Summary- Is there a global Progressive agenda to eliminate YOUR freedom? Are there Progressive plans, global plans, that unite such disparate Progressive elements as those in America, the Middle East, Europe, South America, and China? Do Progressives have more loyalty to their global agenda or their own nations?
When Jesus Christ confronted a possessed man, on one occasion, the demons possessing the man said, “we are legion” because there were MANY of them. As we confront a global phenomenon of oppression, bloodshed, and tyranny, we begin to see that a veritable legion of bad actors, of seemingly different stripes, are possessing the body politic of nations all over the globe.
This legion has a name, a name that means “the few rule the many in progressive stages because the many are not as enlightened as the few.” The NAME of that legion is “Progresivism.”
In the Muslim world, Progressivism takes the form of Pan-Islamic Jihad, a bid to create a caliphate of the rule of a few enlightened leaders, minus private property, private rights, or even the right to life (only the lives that are important to the new “state” would be worth saving).
These pan-Islamic Progressives may indeed seem much different than, say, the atheist Progressives of China or the pseudo-“Christian” Progressives of America, but they share the vision of a multination super-state without private property, private rights, or the right to life that is run by a few enlightened rulers.
Progressive regimes, and Progressives in America, are taking a similar approach to any dissent from their party line- silence the opposition by all possible means. The Progressive war on freedom is not new, but what is new is that the opposition to Progressivism around the world is truly growing, day by day, week by week, and the Progressive elites are beginning to see the writing on the wall that could spell their doom.
Progressives are not taking the upsurge in opposition to their tax-and-borrow ways, their cronyism, their “nudging” by regulatory fiat, and their wholesale attempts to take control over information content and distribution, lying down. They are, in fact, fighting back in an attempt to stop the forward march of unhindered freedom for the People, often by intoning the terms and language of liberty.
In America, the Progressive war machine is ramping up, with money from special trusts and foundations owned by billionaire sponsors of the Progressive movement, to use Union thugs, journolist smear merchants, and corrupt courts as a means of preventing the People’s will from being carried out, creating chaos on the streets and using such a “crisis” to excuse their authoritarian “remedies”, and unleashing smear campaign on anyone who speaks out against them. The objective of the American Progressives is to institute the kind of Progressive state the Chinese Progressives have created, complete with police powers and censorship to make their political party, the Democrat Party, the sole party in power.
The Progressives don’t just like to win an election, they want to destory any voice that dares rise up against them. When Christine O’Donnel dared shale up the Progressive nest in the Delaware GOP, defeating Progressive Mike Castle, it was not enough to use smars and lies to defeat her in the general election, the Progressive war machine is STILL trying to bring her down, trying to make it so that she cannot EVER pose a similar threat again. This is how Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachman are treated on the national scale, and this is why Progressives are waging war on Glenn Beck, trying to force advertisers to pull their ads!
Make no mistake, the Progressive in America do not believe in the kind of Freedom most Americans embrace. While most Americans see liberty as the opportunity to pursue godliness, self-reliance, and self-determination, the Progressive use the world liberty as a cover for plain old negative self-indulgence at society’s expense, as in the case of so-called “gay marriage” or “no-fault divorce.” While most Americans see Security in terms of protecting and preserving their rights, their persons, and their property from all threats of all kinds, Progressive peddle a “security” based on hand-outs and dependence on government while they regard human life only in relation to its value to the state.
Progressivism and freedom are not at all compatible. Either Freedomists triumph and remove the bane of Progressivism from our communities, institutions, and governments or Progressives will snuff out the last embers of Freedom based on Liberty and Security which once inspired the whole nation.
Elsewhere, it is the same story. Progressives have already made Cuba a backwater of poverty, oppression, and despair. Progressive in Venezuela have rolled back the clock to a time of petty dictators and military juntas in a South American nation that was once proud of its standards of freedom and democracy.
In the Middle East and north Africa, Progressives are essentially at war with each other, which is providing an opening for some who want freedom from all forms of Progressive tyranny, whether that is the tyranny of a Mubarak or the tyranny of the Muslim Brotherhood.
With the aid of American Progressives, from BOTH parties, the Chinese Progressives have been able to convince many in America that giving China access to our markets is good because it will promote freedom and democracy. The markets were opened and now the Chinese Progressives are buying US debt, created by American Progressives, and they may even be funding the American Progressives, helping them to win elections based on fraud and lies.
Despite years of giving the Chinese a blank check to decimate US industries, through dumping, and allowing them to decimate our currency, the Chinese are NOT more free. While all that pseudo-capitalism has spurred some in China to yearn for more freedom, even that spark of liberation from the chains of Chinese Progressivism is being snuffed out as new crackdowns are occurring, crackdowns that are leaving more innocent civilians dead than have been killed in Libya!
Progressives may in fact be uniting more than we know, planning a global Progressive regimen through the agency of such entities as the UN, the World Trade Organization, the European Union, and other such entities. Whether the flavor of the day is “global terrorism”, “global financial crisis”, or “global climate change”, the “remedy” is always more government, less freedom, and more power to Progressives everywhere.
Progressives in America are a fifth column of quisling operatives who actively seek a future in which this nation, America, is no more than a “province” of the global progressive super-state they all talk so much about!
Progressives the world over are loyal, first and foremost, to their shared vision of a world united under a system that does not include private rights, private property, or the inherent value of human life. In the Progressive utopia, collective bargaining “rights”, as regulated by the state, matter more than individual rights, private property becomes only collective property, and human life only has value if it is in the interest of the state to protect that life, in other words only if that life is “worth it” to the state.
The Progressive war on freedom is a global war, and the players include billionaire financiers, governments, the journolist media, and multinational corporations run by and for Progressives. Progressivism is a clear and present danger to freedom wherever and however it rears its ugly head.
People are waking up, all over the world, and Progressivism is on the defensive, no longer enjoying a monopoly over information content and distribution, no longer enjoying an uncritical acceptance of their lies and empty promises, and no longer able to run from their track record of misery dipped in sorrow, smothered in oppression and poverty. For this reason, the Progressive war machine has woken up and, like Qhadafi’s mad dash to destroy his enemies before the no-fly zone could be implemented, Progressives are trying to put the genie of freedomism back into the bottle before it is too late, before the People can put up a “no fly zone” of their own against Progressives and their institutions of oppression, including the journolist media, corrupt courts, academia, the unions, billionaire trusts and foundations, and multinational corporations.
The question is not “will the Progressives fail”, the real question is, “how many people will be hurt by the Progressive BEFORE they can be defeated?”
Faith Freedom, American Freedom, Freedom Watch, Freedom Action
Faith Freedom
It is TIME For A “Freedom Uprising” In America!- Bill Collier, Freedomist
The battle for our country’s future is being fought in the streets, but the forces for freedom are being out-spent and out-fought by the Progressives who have the unions, big money from men like George Soros, and journolist media led by the likes of Michael Moore. Bloggers and new media providers can inspire and educate people to form their own local “Freedom Corps” made up of people who attend street events (protests, counter protests, demonstrations, rallies) and people who donate to help support those who go to these events.
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NOTE- If you own a blog or website and are interested in this idea, drop me a line at [email protected] and let me know. If I get more than a dozen responses, I will set up a phone conference, share my ideas, hear YOUR ideas, and between us, we can all decide what to do next. If I don’t get more than a dozen responses, I’ll take that as a sign that “our side” is just NOT yet ready to work together.
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WE ARE BEING BEATEN ON THE STREETS- In Wisconsin, the GOP stands to lose their recent gains because the Progressives are on the streets and the airwaves with their lies and smears against the governor and the GOP in general. In New York, Progressives and their Pan-Islamic allies are banging the drums for multiculturalism gone amok over legitimate inquiries by Representative Steve King over the emergence of Pan-Islam in America.
Of course the journolist media uses images of large crowds of these paid protestors to paint a picture as if those who are not with the protestors are in the majority.
The Progressives have a central command structure, lots of money, control over the journolist media, and armies of mindless drones who will do and say whatever their paymasters want them to do and say.
NO COMPLAINING WILL HELP US- We can talk about how we think they have some unfair advantages, how they use taxpayer dollars or how they use discrimination to gain control over institutions but none of that is going to help us.
In the end, we need to find a way to marshal superior numbers and more effectively reach out to the public with our message, a message which must be truthful, simple, direct, and repeated often.
What can we do as information providers, writers, bloggers, and new media professionals?
We have the power of instigating ideas into becoming a reality.
This means that if we all create a picture of a possible future, where our side outflanks the opposition on the streets and in the LOCAL media, that activists will pick up those ideas and use them.
This is the way Tea Parties got started.
A few individuals saw Rick Santelli, decided he had the right idea, and started to make noise about it.
I was on some of those conference calls and one of the things we talked about was the need for a nationwide effort that was not controlled from the center. We beat the drum, using our blogs or networks (I promoted things via Freedomist and through Team Sarah), and where possible we lent our resources to help (we own localteaparties.com and taxdayteaparty.org which we used to simply provide information.)
We need to go beyond the Tea Parties to create locally controlled groups of people who will hit the streets when the opposition is hitting the streets, and we need to encourage them to cooperate and coordinate when major nationwide efforts are needed.
On April 4th the Progressives plan something like a “day of rage” for Government Unions. We need bigger numbers to show up and make a visible showing for the People.
These Progressive robots who go out and rally for socialism, under some other disguise, have the advantage of being able to get paid to protest.
Our side needs to encourage employers to let people participate without losing pay, we need to encourage people who can’t attend to donate a little money to help pay for buses, food, supplies to help those who can attend these events.
WE MUST ASSUME PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR INSTIGATING NEW IDEAS- In short, we need to provide ideas and a blueprint, write about them, link to each other, and even coordinate together to hold phone conferences where we can talk about ideas for organizing and invite would-be organizers to attend. Let them set up their own groups and run with the idea, we can simply fade into the background, having done our job.
ONE MAIN IDEA, ONE AGREED UPON NAME- We need a single name for this, and I don’t think “Tea Parties” is the name. Tea Parties will likely sponsor it, and organize it, but this needs its own name.
I propose the name “Freedom Corps” as the name for these local groups of 100-200 participants (people who GO to events) and at least another 200-300 “supporters”, people who pledge to pitch in $10-$50 per event to help offset any costs for buses, lodging, food, and etc. to support the participants.
Of course, larger scale organizing will naturally occur as local groups exchange ideas, coordinate, and decide on a shared structure to plan and organize large scale events. This will continue upwards until a national network of sorts is in place, rising from below (not imposed from above).
OUR ROLE IS TO INSTIGATE AND BACK OFF- Our role, as writers and new media providers, is not so much to organize these groups as to bang the drums on their need and provide ideas for what they should do and how local people might organize themselves to form such groups. If people surf the web and see the freedom corps idea referred to over and over again, they will want to participate.
WE CAN ALL SHARE THE BURDEN- Between us, we can all pitch in on the information side. Each of us might take a part of the country and host an information page where people in those parts can input meeting information or contact information. A shared domain could be used to host a map which you click on to find local information. When people click on an area, it takes them to a page hosted by one of us, which has a way for people to see current information and input new information.
We could also create a twitter group and a hashtag to share information, a facebook page and group, and yahoo groups for mailing lists by region so people can talk to people in their area. This could also be shared work with each of us taking charge of groups or being “on duty” to man the main twitter account to ensure that information is flowing 24-7 during an event (this means that all participants have access to that account.)
NO “ORGANIZATION” NEEDED!- None of this requires an organization, none of us “own” it, and any donations would be made to LOCAL groups who could then share their resources if they join with other local groups to form regional or state networks.
Reagan once said that if you want to get things done, don’t take credit for things. Most of the people who beat the drum and initially pushed the idea for Tea Parties are unknown. It was never intended for it to be otherwise.
WE HAVE THE POWER TO MAKE THIS HAPPEN- If we can encourage people and inspire them, and if we can motivate them and even educate them, and then disappear, that is all fine and well. Our job is not to organize and lead, per se, but, rather, to beat the drum, facilitate things, and then let the participants take over and do their thing.
If people see all of the writers, news suites, and blogs that are pro-Freedom all writing and talking about the SAME BASIC IDEA, then they will feel more confident that it may work and want to participate in it.
DON’T FRUSTRATE THE PEOPLE!- On the other hand, if people see all these blogs, web pages, and news sites all touting THEIR OWN idea, that they want to own, all with different approaches, many of which are contradictory, then they will become bogged down, confused, and they will lose confidence.
ONE VOICE ON A LIMITED SCALE- We need to start finding ways, at least on a limited scale, to speak with ONE VOICE, or the opposition will beat us EVERY TIME. If we cannot do amongst ourselves what we want our elected leaders to do, then what right do we have to demand of them that which we refuse to do ourselves?
ARE WE READY TO WORK TOGETHER? If you own a blog or website and are interested in this idea, drop me a line at [email protected] and let me know. If I get more than a dozen responses, I will set up a phone conference, share my ideas, hear YOUR ideas, and between us, we can all decide what to do next. If I don’t get more than a dozen responses, I’ll take that as a sign that “our side” is just NOT yet ready to work together.
Freedom Mobs Against Union Mobs Called For By The Freedomist
The Freedomist is putting out a call to freedom-minded Americans to oppose the Union mobs that are attempting to silence the voice of the People.
Union mobs are being unleashed, with the coordination and assistance of the Obama regime, in order to block efforts to reign in their power and the excessive costs they cause by their mob-like intimidation tactics. Unions are also responsible for coarsening the political discourse, ramming through anti-Christian social policies, and creating a “politically correct” atmosphere in favor of secular socialism. Freedom through godliness, self-reliance, and self-determination is not consistent with the secular socialist Union agenda and the People’s Democracy is not compatible with the Union’s mobocracy.
When you pull back the curtain on teacher protests in Wisconsin, you find Barack Obama’s Organizing for America has been busy.
(Politico)– The Democratic National Committee’s Organizing for America arm — the remnant of the 2008 Obama campaign — is playing an active role in organizing protests against Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s attempt to strip most public employees of collective bargaining rights.
OfA, as the campaign group is known, has been criticized at times for staying out of local issues like same-sex marraige, but it’s riding to the aide of the public sector unions who hoping to persuade some Republican legislators to oppose Walker’s plan. And while Obama may have his difference with teachers unions, OfA’s engagement with the fight — and Obama’s own clear stance against Walker — mean that he’s remaining loyal to key Democratic Party allies at what is, for them, a very dangerous moment.
As an example, employees nationwide paid 13%~27% (see page 5) of the cost of their employer sponsored health care. Wisconsin teachers currently pay only 4%~6%.
Contents below were in an e-mail forwarded by ORGANIZING FOR AMERICA Organizing for America Plans Emergency Labor Rally in Madison Dan Grandone, Organizing for America State/Local – Monday, February 14, 2011 …
Organizing for America Plans Emergency Labor Rally in Madison
Dan Grandone, Organizing for America State/Local – Monday, February 14, 2011
MADISON, WI – We always knew Scott Walker would pursue a right-wing, anti-worker agenda. We didn’t know it would be this extreme.At a time when most folks are still struggling to get back on their feet, Gov. Walker has asked the state legislature to strip public employees of their collective bargaining rights. Under his plan, park rangers, teachers, and prison guards would no longer be able to fight back if the new Republican majority tries to slash their health benefits or pensions.But that’s not even the most shocking part: The governor has also put the state National Guard on alert in case of “labor unrest.”We can’t — and won’t — let Scott Walker’s heavy-handed tactics scare us. This Tuesday and Wednesday, February 15th and 16th, volunteers will be attending rallies at the state capitol, put together by our organized labor allies. The vote could come as early as Wednesday, and we need to speak out now to show lawmakers in Madison that we’re not only paying attention; we’re fired up and ready to act.
The Wisconsin state government is under siege by radical progressive fundamentalists seeking public largesse for state employees at taxpayer expense. Using the phraseology of democracy, freedom, liberty, and revolution., the state employee’s unions are working to prevent the democratically elected government from enacting fiscal reforms designed to get the state’s excessive state employee expenses under some semblance of control.
While the Progressive journolist media spins this organized assault on democracy as a “popular uprising” many in Wisconsin are seeing in it an exposure of the true nature of the teachers and their union: that they are radical Progressives whose vision for America is based on the concepts of central planning elites redistributing wealth from producers to people who mindlessly vote for the Party and the over-paid and under-accountable state employees who rely on their votes to keep their “programs” in operation.
A counter-demonstration, which could potentially lead to violence as the Progressive extremists are already threatening violence and have already carried out acts of sabatoge and vandalism on state property, is being planned by numerous groups. Many, however, are considering just driving to the State capital themselves to confront what they see as a manufactured, astro-turf effort to impose the will of the Unions OVER and against the expressed will of the People.
The regime of Progressive domination through discrimination, intimidation, and deception is being challenged like never before and now the Progressives are appealing to rule of a mob, incited and hired by a few elites, to shout down and assault any opponents. Activists for Freedom who recognize in teacher’s unions an institution that is totally given over to the radical Progressive agenda for an America under a one-party secular welfare state (the People’s will be damned), are organizing and mobilizing and may be showing up on site in the next few hours or sometime tomorrow.
The scope of the Progressive insurgency and its sudden appearance may have surprised some, but it is also evidence in and of itself of its premeditation by Progressive elite leaders who are using these contrived mobs as weapons against the People’s will in Wisconsin. What is potentially being set up, with the Obama regime sticking its Progressive nose into the State’s affairs is a mini-civil war between freedom minded citizens and Progressive elite and their plantation denizens, namely public employees who care more for their own life of ease than the very fiscal survival of their state.
From inside the state capital this alert:
THE POLICE HAVE ADVISED THAT WE LOCK OUR DOORS.
GROUPS OF YOUNG KIDS ARE MARCHING THROUGH THE HALLS YELLING AT THE TOP OF THEIR LUNGS….DRUMS ARE BANGING, ETC.
RESTROOMS ARE BLOCKADED. VANDALISM YESTERDAY.
ELEVATORS ARE BLOCKADED.
ANGRY CROWDS ARE POUNDING ON OUR GLASS WINDOWS.
PLEASE, PLEASE PRAY FOR OUR STATE.
There is no more news from this source, however such reports are coming in such numbers as to suggest a systematic assault is under way aimed at nothing less than a Progressive hostile takeover of the State Government.
Citizens of Wisconsin are called upon to go to the capital to DEFEND THE PEOPLE’S DEMOCRACY from the Progressive revolution that is under way, with Obama’s support!
Obama has called the bill to limit the Union’s ability to hold taxpayers at gunpoint and force concessions “an assault on unions”, to which some respond, “assaulting Unions is a good thing, they are not much more than a cancer on the American economy and a detriment to true democracy!”
Godwin’s Law states that any political argument, carried on long enough, will eventually provoke a Nazi reference. My own personal corollary to Godwin’s Law is that the first side to invoke it invariably loses, mainly because Nazis and Adolf Hitler are simply not analogous to normal politics in American democracy, unless one is discussing actual neo-Nazis. It exposes a clear lack of historical literacy about the Nazis and the history between the two World Wars of the last century. It’s the kind of argument favored by the relatively uneducated.
That’s what makes the protests in Wisconsin over Governor Scott Walker’s proposal to curtail the power of public-sector unions so deliciously ironic. Hot Air reader Tim R in Madison took his camera with him when he attended the large protests staged by the teachers against the budget bill that would require contributions for pensions and health insurance, as well as put new curbs on collective bargaining. Tim discovered signs like this at the protest yesterday at 6 pm just after the speakers concluded:
The first wrong is how teacher unions have come to operate. Clearly, unions need to reinvent themselves if they want to remain viable in the 21st century, and old-school policies like “last in, first out” (LIFO) and the fact that in many places it’s almost impossible to fire a bad teacher don’t serve anyone’s best interests. We can do better.
Teachers and students in Wisconsin are protesting Governor Scott Walker’s budget bill. But it’s not a mark of democracy: instead, teachers have been taking kids out of school to march on the Capitol in Madison. It’s being called a “sickout” — and it’s illegal.
Here’s footage of the students in action (courtesy of the MacIver Institute):
The Wisconsin teachers union is going all out, or maybe all in is the better term, to try and stop needed reforms. Are they totally oblivious to what’s going on in the country, what happened last November? I can’t believe they are that dense, but in fact, there is a really good reason for their response. .The union’s survival is threatened. Here’s the numbers.
According to the Weekly Standard, the average Wisconsin teacher’s salary ( not including benefits) is $50,000. The cost of the proposed contributions to the retirement and medical plans will be 5%..let’s say $2,500. And because these contributions will be on a BEFORE-TAX basis, let’s assume the out-of pocket (after-tax) cost will then be $2,000/year.
Union dues are $1,100. And under the proposal, teachers will no longer be required to join the union. So..to the teacher now facing a $2,000/year reduction in take home pay..where’s the easiest, most obvious place to cut..Why, of course..union dues.
More on Wisconsin Teacher Protests from the blogosphere:
From what we’ve seen of these protests, the entire state of Wisconsin is in need of quality teachers, and it looks like the union is the biggest impediment to getting them. Meanwhile, Democrats in the Wisconsin Senate …
Wisconsin Senators Dodge Vote On Defined Contribution Bill, Teachers Protest. By Kurtis Workman on February 17, 2011 at 02:12 pm. Share |. Wisconsin is attempting to change the benefit structure for teachers and that …http://plainsdaily.com/
Students from Madison’s East High School claim their teachers brought them to the Wisconsin union protests against Scott Walker’s collective bargaining plan.
Relativism, Multiculturalism, and Drugs Led To Gifford Shooting
The triple crown of liberalism is relativism as opposd to absolute truth, multiculturalism as opposed to tradition and virtue, and self-indulgence (in the form of drug use) as opposed to self-discipline. Is this what led to the shooting in Tucson, Arizona?
Thanks to the tenets of relativism, the Arizona man who tried to murder a member of Congress, and who murdered 6 others, including a 9 year old girl, was able to imbibe in the worse possible ideologies without any real social constraints on such thinking or context.
Was the shooter’s avowed love of Karl Marx or of Mein Kampf, both manuals for totalitarianism, questioned or were his studies of these writings put within the context of writings of our Founders or the Bible? In our present culture, imposed as it is from above, he would not have received such instruction that might have dissuaded him from embracing the hatefulness of Marx and Hitler.
When the murderous young man was rejecting a culture of life and love and justice, would this present imposed culture have provided any context or social pressure to dissuade him from his chosen path? No, the multiculturalists don’t believe in any kind of “judgment” of “other cultures”, just like they refuse to “judge” the pan-Islamic culture of Jihadism and intolerance.
Finally, the murderer was imbibing in mind-altering drugs, the kind that many want to see made illegal, the kind that many like to say are harmless. Marijuana, possibly cut with other chemical substances, gave the shooter the drive, the daring, and the twisted beliefs that allowed him to grab a weapon and murder other people.
Today, as America stands in shock and anger, hard questions need to be asked about America’s illicit affair with relativism, multiculturalism, and drugs. The left is to blame for these kinds of things, the left is ultimately the first cause of this kind of shooting.
Perhaps this is the reason why the left, knowing how their idolatrous love for such things is the root cause here, tried to hang the label “Tea Party” around this young murderer’s neck.
UPDATE- 1-12-11-
Notes on Jared
The blood libel meets a wall of truth, shows the true anti-freedomist and regressive agenda of Sheriff Dubnik, Freedom’s own “Benedict Arnold”, a Quisling pretender whose own oath of office was violated when he tried to spread a blood libel as a Rechstag fire justification for censoring his freedomist oponents.
“He did not watch TV. He disliked the news. He didn’t listen to political radio. He didn’t take sides. He wasn’t on the left. He wasn’t on the right.”
Zach Osler, a high school friend of Jared Loughner, the suspect in the Tucson massacre.
Dubnik is being joined by other Quislings, including the governor or Rhode Islamnd who is banning officials from speaking on talk radio in a blatant attempt to restrict access to public officials to only progressive journolist news media outlets.
“Chafee doesn’t plan to spend his own time on talk radio, and he intends to ban state employees from spending their state work time talking on talk radio, which was Carcieri’s favorite medium and an integral part of his communications operation.”
The Founding Fathers knew about dangers of warfare-welfare state
Freedom News, Politics, Conservative News, Tea Party News, Constitution Watch, Freedom Report, Bill Collier
American Founders’ Prescience Continues To Serve Us
Bill Collier- Freedomist.com
The prescience of our founders speaks strongly to a 21st century rebirth of populism and the necessary demise of the warfare-welfare state of the 20th century.
“The way to have safe government is not to trust it all to the one, but to divide it among the many, distributing to everyone exactly the functions in which he is competent….To let the National Government be entrusted with the defense of the nation, and its foreign and federal relations….. The State Governments with the Civil Rights, Laws, Police and administration of what concerns the State generally. The Counties with the local concerns, and each ward direct the interests within itself. It is by dividing and subdividing these Republics from the great national one down through all its subordinations until it ends in the administration of everyman’s farm by himself, by placing under everyone what his own eye may superintend, that all will be done for the best.” Thomas Jefferson
The notion that the courts can use the commerce clause to excuse excesses of Federal power beyond this simple vision of a strictly limited government is a outright betrayal of the intention of the founders.
“Government is not reason; it is not eloquence. It is force. And force, like fire, is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. ” George Washington
Simple truth like this is so lacking from the mouths of our scholars and the Journolist media who want us to see government as elegance and kindness, as something warm and paternal.
“Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is argument of tyrants. It is the creed of slaves. ” William Pitt in the House of Commons November 18, 1783
How often have we been told by radical Progressives and the Journolist media of some “necessity”- the bailouts, the TSA molestations, and on and on all pushed over our civil rights by the “necessity” of the hour!
“The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government.”
Patrick Henry
How can anyone read, for instance, the 1st Amendment as a prohibition on the free exercise of religious bodies in ALL aspects of our public life, including political, if the Constitution is meant ONLY to LIMIT and constrain government rather than the private associations of the People?
“Those rights, then, which God and nature have established, and are therefore called natural rights, such as are life and liberty, need not the aid of human laws to be more effectually invested in every man than they are; neither do they receive any additional strength when declared by the municipal [or state] laws to be inviolable. On the contrary, no human legislation has power to abridge or destroy them, unless the owner [of the right] shall himself commit some act that amounts to a forfeiture.” – William Blackstone
In short, we don’t need legal mumbo jumbo or endless debates about this or that “provision” or law or the like in order to claim, assert, or practice our natural, God-given freedom to be secure in our rights, persons, and property.
“The doctrines thus delivered we call the revealed or divine law, and they are to be found only in the Holy Scriptures. These precepts, when revealed, are found by comparison to be really a part of the original law of nature, as they tend in all their consequences to man’s felicity.” – William Blackstone
If the Holy Scriptures and their ancient precepts are true, we should follow them, and those who deny them cannot simply say “we shouldn’t follow this because it is religious in its roots” but, rather, they have the burden, as the accusers, to prove that such precept are guilty of being wrong.
Now, here are some quotes which speak of a freedom that is liberty in our rights, persons, and property within the constraints only of virtue and “the laws of nature and nature’s God.”
“Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports…. And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion.” – George Washington
“Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.” – Benjamin Franklin
“Neither the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt. He therefore is the truest friend to the liberty of his country who tries most to promote its virtue, and who … will not suffer a man to be chosen into any office of power and trust who is not a wise and virtuous man.” – Samuel Adams
Liberty is not license without constraint, nor is it “whatever doesn’t hurt others.” Liberty without virtue, or godliness, is the formula for tyranny because people who have no limits other than their own desire and the desires of people around them are bound to do things that are most harmful to themselves and their society.
“Every man, by consenting with others to make one body politic under one government, puts himself under an obligation to every one of that society to submit to the determination of the majority, and to be concluded [bound] by it.” – John Locke
Think about this. Freedom requires participatory self-government, but once a society has determined its values, natures, and characteristic norms, then one is justly bound to respect that, obey that, or failing this, to leave that society for another.
This theme of liberty within the just and useful limits of godliness (virtue) is almost universal amongst those who wrote our Constitution and whoever chooses to ignore this chooses to ignore the law of the People’s right to rule.
“(T)he foundation of our national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality; …the propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained…” George Washington, First Inaugural, April 30 1789
“Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. ” John Adams
“Political interest [can] never be separated in the long run from moral right….
Can the liberties of a nation be sure when we remove their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people, that these liberties are a gift from God? ” Thomas Jefferson
And HOW do we secure such freedom rooted in godliness, self-reliance, and security of our rights, persons, and property?
The intent of our Founders was that we protect this freedom ourselves, not that we rely on others, especially government, to be the sole possessors of arms for such defense.
“Laws that forbid the carrying of arms… disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes… Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man. ” Jefferson’s “Commonplace Book,” 1774_1776, quoting from On Crimes and Punishment, by criminologist Cesare Beccaria, 1764
“When the resolution of enslaving America was formed in Great Britain, the British Parliament was advised by an artful man, who was governor of Pennsylvania, to disarm the people; that it was the best and most effectual way to enslave them; but that they should not do it openly, but weaken them, and let them sink gradually…I ask, who are the militia? They consist of now of the whole people, except a few public officers. But I cannot say who will be the militia of the future day. If that paper on the table gets no alteration, the militia of the future day may not consist of all classes, high and low, and rich and poor…”
George Mason, Virginia Constitution Convention
The Founders even considered the problem of Pan-Islamic Imperialism, or “terrorism” and dealt with it by waging unrestricted warfare on its practitioners, going to North Africa and attacking the “Barbary States.”
In 1786, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson met with Tunisian leaders representing the so-called “Barbary States”, which were pirating the oceans and attacking US merchant ships and taking Americans hostage. This is how they summed up their enemy, and that same enemy exists today, now in a form of Pan-Islamic Imperialism called “terrorism” or “Jihadism.”
“We took the liberty to make some inquiries concerning the Grounds of their pretensions to make war upon a Nation who had done them no Injury, and observed that we considered all mankind as our Friends who had done us no wrong, nor had given us any provocation. The Ambassador answered us that it was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as Prisoners, and that every Musselman who should be slain in Battle was sure to go to Paradise.”
When you read these and many other quotes like this you might wonder- how would today’s Journolist media and the quisling Progressive radicals in places of high office label our Founders?
The Tea Party is asking inconvenient questions about the warfare-welfare state.
Bill Collier- Freedomist
Ralph Benko has forced out into the open what many of us have privately known or felt about our future and its possibilities. The future belongs to the populists, not the warfare-welfare state, but how that future is reached and when is an open question. The forbes.com piece written by Mr. Benko is in and of itself, as I see it, prima facie evidence of the historical necessity of ending the corporate warfare-welfare state of the 20th century and replacing it with a constitutional republic ruled by the People in their communities and states.
This message of the triumph of populism over gigantism in statecraft is not well received in some parts, especially amongst conventional two-party thinkers.The broad tendency amongst many of the conventional thinkers inside the two-party establishment seems to be to take the populist and limited government message of the Tea Party movement and label its practitioners with some epithet, like “racist” or some such thing. Never mind that the epithets are just that, epithets, and not facts. The real issue is a refusal on the part of some to seriously answer the inconvenient questions that the Tea Party asks, namely questions about the need for or the validity of the warfare-welfare state as it has been crafted since the 20th century.
This question cuts both ways, making big government conservatives and big government liberals equally uncomfortable with those who would ask it. Neither the big government liberals around President Obama nor the big government conservatives around Mitt Romney want to open up such a can of worms. This does not mean that they are bad people. The anachronism of those who learned to thrive in the old warfare-welfare state, and who came to associate that entity as synonymous with the nation itself, is as much a part of the well-worn path of historical necessity as the “barbarians at the gate” who dare to question the very NEED for keeping the old guard around.
This cyclic nature of history is
These cycles of gigantism followed by populism are like a sociological DNA.
Consider this- when scientist re-engineered the DNA of fruit flies, they discovered that within a few generations the DNA would “reset itself” to its norm.
If the natural state of social man is to seek a populist environment, minus gigantism in statecraft, then the external influences which led to gigantism cannot forever fend off the natural tendency to reset. Once these external influences, such as an existential threat to humanity, are virtually eliminated, the impetus that compelled people to accept the unnatural warfare-welfare state in order to avert certain termination of their existence was removed and the natural tendency, to want more and more freedom for the individual and their free associations, becomes an irresistible urge.
It may seem to many that the Tea Part movement, which is asking inconvenient questions about the warfare-welfare state, just “came out of nowhere” but there are historical forces at work which, to my mind, make both the Tea Party movement and the ultimate demise of the warfare-welfare state inevitable, if not in this generation, then in the next.
Here is where a new narrative is emerging, not something contrived, but something that has the logic of history to back it up, and the wisdom of common sense to make it a living and present reality.
The basic thesis is simple, compelling, and hopeful for every populist heart- with the demise of existential threats to the human race What is more, the public’s appetite for the warfare-welfare state is greatly diminished, in fact, there is no popular consensus in favor of anything but the elimination, almost en toto, of the warfare-welfare states of the 20th century., although serious threats exist in the form of Iran or North Korea, the need for the warfare-welfare state is greatly diminished.
This may be going beyond Benko’s narrative, but the basic narrative is simple and powerful, and it explains WHY the Tea Party movement emerged so suddenly and, in less than 24 months, reshaped the entire landscape of American politics in a manner never before seen.
The logic of history is expressed, as I see it, by Benko’s paragraph on the Constitution-
“Under the U.S. Constitution, the U.S. is designed to be a ‘small r’ republic. That means that we citizens elect representatives to carry out our will. And the elected representatives are meant to be just that: representatives, not Supreme Leaders. During times of mortal threat citizens readily cede power to the elected officials who grow in power, prestige and position. It is a sensible course. Plain citizens are not, and know they are not, personally equipped to guide the U.S. through a potential apocalypse.”
Quite simply, the cycle has gone its course, and now that the existential threat is, at worse, an extremely improbable potentiality, the society that was born on these shores is moving back to its sociological DNA.
In history, the idea of something being inevitable is not applicable in the short term or to specific groups of people, historical necessity and inevitability are seen over the course of dozens, sometimes hundreds, of years and the path of historical necessities and cycles is never even or constant- often progressions through phases and cycles can look like a zigzag route with occasional double-backs, as if the society or people in question weren’t sure they were going in the right direction and had to step back a few steps, afraid they had gone too far.
No person or single generation can rely on historical necessity or inevitability, but in the end, history, like truth, will “out”
The question is not so much whether, ultimately, the historical necessity and inevitability of the empowerment of the People and the elimination of the warfare-welfare state will occur. The unknowns here are what that pathway will look like. Will it be strewn with the debris of failed attempts top halt its progress in the form of concocted wars and crisis that give just a few more PAINFUL years of life to the ancien regime?
Will it be the privilege of THIS generation to usher in the end of the warfare-welfare state and erect a people powered governance in its place or will this honor be surrendered and have to await another generation?
We are determined to see the “peace dividend” result in all power reverting back to the People, to live and manage their lives in their homes, private associations, local communities, and states with little external control by those who think they know what is best for them, but we know that to make this happen we must work hard and consistently because, inevitable as such a future may be, it is for us only a POSSIBLE future!
From Forbes.com By Ralph Benko
(Republished with permission)
The Political Consequences Of The Peace
With Peace in hand we’re ready to downsize our government
As a proud, card-carrying, rally-going member of the Tea Party Patriots (co-emcee of the 2009 Boston Tea Party, how iconic is that?), I have noticed how quickly some Progressives are to label us as racists. They genuinely believe, or at least suspect, that the Tea Parties are partly a reaction to the United States’ first African-American president, Barack Obama.
The quickest way to get kicked out of the Tea Party Patriots is to express any sign of racial animus. Since the TPP is by far the largest (2,800 chapters), most active and most authentic of all of the Tea Party groups, our public and vehemently enforced anti-racism policy is no small thing.
Yet my left-leaning friends are groping for the answer to a very interesting question: Why now?
Why now? Because, barely noticed by the political and media elites–world peace is breaking out. This is a tectonic shift in world culture, one that transcends left vs. right.
For almost 50 years–from the bombing of Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, until the fall of the Berlin Wall on Nov. 9, 1989–the U.S. was beset by mortal enemies. It was an era of guerre a outrance, or war without limit, with Nazi Germany and the Axis Powers, and then the Soviet Union and its satellites, threatening America’s and the West’s liberal democratic values and our, and our allies’, very existence.
Now that epoch has ended. But cultural shifts take time: A country that has been at war for generations does not lower its guard quickly.
Shortly after peace began to dawn, dawn was clouded by the infamous 9/11 attacks. Having only recently emerged from an epoch of total war, the U.S. responded by going on to a total-war footing. We reacted by invading Afghanistan and then Iraq (which had methodically given out the misinformation that it possessed of weapons of mass destruction). At home we created the Department of Homeland Security and its most visible, and recently controversial, branch, the TSA.
Almost 10 years later, not one similar attack on American soil has occurred. The world remains a dangerous place in some very real respects–especially with nuclearizing rogue states such as Iran and North Korea–and this requires a significant degree of vigilance. Yet no external enemy or group of enemies has the military power to threaten the American way of life or our existence.
The U.S.’ military budget is the size of the next 14 nations’ in the world combined. Twelve of these 14 are our allies, and the other two, China and Russia, who might (or actually might not) be cast as adversarial, have vast landmasses to protect and certainly cannot afford to pick an all-out fight with a far better-armed nation. The American way, and existence, no longer is threatened from outside.
The defense budget is pumped up by threat of war. The grandiosity of these expenditures casts broad penumbras. The whole government grows. A single presidential motorcade, or a single U.S. senator’s office, comprises more people than the entire staff of the Executive Office under President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Mortal threat is the predicate for a “warfare/welfare” state. That’s over.
Under the U.S. Constitution, the U.S. is designed to be a “small r” republic. That means that we citizens elect representatives to carry out our will. And the elected representatives are meant to be just that: representatives, not Supreme Leaders. During times of mortal threat citizens readily cede power to the elected officials who grow in power, prestige and position. It is a sensible course. Plain citizens are not, and know they are not, personally equipped to guide the U.S. through a potential apocalypse.
But when the mortal threat has passed and the culture begins, however vaguely, to sense and trust in this, we citizens begin to reclaim our native power. In our era, MoveOn.org, the Progressive online movement, may have signaled the first stirring of a citizens’ uprising. The center of the uprising has passed to the Tea Party movement. Whether or not we Tea Partiers are thinking in terms of the end of the epoch of war, we sense that the federal government is wielding an unjustifiable amount of (our) power and of (our) money for an era of peace.
No longer content to delegate governance to our “leaders,” or to overlook their notable lack of competence, we are reclaiming the power we had ceded. We are slowly but steadily withdrawing the all important “consent of the governed” and demanding that our political leaders recede back to the representative status envisioned by the Constitution, and by Thomas Paine’s Common Sense and by the Declaration of Independence.
The Tea Party is not a racist or revanchist movement. Instead, Tea Partiers signal that society is beginning to perceive, and trust, that the epoch of total war has ended. War is the mother of the State. As we come to understand that the war is over the rationale for a gargantuan State disappears. Our officials, long finding delight in acting as a ruling class, are unlikely to surrender their privileges lightly. But without the rationale for such exorbitant privileges, surrender them they shall.
There are many ramifications to peace. We can make the transition to peace and prosperity easily in a few years–or painfully over a few decades. We can fail and stumble back into an epoch of war. How long this takes, its success or failure, is up to us, not to our representatives. It is our choice. It is our challenge. It is our opportunity.
Ralph Benko, 12.13.10, 06:00 PM EST , the inevitable and the necessary will ultimately occur. This is why it says in Ecclesiastes 3 that “for everything there is a season” and in the same book it tells us that “nothing is different.” The change WITHIN the cycle is different for the people who experience it, but it is the same change, the same cycle, and the more it seems to change, the more it repeats what has always existed.plus ça change: the rise and fall of gigantism in statecraft occurs in a very similar and well-worn pattern.
Mike Pence, Mike Pence Speech, Flat Tax, Detroit Speech, Economic Speech, Pro Growth, Economic Club, Politics, Election 2012, Ronald Reagan, Gold Standard, Jack Kemp
Mike Pence delivers major pro-growth speech to Detroit Economic Club- 11-29-10
In a speech given 11-29-10 to the Detroit Economic Club, Mike Pence endorsed the Gold Standard and the Flat tax.
Finally, a Republican who gets the pro-growth narrative! Mike Pence is reminding us of Jack Kemp and Ronald Reagan, this is BIG news!
The Gold Standard is emerging out of years of obscurity, and looking better and better every day.
While some have tried to say that the GOP is the party of “no” and that it has no agenda, here is a major figure in the GOP constellation of personalities who has a definitive, pro-growth agenda.
If the rest of the GOP jumps on board, the liberals have much to fear, which is probably the reason why Paul Krugman went apoplectic over the Gold Standard. His Keynesian dream of a managed economy would crumble under the weight of fiscal responsibility that a Gold Standard would impose!
Here is the speech in its entirety:
Renewing American Exceptionalism:
An Agenda for Economic Growth and Prosperity
Mike Pence
November 29, 2010
Detroit Economic Club
Thank you L. Brooks Patterson for that kind introduction and heartfelt thanks to Beth Chappell and all the members of the Detroit Economic Club for hosting me. For 75 years, the Detroit Economic Club has been a premier venue for leaders interested in saying something significant about our economy and I am genuinely grateful to be able to join the ranks of those who had the privilege to “say it here.”
And it’s great to be in Detroit- home to Motown, the Lions (you know who this Colts fan was cheering for on Thanksgiving!) and the “Car Capitol of the World.”
My father ran a chain of gas stations so, like most Americans, I have had a life long love affair with the automobile. Try to imagine America without the Ford Mustang, the Chevrolet Corvette, or the Dodge Charger.
Being from Indiana, I am especially proud of the role that Hoosiers have played and continue to play in this unique American industry. And it all started here in Detroit. America owes a debt to the ingenuity and entrepreneurism of this great city. You helped define the character of a nation.
But Detroit and America have seen better days and I come to this storied podium to say after years of runaway federal spending, borrowing and bailouts by both political parties, that there is a better way, a way we can renew American exceptionalism by returning to the principles and practices that built this great city and this great country and can build it again.
We live in no ordinary times. Our economy is struggling in the city and on the farm. Unemployment is at a heartbreaking 9.6 percent nationally and nearly 13 percent in Michigan. Nearly 42 million Americans on food stamps. A housing crisis and dismal GDP growth.
And it seems that those in authority have no idea what to do about it. Some in the administration call it the “new normal.” (like we haven’t heard that before) In the 70’s they called it a national “malaise.”
With more than 15 million people still looking for work, President Obama and Democrats in Congress have tried to borrow and spend the country back to prosperity resulting in trillion dollar plus annual deficits and a nearly $14 trillion national debt. To this runaway federal spending they added a government takeover of health care, attempted a national energy tax and approved one bailout after another.
In September 2008, when the Bush Administration proposed that Congress give them $700 billion to bail out Wall Street, I was the first Member of Congress to publicly oppose it. I didn’t think we should do nothing, I just thought it was wrong to take $700 billion from Main Street to bailout bad decisions on Wall Street. I warned that passing TARP could fundamentally change the relationship between the government and the financial sector and so it has.
Dodd-Frank codified “too big to fail” for some Wall Street firms and made taxpayers the first line of defense against failure. And we continue to bailout Fannie and Freddie to the tune of about $150 billion, with more expected, despite the fact that many of us have been fighting for years to get them off the government’s books. The partnership between the federal government and Fannie and Freddie socializes losses and privatizes profits with taxpayers getting the short end of the stick.
And, even though I am proud of the American automotive tradition and Indiana’s ongoing role it, I even opposed bailing out GM and Chrysler. While the administration has been busy making the point that GM is on the rebound and taxpayers are being repaid, most Americans know that it still would have been better if GM had gone through an orderly reorganization bankruptcy without taxpayer support.
Taxpayer funded bailouts are no substitute for economic policies that will create real consumer demand. I have no doubt that American automakers and autoworkers can compete and win in a growing American economy.
To restore American exceptionalism, we must end all this Keynesian spending and get back to the practice of free market economics. The freedom to succeed must include the freedom to fail. The free market is what made America’s economy the greatest in the world, and we cannot falter in our willingness to defend it.
Even though our economy is struggling and America seems at a low point, I believe we can restore our economy but it will take vision and courage to do it. And everything starts with putting our fiscal house in order.
The good news is there is no shortage of plans for fiscal discipline in Washington these days. We have the Pledge to America, the president’s Debt Commission, and over time we’ve had budgets, blueprints, outlines, and thoughtful proposals from Members of Congress, and blue-ribbon panels.
For my part, I believe the answer is a Spending Limit Amendment to the Constitution. Since World War II the federal government has operated on an average of just under 20 percent of gross domestic product. But, in the past three years, federal spending has climbed to nearly 25 percent of GDP. Left unchecked, and accounting for no new programs, federal spending will reach 50 percent of GDP by 2055.
We should remember what Ronald Reagan said, “No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size.” We must have a mechanism that forces Washington as a whole to make the hard choices necessary to reform our nation’s addiction to big spending and unsustainable entitlements.
By limiting federal spending to 20 percent of our nation’s economy in the Constitution, except for certain conditions such as a war, we will create a framework for this and future Congresses to live within our means and have the incentive to grow the economy.
To grow the economy we must shrink the size of the federal government but fiscal discipline alone will not be enough to bring jobs and prosperity back to America.
We need a new agenda for economic growth and that is principally what brings me to Detroit to discuss today.
As Margaret Thatcher said in equally challenging economic times (1977):
…Of course we’re not going to solve our problems just by cuts, just by restraint…. it was not restraint that started the Industrial Revolution;… It wasn’t restraint that inspired us to explore for oil in the North Sea and bring it ashore. It was incentive – positive, vital, driving, individual incentive.
What was true for England in the 1970’s, is true for America today. Permitting people to enjoy the fruits of their labor is what built our cities, conquered our frontiers, and made America the most prosperous nation in the history of the world.
The new Republican majority in Congress must embrace a bold agenda for economic growth built on timeless free market practices and reform.
So what are the building blocks of an incentive-based, growth agenda? I submit they are the following:
▪ Sound monetary policy;
▪ Tax relief and reform;
▪ Access to American energy;
▪ Regulatory reform;
▪ Trade
“S.T.A.R.T.” You could call it a prescription for a fresh start for the American economy. Some of these are new ideas. Some are timeless. Taken together, they will put us back on track for job creation and prosperity.
Sound Monetary Policy and a Restoration of Free Market Principles
Sound monetary policy is the foundation of our prosperity. A strong dollar means a strong America.
The American people know we cannot borrow and spend our way back to a growing America and sent a deafening message of restraint to Washington D.C. on November 2nd. But it doesn’t look like the administration got the message and neither did the Federal Reserve.
During 2008 and 2009, the Fed pushed well over $1 trillion into the financial system in an attempt to rein in unemployment through more government stimulus, yet the national jobless rate has been well above 9 percent for a record-tying 18 straight months. The Fed’s second and latest round of “quantitative easing,” known as QE2, actually seeks inflation in an effort to bring down unemployment. Printing money is no substitute for sound fiscal policy. And while there is no guarantee that this policy will succeed in reducing unemployment, it is near certain that the value of the dollar will be diluted. As economist Larry Kudlow says, the Fed can print money, but it can’t print jobs.
I do not lay the blame solely at the feet of the Federal Reserve. The problem for the Fed began in 1977 when Congress imposed a dual mandate, which requires that the central bank pursue price stability and maximum employment in executing its policies. Too often, this conflicting mandate has pit short-term hopes for job gains against long-term costs to the economy. QE2 is an example of what happens when the Fed involves itself too much in macroeconomic meddling.
A couple weeks ago, I introduced legislation to end the dual mandate and return the Fed to its original, single mandate – price stability. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner recently said the administration will oppose any effort to end the dual mandate arguing that it was “very important to keep politics out of monetary policy”. But Congress created the dual mandate in 1977 and getting the Fed back to its original mission of price stability is precisely how we get politics out of monetary policy.
It’s time that the Federal Reserve focus exclusively on price stability and protecting the dollar. And it’s also time that policymakers in Washington D.C. embrace the kind of reforms that will promote real growth.
Before I move on, I would like to note that in the midst of all that has happened recently – massive government borrowing and spending, quantitative easing – a debate is starting anew over an anchor for the global monetary system.
My dear friend, the late Jack Kemp probably would have urged me to adopt a gold standard here and now. Robert Zoellick, President of the World Bank, encouraged that we re-think the international currency system, including the role of gold and I agree. The time has come to have a debate over gold and the proper role it should play in our nation’s monetary affairs.
Tax Relief and Reform: Flat Tax
The first principle of a tax system in a free society must be certainty.
Uncertainty is the enemy of our prosperity. For too long on tax policy, uncertainty has been the order of the day.
To end the uncertainty that is stifling investment, innovation and growth, we must preserve current tax rates and promote permanent tax reform.
For starters, of course, Congress must permanently extend the 2001 and 2003 tax rates to ensure no American faces a tax hike on January 1st, and I have introduced a bill with Sen. Jim DeMint to do just that. Most Americans know that higher taxes won’t get anybody hired. Raising taxes on job creators won’t create jobs.
But, preventing a tax increase is not enough. If the current tax rates were sufficient to get this economy moving again, it would be and it’s not.
The time has come for Congress and this administration to take bold action to simplify our tax system and lower people’s taxes.
The tax code has grown too large and complex. It has 3.8 million words. The forms are dizzying. And nothing about it seems fair.
People are taxed on their income. Then after they pay their bills, they take the leftover money and put it into savings or an investment. If their savings or investments make any money, they are taxed again. If they buy stock in a company, the company pays taxes on its profits. Then it takes those profits and provides a dividend to shareholders and it is taxed again. The final outrage occurs at death, when your estate pays taxes once again on all the money you’d previously paid taxes on while living.
All I really know about economics is what you tax you get less of and what you subsidize you get more of. We need a tax system that will encourage income, savings, investment and growth, but our tax code does the opposite. It punishes savers and investors by taxing them twice and in some cases more times than that.
To promote income, savings and investment, we need a system built on the principle that income should be taxed once and just once. We need a fair and effective method of taxation that will make doing your taxes easy and remove the confusion of the present tax code.
In an upcoming study written by the legendary Dr. Art Laffer, Wayne Winegarden and John Childs, they found the cost of compliance with today’s tax code to be over $540 billion annually and that individuals and businesses spend 7.6 billion hours on their taxes.
Just imagine if Americans were putting that time and money into enjoying their lives or growing their businesses. The Laffer study predicts that by simplifying the tax code and cutting complexity costs in half, our economy would grow $1.3 trillion more over ten years than if we maintain the status quo. That means each person in this country would be approximately $4,200 wealthier. And that’s just from simplifying our tax code by half.
But we can do better than that. How about a system where could file your taxes on a Blackberry, or a system where you might even be able to file a return with 140 characters or less? How would you like to tweet your taxes?
We can create a twenty-first century American tax system that will provide government with the revenue it needs without discouraging growth or placing an undue burden of compliance on our citizens.
There is one system that meets all of these criteria: the best option, the most pro-growth option is a flat tax. I believe it is time that America adopted a flat tax and scrapped the current system once and for all.
A flat tax would release enormous amounts of capital into the system, and it would operate under a simple principle: what you take out of the economy is taxed, like wages and business income, and what you put into the economy is not, like savings and investments.
Individuals and businesses would pay taxes at the same rate. Individuals would pay taxes on their wages or salary after receiving a basic income exemption and an exemption for any dependents, including children and elderly family members and others who you care for in your home. Imagine how easy this would be for people. Gross income minus a generous standard deduction minus any dependent exemptions and you’ve got your taxable income. Apply the rate and your taxes are done. Everyone pays the same rate, and the more money you make, the more you pay. It’s fair, simple and effective.
If you are a business, you pay tax on your gross income for the year minus one hundred percent of your expenses: rent, wages, fuel, supplies, etc. Depreciation is no longer necessary because the entire cost of investment spending can be deducted in one year.
The flat tax eliminates all of the credits and deductions and special preferences and tax loopholes that Congress and an army of lobbyists have built into the tax code over time. These fuel special interests and generally benefit one person, business or industry over another. Our tax system should not pick winners and losers, but should treat every business, small and large, with the same basic rules.
Instead, everyone would be on a level playing field with certainty as to your taxes. A taxpayer would either subtract his basic and dependent exemptions or business expenses and end up with taxable income. It would reduce compliance costs by hundreds of billions of dollars.
Following the principle of only taxing once, it eliminates the AMT, the capital gains and dividends taxes, and the death and gift taxes.
And this is hardly radical. A flat tax is in use in more than twenty countries around the world, and they have been proposed and supported by various legislators and economists in America over the past 30 years, such as Robert Hall and Alvin Rabushka, Dick Armey, Steve Forbes, Art Laffer, Jack Kemp and Richard Gephardt. We don’t think about it, but we already use flat taxes in America as taxes for Social Security, Medicare taxes, sales and property taxes.
It may come as a surprise to many, but even the New York Times wrote favorably about a flat tax saying, “…every dollar of income would be taxed once and only once. The plan would subsidize saving, and create an exemption that would protect the poor. [I]t is perfectly simple.” The Gray Lady was right.
And a flat tax will make America more globally competitive. New York City is still the financial capital of the world, but for how long will that be true? The Wall Street Journal recently reported that in New York City in 2011, the combined federal and state tax rate will be nearly 54 percent. With government taking more than half of your money, is that an incentive to work hard or to take your business elsewhere?
A global economy means New York is now competing to keep businesses and capital from moving to Beijing or Bangalore. Right now, our corporate tax rate is 15 points higher than the rest of the world. And more than twenty countries with growing economies have a flat tax in place for businesses and individuals.
Hong Kong instituted its flat tax in 1947 and has no tax on capital gains or dividends. Its tax code is short, to the point, and effective, and Hong Kong is a wealthy, thriving city with a growing economy and government surpluses. Russia, Czech Republic, and Ukraine all have flat taxes. The hard truth is the future is flat. The world is going flat everywhere but in America, and to lead the next American century, our nation needs to lead in capital formation and tax reform again.
And a flat tax will mean jobs. According to one study by the Heritage Foundation, the flat tax would result in tremendous economic growth with GDP potentially growing by as much as 7 percent within 3 years and nearly 1.5 million jobs being created.
Not that this should come as a surprise. If you look back at history, the Kennedy, Reagan and 2001/2003 tax reforms were all followed by strong economic growth. The flat tax goes beyond these tax cuts and provides not just lower taxes but a greatly simplified system.
After the Kennedy tax cuts, the top rate went from 91 percent to 70 percent. Economic growth soared: unemployment went down by more than 2 percent and tax receipts increased by 33 percent.
Two decades later, President Reagan’s across-the-board tax cuts brought America back from a devastating recession. In 1981, unemployment was at 7.6 percent nationally. The Dow Jones was at 777. Mortgage interest rates were over 20 percent. By 1987, the prime rate was down to 8.2 percent. The Dow was up to 3,000 by the end of Reagan’s term, and 17 million new jobs were created. That’s real growth. It created true opportunity and improved the lives of average Americans.
And after the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts, the economy again grew, as did government revenues by $785 billion from 2004 to 2007, a record. There is an indisputable historical case to be made that tax relief and reform creates jobs and incentivizes growth in our economy.
American Energy
A source of American greatness observed since our founding has been our abundant natural resources. As Daniel Webster said, in words inscribed in the chamber of the House of Representatives:
Let us develop the resources of our land, call forth its powers, build up its institutions, promote all its great interests and see whether we also in our day and generation may not perform something worthy to be remembered.
A policy for developing American energy must be a component of any plan for growth. We must embrace an all-of-the-above energy policy that promotes energy independence in an environmentally responsible manner. An all-of-the-above energy policy should not mean subsidizing all-of-the-above. It means allowing all types of energy to be developed and compete honestly in a free marketplace.
We can and should wisely use these resources to better the lives of our citizens. Our environment can be protected while we increase energy production, encourage greater efficiency and conservation, and promote the development and use of alternative fuels, and innovative new technologies like we’re seeing developed right here in Detroit.
It also is time for a nuclear energy renaissance in America. The regulatory process for new applications can be accelerated, and we can safely store and recycle spent nuclear fuel. Nuclear energy not only means a source of clean emissions-free energy; it also means construction jobs, manufacturing jobs, and science-based economic growth.
Developing our own sources of energy here at home will provide certainty about our future, ensure that energy remains affordable and create jobs.
Regulatory Relief and Reform
Next, to restore incentive and encourage growth we must reduce the regulatory burden on our economy. There is a place for regulations that ensure safety and soundness and protect people from danger, but our regulatory structure has grown out of control.
Today we have too many regulations and too many regulatory authorities that have expanded the reach of the federal government too far. These regulations add billions to the cost of doing business and in their wake they kill jobs.
Take the requirement from ObamaCare that businesses must file with the IRS a form 1099 for any purchases from a vendor for goods or services over $600 in a year. Seriously, that is in the law. Of course, this is ridiculously burdensome and just adds to the red tape that small businesses face across the country. It should be repealed immediately.
According to the Small Business Administration, the average small business faces a cost of $10,585 in federal regulations per employee each year. These small employers represent 99.7 percent of all businesses and have created 64 percent of all new jobs over the past 15 years.
Imagine if small businesses could put the $10,000 per employee they spend each year on federal regulations directly back into new jobs.
Ronald Reagan once said “A government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on this earth.” It’s time to change that, at least when it comes to regulations.
I propose that any existing regulation with an economic impact of $100 million or more must be reviewed and if still necessary, re-promulgated every ten years to allow for public comment and a reassessment of the cost of the regulation. Instead of eternal life, these regulations will get ten years.
After ten years, there is no reason not to review, modernize, improve and reduce the cost of existing regulations.
Further, I believe that all new regulations that impose an economic cost on families, businesses or local governments should be subject to a regulatory “paygo” procedure before implementation. If government wants to issue a new regulation that is going to impose an economic cost, then it needs to reduce another regulatory burden elsewhere so that there is no new burden on the economy.
Some regulations, and some bills that have passed Congress, however, impose costs that are too great and can never be offset and must be repealed.
ObamaCare, Dodd-Frank, TARP, and Section 404 of Sarbanes-Oxley fall in that category. Also, Congress must override the EPA’s endangerment finding so that regulatory cap and trade cannot be forced on the American people against their will.
Increased Trade
As most Americans know, trade means jobs, and that is especially true in places like Indiana and Michigan where we grow food that the world consumes and make cars and other products that are used around the globe. Encouraging free trade lowers barriers to entry for our goods, and that in turn allows U.S. companies to create more jobs.
Protectionism and closing our doors to other countries does not help us, or people in the rest of the world. We must support expanded free trade to renew American exceptionalism and create jobs.
Despite the president’s stated objective of doubling American exports in the next five years, trade has largely been ignored by Democrats in Congress and the administration in recent years. With a new Republican majority in the House, I am hopeful that the free trade agreements with Panama, Colombia and South Korea can move forward. We need to get those deals done, and done right, but it should not end there. We must promote increased trade at every opportunity around the world. When the world “buys American,” Americans go to work.
Renewing the Character of the Nation
Finally, to renew American exceptionalism, we must recognize that our present crisis is not merely economic but moral in nature. At the root of these times should be the realization that people in positions of authority from Washington to Wall Street have walked away from the timeless truths of honesty, integrity, an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay and the simple notion that you ought to treat the other guy the way you want to be treated.
As strongly as I believe in the economic policies in this address, I know we will not restore this nation with public policy alone. It will require public virtue. ‘When the foundations are being destroyed, what can the righteous do?’ As we promote policies to restore American exceptionalism, we must also reaffirm our nation’s commitment to the values that have made our prosperity possible. As we seek to build national wealth, we must renew our commitment to the institutions that nurture the character of our people- traditional family and religion.
Conclusion
In 1977, my brother and I went backpacking through Europe and found our way to West Berlin. I will never forget the day I walked past the barbed wire and tank traps that barricaded the Berlin Wall, passed through security at Checkpoint Charlie and took my first steps into a wider understanding of the world.
Standing in West Berlin I saw the energy, bustling streets and glass towers of a big city built on freedom and free market economics. The strassen were filled with stores, people, and bustling commerce.
When we crossed through Checkpoint Charlie, past the harsh glare of uniformed East German guards, everything changed. The excitement and energy of West Berlin gave way to the dour reality of Soviet controlled East Berlin.
The buildings were drab – concrete block tenement structures. Damage from World War II was still evident in many buildings. The cars were vintage 1950’s and people all seemed to be wearing the same colorless apparel. It was a gray, harsh reality.
In that moment, I saw the difference between East and West, between a free market economy and a planned economy run by the state. Freedom and personal responsibility contrasted with socialism and decline.
The problem with our economy today is that, after years of runaway spending and growth of government under both political parties, America is on that wall between West and East. No longer the vibrant free market that built cities like Detroit but not yet overtaken by the policies that have engulfed Europe in a sea of debt and mediocrity.
To restore American economic exceptionalism, we have to decide that we believe in it again and turn and pursue a free market economy again with all our hearts.
We have to choose. Ronald Reagan said it best:
You and I are told we must choose between a left or right, but I suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down. Up to man’s age-old dream–the maximum of individual freedom consistent with order — or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism.
I choose the West. I choose limited government and freedom. I choose the free market, personal responsibility and equality of opportunity. I choose fiscal restraint, a sound money, a flat tax, regulatory reform, American energy, expanded trade and a return to traditional values.
In a word, I choose a boundless American future built on the timeless ideals of the American people. I believe the American people are ready for this choice and await men and women who will lead us back to that future, back to the West, back to American exceptionalism. Here’s to that future. Our best days are yet to come. Thank you.
Freedom News, Freedomist, Top Freedom Report, Progressive, MSM, Bill Collier
Bill Collier
Bill Collier- Co-editor- The Freedomist
The Tree of Liberty has deep roots, going to our God-given inherent rights which transcend any law, edict, ruling, rule, or charter.
It has many branches, including free speech, freedom of religion, the free market, the rights of free association, the rights of electoral participation, and the rights of self-reliance and self-preservation.
Its trunk is composed of freedom based on virtue, thrift, and independence.
There is never any reason or justification for hewing away at the trunk of this Tree, of trying to hack off any of these branches nor for assaulting the roots of this tree by denying that our rights are inherent and God-given. No good that is sought and no evil that is confronted can justify or excuse any effort to cut down this tree!
That is why our motto is “Whoever Tries To Cut Down This Tree Is an Enemy of the People.” Such a sign as this was posted on “Liberty Trees” all over the 13 Colonies where “Patriots”, who saw British Imperialism as threat to their Liberty, would gather.
The Tree of Liberty is even now under assault, from Pan-Islamic powers and their proxy terror attacks to Progressives and their subversion and co-opting of our leading national institutions towards ends never intended by our Founders and opposed by most of our People.
The real enemy, however, is not who you might think it is, namely the pawns used to push through measures that assault the Tree of Liberty. The real enemy, the puppet master and king-makers behind the scene, have two primary branches- the news-shapers and the professors.
It is through news-shapers who control the dissemination and publication/broadcasting of news that most Americans learn what is happening and why and, since few Americans truly grasp how much their “news” is doctored so at to manipulate them and deceive them, this allows the news-shapers enjoy a very high degree of power.
The professors use their “credentials” to create an “appeal to authority” that is meant to censure critics and opponents of their Progressive ideology and all of the front-causes, like racism, global warming, or what have you, that are a cover for their true intentions.
It is the news-shapers and the professors who are the enemy o the People, because every day they do their best to assault the roots of that Tree, to hew at its trunk, which is virtue, thrift, and independence, or to hack away at is branches.
Rather than targeting the puppets, the politicians, we need to shift our response to the real enemy- the Progressive Elites who play the roles of news-shapers and professors, and we need to deny them any sanctuary or safe haven as they use claims of freedom of the press, academic freedom (that extends to them but neither their students nor non-Progressives), their so-called “authority”, or their “tenure” to shield themselves from the accountability they richly deserve to “suffer.”
Mike Pence, Election 2012, Freedom News, Politics,, GOP
The Pence Presidential Campaign?
Mike Pence, Congressman from Indiana, appears poised to launch a bid for the Presidency in the 2012 election. This is not just another ego trip by a puffed-up politico, Pence enjoys growing support from a groundswell of freedom movement activists and is a favorite son of the Tea Party Movement.
Pence is a solid vote for the things that are near and dear to most Tea Partiers, including his long-standing advocacy for first amendment protections, his opposition to “the fairness doctrine”, low taxes, limited government, and pro-life/pro-family issues. What is more, Pence does not have any scandals or peccadilloes to be worried about.
When Pence stepped down from leadership positions in the House, where some saw him as the primary Tea Party alternative to Boehner, it was thought that he might consider a run for Indiana Governor or President.
Mike Pence’s star began to rise when he made a stand with John Culberson and other Representatives during the “Texas Tea Party” in August 2008, when Pelosi, still in the height of her power, arrogantly shut down the House in order to end debate on a bill to allow oil drilling off the US coast. The oil bans were allowed to expire, after it was revealed that Pelosi was in bed with T Boone Pickens and stood to make millions, but only if the drilling ban remained in place.
Pence, like Senator Jim Demint, was one of the few voices that was stridently raised against the “stimulus” package that John McCain suspended his campaign to support.
While Pence has not announced his intentions, the Freedomist has reliable intel that he is being urged to do so and, as it stands now, we can expect to know definitively what he will do by mid-January or sooner.
Politicians love to claim a mandate and often use the term “the American People want…” (fill in the blank). This kind of “speechifying”, at its most basic level, is a “polite” way of saying, “I’m right because The People say I’m right!” It doesn’t matter whether, logically or morally, that politician is right, much less whether or not the People who gave that politician the votes to win REALLY support their whole agenda, or even whether the People are simply tossing out the other politicians who disappointed them!
Today, the new majority party for the House and for State governments overall, the GOP, is sounding not much different in its grandiose claims than the old majority party, the Democrats, who still control the Senate and the White House, and most of the media and education establishment.
Did “the American People” choose one set of ideological principles over another in the 2010 mid-term elections?
In Delaware, the “People” surprised even the Freedomist, with our prediction of an upset based on polling data from multiple sources, and chose a crony capitalist who uses “Progressivism” as a cloak for his, well, cronyism, all because the Democrat controlled media used high school popularity contest tactics, essentially calling his opponent, Christine O’Donnell, “weird.”
Did ALL the voters decide to support the crony insider simply because the media made O’Donnell seem “weird”? NO, many of these voters lean to the Progressive side of the aisle and genuinely believe in limited economic freedom in exchange for public guarantees of their welfare and “freedom from morality.” Most of the Coons voters were, in fact, genuinely voting their ideological tendencies, or at least for their own self-interest (for largesse at public expense) but many of them knew nothing more than that O’Donnell was “weird”, because that’s what their local journolist media SAID she was!
Can the same be said on the other side, that voters rejected Democrats, who took a shellacking in the race for the House and the State gubernatorial races, simply because the media portrayed them as “weird?”
The fact is, the progressive journolists portrayed almost the entire Tea Party movement, and as many of the GOP contenders as they COULD, as “weird.” They did not throw one single punch at the other side. It was as if the only “weird” people were on the side of the aisle that thinks excessive government power over our lives and wealth is itself “weird” in relation to Constitutional norms.
It is not weird, according to this model of weirdness, to think that the commerce clause can pretty much mean anything you want, thus nullifying the entire Constitution, Bill of Rights, and Declaration of Independence, but it is weird to think, for instance, that fantasying about having sex with someone you’re not married to is the same thing as adultery.
Can you imagine how the Apostle Paul would be treated by the progressive journolists? TALK ABOUT WEIRD!
Harry Reid would talk about how the Apostle Paul said “those who do not work, should not eat” was “callous and insensitive.”
Nancy Pelosi would read the bit about not being “unequally yoked” with sinners as “extreme.”
Ariana Huffington would read where Paul described homosexuals as “reprobates” as “bigoted homophobia.”
Of course, as with the servant, Paul, so with the Master- Jesus Christ Himself would have been just as easily condemned and crucified for his “crimes” by the progressive journolists and their political allies.
Would the progressive journolists crucify Jesus and the Apostles in the Roman way?
No!
For modern crucifixions see the way the progressive journolists treated Juan Williams and how it treats people like Sharon Angle, Christine O’Donnell, Joe Miller, and Sarah Palin! Not only do the progressive journolists seek to smear the names of their political opponents, and turn people off by portraying these people as being “weird”, but they are not happy until they have DESTROYED their lives!
Some Americans, enough to be move an election loss for an ideologue whose policies would not in and of themselves gain popular support, were persuaded by the “coolness” argument- the other person is weird, therefore not cool, and so vote for the “cool person.” In Delaware, Nevada, and California, this “coolness” argument may have been enough to propel candidates whose ideology is shared by only 20% of the population into the winner’s circle.
On the other hand, were the candidates who WON, and whose ideology is not unpopular, propelled to power on the basis of their ideology?
Let’s think of it like this. If a trend is wide and broad and deep, than we might safely say that there are factors at work other than purely local factors.
The “coolness” argument is always a local factor, because it relates to how cool, or un-cool a particular candidate is. If you say “they’re ALL un-cool because of their ideology” you now have the problem of talking about that ideology, which, if your ideology is not popular, opens you up to having to talk about your ideology.
In 2010 the progressive journolists and their political friends and allies pretty much tried, on a massive scale, the “coolness argument.” They had some successes and probably limited their losses, and may even have saved the Senate for their CLASS of Progressive Elites.
The other side, those who rejected Progressivism, used the “ideological argument.” They tried to remind people of their opponent’s true Progressive ideology, or how they SUPPORTED that ideology by their votes, and they presented their own ideology, which was remarkably similar across the board.
What did they say?
They said their opponent’s shared or would support the ideology of Progressive Elitism, based on the premise of state-controlled and managed “solutions” coupled with some form of freedom FROM morality (especially in the areas we might consider “carnal pleasure”).
Not all of the winners from the Popular Constitutionalist side of the aisle emphasized the social morality aspect of their opponent’s ideology, but almost ALL pointed out the difference between Progressive Elitism (using terms like “liberal” or “elitism”) and the basic and fundamental ASSUMPTIONS and beliefs of the Founders of this nation.
When the Democrats ran the board in 2008, they DID NOT make an ideological argument- they made a sales pitch for all the goodies they were going give and all the beneficial things they were going to do for each special interest group in their coalition, and they exposed the rank hypocrisy of the GOP, while capitalizing on the fact that the core supporters of the GOP were themselves angry with the compromise of their leaders.
THIS WAS NOT THE CASE IN 2010! The election did not see an emphasis on the “promises to make your life better” argument, in fact the GOP almost never promises any government largesse or benefit and rarely if ever uses the “promises” argument!
In West Virginia, the one “win” the Democrats were most excited about was a product of a campaign that switched from the “coolness argument” in a state that was leaning against the Progressive Elitist Ideology, to a purely ideological argument in which the DEMOCRAT in the race claimed to be in 100% accord with the IDEOLOGY of his opponent!
While the Popular Constitutionalists argued against their opponent’s ideology, and while some also used the argument that their opponent was corrupt (this, notably, failed in Delaware and Nevada), almost all emphasized their own ideology for “lower taxes, less government, more economic freedom, and a return to the principles embodied in the nation’s founding documents.”
When progressive journolists SAY that the GOP did not “have a positive message”, what they mean, in their own code language, is that the GOP did not OFFER any “largesse.” The GOP offered an ideology, of Popular Constitutionalism, and, for the progressive journolists, to NOT make promises of largesse is an alien concept- their Progressive Elitism is not anything if it isn’t at least consistent!
For a Popular Constitutionalist, the very idea of running on a campaign of saying what government can do to make your life better seems like something that only the technocrats of the USSR or Chavez’s Venezuela would do! Government, in the Popular Constitutionalism embedded in our founding documents, and in the hearts of millions, sees government as a protector of rights, persons, and property, from all enemies, foreign or domestic, but relies on people, free associations, the free market, and local communities as the nearly SOLE vehicle and platform for meeting real needs and finding and doing what brings you fulfillment and “happiness.”
(We refer to Popular Constitutionalists as “Freedomists”.)
For Popular Constitutionalists the predominating argument was NOT promises or how corrupt the other side was, or the coolness argument. Exceptions do not prove a rule and, while there were exceptions, and notably the exceptions seemed to fail, the rule was that the GOP overall ran an ideological campaign. They made ideology the center of their argument AGAINST their opponent and FOR themselves, and they promised to follow that ideology if elected.
On that score, not very many of the voters who supported the Democrats were responding to the ideology argument made by the Democrats, because that argument was not made, except amongst the already initiated, in places like the Huffington Post or Daily Kos. We estimate that less than 20% of ALL voters OVERALL supported the Democrats on the basis of their agenda while as many as 40% of ALL voters were motivated by the Popular Constitutionalists’ appeal to ideology.
Of all the supporters of the Democrats, perhaps as many as 30% of their voters were driven by ideology and upwards to 10% by Party ID, 10% by race, and 10% by union affiliation with the remaining 30% being driven by the coolness argument or the promises argument. A more scientific analysis is begging to be done, but these are our initial estimates based in voter turnout, exit polling, and looking at the arguments made by the Democratic candidates and progressive journolists, who overtly appealed to party ID, race, union affiliation, the coolness argument, and the promises argument.
What then of the Popular Constitutionalists who ran under the GOP banner?
Clearly, the independents came over to the side of the GOP. But what is the overall breakdown?
Since 40% of the electorate considers itself a part of or in approval of the Tea Party, and since over 55% of Americans consider themselves to be Conservatives, one can logically assume that of all GOP voters, 80% or so were motivated by the ideological argument. Clearly, almost NONE of the GOP supporters were motivated by union affiliation. How many were motivated by the coolness argument, the promises argument, party ID, or race? That would be harder to sift out, because most all of the GOP’s candidates did not use these other arguments, or, if they did, few of the winners did.
In short, the 2010 mid-term elections were, largely, and demonstrably, the result of a mostly ideological argument for Popular Constitutionalism which the GOP leadership is compelled, ethically, to obey in all of its practices and policies going forward.
While the progressive journolists and their political allies will try and SAY GOP voters in the 2010 mid-terms were not motivated by ideology and were motivated by base motives, like race or the coolness argument, or even ignorance, the facts don’t bear this out. The Popular Constitutionalists who WON did not overtly or in any covert or indirect way make such appeals as were made by the Progressive Elite candidates who used race, union affiliation, party ID, the coolness argument, and the promises argument so often, and often exclusively, in their public communications.
The plain facts are clear- less than 20% of Americans embraced the Progressive Elitist Ideology, over 40% embraced the Popular Constitutionalist Ideology. Less than 25% of Americans gave support to Progressive Elitists because they wanted to see the Progressives fulfill promises of some kind for parochial reasons. More than 15% of Americans agreed that Popular Constitutionalism was in their interest for various reasons. IN SHORT- most Americans explicitly rejected the Progressive Elitist Ideology, while most embraced or accepted the Popular Constitutionalist Ideology!
Of course, the facts will not get in the way of progressive journolists who are just as happy to lie and make things up as to take any real morsel of controversy and turn it into a public crucifixion!
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