The media were right to dismiss our “Tea Parties”

I shouldn’t say “I told you so.”  So I’ll just say, instead, that being right has never done me any good at all.  In fact, it’s been a costly annoyance to both me, and to all my loved ones.  Being right is no advantage in the voting booth; it seems absolutely detrimental in electoral politics.  It’s no advantage in any way I can think of.  And it’s downright dangerous to be right when the government and its media are wrong.

I hope, in fact, that I’m desperately, completely and astoundingly wrong about what’s coming next.  I pray that I am very, very wrong.

So I’ll not say “I told you so” about all the warnings, predictions, admonitions and sermons I’ve written, spoken and kinetically harangued upon my friends in the ongoing battle for liberty and justice.  No, I will restrain myself by means of superhuman humility and magnanimous spirit…

But we should admit that the media got it right.  They have correctly portrayed the “tea party” hubbub, and the liberty movement in general as undirected, vague, and ultimately, pointless blather.

It pains me to say so, but my allies in liberty and justice are not just wasting their own time and money.  Rather they are destroying our combined credibility.  They discredit truth, and are, in effect, stealing from us all by spoiling the opportunity for those who’d do the right thing.

What is the right thing?  I’ve said it many times on these pages, but maybe it’s just too simple to comprehend.  Maybe it’s too basic to seem like a clever tactic or even a pragmatic first step.

We all have to agree to what it is that we want.  And there is only one thing that I am aware of that all of us actually want…Rule of Law under existing state and federal constitutions as written.

We’re out of time for all this fooling around.  We must stop thinking of tactics and games.  We must stop thinking of others as our enemies when we need no enemy other than ourselves.  We will never convince others of anything as long as we are ourselves such doddering fools that we can’t articulate for the media just what the heck it is that we want.

Before I go and say again what it is that we should be doing, here’s the setup:

“The media” are not anything other than people.  While these particular people tend very strongly toward soviet-style authoritarianism, it’s not their ideology that causes us problems.  It’s the usual human laziness, mental weakness and idolatry that plagues us all.  Like us, they worship celebrities and disparage those who attempt to become one, and fall back to earth.  They kick such people.  Trust me. 

They love excitement, but see it in all the wrong places (sports, celebrities…and weather).  And like the rest of us, it takes the firm administration of a baseball bat to make them change their ways. 

So when you get a microphone in your face, “the media” will try to label you as quickly and dismissively as possible.  If you offer ten minutes of Patrick Henry-like rhetorical brilliance, they’ll air the one point at which you stumble and say, “ummm…”  If you speak convincingly about something they don’t understand or don’t like (Rule of Law under existing constitutions as written), and offer, for example, income tax, you’ll be dismissed as a “tax protester,” and nobody will ever hear what you said about the constitutions, or the sweetness of politics on a leash.

This last point is my whole point.

We must, immediately and without any waffling, converge on a single message and deliver it without any side trips, divergence, hesitancy or missteps.  We must simply, firmly, passionately yet reasonably present the demand that politicians, policemen and soldiers keep their oaths to the laws that protect us from them.  They must obey the written constitutions, as written.  No “interpretation” from the bench, no caveats, provisos, ifs, ands or buts.

You must not protest government spending, taxation, or even overt oppression.  Do not mention Ron Paul, though this is his cause too.  Don’t talk about central banking or “The Fed.”  You must not write letters, campaign or speak to neighbors about the myriad symptoms presented by our collective social disease.  We must address only the disease.  Quit nibbling at branches; it’s time to strike the root.

What’s the root that we can all agree upon?

The existing state and federal constitutions are still the best, most practical, most proven, most fair and just social contracts ever signed into law.  So let’s agree that these are exactly, and only, what we want.

We have easy communication now.  We can still move freely.

Do not assume that this will last much longer.  And most definitely do not assume that a “revolution” will get you what you want if you can’t even agree now what it is that you hope to accomplish with violence.  The hour is late, and our side is losing.  Your choice is not up to your enemies.  It’s all up to you.  Personally.  Right now.

…You think TAXES are a problem?

Before all the “Tea Party” events swirl through the news, there’s something I have to get off my chest.

Despite what you’ve been told about the cause of our Revolutionary War, you’ll be half-way through our Declaration of Independence before you see taxation mentioned, and then only in regard to imposing taxes on us without our consent.

After that, guess what?

Taxation doesn’t appear again.

Even “taxation without representation” (not in the Declaration, and the phrase was popularized later in the conflict) isn’t so much about taxation, as it is about colonists’ right to proxies in the seat of power.

Taxes are a symptom, not the disease.

You see, the real reason our founders declared independence from England was King George’s “refusal to assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.” The Declaration cites the King for 27 violations of rights that Englishmen were due by English law. It was Rule of Law instead of rule of tyrants that our founders wanted — not anything unreasonable or even new.

Of course, from the moment the US Constitution was made law, politicians resisted its limitations on their power, such that by 1799, just ten years after ratification, both Madison and Jefferson wrote the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions to reassert federalism …or face annulment and dissolution of the union!  

They demanded Rule of Law under existing constitutions as written…and they meant it.

Right now, we do not operate under Rule of Law by the constitutions as written.  We are, at best, under Common Law, or law by judicial decree.  There is a good place for Common Law.  It’s not a bad thing.  But where legislation and constitutions apply, what’s in play is Civil Law and Statutory Law.

The difference in practice is huge.  And as predicted by our founders, if the borders are breached, the mistake is ultimately fatal.  Our Rubicon has been crossed, and we’ve lost our republic to a plenary power ruled by NGOs, INGOs, corporate cartels and Malthusian eugenicists bent on global domination.

But what’s worse is that We The People have voluntarily and repetitiously reelected this state of lawless power.  Unelected bureaucrats write most of our laws, and have the power to judge and execute them.  Police, who can’t possibly know all the rules anymore, have been made increasingly militarized, empowered, unaccountable and adversarial.  And the aforementioned people and corporate entities really running our government aren’t on any ballot, or even employed in any legitimate agency of our government.

Right now as you read this, no political power is any longer bound by any written laws.  As the courts are servants of the greater political/finance and military-industrial machines under a practically invisible ruling class, there are no real limits on political power at all.

So you have no rights as you’d have in a republic.  You have only conditional privileges, with increasing conditions, and decreasing privileges.

Forget the laws plainly written down, the rules are what is enforced by guns and jails and spies and drones and fines.  And that’s all ad-hoc, arbitrary and ever-changing.

You have no second amendment because you have no constitution.  You have no first amendment because you have no Rule of Law.  You’ve got nothing that can’t be taken away from you.  Not your property, your rights, or your life.

I’m scratching my head wondering why we think we have any other issues?

But no. We divide and conquer…ourselves.

Second Amendment advocates campaign against our constitutional right to sin (drugs, prostitution, etc.) without civil punishment.

Those who call themselves “First Amendment Champions” typically oppose the very first right mentioned in the First Amendment’s five enumerated rights…and increasingly want to limit speech, too.

We each have our favorite rights, but we doggedly, stupidly, deny others theirs.  And while every Election Day is essentially a tug of war over which of our two-faced, inherently divisive tribal scheme loses the fewest rights, we never, ever leash the POWER to take away rights.

And so we have no rights at all.  We have almighty rulers instead…and the (D) and (R) – branded people on the ballot are only their proxies.  So what we have is a dictatorship made more pleasant by a puppet show that We The People voluntarily reelect every chance we get.

And we think, on Tax Day, that how much of the Fed’s monopoly notes we feed the out-of-control spending meter is, in itself, a problem?

Taxation out of control is only a minor symptom of a fatal disease of debilitating, wasting corruption, and we’re running out of time.  The very existence of the unregulated “Fed” ensures that at some point, and I’m betting very soon (within 10-15 years), we’ll be facing massive inflation, unpayable transgenerational debts, and a criminal transfer of wealth from the bottom and middle, to the top of our partisan pecking order.  The monetary system itself will be so degraded that as our government attempts to inflate its way out of debt, the dollar will have to be replaced by something no doubt more advantageous to the powers that be.

Right now we can communicate with amazing ease and very little censorship.  We can travel unimpeded.  We can form groups and meet.  But because we won’t even ask for constitutional Rule of Law, these are not rights, and they won’t last.

Soon, we will lose these privileges to the degree that opposition to our oppressors will be very, very difficult.

You think I’m kidding?  You think I’m in mouth-breathing hysteria mode beyond any reason?  You think that happy days are, as the experts tell us, just around the corner?

I hope you’re right, and I’m very wrong.

But what I see is that our government is blowing the great bubble even bigger for one huge, stinking, bloody pop.

Read any history book.  Then look at current events and see that those who’ve been wrong every time before are today called “pundits,” “experts” and “leaders,” while those who’ve always been right are called “fringe” and “losers.” Our language and culture is increasingly debased, perverted.  We’re turning the excelsian hope of 1776 into the dystopian muck of 1984.

Look at all the fallen nations before us and imagine what they must have been thinking in their final days.

I’m betting they all thought, “surely not! That could never happen to us!”  “Surely,” they thought, “we’re much more sophisticated and intelligent than the 100% of civilizations that fell in the past.”

Well, on a happier note, God is in control.

He knows that we’re not!

In that, I find some comfort.

But, ummm…  God Judges nations as well as people, so…
Sigh…

I’m picking up your gauntlett, Paul

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

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

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

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

My friends, what are we doing with our lives?

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

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

Well, you should know. 

It’s Tax Time again. 

You know who you’re working for. 

I still want to know, why? 

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

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

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

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

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

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

Horning Economic Plan

While they’ve not granted me nearly as much coverage as they’ve bequeathed to entrenched-party candidates, my hat is nonetheless off to WTHR-13 in Indianapolis who, at least this once, covered one of my press conferences.  Here’s a story the other media missed (Thank you, Kevin Rader), and here’s a copy of the press conference handout that WTHR actually linked to their website:

Politicians have been protecting themselves, their cronies and their money for so long that their whole robbing-Peter-to-pay-Paul scheme is on the verge of collapse – and they’re taking us all with them.  This is not good.  But we still have time to prevent the worst.

In the 2000 gubernatorial race I said we should cut government spending by 7% per year, push back against Washington, DC’s profligacy, and restore the legitimacy and practicality of constitutional governance in order to prepare for the financial crisis now upon us.

Now we must act more quickly and aggressively.  It is perhaps too late to avoid pain, but we still have great opportunities.

Indeed, we can become the Switzerland of the USA if we only insist upon the constitutions to which every politician has already sworn an oath of obedience:

 

1. Cut property tax by at least 50%.  This would be done mostly by removing public school costs from personal property tax, as Article 8, Section 2 already requires. 
2. Forbid the foreclosures and usurious tax lien sales on residences driven by property tax (see Article I, Section 22 of the Indiana Constitution).   
3. Unconstitutional spending must stop immediately!  There will be no more corporate subsidies, as such are forbidden by Article 11, Section 12.  Article 10, Section 5 forbids most bond issues.  And Article 13, Section 1 forbids much of the state’s debts.  And instead of embracing the costly mandates and taxes from the thieves in DC, we must insist upon the federalism mandated by both state and federal constitutions.
4. Invoke the Sound Money policy described in Article 11, Section 3 of the Indiana Constitution.  We now have the technology to quickly acquire gold and silver as backing for this marketable trade currency (see http://www.goldmoneybill.org/), and to verify a sound yet profitable fractional reserve for safe lending practices.
5. We must reactivate the voluntary service organizations that were once the heart, soul and helping hands of this nation.  I would do my level best to encourage voluntary organizations (churches, Lion’s Clubs, women’s service groups) to roll up their sleeves, put out a call for new members and get busy.  Government will no longer compete with these groups, and will instead get out of the way.
6. Rule of Law.  It should now be evident that politicians must be kept to their oaths and kept on a leash.  We need politicians to concentrate on their real, valid, necessary jobs to keep peace and security.  I would focus government on the protection of our property, rights and lives as though government has no other job.

 

Our current crop of politicians has chosen to inflate the “bubble” even more, rather than to fix the problems now.  They’ve chosen to more deeply mortgage our future when we can no longer afford that.  At best, their promises have failed.  More likely, they’ve lied to us.  It’s up to voters to fix this by firing the liars, cheats and thieves, and by choosing a better, legal, proven course for this nation.

 

Andy Horning

Freedom, Indiana

Brutish Simplicity, Dumbed-Down

Alright alright alright.  I get the message.  Nobody wants to read the constitutions.  I need to resolve what I’m about down to three points and they’d better be simple.  OK, I get it.  So here’s as simple as I can make it in just three points:

1. I would cut stuff from government.  A lot.  I’ll cut something you think we need.  I’m asking you to trust that we don’t really need it.
2. So all taxes will go waaaaaay down.  You will like that. 
3. It’s all written down here.

If you have questions, ask them. 

 

 

Indy’s debate over “arts” funding?

I’ve just about had it with all the fighting over “public money.”  The crying over “arts” funding, stem cell research funding, war funding, this and that funding is unforgivably stupid.

As more and more people lose their homes, jobs and lives to taxation, we should be asking about the real costs:

How many people must lose their homes to “adequately fund” an artist who smears dung on a picture of Virgin Mary?  

How many jobs, how many businesses, opportunities and freedoms must we surrender to our tax god?

How many people must die to feed our machines of subsidy, regulation, litigation and war?

My answer would be zero.  But that’s apparently not the collective answer of voters, is it?

Everybody’s got a “pet” government program.  For some, it’s road-building, in spite of the fact that these expensive, corruption-riddled subsidies killed our public transportation systems.  Others believe that “welfare” to the poor is the whole reason to have government, though you have to be nuts to think that rich folk’s money actually goes to poor people.

Probably most of us can’t imagine that schools could exist without politicians.  That’s why the success of homeschooling presents such a problem for politicians and union leaders.

Interestingly, one of the oldest subsidies/government programs, one that predated even public schools or healthcare, is art.

Almost always, subsidized art has been used as a medium of propaganda, or at least aggrandizement of the wealthy and powerful patrons.

Not surprisingly, non-subsidized artists have been agents of change, insurgence and revolution.

In today’s USA, even with all our well-publicized subsidies of things like the aforementioned dung-smeared Virgin Mary or the dung-brained Robert Mapplethorpe, 90% of all art is created on private funding. 

That is, I believe, pretty healthy.  Of course I’d rather see the number climb to 100%, now that citizens are tightening our belts and even losing our homes, jobs and opportunities at record rates.  It’s only reasonable that as our individual situations become more dire, that we start snipping away at political frippery…especially that frippery that has a bad history of historical revisionism and propaganda.

After all, do you want politicians to determine what is and isn’t art?

C’mon…our OPM addiction (Other People’s Money) is literally killing us.

The money is taken by violence, used in offensive, blasphemous, violent and deadly ways, and some dare call it “art?” 

I say it’s a fatal disease.  An illegal/unconstitutional one, at that.

I say that the 10% of art that can’t find an audience other than politicians should die so that the rest of us may live in peace and justice. 

What do you say?  Do you say we should continue the blood and theft to subsidize people who can’t find a buyer for their work?

Say it in the voting booth.

 

Better is not good enough. Not now.

Our Man Mitch has done some things right.  I don’t agree with his list of Good Deeds, but we could have done much worse than elect Mitch in 2004.  We did, in fact, for decades. 

I grind my teeth over his expensive new programs, corporate subsidies and taxes.   And I got mad enough about the Kernan-Shepard nonsense to throw my hat into the gubernatorial ring.  But things could be worse.  A little, anyway.

Maybe it’s partly because he didn’t get all the tax increases he asked for, and partly because his predecessors were so bad, but our job loss rates aren’t as high as in our Midwest neighbor states. 

But we are losing jobs.  And worse; we’re headed for disaster.  Fast.

In case you hadn’t noticed, good and service prices are up, debt/value ratios are going sour, debts in general are crazy high and climbing, and part of the problem is that our out-of-control lawmakers have illegally banned reason in the matter of labor.

Let me explain.

“Illegal labor” works because “legal” labor cannot (since our lawmakers are lawbreakers who make illegal laws I have to qualify “legal”).  Between mandatory unemployment / workman’s compensation insurance and payroll tax, is an over 16% charge on “legal” labor.  Add in things like OSHA, HIPPA, the cost of other taxation, regulation, unfunded mandates and litigation that comes with every “legal” job,  add the removeable VAT/GST of other countries, and you’re looking at what I estimate (I can’t find hard numbers) at an over 25% cost-of-labor handicap in most key industries (healthcare, manufacturing, union shops, construction). 

That’s huge.

So you could pay an across-the-border worker at least 20% more as a base wage, and still save a lot of money.  You could pay to ship things all over the globe instead of produce them locally and still save a lot of money.  And you could wrestle with foreign governments, bribery, language barriers and wars and still avoid a lot of hassle.

Then there’s minimum wage, just recently raised, which inherently eliminates jobs – at least in the “legal” labor market.

All of this is unconstitutional (which means it is of course literally illegal, with no quotation marks) as well as destructive.

So, here’s what should happen before we lose more jobs and more people lose their homes:

Do the constitutions, state and federal.  Put a leash on our politicians and rescue what we can of our lives before it’s too late.

Yes, constitutional Rule of Law is what my campaign is all about.  But I’m not putting all my eggs in my own campaign basket, and neither should you.

We can’t start too soon in demanding what’s ours by law.  So don’t wait for Election Day to make your wishes known, and don’t pin it all on one candidate.  Tell Mitch that you think it’s time he does his job as constitutionally required.  Tell him to govern government.  Right now.  I did this last year and you should do the same.

I honestly think he’d listen if we spoke.  I think he means to do what’s right.  I think he’s an honorable man.  But he doesn’t know what’s right until you tell him.  He is a lawyer after all.  And lawyers are to law what firemen are to fire.

So help him out.  Tell him to obey the constitution.  Tell him to enforce the constitution.  Tell him to do it now.

…Stimulated ENOUGH?

Politicians have told us that giving tax money to multimillionaire athletes stimulates the economy and our otherwise lacking sense of pride.  Giving tax money to enormous multinational corporations stimulates the economy and promotes innovation.  Giving tax money to third-world dictators, erotic artists and apologetic criminals stimulates the economy, peace, art and justice.  Of course, giving tax money back to taxpayers stimulates the economy too, just as taking it in the first place did.  It’s all good, right?

With all this stimulation going on, you’d expect that our economy, technology and pride would have been stimulated past Pluto by now.

Actually, the USA has never equaled the vigor and innovation we’d experienced before the invention of Income Tax and the so-called \”Federal Programs;\” and now we’re in a downward spiral of litigation, complexity, corruption, lost liberties and economic meltdown.

Why?  Because freedom works, politics doesn’t; politicians lie, it is their nature to gobble up power; and it is our nature to think that we have to just grin and bear it all.

Why in the world do we think that political campaigns are about candidates and their promises?  We act (and vote and pay taxes) as if Election Day is for politicians.  But it’s not.

Political candidates often refuse unscripted public debates and direct questions, and instead control “the message” through tightly-scripted marketing and staged events.

I ask because “winning” campaigns cost lots of money, and you know very well where some of that money comes from.

I ask because negative campaigning usually works.

I ask because those stupid yard signs work (think about that!).

I ask because the good candidates would love to have ten seconds of your time, and almost surely won’t get it.

I am one of three candidates for the important job of Indiana Governor.

You are the boss.  I respectfully suggest that this time around you interview us at least to the degree that you’d interview a burger-flipper in a fast-food restaurant.  Ask real questions and expect real answers.  Don’t take no for an answer, and watch for lies and bunk.  Watch, attend, or even host a candidates’ debate.  And when you’ve gathered your facts (yes, facts really do exist) and made your decision, tell others what you’ve found.

This is a pivotal time.  In light of what’s happening to us now, in the most fearful and rapidly collapsing culture on earth, it’s time we wake up and take our roles seriously.

And no role is more important on Election Day than that of the voter.

…That’s you.

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?