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  If the income tax is repealed, it must be replaced with something that provides predictable fuel,  but takes power out of the hands of the politicians.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% [?]

Our Great Tyranny Machine

How Governments Gobble Up Liberty

It has been said that all bureaucracies set out to solve a problem and thereby serve the public, but, in the end, they end up serving only themselves.  If there are not problems enough to solve, the government can always create new ones.

Our current financial crisis is a textbook example of how government manufactures a crisis and than creates more rules, regulations, and regulators to solve the problem of their making.  More government, less liberty.

It is pretty much agreed that our financial meltdown in 2008 was the direct result of:

1.  Interest rates being kept too low for too long by the Federal Reserve

2.  The Carter Administrations passing of the Community Re-investment Act

3.  The repeal of Glass-Seagull by the Clinton Administration (1999)

4.  Creation of government backed agencies such as Fannie Mae (1938) and Freddy Mac (1970)

5.  Lack of financial oversight by the regulatory agencies that turned a blind eye

6.  Wall Street greed that was encouraged and emboldened by all of the above

Out of the six items above, five were the result of government policy.  These government actions gave Wall Street the encouragement and enough rope to hang themselves, and millions of investors and homeowners along with them.

The result of all this was that in 2007 a family with an income of $50,000 a year could land a $400,000 interest only mortgage with no money down.  An idiot could do the math on this and understand that as soon as interest rates began to move these situations would begin to fall over like dominoes.  Coincidently it all came crashing down one month before the Presidential election.

So now, we face a classic government move of “not wasting a good crisis”.  Ignore the first five causes and go after the easy target: private enterprise, those greedy bastards who believe that enough is never enough.

This week Congress is about to pass a 2300 page  financial reform bill which creates 243 new regulations along with new government employees to enforce these new regulations, and new taxes.  The new regulations are targeted strictly at Wall Street and do nothing to regulate Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac, or to make anyone in government accountable for their actions.  Ironically, this is the Dodd-Frank Bill, probably the two individuals in Congress most responsible for the debacle.  The bill is so flawed and so complicated that there is more legislation forthcoming to “fix” its flaws, and no one has any idea of the impact this bill will have on our financial system. These new regulations are more likely to adversely impact the farmer in Iowa who needs to hedge their crop prices than it will any of the agencies and banks who caused this crisis.  More government, less liberty.

This is just not an Obama Administration issue, although they have taken it to a fine art.  It has been the response from every administration for any crisis the nation faces.  The Great Depression, The Savings and Loan Crisis, Enron and associated corporate scandals of the 1990’s, 911, the list goes on and on.  The crises are all different, but the pathology is the same:  failed government policy (financial or in foreign policy), lax oversight, implosion, new laws and regulation, more government, less liberty.

The chart below is mislabeled.  It should be called The Liberty Chart.  It shows that at the beginning of the Twentieth Century, a citizen of this country was 94% free.  Today we are about 55% free.  In 107 years, we have lost 39% of our liberty.

How have we lost so much of our liberty in such a short period?  It is not the hand of the free market, but rather the hand of intelligent design by people who are elitists and feel they know far better than you how you should live every detail of your life.  They seek a better world brought to you by their superior thought and insight.  They are Hobbesian’s who will gladly sacrifice your liberty for what they perceive as the greater good, while feathering their own nest and insuring their future security in the bargain.

Our next crisis has already been manufactured and is shipping from the factory in the form of un-sustainable debt, promises to push us fully and forever into serfdom.

Next Week: “Fuel for the Machine”

Popularity: 2% [?]

It is important to note that Franklin, Jefferson, Adams, Hamilton and others settled on the design of our republic only after deliberate, prolonged and intense study of those societies that have and haven’t succeeded in history. Clearly, they were brilliant men dedicated to the cause of creating a long-lasting society in which government ruled by the consent of the governed. However, it is important to stress that their brilliance permitted the execution of a plan only after long study of history. They could not have reached their inspired conclusion and design if they had been ignorant of history’s successes and failures. They were a combination of brilliant, inspired and educated. Their research led them to understand what had to be done. These men were intensely dedicated to their cause and it is important to mention that the founding fathers’ vision had to survive the test of the fire of their individual and collective intensity. Their exercise was not all peace and love and they fought and argued about all aspects of the Constitution they were producing. They continued to argue vehemently about changes to it after it was passed. Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, and Hamilton had REAL issues with each others philosophies. But the end result is the most revered document in the history of governments and the birth of the most successful and free society that the world has ever known.

However, throughout the entire 20th century in the United States there has been a very well planned and deliberate effort to destroy what our founding fathers carefully crafted. This effort has its genesis in the Progressive movement which started about 100 years ago and has accelerated dramatically with the election of Barack Obama . During the bulk of the 20th century it was a subtle, gradual movement that sneaked its way into our society past generations of freedom loving Americans. It even escaped the notice of what has been called “Our Greatest Generation” that survived the great depression, saved the planet in World War II, and built our late 20th century economic juggernaut.

Peacock is not the discoverer of the progressive movement’s effort to destroy our republic. That credit belongs to many others who have done years of research and put together the clues that led to this frightening discovery. Peacock just wants to help spread the word and help to mobilize America to save our republic.

Please take the time at this point to read the following two articles. They aren’t long but they are important and informative.

The first one comes from the June 28, 2010 issue of “The American Thinker”. It is titled Cloward-Piven Government and was written by James Simpson on November 23, 2009.

The second one is an opinion piece written for the “Las Vegan Review-Journal”. It is titled Obama’s Agenda: Overwhelm the System. It is important to note that this article is written by Wayne Allen Root who was a classmate of Obama’s at Columbia University.

Obama and the Progressives are counting on American ignorance of their true agenda to deliberately and  rapidly push our great country toward total chaos, and then to socialism, before we have the chance to wake up and respond.

Those who believe in the Constitution and the vision of our founding fathers must vote in numbers never before experienced and quickly remove those from office who would destroy the America most of us believe in.

More and more people are beginning to recognize that Obama’s presidency is a disaster for America. His favorability ratings continue to decline at a very steady pace. He and the Progressive-controlled Democratic Congress have forced through Socialist bills that dramatically increase spending and are opposed by the majority of Americans. His “leadership” has pushed our record deficit even higher at an accelerating rate. The actions listed in the two articles referenced above are a well thought out formula for the destruction of America. While more of us are becoming aware of the disaster we are racing toward too few are ignorant of the fact that this is a deliberate headlong rush toward a well planned chaos designed to destroy America. Let’s be perfectly clear about this. President Obama is a puppet of the Progressive movement as defined by Cloward and Piven, funded by George Soros and pushing its agenda at an accelerating rate now that the nation has installed the most liberal United States Senate voter ever into the American Presidency. President Obama isn’t incompetent or stupid. He is the brilliant tool of the Progressive movement and he is totally dedicated to destroying our republic.

If Barack Obama’s actions aren’t sufficient evidence of his intentions perhaps his associations will help to define his feelings and objectives. Look at the person closest to him in his life. On February 18, 2008 Michelle Obama stated that “ . . . for the first time my adult life I am proud of my country . . .”. She was never proud of our country before 2008? Then why the hell is she still living here? And why is she our First Lady? Then there is his minister of 20 years, Reverend Jeremiah Wright who called on blacks to sing “God Damn America”. And Rev. Wright is in the news again this week with racist and anti-Semitic comments. If President Obama is brilliant then he certainly knew after 20 years that Jeremiah Wright was a white-hating, anti-Semitic bigot. Peacock has been told throughout life that we are known by those we associate with. If those who have been closest to the President aren’t proud of or hate America, or hate white people and Jews then how does our President really feel? What are his real reasons for wanting to be President of the United States of America?

Peacock implores you to study the facts for yourself and reach your own well-informed decision. It appears that the American voter is beginning to do just that. In the last few months we have seen the balance of power begin to shift toward those who believe in the founding principles of our nation and the intensely-researched work of our founding fathers. However, we want to emphasize that the Progressive movement of which Obama is a part doesn’t just represent a difference of opinion over the interpretation of the Constitution and resultant law. The Progressive movement, with Obama as their tool, wants to completely destroy America by driving it into economic and social chaos. This gives them the excuse to abandon democracy, free enterprise and capitalism and impose a socialist society on the ashes of what they have destroyed.

There are many ways to declare and wage war. For some it is continuous economic competition with the objective of destroying another society. Intelligence organizations  constantly seek ways to undermine the enemy while working to discover others trying to do the same in return. There are small scale guerrilla wars, secret armed infiltrations, strategic strikes and full-scale declared wars. For many nations these are all being fought simultaneously and perpetually. Another way to declare war is to quietly, subtly and gradually infiltrate the political infrastructure of the nation you are working to conquer. This can be done from inside or outside or both. The Progressives have been waging this war from inside for a century.

In the United States this war is being aggressively fought by Progressives through the voting booth. Progressives and extreme Liberals have been voting into office those who feel the Constitution is obsolete, believe capitalism is evil and insist on redistribution of wealth through high taxes. These people elected to our highest offices are making appointments of those who are like-minded to powerful bureaucracies and permanent judicial posts.

Make no mistake about it. The Progressives have been quietly fighting this war for a century. This war shockingly accelerated with the election of Obama and his appointments of other Progressives and Socialists. The shock of this acceleration toward Socialism has been so great that it has awakened many Americans from their ignorance of the chaos the Progressives are working toward. Perhaps this shocking acceleration is the wake up call needed to fully engage those who believe in our Constitution and the vision of our founding fathers in this war started by the Progressives. It is frankly a war that Conservatives must fully engage in if we are to save our Republic. Those who believe in the Constitution and the vision of our founding fathers must vote in numbers never before experienced and quickly remove those from office who would destroy the America most of us believe in.

Popularity: 3% [?]

With the historic event of a Republican winning a Senate seat that has been in Democratic hands for the past 60 years, the pundits are now saying that perhaps the Democrats have misinterpreted their equally historic election mandate last year, and have moved too far to the left.  Peacock thinks otherwise.

President Obama’s historic election in 2008 was set up by a perfect storm of events.  The electorate was exhausted with eight years of President Bush, and the war “of election” that the Democrats had wrapped around his neck.  Then there was Bush’s historic spending and the double-digit growth of government during his administration.  If this were not enough, the Conservatives were also saddled with a poor candidate who was viewed as more of a liberal than a true conservative.   The real breaking point came a mere two months before the election with the meltdown of Wall Street and the accompanying collapse of the American economy.

Although Peacock recognized the candidate as a left wing ideologue well before the election, Peacock also knows very many otherwise bright people voted for President Obama because they felt he would perforce have to govern from the center.  After all, it is no secret the United States of America is slightly right of center in its political leanings.

Therefore, if the political leanings of the country are well known as slightly right of center, how could the democrats misconstrue their “mandate” and lurch so violently to an extreme left-wing ideology?

Peacock believes that the answer to this riddle is that it was the extreme left wing of the Democratic party that got President Obama elected, and that the plan all along was to ram as much radical thinking into law as possible.  This is the reason why every Administration initiative had to be done yesterday, and why time was of the essence.  Further, Peacock feels that the plan never assumed that President would be re-elected, but the damage would already have been done and very hard to turn back.

If President Obama, like President Clinton did after the mid-term elections of 1992, begins to legitimately move to the center (remember, watch what he does, not what he says), then perhaps Peacock will have been wrong about President Obama’s  true mission.

However, if he ignores the obvious warnings of the elections and staggering drop in public opinion polls since taking office, and continues to push his left wing agenda at the expense of his party, Peacock can only say, “game on!”.

Popularity: 3% [?]