Allow me to begin by saying that I am no fan of Al Franken and I’m not specifically picking on Rush Limbaugh.   If and when Al Franken takes his seat in the senate, it will be a bad day for America. And I am using Rush Limbaugh as an example for all the radio and television talk show hosts, all the writers and bloggers out there including myself, who have ever despaired of the direction of the country, deplored the behavior of our elected politicians and thought that we had more common sense in our little finger that they had in their whole body.

     The media has an important function in our society, which is why it is referred to in the first amendment. The ability to educate, inform and persuade is a powerful tool in the political process. But for all the words spoken by Rush and the other talk show hosts, for all the words written in newspapers, magazines and on the Internet, the stimulus package passed for want of one vote in the senate. Government health care, a nearly four trillion dollar budget, cap and trade may all be forced on us for the lack of one or two votes.

    For all the talking, all the educating, all the informing done by talk radio and other conservative/alternative media, the country is falling rapidly into the black hole of statism. Why? First, while Rush’s fifteen to twenty million listeners sounds like a lot, there are over three hundred million people in this country, over one hundred million voters. And not all those listeners agree with Rush’s viewpoint, some are just entertained, and this goes for all of talk radio. The point here is that the vast majority of people in the country don’t tune in to talk radio, they don’t follow the news closely, they are not politically educated or aware. As products of a government education and fans of reality TV, they easily fall for a demagogue like Barak Obama.

     Second, it is an “us vs them” approach to politics and this is encouraged by the behavior of both sides. On one side is the “us”, the average citizen who actually seeks to inform himself and those who seek to do the informing. Then there is the “them”, the “political class”, the people who actually make the rules that govern our lives, rules that are increasingly intrusive and destructive. Too often we have the mindset that we are merely subjects of the king who stand outside the palace gates shouting our pleas and hoping we are heard. On the other side of the gate is the political class who turn a deaf ear to our pleas because they are confident in their power and position. When the vast majority of the incumbents are elected regardless of what they do, they see no problem ignoring the interests of anyone but themselves. The whole system turns on its head. Instead of serving us, the politicians serve themselves. Instead of seeing ourselves as part of the process, we are reduced to servants of the political class. We fear them, they don’t fear us. According to Thomas Jefferson, that is the definition of tyranny.

     This was a primary cause of the revolution. Parliament and the king, three thousand miles away, were making the rules without any input from the colonists. They were free to ignore them because there was nothing, short of armed insurrection, the colonists could do about it. The colonists could not vote for any representation yet they were told they were British subjects and had to follow the dictates of such an elected body. Today, we have the same problem. Washington may as well be on the moon for the amount of impact we, as average citizens, have on it.

     Finally, and this is probably the most important point, talk radio, and the media in general, is reactionary by its very nature. Commentators, by definition, are reacting to something that has already happened. News, by definition, is a description of an event in the past. Conservatism by its very name, is reactionary. It seeks to conserve the status quo, conserve the liberty that remains. If we look back on the last hundred years, or even the decades since President Reagan, any objective observer can see that as a movement, it has done a lousy job “conserving” liberty. Government has grown and liberty has retreated under both major parties. For all the growth of talk radio and the “alternative” media, its real impact has been negligible because it is reactionary and has no cohesive agenda.

    That is why the progressives, the statists, have been so successful. First, they have a cohesive agenda and a long term vision. If all else fails they can fall back on Marx as an ideological rallying point. Everything they do is geared toward expanding the power of the state until everything is under its, and their, control. Second, they are patient and persistent. If something does not work, they try something else with the same goal in mind. They will use legislation, the courts, the mob, executive order, bureaucratic fiat, whatever it takes to get their way. Third, they manipulate language to confuse their enemies. Look at he words liberal and conservative.   Liberal once meant what libertarian does now. Personally, that is why I don’t use it. I prefer statist, one who believes in the state. Conservative now means bigot, out of touch, sexist, redneck, hyper-Christian homophobe. President Obama is moving this along at a rapid clip. Success no longer means money but the poverty of government service. Wealth is evil, freedom is slavery, ignorance is bliss. Finally, and this is by no means a comprehensive list, the statist knows how to set the agenda. We have been dancing to the statist tune for one hundred years. Some may have tried a few new steps but the music hasn’t changed.

     If those of us who love liberty want to save our country from the statist vision that is quickly becoming a permanent reality, we must stop being reactionary. We cannot be like the little boy with his finger in the dike because there is an army on the other side always drilling new holes. The dike needs to be rebuilt with an impenetrable steel and concrete structure we once knew at the constitution. The only way to restore the constitution is to take power away from Washington, not to simply stop them from acquiring more. Consider the original Revolution. Samuel Adams and his friends in the Sons of Liberty didn’t just write letters to parliament and the king asking them to please not take away their God given rights. They had an agenda, independence, that they worked towards for twenty years through networking, protests, pamphlets, “slanted” news, property destruction and intimidation of government officials; whatever they could do to move toward the goal of liberty.

     It is time we stopped reacting and started acting. It is time those who loved liberty started setting the agenda and removing the ability of our elected officials and unelected bureaucrats to make our lives miserable. If ACORN can rent a mob to intimidate corporate officials, it is time we showed up outside the homes of our elected officials with signs and pitchforks to get their attention. It is time we stopped being intimidated and started doing the intimidating. We need to develop long range plans to eliminate all non constitutional functions from government. For example, we can start with the Department of Education. The statist knows that as long as he can keep creating good little government robots through government education, his plans will succeed. If we return education to the state, and ultimately, the local level, we will once again have control. We need to defund the government. I believe, like Thomas Jefferson, that income taxes are immoral and therefore we should work toward repeal of the sixteenth amendment. Without the ability to take our wealth, it will be hard to redistribute it. The seventeenth amendment should go as well to to give the states themselves a voice in government as originally intended.

     Ultimately, however, we need legislators who believe in the liberty of the people more than their own power who will introduce and pass such legislation. Al Franken threw his hat in the ring for the statist agenda.   It is time those who talk a good game “put some skin in the game” as Joe Biden said. It is time to put up or shut up. Sam Adams and the Sons of Liberty were not just rabble rousers. Many of them were elected assemblymen who shaped the course of our nation’s history. If men like Rush Limbaugh really care about the country, prove it. Do what needs to be done to change it. Take the pay cut and endure the media “anal exam” and put yourself in a position to really accomplish something. The statists have plenty of leaders, the lovers of liberty have none. We need a plan and courageous men and women to push it forward. Not career politicians but people who are willing to step forward as they did in the past to do a job that needs to be done.   If it doesn’t start happening now, if the agenda is not removed from the hands of the statist, the country our children inherit will be a nation no Son of Liberty would recognize.     

www.patricksamuels.com 

     The imminent departure of Justice Souter has brought all the old issues to the forefront as the sides gear up for the battle over the next judicial appointment.  The issues of the “culture war”, as most people understand it, will fill the pages of what newspapers are left, and become endless fodder for the talking heads on television.  They will discuss abortion, gay rights and marriage, school prayer, civil rights and a whole host of other issues.   For now, however, we are going to forget the fact that giving so much power to these nine people, and the judiciary in general, was not the intention of the founders of this country.   What I am going to propose to the reader is the idea that the culture war cannot be won without reestablishing the individual freedom that is part and parcel of free market capitalism.  The free market economic system, by its very nature, encourages the development of  values that make societies vibrant, healthy and successful.   It is cause and effect.  In a free society where individuals are empowered and there is little government interference or control, people are responsible and innovative and local communities are strong.  They have to be because there is no outside entity to rely on.  In societies where power and wealth is concentrated at the top and the people are powerless, there is no incentive for people to be responsible or industrious because there is no reward or upward mobility.  Those at the top are manipulative and corrupt politicians who care only about the maintenance of their power.  This creates a stagnant society that produces nothing of value and soon enters the dustbin of history.

     The other morning I was watching a documentary on Fidel Castro made in the late sixties, less than a decade after the “revolution”.   The film crew was allowed to follow him around the countryside as he met with the Cuban people. He rode around in his jeep wearing his trademark green uniform, he and his army escort bouncing over muddy roads. He was doing what statist politicians have always done-listen to every problem, no matter how trivial, and promise to fix it. He promised roads to every village and milk to every family. He vowed to root out corruption and provide a pension for every man and woman “just for being old”. All the people smiled and cheered, believing that he cared about them as individuals and that father Fidel would take care of their every need. Hmmm, sounds familiar....I can hear a faint chant....”Yes we Can!”

     The most telling part of the program for me was an interview they had with a jeweler/watchmaker. Before the revolution he had his own shop and made a good living. He had a nice house and a good car. After the revolution, however, he said that the first thing Fidel and his gang did was eliminate private businesses. The man continued what he was doing but the shop was no longer his and he was now paid a wage he said was a fifth of what he made before. I was nodding in agreement at this point. We see it here. President Obama is following the same playbook. He is forcing himself and the federal government into the private sector, nationalizing industries, extending government control, firing CEOs and determining what people make, not just at the low end, but at the high end as well. The goal is to raise the low end a little, bring the high end down a lot, until everyone makes and has the same amount of money regardless of talent, productivity or laziness.

     Continuing with the interview, the man then talked about the benefits he received from Fidel. His children went to school, one of them even became a doctor. He didn’t have to pay a cent. When his wife had a baby, all the costs were covered, he paid nothing. Then he smiled and delivered the punchline-when one considers all the stuff he gets for free, “I make more now than I did before!” He weighed the loss of his freedom to do with the fruits of his labor what he wanted against the benefits of Fidel’s program and decided he was better off. At least he was honest.

     That is more than I can say for what is going on with the statists in this country. For the jeweler in Cuba, he could weigh the loss of eighty percent of his income against the benefits of “free” health care and education and decide that for him it was a net benefit. He believed the loss of his freedom, political and economic, was worth it. Of course, I suppose he could have just been putting on a good face about it. After all, Fidel and his boys didn’t give him a choice.

     In this country, we are being lied to about our socialist benefits. The jeweler in Cuba understood at some level that his “free” benefits cost him eighty percent of his income, the loss of his property rights and his political freedom. We are being told that for “ninety-five percent” of us, the socialist benefits really are “free”. Candidate and president Obama said ninety-five percent of the people would get a tax cut even if the majority of those ninety-five percent didn’t pay taxes in the first place. Against that promise are the promises of Fidel, free health care and education for all and...wait, there’s more. The government will also help pay your mortgage, buy you a car, give you a job and “if you let us act now, we’ll double the offer and it won’t cost you a penny.”

     It is a lie, of course, because even if taxes aren’t raised on the sixty percent that pay nothing, or next to nothing, the amount of spending necessary to provide all of these things is unsustainable without reaching into the pockets of more and more Americans. The problem is that as long as there are people like the Chinese who will lend us money at low rates, we can print the rest without igniting runaway inflation and we can squeeze more out of the top five percent that pay the majority of the taxes, it will be “free” for the majority and they will encourage the statist to do more. Even if they dimly understand the loss of freedom that government involvement entails, rationed health care for example, the majority will look on it as a net gain. Unlike the Cuban jeweler, they will lose little or no income to receive their benefits. In reality, for a short time, it will be a net gain. Money they don’t have to put into health insurance is more disposable income for them. Money they save on a subsidized mortgage is more money in their pocket. If they don’t have to contribute to their child’s education they have money they can put into a new, eco-friendly car. Its all free money! No wonder it is such an easy sell.

     There is no “free lunch” however. Sooner or later our credit will become worthless and interest rates will go sky high, if we can get anyone to lend to us at all. Inflation will result in government payments for all the “freebies” being made with worthless dollars. And when the government controls the majority of the economy and taxes the productive to the point they see no point in producing, they will have killed the goose that was laying the golden eggs.   When (not if) all these things happen, the true cost of all the freebies will come home to all Americans with a vengeance. All those generous benefits will be cut drastically or eliminated. Everyone’s production will be taxed at exorbitant rates. Dollars will be nearly worthless. Productive industries will have been ruined through government intervention and the economic infrastructure as well as the human capital within it will have been damaged to such an extent recovery will take a very long time.

     The question is when all this happens, when the mighty United States of America has been reduced to such an extent, when all our incomes are taxed at eighty percent or more, when we have lost our rights to private property and political freedom is just a distant memory purged from the history books, will we smile and say with our Cuban friend, “I’m better off now than I was before”?

www.patricksamuels.com

Author of "Memoirs of a Former American" 

     Recently the leaders of the Republican party have gone on a “listening tour” to try to find a way to recover from their recent losses.   They are trying to figure out what it is that will appeal to voters in the age of Obama. Sounds like a focus group effort to me and if that is the case, its all over for the Republicans. There is a simple reason for their recent losses. The Democrat party is much better at selling big government and all its benefits than are the Republicans. 

     Here is the problem for the Republican image. They say they are the party of smaller government, fiscal responsibility, national defense and social conservatism. But for six years, when they had all the power in Washington, they were fiscally irresponsible, they grew government and didn’t even make an attempt at waging war for social conservatism.  The evidence points to the fact that we don’t have a two party system anymore. We have one party, the party of “Big, Powerful, Intrusive Government”, with two wings. One wing has been at the game a long time, the other is a neophyte. The Republican neophytes, however, are finding that their usefulness parallels that of a sixth toe. The voters don’t want two parties that pursue the same agenda with different language; they want real choices. Unfortunately, the system is rigged against “outsiders” so the choices remain what they are and a larger and larger percentage of the people feel disenfranchised as they lose their liberty.

     The Republicans have a great advantage, if they chose to utilize it. The majority of the people in this country, for the moment, still believe in liberty. They believe in fiscal responsibility, they are socially conservative. They want to control our borders, they want smaller government, they want to hear English. When such ideas have been articulated in the past, they resulted in landslide victories for Ronald Reagan and Newt Gingrich. There are still people in the Republican party that believe this but they seem to be a rapidly shrinking minority. Just look at the last presidential candidate for the proof.

     The rise of Sarah Palin and Bobby Gindal may give some conservatives a glimmer of hope but I will tell you here and now why the Republicans are going to go the way of the Whigs. It is more than a problem of image, it is a problem of courage. The Democrats don’t believe in the give and take of the two party system. They believe they are the smartest people in the room and the reins of government belong in their hands and no other. To a Democrat, the ends justify the means, the rule of law is only useful when it can be used against an opponent, it does not apply to them.   Their only principle is the acquisition of power. In this current administration this principle is on display for everyone to see and they are not ashamed of it. The strong arm tactics of President Obama and his cronies would have made Mussolini smile. The naked grab for power in the private sector would have brought a chuckle to Stalin. Encouraging death threats against corporate leaders who dare oppose his will would have brought nods of approval from Hitler.

     The crux of the matter is this. The Republicans are not going to become the party of conservatism or, dare I say it, liberty, because that would put them fully in the cross hairs of a Democrat party whose aim is to destroy the opposition by any means possible. It takes a person of great courage to stand up against that kind of onslaught and a career politician is not that kind of person. Why did Sarah Palin connect with so many people? Because she was like us. She was forthright in her speech, she had principles and she stood up for them even when it wasn’t easy. The American people respect that and the Democrats can’t stand it. Palin was not the kind of person that could be bought or intimidated so she has to be destroyed. Dick Cheney was the same way, that is why he was the most hated man on the Hill for eight years.

      To make sure that no Republican ever challenges the Democrat agenda in a meaningful way again, even if they do happen to win an election now and then, they have entertained the possibility of prosecuting former administration officials for activities that were legal at the time but now meet with disapproval by those in power, i.e. Democrats. With the thought that a future administration is going to drag an official into court, ruining their reputation and bankrupting them in the process, is anyone going to take any risks? In anyone going to offer an opinion that goes against the statist vision for this country? Is anyone within the government going to stand up for the people’s freedom? No.

     In addition to image and courage, the Republicans have a wrong headed strategy for growing the party. The Democrats have developed a strong base of support among those who benefit from the government's largess and contribute little or nothing to receive it. Add to this the unions and community activists who support their Marxist vision and the possibility they will incorporate millions of illegal immigrants into their voting block and they have a secure and formidable base of support. If the Republicans try to compete for that base, they will lose. If they are too intimidated to espouse the principles of the people in this country that still love liberty, they will lose. Unfortunately, it would appear that the leadership of the party is following those tends exactly and by so doing, will accompany the Whigs into the dustbin of history.

www.patricksamuels.com

     Enshrined in the Constitution, in the first amendment, are the words “Congress shall make no law....abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press:”. The founders understood that the communication of ideas, either as individuals or within organizations known as “the press”, was a fundamental right and crucial to the operation of a democracy. They knew that if the government controlled speech and could suppress speech that was critical of it, the people would not be able to make informed decisions when they voted and power would collocate around those who controlled the speech.

    Now some may be thinking, that is what we have now. The “mainstream media”, consisting of the major network television broadcasts and a majority of newspapers, is in the pocket of the statists in the Democrat party and they have brainwashed the American people. The other side argues that the “alternative media”, made up primarily of talk radio and the Internet, it unfair to its ideas and programs. Both sides may complain that they are treated unfairly by some member of “the press” but I would argue that this is exactly what the founders intended. The idea that “the press” as a whole is to be objective is a myth we have created for ourselves and was not in any way, shape or form that held by the people of the eighteenth century. If you had an idea or a point of view you wanted to disseminate, you had three choices. First, if you could get the listeners, you could make speeches. Second, you could write a pamphlet. This is what Thomas Paine did with “Common Sense” and in so doing, gave the final push to the Continental Congress to declare for independence. I’m sure King George did not think it a “fair and objective” treatment of his policies. Finally, you could start a newspaper. Samuel Adams and his friends did this to support their revolutionary ideas, as did Thomas Jefferson when he formed his political party in opposition to John Adams. His paper was anything but objective and everyone knew it and accepted it.

     The point is that “the press” was understood to have a point of view and its dissemination of the news was understood to support that point of view, a point of view that was political in nature. The papers themselves advertised this fact in their names-the Democrat this or the Republican that. There was no regulation of these papers and the market determined their success of failure. Samuel Adams’ first paper lasted only two years but some of those early papers continue to this day. If their ideas and viewpoint attracted people, it was a success; if they were not, it went under. For the politically active, getting your product noticed in the marketplace of ideas was just as difficult then as it is now.

     Over the years, the press has not changed but our perception of it has. We expect the press to simply “give us the facts” and let us fit it into our ideological understanding. We created the myth of media objectivity where there was none, never has been and never will be. Much of the press, for its part, has bought into the myth as well and believes that it is objective and unbiased, lying to itself. Given this situation, we have two choices. We can complain that the media is not what we think it should be, which is what most of those on the “right” do. Or was can delude ourselves into believing that what we receive from the major media outlets is objective and simply swallow their “spin” as true. This is what the majority of Americans who don’t have the will, desire or time to think critically about the issues choose to do. Why? Here is the real issue. Most Americans are products of government schools whose objective, because they are government schools, is to turn out a product that will support the idea that government is good and all the things government does, or tries to do, are good. Americans are not taught to think critically in school, we are not taught to be discerning. Therefore, when students come out of the system, they naturally gravitate toward media that support the worldview they have been spoon-fed for over a decade of their young lives. The more the Federal government controls the schools, the worse this tendency is going to be. The founders knew this which is why there was no “Department of Education” for almost two hundred years. Education was understood to be a family and community matter, not a government matter. 

     Today, there are more choices than ever before when it comes to receiving information and viewpoints and because of that fact, people who receive it are forced to learn to think critically and be discerning. The marketplace works and we need to let it work, particularly in the areas of political ideology. Any suggestion by any political official that we need regulation in the media should be met with strong opposition. Failing papers should not be “bailed out”, talk radio should not be subject to any form of the “Fairness Doctrine” and the Internet should not be regulated in any way. The marketplace should determine the success or failure of every idea.