri.
