Just Say No to war with Iran

Freedom, IN – It’s a quote attributed 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.

None of our foreign aggressions worked as promised, or even as we’ve been told. Yet we’ve had scarcely a year’s peace since the War to End All War.

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?

We’re sure not fighting for freedom.  Not anybody’s freedom.  And we’re sure not making friends when we blow up their children.

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?

Is the Golden Rule really so bad?

I’m no pacifist. I believe in security through strength. And I understand the theory of “Humanitarian Intervention” (though that’s been irrelevant lately, and it certainly doesn’t work in practice!).

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.

This is insanity. We’ve got seven “whack-a-mole” wars going on now, and we’re losing our wealth, security, and of course, freedom as a very direct result.

Our armies are protecting 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 and the dictatorship of Xi Jinping made plain that China was already waging war against us and buying up haf 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 plan 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, Russia annexed Crimea and began campaigns of hacking, subversion and propaganda.  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.

Will we fight people who can fight back?  Could we afford to?

I propose we just say stop the madness, and give Peace, Prosperity, Security and Freedom a chance.

Liberty or Bust!

Andy Horning

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Eight Steps to Success

Here’re my suggestions for Peace, prosperity, Security and Freedom in eight steps:

1. 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:
2. 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.
3. 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.  
4. Rule of Law.  …Which of course means, kill “The Administrative State” of executive agencies and unelected bureaucrats that have taken unto themselves legislative, judicial and executive powers. This would cut a lot of stuff from what we’re calling “government” today. You may not like some of the cuts; but I’m certain you’d like the end result.
5. No more loaded bills. One subject at a time, and no earmarks/pork.
6. 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.
7. Sunset provision/amendment to refine and reduce the number of laws, and keep them few, simple and important so that our rules are:
   1. Few enough to actually know.
   2. Simple enough to actually obey.
   3. Important enough to enforce without exceptions or special classes.
8. 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.

Horning into GOP race for Indiana US Senate

For Immediate Release

December 7, 2017

Freedom, IN – Americans want options. We have unlimited choices in coffee, shoes, electronics, cell service…everything, in fact, excepting whatever politicians control.

It’s literally a shame that only two political parties can fully participate in our democratic processes. But it’s even more of a shame when both of those two parties offer only one option: more debt, more inflation, more wars, more regulations, and of course more corruption; meaning less peace, prosperity, security and freedom.

The Republican Party’s platform is actually quite good; it’s yet another shame that with a total lock on both federal and state political power, the GOP has been spitting on their own ideals.

Until today, it was hard to find any substantive differences between the Republican Party candidates for the Indiana US Senate seat.

But today, I’m throwing my hat into the ring as a Republican Party candidate for US Senate, and I have a plan to set things right. I am putting peace, prosperity, Rule of Law, real security, and (you know I’m big on this) freedom, on the ballot.

“Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.” – Lord Acton

Liberty or Bust!

Andy Horning

Freedom, Indiana

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Thankless job; bad alternative

It is the process and habit of human beings to seek an advantage over others.  From athletes on steroids to politically connected businessmen; from subsidies and handouts, to laws and bought cops; it’s easy to see varying degrees of cheating, corruption, deception and crime all around us.

I trust this is not an epiphany.  This should not be news to you.  But, at the very least, we do need to be reminded in more than just the Sunday sermon context that people sin; and that it is our nature to do so.

The reason I mention all this is because an awful lot of people are willing to pay good money and make deep sacrifices to gain unfair advantage over others …but only a desperate few are willing to give anything to level the playing field.

In other words, many (and probably most) people, rich and poor alike, will do whatever they can to cheat their neighbors (tax subsidies, handouts, legal disparity) if there’s any chance they might get away with it.  Only the “losers” even try to play fair.

The bottom line of this is that lots of nefariously driven folk will contribute to political campaigns, lobbying and political mischief, while almost nobody lifts a finger to oppose this.  People seeking advantage will of course “invest” in political power. 

Nearly nobody promotes liberty.

Oy vey.

I was very encouraged by the outpouring of support for Dr. Ron Paul’s presidential campaign.  Obviously, I will cast my vote for him in Indiana’s primary because to do otherwise would be a senselessly wasted vote.  And I’m hoping, of course, that Dr. Paul’s cause will not die with his candidacy.  But it’s only in knowing what we face that we can stay motivated, and succeed against humanity’s overwhelming tendency to sin, and to self-destruct.

Let’s not fool ourselves about what we oppose when we promote liberty.  We oppose human nature.  We oppose what the Bible calls the “stiff necked and stubborn” tendency to turn from God and toward our own selfish, foolish and proud destructiveness.  Nations always die just as the people who comprise them die.  Humanity’s rare flowerings of civility depend upon a passionate few who do what’s right and oppose our inborn desire to screw up. 

Liberty ain’t natural, but it works.  It has never been easy; it has always been a never-ending fight.  And, I assure you, you’ll get no thanks in this life.  It’s been nothing but grief and work for me.

But do I need to remind you of the alternative?  You do know, don’t you, that our default state is oppression, slavery, genocide and war?

Liberty, security, peace and prosperity can be ours.  But we do have to fight for it.  And never stop.