Category Archives: Responsibility

Governance, Politics 2024, Responsibility

ARTICLE V

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There is a genius element to Article V. It’s short, providing for the Amendment process, including the option of what amounts to a non-government, people-driven process. It is time for people to get to work employing this Constitutional stroke of genius.

There are two paths to amendment. The first 18 words describe how two-thirds of BOTH houses of congress can propose amendments to the Constitution. The next 21 words stipulate that upon application of two-thirds of the LEGISLATURES of the States, “The Congress” SHALL CALL a Convention for the purpose of proposing amendments. In either case, the proposed amendments shall be ratified when three-fourths of the legislatures of the States ratify it/them, or when conventions in three-fourths of the states ratify it/them. It does say that The Congress may state which Mode of Ratification shall be used in either case. Americans are not taught much about the Articles of the Constitution, although a lot of time is spent on the Bill of Rights and other hot-button amendments. We should consider carefully what the founders did in Article V.

Article V is the ONLY provision that allows for “re-balancing” our government in the likely event that powers carefully delineated and divided among what seemed to be natural interests in a Republic, became concentrated or ignored as government types trended toward authoritarianism. Wisely, the authors of the Constitution did not trust government. They did their best to send it forth as a government deriving its just powers from the governed. Human nature – and communism, the antithesis of human nature – has come dangerously close to overthrowing the structure of and our existence as, a nation… except that we have a “frame-straightening” tool in Article V. It is referred to as the “Convention of the States.”

Most, if not all of the changes that need to be made to the structure and function of government, have to do with archaic rules and procedures that have become arbitrary and authoritarian in an age of instant and readily manipulable media. In addition, most, if not all, have served to increase the powers of government types, their agencies and departments, while restricting and limiting the freedoms and sovereignty of citizens. The results include near destruction of our fiscal standing and ability to respond to national threats, and to nearly discard the concept of a Constitutional Republic and the majestic nature of American citizenship. Article V provides a way for CITIZENS to petition their State’s legislatures to approve participation in calling for a “Convention of the States” that is not controlled by Congress or any other component of the Federal government. The importance of this CIVIL RIGHT cannot be overstated. 34 states must approve the calling of such a Convention.

There are no limitations on what may be considered for amendment or guidelines as to what must be considered. After 50 to 60 years of diminishing education about the Constitution or about the exceptional nature of U. S. citizenship and our responsibilities as citizens, coupled with severe slippage in moral instruction, religious input or classical philosophy, our existence as an independent nation-state is facing its greatest threat. One element of that threat is how to control the quality and philosophy of delegates from the States to the Convention of the States. Without question, leftists will fight to dominate every delegation, seeing the potential power of amendment as a short-cut to destruction of the American idea and ideals. Those who are in favor of utilizing this unique Article V tool for “fixing” government, must be strongly organized to guide the makeup of delegations that will adhere to the greatest extent possible, to the ideas that underlay the original drafting of the Constitution, itself. What are some corrupting practices that it would be Prudent to correct?

1) Term Limits. Dozens of House and Senate candidates – and Presidential candidates – claim to support “term limits” for elected federal office-holders, but each knows that there is virtually no path for achieving that change if the Congress is to be depended upon to propose that amendment to Article I, Sections 2 and 3. Immediately we hear that… “there already are term limits: they’re called ‘elections.’” While strictly true, it didn’t prevent the worthies in the House and Senate from proposing the Twenty-second Amendment to impose term limits on the office of President. Franklin Roosevelt showed that elections couldn’t be relied upon in the modern era to limit the accumulation of power by elected office-holders. The very same is true for Representatives and Senators.

It doesn’t seem Prudent to create a class of people who CAN’T run for Congress, so a term-limiting that is based on consecutive terms and a stipulated number of terms out of office may be fairer and more practical.

2) Budgeting. Every line item in the ridiculously monstrous Federal Budget deserves SOME oversight and literal forensic analysis. In other words, the actual nature of the work being funded should be analyzed as to effectiveness of achieving the purpose(s) for which the office, title, agency or department was created and originally funded. With somewhere between 1,000 and 2,000 such “executive” line items, it is practically impossible to oversee them all. A Republic – a Constitutional Republic – cannot survive or even function according to its covenant with its citizens, when THREE-FOURTHS of its spending is untouchable by the People’s and the States’ representatives. Even more threatening is the flood of regulations that emanates from the “Administrative State” with the force of law, penalty and punishment with virtually no accountability to the People’s and States’ representatives. Standards should be stipulated for retention of ANY federal program.

3) Budgeting. Except in times of declared War, the Federal Government should be limited to collection and expenditure of a maximum percentage of 18% of the Gross Domestic Product of the U. S. economy. Further, the Federal budget should be balanced at that level of expenditure.

4) Taxation. Taxes must be neither punitive nor manipulative, and… everyone should pay his or her fair share. This includes people on public relief as well as billionaires. Rather than the huge jumps in rates that our current “progressive” tax tables use, there should be 28 steps: 1 basic and universal rate and 27 marginal rates up to a total of 28% with very few fixed rates for special types of investment. All 28 rates should adjust every two years in order to balance the federal budget, which should also shift to bi-annual budgeting, set for two-year periods.

5) Entitlements. There is no free lunch. There are a hundred “entitlements” baked into federal expenditures. Disingenuously, Social Security is lumped together with various forms of “welfare” when it is, in fact, a set of contracts with mandated investors. With its codified duplicity, the federal government, spurred on by our Citizen and State representatives in the Congress, has stolen the money in the Social Security Trust Fund, and they’ve done so for about 8 decades. As a band-aid of “exchange” for spending that money on all sorts of unrelated expenses, the Treasury deposits United States interest-bearing bonds in the so-called “trust fund.” Sadly, the ability to continue paying out to legitimate S.S. recipients is dependent upon federal taxation AND borrowing from the future. This makes Social Security, one of the largest taxes on American workers, also one of the largest contributors to U. S. insolvency and a target for leftists whenever challenged about “overspending.”

Today, Social Security is grouped along with other “entitlements,” which makes it subject to the calculations of Congress when it ought to be sacrosanct as a regulated “pay-in, pay-out” system of investment for retirement. Workers and, ostensibly, their employers, are forced to “contribute” up to 15% of payroll to Social Security. The government spends the cash – many hundreds of billions – on numerous critical needs, not least of which are the needs of individuals who never paid into the system. Not only do government bonds generate insufficient returns to cover lawful payouts to those who paid in, but requirements for how long one must pay in and what their payouts will be at certain ages of retirement, are changed for political purposes, not for financial ones. For the past 50 years it has been obvious to the clear-thinking that Social Security was at risk of going bust. Some financial changes have been made, including changes to approved retirement ages, but political calculations have never changed. The attacks on Republicans, who are usually the ones who want to make changes aimed at continued solvency of the Fund, never change. There is a political fear of being accused of “taking away your Social Security” that causes even the smartest politicians to campaign on a promises to “always protect your Social Security.”

What should be included among amendments that can reign in authoritative government, is the essential “privatization of Social Security. That is, that the mandate to fund retirements should be a requirement the dollars of which are owned and carefully managed (by regulated financial advisors) by individuals in funds that will grow at more the twice the rate of the Social Security Fund typically has, and will be part of a family’s estate upon the death of the employee/investor. This will place government into partnership with its citizens in the ultimate success and independence of each one and each family. This will change the current relationship which effectively dictates how independent – or DEPENDENT – every worker and family can be. Individual retirement should not be subject to the historic financial idiocy of the Congress.

6) Federal employment and related costs. Working for the federal government in its hundreds and hundreds of offices, agencies and departments, has become a better career than is common – or average – in the private economy. Federal employees are far less likely to be fired for poor or mal-performance, enjoy more time off and better health coverage and pensions than most workers. Little by little, the role of servant and served have reversed: American workers are basically working and going in to astronomical debt for the benefit of public employees, most of whom are also unionized. Those same are able to use forms of police powers to regulate and restrict the citizens they “serve.”

The relationship of federal employees and their employment security and rates of pay and benefits should be limited to a fair ratio to that of typical employees in the private sector. There should also be upper limits to maximum pay for federal employees and executives. Federal employment needn’t be unpleasant or inadequately compensated, but not so richly, either, that it exceeds the economic safety and comfort of other workers. Further, the ability of supervisors and managers to fire poor employees should be no more difficult than is found in private industry.

It isn’t Prudent to limit the ideas brought forth in the “Convention of the States” to those of any one patriot. The Convention itself, however, is our last best hope to save the future of the United States of America.

Economics, Education, Family, Race, Religion, Responsibility, Sex, Taxation

AMERICA – Article III

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A major factor in the success of the United States and its economic freedom (among other freedoms) is the honesty and relative strictness of its judiciary, both federal and State. The honesty of contracts at every level, including the contract between the American people and the federal government: the Constitution, relies increasingly upon the Supreme Court, the final arbiter.

Article III details the legal circumstances that require original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, which means that the supreme court is the first, and only Court, that can hear those cases and rule upon the issues in conflict. In all other cases – and there are hundreds – the Court must agree to accept an appeal from litigants who not only aren’t satisfied with the decision made, but who also believe there is a Constitutional issue involved in their conflicting claims. At least four Justices must agree to accept a case, and one of them is likely to write an opinion, if not THE opinion that will form the Court’s ruling. It takes time. When the majority opinion is delivered there usually is a dissenting opinion. Lawyers everywhere study both. Crucial interpretations of Constitutional issues will form arguments in other cases. Sometimes the issues raised in the dissenting, or minority opinion, will be refined to bolster other cases. The written words of the Supreme Court are critical to our success as a nation.

The Congress is given the power to establish inferior federal courts and charge them with certain authorities over types of crime or types of conflicts. There are courts for immigration matters, for example, or for tax issues, and several others. The country is divided into 12 “Circuits” and Justices often visit those Circuits. See https://www.uscourts.gov/about-federal-courts/court-role-and-structure for a comprehensive view of federal court structure.

Leftism consistently challenges our Constitutional Republic. Socialism / Communism is inherently counter to the structure of morality and individual responsibility that is embodied in the Constitution. Freedom includes the freedom to fail, to try again and to make choices about how to advance in life. Forces of the left consistently attempt to tie individuals to government rules and regulations. This can be seen in attacks on religion and in unionized “public” education, itself. Little by little, leftist philosophies, even direct Marxism, like “minimum wage” laws, constantly distort our economy and increase dependence on government. These stresses generate social-issue conflicts that threaten domestic tranquility and even personal safety. This places immense public, if not mob pressure, on the Court and on individual Justices. Starting with Judge Robert Bork in 1987, the left – personified by Senator Ted Kennedy, an avowed socialist – has attacked and refused to compromise with “conservatism” in any form.

Leftist, or “Progressive” policies, inherently are on the attack against the premises and ideas expressed in the Constitution. The Supreme Court was and is charged with primary defense of the ideas underpinning the Constitution. Judge Bork represented a shift away from leftist activism on the Supreme Court. The retiring Justice, Lewis Powell had often been the swing vote on issues like abortion, tilting the Court to the left. Bork was a strict constructionist, unswayed by social pressures. To leftists like Kennedy, that threat of a shift away from the attack on original intent, was a threat so serious that the destruction of the reputation of an esteemed legal scholar like Bork, was well worth the effort. The attacks continue, as evidenced by the violent reaction to the reversal of Roe versus Wade in the “Dobbs” decision in 2022.

Among our “Unalienable rights” listed in the Declaration of Independence are “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.” Within them has developed a severe conflict, mainly due to the equality of status that women have acquired since the beginning of the United States. “Liberty” and “Happiness” both depend upon freedom of action by individuals. Pregnancy, uniquely, with its 9-month period of physical commitment and subsequent lifetime obligations, can interfere, unquestionably, with happiness and liberty of the pregnant woman. So far, we have not found a balance between the rights of the mother/parent, and those of the baby growing inside her.

Does the right to LIFE take precedence? Many think so. Do the rights of the mother take precedence? Many believe this is so. Mainly non-religious, non-Christian or anti-Christian persons, are pleased to take dominion over natural life, and grant women the absolute right to abort their child. Religious people tend to support the rights of the new life to be born and to thrive after birth. They are “pro-life.” Abortion absolutists have done their best to pervert the meaning of conception and of what a fetus actually is: a human baby, growing. Inevitably, this conflict landed in the Supreme Court. Sadly, Roe versus Wade resulted in more than 60 Million Americans being aborted, most of whom were growing inside women of color. It is a number that should give Anti-life believers some pause.

The Supreme Court makes mistakes. The “Dred Scott” decision is recognized as the worst of them, as Chief Justice Roger Taney attempted to undo several state and federal laws governing the status of slaves and even of any free negro citizen. Taney went so far as to declare the Missouri Compromise un-Constitutional and to state that the concept of “free soil” and freedom of slaves who resided there, was constitutionally unenforceable and need not be recognized by other territories or states. The decision helped to push the South to secession and proved to be recognized in its disregard among free states and territories. The 13th amendment made Taney’s decisions moot.

Another simpler, but still egregious decision was the “Kelo” decision: a 7-year battle over the “taking” of private property for public use, that was decided – many feel, wrongly – in 2005. The city of New London, Connecticut, decided that development of land next to a new Pfizer plant, would increase tax receipts to the city, and therefore qualified as a public good. Unfortunately, Suzette Kelo and her neighbors lived on that land, many on long-time homesteads, in perfectly acceptable, non-condemned homes. The city turned the land over to a new, semi-private development Commission along with the power of “eminent domain,” with which the Commission forced homeowners to sell their real estate. Tragically, The Supreme Court interpreted the “taking” clause in the 5th Amendment to include not only the clearly stated “public use,” like a school or water treatment plant, but for an amorphous “expected benefit” for the public, such as increased tax revenues might provide. In other words, amazingly, “public use” was interpreted to include “private use” if it raised more taxes than current landowners provided. Several States have amended their own laws to prevent exactly the premise of the Kelo decision.

The American public is right to challenge the Supreme Court and, through the Senate, to carefully examine the beliefs of nominees to the Supreme Court. As political conflicts, largely fomented by the Left, become more heated and hateful, the ability of Justices to ignore such matters becomes ever more difficult. It is more crucial than ever that the strength and intention of the Court must be to preserve the originating ideas and ideals of the Constitution, resisting all attempts, regardless of political heat, to drift, stumble or run-away from them.

Elections, Foreign Policy, Governance, Politics 2023, Politics 2024, Responsibility

AMERICA – Article II

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The second-most important “branch” of our Republic’s government is the Executive. To most people, this means the President, or “The White House.” It is much, much larger than that – grievously so. There is no accurate count of the number of Departments, Agencies, Offices and Titles that are funded, almost without question or oversight, in the sloppy budgeting process that Congress standardly fails to control. The total is well over a thousand; how close to two thousand, no one can tell. If Congress were forced to oversee every line-item in the budget, we’d probably see a quick reduction, consolidation or elimination of hundreds of these tax-consuming, practically parasitic entities. But Article II is about the powers of the Executive, how he (or she) is elected, and to what actions the President and his/her appointees are sworn.

Mostly, voters and other citizens (we hope, citizens) are concerned about and are told about how well the President is fulfilling his promises in office. The President is NOT the most powerful person in his “administration.” Who is, varies.

Among the “big” Departments – “Cabinet-level Departments” – are Defense, Treasury, Justice, Interior, Agriculture, Housing and Urban Development, Health and Human Services, Commerce, Education, Energy, Homeland Security, Labor, State, Transportation and Veterans Affairs. Originally, there were just 4 men who comprised Washington’s “cabinet,” a relatively informal group of advisors: Secretary of State, Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, Secretary of War, Henry Knox and Attorney General, Edmund Randolph. Each was a “founder” of the new nation and involved in the creation of the Constitution. Each had his views of how the government should be administered and what the Federal Government’s interactions with “the people” and with the States, should be. We are still deciding.

Washington’s status was such that no one was prepared to attack him directly, but political parties soon developed as politically powerful leaders like Hamilton and Jefferson, Madison, Adams and Monroe, among others, and Jackson, later, sought followers to their views. These were the “factions” that were feared by Madison and others writing in the “Federalist Papers.” Washington sought statesmanship from his advisors… like his own. But it became rarer and rarer as party factionalism took hold. The framers of the Constitution expected loyalty to States to be the competing interests that would, in effect, strengthen the new Union of States. Party factionalism, as we can see today, has nearly obliterated those sovereign concerns, as Federal power has become the big prize… and source of wealth both licit and illicit.

The election of a President is done by the Electoral College, one of the earliest topics in Article II, to which 376 words are devoted. The framers, fairly fresh from the Revolutionary War, were very concerned about the creation of an executive officer, having lately fought against executive excess. They did not want the selection process to be “democracy” without severe restrictions that protected the rights of States. The model Republic they hoped to create would have “checks” and “balances” on executive power and even on legislative power. As much as was workable – if not practical – they wanted a chance for statesmanship and reflection to filter out “faction” and emotion in the selection of a President. Their wisdom resulted in the Electoral College. Today we can see the Constitutional mechanisms that are most worth defending by the nature of the heated emotions that wish to sidestep them, altogether. Every Presidential “election” is blanketed with statistics about the “popular vote,” especially when the Electoral winner received fewer votes in gross total than the person who did not win in the Electoral college. That he or she did or didn’t is immaterial; but the “popular vote” is announced by all media as if it mattered.

The Constitution does not provide for National elections; we have State elections, now 50 of them, by law on the same day. Every 4 years, citizens of the 50 states elect slates of Electors who will later vote in the “Electoral College” for the President / Vice-President “ticket” to which they are committed, having gained a majority or a plurality of the popular vote in their respective States. Every State’s election stands on its own, irrespective of the size of the majority or plurality of the popular vote in other states. We employ democratic process to elect people whose Constitutional function strengthens the REPUBLIC. The REPUBLIC is strengthened by the federation of its sovereign States; the rights and sovereignty of those States must be protected and defended by the powers ceded to the federal government. It was the citizens of States – States that pre-existed the federal government and the federation, itself – who ratified the Constitution and the Bill of Rights: the first ten amendments without which ratification would have been impossible.

The two keys to our Republic’s success and endurance include an EXECUTIVE who is checked by the power of the people – expressed in Congress – and, as John Adams incisively stated (one might say, predicted), “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” We have embarked on a course of denying government responsibility for promoting morality. Indeed, we are rushing to make legal immoral actions in order for governments at every level to share in their illicit proceeds. What a foul recalculation of the meaning of liberty.

Presidents after Washington have pressed for greater freedom of action without the slow action of Congress, almost continuously. Abraham Lincoln was the first to suspend basic rights due to the emergencies of the Civil War. The relationship of the federal government to individual citizens changed dramatically in the years following, and even before the end of Civil War. The Emancipation Proclamation applied Executive power to the problems of black individuals in multiple states. Following the war a federal agency, the “Pension Office” under the authority of the “Commissioner of Pensions” organized to evaluate claims due to both physical and mental injuries incurred during the Civil War. Today there are, as noted above, well over 1,000 federal agencies and departments. Ostensibly, the President directs their work and function but, in fact, most of the Executive “branch” runs on its own, including lobbying Congress for never-ending funding and support.

The President is charged with being the “Commander in Chief” of the Army and Navy (and added military branches, now) AND OF THE “Militias” of the several states when called into service of the United States. Who those “Militias” are is not well-defined, although referenced in the Constitution and in the Second Amendment. Pre-existing the Army, the “National Guard” grew from colonial militias who defended against “Indian” attack, especially as the “frontier” encroached on Native lands, and later against the French and their native allies.

The “Army” was created from the Militias and State “Guards” during the Revolutionary War. Had it not been for General George Washington’s personal leadership, the Revolution would have failed as soldiers completed their periods of voluntary service, but who stayed to complete Washington’s mission of independence. It is difficult to grasp the privation and sacrifice required to pursue the war with Britain; few in today’s America are capable of what Revolutionary soldiers endured.

The Minutemen of Massachusetts grew, purposefully, out of the regiments of Militia. They were trained by veterans of the Indian and French-Indian wars and were the defenders against the British at Lexington and Concord, as the British sought to disarm the colonists. More regiments from Massachusetts served in the “Continental Army” than from any other colony/State, and formed the basis of the United States Army. The President is charged, ultimately, with command – and DEPLOYMENT – of all of the military forces, including calling up Reserve troops and the National Guard(s) of the several States, WITHOUT a declaration of a state of War, which only the Congress can effect. The “War Powers Act” in 1973, changed the basic relationship dictated by the Constitution.

In response to President Nixon’s secret bombing campaign in Cambodia during the Vietnam War, Congress attempted to reign in the creeping expansion of Presidential powers as Commander in Chief. Still, it recognized the perceived need for swift response to armed actions almost anywhere in the world where the PRESIDENT can articulate (within 48 hours of taking military action for up to 60 days without further Congressional approval) a “national interest” of the United States. This is a codification of the U. S.’s perceived role as “the world’s policeman,” and a dangerous relinquishing of Congressional, and, therefore, States’ authority over the commitment of their citizens to actions of deadly threat. All in all it is a stark example of how the Executive has become the super-representative of “the American people,” basically in opposition to Congress’ Constitutional power of representing the will of the citizens of the several States.

Since the end of World War II, and most particularly following the assassination of President Kennedy, the “federal” government has rushed to become a “National” government, directly undercutting the design of the Constitution for a Republic of united, somewhat sovereign States. Every heated declaration of “threat to our democracy” or “protecting our democracy” is premised on the desire for pure “majority rule” in the wielding of “national” power, no matter how temporarily a majority might be created for any cause or idea, rather than a republic-like careful deliberation and application of wisdom before action is taken or changes to governance made.

Constant reference to the Constitution and its amendments, is necessary to measure how far we have drifted from, and how much further some wish for us to drift from, the ideals and responsibilities of the American experiment and the “limited” Executive thereof.

Crime, Culture, Economics, Education, Elections, Family, Politics 2023, Representation, Responsibility

ONCE UPON A TIME

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Americans are, to a greater extent than at any time since the “Great” Depression, unhappy and untrusting of others.  For all of our history as the United States of America, we have shared several senses of hope: economic, health, safety and cleanliness.  We might also add a sense of religious hope.  These hopes have slowly been… and are now quickly,  being erased from our shared beliefs.  It is unsettling.

Our origins as a people are exceptional as are our philosophies of governance and religious freedoms and numerous other rights protected by the Constitution.  The fundament of American exceptionalism is that the government(s) are formed and defined by the people.  Yet, since the beginning, those forces that believed the exact opposite: that governments are formed to control the people, their styles and means of living and their status in society, have been hard at work to undo the exceptionalism that once defined us.  Starting in 2020, the virtual Communist enemies of America have believed that success is within their grasp and, sadly, very many Americans, particularly young Americans, agree with the destruction of our culture and nation.

We are losing our hopes.

Every person has grown up with a pattern of habits and beliefs imprinted by or in reaction to our parents or guardians or lack thereof.  Other key people and childhood friends and classmates – and TEACHERS – all contributed to each of our belief structures and general outlooks and reactions to problems and opportunities.  Huge industries of psychologists, child-psychologists, counselors and psychiatrists have developed to channel our feelings, guilts or irrationalities relative to our upbringing.  In one way or another, at some level, we are, all, “screwed up” and seeking someone to blame for how we are.  How is it, then, that most of us have, throughout the history of the United States, turned out so well?

Indeed, through the times of greatest tests: The Civil War, various economic crises, World Wars One and Two and the Civil Rights movement, Americans have impressed the world with our drive to “do the right thing.”  Perfectly?  Naturally not; but, overall we used to tend toward the best response to challenges – personally and nationally.  Was it a miracle?  Was it a set of millions of coincidences?  Were children raised more perfectly then?

A qualified “yes” to the last question, but it was no accident that most of us grew up reasonably rational and morally straight despite our imperfect parents and circumstances, and the fundamental reason was culture.

We had a beautiful culture based in honesty and responsibility.  The rest of the world envied it and struggled to emigrate to our land of opportunity.  Our laws were equally applied, mostly, and our contracts were honestly enforced, mostly, and our private property – the fruit of our labor – was fairly protected by civil authorities, mostly.  We rewarded initiative and success and, mostly, forgave failure for those who strove to do better.  We honored churches and charity and respected marriage – even encouraged it in policy.  We respected learning and the learned, and the inventors who kept our economic future bright.  Parents could reasonably expect their children to have better lives than they had.  It almost sounds funny to recount these “American” qualities.

Our culture was the best there was, in our capitalist democratic republic, and we tried to share it with others.  Americans, individually, were enormously charitable toward one another and with the rest of the world, and we supported our nation being the same toward other peoples.  American citizenship was a golden possession, yet anyone who applied to be one had to meet only the simplest tests and commitment to be welcomed into our nation as an equal possessor of our “gold.”  Our basic Judeo-Christian ethics made us tolerant.  What have we done?

In spite of obstacles, our young people used to grow up in pretty good shape, and the reason was culture.  Schools, churches, libraries, police departments, pronouncements from the work of Congress, the military branches, radio programming, music and lyrics, television programming and news reporting, and even cinema… all reinforced our shared cultural beliefs.  Today?  Today, nearly all of these institutions challenge, if not tear down, our basic cultural norms.  Parents are nearly alone in their efforts to pass our culture along to and in their children.  What have we done?

As society becomes, almost daily, less and less honest, and our institutions less and less trustworthy, young people facing difficulties tend toward immediate suicide or the long-term suicide of drugs.  Adults seem to have no valid response to this.  Indeed, we allow for policies that make drug-addiction SAFER!  We don’t even want to enforce sanctions for criminal behaviors!  What are we doing?

None of what is going wrong is inevitable or guaranteed by the Constitution.  We human beings created the mess we’re in and we can “un-create” it the minute we decide to be adults, again.  What are we going to do?  God save us.

Culture, Economics, Education, Family, Religion, Representation, Responsibility

IMAGINING RESCUE

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WILLING TO BE RESCUED?

Prudence has noted in the past that 2020 seemed to be the year that the globalist, anti-American far left determined that it could overthrow the American system.  The manufactured “pandemic” surrounding COVID-19 and resulting destruction of civil liberties, social structure and logic following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, seemed to be making the long-planned destruction of America possible.  The primary tool to make such a profound change in the direction of history, is managed hatred.

The largest hatreds over the millennia are spiritual, if not identifiably religious.  This is sad, in many ways, but also understandable given the nature of non-compromise at the heart of most organized religions.  The power lies in belief.  Shared belief is the strongest human force.  Rare are they who can listen to alternative beliefs and subsequently change their own.  Beliefs direct the actions of individuals, even to the point of destroying those with opposing beliefs.  When added to “mob” coherence, shared beliefs account for more deaths than any other social circumstance.

To a great degree, religions are – or began as – tribal belief systems, and in the earliest periods they had few alternative ideas to resist.  This fact makes the interesting similarities among early origin stories and beliefs about gods and an afterlife, even more remarkable.  However, fairly small differences between belief systems can spark enormous conflict, like that between Protestants and Catholics or between Sunni and Shia sects of Islam.  The religious differences translate readily into political and military differences, but at their core, they tend to be conflicts between which humans are in charge of the “religions,” not the deep principles underlying the beliefs.

Sadly, some belief systems are based in hatred, such that no form of compromise will permit even suspicious co-existence: the premise of one system being the elimination of the other system.  If success appears to find the “destroyer” system, that system prepares to take on the next system it opposes.  We can see this pattern with Marxism/Communism.  Its basic opposition to private property is enabled by its fundamental opposition to religion of any form.  However, one of the most hateful systems appears to be Islam, the premise of which is that the entire world must become Muslim; there is no workable form of co-respect or co-existence with other religions.  We have become a world governed by competing hatreds.

In a Prudent view, that is not the way any God of humanity would have wanted mankind to develop.

Regardless of the scale of the groups toward whom hate is directed, the act of hating is still a very personal one.  Pressures to convince large groups to direct their hatred at certain targets – politically in purpose and effect – can be successful only if lots of individuals are personally convinced of the “legitimacy” of that hatred.  It’s not the same as “following orders” issued by authoritative leaders.  And it’s not the same as “hating” those who are simply different from oneself – different sounding, looking, acting – which is closer to fear rather than actual hate.  It is fairly easy to learn to stop fearing others, to gain understanding of those differences, to eventually become neutral toward the different and, perhaps, friendly.  Soon, we’re marrying one another and blending our differences in beautiful children who will be less fearful than we used to be.

But to become hateful of particular others is a commitment with oneself.  It’s hard to casually hate, but relatively easier if one can be convinced to do so, whereupon he or she becomes more comfortable in hatred if he or she convinces him- or her-self that hatred is part of a belief system to which he or she is committed.  Soon, the haters are not being led to it, but are pushing for increased purity of hatred, often punishing or rejecting those leaders who seek compromise.  Hatred is an awful way to guide or lead people.  But, it’s cheap and effective.

America was once described as a melting pot.  Ostensibly, people from all places could “become” Americans.  Without offering multiple forms of welfare and help – including taxpayer-financed attorneys – in multiple languages and multi-lingual public education, people came only because freedom was offered.  Everyone learned English and agreed to live within our legal system, one of the most honest… not perfect, but fairly evenly applied under the Constitution.  “Melting pot” was not the most accurate description: “salad bowl” is probably better.  America invited the best of the world to join us.  Despite our mistakes, particularly with slavery, we learned to respect everyone who was willing to make and pay his or her own way.  Things have changed.  American “representation” has, in the past 30 years or so, become the politics of competing hatreds.  From the Clintonian “politics of personal destruction,” we have devolved to the “politics of social and familial disintegration.”

There is a certain ease of slipping into hatred, for most humans, not all.  Hating some one else or millions of someones else, requires justification.  If a person can find justification for hatred, no matter how flimsy, additional scraps of justification will stick to that hate like double-sided carpet-tape, bonding it just as tightly to one’s beliefs – perhaps to one’s soul.  Add in the power of group (mob) psychology and soon a novice hater is leading the charge.  Somewhere or somewhen along the spectrum from distrust to embedded hatred, every individual must decide to continue in that direction or to take another.  Every person, regardless of justifications, is responsible for his or her actions – including hatred.

Every person can choose from evil, which hatred certainly is, whether political or something else.  Every one of us can make that choice.  In spite of decades of public indoctrination, our ability to choose to be responsible still exists.  We are Americans, still able to lead, including ourselves.

Biden, Economics, Elections, Representation, Responsibility, Taxation

TRASH-TALKING INFLATION

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Most of what we hear on TV or radio about the big enemy: INFLATION, is only partially true, at best.  Defeating that enemy, which politicians claim to be doing for their constituents, is impossible if we fail, sometimes on purpose, to understand the nature of it.  Let’s examine the primary aspect, or feature, of Inflation: it is a tool of government, by which we mean, the federal government. 

This is not to say that government intends to raise prices on commodities and goods and labor, but then, prices rising is not the definition of inflation, which is why much of what is spewed about “inflation”… is disinformation.  Inflation represents only an increase in the money supply; along with the federal government’s sneaky mechanisms, there are only a couple of ways to expand the money supply, primarily banks, and banks can do so only because of federal regulations.  Oddly, foreign banks and governments can ALSO expand the money supply, increasing inflation of the supply of dollars, not of wealth.   When prices rise there are temporary bumps in wealth due to increased receipts and, often, fixed rates of interest on loans.  So, there is a spotty increase in prosperity, but not for everyone.  Inflation increases dollars, but each represents less wealth than it did even a few months, if not weeks earlier.

Only the federal government can “create” money.  The Constitution charges the Congress to “…coin money, (and) regulate the value thereof…”  In 1913 Congress shed that Constitutional responsibility – and authority – when it created the Federal Reserve Bank, which is a consortium of private banks with federally appointed “governors.”  Legally, “The Fed” can loan money it does not have, to the government – it’s a neat trick.  Of course, the Congress must approve expenditures and, when the government has no cash, it must approve borrowing  “… on the full faith and credit of the United States …” to enable those expenditures.  To LIMIT the degree of overspending, Congress created the ”Debt Ceiling” in 1917, streamlining the emission of bonds by the Treasury as World War I expenses mounted.  With various changes and accommodations since, Congress has largely permitted the federal government to borrow whatever it can justify politically.

Since the Johnson Administration and the federalization of welfare and healthcare, the “Debt Ceiling” has proven to be not much of a ceiling, or limit, at all.  As we approach $33 Trillion in federal debt, the debt ceiling has become merely a tool of negotiation, with the ultimate “threat” of “government shutdown.”  With millions of people now dependent upon government handouts, it’s possible for those on the left to raise huge public, political outcry against a “shutdown.”  All that conservatives can garner is some compromise on unrelated policies or spending changes, but never is there a reduction in spending or overall cut to the federal budget.  It’s always an increase.  The $33 Trillion is documented inflation.  It’s not static, and it is expensive.  When the Federal Reserve was created in 1913, the concept of interest costs to federal borrowing was supposed to keep borrowings small and temporary – that is, “paid back” to stop the interest costs.  Today, the cost of interest on the national debt is well over $800 Billion – approaching the defense budget(!).  The concept of limitation through interest obligations is out the window with the debt ‘ceiling.’  Our “representatives” have shown over many decades that they cannot be trusted with OUR money.  How does inflating the money supply serve the interests of government?

On any given morning the value of all the dollars in the world is whatever it is.  Let’s call it ONE (1).  “Da Gummint” comes up with some cockamami plan to save the planet or forgive student loans or flood the country with 7 Million new welfare recipients… just saying.  With the federal budget already overspent by 30% or so (financed by earlier borrowing) the president’s party dutifully files legislation to make everyone’s life better while enrichening donors to their party.  It requires a new loan to enable the new magnanimity and, since all the loaned money (and tax receipts) authorized so far has been allocated, the “debt ceiling” must be raised.  Eventually it is and a new $500 Billion or so is authorized and the loan made.  The government spends the new dollars at a value of “1,” and target recipients do as well.  Congress-people brag to their constituents about the wonderful benefits and bacon they’ve delivered.

Some of the money is used to pay current federal expenses of various kinds, including entitlements, and some goes to pay interest on this and earlier debts, now approaching THIRTY-THREE TRILLION DOLLARS, with an “F.” But, you ask, how does that cause the price of eggs to go up?  Simply put, increased “prosperity” in consumers’ / buyers’ hands and bank accounts, puts stress on the marketplace: supply and demand.  At first, sellers are happy – more people want more of what they sell, and… every seller is also a buyer.

Demand for eggs goes up as more people feel they can afford eggs, but, more significantly, large baking companies demand more eggs than a month ago because stores are selling more of their higher-priced goods.  Egg producers need to expand production but it takes a while to do so.  Large buyers bid up the price of eggs because they are determined to produce more crème-filled pastries to meet demand, and producers will accommodate their largest customers.  Eggs go up in price for domestic buyers, too.  Soon, a new equilibrium is attained and eggs stop rising in price from their new baseline, market price, but buyers of all kinds of things are spending dollars at a value of, say, .93, not 1.

Two hundred-million buying decisions, or more, are made every day based on relative values to buyer and seller.  Prices are “driven” up as if every seller wants to be a more expensive supplier, but, in fact, most don’t: most want their value to appear higher to attract the next buyers’ ‘buy’ decision.  But the seller’s “cost of eggs” has increased and he must pay the rent from his sales; he raises his prices, usually reluctantly.  Everywhere you turn some “news” outlet is decrying “rising inflation,” when what they are talking about is “rising prices,” usually the CPI or Consumer Price Index.  If there weren’t simultaneous DE-flationary forces at work, we’d be in real trouble.

Okay, then, what is a deflationary force?  First and foremost, rising prices!  It’s a sloppy, effective and painful way to absorb the extra cash created by inflation (of the money supply.)  Government-generated inflation is done so without any connection to increased production or wealth; worse, it has no mechanism for debt destruction.  Private, or economic inflation is tied to improved production, greater efficiency and, usually LOWER prices overall, another, positive, deflationary force: increased productivity and wealth.  When “The Fed” sets ever-higher interest rates to “combat inflation,” it doesn’t put any meaningful brakes on government-generated inflation, but it does screw up economic inflation.

“Real” companies borrow money from banks when they are certain that a bigger plant, new production equipment, new delivery vehicles or better computerization, for examples, will enable the company to produce more for less, or at higher quality, or with such marked improvement that it opens new markets, or with such improved efficiency that waste is reduced and costs per unit are lowered.  The loans involved come from banks that operate, by federal regulation, on the basis of fractional reserves.  This, essentially, allows banks to lend out about SIX TIMES more than what they hold in reserves.  That is, about 86% of outstanding loans are comprised of… wait for it: AIR.  Every commercial or real-estate loan is mostly air.  But!  It’s generally fine.  Why?

“Real” loans are made to people or businesses that have the credit-worthiness that predicts the “destruction” of that new debt.  Those are what banks call “performing loans.”  Depending on the nature of the loans and the financial standing of the bank, itself, “performing loans” are counted among “assets” of the bank and fractional reserve rules can apply to them, too!  Simply stated, bank loans inflate the money supply.  But it’s not like government / Federal Reserve inflation; “real” loans include mechanisms for 1)debt destruction; 2)increased WEALTH; 3)increased productivity and economic activity; 4)rewards for smart economic risk and honest, legal, work and growth.  Smart, conservative banking is essential to healthy inflation.

The federal “system” of over-spending, over-borrowing and aversion to intelligent economics, is essential to economic weakness and political mendacity.  See the difference?

It is necessary to introduce capital – and cash – into the economy.  It’s called “liquidity.”  There has to be enough money to borrow and enough to spend, but how much?  Is there some federal agency or department that would ever add new liquidity in the right amounts and the right places?  Absolutely not!  Neither now or ever.  Free enterprise capitalism pretty-much automatically introduces enough liquidity to enable growth, PROVIDED that the government isn’t competing with its citizens to do ever-larger fractions of the spending – and borrowing – in the economy, AND that conditions are not made politically acceptable for monopolies to form and distort markets, which is where we are, now.

The FED sets rules for banks, including what the fractional reserve rate is, and what the overnight interbank lending rate of interest is.  They can chill a “too active” economy almost overnight.  Income-Tax policies can interfere with even small investment decisions.  Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac can skew the quality of the mortgage market whenever politicians decide it’s time to buy votes from certain “underserved” demographics.  That is, the government can skew normal buy-sell decision-making, hurting most while “helping” some.

Capitalism needs regulation; it’s human nature to get the most for the least if possible.  Honesty should be enforced; integrity should be enforced; quality and purity should be enforced; contracts should be clear and honest, particularly in employment, one of the areas where politicians (most of whom are economic idiots) like to meddle for votes.  Our public servants are failing to act as partners in the success, safety and comfort of citizens, which means conditions of honesty across all contracts, short and long, and across all elected and appointed offices.  Otherwise, they act as the least trustworthy manipulators of the lives of citizens for the gain of… politicians and government.

Our economy – the actions of daily life, growth and advancement – has been turned into a competition with government to survive.  We haven’t even discussed the credit-card “vig” we all must pay, now, to banking consortiums, nor the legalization of drugs.  Surely ours is a form of “Democratcy” that we should export to other countries… God forbid.

Crime, Culture, Economics, Education, Elections, Governance, Politics 2023, Representation, Responsibility

The Injustice of Rights

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Feed the Pig… and his employees.

We are obsessed with “RIGHTS” in the United States.  This isn’t to deny God-given, or “natural” rights, like Life, Liberty, self-defense, or Independence… or the right to one’s beliefs – about anything.  But it should raise questions in wise people’s minds about so-called “rights” that amount to immorality and other licenses to destroy.  It should make a person, especially a citizen of the United States, demand that TRUTH be part of every law and, therefore, every right that is protected by the Constitution of the United States of America.  This, of course, must mean TRUTH that is empirical and based on a structure of reality that is, itself, based on evidence.  Rights should never be based on popularity or “fad.”

To maintain a culture and a country based on empirical truths requires that the basis of truth, itself, must be controlled by the citizenry, not the government, and this requires several components and LIMITS, which we call, responsibility.  The system relies upon clear-thinking by each citizen and the ability to obtain knowledge, not just opinion, from available heritage-media, as Prudence defines it.  Heritage media is written history of both success and failure, and a wide gamut of opinion and philosophy about historic TRUTH or that serves to illuminate the shadows of historic truth.  Honesty, therefore, is essential in that culture’s economics, law and governance, and in ALL contracts, public and private.

In the imperfect processes of human civilization, society and family, mechanisms must be provided and defended that allow for correction of dishonest trends and tendencies.  The failure of course-correction in society, governance and education must, itself, be corrected as frequently as necessary in order to return to a path built on TRUTH and HONESTY.  The human tendency to take advantage of power, whether political or economic, must be correctable and, as automatically as possible, removable, so that the vast majority of citizens retain its opportunities for advancement, comfort and safety.

That is, any legitimate form of government, must deal with citizens as individuals, and, where possible, partner with each to assure individual “success” as a free and honest individual.  Both government and citizens must be acting honestly for this effect to be in balance and to manifest.  Language, therefore, must be rigidly defined as to meaning and understanding, a function of honesty that educational methods and content must be based upon.

The greatest opportunity for tyranny exists in government, no matter how benignly formed and constituted.  Police power resides in government and its only limits are a judicial system and politics.  We like to think that written law protects us as individuals, but the judicial system must agree with those writings, which requires purity of honesty.  Citizens attempt, through politics, to limit judicial power to honest jurists, but the system is imperfect.  The means to correct the course of judicial dishonesty are few and awkward to employ and, in fact, arcane on purpose.  Under the Constitution we hope that imperfect, if not dishonest, politicians will magically elevate the most honest individuals to our “Supreme” court.  It is a hope that, historically, has proven only partially fulfilled, but to a somewhat better degree than all judicial positions as a whole.  Still, the placing of power in the hands of a small number of jurists to decide Constitutional matters for thousands of others and for millions of individual citizens, is imperfect, at best, and mechanisms for correcting course even there, should be in place.

The natural limitations of foresight, to which all the crafters of the Constitution were subject, prevented planning for today’s advanced communications and democratized pollution of thought, and of honesty.  Those who took the risks of responsibility to found this nation against nearly all odds, could not conceive of an America where unskilled, unmotivated and unproductive individuals could claim the “right” to be supported by not just “the government,” but by the dishonest power of government to borrow from generations into the future for the comfort of the relatively useless today.

Nor could they have imagined a political engine that runs not on the honesty that the competition built into a democratic republic ought to ensure, but on the ability to manipulate truth and re-election bribery schemes to limit the number of citizens that might ever hold elected power.  There are serious weaknesses in our Constitutional system – not because it can’t work, but because it relies too heavily upon honesty and integrity of those to whom we relinquish power.  In other words, it fails to protect the citizens from the worst tendencies of human nature.  We can correct for these weaknesses of our Constitutional republic.

Clearly there is too great a concentration of power, political and financial, in the administrative state.  This is pleasing to leftists/Communists.  Their basic approach to life is that “experts” should be making decisions for, well, everyone who is not an oligarch.  For the wealthy, decisions are made that favor and protect them, much as we have observed during the COVID years.  Unfortunately, the political “class” is also happy with most responsibility being held by the deep state.  It removes that responsibility – and accountability – from the political personas they need to gain re-election.  Relying on elected “representatives” to reform the decades-long shift to un-representative administration of power, is a fool’s errand.  Things are too comfortable for too many of our “public servants.”

We need a Constitutional amendment that sets term limits for virtually all federal employees – elected and appointed/hired.  The “people’s business” has been subverted by an essentially communist administrative behemoth that no longer answers to the will of voters.  The American system was created to place and keep power in the hearts, heads and hands of American citizens.  To that purpose it is a failure.  Much heat is generated trying to find people to blame for this epic slippage of mission. 

Naturally, everyone is practiced at denying his or her role in the change.  It’s societal, starting with a lack of education of the average voter.  Coincidentally, the education establishment is firmly controlled by leftists.  States have played a role in the shift, as they sought out innovative ways to shift financial and other responsibilities to the federal government.  Leftists have led the efforts to shift welfare and other financial loads onto Washington, but, to their shame, conservatives have found it handy to duck those responsibilities, as well.  Nor will any state deny largesse that others are receiving… it would be unfair to their citizens, and so it has proceeded: shifting freedom, power and financial responsibility to the federal government.  Over 150 years increasingly socialist forces have transformed the basic relationships of the federal government to its citizens.  As often as it has been interpreted to protect citizens’ rights, the Constitution is as likely to defend socialist shifts of rights and responsibilities to government.  It’s obscene.

The money controlled by bureaucrats, more than three quarters of whom are leftists, easily sways corporate policies, creating a nearly irresistible force of control over 330 million citizens.  It doesn’t seem to matter who they are convinced to elect.  The direction of government tends to continue toward the left, which is globalist, now.  The independence of individuals and even of the entire nation, is no longer a national goal, nor is it likely, although possible, that citizens can reverse the course away from liberty and free enterprise, and even Constitutionalism.  The only option to reverse the course of global Communism is to amend the Constitution by adding tools and limits that the administrative (and elective) states would never permit, if that amending were in their hands.  Our Founders anticipated this.

Article Five of our Constitution provides for adding Amendments via two different processes.  The only one that has been employed to date is what may be called the Congressional process.  A two-thirds vote in both the House and Senate can propose an Amendment that may – or may not – be approved by the legislatures or popular votes of three-fourths of the States.  This has been done, starting with the Bill of Rights, 27 times.  It is not a perfect process, having included some glaring errors like the eighteenth and twenty-fifth amendments.  The process is totally political and responds to democratic whims. [See: https://www.prudenceleadbetter.com/2021/06/27/boneheaded-25th/ ]

The alternate process is referred to as “Convention of the States” and requires that two-thirds of the States’ legislatures approve of an application to hold a convention for the purpose of proposing Amendments.  It states that “the Congress” … “shall call a Convention for proposing amendments…”  It is not clear that that “call” would require a two-thirds vote in both houses as the first process does.   But it definitely says, “…shall call…” and there is no stipulation that a “law” must be passed, so, it seems Prudent to say, a majority of the two houses should call the convention.  There are risks.

One is that the Left, Fascists and Communists, NEVER retreat from their mission: the destruction of individual sovereignty, liberty and responsibility.  We have seen that laws are meaningless in their view of history – RULES are the coin of their realm.  LAWS imply shared values of morality like, well, the Ten Commandments and their ilk.  Rules are made by rulers… and they will tell everyone what is right, wrong and moral when necessary.  Rules evolve, in their view, as do morals, including the number one, most-moral Rule of all: evolution must serve the State (which often means, One Party) and if it does then that is what is moral.

Great vitriol will spew forth if the magic number of 34 is reached.  Congress and the rest of the power establishment has no intention of relinquishing any of what they hold dear.  A Convention of the States could, if carefully managed, redress many imbalances in what should be a federal system of governance.  Most people don’t know what that term means.  The alternative is a “national” government – not what the Constitution created… and LIMITED.

One of the worst consequences of the national administrative, unelected “state,” is our astronomical debt.  Congresses since the Johnson Administration and the nationalization of welfare, have buried the American nation and people in, now, over 32 Trillions of dollars of debt.  Over this period of decline, every problem leftists could give a name to became a “crisis” or a “war” on this or that social ill.  Where is the honesty?  One wonders.

Arguments over “raising the debt ceiling” are annually fruitless.  Those who live their best lives amidst the swamp of Washington are always so deeply concerned about “defaulting on the debt,” something the United States of America, for Heaven’s sake, would never allow!  Oh, the horror!  Of course, there is interest to be paid for the privilege of never repaying the debt, itself, now in the range of $500 BILLION every year, which is a lot of Meals on Wheels.  It’s a lot of drug and other mental health treatment; it’s a lot of policing and incarceration of rabid criminals; it’s a lot of a lot of things.  Janet Yellen now wants to rate the INTEREST on the debt in terms of its fraction of Gross Domestic Product.  She had to go some to find a comparator that makes the interest bomb look small.  Where’s the honesty?

A Convention of the States could bring about amendments that would limit spending to actual revenues of the previous year.  What a concept.  Any revenue – and that means every penny – in excess of that figure would pay down the debt: another concept, hard for Washington to grasp.  How does YOUR Congressman or woman propose to pay down the debt?  Eliminate “wasteful” spending and “fraud?”  When the Defense Department fails to account for multiple billions of dollars, is that wasteful or fraudulent?  When Medicare is defrauded of billions every year, is that wasteful?  When States use Medicaid funds to pay other expenses, is that wasteful?  Or fraudulent?  If everyone from Congress on up is in on the game, it can’t be fraud, can it?

How about everything from health care to the National Institutes of Health, the CDC and Fauci’s NIAID be returned to the States, free from federal politics?  Do you think the pharmaceutical industry would have more or less influence over actual health… as opposed to lifetime drug consumption?  Maybe land-use policies could be returned to the States, as well.  Is federal binding-up of nearly 30% of the country, disallowing joint use for profit, national security and recreation… is that wasteful?  Maybe the “work” of the energy Department could return to the States.  Who would miss that agency except those who garner money in their pockets by dealing with a handful of bureaucrats instead of elected officials?

Maybe an amendment could remove politics from the FBI and restore it to investigating and fighting federal-law offenses while coordinating States’ cooperation for additional crime-fighting.  Policing should be a State matter, anyway.  It’s none of Congress’ business how States control crime and incarceration unless Constitutional rights are abused.

Fully HALF of Federal Agencies, Departments, offices could be eliminated, gone, kaput.  Few would miss them, again except for those who line their pockets by interacting with them.  If they are actually partnering in the success of American citizens, then keep them.  Otherwise, put every one on a separate line-item to be voted up or down every other year.  Perhaps the Congress could actually serve citizens instead of itself.  It might mean some hard work, though.

And let’s put limits on consecutive terms for every elected official who is paid more than an expense stipend, universally, but let States decide what they should be in their State.  These might include how many terms a previously elected office-holder must stay out of the process of running again.  But EVERY elected official should have to prosper in the private sector and live under the laws he or she helped pass.  Being in Congress or States’ legislatures or elected executive office is NOT a profession – it’s a sacrifice of service to neighbors, communities and country.  I guarantee we’d have different kinds of people in office – and different offices bound by different laws – which are the points.

Biden, Economics, Elections, Politics 2023, Responsibility

“Charlie” McCarthy

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Mr. Kevin McCarthy, ostensible Speaker of the House of Representatives of the People of the United States of America, in Congress, assembled, sans acclaim, is either confused or a compromised fool.  In his one opportunity to negotiate anything with the ostensible President of those same United States, sans acclaim, McCarthy managed to scrape the crumbs from the dinner trencher of the Big Guy, nearly dislocating his RIGHT shoulder from patting his own back in triumph.

Not a word was said about the defense of America and her people, or about the open border that threatens us, all.  Across the table from a documented criminal-President, McCarthy’s deep, deep concerns floated to the surface… of the Swamp – they were mostly air, after all… air-time, most accurately.  His leadership was on brilliant display, however, as he led his party to, ummnnh… well, nowhere.

Where does the Constitution permit the FEDERAL government to impose costs – illegal costs – upon the States of the Union?  Where does the Congress get the right to finance – BORROW to finance – the failure to follow U. S. law?  How can the Congress be a party to FAVORING illegal aliens over U. S. citizens?  Who, after all and in fact, does every sworn Member of the Congress of the United States of America work for and get paid by?  By LAW?

The weakest President in Prudence’ lifetime has bested one of the weakest Speakers – excepting Paul Ryan, perhaps.  Any Patriot must wonder why he or she still supports the Republican Party?  Here is a President of very questionable electoral authority and ethics, whose only means of communication other than scripts on teleprompters, is to spin fables: outright falsehoods that spill from his untethered brain and mouth like han ds-full of nuts, too bulky to allow for chewing… or mulling slightly.  Yet, not a word about the defense of our borders, our cities, our states, our citizens… or our very economy.  Most tragically, there was nothing about reducing our debt.

One must wonder why McCarthy agreed to this charade.  Is it simply, corruptly, to retain powerful “issues” with which to campaign?  To retain power for these lowly appendages of the deep-state Swamp?  Couldn’t get rid of Majorkas?  Or Wray?  Or, Milley or Austin?

When people from “both” sides are touting Victory, you know the “compromise” is a stinking pile of crap.

Culture, Economics, Education, Elections, Family, Immigration, Politics 2023, Religion, Responsibility

IDENTIFYING ENMITY

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Secretary-General António Guterres (left) speaks with Volkan Bozkir, (Russia)
President of the UN General Assembly.

The position of the United States of America, once the beacon of hope, justice and honesty, relative to the rest of the world’s nations, has changed.  It’s not a change most Americans have hoped for or, cruelly, even anticipated – certainly not one that our erstwhile “leaders” have anticipated.  In a nutshell: our enemies have identified themselves.  None of the bribes or blandishments by which we have executed “foreign policy” are sufficient any longer.  The outright gifts to those who will be just as happy to watch our demise as grand influencers, have proven to be a waste… unappreciated largesse from our grandchildren’s grandchildren that bought, evidently, only tolerance.

Now that the Bidens have destroyed faith in our money, in our courts and in our foreign services, Americans have what might be perceived as an opportunity to stop lying to ourselves the way we’ve been lying to other nations.  Honesty is not a commodity that is banked in any quantity by our federal administrative state or by the elected trolls it maintains for our imagined benefit.  We vote and vote, hoping and praying that the latest lines spewed in campaigns are, at last, the true ones, but nothing changes very much.  The only change agent in the past 9 administrations has been hounded and vilified, attacked and threatened by the administrative state’s agents, since before he won election in 2016.

The internal and external destruction of the United States of America, has been engineered by the Communist Party of China – CCP.  The majesty and Christianity, tolerance and charity of America has been given away, diluted and stolen by even our trusted friends, neighbors and “public servants” as we’ve barely watched, so consumed are we by technology and hyper-sexuality and self-hate.  “They” have divided us against ourselves – the only way America and Americanism could have ever been defeated.  We’re still standing by the Grace of God, but our own determined effort will put an end to that.  Still, while we yet stand, we have an opportunity to make some radical decisions.

A quick and painless one, an obvious one, is to get rid of the United Nations and renounce every connection or treaty that we’ve ever honored with that den of thieves.  Kick them out of New York, out of our State Department and out of any influence in our curricula (aside from history) or our medical establishment.  We are Americans – we own this country and we can clean out this fetid closet of worms if we wake up in time.  Let China build a new set of club-houses for the International Liars’ Club to meet in.

Next, recognize who our enemies actually are and stop treating them like imminent friends whose undying friendship may be cemented by only a few billion more debt-dollars from our grandchildren’s grandchildren.  If they wish to trade with us or even enter our country, they will have to be at least courteous towards our national sovereignty and honor.  Let those who are proven friends to our nation, have advantage over other nations in terms of trade, commerce and intercourse.  Let us make mutual defense agreements with those who will commit as much to those treaties as our nation does – who will risk their citizens’ lives in our defense as we have and will in theirs.

Our international agreements should be mutually beneficial while not draining our treasury.  We’ll need some honest financial managers to replace the band of liars who operate the mis-named Federal Reserve, FDIC, Treasury Department and the IRS.  They operate as controllers of or enemies of American citizens.  Naturally, our federal budgets must be in surplus all-the-friggin’-time.  Inflation of the money supply has only limited value to AMERICAN CITIZENS, and then only in times of war or national disaster.  These do not include local hunger or personal failures or homelessness or drug addiction or unhappiness.  We’re talking only the business of the federal government, personal matters notwithstanding.

It is not the business of the federal government to house people, feed or clothe them, educate them or wipe their bottoms.  At least half of the federal departments and sub-agencies can be eliminated along with half of the work-force… to start.

It IS the business of the federal government to defend and control our borders, ports of entry and the presence of non-citizens.   Illegally residing non-citizens should be humanely rounded up and deported to their home countries, from where they can apply for visas.  Our country has allowed its past half-century of federal administrations to over-promise and over-spend to the amount of some $32 Trillion of current debt, and over $100 Trillion of future socialist obligations.  This is the same as pointing out that we have exceeded our productive surplus* over the past 60 years in order to transform other countries, provide comforts to non-productive citizens/residents of our own country, act like we are the most wealthy nation in the world, and to add numerous socialist programs for political reasons (vote-buying).  We cannot afford to live the way we have been.  We must stop borrowing and pay our loans off.  We must teach/force our citizenry to take responsibility for themselves and take that same off the back of the federal government.  The future can be one of freedom or of socialism/Communism; it can’t be both.

We need more tax-PAYERS, not more tax-TAKERS.  Currently, and since the outbreak of COVID-19 in particular, the long, slow creation of federal dependents has been operating at hyper-velocity – the dream of the Communists among us.  Sadly, we have been electing Communists to positions of influence and power in our states and in the federal government.  Part of how this could be is our hasty acceptance of people from widely diverse cultures, making them citizens and allowing them to create pockets of cultural distinction rather than assimilating them into our unique American culture.  We can identify the Communists among us by observing their disdain for that American culture.  We allow many of these weird people into our education establishment and then marvel at how differently our children treat American values.  In too many cases, our children have never learned what those values are.

Recently, 700 professors on the staff of the University of North Carolina signed a letter opposing a new requirement to include instruction in America’s founding documents and Constitution.  They feel that “academic freedom” is threatened by teaching American history.  A great university is represented by faculty who, evidently, fear the inculcation of AMERICAN values.  Perhaps their best efforts are perceived as the separation of their students from American values, should the primary and secondary schools not done an adequate job.  Maybe this explains why teachers see parents as the enemies of “education:” they might be teaching their own children the American values that teachers are committed to destroying.  America Awake!

*Productive surplus is what is available to be taxed out of payrolls and profits. 

Biden, Crime, Culture, Economics, Education, Elections, Family, Politics 2023, Religion, Responsibility, Sex

BEING A LONG SHORTLY – 5

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The importance of being vigilant

SEXUALITY

For some weird reasons: forms of moral communism, basically, sexuality has become a major element of elementary education and the business of thousands of men and women formerly respected as educators.  One wonders why there has been a virtual explosion of sexual deviance and why America tolerates it, let alone cements it in place with illogical legal protections.  The so-called LGBTQ+ “community” has shifted from seeking safety and tolerance to rabid dominance of culture and communications, and a legally enforced “right” to convert children to deviance in schools and elsewhere.  This abrupt, new trend is a sign of sickness in a culture.

Normalization of homosexuality was the beginning to a societal tolerance of deviant sexuality, but by itself, neither virulent nor threatening to our core morality.  Gay marriage, however, provided the breech in legality such that virulent deviance could force itself upon schools, society and families.  Proto-Communists in the schools and teachers’ unions, perceived gender confusion as an excellent tool for dividing society and weakening families: a key process to create totalitarian control of society.  How diabolically clever to choose as an “enemy” the widespread grasp of truth.  What is the most damaging effect of this subversion?

To answer that we need to establish some moral – and spiritual – ground rules.  It seems Prudent to reflect on life, itself.  It is fundamentally spiritual, in the majoritarian worldwide view.  There are too many “miraculous” events, large and small, that define, save and divert the lives of too many people to attribute everything to “luck.”  Even cultures that place great emphasis on “luck” are dependent on something “spiritual” – forms of super-natural forces. 

At the same time as “spiritual” beliefs or assumptions are at work, society, itself, must function for the maximum number of people.  That means food, safety, comfort, property and advancement.  All require stability and widespread agreement on rights and wrongs: ethics, courtesies and laws.  People had to cooperate in trusted and trusting ways.  The integrity and primacy of family units are essential, as are the education and acculturation of children.  Those who would disrupt – to the point of replacing the structure and strengths of – a successful society, recognize that disrupting families is the first and most effective step.  To some significant degree, those are people who are anti-spiritual, and in the case of America, anti-Christian in virulent ways.

Human sexuality, in nearly all family units, represents the creation of children, who are the descendants of that family line.  Grandparents are as keenly interested in that process as parents are.  Whatever interferes with conception, childbirth and acculturation of children, is striking at the essence of social success and of hope… for the future, one of those “spiritual” aspects of life.  To the disrupters, sexuality, in the soup of hypersexualization of “Western” civilization, became a weapon against American culture.

“Gay” marriage was a move spurred by compassion.  Once it had legal status, aggressive sex-weaponizers had a basis for demanding equal status in school settings: homosexuality now had to be taught along with heterosexuality, and not just about marriage.  Heterosexuality is – and always has been – normalcy: mothers and fathers produce children; boys and girls are different in “normal,” predictable ways; growing up takes place in predictable, “normal” patterns with predictable responsibilities, that ought to respond to parental and societal expectations.  The boundaries of ethics and law are equally recognized and predictable.  Progress occurs as does advancement, in that individuals become more skilled, more valuable in the economies of families and communities… and nations, and more spiritual.  Those formulas of cultural success are resilient, but only to a point.  Feminism, a re-ordering of relationships between men and women, perhaps inadvertently, provided political power to legalize increasingly non-normal sexual practices.  Gay marriage had opened the door a crack while a giant wedge of divisive realignment was poised, in the form of radical feminism, to jam it open to every form of deviant irresponsibility.  Our culture has, so far, failed to recognize the danger lurking within the virulent move to get children to renounce their true selves – basically denying responsibilities inherent in their genders and roles in a healthy society.  “Affirming” mental incongruities as more true than reality, has a very, very low rate of success.  The web of lies we call “laws,” should be unraveled.

ELECTIONS

The majesty of United States’ citizenship is taught – if taught at all – through detraction and condemnation.  Rare are the public, unionized schools where a deep understanding is gained by students, of the responsibilities imparted by our Constitution, Declaration and multiple other founding and originating documents and philosophies.  Freedom is not a gift from our forefathers, except as a door to the future that we, American citizens are obligated to pass through as leaders for this world.  We have the keys to progress, advancement and personal perfection in our hands; we have failed to implant it in the hearts of our children.  For most of us, the closest we come to that responsibility is in our role as voters – authorized choosers of America’s leadership, authorized lenders of power to those we choose to hold it.  That fundamental authority and power has been so corrupted as to be taken from us BY THE VERY PEOPLE we lend our nation’s representative powers to!

Some functions of democracy should not be computerized.  The stealing of elections has become virtually part of the background humor of the United States, and it’s a part of history, most especially in large cities.  The holding of public office in cities can, if manipulated successfully, provide great wealth and power over others.  Those positions will be defended and fought-for.  The rot of urban election theft has morphed, thanks to the mysterious wonders of computerized vote recording and tallying, into the theft of statewide and federal elections.

Voter lists are computerized and the printouts of those lists are available to official campaigns.  So, too, are lists of deceased or moved-away voters, and those who are ineligible for other reasons.  Fortunately for those who are willing to defraud the voting process, most of the ineligible voters are still listed among the names on the “voter” list.  A moderately sly campaign functionary can arrange for persons to go to the polls and vote in the name of ineligible, but still listed, voters.  It works, but is time consuming and risky.  How fabulous to have a “pandemic” strike the nation during a federal election year!  Resulting fears and medical ignorance (and mendacity) overrode legal and Constitutional strictures, enabling even more sly attorneys to win court cases allowing for “mail-in” ballots to “protect” voters from the scourge of COVID-19.

These mostly illegal changes under cover of a “national medical emergency,” were quickly stretched to allow ballot drop-boxes, official and unofficial, and then vote-harvesting from infirm voters, ostensibly.  Sympathetic election officials allowed ever wider interpretations of “safety” and “every vote should count,” which included every ballot – licit and illicit.  A handful of determined election fraudsters in mail-in states could, because of fellow-democrat fellow-travelers, sway tens and hundreds of thousands of invalid, but counted, “votes.” Even signature-match verification was disregarded in the interest of safety during a national medical emergency.  Computers helped, of course, providing unmonitored curing of “erroneous” ballots with new electronic records.  Damn the whole process.

Voting is the only sacrament in democracy.  We have allowed one party, basically, to corrupt voting and vote-counting to its benefit.  In 2020 these factors may have accounted for more than 8 million illicit votes.  It changed history and the resulting President is changing history more every day… not in good ways, at all.

How can this Jin be pushed back into its cave?  How can every election be trusted again?  What are the steps?  It requires a certain amount of automation, but no actual computerization and no internet connections to aggregation points or to state elections offices or to anywhere else.

First, hand-marked ballots, only.  Fill in the ovals or squares and let a machine scan them and count them.  A total is reported for each office.  Count the handful of write-ins, and pack up the ballots with a bar-coded wrapper.  A certified police officer transports that bundle to the single aggregation point near the state capitol.  There, that bundle is unwrapped and fed through a certified machine identical to the one in East Podunk that generated the draft, on-site total.  The stack is run through the second machine and the totals compared.  If they are exactly alike, the total is reported as final.

If the totals don’t agree the ballots are inspected by hand while monitored by poll watchers.  The stack is scanned again in a free-standing, non-networked machine.  At some point there will be two identical totals and that number is reported.  The total time to complete these steps might be 2 or 3 days, but the totals will be trustworthy.  Everything else that has been interjected into this process is bogus and serves only the convenience of government – and the purposes of the leftist party.  Absentee ballots should be only that, with significant reasons to avoid personally casting one’s ballot.

There should be no “early” voting, except, perhaps, for 2 or 3 days.  That will facilitate convenience without encouraging voting in ignorance of much of what might be exposed by the campaigns.  If the Post Office is to be involved in any significant way it should be to deliver registered ballots that must be signed-for by the requestor.  Then, ON A SPECIFIC DAY prior to Election Day, and involving no mail delivery on that day – perhaps a Saturday – Postal route personnel can pick up the ballots at the addresses to which they were delivered.  No wholesale mailings to untrustworthy “voting lists” and no ballot harvesting.

If we fail to secure our elections we fail to deserve the blessings of liberty.

BUDGETS

The term, “Budget” is not used in the Constitution.  Budgeting for government spending, however, is vitally important – it’s the only way to set a standard for the key functions of the Congress: raising revenue and appropriating it for legitimate government expenditures.  There are thousands of words in the U. S. Code relating to the President’s obligations to provide dozens of kinds and titles of data about programs and expenditures included in the President’s submitted budget.  Sadly, about three-quarters of “the budget” is considered permanent or “entitlements” or both at once, and therefore unchangeable by the people’s representatives, despite having been created by those same worthies on behalf of those same people.  Technically, EVERY element in the budget may be modified or removed.  However, virtually every aspect of federal expenditure has its own advocacy group, mostly political.  With Congress’ primary purposes being re-election and not the “people’s business,” no part of the budget that could have a negative impact politically, will be touched, except to increase it.

With a $32 Trillion federal debt, a large fraction of the sub-chapters of the budget must be “touched,” cut or eliminated.  They cannot all grow in every budget cycle, including payrolls, welfare entitlements pensions and other hot-button items.  There is no reason to expect that the Congress as constituted and elected, is going to ever balance expenditures and revenues, let alone cut any one of them.  The collapse of the U. S. economically is being led and accelerated by government debt and deficit spending.  All processes of taxation and revenue accumulation have failed to enhance America’s economic strength of freedom, nor has it done very much to increase the prosperity of a majority of Americans.  We feel like we’re becoming more wealthy, higher real estate prices and so forth, perhaps larger retirement funds, but our money is worth less every year and a lot of what we think we’ve gained is “balanced” by those trillions in debt.  Most of us will not be ready when the decline becomes a rout.

Our wonderful – magical – Federal Reserve Bank was given vital power by Congress in 1913: to coin money and set the value thereof.  Along with that sloughing off of Constitutional power, Congress also provided “the Fed” the magical power to loan money to the federal government, even when it doesn’t have money to actually lend.  So, it lends air and charges interest on it.  The federal government owes so much that it must borrow money to pay the interest on previous loans.  That amounts to three-quarters of a trillion dollars this year.  Only the most irresponsible presidential administration would run a greater-than-Trillion-dollar deficit in its budget in the face of this unprecedented indebtedness.

The history of the past 60 years has made the budget process of the U. S. federal government, an increasingly fraudulent exercise.  The fraud is perpetrated upon the American people, in the main, but also on every holder of dollars in the world, as the value of each dollar slips downward, year by year… sometimes week-by-week.

Prudence would dictate a different course for our ship of state, but we won’t see that happen under Democrat control of the White House.

And we’re still not done?