The Obama administration is enacting a Cloward and Piven plan to destroy the United States.  Part of it is to overwhelm the government, and illegal aliens are one tool in their arsenal.

Arizona is well within their rights under the U.S. Constitution.  The state (AZ) is not patrolling the border – they are enforcing the law within the state.  If someone is stopped as a result of a police officer observing a possible violation of law, the officer is entitled to ask questions and demand identification.  Whether you like it or not, that’s the law.

Although he was hailed as a constitutional scholar during the election, Barack Obama is not adhering to the restrictions of the Constitution.  His mission is to destroy this nation and he seems hell-bent on doing so by whatever means he can.  Funded by George (Hitler Youth) Soros, abetted by the liberal/progressive/robot lame-stream media, and partnered with corrupt unions, his cabal are positioning themselves like vultures on a carcass for a feast.

We cannot let this happen!

First and foremost ELECT REAL CONSERVATIVES!  If there’s any doubt, vote them out!  As Angel Roberson says, “V.E.T.O.”!  Vote Everyone of Them Out!

Support Arizona!  It’s part of the front line in keeping illegals out.  Pressure the Obama regime to seal the border, and then deal with comprehensive immigration reform.  Remember the Progressives pulled the same dirty trick on Ronald Reagan in 1987 when they promised to enact comprehensive immigration reform if he would grant amnesty.  He kept his part of the bargain, they said OOPS!

Get active and volunteer!  You can’t kick ass without a boot, and volunteers are the boot!

Go to city council meetings and tell your local government representatives what you think, what you want, and run against them if they don’t listen!  Same goes for the school board and the county quorum court and state and national elected offices.  These people lose sight of the plain truth that government is supposed to be limited and people need to be responsible for themselves.

Many government projects are done in the name of helping those that cannot help themselves.  They should be honest and say that the projects are done to keep those who have not been educated to help themselves dependent.  Remember, the Progressive movement needs an underclass, and they are working very hard to create and perpetuate one.

Charity should be personal, not forced.  When the government takes my money to give to someone else, it is theft.

Don’t be misled by campaign promises.  Look at the candidate’s record not what they say they will do.  Research what they’ve said, what they believe.  Blanche Lincoln is the perfect example of election season epiphanies.  Her record in the Senate puts the lie her campaign promises, and she’s counting on voters having short memories.

Ask questions, and don’t be bullied into accepting a non-answer.  That’s what Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests are for.

When civil servants lie or mislead they should be removed from their job.  They have a public trust, and violating that trust is a firing offense.  The opposite side of that coin is knowing the facts before you accuse someone of inappropriate actions.  As government watchdogs, we have the same responsibility as a good hunter; verify your target before you shoot.  It works in the woods, and it works in the halls of government.

Last but probably most important, know your rights and where they come from.  The Constitution is the basis for all of our rights and freedom, but it can be and often is misinterpreted.  Separation of church and state is the perfect example.  Look it up.  The wall that Progressives say exists is not in the Constitution, and never was.  The only mention of a wall was a letter by Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptists, and it only confirmed that the feds couldn’t set up a national religion.  By misinterpreting the Constitution the Progressives have effectively removed religion from our national life, and disregarded hundreds of years of legal precedent to do so.

Get off your butt and do something!  There are so many ways you can make a difference, and each project needs someone to believe in it and make it happen.

There is no one other than We the People to take our nation and heritage back!  What are you waiting for?!

Libido Dominandi – literally translated from Latin means the lust to dominate, or the lust for power.  This is a good general description of what drives many politicians, and is certainly apt in describing the Conway City Council’s latest project.

The latest ill-conceived project will require that the city use an Arkansas law that may have constitutional problems.  It sure looks as if the law (Arkansas State Code ACA 14-56-413) may have constitutional problems in this case.

Of course there will be public hearings and all the proper nods and courtesies to insure the citizens of Faulkner County who are affected are given the opportunity to provide input.  From the conversation at  last Tuesday night’s meeting, it seems some on the council have already made their decision, so it may be that public hearings are more pro-forma than informational or useful.

The city council has decided that it’s time to take advantage of that dubious Arkansas law to impose city zoning in an area up to two miles outside the city limits.  Some on the council are adamant that this is not a zoning ordinance, and that the city is not establishing city zoning outside of the city limits.  The document describing the proposed action is titled “Synopsis of Proposed Zoning Ordinance Amendments Creating a T-2 Rural Zone and Supporting Revisions.”  I supposed using the word zoning in the document title may be incorrect, but what of the many references to existing zoning ordinances?  I suppose the council can call it whatever they want, but if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck…

It should not be the responsibility of disenfranchised citizens to persuade our city council to leave them alone.  This is not an action to bring county territory into the city, where the affected residents get to vote on whether they want to be part of the city or not; this is imposing city control and fees over county residents who have no recourse and certainly no vote.

Some on the council think the rural zone is needed, but that the regulations recommended are too stringent while others think it doesn’t go far enough and want to put full city zoning in this two mile zone surrounding the city.  Each has constituent input that they will listen to, but again it seems many of those present had already made up their mind that the zone is needed in one form or fashion or another.

That may be well and good for residents of the city.  It will serve to keep “undesirable” land use away from those living on the city limits.  Of course what is undesirable to you may be perfectly wonderful to me.  What about those who live in the county and will be affected by this ordinance?  Some people move to the county from the city because they don’t want to be bothered with people telling them how to use their property.  Many of them pre-date the city limits moving out to them; they were there first.  What of their rights?

There may be a constitutional problem with the law under which the city justifies this project (Arkansas State Code ACA 14-56-413).  That problem is taxation without representation.  Most people in the county will see no effect, but some will; those that wish to run a business from their home or create a subdivision will have to comply with city regulations and ordinances including procuring conditional use permits.  Any use other than residential or agriculture will not only need a conditional use permit, but will have to comply with city sign regulations among other requirements.

If the city doesn’t like what the non-city landowner wants to do with their land, the city can refuse to issue the conditional use permit.  The city does it all the time to city residents.

A resident of the county will be required to pay for permits which are not needed for the same development elsewhere in the county, or they may be prevented from a land use that is legal and accepted in other parts of the county, and they don’t have the right to vote for or against the city council members that are taxing them.  It is taxation without representation, pure and simple.

Businesses already in existence will be able to keep their current signs as long as they stay in business, but selling your business to someone else will require a conditional use permit and a change to conforming signage.  Close your garage and open a body shop and you’ll have to get a permit and change your sign.  In other parts of the county you would not be bound by these ridiculous requirements that your use of your own property be controlled by someone who is not answerable to you on Election Day.

It is wrong to limit peoples’ rights using a suspect law just because you can.  It is not good that those living on the city limits may have nuisance land use right over their fence, but the land use over your fence shouldn’t be a surprise, and if it is but it’s legal, the landowner over the fence has as much right to use of their land for whatever legal purpose they wish to.

This project, as well intentioned as it may be, is another case of the government declaring winners and losers.  It’s not government’s job to do that, and it certainly is not government’s purpose to tax citizens who have no representation.  There was this thing called a Revolution which settled that issue.  Taking away God-given rights is not acceptable, no matter what good the government wants to accomplish by doing so.

The Conway City Council again proves it is full of good intentions.  Unfortunately the road to Hell is also paved with them.

I don’t trust Barack Obama.  I believe he dislikes the United States of America, and that he’s working as hard as he can to destroy the country I love.  His actions, policies, and speeches reinforce my viewpoint.  As Glenn Beck often says, I hope I’m wrong, but I don’t think so.  If any readers care to present an opposing viewpoint I’d be happy to have the conversation.

My overall opinion of Barack Obama is that he talks like a heavyweight fighter, but he needs to gain weight to be a featherweight.  The man is an empty suit when it comes to doing the job for which he took the oath of office in January 2009.

Having insulted and accused the Chosen One, it’s time to present some facts that support my position.

How is Obama trying to destroy the U.S.A.?  He supports special interest groups, many of whom are on record as being against our rule of law.  Start with his support of unions; his actions and the unions’ publicly stated intent is detrimental, if not illegal.  The Chrysler and GM bailouts accomplished nothing except to fund union pension plans.  What about all the other pension plans that the busted economy destroyed?  Why are unions any more important that anyone else?  For starters their leaders support the Obama agenda and want to turn the U.S.A. into a European socialist democracy.  We call them Progressives, elsewhere they are call socialists.  Remember the only groups that benefited from the government bailouts were unions.  Bondholders were pushed to the back of the line when established bankruptcy law said they should be paid first.  The President and his administration violated establish law to benefit the unions.

Bailing out large financial institutions benefitted European banks.  These ill-conceived projects were started by George Bush, so Obama is not the only one to blame, but the Chosen One has taken support of these special interests to new heights.  Remember the vitriol that spewed from the President and Democratic leaders of Congress when it became known that bonuses that were legal and contractual would be paid?

Remember how those who would receive the bonuses were vilified?  Of course we never heard of the bonuses paid to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac executives, many of which were larger than the private sector bonuses Obama made so much of.  Could it be that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were supporting the Obama-lead progressive movement, and in their world the end always justifies the means?  It seems, to this administration, it’s more who you support than what laws you break.

Health care (actually healthcare insurance) is another of the debacles the Obaminator has visited on us.  Huge majorities of the American public were and still are against it, yet he pushed, weaseled, cajoled, and bribed that bill into existence.  Princess Nancy Pelosi told us they’d have to pass the bill before we could see what is in it.  Well, we’ve had some time to look, and the final product is worse than we originally thought.  Based on faulty logic, providing diminished care at higher cost, hiding costs to make it seem better than it is, and handing us more European-style socialism, this bill is a power grab and nothing more.  It won’t improve health care, and in fact will make it worse.  We were told the health care bill would provide us with a system like the U.K. and Canada have.  That’s not a great endorsement in my book.

Then there are the facts about Canadian health care we see in the news.  Surprise!  Canada is looking to change their system because it doesn’t work and is bankrupting that country.  That’s a model I’d sure support if I were an imbecile.

The oil spill in the gulf is a prime example of talking-the-talk, but not knowing how to walk, or not walking because the disaster supports your plan to destroy the U.S.A.  There’s a great article you should read.  There’s really little left to say about the oil spill except that incompetence on the part of the President and his administration is responsible for any damage to the wetlands and beaches, and of course the economy, of the gulf coast.

He may not have been able to prevent the explosion that caused the leak, but his inaction has made the results orders of magnitude worse.  Remember, his people had over a year to solve, or at least identify, the problems at the Minerals Management Service.  MMS’ inaction and allowing BP to use sub-standard processes to drill the well makes Obama complicit if not responsible for the explosion.

The totality of his and his administration’s actions in 17 months has been to weaken the United States, destroy our economy, leave our borders unsecured, and to assist in the Progressive/Socialist takeover he is working for.

It’s too bad a president’s term can’t be reduced for bad behavior the way a prisoner’s can for good behavior.

If that were the case, We the People would be rid of Obama already.

Isaac Asimov wrote and used the Three Laws of Robotics as the foundation for the science fiction he wrote.  The three laws were adopted by other science fiction writers and have appeared throughout science fiction and are referenced in many other works.

Why do we start an opinion article with reference to a science fiction writer?  Because some things are true no matter how you phrase them.  Isaac Asimov wrote the three laws as a foundation for how robots would behave in his science fiction universe.

The premise was that no matter how powerful and intelligent robots became, their role was to protect and serve mankind.  These same common sense rules can be applied to the actions of any elected officials.

The Three Laws of Robotics are:

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey any orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

How about the Three Laws of Politics:

1. An elected official must be guided by the Constitution in all actions and may not injure a citizen or, through actions favoring one constituency over another, allow a citizen to come to harm.
2. An elected official must obey any mandate given to it by citizens, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. An elected official must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

With no effort to expand or explain what is meant, it’s simple to see that the three laws would, if followed by our elected officials, result in a government that truly “does the right thing” for all citizens, and does not favor one group over another.

Interesting concept.  A return to Constitutional, fiscally responsible, smaller government that would be brought about by politicians.  Now that’s truly fiction.

First of all, there’s no such thing as “settled science”.  If you doubt that science is continuously making new discoveries that modify or throw out previous truths you should stop reading right now.  Rather than waste your time, you can get some sun (which rotates around the earth in your world) or take a trip; don’t go too far – the earth’s also flat in your universe.

So there’s no such thing as settled science.  Next bit of dogma to dispose of – global warming is a fact.  It’s not.  The earth goes through cycles of heating and cooling.  All of Al Gore’s pseudo-science cannot prove that the climate is warming (and the temperature at the center of the earth is several thousand degrees, not several million, Al.  You may be a star, but we don’t live on one).   There has been a decrease in temperatures world-wide for the last ten years.  It’s not getting warmer.

Global warming, now called climate change because the climate is not warming, is a political issue, not an environmental issue.  It’s a progressive plot to redistribute wealth from the Haves to the Have-Nots that replaced communism as the power-grabbing tool of the progressives when communism imploded.

Carbon dioxide, the villain in this political theater, is a greenhouse gas as defined by the EPA and greenies.  I define it as one of the results of oxidation, and a requirement for life (if you don’t metabolize nutrients you’re dead – metabolism is oxidation).  We inhale oxygen and exhale CO2; plants and trees inhale CO2 and exhale oxygen.  Pretty cool system.   It worked before the government, and will work when the government is gone.

I’m not a scientist, and usually pretty much go along with what scientists tell us, or at least I did.  When a scientist makes a claim that I can refute, I have to start thinking how much to believe scientists.  I always thought science was a means to itself, that science was its own justification.

What I’m seeing now is science prostituted to the Progressive agenda, e.g. we need a climate crisis to justify the changes we want to make, so let’s just ignore some of the data (think Little Ice Age), and not correct for known errors (don’t correct temperatures in cities for the “urban heat sink effect” that has been known for years).  Then we take the results of our bogus studies and put it in “peer reviewed” publications where the peers who review our tripe are believers and participants in the scam with us.  Please remember to then berate those who disagree by telling them the “science is settled”.

What the lie of settled science tells us is that greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are rising and causing global temperatures to rise.  That seems to make sense, as CO2 levels are rising world-wide, but the second part of their supposition is flawed; temperatures have been falling for about 10 years, not rising.  To get their numbers to show what they wanted them to, they had to disregard the “Little Ice Age”, a period of cool, wet weather that extended from the early 1600s until the mid-1800s.  Google the Little Ice Age to find out more, but remember much of this occurred before the Industrial Revolution got in full stride, so man had nothing to do with it.  The LIA was a natural cycle.

All of this talk of climate change (they changed the name when “global warming” was proven false, just as they changed “global cooling” before that) is a cover for a power grab.  Progressives want power, one world government (they’re in charge, of course), and a planned life of equality, peace, and plenty for all.  Of course the world they’re describing is at least Socialism, possibly Communism, and very likely Fascism.  The Progressives are counting on our wanting comfort more than freedom.  If you’ll trade freedom for comfort, you deserve neither, to paraphrase Benjamin Franklin.

Urge your Senator to vote against Cap and Trade.  Climate change is a natural cycle, and man will not affect it through legislation.

Urge your Representative and Senator to vote against the power grab.

We the People are too smart to believe this garbage.

Additional reading:

Krauthammer on Carbon – http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/12/11/copenhagen_shakedown.html

The EPA as Obama’s (useless) club – http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703514404574588120572016720.html

Call the bluff – http://frontpagemag.com/2009/12/10/how-to-stop-cap-and-trade-by-rich-trzupek/print/

It’s Memorial Day and, as free citizens of the United States of America, we should be thinking of more than hamburgers, hotdogs, and NASCAR, but most of us won’t.  What a pity that the majority of us in the Land of the Free don’t have any idea why we are free.

The easy answer is that we have a Constitution and a Bill of Rights that tell us how our freedoms come from our Creator, and cannot be infringed upon by man.  We are citizens of the greatest nation that has ever existed on planet Earth and, as citizens of this great nation, it is our honor and our duty to protect our freedoms.  As Thomas Jefferson said, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.”

On Memorial Day we honor those who made the ultimate sacrifice to refresh the tree of liberty.  We honor those who served.

Is it enough?  Is it enough to spend one day a year remembering those who have given their lives that we might be free, and spend the rest of the year oblivious to the constant erosion of our freedoms by the government that is supposed to protect them?

I think not.  It makes the sacrifice we honor today meaningless if we live the other 364 days a year allowing the meaning of this day to be violated, the sacrifice marginalized, and our freedoms diluted.

The migration from constitutional government to European style socialism — the nanny state — has been in process for over 100 years.  In that time we’ve seen income taxes, the Federal Reserve, Social Security, segregation of the armed forces (and then desegregation), the Great Society, Medicare, and Medicaid become the practice and policy of our government, when each and every one of these programs and practices is unconstitutional.

Many will blame politicians, but that blame is misplaced.  Benjamin Franklin, when asked what type of government the Constitutional Convention had created, replied “A Republic, if you can keep it.”  The blame lies squarely on us, the citizens who don’t value our freedoms, our government, and our way of life enough to insure that the Constitution is followed.

Politicians are the symptom, not the cause, and you can replace them forever without effecting a cure.  Until the citizens of this country take responsibility for electing city, state, and federal office holders who will honor and obey the Constitution, we will see special interests pandered to.  An office holder whose only real job is getting reelected will never make the hard choice to anger their constituents by doing the right, constitutional thing.

So take pleasure in the day.  Hamburgers, hotdogs, and NASCAR make for an enjoyable time.  But remember why you have the freedoms to have this holiday.  Honor our veterans and wake up tomorrow with the commitment to restore constitutional government and our freedoms — and then do something about it.

You are the United States of America; you have a duty to protect this country and her Constitution just as those we honor today did.

We the People will protect the USA against all enemies, both foreign and domestic.  You should be one of Us.

In a previous article we discussed making the federal government more honest, smaller, and more fiscally responsible. That was the first part of what we thought would be a two-part article.  We were wrong on that.  This is the second article, and there will be more.  Reversing the Progressive downhill slide our country has taken in the last century will require more than two articles.

The second link in the chain we’ll need to tow the country out of the ditch the Progressives have driven us into is tax reform.  Tax reform is useless if it is not accompanied by legislation that requires the budget to be truly balanced.  We’ve had administrations that claimed to have had a balanced budget or to have decreased the deficit, but those claims were accounting tricks, not real.  Bill Clinton claims to have had the last “really balanced budget”.  He didn’t; what he had was an economic boom that created more revenue than the government spent.  His budget was not based on income, it was based on spending, and the fact that income was greater than spending was hailed as a great accomplishment.  If the USA’s GDP magically increased by 400%, the Obama administration would have a balanced budget too, at least according to Clinton’s (and most politicians’) definition.

What we need is a truly balanced budget for our proposed smaller government; expenses cannot exceed revenue.  The outcome of this is a smaller government, lower taxes, and reduction of the deficit.  Over time, with responsible fiscal policy, the federal deficit can be reduced to zero.

So how do we reform taxes to get this done?

Tax reform is a great idea until you try to figure out how to do it.  Government with access to money is like gas in a vacuum – it will expand to fill available space.  Give an official the ability to provide an advantage to a constituent in return for campaign contributions or votes and there’s no contest; the constituent will get the favor and the rest of the voters will get the bill.

So the first thing to do is to take away legislators’ ability to affect the tax code.  There are two plans out that claim to do this:

One, the Fair Tax, is a national sales tax.  Proponents claim a 30% sales tax rate ($23 on a $77 purchase) would cover all government expenses.  There are studies supporting and against this option.  All who support the Fair Tax agree that the 16^th Amendment to the Constitution (authorizing the income tax) would have to be repealed to protect citizens from being double taxed by the government.  Many against this option claim that it would put additional burden on the middle class, while proponents claim that a consumption tax would capture revenue for the government that is not realized now.  The bills before Congress now contain a pre-bate to exempt families from the sales tax up to the poverty level.  This pre-bate is designed to protect the poor.

The Flat Tax establishes a single tax rate for all taxpayers.  People and corporations pay the same rate.  Proponents of the Flat Tax claim it would end government giving tax advantages to individuals or special interest groups as any change to the tax would affect everyone.

There are many consequences of each option, and much study needs to be done before either is adopted.  First, we need an honest, fiscally responsible government.

We need an additional piece of the puzzle to make the government smaller and more fiscally responsible.  Some services and agencies will have to be removed.  We’ll talk about which government agencies and services need to go away in a future article, but we need to understand that if government gets smaller and taxes are lowered some services cannot be provided over time.

This will not be easy or popular, and it certainly won’t be fun.  It must be done.

We the People are up to the task.

So here’s the deal – the health care bill(s) of 2009 were nothing more than a trough at which the pigs in Congress fed.  You need look no further than Joe Lieberman, Mary Landrieu, Ben Nelson, and Arkansas’ own Blanche Lincoln to see what happened when Harry Reid put the right slop in the trough.  There was no thought of doing right, or good, or helping anyone; their only incentive was and is to impress their constituents and get reelected.  This has to change.

We’ve heard the Congress called socialists, but that’s wrong.  What’s happening in Congress, led by the new “Chosen One”, Barack Obama, is Progressive politics pure and simple.  We’re not getting health care, or anything resembling it.  What we are getting is concentration of power in the federal government, designed to provide a mechanism by which the federal government can control our every action.  These health care bills are not designed to help us, they’re designed to further weaken States’ Rights and make us slaves of a central government.  All of this is in direct opposition to the Constitution.

It’s not that the government wants to socialize everything; they don’t.  What they want is for you and me to be dependent on them for all of the decisions that free people make for themselves.  You won’t be able to decide if you want or need health care, and if you wish to, you won’t be able to put the money for health care into a business, or a boat, or a cottage on the lake.  You’ll get health care and like it, or you’ll pay a fine.  The result in either case is the government will control your life.

If you pay the fine and choose to go without health care, there’s no danger there; find out you’re sick and you can sign up for health care with no penalty.  This “health care” plan actually encourages healthy people to not get insurance until they’re sick, and everyone else who has a policy will pay the added cost.  This legislation is designed to put more power into the federal government, not help citizens, and certainly not reduce costs.

The engines of commerce will remain in private hands; remember GM “selling” the stock the government owns to pay the loans back.  The plan there was to put the unions in a position of power, just like Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, FDR, and Benito Mussolini did.

A sympathetic citizenry makes the government takeover easier – in this case there’s a symbiosis; Obama needs the unions to provide the muscle for his takeover and the unions need the government to subsidize their super-expensive health care and retirement plans.  Notice how quickly Andy Stern of SEIU turned on Obama when the Senate health care bill came out with taxes on union health plans; notice how quickly congress exempted union health care plans from the Cadillac tax when the unions called them to task.

The government will tell business how and what it can do.  The private sector will still own business, but the government will control it.  This is the progressive agenda, pure and simple.  People smarter than you will make the important decisions for you.

A lot of this has already happened; fuel mileage standards for cars are a great example of government intervention in the free market causing problems.  The government said cars had to be more efficient and passed regulations enforcing the standards.  Car companies in the USA were forced to make cars people didn’t want, and they made bad ones.  The Japanese, who built these tin can cars as a need of their society became dominant in the U.S. market.

That wasn’t bad enough, but while they tinkered with the products our car companies produced, the government also favored employees over employers.  When you add in progressive support for unions and the high costs of paying benefits that weren’t warranted the result is two of the “big 3” went bankrupt and are now government owned.  Remember the Obama Administration gave large portions of the auto companies to the unions and ignored the claims of investors who should have been paid first.

The systematic destruction of the capitalist free market system has been going on for over 100 years, and in 2008 we had the perfect storm.  Voters elected a president with no history and no experience on a platform of “change” without specifying what that change would be.  The last 15 months speak for themselves.  All that has happened is part of the progressive plan, and they’ve almost succeeded.

This plan has been the wet dream of every Progressive since before 1900.  The progressive movement needed then, and needs now, for the Constitution to be weakened.  A weak Constitution allows all of the unconstitutional bills and projects they advance to be enforced.  Read about Woodrow Wilson to see the start of the Progressive attack on the Constitution.

A progressive president – and don’t doubt that Barack Obama is a progressive – will not veto the progressive bills Congress passes.  The Supreme Court, weakened as it is by progressive leaning justices, will find in favor of the progressives more and more.

The cure is Federalism.  With a weak federal government and strong states, the feds don’t have the power to push their agenda.  The federal government provides defense, dollars, and protection from those who would limit our God-given freedoms.  The federal government need do no more, and can’t if you believe the Constitution.

Federal taxes would necessarily be lower if we were Federalist, as the feds would not have all the entitlement programs we presently pay taxes for.  Want Medicare?  Go to a state that has it and pay your fair share.  See how this works?

Under Federalism most of the power is in the states.  There’s more freedom for the individual because if you don’t like the rules in one state you can move to another state that has rules you like.  Ronald Reagan called it “voting with your feet”.

Don’t believe abortion should be legal or illegal?  Move to a state where it is legal or illegal.  Think you pay too many taxes?  Move to a state that taxes less.

Under Federalism the states can get back to being the great experiment that they should be.  With no strong central control, a state can create laws that meet the needs of its citizens, not compromise on rules that don’t meet the needs of anyone but the politicians.

States were supposed to have the freedom to try new things; if the processes in one state worked, other states would be free to copy them.  A mistake wouldn’t cost the whole country, just the state that made it.

Federalism is a system that encourages trying new things.  If the citizens of a state want it, they can have it if they’re willing to pay for it and it’s Constitutional.

We don’t need bloated, inefficient federal agencies to run our lives; we need our brains and our God-given freedom.  .

Some states might want to provide medical care for their citizens.  Great — the citizens would vote for it, pay the taxes, and have it.  And please don’t think that Federal dollars are a gift.  There are studies that report for every dollar the feds return to a state they collect over $2.50 in taxes – bureaucracy is never cheap

That’s Federalism.  The founders designed a country that could innovate.  Men of poor character and deficient morals whose only interest is the accumulation of power have taken away our ability to innovate through government control.  It’s not Democrats or Republicans, it’s all of them.

It’s time to take this country back.  Tell the weasels in Congress you’re not happy with their performance every day; if they don’t listen send them packing on Election Day.

The United States of America and We the People deserve better.

Before we start, let me say that this article is a very simplistic explanation of an exceptionally complex solution to non-responsive government.  It doesn’t take a Nobel Laureate to come to the conclusion that the government of the United States is broken.  In order to apply the fix I am advocating here will take years.  We will have to elect people who commit to this project and keep adding to their numbers until we have enough in the senate and congress to get the job done.  Just getting enough people elected may take ten or twelve years or more.

The federal government has a very well defined job, and it’s nothing like what they currently do.  Over the years politicians have expanded the government as a way to get reelected.  What better way to get the voters to love you than to bring a project home that’s paid for by someone else’s taxes?  The federal government is responsible for the three Ds, Dollars, Defense, and Diplomacy, and that’s all.  Look in the Constitution; it’s all documented there in just a few pages written in plain English.

Sure, there are some things the federal government is supposed to do in addition to those three things, but they are minor as written in the Constitution.  Things like the Interstate Commerce Clause were meant to have the federal government regulate (as in to make regular, easy, and consistent) the trade between states.  This clause of the Constitution has been bastardized to the point where almost all federal power is justified through it.  There are other articles here and here and here that explain this in detail, so I’ll not spend the time here to do so.

The problem is that, once elected, a senator or congressman or president has but one job: to be reelected.  For a while people talked about term limits, but that fell by the wayside.  That’s fine; term limits as currently defined won’t work anyway.  If a public official has to stand for reelection they are open to influence peddling.  Companies pay for access; it’s all legal, but when you make a big donation to a campaign you expect something in return.  Access is what you get.

So here’s the first step in making our government honest and responsive again.  It’s sort of a term limit solution, but it differs from term limits as popularly understood in that we give them only one.

Representatives get one three-year term, Senators one six-year term, and Presidents get one five-year term.  One.  No worry about re-election, just service.  Do it, be done with it, and go on with your life.  It will work.

And no Federal retirement; there is no reason to pay someone for the rest of their life for less than 6 years worth of effort.

The requirements for this first step in making government honest and responsive will require an amendment to the Constitution, as terms are set there, but it can be done.

That’s the first step.  We’ll talk in a future article about the second step, tax reform.

This project will take a lifetime; it is not a quick or easy fix.  Elected officials will resist the change to the status quo, and we must expect that, but it must be done.

It won’t get done if We the People don’t take the first step.

In his book, 1984, George Orwell wrote two lines that describe the strategy of progressives today:

“If all records told the same tale — then the lie passed into history and became truth.”

“He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past.”

These two classic lines from Orwell describe how the progressives tell us lies and the lies become truth.  There are many examples from the early 1900s, and some you would remember have happened in the last fifteen years.

Harry Reid, without even a smirk, said he’d never mentioned reconciliation.  Well there are only dozens of clips that put the lie to that statement, but repeated often enough, it becomes true.  When the media doesn’t report the facts, spin becomes reality.

Barack Obama promised no new taxes of any kind on those making less than $250,000 a year: then along came health care, and soon we’ll see tax and trade, and you’ll wonder whatever happened to no new taxes.

“I never had sex with that woman…”  Remember?  And he had to turn in his law license and pay a fine for that one.  But he almost got away with it.

“Read my lips, no new taxes”.  Well, sort of.

There are many more examples, but the purpose here is to illustrate a point not to incite or entertain.

The point of all of this is to say that politicians and others who wish to have power will change the meaning of words they don’t like or just flat out lie.  They will tell a story so often it is accepted as truth; when the Constitution doesn’t give them the power to do what they want, they ignore it or get their pet judges to change the law.

Now we have a health care bill that will not improve health care one iota, but will cost you more for less care.  If you listened to the President and Senate leadership, that wasn’t going to happen, but it has.

The only solution is for the voters in this country to know who they elect, what their positions are on the issues, and how their history matches their rhetoric.  It’s not Democrat or Republican anymore; it’s the beliefs and character of the candidate that will make the difference.  It’s whether they are working toward the best solution for the nation and all the citizens.  We need honest women and men in government who will do what they say, not what they need to do to get re-elected.

We the People should demand no more and accept no less.