I am very distressed right now. After many years, I had found a childhood friend online. I was very happy to have found him. While we were never close friends, I had always liked him. I still do. He is a member of a social networking website. He made a comment. I had a different opinion and made that comment. There was no nastiness whatsoever. I knew from his posts that his ideas on government and mine were different. What really threw me off my rocker is that after one conversation with no rancor, I am suddenly minus one friend on the social networking website. His statement is that he has no time or energy for those who do not share his views.
HOW?? How does one broaden one's mind? How does one ever discover new positions that make more sense than the ones currently held?? If I am a redneck and I only consort with rednecks, how do I ever find that maybe others that are different than me are ok??
I was deeply shocked. This friend is part of a demographic that screams for open mindedness from other demographics. Yet, one conversation where you do not hold the same opinion of a couple of men the he does - and zip - you are out of there. What closed mindedness!!! If these men about which we disagree were so horrible, show me why. I might change my mind about them. Such slamming of doors in faces is what leads to so much strife in this world.
What distresses me most is, If two individuals cannot get along without one cutting the other off completely, how can we ever expect our world to ever be at peace?
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
The Root of All Evil??
Thank you Ayn Rand!!!
"So you think that money is the root of all evil?" said Francisco d'Aconia. "Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can't exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil?
"When you accept money in payment for your effort, you do so only on the conviction that you will exchange it for the product of the effort of others. It is not the moochers or the looters who give value to money. Not an ocean of tears nor all the guns in the world can transform those pieces of paper in your wallet into the bread you will need to survive tomorrow. Those pieces of paper, which should have been gold, are a token of honor – your claim upon the energy of the men who produce. Your wallet is your statement of hope that somewhere in the world around you there are men who will not default on that moral principle which is the root of money. Is this what you consider evil?
"Have you ever looked for the root of production? Take a look at an electric generator and dare tell yourself that it was created by the muscular effort of unthinking brutes. Try to grow a seed of wheat without the knowledge left to you by men who had to discover it for the first time. Try to obtain your food by means of nothing but physical motions – and you'll learn that man's mind is the root of all the goods produced and of all the wealth that has ever existed on earth.
"But you say that money is made by the strong at the expense of the weak? What strength do you mean? It is not the strength of guns or muscles. Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think. Then is money made by the man who invents a motor at the expense of those who did not invent it? Is money made by the intelligent at the expense of the fools? By the able at the expense of the incompetent? By the ambitious at the expense of the lazy? Money is made – before it can be looted or mooched – made by the effort of every honest man, each to the extent of his ability. An honest man is one who knows that he can't consume more than he has produced.
"To trade by means of money is the code of the men of good will. Money rests on the axiom that every man is the owner of his mind and his effort. Money allows no power to prescribe the value of your effort except by the voluntary choice of the man who is willing to trade you his effort in return. Money permits you to obtain for your goods and your labor that which they are worth to the men who buy them, but no more. Money permits no deals except those to mutual benefit by the unforced judgment of the traders. Money demands of you the recognition that men must work for their own benefit, not for their own injury, for their gain, not their loss – the recognition that they are not beasts of burden, born to carry the weight of your misery – that you must offer them values, not wounds – that the common bond among men is not the exchange of suffering, but the exchange of goods. Money demands that you sell, not your weakness to men's stupidity, but your talent to their reason; it demands that you buy, not the shoddiest they offer, but the best your money can find. And when men live by trade – with reason, not force, as their final arbiter – it is the best product that wins, the best performance, then man of best judgment and highest ability – and the degree of a man's productiveness is the degree of his reward. This is the code of existence whose tool and symbol is money. Is this what you consider evil?
"But money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver. It will give you the means for the satisfaction of your desires, but it will not provide you with desires. Money is the scourge of the men who attempt to reverse the law of causality – the men who seek to replace the mind by seizing the products of the mind.
"Money will not purchase happiness for the man who has no concept of what he wants; money will not give him a code of values, if he's evaded the knowledge of what to value, and it will not provide him with a purpose, if he's evaded the choice of what to seek. Money will not buy intelligence for the fool, or admiration for the coward, or respect for the incompetent. The man who attempts to purchase the brains of his superiors to serve him, with his money replacing his judgment, ends up by becoming the victim of his inferiors. The men of intelligence desert him, but the cheats and the frauds come flocking to him, drawn by a law which he has not discovered: that no man may be smaller than his money. Is this the reason why you call it evil?
"Only the man who does not need it, is fit to inherit wealth – the man who would make his own fortune no matter where he started. If an heir is equal to his money, it serves him; if not, it destroys him. But you look on and you cry that money corrupted him. Did it? Or did he corrupt his money? Do not envy a worthless heir; his wealth is not yours and you would have done no better with it. Do not think that it should have been distributed among you; loading the world with fifty parasites instead of one would not bring back the dead virtue which was the fortune. Money is a living power that dies without its root. Money will not serve that mind that cannot match it. Is this the reason why you call it evil?
"Money is your means of survival. The verdict which you pronounce upon the source of your livelihood is the verdict you pronounce upon your life. If the source is corrupt, you have damned your own existence. Did you get your money by fraud? By pandering to men's vices or men's stupidity? By catering to fools, in the hope of getting more than your ability deserves? By lowering your standards? By doing work you despise for purchasers you scorn? If so, then your money will not give you a moment's or a penny's worth of joy. Then all the things you buy will become, not a tribute to you, but a reproach; not an achievement, but a reminder of shame. Then you'll scream that money is evil. Evil, because it would not pinch-hit for your self-respect? Evil, because it would not let you enjoy your depravity? Is this the root of your hatred of money?
"Money will always remain an effect and refuse to replace you as the cause. Money is the product of virtue, but it will not give you virtue and it will not redeem your vices. Money will not give you the unearned, neither in matter nor in spirit. Is this the root of your hatred of money?
"Or did you say it's the love of money that's the root of all evil? To love a thing is to know and love its nature. To love money is to know and love the fact that money is the creation of the best power within you, and your passkey to trade your effort for the effort of the best among men. It's the person who would sell his soul for a nickel, who is the loudest in proclaiming his hatred of money – and he has good reason to hate it. The lovers of money are willing to work for it. They know they are able to deserve it.
"Let me give you a tip on a clue to men's characters: the man who damns money has obtained it dishonorably; the man who respects it has earned it.
"Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper's bell of an approaching looter. So long as men live together on earth and need means to deal with one another – their only substitute, if they abandon money, is the muzzle of a gun.
"But money demands of you the highest virtues, if you wish to make it or to keep it. Men who have no courage, pride, or self-esteem, men who have no moral sense of their right to their money and are not willing to defend it as they defend their life, men who apologize for being rich – will not remain rich for long. They are the natural bait for the swarms of looters that stay under rocks for centuries, but come crawling out at the first smell of a man who begs to be forgiven for the guilt of owning wealth. They will hasten to relieve him of the guilt – and of his life, as he deserves.
"Then you will see the rise of the double standard – the men who live by force, yet count on those who live by trade to create the value of their looted money – the men who are the hitchhikers of virtue. In a moral society, these are the criminals, and the statutes are written to protect you against them. But when a society establishes criminals-by-right and looters-by-law – men who use force to seize the wealth of disarmed victims – then money becomes its creators' avenger. Such looters believe it safe to rob defenseless men, once they've passed a law to disarm them. But their loot becomes the magnet for other looters, who get it from them as they got it. Then the race goes, not to the ablest at production, but to those most ruthless at brutality. When force is the standard, the murderer wins over the pickpocket. And then that society vanishes, in a spread of ruins and slaughter.
"Do you wish to know whether that day is coming? Watch money. Money is the barometer of a society's virtue. When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion – when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing – when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors – when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you – when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice – you may know that your society is doomed. Money is so noble a medium that it does not compete with guns and it does not make terms with brutality. It will not permit a country to survive as half-property, half-loot.
"Whenever destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, for money is men's protection and the base of a moral existence. Destroyers seize gold and leave to its owners a counterfeit pile of paper. This kills all objective standards and delivers men into the arbitrary power of an arbitrary setter of values. Gold was an objective value, an equivalent of wealth produced. Paper is a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, backed by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it. Paper is a check drawn by legal looters upon an account which is not theirs: upon the virtue of the victims. Watch for the day when it becomes, marked: 'Account overdrawn.'
"When you have made evil the means of survival, do not expect men to remain good. Do not expect them to stay moral and lose their lives for the purpose of becoming the fodder of the immoral. Do not expect them to produce, when production is punished and looting rewarded. Do not ask, 'Who is destroying the world?' You are.
"You stand in the midst of the greatest achievements of the greatest productive civilization and you wonder why it's crumbling around you, while you're damning its life-blood – money. You look upon money as the savages did before you, and you wonder why the jungle is creeping back to the edge of your cities. Throughout men's history, money was always seized by looters of one brand or another, but whose method remained the same: to seize wealth by force and to keep the producers bound, demeaned, defamed, deprived of honor. That phrase about the evil of money, which you mouth with such righteous recklessness, comes from a time when wealth was produced by the labor of slaves – slaves who repeated the motions once discovered by somebody's mind and left unimproved for centuries. So long as production was ruled by force, and wealth was obtained by conquest, there was little to conquer. Yet through all the centuries of stagnation and starvation, men exalted the looters, as aristocrats of the sword, as aristocrats of birth, as aristocrats of the bureau, and despised the producers, as slaves, as traders, as shopkeepers – as industrialists.
"To the glory of mankind, there was, for the first and only time in history, a country of money – and I have no higher, more reverent tribute to pay to America, for this means: a country of reason, justice, freedom, production, achievement. For the first time, man's mind and money were set free, and there were no fortunes-by-conquest, but only fortunes-by-work, and instead of swordsmen and slaves, there appeared the real maker of wealth, the greatest worker, the highest type of human being – the self-made man – the American industrialist.
"If you ask me to name the proudest distinction of Americans, I would choose – because it contains all the others – the fact that they were the people who created the phrase 'to make money'. No other language or nation had ever used these words before; men had always thought of wealth as a static quantity – to be seized, begged, inherited, shared, looted, or obtained as a favor. Americans were the first to understand that wealth has to be created. The words 'to make money' hold the essence of human morality.
"Yet these were the words for which Americans were denounced by the rotted cultures of the looters' continents. Now the looters' credo has brought you to regard your proudest achievements as a hallmark of shame, your prosperity as guilt, your greatest men, the industrialists, as blackguards, and your magnificent factories as the product and property of muscular labor, the labor of whip-driven slaves, like the pyramids of Egypt. The rotter who simpers that he sees no difference between the power of the dollar and the power of the whip, ought to learn the difference on his own hide – as, I think, he will.
"Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for your own destruction. When money ceases to be the tool by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of men. Blood, whips and guns – or dollars. Take your choice – there is no other – and your time is running out."
"So you think that money is the root of all evil?" said Francisco d'Aconia. "Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can't exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil?
"When you accept money in payment for your effort, you do so only on the conviction that you will exchange it for the product of the effort of others. It is not the moochers or the looters who give value to money. Not an ocean of tears nor all the guns in the world can transform those pieces of paper in your wallet into the bread you will need to survive tomorrow. Those pieces of paper, which should have been gold, are a token of honor – your claim upon the energy of the men who produce. Your wallet is your statement of hope that somewhere in the world around you there are men who will not default on that moral principle which is the root of money. Is this what you consider evil?
"Have you ever looked for the root of production? Take a look at an electric generator and dare tell yourself that it was created by the muscular effort of unthinking brutes. Try to grow a seed of wheat without the knowledge left to you by men who had to discover it for the first time. Try to obtain your food by means of nothing but physical motions – and you'll learn that man's mind is the root of all the goods produced and of all the wealth that has ever existed on earth.
"But you say that money is made by the strong at the expense of the weak? What strength do you mean? It is not the strength of guns or muscles. Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think. Then is money made by the man who invents a motor at the expense of those who did not invent it? Is money made by the intelligent at the expense of the fools? By the able at the expense of the incompetent? By the ambitious at the expense of the lazy? Money is made – before it can be looted or mooched – made by the effort of every honest man, each to the extent of his ability. An honest man is one who knows that he can't consume more than he has produced.
"To trade by means of money is the code of the men of good will. Money rests on the axiom that every man is the owner of his mind and his effort. Money allows no power to prescribe the value of your effort except by the voluntary choice of the man who is willing to trade you his effort in return. Money permits you to obtain for your goods and your labor that which they are worth to the men who buy them, but no more. Money permits no deals except those to mutual benefit by the unforced judgment of the traders. Money demands of you the recognition that men must work for their own benefit, not for their own injury, for their gain, not their loss – the recognition that they are not beasts of burden, born to carry the weight of your misery – that you must offer them values, not wounds – that the common bond among men is not the exchange of suffering, but the exchange of goods. Money demands that you sell, not your weakness to men's stupidity, but your talent to their reason; it demands that you buy, not the shoddiest they offer, but the best your money can find. And when men live by trade – with reason, not force, as their final arbiter – it is the best product that wins, the best performance, then man of best judgment and highest ability – and the degree of a man's productiveness is the degree of his reward. This is the code of existence whose tool and symbol is money. Is this what you consider evil?
"But money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver. It will give you the means for the satisfaction of your desires, but it will not provide you with desires. Money is the scourge of the men who attempt to reverse the law of causality – the men who seek to replace the mind by seizing the products of the mind.
"Money will not purchase happiness for the man who has no concept of what he wants; money will not give him a code of values, if he's evaded the knowledge of what to value, and it will not provide him with a purpose, if he's evaded the choice of what to seek. Money will not buy intelligence for the fool, or admiration for the coward, or respect for the incompetent. The man who attempts to purchase the brains of his superiors to serve him, with his money replacing his judgment, ends up by becoming the victim of his inferiors. The men of intelligence desert him, but the cheats and the frauds come flocking to him, drawn by a law which he has not discovered: that no man may be smaller than his money. Is this the reason why you call it evil?
"Only the man who does not need it, is fit to inherit wealth – the man who would make his own fortune no matter where he started. If an heir is equal to his money, it serves him; if not, it destroys him. But you look on and you cry that money corrupted him. Did it? Or did he corrupt his money? Do not envy a worthless heir; his wealth is not yours and you would have done no better with it. Do not think that it should have been distributed among you; loading the world with fifty parasites instead of one would not bring back the dead virtue which was the fortune. Money is a living power that dies without its root. Money will not serve that mind that cannot match it. Is this the reason why you call it evil?
"Money is your means of survival. The verdict which you pronounce upon the source of your livelihood is the verdict you pronounce upon your life. If the source is corrupt, you have damned your own existence. Did you get your money by fraud? By pandering to men's vices or men's stupidity? By catering to fools, in the hope of getting more than your ability deserves? By lowering your standards? By doing work you despise for purchasers you scorn? If so, then your money will not give you a moment's or a penny's worth of joy. Then all the things you buy will become, not a tribute to you, but a reproach; not an achievement, but a reminder of shame. Then you'll scream that money is evil. Evil, because it would not pinch-hit for your self-respect? Evil, because it would not let you enjoy your depravity? Is this the root of your hatred of money?
"Money will always remain an effect and refuse to replace you as the cause. Money is the product of virtue, but it will not give you virtue and it will not redeem your vices. Money will not give you the unearned, neither in matter nor in spirit. Is this the root of your hatred of money?
"Or did you say it's the love of money that's the root of all evil? To love a thing is to know and love its nature. To love money is to know and love the fact that money is the creation of the best power within you, and your passkey to trade your effort for the effort of the best among men. It's the person who would sell his soul for a nickel, who is the loudest in proclaiming his hatred of money – and he has good reason to hate it. The lovers of money are willing to work for it. They know they are able to deserve it.
"Let me give you a tip on a clue to men's characters: the man who damns money has obtained it dishonorably; the man who respects it has earned it.
"Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper's bell of an approaching looter. So long as men live together on earth and need means to deal with one another – their only substitute, if they abandon money, is the muzzle of a gun.
"But money demands of you the highest virtues, if you wish to make it or to keep it. Men who have no courage, pride, or self-esteem, men who have no moral sense of their right to their money and are not willing to defend it as they defend their life, men who apologize for being rich – will not remain rich for long. They are the natural bait for the swarms of looters that stay under rocks for centuries, but come crawling out at the first smell of a man who begs to be forgiven for the guilt of owning wealth. They will hasten to relieve him of the guilt – and of his life, as he deserves.
"Then you will see the rise of the double standard – the men who live by force, yet count on those who live by trade to create the value of their looted money – the men who are the hitchhikers of virtue. In a moral society, these are the criminals, and the statutes are written to protect you against them. But when a society establishes criminals-by-right and looters-by-law – men who use force to seize the wealth of disarmed victims – then money becomes its creators' avenger. Such looters believe it safe to rob defenseless men, once they've passed a law to disarm them. But their loot becomes the magnet for other looters, who get it from them as they got it. Then the race goes, not to the ablest at production, but to those most ruthless at brutality. When force is the standard, the murderer wins over the pickpocket. And then that society vanishes, in a spread of ruins and slaughter.
"Do you wish to know whether that day is coming? Watch money. Money is the barometer of a society's virtue. When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion – when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing – when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors – when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you – when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice – you may know that your society is doomed. Money is so noble a medium that it does not compete with guns and it does not make terms with brutality. It will not permit a country to survive as half-property, half-loot.
"Whenever destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, for money is men's protection and the base of a moral existence. Destroyers seize gold and leave to its owners a counterfeit pile of paper. This kills all objective standards and delivers men into the arbitrary power of an arbitrary setter of values. Gold was an objective value, an equivalent of wealth produced. Paper is a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, backed by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it. Paper is a check drawn by legal looters upon an account which is not theirs: upon the virtue of the victims. Watch for the day when it becomes, marked: 'Account overdrawn.'
"When you have made evil the means of survival, do not expect men to remain good. Do not expect them to stay moral and lose their lives for the purpose of becoming the fodder of the immoral. Do not expect them to produce, when production is punished and looting rewarded. Do not ask, 'Who is destroying the world?' You are.
"You stand in the midst of the greatest achievements of the greatest productive civilization and you wonder why it's crumbling around you, while you're damning its life-blood – money. You look upon money as the savages did before you, and you wonder why the jungle is creeping back to the edge of your cities. Throughout men's history, money was always seized by looters of one brand or another, but whose method remained the same: to seize wealth by force and to keep the producers bound, demeaned, defamed, deprived of honor. That phrase about the evil of money, which you mouth with such righteous recklessness, comes from a time when wealth was produced by the labor of slaves – slaves who repeated the motions once discovered by somebody's mind and left unimproved for centuries. So long as production was ruled by force, and wealth was obtained by conquest, there was little to conquer. Yet through all the centuries of stagnation and starvation, men exalted the looters, as aristocrats of the sword, as aristocrats of birth, as aristocrats of the bureau, and despised the producers, as slaves, as traders, as shopkeepers – as industrialists.
"To the glory of mankind, there was, for the first and only time in history, a country of money – and I have no higher, more reverent tribute to pay to America, for this means: a country of reason, justice, freedom, production, achievement. For the first time, man's mind and money were set free, and there were no fortunes-by-conquest, but only fortunes-by-work, and instead of swordsmen and slaves, there appeared the real maker of wealth, the greatest worker, the highest type of human being – the self-made man – the American industrialist.
"If you ask me to name the proudest distinction of Americans, I would choose – because it contains all the others – the fact that they were the people who created the phrase 'to make money'. No other language or nation had ever used these words before; men had always thought of wealth as a static quantity – to be seized, begged, inherited, shared, looted, or obtained as a favor. Americans were the first to understand that wealth has to be created. The words 'to make money' hold the essence of human morality.
"Yet these were the words for which Americans were denounced by the rotted cultures of the looters' continents. Now the looters' credo has brought you to regard your proudest achievements as a hallmark of shame, your prosperity as guilt, your greatest men, the industrialists, as blackguards, and your magnificent factories as the product and property of muscular labor, the labor of whip-driven slaves, like the pyramids of Egypt. The rotter who simpers that he sees no difference between the power of the dollar and the power of the whip, ought to learn the difference on his own hide – as, I think, he will.
"Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for your own destruction. When money ceases to be the tool by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of men. Blood, whips and guns – or dollars. Take your choice – there is no other – and your time is running out."
It is a Difficult Thing to Believe
There are those average citizens out there that actually believe that government programs are the answer to the issues. What happened to, "How can I solve my problems?" There are those who actually believe that a socialist type economy is the answer. The premise of socialism is that everyone works to the best of their ability and is compensated on basis of their need. Who decides the extent of everyone's need? Do the people that believe in this type of economic system really believe that the best will keep giving the best when they do not receive the rewards of their labors? If I am the best technician, engineer, laborer out there, Am I going to keep doing the best when I get a pittance for my efforts while someone who is barely competent gets far more for his efforts because his need is greater according to some measure? Why would I continue to do the best? Would it be love for my fellow man, love of the job, or patriotism that would compel my best efforts even though I was not to get the fruits of my labor? Am I to be compelled at the point of a gun to match my previous efforts? The reason Capitalism works is because it does not conflict with human nature. Socialism will NEVER work for long. I suppose a bastardized existence can be ecked out under socialism. A socialist system will never match a capitalist system in any good metric all other things being equal.
When you ask government to take care of an issue, you are relegating that issue over to a socialist type approach. I know medical and insurance costs are sky high, but lets not throw the baby out with the bath water.
When you ask government to take care of an issue, you are relegating that issue over to a socialist type approach. I know medical and insurance costs are sky high, but lets not throw the baby out with the bath water.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
The Rebellion against the Evil Galactic Empire
Well Folks, More and more of the old republic is being swept away. This is not about democrats and republicans either. I look to the elephants and the asses and there is nary a difference. Maybe they are all asses with long memories for perceived slights and selective amnesia where history is concerned. Regardless, the more the federal government does, the less responsive it is to the voters. We do not matter. We have been divided and conquered. Unfortunately, many people vote on the basis of a single issue. Many times, the vote is cast based on personality, looks, or for some other superficial reason.
There is nothing wrong with capitalism, individual liberty, or individual responsibility. These things always work without fail. They are immutable. It is when government meddles with these things that they falter. I am trying to decide now whether I need to defend the statement I just made. I don't think I will right now. If you are intellectually honest, you will see these things for yourself. If you are deluded in any way, then I don't know that anything I write can help you.
Now::
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.
The above is excerpted from the Declaration of Independence. To attempt to do as it says will brand you a traitor to the government of the United States of America. What I wonder is are we at the point where this is all that is left to us? I truly hope not. To avoid a rebellion and bloodshed at some future point whether near or far, the following things must happen. I will list the very basics and then go into detail.
The Basics.
1 - Change the political system so that it stops rewarding behavior by the elected members of the government that is detrimental to the health of the country
2 - Realize and effect changes that remove governmental responsibility for individuals.
3 - Realize and effect changes that will require a minimal knowledge of the candidates stands on the issues before allowing a vote.
4 - Realize and effect changes that shift most of the power back to the state and local governments.
5 - Realize and effect changes to the tax system that eliminate the IRS and enforce fiscal responsibility upon the government.
I imagine I can come up with more, but what we have is a good beginning.
Now, the details.
1) Currently, our politicians are controlled by special interest groups. You may be a member of one or more of those groups. How responsive is the leadership of that group to you? How much do you depend upon others to form your opinions for you? Our political leadership tends to be organized into parties. Over time, these parties are so polarized that if a congressman agrees with 7 out of 10 positions established by the party, he is ostracized by the party as not being a true democrat/republican/martian/etc. I propose eliminating ALL group funding of candidates. The elected officials are elected to serve 'We the People' not any group entity. I propose eliminating political parties as recognized entities within our political system. The elected officials are to serve 'We the People' and not any political party. The current system of political parties and special interest groups tends to use human nature in such a way as to damage our country. Donations and gifts, legal and illegal, pour in to the individual members of congress making them beholden not to us as individuals but to them as groups. Another interesting thing that goes on is in the forming of legislation. A proposed bill does not have to be about a single thing. In other words, a bill can have multiple things in it. Lets say that there is a proposed bill to restrict smoking in workplaces. Within that bill may be wording that will also allocate money for a park in Utah. Also within that bill is wording that will allow certain types of wire tapping without a warrant. This proposed bill is the 'Clean Workplace Air Act.' That title gives no clue as to the park in Utah or the wiretapping does it. This 'bundling' of acts is bad in multiple ways. The legislative process loses transparency. Legislators can claim to dislike the bill and yet vote for it or vice versa because of myriad things in it, and no legislator is pinned down on his real positions on the issues. I propose that the legislature not be able to bundle proposals under a single bill. This will have the effects on the process of transparency and accountability.
2) Currently, the federal government is taking more responsibility for your own well being than it ever has in the past. It wishes to do even more. Question the motivation. I am sure there are many who mean well. But heed me when I say this!! ANY piece of legislation will eventually be perverted to it's worst possible usage. (I can demonstrate this quite easily. Take the separation of church and state. It was placed into existence to prevent our government from saying ,"All American citizens must belong to and practice religion X." It has been twisted to mean no government employee is allowed to express any religious view or tendency while on government property or while conducting government business. Those government employees are United States citizens with rights regarding freedom of expression. If a judge wants the 10 commandments hung in his courtroom, I don't see the problem as long as a Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, or Scientology judge can hang their own versions. I won't get offended. The presence of such an artifact does not constitute the establishment of a religion by government. Now if I am a Muslim and the judge uses that against me, then there is an issue.) Government now taxes us heavily to provide education and retirement benefits. It wants to tax us further to provide medical care. It wants to bail our entities out when they make bad business decisions. These are all noble minded things. The problems with these things are legion. 1 - They diminish peoples Independence and make us rely on government. 2 - They can be used to coerce and virtually enslave. Unfortunately, Social Security and government schools are already here and to eliminate it all would be very painful because these things have already brought fundamental changes to our society that are almost impossible to reverse. The way to get around this is to force government to privatize education and social security, but maintain certain oversights. Give the individual the ability to direct the tax dollars for his social security and his children's education. The government's oversight on schools should not take into fact any sort of ideology, but only objective standards. Math, Literacy, Objective History, and Objective Science. Ideology should be left out of schools and taught in the homes. Social Security is more problematical. The issue is that the money you pay in is in no way related to that which you will receive. The fact is that any private business that operates in the way that Social Security operates would have it's owners brought up on fraud charges. What is going to have to happen is the age for getting benefits is going to have to slide up in the same way that lifespans have increased. When the average age of death was 61, a 65 year qualification was logical. If the average lifespan is now approaching 80, the entrance age for full benefits needs to slide on up to about 75 - 80. Another component of this mess is with the government policies on illegal aliens. I propose that in order to be born a US citizen, your parents must be US citizens at the time of your birth. I propose that Social Security and Medicare benefits only be available to US Citizens. The illegal alien population places an enormous strain upon our infrastructure. I realize that our businesses need them for jobs that the average US citizen won't do, but there is no reason why these people cannot be here legally via work visa. Currently, our government is selling our great grandchildren into slavery to finance massive bailouts of companies that have made poor decisions. Many of these poor decisions were encouraged by government. I propose this - let businesses succeed or fail on their merits. Government should have no role in selling or marketing a product.
3) Currently, I can vote in an election without knowing a thing about the candidates or their positions on the issues. I would be voting on charisma or looks or some such superficial thing. As others have pointed out, THERE IS NO RIGHT TO VOTE IN A FEDERAL ELECTION. I propose this solution. There should be a quiz given at the polling place about each candidate and each piece of legislation on the ballot. You can vote in any section in which you score a grade of 80 out of a 100. If you fail a section and want to vote, you can review a summary on that section that details the candidate and their positions or details the proposed legislation. You may then retake the test on that section. If you pass with a grade of 85 out of a 100, you may then vote on that section. It is a great responsibility to vote. You should know who and what you are voting for and why.
4) The framers of our government intended the federal government to provide for a common defense, a court system to arbitrate issues between states and of constitutional legality, and perhaps be in charge of certain infrastructure that is too big in scale for the states to handle. All other things were to be given to the states and local governments. Why was this?? Local governments tend to be more responsive to the electorate. Instead, the federal government has taken more and more unto itself and responds poorly to the electorate. I propose that most powers be reverted back to state and local governments where our voices are much louder.
5) Our tax code is obscene. No one person can know it in it's entirety. Many parts of it are open to interpretation. It is so complex that even the agents of the IRS often cannot state what it all means with any certainty. Let us realize the following truths. 1) - Corporations and collective entities do not pay taxes. Only individuals pay taxes. Any 'Corporate Taxes' are passed along to you the individual in the sale price of the product in question. 2) - Our tax system is progressive. This means that the more successful you are, the more you pay - not only in absolute terms but also in proportions. I believe in an absolute flat sales tax on goods sold to the end user. Yes every one of us would pay 20%, 30% etc. on everything we buy. It seems awful doesn't it?? I got news for you. You are already paying it. Half of it is already embedded into the price of the goods you buy. If the Corporate taxes and the taxes on goods between businesses are removed, then the prices will fall to reflect the savings. A tax on consumption is the only truly fair tax. If the millionaire consumes much more than the person making 30K a year, he will be taxed on that consumption. If this consumption(sales) tax is enacted and the rest of the income and embedded taxes are eliminated, then the IRS can be virtually eliminated. This will also have the effect of eliminating sneaky tax increases.
If the federal government is reverted back to the limited role that was envisioned by the framers, then it's budget needs shrink tremendously. In any case, the fact that we pay over half our income to the federal, state, and local governments is obscene to say the least.
There are many more things to address. A few of these things are government intrusion into matters of individual morality, trade policies that put our industries at a disadvantage, and a legal system that punishes beliefs instead of or in addition to actions among it's other faults.
There is nothing wrong with capitalism, individual liberty, or individual responsibility. These things always work without fail. They are immutable. It is when government meddles with these things that they falter. I am trying to decide now whether I need to defend the statement I just made. I don't think I will right now. If you are intellectually honest, you will see these things for yourself. If you are deluded in any way, then I don't know that anything I write can help you.
Now::
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.
The above is excerpted from the Declaration of Independence. To attempt to do as it says will brand you a traitor to the government of the United States of America. What I wonder is are we at the point where this is all that is left to us? I truly hope not. To avoid a rebellion and bloodshed at some future point whether near or far, the following things must happen. I will list the very basics and then go into detail.
The Basics.
1 - Change the political system so that it stops rewarding behavior by the elected members of the government that is detrimental to the health of the country
2 - Realize and effect changes that remove governmental responsibility for individuals.
3 - Realize and effect changes that will require a minimal knowledge of the candidates stands on the issues before allowing a vote.
4 - Realize and effect changes that shift most of the power back to the state and local governments.
5 - Realize and effect changes to the tax system that eliminate the IRS and enforce fiscal responsibility upon the government.
I imagine I can come up with more, but what we have is a good beginning.
Now, the details.
1) Currently, our politicians are controlled by special interest groups. You may be a member of one or more of those groups. How responsive is the leadership of that group to you? How much do you depend upon others to form your opinions for you? Our political leadership tends to be organized into parties. Over time, these parties are so polarized that if a congressman agrees with 7 out of 10 positions established by the party, he is ostracized by the party as not being a true democrat/republican/martian/etc. I propose eliminating ALL group funding of candidates. The elected officials are elected to serve 'We the People' not any group entity. I propose eliminating political parties as recognized entities within our political system. The elected officials are to serve 'We the People' and not any political party. The current system of political parties and special interest groups tends to use human nature in such a way as to damage our country. Donations and gifts, legal and illegal, pour in to the individual members of congress making them beholden not to us as individuals but to them as groups. Another interesting thing that goes on is in the forming of legislation. A proposed bill does not have to be about a single thing. In other words, a bill can have multiple things in it. Lets say that there is a proposed bill to restrict smoking in workplaces. Within that bill may be wording that will also allocate money for a park in Utah. Also within that bill is wording that will allow certain types of wire tapping without a warrant. This proposed bill is the 'Clean Workplace Air Act.' That title gives no clue as to the park in Utah or the wiretapping does it. This 'bundling' of acts is bad in multiple ways. The legislative process loses transparency. Legislators can claim to dislike the bill and yet vote for it or vice versa because of myriad things in it, and no legislator is pinned down on his real positions on the issues. I propose that the legislature not be able to bundle proposals under a single bill. This will have the effects on the process of transparency and accountability.
2) Currently, the federal government is taking more responsibility for your own well being than it ever has in the past. It wishes to do even more. Question the motivation. I am sure there are many who mean well. But heed me when I say this!! ANY piece of legislation will eventually be perverted to it's worst possible usage. (I can demonstrate this quite easily. Take the separation of church and state. It was placed into existence to prevent our government from saying ,"All American citizens must belong to and practice religion X." It has been twisted to mean no government employee is allowed to express any religious view or tendency while on government property or while conducting government business. Those government employees are United States citizens with rights regarding freedom of expression. If a judge wants the 10 commandments hung in his courtroom, I don't see the problem as long as a Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, or Scientology judge can hang their own versions. I won't get offended. The presence of such an artifact does not constitute the establishment of a religion by government. Now if I am a Muslim and the judge uses that against me, then there is an issue.) Government now taxes us heavily to provide education and retirement benefits. It wants to tax us further to provide medical care. It wants to bail our entities out when they make bad business decisions. These are all noble minded things. The problems with these things are legion. 1 - They diminish peoples Independence and make us rely on government. 2 - They can be used to coerce and virtually enslave. Unfortunately, Social Security and government schools are already here and to eliminate it all would be very painful because these things have already brought fundamental changes to our society that are almost impossible to reverse. The way to get around this is to force government to privatize education and social security, but maintain certain oversights. Give the individual the ability to direct the tax dollars for his social security and his children's education. The government's oversight on schools should not take into fact any sort of ideology, but only objective standards. Math, Literacy, Objective History, and Objective Science. Ideology should be left out of schools and taught in the homes. Social Security is more problematical. The issue is that the money you pay in is in no way related to that which you will receive. The fact is that any private business that operates in the way that Social Security operates would have it's owners brought up on fraud charges. What is going to have to happen is the age for getting benefits is going to have to slide up in the same way that lifespans have increased. When the average age of death was 61, a 65 year qualification was logical. If the average lifespan is now approaching 80, the entrance age for full benefits needs to slide on up to about 75 - 80. Another component of this mess is with the government policies on illegal aliens. I propose that in order to be born a US citizen, your parents must be US citizens at the time of your birth. I propose that Social Security and Medicare benefits only be available to US Citizens. The illegal alien population places an enormous strain upon our infrastructure. I realize that our businesses need them for jobs that the average US citizen won't do, but there is no reason why these people cannot be here legally via work visa. Currently, our government is selling our great grandchildren into slavery to finance massive bailouts of companies that have made poor decisions. Many of these poor decisions were encouraged by government. I propose this - let businesses succeed or fail on their merits. Government should have no role in selling or marketing a product.
3) Currently, I can vote in an election without knowing a thing about the candidates or their positions on the issues. I would be voting on charisma or looks or some such superficial thing. As others have pointed out, THERE IS NO RIGHT TO VOTE IN A FEDERAL ELECTION. I propose this solution. There should be a quiz given at the polling place about each candidate and each piece of legislation on the ballot. You can vote in any section in which you score a grade of 80 out of a 100. If you fail a section and want to vote, you can review a summary on that section that details the candidate and their positions or details the proposed legislation. You may then retake the test on that section. If you pass with a grade of 85 out of a 100, you may then vote on that section. It is a great responsibility to vote. You should know who and what you are voting for and why.
4) The framers of our government intended the federal government to provide for a common defense, a court system to arbitrate issues between states and of constitutional legality, and perhaps be in charge of certain infrastructure that is too big in scale for the states to handle. All other things were to be given to the states and local governments. Why was this?? Local governments tend to be more responsive to the electorate. Instead, the federal government has taken more and more unto itself and responds poorly to the electorate. I propose that most powers be reverted back to state and local governments where our voices are much louder.
5) Our tax code is obscene. No one person can know it in it's entirety. Many parts of it are open to interpretation. It is so complex that even the agents of the IRS often cannot state what it all means with any certainty. Let us realize the following truths. 1) - Corporations and collective entities do not pay taxes. Only individuals pay taxes. Any 'Corporate Taxes' are passed along to you the individual in the sale price of the product in question. 2) - Our tax system is progressive. This means that the more successful you are, the more you pay - not only in absolute terms but also in proportions. I believe in an absolute flat sales tax on goods sold to the end user. Yes every one of us would pay 20%, 30% etc. on everything we buy. It seems awful doesn't it?? I got news for you. You are already paying it. Half of it is already embedded into the price of the goods you buy. If the Corporate taxes and the taxes on goods between businesses are removed, then the prices will fall to reflect the savings. A tax on consumption is the only truly fair tax. If the millionaire consumes much more than the person making 30K a year, he will be taxed on that consumption. If this consumption(sales) tax is enacted and the rest of the income and embedded taxes are eliminated, then the IRS can be virtually eliminated. This will also have the effect of eliminating sneaky tax increases.
If the federal government is reverted back to the limited role that was envisioned by the framers, then it's budget needs shrink tremendously. In any case, the fact that we pay over half our income to the federal, state, and local governments is obscene to say the least.
There are many more things to address. A few of these things are government intrusion into matters of individual morality, trade policies that put our industries at a disadvantage, and a legal system that punishes beliefs instead of or in addition to actions among it's other faults.
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