by James Craig Green
As I get older, I no longer care so much about how my ideas may be perceived by other people, though I enjoy lively debates and criticisms of my beliefs (when respectfully courteous). Call it maturity, insanity, or just plain, old-fashioned dementia or delusion... it is where I am now in my life. I wouldn't be twenty again if I could.
It never ceases to amaze me that so many people - especially Americans - still see the STATE, or some other coercive, monopolistic, wealth-destroying GOVERNMENT as some kind of savior.
Government is, BY FAR, the most addicting and destructive narcotic ever invented. By comparison, Bernie Madoff and other private criminals were pikers... Amateurs really... compared to the STATE. In fact, it was only after private financial interests and victims of Madoff had repeatedly, without success, tried to get him charged with multiple crimes of fraud, that the STATE finally consented to prosecute him, after it was too late for his victims. He stole about $65 million from his victims, and pissed it all away.
How ironic that most people seem to trust the STATE to catch criminals, when the STATE itself is the biggest one of all. One of my most treasured mentors is Thomas Sowell, who said...
"It is amazing that people who think we cannot afford to pay
for doctors, hospitals, and medication somehow think we can
afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, medication and a govern-
ment bureaucracy to adminster it."
**********
Republicans and Democrats argue over a very small portion of the federal government's ON BUDGET spending, while the most significant portions of government spending (entitlements) enjoy ongoing, hardwired increases, completely on automatic pilot, without any need for ongoing, endless debates in Congress. This protects duplicitous (i.e., ALL) Congressmen and women against having to be seen as voting against them - not even small, silly, trivial reductions. Are you beginning the get the picture???
Republicans and Democrats argue over a very small portion of the federal government's ON BUDGET spending, while the most significant portions of government spending (entitlements) enjoy ongoing, hardwired increases, completely on automatic pilot, without any need for ongoing, endless debates in Congress. This protects duplicitous (i.e., ALL) Congressmen and women against having to be seen as voting against them - not even small, silly, trivial reductions. Are you beginning the get the picture???
AND now, the secret of all secrets even your parents never knew - REPUBLICANS grow government faster than DEMOCRATS... At least, after Roosevelt but before Obama. It's just that my conservative friends (including most of my relatives and all my ancestors) have actually taken the hook, line and sinker LIE that Republicans are for small government and free markets.
I don't mean ALL Republicans necessarily believe in growing the State - only a majority of those elected to federal office. Only a small MINORITY in most Congresses ever have been, at least in the last Century:
I don't mean ALL Republicans necessarily believe in growing the State - only a majority of those elected to federal office. Only a small MINORITY in most Congresses ever have been, at least in the last Century:
(CLICK GRAPH TO ENLARGE)
I originally published this graph in 2009, later updated in 2012, on my blog, LIBERTY ALUMNI DISCUSSIONS. It graphs government spending AND public debt, which I created in early 2009 (shortly after OBAMA was elected). In other words, both major political parties are screwing all of us BIG TIME, contrary to what the well- meaning but completely neutered, so-called LIMITED GOVERNMENT conservatives have to say. Today, a black President has most of them shaking in their boots so as to not be called racist... a trump card that no other President in history was able to play.
Combine that with Obama's upbringing by a Marxist mentor (FRANK MARSHALL DAVIS) and other radicals like terrorist Bill Ayers, with unique, anti-American influences at every turn of his young life, well... you know the rest.
There... I've said it. Think what you like. Now, back to the main issue...
See my November 2012 blog post to see this article in which my government spending/debt graph was first published:
The Republican Party, ever since its creation just in time for Abraham LINCOLN to become America's first Dictator, has ALWAYS been a big government party - but they just believe in DIFFERENT government subsidies than Democrats, and both promote special favors from government to themselves and their friends. The complicity with Democrats that modern Republicans display - allowing KING BARACK the FIRST to get away with turning our Facist state (which he did not create ) into a Socialist one is more than criminal... it is TREASONOUS.
Read Article III, Section 3 of the Constitution, and see if you agree. If you can stomach it, also read Article II (Congress), Section 8 for most of the limited but approved duties of Congress. You won't find most modern government agencies there, which comprise the bulk of federal government spending. Keep in mind that the Federal Reserve DID NOT change the Constitution, unlike the 16th Amendment's Income Tax in the same year (1913).
Besides LINCOLN, who were the other America Dictators? Simple - WILSON, both ROOSEVELTS, JOHNSON (58,000 dead in Vietnam without any tangible reason), NIXON (my Commander-In-Chief during the Vietnam War), and before-the-fact Nobel Laureate, savior of the whole human race... OBAMA. Others might be included, but these are my all-time list of SEVEN FREEDOM DESTROYERS. Each had in common an extraordinary ability to sway, intimidate, defraud and cajole large majorities in Congress.
To put it simply, separation-of- powers is no longer a real feature of American politics, though it's still right there in the Bill of Rights (first TEN Amendments, never changed).
My dear conservative friends won't like my inclusion of LINCOLN, but he was responsible for more American lives lost needlessly - By Far -than any other President. There were better ways to eliminate the uneconomic practice of slavery than some Americans murdering 600,000 others. Like most wars, that one was completely unnecessary for all it accomplished (or didn't). We can't change history, but we can learn from it and do better.
MY SOLUTION
I have a simple, but not-so-easy solution to this dilemma of a runaway Congress: Pass a Constutional Amendment abolishing the election of INCUMBENTS. In my opinion, only this refrorm could likely work to break the chronically-destructive cycle of LIFETIME POLITICAL CAREERS. Few will vote for freedom if the addictive power of decades-long political careers and the hyper-wealth they bring is not fixed.
Absent this reform, we'll just have to wait until the next crash destroys the economy from a lifetime of fiscal irresponsibility enjoyed by both major parties. Frankly, I think this latter, WORST alternative is the most likely way government will ultimately be reduced. But, without something this fundamental, government will simply grow until the STATE becomes so SOCIALIST instead of FASCIST, that its control of the economy is largely broken.
When I was running for Congress as a Libertarian twice in the 1980's, I was always confronted with the criticism, "...But we don't want to get rid of the GOOD ones (politicians). I didn't have the presence of mind or understanding then for a good answer, but I do today... EVERY MEMBER OF CONGRESS IS CORRUPTABLE, and will become so when the dull-normal people, or Worse, the geniuses who get elected to Congress can MAKE LIFETIME CAREERS and lucrative retirement packages for a few terms in Congress. This unsavory incentive corrupts the uncorruptable, or at the very least, keeps principled people like the Ron Pauls of the world (Yes, there are more than a few) chronically irrelevant in Congress. The beast will NEVER reform itself, because it is too lucrative a profession to entice many REAL government-limiters. The incentives are all too anti-freedom, anti-limited government, and too anti-AMERICA in the way the Founders saw it.
************
The MARKETS that create all wealth are repeatedly reviled, rejected and demonized by too many Americans educated in government schools who "drank the Kool-Aid," lacking the mental tools to see the idiocy of Today's Government-Gone-Wild.
When a thief (government) steals money from those who earned it (taxpayers) and gives half of it to those who didn't (moochers), most Americans seem to say or think... "AW, How Compassionate."
What they should say is, "SHIT, there goes another wealth-destroying, money-losing, corrupt lie and fraud."
WELCOME to (Nixon-Ford-Carter-Reagan-Bush-Clinton-Bush)-CARE. Without the others, Obama would have been just another Chicago gangster thug/pimp.
Every one of these (some even exalted) demagogues continued the insanity of his predecessor. AND, each and every one of them grew government when they had the help of at least one part of Congress (House or Senate). EVERY public official in the entire US (not just Congress, President, Judges and State legislatures) TAKES AN OATH to uphold and defend the Constitution, which is by far the greatest government-limiting tool ever created by any government. Unfortunately, it has been ignored by all three branches of government for AT LEAST a Century.
Many of the idiots in Congress think the three branches of the federal government are the President, House and Senate. You should read Article I (Congress), Article II (President) and Article III (Supreme Court) to make yourself much, much better informed and smarter than the 535 idiots who call themselves CONGRESS. (If you attended public school, I hope you won't be offended by my reminding you that the HOUSE has 435 members, and the SENATE has 100). They represent only ONE branch of federal government. If your confused, re-read Article III above.
*****
Government CONSUMES wealth; it does not PRODUCE it, EXCEPT AT A FINANCIAL LOSS to the economy. For every government program for which you can name, more money is LOST than is gained by its beneficiaries. This is exactly why the Founding Fathers promoted the virtues of private property protection, a DEFENSIVE military (not one like ours that seems to be primarily a jobs program for Generals or other warmongers, or to tell other countries how they should run their societies).
If any part of this makes sense to the small minority of you who will notice it, you MIGHT enjoy being further corrupted further by the following:
http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/libertarianism-beyond-nozick/
http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/libertarianism-beyond-nozick/
Have a GREAT day, year and life, what's left of it. Our screwed up society will NEVER change enough by voting, but it will change, because it has adopted hook, line and sinker the conservative and liberal PROGRESSIVISM that has destroyed the Founders' dreams long before you, I, or OBAMA was born... which is completely unsustainable in the long run. Unfortunately, John Maynard Keynes said in response... "In the Long Run, We are All DEAD," which seems to inspire more American politicians than ever to take the anti-Founding-Father concept of unlimited government focusing on the Fascist-toward-Socialist model. Unfortunately, Karl Marx is alive and well in America.
You might think I am a pessimist, but I am not. Although we have a long, long road on which things are going to get worse, eventually, they will get better, for one simple reason I have been writing about for decades... THE HUMAN SPIRIT always finds a way, especially in this special, unique place we call AMERICA, which even to my Canadian and Mexican friends, means the United States of America.
************
Get busy living, or Get busy dying... (credits to the movie SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION).
No comments:
Post a Comment