Is America Being Destroyed from Within?: A Trial Lawyer’S Reflections on a Patriarch’S Emphatic Warning

Copyright © 2015 by Gary Martin Meyers, J.D., B.S.E..

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 06/29/2015

Xlibris

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

718117

CONTENTS

Introduction

Part I

Is America Being Destroyed From Within, By Undermining The Rule Of Law?

Chapter 1 Is The Rule Of Law Being Undermined In America, By Sowing The Seeds Of Racial Conflict?

Chapter 2 Is The Rule Of Law Being Undermined In America, By The Violation Of Our Constitutional Guarantees?

Chapter 3 Is The Rule Of Law Being Undermined In America, By Its Selective Enforcement?

Part II

Is America Being Destroyed From Within, In The Name Of Economic Justice?

Chapter 4 Is America Being Destroyed From Within By Crediting Government With The Accomplishments Of The Free Enterprise System, And Denying Responsibility For The Adverse Effects Of Government Interference?

Chapter 5 Is America Being Destroyed From Within, By Reckless Government Spending, And Relentless Attacks Upon Our Free Enterprise System?

Chapter 6 Is America Being Destroyed From Within, By Destroying The Rights Of Americans To Pursue Healthcare Without Government Interference, In The Name Of Social Justice?

Part III

Is America Being Destroyed From Within, In The Name Of Environmental Protection?

Chapter 7 Is America Being Destroyed From Within, By The Demise Of Critical Thinking In The Name Of Environmentalism?

Chapter 8 Is America Being Destroyed From Within, Through The Demise Of Critical Thinking In The Name Of Climate Change And Global Warming?

Chapter 9 Is America Being Destroyed From Within, Through The Demise Of Critical Thinking In Response To The Exaggerated Risks Of Energy Infrastructure And Energy Technology?

Part IV

Is America Being Destroyed From Within, By The Undermining Of Our Military Strength, Our National Security, And America’s Position Of Leadership In The Free World?

Chapter 10 Is America Being Destroyed From Within, Through Indecisiveness And Appeasement In The War Against Radical Islamic Terrorism?

Chapter 11 Is America Being Destroyed From Within, By Undermining The Morale Of Our Military Forces?

Part V

Do Americans Have The Power To Stop The Destruction Of America From Within?

Chapter 12 What Americans Have Done, And Can Continue To Do, To Insure That America Is Not Destroyed From Within.

Chapter 13 What Congress Must Do To Insure That America Is Not Destroyed From Within.

Chapter 14 What Young Americans Can Do To Insure That America Is Not Destroyed From Within.

Chapter 15 What Liberals Can Do To Insure That America Is Not Destroyed From Within.

Chapter 16 What Conservatives Can Do To Insure That America Is Not Destroyed From Within

Chapter 17 Concluding Comments

Appendices

Acknowledgments

To my wife, Patricia, for her ongoing love and inspiration, and for her vigilance as an ally in the struggle against the destruction of America from within.

INTRODUCTION

Since the time Barack Obama was sworn in as President of the United States, and his so-called liberal political allies were handed our nation’s reins of power, America’s national debt has grown by more than 70%, to its current level of more than $18 trillion [1]. At the same time, America’s labor participation rate has consistently fallen, and the percentage of Americans gainfully employed is now lower than it was when Barack Obama took office [2]; almost all of the new jobs that have been created since he took office have gone to illegal immigrants, rather than to the law-abiding citizens of our country [3]; more Americans are dependent upon government assistance programs, including welfare and food stamps, than at any previous time in our nation’s history [4]; our borders are less secure than they have ever been, with the number of illegal immigrants entering our country rising dramatically, to unprecedented levels [5]; on the heels of the influx of more than 50,000 illegal immigrant children from a variety of South American countries, whose medical and vaccination histories are largely if not completely unknown, American children have been victimized by the outbreak of infectious diseases at unprecedented levels [6]; racial conflict has resulted in rioting and looting worse than anything seen in America in almost fifty years [7]; and Americans have found themselves the targets of horrific lone wolf attacks on our own soil that have included hatchetings, beheadings, and shooting massacres by radical Islamic terrorists. [8]

What has taken place outside of America is no better. Almost all experts agree that America’s position of leadership in the free world has been seriously compromised. Alliances established over more than a half-century have been frayed and shaken [9]; the gains made in the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, fought under the Bush administration at a cost of thousands of young American lives, have been almost completely reversed [10]; the entire Middle East is in a state of disarray, and the proliferation of radical Islamic terrorism throughout the entire world has grown exponentially. [11].

Political pundits, conservative talk show hosts, politicians, and established conservative authors have provided valuable analysis and commentary on these extraordinary developments, and their damage to America. But the one voice that has not yet been directly heard from, is the voice of ordinary Americans – Americans who, like myself, have had little or no direct involvement in political affairs for most of their lives, but who have come to recognize that what we are witnessing in America now is something far too significant to ignore. Many of these ordinary Americans have begun to question whether, if the forces that have produced these extraordinary developments are not stopped, they might result in our country being brought beyond the point of no return.

Aside from the fact that I am one of them myself, there is something else that qualifies me to speak on behalf of other ordinary Americans as well. It is the fact that, as a trial attorney, I have spent over forty years representing Americans from all walks of life, in trial and appellate courts throughout our nation, in both state and federal courts. That experience has provided me with the ability to organize evidence, and pose questions in a way that trial attorneys are accustomed to doing in courts of law on a routine basis. In IS AMERICA BEING DESTROYED FROM WITHIN? I have completed that task by examining each of the major areas at the foundation of our nation’s greatness. I have done so with the hope that, by presenting the evidence of the true extent of the dangers America is now facing, those dangers can be decisively defeated before it is too late, in the one Court that can stop them: the Court of Public Opinion.

The concerns of many ordinary Americans throughout our country at the present time are reminiscent of a warning that was given to all of us by Abraham Lincoln, one of our nation’s most beloved patriarchs, in a speech he delivered almost two hundred years ago, in January of 1838. In that famous speech President Lincoln warned that, if America is ever destroyed, the forces responsible for her destruction would come not from beyond our borders. Instead, he warned, they would come from within:

Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant to step the ocean and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest, with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not by force take a drink from the Ohio or make a track on the Blue Ridge in a trial of a thousand years. At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer. If it ever reach us it must spring up amongst us; it cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time or die by suicide. [12].

Lincoln did not elaborate on the manner in which the danger he warned of might spring up among us. His only clues were that we would be its author and finisher, and that if the danger ended in our destruction, it would be by suicide.

For perhaps the first time in our nation’s history, other than in the midst of the Civil War itself, Americans from all walks of life have begun to recognize the prophetic nature of Abraham Lincoln’s words in that well-known speech. They have begun to recognize that we are living in a time when America may very well be in danger of being destroyed – not by enemies from abroad, but by those springing up amongst us, from within our own borders. Although they may not have been able to articulate the precise nature of the danger they are facing, Americans from every corner of our society have begun to sense that the very foundation of America’s greatness is now under attack. Many find themselves the helpless observers of this process, relegated to the role of watching the values, ideals, and legal guarantees that Americans have treasured since the time of our nation’s birth, being disassembled piece by piece. They have begun to recognize that this ongoing process is being imposed upon us not from the outside, by the use of open force and violence, but in far more subtle and deceptive ways, from within.

One reason Americans are unable to articulate the precise nature of the danger they sense is springing up amongst us, as Lincoln described it, is because it is a new form of danger, never before faced in America, and possibly never before faced in any other nation of the free world. Until now, the dangers we have faced have always been easy to identify, and easy to understand. Whether it was the Naziism we rallied against in World War II, or the communism of the Cold War and the former Soviet Union, the danger we were confronting was one that all Americans could identify, and name. But the dangers we face today are far more insidious. They are capable of not only blending themselves into the ostensibly normal workings of our society, but also capable of alternatively contending that they support, or even revere the virtues of American freedom and justice, while simultaneously working to defeat the very processes established in our Constitution to give meaning to those values. They also disguise themselves as religious beliefs, at the same time that their only religion is to destroy the rights, and the very lives, of all those who disagree with their religious teachings.

What Americans have come to recognize more and more is that the segments of our society who define themselves as liberals, and/or progressives, and those radical groups their misguided initiatives most frequently give cover to, are the embodiment of the dangers that have been springing up amongst us. What has also become more and more apparent is the fact that Barack Obama, our nation’s 44th President, embodies the ideologies of these liberals more than any other single figure, and his words and actions exemplify their modus operandi.

Not surprisingly, as discussed throughout this book, and seen from his carefully rehearsed statements to the press, Barack Obama vacillates between emphasizing the constitutional limits on his role as President of the United States and our nation’s chief executive officer, and making every possible effort to violate those limits to advance his own political agenda, and that of his political allies, whenever he is convinced he can get away with doing so. What Barack Obama and his liberal political allies conveniently neglect, however, and implicitly reject, is the idea at the very foundation of our nation’s greatness, and also at the foundation of virtually all of the liberties we all enjoy: the perhaps old-fashioned, but still critically important notion that we are, first and foremost, a nation of laws, and not of men. In a nation of laws, we all must sometimes suffer through long periods of time during which the legal processes we have agreed to honor produce results we may be unhappy with, or even despise. While Obama and his political allies have paid lip service to the importance of the rule of law, the so-called transformational attitude he has brought to the White House frequently rejects it. Invocation of his transformational attitude often seeks to achieve his political objectives through means which, in reality, are outside of the available legal processes, whenever the rule of law itself fails to produce what he and his allies deem to be the desired result.

This new, and increasingly radical departure from the rule of law by those who find themselves in positions of power in the United States, is only compounded by the growing threats of radical Islamic terrorism and racial strife that the so-called liberals in our society, including Barack Obama and his administration, are only fomenting by the transformational world view they have embraced. Their transformational world view requires that we question whether the dangers we are now facing from within threaten the destruction of the very founding principles of our nation, in a manner we have never faced before.

It is the objective of IS AMERICA BEING DESTROYED FROM WITHIN? to examine and expose the evidence of these dangers, and the others that so many Americans have observed to be springing up amongst us. It is also to present that evidence with the hope that more and more Americans will begin to question the direction in which our nation is being headed, and the implications of that path for the continued existence of America, and the fundamental values at its foundation.

Indeed, as this evidence continues to demonstrate, in light of the events that have been unfolding in America over the last six years, the need to pose the following questions becomes more and more compelling: Are we witnessing in our own time precisely the type of national suicide envisioned by President Abraham Lincoln in 1838, when he talked about the destruction of America from within? And will the conscious and deliberate actions of the suicidal forces at work in America also end up destroying the rest of us as well, even if we reject the courses of action they have embraced, if we sit idly by and fail to exercise the power we have to stop them?

IS AMERICA BEING DESTROYED FROM WITHIN? takes a hard look at all of these questions. It also looks at the questions of whether, as Commander-In-Chief of our armed forces, our nation’s President is required to advance the military power of America, along with our national security, or is instead free to disarm and diminish our military strength, as well as our nation’s security, and to undermine the morale of our military forces as well; whether our nation’s President should be the leading proponent for enforcement of the guarantees of our Constitution, or instead should be engaging in activity intended to circumvent its guarantees; whether our nation’s President is required to represent the interests of all Americans, or whether he or she is instead free to promote the interests of only one group, class or race of Americans; whether our federal government should be working to advance the free enterprise system that is at the foundation of our nation’s greatness, or instead should be working to hamstring free enterprise with central planning concepts that have repeatedly worsened the economic conditions of the very groups they claimed to be protecting, wherever they have been employed; and whether the rights of Americans to enjoy the fruits of resources and technologies of proven value can be stolen from them, along with their rights to utilize their own private property without governmental interference, in the name of environmentalism, in deference to environmental theories that remain hypothetical and unproven, if not entirely speculative in nature. Finally, it considers the question of precisely what it is that ordinary Americans from all walks of life can do to insure that those who, like Barack Obama and his liberal political allies, may very well be engaged in the process of destroying America from within, whether intentionally or otherwise, are prevented from achieving that objective…

PART I

IS AMERICA BEING DESTROYED FROM WITHIN, BY UNDERMINING THE RULE OF LAW?

CHAPTER ONE

IS THE RULE OF LAW BEING UNDERMINED IN AMERICA, BY SOWING THE SEEDS OF RACIAL CONFLICT?

The recent rioting, looting, and burning in Baltimore, Maryland, in response to the tragic death of Freddie Gray, a young black man who apparently sustained a fatal spine injury while in the custody of Baltimore police, marks what is at least the fourth episode of violent uprising in a major American city, since Barack Obama, our nation’s first African American President, was elected to office. Indeed, whether he likes it or not, it seems clear that the prevailing legacy of the Obama Administration will be its provocation of racial conflict, on a scale not seen in America for almost a half century. It is therefore fitting to begin the examination of whether America is being destroyed from within, with an analysis of this critical issue.

It is also clear that, while it may not have intended the result now spinning out of control in our country, the Obama Administration’s role in provoking the racial conflict that continues to grow across America is no accident. It is, in many respects, a direct product of a deliberate decision by Barack Obama and the members of his administration to ignore a constitutional guarantee that has been held sacrosanct in America, since the time of our nation’s birth: the presumption of innocence.

Although the Constitution of the United States does not mention it explicitly, our courts have unanimously recognized that the presumption of innocence is a constitutional guarantee flowing from the 5th, 6th, and 14th amendments of the Constitution. According to this doctrine, all those accused of crimes are innocent until proven guilty. [1] As a former professor of constitutional law, Barack Obama is clearly aware of the monumental importance of the presumption of innocence in our criminal justice system, both on the state and federal levels. The same can be said of Attorney General Eric Holder, a former federal prosecutor. [2] In fact, any first year law student who does not already understand the significance of the presumption of innocence before even reaching law school will quickly be made aware of its importance, as soon as he or she enters the basic course on Criminal Law that is a mandatory part of almost every legal education in the United States. Indeed, the presumption of innocence is almost as well known among the ordinary citizens of the United States as is the requirement that the proof of guilt, in connection with criminal charges, must be established beyond a reasonable doubt.

Given the critical importance of the presumption of innocence, Barack Obama and Eric Holder are also well aware of the extreme danger to the principles of freedom and justice for all Americans, as well as for criminal defendants, that can be created by a climate which serves to undermine the presumption of innocence for any criminal defendant. Nevertheless, both Obama and Holder have shown their willingness to engage in activity designed to achieve precisely that objective, in connection with high-profile events involving actual or potential criminal charges against African Americans, by embracing a presumption of guilt, with respect to charges of wrongdoing against any police officer, or even private citizen, who engages in an act of violence as the result of a confrontation with an African American. In doing so, they have set the stage for a firestorm of racial conflict unparalleled in the United States, since the time of the race riots and police shootings initiated by the Black Liberation Army almost a half century ago.

The shooting deaths of Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida in February of 2012, and Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri in August of 2014, provided the spark for the firestorm of racial conflict that has now been re-ignited. These incidents, and others that have since followed involving confrontations between police officers and African Americans, offer stunning examples of the dangers of individuals holding high political office interjecting their personal opinions about guilt or innocence, into events involving criminal charges, where the true facts are not even known, and the potential defendants have only been tried in the Court of Public Opinion.

Trayvon Martin was a 17-year-old young black man who, on Feb. 26, 2012, was walking home from a 7-Eleven in Sanford, Florida, with a bag of Skittles and a bottle of iced tea. George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watchman of white and Latino heritage, considered Martin to be suspicious, and possibly about to engage in criminal activity. Although he was advised by police not to pursue Trayvon himself, Zimmerman got out of his car carrying his 9-millimeter handgun. Allegedly after a confrontation between himself and Martin, Zimmerman fired his gun at Trayvon, and tragically the young black man was killed. [3]

Despite his background as a Constitutional Law Professor, Barack Obama quickly interjected his own personal views into the situation, announcing publicly that, if I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon. [4] The implication that Martin could have been his own son made clear from the outset Obama’s bias in favor of Martin, in connection with the confrontation between Martin and Zimmerman. The potential for this type of statement from the President of the United States to unfairly influence a criminal prosecution is immediately apparent. Ironically, however, Zimmerman was found not guilty of the murder of Trayvon Martin, by a jury who heard all of the evidence, not just what appeared in the press. Nevertheless, it is clear that Obama’s implicit expression of his own personal views about the guilt or innocence of the two individuals involved in this situation was a direct assault upon the presumption of innocence guaranteed to all Americans.

Similarly, Obama’s public comments regarding other high-profile, racially charged incidents have also shown disdain for the presumption of innocence, and a blatant willingness to take sides based upon nothing but unsubstantiated allegations and hearsay. For example, on July 16, 2009, Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., was arrested at his Cambridge, Massachusetts home by a local police officer responding to a 9-1-1 caller’s report of men breaking and entering the professor’s own residence. The arrest of professor Gates occurred just after Gates returned home to Cambridge after a trip to China. Gates found the lock on the front door to his home jammed and with the help of his driver tried to force the door open. A local witness reported their activity to the police as a potential burglary in progress. Accounts regarding the ensuing confrontation differ, but Gates was arrested by the responding officer, Cambridge Police Sgt. James Crowley, and charged with disorderly conduct. [5] On July 21, 2009, the charges against Gates were dropped. The arrest generated a national debate about whether or not it represented an example of racial profiling by police. [6]

On July 22, 2009, President Obama commented on the incident, criticizing the arrest, and contending that the police acted stupidly. [7] Law enforcement organizations and members objected to Obama’s comments and criticized his handling of the issue. In the aftermath, Obama stated that he regretted his comments and hoped that the situation could become a teachable moment. [8] A few days later, Obama invited both parties to the White House to discuss the issue over beer, and on July 30, Obama and Vice President Joe Biden joined Crowley and Gates in a private, cordial meeting in a courtyard near the White House Rose Garden; this became known colloquially as the Beer Summit. [9]

If this was a teachable moment, however, it does not appear as though Obama learned anything from it. Obama could not resist the temptation to again expressing his personal views, where he should clearly have remained silent, in the aftermath of the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in August of 2014. While still vacationing in Martha’s Vineyard, and in a position, like almost everyone else, which made it impossible for him to know the true facts, Obama nevertheless made it clear that he was biased in favor of Brown and against the policeman whose confrontation with Brown ultimately gave rise to the shooting in which Brown was killed. In response to that incident, Obama simply stated that:

There’s no excuse for police to use excessive force against peaceful protests or to throw protesters in jail for lawfully exercising their First Amendment rights. [10]

The excessive force Obama was referring to, was the action of Darren Wilson in shooting Brown, allegedly in self-defense. Although little was known about this incident at the time Obama made clear his belief that excessive force must have been involved, it was undisputed that Brown had just been involved in a robbery, and apparently had assaulted Officer Wilson just before the shooting took place. [11] The peaceful protests Obama was describing, were protests in Ferguson in the aftermath of the shooting that included the smashing of store-front windows, as well as looting of anything and everything in Ferguson that could be stolen; throwing Molotov cocktails; and shooting at a police helicopter – events that were recorded and televised both live and on video by the news media. [12]

Not surprisingly, those involved in law enforcement throughout the country were incensed by Obama’s obviously biased comments, in response to incidents about which he had little factual knowledge. For example, here is how Stephen Killion, head of the Cambridge Police Patrol Officer’s Association described Obama’s comments about the Cambridge, Massachusetts arrest of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr.:

That was totally inappropriate. I am disgraced that he is our commander-in-chief. He smeared the good reputation of the hard-working men and women of the Cambridge Police Department. It was wrong to do. It was disgraceful. [13]

Here is how James Basco, the Executive Director of the Fraternal Order of Police, described Obama’s comments following the shooting of Michael Brown, in Ferguson, Missouri, some five years later:

"I think what he has to do as president and as a constitutional lawyer is remember that there is a process in the United States and the process is being followed, for good or for ill, by the police and by the county and by the city and by the prosecutors’ office.

I’m not there, and neither is the president. That is why we have due process in the United States. And this will all be sorted out over time." [14]

The highly-publicized comments of Barack Obama regarding incidents like the confrontation between Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., the Trayvon Martin shooting, and the shooting of Michael Brown, served to shine a national spotlight on situations in which African Americans have been killed as the result of confrontations with police officers. Three more incidents, allegedly involving excessive force by police officers engaged in the arrest of young black males, also received national attention during this same time period.

The first was the death of Eric Garner, an unarmed black man killed in New York City on July 17, 2014, during a struggle that ensued while police were attempting to arrest him for the unlawful sale of cigarettes. [15] A videotape recording of this incident depicted one of the police officers involved in Garner’s arrest utilizing what many claimed was a chokehold to bring Garner, who was resisting the arrest, under control. Garner died a short time after his arrest, and the claim was made that the excessive force and illegal chokehold employed to subdue him was responsible for his death. When a New York grand jury refused to indict the officers involved in Garner’s arrest, the result was an outbreak of violent protest similar, although fortunately less destructive, than the violence that occurred in Ferguson following the grand jury’s decision not to indict Officer Wilson in connection with the Michael Brown shooting. Significantly, statements by Barack Obama, Eric Holder, Mayor Bill Diblasio, and Al Sharpton, in