The State of the Union: The Force of ideas vs. the idea of Force

The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.' - Ronald Reagan

If the quote above doesn't strike fear into your heart, you haven't given the ideas behind it much thought. The left wants to help you with your healthcare, with your home loans, with your education, with your job hunting, even with your drainage.

Many people ask what could be wrong with that? Sounds like nice and neighborly things to do, don't they? Why shouldn’t Govt be empowered to help? Why is govt action worse than that of individual choices and the free market?

One word: Power. Govt has it, and it has it by taking it from you. Taking from you your personal power and freedom to make your own choice, as well as the freedom of anyone else to make their own choices.


The Huffington Post recently ran a headline they thought outlandish "Michele Bachmann: Obama Health Care Reform 'The Crown Jewel Of Socialism'", along with a telling comment 'Where did she go to college'. The better question would be how did she go to college and still retain the ability to say such a thing?


But in light of all of our new emphasis on using nicey-nice words, I'd like to make a proposal, lets stop calling the leaders of the opposition mean names, and stop suspecting them of nefarious intentions. Maybe we could do so with just a bit more effort than the Dem's recent efforts. But aside from that tweak, I don't say this lightly. If you hide from reality in any way, you invite in falsehood and endanger yourself and all you value.

The vast majority of those looking to improve our world through the govt are not intending to harm you or take your freedoms, they are sincerely trying to help you... and that should inspire far more fear than a simple villain out to do harm. They seek to do good, they feel in their hearts that they are doing what they can to help you, and feel morally empowered in doing so... with your best interests in mind... it's the sort of self-righteousness that can prompt someone to say "But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it", and "I don't worry about the constitution", they are simply intending to do for you what you don't have the sense to do for yourself.

That's all.

There is nothing more dangerous than someone having power over you in order to do good for you. They are not restrained by the Constitution, they are not restrained by law (though they expect you to be restrained by those laws they favor), they are not restrained by your choice to go another way, to try a different solution - or none at all - they feel that your choices are misguided, shortsighted, wrong. And because they know what's best for you, they are going to 'prevent' you from such harmful behavior - for your own good.

They feel they are in the 'right'.

But what is that right? What does it rest upon? This is the question which the proponents of the Ideas of Force, are peculiarly weak willed in examining.

I’ve had a couple discussions lately, some on The Federalist Papers facebook site, some on mine, and some by email or in person, that just cause the head to swirl in disbelief. In response to my pointing out that no one has a right to force others to give them what they feel they are entitled to, one responded:

“Where’s this “use of force” I’m advocating? “Force” means an object acting against the will of a subject. In a democratic system such as ours, the public will is defined as the preferences of a majority. Force means a minority acting against the will of a majority (simple or super).”

Despite being college educated (or rather, because of it), this person actually stated, and not as an off the cuff typo, but something often repeated, that "Force means a minority acting against the will of a majority (simple or super)", the concept of a tyranny of a majority apparently never crossing his mind. Sooo... what 'Democracy' decides is good, is good? I know what college he went to - a modern one. And it is a notion that is held by many today, the counter arguments to it, the Force of Ideas hinted at in the quotes in the sidebar of this post, are simply not being taught.

So let's have a quick look, I assure you it is exceedingly important. By these all too common leftist Ideas of Force, 'Democracy' simply serves the will of the majority of the people, and what the majority of the people choose is what is right... which was the same one used by the Athenian people, when they expressed their preference to put Socrates to death for expressing his ideas... does that mean they were not advocating Force? Conversely, does that mean that Socrates’ apology was advocating the use of force against the majority by his desire to be left free to continue his questioning of them?

You might look to the left's condemnation of conservative speech for a clue to their answer to that.

Now most leftist's will balk at that, and say “We’re not talking about putting someone to death here!”, but based upon their argument, it does not matter what the issue is, it is only by an argument whose standard is rooted in Natural Law, in peoples’ self-evident Natural Right to ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ that anyone could possibly have any disagreement with the Athenians preference to put Socrates to death for his public philosophizing... or to imprison people for wishing to handle their own healthcare. A 'morality' or 'standard' that is based upon the power of the majority to do what it wishes, contains nothing that will prevent, or even discourage, it from doing what it has the power to do. The inevitable consequences of unleashing such powers, will be the formation of things such as the much derided 'Death Panels', but Sarah Palin's apt term has stubbornly resurfaced again, which Reboot congress is shocked, shocked I say and "I'm still shocked" to say that the reality of death panels

are noted in an op-ed in the Boston Globe:"

"But... Palin is right. Death panels are an inevitable consequence of socialized medicine. The law of scarcity demands them."

But more accurately, the law of unrestrained power demands that the choices of individuals will be forced aside. When the Ends justify the Means, and are allowed unrestrained power to accomplish their goals, then the Ends will not blink at the means used to accomplish them. Force, raw and brutal, is the inevitable result of dispensing with the responsibility of living and governing outside of a constitution which upholds respect for Individual Rights, as understood through Natural Law.

Here's another example from Dana Loesch at Big Journalism, of what such ideas lead to, even from those who decry the use of words such as 'Crosshairs"... from the other side of the aisle, that is,

"“I have considerable respect for nonviolence but I don’t treat it as inevitably a necessary rule …
“It’s partly a problem almost strategy and propaganda, it’s a violent country, it’s a violent government, it’s killing people, and they’re going to call us violent if we break a window, but they will do that. Unless you have good reason for breaking the window, probably you shouldn’t do that, unless it’s,m you know, a big part of your strategy.”"

Francis Fox Piven, who is now claiming 'little old widow' status, would like everyone to not notice that she has publicly, and consistently over the course of decades, directly called for violent revolution, for destroying property... as long as it's in support of a good thing.

In other words, if you don't respect Natural Law & Property Rights and abide by laws which uphold them, then you are left with no standard but your personal desires and the power to impose them on others, and there is nothing you will not condone if it serves your purposes as a "a big part of your strategy".

The fact that Power is used with the intention to 'do good', changes nothing for the better or for the good. It ensures that the choices of individuals will not be respected, and that ultimately ends, time and time again, in death and destruction. For those who point to Europe's "Social Democracies" and say "It's working there!", well, have you heard the joke about the optimist plunging from the top of the skyscraper? He's heard to say as he plumets by each floor "So far so good!" - ultimately, that doesn't end so well.

In a comment to my last post by someone who wants the Ideas of Force to prevail, was annoyed that I'd noted it's modern source, Marxism, as being behind Political Correctness, better termed 'Cultural Marxism', he wished to paint it as being simply a benign system for doing good unto our fellow man (you), as if that’s just swell nice stuff, purely well intentioned ideas which we should all be able to get behind.

Well no, sorry, these ideas are fundamentally no different than thugs mugging you in the street, the fact that they use words and ideas rather than clubs, knives or guns (at the moment) is only a measure of their current proregress. I absolutely do not grant any civility to such ideas. I do, of course, grant civility to people who have unwittingly accepted the PC PR boilerplate assertions about how all Marxism really means is just a desire for sunshine and lollipops, but that’s granted (temporarily) to people, not their ideas… their ideas I put in the crosshairs of as destructive a philosophical bullet as I can find - and, IMHO, those people lose their immunity to such condemnation, as their familiarity with their own ideas increases.

What proponents of 'Democracy', like my commentator, and others proposing full popular vote in all elections and even on legislation, like to say,

“I am for majority rule on ALL issues: a supermajority on a certain things (e.g. civil liberties); a simple majority on everything else.”

They want majority rules on all issues. Period. See if you can find the wiggle room between such ideas of Democracy, and Europes 'Social Democracy, and the fact that only one political system in the history of the world, has led to the massive death tolls, 100 to 150 million lives, ‘achieved’ by the ideas of Marxism and Communism. The fact is that they are a direct result of what Marx summarized all of his ideas as being (ideas which fully followed from Rousseau’s ideas, btw), Chapter Two of his Communist Manifesto:

"In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property. "

Those who've followed more than a few of my posts, know the annoying regularity with which I repeat that ALL political support for our Individual Rights is based upon a respect for Property Rights, and that dispensing with Property Rights inevitably dispenses with all Rights and all liberty and is, in fact, Anti American. This is why. You may not like that or agree that that is what you are after, you might think it unfair of me to point the fact out that hundreds of millions of lives have been lost or destroyed due to your ideas, however that IS what your ideas are based upon, and what THEY (the ideas you follow) are after.

In the same chapter, Marx lays out his 10 point plan for achieving his ideal... see if anything here seems familiar to you today:

"These measures will, of course, be different in different countries.
Nevertheless, in most advanced countries, the following will be pretty generally applicable.

1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal liability of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, &c, &c."

You can claim all you want that you don't intend death and destruction; you just want to make things more fair. I'll grant you that. I'll even (with much trepidation) grant you that maybe Marx didn't want that either, or Lenin, or Stalin, or Mao or Pol Pot, etc, I would not be surprised at all to learn that they all only wanted to make things more fair for the average person. But fewer things are more true than the truism that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

You may not intend to destroy America by your policies – but your intentions really don’t matter. You may not intend to hurt yourself when jumping off of a cliff, but the fact is that the principle of gravity doesn't care about your good intentions; certain results follow from certain actions because of the basic principles and laws which they have no choice but to adhere to. Chief among political and social principles is that if you diminish, disregard or discard a lawful respect of Property Rights, destruction and death will eventually follow. It matters not one whit whether or not the majority or even a super majority of people agree to it. What goes up, must come down, and when the idea goes up that the foundation of Property Rights are to be removed from the basis of that civilization, what will come down is that civilization.

Your intentions to the contrary, you can only take the property of another which you have no right to, through the use of force, real or implied. You cannot forbid the preferred actions of another, without the use of force, real or implied. You cannot demand that a businessmen not compete to the best of his ability, without the use of force, real or implied. You cannot mandate that I, and everyone else in this nation, ‘participate’ in Govt’s health control plan, without the use of force, real or implied.

Intellectual Warfare
You cannot fight ideas and principles with legislation alone. At best, you can temporarily thwart or slow the progress of your good intentioned enemies with legislation. They have not made their successes through legislation, but through mis-education. They've won over the 'hearts and minds' of large swaths of America, primarily the college educated, or uneducated, but leaving few who are not at least touched with sympathy for these anti-American views.

The battleground of an intellectual war, is in the minds of those we oppose, and the proper tanks, rifles and bullets are principles, concepts and words - the left knows now, and always has known this. With that in mind, we must remember that 'winning' a negotiation over something like lower taxes, which concedes that Govt has the right to tax us in order to force us to comply with its 'doing good' to us, is no victory at all.

Conservatives repeatedly make the mistake of abandoning the field of battle to the left, with the ludicrous idea that they've 'won'. For example, they will often say something true, such as "Entitlements are wrong!", but then unknowingly capitulate when the left replies with 'Our Entitlements at $N trillion dollars would be very affordable if we cut defense!". The left knows that the conservatives response will be to pragmatically (taking action without reference to principles) begin bargaining over the details of percentages of the budget for this and that to be cut here and there. What the conservative doesn't see is that this is nearly complete victory for the left in every way but the speed of their desired proregress.

Pssst! Conservatives! Hey, yes I'm talking to you, 'when you discard Principles, you discard the only thing you have that are worth conserving, your principles!'.

We must realize that when engaging in such negotiations without making your position clear, we’ve conceded the argument and all moral authority to the left.

The State of the Union today is one based on the Ideas of Force - A nation not of laws, but of men
 No doubt President Obama will attempt to portray his Ideas of Force in his State of the Union Address, as if they had the Force of Ideas, but the fact is that, legislatively, we already have conceded our constitutional principles as Americans.

That is indisputable. The Constitution stands today, in word only - look to your, and your neighbors understanding of it, for proof. But look at this quote from John Adams

John Adams, Novanglus essays (1774 - 1775)
“ Obsta principiis, nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud, is the only maxim which can ever preserve the liberties of any people. When the people give way, their deceivers, betrayers, and destroyers press upon them so fast, that there is no resisting afterwards. The nature of the encroachment upon the American constitution is such, as to grow every day more and more encroaching. Like a cancer, it eats faster and faster every hour. The revenue creates pensioners, and the pensioners urge for more revenue. The people grow less steady, spirited, and virtuous, the seekers more numerous and more corrupt, and every day increases the circles of their dependents and expectants, until virtue, integrity, public spirit, simplicity, and frugality, become the objects of ridicule and scorn, and vanity, luxury, foppery, selfishness, meanness, and downright venality swallow up the whole society..”

we have been in this situation before, and we recovered our Rights and Liberty then, and we can do so again, now. While the last time required real warfare, today's battle can and will be won peacefully on the battlefield of ideas alone - if we - you and your neighbor - stand up for, and commit to them.

We have everything our Founding Fathers lacked - we have our own nation, our own government, we have the incredible power of our Constitution - we only have to remember that its power resides in us - we are now in a situaiton where we realize that we have let slip its meaning and allowed our representatives to forget it and us, but realizing that, we can, and must, work hard to get from where we are, back to a position where our constitutional principles are again seen as the law of the land, and to do that we must, step by painful step, politically, legally, educationally and properly, reverse the situation we find ourselves in.

In that context, of course reducing spending is important for us to do, and I’ll say that in those situation where that is all we can credibly accomplish at the moment, well ok, that’s a good start, and it's good to give credit and a thank you to Sen. DeMint and friends when they target $2.5 Trillion in spending cuts.

But it is only a ‘good start’, not a success. And it is only a good start if we refuse to ignore that their good intentions are fundamentally opposed to the American understanding of liberty. If you can't quite imagine regarding your convincing a poisoner to cut the amount of arsenic he puts in your food, from a dose that’ll kill you in a month, to a dose that’ll kill you in a year… as being a victory… then don't fool yourself about reducing taxes and spending either. Nevertheless, from the position we find ourselves in, it is also hard not to call such measures, improvements, and ones that should be encouraged - just don't forget the fact that our ultimate goal is to get the poisoner out of the kitchen and far from being able to do further harm, ASAP. As long as We The People don’t mistake this for being anything other than a good start, and don’t let them forget that we haven’t forgotten it, well then, I think we oughta give those Senators and Representatives who are proposing such cuts, an 'atta boy'.

"Atta Boy!"

Now get back to work, Repeal, Replace, Restore, but most importantly of all, stand up for your principles, and proclaim them!

Note: To learn where the Founding Fathers got their ideas for sound government and how a return to these ideas can solve our nation’s problems today. This DVD-based study on the book "The Five Thousand Year Leap" will be offered on Wednesday evenings beginning February 9. This study will cover the “Twenty-Eight Principles of Liberty--Ideas that Changed the World.” You can pay for and pick up your book ($6) on February 9.

To register or for more information, contact Van at: Blogodidact@gmail.com.

Thinking Through the Popular Vote Machine - Damned if they didn't, Damned if they did.

Well it's beginning to sound like proregressives are starting to get rattled. They actually seem worried that We The People might begin considering repealing the 17th Amendment. If We do... well then, IMHO, our work will be nearly complete. But realistically that is a ways off yet, and as Brian J. Noggle noted not too long ago, it won't be easy,

"... this is going to be a hard sell to the American public which has come to believe that the key to an open government is more and more transparency and direct accountability of officials, where more and more citizen votes means better and better government. "

Leaving aside the issue of Federalism (which I do think is the larger and more important concern), I'll take a whack at the flip-side of the political machine's favorite 'reform', the Popular Vote. The "Popular Vote" argument is that anything but direct democracy takes away peoples right to express themselves, and the proregressive's are quick to jump onto that bandwagon.

"“For nearly one hundred years, we the people have picked our Senators. But Ken Buck proposed a radically different idea. Buck said he wanted to rewrite the Constitution to let state legislators pick our Senators instead of voters. That’s right. Ken Buck actually proposed ending our right to vote for our own Senators. Rewriting the constitution? Ending our right to vote? Ken Buck's just too extreme for Colorado.""

I've a question for the promoters of the "Popular Vote": Why do they want you to have so little influence?
They say that everyone should have a right to cast their vote for their U.S. Senator. Well, why just one (legal) vote? Just one single solitary vote amongst millions? How much of a voice does a face in a crowd have? Why do they want those of you who have concerns about your state, to have so little influence over the election of your United States Senator?

What do I mean?

Well, thanks to the 17th Amendment (which, btw, DID rewrite the Constitution), a Senator no longer needs to worry about a handful of state representatives - yours - they no longer need to worry about those people who intimately know the real interests of your state, holding them accountable for their votes in D.C. No, now they only have to worry about using a political machine to mouth attention getting sound bytes to millions of voters at a distance, knowing full well that if they can convince enough wealthy contributors to fund plastering their (too often) meaningless drivel around the state, they won't ever have to engage in anything more substantial than having to smile on a tractor, or in a diner, or even blatantly mislead you (yes Mr. Blunt, we will remember) - so they can collect your vote and then cast those votes their machines wealthy contributors will appreciate.

On the other hand, with the old way, the system which our Founding Father's set up, before the 17th Amendment, a Senatorial candidate had to work hard to convince a relative handful of people - Missouri has 34 Senators and 163 Representatives - that they could, and would, do what those knowledgeable people considered to be in you and your state's best interests.

And two of those legislators were answerable to you,. That means that once upon a time you had an opportunity, through your State Senator, to be one of only several tens of thousands (80,000 in my district) and one of only ten or twenty thousand people your State Representative had to answer to (19,000 in mine) – in comparison to being only 1 out of millions, that is a significant difference - and both of your legislators votes, and their influence among their fellow legislators, would be of significant concern to anyone who wanted to be your United States Senator.

In other words, if you were concerned about an issue affecting your state, you could easily make your State Rep & Sen uncomfortably aware of your position. Most state capitols are only a couple hours or less drive away, it's not too difficult to set up an appointment to see your State Senator or Representative, or even just to drop in on them when in session, as I have done. When out of session they probably live in a neighborhood near by, my outgoing Rep lives 2 subdivisions away, and the one who will take his term limited place lives just around the corner from me and my State Senator lives just a few miles away; setting up a meeting with one or both of them, or even just picking up the phone and calling, is not that tough.

If for some reason your legislators tried dodging you, with the help of a few others across your area - people concerned and informed about an issue - you and your fellows could quickly make yourselves known to them.
Vocal local voters are a big concern to State politicians - not so much to those in D.C.

The point is, any reasonable citizen can easily make their views known to their state legislators, and through simple phone calling and emailing efforts at little or no cost, you could have a very significant voice in the election of your United States Senator.

But... as it stands now... you are stuck with being just one anonymous vote amongst millions in an argument of soundbytes.

Did these ‘popular vote’ enthusiasts ever think of that? If so, knowingly relegating your voice to relative insignificance... don't they have some explaining to do?

If they didn't think of that... if they're that uninformed (might I suggest beginning with Federalist #'s 51, 62 and 63, to start with) about a topic they actively – and ignorantly - promote - that makes them the fools that sound byte politics were designed to move the masses with.

Like I said.

They're Damned if they didn't think of it... and they should most assuredly be Damned if they did.
(Originally posted at "24th State")

Reboot revisited: To Think Or Not To Think - That is the Term Limit Question

This post has grown out of my previous, carefully worded, cool headed post (er… rant) against the “Reboot Congress” and “Term Limits” crowd, and I think I need to bring some of the commentators points up to the surface. In the comments, Mxdg replied to me that,

“…Maybe voting them all out won't work and most likely will hurt but you haven't convinced me that term limits are a bad thing. The pipe dream of people learning about positions of pols and how it effects the country and voting responsibly, while being something I would dearly love to see, is just that, a dream.”

I replied, in part that, due to the reams of existing regulations, regulatory agencies, laws and byzantine committees, sub committees and ad hoc committees... which are in place before a rep arrives in D.C., and which continue on during and after their terms have ended; not to mention the gazillion measures and bills striving for their attention, and the importance of knowing which influential person favors which… the 'legislator', especially the new representative, has to rely upon their aides who have experience in the capital, those who make up the local bureaucracy, to tell the new member who supports what, what he should support, and what he should oppose, and what it is that the bills themselves actually mean (their having grown too long to be able to bother with actually reading them(!)).

It is only through experience, favors done and returned, connections made, gained and strengthened over time, that a legislator can hope to get to the point that they can themselves begin to steer the course of their office and their vote.

If we pass a law to substitute for our vote, to override our ability to make an intelligent choice between candidates on our own; not only do we enshrine stupidity into the electoral process (not only will good and bad both be turned out, but even the possibility to make an intelligent decision between them will be ruled out), but the weak legislator will be replaced by even more powerless ones who have no possibility of attaining any significant understanding and influence of their own, and the result will be that those who 'aide' the process, career minded bureaucratic aides focused on their own long term futures, influence and power, will become even more needed by our ‘elected’ representatives, ever more relied upon and powerful, than they now are.
The elected representative, who can’t serve more than two terms, would become a mere figurehead, having not even the possibility of ever attaining actual power over the process.

In short, if you think it's bad now, while legislators and their aides still actually care about the results of elections, imagine what it will be like when those who have the actual power will have been permanently entrenched, and won't give a rat’s ass who wins.

The problem is NOT in the number of terms that our elected representatives are allowed to seek, it is in the existing regulations, regulatory agencies, laws and byzantine committees, sub committees and ad hoc committees, concerned with things congress has no constitutional authority to be concerned with, which We The People have allowed and even encouraged, to entrench itself in Washington D.C.; what allowed them to take root, what waters and fertilizes them and cross pollinates them, is the fact that we allowed our govt to interfere in the free enterprise system, to make ‘safe’ decisions for us, by law, so that we could shuck some of our own personal responsibility – a veritable dinner gong for the power hungry to rush towards the feeding trough.

Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, even more so than FDR, rang that dinner gong, and along with the complicit and instigating aid of proregressive legal minds such as Oliver Wendell Holmes, and ‘educators’ like Wilson, they established in our society and laws a pragmatic disdain for principle, a disregard for property rights, and a reverence and trust for x-spurts to regulate and supervise the market for us – to replace our own thoughts and choices, with their legal decrees.

No aid, no progress, is going to be made by replacing even more of our ability to choose, with more of their decrees.

Missing The Point
To this, ZZMike replied that

"The argument against term limits is that it takes a few years to "learn the ropes" and get really good at being a Congressman. So by the time you know which way is up, you're out.
The arguments for term limits are Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Ted Kennedy, maybe even Richard C. Byrd, and any number of people who've been there forever."

A common sentiment, but, IMHO, it is missing the real point by a long shot. It is not so much missing the forest for the trees, as missing the trees for the one tree you've got your face pressed up so close to, that the bark is getting stuck in your teeth.

Let me try it this way. I say that the 'no term limits' option is like continuing to taking a slow acting poison, while fighting for the 'enforce term limits' option is like taking lethal doses of cyanide. ZZMike and others take a narrow look at my position and argue that I've got the roles reversed, that it is instead the ‘no term limits’ position that is the lethal dose of cyanide, and ‘enforce term limits’ that is the slow acting poison.

Do you see what’s wrong with that picture? While on one hand I do think they are wrong, that Pelosi & Reid are not foul incumbents because they can win unlimited terms, but because they've enacted rules and regulations that do things like supply defacto financing for incumbents campaigns, through mailers and so forth... but on the other hand, that is missing the real point entirely!

What I'm arguing is, is that that is not the argument! My argument is that it is foolish to argue over which way you'd like to be poisoned, the real argument is that we must stop allowing ourselves to be poisoned at all! Period!

We need to realize that govt is the way it is, because we've allowed it to pass laws that are unreadable, and that subvert or circumvent the constitution, in order to 'make things safe' so we don't have to think for ourselves, so that we can avoid thinking for ourselves, so that each of us is, in light of some group we belong to (worker, consumer, investor, etc), too big and sacred to fail!

Rather than deciding to commit massive time and resources to what would certainly be a multiple year effort in order to pass a constitutional amendment to impose term limits, which at the very best, in my estimation, would only switch out the players while the same game continues on unabated; we should instead choose to commit massive time and resources to publicly examining what it is our constitution actually means (and a sufficient understanding is not that difficult to acquire), how current practices, rules, regulations and agencies are either a-constitutional or flat out un-constitutional, and so we should actively work towards electing representatives who will work towards repealing them brick by brick – and our time and vocal attentions should be focused on keeping a Tea Partyish political 'consumer reports' type eye upon them, holding their feet, and votes, to the fire.

It may indeed be difficult to accomplish this, but no other measure will work, certainly not term limits, they will only distract us from the real issue, and sink us deeper into the constitutional hole we are already in.

Sneaking A Peak
ZZMike also said that the Founders

"… also figured that someone would run for Congress, take time off from the family business (usually a farm), do his bit for a couple of years, then go back home and let somebody else have a shot at it."

At the risk of sounding too ‘Pie in the sky’, if we remove the unconstitutional agencies, rules, regulations and powers from the hands of our legislators, then they will again have a less complicated system and limited scope of concerns; concerns which will not support corrupt aims or opportunities to feather their nests more than their own farms and businesses would offer them, and they might again consider serving in congress to be a worthwhile duty and honor, instead of a long term desire for personal gain.

It is not limited or unlimited congressional and senatorial terms that corrupts politicians or attracts corrupt politicians; it is a system that has been recentered around a corruption of our constitutional republic. Allowing the Fed govt to wield its power in the free market, corrupts both the market and our Govt, and our Rights are trampled in the process.

The free market is based upon incentives, not guarantees; risks, actions and choices freely made, not forced upon them - a free government is based upon impartial laws defined and delimited by a Constitution, which defends the right of its citizens to choose freely.

A free Govt is based upon objective law: lady justice blindfolded, her scales weighing matters without favor or prejudice, in order to dispense Justice – her sword ready to defend the innocent and to punish the unjust.

When Govt and the Free Market intermingle, Lady Justice is made to peek beyond her blindfold, giving unjust favor to those which an influential lawmaker favors, and in turn, the market will use its wealth to invite, bribe and control, the favors of the government, which in turn will use it’s sword to force the market to ‘choose’ it’s favored desires.

The free market is based upon incentives, not guarantees; actions and choices freely made, not forced upon them - a free government is based upon impartial laws defined and delimited by a Constitution, which defends the right of its citizens to choose freely. Allowing the two to mingle, forces ‘choices’ upon us, and dissolves impartiality, and guarantees the corruption of both.

The "Safe Choice" Means No Choice
ZZMike said

"As I remember, one of the reasons the Founding Geezers had Senators sit for longer terms than Representatives is so they wouldn't have to be so dependent on drumming up the vote."

Yes they did... and the 1920's version of 'term limits' was a campaign finance reform that was to 'democratize' the Senate, that would put power 'in the hands of the people', a push for ‘hope and change!’… which was the 17th amendment. It took the election of Senators out of the hands of the locally elected State representatives – in direct opposition to one of the Founding Fathers most deliberately designed hierarchical features of our Constitution, that would ‘cool off’ the passions of the House, into nothing different than a more concentrated version of the House of Representatives with triple the length terms.

Even more than the 16th amendment (Income Tax, The Fed, etc), the 17th amendment has damaged our govt - almost beyond repair.

The Senate was designed to be a deliberative body, several arms lengths removed from the passions of the people, concerned with and answerable to the real concerns and interests of their States and the nation as a whole. Senators were to be elected by their state legislators, those locally elected representatives who were closest to the people themselves (closer even (by presumed district size) than those elected to the House of Representatives). These representatives who the Senators had to earn the votes of, would much more likely be known by, and know the real needs and concerns, of their constituents, and who would choose the best and most experienced representatives from among themselves, or some similarly person of competence and character.

This kept the Senate at several arms lengths from the rabid popular hue and cries of the moment. The popular whims and flash points of the day, which are so easily demagogued, was what the House of Representatives was designed to respond to – the Senate on the other hand, was to be a deliberative body, one which could serve as cooling off chamber, weeding out unwise, populist passions. And it could do so, because it didn’t need to curry favor from the populace, which would be consumed by those popular whims and flash points of the day, but from elected officials who knew the people, but also knew more about the issues themselves and were able to make cooler headed judgments, and see to it that Senators paid more mind to the real substantive concerns of their state. And because the Senate held terms of six years, it would need even less, to be concerned about those hot-button issues.

The 17th amendment was pushed through on similar populist grounds to today’s ‘reboot congress’ and ‘term limit’ mania, it rode a proregressive wave of 'throw the bums out' and 'make them more answerable to us!' demagoguery, spurred on by, ironically enough, corruption in Chicago Style Politics of Illinois, and promised hope and change for the People!

Predictably, what it in fact did, was make it almost guaranteed that Senators would have to mug for pictures, kiss babies and zoom around the state to be seen as much as possible, and heard saying less and less of substance, and worse, it made them answerable NOT to a handful of knowledgeable members of state legislators, who themselves were plugged into not only the peoples concerns, but the more valid concerns of the state as a whole - it made them have to sell themselves to passionate interest groups across the state, it made them have to stage huge campaigns, and it made it necessary for Senators to spend huge amounts of time catering to the whims of interest groups and those few who most influenced them – it guaranteed that no Senator could ever really know the constituents who would elect them - and vice versa.

Rather than give power to the people, it made them more anonymous and powerless.

The Real Point
The real point, is that a republic requires a carefully structured and delimited government rooted in and bound by a written constitution, representative of and answerable to, a moral, principled, people, who are not only willing to pay attention to the issues and carefully elect their representatives, but who understand that it is their duty as citizens, to do so.

Arguing that we are no longer that people, and so we must consume more and more poison, is an insane plan to restore the health of the Republic.

We must educate ourselves; we must encourage our neighbors to become educated as well. We must seek to remove the responsibility of educating our children, from those who are teaching them the exact opposite of what they need to know – the pragmatism (ala John Dewey, the founder of modern diseducation) – and return the responsibility of educating children to parents who will seek an education for them that is rooted in the principles our Founders understood, and which enabled them to write our Constitution.

That process cannot be shortened, the burden cannot be reduced, by legislating short cuts.

Think... or be prepared to be told what to think.