STOP stealing our wealth, opportunity and security!

The Orwellian “Bank Secrecy Act” of 1970 forces banks to report large financial transactions to federal agents. As with all “federal” laws, since its passage, requirements have gotten tougher, more expansive, and secretive.  For example, the “Suspicious Activity Report” invokes a gag order, and nullifies the already-lowered dollar limit such that any financial activity at all may be secretly monitored by federal agents.
Some might think increasing secrecy, power and spying is good; that it keeps us safe.  

But voters make decisions on information that is increasingly missing or proven false.  It’s foolish to believe that politicians we claim we don’t trust are honest with us when it comes to programs that actually fund their cronyism; like “civil asset forfeiture” programs.

While few know it, police forces now take more money and property from USA citizens by “civil asset forfeiture” (as opposed to “criminal asset forfeiture,” which requires a conviction) than do all other criminals, combined.

This “forfeiture” at gunpoint doesn’t require charges of any crime, or any warrant.  Increasingly, this is done with foreknowledge of money movement, and taken with devices like the “Electronic Recovery and Access to Data” or ERAD (as in eradicate?) machine.

While all this was initially intended to fight drug trade and terrorism, it is in practice irrelevant to either, and is encouraged to fund police departments.

It is literally armed highway robbery. This “policing for profit” must be stopped, not expanded.

But just last week, US House Rep. Larry Bucshon touted his support of, among other anti-constitutional bills, H.R. 5607, the Enhancing Treasury’s Anti-Terror Tools Act.

ETATTA did not go through regular order, and was rushed to the floor under suspension of the rules. No amendments were considered, debate was limited, and, as usual, few representatives actually read the bill before voting on it.

This carelessness is apparent in the practical force of the law proposed – that in violation of the USA Constitution’s Article I Section I, Article II Section I, Article III Section I, and Amendment IV, bureaucrats in executive agencies are granted even more power to write rules, judge their efficacy and infractions, and at least recommend, and ultimately execute, new actions as already imposed upon Americans as by “civil asset forfeiture,” without warrant, probable cause, or conviction of any crime.  Furthermore, ETATTA expands the role of the Treasury’s power of spying and enforcement to non-monetary assets – essentially encompassing all property.

Politicians have blurred the lines between good-guy and bad-guy, dividing us by class and race, imprisoning a higher percentage of citizens than any other nation, and making us less secure and prosperous to boot.

In other words, our government has become what it’s supposed to protect us from.

I have a written plan to restore respect for the badge and restore faith in all our important institutions.  It’s an already well-respected plan to not only police the police and govern government, but also to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.

Liberty or Bust!

Andrew Horning

…Gun control? Who’re we kidding?

During the slippery slope SCOTUS case, VOISINE ET AL. v. UNITED STATES, Clarence Thomas shocked everyone by asking his first question from bench in ten years:

“Can you give me another area where a misdemeanor suspends a constitutional right?”

He was talking about the 2^nd 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 2^nd 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 2^nd 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.

Yes, The Home of the Brave is terrified; so much so that The Land of The Free is surrendering even more of its tattered freedoms to promises of security from our entrenched, corrupt, arrogant, lying, thieving, heavily armed and violent ruling class.

While there can be some reasonable debate whether more guns mean less crime, or what the 2^nd Amendment is really all about, there’s really no denying that gun control laws don’t work as politicians claim they do.

As the gun control debate has been going on for centuries now, there’s plenty of objective evidence demonstrating that, considering that some cultures are just more violent than others, gun control laws are, at best, ineffective. The pro-gun control arguments I’ve ever read or heard so far rely on either post hoc ergo propter hoc or false-choice logical fallacies, or disgorged-from-the-gut emotion. And only the purely emotional arguments for gun control suggest that gun laws would actually work.

No Fly, No Buy is No Different in terms of any promised effects.

I’m not objecting to the No Fly, No Buy marketing campaign just because of that; or because our increasingly militarized empire is pushing for a political monopoly on weapons, or because it’s another example of bureaucrats with too much power. And it’s not just that we beleaguered taxpayers are expected to arm everybody on the planet except ourselves.

I’m more concerned with how our political emotions work on the fundamental, psychological and even religious level.

We excuse the deceit, transgenerational theft, corruption and destruction inherent in politics because our fear, hatred and envy lead us pray to the false gods of politics for protection and vengeance. Wise people knew this to be unwise, so we’ve got some very excellent constitutions, state and federal, to keep a leash on our tendency to, for example, sacrifice our children to the whims of state.

But that wisdom has been discarded, and our government is now completely ungoverned. The regulators are unregulated, and the police are unpoliced.

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 –

– That it’s our politicians who need to be restrained…not us!

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.

But the fear and loathing represented by this list are not only our nation’s recurrent gestalt, it’s what’s been, through the past one hundred years nurturing, fomenting, exacerbating and elevating to godhood a costly military industrial complex and thieving, murderous racket.

I’d recently written about our Middle East Madness; and by now we all know that our own government creates, trains, arms and funds our enemies such that we end up in war against ourselves all over the world.

I’ll wrap this up with some context:
Our militarized police anti-constitutionally/criminally take more property than do all other criminals combined; and you’re 58 times more likely to be killed by cops than by terrorists. But it’s politicians who’ve increasingly put police into their ever-more adversarial role. And as already mentioned above, our politicians lie about pretty much everything all the time. They’ve destroyed their moral authority to issue speeding tickets; they hardly deserve any trust with a secretive, heavily armed, and globally aggressive crony network with control of nuclear weapons and our sources of information, education, food and water.

They created the situation that we feel we must respond to with laws that increase their power, secrecy and unaccountability…at our expense.

I say we run, not walk, in the opposite direction.

Over two thousand years ago Marcus Tullius Cicero said, “The more laws, the less justice.” We know that the “War on Terror” has dramatically increased terrorism. I think facts support the notion that the less politics we tolerate, the more security, prosperity and of course, freedom, we’ll enjoy. So I suggest that instead of more laws, we nullify our way out of this corrupt and complex tangle we’ve made of our nation, and try, at long last, what our wisest founders hoped we’d actually become; a nation where all are equal under law, and where prosperity and security come from liberty, and justice, for all.

Let’s chase the fox out of the henhouse

Please do me a favor and write letters to the editor, to your local radio and print broadcast, regarding a terrible, destructive, unconstitutional and criminal scam that’s been worsening for the past one hundred years.

The private clubs we call the Demoratic and Republican parties have, as you know, granted themselves special status, powers and advantages.  Taxpayers are forced to pay for political primaries that involve only Ds and Rs, and which give them a year’s head start in public attention, fundraising, and organization.  Only Ds and Rs can have Precinct Committeemen, people with many quasi-governmental powers, yet none of the restraints.  Only Ds and Rs can be on election-related committees – only they count the votes, make appointments and fill public office vacancies.  Only Ds and Rs can have electors, who really choose the President of the United States of America.

All that is immoral, unconstitutional, corrupt and destructive.

I’ve been advised that, while my case is rock solid on fact, merit and law, no court in Indiana, federal or state, would hear my case; at least not until there’s some public attention on this ongoing crime.  Without at least a little public attention, my suit would almost surely be immediately dismissed “with prejudice” as are so many other complaints against our rogue leaders.  So I take my case to you.

Please consider the gravity of my charges; and consider that you and your loved ones are also affected by our society’s worst, and potentially fatal problem.

If you’d like some supporting information to mull over, besides the links above, these might help:

https://wedeclare.wordpress.com/2015/05/18/your-government-is-corrupt-very-very-corrupt/

https://wedeclare.wordpress.com/2015/07/25/wanted-a-lawyer-to-save-the-law/

Click to access andys-complaint.pdf

https://wedeclare.wordpress.com/2015/06/03/lets-clean-up-our-mess/

I sincerely thank you in advance.

Liberty or Bust!

Andy Horning

Freedom, Indiana

Your government is corrupt. Very, very corrupt.

We all know it to at least some degree.

I suppose we don’t react to it in any useful way because it has happened gradually, over several generations, in a sort of frog-in-the-cook-pot scenario.  And maybe we just can’t picture anything better than what we’ve suffered all our lives.

But I don’t know why we even talk about ideology or “issues” until we deal with this:  The two private clubs called the Democratic and Republican Parties are:

1. Corrupt organizations operating illegally, as I’ll substantiate below.  They are crime rings enabling and fronting worse crime rings.
2. Owned by pretty much the same people. The small variation in owner pools (a few seemingly opposing corporations, unions, and “special interest groups”) don’t make any difference in political reality, because the major shareholder of both parties are the same bankers, military industrialists and energy, transportation, insurance, agri/pharma and debt services companies.
3. They do pretty much the same thing in rising spending, debt, militarization (both global and domestic), spying, lying and selling out.  They’re both authoritarian, corrupt and think we’re their servants.

Let’s end the charade.  The thieving, deadly game of false dichotomies we call “The Two Party System” should be revealed for what it is …a sock-puppet show that distracts us from the real behind-the-scenes truth that our government is a crony crime network.   Their modus operandi and stock in trade is division and conflict; categorizing people and then setting us against each other; both here and everywhere on earth.

And this isn’t petty crime.  No other gangs on earth steal so much or kill so many either directly or by their violent black markets, puppet dictators and covert collusion.  This isn’t tin-foil-hat hyperbole.  It’s fact.  Let’s stop acting like it’s not.

Realistically, there are no other issues worth discussing until we deal with this one.  All other serious problems are just symptoms of a government gone very bad…and very well-armed against us.

A dozen Presidents warned us about the people who have made the world their ATM and battle ground.  But over generations, the factions controlling our government have become ever-bolder in their violations of written, practical and moral laws.

To banish any possibility of doubt about the “stacked deck” of our elections:

Special privileges and powers granted to a class of citizens called a “major political party,” as defined and implemented in Indiana, are of course illegal by the Indiana Constitution’s Article I, Section 23:

“The General Assembly shall not grant to any citizen, or class of citizens, privileges or immunities, which, upon the same terms, shall not equally belong to all citizens.”

Here is a small sampling of special privileges and immunities just here in Indiana:

By creating arbitrary thresholds (Ind. Code § 3-10-1-2) that suppress all other candidates and political organizations, they have granted themselves taxpayer funded primary elections, which implicitly provide more money, public attention, free advertising and media promotion to only Democrats and Republicans at the actual expense of all alternatives.

Ind. Code § 6-4.1-4 specifies that members of the Indiana Election Commission “must be a member of a major political party.”  And Ind. Code § 6-4.1-4 grants that only “the state chairman of the major political party” has powers of nomination and appointments for succeeding terms.  Only designees “of the state chairman of each of the major political parties” shall “serve as members of the state recount commission.” (Ind. Code § 3-12-10-2.1)

Ind. Code § 3-10-1-4 grants only major political parties privileges of organization (precinct committeeman are a special class of citizen who have special powers [example, Ind. Code § 3-13-1-4, 5, 6], yet aren’t subject to the limitations placed on other political officeholders [Ind. Code § 3-6-1-15]) and process for nomination to public office and filling vacancies (e.g., Ind. Code § 3-13-5, 6).

Ind. Code § 3-10-1-15 sets apart a separate ticket for “each political party holding a primary election” making all alternative candidates inconspicuous to voters.

And to be clear…the Democratic and Republican Parties have, with the power they won during WWII (when most other parties, like the once-powerful socialist parties became discredited by their association with the USSR and Nazi/socialist Germany, and the opposite ideologies were overwhelmed by the USA’s new imperialism and nationalism), wrote themselves power over everybody else.  Only they are “major political parties.”  Only they get all the freebies, special powers and exemptions, and the ability to ignore laws anyway.

In case you think that writing words into Indiana Code can make anything legit, Indiana Constitution’s Article I, Section 25 makes it clear that legislation cannot transgress the constitution:

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

The evidence of corruption is everywhere.  The correlation between campaign donations (business investments that pay multi-thousand-percent dividends) and legislation, the revolving door between regulators and the regulated, the hand-in-glove relationship between lobbyists and lawmaking, the insider trading that’s illegal everywhere but in the halls of power, the obvious payola, pork and conflicts of interest are so well documented by both “left” and “right” media as to be the most universally known and completely inexcusable part of this problem.

It’s not just academics, advocacy groups, bloggers, wonks and journalists who’ve told us about corruption.  Our own US Presidents, from the very first one, tried to clue us in.  President George Washington warned us against not just the existence of political parties, but also the entrenched corruption that invariably sprouts from such tribalism.  In 1834 Andrew Jackson called Central Banks, “… a den of vipers and thieves.  I have determined to rout you out, and by the Eternal, I will rout you out!”  In 1912, after decades of rising cronyism, President Woodrow Wilson wrote that, “… we have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated, governments in the civilized world—no longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and the duress of small groups of dominant men.”  In 1961, President Eisenhower warned us against “…the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”

What’s particularly of note today is what else Eisenhower said in that same speech: “Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.”

We should have heeded the warnings.  We should have noticed when the warnings stopped.

Personally, I don’t care what politicians do on their free time and with their own money.  They can have affairs with every sort of willing creature(s), and snort all the coke that Marion Barry missed, and I won’t care a whit.

But all the stealing and defrauding and needless, groundless war has got to stop.

And it won’t stop until we turn against the corruption that fuels all the worst of human actions.

Come on…we know this one.  Our government, from the Precinct Committeeman who gets special business contracts and a summer job for his son on the DOT, to the bankers who own and operate most of the world, is corrupt from stem to stern, from keel to crow’s nest.

So let’s fix it.

There are two parts to this:

1. Recognizing how we got here.

2. Choosing something else.  That means, of course, anything but the Two Party Puppet Show.

We got to where we are because authoritarian corruption is where people usually go.  It’s what happens when you stop fighting it, and it’s why all civilizations eventually fail.
And in the case of the USA and its democratic elections, we didn’t just fall into humanity’s default state of corrupt government, we voluntarily chose it, and kept choosing it with a >90% reelection rate.
And, if I can believe my ears and eyes, will likely choose it again in 2016.

Of course I hope I’m wrong about that last part.

So…

1. We have to change ourselves. Our choices must change.  Our actions must change.  We must do our homework before we vote, after we vote, and whenever we feel like caring about our lives, liberties and property.  We can stop voting for the same people and parties that we know are corrupt.  We can vote for alternatives that, up to now, have been getting only single-digit support.

2. And to do that, I think we need to imagine a better way to live. We need to stop putting so crazy-much trust in politicians, and show a little skepticism with their promises.  We need to see more ways to do things through the free market (look up what this really is if you think the Free Market is the bad guy…we have crony capitalism, not free markets).  If we can picture a better life, we can choose it.  If we choose it, we’ll get it.

This last part is critical.  Simply voting for alternative candidates won’t fix a thing because it’s fixing the wrong thing.

First, comes us.  Nothing gets better until We The People do.

We must change our own hearts and minds.  We must develop a picture of how we should live, and then, dammit, choose that life!

I shouldn’t have to prove that constitutional rule of law under our existing state and federal constitutions as written would be a great start.  I’ve been trying to prove it for decades now (to little effect).  But ultimately, nobody can make you read the constitutions or choose wisely.

That has to come from you.

I’m hoping that what I’m offering here is a first step in recognizing that we have a terrible, terrible problem.

And I’m hoping you know that it’s in your power to fix it.  If we could get more people to see only that, we could be on the path to a better future…as opposed to the more usual cataclysm…which, I hope you can see, is just around the corner.

Liberty or Bust!

Time to bite the bullet, or take it in the gut

I’m happy that there seems to be more and more good information popping up out there.  But I’m not so happy that this effusion of information seems to be a death rattle.

Every day now I read or hear about another ungoverned-government story like this.  I’m no longer shocked, of course; I’m just deeply grieved and more than a little scared for my children.  More and more of us are asking for the chains and whips of oppression, and we’re about to get what we’ve asked for.

Not that we’ve not been punished already, of course.  Mostly since the 1970’s, our crime rates have skyrocketed such that now we’re looking at around 600 times the per-capita crime Americans/Hoosiers experienced a hundred years ago.  We have by far the world’s highest percentage of citizens in prison, and lawmakers are devising new crimes every day.  This dissolution of order is of course because we’ve flouted the constitutions that made this nation work.  Our politicians propose fixing this problem by breaking more laws and commandeering more liberties. 

That stinks.

On of our greatest orator-thinker-politicians, Frederick Douglass, wrote:

“Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.”

Of course justice is denied these days.  Poverty is always enforced by politicians (In a land of plenty you can’t have poverty without politicians’ help).  Ignorance is taught in government schools and reinforced by legislation.  And has there ever been a society with so many classes and cliques?  We have an endless stream of new laws separating and opposing gay versus straight, male versus female, black versus white versus Hispanic versus Haitian versus whatever the heck we can imagine…

And everybody is robbed and degraded on behalf of somebody.  Everybody’s got hooks in everybody else.  I don’t want you to eat trans-fats because I have to pay for your healthcare.

We’ve “spread the costs” so broad and deep that we really have no idea how much healthcare, driving, food or anything else actually costs, or how to make rational decisions about resources and savings.  And so we make decisions based upon illusions.  …Taxes and subsidies, prohibitions and perks, lies and more lies all manipulated and served hot by politicians we know to be drunk with power.

This isn’t as good as it sounds.

It is time for pain, I’m afraid.  It’s either constructive destruction or total failure.

Douglass had something to say about this as well:

“Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are people who want crops without plowing the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning; they want the ocean without the roar of its many waters. The struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, or it may be both. But it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand; it never has and it never will.”

One more Douglass quote…  I think it’s important to hear from this man who was once a slave:

“Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.”

Can there be any doubt as to the truth of this?

For the past 90 years we have been coasting on the wealth earned by our great grandparents.  But over that time the once rebellious and self-reliant Americans have become dependent, weak and obsequiously loyal to their political idols.  You know what happens next.  Either we take difficult action and make sacrifices with grim determination and hope for a better future, or we continue our current course and wait patiently for destruction…and madness.

I pray we choose wisely. 

And may God have mercy.

Horning for Governor FAQ:

1.  Education: The constitution mandates Common Schools, or identical, inexpensive, focused and high-quality community schools funded by only the state.  These are not some freakish and inequitable monstrosity of local, state and federal funding.  These schools are about education, which involves books; not cafeterias, buses, and expensive sports facilities.  Fitness for all kids has suffered since we now have fewer sports teams since school “consolidation,” which means fewer opportunities and outlets for most kids.  This is all terribly wrong.  Our primary schools should provide what has degraded into college-level education.  They should not be farm-teams for the pro’s, or social indoctrination centers for politicians and their campaign contributors.  It’s time to treat this seriously.  The solution?  Govern our government.

 

2.  Taxes:  I’ve been a consistent leader in tax issues, movements and protests since 1998.  I’ve always opposed property tax, and I lead the property tax protests that started in the spring and summer of 2007.  But taxation is a symptom, not a disease in itself.  Taxation is, of course, the forcibly-extracted wage of politics.  We will have it as long as we have politicians.  I wrote a paper on this subject (starting on page 17) which you can access here with a free signup.  But if we put a leash on those bad boys, our tax bite will be much, much less serious and more sustainable.  Govern government and taxes will be few, simple and small.

 

3. Gas prices: Oy vey have we been lied to about this one!  Oil company profits are a little shy of 10%, which is pretty high for them, but only about half the average profits of businesses like tobacco, publishing, software and shipping.  Taxes, however, comprise about 30% of the price of each gallon.  You tell me who’s making scandalous profit.  Next consider the regulations and 30-year moratoria imposed upon USA oil production and refinement.  I’m surprised gas isn’t more expensive.  But then look at the value of the central bank’s so-called “dollar” (which was once, before 1913, defined as a specific assay of gold/silver) – in inflation-adjusted price, gas is about the same as it was about 60 years ago!  So, our so-called “Federal Reserve” scammers and their pet politicians are robbing you; not the oil companies.  The solution?  Govern our government.  Leash our politicians to law.

 

4. Crime: I wrote a paper on this subject which you can access here with a free signup.  While I wrote it in relation to Indianapolis crime, it applies everywhere.  The bottom-line best solution to crime?  Go after the real criminals: Govern our government.

 

5. Citizen rights:  No compromises.  Should I become Governor, you will have all your state (and with enough support, federal also) rights again; no mere illusion of conditional privileges.  Rights cannot be regulated.  Either you have them or you don’t.  I am all about enforcing the restrictions on politicians that ensure your rights.

 

6. Gerrymandering: Back in the 1990’s I proposed that all districts have at least one right angle enclosing at least 40% of the district’s area.  There.  Problem solved.  But since this is a legislative issue, I’ll only suggest it again.

 

7. Death Penalty: As far as the death penalty goes, I am very, very conflicted.  I believe a just and legally-governed state has the right to kill people who are beyond rehabilitation, and who we cannot otherwise tolerate in society.  But our state isn’t just or legal at all.  I’m not so sure it ever could be (unless I win, of course J).  And since death penalties cost taxpayers more money than do truly life-term sentences, I’m generally opposed.

 

8. “Why are you running, Andy?”:  I’m running for the constitutional office of Indiana Governor because nobody else is.  I want to govern government, not you.  I aim to take the choker-collar of law off of you and put it onto politicians.  We need public servants, not tyrants.

Forward Ho!

In real life, Lemmings do not run into the sea.  But people do.  Since the first violent blow of human history we have sought leaders to give us banners and trumpets, point to the cliffs and cry “FORWARD HO!”  

It’s invariable fact that all nations die; and with very few exceptions, the modus operandi is suicide.   

Now, until fairly recently, American Presidents warned us more about this death by our own hands than about any external threat.  From Kennedy and Eisenhower, to Jefferson, Adams and Washington, our leaders dismissed external threats compared to the perils of central banking, unlimited political powers, ungoverned militarism and even …democracy. 

Now our government is much more powerful and secretive than when it tested syphilus on black men, or fed plutonium to school kids.  Yet no president ever mentions constitutional restraint any more.  

I’m afraid this is what they call foreshadowing.  And it’s not our first warning.

The world hasn’t seen a year’s peace since the War to End All Wars.  Crime has exploded since the War on Crime.  God knows the war on Drugs has been a bust.  We’re working longer hours, taking less vacation, the land of the free has the world’s highest percentage of citizens in prison… 

And we have voted for all of it. 

What’s worse is that it looks like we intend to keep charging toward that cliff.  If such betting were legal in Indiana, I’d bet that in the upcoming election, voters will once again choose the bipartisan violence, corruption and oppressive failure that have been proliferating like bacteria for the past 90 years. 

One way or another, this foolishness will end; either by a collective act of will, or by slack-jawed ignorance and societal collapse. 

Choices are taken away from us every day.  We don’t have so many left.  The choices we make on Election Day have been mindlessly partisan, thoughtlessly shallow and unresearched for too long.  It’s time to vote as though it’s a matter of life and death; because, of course, it is just that.

Freedom; it’s better than it sounds?

Well, predictably, the major media pundits are again beating the anti-gun drum.  Just a quick note on that:

If our laws worked as intended, then gun laws would work.  Of course, drug laws would work too.  In fact, we’d have no more lying, stealing, murder, war or politics if not for the inconvenient truth that humans are a bunch of sinners.

But it’s now unequivocal that crime and gun restrictions are proportional (see Indiana Policy Review, Spring 2007, and John Lott’s book, “More Guns, Less Crime.”).  There are no shooting sprees at gun shows.  Shootouts happen in “gun free zones” for the head-slapping-obvious reason that a shooter wouldn’t last a half-second where people are heavily armed and trained.  And armed police can’t respond fast enough to be wherever the next nut job pulls out a gun and starts spraying.   

I hate to even think about guns in sinners’ hands.  I’ve personally never “packed heat” because I fear accidents from my own ineptitude/lack of training.  But what’s worse is the collective madness American voters now display in policies related to guns, drugs, economics, “gay marriage” and, of course, “national security.”  We chant nonsense like mantras and never question whether our policies are working, or, as is easily observed, driving us to failure and our human default state of ungoverned oppression.

I hate to be negative, but now is most definitely a time in our history when we should question authority…and doubt the answers.

If I can articulate one thing and one thing only in my campaign to be Indiana’s next Governor, it’s that Liberty Works…better than anything else ever tried.

The Tax Contracts are Broken

I wrote a piece for the Winter Journal of the Indiana Policy Revew Foundation.  You may need to register (for free) in order to read it, but here it is.

It starts on page 17.

Please, start writing yourself.  Send letters to the editor; they’re usually much more powerful than the letters your public servants throw away.  It’s better to let politicians learn about protests in the newspaper, if you know what I mean…

It’s time to hold more than just their feet to the fire.  If they don’t obey the laws that protect us from them, why should we honor the laws that protect them from us?