Here is a post that I found on Tom Perriello’s web site outlining a letter that he and other freshman democrat congressmen wrote to the democrat leadership. In it they claim that they are pushing for the following ideas to be incorporated in any health care bill that comes up for a vote. Here they are:
• Protect Medicare and extend the solvency of the Medicare Trust Fund, including closure of the Medicare Part D prescription drug “doughnut hole” and empowering Medicare to negotiate cheaper drug prices;
• Guarantee 100% deficit neutrality, stating that “any health care reform legislation that increases our national deficit or debt is a non-starter for us.” Specifically, the letter suggests triggered across-the-board cuts in federal discretionary spending to ensure that savings goals are met;
• Increase competition across state lines as a key component of reducing costs, “allowing all businesses and individuals the opportunity to purchase insurance from entities beyond their state lines;”
• Address tort costs by reducing litigation, medical error, and overutilization, proposing real reforms such as “Certificate of Merit” provisions and “Early Offer” programs;
• Allow every American the opportunity to choose the same quality healthcare that Members of Congress enjoy, or what Perriello calls “the congressional option;”
• Incentivize wellness and preventive care and encourage personal responsibility for living healthier lifestyles; and
• Protect small businesses and allow them to calculate for themselves how health care reform would impact their bottom line. Previously, Perriello and other freshmen had pushed successfully to expand protections of S-corporations and other small businesses from proposed surcharges associated with the broader plan.
Well now we have just a few inconsistencies here. First of all there is no Medicare trust fund because all the money goes into the general fund; you would think that a Congressman would know that. They say that they want to extend the solvency of this imaginary trust fund, not make it sustainable mind you, just kick the can down the road for someone else to deal with. Nice.
Now, how do you think they are going to extend the solvency of yet another bankrupt government program? There are only two ways to do this; cut benefits, or raise taxes. If they mentioned this in their plan I must have missed it. Congressman Perriello says that he went to Washington to do the right thing. Wouldn’t the right thing to do here be to explain to the Speaker of the House and we the people, what your plan is?
The real problem here is that this is just an old political trick being played out for the constituents of the fifth district. The first thing that they do is communicate to the voters how much they support the majority viewpoint, and how hard they are working to make these views part of the upcoming legislation. Then as the votes are being counted, if the leadership doesn’t need the votes of these “principled” democrats, then they are off the hook. They will be able to go home and say see I voted against it, but the darn thing passed anyway. If the votes are close as it was for “Cap and Trade”, then the leadership will start to pick them off one by one. If Congressman Perriello is unfortunate enough to be forced to vote for this bill, he will come back to the fifth district and say, “well it is not what I wanted, but [insert latest democrat excuse here].
If Congressman Perriello and his friends truly believed in these ideas, the letter should have said make sure these provisions are in the legislation or we will not vote for it. This wasn’t in the letter because this whole facade is just political window dressing for the masses. Congressman Perriello is becoming a very good politician.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Monday, September 28, 2009
Second Amendment alive and Well
If anyone out there loves their God given rights to keep and bear arms as much as I do then you will probably love this offer from Dr. Piazza at Front sight Training. Here is the link. You have to get to the end to see the offer but I hope you like the pictures too.
Webb Strikes Again
As if Virginia’s families were not having a tough enough time in this rough economy Senator “Born Fidgeting” strikes again. This weekend the Republicans proposed an amendment to speed up implementation of a new law to expand oil and gas drilling in the offshore areas. This would speed up Americas march toward energy independence and lower energy costs for Virginia’s families.
It was a tough vote for Senator Webb and Warner. The choice was clear, either give the Republicans a minor victory and help Virginia’s struggling families or vote with Harry Reid and the Democrats and stick it to Virginia’s families. Of course the dynamic duo voted against Virginia. I wouldn’t have expected any less. I think we should reconsider those six year terms.
It was a tough vote for Senator Webb and Warner. The choice was clear, either give the Republicans a minor victory and help Virginia’s struggling families or vote with Harry Reid and the Democrats and stick it to Virginia’s families. Of course the dynamic duo voted against Virginia. I wouldn’t have expected any less. I think we should reconsider those six year terms.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Senator "Born Fighting" Scores Hat Trick
Here is a link to an article in the Weekly Standard on Virginia’s own Senator “Born Fighting” Webb, and his cozy relationship with the murderous regime in Burma. Not only did this guy hand this regime a diplomatic victory when he showed up there a few months back, but now he arranges to have one of their top murderers get a visa to travel to Washington and visit the Whitehouse. Wow! The Obama administration and Senator Webb giving aid and comfort to one of the most tyrannical and brutal regimes in the world. Who could have seen that coming?
Let me see if I have this straight. In the last month Senator Webb supported and voted on a bill that would tax tourists coming into the state of Virginia thereby insuring a reduced number of visitors, decreased business activity, and a subsequent loss of jobs. He voted to take more money out of the pockets of hard working Virginians and spend it on an airport that serves as nothing more than a private airport for the completely corrupt and dysfunctional Jack Murtha of Pennsylvania, a fellow Democrat. Is this what they mean by birds of a feather? And finally he bends over backwards to support a murderous and thuggish regime in Burma.
This is what we call a political hat trick in the “Born Fighting” world, I guess. According to the article Senator Webb’s excuse for playing footsie with these thugs is to “check Chinese influence in Burma”. Are you kidding me? Isn’t this exactly how we get ourselves in trouble almost every time? We align ourselves with some of the world’s worst actors like Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden, and always end up regretting it later? I have an idea, Senator Webb, why don’t we let China have Burma, and we can let them be the nation that supports human rights abuses, and we can go back to being the nation that just supports human rights. We can start by supporting the constitutional government in Honduras and work our way up.
Let me see if I have this straight. In the last month Senator Webb supported and voted on a bill that would tax tourists coming into the state of Virginia thereby insuring a reduced number of visitors, decreased business activity, and a subsequent loss of jobs. He voted to take more money out of the pockets of hard working Virginians and spend it on an airport that serves as nothing more than a private airport for the completely corrupt and dysfunctional Jack Murtha of Pennsylvania, a fellow Democrat. Is this what they mean by birds of a feather? And finally he bends over backwards to support a murderous and thuggish regime in Burma.
This is what we call a political hat trick in the “Born Fighting” world, I guess. According to the article Senator Webb’s excuse for playing footsie with these thugs is to “check Chinese influence in Burma”. Are you kidding me? Isn’t this exactly how we get ourselves in trouble almost every time? We align ourselves with some of the world’s worst actors like Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden, and always end up regretting it later? I have an idea, Senator Webb, why don’t we let China have Burma, and we can let them be the nation that supports human rights abuses, and we can go back to being the nation that just supports human rights. We can start by supporting the constitutional government in Honduras and work our way up.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
VICFA
I noticed that at this years annual farm food voices event hosted by Virginia Independent Consumers and Farmers association (VICFA) there were three politicians in attendance; Creigh Deeds, Tom Perriello, and Cynthia Neff, all democrats. I have no doubt that these three were invited by VICFA but the question is why? The two biggest issues on the VICFA website are HR2749 and NAIS. These two issues are like kryptonite to these people.
HR 2749 is called the “Food Safety Enhancement Act”, which does nothing to enhance the safety of anything except the size of big government. This bill is an anathema to small farmers and gardeners everywhere. The bottom line on this bill is that if you have a small farm or even a small vegetable garden in the back yard the government now has the right to inspect that garden in the name of food safety, without need of that bothersome search warrant thingy or any other paperwork. I know that this sounds too Orwellian, but it is true. NAIS is the National Animal Identification System. This is just another big government plan to control the production of farm animals. Yes if you have a chicken in the backyard you will be included and there will be paperwork to be filled out.
The funny part here is that these are both big government democrat plans. They were both introduced by democrats and they were both supported primarily by democrats, which brings us back to the question of why would VICFA be inviting democrats to their annual gathering? They should have used the opportunity to throw rotten tomatoes at them.
If you are a small farmer, a family farmer, an organic farmer, or a micro farmer, I have news for you. The Democrats are not your friends. Big government (read Democrat party) is at war with the independence and freedom that comes with being a small businessman and a small farmer. Learn it, live it, love it.
HR 2749 is called the “Food Safety Enhancement Act”, which does nothing to enhance the safety of anything except the size of big government. This bill is an anathema to small farmers and gardeners everywhere. The bottom line on this bill is that if you have a small farm or even a small vegetable garden in the back yard the government now has the right to inspect that garden in the name of food safety, without need of that bothersome search warrant thingy or any other paperwork. I know that this sounds too Orwellian, but it is true. NAIS is the National Animal Identification System. This is just another big government plan to control the production of farm animals. Yes if you have a chicken in the backyard you will be included and there will be paperwork to be filled out.
The funny part here is that these are both big government democrat plans. They were both introduced by democrats and they were both supported primarily by democrats, which brings us back to the question of why would VICFA be inviting democrats to their annual gathering? They should have used the opportunity to throw rotten tomatoes at them.
If you are a small farmer, a family farmer, an organic farmer, or a micro farmer, I have news for you. The Democrats are not your friends. Big government (read Democrat party) is at war with the independence and freedom that comes with being a small businessman and a small farmer. Learn it, live it, love it.
Why Honduras Matters
This week Honduras’s ex-president, Manuel Zelaya, slithered back into Honduras and found refuge in the Brazilian embassy, in Honduras’s capital Tegucigalpa. He then demanded to have a meeting with the government leaders, that he now claims to be illegitimate, in order to restore him to power. None of this would be an issue except for the fact that the leftist governments of North and South America including the U.S., all support the return of Zelaya to power. Zelaya’s biggest supporters outside his own country are, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, Fidel Castro of Cuba, and of course Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, sadly of the United States. What do these 5 people and Manuel Zelaya have in common? That’s easy; they are all Marxists. Do you really believe any of these people are supporting Zelaya because his strict support of the Honduran Constitution.
Let’s review the facts of this case. President Zelaya wanted to have a constitutional referendum to change the law, so that he could continue as president for another term in office, ala his friend Hugo Chavez and Mike Bloomberg. But according to the Constitution of Honduras only the Congress of that country can call for a referendum, so that should have been the end of it, because the Congress had no intent of doing any such thing. At the prodding of his friend Hugo Chavez, Zelaya had the ballots printed up in Venezuela and shipped into the country anyway. The Supreme Court ruled that his referendum was unconstitutional and ordered the military not to carry out the logistics for the vote. When informed that the military would comply with the legal orders of the Supreme Court, Zelaya fired his top military commander. The Supreme Court ordered him reinstated and Zelaya refused. Are you starting to get a picture of who this guy is yet?
Not satisfied with the way things were heading Zelaya gathered up a mob of supporters (probably a local branch of ACORN Nicaragua) and stormed the local military base where the ballots had been stored and began the process of handing them out. The Attorney General of Nicaragua had already announced that he would prosecute anyone involved with trying to go ahead with this very illegal referendum, as Zelaya obviously was, and so therefore Zelaya was arrested. According to the Attorney General he was given the choice of standing trial or stepping down and being exiled. He chose exile, but as most good leftists know your word only counts if your fingers are not crossed, and now he is back in the country.
This would not be an issue today if it were not for the heavy handed approach of the Obama administration. The very fact that Hillary Clinton had the visas of the Supreme Court justices pulled because they did not agree with her interpretation of their Constitution, displays for all to see the hubris and arrogance of this administration. This is the same administration that claimed if it said anything about the stolen election in Iran this summer it would unduly interject itself into the internal affairs of a foreign country. I guess the litmus test for this administration as to whether to interject themselves or not, has more to do with what side is advancing in the internal dispute in question. If liberty and the rule of law is advancing, as it is in Honduras, then this administration feels it must put a stop to it. On the other hand, if state power is advancing at the expense of individual liberty, as in the case of Iran this summer, then this administration will take the stand of, “it is an internal matter and we must remain hands off”.
Honduras is a tiny country and our staunchest ally in the region. They are a Constitutional Republic trying to remain free and out of the grips of becoming another leftist dictatorship within the sphere of influence of Chavez and Castro. Their fight is our fight, as long as we are on the side of liberty. While we as the land of liberty should be supporting them, our government is actively working against them, to thwart the rule of law in their country. I believe that one day our country will once again be that country that promotes liberty throughout the world. We will show by example the power of liberty, expressed here at home, through free markets, sound money, and a respect for individual rights. But not today, today we have an administration that does not believe in the power of the individual but instead believes in the power of the state. This must change and we must be the ones to change it.
Let’s review the facts of this case. President Zelaya wanted to have a constitutional referendum to change the law, so that he could continue as president for another term in office, ala his friend Hugo Chavez and Mike Bloomberg. But according to the Constitution of Honduras only the Congress of that country can call for a referendum, so that should have been the end of it, because the Congress had no intent of doing any such thing. At the prodding of his friend Hugo Chavez, Zelaya had the ballots printed up in Venezuela and shipped into the country anyway. The Supreme Court ruled that his referendum was unconstitutional and ordered the military not to carry out the logistics for the vote. When informed that the military would comply with the legal orders of the Supreme Court, Zelaya fired his top military commander. The Supreme Court ordered him reinstated and Zelaya refused. Are you starting to get a picture of who this guy is yet?
Not satisfied with the way things were heading Zelaya gathered up a mob of supporters (probably a local branch of ACORN Nicaragua) and stormed the local military base where the ballots had been stored and began the process of handing them out. The Attorney General of Nicaragua had already announced that he would prosecute anyone involved with trying to go ahead with this very illegal referendum, as Zelaya obviously was, and so therefore Zelaya was arrested. According to the Attorney General he was given the choice of standing trial or stepping down and being exiled. He chose exile, but as most good leftists know your word only counts if your fingers are not crossed, and now he is back in the country.
This would not be an issue today if it were not for the heavy handed approach of the Obama administration. The very fact that Hillary Clinton had the visas of the Supreme Court justices pulled because they did not agree with her interpretation of their Constitution, displays for all to see the hubris and arrogance of this administration. This is the same administration that claimed if it said anything about the stolen election in Iran this summer it would unduly interject itself into the internal affairs of a foreign country. I guess the litmus test for this administration as to whether to interject themselves or not, has more to do with what side is advancing in the internal dispute in question. If liberty and the rule of law is advancing, as it is in Honduras, then this administration feels it must put a stop to it. On the other hand, if state power is advancing at the expense of individual liberty, as in the case of Iran this summer, then this administration will take the stand of, “it is an internal matter and we must remain hands off”.
Honduras is a tiny country and our staunchest ally in the region. They are a Constitutional Republic trying to remain free and out of the grips of becoming another leftist dictatorship within the sphere of influence of Chavez and Castro. Their fight is our fight, as long as we are on the side of liberty. While we as the land of liberty should be supporting them, our government is actively working against them, to thwart the rule of law in their country. I believe that one day our country will once again be that country that promotes liberty throughout the world. We will show by example the power of liberty, expressed here at home, through free markets, sound money, and a respect for individual rights. But not today, today we have an administration that does not believe in the power of the individual but instead believes in the power of the state. This must change and we must be the ones to change it.
Friday, September 18, 2009
Missile Defense Treachery
The announcement yesterday by the Obama administration to abandon the Third Site missile defense system, in the Czech Republic and Poland, is going to have far reaching implications into the future defense capabilities of the U.S., and a devastating impact on our relationship with our allies in Eastern Europe. Poland and the Czech Republic, both staunch allies of ours in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, have both gone out on a precarious limb to help us with this critical defense system. What happened to them was the diplomatic equivalent of having the rug pulled out from under them, and then being kicked, Chicago style, while they were on the ground. Then to announce this on the 70th anniversary of the German invasion of Poland further underscores the hubris, insensitivity, and complete lack of historical perspective that this President has.
Just 6 months ago, this President was lauding this missile defense program as a great step forward, and now he just changes his mind? This day will be the day that historians will note as the point when the west began to lose influence and stature in Eastern Europe, and ceded hegemonic control of this crucial part of the world back to Russia. In 1961 Nikita Khrushchev looked into the eyes of a young President and saw weakness, which in turn brought our countries to the brink of nuclear destruction. Today KGB agent Vladimir Putin looked into the eyes of an extremely inexperienced, community organizer President, and also saw weakness. Yesterday this weak President signaled to Mr. Putin all he needed to know about what the United States response would be to his foreign exploits.
Fortunately the Obama administration sent over to Poland, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control Ellen Tauscher, who received her Bachelor of Science degree in Early Childhood Education, to explain why we were taking this action. I suspect that she will be very effective using construction paper cutouts to make her point. Folks, you can’t make this stuff up. This is truly a sad day for our country and the new democracies of Eastern Europe.
Just 6 months ago, this President was lauding this missile defense program as a great step forward, and now he just changes his mind? This day will be the day that historians will note as the point when the west began to lose influence and stature in Eastern Europe, and ceded hegemonic control of this crucial part of the world back to Russia. In 1961 Nikita Khrushchev looked into the eyes of a young President and saw weakness, which in turn brought our countries to the brink of nuclear destruction. Today KGB agent Vladimir Putin looked into the eyes of an extremely inexperienced, community organizer President, and also saw weakness. Yesterday this weak President signaled to Mr. Putin all he needed to know about what the United States response would be to his foreign exploits.
Fortunately the Obama administration sent over to Poland, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control Ellen Tauscher, who received her Bachelor of Science degree in Early Childhood Education, to explain why we were taking this action. I suspect that she will be very effective using construction paper cutouts to make her point. Folks, you can’t make this stuff up. This is truly a sad day for our country and the new democracies of Eastern Europe.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
RPV
In researching my post on Conservatism, I decided to go to the Republican Party of Virginia's website to see what they would have as their core beliefs. Not that I consider the Republican party a particularly conservative party yet. I thought I would go just to see what I could find. Here is what they had.
That the free enterprise system is the most productive supplier of human needs and economic justice,
That all individuals are entitled to equal rights, justice, and opportunities and should assume their responsibilities as citizens in a free society,
That fiscal responsibility and budgetary restraints must be exercised at all levels of government,
That the Federal Government must preserve individual liberty by observing Constitutional limitations,
That peace is best preserved through a strong national defense,
That faith in God, as recognized by our Founding Fathers is essential to the moral fiber of the Nation.
Wow! Where is this guy, I want to vote him into office.
That the free enterprise system is the most productive supplier of human needs and economic justice,
That all individuals are entitled to equal rights, justice, and opportunities and should assume their responsibilities as citizens in a free society,
That fiscal responsibility and budgetary restraints must be exercised at all levels of government,
That the Federal Government must preserve individual liberty by observing Constitutional limitations,
That peace is best preserved through a strong national defense,
That faith in God, as recognized by our Founding Fathers is essential to the moral fiber of the Nation.
Wow! Where is this guy, I want to vote him into office.
Conservatism
I had been thinking about posting something on what it means to be a Conservative in today’s political climate, mostly due to the fact that I have become increasingly skeptical of politicians wearing the robes of conservatism and usually acting in a contrary manner. I am no longer interested in having politicians tell me they are Conservative, as I have my doubts whether most of them know what it means to be a real Conservative. Instead tell me what you believe, and why you believe it, and then explain to me how these ideas of yours sync with the vision of the Founding Fathers. I was rather appalled, to say the least, at the slate of presidential candidates on the Republican side last year. It seemed that at every debate whenever anyone of them was asked a policy question, they would always have to hesitate, as if trying to channel the spirit of Ronald Reagan, to help them come up with the right answer. If you are a true conservative then you do not need Ronald Reagan, or anyone else for that matter, all you need to do is to search your own core for the right answer.
In my quest to find what it means to be a conservative what I found was quite eye opening and also answered questions that had troubled me for quite some time. My first stop was at of all places Wikipedia. (Yes I know that wikiality is the reality we can all agree on, but go with me on this one.) Wikipedia says that modern American Conservatives can be broken down into the following camps. Neo, Paleo, Christian, Right Wing, Libertarian, Fusionism, Social, Fiscal, and probably a lot more, but this will make my point. What this means is that you can pretty much believe anything you want and still call yourself a Conservative and not be misrepresenting the truth about yourself.
This is what the American Conservative Website had to say on this subject.
“We believe conservatism to be the most natural political tendency, rooted in man’s taste for the familiar, for family, for faith in God. We believe that true conservatism has a predisposition for the institutions and mores that exist.”
Well this seems a little squishy, now doesn’t it. For one thing I am very unhappy with most of the institutions that exist in my government today, and what seems natural to most people around the world is Stateism/Collectivism. Now here is how Ronald Reagan described Conservatism in 1975.
“If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. I think conservatism is really a misnomer just as liberalism is a misnomer for the liberals–if we were back in the days of the Revolution, so-called conservatives today would be the Liberals and the liberals would be the Tories. The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is.”
The Libertarians took over the mantle of liberty from the Classical Liberals, around the turn of the last century, when the Stateist took to calling themselves Liberals. The founders were Classical Liberals because they focused their political actions towards increasing the liberty of their fellow man, and not increasing the power of the state at the expense of individual liberty.
This is, in my opinion, what lies at the heart of real Conservatism; a desire to revert back to the founding documents, and the principles, that this country was established on. To view the political spectrum in the same manner that our founders did, we would see the extreme left as pure Stateism and the extreme right as pure anarchy, or no government at all. Just to the left of pure anarchy we have a very small government that is large enough to govern, but still small enough so as to not infringe upon the rights of the people. This point is exactly where the Constitution places our Federal Government, and is also the point that Ronald Reagan would explain as, “maximizing individual liberty consistent with order”.
Any other philosophy that strays from this point of view, and still considers itself a Conservative philosophy, I would call Conservatism with an asterisk, or I believe this stuff but. I believe that everyone is entitled to their opinion, however when you stray from the founders original ideas to propose that government be a little bigger for this great new cause, then you invalidate your Conservative credentials, by exposing your own lack of understanding of the founders vision. You become like the Gnostics of the early Christian period who believed that their understanding came from God and did not have to follow a logical course, or to be explained. The heart of Conservatism is, promoting the principles of life, liberty, and property. Conservatism is a strict belief in the rule of law, i.e. the government must follow the law that we the people lay down via the Constitution. There needs to be nothing else at the heart of Conservatism, because everything else flows from these essential truths.
In my quest to find what it means to be a conservative what I found was quite eye opening and also answered questions that had troubled me for quite some time. My first stop was at of all places Wikipedia. (Yes I know that wikiality is the reality we can all agree on, but go with me on this one.) Wikipedia says that modern American Conservatives can be broken down into the following camps. Neo, Paleo, Christian, Right Wing, Libertarian, Fusionism, Social, Fiscal, and probably a lot more, but this will make my point. What this means is that you can pretty much believe anything you want and still call yourself a Conservative and not be misrepresenting the truth about yourself.
This is what the American Conservative Website had to say on this subject.
“We believe conservatism to be the most natural political tendency, rooted in man’s taste for the familiar, for family, for faith in God. We believe that true conservatism has a predisposition for the institutions and mores that exist.”
Well this seems a little squishy, now doesn’t it. For one thing I am very unhappy with most of the institutions that exist in my government today, and what seems natural to most people around the world is Stateism/Collectivism. Now here is how Ronald Reagan described Conservatism in 1975.
“If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. I think conservatism is really a misnomer just as liberalism is a misnomer for the liberals–if we were back in the days of the Revolution, so-called conservatives today would be the Liberals and the liberals would be the Tories. The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is.”
The Libertarians took over the mantle of liberty from the Classical Liberals, around the turn of the last century, when the Stateist took to calling themselves Liberals. The founders were Classical Liberals because they focused their political actions towards increasing the liberty of their fellow man, and not increasing the power of the state at the expense of individual liberty.
This is, in my opinion, what lies at the heart of real Conservatism; a desire to revert back to the founding documents, and the principles, that this country was established on. To view the political spectrum in the same manner that our founders did, we would see the extreme left as pure Stateism and the extreme right as pure anarchy, or no government at all. Just to the left of pure anarchy we have a very small government that is large enough to govern, but still small enough so as to not infringe upon the rights of the people. This point is exactly where the Constitution places our Federal Government, and is also the point that Ronald Reagan would explain as, “maximizing individual liberty consistent with order”.
Any other philosophy that strays from this point of view, and still considers itself a Conservative philosophy, I would call Conservatism with an asterisk, or I believe this stuff but. I believe that everyone is entitled to their opinion, however when you stray from the founders original ideas to propose that government be a little bigger for this great new cause, then you invalidate your Conservative credentials, by exposing your own lack of understanding of the founders vision. You become like the Gnostics of the early Christian period who believed that their understanding came from God and did not have to follow a logical course, or to be explained. The heart of Conservatism is, promoting the principles of life, liberty, and property. Conservatism is a strict belief in the rule of law, i.e. the government must follow the law that we the people lay down via the Constitution. There needs to be nothing else at the heart of Conservatism, because everything else flows from these essential truths.
Monday, September 14, 2009
As if our economy wasn’t suffering enough, now the Obama administration is threatening to pull us into a trade war with China China
The immediate effect of these tariffs was to protect the bloated, and inefficient American steel industry. The long term effect was quite a bit different. Because American manufacturers had to use either expensive American steel or cheap imported steel with a huge tax applied to it, they were at a distinct disadvantage, globally, when selling their manufactured items here and abroad. A perfect example is the competition between Caterpillar and Komatsu, both heavy equipment manufacturers heavily dependent on cheap steel. Before 1983 Komatsu had no real presence here in this country. During the period that the tariffs were in effect Caterpillar had a very hard time competing against Komatsu at home and abroad, because Komatsu had the advantage of cheap steel that Caterpillar did not have. The jobs that Caterpillar lost were far greater than what was saved in the steel industry, and Komatsu was able to establish a strong foot hold in the American market, that continues to this day. The jobs that Caterpillar lost to Komatsu never came back. In fact this scenario played out all across the manufacturing spectrum, and the type of jobs lost in manufacturing were generally higher skilled and higher compensated than those saved in the steel industry.
So here we are again 25 years later and what have we learned? Apparently nothing. It seems as if this administration just woke up yesterday and collectively said, “Hey I got an idea, let’s try this”, without anyone ever asking the question, “Has this ever been tried before and if so did it work”? Let’s go down a real short list. Since being inaugurated last January, a mere eight months ago, here is what we have. The Stimulus Bill which was sold to the American people as a do or die bill. We were told that passing this bill would prevent a catastrophe. If this was not passed immediately, unemployment would shoot up to 8 %. We are now sitting just under 10% officially and over 16% in reality. After taking just two days to ram it through, the President went on a 3 day vacation without signing it until after he returned.
This bill relied on the failed Keynesian theory that government spending during a downturn could help to turn the economy around by stimulating economic activity that otherwise would not exist. The problem with this theory is twofold. It first assumes that the government is going to know the best places to spend the money, and second that this money taken out of the private marketplace has no negative effect on the economy. The first question I would want an answer to is, has this ever been proven to work, and if so where?
The free market stipulates that each individual, acting in his own self interest, is the absolute best determinate of where goods and capital should flow. Either the free market works or it does not. If the free market only works during good times and not during bad times then as a theory it does not work at all, and we should all be clamoring for a better economic system that includes central government planning as its main tenant. I come to this conclusion based on the evidence that if central government planning works during rough economic times then it must work during good economic times, or it doesn’t work at all. The rules of economics do not change because the economy is in a downturn instead of an upswing. The rules of economics are constant and either the free market is a superior way to determine the flow of goods and capital or Keynesian government central planning is, but you cannot have it both ways.
Next we have Cap and Trade passed by the House earlier this year. All you need to know about this bill is that it will take over 5.7 Trillion dollars out of our economy in the next 30 years. If you believe the figures that were quoted in an article that I blogged about a few days ago then for every 1 million dollars taken out of the private sector it costs the economy 11 jobs. This is a pretty accurate figure and works both ways so I am going to use it. This equates to about 2 million jobs in theU.S.
When you hear the President and the Democrats talk about all the jobs their stimulus bill saved, try to remember that this is called, “whistling past the graveyard”. The fact of the matter is this, these yahoo’s have no idea what they are doing. At no time in the history of the world has central government planning, and massive borrowing (the stimulus bill), or gargantuan tax increases (cap and trade), or trade wars (tariffs on Chinese tires) ever helped to grow an economy or to bring an economy back from the brink. Quite the contrary in fact; the empirical evidence over the last 100 years and in numerous countries suggests that these efforts on Washington’s part will put our economy into a deep and sustained depression for many years to come.
The immediate effect of these tariffs was to protect the bloated, and inefficient American steel industry. The long term effect was quite a bit different. Because American manufacturers had to use either expensive American steel or cheap imported steel with a huge tax applied to it, they were at a distinct disadvantage, globally, when selling their manufactured items here and abroad. A perfect example is the competition between Caterpillar and Komatsu, both heavy equipment manufacturers heavily dependent on cheap steel. Before 1983 Komatsu had no real presence here in this country. During the period that the tariffs were in effect Caterpillar had a very hard time competing against Komatsu at home and abroad, because Komatsu had the advantage of cheap steel that Caterpillar did not have. The jobs that Caterpillar lost were far greater than what was saved in the steel industry, and Komatsu was able to establish a strong foot hold in the American market, that continues to this day. The jobs that Caterpillar lost to Komatsu never came back. In fact this scenario played out all across the manufacturing spectrum, and the type of jobs lost in manufacturing were generally higher skilled and higher compensated than those saved in the steel industry.
So here we are again 25 years later and what have we learned? Apparently nothing. It seems as if this administration just woke up yesterday and collectively said, “Hey I got an idea, let’s try this”, without anyone ever asking the question, “Has this ever been tried before and if so did it work”? Let’s go down a real short list. Since being inaugurated last January, a mere eight months ago, here is what we have. The Stimulus Bill which was sold to the American people as a do or die bill. We were told that passing this bill would prevent a catastrophe. If this was not passed immediately, unemployment would shoot up to 8 %. We are now sitting just under 10% officially and over 16% in reality. After taking just two days to ram it through, the President went on a 3 day vacation without signing it until after he returned.
This bill relied on the failed Keynesian theory that government spending during a downturn could help to turn the economy around by stimulating economic activity that otherwise would not exist. The problem with this theory is twofold. It first assumes that the government is going to know the best places to spend the money, and second that this money taken out of the private marketplace has no negative effect on the economy. The first question I would want an answer to is, has this ever been proven to work, and if so where?
The free market stipulates that each individual, acting in his own self interest, is the absolute best determinate of where goods and capital should flow. Either the free market works or it does not. If the free market only works during good times and not during bad times then as a theory it does not work at all, and we should all be clamoring for a better economic system that includes central government planning as its main tenant. I come to this conclusion based on the evidence that if central government planning works during rough economic times then it must work during good economic times, or it doesn’t work at all. The rules of economics do not change because the economy is in a downturn instead of an upswing. The rules of economics are constant and either the free market is a superior way to determine the flow of goods and capital or Keynesian government central planning is, but you cannot have it both ways.
Next we have Cap and Trade passed by the House earlier this year. All you need to know about this bill is that it will take over 5.7 Trillion dollars out of our economy in the next 30 years. If you believe the figures that were quoted in an article that I blogged about a few days ago then for every 1 million dollars taken out of the private sector it costs the economy 11 jobs. This is a pretty accurate figure and works both ways so I am going to use it. This equates to about 2 million jobs in the
When you hear the President and the Democrats talk about all the jobs their stimulus bill saved, try to remember that this is called, “whistling past the graveyard”. The fact of the matter is this, these yahoo’s have no idea what they are doing. At no time in the history of the world has central government planning, and massive borrowing (the stimulus bill), or gargantuan tax increases (cap and trade), or trade wars (tariffs on Chinese tires) ever helped to grow an economy or to bring an economy back from the brink. Quite the contrary in fact; the empirical evidence over the last 100 years and in numerous countries suggests that these efforts on Washington’s part will put our economy into a deep and sustained depression for many years to come.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
The Rights of Man
Rights are non obligatory. I do not have the right to require anyone else to do something for me or to give something to me in order to enjoy my true rights. If someone else is required to do something for me, so that I may enjoy some imagined right, then what I am trying to realize is by definition not a right. While it is noble to want for all men to have food, clothing, housing, and health care, these are values and not rights.
The first right that we are given by our creator is life. This right is given to us at conception and is an unalienable right from that point on according to our foundational belief expressed in the Declaration of Independence. A human being begins at conception because this is the point that all chromosomes, human in nature, first appear. This small group of cells looks exactly as God intended a human being should look, at this stage of development.
After we are born into the world and are separated physically from our mother we immediately begin to express our second right, that of liberty. The right of property comes shortly thereafter as we receive gifts and property in our name that we may or may not have actually traded labor for. The true and full expression of property comes when we act as a completely independent and autonomous human being trading our labor as property for the property of others.
All rights that we have are only extensions of these three basic rights. The right to self defense assumes a natural right to defend that which we own from those who would take it away from us by force or fraud. The right to keep and bear arms is a further extension of this natural law to self defense. If a man has a right to defend his life then he also has the right to use any means possible to express that right. It would not make any sense to say to a man that he can protect himself from another man who has a firearm, only he is not allowed to use a firearm himself. To deny a man the use of any tool that prevents him from protecting himself is immoral, contradicts the concept of natural rights, and is contrary to the foundational principles in which our nation was established.
If America is ever going to find her way back from the wilderness that she is currently languishing in, it is going to be, "We the People", that will do it. Before a journey can begin two critical elements must be ascertained; first the origin and then the destination for our journey. If we are ever going to steer our country back to a constitutional republic as it was intended to be then we must be very honest with ourselves as to its present condition. Practically every law that our Congress passes today, tramples on somebody’s property rights, liberty, or life. This is the exact opposite of what was intended by our founders. Governments are instituted among men to secure these rights, not destroy them.
The only way we will ever find our way back to the safe harbor of true liberty is to demand that our representatives in Congress adhere strictly to the principle of maximizing individual liberty while voting on any new bills before them. Demand that they ask one simple question before any vote. Does this bill increase or decrease the individual liberty of the people. If the answer is increase then the vote is aye, otherwise nay. This rather simple step would alone be a tremendous victory for liberty and would have the metaphorical effect of turning the ship around and setting the right course for home. The continuing journey would require the unwinding of 50 to 100 years of anti-constitutional, stateist/collectivist, laws and precedents.
This by any measure is a very tall order. I know that I will never see the harbor of liberty in my lifetime. This will take a concerted effort by succeeding generations to be fully realized. I believe that if this is to become a reality a new spirit must move across the land, much like the spirit that moved across the land prior to the American Revolution, in what was called the Great Awakening. Perhaps we will have our own Great Awakening, and take up the scriptural quote from Revelation, “I make all things new”, as they did, and make it our own. None of us can know if or when this new Great Awakening might happen, so we must always be ready for its arrival, and continue to evangelize the message of liberty.
The first right that we are given by our creator is life. This right is given to us at conception and is an unalienable right from that point on according to our foundational belief expressed in the Declaration of Independence. A human being begins at conception because this is the point that all chromosomes, human in nature, first appear. This small group of cells looks exactly as God intended a human being should look, at this stage of development.
After we are born into the world and are separated physically from our mother we immediately begin to express our second right, that of liberty. The right of property comes shortly thereafter as we receive gifts and property in our name that we may or may not have actually traded labor for. The true and full expression of property comes when we act as a completely independent and autonomous human being trading our labor as property for the property of others.
All rights that we have are only extensions of these three basic rights. The right to self defense assumes a natural right to defend that which we own from those who would take it away from us by force or fraud. The right to keep and bear arms is a further extension of this natural law to self defense. If a man has a right to defend his life then he also has the right to use any means possible to express that right. It would not make any sense to say to a man that he can protect himself from another man who has a firearm, only he is not allowed to use a firearm himself. To deny a man the use of any tool that prevents him from protecting himself is immoral, contradicts the concept of natural rights, and is contrary to the foundational principles in which our nation was established.
If America is ever going to find her way back from the wilderness that she is currently languishing in, it is going to be, "We the People", that will do it. Before a journey can begin two critical elements must be ascertained; first the origin and then the destination for our journey. If we are ever going to steer our country back to a constitutional republic as it was intended to be then we must be very honest with ourselves as to its present condition. Practically every law that our Congress passes today, tramples on somebody’s property rights, liberty, or life. This is the exact opposite of what was intended by our founders. Governments are instituted among men to secure these rights, not destroy them.
The only way we will ever find our way back to the safe harbor of true liberty is to demand that our representatives in Congress adhere strictly to the principle of maximizing individual liberty while voting on any new bills before them. Demand that they ask one simple question before any vote. Does this bill increase or decrease the individual liberty of the people. If the answer is increase then the vote is aye, otherwise nay. This rather simple step would alone be a tremendous victory for liberty and would have the metaphorical effect of turning the ship around and setting the right course for home. The continuing journey would require the unwinding of 50 to 100 years of anti-constitutional, stateist/collectivist, laws and precedents.
This by any measure is a very tall order. I know that I will never see the harbor of liberty in my lifetime. This will take a concerted effort by succeeding generations to be fully realized. I believe that if this is to become a reality a new spirit must move across the land, much like the spirit that moved across the land prior to the American Revolution, in what was called the Great Awakening. Perhaps we will have our own Great Awakening, and take up the scriptural quote from Revelation, “I make all things new”, as they did, and make it our own. None of us can know if or when this new Great Awakening might happen, so we must always be ready for its arrival, and continue to evangelize the message of liberty.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Senator Webb Sticks it to Tourism in Virginia
Here is a glowing article about how Senator Webb sponsored a bill to increase tourism in
The only problem is that it is not going to happen and here is why. What the article fails to state is that each tourist that comes into the country will be charged $10. Believe it or not this will discourage many visitors from coming at all. Those who do come will have $10 less to spend in the local economy. In the article it states that the tourism industry will also kick in some undisclosed amount to fund this operation. These charges will find their way back down to the consumer level as increases in the cost of tourism services, further increasing the costs incurred by our foreign visitors. This will help to put further downward pressure on tourism and tourist spending in our state.
The good news about this is that we get another government bureaucracy with czars and staffs, and plush offices. We can be assured that these hard working bureaucrats will never go over budget and need actual tax dollars from hard working citizens. Even better news is that the tourism industry paid the lobbyists to help convince Webb to support this bill and now there is a better than even chance that we will see some really big checks being deposited in the James Webb reelection fund.
People who have the means to travel to the
Wouldn’t it be great if we could get a few less Senators who are good at writing fantasies, and a few more that took and understood Economics 101. If the tourism industry wants to increase its business then it should do what every other corporation is required to do and buy advertising with its own money, and quit influencing feeble minded Senators to loot the hard earned wealth of their constituents, in order to provide corporate welfare for them.
Friday, September 11, 2009
Heath Care
Well it looks like we are going to get a health care bill passed whether we want it or not. As you listen to all the debates back and forth the one thing to remember, is to listen to your gut and trust that, and not the politicians. For example, does it make any sense at all, when the President claims that illegal aliens will not be covered, when you know that an amendment to the current bill, to specifically deny coverage to non citizens, was voted down by the Democrats? What does your gut say to you about this?
When the President claims that if you like your health care you can keep it, and the bill says if you change your health coverage by any small amount you must move into the government plan, is this just an oversight by the President? My company forces me to change my plan options every year, which means at best I will be able to keep my current plan for one year before being forced into the government plan, by law.
When the President says that abortions will not be funded under his plan with Federal dollars (as if the Federal Government had its own dollars), and you understand that amendments were introduced that specifically prevented abortion coverage in the bill, and all of them were defeated down party line votes, should red flags start to go up? Always go with your gut.
President Obama doesn’t know what is or is not in the health care bill because there are at least 5 different versions floating around the House and Senate, each over 1000 pages. I don’t think He has been in office long enough to read over 5000 pages. He continues to refer to his plan, but the White House does not have a plan, Congress writes the bills, Congress has the plans not the President. No matter what the President says today, this is such a vaguely written bill that it will be in the amendment process for the next 20 years, and he will always be able to come back and say, “well that was an unintended consequence”. Of course it was Mr. President.
Here is something to think about. It is estimated that defensive medicine costs over 137 billion a year. This is medicine that otherwise would not happen except for doctors performing extra, often unneeded, procedures to protect themselves against frivolous lawsuits. Medical malpractice insurance costs all of us over 100 billion dollars a year. Passing comprehensive tort reform would not eliminate all of these costs but a reduction of 50% would not be unreasonable to expect. That works out to be around 120 billion dollars saved every year. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the current health care bill will cost the taxpayers around 100 billion dollars a year more than we are already paying as currently proposed. President Obama could make this health care bill deficit neutral, just by pushing for tort reform, but he won’t. Why? Because he and the rest of his fellow democrats are owned by the trial lawyers, the richest of the special interests. Business as usual, nothing has changed, just go with your gut.
When the President claims that if you like your health care you can keep it, and the bill says if you change your health coverage by any small amount you must move into the government plan, is this just an oversight by the President? My company forces me to change my plan options every year, which means at best I will be able to keep my current plan for one year before being forced into the government plan, by law.
When the President says that abortions will not be funded under his plan with Federal dollars (as if the Federal Government had its own dollars), and you understand that amendments were introduced that specifically prevented abortion coverage in the bill, and all of them were defeated down party line votes, should red flags start to go up? Always go with your gut.
President Obama doesn’t know what is or is not in the health care bill because there are at least 5 different versions floating around the House and Senate, each over 1000 pages. I don’t think He has been in office long enough to read over 5000 pages. He continues to refer to his plan, but the White House does not have a plan, Congress writes the bills, Congress has the plans not the President. No matter what the President says today, this is such a vaguely written bill that it will be in the amendment process for the next 20 years, and he will always be able to come back and say, “well that was an unintended consequence”. Of course it was Mr. President.
Here is something to think about. It is estimated that defensive medicine costs over 137 billion a year. This is medicine that otherwise would not happen except for doctors performing extra, often unneeded, procedures to protect themselves against frivolous lawsuits. Medical malpractice insurance costs all of us over 100 billion dollars a year. Passing comprehensive tort reform would not eliminate all of these costs but a reduction of 50% would not be unreasonable to expect. That works out to be around 120 billion dollars saved every year. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the current health care bill will cost the taxpayers around 100 billion dollars a year more than we are already paying as currently proposed. President Obama could make this health care bill deficit neutral, just by pushing for tort reform, but he won’t. Why? Because he and the rest of his fellow democrats are owned by the trial lawyers, the richest of the special interests. Business as usual, nothing has changed, just go with your gut.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
A Reasonable Democrat?
Make no mistake about it Camille Paglia is a Barrack Obama supporting liberal democrat, but after reading this article don't you wish more democrats were at least as honest as her. I could even believe it would be possible to sit down with her and have a reasoned debate without it degenerating into me being called a racistbigotedhomophobicsexisthatethepoor Republican. Wouldn't that be refreshing?
I especially like the part where she says;
"I rarely watch TV anymore except for cooking shows, history and science documentaries, old movies and football. Hence I was blissfully free from the retching overkill that followed the deaths of Michael Jackson and Ted Kennedy -- I never saw a single minute of any of it. It was on talk radio, which I have resumed monitoring around the clock because of the healthcare fiasco, that I heard the passionate voices of callers coming directly from the town hall meetings. Hence I was alerted to the depth and intensity of national sentiment long before others who were simply watching staged, manipulated TV shows."
I couldn't agree more. However I would add, House, The Office, and any show about warriors. Here is the link.
I especially like the part where she says;
"I rarely watch TV anymore except for cooking shows, history and science documentaries, old movies and football. Hence I was blissfully free from the retching overkill that followed the deaths of Michael Jackson and Ted Kennedy -- I never saw a single minute of any of it. It was on talk radio, which I have resumed monitoring around the clock because of the healthcare fiasco, that I heard the passionate voices of callers coming directly from the town hall meetings. Hence I was alerted to the depth and intensity of national sentiment long before others who were simply watching staged, manipulated TV shows."
I couldn't agree more. However I would add, House, The Office, and any show about warriors. Here is the link.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
The Economy
Here is a listing of some headlines today;
UN Wants New Global Currency
China Alarmed by US Money Printing
Dollar Hits New Low
Barrack Obama Accused of Making Depression Mistakes
Do you see a trend here? The Democrats have been running Congress now for just under 3 years, and what do we have to show for it? An economy that is literally at the breaking point, a dollar that is on the verge of collapse, and an unemployment rate that we are told is only 9.7% but is actually somewhere north of 16%. You can believe with all your heart that all of this is George Bush’s fault, but at some point all of us are going to have to wake up to the fact that Congress spends the money and writes the laws, not the President.
Even if you wanted to assign blame to George Bush, you would be forced to answer a very simple question, what policies of George Bush led to our current problems, and were conservative in nature? Tax cuts perhaps? No! There is a direct correlation between those tax cuts passed by a Republican Congress and job growth in the aftermath of 9/11 and the recession of 2000/2001. Besides I wouldn’t call those conservative tax cuts. What kind of self respecting conservative would support temporary tax cuts anyway? Either taxes are too high or they are not. Temporary tax cuts cede the argument to the Statist that high taxes are legitimate, when they are not.
All of these things that we see happening to the economy are not happening in a vacuum. They do have root causes and it is incumbent upon us as citizens to find these root causes and attempt to prevent them from occurring in the future. I will address just one of these problems today and address others in future posts.
The dollar is collapsing because it is a fiat currency and has no intrinsic value. It is not backed by gold or silver, it is in fact backed by the word of our politicians. You could call it a faith based currency. The dollar used to be the international reserve currency (actually it still is but probably not for long), which required all central banks to keep dollars on account in order to pay off international debts. If you wanted to buy oil you had to do it with dollars. The world accepted this because they believed that our government would keep the value of the dollar stable. Silly international community, have you met Barney Frank yet?
A major component in the value of any fiat currency is the faith that the holders of that currency have in it. When these entities lose faith in the dollar, then the dollar will crash. So why are they losing faith? The congress is spending more money than it is taking in. In the past this shortfall was made up by borrowing the money through treasury bond auctions. At these auctions the more people that wanted your bonds the lower the interest rate on those bonds would be. Conversely the fewer the bidders the higher the interest rates would go. Lately no one has been showing up to buy our bonds because the smart ones know that the value of the dollar is going to sink faster than the low interest rates can make up for the loss.
To rectify this situation the Federal Reserve has been buying the excess bonds and printing new money to pay for them. This is called monetizing the debt. I call it counterfeiting. These abuses of the system will show up as inflation in the next year or so and all of us will pay for these Congressional excesses, in the form of higher prices on everything we buy. To make matters worse, all imported items that we depend on will also increase in price due to the loss of faith in the dollar. As those foreign countries attempt to distribute their dollar holdings, those dollars now held overseas will eventually be repatriated here at home causing even higher rates of inflation, by flooding our domestic market with excess dollars.
All of this could have been prevented if we had sent to Washington fiscally conservative representatives who understood the nature of money and debt. Deficit spending, no matter how good the cause, always hurts the people, and always profits the Fed. We are going to be paying for the mistakes of the last two Congresses for a long time to come. I pray that as a country we get it right next year.
UN Wants New Global Currency
China Alarmed by US Money Printing
Dollar Hits New Low
Barrack Obama Accused of Making Depression Mistakes
Do you see a trend here? The Democrats have been running Congress now for just under 3 years, and what do we have to show for it? An economy that is literally at the breaking point, a dollar that is on the verge of collapse, and an unemployment rate that we are told is only 9.7% but is actually somewhere north of 16%. You can believe with all your heart that all of this is George Bush’s fault, but at some point all of us are going to have to wake up to the fact that Congress spends the money and writes the laws, not the President.
Even if you wanted to assign blame to George Bush, you would be forced to answer a very simple question, what policies of George Bush led to our current problems, and were conservative in nature? Tax cuts perhaps? No! There is a direct correlation between those tax cuts passed by a Republican Congress and job growth in the aftermath of 9/11 and the recession of 2000/2001. Besides I wouldn’t call those conservative tax cuts. What kind of self respecting conservative would support temporary tax cuts anyway? Either taxes are too high or they are not. Temporary tax cuts cede the argument to the Statist that high taxes are legitimate, when they are not.
All of these things that we see happening to the economy are not happening in a vacuum. They do have root causes and it is incumbent upon us as citizens to find these root causes and attempt to prevent them from occurring in the future. I will address just one of these problems today and address others in future posts.
The dollar is collapsing because it is a fiat currency and has no intrinsic value. It is not backed by gold or silver, it is in fact backed by the word of our politicians. You could call it a faith based currency. The dollar used to be the international reserve currency (actually it still is but probably not for long), which required all central banks to keep dollars on account in order to pay off international debts. If you wanted to buy oil you had to do it with dollars. The world accepted this because they believed that our government would keep the value of the dollar stable. Silly international community, have you met Barney Frank yet?
A major component in the value of any fiat currency is the faith that the holders of that currency have in it. When these entities lose faith in the dollar, then the dollar will crash. So why are they losing faith? The congress is spending more money than it is taking in. In the past this shortfall was made up by borrowing the money through treasury bond auctions. At these auctions the more people that wanted your bonds the lower the interest rate on those bonds would be. Conversely the fewer the bidders the higher the interest rates would go. Lately no one has been showing up to buy our bonds because the smart ones know that the value of the dollar is going to sink faster than the low interest rates can make up for the loss.
To rectify this situation the Federal Reserve has been buying the excess bonds and printing new money to pay for them. This is called monetizing the debt. I call it counterfeiting. These abuses of the system will show up as inflation in the next year or so and all of us will pay for these Congressional excesses, in the form of higher prices on everything we buy. To make matters worse, all imported items that we depend on will also increase in price due to the loss of faith in the dollar. As those foreign countries attempt to distribute their dollar holdings, those dollars now held overseas will eventually be repatriated here at home causing even higher rates of inflation, by flooding our domestic market with excess dollars.
All of this could have been prevented if we had sent to Washington fiscally conservative representatives who understood the nature of money and debt. Deficit spending, no matter how good the cause, always hurts the people, and always profits the Fed. We are going to be paying for the mistakes of the last two Congresses for a long time to come. I pray that as a country we get it right next year.
Monday, September 7, 2009
Labor Day
Happy Labor Day everyone. I hope that as we spend time today with our families and loved ones, we will all remember that Labor, the ability to do and the ability to hire, is truly a gift from God. Labor and property are the second fundamental right given to us by God, after the first right, that of life. A mans labor is truly his own and even the Supreme Court has ruled in the past that labor is in fact property. When a man exchanges his labor for something of equal value such as money, he is not earning that money, but instead he is participating in an equal exchange of previously owned items. To tax this activity is immoral and counter productive to the ends of encouraging economic activity.
As we celebrate Labor Day let us not forget how much work has been done to dismantle our beloved Republic, and therefore how much labor God laid out before us to do in the rebuilding of that Republic. So today be of good cheer for we have work to do and struggles to overcome that will last us for generations.
As we celebrate Labor Day let us not forget how much work has been done to dismantle our beloved Republic, and therefore how much labor God laid out before us to do in the rebuilding of that Republic. So today be of good cheer for we have work to do and struggles to overcome that will last us for generations.
Friday, September 4, 2009
Liberty
When I was growing up, we referred to America as the land of liberty, land of the free, the country where Lady Liberty greeted all who came to her shores with open arms and a promise of the American dream. The early Americans took pride in what was called rugged individualism. Rugged Individualism is that quality of being able to rise or fall based on the individual making choices in the exercise of their God given liberty. The early Americans took their liberty seriously, very seriously in fact. In 1791 when the Federal Government tried to impose a whiskey tax, the people of western Pennsylvania rose up in insurrection. How dare the Government try to impose a tax, all of 9 cents per gallon, on the fruit of my labor!
In the following months tax collectors were chased out of town after being tarred and feathered, stills of compliant distillers were destroyed, and militia groups were formed to fight the Federal Government, if that is what it came to. This wasn’t just a 9 cent tax; this was an assault on the very liberty that God had given them, the second right the right of labor and of property. Where are those Americans today? Where is the outrage today? Today our liberties are being taken away at a breathtaking pace and there seems to be more outrage from the supporters of this liberty theft, towards the few who do voice their complaints, than from the Americans whose liberty is dying like the last few rays of sunlight at the end of a perfect summer day.
I don’t hear much talk these days about the importance of individual liberty, or of American exceptionalism. On one of his many apology tours abroad, President Obama said the following, "I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism." This is quite profound. If this is the best that the President of the United States can come up with, then what must he really think of this country? What this says to me is that the President does not see the role that the United States plays in the world as being markedly different from any other country in the world. Shouldn’t the President of the United States be the strongest advocate for his own country even if he doesn’t believe it?
America isn’t exceptional because the people are better than anyone else, that would be an absurd notion, because we are every one else, after all. America is exceptional because of the principles that it was founded on. In particular the following; “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal”. This belief alone makes America exceptional. While other countries mouth these words, there is little evidence that others actually believe this, or practice this. Here in America it is belief in this core foundational principle that makes us uniquely American. The Declaration of Independence goes even further by stating, “..that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." Right here in black and white it could not be any clearer. The primary function of government, in the American view, is to protect the rights of the individual. This concept alone makes America exceptional among the nations of the world.
The very concept that men have rights given to them by God that are unalienable, and existed before the State, is unique in all of history. To my knowledge, it is unique in all of the world today. At the time of the writing of the Constitution most western societies believed that God gave the power to rule to the king and that the king alone controlled the individual liberties of the people. The people were little more than slaves to the king and his nobles. Today roughly 2/3rds of the world’s people still live under statist forms of governments with little regard to the rights of the individual. The rest of the world, that does enjoy some modicum of liberty, experiences liberty as a function of the liberty that America expresses. We are not just the lamp of liberty to our own people, but to all of the people in the world yearning to breath free.
This means that the weight of history is upon us to preserve our liberty at all costs. This is not just for our children, but for the future generations in other countries, that hope one day to break the chains that bind them to servitude to the state, and dream of the day when they can proudly proclaim, “in our country we also hold these truths to be self evident.”
In the final analysis America is really about one thing and one thing only; liberty. Not just any liberty but an identification with and a strong defense of individual liberty. Without this fundamental belief we are just another first world country trying to get by, and therefore not exceptional. America went from being a small group of British colonies in a backwater part of the world to the most prosperous and powerful nation the world had ever known by strictly adhering to, and upholding the principles of individual liberty. The wealth of any nation is directly correlated to the amount of individual liberty celebrated and enjoyed by the citizens of that nation. If we as a nation continue down this path towards statism and the destruction of individual liberty, we will also be witness to the destruction of the very prosperity that gave rise to our power. If America is to survive then we as a people must always remember what made America great, even if the current occupant of the White House never understood it.
In the following months tax collectors were chased out of town after being tarred and feathered, stills of compliant distillers were destroyed, and militia groups were formed to fight the Federal Government, if that is what it came to. This wasn’t just a 9 cent tax; this was an assault on the very liberty that God had given them, the second right the right of labor and of property. Where are those Americans today? Where is the outrage today? Today our liberties are being taken away at a breathtaking pace and there seems to be more outrage from the supporters of this liberty theft, towards the few who do voice their complaints, than from the Americans whose liberty is dying like the last few rays of sunlight at the end of a perfect summer day.
I don’t hear much talk these days about the importance of individual liberty, or of American exceptionalism. On one of his many apology tours abroad, President Obama said the following, "I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism." This is quite profound. If this is the best that the President of the United States can come up with, then what must he really think of this country? What this says to me is that the President does not see the role that the United States plays in the world as being markedly different from any other country in the world. Shouldn’t the President of the United States be the strongest advocate for his own country even if he doesn’t believe it?
America isn’t exceptional because the people are better than anyone else, that would be an absurd notion, because we are every one else, after all. America is exceptional because of the principles that it was founded on. In particular the following; “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal”. This belief alone makes America exceptional. While other countries mouth these words, there is little evidence that others actually believe this, or practice this. Here in America it is belief in this core foundational principle that makes us uniquely American. The Declaration of Independence goes even further by stating, “..that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." Right here in black and white it could not be any clearer. The primary function of government, in the American view, is to protect the rights of the individual. This concept alone makes America exceptional among the nations of the world.
The very concept that men have rights given to them by God that are unalienable, and existed before the State, is unique in all of history. To my knowledge, it is unique in all of the world today. At the time of the writing of the Constitution most western societies believed that God gave the power to rule to the king and that the king alone controlled the individual liberties of the people. The people were little more than slaves to the king and his nobles. Today roughly 2/3rds of the world’s people still live under statist forms of governments with little regard to the rights of the individual. The rest of the world, that does enjoy some modicum of liberty, experiences liberty as a function of the liberty that America expresses. We are not just the lamp of liberty to our own people, but to all of the people in the world yearning to breath free.
This means that the weight of history is upon us to preserve our liberty at all costs. This is not just for our children, but for the future generations in other countries, that hope one day to break the chains that bind them to servitude to the state, and dream of the day when they can proudly proclaim, “in our country we also hold these truths to be self evident.”
In the final analysis America is really about one thing and one thing only; liberty. Not just any liberty but an identification with and a strong defense of individual liberty. Without this fundamental belief we are just another first world country trying to get by, and therefore not exceptional. America went from being a small group of British colonies in a backwater part of the world to the most prosperous and powerful nation the world had ever known by strictly adhering to, and upholding the principles of individual liberty. The wealth of any nation is directly correlated to the amount of individual liberty celebrated and enjoyed by the citizens of that nation. If we as a nation continue down this path towards statism and the destruction of individual liberty, we will also be witness to the destruction of the very prosperity that gave rise to our power. If America is to survive then we as a people must always remember what made America great, even if the current occupant of the White House never understood it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)