The government is like a baby's alimentary canal, with a happy appetite at one end, and no responsibility at the other.
-Ronald Reagan
Just beacuse you don't take an interest in politics, doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you.
-Pericles ( 430 B.C. )
Talk is cheap, except when congress does it.
- Unknown
No man's life, liberty, or prpoerty is safe while the legislature is in session.
- Mark twain ( 1866 )
In general, the art of gov't consists of taking as much money as possible from one party of the citizens to give to the other.
- Voltaire ( 1764 )
If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free.
-P.J. O'Rourke
I don't make jokes, I just watch the government and report the facts.
- Will Rogers
Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.
- Ronald Reagan ( 1986 )
If you don't read the newspaper you are uninformed, if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed.
-Mark Twain
Gov't is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.
-Frederic Bastiat, Economist
Giving money and power to gov't is like whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.
- P.J. O'Rourke
Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.
-James Bovard ( 1994 )
A gov't which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.
- George Bernard Shaw
A gov't big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have.
- Thomas Jefferson
The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist, is that the taxidermist leaves the skin.
-Mark Twain
What this country needs are more unemployed politicians.
-Edward Langley
A government that thinks it can tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.
-Winston Churchill
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Political Correctness
These are the so true, they hurt. I don't know whether sometimes I should laugh or cry. Anyway, we are living in the time of political correctness, and even when that makes no sense, the following jokes do:
Kentuckians, Tennesseans and West Virginians will no longer be referred to as'HILLBILLIES.'
You must now refer to them as
APPALACHIAN-AMERICANS .
And furthermore...
HOW TO SPEAK ABOUT WOMEN AND BE POLITICALLY CORRECT:
1. She is not a 'BABE' or a 'CHICK' - She is a' BREASTED AMERICAN.'
2. She is not 'EASY' - She is
'HORIZONTALLY ACCESSIBLE.'
3. She is not a 'DUMB BLONDE' - She is a
'LIGHT-HAIRED DETOUR OFF THE INFORMATION SUPERHIGHWAY.'
4. She has not 'BEEN AROUND' - She is a
'PREVIOUSLY-ENJOYED COMPANION.'
5. She does not 'NAG' you - She becomes
' VERBALLY REPETITIVE.'
6. She is not a 'TWO-BIT HOOKER' - She is a
' LOW COST PROVIDER.'
HOW TO SPEAK ABOUT MEN AND BE POLITICALLY CORRECT:
1. He does not have a 'BEER GUT' - He has developed a
'LIQUID GRAIN STORAGE FACILITY.'
2. He is not a 'BAD DANCER' - He is
' OVERLY CAUCASIAN.'
3. He does not 'GET LOST ALL THE TIME' - He
' INVESTIGATES ALTERNATIVE DESTINATIONS.'
4. He is not 'BALDING' - He is in
'FOLLICLE REGRESSION.'
5. He does not act like a 'TOTAL ASS' - He develops a case of
RECTAL-CRANIAL INVERSION.'
(Loved this one!)
6. It's not his 'CRACK' you see hanging out of his pants - It's
'REAR CLEAVAGE
Kentuckians, Tennesseans and West Virginians will no longer be referred to as'HILLBILLIES.'
You must now refer to them as
APPALACHIAN-AMERICANS .
And furthermore...
HOW TO SPEAK ABOUT WOMEN AND BE POLITICALLY CORRECT:
1. She is not a 'BABE' or a 'CHICK' - She is a' BREASTED AMERICAN.'
2. She is not 'EASY' - She is
'HORIZONTALLY ACCESSIBLE.'
3. She is not a 'DUMB BLONDE' - She is a
'LIGHT-HAIRED DETOUR OFF THE INFORMATION SUPERHIGHWAY.'
4. She has not 'BEEN AROUND' - She is a
'PREVIOUSLY-ENJOYED COMPANION.'
5. She does not 'NAG' you - She becomes
' VERBALLY REPETITIVE.'
6. She is not a 'TWO-BIT HOOKER' - She is a
' LOW COST PROVIDER.'
HOW TO SPEAK ABOUT MEN AND BE POLITICALLY CORRECT:
1. He does not have a 'BEER GUT' - He has developed a
'LIQUID GRAIN STORAGE FACILITY.'
2. He is not a 'BAD DANCER' - He is
' OVERLY CAUCASIAN.'
3. He does not 'GET LOST ALL THE TIME' - He
' INVESTIGATES ALTERNATIVE DESTINATIONS.'
4. He is not 'BALDING' - He is in
'FOLLICLE REGRESSION.'
5. He does not act like a 'TOTAL ASS' - He develops a case of
RECTAL-CRANIAL INVERSION.'
(Loved this one!)
6. It's not his 'CRACK' you see hanging out of his pants - It's
'REAR CLEAVAGE
Monday, November 17, 2008
Press 1 for English, hell no!
This site is about common sense and the things that we need to do to return our country to its glory of the past. As I mentioned before, there are many different things going on in this country that simply don't make sense and that the average American is fed up with. I talk to many different people in my daily life and I can honestly say that there is a consensus about one thing that drives people crazy and that is having to press 1 for English everytime you get a recording instead of a live person for almost any endeavor you are trying to accomplish. Last I checked this is still the United States of America, not the United States of Mexico. There is absolutely nothing rascist about pointing out the fact that this practice makes people mad. In fact, if anything it is borderline harrasment against all of the other immigrants who have come to this country from other places and had to learn English to survive in this country. Take a look at the following qoute from President Theodore Roosevelt in 1906. He said "'In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."
Theodore Roosevelt 1907
That is a statement that really leaves no room for ambiguity or second guessing. That is Presidential leadership if I have ever seen it. Teddy Roosevelt is needed now in this country to set us straight again. He is saying we will take you in no matter who you are and where you are from and we will not discriminate against you because of your origin, race or creed. Everyone will be given a fair chance to succeed. However, in return for that, we expect a few basic things in return. You will honor our country and our flag, and you will learn to speak English. At the turn of the 20th century there were immigrants flocking to America from all over the rest of the world, looking for a place to build a life and start a family. They all had to struggle through with learning the English language in order to compete in this country. Why is it that nearly 100 years later we are supposed to be catering to a new group of immigrants who want to come here and still honor their own flags and speak their own language, and use all of our medical facilities for free and blame us for all of their problems and we do nothing but feel guilty about it? We need to stand up for what we believe in and what we were founded on. This guilt driven by the merciless stream of lawsuits undertaken by the likes of the ACLU and many others is eating away at a core foundation of our country. That when you come to America, your opportunities are endless and greater than probably anywhere else in the world or else you all wouldn't be coming here in masses, but you must become an American the way Teddy Roosevelt described it in 1907. To get alot, you must give up only a little. We have only 1 flag and 1 official language in this country. if you don't like it, you can go back to wherever you came from. No one is stopping anyone from leaving who wants to and I think it could help put a halt to alot of the problems that are plaguing us right now. At the turn of the 20th century, most of the immigrants who came to America came to truly build something and they were here for the long haul. They moved into ethnic neighborhoods with like minded people from similar parts of the world, in big cities to build a life and a future for themselves and their future generations. They learned to love this country and all of the freedoms that it stood for. Many of them had never received any of these same freedoms in the land that they had left. They were invested in this country and their communities and they worked hard to make them prosper. They knew they never wanted to go back to where they came from and why would they? They had everything they had ever dreamed of right here. Freedom to practice any religion, pursue any career, set up a family that would grow up in a country that was full of opportunities. Now here we are, 100 years after President Theodore Roosevelt's speech about immigration and we have a whole new paradigm. Many newer immigrants today want us to learn their language and cultures. They want to pledge their flags and get disturbed when people have the audacity to object to such actions. They really don't show much affection at all to our country and in some instances do nothing but bad mouth it. Many people have no interest in building anything of importance or giving anything back to this country, rather they want to extricate as much as they can from the United States and send it back to their own homeland's. Some of these issues may be generalizations, but these are the things that are disturbing most of the people that I come in contact with on a regular basis. We Americans deserve the same respect today from new immigrants that our ancestors insisted on in the past and that Teddy Roosevelt so eloquently summarized in his speech in 1907. It doesn't seem like its asking for too much!
Theodore Roosevelt 1907
That is a statement that really leaves no room for ambiguity or second guessing. That is Presidential leadership if I have ever seen it. Teddy Roosevelt is needed now in this country to set us straight again. He is saying we will take you in no matter who you are and where you are from and we will not discriminate against you because of your origin, race or creed. Everyone will be given a fair chance to succeed. However, in return for that, we expect a few basic things in return. You will honor our country and our flag, and you will learn to speak English. At the turn of the 20th century there were immigrants flocking to America from all over the rest of the world, looking for a place to build a life and start a family. They all had to struggle through with learning the English language in order to compete in this country. Why is it that nearly 100 years later we are supposed to be catering to a new group of immigrants who want to come here and still honor their own flags and speak their own language, and use all of our medical facilities for free and blame us for all of their problems and we do nothing but feel guilty about it? We need to stand up for what we believe in and what we were founded on. This guilt driven by the merciless stream of lawsuits undertaken by the likes of the ACLU and many others is eating away at a core foundation of our country. That when you come to America, your opportunities are endless and greater than probably anywhere else in the world or else you all wouldn't be coming here in masses, but you must become an American the way Teddy Roosevelt described it in 1907. To get alot, you must give up only a little. We have only 1 flag and 1 official language in this country. if you don't like it, you can go back to wherever you came from. No one is stopping anyone from leaving who wants to and I think it could help put a halt to alot of the problems that are plaguing us right now. At the turn of the 20th century, most of the immigrants who came to America came to truly build something and they were here for the long haul. They moved into ethnic neighborhoods with like minded people from similar parts of the world, in big cities to build a life and a future for themselves and their future generations. They learned to love this country and all of the freedoms that it stood for. Many of them had never received any of these same freedoms in the land that they had left. They were invested in this country and their communities and they worked hard to make them prosper. They knew they never wanted to go back to where they came from and why would they? They had everything they had ever dreamed of right here. Freedom to practice any religion, pursue any career, set up a family that would grow up in a country that was full of opportunities. Now here we are, 100 years after President Theodore Roosevelt's speech about immigration and we have a whole new paradigm. Many newer immigrants today want us to learn their language and cultures. They want to pledge their flags and get disturbed when people have the audacity to object to such actions. They really don't show much affection at all to our country and in some instances do nothing but bad mouth it. Many people have no interest in building anything of importance or giving anything back to this country, rather they want to extricate as much as they can from the United States and send it back to their own homeland's. Some of these issues may be generalizations, but these are the things that are disturbing most of the people that I come in contact with on a regular basis. We Americans deserve the same respect today from new immigrants that our ancestors insisted on in the past and that Teddy Roosevelt so eloquently summarized in his speech in 1907. It doesn't seem like its asking for too much!
Saturday, November 15, 2008
It is about time that we return to our roots and thus commen sense in the USA. This site is dedicated to rational discussion on steps that we need to take as Americans to get our country back to the core values upon which we were founded, to turn away from the hatred and vitriol that threatens to ruin our Republic, and to discern truth from fiction. The purpose of this blog is to share ideas that I have heard expressed time and time again by many different people, but that the media seems not to pick up on or the government is simply not prepared to act on. But I whole-heartedly believe that the views that will be expressed here are felt and agreed upon by a majority of the people who live in this country. One of the biggest problems we are currently facing in this Country is the liberal media has simply hijacked the airwaves and brainwaves of this country. They get to set the agenda and they choose what becomes agenda and this is an incredibly dangerous precedent that is being set. When the media gets to dictate what people hear and see and hence believe, we set ourselves up as a nation for the type of chaos and anger that now exists in America. I will make the point in many different ways in this Blog that today's liberal media is not telling the truth about many facets of life in the world today, they are replacing our fundamental Judeo Christian values on which the United States of America was founded with a Hollywood led immoral viewpoint, promoting ideas and beliefs which are leading the young people of this Country into a pit of despair from which their lives are hanging by a thread. Constantly having to live up to certain images and false beliefs that the media places on them is a very heavy burden indeed and leads to many social issues such as teenage depression, eating disorders,teenagers having sex before they are phsically or emotionally ready for it, alcohol and drug use that is out of control, a lack of respect for authority and their parents etc. It also seems that the media in general is focused only on depressing the crap out of the citizenry of this country and is only willing to glamorize the bad things and polarizing things that are taking place in the world. They truly are leading up to their own billing that " if it bleeds, it leads" with respect to the information that they focus their news on. i guess good news and hopeful stories have become passe in today's media. But before we fully digress in the role and responsiblility that today's liberal media has for many of the problem's that face our country today, i want to focus on some truths about how far astray we are today from the visions and beliefs on which are Founding Fathers created our Country and how that is creating major problems.
We are a country that has simply lost it's way and are just floundering around on the edge of collapse and chaos unless we return to the glory and beliefs on which we were founded. I have hope. I also have some solutions that I will share and encourage others to share their insights and solutions as well so that we can save ourselves from ourselves. For as the famous saying goes, " I have seen the enemy, and they is us. " I will lay out the challenges facing us in a manner that should get everyone's attention, and that is to look at where we stand compared to other democracies in history. The following information may be quite surprising and maybe even alarming, but based on historical evidence we are in the final innings of the average life expectancy of a democracy.
How Long Do We Have? About the time our original thirteen states adopted their new constitution in 1787, Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edingurgh had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years earlier:'A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government.''A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury.''From that moment on, the majority always vote for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every Democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.''The average duration of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years'.'During those 200 years, the nations always progressed through the following sequence:1. From bondage to spiritual faith;2. From spiritual faith to great courage;3. From courage to liberty;4. From liberty to abundance;5. From abundance to complacency;6. From complacency to apathy;7. From apathy to dependence;8. From dependence back into bondage'
Professor Joseph Olson of Hemline University School of Law, St. Paul, Minnesota, points out some interesting facts concerning the 2000 Presidential Election:Number of States won by:Gore: 19 Bush: 29 Square miles of land won by:Gore: 580,000 Bush: 2,427,000 Population of counties won by:Gore: 127 million Bush: 143 million Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by:Gore: 13.2 Bush: 2.1 Professor Olson adds: 'In aggregate, the map of the territory Bush won was mostly the land owned by the taxpaying citizens of this great country. Gore's territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in government-owned tenements and living off various forms of government welfare...'
Olson believes the United States is now somewhere between the 'complacency and apathy' phase of Professor Tyler's definition of democracy, with some forty percent of the nation's' population already having reached the 'governmental dependency ' phase. If Congress grants amnesty and citizenship to twenty million illegal immigrants and they vote, then we can say goodbye to the USA in fewer than five years.
I believe after reading this that apathy is the greatest danger to our freedom. I also believe that this most recent election did nothing but reinforce professor Tyler's assertion that once the populace discovers that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury, that they will always vote for the candidate who who promises them the most benefits from the public treasury. Is that not what Senator Obama just promised the electorate during this past campaign and didn't the electorate eat it up hook, line and sinker? Of course, as Professor Tyler also astutely pointed out, the ramifications of this behavior ultimately lead to to the collapse of the democracy itself. The democracy simply collapses under the weight of all the fiscal promises and handouts that the citizenry comes to depend on. The end result is a return to the bondage from which the democracy had once been created, when the people had instead depended on spiritual faith to lead them to great courage and the begiining of the virtous cycle that professor Tyler spells out for us above. So is it too late to stop the wheels of motion that seem to already be spinning out of control and place us according to Professor Joseph Olson's analysis somewhere between the complancy and apathy stage, with 40% of the population already firmly entrenched in the government dependency stage? If we keep doing the same things we have been doing and acting the same way we have been acting, the answer is an obvious yes. Just look at the state of our economy now as a result of loose fiscal policy under the Bush administration and terrible lack of oversight on the parasitical hedge fund industry, not to mention the financial weapons of mass destruction known as derivitives that were created by Wall Street to fuel their greed and imagine how quickly we can go under if we start fulfilling some of the impossible promises that Obama made during his campaign. We will truly become a Banana Republic before another score has past. But I firmly believe that we can still salvage ourselves and our democracy if we quickly return to what made us such a great country to begin with. The Constitution of the United States of America was the greatest document ever created to form a democracy that was for the people and of the people. Recently, however, activist judges have seemed hell bent on changing a document that has consistently stood the test of time to meet their need to change the document to meet the perceived needs of today's moral compass, or dare I say, lack there of. This is always a perilous proposition. The results of trying to reinterpret the Constitution to fit into today's culture are akin to the effects that maggots have when they infest the inside of an apple. That is to say that we are beginning to rot from the inside out, our moral fabric slowly being decayed by a combination of misplaced egotism and aetheism. We have suddenly decided that we no longer need to follow the moral compass that has guided us for over 230 years, and conveniently we no longer feel the need to also trust in the God whom we trusted in when we were formed out of bondage. And people wonder why our country is such a mess? Why we are struggling so hard to live from day to day with any sense of hope or optimism? It doesn't seem that hard to realize that it is not a coincidence that since we have started to turn away from the God who set us free and blessed our land that we have also started a precipitous decline.
Let us focus just on the common sense part of our political roots and how far we have strayed for the original manifestitations of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration of Independence was a document born of great spiritual faith, courage and liberty. It was an empowering document that boldly stated that we would govern ourselves as Americans in ways the world had previously never known. That life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness would be our inalienable rights as Americans, but that these rights were granted to us by our Creator. This is a very important point that we seem to be disavowing in today's culture, where we want to take credit for all of our successes, but incredously blame God for all of our problems. I think it is important for purposes of our discussion to paste in the Declaration of Independence so we can look at it in context of where we are today in comparison to what it actually said and meant when it was written. It states,
"In Congress, July 4, 1776The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America
When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. --Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount an payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty ;amp& Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred. to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. --And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
Notice the humility, acknowledgement and thanksgiving towards our Creator that were evident in both the beginning and the end of the Declaration of Independence. We knew that we were dependent on the protection of "Divine Providence" back then when we had nothing but our will and our our courage. Why have we forgotten now that we have been given so much as a country for the past 230 plus years? Is it simply human nature to want to take credit for things as time moves on and we loose sight of the past that our Founding Fathers built our foundation on? Where is our humility? Where is the acknowledement and thanks for all the God has given us? Without a return as a country to the irresistably strong force that comes when you put your faith in God and His strength can we return to the glory that we have known as a country since we were founded in 1776. To qoute the words of Martin Luther King and the Declaration of Independence," We hold these truths to be self-evident."
We will look at many different facets of the American dream gone awry in the days ahead, and offer many common sense solutions to the things that plague us. There is much hope ahead in solving some of these issues and Senator Obama himself sees hope for his new administration. It is a historical moment in our country's history, having elected our first African American President. That in and of itself has given renewed hope to many who thought that the American dream in the present day was only reserved for the few. But the ultimate hope lies in our return to the Glory of God our Creator that our nation was founded on, one Nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
We are a country that has simply lost it's way and are just floundering around on the edge of collapse and chaos unless we return to the glory and beliefs on which we were founded. I have hope. I also have some solutions that I will share and encourage others to share their insights and solutions as well so that we can save ourselves from ourselves. For as the famous saying goes, " I have seen the enemy, and they is us. " I will lay out the challenges facing us in a manner that should get everyone's attention, and that is to look at where we stand compared to other democracies in history. The following information may be quite surprising and maybe even alarming, but based on historical evidence we are in the final innings of the average life expectancy of a democracy.
How Long Do We Have? About the time our original thirteen states adopted their new constitution in 1787, Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edingurgh had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years earlier:'A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government.''A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury.''From that moment on, the majority always vote for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every Democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.''The average duration of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years'.'During those 200 years, the nations always progressed through the following sequence:1. From bondage to spiritual faith;2. From spiritual faith to great courage;3. From courage to liberty;4. From liberty to abundance;5. From abundance to complacency;6. From complacency to apathy;7. From apathy to dependence;8. From dependence back into bondage'
Professor Joseph Olson of Hemline University School of Law, St. Paul, Minnesota, points out some interesting facts concerning the 2000 Presidential Election:Number of States won by:Gore: 19 Bush: 29 Square miles of land won by:Gore: 580,000 Bush: 2,427,000 Population of counties won by:Gore: 127 million Bush: 143 million Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by:Gore: 13.2 Bush: 2.1 Professor Olson adds: 'In aggregate, the map of the territory Bush won was mostly the land owned by the taxpaying citizens of this great country. Gore's territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in government-owned tenements and living off various forms of government welfare...'
Olson believes the United States is now somewhere between the 'complacency and apathy' phase of Professor Tyler's definition of democracy, with some forty percent of the nation's' population already having reached the 'governmental dependency ' phase. If Congress grants amnesty and citizenship to twenty million illegal immigrants and they vote, then we can say goodbye to the USA in fewer than five years.
I believe after reading this that apathy is the greatest danger to our freedom. I also believe that this most recent election did nothing but reinforce professor Tyler's assertion that once the populace discovers that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury, that they will always vote for the candidate who who promises them the most benefits from the public treasury. Is that not what Senator Obama just promised the electorate during this past campaign and didn't the electorate eat it up hook, line and sinker? Of course, as Professor Tyler also astutely pointed out, the ramifications of this behavior ultimately lead to to the collapse of the democracy itself. The democracy simply collapses under the weight of all the fiscal promises and handouts that the citizenry comes to depend on. The end result is a return to the bondage from which the democracy had once been created, when the people had instead depended on spiritual faith to lead them to great courage and the begiining of the virtous cycle that professor Tyler spells out for us above. So is it too late to stop the wheels of motion that seem to already be spinning out of control and place us according to Professor Joseph Olson's analysis somewhere between the complancy and apathy stage, with 40% of the population already firmly entrenched in the government dependency stage? If we keep doing the same things we have been doing and acting the same way we have been acting, the answer is an obvious yes. Just look at the state of our economy now as a result of loose fiscal policy under the Bush administration and terrible lack of oversight on the parasitical hedge fund industry, not to mention the financial weapons of mass destruction known as derivitives that were created by Wall Street to fuel their greed and imagine how quickly we can go under if we start fulfilling some of the impossible promises that Obama made during his campaign. We will truly become a Banana Republic before another score has past. But I firmly believe that we can still salvage ourselves and our democracy if we quickly return to what made us such a great country to begin with. The Constitution of the United States of America was the greatest document ever created to form a democracy that was for the people and of the people. Recently, however, activist judges have seemed hell bent on changing a document that has consistently stood the test of time to meet their need to change the document to meet the perceived needs of today's moral compass, or dare I say, lack there of. This is always a perilous proposition. The results of trying to reinterpret the Constitution to fit into today's culture are akin to the effects that maggots have when they infest the inside of an apple. That is to say that we are beginning to rot from the inside out, our moral fabric slowly being decayed by a combination of misplaced egotism and aetheism. We have suddenly decided that we no longer need to follow the moral compass that has guided us for over 230 years, and conveniently we no longer feel the need to also trust in the God whom we trusted in when we were formed out of bondage. And people wonder why our country is such a mess? Why we are struggling so hard to live from day to day with any sense of hope or optimism? It doesn't seem that hard to realize that it is not a coincidence that since we have started to turn away from the God who set us free and blessed our land that we have also started a precipitous decline.
Let us focus just on the common sense part of our political roots and how far we have strayed for the original manifestitations of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration of Independence was a document born of great spiritual faith, courage and liberty. It was an empowering document that boldly stated that we would govern ourselves as Americans in ways the world had previously never known. That life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness would be our inalienable rights as Americans, but that these rights were granted to us by our Creator. This is a very important point that we seem to be disavowing in today's culture, where we want to take credit for all of our successes, but incredously blame God for all of our problems. I think it is important for purposes of our discussion to paste in the Declaration of Independence so we can look at it in context of where we are today in comparison to what it actually said and meant when it was written. It states,
"In Congress, July 4, 1776The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America
When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. --Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount an payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty ;amp& Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred. to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. --And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
Notice the humility, acknowledgement and thanksgiving towards our Creator that were evident in both the beginning and the end of the Declaration of Independence. We knew that we were dependent on the protection of "Divine Providence" back then when we had nothing but our will and our our courage. Why have we forgotten now that we have been given so much as a country for the past 230 plus years? Is it simply human nature to want to take credit for things as time moves on and we loose sight of the past that our Founding Fathers built our foundation on? Where is our humility? Where is the acknowledement and thanks for all the God has given us? Without a return as a country to the irresistably strong force that comes when you put your faith in God and His strength can we return to the glory that we have known as a country since we were founded in 1776. To qoute the words of Martin Luther King and the Declaration of Independence," We hold these truths to be self-evident."
We will look at many different facets of the American dream gone awry in the days ahead, and offer many common sense solutions to the things that plague us. There is much hope ahead in solving some of these issues and Senator Obama himself sees hope for his new administration. It is a historical moment in our country's history, having elected our first African American President. That in and of itself has given renewed hope to many who thought that the American dream in the present day was only reserved for the few. But the ultimate hope lies in our return to the Glory of God our Creator that our nation was founded on, one Nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
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