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

2011 IPR Winter Journal

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

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/

Ma Hastim

I think that most of us, if we were to think about it and put it to words, would define “maturity” as a degree and kind of self-control, self-sufficiency, self-denial and self-sacrifice that just doesn’t exist among the immature.

Mature people don’t demand much from others, and rather contribute to their loved ones, their employers, and their world.  The most admirably mature people, no matter their status or circumstance, give more than they take.

Truly mature people not only do not need the involuntary-collectivist, nannied authoritarianism that now, unfortunately, exists everywhere on earth, but they also suffer in such a violent climate.

Mature people, I submit, do not exist in sufficient numbers to keep this nation alive.  We have devolved into a nation of prattling, squabbling, violent and ignorant children, and we are thereby almost surely doomed.  We’re blubbering, misbehaving, thoughtless, selfish children, practically begging for a good spanking, and we’re going to get it. 

Have a nice day.

Oh, I dunno.  I suppose there is hope.  Immature people can grow up quickly after a good, hard, painful lesson.  And while you’d think we’ve had ample opportunity to wake up and smell pleurosis, we ain’t seen nothin’ yet.  We are about to get a real whuppin’.  …And from the worst sort of people.

It’s long been known that while the most stupid, inept criminals act alone, get caught and pay for their crimes, there exists a hierarchical law that determines what happens as a criminal learns his craft.

The somewhat better criminals form alliances and layers to both increase their takings, and shield themselves from getting caught.  Still more astute criminals organize into larger quasi government arrangements like the Mafia, Yakuza, Tong, Thugee and Medain. 

I’m sure you can see where I’m heading with this.

Yes, the craftiest of the crafty become politicians.  The worst crimes ever, like oppression, slavery, genocide and war, could only be perp’d by the organized crime we call politics.

But let me be clear about something crucial.  By “politician,” I do not mean the people who win elections and get their affairs of state made gossip in daily papers.  You probably don’t know who’s really running the show here.  In all my years of examining politics from various and increasingly depressing angles, I believe I have met only one of the men who dwells (I did not say “lives” because the man is too evil to call living) behind the curtain.  And I’m sure he’s only a minor minion in our ever-ancient New World Order.

This corruption/theft/gambling/banking system, is, as Jefferson warned, worse than standing armies.  It’s taking us down hard very soon.  Maybe even as far as our oppression, slavery, genocide and war human default state will go.

I’ve tried to think of various schemes around this, and I’m not done trying.  My hope is fading, but it’s still there insomuch as I cannot let it die as long as I’m sending my children into my generation’s failures.

So, here’s my latest proposal:

I propose somebody (not me!) run for President of Texas.

Not Governor of Texas, not President of the USA…President of Texas.

I propose that the platform not be the amended-to-pointlessness Texas Constitution, but the Constitution for the United States of America.

The Texas Constitution provides all the grounds necessary.  Nullification and secession are the stated remedies for federal constitutional breach.  Yet the current Texas member-state Constitution becomes irrelevant in the event of this remedy.  So let’s bypass all the “constitutional convention” rot now circulating among the red herring patriots, since there are precious few in public office smart and/or wholesome enough to craft a sane constitution these days – and just use what’s proven to work better than anything else ever tried – the contract made by adults, for adults…the US Constitution.  This is still the shortest, tightest, best leash on governing power yet devised. 

I believe that there are still a sufficient number of adults here that we can get this ball rolling.  We exist.  We need only a little chutzpa.

Let’s replace pride with humility and learn our lessons before the spanking.  Let’s grow past the child and into maturity to our mutual benefit.  Let’s grow up, OK?

Andy goes to the Lone Star State

¡Ya salgo para Houston!

Well, I never wanted to leave my Freedom Farm, but God has other things in mind for me.  As I can no longer stay in Indiana, I’ve flipped a coin (one with a secession-leaning state on either side).  So life is taking me and my little family to Houston, and the thing for me to do, is embrace it.

So, I’m renting the farm out – one trillion-fillion Federal Reserve dollars per month, Or Best Offer.  Actually, it’d be dirt cheap to the right person; I’m just trying to minimize my losses.  We’ll auction off a lot of stuff we’ve accumulated over the years.  We’ll sell all the animals we can sell, and then probably donate Doofus to science.* 

Anyway, we’ll sell down to our clothes and Bibles and head to the land of Ron Paul.

In some ways, nothing will change.  I’ll still be able to walk anywhere without being recognized.  I’ll still be toward the bottom of the peon, political-outsider, tax-serf class. 

Oh, and I’m still not giving up on Rule Of Law under existing constitutions, as written.

But some things will change a great deal.  I will miss all the friends I’ve made in Indiana.  I’ve made some very, very good friendships.  I hope y’all stay in touch.  Or maybe join me for the secession.  I don’t know if we’ll ever find a church like Bloomington RP, but I’m entrusting that one to God. 

I need to make a special thank you and farewell to the Indiana Libertarians.  I’m sorry I couldn’t make it to the convention this past weekend to accept the award you’d generously bestowed.  I will miss you all a great deal.  But more importantly, I’m not quitting – I’m only changing tactics and locations in the ongoing quest for Liberty and Justice for All.

While Southern Indiana summers are hot and humid, Houston does get even hotter.  And we’ve had remarkably few hurricanes in Indiana…  Yikes.  I will greatly miss the quiet, verdant beauty of our Freedom Farm…

Of course there’s Dr. No.  And I’ve been very encouraged by what I’ve seen of the Oath Keepers’ Texas connection.  I’m hoping that, while I’ll not run for public office again, I’ll be more effective, and in a better context, in my struggles for right and truth.

Doggone it; I’ve been a Hoosier (whatever that means) for over a half-century.  I don’t know how I’ll do in cowboy boots.

Please pray for me.

Oh, and if you’d like a Doofus, let me know…

 

*About Doofus – My son Hark was the one who first discovered that the so-called “puppy” we saved from destruction was no puppy at all.  He is actually a “pliffle” – a coarse lampoon of the noble canis lupus familiaris known as Man’s Best Friend.  This species of perdition, callus doofus dammitis, may look something like a dog, but unlike any dog that ever lived, he’s completely useless, annoying, unbelievably persistant and …sticky.   Yes, he’s affectionate, but you’d rather the pliffle just go away…

Here’s the plan

 

It should now be apparent that for the past hundred years our own government has advanced a campaign of theft and violence against us on the canard that it’s for “the common good.”  Flying in the face of this commonly believed fib is the easily observed fact that we have not solved any problems at all despite worsening taxation, prohibitions and wars. 

We’ve not had a year’s peace since the War to End All Wars.  Surely the “war on…” drugs, poverty and homelessness have been busts.  With the FDA’s suppressive power we have more “snake oil” con men and dangerous, counterproductive drugs than ever.  We are working longer hours, taking fewer vacations and spending less time with our children than just thirty years ago.  Shockingly, there are probably at least 150 thousand actual slaves (not tax serfs – actual chained-to-the-worktable, arrived-in-shipping-containers slaves) in the USA right now.  The CIA estimates that 50000 slaves travel into or through the USA each year.  Human trafficking is up several hundred to a thousand percent in just the past ten years!

We are less secure and less free than ever.  We have immeasurably more crime and corruption, less access, less control over our lives, and even our health statistics are tipping downward at a time of marvelous medical technology.

Why do we so numbly submit our lives, wealth and rights to a protection racket that does not protect?

We should not need more motivation.  I assume that if you’re reading this, you already know that something must be done. 

But not just any action will do, since history shows us nothing if not that humans mostly fail and rarely succeed; and that both success and failure is by invariable patterns set at least several thousand years ago.

So here is my summary of the problem and what’s to be done about it:

Problem: Politicians and their agents act in violation of all of the laws that protect us from them.

Solution: We must stop that. 

It really is that simple, and we have not even tried it.  Our attempts to strategize and pick apart our social disease into only marginally-related “pragmatic” bits have been counterproductive to the effect that we have so far divided and conquered …ourselves.  Democrats and Republicans who should ally against their common foe are instead locked in a battle over idolatry, deceit and ignorance.  We do not even expect our leaders to obey their oaths of office; nor, in most cases, do we have any idea what the oaths say, what they mean, or to what laws these oaths pledge obedience.  We must converge upon this solution- to demand Rule of Law under our existing state and federal constitutions…as written. 

Here is how, I am convinced, we must solve our problem.

1. Read and completely understand your state and federal constitutions.  If you have questions about what you’re reading, I volunteer to help.  You should become confused when you first read these contracts.  I did.  I thought, “what the heck do these have to do with the way our government works today?”  Bingo.
2. Do NOT write letters, call your congresscritter, protest or hold press conferences about tax policy, the Fed, drug laws, public schooling or any other distraction.  Concentrate.  Think.  Every millimeter we give to our leaders becomes a mile.  We must not any longer allow them to divide us against ourselves with equivocal sub-issues and dubious solutions.  As long as politicians violate every law that protects us, we have no issue other than this: we cannot tolerate this anarchy, this ungoverned government.  We have one issue only: wrestle our lawbreakers down to the law.
3. Do employ every strategy, medium and means you can think of to address this problem: we must have Rule of Law under existing constitutions …as written.  If you have no idea what to do, ask, and I’d be happy to help.  But I’m betting you’ve already been doing things for lesser goals that’d be enormously helpful if directed toward Rule of Law under existing constitutions as written.  Go to meetings, talk to friends, whatever…use your mind and body and time in any ways that seem useful.
4. DO NOT allow yourself to be divided against your allies and dragged into an argument about details when we must first address the basics.  Don’t even give the Second Amendment or Gay Marriage as an example of anything.  No matter how well-intended, it only allows people to pigeonhole and dismiss you.  STAY ON POINT: our politicians even admit that, in the words of Henry Hyde, the US constitution is “…inappropriate, anachronistic; it isn’t done anymore.”  You don’t need examples other than the admitted lawlessness of our politicians.  They arrogantly declare that they’ve snapped their leash!  This is unacceptable, and it’s time we say so.  Loudly, repetitively, and with pitchforks and flaming torches.
5. Report back any observations, suggestions or whatnot that you think would help.  Report to all allies and friends in this cause.  Share ideas and experiences.  Let’s talk.  A lot.  It may not be so easy to communicate for much longer.
6. I have proposed various constitutional compliance timetables over the years.  Nine years ago, when I predicted we’d have ten years before The Big Trouble hits (and no, The Big Trouble hasn’t hit us yet…you’d better hope I’m wrong about what’s coming) I’d said that we could offer ten years.  I don’t think we can do that now.  I’d love to hear discussion on this, but I now suggest that in our current crisis, with so many people hurting, that we demand government strips down to its constitutional skivvies within two years.  That means full by-the-written-word constitutional compliance.  No decoder keys, no fudge words from the bench, no cheating.
7. Do you want a leader?  I’ll not shy away, but don’t miss my point: we have too many leaders, too many organizations, too much wasted money and time without converging on any common goal.  We must converge all our energies, passions and talents upon a single goal.  There are too few of us, and we have too little time to do anything else.

Be prepared that we may have to inviolate international treaties that, admittedly, are constitutional.  Such treaties have been increasingly used by the nefarious to destroy the constitutional design, and Obama is going gangbusters against us right now.  But other than these treaties, our leaders have no legal authority to fight back.  And by usurping our rights, stealing our property, shortening our lives and destroying our nation, they’ve relinquished all moral authority.  We’re right, they’re no more than criminals.

That is all.  Any questions? 

 

Read It…Now.

It may be oddly written, and I’ve learned that it’s not the best office-party icebreaker.  But every Hoosier should read, understand and memorize Article I, Section 25 of the Indiana Constitution.  It is short, unambiguous, and very, very important right now.

“No law shall be passed, the taking effect of which shall be made to depend upon any authority, except as provided in this Constitution.”

What could these words mean, but that even legislation does not create authority; laws depend upon authority.

It’s not only the Indiana Constitution that expresses this.  All throughout our constitutional republic, all political authority comes from our constitutions.

In other words, here in Indiana, as elsewhere under the Rule of Law established by our state and federal constitutions, politicians are not allowed to authorize themselves.  All of their power is written into constitutions, or that power is denied.

Just as you mustn’t allow a bad dog to hold his own leash, we mustn’t allow politicians to “interpret” the constitutions that restrain them.  “Legal precedent” and “case law” do not exist in our constitutions and have no legitimate power over constitutions.  Therefore, for example, no federal official can interpret away any first amendment rights because federal authority over religion, speech, press, assembly and petition is very plainly prohibited (see the First Amendment to the US Constitution).  All of our constitutions say this many times and in many ways; and constitutions were agreed upon and signed as solemn contracts (see the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1799).

Yet most politicians are routinely violating all of the laws that protect us from their historically demonstrated tendencies.  They have thus abrogated their legal authority, and rule by force alone.  Dick Cheney’s “nation of men, and not laws” is not just scary, it’s literally criminal.  This affects you more than you’ve been told.

Perhaps the most every-daily-relevant example is in your wallet.  State and federal constitutions mandate the use of gold and silver coin as money; and they’re clear that only our legislative assemblies have authority over this money.

But that’s not how your money works now.  And the way your money works today, is to rob you right into your grave.

With all our record-breaking taxation, regulation and litigation, there is only one private enterprise in America that has never been regulated, audited, taxed or brought to justice.  It is the so-called “Federal Reserve” Bank that’s been printing Monopoly money and charging you plenty for it since 1913.  It’s not federal, there’s no reserve, and it’s most definitely unconstitutional!

Frustratingly, many of even my political friends and allies tell me that “we’re too far from the constitutions now; we can’t demand compliance.”  But that’s like saying that once a criminal has done his deed, we, as a culture have failed, and that the criminal must therefore go free.

That is not sane.  That is self-flagellating madness.

Others claim that this is a democracy (why minorities want majority rule is beyond me), and voters can choose anything – even self-destruction.

I concede that this is pretty much what is happening.  But that’s both unconstitutional, and suicidal.

In each of my political races, and through all the years since 1995, I’ve proposed various plans to sunset all unconstitutional laws, agencies, powers and practices, and make the armed thug we call government go legit.  That is the law, it is morally right, it is proven to work…

…and our current path has proven to fail every time.

The Russian Revolution dreamed of liberty, justice and equality for all, but produced Stalinist nightmares and social collapse.  The French Revolution wielded the rhetoric but not the laws of our founders, so it was more about beheadings than freedom.  Even our own nation’s not-so-distant history illustrates oppression, slavery, genocide and war.  How can we think that now, with our government more powerful, secretive and intrusive than ever, we have put our ugly past behind us?

If you were to get curious and take the couple of hours necessary to read both the state and federal constitutions (yes, you really can read them without a federal judge telling you what they mean), you’d see that all of our biggest problems are unconstitutional.

Most taxation and government spending is unconstitutional.  All military engagements since WWII have been unconstitutional.  Pork, corruption, spiraling healthcare and education costs and tumbling dollars are all unconstitutional.

And every American constitution, both state and federal, codifies our right to alter or reform our government.  The Texas constitution couldn’t be more clear that should the federal government break its side of the constitutional contract, then Texas is specifically free and sovereign.  And that’s in the document’s very first paragraph.

You ought to read it!

Say what you will about our constitutions.  Call them outdated, call them “agrarian.”  But then read them.  We have nothing better, and we’re headed toward a truly ancient and horrible default state without them.

I’m picking up your gauntlett, Paul

It was April 1, but it was no joke.  My friend and feisty fellow constitutionalist Paul Caudell had died.  I had talked with him just a few hours previously, and I didn’t even know he was ill.  When Jerry Titus called me the next day with the news, I was jarred, as if from sleep.  Yes, I was sad.  But I was also angry with myself and feeling inconsolably stupid.  Sure, mortality is a problem.  But wasting life and opportunity and talent is an inexcusable crime. 

You see, here’s the scoop:  I’d given up.  I was flat disgusted with voters, non-voters, citizens and even my allies.  I was feeling hurt and betrayed by people who’d made and broken promises, by all the work and all the expense and all the failure…I was feeling sorry for myself that I lost my political races, lost my social campaigns, and, dang it, lost my business.  I thought it was time for me to not just leave Indiana, but leave behind all the failed hopes. 

Paul spent time in his final hours trying his best to bring me back; not just to Indiana, but to what I’d become all about for the past fifteen years.  I listened to him impatiently.  I was at work and feeling as though I was listening to futility.  I hope I wasn’t rude.  I pray to God that I wasn’t rude…

But then he went and died.  And I was slapped again with a most important and casually dismissed lesson.  Life is precious, and short.

My friends, what are we doing with our lives?

I spent half of my years in the “education system” before starting my life, and my life is probably a little more than half over (I’ve got longevity in my family profile).  Given all our marvelous “time saving” devices and the world’s highest productivity per worker, we should be working two-day weeks on a pleasure cruise through life.  And yet, the long hours away from home, little time spent with kids, and worsening statistics in physical and mental health make me wonder what the heck we think we’re doing to ourselves?  And why?

Why waste so much time and wait so long to start living life?  Why is that life and youth spent in such feverish pursuit of retirement and death?

Well, you should know. 

It’s Tax Time again. 

You know who you’re working for. 

I still want to know, why? 

Our lives are too short and life is such a sweet gift to waste it on politics and the sick pursuit of power over others.  We should get our hands out of our fellows’ wallets and off of their lives and rights, and just enjoy short, sweet life. 

OK, so we admit we’re all socialists now.  The media have been working hard to paint a rosy face on this so you don’t recall the history of Pol Pot, Mao, Stalin, et al.  They’ve been telling us that the best “right” (fascists) are much worse than the worst “left” (socialists), and that we can thank the elite for having saved us from the clutches of those like Hitler, Mussolini, and Tito.

Ours is a culture based and steeped in debt and violence.  The violent taking of taxes, property and rights is how we get nice little park benches and politically-run car companies.  Our debt-based currency/central banking model is why consumerism is good, and saving for your own retirement is bad.  Our debts lead to desperation, the violence leads to more violence, and claiming that it’s all for the greater good of some abstraction like “state” is cave-man ignorant.  It’s all failure, death, pain, and waste of irreplaceable, fleeting life.

Authoritarianism, whether you call it socialism, fascism, serfdom or just Standard Operating Procedure, is stinking foul and self-destructive-dumb.  I’m sick and stupid for thinking I could just give in to it while I still have the breath of life in me.

I am sorry, Paul.  Not that you died, really; I know you’re in a much better place than I am.  But I’m sorry that I wasted time, and you had to call me on it.  I’m sorry that I was hardly there when you called.  I’m sorry that I had given up.

I may not be able to stay in Indiana as you’d wished.  But I now promise that you did not call in vain.  I will not give up. 

INDIANA RESOLUTION of 2009?

OK, so this is yet another final blog.  I thought a sort of summary of what I’m all about, combined with what could be the fruit of all this, was due.

So forgetting, for the moment, what’s likely to happen next to the Great Experiment, here’s how I think things generally go, specifically what happened here, and what to do about it if we’ve any sense left.

You see, it is the nature of human governments to become ungoverned and oppressive.  Our default state is sin, slavery, genocide and war, after all.  Our nations’ founders knew this and devised a limited, federal form of government with divided powers opposed by checks and balances…and they wrote down the laws in plain speech to be read, understood and obeyed without exception.

It worked better than anything before or since.  But as with anything good, decay was inevitable on this fallen world. 

In terms of rate of improvement (rate of increase of standard of living, leisure time and productivity; rate of reduction in working hours, disease and hunger) the USA reached its peak around 1912, started leveling off and then reversing thereafter.  I think that this is because Jim Crow and ”big government” in the form of modern socialism was just then really taking hold.  But I believe the point is that previously, Americans were simply left alone such that they could seek their own success unimpeded.

But Americans are now working longer and harder (20% longer hours with 2 weeks shorter vacations just since 1979) for less and less while the government takes more and more.

The Land of the Free now has the world’s highest percentage of citizens in prison. The Home of the Brave now has more lawsuits than all the other nations on earth combined. 

By September 11, 2001, it took only a handful of men armed only with box-cutters to show us the fools.  

The USA hasn’t legally declared a war since WWII.  US Rep. Henry Hyde said that the constitution is, “Inappropriate, anachronistic, it isn’t done anymore.”  So we’re now warring in clear violation of Article I, Sections 8:10, and 10:3 of our U.S. Constitution as a “humanitarian” effort to spread Freedom and the Rule of Law while we have given up those things here at home.  

Why do we tolerate this?

The signers of the Declaration of Independence believed “…All experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”

Yet they also insisted that governments derive “their just powers from the consent of the governed.” 

So, “whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

It is time to do something, certainly.  Fortunately, in this country there are precedents for peacefully reasserting the U.S. Constitution and Rule of Law. 

In response to the Alien Act and Sedition Act, the legislatures of Kentucky and Virginia passed resolutions in 1799 demanding that government keep the terms of its contract (the U.S. Constitution).

From the Virginia Resolution: “…this Assembly doth explicitly and peremptorily declare, that it views the powers of the federal government, as resulting from the compact, to which the states are parties; as limited by the plain sense and intention of the instrument constituting the compact; as no further valid that they are authorized by the grants enumerated in that compact; and that in case of a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of other powers, not granted by the said compact, the states who are parties thereto, have the right, and are in duty bound, to interpose for arresting the progress of the evil, and for maintaining within their respective limits, the authorities, rights and liberties appertaining to them.”

 

From the “plain sense” of the Constitution these men insisted that “…the Liberty of Conscience and of the Press cannot be cancelled, abridged, restrained, or modified by any authority of the United States.” 

 

This is quite opposed to the ruling by District Court Judge David Hamilton that prayer and speech in the Indiana General Assembly must be modified, restrained, abridged and cancelled.

 

The signers of the Kentucky resolution declared that “…if those who administer the general government be permitted to transgress the limits fixed by that compact,” that it would be their duty to nullify the union.

 

In other words, while the ink was still wet on the U.S. Constitution, some of our founders (notably Jefferson and Madison who helped author the Kentucky Resolution and Virginia Resolution) sensed infractions against the contract and demanded redress.

 

Just a few years later however, in 1803, a mostly harmless ruling in a minor issue became a major problem. 

 

In Marbury v. Madison, The Supreme Court under Chief Justice Marshall decreed that the Supreme Court’s power to issue writs of mandamus, as granted by the Judiciary Act of 1789, were unconstitutional.   In other words Marshall used the Constitution, as written, to restrain another branch of federal government (the heart of the case) as well as his own court.  This much was proper. 

 

And in context, it was proper for Marshall to say, as he did, that “It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.”

 

Sadly, those words have been taken to mean that the Supreme Court is empowered to change the meaning of the Constitution; and that is not what the founders intended, or what Marshall meant.

 

Civil law means what it says, and judges should say so.  But the power to “interpret” law as anything other than what was intended by congress was never given to courts by the U.S. Constitution.  Only common law is determined in court; so what Marshall said would have a power grab, and probably would have been stopped…if it weren’t for the fact that Marshall himself knew better than what we’ve made of his words.

 

For he also said in that same ruling that “…the particular phraseology of the constitution of the United States confirms and strengthens the principle, supposed to be essential to all written constitutions, that a law repugnant to the constitution is void; and that courts, as well as other departments, are bound by that instrument.” 

 

The civil law of the constitution was exhaustively explained in the Federalist and Antifederalist Papers, Madison’s Diaries, letters and books written by the men that wrote the Constitution itself.  No interpretation is necessary or legal.  We can change it or obey it; nothing else is legal, and nothing else works.

 

That is, after all, the Rule of Law, right?

 

Yet with Marbury v. Madison began a long, but initially very subtle and slow train of abuses and usurpations by the judiciary that we must now correct. 

 

Because as the inevitable result of the statement, ““It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is” came the famous question, “It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.”

 

This is the backdrop for what I’m proposing for an Indiana Resolution.  But let me tell you the reason.

 

We have foolishly asked politicians for new laws, new restraints, when the whole of the problem is that politicians completely disregard law and anything like restraint.

 

Perhaps it’s too simple.  Perhaps it’s that we’ve no experience with governed government.  Whatever the case, since 1799 we have never demanded that our politicians simply obey the written law, as written.

 

So should the following resolution pass, we have a more recent, simple, directed statement of fact as agreed upon by our state’s legislatures.  And with that, new laws can have effect, just as the old, better, wiser laws, will once again be in force.

 

Here’s what I propose:

 

Indiana Resolution

 

WHEREAS

James Madison and Thomas Jefferson understood the letter and intent of the Constitution for the United States of America;

 

These men, working on behalf of the states of Virginia and Kentucky (respectively) authored the “Virginia Resolution” and “Kentucky Resolutions” of 1798 to 1799;

 

The legislatures of the states of Virginia and Kentucky passed these resolutions less than ten years after their ratification of the Constitution for the United States of America, affirming those states’ understanding of the letter and intent of that contract;

 

That this Indiana Resolution affirms the plain sense of those resolutions insomuch as:

a. The States are the owners and defenders of federalism.

b. The Constitution for the United States of America is a contract to be obeyed as written.

c. The federal government has no legal right to exercise powers not specifically granted to it by the Constitution for the United States of America.

d. Any powers exercised outside constitutional authority are legally void, and should be allowed no force or effect.

 

RESOLVED

That the General Assembly of Indiana, having sworn or affirmed oaths to support both state and federal constitutions, does unequivocally support those contracts;

 

That the powers not unambiguously and specifically delegated to the United States federal government by the Constitution of the United States, nor prohibited by it to the states, are held by the states, or by the people.

 

That the states who form the union and who in compact validate the US Constitution and the federal government thus formed, being by the US Constitution both legally independent and sovereign, have the unquestionable right to judge of its infraction; and that a nullification, by those sovereignties, of all unauthorized acts done under color of that instrument, is the rightful remedy.

 

That the Governor be asked to transmit a copy of the foregoing Resolutions to the President of the United States and to the Governor of each of the other states, with a request that the same may be communicated to the Legislature thereof; and that a copy be furnished to each of the Senators and Representatives representing this state in the Congress of the United States.

 

 

My last blog, again.

Well, I’ll be doggoned.  I’ve not been a total failure after all.  After fifteen years, I’ve finally heard some good news.

Remember my “Sound Money” proposals?  Paul Caudell is a longtime sound money proponent, and Jerry Titus is a hardworking bulldog.  Those two opened a website and really went to work after I got discouraged and gave up.  Indiana State Senator Greg Walker (District 41) filed the proposal as Senate Bill 453. 

Really.

Who’d have thought it? 

Wow!

Thank you, Senator Walker!

Now your job is to support both the bill, and our friend in the Indiana Senate.

But wait, there’s more.  Much more.

If you’ve read this spot before, you know that my political issue (really, my only issue) is that politicians violate the laws that protect us from them.  I want the constitutions, as written.  No provisos, no cheating, no ifs, ands or buts. 

That’s it.  I want federal politicians to obey the federal constitution, and I want state politicians to obey the state constitutions.  I want, in other words, for politicians to obey their oaths of office.  I want, in still other words, the Rule of Law that we’re supposed to have…by law.

So pursuant to this gentle obsession, I’ve authored dozens (maybe  of proposals, resolutions, briefs, petitions and pleas.  I tried to start a 527 org (The Freedom Farm is now defunct), and I ran several campaigns pretty much solely on the issue of constitutional compliance.

I found that voters just aren’t voting that way, however, so, ultimately, I got discouraged and gave up.

Then, whaddya know…more friends, this time Sean Shepard and Senator Mike Delph (District 29), took up the cause. 

Here’s the text of what I’d most recently submitted; it’s far briefer than the earlier versions last sent to the General Assembly in 2003:

 

Indiana Resolution

 

WHEREAS

James Madison and Thomas Jefferson understood the letter and intent of the Constitution for the United States of America;

 

These men, working on behalf of the states of Virginia and Kentucky (respectively) authored the “Virginia Resolution” and “Kentucky Resolutions” of 1798 to 1799;

 

The legislatures of the states of Virginia and Kentucky passed these resolutions less than ten years after their ratification of the Constitution for the United States of America, affirming those states’ understanding of the letter and intent of that contract;

 

That this Indiana Resolution affirms the plain sense of those resolutions insomuch as:

a. The States are the owners and defenders of federalism.

b. The Constitution for the United States of America is a contract to be obeyed as written.

c. The federal government has no legal right to exercise powers not specifically granted to it by the Constitution for the United States of America.

d. Any powers exercised outside constitutional authority are legally void, and should be allowed no force or effect

 

RESOLVED

That the General Assembly of Indiana, having sworn or affirmed oaths to support both state and federal constitutions, does unequivocally support those contracts;

 

That the powers not unambiguously and specifically delegated to the United States federal government by the Constitution of the United States, nor prohibited by it to the states, are held by the states, or by the people.

 

That the states who form the union and who in compact validate the US Constitution and the federal government thus formed, being by the US Constitution both legally independent and sovereign, have the unquestionable right to judge of its infraction; and that a nullification, by those sovereignties, of all unauthorized acts done under color of that instrument, is the rightful remedy.

 

That the Governor be asked to transmit a copy of the foregoing Resolutions to the President of the United States and to the Governor of each of the other states, with a request that the same may be communicated to the Legislature thereof; and that a copy be furnished to each of the Senators and Representatives representing this state in the Congress of the United States.

 

###

 

Will either of these proposals succeed?  I doubt it, but I sure don’t know.  It’s more up to you than it is up to me.  But I have learned not to be so quick to get discouraged and give up…