Now I mean it…This is REALLY my last blog

OK, so I was ticked off when I wrote that last post and I should’ve known better.  On another blog I was labeled a “liberal” (sort of correct, actually) and my family and I were threatened with death.  

Sheesh. 

The threatening post has been deleted (I wasn’t the one who’d complained…I’m glad somebody else did) and I never felt threatened, really, but it pointed out to me, once again, that I really have better things to do than blog.  I intend to get on with those things.

Anyway, as a parting shot/olive branch/denouement, here’s an old column I’d written several years ago (I think in 2002?)  that should balance the forces of hatred a bit.  If not, too bad:

In 1939, while FDR was planning USA’s entry into WWII, U.S. agents began compiling the CDI (or Custodial Detention Index); a race/ethnicity-based list of potentially suspicious persons in the USA.  The CDI was unprecedented, of course; but what happened next was even more so.

On December 7, 1941, immediately after the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt used the CDI to round up not only those of Japanese ancestry, but of German and Italian descent as well. 

FDR first identified his enemies both here and abroad.  Then he tracked down and rounded up potential enemies within our shores.  Then (and only then) he waged war in Europe.

Most Americans don’t know this history.  It’s generally not taught.  But it should be -particularly since our war with Germans and Italians had not yet begun when many thousands of innocent Italians and Germans were imprisoned and their property was seized.

Think what you will about the legality and morality of FDR’s actions; but at least he was thinking ahead. 

We’re not so clever today. 

Americans were introduced to what we now call “terrorism” at the 1972 “Munich Massacre.”   Since the 1979 hostage crisis in Tehran, there have been scores of Muslim-lead kidnappings, bombings and other attacks on US persons and property. 

Yet whose side did the USA take in Clinton’s war on Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1995?  The Bosnian Muslims, of course.  The USA fought side-by-side with Mujahideen from Iran, Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations against the mostly-Christian Serbs who’d been fighting Islamic jihadists since before the Crusades. 

Are the Bosnian Muslims grateful?  Well, not the ones who’ve joined the Muslims fighting us in Iraq.  Not the prominent Bosnian Muslim cleric who’d accused the USA of genocide.  Not the mostly secular but ethnically proud “Bosniaks” who’ve been radicalized against America.  They’d identified their enemy long ago, and it’s us. 

Even after 9-11, we’re afraid to identify, let alone “profile” the enemy.  Our leaders, who now possess tracking technology and massive databases that make FDR’s CDI look pitiful, prefer to squash the rights of every American citizen rather than to disturb the sensitivities of a few. 

FDR would have hog-tied jihadists by 1979 at the latest.  Yet we instead train our enemies, arm them, fund them, fight their enemies, and then act surprised by what happens next.  We’ve never legally declared war on anybody (not since WWII!), yet we are killing and being killed on several fronts today. 

While I have my doubts about what’s been called our “Greatest Generation,” there can be no doubt that we are surely the dumbest.

You see, the very heart of our current malaise in war, daily life, immigration and commerce has nothing to do with our enemies. 

We can’t identify our enemies because we can’t identify ourselves.

What are the “American Values” politicians speak of?   Are they the ones we can’t display in public anymore?

Do we still believe “it’s a free nation,” when the USA has the world’s highest percentage of citizens in prison?  Is this still the “Land of Opportunity” when we have more litigation, regulation and taxation than all the other nations on earth combined?

Do we even know what we’re spreading in the Middle East when, “Democracy” according to Benjamin Franklin, “is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch”?

And we say we’re promoting the Rule of Law in Iraq, but America is under the Rule of Lawyers -law is irrelevant for anyone carrying cash.  And how many of us have even read the U.S. Constitution? 

It takes only an hour to read; and the Bill of Rights are only one sentence apiece!

What was America all about in 1941?  Read the signature line of FDR’s controversial internment orders:

“…in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and forty-one, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and sixty-sixth.”

Year of our Lord?  Independence?  That sure sounds good to me. 

Liberty or Bust,

Andy Horning

The Freedom Farm

Golden Calf Republicans

Once again, I’m not just disappointed, I’m disgusted. 

No, it’s not the Sexiest Man Alive thing; I didn’t really expect to win that.

I’m disgusted with the “true conservatives” and “Tea Party” Republicans who apparently have no idea what it is they want; and who obviously have money, time and energy to burn on the altar of their “War On Terror.”

It’s hard enough to figure out what it is that you attack.  But what do you defend?  What do you want?

O ye idolaters!  No amount of flag-waving, no Democrat Demonizing will save you from your hypocrisy, immorality and failure.

After the 911 attacks when the war drums announced our intentions to the world, only Ron Paul of Texas wanted to legitimize/legalize our violence with a constitutional, congressional declaration of war against Iraq.

As Republicans bared their teeth at Dr. Paul, then-Chairman Henry Hyde hissed (imagine the serpent in the Garden of Eden):

“There are things in the Constitution that have been overtaken by events, by time.  Declaration of war is one of them. …There are things no longer relevant to a modern society. …Why declare war if you don’t have to? …We are saying to the President, use your judgment.  So, to demand that we declare war is to strengthen something to death.  You have got a hammerlock on this situation, and it is not called for. Inappropriate, anachronistic, it isn’t done anymore…”

Now these Palin-worshipping, Cheney sycophants are whining about the legal consequences they created?

Y’all claim to support the constitutions, but you don’t when it matters.  Y’all claim to oppose the “big government policies” of “the left,” but you never have.

I admire the rhetoric of Ronald Reagan as much as anybody.  But even FDR ran a tighter ship.

No Republican Governor or President in the past 60 years has cut the size, cost, intrusiveness or unconstitutionality of government.  The last USA President to actually sign a reduction of spending and debt was JFK.  Nixon created the EPA, fired up the War on Drugs, pushed socialist wage and price controls, and in general, delivered what Democrats had only promised.

I don’t think Republicans believe what they say they believe now.

I do understand, to a point.  Nobody alive remembers how free markets build schools, roads and hospitals; or how they dole out charity.  Nobody alive can extricate the politics of today from the technology to which we truly owe our present comforts.  We can’t exactly calculate the opportunity costs of government or factually claim how life would be if we hadn’t gone authoritarian.

But are you blind to the failure all around us?

Every day there’s a new “conservative” organization claiming to be the true torch-bearers for the Founding Fathers.  They’re continually crying out for more money, more organization and more fresh blood.  But what, exactly, do they propose doing?

Hmmm?

Yes, they’d like to replace some politicians here and there.  But to what end?  We’ve swapped parties and people many times to ever-worse effect.

The people and parties are not the issue.  Republicans vote against those who promise to cut government down to its constitutional size, and instead vote for candidates who don’t even promise to cut anything.

Presidential Candidate Ron Paul set fundraising records and energized young people like no other Republican.   Republicans had a candidate that, at long, long last, truly and fully represented the “conservative” rhetoric spoken in Kiwanis halls and churches and JBS meetings for the past several decades.  But instead of supporting a champion of Liberty and Justice, the GOP did its worst to hamstring his chances and proved that for all their patriotic talk, they’re more problem than solution.

I’ve experienced this personally.  As GOP candidate for Indiana’s 7^th US CD I’d personally experienced Republican leadership from national level down to individual voters.  I know their sick game.

What do they actually propose to do about our failed authoritarian monetary, political and social policies?  Well, I know they’re upset about some perceived epidemic of gay marriages.  I know that many go apoplectic over Obama’s citizenship.  A few will say some things about foreign invaders pouring across our southern border…but only when it’s clear that they can do nothing about it. 

They complain about anti-Christs and crosses in the desert.  They complain about foreign nations, greenhouse gas and pot smokers.   They still complain about flag burning. 

But what do they really want to do?  Has anything changed since they had all the power in the nation and set us up for disaster?  Has there been some constitutional epiphany that I’ve missed?

I’m asking.

I’m listening…

 

 

You say you want a Revolution?

It’s a little disturbing that one of the most common web searches bringing people to this blog is, “Give me hope, please.”  But what really worries me is how many people are typing, “violence” and “revolution,” to end up here.

My fellow Americans, what are you thinking of? 

What is violence going to accomplish that your votes did not?  You got what you voted for.  You want something else?

What?!?

OK, so I have nothing to say to “centrists.”  These human dandelion seeds have no senses, apparently; and just float the prevailing wind.  I wish I did have words that’d shake them down.  But I’ve never had any luck with people who think it’s reasonable to split the difference between Hitler and Stalin. 

And true socialists are twisted, ruthless monsters who know that their violence and oppression is self-serving to the elite group to which they feel they belong.  They know what I’d want to say to them, but they’d happily have it tortured out of me anyway.

But most people of the so-called “left” are not those socialists, and they’re not hopelessly foolish.  They simply don’t know that they’re invoking, promoting and unleashing violence upon their fellows.  The multiply-pierced, tattooed but still smiling Obama fan you see at Whole Foods really does want a peaceful society; he just hasn’t thought any more deeply about politics and market economics than he thought about that ring in his nose.  He doesn’t know that his free-love-and-world-peace dreams drag us all into Stalinist nightmares.  But so far, I’ve found it rewarding to talk to these people. 

Sadly, most of the so-called “right” are more difficult to work with.  Maybe they’re even worse in hypocrisy and idolatry, and thus inoculated against reason.  While many righties pray to God, they put their hands on their hearts and promise to obey a symbol (really; think about that).  While they know the word “constitution” invokes good imagery, they have no idea what the constitution is for, let alone what it really says.  Just like the lefties, they advocate bigger, costlier, more intrusive government – but they deny it.

Frankly, I’d rather hang out at Whole Foods than listen to self-righteous ignorami spouting off about the “coming revolution” or even secession.  They’re not as bad as centrists, but their rising mood of undirected, goal-free violence is not helpful.

What do they suppose a revolution is going to do if they don’t even VOTE for what they say they want?  And what would secession accomplish if it creates only a clone of our current mess?

After years of trying to find ten Republicans who know what it is that they want, I’m hard pressed to see any difference between the “right” and the “left” other than the aforementioned tattoos, piercings…and the type and degree of hypocrisy. 

Well, actually, I like Whole Foods.  The one near my work in Houston has a great selection of Belgian beers.  The GOP has nothing like it.

Now that they’ve given up their catbird seat and their hands are tied, the GOP talks (almost) like Ron Paul.  But when they held the reins of power they did only evil and then chose John McCain to lead them into more of the same.  They had a chance – a very good, record-breaking, youth-energizing chance – to set things right according to the words they speak from their mouths.  But their voting arms, inexcusably, chose otherwise.

And now they complain?  Inexcuseable.  Shameful. 

Even so, I think we’re seeing that even Republicans can come to their senses in sufficient numbers to shake the centrism tree.  The so-called “Tea Parties” exemplify this.

We all know we have enemies and problems.  But the question in battle is never so much what to attack, as what to defend.

What do you want?  Please don’t say you want “American Exceptionalism” unless you can explain to even yourself what that really means.  

How do you want to live?  Please don’t tell me “with American Values.”  We’ve all seen plenty of American Values, and I think that’s why we’re all so hopeless, disgusted, and crying for revolution.

On these pages I’ve said that I want my rules written down, and that’s true.  I don’t think we can live in peace without some hard and fast rules.

Good fences make good neighbors.

But if I were to paint my picture of The Good Life, here’s what it’d look like:

1. Citizens can do whatever they want to do as long as they don’t harm anybody else, or take what’s not theirs.
2. We’d have no more government than necessary to maintain #1.
3. We write this down in plain speech and call it law.
4. We invite others around the world to emulate our success, but otherwise leave them the heck alone.

So caveat emptor replaces the FDA, FTC, FDIC, FCC and a zillion other Fagencies.  Common sense, competition, voluntary associations, charity and free market options galore replace union/corporate monstrosities, Medicare, Social Security, lobbyists, regulations, litigation and price controls.  And because of the preceding, you get to keep what you earn, buy what you like (smoke it if you’re fool enough – and as long as you don’t blow it in my face), and live however and with whomever you want…as long as you leave others, and their stuff, alone.

That’s all.

Is that really so bad?  Could you live with that?

Because you know that the alternative plan is not working, right?

Plan B (AKA, the “Virtual Constitutional Convention”)

1. Of course we’d rather keep the country together; and we’d be completely satisfied with the existing state and federal constitutions obeyed as written.  But you and I know that likelihood of that is exceedingly, increasingly small, and that we really should prepare for what may happen next.
2. Of course we hope we’re wrong about our probable course.  But monetization of our national debt, now at over 40% of the GNP, almost assures dramatic and awful consequences both here and internationally.  It’s wise to consider both political and economic retrenchment to the most basic, proven forms.
3. Of course we would hope that all people everywhere would choose to live free.  But history demonstrates this to be a vain hope.   While there is no way to be certain where human politics are concerned, it seems logical to plan for a smaller geographical unit than the current USA, and to first consider an area with a culture and history of independence.  Many states have an equal or even greater percentage of liberty-minded citizens, but Texas seems to be a good draft model.
4. Our goal is to live in peace.  Voluntary interactions between humans and the suppression of human violence in all forms are both goal and method.
5. Toward this, we are creating a written social covenant called a “constitution” for a proposed political state under the Rule of Law.  This constitution will be the sole authority of all powers delegated to this state.  The state will have no powers that are not clearly and specifically written into this constitution.  This constitution will be the law of the proposed political state.
6. The words of this constitution will be clear enough to be understood by all; few enough to be known by all; and universally applicable to be obeyed without exception by all human beings within the border of the proposed state.
7. Three general rules:
   1. What is wrong for citizens is wrong for the state.  For example, exceeding the state’s contractually limited taxing authority is criminal theft; unauthorized killing is murder.  
   2. Citizens have infinite inalienable rights, while the state has no rights; only limited authority.  Therefore, what’s right for citizens isn’t always right for the state.
   3. Crimes committed by state officials are to be considered worse than crimes committed by citizens.

Clarification of purpose

We’re quickly assembling an excellent team.  Thank you!

But based on some of the email responses I’ve read today, I should have explained this whole thing a little better. 

Those who know anything about me know that, for decades, I’ve been promoting Rule of Law under existing constitutions, as written.  I’m delighted that I’m no longer feeling so lonely in that quixotean struggle.  There are efforts here and here that are better organized, and certainly better funded, than anything I’ve ever done.

Of course I wish them well.  I truly hope they succeed, and if I thought I could help them in any significant way, I would.

(On the other hand, I had asked if I could help, and all they wanted from me was my money.  …But that’s another story.)

Ron Paul’s successes during and after the 2008 Presidential campaign have been even more exciting and hopeful.  The “Ron Paul Revolution” is still winning friends.  If I can help with that, I will.

What I’m proposing is that we certainly work toward these efforts’ success, but prepare for their failure. 

I hope that there will be a USA for many years to come; but I am pretty sure that there will not be.  And while I hope our end is relatively benign like the collapse of the USSR, I think it’s prudent to create a plan for something better than the more typical societal collapse, oppression, slavery, genocide and war that come as regularly as sunrise and as persistently as …death.

I do not believe that we can resurrect the whole nation, and instead think that it’s wise to think more locally.

But…

I’m not thinking that Texas is really any more likely to rise from the ashes than is any other state or region.  Yes, I’m focusing on Texas in the particulars of this written constitution.  But if the Czech Republic would actually adopt this constitution while others take a pass, then já vůle brát má čeleď až k člen určitý Čech Republika!

Who knows who’ll come to their senses first once the truth about our political order is revealed?  Who knows how people will respond to the spanking they’re about to get?  God knows I sure don’t.

So our virtual collaboration has several purposes, but mostly these:

1. Get people thinking and talking about some very basic, critically important things; things like, “how shall we live?”
2. Give smart people a focal point, a rallying flag, a critical task when we most need it…before calamity makes it much, much more difficult.
3. Offer a real “Public Option” for peace, prosperity, security and justice.

We need all the help we can get, and I don’t care if you’re in Prague, Terre Haute, or Austin.

Fierce Individualists Needed

Can you eschew obfuscation?  Are you direct and unambiguous in your written words?  Have you read and understood your state and federal constitutions to the depth and breadth that most people think is stupid?

I’d like to hire you, at twice what I’m getting paid, to help me devise a plan for a Phoenix-like resurrection of liberty and justice for all.

All races, genders, religions and even sports preferences welcome.  But I’m looking for a particular species of ideologue.

If you truly understand and desire free markets, individual accountability and, in general, governed government, then join me.  If you know others who you think would be a good fit as well, bring ‘em along.

Here’s why:

You already know that our constitutions are dead ink.  The contracts were broken long ago.  They’re a law without force; just a bunch of words that few have read, and even fewer have obeyed.

What we’ve lost is literally forgotten.  Nobody alive today remembers a free market, or the kind of liberty that existed for even freed slaves like Frederick Douglass a hundred and twenty years ago (before the worst of Jim Crow laws ruined our hopes of Liberty and Justice for All).

In addition to their irrelevance as law, and despite our federal constitution’s fame as the framework for the freest, most egalitarian nation of all time, our Rule of Law just didn’t work.

And as much as it saddened me to say that, I’m even sorrier to report that there is no hope of reviving the existing constitutions; not on the scale of the USA. 

There’s too much baggage, too much flowery speech, too much irrelevance in those once-precious contracts and too much ignorance about them to ever put things right.  It’s just not going to happen.

What is going to happen next is ugly, and I’m betting you know it.  The comfort that allowed our ignorance and torpor is about to end.

We need to plan, and we need to be ready when people are looking for real hope.

The kind of trouble coming our way usually ends very badly indeed.  The success of the USA’s Revolutionary War was historically unique.  It almost never happens that smart people get involved in politics.  It’s even rarer that smart people both get involved in politics and plan ahead.  And it just never happens that such smart people get involved, plan ahead, and do it for the right reasons, and on behalf of their fellow humans.

That just never happens.

So what I’m hoping is that lightening can strike twice in the same place (or least somewhere on this planet!). 

What I’m asking is that we develop a virtual Constitutional Convention to establish a peaceful transition to a truly peaceful, prosperous and secure new nation.  One that’s actually conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that we’ll never again trust politicians with so danged much.

Politics on a leash of law, citizens with real liberty under law, and all based on the notion that what’s wrong for you is wrong for government too.

This draft isn’t up to date, but it’ll get you close to the idea.  We have a new wiki project, but I’ll have to get to know you before you’re invited to join.

What say you?

andrewhorning@hotmail.com

 

Things would’ve been worse!

I take personal offense when politicians claim that their bailouts, color-coded alerts, regulation, litigation and other silly actions saved us from worse socioeconomic troubles.  Not only has their paper money and corporatist fetish been enormously destructive (the worst is yet to come), but it is actually I, Andy, who have saved us all from greater calamity so far.

That’s right.  Me.

You can’t imagine how much worse things would be now without my protests and angry letters to politicians about all the voodoo that they do.  My efforts have spared you from foreign marauders, socioeconomic collapse, and even the Ice Age that would’ve happened in the 1970’s if, well …

If it weren’t for me.

What; you take their word over mine?

Which government program has ever done what it was supposed to do, on time and within budget?  How’d the “War on Poverty” work out?  How about the “War on Drugs?”  Have we had a year’s peace since the “War to End All Wars?”  So far, the “War on Terror” has lasted longer and cost more than did WWII, and it seems we’re now looking for new enemies. 

Just imagine how much worse this could’ve been if it weren’t for me!

Politicians raise taxes to stimulate the economy and cut taxes to stimulate the economy.  They subsidize sports teams and rich bankers and pornographers and foreign dictators to stimulate the economy.  We should’ve been stimulated past Pluto by now but for one key fact: politics doesn’t work. 

Check any history book and you’ll see a perfectly unbroken, ancient and ongoing record of corruption, oppression, slavery, genocide and war.

So our once-precious Rule of Law gave way to violently Robbing Peter to Pay Paul; and you are not Paul. 

No, don’t thank me.  I expect nothing from my tireless efforts on your behalf.  But quit the Stockholm Syndrome with politicians.  They’ve got your money; they don’t need your praise, too.

A Short History of Health Care: Let Doctors Be Doctors

I just ran across this on another website.  It’s a column I wrote for Indiana Policy Review a couple of years ago that seems more appropriate than ever now.

A Short History of Health Care: Let Doctors Be Doctors
By Andrew Horning

Healthcare is an odd business in that it has always been both expensive and unpleasant. Until the 1920s, the average doctor couldn’t even help with the average ailment. While medicine then included a range of arts like phrenology, acupuncture, homeopathy and allopathy it really was a coin-toss whether you’d be saved or killed by a doctor’s work.

Then the 20’s brought insulin, sulfa, other “miracle” drugs and sterile fields that meant, for the first time, that healthcare actually worked more often than not. From there, doctors, scientists and medical engineers really took off; rapid advancements increased life expectancies and decreased suffering. And because of increasing effectiveness and supply, healthcare was even becoming cheaper in real cost-benefit terms.

However, politicians had nothing at all to do with this, and that was apparently a problem. Teddy Roosevelt proposed a German-style, cradle-to-grave “socialized” healthcare system, but it was assailed as “the Prussian Menace” in those anti-German years before WWI, and Teddy’s scheme died. Even so, politicians wanting to seem compassionate started promoting socialized healthcare. The July 1919 issue of the Insurance Monitor made this prescient assertion: “The opportunities for fraud upset all statistical calculations. . . . Health and sickness are vague terms open to endless construction. Death is clearly defined, but to say what shall constitute such loss of health as will justify insurance compensation is no easy task.”

No matter. Between The Revenue Act of 1939’s health-related tax breaks, and 1943, when the War Labor Board excluded employer-paid health insurance from its wage freeze, American politicians charged into health care on their favorite horse, income tax.

In a nutshell, here’s what happened: Tax breaks for employer-paid health insurance meant that health insurance became a part of employment, and insurance became an integral part of healthcare. This inserted middlemen, which of course made everything more expensive. But who cared? The tax-subsidized, payroll-deducted cost was invisible enough that Americans started using insurance to pay for routine visits, dental checkups, eyeglasses and even plastic surgery. Group insurance offered large corporations better plans than small companies could muster, giving large corporations even greater advantages in hiring and competition than corporate laws already gave them. This also meant that the poor, or worse, the self employed, were even further distanced from the rich and incorporated in a very serious way. Obviously this created problems, but politicians never admit error, do they?

Four days before Tax Day, 1953, President Dwight Eisenhower established the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, giving government even more direct control over some of humanity’s most precious commodities. More political money and power meant more reasons for businesses to make campaign contributions and lobby. Of course, politicians at every level of government have used healthcare policy to reward their friends and punish their enemies. That’s their stock in trade.

Now tax money and policy is sifted and sorted through political appointees, immortal bureaucracies and defense-contract-style arrangements to feed a dwindling number of profit-starved insurance companies who then deny your claim. Doctors hire legions of workers to manage the regulatory, litigative, and insurance paperwork hassles; or leave private practice to become an employee within a clerically staffed healthcare corporation. So healthcare is still both expensive and unpleasant. But now it’s only because politicians, not doctors, are practicing medicine. Our healthcare injustices and vital statistics have decayed into an embarrassment at just the time when technology should make healthcare cheap, effective and available to all.

It is hard to imagine what politicians could have done to make our healthcare situation any worse. Yet, according to a July 2006 Harris Poll, Americans rate the issue of healthcare well-behind Iraq, the economy, immigration and even gas prices. Even more strangely, most people now think we must, to some degree and by some unspecified method, “socialize” healthcare just as Europe, Canada and other nations are now scrambling back toward free market reforms. What are we thinking?

Let politicians have their way with Iraq, the Colts and toll roads. Let them run lotteries and practice voodoo. But please, let doctors do healthcare at last; they’ve earned the right.

“Middle Ground” on enumerated right?

Thanks to Jim Tomes of the 2^nd Amendment Patriots group in southern Indiana for alerting me to a typically biased CNN story on gun rights…and for telling folks to leave a 30 second comment at 1-877-692-6349.

Here’s what I said:

For now I’ll hold my tongue on the 2nd Amendment, and whether there’s a so-called “middle ground” to this clearly enumerated right. 

But I propose that it’s time to find some middle ground on the freedom of the press.  For too long the media have been allowed to operate unregulated, and in public places.  It’s time to do with reporters what we’ve done with Ten Commandment displays.  It’s time for the media to learn that freedom is no longer a right.

Andy Horning, Kingwood, TX

I wish I’d said that…

I read this column by Roger Roots some time ago (I’m guessing in November of 2008), and came across it again today.

It’s brilliant.  I can’t do better.  So in honor of Constitution Day, I’m reposting it:

http://rinf.com/alt-news/politics/constitutional-dead-letters/4851/