For Auld Lang Syne

Well, as some of you have guessed, I’m done blogging.  I see no point in preaching to the choir or banging my head against the reality that there are just too few of us who care about the constitution to effect any sort of workable defense.  And it looks like I have to leave the state anyway.  There’s no work here for me, and nothing to hope for politically.  I’m sorry to say this after spending the first fifty years of my life in the Hoosier State, but unless something changes soon, I’m outta here.

So here’s something of a closing statement:

Our Governor is a good man, but I don’t think he knows what’s coming.  If he did, he’d be immediately and radically chopping through state government, using our constitutions, state and federal, as written, as “The Blade.”

Of course we’ve all become dependent upon and accustomed to the unconstitutional, destructive and violent “programs” of an authoritarian state.  Nobody alive today remembers real American Liberty.  But soon, that won’t matter.  Most of what we’ve come to think government does for us will disappear as our money blows away liked scorched grass.  What will be left is a ruthless, selfish, well-armed and lawless thug – our ancient default state of rulers versus ruled.  The Land of The Free is already gone.

We’ll need to be introspective, retrospective, and a little inventive if we want to save anything at all from what used to be the US of A.

Here’s a start for our Governor: get the state out of the licensing business, and hand the job over to insurance companies and specialized groups such as motorcycle associations and racing clubs.  After all, insurance companies have a fiduciary interest in making sure that drivers know how to drive and riders know how to ride, and special interest groups’ existence depend upon their reputation for safety and education.  Yes, the Governor has cleaned up the licensing function probably as well as can be done for a government function.  But the inherent problem here is that there’s no real, tangible, monetary or structural reason for the state to do a great job.  So it won’t. 

However, companies with a vested interest in your safety (their reputation and profit) would of course do better, and without a taxpayer dime.  Good, safe drivers would get higher-grade licenses and lower rates.  Thrill-prone teenage rednecks would have to prove themselves roadworthy before endangering the rest of us…and they’d pay for their testosterone-laden odds.  Maybe the best drivers would earn higher speed limits.  Living road hazards would walk.  And all this freedom and common sense would be for profit; not for a numb and soviet bureaucracy.

What to do about our welfare state?  No problem.  Same thinking as above.  Get interested experts back into the game by getting politicians (and their involuntary collection plate) out.

Churches and voluntary associations lost their social relevance, numbers, prestige and money when politicians started competing with their services.  Even now, groups like churches, Rotary Clubs and Habitat for Humanity do a better job than FEMA or FSSA could ever do.  So why not get on the phone with these few, tattered and dying groups and say…it’s show time; build up your membership – we’ve got work for you to do.

Those of means would join these groups not just out of a desire to serve their fellow man, but also for networking, parties, prestige…selfishness as well as selflessness all rolled together in humanity’s best enterprise to date: freedom.

When I warned of our impending troubles eight years ago (and I hit the timing right on the button, I’ll add), I said we’re running out of time.  In the 2000 gubernatorial race I’d proposed cutting 7.5% out of government each year until the national/international problems hit.  This would have put Indiana in the catbird seat compared to all other world economies.  Some said my proposals were too radical.

Well, we’re out of time for what seems now like moderate trimming.

Government will cut everything we think we want, but keep all the guns and bombs we fear.  Count on it.  Don’t count on Social Security or “universal healthcare.”  The money will be gone.

It’s time now for us to figure out how we’re to live.

I suggest we do it like Americans.

John Stossel is an American Hero.

I wish I could be a tenth as effective as a Free Market missionary as is John Stossel.  Here is a video that you should watch with your kids, neighbors and coworkers.  It’s excellent.  You can also watch this 20/20 piece, “the Politically Incorrect Guide to Politics” as a six-part YouTube video.

Just do it.

 

Nobody likes “I Told You So”

Here is a younger, much skinnier Andy saying pretty much the same things I’m saying today…and predicting the troubles that you see unfolding before your eyes:

http://www.c-spanarchives.org/library/includes/templates/library/flash_popup.php?pID=159324-1&clipStart=&clipStop=

If we had cut the budget by 7% per year as I’d proposed back then, we’d be in good shape today.  Now I’m afraid it’s too late for gradual cutting.

I really, really hope I’m wrong about what’s about to smack us upside the head.

I’ve never so badly wanted to be wrong.

“Stoopid Politics” in Fort Wayne

Here’s the YouTube video of the positively brilliant (well, at least fun) “Stoopid Politics” taped in Fort Wayne, Indiana on September 18, 2008.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwR02XqM_G0  pt1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pjVgAfIivA  pt2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3IS5-bLv04  pt3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Bu50DcWhNw pt4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiu152VZAkQ  pt5

 

 

 

 

No more fooling.

The saying goes, “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.”

Well, after a hundred years of continuous betrayal, I think that anybody even contemplating any vote for the fancypants, entrenched power parties has got some ‘splainin’ to do!

It’s as simple as this:

We’ve left the major parties alone with power for too long.  They’ve felt unaccountable because they’ve been unthreatened.  And just as “Fear of the Lord is the beginning of all wisdom” (Prov. 1:7), fear of its citizens is all that keeps a government from becoming the oppressive, enslaving, genocidal monster that is its natural, default state.

Here is, I think, a good summary on the nature of power in politics (brilliant, in fact).  But the bottom line is that it is time to show some tough love; or, if that doesn’t work, some hard-nosed determination to put a leash back onto our junkyard-dog government.  It’s time to make politicians obey written laws as written, or it is time for us to go the way of all foolish nations.

We must choose which it’s going to be.

Don’t give me that “incremental improvement” stuff.  It’s not working.  Don’t ask for Term Limits when we vote for incumbents 98% of the time.  Don’t whine about “the effect of money in politics” when we vote for it almost all the time, and call people like me “underfunded.”

There are no shortcuts.  No easy ways out.  There is no strategy, there are no tricks.

Choose.

 

 

 

Important Distinction for a Pivotal Time

Here’s another old column that I think bears repeating:

As American wealth, liberty and opportunity bleed away, perhaps it’s time to consider the fact that government is an exacting science. There’s no scarcity of history, current events, verifiable facts and numbers to show simply and reproducibly what works in human governance, and what doesn’t.
For example, socialism sounds compassionate and progressive, but Mao, Pol Pot, Hitler and Stalin (among many others) demonstrate how it really works.
And maybe Free Market economy has become outré, but look for an explosion of wealth anywhere at any time, and you’ll be seeing the positive side of human self-interest.
Sadly, few of us discuss government. Instead we read, listen, ingest, pay and vote for politics. That’s why we’re in trouble now.
Elections are coming up. Please discriminate between the personal pursuit of power (politics), and the noble art and science of getting along as a civil society (government).
Politics means yard signs, polls, endorsements, “name ID” and money galore. Government involves policy, laws, and the use and restraint of dangerous force.
Do you really want to hear more poll numbers? Don’t you want to know what a candidate thinks that government should do to you, your liberties and property? Shouldn’t you hear what candidates think about rights, prohibitions and the use of armed force? Wouldn’t you rather save the billions it costs to propel sound bites through TV screens and billboards, and instead vote from objective fact?
Then please do us all a favor; ignore the stuff shoved down your throat at great expense, and demand that our media and candidates replace the game of politics with the reality of government. Your children will thank you.

Economics is to Politics, as Gasoline is to a Match

Politicians don’t make the discoveries and breakthroughs that make our lives safer, longer, and more comfortable.  Free-market, free-thinking tinkerers, inventors, scientists and entrepreneurs do that.

We know that government doesn’t build cars, nice houses and stylish shoes.  It doesn’t make espresso, or bicycle helmets, or leather sofas, or medicines.  It doesn’t make jumbo jets, computers or portable DVD players.

Private businesses are launching spacecraft and building global communications systems.  Doctors can, without political intervention, open up a failing human body, replace the heart, and allow a life to go on.

And yet, we’ve somehow convinced ourselves that without government, there’d be no roads.  Some of us apparently think that without government subsidies, there’d be no football, no art, no charity, no business, no schools.

While we don’t utter the word anymore, there is a name for this thinking.  We used to call it socialism, and Americans used to fight it body and spirit.  Now we whimper and beg for it.  So we’re getting it good and hard. 

Can we re-think this? 

It wasn’t so long ago that Democrats wanted European-like prices for gasoline.  They reasoned that if gasoline were more expensive, then more people would ride bicycles, walk, demand and use public transportation, and in general, conserve this energy resource as if it were finite.  Expensive gas would promote the development of alternative fuels and energy sources, and probably fuel a new wave of technological breakthroughs.  While we may not like the idea of expensive gas, the long-term economic reasoning is actually sound.

Curiously, Democratic politicians abandoned this reasoning when they started crying about “global warming.”  They then lifted gasoline taxes before an election (the late Governor O’Bannon in 2000), suggested that we tap into our Strategic Oil Reserves (several Democrats on state and federal levels), or (as Rep. Julia Carson had done in 2003) call for an investigation of the oil industry at the first hint of rising gasoline prices.

Of course Republicans got in on this, too.  Republicans do what Democrats only talk about.

OK, so there hasn’t been a new oil refinery built in the USA since 1976.  Americans have no objection to foreign oil drilling, but will not tolerate it at home.  So instead of doing the math of supply and demand with our own resources, we turned to global markets that have their own agenda in global politics.

This has been disastrous on several fronts.  First, we’ve become dependent upon militarism as an energy policy.  Second, our lack of energy policy foresight has raised the possibility that third-world nations may soon pass us in terms of energy efficiency and robust delivery/point of use generation …and this could mean even further erosion of USA industry and technological prowess.

Third, we’ve built our cities for cars and cheap gas; so we have seas of parking lots and miles and miles of ugly boxes we call buildings.  Such unsightly, inefficient building lowers our quality of life, steals our leisure time, and makes us a nation of red-faced road-ragers.  Oh, and of course, like most federal policies of the last forty years, this lack of clear-sighted policy has cost us tens of thousands of jobs.

What is the best policy? 

Get politicians out of our marketplaces, and let businessmen, scientists, engineers and of course, entrepreneurs, do what they do best…fill needs to our mutual satisfaction.

That is, after all, what the free market is: voluntary transactions that serve everybody’s needs and even wants.  And let’s not forget the opposite of that: power-mad poohbahs with guns who think they know best. 

We have a word for the narcissistic napoleons who destroy nations and lives; it’s “politicians.”

Ninety Five Theses on the Reform of Government

Ninety-Five Theses on the Reform of Government. 

by Andy Horning, Freedom, Indiana, USA

On October 31, 1517, Martin Luther nailed his Disputation of Doctor Martin Luther on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences onto the doors of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany.  Luther’s disputation, now commonly called the Ninety-Five Theses on the Power of Indulgences came at a time when the Catholic Church was horribly corrupt and abusive, and the theses catalyzed the Protestant Reformation. 

Four-hundred and ninety years later, there is no doubt that the USA needs reformation.  Most of us don’t see the “forest for the trees,” but our political system has become horribly violent, corrupt and abusive.  Some of my arguments to this are listed in the following theses. 

Please feel free to distribute these as you see fit; and to print out and nail them to whatever you think appropriate:

1.   Despite our hopes to the contrary, civil government has always been our most dangerous abstraction.  It is the medium of oppression, slavery, genocide and war.  Civil government exists only because people are too flawed to live without it.

2.   The word “govern” means to restrain.  But what we call “government” is actually a very dangerous, usually unrestrained abstraction of political power.  

3.   People with governing power are at least as flawed as the people who need to be governed.  

4.   Those who seek governing power tend to resist restraints upon power, and most people tend to be seduced by ungoverned leaders.

5.   A civilization thrives when governing power is restrained.  A civilization falls when its politicians become ungoverned.

6.   History has proven that the best means of governing political power is written law and people empowered and educated to enforce that law.

7.   Our nation’s founders devised a limited, federal form of government with divided powers opposed by checks and balances.  

8.   They wrote down the laws in plain speech to be read by all, understood by all, and obeyed without any exception or ambiguity.  

9.   The resulting Constitution for the United States of America worked better than any civil contract before or since.  The degree to which this nation erred is the degree from which our nation deviated from the core tenet that the law applies equally to all, without any exception or ambiguity.

10.  From the beginning there were both challenges to this governing contract, and also precedents for peacefully reasserting the Rule of Law.

11.  In response to the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, the legislatures of Kentucky and Virginia passed resolutions in 1799 demanding that government keep the terms of the U.S. Constitution.

12.  The signers of the Kentucky Resolution, echoing similar sentiments as in the Virginia 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.

13.   Many limits have been transgressed in the time since those resolutions, and since 1803′s Marbury v. Madison.  

14.  In that ruling, The Supreme Court under Chief Justice Marshall decreed that “It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.”

15.  Our politicians have twisted those words to mean that the Supreme Court is empowered to change the meaning of the Constitution.

16.  That is not what the founders authorized by the constitution.  That is also not what Marshall meant.

17.  For Marshall 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.”  

18.  The constitution was exhaustively argued and explained in the Federalist and Antifederalist Papers, Madison’s Diaries, letters and books written by the men that wrote the Constitution itself.  

19.  No interpretation of the Constitution for the United States of America is necessary or legal.  

20.  Politicians can amend the constitution for clarity or alteration of government.

21.  But the Rule of Law, as opposed to the Rule of Men or the Rule of Tyrants, requires that government leaders restrain their power to written law, as written.

22.  Nothing else is legal under the Rule of Law.

23.  And history demonstrates that nothing else will last.

24.  The Constitution for the USA is short enough to be known by all.

25.  The Constitution for the USA is simple enough to be understood by all.

26.  The Constitution for the USA is important enough to obeyed without exceptions, special classes, caveats or provisos.

27.  All USA federal power is both created and limited by the Constitution for the USA.

28.  No federal actions or rulings can contravene or supersede the Constitution for the United States of America.

29.  A federal government is a specific form of limited government.  Just as it creates and empowers a central government stronger than a confederacy, our constitution forbids a unitary or all-powerful central government.

30.  All federal powers granted are clearly written into the constitution (Article I, Section 8; Article II, Sections 2-4; Article III).

31.  All other powers are prohibited from the federal government, and are the property of the states and the people (Amendment X).

32.  The legislative branch has all legislative power, and no executive or judicial power (Article I).  

33.  The legislative branch of our central government has repeatedly passed laws that breach virtually every limit on federal authority, denying both state and citizen rights and taking property and money without legal authority.

34.  Yet the legislative branch has failed to use its authority to check and balance the executive and judicial branches.

35.  The executive branch has all executive power, and no legislative or judicial power (Article II).  

36.  Through “executive orders” and other means, the executive branch has repeatedly exercised illegal legislative power both in lawmaking, creation of agencies, taxation/ funding, waging war and in making rules concerning captures.  

37.  Yet the executive branch has failed to use its authority to check and balance the judicial and legislative branches.

38.  The judicial branch has all judicial power, and no legislative or executive power (Article III).  

39.  The judicial branch has repeatedly usurped both executive and legislative authority to abrogate states’ rights (e.g, Roe v. Wade and Gonzales v. Raich) and citizen rights (e.g., Orff v. United States), as well as to diminish citizen rights by granting them to corporations (Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company).  

40.  Yet the judiciary has failed to use its authority to check and balance the executive and legislative branches.

41.  Just as states have no federal power (Article I, section 10, and Article IV), the federal government has no state powers (Article I, Section 8, and amendments 9 and 10).

42.  No agency of government other than the legislative branch, has any legislative authority.

43.  No agency of government other than the executive branch, has any executive authority.

44.  No agency of government other than the judicial branch, has any judicial authority.

45.  Therefore, the EPA and IRS, for example, have no authority to make law, execute law, or judge law.

46.  Yet many “federal” agencies have assumed powers to make law, raise tax, enforce and judge law.

47.  Only the U.S. Congress has legal authority to coin money and regulate the value thereof.

48.  Yet this authority has been unconstitutionally delegated to private banks.

49.  Our founders understood that free markets and maximum possible personal liberty serve citizen and national interests better than centralized authoritarianism.    

50.  Yet our founders also understood that, while markets should be unfettered, the power to coin and regulate the value of money is best entrusted to civil government.

51.  The private banks now controlling the USA paper money supply are not audited or overseen by any agency of civil government.

52.  There is no other area of business in which politicians play so little a role.  Yet this is the one area of commerce where law clearly mandates political control.

53.  The U.S. Constitution was written to “secure the blessings of liberty.”  The “welfare” clauses of the Preamble and Article I, Section 8:1 did not refer to “welfare” programs that would not exist for another 150 years; and instead mean that general welfare is a blessing of liberty.  

54.  The “commerce clause” of Article I, Section 8:3 was understood to mean the regulation and arbitration of commerce disputes between the states; not government manipulation of all trade within each state.

55.  Intentional misinterpretation of laws have gradually twisted “commerce” and “welfare” clauses to the effect that the USA government has forced industries overseas where less regulation (or almost no labor regulation, as in China) overseas means more opportunity, productivity and innovation overseas.  

56.  Yet this government that seems to thrive on regulation does not regulate or impose any duties upon products made without USA regulations.

57.  This has in effect robbed U.S.A citizens of liberty, opportunity, employment, and of course, welfare and commerce.

58.  The federal government was never legally granted powers over health, education or income redistribution; therefore these powers are prohibited by law.  

59.  Yet the greatest percentage of government taxation, spending and regulation is in these unauthorized domains.

60.  The federal government only briefly had legal power to regulate the manufacture, sale or transportation of a commercial product (Amendment XVIII).

61.  That power was repealed in 1933 (Amendment XXI).  

62.  Yet the central government has over time exercised unconstitutional powers to regulate production, sale, transportation and even consumption of every description (e.g., food, clothing, shelter, medicine, services); even by private citizens within each state.

63.  The implementation and enforcement of federal payroll and income taxes abrogate Article III, section 2, and Amendments I, IV, V, IX and X.  

64.  These taxes and enforcement actions are therefore illegal.

65.  These taxes harm every level of commerce, production, property ownership and even healthcare delivery (e.g., creation and maintenance of third-party payer system opposing free market care).

66.  These taxes are a medium of widespread political corruption on all levels of government (e.g., local, state and federal political favors and punishments).

67.  The U.S. Congress may not make federal law respecting any of the five freedoms enumerated in the first amendment, and only the U.S. Congress is empowered to make federal law.  

68.  There can be no execution or judgment of laws that cannot legally exist.  

69.  Hence there is a total constitutional ban on any federal authority in the first amendment freedoms of religion, speech, press, assembly and petition for redress of grievances.  

70.  Yet innumerable federal laws have been written (and judgments passed) respecting, for example, establishments of religion and the free exercise thereof.  

71.  The first amendment has been misconstrued to the effect that religious expressions have been banned from public places in clear violation of the letter, intent and exhaustive explanation (by its writers, at the time it was written) of the law.

72.  The IRS has no constitutional authority to make, judge or enforce laws.

73.  Yet tax “laws” restrict free speech within churches, political and other organizations, and in relation to political campaigns, in clear violation of the constitution.

74.  This has led to the destruction of free markets and cooperative social organizations, and a culture of corruption, political reward and punishment among all levels of civil government.

75.  Property ownership is guaranteed by the constitution; and this guarantee is a keystone to both liberty and healthy economics.  

76.  In Kelo v. New London, the Supreme Court ruled that property takings in violation of Articles III and IV and the 5^th and 14^th amendments are permissible.  

77.  The ruling itself abrogated Article III, section 2, and the separation of powers.

78.  Even prior to the Kelo ruling, governments at every level (federal, state and local) have taken property for non-payment of taxes, without any constitutional authority.  

79.  Particularly since these taxes are routinely used for constitutionally forbidden purposes such as sports arenas, and since many taxes (e.g., income taxes) are themselves illegal, this property confiscation is illegal use of eminent domain.  

80.  A proper use of the 5^th and 14^th amendments would be to prohibit such takings.

81.  The government of the USA has broken the Supreme Law of the Land (Article VI of the US Constitution).

82.  Abuse and violation of our clearly enumerated rights makes it uncertain what limits, if any, govern our government.

83.  This abuse of law and power has materially and significantly damaged USA citizens collectively.

84.  The USA, “The Land of the Free,” has the world’s highest percentage of citizens in prison.  

85.  Up to 97 percent of felonies are settled by coerced plea.  

86.  Most prisoners have been convicted of statutory offenses with no human victim.

87.  After generations of income redistribution, counterproductive programs and unsustainable government spending, Americans now work longer hours (over 20% since 1979), take fewer vacations (2 weeks since 1979) and spend less time with their children.

88.  One-third of American citizen-owned investable assets are in overseas financial centers, and innumerable enterprises have gone out of business, relocated overseas or sold-out to foreign ownership to avoid illegal and destructive taxation, regulation and litigation.

89.  Income/payroll taxes consume a half-trillion dollars in compliance costs, and drive business and personal decision-making to the detriment of the general welfare.  

90.  The embedded costs of the taxws on production put the USA on a competitive disadvantage on the global market.

91.  It is established as just governance to prosecute as criminals those politicians who violate the laws restraining the dangerous power of government.

92.  Yet abuses of such scale and scope as herein described have occurred by degrees over many generations.

93.  This nation chooses its leaders by democratic elections, and citizen juries are empowered by law to judge both facts and the law.

94.  Citizens therefore have the power to change laws and leaders.  Abuses of governing power occurred by at least implied consent of citizens.

95.  That consent must be withdrawn.

Whereas the government of the USA exists by the will of the People and only by Rule of Law under the Constitution of the USA; and whereas that government has broken the terms of that compact, and therefore operates as an ungoverned power; I demand that our leaders desist illegal operations and conform to the law of federal government.

In short I demand that our politicians obey the law.

An Interesting Exercise. Or two.

I’ll not give you any links, because I think this is a quick and easy search, and I don’t want you to think I’m unfairly prearranging an outcome:

1. Look up the meaning and practice of fascism; only, don’t use the words of enemies, look up what fascists said about themselves.  Mussolini coined the term “fascism,” and he wrote an awful lot on the subject.
2. Look up socialism/communism by the same rules.  Look up what Marx and Engels said.  Look up Friendly American Socialists like Eugene Debs. 
3. Now, consider what you know of your own government and make a list of differences.

…Is this last part hard?  Does number 3 make you say thing like, “well…” “ummm…” and “you just can’t compare what’s happening today with…”??

 

Optional, extra credit exercise:

1. Think about all the areas in which you believe government really does need to play a part.  Examples may be road-building, schools, national defense.
2. Now, replace the word “government” with “corrupt lifelong politicians who also happen to be ignorant,” and think about number 1 again.

Have a nice day!

A thought for October 2, 2007

The wrong but prevailing view of the 14^th amendment is that this amendment makes “federal” law trump any state law. 

So, while the 14^th amendment clearly had nothing to do with marijuana, abortion or in fact anything other than slavery…we have been told so often that we believe it that whatever happens in D.C. is law everywhere. 

The effect of this is that states can’t allow what the feds won’t allow, and that states can’t ban what the feds do permit.

But if you accept that view, then, as the Constitution for the U.S.A. is now written, citizens have more power, not fewer rights, than under a truly federal government, under which states could legally take some rights and powers away that the federal power could not.

Why? 

Well, between the 9^th and 10^th amendments of our constitution you’ll see that citizens have ALL rights and powers not specifically taken away from them by state and federal constitutions.

And if you read those constitutions carefully, you will find only three federal crimes: counterfeiting, piracy and treason. 

So, technically, our federal prisons are filled with political prisoners, not criminals.

The federal government has never been granted the power to so much as write you a speeding ticket.  So, how can states take liberties granted to you (9th and 10th amendments) by a supposedly higher power?

Hmmmm…