A Bit More Context

In my last post, I looked at the immediate context of the "CIA Torture Memo’s”, but as was recently pointed out to me, there is an even wider context which should be included as well. That the conclusion that harsh interrogation methods needs to be resorted to, let alone torture, is an admission of your own widespread lack of intelligence, and an act of desperation.

If we were talking about a lone deranged individual, this could be forgiven, but we are not. We are talking about a group of fanatical, theocratic, fascist, thugs and murderers who prefer to use terrorist actions in order to impose their plans on others.

We knew they were out there.

We've known that they’ve been wanting to not just hurt us, but bring us down, for 50 years.

They were a known and gathering threat, strengthening and spreading out over the globe and publicly taking credit for attacking the west in general and America in particular, for over thirty years.

We not only did little or nothing to stop them, we did little or nothing to infiltrate them. We looked at their pitiful size and in classic hubristic mode, snickered, swore, swatted and looked away.

We unintelligently declined to put gathering intelligence on them as a low, or no, priority issue.

With that additional context in place, 9/11 happened, we were caught demonstrating our lack of intelligence (in several more ways than one) on a movement of people who had publicly declared hatred and who had repeatedly declared war upon us decades ago, and on 9/11 we suddenly realized to our own horror, that their pitiful non-aligned size, far from being an insurmountable weakness, it was in fact a huge weapon against us, and with it they could indeed hurt
Us, very, very badly.

We found ourselves in desperate circumstances, and we had no intelligent option but to resort to desperate measures to illuminate our self sustained blindness. Governments have in the past (al queda, Imperial Japan, etc), and will again, fail to realize or properly respond to real and growing threats, either out of hubris or for purely political reasons. Their failure may not only increase the danger to the nation from the original threat, but it may also put those who are governing, into a state of desperation (whether actually or politically doesn't matter, they do not distinguish between them), potentially making them into a threat to those they govern.

This is an extremely important context to keep in mind.

We should also keep in mind, at the risk of humoring the moonbats, that in the hands of Govt, what is considered extreme one day, can easily become routine after a number of days.

I am satisfied that our Govt did go to great lengths to minimize the possibility of such harsh measures from being irresponsibly used, and to prevent them from becoming routine, but there is one word that should be emphasized when saying that,

But.

Never forget that Govt is ruled by those with power, and it always tends towards desiring more power.

What we know was done in non-civil scenarios, in a time of war, and which we take as a vital and primary principle of that context... will be the fulcrum which those who habitually drop contexts, may someday seek to use to pry their way into civil scenarios, via spin, when they feel that their power is being threatened.

Here's a quote from George Washington that should always be kept first and foremost in mind, regarding government:

"Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a troublesome master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action."

The use and pursuit of power, impedes the operations of intelligent thought, for the most recent example, see the idiotic 'mission' of having Air Force One strafe downtown New York.



Look at the people on the ground, running in fear, thinking that 9/11 was occurring once again. This decision was made in order to get a photo-op… and their thinking and concern for possible unexpected results, for how it might affect an entire city to see a jetliner flying low towards the cityscape… well the best that can be said is that we hope the thought didn’t occur to them.

That decision is what passes for thinking by self satisfied bureaucrats, wanting to aggrandize themselves, and their superiors. Imagine what may pass for thinking when other bureaucrats, no better or worse than the ‘fool’ who signed off on that, become desperate.

And remember, the powerful will always feel that they find themselves in desperate circumstances.

That is a context that should always be of heightened concern.

The Contextualy Tortured Thoughts of Man Caused Disasters

Here's a scenario for you,

“Did you blow his head off?”,
“Well… yes, but…”,
“Sorry, no but’s, Sarge, string him up!”,
“But he broke into our house while we were sleeping! He was robbing us and trying to rape my daughter! He grabbed his gun and was pointing it…”,
“Hush you murderer! Quick Sarge, hang him so we don’t have to hear his stupid excuses, string him up!”

Keep that in mind, we'll come back to it in a few minutes.

Is the latest outrage from Washington D.C. (take your pick, releasing CIA memo’s, taking over banks, firing CEO’s… so many to choose from) merely a result of our experiencing a ‘bounce back’ from the previous administrations, which will produce a ‘bounce back’ as well? Like pinball’s in a pinball game?

Lance asked on the previous post, “I do feel and I have written this before that the election of Obama was a direct response a bounce back away from the policies of Bush and in four years there will be another bounce back the opposite way. I just hope the ball ends a little more in the middle and with a little better understanding of fiscal responsibility and the idea that if a company fails due to the nature of finance that isn't the end of the world.”

I don’t mean to criticize Lance directly, but the comment it seems to me reflects a certain view of the world that is common… and rather dangerous… all that bouncing back and forth, is not only very deterministic, but seeks to do something (required of determinism in general and leftism in particular), it seeks to drop the wider, and more relevant, context of what is happening in our lives.

For instance, by ‘bounce back’ one could mean that the uproar over the release of CIA Memo’s, could be a bounce back against demagogues such as Nancy Pelosi(D), who knowing full well about interrogation methods, and approving them – which is the only thing someone in the position of representing the people is doing when presented with information about actions to be taken, and does not speak out against it – she gave her voice, representative of all the people she represents, in at the very least non opposition, and implicit approval of those methods and actions – and then with unbounded cynical and pragmatic pandering to the most dangerously passionately uninformed among us, preyed on their stupidity in order to whip up political opposition (and power… primarily Power, for her benefit) to those who, because of secrecy, could not expose her perfidy (a little aerobic run on sentencing to get the day going).

This unhealthy, passionate, ignorance and shallow thought, which Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid, and John Kerry, and all the rest, preyed upon, preyed upon the weak thinking of the leftist multitudes in order to gain political power, while knowingly hindering, hurting, and opposing the interests of their country in a time of war.

I don’t need much prodding to pronounce that as being, if not legally, then morally, treasonous. But, at least in my case, I don’t regard that as ‘bouncing back’, I regard it as an open eyed examination of the issues, and with consideration, I render judgment. Bounce back… doesn’t really fit in with that process.

Do I think they really wanted to cause America harm? Did they really want to get American soldiers killed (look at what happened after the fictional Koran flushing)? No, I don’t think so, I think they merely wanted to take advantage of the situation, gain some power, I doubt they thought it’d really cause any harm, after all, responsible people would ‘do something’ to keep things going as they should. Just like with Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac, they didn’t really think that their forcing banks to make unwise loans, surely those in charge would just ‘do something’ to compensate… to bounce things back in line. After all, things aren’t really integrated or dependent upon each other, what’s true for one situation isn’t necessarily true for another, all things are relative… if you chuck the context, that is.

If we do want to consider it deterministically, where does the ball bounce back to from here? If it only rebounds from one passionately uninformed position to another… what results from that? I can tell you this, it won’t be good.

I too have been alarmed over the last… lets confine it to Bush admin for brevity's sake… 8 years, but probably for other reasons than most. I was alarmed that Bush signed, rather than vetoed, McCain/Feingold, a horrible assault upon free speech and the Constitution, into law. Probably he felt he could confidently pass the buck to the Supreme Court to strike it down. I termed that, then and now, as negligence and opportunism and a betrayal of principles. It was also, for anyone who had been watching the doings of the Supreme Court, stupid.

It also has opened the door for the current administration to carefully examine dangerous right wing extremists at the DHS.

On another front, Enron was a financial calamity of poor business leadership and short sighted opportunism for quick buck payoffs, it was an example of shoddy thinking and criminal behavior – in other words, typical human failings which people in general, and investors in particular, need to be sharply on the look out for. For the people who put their life savings into a company, trusting others to look out for them and to keep them safe from incompetents and criminals and save them the burden of responsibly looking into where their life savings was put… and lost everything… they get some sympathy from me, for their condition, if not how they got there, they got what they deserved. BTW, if you trusted the Gov’t to look out for you… for the SEC to do your due diligence and thinking for you, or a broker you don’t even know beyond a phone call to put your long term interests above his commission tallies, then you got what you deserved. If you sought to escape examining the wider context of issues and requirements for security… that puts you into another context, which you cannot escape from either.

There is a risk involved in investing your money in the Stock Market, and the risk increases the more you delegate the necessary oversight to others, and exponentially so when you trust Gov’t regulations and regulators to do so for you. But their plight is not where my concerns lay, where my concerns are focused, are on egregious cases of governmental overreach into private lives and businesses, through such ‘legislation’ such as Sarbanes-Oxley. If you want to trace our falling standing in the world financial community (not speaking of our current troubles – it’s a part of it, but not a principle portion), the point where the financial capital of the world ceased to rest securely in New York, and began to float towards London and elsewhere, that heinous bill which extends governmental interference into day to day management decisions, will be found at its root.

You can’t separate the urge of politicians to “Do Something!” from the results that will result from what they do. That also is an issue of context.

Bush began many things well, then let them peter out in cancerously moderate fashion. He began by saying no to Kyoto, but gave moral courage and comfort to the global warming hucksters by granting them the status of having reasonable concerns. He began by identifying states that support terrorism as being the enemies of freedom and liberty… and then in short order, offered diplomatic dialog, fresh starts, and ‘opportunities’ to ‘join the world community’. He began by seeking to solve the immigration issue… by ignoring the context of why it is an issue, of why we have borders, and of why they are particularly important in a time of war… and by ignoring the obvious anger of the public over the issue of amnesty – ignoring existing laws - twice. That too has laid the groundwork for congress to ram its stimulus package down our nations collective throat. Bush began by seeking to end Social Security, but tried to do so on efficient grounds (“This govt backed program will be better than that because it involves profit” – yeah, good selling point to leftists), instead of qualitative moral grounds – such as it is wrong for Government to operate a Ponzi scheme, to misrepresent a transfer of wealth from those creating it now to those only consuming it, as if it were an insurance or investment program; but far more importantly, it ignores, and condones the fact, that it is wrong for Government to be involved in the private actions and finances of its citizens – it tramples upon property rights, and by extension all other rights. At that critical point in our history, perhaps the last feasible point in time, when it was possible to identify the issue in its real terms, he didn’t, and compounded it immeasurably, by destroying the free market in order to save it, or as he put it “I’ve abandoned free-market principles to save the free market system”.

Very Kantian, that last… “I’ve found it necessary to destroy knowledge, in order to save faith”.

Not surprising, not at all, keeping in mind that he attended both Yale and Harvard – what can you expect?

While I obviously disapproved of most of Bush’s policies, why do I not revile the man? Because I am not a leftist. I do not make the ‘100 percentalistic’ error of the fraudulent application of principles, demanding that any deviation be devalued and destroyed. I do not make the hubristic error of assuming that because I have identified a principle involved in a situation, that I have identified all of the principles bearing on the situation. For all of Bush’s errors, and they are many, I don’t believe he intended harm to the Constitution or the Nation, and for his efforts in the ‘War on man caused disasters’ (ahem), flawed though they were, he deserves and receives, my heart felt gratitude.

But.

His comment about “I’ve abandoned free-market principles to save the free market system” is sooo telling, it is consistent with (gotta laugh at that) the mixture of leftist, pragmatic, Kantianistic, slop, which is taught in our system of education. It teaches anti-conceptual, anti-contextual methods of… not of reasoning, but of calculating. And it has consequences.

This brings me to our latest bout of public turmoil over the leftists attempting to destroy our knowledge, in very Kantian fashion, in order to impose their faith - the brouhaha over ‘we don’t torture’.

It is, at its core, an attempt to destroy knowledge of what is right and what is wrong, and to substitute paper thin decrees in the place were reasoned, morally active thought, should be. Which is at the heart and deadened-soul of the left.

Thinking and applying laws and moral reasoning, requires a careful examination of context and principles, sorting and sifting away the chaff from the wheat, the mud from the gold, the relevant essentials form the irrelevant particulars. If that were not the case, we would not have, and would have no need for, Judges – it would be sufficient to write down a law, post it in the public square, and punish those who violated it. No deliberation would be needed, just:

“Did you blow his head off?”,
“Well… yes, but…”,
“Sorry, no but’s, Sarge, string him up!”,
“But he broke into our house while we were sleeping! He was robbing us and trying to rape my daughter! He grabbed his gun and was pointing it…”,
“Hush you murderer! Quick Sarge, hang him so we don’t have to hear his stupid excuses, string him up!”

Most leftists hyping the interrogations methods as torture, are quite happy with just that level of consideration. Others, having some nagging notion of there once being such a thing as morality… at one time or another… but which they’ve conveniently relativised, will ask “but what of “Thou shalt not kill”?”

Well, if you believe that that is all there is to it (leaving aside the fact that the original Hebrew was closer to ‘Thou shalt not murder’… and that they considered them to be more like the ‘Ten Categories’ of commandments, rather than stand alone commandments… and what need for the volumes and volumes of the Talmud, if ‘It is written!’ was enough?), then you are either a literalistic fundamentalist, a leftist and/or an atheist of the deterministic creed.

But you are not a Reasoning person to whom morality is truly important (‘positions’ I’m sure they have loads of, and which they’ll fervently claim to be morally righteous, but such declarations can hardly be considered moral; at best, they are political), and are unlikely to exhibit even a whiff of wisdom.

Leftists, determinist's and Kantians (which is an extended redundancy) would like to have you believe that you can have faith in ‘Kantian categorical imperative’, flat line commandments which require no context or consideration to follow, but that is only something which only the most crudely inept of computer programs can adhere to (which is btw their ideal of man), but is an evil of untold proportions to teach as being a Moral ideal.

As my scenario demonstrates above, context is not only critically important, the full context is what really actually occurred, attempting to ignore any portion of the relevant context, is to dispense with a full grasp of reality.

For instance. I got into an argument once with a relative who was proposing govt health care, and she attempted a hypothetical argument “If your neighbor had in their home, the only antidote in the world which could save your wife and children from dying from a horrible disease, and refused to sell it to you, would you break in and steal it?”

One of the chief evils of hypothetical’s, especially in the hands of professors and those who have been distorted by them (as she was), is that they are usually used in an attempt to dispense with reality. They attempt to discard all context, all that is real and true, lock you into their one dimensional scenario, and then try to apply your deeply dimensional concepts (in this case Property Rights) to their little hell, in such a fashion as to make you discard your ability to reason – which is what you do when you ignore contextual issues. Like trying to shove a package through a mail slot, it won’t work, one or the other will be destroyed in the process, and they are banking on it being your package of contexts, rather than their narrow slot in the wall of flatland views, which will break.

In her hypothetical, she attempted to dispense with everything which would have made the development and attainment of some precious antidote possible in the first place: Reason, Medical Science, a Pharmaceutical industry, peaceful law abiding neighborhoods with homes that are not and do not need to be surrounded with defensive moats, and a free market which would make all of that possible – all of which is dependent upon a lawful defense of property rights, she attempted to discard that entire deeply contextual and integrated world view - in favor of a scenario of the basest of lifeboat ethics, a situation which requires immediate action and where reasoned thought and debate is not possible – a situation antithetical to ethical consideration and thought – and in that flattened context of nightmarish impossibilities which would still be dependent upon property rights in order to even conceive of, she attempts to force me to ‘admit’ that property rights are of no real value in the real world.

Again, the context matters, in most normal situations, a simple reference will suffice, you don’t steal, someone who doesn’t, gets punished.

Truth be told, most libertarians (of the Murray Rothbard variety) fall into this same trap, when they declare that all taxation is theft, that the government can have no right to their money. But just as my relative sought to construct a hypothetical which required property rights to exist, in order to attack them, the anarcho-libertarians attempt to use the concept of rights, which are reliant upon a proper government to uphold and defend them, in order to attack government for violating them. But you can have no political right to weaken or do away with that which makes political rights possible (more on this when I get to the end of my posts on Justice).

Where was this ramble rambling towards… oh yes, in the context of a group of fanatically violent theocratic anarchists, who are waging the most savage and uncivilized of wars upon the west in general, and upon America in particular, and having just slaughtered 3,000 civilians engaged in no aggressive behavior towards them, and planning more such attacks; in that context one of the creatures was captured, and with a sizable amount of evidence to indicate this filth bucket had information which might help prevent another imminent and horrific attack upon our people, into that context the aclu-Pelosi generated moonbat leftists wanted to uphold and defend the man-caused-disaster-generators right to constitutional privileges, and conventional legal respects and regards due to any other civilized person.

That’s a huge load of context dropping.

On top of that, the leftists want to ignore or discount the extensive measures that our government took, carefully examining legal obligations and treaties and constitutional law, in order to discern whether or not we could interrogate such a terrorist with a degree of roughness which would be unthinkable in normal situations. They want to ignore the limitations and restraints the Bush Administration determined would be necessary for that creatures ‘rights’ and safety, in order to remain within our law, and which would require the President of the United States of America to individually authorize particular instances which required the use of those methods. They also want to ignore the huge outcry and debate which has been raised among We The People once we heard what was happening – they want to ignore all of this – drop all of the relevant context – in order to draw an equivalence between the monstrous actions which are eagerly indulged in by the islambies (and I might mention, by many of those ‘appalled’ world leaders so loudly criticizing our actions, who routinely indulge in as much by their local police dept’s, not to mention what their secret police do to their own people, at their own discretion and pleasure… China anybody? Russia? FRANCE? )… is … just… asstounding.

And Horrifying.

And it is all the inevitable result of a pervasive leftist philosophy which rests upon, and depends upon, the discarding of context which such things as Kantian categorical imperative require.

They, and the left in general, are fundamentally anti-conceptual, anti-reason, and anti-American.

Period (contextually speaking).

Post Tea Party Talk

Ok, now that the Tea Parties have kicked things off… it’s time to reflect upon just what it is that we are working on kicking off.

Hopefully we’re not just blowing off steam.

I think I’ll have to continue this in the next couple posts, but for now, in taking an assessment of ourselves, and what we are fighting against, it might be instructive to take a look at how we are characterized by those whom we are opposed by, for it can tell us much about not only how they perceive the world, and us, but how common notions many of us may hold, have been poisoning us for decades.

“It’s funded by right wing billionaires”, “They are being organized by the GOP”, “They are right wing extremist hate mongers in league with the GOP”

It's worth taking a closer look at that, for there is much there to be seen.

• They do not believe that anything could happen nationwide, without it being coordinated, instigated, and funded, by a central power from above.




• They do not believe that individuals nationwide would see issues of principle which concerned them, and choose to take action to resolve them.




• They do not believe that normal individuals would contribute their time and money without an immediate and direct payoff for them.

Take a long slow look at these beliefs, which of course can be heard and verified on CNN, NBC, New York Times, Democrat Party, etc, and demonstrated so well by this CNNette, they describe exactly what they think of us, and why. The underlying beliefs behind these assumptions, are consistent with the core philosophy of Proreregressives, and indicates why they think along Marxist, Socialist and Fascist lines, and why they are necessarily in concerted opposition to Individual Rights, to Property Rights, and to the Free Market, as they are.

The Free Market is based upon the understanding, that Individuals making decisions in the course of their own lives and businesses, will result in a highly productive, prosperous and efficient economy, and will do so not only without experts advising and ordering their actions, but BECAUSE there are not ‘experts’ advising them from on high, but BECAUSE they are not giving them step by step orders countermanding their own best judgments, the Free Market is so productive BECAUSE individuals are free to use their own minds and make decisions about their own interests, in their own lives, for their own purposes.

They do not believe in the Free Market, because they do not believe in the ability or advisability of allowing individuals to use their own minds to live their own lives!

These people who opposed our Tea Parties, mostly leftists of course, but many on the ‘right’ as well, do not believe that individuals can be expected to do anything in any significant numbers, or to accomplish anything, without being organized and guided by experts, and they do not believe that society can prosper and progress without the directions of experts in positions of power organizing society in accordance with ‘rational’ plans. And they really cannot believe that we would bother to rouse ourselves to fight for principles which might materially benefit “the rich”, more so than ourselves.

This cannot be said enough – it is core to the fight we are facing -

• They Do Not Believe in Individual Rights, they believe instead in power and coercion, and that it is perfectly appropriate to use power and coercion to force individuals to serve their estimation of “the greater good”.



• They do not believe in your ability to live your life in a way that meets their ‘expert’ expectations, and in any conflict between the two, they believe that their expert expectations trump yours.



• They believe that your decisions will damage how they have determined it would be best for you to live.



• They do not believe in Free Will.



• They oppose the United States Constitution because it complicates their ability to do to you what THEY have decided is best for you.



• They believe that experts in the government should control and organize society as only they are equipped to determine it should be.

Who are ‘They’?

They are 'progressives', they are statists, and they are found on the Left AND the Right, and in every fundamental principle and issue the progressives in the Democrat AND Republican party, ARE Anti-American.

Some of the changes which the Proregressives have imposed upon this nation, and imperiled our liberty through, are:

1. Mandatory public schooling using government approved curriculum taught by teachers certified through government approved colleges



2. The FED, which gives the government control over the lifeblood of our economy



3. The FDA, SEC, EPA and a myriad other alphabet agencies of unelected bureaucrats, with no defined terms, writing regulations over our lives and businesses, which have the force of law



4. The soft slavery of the Income Tax through the 16th amendment, through which the government has first claim to all that you earn, and only through its generosity, are you allowed to retain whatever percentage of income it sees fit to dole back to you, or as Walter E. Williams once defined slavery: as “…a set of circumstances whereby one person is forcibly used to serve the purposes of another person and has no legal claim to the fruits of his labor” – if you don’t think that describes your circumstance, I’d like to hear how and why not



5. The corruption of the Senate through the 17th amendment, which reduced the Senate from a deliberative body thrice removed from the heat of the demos – who the Representatives are representatives of, and who the Senate was designed to cool and balance - to nothing but a simmering body tied directly to the ups and downs of public opinion, but with a guaranteed triple term – the Founders worst nightmare.



6. Devaluing and destabilizing our money through abandoning the Gold Standard, giving government to ability to change the value of paper money to suit their purposes, at our expense



7. A constant and continual attack upon property rights, because all of your rights depend upon an inviolate defense of property rights – and an oppressive government is almost inconceivable without gaining control over that which all of your material well being rests upon - your property

Do not make the mistake of thinking these Tea Parties are about the amount of money being taxed - This is NOT a tax revolt, any more than it was for the generation of our Founding Fathers. This is an issue of whether individuals should be secure in their property and so free to live their lives in liberty and in the pursuit of happiness, or whether Government should have first claim to their property, in order to set the boundaries of their lives, distributing favors and benefits as needed, to keep them in order and happy.

The Tea Party revolt is about whether the government serves you, or whether you serve the government.

In 1773 our Founding Father’s – YOUR Founding Fathers, whether your family have been citizens here for over two centuries or two months – YOUR Founding Fathers came to the most radical of political decisions ever proposed, that Individuals had minds and souls of their own, and that they should have the liberty to exercise them in their pursuit of happiness, and that no one had the right to rob them of the rights necessary to those ends.

In 1787, those Founding Fathers, sobered by revolution and the specter of political dissolution and potential tyrannies, created the first moral government in the history of the world, one which upheld Individuals Rights to use their own minds to live their lives, free from the dictates of tyrants.

It has come to us to reaffirm those founding principles, and stake our claim to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.

What I saw at the Tea Party

A fine time was had this evening in the Show Me state. 8,000 to 10,000 Missourians came together to ask for someone to show me where in the U.S. Constitution it says that our Govt can,

take all our money,

... and our grandkid's money

... and print even more,

... and nationalize our industries,

... and even penalize particular executives or fire others!

Just a couple pictures for now, and off to bed,

Thanks to Bill Hennesy at St. Louis Tea Party.com as his fellow organizer Dana Loesch from 97.1 FM (great speech btw) and Jim Hoft at GatewayPundit, and Kevin Jackson at the Black Sphere for MC'ing and all for organizing and pulling this off ... and without the 'benefit' of national personalities or politicians. 8,000 to 10,000 ain't a bad tally for a couple local bloggers!

Awfully darn good to see level headed, polite, informed people gathering together to support the Constitution which protects our freedoms and supports the Republic which makes our liberty possible.

While this is just a start, and will require much follow through, not to mention actual plans... it is still an excellent start... and nationwide!

Tea Party in Support of P.E.T.A! (People for the Ethical Taxation of Americans)

A repost from 2007, when I was incensed over Bush's, now seemingly quaint, $2.9 Trillion dollar budget, seems timely to review... with a couple new pic's for us right wing extremists who are loony enough to think that the Constitution is our cup of Tea , and that it actually meant, and means, something very, very exceptional in the history of mankind.

231 years ago, the leaders of America agreed upon a declaration of their principles in order to officially recognize and universalize their scattered actions into one common cause. Those scattered actions of Samuel Adams exhortations, the Boston Tea Party, Paul Revere & Lexington/Concord, Patrick Henry's '...but as for me, give me Liberty - or give me death.", Bunker Hill, all of these came together, 'From out of many, One' as a principled stand against tyranny, and for ... what?

What were these scattered words and actions, what were their purposes whose motivating principles unifying could be unified under Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence?

The smart set (meaning self-stupid-ifying ideological proregressives) would have us believe that it was for taxes (ostensibly), but even more so to further line the pockets of rich merchants and slave owners - and to a majority of the Signers, they could point to the facts of their lives and situations as support for their sophistry.

As is the case with most facts stripped from context and principle - they Lie. Most foully, they do lie.

The American colonies were settled by people seeking to live their own lives as they saw fit. I won't say they sought religious freedom, for as with the Puritans (who came later), at best they originally sought the freedom to impose their own religious tyranny. The Virginians (who were here first) came for gold and adventure. All of them found Reality. Stark and unbuffered by established traditions and aristocracies. Here in the wilds of America, they found only primitive savages, wilderness and need.

Those conditions, coupled with the mother country of England being distracted by continental concerns, left the colonists free to discover the razor of reality - what is false and useless, must be discarded. What is Good and True, and that most rare of things in a colony - the Beautiful, must be valued, guarded and promoted. The cream of western civilization was taught to their children, the classics & the Bible, and the new English/Scottish philosophers.

Slowly over the next 150 years, these conditions formed a hardy people. A people one part civilized and one part wild. That one part civilized, was civilized mainly by way of those virtues and ideals which didn't conflict with the one part that was wild. They didn't necessarily know what they knew, but beneath the knowledge they did have, through lessons of daily conduct, they learned the lessons of character formed of realities razor, through which they knew true Freedom.

That knowledge of freedom knew the folly of license, just as the Aesop’s ants knew that the foolish grasshopper would soon become their food. They had the lessons of civilization, knew of the necessity of Law, as only those who are confronted with the spectacle of savages and unvarnished reality can know it. They had distant memories of the best and worst possible in the rumors of civilization far away, and held the best of them as something to aim towards. They had a Goal - to survive and prosper, and they had the clear parameters of savagery or desolation to guide them. The Puritans early experiment with communism taught them all the harsh lessons of the feebleness of collective authority and 'ownership' of property, over the community of Individuals secure in their rights of Property, working individually together in community.

These lessons were learned and known in their spirit and conduct, even if they didn't know it in written understanding. They knew the True Freedom of freedom boundaried by reality and law. And they knew what it meant to stray from them.

Into this world 150 years in the learning and making, the attentions of the mother country, and of Europe, returned to them. They fought the French and Indian war with and for the British. And then the British sought to have them help to pay for it. For the European, insulated from the follies of bad economics and tyranny by millennia of established traditions, they thought nothing of their impositions.

Through the lessons of dealing with the Indians, and the wilderness, the colonists knew in their bones, the folly of forcefully trampling upon the sacred rights of property, of thinking that laws issued against the tide would stop it, immediately had their backs up. They couldn't well say what they didn't like about it, but they knew something was seriously wrong.

Into that void of being able to put into words what they all understood, came James Otis, Samuel Adams, John Adams and Dr. Joseph Warren. And they were soon followed by John Hancock, Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine and so many others, all of whom form the body of the Founding Fathers. They put into words and deeds what they all already knew, that proper, civilized men dealt with their fellows ethically, or not at all.

Those who chose to act unethically, to act against Nature and Natures God, against Reality, was either a savage or a tyrant - and both unworthy of respect. Worthy only of defiance, and defying a European Tyrant entailed the use of cold steel and the risking of your life and your sacred honor.

Into that understanding, Thomas Jefferson, at the request of a committee of the best of the Colonists, put that understanding into the immortal words of the Declaration of Independence.

Review the sacred document well, and you will find it to be a declaration of and by Patriots for the Ethical Taxation of Americans, ethics which they knew and understood, learned deeply and well through the school of the Good, the Beautiful and the True - of Reality, and the Spirit which runs through it.

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776.THE UNANIMOUSDECLARATION OF THE
THIRTEEN UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776.
THE UNANIMOUS
DECLARATION OF THE THIRTEEN UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

WHEN, in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's GOD entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the Causes which impel them to the Separation.

We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their CREATOR, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate, that Governments long established, should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security. Such has been the patient Sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the Necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The History of the present King of Great-Britain is a History of repeated Injuries and Usurpations, all having in direct Object the Establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid World.

HE has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public Good.

HE has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing Importance, unless suspended in their Operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

HE has refused to pass other Laws for the Accommodation of large Districts of People, unless those People would relinquish the Right of Representation in the Legislature, a Right inestimable to them, and formidable to Tyranny only.

HE has called together Legislative Bodies at Places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the Depository of their public Records, for the sole Purpose of fatiguing them into Compliance with his Measures.

HE has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly Firmness his Invasions on the Rights of the People.

HE has refused for a long Time, after such Dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining, in the mean Time, exposed to all the Dangers of Invasion from without, and Convulsions within.

HE has endeavoured to prevent the Population of these States; for that Purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their Migrations hither, and raising the Conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

HE has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

HE has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the Tenure of their Offices, and the Amount and Payment of their Salaries.

HE has erected a Multitude of new Offices, and sent hither Swarms of Officers to harrass our People, and eat out their Substance.

HE has kept among us, in Times of Peace, Standing Armies, without the Consent of our Legislatures.

HE has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

HE has combined with others to subject us to a Jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution, and unacknowledged by our Laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

FOR quartering large Bodies of Armed Troops among us:

FOR protecting them, by a mock Trial, from Punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

FOR cutting off our Trade with all Parts of the World:

FOR imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

FOR depriving us, in many Cases, of the Benefits of Trial by Jury:

FOR transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended Offences:

FOR abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an arbitrary Government, and enlarging its Boundaries, so as to render it at once an Example and fit Instrument for introducing the same absolute Rule into these Colonies:

FOR taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

FOR suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with Power to legislate for us in all Cases whatsoever.

HE has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection, and waging War against us.

HE has plundered our Seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our Towns, and destroyed the Lives of our People.

HE is, at this Time, transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to complete the Works of Death, Desolation, and Tyranny, already begun with Circumstances of Cruelty and Perfidy, scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous Ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized Nation.

HE has constrained our Fellow-Citizens, taken Captive on the high Seas, to bear Arms against their Country, to become the Executioners of their Friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

HE has excited domestic Insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the Inhabitants of our Frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known Rule of Warfare, is an undistinguished Destruction, of all Ages, Sexes, and Conditions.

IN every Stage of these Oppressions we have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble Terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated Injury. A Prince, whose Character is thus marked by every Act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the Ruler of a free People.

NOR have we been wanting in Attentions to our British Brethren. We have warned them, from Time to Time, of Attempts by their Legislature to extend an unwarrantable Jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the Circumstances of our Emigration and Settlement here. We have appealed to their native Justice and Magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the Ties of our common Kindred to disavow these Usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our Connexions and Correspondence. They too have been deaf to the Voice of Justice and of Consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the Necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the Rest of Mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

WE, therefore, the Representatives of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, in GENERAL CONGRESS Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World for the Rectitude of our Intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly Publish and Declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be, FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES; that they are absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political Connexion between them and the State of Great-Britain, is, and ought to be, totally dissolved; and that as FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which INDEPENDENT STATES may of Right do. And for the Support of this Declaration, with a firm Reliance on the Protection of DIVINE PROVIDENCE, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honour.

John Hancock.
GEORGIA, Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, Geo. Walton.
NORTH-CAROLINA, Wm. Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn.
SOUTH-CAROLINA, Edward Rutledge, Thos Heyward, junr. Thomas Lynch, junr. Arthur Middleton.
MARYLAND, Samuel Chase, Wm. Paca, Thos. Stone, Charles Carroll, of Carrollton.
VIRGINIA, George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Ths. Jefferson, Benja. Harrison, Thos. Nelson, jr. Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton.
PENNSYLVANIA, Robt. Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benja. Franklin, John Morton, Geo. Clymer, Jas. Smith, Geo. Taylor, James Wilson, Geo. Ross.
DELAWARE, Caesar Rodney, Geo. Read.
NEW-YORK, Wm. Floyd, Phil. Livingston, Frank Lewis, Lewis Morris.
NEW-JERSEY, Richd. Stockton, Jno. Witherspoon, Fras. Hopkinson, John Hart, Abra. Clark.
NEW-HAMPSHIRE, Josiah Bartlett, Wm. Whipple, Matthew Thornton.
MASSACHUSETTS-BAY, Saml. Adams, John Adams, Robt. Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry.
RHODE-ISLAND AND PROVIDENCE, &c. Step. Hopkins, William Ellery.
CONNECTICUT, Roger Sherman, Saml. Huntington, Wm. Williams, Oliver Wolcott.

IN CONGRESS, JANUARY 18, 1777.

ORDERED,
THAT an authenticated Copy of the DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCY, with the Names of the MEMBERS of CONGRESS, subscribing the same, be sent to each of the UNITED STATES, and that they be desired to have the same put on RECORD.
By Order of CONGRESS,

JOHN HANCOCK, President.

The various HE’s and For’s may have changed between then and now, but the principles remain the same, and the necessity of defiance should be apparent to us now, just as it was to us then. Thankfully, today there is no need in this land for the use of cold steel against the tyrants among us and in our capitals, but the need to defy tyrants, to put into words the usurpations and offenses, and the statement of Principled words for what we all know and understand – remains very much the same.

Perhaps the recent amnesty bill will stir us again to defy tyrants, perhaps more is needed – we shall seek to keep the need alive and clarified.

Long live the Spirit of 1776.

Of Easter, Pirates, Seals, Kites and Tea Parties

Today is Easter Sunday, and though the day certainly needs no further elaboration from me, still I wonder how much thought we give to how we celebrate the Dei here, as opposed to around the world... and in the rest of our lives.


We enjoyed a pleasant family day here, and although chilly (darn that global warming), we were able to get some good kite flying in as well.

"... is risen!"

Across the world, three pirates met their John Wayne style Hollywood endings at the hands of U.S. Navy Seals, freeing one very brave American sea captain. I don't know about you, but I draw a clear line between my daughter dashing across a field with her kite dancing up into the air, and our killing pirates in particular and standing up to bad guys in general.


Neglect the later, and imperil the former.


For the good to prevail, they must stand up to and stop the bad - the hesitancy or failure of the good to do so, is the only strength the bad has. Hat's off to President Obama for signing the order to take them out. How about following the same policy elsewhere around the world... and here at home as well?

As Easter signifies the path towards the souls ascent, it requires focusing upon the truth on high, and practicing it in your behavior here on the ground, and so the kite climbs upwards due to both the gusting breeze and the kite's line held in a little girls hand running across the ground. A society which has the leisure to observe all they hold holy, and safely gather their family together via planes, trains and automobiles for a feast made possible through supermarkets and businesses in a free market; is a society which relies upon their observation, respect, and defense of law.

Law and Order requires written laws, clearly defined and vigorously enforced, and above all, it requires that those in authority recognize and respect the law, and that they dare not evade or abuse it.


That requires that the people remind those in authority when we know that they have strayed; we must stand up and remind them that it was the people who put them in those positions, and we put them in those positions in order to uphold the law, not to use it and abuse it for their own purposes.


It's not the answer, but it is the path towards One - make yourself heard at a Tea Party - stand up, remind those in power, that We The People put them there, and that we intend to hold them to accounts.


Happy Easter!

Tea and Trumpets

Shortly after communicating much of what has made up my previous couple of posts, to both of our Senators and our Representative, I received an email from one of my Senator's, Sen. Claire McCaskill (you may remember some of her many glowing appearances during the previous presidential campaign, arguing for the wonderful middle class tax-cuts and fiscal responsibility which Mr. Obama would bring to Washington, should he be elected President), her message says:

"Right now, as our nation faces its most serious economic crisis in decades, Congress and the President worked together in order to pass the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). This recovery package will energize and uplift our state’s economy, and I want to talk to you about the many exciting opportunities for Missourians: thousands of jobs for our state, improvements to our infrastructure, much needed aid for small businesses, help for our schools and neighborhoods, and assistance for homeowners, to name a few.

That’s why I will be hosting a Kitchen Table Talk in your area on
Tuesday, April 7, 2009:St. Charles County (9:00 AM – 10:00 AM)"

Wasn't that thoughtful? Well, to be fair, at least she did send some kind of reply... although I somehow doubt that my message prompted her statewide email and travel plans, still, our Representative, Rep. Akin only sent: "Thank you for contacting my office", and our rino Sen. Bond? Zip.

Still, one good reply deserves another, so I replied with the following:

Senator,

Thanks for your invitation to chat during normal working hours on 4/7/09.

Unfortunately, although I’ve been out of work for three months, darn the luck, I am starting a new job on 4/6/09… I’m tempted to request a later start date so that I can attend your ‘Kitchen Table Talk’ in order to try and explain to you what most American’s do during their ‘Kitchen Table Talk’s. Typically, we sit down, usually without much of a sense of ‘excitement’, and try to figure out how much money we actually have, how much money is actually coming in, and then begin budgeting (that usually means cutting back on things we’d like to have and do) in order to try to make ends meet.

Perhaps you could pass that strategy on to your fellow’s?

I also wonder that you seem to invariably schedule these quaint get-togethers when most people, who are fortunate enough to have a job, will actually be at their jobs – I wonder if that is the point?

Here’s an idea, if you happen to be in town on April 15th (a day that figures big in our budgeting), maybe you’d like to drop by for a get-together and some Tea, which a few thousand of us are planning… I’m sure you’ll hear loads about what Missourians think of your ‘many exciting opportunities’.

Sincerely,
Van

Constitutional Tipping Point

Today President Obama said he has "no intention" of running GM...as he announced that he had demanded and received the resignation of GM's CEO, Rick Wagoner, and as he let Fiat and Chrysler know that they were being given 30 days to get their affairs in order and up to his administration's satisfaction.

I hope it goes without saying, that the President of the United States of America, has no constitutional power whatsoever, to demand the resignation of any employee, of any business, in any industry, anywhere in the nation.

None. Zero. Nada.

With this, he has announced that he has discarded the rule of law. The principle is out the window.

Prior to today's bracing announcement, last week Geithner announced his intention that,

"Firms that are deemed to be systemically important large institutions must be able to give the government a comprehensive report on their aggregate counterparty risks exposures "within a matter of hours."

If business's spend bunch's of money to lobby and persuade legislators to alter prepositions, verbs and nouns in legislation now, in order to get a little bit more favorable of an angle on their business, can you imagine what is going to happen, when the favorable view of legislators, and their staff, have the ability to determine whether or not your business is a "systemically important large institution", and whether or not those staff members, legislators or even the President himself, considers your current decisions to be politically useful for sending a message that "... it will take a new vision and new direction..." to influence the market and his polls?

Oh. My. God.

Do you realize the sheer political power that each and every bureaucrat involved in this process, is going to have and command? As I said in my previous post, this has little or nothing to do with 'fixing' GM or any other business, this is about seizing power, pure and simple.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I hate to borrow a phrase from our non-representing-representatives, but we've got to do something, and do it fast! I don't know if these Tax Day Tea Parties are promising or not, but it's something while we're trying to figure out a worthwhile plan to counteract this madness!

Oh... wait a minute. Maybe too late there too... "A tea party to protest government spending and taxing is canceled. Canceled by the government."

Ladies and Gent's, you've heard of 'Tipping Points'? Which way are you going to let the nation tip towards, Freedom or Tyranny?

Your choice.

The U.S. Constitution - use it or lose it! (UPDATED)

If you have so far managed (THIS WEEK!) to make it past the government destroying our wealth through the printing press, and were still stumbling past the ‘notion’ that government should be in the banking (or any other) business, only to be hit with the government using taxation as a way to target particular citizens… AIG peter-principle execs or otherwise, not to mention the fear that just as our government “took an interest in” AIG & leading Banks that were ‘too big to fail’ in order to ‘protect the economy’, there is now the very real possibility that the IMF & nations of the U.N. may decide that the USA is ‘too big to fail’ and so they (China, Russia, etc, who hold our loans) may propose that the fundamentals of our economy may need to be ‘managed’ in order to protect the rest of the world… (pause to catch breath … run-on sentence aerobics…) if you can possibly make it past all of that which is going on right now, which is damn near overwhelming, then this is where you may want to focus some of the remaining shreds of your attention upon: Free Speech.

Free speech, because if that goes, there will be no way left for us to combat the rest of the problems.

When foolish ‘moderates’ such as John McCain led the fight for campaign finance reform (which was also the excuse for the 17th amendment, which reduced the U.S. Senate to the status and quality of House Representatives with triple length terms – which, btw, also increased, rather than decreased, the ‘campaign finance problem’), giving the idiotic excuse that ‘money must be kept out of politics’; completely missing the fact that that established the right of the government to prohibit people from putting their money where their mouths wanted it to be heard - endorsing a political choice – the only free speech the founders had in mind to protect.

McCain and others of his ilk said these ‘protections’ would never spill into prohibitions on actual ‘free speech’ of individual citizens political ideals, no, no, McCain/Feingold would only prevent big money from corrupting big government (the truth is the other way around of course, but that’s another matter), while some of us said that once the principle was established, the rest would surely follow.

Well….

“Court hears arguments over anti-Hillary movie
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court on Tuesday questioned whether government regulation of a movie critical of former presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton might also be used to ban books critical of political hopefuls during election season.”

No crystal balls are needed here to predict the future should this new principle stand, only the application of philosophical principles.

If the McCain/Feingold statutes themselves are not struck down, then whether or not this particular movie is successfully banned, more attempts will follow, until the logical expression of the new McCain/Feingold principle that “Speech can only be free, when and where the government says it’s ok to speak” is given the force of law.

You can see the same principle being applied through a different form in the efforts to recast the “Fairness Doctrine”, and trial balloons over control of speech on the internet. Once limits on movies or commercials are established as ‘detrimental to free speech’, then similar controls on books will follow quickly behind, then the scope of what defines an ‘election season’ will be expanded, and finally it will be extended to prevent interfering in the ability of elected officials to ‘carry out the peoples business which they were elected to do’.

At that point, the Founders Constitution will become only a historical curiosity… which you’ll probably need authorization to examine.

Am I exagerating? Well... have a look at this, which just passed the House, From H.R. 1388: Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education Act, Down in Part III, SEC. 120. INNOVATIVE DEMONSTRATION SERVICE-LEARNING PROGRAMS AND RESEARCH, you'll find this gem,

"‘(B) service-learning is a mandatory part of the curriculum in all of the
secondary schools served by the local educational agency."

Which part of 'Mandatory' sounds like 'volunteerism' to you? Which part of 'Home of the Free' do you think seems amenable to forcing our children to volunteer for government mandated 'community service'? People used to say 'It can't happen here' - folks, it IS happening here, here and now. It is happening because people are not familiar with the very document expressly designed and created to prevent such things from ever happening here - the U.S. Constitution, and the relevant documents (Federalist & Anti-Federalist papers, etc) which can help you to understand it, as it was intended then - not as it is being spun now. (BTW: For another look at this which is not as nonchalant as mine, try Gateway Pundit's take - Hat tip to QP)

If you know anyone who thinks anything that is being done now is ‘constitutional’, they are dreaming. If you don’t know how to explain how that it is un-constitutional, how are you going to avoid their dream from becoming your nightmare?

Examine it now. If you aren’t familiar with the ideas which shaped the Founders thinking in writing the Constitution, I’m aware of no better site than the Founders Constitution, hosted by the University of Chicago Press and the Liberty Fund. Each phrase, such as the Preamble, is hyperlinked to the relevant documents, ranging from the Greeks to Locke, the Federalist and the Anti-Federalist papers, even early Supreme Court decisions affecting them… it is outstanding.

Tell your representatives you ‘disapprove’ of these measures, assuming you do (and if not, why not?), but don’t count on them. No long term solutions will come from them, it will have to come from ‘We The People’ learning what is right, Why it is Right, and Demanding that the right thing be done, continually, and over the long term. If you are looking for easy answers, you will just as easily lose it all.

If we don’t learn it, and defend it, it will be gone.

Bank on it.

The Phony Diversion of Transparency... "Look, nothing up my sleeve..."

"Look, nothing up my sleeve... nothing in my hat."
Every good Magician makes a big show of providing his audience 'Full Transparency', in fact he relies upon it,

"Look closely ladies and gentlemen, there's nothing up my sleeve and nothing in my hat, in fact, why don't you sir, come up and pat me down... you agree I'm concealing nothing? Yes? Excellent... and by the way, what were you doing with this marble behind your ear?"
... and out pops a marble 'as if' it were behind your ear all along.

Here's a tip: it wasn't.

It is part of the act, 'providing transparency' is one of the magicians chief techniques for misdirecting your attention so that he can perform his trick without your noticing how he is actually accomplishing it.

No different with Uncle Sam. When Uncle Obama offers 'full transparency',

""The American taxpayer will benefit from full transparency at
each step of the process as these funds are disbursed.""

... in most cases we'll remain better informed by not looking at where he is directing us to look.

Where Else Not To Look
Don't look at the 'successful performance', or lack there of, of Govt programs. Those do nothing but stand in for 'nothing up my sleeves...', don't bother looking for infrastructure improvements (remember 'The Big Dig'?), or initiatives to 'improve education'... they will accomplish nothing of the sort.

We tend to make the mistake of viewing Govt as if its 'product' can be looked at, viewed and measured, in the same way as we would a business whose 'output' is the product produced - but that is not the case.

With a business such as Ford, the product is obviously a Mustang, or an Explorer, etc, and the machinery of the business; workers, managers and executives, are there to design, build and sell that product, and the relative health of such a business can be gauged by the sales of, and satisfaction with, that product. Which is very true... though we tend to forget that the purpose of the business and its product, from the shareholders perspective, is not the 'Mustang' or any other product, they are merely means to an end, and the end purpose of the business is ultimately to earn a profit.

Similarly so with Govt.

Profit is the result paid to shareholders, from a business that is run efficiently and creates dependable, functioning, products. But 'efficient', 'dependable' and 'functioning', do not describe the products which a Govt is in the 'business' of creating, for there is a corollary to profit in Govt, which we often overlook, because to most of us it has no value, but to the typical Govt person, it is THE value.

It is a mistake to think that the 'products' of business and of Govt can be evaluated in the same way, because their purposes are so different. The soundness and dependability of a business's product, serves to increase profit, but the soundness and dependability of a Govt's product, whatever the program or 'service', does NOT serve it's end purpose. And even those who do look past the 'products' to the end purposes of creating them, they tend to think that YOU, the Public, are viewed by those in Govt, as the equivalent of 'shareholders' to a business. But just as the products can not be viewed the same, neither can the 'customers' be viewed in the same way... and lest you do think that YOU are considered by those in Govt as if you were on a equal par as a business's shareholder, let me just speak for them... NOT!

With Govt, the output we see, and typically take to be its Product, is only a minor visible component of their 'business model', and in actuality it is but a means to the real ends, that which takes the role that 'profit' does in private enterprise, which is the maintenance, distribution, and expansion of Power.

When you have a budget, stimulus plan, etc, which have line items within it such as 'upgrade infrastructure' or 'education'; upgrading infrastructure and education, ARE NOT either the point, product or purposes of that budget. A more accurate, but still flawed interpretation would be to say that the purpose of the budget, is to

- 1st, reserve for some Govt administrator the power to control the allocation of the power that will be needed to do this item, and
- 2nd, to name other people, dept's and committee's, etc (expanding and enhancing power), and so on, for implementing that power

- and power MUST be exerted, it must be released, kinetic power in Govt is worse than useless, it is wasted. But that diverts attention away from the true primary requirement for steps 1, 2 and so on, which is transferring power from the populace, principally through taxation, and also through directives and regulations, to the Govt.

Any 'Budget' or 'Stimulus' plan in a Govt which has escaped its restraints, such as ours has, is NOT a plan to improve 'infrastructure' or 'education' or even to fix the economy; it is only a development plan for further enhancing, spreading and increasing power and entrenching the powerful. It's more akin to a plan for planting weeds, than wheat.

There are only two purposes for selecting how and where to exert power. Either for the sole purpose of Power itself (and you should forget about eliminating them, it will never happen, such people will always be among us, the best that can be hoped for is to control their excesses), or to accomplish some goal which the powerful desires to do (and these are far more dangerous than mere power luster's), whether it be because of grudge, whim or worse, 'morality'.

Govt Slipping the Surly Bonds
The only thing that has been discovered in all of human history that has had even a chance of controlling and directing power in such a way that benefits all of the people, not just the powerful, is a written constitution and a system of law which is based upon, bound to, and harmonized with, the higher laws as directed by that written Constitution.

This written constitution produces an irritating restraint upon those who have the reins of power. In even the best of societies, those in power, seek it in order to DO that which they see to be necessary and right, and a written constitution hampers and inhibits them at every step of the way. The constitution was barely dry, before the congress was seeking to 'upgrade infrastructure', to create what we today would term a 'Highway Bill', but there could be found no way past the still clear and un-fractured constitution and body of laws, to permit it, and so Madison and others (for a time), vetoed them.

It's instructive to read from President Madison's Veto Message for the 'stimulus' and 'infrastructure' bill of his day, the first 'Bonus Bill',

"I am not unaware of the great importance of roads and canals and the improved navigation of water courses, and that a power in the National Legislature to provide for them might be exercised with signal advantage to the general prosperity. But seeing that such a power is not expressly given by the Constitution, and believing that it can not be deduced from any part of it without an inadmissible latitude of construction and reliance on insufficient precedents; believing also that the permanent success of the Constitution depends on a definite partition of powers between the General and the State Governments, and that no adequate landmarks would be left by the constructive extension of the powers of Congress as proposed in the bill, I have no option but to withhold my signature from it, and to cherishing the hope that its beneficial objects may be attained by a resort for the necessary powers to the same wisdom and virtue in the nation which established the Constitution in its actual form and providently marked out in the instrument itself a safe and practicable mode of improving it as experience might suggest.

James Madison,
President of the United States "

Madison did think that the goals of the bill were worthwhile, even necessary, but he knew that doing so without amending the constitution, would be destructive to the constitution - it would break its restraints. He urged Congress to begin the process of amending the constitution. It should be noted that the constitution never was amended to allow for such things as 'upgrading infrastructure'.

Why?

Because, 'upgrading infrastructure' was never the purpose of the bill, or at least that wasn't the purpose of those who sought to push it through despite the obvious unconstitutionality of doing so, which Madison pointed out.

Amending the constitution would have strengthened the constitution, and would have made ignoring it even more difficult, and doing that, was the real purpose!

Various forms of that 'highway bill' would surface and resurface through the centuries, seeking a way through those restraints, but it would take over a century and a thousand nicks, paper cuts in our body of laws under the Constitution, to support the 'nothing up my sleeve' flourishes needed to give the illusion that it could be allowed within the constitution.

Once that wound had been opened, the constitutional dam began to crumble, and more and more bills to 'do right' were shoved through the gap, until eventually the point was reached where the constitution could, except in the most shallowly obvious ways, be ignored and subverted almost at will, needing only nebulous polls of public opinion to accomplish it.

That is where we are today.

Looking up the sleeve
Another key difference between private enterprise' products, and Govt's 'products', is that private enterprise gains from a functioning and effective product. Govt, except when fully under constitutional restraints, almost never benefits from functioning and effective 'products'. An 'educational' system which actually educates children, is a dead end for the power monger... where, within a functioning and efficient system, do you think you can find an opportunity to expand power? If something is working to everyone's satisfaction, why would it require more services and funding and people & groups beholden to you?

A successful Govt Program, is a complete dead end, from the point of view of the power monger! And especially with education, if the public is actually educated, they are not going to allow those in Govt to do whatever the hell they want to do... and who wants that?!

Only within a written constitution, whose laws are in conformity to it, and whose purpose is to preserve the individual rights and property of the people, and to protect them from enemies foreign and domestic, and where those in power seek to exert their power only to accomplish those goals, only within that narrow scope, can a fully functioning and efficient Govt, be deemed successful... but we've slipped past that stage, long ago.

It only takes one leak in the Constitutional dam, beginning in the merest trickle, to spread and grow into the full crumbling flood we are experiencing today. It's been my contention that the earliest and most significant breach, was the Morrill Act, which was the first federal action which fully transgressed the defined constitutional scope and powers of the Federal Govt, even though it appeared to be just a wee bit and for a good cause - education -, and with those good intentions, began the diluting of Education with Proregressive purposes and theories, which has been central to the American public losing sight of what the Constitution originally was and why it ever even existed.

(As an example of the corrosive spirit of indoctrination that has taken over Educationists in particular, and modern philosophy in general, see this quoting of Richard Rorty, which gives a clear example of Goldberg's point from 'Liberal Fascism', that the real face of fascism today, is a teacher with a leftist education. Sickening(Hat tip to Julie for the link that linked to this link).)

Within forty years of the first version of the Morrill Act, Education; it's meaning, content, purposes, structure and practice, were completely transformed, and the U.S. Govt was routinely doing what the Founders would have been appalled to see it do. The Govt was directly infringing upon the peoples property rights in the most blatant of ways, 'trust busting' and further ventures into 'protecting' monetary stability, which would culminate within another two decades, in the defacto loss (or at least legitimized abridgments) of our freedoms, through the creation of the Fed, the Income Tax, mandatory public schooling, Govt regulatory agencies, and the leveling of the Senate with the 17th Amendment.

Don't Look Where You Are Directed To Look
Don't bother looking up the magicians sleeve, at least not when he offers it, look at what he is actually doing; not his flourishes, but the actions he's hoping you don't notice. Focus on the purposive/philosophically motivated anti-restraint (constitutional) power monger, for that is the rabbit which will breed and multiply and overrun our garden.

At the surface level of the statist's policies (all of which are leftist and little 'r' republicans), you'll find that they seek to forcibly change circumstances in order to 'improve' the people. Whether it be through, from the left, welfare checks, hate speech codes or quotas - or from the little 'r' right: educational reform (instead of the obliteration of the entire system), values education, prohibitions, blue laws, etc - they think that by rearranging the distribution of wealth or insensitive words or numbers of melanin or gender counts, or through forced actions labeled as 'choices', that they will be able to improve and fix and pacify 'we the people'.

Look deeper into the statist's policies (both leftist and little 'r' right), and you're going to find them doing what is 'necessary' for the feeding and caring of the powerful, which means the expansion of bureaucratic programs, regulations and taxes, all excused as 'necessary' for 'Success!' and even when it becomes obvious that they are only rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic, they will persist, to keep their power base happy at their apparent 'progress' and 'action!', and keep them in power right up until the ship has sunk.

If you look past the surface to the root of the statist's policies (and leftist and little 'r' right are the same in kind, differing only in degree), what you're going to find buried in the motivations and justifications for their policies and actions, are their metaphysical first principles, which will be Determinism. They do believe that outward changes in the environment will mechanically cause inward changes and 'corrections', like one billiard ball bouncing off of another, in the 'people'. And such deterministic scenario's are one of the few times they'll refer to that dirty term 'cause', and then only because they can't figure out how to get around using it.

However, the denial of free will, which determinism entails and requires (and which leads to the complete inversion of morality), and which that mechanical billiard ricocheting 'cause' is meant to discredit and take the place of, requires of the powerful not only the willingness, but the necessity, for them to violate the rights of the individual (righteously so), in order to serve the collective, and that is what keeps the powerful in the business of developing power.

When you hear 'Look, nothing up this sleeve', you can bank on two things. One, that isn't where the rabbit is, and two, the rabbit, no matter how it appears to have appeared, will not be pulled out of thin air. No matter the appearance of the free-lunch rabbit trick, the rabbit exists in fact, it has mass, and it must be fed and cared for, and you are going to be made to pay for it... or more accurately for them, for you must never forget, rabbits multiply.

Quickly.


*******UPDATE*******
I was just reading a column from the excellent Thomas Sowell, called False solutions and real problems
P ("...No one asked how many hundreds of thousands of dollars would be added to the cost of an average home by "open space" laws, for example. Yet empirical studies have shown that land-use restrictions added at least a hundred thousand dollars to the average home price in dozens of places around the country. ..."), and then browsed to one of his columns from earlier in the year, which beat me to this post's punch by a few months, called What are they buying?,

"What are the Beltway politicians buying with all the hundreds of billions of dollars they are spending? They are buying what politicians are most interested in— power.

In the name of protecting the taxpayers' investment, they are buying the power to tell General Motors how to make cars, banks how to bank and, before it is all over with, all sorts of other people how to do the work they specialize in, and for which members of Congress have no competence, much less expertise.

This administration and Congress are now in a position to do what Franklin D. Roosevelt did during the Great Depression of the 1930s— use a crisis of the times to create new institutions that will last for generations."

Sowell is one of my Heroes.