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.

     Last week Governor Perry of Texas got himself into some hot water not only by supporting a resolution reminding Washington about the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution but by going one step farther and mentioning the possibility of secession. It is interesting that for the past few weeks Mr. Perry has been heralded by many on the right for standing up to Washington but by mentioning secession, most of them believe he went too far and may have ended his political career. By mentioning secession and then not backing down, he has gone from hero to fool in a moment. But should we not consider the issue in light of what to going on in our country? Rather than a knee jerk negative reaction doesn’t it merit serious consideration and discussion? I believe it does.

     First, consider this fact. Before there was a United States of America, there were colonies that became states. Before there was a Federal Government, there were thirteen state governments that were looking for a way to cooperate. Here is a very important fact we all need to understand, particularly in light of this issue. The Federal Government exists to serve the states and the people, we do not exist to serve the Federal Government. The states and the people voluntarily entered into an agreement to create a higher government power to take on specific tasks they were unable to accomplish individually, specific tasks laid out in the Constitution. From the time the Constitution was adopted until the “Civil War”, secession was a constant threat, and not just over the issue of slavery. It was acceptable to consider whether or not the federal government was living up to its billing and if the contract was meeting the needs of the states and the people.   Since the war between the North and the South, however, those who talk of secession have been relegated to the same place in our national consciousness as UFO abductees and the black helicopter crowd.

     The reason for this is the same reason that is bringing up the question of secession in the first place, the metamorphosis of our constitutionally limited government to a centralized state that knows no bounds to its power or sphere of activity. Because so few now question the authority and the ability of the Federal Government to do anything, because most accept the role of the federal government to meet any need or fix any situation, the idea of secession is as absurd as a five year old running away from his parents yet not being able to cross the street. The progressives have changed the role of the Federal Government from one of a referee between the states to a meddling mother-in-law. Over time, we have accepted our role as children to the government’s parent and as the majority’s ability to think critically of the government has waned, secession became an ever more remote consideration.

     I would propose a new analogy, however. Rather than parent/child, I think we have Dr. Frankenstein and his monster. The states got together to create this ‘monster’ called the federal government and they believed that through the bonds of the Constitution and the wisdom and morality of a religious people, the monster could be controlled and made to serve their needs. The ‘monster’, however, is snapping the last of its bonds and is demanding that its former masters now serve it and its voracious appetite. Now in the movies, what do most people do when the monster shows up? They run! If there is no hope of subduing or defeating the monster, vacating the premises is a reasonable option. If the federal government is imposing itself unconstitutionally on the states and the people and it is highly unlikely that its tendency to tyranny is going to change, secession becomes a reasonable option.

     In reality, Governor Perry has shown a lot of courage and foresight. Courage because by simply mentioning the fact that there are states, and large ones at that, that are not going to put up with Washington’s abuse and there are no options left off the table for dealing with it. Foresight because any thinking person can look at the direction Washington has taken over the last several years and realize it is only prudent to have a contingency plan. Consider the fact that Washington is loading us down with debt we cannot repay, is printing trillions of dollars that can only result in hyperinflation at some point, that the Chinese are becoming a little skittish about financing our foolish expenditures and now the Department of Homeland Security is labeling anyone in the opposition possible domestic terrorists while we coddle or ignore real threats to our security. If there is a good likelihood that the Federal Government will destroy our economy and monetary system and become even more tyrannical, it is reasonable to consider all the options available. As an individual, we may need an “escape plan” not just from the oppression of the government but the civil unrest that will result when it can no longer meet the needs of its dependents. Governor Perry is merely doing what he was elected to do, adopt policies and set courses of action that are best for the people of Texas. Unlike the state of California, which like a crack addicted whore is willing to do anything for federal dollars, governor Perry understands the practical and ideological ramifications of federal aid and the strings that come with it. If Washington is going to do things the governor of any state believes are detrimental to his constituents and there is no other remedy, at some point push will come to shove. Either Washington will bribe or bully the state into obedience or the state will stand up and defy the will of Washington. Up to this point it has always been the first option. The question becomes, what happens if Governor Perry or some other governor refuses to obey the dictates of Washington? Will it go as far a secession? Probably not but if more states rise up and say no more, perhaps we can begin to put the genie back in the bottle. If not, we are all going to need an escape plan.        

www.patricksamuels.com

    We have gathered here today to make our voices heard by all our politicians, especially those in Washington, but what is it we are saying?   240 years ago our countrymen dumped the king’s tea into Boston Harbor. Why? Because the king and parliament had adopted policies and imposed taxes that were destroying their ability to pursue their economic happiness. They understood, as we are beginning to understand, that economic freedom is the foundation from which our liberty flows. If the government has the right to our income before we do, we are merely slaves given an allowance. If the government has the right to determine how we utilize and dispose of our property, we are merely caretakers. If the government thinks that it, rather than our Creator, endow us with our rights, then we are mere subjects, dependent upon the whims of those in power. This nation was conceived to remove man from the arbitrary power of kings and despots and allow him to shape his own destiny apart from the dictates of a distant government that knows nothing of his needs and desires.

     This nation was founded by men who were subjects of a king and who rose up to remove the shackles of tyranny to embrace the privileges and responsibilities of liberty. They believed that it was the individual, not the government, who knew how best to order his affairs for the preservation of his God given rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. For almost one hundred years we have allowed a government conceived for the preservation of those rights to mutate into a state that has reduced us to subjects once again. We have traded the privileges and responsibilities of individual liberty for the promise of physical and economic security, promises the majority are finally beginning to find empty. We are finally waking up to the fact that the siren song of a state run utopia is merely the prelude to our enslavement. The declaration states that “mankind are more disposed to suffer, while the evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.” This has been true for decades but we are finally seeing the writing on the wall and now we realize that our silence will result in the final destruction of the vision of the founders and the nation itself. We find the evils sufferable no longer!

    For too long we have allowed our government to make war on our faith, our values and our liberty. And we have been complicit, allowing them to tax and regulate ever larger portions of our lives in the hope that we will be more secure. We can shout, we can complain but we must also pull ourselves off the government teat and take responsibility for ourselves. If we are going to raise our voices and say that we want our liberty back, we must once again take responsibility for ourselves. It is we who must provide for our retirement, save for a rainy day, take responsibility for our health care and the education of our children. It may seem a sacrifice to us but it was everyday life for our grandparents and great-grandparents.

     We stand on the edge of the abyss. If we allow the final nails to be driven into the coffin that was the founder’s vision, there will be no return. But we cannot merely shout “stop here” for the statist will merely pause until we become accustomed to our new bonds and then move ahead once again to add anew. We must put men and women in office who will dismantle the fascist power that has evolved over the last hundred years and return to us the constitutional republic we were created to be. We are not powerless yet but it is we who must take up the banner once held by Washington and Jefferson and Adams and Madison, the banner of Liberty, not for a moment, but for the duration of the struggle. The fate of our great country rests upon our shoulders. May we not shrink under the burden but stand boldly in the face of tyranny and in so doing, make our selves worthy heirs of the American Revolution.

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     During his much heralded trip to Europe, our “rock star” president said that America had been “arrogant” in the past but that we were changing. There is no question that we are changing, we are becoming more like European socialists all the time. But it was President Obama’s intent to mean that we were becoming more humble as a nation, another attack on American exceptionalism. During the campaign, candidate Obama said that we must repair our tarnished image in the world, that we must make people like us again.   President Obama and the state department led by “the smartest woman in the world” Hillary Clinton, seem to have made it their mission to change our image in the world as rapidly as possible.

     Unfortunately, instead of changing our image from “arrogant cowboy” to “gentle giant”, they have changed our image from “tough customer” to “class clown”. It would appear that the Obama/Clinton strategy for making people think we are less arrogant it to make us look foolish. Not foolish in the self-depreciating way that some may find endearing, but foolish in the way of an ignorant country bumpkin in the big city. Every time there is a foray into the foreign arena by this administration, it is a disaster. Hillary Clinton telling North Korea to call her on a late night talk show or giving the Russian President a button with the wrong word on it. President Obama himself insulting our staunch allies the British with lame gifts and returning a gift of theirs. He doesn’t kiss the French First lady but gives a deep bow to the Saudis. He gives the Queen an I-Pod and the first lady touches her. In eight years of President Bush, except for a little dancing, I don’t remember any of these kinds of blunders. Now, it is one after the other.

         Now I know there are people in the state department whose sole job it is to make sure the president and his diplomats operate with the greatest cultural discretion. Either those people have all been fired and replaced by people who don’t know what they are doing or President Obama and Secretary Clinton are ignoring their advice. Perhaps it is some of both. The point is that the result of all these blunders in etiquette either make us look amateurish in the world, or supremely arrogant. Why arrogant? Because if we are not ignorant of the customs, and I find it difficult to believe we are, that means we are purposely ignoring the cultures and customs of those we interact with, putting little or no thought into the gifts we give and the words we say. President Obama’s cure for American arrogance just makes us look worse. The real cure for it is to act in the world according to principle and not in ways that are designed just to get the approval of people who are lukewarm to us, or who are our enemies. We may not be adored but we will be respected again. Sometimes that is the best one can hope for and is should be enough. 

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     In our current era of “globalization”, the current administration's inclination to give the United Nations more say-so in our affairs, Treasury secretary Geithner’s flip flopping on the idea of a global currency and Harold Koh’s desire to see the constitution and our very sovereignty made subservient to a higher, international authority, perhaps we should pause and think about this idea.   As President Obama and other G20 leaders looked for further cooperation and some members pushed for an international financial institution to deal with the economic mess, we should consider what caused this mess in the first place and whether more globalization is the answer.

     It is often said that when the United States sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold. Our economic problems become a problem for the rest of the industrialized world. This is a result of our place in the world as the largest economy and the globalization of commerce that has been shrinking the globe for the last hundred years or more.   Trade is important and I am not going to complain about free trade because that is market capitalism at work. The problems result when everyone becomes so interdependent that foolish decisions and policies by one business or nation impact the others catastrophically.

     We have become so enamored of the idea of “community” that we have forgotten how to be individuals. Consider several facets of the crisis that is upon us. As an individual, was it a smart idea to put all your financial eggs in Bernie Madoff’s basket? Of course not, but some people did. Was it a good idea to borrow 110% against the value of your house? No, but some people did. Was it a good idea to run up all your credit cards and put nothing in the savings account? No, but few of us have any savings at all. Regardless of what our exalted president says, spending less and saving more would have spared many the trauma of this downturn because no matter what President Obama says, there will always be ups and downs, there is no way to keep that from happening unless we destroy the economy completely through his freespending socialist policies. Then there will only be down, and no up. Anyway, if people have a years worth of salary saved in case they lose their job, did not have all their money in one type of investment and were not burdened with debt, a downturn is much less traumatic. Few people live that way in America and that is why so many are clamoring for the government to cover their stupidity and excess. Now our government is spending more than it ever has to meet that demand and both the short and long term results of such activity will be negative for all of us. The horrible results of too much government dependency have been covered in other blogs. A well prepared individual is always going to be better off than a dependent slave.

     Now move it up a level. Look at the car industry, “too big to fail”. Don’t look at GM however, look at GM’s suppliers. Some of these businesses have one product and that product is sold to GM. If GM has trouble, those businesses are in real trouble. If my company only makes widgets for Hummer, and Hummers are discontinued under President Obama’s plan, I’m in real trouble. If I did not put some money aside for the costs of retooling and adapting another product line, I’m out of business. Businesses need diversified and adaptable business plans which is why having the government run them is such a bad idea. Government bureaucracy is anything but adaptable.

     Move up one more level. California is on the brink of bankruptcy and failure. New York is going to tax it’s remaining productive citizens to death. Michigan has been in a recession for years. If I am a resident of those states, what can I do? I can move to a state where the business climate is better, the unemployment rate is lower and the politicians aren’t so stupid. If President Obama forces the country farther into a fascist “soft tyranny”, we could leave for places that still respect the natural rights of citizens and the capitalist economic system, if any still exist. If we go for the transnational idea, however, there will be no where to go.   If you think that Washington is “out of touch”, wait until decisions are made by transnational organizations. If those decisions are bad economically, everyone will be affected, there will be no low tax states or nation, no places free from regulation, carbon taxes or any other bad idea dreamed up by such a body. If decisions are made that are soft on crime or terrorists, there will be no where to hide, no justice, no states with concealed carry laws. We will have all our eggs in one basket, the transnational one, and we will have no recourse if that basket is rotten. There will be no containment of economic downturns. Now any nation that “sneezes” will result in all of us catching a cold.

     Think of our lives and our personal, economic and political connections within two analogies. The first is a web. Everything is connected to everything else, there are lots of options, plenty of connecting points. If one option or route around the web is taken away, there will be another. If one support, or even several are removed, the web may sag but it doesn’t fall. There are options in a web, things are decentralized. That is the way this country was set up, decentralized. The individual, not the collective, was emphasized, and that individual had plenty of options concerning how he was going to build his web and what attachment points he would choose. If he chose a few unwisely, it was not the end.

    The statists and the transnationalists want centralized power, analogous to a mobile. In case you don’t remember, a mobile is one of those artistic creations you made in school with string and cut out animals that you hung from the ceiling and it rotated in the breeze. The point is, a mobile has only one attachment point and you, as an individual, cannot go anywhere else on the mobile without first going through that central point.   The whole thing has to balance around that one point. If the powers that be decide that your part of the mobile is unbalanced, it can weigh you down (taxes, regulation) and you will have no recourse because you are on a fixed point. That point of attachment is not determined by you but by the people in charge.   The more severe problem is that in order to keep things balanced, the people in charge need to keep adding more weight here and there to keep balance and sooner or later, the inevitable happens, that one attachment point fails and the whole thing comes crashing down. I say it is inevitable because, as a rule, politicians do more harm than good, that is why our founders limited their power. The more power they have, the more harm they do. Put them in charge of the economy and they will do a lot of harm and it will have a great impact on you and I.

     This economic crisis has demonstrated the perils of being too economically dependent on others and has revealed weaknesses in businesses and individuals that do not plan and are too consumed with greed. It is a correction and this correction is good because the market works and the principles of thrift and forethought need to be reestablished in the business community and among us as individuals. If, however, we force even more dependency by creating new transnational political and economic institutions that reduce our sovereignty as a nation and liberty as individuals and prop up failure, prohibiting the correction, the next crisis will be much worse. There will be no isolating the sick patient, there will be no safe haven, there will be no choice but for all of us to go down collectively with the ship.

www.patricksamuels.com.   

     The AIG mess was big news over the last week, made so by a government that quietly monetized our debt to the tune of trillions of dollars (is anything done with less than a trillion anymore?). Forget for a moment that this government is making our country’s untenable financial position much worse. What happened between our government and the employees of AIG over the last two weeks is inexcusable.

     As the government appointed head of AIG sat before a congress that has made a habit of browbeating the leading businessmen of the country, Barny Frank demanded the names of the people who had received bonuses, bonuses that were paid under contract and approved under the stimulus bill (that no one read), bonuses that were to be paid under the AIG reorganization developed by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.   When CEO Edward Liddy was reluctant to release those names because he said his employees had been receiving death threats, Barny Frank just shrugged it off. He didn’t care that the class warfare that has been a staple of his party and liberals everywhere was now resulting in death threats against the “wealthy”.   Mr. Cuomo wants the names as well and threatened to publish the names of those who did not return the bonuses. A senator called on the executives to kill themselves in their shame. The House of representatives actually voted to target these specific citizens, an official legislative action! ACORN then rented a bus to take protestors to the homes of these executives. Our government is using its power to shame and threaten (that would be extortion for us) law abiding citizens who were guilty of no crime into giving up property they received under legitimate contracts, contracts approved of by the very government perpetrating this outrage!

     It is time to turn the tables. It is time the fear was felt by those who supposedly work for us. It is time that we stopped being pushed around by our government and started pushing back.   If Barny Frank thinks it is funny that executives get death threats and have their homes picketed and are fearful for their children, perhaps it is time the executives we have elected to run our country had their feet held to the fire for screwing it up far worse that any executive at AIG. What if a mob showed up outside Barny Frank’s expensive home, or Nancy Pelosi’s, or Chris Dodd’s, or Harry Reid’s? What if we showed up as they did in the old days, with pitchforks and tar and feathers? What if we hung them in effigy?  What if we showed them we were not going to put up with their stupidity and incompetence any more? What if we insinuated, as Frank did, that we were not particularly interested in their personal safety? The arrogance of these second rate minds in our government will only grow if they continue to get away with it. They are just playground bullies grew up. Do you think Barny Frank was picked on in school? Do you think the pudgy little effeminate boy with the slobbering lisp got beat up as few times? How the people of Massachusetts ever looked at someone like him and said “you know, I think we should have someone like him representing us in congress”. Are you kidding? The same goes for half the dim bulbs up on the hill. Now the taunted ones are getting back at all the people they perceive as more powerful or successful than they are or could be, given their limited intellectual talents. If these people are going to engage in Mafia tactics and turn our great country into a banana republic, it is time we exercised the rights endowed by our Creator, recognized by our Founders and enshrined in our Constitution.

....whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such a form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and happiness.                 Declaration of Independence

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Why Socialism is Bad for YOU

     It is hard to get people to understand the inherent dangers of socialism when all they see are the benefits. President Obama promises to help people with their mortgages and provide their health care, we have relied of Social Security for our retirement, subsidized loans and grants for education, corporate and individual welfare, bailouts and stimulus checks. But as even President Obama admits, there is no free lunch. What is the real danger of a socialist relationship between the citizen and his government?

     To illustrate this, consider this analogy. America and its citizens are an army, organized into privates, officers and generals. The generals are our leaders in Washington. The officers are business owners, be they lieutenants or colonels. The rest of us are privates. When the army was assembled everyone provided their own equipment and carried their own supplies. The generals gave general directives to the officers who used their own intelligence and initiative to carry them out (every analogy has its limits and this is one. Under the constitution Washington does not direct business leaders or private citizens but bear with me, this is not the point of the analogy). The privates were well trained, in good shape, knew how to live off the land and knew their duty. The army marched forward, every step brining them closer to a glorious future. If a platoon or even a division got into trouble, the rest of the army could move in to help. Incompetent officers or individuals were removed or killed in battle. The American army was a lean, effective force for over one hundred years.

    At the turn of the twentieth century, however, the lean mean fighting force that had been so successful and prosperous started to change. First, some of the strongest officers and privates were forced to carry the packs and equipment of some of the others (Graduated Income Tax). Although inconvenient for a few, it didn’t slow the army very much. Twenty five years later, however, a big change came to the army. A lot more of the officers and privates were being forced to carry the equipment of others and a new concept was introduced. Wagons were built to carry some of the privates who were not as fit as some of the others and in addition to carrying the equipment, the stronger officers and privates were now forced to pull the wagons (the New Deal). This slowed the army considerably and because the people in the wagons were not contributing to the provision and success of the army, everyone else had to take up the slack. Even the generals started to pull the wagons and since they were concerned with this, they spent less time planning strategy and overseeing the health and welfare of the whole army.

     Thirty years later, the generals decided to put even more people in the wagons and as a result, even more wagons were built. Now there were a whole new crop of privates who never even went through basic training, had no idea how to contribute to the army and no motivation to do so (The Great Society). They just rode in the wagons and often derided the officers and privates who were pulling the wagons, officers who were becoming fewer and fewer. This slowed the army even more and made it very difficult for it to maneuver effectively to meet any new challenges.  

     Over the next forty years, more wagons were added, more people climbed on and fewer people were left to pull them. Now we come to the age of General Obama who has invited everyone to climb on the wagons in the belief that a few officers, privates and generals like himself can pull wagons full of untrained, lazy troops wherever they are needed and then deploy them effectively. The generals berated and beat the few officers and privates who remained to pull the wagons until they gave up and either deserted or climbed in the wagons as well. Soon the whole army is in the wagons and the only ones pulling it are the generals. The people in the wagons, if they had any training to begin with, have lost it. They are relying of the generals to do everything. The generals feed them, carry their supplies and transport them where they need to go. With a fat, lazy untrained army being pulled by generals who spend all their time on the details and none on strategy. The army cannot be deployed with any effectiveness and with no coherent strategy, they end up going in circles.

     The army was never designed to operate this way and the generals cannot pull all the weight indefinitely. One of three things will happen to the generals. Enemy snipers will take them out, they will drop dead from exertion or they will turn on each other. Either way, when the generals are gone, panic will follow among the troops. Suddenly they are no longer being fed and cared for, they find they have to carry their own equipment in their poor physical condition and it is equipment they have no idea how to use, and they have no direction. If the enemy attacks or the elements turn against them, most of them will die. 

     The point is this. People who put all their money in Lehman Brothers or gave it to Bernie Madoff found out the hard way that when you put all your money in one basket, the risks are very great. That is why diversification is recommended when investing. America is doing the same thing with the Federal Government. When the country was founded the federal government had a minimal role in our everyday lives and power was shared with the states and the people. The American people were tough and self reliant. Today, we rely on the Federal Government for so much. Our “Safety Net” has become an integrated support system that we all partake of. We depend of the Federal Government for our retirement, unemployment, health care, subsidies, insurance and a myriad of other things. What happens when the federal Government no longer has the money for these things? What if we can no longer sell our debt to the Chinese, when we have taxed the “rich” into giving up, when the interest on our huge debt crowds out most other expenditures or when we have printed so much money it becomes worthless? What happens when the Social Security and welfare checks stop coming or are paid in worthless dollars? What happens when doctors no longer receive payments or the next hurricane comes through and there is no federal aid? What happens when all the federal regulatory agencies can no longer be funded? We have turned over so much power and responsibility to Washington for so long that too many Americans no longer have the common sense and initiative to fend for themselves. It is bad for the country and it is dangerous for you and I.   The question you need to ask yourself now is “Am I in the wagon?” and “What am I going to do when the general stops taking care of me?” For too many Americans the answer to the first question is “Yes” and to the second is “I have no idea”.

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The Real Revolution-Sweden or Stalin

     In case you haven’t noticed, there is a real revolution happening in the US of A.   No, I’m not talking about a revolution led by NRA types or the many disgruntled conservatives and libertarians who are unhappy with the course of this nation. Yes, there are a lot of angry people out there and there are talk radio hosts and political commentators who reflect, and at times, encourage, that anger but there is no revolution brewing there. Revolutions require political power and leadership and right now conservatives and libertarians have none and as cowardly and spineless as Republicans have shown themselves, they are unlikely to recapture it anytime soon.

     No, the revolution I am talking about is happening in Washington DC as you read this.   The United States has been the victim of a bloodless coup whose aim is no less than the replacement of the constitutionally limited government on which our nation was founded and replacing it with a one party socialist, or dare I say, communist, political system. I know that is a loaded statement but after observing President Obama and the other Democrat leaders for the last six weeks and considering their proposals, I have come to believe it’s true. After observing their words and actions since the first of the year there are two possible conclusions. First, these people are really stupid and totally incompetent and their first few weeks in office have demonstrated an ignorant disregard of the history of this country and basic common sense. Although my opinion of politicians in general is very low, I don’t think any group can be that stupid. The second possibility is that they are choosing to set common sense and this nation’s history aside because they are pursuing a malevolent agenda in which they desire to replace that which has gone before with a system that will ensure their own power. I have come to accept this as the truth based on the following evidence.

     Exhibit A is the fact that everything they are doing is aimed at destroying the personal wealth of the citizens of this country.   Economic freedom is the basis for all freedom. The founders understood this.   It was economic freedom over which they rebelled and it was to ensure the greatest personal freedom in economic spheres and all others that they formulates a constitutionally limited government. Look at the first two amendments to the Constitution. Without the wealth that results from economic freedom, your freedom to speak will mean little. It takes money to make yourself heard beyond the sound of your natural voice. Without wealth there will be no exercise of your right to keep and bear arms for the poor cannot afford such things. Then there are our everyday choices. Economic freedom allows us to choose which businesses we support and which charities we give to. This creates an efficient and compassionate society, two things that have made this country great and two words that are never applied to government.

     All socialist/communist governments limit or eliminate the economic freedom of their citizens. Some will confiscate it, literally stealing their citizens money and throwing them out of their homes. We are not there...yet. This revolution is content to literally destroy our wealth, hoping that we will not blame them but look to them as our savior when we have nothing left. Sound too harsh? I don’t think it’s harsh enough. Consider this, where do most Americans have their wealth? Two places, their homes and their retirement-the stock market. The destruction of the housing market can be tied directly to Barny Frank and Chris Dodd and their coddling of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mack and their desire to encourage, and at times, threaten, banks to give loans to people that shouldn’t have qualified. That wealth is disappearing and what is left is very difficult to tap with credit markets being tight. To make recovery difficult, the administration is removing the incentive to buy by removing some of the mortgage deduction. Only someone stupid or malevolent would look at the present housing market and increase costs on people who may be in a position to buy.   Only someone stupid or malevolent would attempt to empower judges or force banks to throw out signed contracts and reduce actual principle amounts on loans which will only raise interest rates for all and make home buying more difficult.   

     What about the stock market? The majority of Americans that have money have money there, mostly in retirement savings. Certainly the bursting housing bubble contributed to the market’s decline but that is not the whole story. Larry Kudlow rightly describes President Obama’s policies as a “war on investors”.   Just as the way to turn the housing market around is to let it finds its bottom and encourage people to buy, so it is with the stock market. But President Obama’s statements scare people. Nobody wants to buy stock when the president tells them the crisis will be getting a lot worse. Then there is all the tax hikes on investors, dividend tax increases, capital gain increases, income tax increases, the double taxation of corporations. Who wants to invest when the government has its hand in your pocket before you do? Then there are the policies of running the printing presses full time and begging unfriendly foreign governments to continue to fund our enormous debt. Haven’t these people heard of Argentina or any number of other governments that have tried to spend and borrow their way to prosperity? It doesn’t work and Wall Street knows it.   But the Democrats don’t want the market to recover. They are at war with the successful people in this country because wealth is power and they want it all. I personally predict the Dow will drop to triple digits before it is all over and all the retirement and pension wealth of this country will be wiped out. The the government security net will be all that’s left for everyone.  Everyone equally dependent and equally miserable.    

     That is not all. Not only does the government now want to destroy wealth, it wants to make sure no new wealth is created. It would appear that they are doing everything they can to make sure the economy never again becomes the wealth creation engine for the world. Both Ronald Reagan and George Bush “inherited” recessions but they didn’t go to these depths. History can be a good teacher but the Obama administration is ignoring it in favor of a course of action that most economists (and the administration!) agree is the opposite of what should be done during an economic downturn. Exhibit B. It is a very bad idea to raise taxes during a recession, particularly on those who are the engine of the economy. Just when we need people to spend money, the government is going to take more of it. But this is just the “down payment” on the administrations war on the “rich” which includes many more of us that we realize. There are a lot of taxes that the other “95%” of us are going to pay. If cap and trade passes, energy costs will go up over 50%. The 634 billion dollars that comprise the “down payment” on a universal health care program we haven’t seen yet will cost trillions of dollars that we will all have to pay.    As spending goes up, interest payments skyrocket, entitlement spending increases exponentially, the money will have to come from somewhere. We can only borrow and print so much, eventually, it will have to come from all of us. Soon, those high rates on “the rich” will affect all of us and we will be left with a small allowance while the great bulk of our income is confiscated to pay for all these “free” government services.

      Exhibit C.   The federal government is working hard to eliminate competition to its power and doing its best to make sure that everyone looks to it for their needs. C1. The debate among some governors as to whether to take the stimulus money because they rightly understand that taking the money now will make them dependent in the future and federal money always comes with strings attached. By making the states beholden to federal money they can be brought under federal control and will bend to federal will when necessary even though the constitution reserves most power for the states and the people. C2. The reduction of the tax deduction for charitable giving. Just when the economy is in a downturn and charities are seeing a drop in contributions and a rise in demand, the government wants to reduce the incentive to give by those who have the money to give. Sure, the budget includes a small percentage of the projected loss but make no mistake. If a lot of charities fold, the government is more than willing to take up the slack. Those that don’t fold and find it necessary to take federal money will find themselves effectively regulated and run by the government. Its all about control and concentrating it in Washington.

     Exhibit D. Control of the economy. The nationalization of several banks and the money we continue to pour into AIG and Detroit are the early stages of this. The fact that lawmakers have shamed and scolded the leaders of whole industries by dragging them before congress is easily compared to the attitude communists havealways had toward capitalists. The fact that there are already a myriad of regulatory agencies and complicated tax law that give Washington control over business will pale in comparison to what is coming. If no one is allowed to fail and our money is used to prop up businesses that made bad decisions, our whole economy will suffer. Innovation is a result of competition and risk. If risk of failure is removed competition becomes meaningless, innovation goes out the window and corporations, particularly large corporations, will become...just like government. The consumer suffers because prices will rise and quality will go down. What did the Soviet Union ever produce that the world wanted? Do we really want to follow that model?

     Some of these things have been described as “temporary”, that these measures are necessary now and will be removed when the economy recovers or the businesses involved can stand on their own two feet. If anyone believes that I’ve got some foolproof investments to sell you that are guaranteed to return 200% per year for ten years.   Ronald Reagan said that the closest thing to eternal life we know is a government program.   There are government programs that have long outlived their usefulness, government programs that have demonstrated themselves to be detrimental and still go on. Government never relinquishes control once it has it. What about welfare reform, you say? A rare reduction which is about to be reversed in a big way. This is perhaps the scariest part of all of this. Once these things are implemented, putting Republicans back in power isn’t going to change it. They have shown themselves inept and spineless and will not rescind these programs. Do you really think that once people have “free” health care, the Republicans are going to take it away? I don’t think so.

      The question is, will there be a change in party again or are we becoming, effectively, a one party country? Exhibit E. There is a two pronged approach to securing power among the Democrats. The first is to silence the opposition. This will be done through some form of the “Fairness Doctrine”, even if it is called something else. Most of the media is already in Lord Obama’s pocket, no better than the Pravda of the old Soviet Union. The media makes the party look good whenever possible and will defend or minimize mistakes. Talk radio, unfriendly media outlets and the Internet must be controlled or silenced. The Democrats and liberal Republicans will then be able to get their message out and count on a friendly media to destroy their opponents. The second prong is to expand their voter base. Both parties have been fighting for the illegal immigrant vote but with more goodies to hand out, the Democrats will win this one. This can be the only reason both parties have refused to control illegal immigration even though it has proven destructive to the economy, violent and divisive. If twenty million illegal are given amnesty under the Democrats, there is no doubt those that aren’t already registered will do so as Democrats, many in Texas, Arizona and other “red” states.   Then there is the expansion of unions under the so called “Freedom of Choice Act” which is just the “Freedom to Bully People into Joining a Union Act”. If this passes, unions will muscle there way into a myriad of other businesses, prices will go up and competitiveness will go down. Just compare domestic car plants run under the UAW and those that aren't. Which are competitive and which are not? Add all those union workers to all the federal union workers that will be added to run all these new programs and the voter base for the Democrats and the amount of money they receive will increase exponentially. 

     In our march towards European style socialism, it seems that everyone in Washington, Democrat and Republican, believes that the nationalization of the banks is not only inevitable but to many, desirable. Many Americans seem to accept the idea that because of the economic mess in which we find ourselves, it is alright for the government to take actions that are not only contrary to the constitutional republic the founders envisioned but would have been unthinkable not to many years ago.   The problem is as the Obama administration rushes to, as Mr. Emmanuel said, not waste this crisis, few are looking at all the implications of the nationalization of industries, banks in particular.

     The first and most obvious is that fact that the government will have access to all our financial records. Now you may say that they do already and to some degree that is true but currently there are limits. If the government wants your records they need a good reason and to get them it usually involves law enforcement, a judge or the IRS. If the banks are nationalized government employees will have access to our financial records as a matter of course. There are two critical areas of privacy we once took for granted. One was doctor-patient confidentiality and the privacy of our medical records. That is disappearing under provisions found in the stimulus bill. The second is the privacy of our finances. The erosion of that sphere of privacy has been disappearing since the adoption of the income tax. Now any vestiges of our financial privacy will disappear. If our finances and records are under the control of the government, we lose a very important safeguard of our freedom.   The day when our taxes are taken directly from our bank accounts cannot be far away. If we criticize the government, could we find our accounts frozen or subject to convenient bureaucratic error? The IRS has already been used thus, will the banks be next? Finally, think of this. For seventy years we have dutifully sent in payments to the government for our retirement, known as Social Security. Where is all that money? It is gone. If the government is in charge of our bank accounts, money markets and even investment accounts, do you think for a moment that replacing all our real assets with IOUs will not be a real temptation? History does not inspire confidence.

     Now consider the fact that if the government owns the business, in this case the banks, the rules, regulations and policies of the business will no longer consider market forces or reflect common sense but will be driven by ideology. It is the desire to survive and make a profit in the cutthroat world of business competition that makes businesses innovative and efficient. Remove competition and the need for profit and you get...government.   That is why all these bailouts are a horrible idea. They subsidize failure by replacing losses due to poor business practices with taxpayer money.   It removes the incentive for business to make the hard decisions necessary to turn themselves around and become profitable again. It is just like welfare. Give a person enough money to live “comfortably” without working or subsidize destructive behavior and there is no incentive to improve or work.

     If business decisions are made based on ideology as opposed to market forces and profits, the business can engage in practices that would be destructive to a for profit entity. For example, if the government decided that every person should own a car and it controls the banks, it will choose to make loans to people that are high risk in addition to normally qualifying people. What happenes when people who cannot afford a new car get a loan for one and can’t pay? The bank, in this case, the taxpayer, is on the hook for it. Soon there is a glut of late model used cars that have been repossessed but because the government desires people to own cars, they will subsidize the people who have failed to keep up payments or couldn’t really afford them to begin with. Now the taxpayer is not only on the hook for the bad loans but is forced to bail out the delinquent car owners. Hmm, sound familiar? That is how we got into the housing mess and how we are dealing with it.

    Now, besides the policies and rules these government run entities will be guided by, consider how they will be run and by whom. Certainly, those who run the banks will no longer be receiving million dollar bonuses or flying on corporate jets to fancy retreats. Perhaps all banks will have executive pay limited to half a million dollars or less. The thing is this, and this is basic human nature, which socialism of all stripes tries to ignore. People who have talent, people who are innovate and motivated, people who are successful for these reasons and others expect to compensated for their efforts. If you put a ceiling on that success one of two things will happen-they will stop working as hard or they will move to a field where their potential remains unlimited. That means the people running the banks will do so with all the efficiency and innovation of every other government bureaucracy. In the middle and lower levels, the banks will be staffed by employees that belong to a government union which means they will be sympathetic to the progressive politicians to whom they owe their employment. Could that color their handling of accounts, doing favors for politically like minded and connected people and making it hard for people labeled as part of the opposition? Don’t think so? Consider how the IRS handles cases like the current treasury secretary, Charlie Rangel and Tom Daschle and how they would handle your “mistake”. Now put that culture in charge of your bank account, loan approval process or even easy access to your money.

     Finally, consider how well the government accounts for its own money. Enough said. The market works because every business and individual in it needs to deal with the consequences of their actions as it utilizes limited time and resources. Wrong choices lead to loss, good choices and innovation lead to the creation of wealth. If the banks were left on their own, they would find a way to reverse their losses and those that didn’t would go under. At the other end of a difficult transition, the banks that survived would be stronger and better.   Government, because of its size, its ability to coerce consumers to support it, and its ability to create money, can ignore the basic rules of economics longer than an individual or a business.   Longer, but not forever. In this case the old saying is true. The bigger they come, the harder they fall. We have used the power of government to keep large entities from falling, merely delaying the inevitable. If the government continues to gobble up sick entities, it will only lead to a more severe illness and the government is sick enough as it is. We cannot continue to ignore common sense, human nature and basic economic reality and with the speed with which we are running away from all three, a very bad fall is coming more quickly than we realize.

www.patricksamuels.com

     The people of the Enlightenment understood that the dissemination of information was not only necessary for progress but a critical component for man’s political freedom.   As products of the Enlightenment, the founders of our nation appreciated this and made sure the free dissemination of information was included in the Constitution. As we have seen, the founders were correct when they believed that even though the Constitution specifically limited the power of the government, if certain things weren’t spelled out (and even when they were), the government would expand its reach and ignore the rights of the governed. The first amendment to the constitution guaranteed the free dissemination of information. It promises freedom of conscience first for without the freedom for innovative thinking, there will be no information to disseminate. It protects freedom of speech and of the press, the two ways of presenting information in the eighteenth century. It insured the freedom of assembly so people could receive the information and process it freely among themselves. Finally, it recognized the right of the people to petition the government for a “redress of grievances” which means the aforementioned rights were specifically concerned with political speech. Just in case the government forgot this, the second amendment was added to guarantee the first.

     Today, our access to information is unprecedented and comes to us in a myriad of ways. The spoken and printed word have been joined by radio, television and the Internet, satellite communication and cell phones. With all these options and the great variety not only of the information itself but commentary on its importance and meaning, we must rely as never before on our wisdom and values to properly evaluate all that bombards us. That is why John Adams stated that our form of government was for a moral and religious people and was inadequate for any other. If we do not have a template by which we evaluate information and commentary, we will not be able to properly utilize or even understand it.

     Those who seek power understand this.   Most obviously, those who seek absolute power seek to control the dissemination of information. They seize the press, restrict speech and free assembly. These are the first signs of a coup. But such an abrupt change is often met with resistance, something progressives and communists understand. If the government can control education in such a way that the populace accepts an aggressive government role, destroy the moral intuition of the people by marginalizing religion, and keep people too busy scraping by through burdensome taxes to pay close attention, that government can set itself up as the primary or sole arbiter of valuable information.   For one hundred years, the United States Government has been implementing just such a plan..

     Until the time of Reagan, the “plan” had been going well. Journalism, and by extension, the news, was controlled primarily by progressives who believed in big government, social welfare and the wisdom of the state, as long as it was controlled by like minded progressives. Then the talk radio format took off followed by the Internet explosion.   The progressive stranglehold on the dissemination of information was broken.   This, of course, was unacceptable because unfiltered information and opposition commentary were not conducive to the expansion of government power. The Republicans, who benefited more from this than the Democrats, had power in either the executive or legislative branch for all but two of the last twenty eight years and were not about to do anything to hinder this development even if it occasionally bit them as well.

    After twenty years of constant abuse over the radio waves, and more recently Fox News and bloggers, the progressives have taken control of the machinery of government once again. They have only been in power for a month and they are already clamoring for a reinstatement of the “fairness doctrine” or some effective substitute. It is not enough that the major newspapers and broadcast networks support them. Like any good dictator, the progressives want to silence opposition. They couch it in the language of fairness, concern for the needs of the “local” audience and the desire for “balance”.   What progressives don’t understand is that media is a market driven phenomenon. People choose what newspapers to read, what newscasts to watch and what to listen to on the radio. Talk radio is successful because people want to listen to it, liberal radio does not have an audience and therefore does not make money. People making choices is not something progressives approve of however, because in their minds they often choose incorrectly, particularly at the ballot box. Only so many votes can be bought through welfare and pork, the rest have to be coerced through the control of information.

     If we let this happen, if we let Nancy Pelosi and President Obama reinstate some form of the fairness doctrine and restrict or silence talk radio and other outlets for the opposition, including the Internet, their power will be secure for the near and distant future. Consider what has happened just over the last month. Several cabinet appointments have been withdrawn because, in plain language, they were crooks, tax cheats. Without the opposition media, there is no doubt in my mind they would have sailed through the confirmation process.    Look at the way the “stimulus bill” was handled. The opposition party was shut out, the bill was crafted behind closed doors and voted on before anyone had read it. If this is the way things are handled in Washington with a loud opposition media, what will they try to put over on us without such scrutiny? Perhaps the fact that we have a tax cheat as Treasury Secretary and they pass bills without concern for the opposition (or common sense) demonstrates that a majority of Americans accept it or don’t care. But shouldn’t we have the option of choosing to care or not?   Without scrutiny, what will they do next? Once the first amendment is legislated away, what about the second? Will we know the many examples of abusing the power of government to intimidate the opposition? Would the death of Randy Weaver’s family or the intimidation of Joe the Plumber by Ohio bureaucrats make the news under the new rules? The power of the media is not just what they print but what they don’t. If they ignore corruption and abuses of power, how can the people become outraged? If all the stories remain local, a national movement to hold the government accountable will be impossible. The ultimate “Check and Balance” in our republic is “We the People” but we are only as effective as the information we have. Whether you agree with the opposition or not, its very existence is crucial in providing us the information necessary to guard our freedom. It would be a sad historical twist to see freedom loving people in America forced to listen to offshore radio broadcasts or risk visiting banned websites to get around the state run media.   We are only as smart as the information we receive and if the fairness doctrine is reinstated, we all may end up Obama sycophants with heart palpitations and tingling sensations at the very mention of his name.

www.patricksamuels.com

Read “Memoirs of a Former American”

     This may seem like an odd thing. Amidst all the talk of creating jobs and getting us out of the economic mess we’re in, why wouldn’t the Democrats want us to recover from our economic slump.   First, let’s determine the fact that they don’t, irregardless of their rhetoric. Washington and its spending and regulatory habits are in most ways responsible for this mess.   More of the same is not going to improve things. Spending trillions of dollars, putting us further into debt and temporarily putting a few hundred dollars in out pockets is not the way to recovery. Government taking more money out of the economy now and for the forseeable future is not the way to increase GDP. Demonizing businesspeople, the very ones who are going to create the jobs to get us out of the recession, is counterproductive. Businesses need to be encouraged with tax cuts and incentives, not blamed and regulated further. Common sense says this stimulus bill, the grilling businesspeople are taking on the Hill and the very arrogant attitude the Democrats have taken are the complete opposite of what is needed for recovery.

     But why? Why would the Democrats want the recession to continue? In short, because it sends more power permanently to Washington, to them. Power at the expense of our liberty and freedom. It took me a little while to understand this but the people in Washington, and politicians in general, are all about power, nothing less and nothing more. “Mr. Smith goes to Washington” is a myth. A person who seeks elected office seeks power over other people, it is just a fact. The people who enjoy the exercise of power gravitate to government, it is human nature and has been from the beginning. The founders recognized this fact and wrote the constitution to limit the ambitions of men to lord it over their fellows. That only works, however, when the people in power respect the constitution and the people themselves hold the politicians accountable. Neither is the case today.

     So the Democrats want power. How does keeping us in recession increase their power? Let me give you two important examples. The first is the stock market. It is obvious that the market has not been thrilled with the Obama administration so far which is why the Dow continues to hover around 8000. The market looks to the future and people that know money know that everything the Democrats are doing is bad for the economy, especially in the long run. Keeping the market stagnant, however, is good for Democrat power. Why?   When was the last time you heard anyone mention the privatization of Social Security? People are clamoring for Washington to insure their investments. The FDIC now insures money markets in addition to having raised the limit on other insured deposits. The banks have been effectively nationalized. As President Obama’s chief of staff said, you can’t let a good crisis go to waste.   The crisis on Wall Street has lowered many American’s expectations of a good retirement through their own investments. 401ks and IRAs were all the rage since Reagan, now they look like a fools errand. And to whom will we turn? Washington. Give us more Social Security, insure our retirement investments. By demonizing Wall Street and keeping the market stagnant, the politicians hope to set themselves up as the ones who will take care of our money.

     The second big example is Heath Care. We already know there are some disturbing heath care provisions in the stimulus bill. After all, Tom Daschle recommended that heath care provisions be put into budget bills to speed them along under the radar of the American people.   But why does economic recession help advance the Democrat goal of universal health care? Because most people don’t pay for their own health care, they get it through their employer. The more people who are unemployed, the more people there are without health insurance. So the Democrats have a vested interest in keeping unemployment up. All those unemployed people want health insurance and if the people want it....well we’ll give it to them.   The whole idea here is that the more severe the economic slump, the more Democrats have reason to expand the welfare state, and by extension, their own power. They get to tax and regulate the lives of all those who take government benefits. They also increase their voter base by making more people dependant on their handouts.

      How do they get away with it so easily? Simple, the American people are ignorant of basic economics and the founding principles of this nation. Government schools have taught generations of Americans that government is the answer to all problems, that FDR and Johnson were heroes and Reagan was the devil. Most Americans don’t know the first thing about money management. If they did they wouldn’t have spent more than they earned for all these years and wouldn’t allow Washington to get away with it either. And the title notwithstanding, the Republicans don’t get a pass either. President Bush started this ball rolling and the current crop, for all their bellyaching, aren't doing anything substantial to stop this monstrosity. They know their turn will come in the future and the power they let the Democrats get today will be theirs tomorrow.

     There is only one way to stop it and that is for the American people to stop allowing their votes to be bought with gifts from the treasury. We have to “just say no” to the welfare state. We have to accept responsibility for our own lives and look to ourselves, our families and our local communities for help during tough times. We need to buy our own insurance, we need to invest our own money, we need to create our own jobs and we need to demand Washington get out of the way.   Is it going to happen? Unfortunately, I doubt it. But those who take responsibility for themselves now will weather the catastrophe in the making much better than those who look to Washington and the messiah Obama to meet their every need.

www.patricksamuels.com