Showing posts with label constitution. Show all posts
Showing posts with label constitution. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 29, 2020

Opinion: RBG vs ACB - A Tolkien Analogy



"Of course my story is not an allegory of Atomic power, but of Power."

The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien #186



Well, here we are in another Supreme Court confirmation death-match.  Yay!  It’s so great to see our leaders behaving in such a rational and fair manner.  It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside!  (Oh wait, that’s nausea. Never mind.)


Last time it was Brett Kavanaugh’s turn in the hot seat.  Democrats went so far as to accuse this highly respected accomplished lawyer and family man of serial gang rape!  I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.  It defied explanation.   


And Kavanaugh was just the latest.  This slimy Kabuki theater has played-out every single time a conservative justice has been named, but never when liberal ones are.  Why is that?  And what could possibly turn these seemingly normal looking Democrat Senators into such vile sub-humans? 


I found my answer in the pages of J. R. R. Tolkien. 


If you’ll recall, "The Lord of The Rings" is a story that revolves around the fate of a certain magical ring in a fantasy world known as Middle Earth.  Though there were twenty of these rings forged, the story is about one ring that has power over all the others.  Whoever possesses it has super-powers like immortality, invisibility, and under certain circumstances, totalitarian power over Middle Earth.  But there’s a serious downside to bearing the ring; so intoxicating and addictive is its power, it can transform its weaker owners into unrecognizable, twisted, slimy, deranged, creatures. 


And that’s exactly what happens when it comes to the absolute power of the courts.  The essential challenge for anyone who wears a black robe is to subordinate their personal agenda to a document written over two hundred years ago.  That's the  job of a Justice under our system. It takes an extraordinary amount of self restraint to put the original intent of the U.S. Constitution above one's own politics.  Moreover, just like the ring that grants immortality, Justices serve as long as they can breathe.  Even Presidents don’t have that kind of power for that long.


Imagine how intoxicating, tempting, and corrupting that power can be for a Justice, or for a Senator involved in confirmation?  Don’t like a law or policy?  Just change it at the court!  All you need is five like minded Justices and you have totalitarian power over all social, economic, and political policy in the U.S..   No need to go through the icky time-consuming process of passing laws or amending the Constitution.  Just have the right people put on a robe, wave a magic pen, and voila!  Imagine how much strength of character one would need to resist that temptation?  Imagine having the magic ring in your pocket and resisting its allure out of fealty to our founding principles?


Democrats long ago realized they needed the courts for their agenda to succeed.  And what is that agenda?  It’s often referred to as “progressivism”, which translates to progressively more power to the government, going well beyond what the Constitution envisioned.  Ask yourself this, have you ever seen a Democrat proposal that didn’t grow the power and scope of the federal government?  I don’t think you have.  Certainly not under Obama.  Have a problem with student loans?  Nationalize them!  Have a problem with healthcare?  Nationalize it!  Have a problem with education? Nationalize it under something called Common Core!  Have a problem with the internet?  Nationalize it under something called Net Neutrality!  And this list could go on for pages.  


The problem with all that nationalization is that a) everything becomes politicized, and b) everything ends-up at the Supreme Court.  The courts become the sine qua non for the agenda's success.  But the real problem in the long run is that if you take this progressive power grab out to its logical conclusion, it ends in totalitarian government.  


So just like the one ring, the Supreme Court is the key that opens the door to infinite power.    


Which takes us to the current situation in which Ruth Bader Ginsburg is being replaced by Amy Coney Barrett.       


RBG was certainly beloved by her fans.  Women of all stripes looked up to her as a role model.  No doubt she was a tiny person who left a big mark.  She’s been lauded as a champion for social justice, women’s rights, LGBTQ rights, the downtrodden, etc.  And many called her courageous.  Similarly, ACB looks to be another beloved, courageous, female role model who promises to leave a big mark. Yet among the people who worshipped RBG, she is considered a pariah.   That’s because unlike RBG, ACB is expected to be a champion for only one thing - the U.S. Constitution.    


We call these two judicial approaches liberal/progressive vs. conservative, or activist vs. originalist.  But what they really represent are two perspectives of the Constitution.  One side sees the Constitution as an obstacle to progress, and the other sees it as the limiting principle that makes us exceptional. Justices are granted the magical power to either abide by the Constitution or ignore it.  There’s no penalty for ignoring it, and no reward for abiding by it.  Sorry RBG fans, it takes no courage for a Justice to ignore the Constitution.  The only courage involved is in resisting the siren song of totalitarian power. 


Did you ever wonder why so-called Conservative judges often start out that way and then transform into activist or progressive ones?  Recent cases include the current Chief Justice, John Roberts, who has single-handedly re-written major laws to advance his agenda. And have you ever noticed that it never goes the other way?  Activist judges never eschew their power and turn originalist.  There are many ways temptation and power can corrupt an individual.  But self restraint can only result from strong character and courage, and that's either present or it's not.  


So why does a Justice like RBG sail through confirmation with bipartisan support including almost every Republican, while the equally qualified Brett Kavanaugh doesn’t get any Democrat support?  Why does it always go that way and not the other?  Democrats need the courts in a way Republicans do not.  They have pinned their hopes on subverting the limits laid out in the Constitution, and that can only be done with activist judges.  Republicans are either oblivious or ambivalent to this strategy.  


So why did RBG stay on the court knowing she had cancer?  Why not retire while Obama was President and have him name a successor?  Recall that Tolkien’s character Smeagol starts out as a mild mannered Hobbit, but is corrupted by the ring’s power into the twisted, slimy, deranged creature called Gollum. That metamorphosis is the same one that affects Democrats who embrace the corrupting power of activist courts.  One can picture RBG in her later years mumbling to herself:



With John Roberts and even Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh as unknown quantities, it’s safe to say that ACB will not be a “fires of Mount Doom” event for the activist Supreme Court.  The Constitution will never be safe.  It will always take tremendous self restraint, strong character, and courage to hold this Republic together.  The enemies of constitutionally limited government will never rest.


For now, the best we can hope for is that ACB is confirmed, has the courage of Frodo, and never transforms into Gollum.  

Wednesday, February 1, 2017

Democrats Have Seceded From The Union. What's Next?


The election of 1860 was so traumatic for Democrats in the South that they began seceding from the union immediately afterwards.  But the Civil War did not start until April, 1861, when a dispute over who controlled Fort Sumter resulted in an attack by the South.  By the end of the war, 620,000 soldiers alone had died.

There's a meme that's been going around since Donald Trump's election that says, "Wow, I haven't seen Democrats this upset since we freed their slaves!"  At the risk of being melodramatic, I'd like to make the case that this is eerily perceptive.

I've written in the past that the Civil War was really about an entitlement mentality towards slavery. The South wasn't interested in abusing Africans for the sake of abusing them. It was about economics and preserving a lucrative economic system based on the slavery entitlement. The South did not want to lose its entitlement, and the Republicans, embodied by the newly elected Abraham Lincoln, were a direct and imminent threat.

Explaining secession in 1860 in terms of entitlement helps explain what is happening today with the Democrats and Donald Trump.  

Democrats have gotten used to a number of entitlements, and by entitlements I'm referring to anything of value that benefits one group at the expense of another.  Here's a partial list: 
  • Unfettered access to borrowing and printing dollars for redistributive entitlements
  • Either complete control, or at least filibuster control, of the federal government
  • Bureaucratic control of the federal government
  • Union control of the federal government
  • Unanimous union support
  • Unanimous support of the poor
  • Unanimous support of minorities
  • Unanimous support of immigrants
  • Control of immigration policy     
  • Citizenship not required for voting
  • Control, or at least nominal control, of the Supreme Court
  • So-called "sanctuary" policies which allow Democrat cities to subvert federal law 
  • Support of the vast majority in media, academia, and entertainment. 

Donald Trump is a threat to each of these Democrat entitlements.  His unconventional, brash, improvisational, and ultimately successful ascension to the Presidency has gotten their attention.  So they are reacting. 

The Democrat response has been variously called a temper tantrum, a melt-down, a fit, a resistance, a civil disobedience movement, a protest, etc.  But what it really is, is secession.  

Unlike the South, which was a geographically distinct entity, the Democrats are spread throughout the country.  This is not a physical secession like the one in 1860, but more of a philosophical one. 

Democrats have seceded from the Constitution of the United States. 

Of course they would disagree and say they are actually defending the Constitution.  That's exactly what the South said in 1860.  

Here are some of the things prominent Democrats have done since Donald Trump's election, which mirror 1860 - '61:
  • Civil disobedience and protests immediately after the election
  • Claims of an illegitimate election
  • Boycotts of the inauguration
  • Civil disobedience and protests immediately after the inauguration
  • Calls for removal, impeachment, and even violence
  • Sabotaging the formation of a new government
  • States and cities threatening to secede
  • States and cities threatening to ignore federal law
  • Violence against supporters

So, what's the next step?  Are we headed for Fort Sumter? 

Today, Democrats seceded from the entire process of advice and consent in the Senate committees, something never done on this scale in the U.S. before.   

Interestingly, the  battle of Fort Sumter happened about six weeks after Abraham Lincoln was sworn-in on March 4th, 1861.  We are still less than two weeks into Donald Trump's presidency.  

Saturday, October 10, 2015

Why we do Redistribution all Wrong, and how to Fix It

Redistribution goes back a long time.  The first undocumented case of redistribution was back in caveman times when a particularly disciplined and skilled hunter, let's call him Grok, managed to kill more food than he and his family could immediately consume.  In stepped the tribal leaders who, realizing that others in the tribe were hungry and somewhat envious, confiscated the bulk of Grok’s food and redistributed it to the others.  Of course, in a tradition that would be forever etched in stone, the tribal leaders took a huge chunk for themselves.  Redistribution, in one form or another, has gone on unabated ever since. 

Naturally, in the wake of this redistribution, Grok decided to spend less time hunting and more time on his hobby, which was etching pictures on cave walls.  His family was soon as hungry as the rest of the tribe, and as history has shown, such is the fate of an artist’s family. 

When tribal leaders redistributed Grok’s food, they were doing more than just redistributing his wealth.  They were redistributing his power, responsibility, and rights too. Grok’s power to provide for his family's future was taken from him as was his right to his own work.  Meanwhile, the responsibility to feed others was redistributed to Grok.  Anything can be redistributed and is in modern societies.  Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness included.  Redistribution can be any coerced transfer of wealth, power, or rights from individuals or groups for the explicit purpose of benefiting other individuals or groups.

Neither Karl Marx, Vlad Lenin, Mao Zedong, or even Barack Obama are innovators in redistribution.  They just took it to relatively new levels in their societies.  Every society, from the most democratic to the most autocratic, does some kind of redistribution.  No politician, particularly in a democracy, can afford to oppose redistribution in its entirety, even though many are philosophically opposed to coercing one person to provide for another.  Blame it on the collective will.  Universally, the people allow and desire some redistribution to satisfy needs and envy within the society.

Yet, redistribution is our nemesis too.  It is the opiate of the people.  Free stuff paid for by others.  Rights granted by denying others theirs.  Costs passed to the unborn.  It has led to deficits unprecedented in human history.  It has ruined societies right in our lifetime.  It kills incentive.  It was the primary cause of our recent financial collapse, which was precipitated by a giant redistribution scheme that gave easy money to marginal homebuyers.  And yet, neither party has satisfactorily figured out exactly where to draw the line.   Both parties played roles, albeit to varying degrees, in the recent crisis.  Amidst this confusion, the default position of the voters has been - redistribute more, and redistribute it to me!

In the US, the two political parties are not far enough apart on redistribution.   It is safe to say that one party advocates progressively more redistribution than we have at any given time, while one party advocates less.  But that puts them both firmly in the redistribution camp only with varying degrees.  This results in an arbitrary and nebulous difference between the parties.  Hence the claim by some that there’s not a “dimes worth of difference.”  As one party just found out, this can result in voter apathy.  History has proven it also leads to runaway deficits regardless of which party resides at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

What I propose is a policy that will create a bold distinction for politicians, win elections for them, and insure that redistribution is done responsibly, all the while acknowledging the undeniable human instinct to redistribute.  This can be done by opposing all redistribution at the federal level, and at the same time recognizing that redistribution is essential at the state level.  This is not a contradiction.  In fact, the Founders showed us how.  The problem is not redistribution per se.  The problem is only federal redistribution.  State and local governments must be free to redistribute as they please. 

But states are not able to print money, and thus market signals will ensure redistribution is done with discipline.  This is essentially what the constitution prescribes.  By articulating this distinction, responsible politicians can both side with voters, who want redistribution, and be 180 degrees opposed to the irresponsible redistributors who want to continue doing it the unsustainable way we have been doing it.

I believe separating redistribution from the federal sphere is the system we were given in 1789.  For one, the constitution limits the power of the federal government to a few things and redistribution is not one of them.  For two, one of the things the constitution does grant to the federal government is the power to create, borrow, and manage money.  Redistribution combined with the power to control money is a formula for disaster.  This sets up a massive conflict of interest for politicians who can use redistribution to endlessly buy votes with borrowed and printed money.

Politicians who run nationally and vow to redistribute less are seen as party-poopers who want to remove the punch bowl.  The austerity approach has been, and will continue to be, a losing one.  Nor has it been an effective one at stopping the problem.  Fiscal conservatives (few though they are) have only been able to slow the acceleration of the fiscal train wreck, but the train has continued to accelerate.  I don’t see voters voluntarily removing the punch bowl either. They like the punch.  It makes them feel good.   They are not going to stop drinking because they have been shielded from the hangover.

I have heard the argument that the constitution twice mentions the term “general welfare” and thus the founders wanted the federal government to be the provider of “welfare”, or redistribution.  This is a canard.  Both mentions of “general welfare” in the constitution refer to the federal government, not to “the people”.  Thus the phrase is not about redistribution, but rather about having roofs over government buildings, paying government workers salaries, arming soldiers, providing adequate courthouses, and the like.  It is about running the government properly and seeing to its general welfare.  General welfare was never intended to mean satisfying the needs of individuals in society.

The constitution however, does enumerate the powers of printing, borrowing, and managing money to the federal government.  As the world’s current lone superpower and issuer of the world’s main reserve currency, we are in a unique position to print and borrow money at little or no present cost.  But that’s just how it appears in the present.  As Milton Friedman was fond of saying, “There is no such thing as a free lunch”.  Someday, the real cost of borrowing $20 trillion and printing trillions more will rear its ugly head. 

What have we done with all those trillions?  We used it to redistribute wealth from future individuals to present ones, with the express purpose of obtaining votes in the present.  This is the “fatal deceit”, to paraphrase a term, of our deadly mixture of federal redistribution and federal borrowing and money printing.  We must separate these functions and eliminate the conflict of interest if we hope to have a sustainable future.

No, we did not spend 20 trillion dollars on “unfunded wars”.  No war in history was ever fought without being financed.  In other words, no wars are “funded” with current receipts.  Our debt and printing issues are the demographic result of the above conflict of interest.   Politicians can only boost revenues temporarily to keep up with our runaway redistribution.  But revenues always fall back to the average of 18% of GDP while the redistribution climbs ever upward.  Even in the 90s, when many people claim the budget was balanced, unfunded liabilities were never included and it was in the 90s when the seeds were sown for the recent financial crisis.  The high revenues in the 90s were short-lived and based on bubbles in technology, housing, and lowering of the capital gains rate.    

Why is it that the party of less redistribution is more successful at the state level (they currently hold 30 out of 50 governorships and 27 legislatures to the other party’s 17), yet they have struggled at the national level?   I would argue the key difference is the seemingly unlimited ability of the federal government to print and borrow money and thus obscure the true costs of its redistribution.  States must function in the real world of finance where choices have consequences and redistribution must be paid for.

One argument would be, “Well, what about California, Illinois, and New York, etc.?  States aren’t so good when it comes to managing their own finances!  Why should we have them run all the redistribution programs too?”  To that I would say, yes some states are a mess, but others are in good shape.  It’s about 33% bad and 67% good for states.  The federal government is a 100% mess!  The states are way better overall, and the ones in trouble are about to have to reckon with their spending because they are bleeding population, businesses, high earners, and cash.  The market is giving them signals, signals that do not exist at the federal level. 

One reason a third of the states are a mess is that they currently have a limited stake in managing their own redistribution.  That’s because, although states manage many of their own redistribution programs, one third of the money comes from the federal government.  The incentive for state politicians is to be as generous as possible, kiss up to the federal government, and tap federal taxpayers somewhere else to pay for their largesse.  But there are limits, which is why a majority of states get it right.  Every state has some form of balanced budget law except tiny Vermont, which is small enough to have a bake sale to make-up any shortfall!

Look at the European example:  The Euro has only been in existence for 12 years, yet thanks to the inability of the PIIGS (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, Spain) and Cyprus to revert to the printing press, market signals have exposed their bad habits.  Discipline is sweeping the Euro zone, not without some pain, but the result should be a sustainable future.  We in the US currently have no such market signals warning us of our trajectory. 

Again, I’m only talking about eliminating federal redistribution.  Politicians at the national level should not oppose redistribution at the state or local level.  They should be consistent with the constitution and the constitution leaves this up to the states and the people.  Societies want a safety net.  That much is axiomatic.  Voters want a certain amount of welfare, food stamps, subsidized healthcare, free contraception, subsidized mortgages, etc.  Politicians at the national level must defer to the states and support the will of the people.   States and individuals must decide the proper level of welfare and redistribution they desire.  But this can be done much better by the states, with correct feedback signals, than it can at the federal level without them.  State taxpayers will have to make the hard choices and decide the proper level of the safety net they are willing to fund.  No magic money involved.  They also will be in a better position to eliminate fraud and abuse.  (Did you know that the states administer Medicaid, but the money comes from the federal government?  Neither party has an interest in stopping Medicaid fraud: the state because it costs them nothing, and the Feds because it’s not theirs to administer!)

Of course, taking this stand will require transitional details.  How do we turn Social Security, Medicare, ObamaCare, and Medicaid, over to the states?  In fact, any federally coerced transfer from individuals for the explicit purpose of benefiting other individuals would have to be turned over to the states along with the revenue stream which funds it. Federal taxes and spending would go way down, while state taxes and spending would go up by a commensurate amount.

We would also need to address the backdoor redistribution schemes.  This is the type that got us into the financial crisis in 2008.  The federal government mandated that banks lend money to anyone, regardless of ability to make payments.  My Labradoodle could have gotten a mortgage.  Then the feds bought up many of the bad mortgages through government-sponsored creations like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (FNMA & FHMLC).  No one's taxes went up.  No wealth was redistributed initially. It was all done through the backdoor in the form of a "redistribution of risk".  All of the explicit redistribution, as well as this backdoor type must go to the states.  

The actual details of the transition are beyond the scope of this proposal.  I’m proposing this as a policy stance for politicians and voters who agree that:  a) Our current debt path is unsustainable. b) Austerity is not a politically viable solution. c) The root cause of our unsustainable path is a conflict of interest. d) The conflict is the result of redistribution combined with our ability to print and borrow money with little or no present cost. e) Voters and most politicians have little incentive to fix this because it benefits them. f) There is, however, a passionate group of politicians and voters who want to fix this. g) The above proposal is a viable strategy to fix it.  Those that agree and know the system best can work out the details.

By standing against all federal redistribution, and simultaneously standing for the rights of states to redistribute as they choose, politicians can draw a clear ideological contrast with their opponents and still be aligned with voters. The only reason politicians will oppose this is because it will interfere with their ability to buy votes.  Smart politicians will smoke them out, and put us on a sustainable fiscal course.  

Monday, June 1, 2015

Ramadi, Baltimore, and the Obama Power Vacuum

Sometimes events are just events.  Sometimes they are related and show a trend.  But sometimes events are so linked, they paint a vivid picture worth well more than a thousand words.  So it is with Ramadi and Baltimore.
 
Ramadi and Baltimore are just the latest manifestations of the Obama power vacuum.  (No, the Obama power vacuum is not like a Hoover or Dyson.  It won’t help you clean your house.  The Obama power vacuum is actually quite deadly and claims lives on an hourly basis..)   All the ISIS chaos, Putin’s imperialism, Iran’s aggression, as well as the chaos befalling cities across America essentially share the same pathology as Ramadi and Baltimore.  And Obama’s hand in all of it is undeniable.  (For a black Democrat president with a Muslim name who identifies as a Christian, he sure is presiding over the death and suffering of a lot of blacks, Democrats, Muslims, and Christians!) 
       
In Ramadi, and Iraq in general, Obama’s precipitous withdrawal of all US forces left a power vacuum which ISIS has filled with tragic effect.  When George W Bush turned things over, US soldiers were no longer fighting in Iraq.  Our role was as a stabilizing force.  Serving in Iraq in 2009 was actually safer than walking the streets of Baltimore is today!  Now, just a few years into the Obama power vacuum, and the whole place is a tragic mess.  We fought, died, and prevailed in a bi-partisan effort, only to have it squandered by an irresponsible, arrogant, and petulant pol.
  
In Baltimore, and cities across America, the Obama power vacuum resulted from the same kind of behavior. Again there was a long effort which had largely prevailed against rising inner-city crime and murder.  Enter Obama.  Instead of using his bully pulpit to encourage the rule of law and allow the criminal justice system to play-out, he jumped in and inserted himself into every high profile case implying the police and criminal justice system were racist and criminal.  He deployed his de-facto race czar, Al Sharpton, to stir animosity.  He deployed his Department of Justice to charge police departments with civil rights violations and impose onerous restrictions.  In every high profile case so far he’s been proven wrong.   Nevertheless, Obama’s assault on local police and criminal justice systems persists.  Cops have realized that being pro-active is not worth the effort.  They have stopped doing what works and left a power vacuum into which chaos and murder have flooded.

A vacuum is not a thing.  It’s the absence of things.  Obama’s principles are also not things.  They are the absence of things.  Obama’s approach to foreign affairs can best be described as “not Bush’.  In domestic affairs it can be best described as “not the Constitution”.

“Not Bush” is how we get a troop surge and a tripling of casualties in Afghanistan, a complete withdrawal from Iraq, appeasement with Putin, Nukes for Iran, intervention in Libya, an overrun embassy, and chaos in Ramadi.  “Not the Constitution” is how we get a virtual takeover of local police departments, criminalization of routine police work, federalization of everything, executive takeover of the legislative function, and chaos in Baltimore.

Ramadi and Baltimore are just the latest examples of the Obama power vacuum from “not Bush” and “not the Constitution”.  Into those vacuums have rushed ISIS and inner-city mayhem across America.     

Thursday, February 26, 2015

Does Obama Love America?

Rudy Guiliani walked into a firestorm last week by stating his belief that Barack Obama does not love America.  The media and the left (but, I repeat myself) went four-alarm apoplectic.  Is Rudy wrong?  Is the left right?  Does Obama Love America?

That depends on what you mean by "America".   Is America the physical area within it's borders?  Is it the Grand Canyon, the Appalachian Mountains, California to the Gulf Stream Waters?   I have no reason to suspect Obama does not love this aspect of America.  He  certainly seems to love America's golf courses!  Or is America its people - the motley melange of the melting pot.   Obama sure seems to love those that support him.  Not so much those that don't.  I don't think Obama cares much for conservatives, tea party members,  Libertarians, Republicans, gun owners, "bitter clingers", Fox News employees, Fox News viewers, conservative 501 Cs, video-makers who mock Mohammad, Zionists, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Utah...well, you get the idea.   Though this amounts to about half the country, I still don't think this defines Obama's love, or lack thereof,  for his country.

In short, every country on the planet has interesting people and majestic physical features.  Having those things does not make America any more lovable than, say, Canada or Ethiopia.  I have no doubt Obama loves America the same way he loves Scotland with its great golf courses and iconic caddies.  But none of that really defines America and separates it from the rest of the world.   

There is only one thing that really makes America America and separates it from every other nation on the planet - the ideas on which we were founded.  Those ideas eventually led to the Declaration of Independence, The Federalist Papers, The Constitution of The United States, and the twenty seven amendments thus far.  All those ideas have been distilled into the living document that is the Constitution of the United States as amended.  Under our constitution, the federal government has very explicit limits on it's power and everything outside those powers belongs to the states and the people.  This had never been tried in world history.  The US Constitution is what makes America unique among nations and it alone is what constitutes "American exceptionalism".  

We’ve heard a lot about “American exceptionalism” lately, but most of it misses the point.  Barack Obama was asked if he believed in American exceptionalism early in his presidency.  “I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism”, he replied.    Subsequently he amended that view on numerous occasions, only to reveal that he continues to misunderstand the meaning of the term. 

Last fall, the president stood in front of a group of healthcare workers who had recently returned from Ebola stricken Africa.  “That’s American exceptionalism!”, the constitutional scholar informed us, which was ironic because many of the care givers present were members of a French organization known as Medecines Sans Frontieres, known here as Doctors Without Borders.  Oops, maybe he meant French exceptionalism. 

No doubt, any person who goes to Africa to treat Ebola patients is an exceptional human being, but that has nothing to do with American exceptionalism.  American exceptionalism refers to our founding principles; never before in human history had a nation been formed with the central principle being the supremacy of the individual and deliberate limits on the powers of the state.  It made us an EXCEPTION among nations.  American exceptionalism does not mean that we are superior to other nations.  It simply means we are unique, different, an EXCEPTION to the rule. 

Those unique ideas are what made us great.  Everything we've achieved as a nation stemmed from our founding ideas:  outlawing slavery, creating the world's most successful economic engine, raising standards of living like never before, spreading democracy and tolerance,  helping defeat fascism and terrorism around the globe, and being a magnet for the world's tired, hungry, and poor.

Here are the six big ideas expressed in the Constitution of The United States: 

  1. limited government
  2. republicanism
  3. checks and balances
  4. federalism
  5. separation of powers
  6. popular sovereignty
After six years of Obama's presidency, he has demonstrated through his words and deeds that he has nothing but disdain for these six ideas.

No president has been more outspoken about his disdain for limited government than Barack Obama.  He has openly denigrated the concept calling the constitution a “charter of negative liberties”.  Ummmm, yes it is from the perspective of an all-powerful state.  But from the perspective of the individual it was designed to protect, it is a godsend.  Obama has explicitly stated that he'd prefer a constitution that says "what the government must do on your behalf" rather than one that says "what the government cannot do to you".  Obama went so far as to use the word "tragedy" in describing how limited government restricted the federal governments ability to redistribute wealth.   

Here's Obama in his own words:



Obama has been equally hostile to the other five big ideas in the constitution.  Here is a piece from Forbes in 2012 that nicely covers most of this.

Is there anyone who has ever heard Barack Obama speak in favor of "Republicanism"?  I doubt it.   The party by that name certainly gets no love.  Checks and balances may have gotten lip service, but his deeds indicate nothing but disdain.  Federalism ditto.  Separation of powers?  Don't make me laugh.  Popular sovereignty?  Obama's intransigence in the wake of the recent landslide mid-term election proves his disdain for popular sovereignty. 

To love America is to love the unique exceptional ideas on which it was founded and which became embodied in the US Constitution as amended.  Barack Obama has nothing but disdain for those ideas and the document they became.  So you tell me, does Obama love America?  Does Hillary?  How about any Progressive who wants to progress away from the six big ideas in The US Constitution?  


Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Half The Country Has Seceded From The Constitution


What is going on in America today?  Political polarization is at crisis levels.  The Republican Party is at war with itself.  Democrats are waking up to their own internal war.  Third party spoilers are showing up more often.  Has anything like this ever happened before? 

We always assume that the times we live in are unique.  Yet at the same time we know that history repeats itself.  These two ideas are not contradictory.  We are repeating history, but in a new way.

There are two ways to define the United States:  one is physical and one is conceptual.  Physically The United States is defined by its borders.  Conceptually The United States is defined by its constitution and founding ideas.

In 1860 seven southern states seceded from The United States triggering the Civil War (1861 – 1865).   That secession threatened the physical definition of The United States. 

Today I would argue half the country has similarly seceded, only this time it is conceptual.  They have seceded from the constitution and our founding ideas.

Political polarization and secession went hand in hand in 1860.  The Democrat Party had split into Northern and Southern factions.  A new party emerged called the Constitutional Union Party.  Republicans were geographically confined to the North.

None of this happened overnight.  The issues causing the polarization had been simmering since before the nation was born.  It took secession, and the realization of what that meant, for it to reach crisis status. 

Similarly, the ideological polarization over the constitution and our founding ideas has been heating up for a long time.  We have had an open repudiation of constitutionally limited government certainly since The Progressive Era (1890 – 1920).  That repudiation has been simmering for over a hundred years and has often been bipartisan.

Charges of unconstitutional behavior and intent are ubiquitous in American politics.  But Barack Obama represents something new.  He is not shy about his disdain for our constitution and founding ideas.  Nor is he shy about his preferences which contradict those ideas.

Barack Obama is the first president I’m aware of to openly announce a “fundamental transformation” of the United States.  The secession was announced!  And twice it won at the polls!

Now thanks to ObamaCare, the people are getting a first-hand glimpse of the reality of what that secession means to them.

There is an old analogy about boiling a frog:  Put a frog in boiling water and it will immediately jump out.  Put the same frog in cold water, slowly bring it to a boil, and the frog will surely die.

The question is, are we slowly boiling, or are we finally feeling it enough to jump?  



Here is a link to The Constitution of The United States.  You don’t need to be a legal scholar to read and understand the intent of this concise, relatively simple document.  It does however take a legal scholar to hide the secession!

(This could have been the preamble to my piece - “The Coming Civil War – Who, What, Where, When, and Why” which is available here.)

Friday, March 26, 2010

Constitutional Music

In 2008, the Supreme Court barely upheld the second amendment by a narrow 5-4 decision in DC v. Heller. The second amendment is all of ONE SENTENCE LONG and we’ve been debating its meaning for 220 years. It couldn’t be simpler. Yet it barely squeaked by with nary a vote to spare. A similar case, McDonald v. Chicago, is in the court right now and as usual, all bets are off despite that one, single, simple, clear, sentence.

Now we have a new “right to healthcare” paid for by others. This week, a President with no private sector experience along with his similarly inexperienced party, rewired 17% of the US economy with the stroke of a pen and a new 3000 page law. Remember, the second amendment is one sentence long! How are we going to interpret our new 3000 page right to healthcare? Of course, unlike the right to bear arms, which hangs from a thread, the right to healthcare is not in the constitution.

Nor is the “right” to Social Security, Medicaid, or Medicare, but the court has never done anything about them either. These programs are like “Deem and Pass” amendments, unofficial changes to the constitution that we have selfishly agreed to allow because, hey, we like free stuff. All the while, we shamelessly stick our kids and grandkids with the bill, but we’re worth it, right?

Roe v. Wade is based on another non-existent right, the so-called “right to privacy”. This right was based on a “penumbra” or weak shadow, cast by the bill of rights. Seriously, that’s how they justified it. The imaginary right to privacy was conjured-up by lawyers looking to find exactly what they needed in the constitution.  It is made-up. Yet that hasn’t stopped this law from surviving for some 26 years.

We just watched the spectacle of the President berating the Supreme Court in his State of the Union Speech because they had the temerity to uphold the first amendment in Citizens United v. FEC.  Again, that was a narrow 5-4 decision on the really complicated first amendment. (Another behemoth at one sentence long!)

In short, rights that really are there, in clear language, must fight to within an inch of their lives, while imaginary rights, like the latest one, are cheered through with parades and marching bands.

So I ask: If the constitution can mean anything, is it not really meaningless? Picture an orchestra warming up. There is no rhythm, no melody, no key, no limits, and no beauty. Just avant-garde, progressive noise. That is the music of our modern US constitution.

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Obama Really is the Messiah!

Barack Obama truly is The One, The Messiah, or at the very least, a major Prophet. He has managed to do something that hasn’t been done since slavery. No, not the American kind, I’m referring to the biblical Egyptian variety, back when Moses was The One they’d been waiting for. Like Moses, Obama has managed to unite the people and start them on their journey to salvation, and just like biblical Egypt, the people have found comfort in their founding principles and are heading back to the Promised Land. Unlike ancient Egypt, this time the people got united by accident.

But are we really united? Are we not a seriously divided nation? Yes, we are divided in many ways, but I believe we may be more united than we think. In fact, I’ll bet you a gazillion dollars that regardless of your political views, for roughly half of the last 2 years, you had zero trust in the guy in the White House, thought he was lying through his teeth, thought he was doing unconstitutional things, and were sick of seeing him on your TV. Does that describe you? Are we not united here? The point is, no matter who we trust or don’t, or who we vote for, roughly half the time, the other guys are in charge! And it’s not like the ones we mistrust ever go away. There are still laws on the books from Washington (yeah, that loser.) Heck, we still have that useless Louisiana Purchase Jefferson stuck us with! You think, your cool guy is in, and the other jerk is out? Think again.

Our government is like a giant nightmare version of the Garden of Eden that has never been pruned. Sure, it started out simple and beautiful when all we had was our Constitution, but along the way we bit the apple, and now anything can be justified as Constitutional. The Garden is an overgrown mess. When the Constitution can be anything, it becomes nothing. It’s as if everything ever planted in our Garden of Eden, good or bad, constitutional or unconstitutional, by every administration, has just grown, and grown, and grown, unchecked. How many federal programs, agencies, taxes, or laws can you name that have ever been phased out? Not many, right? Do you really want all those weeds clogging up your once heavenly Garden? Wouldn’t it be great if we could agree to do some trimming and weeding and get back to that Promised Land of Constitutional Government? See, we really are united!

After the State of the Union Address, Peggy Noonan, who writes a weekly op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, pointed out that Obama’s message was essentially (and I’m paraphrasing) “Washington is hopelessly broken, but if you allow us to control your entire life, we’ll make sure all your healthcare, energy, climate, automotive, banking, defense, housing, food, drug, and employment needs are satisfied.” Yeah, right. It’s laughable on its face, especially when you realize that half the time, the people in charge of your entire life will be the untrustworthy, lying, stupid, jerks you voted against! And say what you will, none of that is in the Constitution.

Unwittingly, Barack Obama has become our savior. I’m not suggesting that he is doing anything right, in fact, by being so spectacularly wrong, he has become the Prophet his followers promised. Look around. Everywhere you turn the pendulum is swinging back and this swing is bigger and more profound than any in the past. Of course, the pendulum is always swinging. Remember how after Bill Clinton’s “character” issues, the pendulum swung to Bush 43 who ran on bringing dignity back to the oval office? And after Bush’s lack of brains and communication skills, the pendulum swung to a much smarter guy? Notwithstanding the fact that he thinks there are at least 57 states, can’t pronounce Corpsman, and needs a TelePrompTer to talk to school kids; he really does sound smart most of the time.

(Not to get sidetracked, but speaking of sounding smart, when Obama talks about economics or defense in particular, he reminds me of a character in “Fast Times at Ridgemont High”. Remember Mike Damone, the sleazy cool kid who talks a slick game about the ladies, but eventually gets exposed as a complete novice and fraud? Here’s some dialog I clipped from IMDB:

  • Mike Damone: I mean don't just walk in. You move across the room. And you don't talk to her. You use your face. You use your body. You use everything. That's what I do. I mean I just send out this vibe and I have personally found that women do respond. I mean, something happens.
  • Mark Ratner: Well, naturally something happens. I mean, you put the vibe out to 30 million chicks, something is gonna happen.  
  • Mike Damone: That's the idea, Rat. That's the attitude.
  • Mark Ratner: The attitude?
  • Mike Damone: Yeah! The attitude dictates that you don't care whether she comes, stays, lays, or prays. I mean whatever happens, your toes are still tappin'. Now when you got that, then you have the attitude.
Anyway, Obama reminds me of a pseudo-intellectual Mike Damone. Yeah, it’s a stretch, so what, who cares?)

Getting back to the pendulum, this swing started long before Barack Obama became President. Don’t you remember feeling helpless as Bush was shepherding the tragic TARP bill through? You probably had the same feeling when congress unanimously passed the first stimulus bill and Obama was not President then either. Ditto when Bush expanded federal control over education and prescription drugs for Medicare. Yeah, this swing of the pendulum has been going for a hundred years and it’s about the Constitution and its demise as a check on federal power.

I realize this is a familiar charge. Whenever we don’t like what a politician does, we yell “Unconstitutional!” Remember the outcry over Bush’s warrantless wiretaps? It’s the oldest charge in the book, but can you ever remember it getting traction before? Why now? And why is Obama the Prophet if he didn’t even start the pendulum swinging?

Because Obama gave the pendulum such a huge push! Nobel Economist Milton Friedman used to refer to the “Frog-in-the-Pot” analogy when discussing the shredding of The Constitution. That’s the classic analogy about dropping a frog in a pot of boiling water only to see it jump right out. Put that same frog into a pot of cool water, slowly bring it to a boil, and you’ll soon have a happily poached frog. In this case, we are the frog, and the flame cooking us is being stoked by the bi-partisan enemies of The Constitution.

Obama has turned up the heat so much in such a short time, that the frogs are jumping in droves. Would there have been Tea Parties if McCain had won the election? I doubt it. John McCain would have been almost as much an enemy of the Constitution as Obama. He wanted many of the same things. Heck, Obama hasn’t been overturned by the Supreme Court as far as I know! That’s an honor few can share with John McCain. But still, I think we would have behaved quietly as we did under Bush. We would have just enjoyed the warm bath like the compliant frogs we are. But instead we see this today:

                      Photoshop Hat Tip: www.humblelibertarian.com via www.michellemalkin.com

So what changed with Obama?
  • For one, we are supposed to be a nation of Laws not Men. Our Constitution is supposed to be our guiding light, not our leaders. Then along comes Obama with his Messianic shtick and personality cult and it just goes against the grain of who we are.
  • Second, The Constitution allows for the government to collect taxes, and over the years, the government has devolved into a virtual redistribution machine. The constitution does not say that the government can directly redistribute wealth, and that’s been a line few politicians have crossed. Then Obama came along and woke us up.
  • Third is his rhetorical assault on The Constitution itself. He has made no secret that he holds The Constitution in contempt and this is a bit too much for those of us who think it is the very thing that made this country what we are. (Not that any document is perfect. But we say, if you’ve got a problem with The Constitution, there’s an app for that; it’s called an amendment!)
  • Fourth, is the sheer audacity of his redistributionist agenda and its unprecedented assault on future generations.
  • And finally, there is the perception that he is not engaged as Commander in Chief; a job at the Constitutional core of our executive branch.
Yes, absent Obama we’d still be dozing off in that pot waiting to become frog soup, but his brazen Coup d’état woke us up. (Yes, I think you can call it a Coup even though we elected him. And the “p” is silent like in Corpsman for those keeping score.) In this case, it's The Constitution, not the government which Obama and the Anti-Constitutionistas seek to overthrow. Luckily, we are now awake.

Thanks to the Obama awakening, concerned Americans are protesting in the street by the millions. Massachusetts, of all places, just ended a super-majority in The Senate. The Obama Administration is retreating on every single one of its agenda items. No incumbent from either party is a sure thing unless viewed as a strict Constitutionalist. John McCain is being challenged in his home state from within his party. Atlas Shrugged is a bestseller. People are once again reading the Constitution, The Declaration, The Federalist Papers, and reviewing American history. For Chris sakes, one of the highest rated cable news shows is a guy teaching American history at a blackboard at 5 O’clock!

These are nothing short of miracles. Barack Obama is indeed the Messiah.


Thursday, January 21, 2010

Magic Bullets Part VII – The Tax Ammendment

If you could wave a magic wand and make one amendment to the Constitution all by yourself, what would it be? Would you impose term limits? Would you rename the country after yourself? Would you make “Pants on the Ground” the national anthem? I know what I’d do: I’d end hidden taxes and get every person to participate.

My theory is that just about everything that is systemically wrong with our country stems from the fact that we don’t really know what it all costs and we don’t all share in those costs. This is of course, no accident. Politicians have been expert at two things, hiding the costs of their duplicity and getting re-elected. If we were to eliminate stealth taxes and get everyone to share the costs, profligate politicians would have their plans blow-up in their faces and the only ones re-elected would be those lowering costs and improving the efficiency of their enterprise.

Here’s how I would end stealth taxes and give everyone “skin-in-the-game” with one amendment to the constitution: The amendment would read as follows – “All federal domestic revenues shall be collected directly from the people and all taxpayers will pay the same rate and receive an identical pre-bate.”

The first question you may have is; (*feel free to use Larry The Cable Guy accent here) “What’s a pre-bate?” A pre-bate is a nifty way to not impact the poor while at the same time giving everyone skin-in-the-game. The way it would work is this: At the start of every tax period, an amount equal to the taxes paid at the poverty level would be sent to every taxpayer. This would in effect establish a zero bracket for the poor and a graduated net tax rate for those earning more than the poverty level. After that, every dime would come directly out of the pockets of the people. And there would be a single rate for every person with no deductions, period.

Here is an example of the tax system that would result. Incidentally, this could work for a system based on Income Taxes, Sales Taxes, or any combination of the two. The rates are for illustration purposes:

Tax rate = 40 % (This could be split roughly between 20% income and 20% national sales tax, for example.  Yeah it’s high, but it has to be to pay for what we’re now spending!)

Poverty rate = $15,000 income per year for this example.

Pre-bate = $6,000 per year or, $1,500 per quarter.

Using this example, everyone of age, who is legal, from Bill Gates to a homeless person, would get a $6,000 annual pre-bate.

A poor person would be able to earn and spend up to $15,000 and effectively pay zero taxes due to the pre-bate. Bill Gates, on the other hand, would burn through the $6,000 in a blink and end up paying an effective rate of 40% with no deductions. A person making $30,000 and spending it all would pay $12,000 in taxes, minus the pre-bate, resulting in $6,000 total taxes for an effective net rate of 20%.

So that’s how the pre-bate would work to graduate net tax rates despite there being only one rate and everyone participating. You may be asking; “Doesn’t everyone participate now?” To that, I’d have to answer yes and no. The fact is, some 50% of Americans are getting an illusory free-ride. The reason I say “illusory” is because many people incorrectly believe they pay no taxes. After all, many get a big rebate check in April and the politicians are always telling them they are going to tax only “the rich”. Eventually, people start to believe it. This is borne out in election after election when people are told that someone else will pay for their big entitlements like free healthcare, subsidized housing loans, extended unemployment benefits, and so forth. But there’s a problem: economies have a way of leveling these costs and spreading them around to the point that the cost becomes built into everything we buy and everything we earn. The notion that costs for huge new entitlements will be borne by someone else is like trying to pump water from only the deep end of the pool; if your pump is fast enough, there may actually be a moment when it will appear like the shallow end is unaffected, but trust me, that will not last!

Back to the wording of the amendment: “All federal domestic revenues shall be collected directly from the people…” By directly taxing only the people, there would be no more indirect taxes like payroll taxes and business taxes of any kind. Now, you may be thinking; “What, no business taxes? That’s crazy! Why give Corporations a free ride?” My answer: because businesses already pay no taxes. Sure, businesses do remit taxes, but only after collecting the exact amount from their customers and employees. In other words, all corporate payroll taxes, income taxes, fees, etc. are actually just hidden taxes on individuals. These hidden taxes distort voter behavior and obscure the necessary transparency of our exploding public sector.

Put another way, a business is just a bunch of individuals, formed into a team and working toward a common goal. The team itself gets no vote and does not exist except as a legal entity. Taxing a business violates the very rule on which this country was founded: Taxation without Representation. Of course businesses do get represented, but only through money and lobbying. If we eliminate all business taxes and collect everything directly from the people, we are properly aligning taxation and representation. Of course, business lobbying will still go on to fight for regulatory and trade consideration, but the power will shift measurably towards the people.

So would this be simple to implement? All I can say is, it’s hard to conceive of a tax regime as complicated as what we’ve got. So yes, this would be simpler, better, and more efficient. Of course we’d still have to have some agency like the IRS that would administer collections, pre-bates, compliance, business rebates, and the like. That’s one dragon we can’t slay with this magic bullet.

What we would gain though is a population directly aligned with their government and a likely return to our founding principles of Constitutional Democracy. We’d once again have what Lincoln referred to as a: “Government of the People, by the People, and for the People.”

Thursday, December 31, 2009

Anatomy of a Myth II – The Racist Constitution.

Maybe it’s just me, but I was taught that the Constitution counted black people as 3/5ths of white people. It was just something we were told was due to the racism of the times. That’s how it was in those unenlightened days, after all, what could you expect from a bunch of rich white slave owners? Those founders may have been learned wise men, but they were also flaming racists, or so we were told. Fortunately for the Constitution and the Founders, the 3/5ths language in Article 1, Section 2 is not what we were taught.

Critics use the 3/5ths enumeration language to justify all sorts of anti-founder, anti-American, sentiment. If the Constitution itself can be viewed as a racist document, does that not cast doubt on the holiness of the whole enterprise of these United States? Isn’t that what some have preached for years? Does that not sound familiar? There’s only one problem with this argument; the premise is flawed because the 3/5ths language in Article 1, Section 2 is not about race or racism.

Oh, I’m not claiming that racism didn’t exist among the founders and in colonial America. I can’t imagine an economy based on forced African labor as anything but racist. But the Constitution, and in particular the 3/5ths provision in Article I, Section 2 studiously avoids that issue. The framers were pretty aware that history would be looking over their shoulder and accordingly chose language that would not be harshly viewed by future generations. They were doing what they could, in their way, to plot a course in the direction of their founding dream of a society in which “all men were created equal”, and were treated that way.

So, what about that 3/5ths thing; what does it really say in Article I, Section 2? The founders enumerated non-free Persons as 3/5ths of a free Person. In other words, it was about slavery not race. Free blacks, of which there were many by 1787, were enumerated exactly as free whites. Moreover, the constitution refers to all men, free and “other” as “Persons”. This is no accident. Incidentally, white slaves would have been enumerated exactly as black slaves, at 3/5ths. That’s right, there were occasional white slaves too!

So why the distinction and the 3/5ths thing in the first place? Madison explains in Federalist #54 that enumeration served two purposes in the constitution: representation and taxation. The more Persons you had, the more you were taxed and the more representatives you could send to the federal govt. Slaves didn’t pay taxes or vote but did swell the population of a state, therefore the 3/5ths thing was arrived at as a compromise for calculating taxes and representatives. Of course, free blacks were fully enumerated before they could vote; just like women.

Article 1, Section 2 never mentions race or slaves, only “free Persons”, “Indians”, and “other Persons”. Indians, who also paid no taxes and couldn’t vote, were enumerated as “zeros” presumably because they didn’t contribute economically like slaves did. Again, none of this precludes the reality of racism among the people of the time, but it does point out the lack of a racial aspect to Article 1, Section 2.

Thomas Sowell, one of my favorite economists, and incidentally a black man, tells a story in one of his books where he was questioning a professor and asked where slavery came from. The professor responded that that was the wrong question. The right question was, where did freedom come from, because slavery was woven into the human fabric from the outset; it is only in modern times that freedom has become the norm. We have abolitionists and philosophers around the world to thank for the freedom that we all enjoy today. Among them were the wise men who wrote our founding documents and made it clear, if you look closely, where they expected us to end-up.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

First They Came For...

First they came for the capitalists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a capitalist;

Then they came for the conservatives, and I did not speak out—because I was not conservative;

Then they came for the critics, and I did not speak out—because I was not a critic;

Then they came for Fox News, and I did not speak out—because I watched MSNBC;

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak out for me.

(Apologies to Pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984))

Monday, October 5, 2009

Magic Bullets - Part II - New Constitutional Ammendments

Again, in response to The Lovin' Spoonful, I do believe in magic!  Magic Bullets that is.  Today's magic bullets are a trio of constitutional ammendments that would do an end-run around the run-away government that has slipped through the cracks of the Commerce Clause and other overly broad parts of our founding documents which clearly were not intended by the authors as curently construed.   Read on if this kind of thing interests you and please comment: 

28th ammendment -  All domestic federal revenue must be collected directly from the people. 

This ammendment would eliminate all stealth taxes and fees and reveal the true cost of our government to the people.  One big change would be the elimination of all corporate and payroll taxes.  So, you say, corporations get a free ride???  Not at all.  Corporations don't actually pay taxes!   But they do collect and remit taxes which are stealthily taken from their employees and customers.  Stealth taxes are how the government is able to fool the populace into thinking they are getting good value from their tax dollar.  This is a magic bullet which would quickly lead to honest, right-sized government.

29th ammendment - Federal Representatives, Senators, and Judges including SCOTUS, may serve no longer than 12 years.

Don't really need to explain this one 'cause the logic is exactly the same as term limits for the President.  A no-brainer magic bullet.

30th ammendment -  Any activity (legislation, regulation, financing, goods, services, etc) of the federal government must meet three tests:  1. the activity must be of direct and equal benefit  for potentially all US citizens, 2.  the activity must not be obtainable from the private sector, 3.  and the cost of the activity must be borne by all citizens in like proportion, after an exemption for poverty.   

This would drive a stake through the heart of pork spending and earmarks while making sure everyone had "skin-in-the-game".   Could we socialize medicine after this?  No, because it would fail the second test.  Could we even have Medicaid or Medicare?  Sure, as long as it was strictly a financing activity which all citizens could obtain if they qualify.  Could we have a space program?  Sure, as it would meet all 3.  Could we have National Parks?  Sure.  Could we have a bridge to nowhere?  No.  Could we have wealth re-distribution?  Sure, as long as it passed the third test (which would limit it severely).  Could we go to a national sales tax or keep the income tax?  Sure, but the income tax would be flat after poverty and the sales tax would have a pre-bate.

How would our country look after these 3 ammendments?  Think about it....              

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Defund this War!

"Defund this War!"  Ever hear that one?  In this case I'm referring to the "War on Me" taking place in Washington today.  That's right, I think there is a Coup currently taking place in Washington and it is among other things a war on me and people like me who believe in private enterprise, economic liberty, the US Constitution, and the very political liberty which has set this country apart. 

As citizens we only have one direct weapon against a democratic Coup d'etat and that is our right to vote.  But what if our vote is systematically stolen from us by a government funded voter-fraud machine wholly owned by the Democrat Party?  I'm referring of course to ACORN and organizations like it which have been in the news lately for various other trespasses.  But what of  the billions already in government funding and it's role in delivering filibuster-proof majorities to one party so it can prosecute this war? 

I cannot in good faith fund this un-constitutional use of taxpayer money for blatant and fraudulent political purposes.  That's it, I'm going all tax free.  I'll give up yield, but I'll sleep better.  This is not a simple disagreement with my government.   That happens all the time and I've never avoided a tax at the expense of yield.  This however is an obvious breach-of-contract on the government's part.  I'm supposed to have the right to vote and in return, the government is supposed to honor that vote according to the laws; not negate it by funding it's own self-sustaining vote-fraud machine!  Enough.   Will this cost me some return and isn't this risky?   You bet; but so was the Declaration of Independence and this is even more serious!  I'm de-funding this war and so should you...