Pt. 4
So, let us look at the platform thus far. Of course, since I could never get elected, I can’t be held to keep my word, because I would never be in power to do so. Nor is it likely that the present sort of Representative would follow through with these fundamental thoughts, because, quite simply, they are far more concerned with what they can get for themselves, and with the power that they wield, than they are with the condition of the Nation or of its people.
Social Security: Slowly do away with this Ponzi scheme. Indeed, if you were to promote this sort of fiscal shell game yourself, you would go to prison; just ask Bernie Madoff. But if you are government, the government that is suppose to teach by example[!], such irresponsible scam is deemed enlightenment! It’s gotta go. If you have paid into the system, you will receive the promised benefits. With the change I contemplate, unless you find yourself in more dire sorts of personal circumstances, you might have to contribute something, but you will be rewarded by setting up and keeping a retirement program under your own control. If you fail to do so, or choose to do otherwise, that would become your problem.
Department of Education: There is nothing in the Constitution suggesting that the Framers intended to give the national government the power to control and guide local education in the many States, and if it is not defined and enumerated there, the power does not exist. And from a fiscal standpoint, the less money the Federal Government takes from state citizens, the more that is left for the States to use at the local level, which is always the more efficient method of public spending.
Foreign Aid:
Apart from the question of “charity” for emergencies as in Haiti, which we have addressed in detail in Part 1, there is a problem with general foreign aid. Either you are a friend or you are not. That is a pretty simple concept. Foreign countries have learned that we do not punish for their bad behavior, either against us or against others.
We are NOT a punching bag, a tool or a means for a foreign leader to be elected by dissing us. We do, of course, treasure free speech, but our devotion to free speech is not an implied suicide compact with foreigners to attack us in one direction while they hold their hands out for our largess in the other. So, while we support their right to hate or attack us, we will no longer reward their bad, and sometimes assaultive, behavior by taking money from our citizens to give to them. Their speech attacking us will truly be “free,” because we will no longer pay for it.
Bailouts: I want every dollar spent to have its own bill. No more omnibus bills that are so general that there is neither accountability nor understanding of its meaning and true intent. There will be no more skimming off of money from some states to slide over to other states simply to secure a vote. That is bribery, plain and simple. Every bill MUST be posted on line and be easy to read and to understand, and it must be posted in time for citizens to provide their input to their representatives before they vote on it. If representatives are going to bribe each other, the American people need to see it. No more the simple and last minute raising of the hands on the floor or secret votes. Every bill, after passage or defeat, must list every vote by every representative so citizens can follow what their representative is, and is not, doing for them.
Pensions: I didn’t, you don’t, and no one I know in America gets a lifetime pension for a mere few years of work. Congress doesn’t deserve it either. We can end this in one of 2 ways, or maybe by both. Term limits of, say, 12 years: if it is known at the beginning that 12 years is the max one could ever serve, no one could really complain if they know up front that they won’t “lifetime” anything. Or, in the alternative, we could just do away with the appropriations that pay for all of that, and voters should do away with representatives who do not promise to do so. Or both.
Liberty: Private property and individual liberty (“freedom”) are analytically and fundamentally intertwined so tightly that the entire fabric of this Country is poised to unravel should we continue to ignore that basic founding concept of our Constitution. We need to return to the standards set by the Founders to limit the opportunity for the national government to trap us in a cycle of dependency on the government.
We as Americans need to return to the unique individualism that made us who and what we are. We are not a dependent people who can’t survive without the government; we are the people who moved west to get away from government, until we ran out of land and the ocean interposed. But that geographical barrier to our movement to be free from government oppression should not put the brakes on the yearning.
NOT returning to the basic principles of the Constitution will, in pure and simple terms, see us continue down the path of tyranny. Although it is sometimes dangerous to focus on a single issue, there are some that become a legitimate litmus test for the status of the entire confection. For instance, once the unconstitutional agenda to FORCE Americans to purchase health care, once private insurance companies are run out of business and replaced by a governmental one-payer system, we will have gone more than half way down tyranny’s path, and possibly to a point of no return.
NO? Maryland is already telling Fast Food Companies that they cannot build any new businesses in a particular county, claiming “health” concerns. For how long must government give you obvious hints about their liberty-invading plans before you get it? Let us put a stop to this before it takes more than just votes to end it. We have the power, if we could only develop the insight and the will.
How many more restrictions on your liberty will you tolerate before you get it and you decide to change course?
Let me give you a clue; think on these things: if the government has to tell you how to act and behave and what to do every waking minute of your day, you aren’t a self-governing society any more, you aren’t any longer in charge of your government, but rather it is in charge of you. You are then a ruled society; you would thereby have sunk back to being mere subjects instead of sovereigns. Tyranny by hundreds is not any better than tyranny by one. Failure to heed the warning signs, rearing up so clearly and regularly right in front of your eyes, will lead to the fall of this great Nation.
As Lao Tzu said: “If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.”
Capmotion & chas
Constitutional Republic 
March 8, 2010 at 8:15 pm |
Chas:
An interesting read with very little I disagree with, my philosophy is less developed at this time but it hinges on the similar premise of individualism.
In a nutshell to be Independent one needs three things…Life Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. This is truly fundamental and very few understand the importance of the statement. It is the brilliance and nub of the Declaration of Independence. The rest is fluff
One needs Life in order to have Liberty and one needs Liberty to Pursue Happiness. Alter any of these three and Independence is impinged.
The big mistake we are making is the belief that Happiness is the Right. The right is the Pursuit of Happiness not the happiness itself.
In a democracy, one by design must elect panderers, thus politicians in a democracy have to promise what the electorate wants to hear. What better than for a politician to promise happiness and suggest it is the peoples Right as written in the Declaration of Independence.
For Government to provide Happiness requires that it curtails the real Right of the Pursuit of Happiness, which is a fundamental ingredient for individual INDEPENDENCE.
Independence comprises of the unalienable rights among which are LIFE, LIBERTY and The PURSUIT of happiness.
It is a simple but tricky trinity. But the moment one really understands that any restriction to liberty or the pursuit of happiness directly reduces ones independence one must recognize the danger that this is actually the only function of Government. What better reason for restricted Government or the “Fluff” as I call it of the remainder of the Constitution which goes on to limit and define the powers.
Hope this makes sense it is written late at night.
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You pretty much hit the nail on the head Jack. You might think it is a work in progress, but you already have the important part down, the rest as you say is just fluff.
chas
February 28, 2010 at 10:20 am |
*OF COURSE, if I ‘kept up’, and didn’t save up to read it allllllllll at once? ❓
February 28, 2010 at 10:19 am |
Still reading and smiling, AND going blind! YIKES! Need to adjust the print for LARGE, hum? lol 🙂 You two continue to have my vote…….{if I close my right eye and squint, I seem to be able to read w/no difficulty…not very good for the ‘wrinkle’ factor however….YIKES!}
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Keeping up would help…lol
chas
February 18, 2010 at 3:44 am |
lots of food for thought—for those that think
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Thank you dear.
chas
February 17, 2010 at 2:43 pm |
Bravo Cap and Chas. I would vote for you. I would tirelessly campaign for you. America needs people with good sense to represent us. And I pray that the folks who voted for this administration find good sense and vote them out before they bankrupt this wonderful country.
The whole series is brilliant. Thanks to both of you for the thought provoking posts.
Gwen
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Thank you gwen. I hold the same wish, a little commone sense if you please.
chas
February 16, 2010 at 2:28 pm |
Chas and Cap,
You guys have really put together a great piece of work here. You outline the difference between what should be governed on the national level as well as what should be left to the states.
While I like all of the ideas and I love the idea of states rights being separate from national I do see a potential problem. If different states are allowed to govern themselves as their residents see fit then there will be, I think, a slow but great move in this country. People will move to states where laws more closely align with their personal beliefs, wants and values.
While this is not necessarily a bad thing, large groups of like minded individuals can produce some amazing results and complex thinking, what of people who would need to move to a different climate or completely different part of the country all together? What of families who currently are closely knit but may find themselves at odds over residence?
The Civil War was fought over states’ rights and look where that got us.
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Dan, thanks for your comments. While it was fought for States Rights, the wrong side won. That’s what happen to States Rights.
Migration to new land has been part of the Country since it’s founding. I think of Boonesborough as a prime example. People have been trying to move away from the Federal Government since even before it was started.
The problem as I see it is that once a popular State becomes overcrowded it becomes much like a City. The more people, the more public services, the more taxes are needed to provided those services. Then you have to move all over again to get away from that which you left in the first place.
The up side to that, is you CAN move away from a State, to get away from the Federal Government you have to leave the Country.
chas
February 16, 2010 at 2:58 pm
Dan, you are very correct that there will be differences as between the different states if federalism is given its head, and that is what was intended. States were to be an experimental breeding ground enabling individuality of evolution, with the only “uniformity,” such as there would be, to be those expressly commanded by the Constitution, and with the only overarching guarantee being that all states were to have a “republican form of government.”
As Justice Brandeis reminded us, “It is one of the happy incidents of the federal system that a single courageous State may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.” And that is the essence of federalism, isn’t it? Isn’t that what the Framers focused on both by making the national government one of enumerated instead of implied powers, and then by sealing the fate of those who would invite the national government to stray by enacting the 10th Amendment against such meandering?
And, yes, the “civil war,” the War of Northern Aggression, was against states’ rights, but that does not validate it as legitimate, but instead just the opposite. There is no evidence that the Framers intended to prevent secession, and much evidence that they would not. We yak about pulling out of the United Nations all the time, and there is no indication, other than Lincolnania, that “union” among the former colonies was any more compulsorily fixed or permanent than that.
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In fact the threat of leaving the Union was often used from the New England States in the early days of the Union.
And in the end is why the next series is going to center around the difference between a National Government and a Federal Government.
At least I hope it is a series..lol
chas
February 16, 2010 at 6:24 am |
Cap,
Being born and raised in Louisiana, love the reference to the war of Northern Aggression.
February 16, 2010 at 6:17 am |
Thanks, Frank. I think what people have not been able to get their heads around is what the “American Revolution” really was. The “revolution” was not the armed hostilities; the “revolution” was the introduction of the notion of popular sovereignty, that the people are the power centers and that their government is their servant and that their servant axiomatically must do what commanded and may not do more than authorized. But until that is understood, all possibilities of improvement in our relationship with/to our government are slim. And that is one of the dangers of, inter alia, national government decreed education. The national government does not have an incentive in people understanding certain fundamental and enumerated things, or else the national government would have to surrender vast political territory that it has illicitly captured, since, perhaps, the War of Northern Aggression. So, if it does not have that incentive, or indeed has an affirmative disincentive, it will not fund education of real political and constitutional truths.
Bravo to chas for beginning this project.
cap
February 16, 2010 at 5:42 am |
Chas-Cap,
What a great piece of work, all 4 segments. In a nutshell that is why we are in the position we find ourselves–deep in debt, unable to correct our mistakes, and sinking fast. This should be required reading for all present and future public officials.
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Thank you Frank. Many hours went into this on both our parts. cap provides great additional insight, without which I don’t believe that any of these pieces would have been half as effective.
chas