American free enterprise has been suckled by the public teat for a very long time. And that's true for all the American continents. After all, the crowned heads of Europe outfitted the explorers with charters to grab all the free stuff they could find.
At first, of course, they brought the booty home as expected, but, after a while, it was thought useful to export some of the excess population and have them develop their own enterprise in the "land of milk and honey."
True Confession. Albeit a "legal immigrant" with an official number and everything, I was not, when my mother determined she would do after the war what had been denied her before -- i.e. follow in the footsteps of her relatives to the Golden State -- a willing emigrant. Then, when I was in eighth grade, I got suckered into entering an essay contest, sponsored by the New York Chamber of Commerce, on the topic, "How Free Enterprise Has Helped to Make America Great," and they even gave me a third prize. But, unlike Rafael Edward Cruz, I was not hooked for life. In fact, the longer I live, the more I suspect "free" is a synonym for theft.
I regret having written that essay. Perhaps I've been trying to make up for it by not doing anything for pay since 1965. Free enterprise suits me just fine; just not the Chamber of Commerce kind.
But, to get back to the public teat and getting stuff for free. Before and after the Revolution, whatever the overt assertion, the primary function of our public corporations was to dole out natural resources to select populations in the form of "rights." I'll just list a few because I've gone through this litany many times:
grazing rights
fishing rights
logging rights
mining rights
hunting rights
copy rights
inheritance rights
You'll notice that they all, even the immaterial ones, come under the heading of property rights. Civil rights were severely limited from the start, even though the Constitution spelled the qualifications and duties of citizens out, and human rights were barely referenced. Having some humans classified as 3/5 of a person hardly counts.
That's the context into which marched the demands by African Americans to be recognized as whole persons and then women to be recognized as full citizens, to be followed by a demand that citizenship be coterminus with adulthood (1971) and consumers in the market place be protected from cheats (1972). And, while I am not keen on the term "consumer," I think that, in the long run, the "consumer revolution" is going to prove more significant than civil rights because it brings us closer to human rights, if by another name.
Anyway, that our public corporations exist for purposes other than protecting and doling out property is a revolutionary concept and those segments of the population who are/were accustomed to the public teat responding to their demands are engaging in push-back at what they perceive as a deprivation. And, if they can't have free access to property, they want something else -- i.e. money, virtual wealth -- and they want as much of it as they can get. Which, since the supply is actually unlimited, accounts for what can only be classified as obsessive hoarding that probably won't stop unless there's an intervention.
But, although the fact that Mother Nature's bounty is naturally limited and it's our growing awareness of those limits which accounts for free access to the public teat being denied, the substitution of an unlimited virtual good (money) for the real assets seems to have revealed another aspect of the benefits derived from the privileged access -- i.e. the concommitant deprivation of the people, whom Barbara Bush referred to as the "disadvantaged." In other words, the disadvantaged are perceived by the advantaged, the sucklings at the public teat, as part and parcel of their advantage. And any effort to mitigate that disadvantage is to be actively resisted.
Which brings me to what the opponents of Obamacare and, specifically, their champion, the accidental immigrant, Rafael Edward Cruz, are up to. Because, you see, Ted, to use the moniker he prefers, has fully bought into the American free enterprise agenda as propounded by the Chamber of Commerce and the Free Enterprise Institute and almost entirely motivated by the perspective that to insure their advantage, the deprivation of the disadvantaged has to be guaranteed. And the way to do that is by limiting their access to the public teat, the federal government from which all money flows. And how to they do that. By using the law to divert the money to themselves and their friends.
You could say that, like the biggest suckling in the litter, they're just sucking extra hard and pushing the weaklings out of the way.
That's the lesson little Teddy learned at the knees of his mentor Randall Storey, who introduced him to the writings of the Austrian school of economics and it's what his clerkship for Chief Justice William Rhenquist secured and led to his recruitment into the firm of Cooper, Carvin and Rosenthal, a law firm identified on his Linkedin page as being in the Healthcare and Hospital Industry, but whose principals are definitely lawyers and very particular lawyers, at that.
Meet Charles J. Cooper.
Charles J. Cooper is a founding member and chairman of Cooper & Kirk, PLLC....Mr. Cooper’s practice is national in scope and is concentrated in the areas of constitutional, commercial, and civil rights litigation. He is currently representing private clients in a variety of commercial cases, including antitrust, intellectual property, and contract disputes. Mr. Cooper also represents a number of state and local government bodies, as well as private clients, in a wide range of constitutional and federal statutory cases.
As he said back in 2001, when
Cooper, Carvin and Rosenthal was disbanded:
"I love my practice," Cooper says in his throaty, oddly Clintonesque drawl. Cooper and his new name partner, Michael Kirk, are busy with a litany of active cases, he says, and new associates will be found. "I believe the best service I can provide is to continue doing what I've been doing," Cooper adds. "And that is suing the government."
That's what a Constitutional lawyer does.
Now meet Michael A. Carvin.
Mike Carvin focuses on constitutional, appellate, civil rights, and civil litigation against the federal government. He has argued numerous cases in the United States Supreme Court and in virtually every federal appeals court. These cases include the recent constitutional challenge to the Affordable Care Act and the decisions invalidating Sarbanes-Oxley's accounting board, preventing the Justice Department from obtaining monetary relief against the tobacco industry under RICO, overturning the federal government's plan to statistically adjust the census, limiting the Justice Department's ability to create "majority-minority" districts, and upholding Proposition 209's ban on racial preferences in California.
Mike was one of the lead lawyers, and argued before the Florida Supreme Court, on behalf of George W. Bush in the 2000 election Florida recount controversy. He also has represented state governments, financial institutions, telecommunications, and energy companies in "takings," First Amendment, civil rights, and statutory challenges to federal government actions.
It's a business, suing the federal government.
Steven S. Rosenthal is in it, too.
Steven S. Rosenthal has extensive trial court, arbitration and appellate experience on matters involving commercial law, constitutional law and all aspects of administrative practice....Previously, he was victorious in a case heard by the United States Supreme Court in which the Court held that imposition of Social Security taxes on federal judges in office at the time of passage was an unconstitutional diminution of their compensation.
When
Steven Rosenthal joined Cooper and Carvin in 1998, Cooper said
"We have carefully built this firm to occupy a unique niche in the profession. We appreciate the opportunity to be part of complicated, high stakes litigation, particularly in cases where government has overreached or violates agreements with private entities....In just fifteen months, we have confirmed our belief that a void in the national legal community could be filled successfully by our firm."
Within three years all the principals had moved on but their efforts to suck on the teats of the federal government go on. Metaphorically speaking, of course.
What's important when you're going to sue the federal government, in addition to legal precedent? Why, the legislative history and intent. And where is that to be found? In the Congressional Record. Indeed, there's stuff in the Congressional Record that never gets an airing in public. Whenever a member of Congress asks to have her/his remarks recorded and extended, that's what they're up to -- "making a record." And that, I would argue, is what Senator Rafael Edward Cruz was up to when he held his talkathon. He was inserting into the Congressional Record that his buddies could later use to sue the federal government. After all, doesn't he owe them for having given him a start from his unprepossessing roots in Calgary?
Rafael Edward Cruz timeline
1970 -- birth in Calgary, Canada
1974 -- arrived in Houston, Texas
1976-82--West Briar School, Awty International School, Faith West Academy in Katy
1983 -- Free Enterprise Education Center, Rolland Storey
1984-88 -- Corroborators Constitutional memorization tour
1984--Faith West Academy
1988--Second Baptist High School graduate
1988 -1992 -- Princeton University &debate team
1992 - 1995 -- Harvard Law School
1995 --clerk for Judge Luttig, 6 months
1996 --clerk for Judge Rhenquist, 6 months
1997-99--Cooper, Carvin & Rosenthal, law firm
1999 --Texas Solicitor General Position estab.
1999-2000--Bush/Cheney 2000
2000--Bush/Cheney Florida Recount Team
2001 -- Bush/Cheney Transition Team
2001 -- Department of Justice, 6months
2001 -- May 27 married Heidi Nelson
2001-2003 --Federal Trade Commission
2003-2008 -- Texas Solicitor General
2004-2009 --Texas School of Law, lecturer
2008-- Morgan, Lewis&Bockius, Partner
2009 -- legal bill to Texas Repubs http://lubbockonline.com/...
2011 -- Texans for Ted Cruz
2012-- elected to U.S. Senate
Ted Cruz has a really high opinion of himself. In 2009 he offered to advise the Texas legislature on some redistricting matters. Then he sent them a bill on Morgan Lewis letterhead for 71 hours of consultation and travel over ten days. The bill came to almost fifty thousand dollars. David Dewhurst calling attention to this extravagance in the primary may account for the campaign having been adjudged "dirty" by Cruz supporters.
There is something ungenerous about charging legislators almost seven hundred dollars an hour to give them what turned out to be virtually useless advise. The obligations of citizenship would argue against ripping your government off. But, sucklings at the teat probably can't see it that way.
Further confession. The spouse once authored a movie script entitled, "The Suckling." It was about an over-grown baby that turned into a monster. It never went anywhere beyond the printing of a poster. Nothing like the 1990 movie of that title.