by R.E. Hannay
* 2012: A full-blown 1984 finally arrived: Justice John Roberts’ Supreme Court, in declaring Obamacare to be constitutional, incredibly opened the door for the federal government to penalize by taxation any conduct it chooses to demand or prohibit. Second, Obama is using the power of his office to intimidate and attack political opponents and their supporters. In August, Obama illegally ordered what amounts to amnesty for certain illegal aliens, an attempt to buy votes before the courts could throw it out prior to the coming election. His Internal Revenue Service failed to process application forms of certain non-profit organizations deemed to be "conservative", while promptly issuing permits to liberal organizations.
Welcome to the Unites Soviet States of America. Author Mark Steyn wrote, "To residents of the mid-20th century it would have seemed incredible that one day the president of the United States would fire the CEO of General Motors and personally call the mayor of Detroit to assure him that he had no plans to move the company's head office out of the city."
The 2001 Patriot Act has enabled Obama’s version of Orwell’s Thought Police to spy on and investigate anyone, with flagrant invasions and restrictions on private property and personal rights. The country’s land uses, architectural innovation and real estate economics are being strangled by planning and zoning regulations and by the 679-page uniform building code that has been adopted by most municipal and county governments.
Similarly, liberty is garroted by the Gestapo-like tactics of Attorney General Holder’s Justice Department and by the Homeland Security bureaucracy; by the 75,000 page tax code of the Internal Revenue Service; by the unconstitutional confiscation of private property rights by the Environmental Protection Agency, the Americans with Disabilities Act and hundreds of other bureaucracies, laws and rules; by the confiscation and sales of real estate, vehicles and bank assets on mere suspicion that those properties or people have been involved with illegal drugs – with no indictments, no arrests, no convictions; refusing to enforce federal immigration laws and then suing several states that were enforcing those laws; and so on, to a thousand similar unconstitutional government outrages. All this and much, much more has occurred during one lifetime. The Big-Government Democrats have said they “never want to waste a crisis”. Each one is another opportunity to expand their power and control over private lives and assets. Each one is an opportunity to take money from productive citizens to give to less productive ones, making more voters who are dependent on the Democrats.
When anything changes slowly over a long period, the magnitude of the change is not readily apparent except to different generations, and even then not unless the previous generations are reminded of earlier patterns. One new “program” at a time, one new regulation, one new tax, one new special benefit or gift to a favored political group, one new “safety net,” one new bailout for individuals or businesses that failed to save for inevitable future problems and needs, for future unemployment and retirement, one new restriction or harassment of political opponents -- all have combined to bring us to 1984.
Our arrogant Big Brother, Barack Hussein Obama, is a formerly unknown community rabble-rouser who slid into office because he is half- black, reads teleprompters well, because people were tired of Bush and leery of McCain, because Big Brother and his supporters whined about slavery that ended 149 years ago, and because Big Media and The Party promoted a cult of personality. Then Obama was re-elected by a combination of lies, voting fraud, news media that filter and distort the news to support the liberal politicians, and an indifferent public, half of whom pay no income taxes and are primarily interested in how big a piece of the pork-pie they get.
Americans are so busy with their own lives - their work and play, bringing up their children, with their struggles to make all their payments to support lifestyles they often can’t afford or don’t need - that getting directly involved in influencing what is going on in our Oceania is lost in their struggles. Either they don’t know what’s going on, or what they know is wrong, or they think they have no ability to change things, or they simply do what the unions or their sacred political party says to do. Others, like many libertarians, are so disgusted with both parties that they either refuse to vote or they vote "on principle" for someone who has no chance of winning, helping to elect the worst candidate. Other votes are handed to the worst candidate by many potential participants just not getting actively involved in trying to elect the lesser of two evils.
The Big Government crowd did everything possible to get Big Brother re-elected. They have an extremely sophisticated organization that collects large and small contributions in exchange for a host of political favors, subsidies, free lunches and government pork, as well as getting big contributions and support from favored voters like union members, trial lawyers, rich liberals and big bankers. Big Brother has Attorney General Holder fighting hard to prevent secure voter identification requirements that might reduce the number of fraudulent votes the Democrats get from illegal aliens, dead people, felons and multiple-voters.
Politically, the United States has crossed the Rubicon. On November 6, 2012 Americans decided we are to suffer the expansion of the U.S. version of 1984’s Oceania. One important subject not being discussed is the effect of that election on the Supreme Court, which is teetering on the edge of the cliff. If just one more liberal justice is seated, our Constitution will be thrown in the ashcan of history. 2012 was the election of a lifetime, our opportunity to turn back the tide that is bringing us the police/welfare state, and to start the difficult task of restoring our liberty and prosperity. Now we will have as good or bad government as we deserve. That election was not about Obama vs. Romney, not Democrats vs. Republicans. It was about whether the government is there to serve the people or the people are there to serve the government.
The Obamacare fiasco - Obama's repeated lies and deception, and an increasing public realization that the Obama-Clouseau administration and Congress are incompetent - combine to open one last chance for an eventual return to normal. In the months leading to the 2014 elections, if an aroused public will give control of the Senate to younger, competent Republicans, clean the troglodyte Republican leadership out of the House and replace its control with responsible, competent Republicans, Big Brother's potential damage during his last two years of unconstitutional reign would be reduced and a return to a competent presidency in 2016 made possible. Without that, our future is Orwellian, back to 1984.
DISABILITIES AND THE GOVERNMENT
One of our many forms of welfare never thought of as welfare is the private-sector spending mandated by the federal Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). This particular welfare is different in that almost all costs are paid not by the taxpayers or private philanthropies, but by businesses forced to pay by government mandate, with no constitutional authority or compensation to the businesses affected.
Reasonable efforts by businesses to accommodate customers with physical disabilities are obviously good business policy, as are reasonable efforts to employ people who have some functional limitations, but to have the government dictate unfunded business policies, practices and expenses is not only an offensive police-state action but is clearly unconstitutional. There is nothing in the Constitution that allows federal interference in most business matters, such as how businesses design their buildings and facilities, whom they must and must not employ and under what conditions, or with whom they may or must do business. In this case, Congress passed vague legislation -- as usual letting bureaucrats be the devils making the details so the elected congressmen cannot be blamed for the deviltry -- dictating nationwide business environments, policies and practices to benefit the "disabled," which the bureaucrats then arbitrarily defined and liberal judges have endorsed.
To compound the felony, California passed an absurd law that says practically everyone is, or could declare themselves to be, disabled, therefore entitled to special welfare provided and paid for by private businesses. While the federal ADA
requires that a legitimate disability substantially limits one's ability to work or conduct daily life, the new California law requires only that the "disability" makes life or work more difficult. The stampede you hear are the trial lawyers in battle formation.
The ADA requires that a disability keeps someone from performing a wide range of jobs, but the California law requires only that a person can't do a particular job. The new law says, without `a smirk, that people can be considered disabled even if their "disability" can be corrected, such as near-sightedness.
That kind of bureaucratic hubris is common. Recall the details-deviltry when Congress gave the EPA authority under the Clean Water Act to regulate the navigable waters of the United States. The EPA, with a straight face, defined those navigable waters as any dry wash. Liberal courts upheld that outrageous definition for years on the ludicrous basis that any surface water might eventually reach a navigable river. However, to the dismay of environmental radicals, the Supreme Court has ruled that some limits can be placed on the federal government's enforcement of the Clean Water Act.
When Congress avoids possible criticism by passing broad-brush legislation that lets bureaucrats and liberal judges write the laws, the result is inevitable. The public will have to get involved if they want to stop this kind of chicanery, but if they rely on the news media for their information, they often won't know about future problems until the legislative and judicial process is completed, and then it's usually too late.
INTEGRITY VS. ADVOCACY IN POLITICS AND JOURNALISM
Essentially, there are two kinds of people -- those who are trying to be honest, fair, decent and considerate of the greater good, and those who are simply out for what they want regardless of how it affects others.
How would you rate politicians, bureaucrats, journalists and “civil rights” attack dogs? They often advocate or act according to their personal preferences and opinions or those of a particular group, lying and deceiving, ignoring the interests of the general public. Consider the politicians and left-wing journalists who consider every political and economic matter only as it affects ethnic minorities. What outcry would there be if Caucasians evaluated every proposed action only by its benefits to white people? Consider the businessman who reduces every political and economic question to how it benefits or harms his particular business, the church member whose measure of every proposal is whether it is consistent with his religious beliefs, the union member whose only criterion for acceptability is how it benefits unions, and so on. The pattern is also seen on boards and committees where persons appointed to establish policies or consider problems of the organization strive only to promote their own interests or preferences.
While this is a common tendency, and many politicians see it as the way their system is supposed to operate, this is another case where studying the examples of our founding fathers is useful. There were many substantial and rancorous disagreements in planning and organizing a new nation, but they were not about whether the farmers, the rich, the poor, the Episcopalians or the Roman Catholics should get more favorable treatment or more government handouts. The disagreements were over the best way to make the individual states function as a nation - for all the people. They weren't Obamas, Pelosis or Reids, playing their political games of stonewalling and preventing even consideration of proposed legislation while piously proclaiming they were “protecting the working man” or some other segment of the country.
Persons in positions of public trust, and that includes journalists because of the quasi-public nature of journalism and their influence on the public, have a great responsibility to consider all the people, not just their particular favorites. To reduce every matter to whether it is good or bad for one group or another or agrees with their personal opinions is a clear abdication of their moral and ethical responsibilities to the public.
One result of the irresponsible conduct of many news people is that the public sees exaggerated portrayals of the size and legitimacy of groups favored by the media. Objective reports of the percentage of homosexuals in the U.S. population are only four or five percent, but the continual trumpeting of the liberal news media on homosexual matters make it appear more like 40 percent. Our Jewish population is less than two percent but seems much higher, partly because of their exceptional accomplishments but probably more because of their dominance of Hollywood, their numbers in Congress and their powerful, well-funded political lobby. Aided by many liberal journalists, some Jewish groups continue to use the Holocaust in seeking special benefits for Israel and Jewish interests, while some blacks and their often self-appointed advocates continue to play the slavery card 150 years after slavery ended, promoting continuing special treatment and benefits. In both cases, the news media provide them with free advertising and support.
Once upon a time, reporters asked, and read, and dug, and talked, and asked again and then wrote about the facts they had learned. Commentators like H.L. wrote articles and essays on their opinions and what they thought we should do or not do, but reporting was reporting facts; commentating was opinion and was identifiable.
Not now, in many cases. We have the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and a hundred other papers, ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS and NPR all pretending, and many even honestly believing, that they are reporting objectively, but they are often stealth commentators, the propaganda division of the Democrat party, lap dogs instead of watch dogs. Recent surveys by both the Pew Research Center (a liberal organization) and the Gallup Poll confirmed what many other surveys and informal inquiries had concluded -- that today’s world of U.S. news journalism is dominated by liberals. Undoubtedly some of them make a sincere effort to be objective, but when almost everyone in any group thinks left or right, it is bound to affect their view of where the middle is and thus cause them to slant their reporting one way or another.
Almost the only news people today who are more or mostly conservative or libertarian in their personal beliefs are the radio talk-show hosts, but most of them are candid about their opinions. The stealth commentators of today pretend to be reporting but consciously or unconsciously select, filter, slant, emphasize, gloss over, color and hide parts of what they call news, persuading the innocent that they are reading or hearing objective reports. When we pay for news, we deserve factual, objective news.
URBAN SPRAWL: IS THAT BAD?
The American housing dream has been to live in a single home on its own land in a suburban location with enough space for privacy, peacefulness, entertaining and outdoor recreation. By clever semantics and distortion of facts relating to suburbs and low-density housing, that dream has been sullied by “environmentalists,” urban planners, zoning ordinances and pointy-headed liberals. They call it “urban sprawl,” and to most people who haven’t studied it, urban sprawl is evil -- a long four-letter word.
Much of the world shares the American dream, a separate house in uncrowded suburbs of cities. In most countries that is economically, geographically and politically impossible But for Americans of modest means it is a reality, but the anointed, annoying elites who would control our lives fight to deny Americans suburban home ownership, crowding them into downtown anthills.
By 1996, at least 19 states had established growth management laws, and dozens of cities and counties had adopted urban growth boundaries. Portland, Oregon is the case study usually cited to certify the wisdom of so-called “smart growth” policies, whose high priests worship at the altar of high-density urban development, mass transit and light rail, and with land use boundaries to prevent development beyond specified dense areas. Portland has been preaching and practicing “smart growth” long enough for results elsewhere to be predictable.
After Portland’s urban growth boundary was established, land prices skyrocketed, as they have in other growth-boundary cities. Portland went from being one of the country’s most affordable housing markets in 1990 to one of the five least affordable in 1996. Between 1986 and 2001, traffic congest
ion in Portland-Vancouver ranked highest of 75 cities, with peak travel time up 33.3 percent.
Metro, the multi-county regional planning authority, spends more than half of the region’s surface transportation money on light rail, even though it will carry only one percent of the traffic. Metro admits to forecasting that after all their plans are in operation, auto travel will be reduced by only four percent, time wasted sitting in traffic will be four times as much in 2020 and that its plan will increase smog by 20 percent. “Congestion,” says Metro, “signals positive urban development… relieving congestion would eliminate transit ridership.”
The answers to freeway congestion are simple: Stop fighting suburban development, by zoning changes that make it easier for suburbs to develop their own economies and employment opportunities, and building more freeways rather than expensive mass transit that is notoriously ineffective except in a few gridlocked areas like New York City and San Francisco. In 2000, the Nationwide Personal Transportation Survey said that commuting time actually fell between 1969 and 1995, in spite of a dramatic growth in vehicle miles. The reason is urban sprawl . Unfortunately, suburban planning and zoning regulators often discourage the commercial zoning that fosters suburban employment opportunities and reduces commuting to urban centers.
The world’s megacities are failing, sclerotic, congested, inefficient and unhealthy places to live and work. Consider Mumbai, with a population of almost 20 million, more than 64,000 human ants per square mile. In the last 40 years, the proportion of its people living in slums has grown from about 15 percent to 50 percent. The U.S. is embracing the efficient city. The big gainers recently have been cities with 100,000 to 2.5 million residents, business-friendly Texas cities and areas like Raleigh-Durham with moderate real estate prices. Often they are also broken into more manageable and livable cities that can utilize the resources of a great city but combine those with suburban low-density living close to work, shopping and entertainment.
Urban sprawl, done properly, is good.
THE TYRANNY OF THE MAJORITY
The liberals, the touchy-feely crowd and the often self-appointed advocates of the ethnic minorities and other “underprivileged” groups do a splendid job, aided by the predominantly liberal news media, of convincing the public that ethnic minorities are abused and are not treated fairly. “Fairly” to them means more than fairly, giving them special privileges and handouts paid by those who actually pay income taxes.
It isn’t fair that more whites than blacks have college degrees. It isn’t fair that the average white earns more money than the average black or Latino. It isn’t fair that until 149 years ago most blacks in this country were slaves, sold by other blacks, then bought and sold by whites and Arabs.
The cold heartless truth is that life isn’t fair. Life is a struggle. Nature's design involves perpetual competition. Life is an endless sequence of competing individuals, groups and sub-groups of creatures and organisms, each situation involving different dynamics and interactions. Each of us is continually in situations where we are either in the majority or the minority, and we have to do what we can to affect the group’s actions in the direction we would like them to go. In most situations, the majority rules.
There are persistent attempts by and for one U.S. ethnic group, the blacks, to claim a right to monetary and other compensation for the abuse and exploitation of negro slaves in times long past. Chinese, Japanese, Filipinos, Welch, Italians, Irish and many other immigrants also faced poverty, distress and hardship when they emigrated to the United States and other countries, but those groups and their descendents don’t demand compensation. If anyone deserved compensation, it was the slave owners, discussed later. Aside from the impossible task of identifying which blacks were involved and to whom compensation should be paid, where could it end? What about the Chinese slaving away building our railroads and doing our laundry by hand, excluded from citizenship, and all the other immigrants and citizens who were struggling to survive?
The new boy in school, the foreigner who can’t speak the language, the kid from across the tracks who wants to join a game, the Catholic in a protestant neighborhood, the new college student at a fraternity rushing party – all have to prove themselves worthy of being accepted members of those groups.
Earnings differences, in the long run, reflect differences in individual productivity. What anyone can produce in saleable goods or services will usually determine what they earn themselves or what someone is willing to pay them to be an employee.
Slavery was not unique to the United States; in fact there is still some of it in the world. The slave traders were mostly Africans selling other Africans, and there were probably as many African slaves sold in Europe and the Middle East by Arab slave traders as in the United States and elsewhere. More slaves were sold in Brazil than in the U.S.
Many wonder why slavery was not abolished in the U.S. long before it was, but they don’t understand the economics involved. The southern United States was an agricultural economy, much of it cotton and tobacco, labor-intensive farming. For much of the pre-Civil War period, land was available inexpensively so they opened up new land, sometimes depleted the soil with intensive farming and moved to cheap, fresh land. The largest expense and capital investment was for labor. A good slave often cost $500 or $1,000, a fortune in those days. To free the slaves by government fiat without compensation was a terrible economic and legal destruction, a confiscation of private property without the compensation required by law.
In their endless efforts to buy votes and political contributions, the career politicians are always trying to attract new groups of voters, or to benefit old groups, by providing special favors, subsidies or handouts. This means the well-organized lobbies -- the farmers, the unions, the seniors, the lawyers and the ethnic minorities -- always get special attention and treatment from the politicians. The ethnic minorities and their advocates are in danger of shooting themselves in the foot when they push demands for special favors. Eventually sympathy is lost for crybaby minority groups that continually argue for special favors and treatment. The vote-seeking career politicians who pander to “underprivileged” and other special interest groups risk losing the support of the majority of the constituents they represent.
The other side of the Tyranny of the Majority equation shows that the majority needs to act responsibly. Congress and the White House are a case in point. The last few years have shown a resurgence of public interest and participation in political and economic action. We have also seen a disconnect between Congressional legislative adventures and public sentiment as measured by surveys. Congress and the White House have in some cases acted arrogantly, bulldozing legislation when surveys showed a high percentage of the public opposed to it.
After the November 2008 election, new President Obama and the Democrats obviously decided that their five-percent presidential victory and control of Congress gave them a blank check to legislate and spend at will. The result was a series of unbelievable “emergency” legislation that even the Congressmen hadn’t read before they were passed and signed. The emergency was not that the vast amounts of money had to be spent immediately “to rescue the economy and create jobs,” which is what Obama and his toadys said, but it didn’t work. The emergency was just to get it passed before proper consideration. The money mostly went to political favorites and the economy is still sick, five years later. The emergency was to pass the legislation before the public and even Congress learned what was in the legislation.
The Obama gang said they should never let a crisis “go to waste”, so one good crisis followed another. After their stimulus, which only stimulated the growth of government jobs and spending for unions and other favored supporters, they told the public the sky would fall in if we didn’t hurry and pass a Cap and Trade bill to try to lower carbon emissions, at great expense to the American economy. In considering such proposals, Congress showed a stunning disregard for our nearly inconceivable national
debt and our Constitution. House Speaker Pelosi famously said, “We need to pass [Obamacare] right now so we can find out what’s in it,” some 2,700 pages with many hidden booby traps unrelated to medical care.
The majority Democrats in the Senate and President Barack Hussein Obama have obviously forgotten they work for the citizens. The Democrats in Congress are not a majority; they are a tiny minority of the public. Obama said his second election is a mandate to convert the country to his socialist/fascist dream, but his 2012 two percent election majority is not a mandate, and it was enabled by false government statistics on unemployment and inflation, by biased news reporting by the media, and by voting fraud.
The majority are the voters, and they are angry that the politicians in Washington continue to bully and deceive them. The November 2, 2010 elections should have been a wake-up call to Obama and his gang, but he is making the same noises as before: spend and spend, tax the “rich” who create the jobs, and add more government control of our lives, mostly done by his radical anti-business cabal who have almost no real-world, private sector experience. The geese are squawking, and their children and grandchildren are waking up to their dismal future prospects.
Sometimes the majority aren’t a majority at all -- just a tyranny.
IF IT'S POLITICAL AND SENSITIVE, SPEAK UP!
Most civilized people try to avoid controversies when talking with others about such non-rational matters as religion, music, art, poetry and politics -- except in Italy and Greece, where shouting matches are the national sport. The natural tendency to avoid offending others has been magnified by the current “politically correct” mandates of liberals, including many educators and, of course, the hungry trial lawyers. According to them, nothing may be said which might possibly offend or belittle someone else, unless that person is a white male or "rich". They are sub-human and despicable, except on the 15th of April when they are permitted to deliver enough of their gold to finance the year's Roman circuses.
Political analyses are often more emotional than rational. Upon hearing political rhetoric, most people do not check the facts but instead filter new facts and ideas through their previous experiences, pre-conceived opinions and personal beliefs, often rejecting contrary facts as outright lies. People tend to believe what they want to believe -- whether or not the government should try to solve our personal and business problems, take money from more productive people to give to those who are less productive, take money from Americans to give to the less successful countries of the world, and so on.
While people have a right to their own personal beliefs, public policy issues deserve objective analysis. If people want to give all their assets to some kooky church and live in a tent in Korea, that is their right, but if they want Congress to take half of certain citizens' income or assets to give to other citizens or illegal aliens, it is time to speak up -- even shout -- in protest, to Congress and everyone else, or resist in other ways. Such "redistribution" is just political theft of private assets.
There is a shipload to shout about. The magnitude of current governmental intrusions, harassment and outright confiscation of individual, business and property rights is not generally recognized, actions usually taken in the guise of good government. Good for whom? Not the victims.
The list of political abuses is long and outrageous. For example, the so-called wetlands laws define “wetlands” as any parts of private property that hold water for something like 30 days, declaring them to be needed to propagate mosquitoes, sucker fish and other important critters, and prohibit the development and productive use of those private puddles and swamps by the owner. He must continue to pay taxes, mortgage payments and maintenance costs but he will receive no compensation for the confiscation, in violation of our Constitution's requirement for just compensation for any governmental takings. Such illegal takings, say the perpetrators, are "for the public good”.
A more publicized abuse took place when Slick Willie Clinton misused the authority permitting a president to establish national monuments at archeological sites. He issued an unconstitutional executive order to prevent coal mining in a huge area of southern Utah with no discussion with the state of Utah, the communities involved or with Congress, which has the only legal authority to take such action in large areas. Those who have studied his action say the real reason was to eliminate competition in low-sulfur coal for James Riady, convicted for illegal contributions to Clinton campaigns. The Indonesian Riadys reportedly have large interests in low-sulfur coal and the Utah sources would compete with theirs. Less publicized was the equally outrageous case of a western rancher who was convicted for shooting an adult grizzly bear that threatened him in his yard.
The IRS, DEA and local police routinely abuse rights to privacy and property. They often use anti-drug laws to confiscate bank accounts, real estate, vehicles, aircraft and all sorts of private property with no due-process and no court action, based on the mere suspicion that those properties may somehow have been involved in illegal activities. It is not necessary that the property owner himself have any knowledge or involvement in the suspected activities, and in some cases no one has even been charged with a crime. Many cases simply involve the police wanting to confiscate and use the money or sell the property involved and keep the proceeds. These thefts, usually done without a court order, have become a major source of revenue for governments at all levels.
Government spending is another outrage. The principle that masks government spending and drives it up relentlessly is concentrated benefits to each lobby and spreading the costs to many taxpayers. Add those small-dollar increments together, year after year, encouraged by our career politicians maintaining a constituency of grateful voters and contributors for future elections, and it is obvious how we got to where we are. Correcting it seems easy. Most people favor lower taxes -- until someone proposes to reduce a subsidy or benefit that affects them or their business.
The time has come for all Americans who are concerned to speak up clearly, forcefully and publicly against massive, intrusive and expensive government. Individual, family and local control and responsibility are the American way -- the way to do it better for less money and without Big Brother's bloated, bureaucratic harassment, control of our lives, and confiscation of our income and assets. Last year’s unbelievable Obama deficit was $1.4 trillion. That is irresponsible legislating, bordering on insanity.
On the personal level, colleges, governments, liberal courts and even some businesses are telling employees and the public what they may and may not say and write. In August 1913, municipal employees workers in Seattle were advised that the terms "citizen" and "brown bag" are potentially offensive and may no longer be used in official documents and discussions because some residents are not citizens and some ethnic minorities might be offended. In March 2012, the New York Post reported that city tests avoid words like dinosaur, birthdays, Halloween and dozens of other topics because they could possibly evoke “unpleasant emotions” for some students.
Enough of this nonsense! It is not only impossible to prevent offending someone, somehow, somewhere, many people need to be offended because their actions are so abominable or their sensitivities so puerile. But there are good and bad ways to speak up. Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan knew how to smile and keep friends but still say what needed to be said. Everyone can do it if he is willing, but one way or another, if we don’t, America as we have known it is doomed to be a stagnant, repressed police state. The price of not speaking up in fear of offending someone is too high.
LIBERALS vs. CONSERVATIVES
Democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until voters discover that they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury. - Sir Alexander Fraser
Once upon a time in America, liberals and conservatives in Congress debated proposed legislation among themselves and with the Executive branch, but most of the time they seemed to be working toward what they thought was good fo
r the country. Barry Goldwater and Jack Kennedy were friends – friends who saw the world through very different lenses, but who seemed primarily concerned about preserving a great nation. Now it’s different. Mark Steyn said, “This isn’t the Democrat party of our fathers and grandfathers. This is the party of the Woodstock hippies.”
Now it’s all about power, control of legislation, regulators and court decisions, about career politicians doing whatever it takes to get elected and re-elected and re-elected. We see the cancerous pork-barrel earmarks both parties legislate with the bipartisan understanding, “You get your pork, and I get mine.” When honest congressmen eventually leave office, they say Washington and the Congressional Pork Club are truly different from the real world.
LIBERALS vs. “LIBERALS”
To many academics and historians, “liberal” means classical liberal, the opposite of the present meaning. Classical liberalism stresses individual freedom, individual property rights, free markets and constitutional limitations on government. Today those are the doctrines of conservatives and libertarians, not the liberals. They hate the label liberal, wanting everyone to use their euphemism progressive, implying progress.
Today’s liberals generally favor more government controls and regulation, higher taxes, and welfare programs to take earnings and assets from the ”rich” to give to the "poor” and to political donors, seniors, unions, farmers and other favored political groups. They also want to revise the Constitution, not by its legal amendment procedures but by judicial “interpretations”, legislating from the bench. They want to replace free markets with markets regulated by politicians and bureaucrats protected by Civil Service rules. Obama legislates by executive orders and a spineless Congress doesn’t challenge him. Ronald Reagan said, “One of the hardest things in a government this size … is to know that down there, underneath, is that permanent structure that is resisting everything you’re doing.”
THE CONSTITUTION UNDER ATTACK
For 150 years, the U.S. Constitution held firm, with Supreme Court decisions generally interpreting the wording and original intent of those who wrote it and its subsequent amendments. Starting in 1933, Franklin Roosevelt’s administration and Democrat congresses began changing the Constitution illegally through legislation, much of which was later approved by liberal judges.
The Constitution is very clear about federal powers; they are very limited and very specific. All unspecified powers are reserved to the individual states and to the people. Probably 80 percent of the federal laws passed since 1933 are unconstitutional but approved by a succession of liberal courts “interpreting”-- changing the intent -- of the Constitution.
The courts have accomplished this in two principal ways. They have changed the intent of the commerce clause from commerce between states to mean all commerce. One such Supreme Court decision involved a California citizen growing marijuana in his back yard for his own, physician-prescribed medical use, which California permits. The Supreme Court used the commerce clause to convict the man, claiming in effect that any commerce or activity affects interstate commerce.
The courts have also taken the wording of Article I Section 8 of the Constitution “… to provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States…” to mean “… provide federal welfare payments to the poor and to other politically favored groups with money taken by taxes from other citizens.” They have done this despite the words of founding father James Madison: “I cannot undertake to lay a finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress expending, in object of benevolence, the money of their constituents.” That was the general understanding and agreement of the founders.
A DANGEROUS DYNAMIC
Another disturbing aspect of our current situation is the precipice we stand on, with almost 50 percent of our citizens and millions of illegal aliens paying no income taxes. Those freeloaders have no problem with enormous spending in Washington as long as they get some of it. The history books are full of cases of prosperous nations going down the toilet when politicians remained in power by stealing the assets of the productive people to give to a larger number of favored, less-productive groups of voters.
Liberals justify such legislative theft by saying it’s not fair that Peter makes twice as much money as Paul, so the government needs to “redistribute” Peter’s income. To conservatives, that makes no more sense than to say Tiger Woods is unfair because he’s a better golfer and earns millions playing golf. Instead of robbing Peter to pay Paul, conservatives want to encourage and assist Paul to become more productive, successful and independent. If Paul were truly unable to help himself, conservatives would have his family, community and charitable organizations provide needed assistance, not federal taxpayers' money mishandled by distant bureaucrats and self-serving politicians. While most conservatives want equal opportunities for everyone, many liberals and their allies demand equal outcomes for everyone. Unfortunately, most liberal politicians and many conservatives will say or do almost anything to accomplish the objective of the moment, and that often involves punishing success and rewarding failure.
NEO-CONSERVATISM
One group of conservatives who are anything but are the so-called “neo-conservatives.” Neo-cons want American taxpayers to support a broad array of adventures around the world, acting as the world’s police and welfare agencies and trying to promote democracy in undemocratic countries. Not only are many of their targets not capable of sustaining democracy, they don’t want it. Many have always had a strong leader or group of leaders and they flounder when they are given freedom. Many of our neo-con artists would have us turn our sovereignty over to world courts and a gaggle of Third World, anti-American countries who would have equal votes in the United Nations on issues involving international disputes, decisions and criminal trials of our citizens.
POLITICAL REALITIES
Liberals and conservatives think differently, right-brain thinkers and left brain. Conservatives tend to reach conclusions and positions based on facts, while liberals, particularly in the news media, rely more on emotions and tend to filter out the facts that don’t support their preferences: “Oh, those are all lies!” It’s like the Far Side cartoon:
What we say to the dog: “OK, Ginger! I’ve had it! You stay out of the garbage! Understand, Ginger? Stay out of the garbage, or else!”
What the dog hears: “Blah blah Ginger blah blah blah blah blah blah blah Ginger, blah blah blah blah blah.”
So what can be done? Both liberals and conservatives should recognize and respect their different philosophies, acknowledge facts rather than discredit them as lies, and accept the rule of law. When either side doesn’t agree with a law or proposed legislation, our legal system, common sense and decency require that they try to gather the support for accomplishing the desired legal or policy change. Now it's often lie-cheat-steal, slander the opposition, game the system, promote voting fraud, do anything to gain and keep power. The eye-gouging, divisive political warfare is counter-productive and is poisoning our personal relations and our political system.
What is the result? Congress and the Obama Administration are an embarrassment, a scandal-ridden gaggle of power-mad distributors of pork to their favored groups. Polls show public opinion of Washington is abysmal, and they have earned it. “Public service” has become “public disgrace.” Obama is more than an embarrassment; he and his administration are corrupt and incompetent. All previous presidential administrations had close to 50 percent of their cabinet and top people with at least some real world – private sector – experience. Only eight percent of Obama’s top people have private sector experience, and his administration’s performance shows it.
President Bush was also an embarrassment, expanding government, mismanaging wars and, among other things, arrogantly ignoring congressional mandates to enforce border control and other Federal immigration laws. For five years Obama has continually violated his oath of office to
preserve, protect and defend the Constitution, has spent enormous amounts of borrowed money stolen from our grandchildren, has discarded the best medical-care system in the world, and apologizes to the world for the United States being such a terrible nation. All that is somewhere between malfeasance and treason.
PERSONAL DIFFERENCES
A book by Peter Schweizer, Makers and Takers, documents many facts and surveys by different organizations. A sample of the differences shows some of the surprising differences:
* Academic studies have found that those on the political left are five times more likely to use marijuana and cocaine.
* General Social Survey found that 69 percent of those who called themselves “conservative” said it was important to them to have children while only 38 percent of liberals agreed.