Conservative Blog Reporting on Media Bias and the Liberal Agenda

A  previous PeacockWatch article, Our Great Tyranny Engine, explained how our federal government has gobbled up our liberty by creating a problem or crisis, and then passing more laws that require more government and more taxes to solve the crisis of their making.  This is the basic design of that engine, but as with any engine, fuel is required to power it.  That fuel for this engine is tax dollars, and the main provider of dollars to our government is our Federal Income Tax system.

This system not only creates the means to grow government, but worse, it gives the politicians almost unlimited power to barter away tax breaks and entitlements for campaign funds and votes.  Indeed, our tax code is the big litter box when it comes to transactions between lobbyist and politicians.

The tax code is used for everything from social engineering to pitting people who pay taxes against people who do not, again, for political gain. The system is rapidly approaching a tipping point where the amount of people not paying taxes and/or deriving benefits from the government will exceed the numbers of people paying taxes and receiving very little direct benefit from government.  This creates a perceived permanent majority for the party that is deemed to have provided the most benefits.

The tax code itself is hopelessly complex (even the IRS does not understand many parts of it), costly to maintain and enforce, and intrusive into the private lives of citizens.  It has been abused by Presidents and politicians alike, having been used for retribution against political opposition.  At its core, it punishes success and rewards failure.

Our tax code is all of the egregious things above, but first and foremost, it is the fuel for the engine designed to enslave us.

In 1903 Federal Government spending was a mere 6% of GDP.  The 16th Amendment was enacted in 1913, authorizing the federal income tax.  In the current fiscal year, spending is 45% of GDP, and climbing steeply in the out years of our current budget.

To maintain any semblance of liberty, and to strike at ever increasing federal power, this fuel must be cut off.  Yet, even a smaller engine of government needs some fuel.  If the income tax is repealed, it must be replaced with something that provides predictable fuel,  but takes power out of the hands of the politicians.

Over the past several years there have been alternatives proposed to eliminate the federal income tax, perhaps the most popular being the “Fair Tax”, basically a flat rate consumption tax which would replace the income tax, social security, and medicare taxes.  It has some popular support, but it will never see the light of day in our Congress, and very few politicians of either party will even take questions on it.  Again, it is the source of their power over us.  They will not cede this power, so it must be taken away.

Short of a bloody revolution, how can this be peacefully done?  Randy E. Barnett, professor of constitutional law at Georgetown University and author of Restoring the Lost Constitution: The Presumption of Liberty, has some ideas on this.

In his Op/Ed piece (Wall Street Journal, April 23, 2009, “How the Tea Partiers can make Washington pay attention”, Professor Barnett says that the states must take back power from the Federal Government.

Tea Party Peaceful Assembly

The states have the power to call a Constitutional Convention by a vote of two-thirds of the states, and any law produced from such a convention could be passed into law by a three-quarters vote of the states.  Such a move would be feared because its scope cannot be limited in advance.  All things would be on the table.  Yet, says Professor Barnett, “It is precisely the fear of a runaway convention that states can exploit to bring Congress to heel”.  The state legislatures could petition Congress for a convention to propose a specific amendment.  Congress could then avoid such a wide-open convention by proposing this specific amendment to the states before the number of state petitions reaches two-thirds.

What would this amendment be?  It would be a proposal to repeal the 16th Amendment.  Such a threat for a general convention has worked before, and resulted in the passing of the  17th  Amendment, according to Professor Barnett.

The message here is that the states must take the lead in changing the direction of this country.  In November, we may put conservatives back in charge of one or the other of our Congressional bodies, but can we forget what the GOP did when they were last in power?  Both parties at the Federal level are the problem.  Neither is the solution. The solution must begin at the state level.

Below are several charts that show the political make-up of the states as of October, 2009.  The first is a chart that shows state senators (red is GOP, blue DEMS), and shows a lot more red than blue.  The second is state representatives (white being evenly balanced).  Again, there is a similar pattern.

State Senators (Source: Webfoot.com)

State Representatives (Source: Webfoot.com)

We need 34 states to vote for such an Amendment, and it would seem that the best agency to mobilize the electorate state by state would be the infant Tea Party Movement.  This movement sprung from local roots, and before attacking the national level, it would appear that the best chance for success would be at the local level.  After all, all politics are local.

The Tea Party Movement could also take a lesson from what has happened in Colorado between 2006 and the present.  Colorado, for its entire history has been the reddest of states.  In that year, Republicans held both Senate seats, five of seven congressional seats, the governor’s mansion, the offices of secretary of state and treasurer, and both houses of the state legislature.  After the 2008 election, in one of the most stunning reversals of political fortune in American history, the exact opposite was true.

What caused this reversal?  In 2006, three internet multi-millionaire’s who were dedicated progressives conspired to buy Colorado for their cause by using 501 C type organizations, enabled by the new campaign reform laws, to shape their message.  With discipline and focus, they have pioneered a legal architecture designed to take advantage of the new campaign finance laws and an emerging breed of progressive donors who are willing to commit unprecedented resources to local races.

The interesting thing here is that very little has been written in the press on how this historic shift was engineered.  Perhaps this is because that in Colorado the progressives feel they have found a formula to create permanent Democratic majorities across the nation.

Fortunately, this story has been captured in a new book, The Blueprint: How the Democrats Won Colorado (and Why Republicans Everywhere Should Care), by Adam Schranger and Rob Witwer.  The Tea Party Movement, who seems to be wrestling with strategies and organization, should begin with this book.

This is not to say that turning 34 states red will accomplish the constitutional strategy outlined above.  Republican or Democrat, state politics has become the minor leagues where the ambitions are to advance to the big leagues of Washington DC.   Somehow, the end objective of repealing the 16th Amendment needs to be uncalculated into the process of turning these states red.

Popularity: 1% [?]

The “Rolling Stones” article about General McChrystal makes it clear that the general has little to no respect for his Commander-in-Chief or for most of his staff. I guess that is to be expected. You have to show respect before you can receive respect and it is clear that the man in charge of our entire United States military has no respect for military people. If he did he wouldn’t be enforcing rules of engagement that end up getting more of our military killed than is necessary. Perhaps our Commander-in-Chief doesn’t understand what President Lincoln understood when he was looking for a general who would brutally execute the Civil War in the short term in order to bring it to a quicker, more merciful end.

Perhaps he doesn’t understand a lot of things.

He doesn’t understand that raising taxes stifles business.

He doesn’t understand that nationalized health care and the health care regulations he is forcing down our throats stifle, and even end, businesses because they can’t afford the extra cost.

He doesn’t understand that environmental regulations that force oil companies to drill in more dangerous waters can result in greater hazard to the environment.

He doesn’t understand that taking from the rich to give to the poor makes the rich give up and makes the poor lazy.

He doesn’t understand that BP doesn’t give a damn about his criticism or his puny financial penalties. They are a British company that can declare bankruptcy in its U.S. branch, expand its operations in other parts of the world and probably improve its financial position in the process.

He doesn’t understand that shutting down all oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico makes our Jihadist enemies stronger while it puts Americans out of work.

He doesn’t understand that our porous borders make America vulnerable to terrorist attack and weaken our economy as American business pays more tax to support the illegal alien burden.

He doesn’t understand that all of these things combine to weaken America economically, militarily, and in the eyes of all in the world who have in the past seen America as the dominant power in economics, capitalism, democracy and personal success.

If he doesn’t get it then he is by far the most inept President and Commander-in-Chief that this country has ever had.

Then again, maybe he does get it. Maybe his actions are designed to level the playing field and make our country just one of the world pack.

If he doesn’t get it then he is incredibly dangerous. If he does get it he is beyond incredibly dangerous.

Popularity: 3% [?]

During an unanticipated absence from our blog several questions churned through Peacock’s mind. We would appreciate your thoughts on these questions. We will include your comments in future blogs and also provide what we believe are some of the answers to these questions.

Why does the government demand an increasing amount of taxes from us as time goes on? Even those who pay no income tax pay tax. Go here, http://www.allamericanblogger.com/2242/how-much-tax-do-you-pay/, to see the various categories of taxes.

Why does the government demand that citizens register their firearms?

Why does the Democratic Party insist on government-managed health care?

Why does the federal government collect taxes from residents and businesses in states only to give it back to the states as part of federal programs?

Why are governments in some states pushing to outlaw home schooling and private schooling?

Why does the federal government demand that soldiers read Miranda rights to people on the battlefield who have been trying to kill them?

Why does the President not have line item veto power?

Why do members of Congress decry the practice of adding riders to bills but then put their own pork in the next bill?

Why are so many members of Congress much richer and much better paid than the people they represent?

Why aren’t members of Congress subject to the law to the same extent as the people they represent?

Why do members of Congress receive a massively generous retirement program that is much better than the social security program that the people they represent pay into but Congress is exempted from?

Why is the constant failure of government agencies and programs rewarded with: more government?

Why are our children held hostage to teacher’s unions?

Why, faced with the most severe financial crisis of our generation, are we talking about increasing taxes while there is no talk of deep cuts in government?

Peacock believes there are three common threads running through all the potential answers to these questions.

First. Money is power. But some who have had outrageous amounts of money have admitted that the power eventually becomes more important to them than the money. The actions that Congress and the Presidents have put into place over a long period of time show that money is very important to them. However, like the feudal lords of old, it is clear that power over their “serfs” is even more important.

The Second is an extension of the First. Power is an addiction. Those who have it want more and those who don’t have it may be obsessed by a desire for it. The “old boys club” in the highest ranks of the Executive and Legislative branches of our government are engaged in an incestuous relationship of power and shared privilege. The more they have the more they want no matter what the cost to the “serfs”.

The Third is the permission by the “serfs” for the “lords to indulge in the first two. Americans want their elected leaders to lead. They willingly give their trust and power to those they elect to office. Americans clearly will do this almost to a fault. However, when the “lords” get used to the power that has been transferred to them by the “serfs” it requires a major efforts to make the elected “lords” remember and understand that they are really supposed to be the “serfs”.

What do you think?

Popularity: 3% [?]

We have been living in the age of the computer for some years now, and one thing we have learned is that a computer, like many man made creations, can get…what’s the technical term, “All hosed up”.  The longer the computer has been running, the more its operating system gets confused and clogged-up, until the only remedy is to restore the operating system to its original state. In the old days of mainframe computing this was called an I.P.L. (Initial Program Loading).  In the age of the personal computer, it is the same problem and the same solution, but it is called a re-boot.

Our government to date has been running for some 234 years, and is at an age where, in the political history of the world, governments begin to get “all hosed up” and break down.  As if right on schedule, our political system is now on the verge of a catastrophic break down, and we must soon decide if we shall just let it die a natural death (as is the history of most democracies) or whether we re-boot the thing and let it continue for another couple of hundred years.
How did we arrive here?  Well, it has been a long and assorted affair, but a simplified explanation is that government, in any form, is a bureaucracy, and all such organizations invariably exhibit the same life cycle.

All bureaucracies set out to solve a problem and thereby intend to do good by serving their constituency.  By and by, they all end up serving only themselves.  Further, they not only do not solve the problem, they usually exacerbate it.  Power, greed and corruption grow like cancers on the organism, ultimately rendering it immobilized, ineffective, and dead.

Over the life of our country all three branches of our government have shredded and hosed-up our original operating system, not in one fell swoop, but over many years.  Like the steady drip, drip, drip of water on a rock, our once fault tolerant operating system has now been eroded, and the machine, while not yet crashing, is in a very confused state, and is not able to take rational actions on behalf of the country.

Our Congress passes legislation that contorts, confuses, and ultimately fails.  It then steps back in with more legislation designed to fix the problem it caused.  After failing at everything it has touched, it exhibits an inexhaustible appetite to take on more, more, while all of the while eroding the liberties of the people it is designed to serve.  It has set itself above the people it purports to serves, and does not, by and large, live under the laws it imposes upon the governed.  Too often, it is bought by the highest bidder, legally or otherwise.  It is never held accountable.  The long train of abuses and usurpations of Congress would fill a large book.  Sadly, we just write it off as politics.

Our Judiciary, the self-professed ultimate guardian of our operating system, has become both political and ideological, and has read into the operating system code that was never there, nor meant to be there.  In the absence of finding original code, it has constructed its own instructions into the operating system, and in dong so has encroached upon the role of the legislature, and ultimately the people.

The Executive may be the only branch of government that is fairly true to the original operating system, only because it has been kept in check by the other two branches.  Yet, even here, more and more is done with executive fiat designed to evade the Legislature.

Our operating system is called “The Constitution of the United States of America”.  It was programmed by an outstanding array of men who miraculously happened to be at the same place and at the same time in the most critical moment of our history.  If our operating system needs to be changed, it needs to be done by the proscribed processes, not by judges, politicians, political operatives, and other rubes.

Meanwhile, the supposed master of the machine, the U.S. Taxpayer, has instead become a slave to the machine.  Instead of the machine serving them, they are spending on the average of 40% of their productive time working for the machine.  The machine is destroying their liberties, re-distributing their wealth, and conferring rights to people that were never mentioned or intended by the original operating system.  The majority is mad and in a very ugly mood indeed.

It is time to restore the original operating system.  It is time to restore our constitution and take back our country.

It is time to re-boot.

Popularity: 3% [?]