For Immediate Release Contact: Andrew Horning Libertarian candidate for IN08
16 October, 2022
Horning publishes “Relighting the Torch”
Freedom, IN – From the description on Amazon.com: “We The People and our government avatar, are a hot mess. But we can fix it whenever we set our minds to it.
‘Relighting the Torch’ presents a historical and moral picture of our founders’ better ideas, where we failed those ideas, and some proposals for setting things right…for the first time.
In this book are Horning’s almost-famous and now updated annotated Declaration of Independence and USA Constitution, along with numerous (and sourced) authoritative quotations by key historical figures.
We can, at long last and in the midst of all today’s troubles, realize our ancestors’ dreams of peace, prosperity, security, liberty and justice, for all.
…But the unconstitutional and contemptuously divisive Two Party System our founders warned us about really has to go.”
The paperback is available now, and the Kindle edition will be coming soon.
The Land of The Free has been surrendering freedom hand-over-fist because the Home of The Brave is scared of its own shadow. Almost literally, its own shadow.
Though China is certainly a strong contender – even with its fingers in our sock puppets – We The People are still the most heavily-armed, most globally nannying and bullying, domestically intrusive, imprisoning and militarized nation of all time.
It is our own shadows that both terrify and genuinely threaten us now, and, surprisingly, in the past, too.
Rational people can look at the USA’s past mistakes reasonably. Our government made horrible, murderous, costly mistakes when it was far smaller, less powerful, less secretive, less snooping, and vastly less heavily-armed and militarized both globally, and domestically, than today. But ironically, the closer we get to the present, the more wrong we call right, and the more we justify today’s wrong by yesterday’s wrong.
We all know that slavery and native genocide was bad. Only the more educated among us know that the wars against Mexico and Spain were motivated by greed and desire for empire, and had nothing whatsoever to do with protecting American liberties and land. But very few consider how Teddy Roosevelt stimulated the Empire of Japan and the USA helped create the Soviet Union, however, so we tend to think of WWII as a wholly Good War, where the USA wore white and saved the world for liberty and justice for all.
The point is that, the closer we get to the present, the more our views of USA government become disconnected from reality.
Even after we learned that the Vietnam War was justified on, at best, a screwup, we tend to think of USA government as a benevolent god of peace and love, incapable of wrongdoing (though we keep seeing new wrongdoing every day).
This is a freakishly weird phenomenon. But it’s also the nature of tribalism and idolatry. We love our team, and we hate the other guys. We can’t see the wrong in our idols, teams, champions and leaders, but we know that the other peoples’ idols, teams, champions and leaders are pure evil.
And it’s also just human: People of the past were THEM. People of today are US. We can easily admit that our ancestors did horrible, stupid things; but we sure don’t want to admit that, today, right now, WE are screwing up. We’re blind to our own errors.
In other words, we see the past more clearly than the present. And we see other sinners more clearly than we see ourselves.
So, as a result, we exemplify, even if unintentionally, the exact opposite of The Golden Rule.
This is self-immolation. We have so many impending disasters of fiscal, social, monetary and military nature (will it be WWIII when China takes Taiwan and Russia takes Ukraine on the same day?), that we desperately need an epiphany and revolution of heart and mind.
You can’t be the Land of The Free if you’re not the Home of The Brave. But no nation can survive at all with this kind of stupid.
Freedom, IN – It’s a quote misattributed to pretty much everybody, that “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” The saying is more true and applicable to USA foreign policy than to anything else.
And we’ve been getting worse, not better, at finagling foreigners into serving us and our Saudi allies. Does anyone doubt that our interventions in Libya and Syria have been disastrous? Have we really fixed anything in Somalia, Yemen or Pakistan? When will we be done with Iraq? Afghanistan is the USA’s longest war, ever…and we’re losing. What’s the plan? What’s the goal?
A leaked May 17 memo reveals that the USA government once again intends to replay the same failed script; this time against Iran (again).
The key directive sent to Rex Tillerson is “…that the U.S. should use human rights as a club against its adversaries, like Iran, China and North Korea, while giving a pass to repressive allies like the Philippines, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.”
Let’s think like a human, and not a politician, for a moment.
What actual human beings on the planet would not hate us for our arrogant, armed and deadly games and manipulations? Why wouldn’t we be creating more enemies than friends with such obvious duplicity? Does anybody on this planet think they’re the ones who’re wrong, and deserve death?
But we’re acting like stupid teenage “swatting” and “knockout game” thugs; not at all like rational adult humans. We’re acting as though we can use killing force against others with impunity, when in fact, we’ve been hurting ourselves as much as anybody else.
Our armies are protecting military industrialists, bankers/ the petrodollar, and drug trade, not anything We The People should value. Not freedom; not for anybody.
And we’ve for some time been lobbing missiles and troops and drones at people and nations who, really, are no threat to us. What will we do when China decides to take Taiwan? That’s been slowly brewing since 1949, and heating up fast since 2012, when the dictatorship of Xi Jinping made plain that China was already waging war against us and buying up half the world with our consumer’s money, and our governments’ cooperation. What will we do when Russia decides to take Ukraine? That’s been Russia’s obvious next move since our broken promises to stop expanding NATO onto Russia’s doorstep in 1994 …then accelerating since at least 2013 …and certainly since 2014, when Ukraine, spurred on by the USA, pushed for NATO membership, pushing Russia to annex Crimea and start campaigns of hacking, subversion and propaganda.
(sorry about the run-on sentence…but isn’t that how our foreign interventions have been working…run-on and on and…)
How long can we be party to the corruption that’s kept Ukraine out of NATO up to now, without some response from Putin, who we know wants the old USSR back? Not very long, I suspect. He must know what evil the USA has been working in Ukraine…
We’re headed toward world war, you know. Don’t know when, but the trumpets, drums and war paint are already on stage. Will we fight people who can fight back? Could we afford to?
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But we already know this game. Politicians say that “government is too big,” but then make it bigger. They trumpet the need to cut spending, but then spend more.
Every single one of the other 2018 primary election candidates for Indiana’s US Senate seat are promising more government. Every one of the others promise more fear-aggression-syndrome foreign policy, more domestic militarization, more intrusions into our privacy, trade and personal interactions.
Here’re my suggestions for Peace, prosperity, Security and Freedom in eight steps:
End the cronyism/corruption network and culture. This is fundamental and critical. Our government is captured by people and parties who do not share our collective best interests. So we must bust up the self-appointed, inherently divisive, eternal tug-of-war “Two Party System,” and nullify the recent, unconstitutional, immoral state codes that suppress competition, create classes and sub-classes of citizens, and make taxpayers pay for the promotion of only D and R candidates at the expense of everybody else. To do this, we need to …vote them out of power. Not just the individual candidates – the whole power network behind the curtain. This needs to happen. And make no mistake…this is not just about the parties themselves, which are really just puppet shows for a much wider, deeper system of cronies that we scarcely see. We won’t get anywhere trimming the claws of kingmakers, bundlers, lobbyists, permanent staffers and eternal bureaucrats without first replacing the 2-party puppet show and firewall that prevents us from doing the rest of what follows:
Stand down our military-industrial complex and global imperialism, and replace it with strong, constitutional national defense. This of course includes killing the CIA/NSA monster to which Eisenhower also referred to in his famous Farewell Address as the “scientific-technological elite.” Besides, we’ve been misidentifying real dangers. China is already in a very effective, winning war against us, and we apparently don’t even know it. Hopefully their internal problems will lessen the danger soon, because it is the worst, in my opinion, this nation has ever faced.
Monetary/banking reform. Click the link for details. I wish this could be #1. It is a fundamental, and currently a terrible, fast-growing problem that’s about to result in massive inflation and turmoil. The system of monetized debt begun here in 1912/13 has gone global, and is perhaps the biggest enabler of corruption. But as with #2, it is well protected by the crony system.
End special classes, special deals for special people – equality under law for all at long last. This is partially implied/ included in #1, but needs to become a fundamental moral of our society if any real progress is to last. And it would involve scaling back and phasing out many of the extraordinary powers, rights, perks and immunities granted to politically powerful corporate abstractions. In other words, we need to stop fearing “Big Pharma,” “Big Ag,” “Big…anything.” We’re all people here. We should all be equal under the law. That is certainly not the case now.
Sunset provision/amendment to refine and reduce the number of laws, and keep them few, simple and important so that our rules are:
Few enough to actually know.
Simple enough to actually obey.
Important enough to enforce without exceptions or special classes.
Term Limits. Let’s face it; voters haven’t been doing their part, and there’s no procedural fix for bad choices. But term limits won’t happen until after voters make better choices. Similarly, I have for decades favored alternative voting schemes like Condorcet, Ranked Choice or Approval Voting (RCV or AV). And I definitely love the idea of increasing the number of representatives to better suit our population; and we have the technology to keep them in their districts with more local accountability. But we won’t get such changes UNTIL we get rid of the politicians who like things the way they are. That’s why I’m placing term limits last both procedurally, and in importance, because we’ll get term limits only after a sufficient number of people wake up and act appropriately such that we fire the bad guys and, at least for the short term, defuse the huge advantage of incumbency… particularly the power of “committee” rulers based on tenure. …But after that cultural epiphany and revolution, their kids and grandkids will gradually fall asleep again.♣ That’s just how civilizations inevitably decay and die. If we’re to delay our self-destruction at least a little, we need term limits shorter than human life expectancy…particularly in the context of tenure/corruption-based power structures.
To summarize, I want to cut the cost, intrusiveness, abusiveness and ineffectiveness of our central government by actually cutting powers, programs, agencies…and people, from that government. I mean to establish a truly federal (instead of our increasingly unitary) government as defined by the authorizing compact. I want to make living life more voluntary, and much less driven by deceit, tribalism, anger, fear, mandates, prohibitions, and an impenetrable thicket of taxation.
♣A good part of my reasoning for term limits is encapsulated in this quote: “Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times.” ― G. Michael Hopf, Those Who Remain
I believe it takes “strong men” (strong-minded, individualist, non-tribal voters) to fire bums and clean up corruption. But the “weak men” (look around) who follow will let anything go, and continuously reelect bad politicians…or let the whole system collapse.
Reasonable people can disagree both strongly and with facts about our political laws, of course; or about economics; or even the proper role of political government in human societies.
But even among my list of friends, (Facebook and otherwise) there is a disturbingly broad, hostile, and in practice, dangerous range of perceptions and opinions regarding the appropriate use of deadly violence; both abroad, and domestically.
The range is roughly from Peace and Love toward All – No Matter What, to Nuke ‘Em All ‘cause …whatever. And this is both at a global level, and at a very personal, within-your-home level.
Now I don’t intend to waste time and effort discussing relative merits/ demerits in the arguments, as the divisions are so hard and deep that people hear only what they want anyway.
I just wish more of us would consider a few things when voting, speaking and otherwise enacting or supporting political violence:
1. Are you being consistent? Are guns really an answer when we’ve eliminated the militia system (killed completely in 1903), stopped free gun training in schools, and have jacked up so many kids on psychotropic drugs, and the rest of us on political lies/divisions, that it’s amazing that there aren’t more mass murders? Are you sure guns are the problem when you’re proposing taking guns away by force with armed force you may claim is corrupt and globally malignant? Do you trust the politicians and armed forces who’d take our guns? Do you trust the politicians and armed forces you say are why we need guns?
2. Are you sure your beliefs aren’t based on fear, or hate? Does your lip curl and your fingers tighten when hearing opposing views? Have you tried to understand why others disagree with you as violently as you disagree with them? Is, in other words, your view on guns and armies and drones and spies based upon fear-aggression-syndrome? Would you, as some have suggested, shoot people who want to keep their guns? If you support guns, do you support ownership for…everybody, or are there “certain people” who you don’t want to have guns? Are there whole countries that need to be smacked down? Really?
3. Have the political promises you believe, and vote for, ever been kept? Have the predictions and “facts” proven true? …Ever? When?
5. Are you so sure your opinion isn’t what some very wealthy, powerful – even rogue clandestine agents, put into your head?
If more people actually thought long and hard about the above five things, I’m convinced that there’d be substantial changes in our global and domestic war machines, and military-industrial complex.
I think now’s a good time to picture a world that’s more peaceful, prosperous and secure, with liberty and justice for all…and find a way to work together with your neighbor (yeah; the one you think has crazy political notions) to make it so.
Freedom, IN – Many feel that our “Major Party” choices on Election Day have been getting worse and worse, while the general condition of our society and individual lives seems to be devolving toward calamity.
That’s true, of course.
But we could fix it if only we’d acknowledge the problem, admit who freely chose this, and realize who’s got the power to turn this around. The fix itself is simple enough, and mostly written-down already.
That’s in reverse order, unfortunately; because as congressmen I could address the first two listed only aftervoters take a stand against the recent (since the 1970’s), self-appointed and irretrievably corrupt, “Two Party System”…by electing me!
Only voters can topple the two-party-in-name-only, crony network, which has become little more than a front, distraction, protection and marketing group for the finance and militarism elites who run the world behind the Two Party Firewall.
The other 8th district candidates have no intention or ability to fix the mess they choose to represent. So, first, voters must vote against that corrupt monstrosity. Yes, it’s good to vote against what’s wrong. To say otherwise is a terrible misunderstanding of the whole point of elections; and that is for peaceful revolution. If they feel that they can vote for me, that’d be great. But first, voters must fire the Two Party System!
After voters fire that shot heard ‘round the world, we can talk about other reforms including:
“Can you give me another area where a misdemeanor suspends a constitutional right?”
He was talking about the 2nd Amendment right to keep and bear arms, of course.
Thomas was right to raise the question, since even though all of our rights have been demoted to conditional privileges, the 2nd Amendment is under special attack these days.
And despite Thomas, our Stalin/Mao/Pol Pot-leaning SCOTUS ultimately decided that, of course a misdemeanor is sufficient to suspend a constitutional right. What isn’t?
I’m not a “gun nut” by any stretch. I love almost every other kind of gadget, device, machine or app. But I’m not a fan of guns. I’m not fond of what they do.
But the 2nd Amendment isn’t about guns. It’s about violence, and trust. I hate violence, and I definitely don’t trust politicians with a monopoly on it. It’s THEIR guns that most need restraint.
But humans, particularly in groups, are very emotional creatures. Where there’s a conflict between fact and feelings, feelings almost always win.
That’s why demagoguery works. That is why nearly all of human history is about oppression, slavery, genocide and war; and why peace, freedom and prosperity are very, very rare, but precious, blips.
…Because it’s not the emotions of love and loyalty and empathy that drive humankind’s political governments.
No, it’s fear, and greed and envy and sloth and…all the evil stuff.
So let’s be real clear on who oppresses, enslaves, commits genocide and war:
Our politicians, under that abstract incantation we call “government.”
It’s politicians – specifically our own politicians, invoking and blaspheming the common good while fanning the flames of all our worst emotions – that take away the freedom that’d be ours if left alone.
This is why human governments have a 100% failure rate. Aside from the obvious violence, they devalue currency, steal across generations, and generally self-destruct.
And it’s why people even consider the catchy but crazy “no fly, no buy” talk in the US Congress.
The No-Fly, No-Buy canard isn’t just the abrogation of the enumerated rights to arms and due process; it stomps on the whole point of constitutional rule of law –
Our government has always kept secret lists of people, and there’ve been secret, but less-formal no fly lists for decades, enough has been said about the No Fly list as it exists today. The FBI and TSA denied it existed for the first 2.5 years of its now-acknowledged existence, which is plenty to lead us to suspicion about this embarrassment.
Let’s get something straight about the 2nd Amendment that has little to do with personal protection or fighting off an ungoverned government:
The second amendment is about citizens taking PERSONAL responsibility for violence!Citizen militias are much, much less likely to reelect warmongers and meddle with other people’s countries. And we willingly, anti-constitutionally, surrendered our militia system in 1903 to build a professional, global, war machine. …Just what our founders warned us to never, ever do.
The USA Constitution‘s Article I, Section 8:15 does grant Congress the rather scary authority, “To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions.”
Politicians (including judges) apparently stop reading here, thinking this grants the federal government essentially total military power and authority over everything, including you; you uppity citizen.
Article I, Section 8:16 further grants Congress authority “To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress.”
This is considerable power over militias, but look at the delimiter, “…governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States…” (bold is my added emphasis)
That should make us think about what the state constitutions say about the “Part of them” not governed by the feds, but we’ll get to that shortly.
Article I, Section 10:3 provides enough confusion in today’s context that, without the state constitutions, you might get the wrong idea about militias: “No State shall, without the Consent of Congress… keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace …or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.” If you can’t “keep Troops” in peace time, how could a state respond to invasion or other imminent danger?
Article II Section 2 should provoke some thought, though: “The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States.”
So, the POTUS is NOT the CIC of the militias until an actual declaration of war by the US Congress. The militias aren’t “federalized” until an actual declaration of war by the US Congress. And an actual declaration of war by the US Congress hasn’t happened since WWII.
Again, this won’t make proper sense without state constitution context.
So, for Indiana, for example, the Indiana Constitution’s Article 5, Section 12 is where things ought to start coming together: “The Governor shall be commander-in-chief of the armed forces, and may call out such forces, to execute the laws, or to suppress insurrection, or to repel invasion.” (again, boldface is my emphasis, but you really ought to be raising your eyebrows now. This is even as amended in 1984. This is still law!)
Here’s Article 12, Section 1 of the Indiana Constitution, which was amended as recently as 1974:
“A militia shall be provided and shall consist of all persons over the age of seventeen (17) years, except those persons who may be exempted by the laws of the United States or of this state. The militia may be divided into active and inactive classes and consist of such military organizations as may be provided by law.”
OK, there it is, Hoosiers. I’m supposed to be in the militia, arthritis and all. So are you. Anybody over 17, unless a conscientious objector or otherwise excluded by law, is the militia. We are constitutionally to be more like Switzerland, where kids learn gun safety early on, and everybody plays a part in the defense of the Canton/County, state and nation. And we used to be until around 1903. Even more recently, kids still learned gun safety…in public schools!
So, now, still, by law, you are supposed to be trained in the use of weapons, as a militia member, including the sort of weapons that’d make Nancy Pelosi scream, as in Indiana’s Article I Section 32, “…for the defense of themselves and the State.”
(This is why, dammit, you have to read both your state and federal constitutions to get the whole picture when it comes to anything having to do with politics.)
There’s more, of course, but I need to get to the point: We’re not doing any of this at all, and we need to. Pronto.
Without going into how, why or when we became a global empire of fear and aggression, I want to as quickly as possible, and by big steps, nullify this self-destructive mess, and enforce/invoke/do the constitutions, as written; to restore our freedom, prosperity, opportunity, justice and security, for all.
I want to stand down our professional, global, permanent war industry. That would not only reduce the obvious blowback of constantly blowing up other people’s countries and people and wedding parties, it would make us more secure here at home.
And a lot richer!
We could afford to actually keep the promises we make to our soldiers in both regular and “National Guard” ranks. We’ve currently no way to keep up with the escalating costs of medical care and pensions. Not until we massively cut our global monstrosity of destruction, and return our military to its proper role and structure in national defense. Real national defense.
I want kids to learn about both the danger and proper use of weapons. That would not only raise up a nation better able to defend itself, it would also greatly reduce the irresponsible, stupid accidents, and unchecked violence in places like Chicago (where guns are essentially illegal and therefore ubiquitous in all the wrong hands) we now suffer.
And I want our armies out of the control of all the wrong people. You know that our government sold out. If you’re reading this, you probably know a good part of our global weaponry is unleashed in service to our financial sector’s fiat currency scams, the “petrodollar” scheme, the CIA (which I’d like to kill, gut and mount on the wall as a warning to future generations that we must never allow such a thing again) and the military industrialists we were warned about by a dozen USA Presidents.
There’s nothing civilized about delegating away all our violence and acting like it’s right. The damage we do to our own children’s lives, minds, bodies, careers and family lives, just to soothe our trembling nerves, is both embarrassing, and sin.
What follows is a resolution that’d be a good first step to a better course for our nation.
If elected to congress, I’d introduce it immediately.
But don’t wait for me…please feel free to send this to your representatives in local, state or federal office.
PLEASE do this or something like it!
I’d of course prefer that this be passed as a Bill or Joint Resolution. But even as a Concurrent or Simple Resolution, it’d open a discussion on what sort of nation we’re to be; a nation with governed government, or a great big crime syndicate:
No federal law, agency, program or international treaty that depends upon authority not specifically granted by the Constitution for the United States of America shall be valid;
Any federal agency, law, program or international treaty transcending authority specifically granted by the Constitution for the United States of America is null and void;
Unconstitutional laws, agencies, programs and treaties have created both problems and dependencies that will take time to rectify;
All unconstitutional federal powers, delegations, laws, programs, treaties and entities that cannot be immediately nullified must be phased out within no more than ten years.
An Indiana/local version of this could be (SOMEBODY PLEASE INTRODUCE THIS HERE IN INDIANA!):
No federal or state law, agency, program or international treaty that depends upon authority not specifically granted by the Constitution for the United States of America or the Constitution of the State of Indiana shall be valid;
Any federal or state agency, law, program or international treaty transcending authority specifically granted by the Constitution for the United States of America is null and void;
Unconstitutional laws, agencies, programs and treaties have created both problems and dependencies that will take time to rectify;
All unconstitutional governing powers, delegations, laws, programs, treaties and entities that cannot be immediately nullified must be phased out within no more than ten years.
We’ve for generations been the 
Our 
The point is that, the closer we get to the present, the more our views of USA government become disconnected from reality.
The range is roughly from Peace and Love toward All – No Matter What, to Nuke ‘Em All ‘cause …whatever. And this is both at a global level, and at a very personal, within-your-home level.
enacting or supporting 
But the 2nd Amendment isn’t about guns. It’s about 
Without going into how, why or when we became a 
An Indiana/local version of this could be (SOMEBODY PLEASE INTRODUCE THIS HERE IN INDIANA!):
We Declare 
