Gay…Marriage? Is THAT what we think this is about?

PRESS RELEASE: Gay…Marriage? Is THAT what we think this is about?

Andrew Horning, Candidate for Indiana US Senate

May 15, 2012

Freedom, IN: Like all things political, the “gay marriage” issue has become far more battle cry and “litmus test” than sane discussion.

What we call gay marriage is not (I repeat, NOT) about a church recognized covenant between a man, a woman, and God.  No, the church gave that unto Caesar a long time ago.  That’s why the minister says, “…by the power vested in me by the State of…”

Marriage, my fellow Americans, is politics.

Now, marriage is about Social Security, bereavement pay, visitation rights, property rights, work rules, tax rules, and more rules, rules rules from the Great Caesar’s Golden Calf.  Marriage is legal, contractual, corporate, political privilege, rights, guardianship and healthcare.

So, those who now want to claim the moral high ground on traditional marriage have wallowed into the preposterous role of promoting disparity in matters of simple justice.

I propose we get politics entirely out of marriage.  From the Christian perspective, we should take from Caesar what is God’s. From the secular perspective, we should make policy and law that does not involve sorting, allocating and denying rights based upon abstract and arbitrary political categories.

Not only is this the moral thing to do, it is also the Law of the Land.  Our constitutions were written in large part to prevent politicians from granting “to any citizen, or class of citizens, privileges or immunities, which, upon the same terms, shall not equally belong to all citizens.” (Indiana Constitution Article I Section 23)

That is what I’m putting on the ballot – rules that are few enough to know, simple enough to understand, and important enough that they’re to apply equally…to all.

This is all written down in the annotated Indiana and US Constitutions at http://horningforsenate.com.  These precious, workable laws will be on the US Senate ballot exclusively under the name, Andrew Horning (L).

 

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Looking for a few good voters

I plan to place a series of large-format ads in the Indianapolis Star and a few other key newspapers around the state (donations made out to Horning For Senate, if you’re so inclined).  It will be a simple ad, with a simple logo, maybe a picture of me, some contact information, and something like this:

Looking for a few good voters

If you think this nation can keep going the same direction we’re going, then, please, read no further and have a nice day.

If, however, you’re concerned about our future, then please, read on.  We may need you.

OK, the bad news is that we have nobody but ourselves to blame for the cronyism, the violence, the injustice and self-destruction of our culture.  We The People have exactly and only what We The People have chosen with our wallets, our actions, our voices (and/or silence) and our votes.  We certainly cannot blame the politicians and political abstractions we’ve chosen over and over again.  They’re just doing what comes natural, what they can get away with, and what we ask them to do.

The good news, however, is that We The People can have exactly and only what We The People choose.  We don’t have to turn to anybody else to fix our problems.  It is not too late to clean up our messes and choose the life we want to live.  It’s never too late; and there is currently no need for a “revolution” anywhere but in our own minds and voting arms.

Of course, the bad news with that is that we don’t get what we want, we get only what we choose…and we’ve felt as though there are no choices but that two-headed crony network we call the “two party system.”  We have been betrayed and deceived.  It’s understandable that your trust in any politician, even ones you’ve never given a chance, is very low.

Then again, the good news with that is that there never really has been a “two party system;” that’s just an abstraction of some pretty bad choices on our part. We can fix that with just a little information.

Alright, so the bad news is that most people can’t even imagine how this country could work better. Trained in government schools and suckled on government handouts, surrounded by government actions and always aware of our wars, nobody alive remembers how life worked before we had all the “programs,” taxation, regulation and litigation that are now sucking us dry. Nobody alive remembers how “national security” worked before we began endless games of international “whack a mole” with our children’s lives.  Nobody alive can remember how we could have schools, roads, jobs or healthcare without giving everything unto our new Caesars.  We are all caught in the monkey traps of Social Security, Medicare, “national security,” “education” and “welfare.”

Ahh, but there is more good news.  The good news that outweighs all the bad is that it’d take only a little more than a third of Hoosier voters to set this nation to a better direction, a proven direction.  It’d take only slightly more than a third to crack the cronies’ pedestals and govern our government by rules that are few enough that everyone can know them; simple enough that everyone can understand them; and important enough that every single one of them is to be obeyed by everyone (even the rich and mighty) equally, without exception, all the time.

And my fellow Hoosiers, those rules exist; they are proven to work better than anything else humans have ever tried; and they are already the Law of The Land. They can be ours again as soon as we choose them.

This is not fantasy.  The fantasy, though a very bad one, is what we’ve been doing.  The dreamers are those who think we even can preserve the authoritarian, lawless status quo.  The fools are those who keep voting for it.

We all make decisions every day that impact our families, our careers, our children’s future.  I’m asking only that you give more thought to your vote than you have ever dedicated to it before.  I’m asking that you read your state and federal constitutions to see what you have been missing, how you have been misled, and how you can fix it all on Election Day.

We can fix this country.  We can live in peace, prosperity, security and freedom if only we choose to. That choice will be at least in part represented as Andrew Horning (L) for US Senate.  But the choice is yours.

Who’s been bought off?

It makes news when some foreigner (like Henrique Capriles Radonski) challenges a foreign, long-entrenched murderous thug (like Hugo Chavez).  Such news makes headlines and waves all over the world.  In foreign politics, sports, and even in real life, we love a “come from behind” “Cinderella Story” of bravery challenging the odds.

But what do we hear about those who’d challenge the world’s longest-running and most-corrupt crony network operating here in the USA?  Do we admire the underdogs who’d offer an alternative to a machine of war, theft and deceit that’s been left alone with near-total power in the USA since 1913?

From personal experience, I must say, no.  In fact, we call them “fringe,” “lunatic,” or at best, when we don’t want to come out and say, “loser,” we call each of them a “wasted vote” with “no chance” in that entrenched, violent, stinking-rotten and generally disliked two-faced regime we’ve come to call (because we’ve been told to) “the Two Party System.”

Why is that?  Why do we voluntarily choose to live in a downward-spiraling, robbing-Peter-to-pay-Paul cronyism, lawless and brutish debt bomb?

Well, I think it’s because we’ve been bought off with our own money, that’s why.

Who among us doesn’t at least at some point in the day feel a part of some arbitrary abstract “class” of citizen that has a “special interest” in our adversarial system of politics?  Whether it’s the struggle of men versus women, gay versus straight, black versus white, or something even more abstract like activated Reserve, beneficiary, incorporated businessman or taxpayer, we all seem forced to “take a side” in a system that is now entirely based upon taking something from somebody, and sometimes, giving it to somebody else.

Sometimes it’s just taking; and we hope to keep a little more than the next guy gets to keep.  Sometimes we’re on the receiving end (Medicare, Social Security are the biggest, broadest examples), and we have come up with all manner of justification for what we take from our neighbors.

Always, it seems, one half of the “two party system” is “on your side;” while the other half is “against you.”

It’s hard for me to imagine why we’ve not demanded at least a year’s military peace since the War to End All War, but we’ve been told that our whole system will crash down like dominoes unless we keep ferreting out and smacking down the hobgoblins and demons always lurking somewhere overseas.

Anyway, you have invested, and you feel stuck.  You’ve witnessed “rope a dope.”

That it is immoral in the extreme as well as very clearly illegal doesn’t matter.  It is, we’re always told, and so we always say, “The Way Things Are.”

Well, life is what you make it.  We The People have exactly and only what we choose.  It’s in your power to keep “The Way Things Are” the way things are; or change it to whatever you want.

I have a proposal.  I offer rules that apply to everybody equally – written rules that are few enough that everybody can know them; simple enough that everybody can understand them; and important/useful/critical enough that everybody must obey all of them without exception, all the time.  The rules are proven to work if obeyed, and they’ve been called brilliant and exemplary by people all over the world.  They are also the law, right now.

It’s all here, and here.

I’m not holding my breath that my quixotic campaign will do any better than ever before.  I’m not even saying that I’m a brave person to offer such a challenge to our corrupt status quo.  And please don’t call me Cinderella.

I’m just putting rule of law under existing state and federal constitutions on the ballot under the name Andrew Horning (L).

Whatever happens next isn’t my decision at all.

It’s all yours.  You’re the one who must decide if you want to keep doing what you’ve been doing, or something else for a change.  A real change.  It’s up to you, and the time to choose is just around the corner.

Yes to Dr. No?

I really haven’t taken the time to verify everything I’ve read about Dr. No.  But I’ve met him several times – even went to his birthday party a couple of years ago – and, full disclosure, he sent me money for a political campaign.  I am very highly biased in favor of this man’s integrity and purpose.  So, I’m just posting something here that somebody sent me.  I believe (but don’t know for certain) that it’s all true:

In his high school years Ron Paul became the 220-yard dash state champion, he played football and baseball, and was student council president. An injury ended Ron’s career in sports, but he still managed to become the only Congressman in history to knock the ball out of the park in the Congressional Baseball Game.

He began working at his father’s dairy at age five, and later delivered newspapers and became a milkman upon reaching driving age. He paid for his first year at Gettysburg College with saved lemonade-sale and lawn-mowing money. In the later college years he started delivering mail and also managed the college coffee shop called “The Bullet Hole”. He earned a medical degree from Duke, became a “career obstretrician” and delivered over 4000 babies. In his practice, he refused Medicare and Medicaid payments, instead treating the poor at a discount rate or for free.

Ron Paul’s been married to his spouse Carol for over 50 years. He has 5 children, all of whom believe in him and support him.

He is a Southern Baptist and a Christian of deep faith, but never uses his religion in political fights.

Ron Paul is the only veteran in the race and he served part of his time close to the Afghani-Pakistani border back in the 60s. He gets three times as much donations from active military duty personnel as all other republican candidates combined, and 10 times the amount the next candidate, Romney, gets. That’s because Ron Paul is the one who wants to use the military with a clear goal – to defend the country. This means that if necessary he would send the troops to war, fight it, win it and get the troops back home. Other candidates want to continue the policy of sending the troops to wars without specific goal, nation-building missions without end, where soldiers risk their lives and they don’t know what for. Soldiers want to know that what they’re doing makes sense and they believe Ron Paul is the one who will not put them into fight without good reason.

Ron Paul entered politics not for personal gain, but because he was worried about wrong economic policies Washington was pursuing. He wanted to stop the out-of-control growth of the federal government. He opted out of the lucrative congressional pension plan and over the years returned over (…) million dollars from his budget to help pay off the national debt.

He is known to be incorruptible and the lobbyists don’t even bother to go to him. They know he will follow the Constitution and not what they tell him.

Ron Paul is the only Congressman in the last 20 years with a 100% Constitutional voting record. How is it possible? Simple. Before he decides on a bill, he always checks if it’s allowed by the Constitution. If it’s not, he votes against it.

He has always stood on principle, regardless of the political winds. He gave his support to Ronald Reagan long before it was popular, when Reagan was still sidelined and mocked by the establishment in 1976.

While the top campaign contributors of all other candidates are Wall Street and big corporations, Ron Paul gets almost all of his support from ordinary people who give him 50 or 100 bucks at a time.

Ron Paul is the only candidate with a deep and proven understanding of economics and monetary policy, far beyond the talking points other candidates use.

He’s been the only politician in Washington to predict the housing bubble, suspected it was coming in 2001 and was certain of it in 2003. You can check his old writings and congressional testimonies if you don’t believe it. He almost single-handedly raised public awareness about the Federal Reserve Bank, the institution which used to operate entirely in the shadows for decades. He is the only candidate with the knowledge needed to reform the banking sector and resurrect the economy after the financial crisis.

Thanks to an audit that Ron Paul pushed through Congress, we learned that the Federal Reserve had been bailing out foreign banks to the tune of 5 trillion dollars, and had given 30 billion to Qaddafi’s Bank of Libya, when Qaddafi was still in power. Ron Paul is the only candidate in the race, who has opposed the bailouts from the beginning and has never flip-flopped on the issue.

Ron Paul is the only candidate in the race who offers a plan to cut spending. None of the other candidates wants to cut any spending, what they’re talking about is cutting the proposed increases. Instead of raising spending by 500 billion they want to raise it by 400 billion, and they call it a cut. All other candidates guarantee that America will have a debt crisis like the bankrupt welfare states in Europe and the Social Security and Defense budgets will have to be slashed in a chaotic manner.

The establishment in Washington already discussed plans to take over the people’s pension funds to pay for the government spending. Ron Paul will avoid this by cutting wasteful and unnecessary government spending in a sensible fashion, so that people’s IRAs, the Social Security fund, and Defense of the Homeland are not sacrificed.

The health care system in the United States is costly and often ineffective. Instead of fixing it, president Bush added to the costs by introducing the prescription drug program and president Obama introduced the Mandated Insurance, taking control over medical expenses further away from the patients. All that the other Republican candidates are capable of is repealing Obamacare. Ron Paul has a plan to empower the people to take control of their money, bring the competition back into health care and restore the doctor-patient relationship.

Ron Paul’s health care plan provides the employees with the same tax deductions that today apply only to employer-provided insurance. It empowers the people to take full control over their health care money themselves. Everyone will be allowed to put together an individual medical plan that best suits one’s needs. Ron Paul will allow the people to purchase insurance over state lines, ending the local insurance monopolies and bringing prices down. The excessive restrictions put on the medical personnel by lobbyists will be undone, and the nurses will once again be able to perform easier procedures, bringing the costs down. A tax credit will encourage doctors to provide services charitably to the poor. Finally, the out-of-control legal liabilities which force hospitals to spend hundreds of billions of dollars every year on unnecessary procedures in fear of the lawsuits, will be in most cases eliminated and replaced with the medical insurance contracts. Allowing the hospitals not to perform unnecessary procedures will bring down the cost of health care by additional 3000 dollars per household every year.

Health insurance is now 1/4 of the whole worker’s compensation. Lower costs of health insurance will bring down the cost of work and employers will be able to hire a lot more people. With health care costs reduced, the people will have more money left to spend and invest. Ron Paul’s health care plan alone would be enough to kick-start the economy.

The other politicians constantly invoke fear: fear of global warming, fear of people having guns. They need it to grow the size and power of the government, because the scared population is more likely to give away their rights and their money. Ron Paul has been a staunch defender of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, fighting to protect the 2nd amendment, to protect the right to privacy, to protect the right to a fair trial.

Ron Paul’s opponents scare the people with a nuclear bomb being smuggled to the USA and exploding in one of the American cities, yet none of them has any plans to secure the American border. If some ordinary criminals can smuggle weapons and drugs through the border, the terrorists could do the same with the bomb, if they had one. Ron Paul understands that the leaky borders are a great threat to national security. He will save money on fruitless nation-building in the Middle East and use it to protect the borders and expand the Coast Guard, to insure that no terrorist can infiltrate the United States either by land or by sea. Ron Paul is the only candidate with a serious plan to make America substantially safer, by protecting the border, concentrating the defense forces that have been spread thin, and avoiding a financial debacle.

Ron Paul is the only candidate with enough conviction, knowledge and integrity to shape the course of events in these difficult times. None of his corporate-funded opponents has a credible plan to reform the banking system, avoid a debt crisis and secure the entitlements for the people that have paid into them all their life. None of these establishment candidates is willing to put the rule of law, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights first, like Ron Paul does. Every one of his opponents supported the bailouts. None of them has a plan to secure the border. None of them has a plan to fix the health care system.

The opponents of Ron Paul are not going to challenge the status quo on the issues that matter. They are guaranteed to go with the tide, bringing the country closer to national bankruptcy and endangering the accomplishments of generations of hard-working Americans. Learn about Ron Paul, search the Internet, ask your children to find more information about him for you, and you will see that he’s the best candidate for President America has had in a long time. You have a choice, your actions matter. Register to vote in the state Republican primary, become a delegate to the caucus, choose Ron Paul and help restore the American Republic.

RON PAUL 2012

Ron Paul is totally different from any of his opponents and most other politicians. Compare and contrast and you’ll see that every time he’s different, it’s for the better. Hire a friendly show host or someone alike who can pump up the crowd with a speech. Distribute the message in print so that the rally attendees take it home. Attach it to the Super Brochure mailings. Spread it. Do something with it. Ron Paul’s ideas are great, but their greatness can be recognized a hundred times better when compared to the others’.

The community needs to spread this. I don’t know who would reject this reasoning. Someone with better writing skills could rewrite it more eloquently. Ultimately I wish we will create a polished text similar in content to the one presented and make it into a pdf file that anyone could download, print in large amount (even at home) and distribute. What do you think?

Please VOTE UP & COMMENT.

Nice link about Ron’s life: http://streetsmartdirect.com/ronpaul.html

Do you really want to live like this?

According to our Declaration of Independence, governments derive “…their just powers from the consent of the governed.”  But as demonstrated in the Middle East today, all government powers, just or unjust, are by consent of the governed; and that consent can be withdrawn from even the most oppressive dictators. 

So the problem with despotism is never really the despot.  The problem is that for every despot there is a majority of citizens who empowered that despot.  Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Caligula and countless others didn’t kill hundreds of millions by themselves, you know.   Do not fool yourself; people like Kim Jong Il, Charles Taylor, Hirohito, Mugabe, Quadhafi, Nebuchadnezzar II, Nero or even Vlad the Impaler are everywhere and always among us.  They are nobody special by themselves.

Here in the USA, we can conveniently, painlessly choose how we are to live.  Deny it or not, we have exactly what the majority of us have freely chosen.  We may say we want change, but we vote for mostly elites and incumbents. We may say we don’t like the corruption and money in politics, but less than 10% of us ever vote for anything else. Many dictators of the past century, including Benito Mussolini, were elected by people just like us.

So consider what we’ve chosen.  We’ve not had even a year’s peace since the War to End All Wars.  The Home of The Brave has sacrificed freedom for empty promises of security.  The Land of The Free has the world’s highest percentage of citizens in prison.  We really do tax people out of their homes to pay for homelessness programs; and we tax, regulate and litigate away businesses to stimulate the economy.  We guard borders everywhere in the world except at home.  For the first time ever, we’re working longer hours, taking fewer vacations, spending less time with our kids, and living more poorly than the previous generation.  The rules we must live by are unknowable and ever-changing – law has now become little more than incantations, as high priests of law in grand courts decree, apparently on whim, how things are to be.

Are you happy with this?  Is this how you want to live?

Humans can learn.  When we want something, we know all about our choices of color, flavor, engine size, craftsmanship, price or caliber.  We spend crazy amounts of time on sports, or romance novels.  I know people who can tell you the vertical jump height of their favorite basketball stars, or can detail Oprah’s diet ups and downs.

But by what I’ve personally seen in tens of thousands of average voters, We The People apparently don’t care about the injustice and madness we’ve chosen to make of our lives.  We know less about those we’ve chosen to lord over us than we know about movie stars.  We certainly don’t know anything about our state and federal constitutions. 

Despite what we may say, our votes say that we want unaccountable people of status and money to tell us what to do.  Our behavior in the voting booth is beckoning a dictator.  I believe we’re going to get one soon.

May I make a request?  I’d like for you to read your state and federal constitutions and see what we’ve thrown away…and could have back anytime we choose.  They are still law, though we act otherwise.  They would still work better than anything else ever tried, if we’d only try them. 

If you’ve taken the hour or so it takes to read the federal constitution, you already know that federal government should be invisible to almost all of us almost all the time.  The Indiana constitution is the contract most relevant to Hoosier life.  It’s a longer read, but still not terribly long or complicated.  Both comprise rules of life that are few enough to know, simple enough to understand, and important enough that everybody should obey them without exception, all the time.  The free life these contracts describe is simpler, safer, and in every way better than the politicized lives we’re living now.

You can read these constitutions (with my annotations)here:
http://wedeclare.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/the-united-states-constitution.pdf
http://wedeclare.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/indiana-constitution-book.pdf

Please ask other people to read them too.  If you know somebody who wants to read them, and has no internet access, and you’re too cheap to print them out yourself, then contact me at thefreedomfarm@gmail.com, and I’ll get you copies.

Yes; it’s that important to me. I have to live here too…

We never asked…

I intend to deliver the following to the Governor’s Office with a press conference at noon on July 4 on the east steps of the statehouse.

I believe this is the the most appropriate date (and a date upon which I’d staged yearly protests until 2008). I think it’s the most appropriate place to start for this Step One (a polite request to the correct officer).

I hope a good number of people, including you, can show up to join me:

 

Dear Governor Daniels,

 

We have read our state and federal constitutions. We understand their purpose and legal authority. And now we both understand, and suffer, the breadth and depth of our society’s transgressions against these fundamental laws.

 

These transgressions have occurred by public choice, and progressively over many generations, so we did not see the damage we were doing. But we do see that damage now.

 

It would be both tedious and unnecessary to detail the errors and resultant harm done, or to list our many reasons for wanting the illegality to end.

 

We will supply at least a partial list of serious grievances and injuries if that would help you remedy the breach of social contract that caused them. But our requested remedy is both simple and proven to work better for liberty, security, prosperity and justice than anything else yet tried in the history of human governance:

 

We ask only that you execute Rule of Law under existing Indiana and federal constitutions, exactly as these laws are written.

 

Governor Daniels, we want these laws to be enforced without exception, all the time, as soon as possible. They are few enough that everyone can know them; simple enough that everyone can understand them; and important enough that everyone, particularly agents and officers of government, should obey them all without exception, proviso or privileged classes, all of the time.

 

The laws leave no room for selective enforcement, or preferential treatment by corporate abstraction, class or process. All citizens are to be equal under the laws, and no person is above the laws. No legitimate political authority exists outside of that granted by the plain sense of our constitutions. All governing agencies, actions and rules that exist outside constitutional limitations are, by the clear words and purpose of the constitutions, null and void.

 

If any part of a constitution is so unclear as to prohibit enforcement, there is a constitutional process for clarifying it in print. But we herewith submit annotated copies of each constitution on the expectation that you will see little that is vague or open-ended in either contract. These annotated constitutions are also freely available online at:

 

http://wedeclare.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/the-united-states-constitution.pdf
http://wedeclare.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/indiana-constitution-book.pdf

 

We understand that as seriously as we have failed over the generations, it will take some time to restore legitimate authority to our civil government, and peel back the false accountabilities and destructive dependencies accumulated over generations. We propose that five years is more than sufficient to phase out all illegal political entities, processes, rules, precedents, actions and taxes; and to enact amendments and phase-out plans necessary to ensure full constitutional obedience.

 

Yet current budget and social conditions demand all possible speed, and history demonstrates an invariable and harsh penalty for delay. Please do immediately employ the legal and political authority that is yours, to restore what is, by law, ours.

 

Thank you

 

Here are a few specific conclusions drawn from a simple reading of the constitutions, and requiring immediate action:

1. Precedents, in courts or in policy, are not law; nor are “Executive Orders” law. Only the legislative branch can write laws, and then only in the domain authorized. Courts may not write laws, bureaucracies may not write laws, and executives may not write laws. Therefore, all such illegal “laws,” regulations, orders, rules and mandates are null and void. They must be declared so, and denied enforcement, as quickly as possible.
2. Baseless currency is illegal. Mandated, monopoly currency issued by unconstitutional transnational private banks, is illegal. Therefore, we ask for a restoration of specie payments and gold and silver-based currency as quickly as possible.
3. It makes no sense, nor is it constitutionally permissible, to tax private property owners for our Common Schools. We certainly don’t need taxation to facilitate the current wide and deep discrepancies between rich and poor, and it is illegal. We ask for the restoration of a constitutional Common School fund as quickly as possible.
4. There can be no serious doubt about what a Common School system actually is. No other education system is in the authorized domain of state or federal government. We ask for the end of any political involvement in education outside of what’s authorized as a legitimate Common School system; or at least amend the constitution to describe new limits.  

 

The following are additional thoughts for our consideration only:

Note: In case you’re wondering why I don’t address our Governor as “The Honorable;” titles like “The Honorable” or “Esquire” are specifically unconstitutional…and for good reason.
Note: some media folk (particularly the Indianapolis Star) will do their level best to cubbyhole you to something easily dismissed. Resist their attempts to brand us “Tea Party,” “anti-government,” “anti-union” or anything else in the news. Stay on subject. Do not allow them to draw you into another subject that they’ll quickly apply to all of us.
Please: Anything you say outside of Rule of Law under existing constitutions, as written, will ruinously derail our message. DO NOT BRING UP ANYTHING ELSE. No gay marriage, war, tax…anything but ROL under existing constitutions, as written.
Please: Dress nicely, and come neatly groomed. Be as pleasant and yet firm, as possible. This would not be a good time for joking around or bringing/wearing props. This is serious; we must be serious, solid citizens.
DO NOT FORGET: We are the pro government people. We want to govern our government, restore legality to our lawmakers and justice to our judiciary. We are the ones who are legitimate, correct, and on the legal side of the law.

PLEASE NOTE: This is more of a mea culpa than a protest. We The People have what We The People have chosen repeatedly through the past hundred years. We must admit the error of our ways, and choose better. We have no cause for anger…not yet.
Extra Special Double-Note: I repeat: we have gotten into our mess because nearly everybody has chosen it, progressively, and over generations. Most people still cannot imagine what kind of trouble we’re in. If they could, they would not believe that they’re to blame. Remember, we’re not asking so much of our politicians as we are of We The People. We’re asking voters/citizens to change themselves. It is a big enough task to get people of extraordinary political understanding to join us… let us try to show patient understanding to those who still just don’t get it.
PS: I wrote that last note largely to me.

Here’s the key thing:

Tell everyone you know to check out the letter to our Governor, send it to their state legislators, and ask them to add their in-person support to our little endeavor.

Liberty or Bust!

Andy Horning

Freedom, IN

thefreedomfarm@gmail.com

2011 IPR Winter Journal

http://www.pageturnpro.com/Indiana-Policy-Review-Foundation/20430-Winter-2011/index.html#1

Deckchairs on the Titanic

In years past I’ve had personal reasons to dislike what happens on Election Day. But today my name wasn’t on any ballot and I’m more disgusted than ever. Why?

Well, because, in spite of all the blustery “Tea Party” rhetoric, we did it again. We swapped betwixt McCoy and Hatfield without changing a single thing of consequence.

The bankster/moneychangers who control both entrenched parties are still in charge. The impending constitutional amendment proves that we still have no idea what constitutions are for or what they say. Party leaders are still safely ensconced, and the ungoverned monster we call “government” is still all about robbing Peter to pay Paul; where lawyers, lobbyists, politicians and soldiers determine who must be Peter, and who, for a while anyway, gets to be Paul.

If I see a bright spot in our march into parched oblivion, it comes down to one question that, more often than ever, I’ve been asked in earnest: “What is a Libertarian?”

To me that’s easy. There are just two principles:

1. Only you are payable for your own actions. Nobody else gets credit, money or blame for your work, your plans, your mistakes, or your crimes.

2. Nonviolence. The only tolerable use of force is against force initiated directly against you.

Following these two principles to their natural conclusions would lead to all sorts of wonderful things. But so what?

All the preceding about political parties and labels amounts to allegiance to abstractions, or more accurately, idolatry.

It’s harmless to treat the San Francisco/New York Giants as some living thing that spans new owners, new players and new home states. It’s just a game. But where liberty and justice versus oppression, slavery, genocide and war is concerned, we should be wary and sober.

Despite the horse race rhetoric, politics is no game, and there are no winners. The end of nations is as certain as the end of our mortal lives. And the end almost always comes by making government an idol. Political party loyalty is, to my eyes, a body-painted tribal war dance around this idol. Some do enjoy the spectacle, the strategies and the apparent glamour; but it’s ultimately a major cause of large scale violence, needless suffering, theft and death.

It’s not harmless sport that we tax people out of homes to pay for homeless programs, destroy businesses to “stimulate the economy,” or wage endless, innumerable wars for peace.

I cannot believe we humans don’t share a vision for a better life than the taxation, litigation, regulation and war that always creates enemies and unjust winners. I can only conclude that we don’t promote or even talk about this shared vision because we don’t believe it’s possible to achieve. Perhaps the numbing realities we’ve created for ourselves make us believe that there’s no point in dreaming of better…even when we could simply vote for it.

Perhaps nobody alive has any memory of how American life worked when only churches and voluntary associations like Kiwanis and Scouts comprised the departments of health, education and welfare. Maybe we can’t imagine the actual process of looking out for our neighbors or caring for our own elderly because that involves something other than money. Perhaps some of us concentrate on foreign charities because that seems easier and safer than dealing with what you can see on your way to work. Maybe we so muddle the benefits of modern technology with the handicap of modern politics that we think that resurrecting constitutional Rule of Law means the surrender of flushing toilets.

Whatever the case, I wish we’d put down the tribal flags, cross the chasm between politics and reality, and talk plainly with each other about how we want to live our too-short lives.

Instead of “Tea Party” saber rattling, how about we calmly stroll toward la dolce vita, “the sweet life;” in which peace, prosperity, liberty and justice for all doesn’t mean ganging up on poor Peter?

Unfortunately, we get exactly what we want…

Update:  Here’s a much more civilized version of what’s written below: http://www.news-sentinel.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100407/EDITORIAL/4070332 

Well, I got all agitated over a very bad idea from some very good folks, and sent a response to several people.  So I might as well air it out here.  In case you don’t know, Indiana HB 1065 acknowledges anti-constitutional “federal” and state firearms restrictions as law as it attempts to legalize what’s already legal by the clear wording of both state and federal constitutions.  It also, not incidentally, pushes aside property owners’ rights. 

It’s of course intended to be a positive step toward individual gun rights, but it’s yet another ”incremental,” and “pragmatic” step backwards.  It is, in other words, why the good guys are losing, and why we’re quickly reverting to our ancient, crude and ruthless authoritarian default state.  Anyway, here’s pretty-much what I wrote a few days ago:

Indiana’s HB 1065 is a good example of everything bad…with us.

If we would only insist upon the constitutions, as written, then why in the world would we allow such a thing as HB 1065 to weaken the constitutional mandate? Have a look at Article I, Section 32 of our state constitution (http://wedeclare.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/indiana-constitution-book.pdf).

It is crystal clear:

“The people shall have a right to bear arms, for the defense of themselves and the State.”

Why water that down? Why not insist upon it?
We vote for friendly demisocialists like Mitch Daniels because we’re idiots (today’s note: I have nothing against Mitch; it’s the people who voted for him that bother me). We rally around anti-constitutional bills as though they’re our friends because we’re idiots. We cast aside those who’ve been right for those who’ve always been wrong, and we throw away the best laws ever written for blithering nonsense that’s never worked.
Do we really think that new laws are better because they’re new? Why do we think future politicians will pay any more attention to them than to the foundational law that is the very basis of the lawmaking process…and to which they already swore an oath of support?
There are no shortcuts. Either we return to the constitutions as written (even if we have to write new ones), or we’re done…as a nation and as a free people.
Words must mean what they say. We must mean what we say.

We must know what we want, and say what that is…
People who promise to obey a flag and then step on the constitutions are not just stupid idolaters; they’re marauding oppressors.
I’ve personally seen an angry mob fire a mayor and city council.  I’ve seen angry letter/email/phone call-wielding people pass bills, defeat bills, and even overturn laws.  Having twice had 2.5 million people tell me to buzz off and take my constitutions with me, I know where the real power lies.

I’ve met the enemy, and it’s us.   …Not our ideological foes…us.

We who claim to love liberty need no other enemies as long as we oppose what’s already been done on our behalf.
We can fix our problems anytime we want to. But we apparently don’t want to.
We rally around half-@$$ self-destructive nonsense and refuse to unite over what we really want.
Sigh… I tried.

But it’s not up to me.
I can only watch as otherwise intelligent people do the same dumb things over and over and say that it’s the only way to go. As we plunge headlong into failure and oppression, the rallying cry is “that’s just the way it is!“
Sigh…

The law is already written that would make you free.  If you compromise, you can only lose.

Just cleaning out my closet…

As always, I’d thought I’d had the best of intentions.  But, as always, my best ideas weren’t worth spit to anybody with money and power…

Here’s the first of a set of demo “Liberty Minute” segments I’d hoped somebody would air/sponsor/touch with a ten-foot-pole:

Liberty Minute #1

Another one

And another one

I had a whole bunch of them…

But, to no avail. 

Sigh…

I really wish somebody would’ve taken me up on the liberty-themed bluegrass band (my banjo pickin’s rusty, but I could get my chops back), or the liberty-comedy videos, or the “Citizen Soapbox” night-out events, or the…

…well, none of those liberty-themed ideas worked.  Too much effort, I suppose. 

Perhaps we’re plunging toward our brutal default state because I just couldn’t get people excited about libertarian mime.  Maybe that whole constitutional ballet thing was badly conceived, but I’ll try anything if it promotes liberty and justice for all.

But I’ve been thinking a lot lately about liberty-based sports.  Americans know and care more about sports than anything else, apparently; and I’ve got this idea that’s a little like the winter games’ Biathlon, except without the skiing.  It’s even a little bit like football, in that things happen fast and you’ve got to know who’s on your side and who’s not. 

But it’s really like gladiator games or Ultimate Fighting, except these games are not in a stadium!

It’d be terribly exciting. 

OK, so just like other sports, there’s a possibility of serious injury or death.  Isn’t that part of the attraction?

But the prize for winning is liberty and justice for all! 

What could be more wholesome and fun?!?

…Anybody interested?

Eh…I suppose not.