Judging that the mandate in President Obama’s Health Care bill is an unconstitutional expansion of the commerce clause, U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson struck a blow for a commonsense approach to constitutional interpretation. He further decided that words actually have meanings and are not merely place holders for future generations to use as they deconstruct the document meant to limit government into a document used to expand it.
Judge Hudson stated “At its core, this dispute is not simply about regulating the business of insurance -- or crafting a scheme of universal health insurance coverage -- it’s about an individual’s right to choose to participate.” In his well reasoned and well stated 42 page opinion, Hudson also said many things which have needed saying for quite some time. After years of activist judges stretching our tortured Constitution from limiting the government to limiting the citizen it’s refreshing to see an American jurist proclaiming that the corruption of our fundamental charter is leading us towards the creation of an unlimited central government usurping the powers expressly reserved to the States and the people.
Several of his statements are so well worded and so important they deserve repeating by every patriot who has a voice:
According to Judge Hudson:
“Although the Necessary and Proper Clause vests Congress with broad authority to exercise means, which are not themselves an enumerated power, to implement legislation, it is not without limitation.”
“Every application of Commerce Clause power found to be constitutionally sound by the Supreme Court involved some form of action, transaction, or deed placed in motion by an individual or legal entity.”
“Although purportedly grounded in the General Welfare Clause, the notion that the generation of revenue was a significant legislative objective is a transparent afterthought.”
“The legislative purpose underlying this provision was purely regulation of what Congress misperceived to be economic activity.”
“[i]f a person's decision not to purchase health insurance at a particular point in time does not constitute the type of economic activity subject to regulation under the Commerce Clause, then logically an attempt to enforce such a provision under the Necessary and Proper Clause is equally offensive to the Constitution.”
“The same reasoning could apply to transportation, housing, or nutritional decisions. This broad definition of the economic activity subject to congressional regulation lacks logical limitation and is unsupported by Commerce Clause jurisprudence....”
“Neither the Supreme Court nor any federal circuit court of appeals has extended Commerce Clause powers to compel an individual to involuntarily enter the stream of commerce by purchasing a commodity in the private market. In doing so, enactment of the Minimum Essential Coverage Provision exceeds the Commerce Clause powers vested in Congress under Article I....”
“The unchecked expansion of congressional power to the limits suggested by the Minimum Essential Coverage Provision would invite unbridled exercise of federal police powers. At its core, the dispute is not simply about regulating the business of insurance—or crafting a scheme of universal health insurance coverage—it's about an individual’s right to choose to participate.”
“[T]he Minimum Essential Coverage Provision appears to forge new ground and extends the Commerce Clause powers beyond its current high water mark."
These are the type of words patriots have been waiting to hear from the bench! These are the bold and direct statements needed to reaffirm the truth that the Constitution is meant to limit government not to enable it to run roughshod over the freedom and liberty of the people. If the original document did not make this clear the Tenth Amendment states this fundamental truth clearly for all to hear, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
However gratifying it is to hear an American Judge stand up for American values we must keep this victory in perspective. Two other Federal Courts have previously upheld the government mandate. And one thing can be confidently predicted, all of these rulings will be appealed.
There is no effective way to bring pressure on a federal judge. They are insulated by lifetime appointments. Therefore, We the People cannot influence any of them and our opinion means nothing. Although some desire for the procedure to be shortened, having the matter immediately brought before the Supreme Court, even that wouldn’t bring a definitive answer until well into the next election cycle. And then the decision as to the continued freedom of American citizens to refrain from economic activity and the freedom of American citizens to make personal choices for themselves will be left up to nine individuals.
As the Anti-Federalists warned so many years ago in Brutus's 15th essay; “The supreme court under this constitution would be exalted above all other power in the government, and subject to no control.” The essay continued to warn, “There is no power above them that can correct their errors or control their decisions.” And, “The power of this court is in many cases superior to that of the legislature.” Ultimately observing, “When great and extraordinary powers are vested in any man, or body of men, which in their exercise, may operate to the oppression of the people, it is of high importance that powerful checks should be formed to prevent the abuse of it.” The ratification conventions of the States chose to ignore these powerful arguments; consequently, never has the freedom of so many rested upon the judgment of so few. And, probably on a vote of 5 to 4 rests the fate of We the People and a limited government.
Dr. Robert Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College. He is the author of the History of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com View the trailer for Dr. Owens’ latest book @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ypkoS0gGn8 © 2010 Robert R. Owens dr.owens@comcast.net Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook.
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Saturday, December 11, 2010
A Born Again Bush Booster and the Stealth Stimulus
President Barak Obama faced the nation as a born again Bush Booster as he reversed years of personal commitment and regurgitated rhetoric presenting the extension of the Bush tax cuts as his plan for recovery.
Lurking beneath the über partisan vitriol in President Obama’s announcement and serial defense of his post-partisan compromise with the Republican leadership he admitted that raising taxes is counterproductive when growing the economy is your goal.
Does it make anyone else wonder why when the bubble burst we didn’t cut taxes and get out of the way? For approximately the same cost of the TARP slush fund, which was used to pay for everything except toxic assets or the non-stimulating stimulus slush fund, every working American could have been given a one-year tax holiday. Just think about it, if you were getting the gross instead of the net every week do you think you would have spent any more money? Do you think the economy would still be in the doldrums a year and a half after the Great Recession is “over”? Come to think, of it why don’t the unemployed just go out and get one of those shovel-ready jobs? Oh, that’s right two years after the razzle-dazzle sales pitch the pitchman learned they never existed. Then we learned he knew it all along.
Don’t be fooled as the Democratic Progressives race the Republican Progressives to the microphones complaining they were rolled in Mr. Obama’s Great Compromise. What they’re really arguing about is how much of the money we earn they can afford to let us keep. If either side was really ready for the heady wine of liberty they’d talk about eliminating taxes not just about letting us keep the pittance George II agreed to let us hold for a few years.
Three generations ago, back at the dawn of the 20th century before the Creature from Jekyll Island and its mad creator, the Congress that devoured a nation began their present reign as the Central Bank and the Central Planning Board most of the taxes that Americans presently bear were nonexistent. Was the Federal Government broke? Were millions starving to death because food stamps hadn’t been invented? Were our citizens wallowing in ignorance because the Education Department hadn’t been created? Were the States declaring bankruptcy because they didn’t receive grants, bail-outs, or subsidies?
No. Before the creation of the Federal Reserve, which was supposed to safe guard the value of the dollar and end the boom and bust of the business cycle, America was the most prosperous, innovative, and growing nation on earth. Before the Progressives managed to shackle the capitalist engine of growth, dumb down the best informed public, and make dependent the most independent population the world had ever known America was the can-do capital and the go-to place.
We have witnessed our erstwhile messiah and media darling turn into a whining, complaining prima donna who after spending two years saying Bush’s tax cuts were the cause of the Great Recession now he says if we let them expire it will make the economy worse. This would give smoke and mirrors a bad name. After two years vilifying his predecessor instead of ever once taking responsibility for anything the best President Obama can come up with is, “Let George do it”? We need to impeach his teleprompter for inconsistency and incompetence.
It’s time to ignore the stewards trying to calm the soon-to-expire passengers by convincing them that the configuration of the deck chairs makes a difference. It’s time to tell the captain, the navigator, and the helmsmen we need to turn our ship-of-state before it hits the iceberg of insolvency. It’s time to take our eyes off the riveting debate between the Democrat whiners, and Weiners, the Republican Snow-jobs and Cantors, and realize these people are more interested in perpetuating the current progressive pyramid of power than in resuscitating our Republic.
The American system doesn’t need bureaucrats tinkering with the tax code. We need bold patriots ready to make hard choices. We don’t need gimmicks like cutting the Social Security tax for a short period to make people feel like they’ve received relief from crushing taxation. We need to admit Clinton’s mythical lock-box and every other band aide our federal masters have used for the last two generations doesn’t change the fact that the Social Security scam has always been a ponzi scheme that makes Madoff look like a piker.
If our generation is to step up we’re going to have to turn off the game, put down the adult beverage, and become profiles in courage if we’re to be the conscious of a conservative for a nation lost in the lunacy of liberalism. None dare to call it treason, but the fact of the matter is we’ve been and are being sold a bill of goods. The money is gone: squandered on vote buying social engineering programs that have debilitated our population.
If generations of central planning to safeguard the dollar have turned it into wallpaper, if 100 years of regulating the economy to eliminate the business cycle has produced numerous recessions, a Great Depression, and now the Great Recession what have we gained? What have we lost?
We gained an increasingly intrusive central government which has subdued the States in contravention to the Tenth Amendment and is regimenting the populace in contravention to the Declaration of Independence. We gained a judicial system that thinks it can legislate from the bench, a legislature which has all but abdicated their responsibility to a bureaucratic nomenclature, and an imperial presidency filled by executives who start wars without declarations, issue signing statements that reverse the meaning of laws, and refuse to secure our borders, our markets, or even the communication of our diplomats. We gained a burdensome tax system that even the people who write it can’t understand. We gained a regulated economy unable to compete with communist countries that strangely seem to be more capitalist than we do.
We lost a free society and a limited government based upon a written Constitution and traditions of individual liberty and responsibility. We lost a free economy where each citizen contributed and each citizen had the opportunity to fail forward into all that they could be. We lost ourselves and stand in wonder watching leaders who just don’t get it work feverishly to turn us into someone else.
Don’t buy the hype. This latest compromise isn’t about putting America on track to revival it is a stealth stimulus pouring money into the economy so both sides of the Progressive bandwagon can roll it to the polls one more time. In addition, who knows what other surprises are hidden in the unread pages of this omnibus Frankenstein. Don’t drink the Kool-Aide; instead demand the heady wine of freedom and the re-birth of limited government which is the mother’s milk of liberty!
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion. Get the latest dispatches from the History of the Future and find books by Dr. Owens @ http://drrobertowens.com View the trailer for Dr. Owens’ latest book @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ypkoS0gGn8 © 2010 Robert R. Owens dr.owens@comcast.net Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook.
Lurking beneath the über partisan vitriol in President Obama’s announcement and serial defense of his post-partisan compromise with the Republican leadership he admitted that raising taxes is counterproductive when growing the economy is your goal.
Does it make anyone else wonder why when the bubble burst we didn’t cut taxes and get out of the way? For approximately the same cost of the TARP slush fund, which was used to pay for everything except toxic assets or the non-stimulating stimulus slush fund, every working American could have been given a one-year tax holiday. Just think about it, if you were getting the gross instead of the net every week do you think you would have spent any more money? Do you think the economy would still be in the doldrums a year and a half after the Great Recession is “over”? Come to think, of it why don’t the unemployed just go out and get one of those shovel-ready jobs? Oh, that’s right two years after the razzle-dazzle sales pitch the pitchman learned they never existed. Then we learned he knew it all along.
Don’t be fooled as the Democratic Progressives race the Republican Progressives to the microphones complaining they were rolled in Mr. Obama’s Great Compromise. What they’re really arguing about is how much of the money we earn they can afford to let us keep. If either side was really ready for the heady wine of liberty they’d talk about eliminating taxes not just about letting us keep the pittance George II agreed to let us hold for a few years.
Three generations ago, back at the dawn of the 20th century before the Creature from Jekyll Island and its mad creator, the Congress that devoured a nation began their present reign as the Central Bank and the Central Planning Board most of the taxes that Americans presently bear were nonexistent. Was the Federal Government broke? Were millions starving to death because food stamps hadn’t been invented? Were our citizens wallowing in ignorance because the Education Department hadn’t been created? Were the States declaring bankruptcy because they didn’t receive grants, bail-outs, or subsidies?
No. Before the creation of the Federal Reserve, which was supposed to safe guard the value of the dollar and end the boom and bust of the business cycle, America was the most prosperous, innovative, and growing nation on earth. Before the Progressives managed to shackle the capitalist engine of growth, dumb down the best informed public, and make dependent the most independent population the world had ever known America was the can-do capital and the go-to place.
We have witnessed our erstwhile messiah and media darling turn into a whining, complaining prima donna who after spending two years saying Bush’s tax cuts were the cause of the Great Recession now he says if we let them expire it will make the economy worse. This would give smoke and mirrors a bad name. After two years vilifying his predecessor instead of ever once taking responsibility for anything the best President Obama can come up with is, “Let George do it”? We need to impeach his teleprompter for inconsistency and incompetence.
It’s time to ignore the stewards trying to calm the soon-to-expire passengers by convincing them that the configuration of the deck chairs makes a difference. It’s time to tell the captain, the navigator, and the helmsmen we need to turn our ship-of-state before it hits the iceberg of insolvency. It’s time to take our eyes off the riveting debate between the Democrat whiners, and Weiners, the Republican Snow-jobs and Cantors, and realize these people are more interested in perpetuating the current progressive pyramid of power than in resuscitating our Republic.
The American system doesn’t need bureaucrats tinkering with the tax code. We need bold patriots ready to make hard choices. We don’t need gimmicks like cutting the Social Security tax for a short period to make people feel like they’ve received relief from crushing taxation. We need to admit Clinton’s mythical lock-box and every other band aide our federal masters have used for the last two generations doesn’t change the fact that the Social Security scam has always been a ponzi scheme that makes Madoff look like a piker.
If our generation is to step up we’re going to have to turn off the game, put down the adult beverage, and become profiles in courage if we’re to be the conscious of a conservative for a nation lost in the lunacy of liberalism. None dare to call it treason, but the fact of the matter is we’ve been and are being sold a bill of goods. The money is gone: squandered on vote buying social engineering programs that have debilitated our population.
If generations of central planning to safeguard the dollar have turned it into wallpaper, if 100 years of regulating the economy to eliminate the business cycle has produced numerous recessions, a Great Depression, and now the Great Recession what have we gained? What have we lost?
We gained an increasingly intrusive central government which has subdued the States in contravention to the Tenth Amendment and is regimenting the populace in contravention to the Declaration of Independence. We gained a judicial system that thinks it can legislate from the bench, a legislature which has all but abdicated their responsibility to a bureaucratic nomenclature, and an imperial presidency filled by executives who start wars without declarations, issue signing statements that reverse the meaning of laws, and refuse to secure our borders, our markets, or even the communication of our diplomats. We gained a burdensome tax system that even the people who write it can’t understand. We gained a regulated economy unable to compete with communist countries that strangely seem to be more capitalist than we do.
We lost a free society and a limited government based upon a written Constitution and traditions of individual liberty and responsibility. We lost a free economy where each citizen contributed and each citizen had the opportunity to fail forward into all that they could be. We lost ourselves and stand in wonder watching leaders who just don’t get it work feverishly to turn us into someone else.
Don’t buy the hype. This latest compromise isn’t about putting America on track to revival it is a stealth stimulus pouring money into the economy so both sides of the Progressive bandwagon can roll it to the polls one more time. In addition, who knows what other surprises are hidden in the unread pages of this omnibus Frankenstein. Don’t drink the Kool-Aide; instead demand the heady wine of freedom and the re-birth of limited government which is the mother’s milk of liberty!
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion. Get the latest dispatches from the History of the Future and find books by Dr. Owens @ http://drrobertowens.com View the trailer for Dr. Owens’ latest book @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ypkoS0gGn8 © 2010 Robert R. Owens dr.owens@comcast.net Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook.
Friday, December 3, 2010
Learning the Truth About Education
You can’t know what you don’t know, but you can know that you don’t know. Knowing the difference is wisdom. Realizing that knowledge is the cure for ignorance should be the inspiration for education.
If you want to change the future change the children. It seems like every tin-pot dictator and every megalomaniac destroyer of worlds knows this. The Progressives figured this out and they’ve been concentrating on it for generations. The educational guru of the Left, John Dewey may not have coined the term Progressive Education but he has come to be recognized as its earliest and foremost exponent.
In 1889, in his book School and Society he said, “Democracy has to be born anew every generation, and education is its midwife.” Dewey, a member of the first teacher's union in New York City, and a founder of the American Association of University Professors was an early leader and advocate for these unions which have served America well as academic elevator operators in the descent into our 21st Century Blackboard Jungle.
The importance of education and the power it has to shape the future was a lesson Conservative Academics overlooked in their effort to allow all voices to be heard. Remember, it was the Conservative educational leaders assailed in the 60s and 70s for being too rigid who hired the Liberals who now so often forbid the hiring of Conservatives. The idea that in the marketplace of ideas all voices should be heard providing the opportunity for everyone to make informed decisions was one of the founding ideas of America, enshrined in the First Amendment to the Constitution.
Conservatives didn’t realize the Left made a conscious effort to capture American education as a way of shaping America’s future. The Frankfurt School, a group of Marxists educators who escaped Hitler’s Germany and worshipped Stalin’s Russia came to America intent on transforming this great nation from the bastion of freedom into the pyre of Western Civilization. From their original lair at Columbia University they’ve inserted themselves throughout the colleges and universities of America spreading their cult of Political Correctness along the way.
Spreading like a cancer through the body politic, metastasizing from one area to another, Political Correctness strangles the life from our society. Freedom of speech is slipping from our hands as words are eliminated and meanings are changed. In our current culture war one position seen as a litmus test by both sides of the aisle is the elimination of the Department of Education.
This bureaucratic puzzle factory was birthed during Jimmy Carter’s failed presidency and it has grown larger and more pervasive ever since. Today its tentacles reach from inside the beltway to inside the minds of millions. Our government’s No Bureaucrat Left Behind strategy enforces a politically-correct homogenous drivel wherein teaching to the test has fostered a generation that can forget as quickly as they memorize and critical thinking is one component no one thought to include.
This systematic seizure of education by the central government has turned the premier educational establishment in the world into a system where an emphasis on self-esteem produces graduates who feel great about themselves but can’t read their diplomas. Not surprisingly there are few jobs for people from schools where everyone gets a trophy and everyone passes.
Here’s the Progressive’s answer to this dilemma: let’s add mandatory service to mandatory education and maybe that will give us mandatory mediocrity. Perhaps an army of paid volunteers all marching in lock-step to the drumbeat from Washington will lead us to utopia. Current member of President Obama’s economic team, former head of the Service Employee Union (SEIU) and former leader of Students for a Democratic Society Andy Stern has proposed that the Federal Government combat the effects of the centrally planned Great Recession by creating a youth work program.
This man who drove the SEIU pension plan into insolvency figures that, “Assuming an average annual cost of $15,000 per person, for just $46.5 billion we could offer every 16 to 24 year old who wanted a job a national service opportunity.” After twelve years of memorizing the inconvenient absurdities of Al Gore, Michael Moore, and the rest of the politically-correct wisdom from Mount Olympus this stint in a renamed Civilian National Security Force should help round out just the kind of citizens the regime needs.
The take-over of higher education through the direct loan program and its top down restructuring will eventually decide who gets loans and who has to repay them. Surprisingly, the who gets and the who pays may not end up being the same who.
In addition, the “let’s get everyone in college so they aren’t counted as unemployed” program is turning the halls of Academe into a post-secondary version of the dysfunctional high schools the Progressive teachers’ unions and political correctness have birthed from inner city to the heartland. Criminal Justice programs filled with criminals, political science classes filled with people who don’t vote, discipline problems, and gangs make one hope the home-schooling college of online education will turn out some scholars for the future.
So what’s the answer to America’s educational problems? First of all close down the Department of Education and get the Federal government out of the people programming business. Reassert local control. Adopt school voucher programs that actually transfer the money so the schools doing the best job get the most resources. End tenure, seniority, and anything else that protects ineffective teachers.
What we don’t need is more central planning, more federal control, or one more brick in the wall.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion. Get the latest dispatches from the History of the Future and find books by Dr. Owens @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2010 Robert R. Owens dr.owens@comcast.net Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook.
If you want to change the future change the children. It seems like every tin-pot dictator and every megalomaniac destroyer of worlds knows this. The Progressives figured this out and they’ve been concentrating on it for generations. The educational guru of the Left, John Dewey may not have coined the term Progressive Education but he has come to be recognized as its earliest and foremost exponent.
In 1889, in his book School and Society he said, “Democracy has to be born anew every generation, and education is its midwife.” Dewey, a member of the first teacher's union in New York City, and a founder of the American Association of University Professors was an early leader and advocate for these unions which have served America well as academic elevator operators in the descent into our 21st Century Blackboard Jungle.
The importance of education and the power it has to shape the future was a lesson Conservative Academics overlooked in their effort to allow all voices to be heard. Remember, it was the Conservative educational leaders assailed in the 60s and 70s for being too rigid who hired the Liberals who now so often forbid the hiring of Conservatives. The idea that in the marketplace of ideas all voices should be heard providing the opportunity for everyone to make informed decisions was one of the founding ideas of America, enshrined in the First Amendment to the Constitution.
Conservatives didn’t realize the Left made a conscious effort to capture American education as a way of shaping America’s future. The Frankfurt School, a group of Marxists educators who escaped Hitler’s Germany and worshipped Stalin’s Russia came to America intent on transforming this great nation from the bastion of freedom into the pyre of Western Civilization. From their original lair at Columbia University they’ve inserted themselves throughout the colleges and universities of America spreading their cult of Political Correctness along the way.
Spreading like a cancer through the body politic, metastasizing from one area to another, Political Correctness strangles the life from our society. Freedom of speech is slipping from our hands as words are eliminated and meanings are changed. In our current culture war one position seen as a litmus test by both sides of the aisle is the elimination of the Department of Education.
This bureaucratic puzzle factory was birthed during Jimmy Carter’s failed presidency and it has grown larger and more pervasive ever since. Today its tentacles reach from inside the beltway to inside the minds of millions. Our government’s No Bureaucrat Left Behind strategy enforces a politically-correct homogenous drivel wherein teaching to the test has fostered a generation that can forget as quickly as they memorize and critical thinking is one component no one thought to include.
This systematic seizure of education by the central government has turned the premier educational establishment in the world into a system where an emphasis on self-esteem produces graduates who feel great about themselves but can’t read their diplomas. Not surprisingly there are few jobs for people from schools where everyone gets a trophy and everyone passes.
Here’s the Progressive’s answer to this dilemma: let’s add mandatory service to mandatory education and maybe that will give us mandatory mediocrity. Perhaps an army of paid volunteers all marching in lock-step to the drumbeat from Washington will lead us to utopia. Current member of President Obama’s economic team, former head of the Service Employee Union (SEIU) and former leader of Students for a Democratic Society Andy Stern has proposed that the Federal Government combat the effects of the centrally planned Great Recession by creating a youth work program.
This man who drove the SEIU pension plan into insolvency figures that, “Assuming an average annual cost of $15,000 per person, for just $46.5 billion we could offer every 16 to 24 year old who wanted a job a national service opportunity.” After twelve years of memorizing the inconvenient absurdities of Al Gore, Michael Moore, and the rest of the politically-correct wisdom from Mount Olympus this stint in a renamed Civilian National Security Force should help round out just the kind of citizens the regime needs.
The take-over of higher education through the direct loan program and its top down restructuring will eventually decide who gets loans and who has to repay them. Surprisingly, the who gets and the who pays may not end up being the same who.
In addition, the “let’s get everyone in college so they aren’t counted as unemployed” program is turning the halls of Academe into a post-secondary version of the dysfunctional high schools the Progressive teachers’ unions and political correctness have birthed from inner city to the heartland. Criminal Justice programs filled with criminals, political science classes filled with people who don’t vote, discipline problems, and gangs make one hope the home-schooling college of online education will turn out some scholars for the future.
So what’s the answer to America’s educational problems? First of all close down the Department of Education and get the Federal government out of the people programming business. Reassert local control. Adopt school voucher programs that actually transfer the money so the schools doing the best job get the most resources. End tenure, seniority, and anything else that protects ineffective teachers.
What we don’t need is more central planning, more federal control, or one more brick in the wall.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion. Get the latest dispatches from the History of the Future and find books by Dr. Owens @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2010 Robert R. Owens dr.owens@comcast.net Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Don't Throw the Baby Out With the Bathwater
As America appears to swirl down the drain under the current maladministration, and as the new normal of 9-10% unemployment, crushing debt, and diplomacy by the wiki-wonks compromises our credibility it’s time to recall that there must be limits if there’s to be freedom. President Obama believes the Constitution is flawed, because it only speaks of “negative” liberties and it merely restrains government instead of empowering it. This reveals a lack of understanding of the American Experiment that is breath-taking to behold in the man elected to defend the Constitution.
A constitutional novice, let alone a supposed constitutional scholar, should know the reason for a written constitution is to set limits for government so that individual liberty and freedom can bloom. This has been true since King John was forced to sign the Magna Carta. It was true when the Miracle at Philadelphia produced the Constitution, and it’s true today. If government is not limited it is limitless.
What should be taught has not been taught. What should be known is not known. And what should be self-evident remains hidden in plain sight: “That all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” These words ring down the halls of History reverberating in the heart of every Patriot. Flowing from this same well-spring of wisdom is the reason for the institution of government, the source of the social contract which holds us together as a people: “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
Two hundred and thirty-four years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great culture war, and testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. These Dispatches from the History of the Future are brought forth on a great battle-field of that war: the media.
The world will little note, nor long remember what is said here, but it will never forget what patriotic authors have done and are doing. It is fitting for we who labor in the field of communications to dedicate our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor to the task remaining before us that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth.
Therefore, no matter if a certain Dispatch elicits praise or condemnation, whether it agrees or disagrees with every nuance of each individual it is hoped that positions will be taken in context. That people will react to articles and not headlines. To disagree on matters of foreign relations does not distract from our unity of vision that limited government, personal freedom, and individual liberty are the source and the summit of the American Experiment. Another pearl of wisdom from our forefathers may also be relevant to the necessity of not allowing divisions to divide us, “We must all hang together, or we shall all hang separately.”
A free press and people willing to share their thoughts whether popular or unpopular have long been the bane of tyrants. Those who seek to order the lives of others and to micromanage the fate of nations cannot abide the literature of liberty or the discourse of free people boldly proclaiming that the government that governs least governs best. Thus, these Dispatches from the History of the Future have been banned by the editors of the elite from China to Denver.
A quick review of recent history (Germany & Japan) teaches that nations which were once enemies can become friends, and those who were friends (Iran) can become enemies. This alone should direct us to the wisdom of George Washington, “The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest.” To base our future foreign relations upon our past chains us to backward thinking and tunnel vision, two things our current enemies are exploiting on a daily basis. Please take your shoes off and prepare for the porno scan or grope.
Let us not lose sight of the sacred cause for which we labor: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Let us stand together against the assault upon freedom that is the growth of Progressive government. The time is fast approaching when no matter how dedicated some may be to America remaining on the beat as the world’s policeman, building nations in our own image and chasing the mirage of security through empire, the burden of garrisons in ninety nations, and wars in several more will compel us to retire to the security of our borders.
This does not mean isolationism for we cannot retreat from commerce. It does however mean the time has come to once again heed the wisdom of our first President, “Our detached and distant situation invites and enables us to pursue a different course. If we remain one people under an efficient government the period is not far off when we may defy material injury from external annoyance; when we may take such an attitude as will cause the neutrality we may at any time resolve upon to be scrupulously respected; when belligerent nations, under the impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard the giving us provocation; when we may choose peace or war, as our interest, guided by justice, shall counsel. Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation? Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground?”
The time is also fast approaching when the words of our founders may once again ring clear in a land losing sight of our focus: limited government, liberty, and personal freedom. A time when the words of Jefferson will once again make tyrants quake, “That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.” Let all patriots stand together for truth, justice and the American way.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion. Get the latest dispatches from the History of the Future and find books by Dr. Owens @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2010 Robert R. Owens dr.owens@comcast.net Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook.
A constitutional novice, let alone a supposed constitutional scholar, should know the reason for a written constitution is to set limits for government so that individual liberty and freedom can bloom. This has been true since King John was forced to sign the Magna Carta. It was true when the Miracle at Philadelphia produced the Constitution, and it’s true today. If government is not limited it is limitless.
What should be taught has not been taught. What should be known is not known. And what should be self-evident remains hidden in plain sight: “That all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” These words ring down the halls of History reverberating in the heart of every Patriot. Flowing from this same well-spring of wisdom is the reason for the institution of government, the source of the social contract which holds us together as a people: “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
Two hundred and thirty-four years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great culture war, and testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. These Dispatches from the History of the Future are brought forth on a great battle-field of that war: the media.
The world will little note, nor long remember what is said here, but it will never forget what patriotic authors have done and are doing. It is fitting for we who labor in the field of communications to dedicate our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor to the task remaining before us that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth.
Therefore, no matter if a certain Dispatch elicits praise or condemnation, whether it agrees or disagrees with every nuance of each individual it is hoped that positions will be taken in context. That people will react to articles and not headlines. To disagree on matters of foreign relations does not distract from our unity of vision that limited government, personal freedom, and individual liberty are the source and the summit of the American Experiment. Another pearl of wisdom from our forefathers may also be relevant to the necessity of not allowing divisions to divide us, “We must all hang together, or we shall all hang separately.”
A free press and people willing to share their thoughts whether popular or unpopular have long been the bane of tyrants. Those who seek to order the lives of others and to micromanage the fate of nations cannot abide the literature of liberty or the discourse of free people boldly proclaiming that the government that governs least governs best. Thus, these Dispatches from the History of the Future have been banned by the editors of the elite from China to Denver.
A quick review of recent history (Germany & Japan) teaches that nations which were once enemies can become friends, and those who were friends (Iran) can become enemies. This alone should direct us to the wisdom of George Washington, “The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest.” To base our future foreign relations upon our past chains us to backward thinking and tunnel vision, two things our current enemies are exploiting on a daily basis. Please take your shoes off and prepare for the porno scan or grope.
Let us not lose sight of the sacred cause for which we labor: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Let us stand together against the assault upon freedom that is the growth of Progressive government. The time is fast approaching when no matter how dedicated some may be to America remaining on the beat as the world’s policeman, building nations in our own image and chasing the mirage of security through empire, the burden of garrisons in ninety nations, and wars in several more will compel us to retire to the security of our borders.
This does not mean isolationism for we cannot retreat from commerce. It does however mean the time has come to once again heed the wisdom of our first President, “Our detached and distant situation invites and enables us to pursue a different course. If we remain one people under an efficient government the period is not far off when we may defy material injury from external annoyance; when we may take such an attitude as will cause the neutrality we may at any time resolve upon to be scrupulously respected; when belligerent nations, under the impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard the giving us provocation; when we may choose peace or war, as our interest, guided by justice, shall counsel. Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation? Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground?”
The time is also fast approaching when the words of our founders may once again ring clear in a land losing sight of our focus: limited government, liberty, and personal freedom. A time when the words of Jefferson will once again make tyrants quake, “That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.” Let all patriots stand together for truth, justice and the American way.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion. Get the latest dispatches from the History of the Future and find books by Dr. Owens @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2010 Robert R. Owens dr.owens@comcast.net Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook.
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Thanks For Nothing
Sometimes not getting everything you want is the best thing you can get. Sometimes enough is too much already. Sometimes the next time might be the last time if this time is just like the last time. Sometimes when we try to run out the time, time runs out on us. Then again, sometimes time seems to stand still, which is exactly the time we need to realize time never stands still.
Sometimes not getting everything you want is the best thing you can get. In the run up to the game-changing election of 2010 many people hoped the Republicans would gain control of both the House and the Senate. This did not happen and that is a good thing. The staggering scope of the re-alignment in the House reveals the breadth and depth of America’s repudiation of the Progressives and their welfare nanny-state. However, if the Teanami had given conservatives complete control of the legislative branch it would have set the stage for President Obama and his accomplices in the media to run against the Tea Party Congress 24/7 for the next two years. As it stands today, the House can act as an anchor slowing down the precipitous rush into the Progressive’s socialist dream world without being a foil for the next comeback kid.
Sometimes enough is too much already. While the House is now in a perfect position to slow down the Progressives march towards Utopia it might be too late. By standing on the promises they’ve made to get another chance at legislative leadership the Republicans can stop anymore over-the-top spending. They can use their power to modify bills and bring some sanity back to our budgetary process. This will be good, but it won’t be enough. The looting of the treasury that’s gone on for the last two years combined with the projected looting already commits us to trillion dollar yearly deficits for the next 10 years. Slowing the rate of growth will do nothing to stop our mad rush into insolvency. Standing still is not good enough, we must reverse course or this Titanic is going to hit the iceberg no matter where we place the deckchairs.
Sometimes the next time might be the last time if this time is just like the last time. The Republicans are hitting the right note as they prepare to take over the House. They aren’t crowing about the victory of their Party. They’re acting chastened and aware that if they mess it up this time they may end up following the Whigs they replaced in the 1850s unto the ash heap of history. After 40 years in the wilderness, the Republicans gained power in 1994. They followed through on their contract and brought in the first balanced budget in a generation, ended welfare as we had known it and inspired a pragmatic progressive to utter those long sought after words, “The era of big government is over.”
Unfortunately, they nominated a lackluster candidate and were out maneuvered by the Clinton Machine in 1996 and then fell into an impeachment debacle wherein they had to fight the administration, the media, and their own Progressive wing. Following their impeachment fiasco the GOP legislative majority followed their Progressive leaders and wallowed in the pork until disgusted voters decided to give the Democrat Progressives a chance.
The Republicans are wise to realize they’ve not been embraced by the Silent Majority / Tea Party. They’ve been given one last chance. Do what you said you would do, fight to reverse the slide, fight to save the Republic, don’t just mark time, or this time will be your last time because sometimes when we try to run out the time, time runs out on us.
Sometimes time seems to stand still which is exactly the time we need to realize time never stands still. The lame duck session grinds on, and we still don’t know what lame laws these ducks will lay before they lose the keys to the House. In a way, with the holidays fast approaching and the blessed sound of a recess bell not too far away it feels as if time is standing still. As if the angels are holding their breath awaiting the first snowflakes as we all gather to give thanks, Congress is going home.
However, the Progressives are not standing still. In the last two years they’ve effectively abdicated their Constitutional responsibilities moving much of the decision-making and oversight from Congress to the bureaucracy. Right now the multiple thousand page bills are being unwrapped like Christmas presents by the departments and bureaus and soon new regulations with the force of law will cascade out of nondescript offices continuing the transformation of America. Those dedicated to the salvation of the Republic cannot rest upon the glow of victory. We must redouble our efforts to turn back the tide. We must limit the government before the government limits us.
Now is the time to petition our representatives, asking them to actively do nothing in the lame duck session that isn’t absolutely necessary. There was no budget passed, so a continuing resolution is required. That’s all that must be done. The tax question can be postponed until the next Congress and made retroactive. The START treaty needs a closer examination. Everything else being proposed such as the Dream Act is nothing but political payoffs for members of the Progressive coalition. The best thing this Congress can do for us after all they’ve done to us is nothing. If they’ll just do that we can all be thankful.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College and History for the American Public University System. http://drrobertowens.com © 2010 Robert R. Owens dr.owens@comcast.net Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook.
Sometimes not getting everything you want is the best thing you can get. In the run up to the game-changing election of 2010 many people hoped the Republicans would gain control of both the House and the Senate. This did not happen and that is a good thing. The staggering scope of the re-alignment in the House reveals the breadth and depth of America’s repudiation of the Progressives and their welfare nanny-state. However, if the Teanami had given conservatives complete control of the legislative branch it would have set the stage for President Obama and his accomplices in the media to run against the Tea Party Congress 24/7 for the next two years. As it stands today, the House can act as an anchor slowing down the precipitous rush into the Progressive’s socialist dream world without being a foil for the next comeback kid.
Sometimes enough is too much already. While the House is now in a perfect position to slow down the Progressives march towards Utopia it might be too late. By standing on the promises they’ve made to get another chance at legislative leadership the Republicans can stop anymore over-the-top spending. They can use their power to modify bills and bring some sanity back to our budgetary process. This will be good, but it won’t be enough. The looting of the treasury that’s gone on for the last two years combined with the projected looting already commits us to trillion dollar yearly deficits for the next 10 years. Slowing the rate of growth will do nothing to stop our mad rush into insolvency. Standing still is not good enough, we must reverse course or this Titanic is going to hit the iceberg no matter where we place the deckchairs.
Sometimes the next time might be the last time if this time is just like the last time. The Republicans are hitting the right note as they prepare to take over the House. They aren’t crowing about the victory of their Party. They’re acting chastened and aware that if they mess it up this time they may end up following the Whigs they replaced in the 1850s unto the ash heap of history. After 40 years in the wilderness, the Republicans gained power in 1994. They followed through on their contract and brought in the first balanced budget in a generation, ended welfare as we had known it and inspired a pragmatic progressive to utter those long sought after words, “The era of big government is over.”
Unfortunately, they nominated a lackluster candidate and were out maneuvered by the Clinton Machine in 1996 and then fell into an impeachment debacle wherein they had to fight the administration, the media, and their own Progressive wing. Following their impeachment fiasco the GOP legislative majority followed their Progressive leaders and wallowed in the pork until disgusted voters decided to give the Democrat Progressives a chance.
The Republicans are wise to realize they’ve not been embraced by the Silent Majority / Tea Party. They’ve been given one last chance. Do what you said you would do, fight to reverse the slide, fight to save the Republic, don’t just mark time, or this time will be your last time because sometimes when we try to run out the time, time runs out on us.
Sometimes time seems to stand still which is exactly the time we need to realize time never stands still. The lame duck session grinds on, and we still don’t know what lame laws these ducks will lay before they lose the keys to the House. In a way, with the holidays fast approaching and the blessed sound of a recess bell not too far away it feels as if time is standing still. As if the angels are holding their breath awaiting the first snowflakes as we all gather to give thanks, Congress is going home.
However, the Progressives are not standing still. In the last two years they’ve effectively abdicated their Constitutional responsibilities moving much of the decision-making and oversight from Congress to the bureaucracy. Right now the multiple thousand page bills are being unwrapped like Christmas presents by the departments and bureaus and soon new regulations with the force of law will cascade out of nondescript offices continuing the transformation of America. Those dedicated to the salvation of the Republic cannot rest upon the glow of victory. We must redouble our efforts to turn back the tide. We must limit the government before the government limits us.
Now is the time to petition our representatives, asking them to actively do nothing in the lame duck session that isn’t absolutely necessary. There was no budget passed, so a continuing resolution is required. That’s all that must be done. The tax question can be postponed until the next Congress and made retroactive. The START treaty needs a closer examination. Everything else being proposed such as the Dream Act is nothing but political payoffs for members of the Progressive coalition. The best thing this Congress can do for us after all they’ve done to us is nothing. If they’ll just do that we can all be thankful.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College and History for the American Public University System. http://drrobertowens.com © 2010 Robert R. Owens dr.owens@comcast.net Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook.
Saturday, November 13, 2010
A Principle for Peter in the 21st Century
The world is lining up to not buy our debt so we are buying it ourselves in a move we call by the innocuous acronym QE2, which is short for Quantitative Easing two. More traditional, or verbally honest, economists are calling this what it is: monetizing our debt. This is a move which has our creditors heading for the doors and our enemies smiling as poor old Uncle Sugar stands with his pockets turned inside out, a bewildered look on his face as he wonders, “Where did all flowers go?”
Quantitative Easing is a type of monetary policy central banks use to pump money into their respective economic systems. This policy is only used when the central bank has already reduced interest rates to or near to zero. In other words, they have tried to encourage lending but they’ve failed. What the central bank does next is create money with a printing press, using that money to purchase bonds from its parent government and from banks and corporations within the nation’s banking system. The second and third tier banks then increase the money supply even further through another process known as deposit multiplication wherein they receive 100 dollars but are only required to keep $20 on hand, so they loan $80. The person who borrowed the $80 deposits it in their bank, and then that bank keeps 20% and loans the rest, and so on and so on until the increased money primes the pump and the stalled economy sputters to life. At least that’s the strategy.
No strategy survives contact with the enemy. And in this case the enemy is a financial system still reeling from government produced or instigated shocks: the housing bubble, the credit crunch, the escalating costs associated with Obamacare, and now the threat of a foreclosure moratorium. The dangers of the QE2 strategy lie in two directions. One it could be too successful igniting inflation and maybe even hyperinflation or two it could fail to re-ignite the economy and then the uncertainty of future tax rates, what new regulations might cost and the prospect of irretrievable assets locked up in a foreclosure freeze causing banks to hold the additional cash as a hedge against the government caused uncertainty. This would put us right back where we started: a frozen economy which opens the door for QE3, QE4, and eventually the dollar won’t be worth the paper it’s printed on.
If you rob Peter to pay Paul you can usually count on Paul’s vote in the next election cycle. This has been going on since FDR’s political genius discovered the magic formula of spend, spend, spend, tax, tax, tax, elect, elect, elect. Years of getting Paul addicted to lying in the hammock of government safety nets and swilling a brewsky as the game dulls his senses haven’t worked. Likewise, years of socialist education teaches Paul he isn’t a parasite he’s a victim with an entitlement haven’t worked. At the end of the day even Paul is starting to see that this can’t go on forever.
The free trade policies of both parties may have brought in cheap consumer goods to make Paul with his diminishing buying power think things are getting better all the time, but these same policies have also destroyed the manufacturing base that once provided Peter with enough income to carry Paul on his back and still live a good life. Today the average Paul is obese and the average Peter hasn’t had a raise in years, has watched his friends get laid-off, and wonders how he’s going to send Paul’s kids to college on burger-flipping money.
This brings us back to the world not lining up to buy our debt and to the definition of monetizing our debt. This is the government version of paying your MasterCard with your Visa. It may relieve current stress, but it portends future catastrophe. Debtors may appreciate moving their debt around, but creditors want to get paid. At a minimum they want to know their investment is secure. If we owe someone 100 dollars they want to know that the 100 dollars they receive in payment will have the same buying power as the 100 dollars they originally lent out. If the money they receive in payment is only worth half as much, they have lost half their initial investment. This is why China is reacting negatively to the Fed’s plan to pump more money into an economic system strangled by red tape and bleeding red ink.
It’s just not that hard to recognize a ponzi scheme. The smart bet is to walk away as soon as you see the shill starting to move the shells around on the table and this is just what the rest of the world is beginning to do. But poor old Uncle Sugar still thinks he has magic in his hands and more than a smile to hide his motives. What happens if you have a bond sale and nobody comes? I guess you buy the bonds yourself.
Will the end of American preeminence come not with a Bang: not with a whimper but instead with a “cha-ching!” If America, once the engine of the world’s economy and the seedbed of innovation crashes due to unsustainable debt will this validate the 20th Century concept of the Peter Principle? This principle states that within a bureaucracy people tend to get promoted due to their competence until they reach a level of incompetence remaining there until over time incompetence fills every level. Or is it time for a Peter Principle for the 21st Century?
Now is the time for Peter to rise up and say enough is too much already! In the coming Tea Party Congress the father and son Paul Team plan to offer twin bills in the House and the Senate to dissolve the Federal Reserve and reassert congressional control of America’s economic destiny. The howls will be loud, the fight will be hard, but either those who want to see a second American Century will usher in a return to limited government and free enterprise or the national motto may soon be, “Help I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.” To avoid this I urge every Peter who’s tired of being taxed to support the Pauls, contact you congressional representatives asking them to support the Paul Team as they fulfill their promises and strike a blow for freedom. If all the Peters follow these Pauls maybe we can put Humpty Dumpty back together again.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College and History for the American Public University System. http://drrobertowens.com © 2010 Robert R. Owens dr.owens@comcast.net Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook.
Quantitative Easing is a type of monetary policy central banks use to pump money into their respective economic systems. This policy is only used when the central bank has already reduced interest rates to or near to zero. In other words, they have tried to encourage lending but they’ve failed. What the central bank does next is create money with a printing press, using that money to purchase bonds from its parent government and from banks and corporations within the nation’s banking system. The second and third tier banks then increase the money supply even further through another process known as deposit multiplication wherein they receive 100 dollars but are only required to keep $20 on hand, so they loan $80. The person who borrowed the $80 deposits it in their bank, and then that bank keeps 20% and loans the rest, and so on and so on until the increased money primes the pump and the stalled economy sputters to life. At least that’s the strategy.
No strategy survives contact with the enemy. And in this case the enemy is a financial system still reeling from government produced or instigated shocks: the housing bubble, the credit crunch, the escalating costs associated with Obamacare, and now the threat of a foreclosure moratorium. The dangers of the QE2 strategy lie in two directions. One it could be too successful igniting inflation and maybe even hyperinflation or two it could fail to re-ignite the economy and then the uncertainty of future tax rates, what new regulations might cost and the prospect of irretrievable assets locked up in a foreclosure freeze causing banks to hold the additional cash as a hedge against the government caused uncertainty. This would put us right back where we started: a frozen economy which opens the door for QE3, QE4, and eventually the dollar won’t be worth the paper it’s printed on.
If you rob Peter to pay Paul you can usually count on Paul’s vote in the next election cycle. This has been going on since FDR’s political genius discovered the magic formula of spend, spend, spend, tax, tax, tax, elect, elect, elect. Years of getting Paul addicted to lying in the hammock of government safety nets and swilling a brewsky as the game dulls his senses haven’t worked. Likewise, years of socialist education teaches Paul he isn’t a parasite he’s a victim with an entitlement haven’t worked. At the end of the day even Paul is starting to see that this can’t go on forever.
The free trade policies of both parties may have brought in cheap consumer goods to make Paul with his diminishing buying power think things are getting better all the time, but these same policies have also destroyed the manufacturing base that once provided Peter with enough income to carry Paul on his back and still live a good life. Today the average Paul is obese and the average Peter hasn’t had a raise in years, has watched his friends get laid-off, and wonders how he’s going to send Paul’s kids to college on burger-flipping money.
This brings us back to the world not lining up to buy our debt and to the definition of monetizing our debt. This is the government version of paying your MasterCard with your Visa. It may relieve current stress, but it portends future catastrophe. Debtors may appreciate moving their debt around, but creditors want to get paid. At a minimum they want to know their investment is secure. If we owe someone 100 dollars they want to know that the 100 dollars they receive in payment will have the same buying power as the 100 dollars they originally lent out. If the money they receive in payment is only worth half as much, they have lost half their initial investment. This is why China is reacting negatively to the Fed’s plan to pump more money into an economic system strangled by red tape and bleeding red ink.
It’s just not that hard to recognize a ponzi scheme. The smart bet is to walk away as soon as you see the shill starting to move the shells around on the table and this is just what the rest of the world is beginning to do. But poor old Uncle Sugar still thinks he has magic in his hands and more than a smile to hide his motives. What happens if you have a bond sale and nobody comes? I guess you buy the bonds yourself.
Will the end of American preeminence come not with a Bang: not with a whimper but instead with a “cha-ching!” If America, once the engine of the world’s economy and the seedbed of innovation crashes due to unsustainable debt will this validate the 20th Century concept of the Peter Principle? This principle states that within a bureaucracy people tend to get promoted due to their competence until they reach a level of incompetence remaining there until over time incompetence fills every level. Or is it time for a Peter Principle for the 21st Century?
Now is the time for Peter to rise up and say enough is too much already! In the coming Tea Party Congress the father and son Paul Team plan to offer twin bills in the House and the Senate to dissolve the Federal Reserve and reassert congressional control of America’s economic destiny. The howls will be loud, the fight will be hard, but either those who want to see a second American Century will usher in a return to limited government and free enterprise or the national motto may soon be, “Help I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.” To avoid this I urge every Peter who’s tired of being taxed to support the Pauls, contact you congressional representatives asking them to support the Paul Team as they fulfill their promises and strike a blow for freedom. If all the Peters follow these Pauls maybe we can put Humpty Dumpty back together again.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College and History for the American Public University System. http://drrobertowens.com © 2010 Robert R. Owens dr.owens@comcast.net Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook.
Saturday, November 6, 2010
My Name’s America and I’m a Debt-a-holic
Anyone who’s walked down the twelve-step path or knows someone who has, which is almost everyone in America, has heard the saying, “Until you admit you have a problem there’s no hope for a cure.”
We, as America have a problem: we’re addicted to debt. Now is not the time to point fingers. This isn’t the time to figure out whose fault it is or when was the fatal binge that sent us over the line from recreational user to addict. Now is the time to man-up, to admit we have a problem, and take the first steps toward recovery. And I’m not talking about some over-priced, jazzed-up, Betty Ford type recovery “Program.” I mean real recovery. This won’t happen overnight. It won’t happen without fears and tears and soul-searching honesty as we look in the mirror and admit to ourselves, “We aren’t controlling the debt. The debt is controlling us.”
Like many survivors of the Summer of Love, and the other social scams of the 1960s, when so many of we Boomers danced in lock-step like lemmings at mass festivals loudly proclaiming our induhvidualism while wearing identical tie-dyed shirts and patched-up jean uniforms, I found myself one day admitting I was addicted to something. No longer could I pretend I was taking the formerly magical something for fun. I was ingesting something that was bad for my body, because if I didn’t I’d get sick. My body, my mind, my soul had become addicted, and if I didn’t keep flying I was going to crash. I had that realization. Step-by-step I learned to walk on my own again. Maybe you’ve never had that experience personally. Hold on to your treasured memories of missing that degrading rite of passage, because we as a nation are about to hit the wall.
If we don’t sober up and take the cure ourselves one day soon our friendly local debt dealers are all going to get together and pull an intervention on us, and that will not be pretty. The austerity you place upon yourself is easier to bear than the austerity placed on you by someone else. If we don’t seize these last few moments of independence to stand up and say, “My name’s America and I’m a debt-a-holic” before we can print enough funny money to pay off our massive debts the countries holding that debt will cut us off and we’ll have to go through withdrawals cold-turkey. Or worse yet, we may be so strung out on living beyond our means that we’ll agree to anything the debt dealers demand if only they’ll extend our credit for a few more days. The borrower is slave to the lender and he who pays the piper calls the tune.
It’s easy to pick out all the pet projects of the opposition and say those are what caused us to go over the line. If we’re truthful we will see that it wasn’t just entitlements it was providing garrison troops to maintain the peace around the world. It wasn’t just tax cuts it was also spending. Truthfulness is a required ingredient for this cure. It won’t work if we just stop drinking, because dry drunks just find something else to fill the hole in their souls. It won’t be good enough to kick the heroin of debt just to become strung out on the methadone of printing money. We can’t just click our heels three times and say “I wish I was home” as Bernanke pumps out billions of increasingly worthless paper dollars. We can’t start using our Discover Card after the shop keeper cuts up our MasterCard and our Visa.
Some fear the cure will be worse than the disease. Some are afraid to admit there’s a problem fearing there will be a stigma. We’re past time to worry what the other countries down the block are going to say. We cannot hesitate because we’re ashamed all the other countries will point at us on the UN playground and say behind phony smiles, “America couldn’t handle their budget and now they have to live within their means.”
We can’t let divisions divide us. We must remember we are the UNITED States. We have to realize we cannot remain anonymous buying our debilitating debt on the corner from dealers who’re laughing at us behind our backs. We cannot continue spending like drunken sailors at the first port-of-call in six months and expect that there will be anything left for the kids. We’re sacrificing our children at the altar of our own desires. It’s time to admit that being generous with other people’s money isn’t generosity, its theft. It’s also time to realize that if everyone demands what they want no one will get what they need.
Yes, this will mean hard choices. Yes, this will mean that we all must roll-up our sleeves, tighten our belts, and go to work for the long haul. But we’re America. We can do this. Instead of expecting our representatives to bring home the bacon let’s ask them to balance the budget no matter how that may gore our sacred cow. Perhaps it’s time we remember to ask not what our country can do for us, but ask instead what we can do for our country.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College and History for the American Public University System. http://drrobertowens.com © 2010 Robert R. Owens dr.owens@comcast.net Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook.
We, as America have a problem: we’re addicted to debt. Now is not the time to point fingers. This isn’t the time to figure out whose fault it is or when was the fatal binge that sent us over the line from recreational user to addict. Now is the time to man-up, to admit we have a problem, and take the first steps toward recovery. And I’m not talking about some over-priced, jazzed-up, Betty Ford type recovery “Program.” I mean real recovery. This won’t happen overnight. It won’t happen without fears and tears and soul-searching honesty as we look in the mirror and admit to ourselves, “We aren’t controlling the debt. The debt is controlling us.”
Like many survivors of the Summer of Love, and the other social scams of the 1960s, when so many of we Boomers danced in lock-step like lemmings at mass festivals loudly proclaiming our induhvidualism while wearing identical tie-dyed shirts and patched-up jean uniforms, I found myself one day admitting I was addicted to something. No longer could I pretend I was taking the formerly magical something for fun. I was ingesting something that was bad for my body, because if I didn’t I’d get sick. My body, my mind, my soul had become addicted, and if I didn’t keep flying I was going to crash. I had that realization. Step-by-step I learned to walk on my own again. Maybe you’ve never had that experience personally. Hold on to your treasured memories of missing that degrading rite of passage, because we as a nation are about to hit the wall.
If we don’t sober up and take the cure ourselves one day soon our friendly local debt dealers are all going to get together and pull an intervention on us, and that will not be pretty. The austerity you place upon yourself is easier to bear than the austerity placed on you by someone else. If we don’t seize these last few moments of independence to stand up and say, “My name’s America and I’m a debt-a-holic” before we can print enough funny money to pay off our massive debts the countries holding that debt will cut us off and we’ll have to go through withdrawals cold-turkey. Or worse yet, we may be so strung out on living beyond our means that we’ll agree to anything the debt dealers demand if only they’ll extend our credit for a few more days. The borrower is slave to the lender and he who pays the piper calls the tune.
It’s easy to pick out all the pet projects of the opposition and say those are what caused us to go over the line. If we’re truthful we will see that it wasn’t just entitlements it was providing garrison troops to maintain the peace around the world. It wasn’t just tax cuts it was also spending. Truthfulness is a required ingredient for this cure. It won’t work if we just stop drinking, because dry drunks just find something else to fill the hole in their souls. It won’t be good enough to kick the heroin of debt just to become strung out on the methadone of printing money. We can’t just click our heels three times and say “I wish I was home” as Bernanke pumps out billions of increasingly worthless paper dollars. We can’t start using our Discover Card after the shop keeper cuts up our MasterCard and our Visa.
Some fear the cure will be worse than the disease. Some are afraid to admit there’s a problem fearing there will be a stigma. We’re past time to worry what the other countries down the block are going to say. We cannot hesitate because we’re ashamed all the other countries will point at us on the UN playground and say behind phony smiles, “America couldn’t handle their budget and now they have to live within their means.”
We can’t let divisions divide us. We must remember we are the UNITED States. We have to realize we cannot remain anonymous buying our debilitating debt on the corner from dealers who’re laughing at us behind our backs. We cannot continue spending like drunken sailors at the first port-of-call in six months and expect that there will be anything left for the kids. We’re sacrificing our children at the altar of our own desires. It’s time to admit that being generous with other people’s money isn’t generosity, its theft. It’s also time to realize that if everyone demands what they want no one will get what they need.
Yes, this will mean hard choices. Yes, this will mean that we all must roll-up our sleeves, tighten our belts, and go to work for the long haul. But we’re America. We can do this. Instead of expecting our representatives to bring home the bacon let’s ask them to balance the budget no matter how that may gore our sacred cow. Perhaps it’s time we remember to ask not what our country can do for us, but ask instead what we can do for our country.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College and History for the American Public University System. http://drrobertowens.com © 2010 Robert R. Owens dr.owens@comcast.net Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook.
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