On Creating a Facebook Group

Well it’s official. I’m starting a group for those interested in being informed and taking an active role in shaping our government. The group is for like-minded people who want a government that maximizes liberty, respects the law and the Constitution, and works to reward good and punish evil (a la Romans 13). Trust me, I know this seems silly. Trying to do serious good by creating a Facebook group may not make a lot of sense. Here’s a few reasons why I’m doing this.

1. We need a place to share ideas. Creating a group allows us to interact more with each other and sharpen our positions. Message boards and possible gatherings will allow us to work together and find practical ways to have an impact.

2. We need to be able to spread information quickly. A group will allow everyone to receive critical information about pending legislation or events that we need to act on. Just one click of a button and everyone will have the tools to actively participate.

3. We need to be counted to be heard. Alone, our voices are easy to ignore. Together, policy-makers and politicians will be forced to listen. Having a group allows us to easily count how many are involved and interested. As this number grows, those in power become more interested in listening to us because our votes count. A hundred united voters get more attention than one lone activist.

So, if you’re interested, look for the Liberty Trees next time you’re on Facebook.

Law: The Nature of Human Beings

Good news America: I’m back from my long blogcation. This time, let’s make it count.

There’s a whole lot going on in the world of politics these days. For the first time in a long time, people on both sides of issues are getting involved and having discussions about what our country should do. I’ve noticed that one of the big points of disagreement seems to be how we view the law. Before I even start talking about the law, there is a major assumption that I think warrants acceptance from all: people are inherently evil.

In the Christian world, this should be agreed upon by all. For example, Ephesians 2:3 notes that Christians, “formerly lived out our lives in the cravings of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath even as the rest…” It’s important to note that the Christian is no longer a child of wrath by nature, but still is prone to the longings of the flesh. The Bible (and experience) is clear that people are not good by nature, but are rather rotten to the core unless God brings salvation.

This is a critically important point, and it serves as the foundation for why the law is important: human beings are by default evil, unjust, selfish, rebellious, and sinful. If left to our own devices, we will do violence to ourselves and each other.

Why Keep an Eye on Government?

I hope you’ve been paying attention lately. The powers of our government have been growing at an unbelievable rate since October, and especially since President Obama was inaugurated. Don’t believe me? How about the massive explosion of spending? Did you know that the federal government has now spent or committed close to 13 trillion dollars to this “crisis” – an amount just about equal to the entire GDP of the US last year. If you were to make a stack of 1 trillion dollars worth of hundred dollar bills, it would be 69 miles high. Now multiply that by 13, and you’ll start to realize how much the goons in D.C. are spending.

Spending is one thing, but even more concerning is the President’s expanding control over private business. Obama thinks he has the right to tell you how much CO2 you can emit. He also thinks he knows what kind of health care you need better than you do. Both of these two intrusions are an essential part of his budget proposal. Worst of all, this week he exerted authority of a privately-owned, privately-run company by firing GM’s CEO. Did you know that the President is allowed to tell private businesses who their leadership is supposed to be? Further, when GM announced their restructuring plan, Obama said no, giving them a few weeks, ordering them to either be purchased by the Italian-owned Fiat or go through bankruptcy. Did you know the President is allowed to determine business deals among companies and even require private businesses to be bought by foreigners? Also, Congress passed a retroactive 90% tax on the AIG bonuses 2 weeks ago. Did you know that the government can make laws to essentially criminalize your activity after it’s already happened? apparently the government is also allowed to determine how much money your job will pay you: ever heard of the minimum wage? Even worse, Congress is now considering a bill that would pave the way for the government to set a maximum wage for every private business.

Everything Obama is doing certainly reveals something about his personal attitudes and beliefs, which we’ll talk about some other time. For now, his actions raise a more fundamental question: how can government do these things? The answer is rooted in the nature of government. At the most basic level, you will never understand government until you realize that government governs. The essence of government is control. If government isn’t in control of something, it wants to be. If it does have some control, it wants more. The constant heartbeat and obsession of government is the accumulation and exercise of more and more power.

We must keep a close eye on government because its desire is for mastery over you. In a literal sense, the end-goal of all government is your enslavement. Its greatest desire is to have power over you in all areas of your life. This is why it is so important to limit government. Like a kid in a toy store, government will not limit itself when given free reign. These are extremely dangerous times because never before have so few Americans cared or so many power-hungry politicians been this active and brazen. Just as you would never trust an alcoholic left alone at a bar, so too you must not trust our government to limit itself.

So how can we stop government from assuming more and more power? Let’s talk about that next time…

Does Congress Care about the Constitution?

This one will be quick. Most Americans believe that the Constitution is the highest law in our land. Let me suggest that while this may well have been true at some point, our political leaders today do not act as though the Constitution has any authority over them. Case in point: today Congress voted overwhelmingly to tax AIG’s bonus payments to executives at a rate of 90%. An interesting wrinkle in all this is that the bonuses have already been paid. Congress’ action was in response to massive public and political outrage that AIG had abused the government bailout money by using it to enrich executives (oh by the way, the guy responsible for allowing this abuse is the ranking Democrat on the Senate banking committee and acted at President Obama’s direction).

Here’s the problem. The Constitution clearly states in Article 1, Section 9, that “No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.” What does that mean? Ex post facto is Latin for “after the fact”. This provision was included in the Constitution to prevent Congress from passing laws designed to target people they didn’t like by making laws retroactive to things that had already happened. Imagine a politician had a grudge against you. So he passes a law that says any child named “Billy Bob” (that’s your name!) should be put to death. Gulp! You’re already named Billy Bob! Off to the gallows for you my friend. Thankfully, ex post facto prevents our government from making laws to punish people for things that have already happened. This is so basic and so clearly stated in the Constitution that I think we have to conclude that our rulers simply don’t care about law and order. The Constitution is to be obeyed only when convenient. If not, just ignore it. Welcome to the new America you voted for!

How to Save America (Part 3)

Sorry for the delay folks. Let’s get right to the third measure we desperately need to save our country.

Patch 3: Repeal the 17th amendment and restore the election of Senators to the state legislatures.

When the Constitution was first ratified, Article 1 Section 3 originally said this about how Senators would be elected: “The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof…” In 1913, the 17th amendment was ratified. The 17th amendment modified the Constitution as originally drafted by changing the above italicized words to “elected by the people thereof”. Originally the Founders intended that the House of Representatives would be directly elected by the people (hence being “representatives”), the Senate by the state governments (functioning as representatives for the state governments), and the President by essentially aristocrats (those best qualified to choose a superb executive). Among the results of this system was the reality that radical movements of the people were unable to immediately transform the entire government. If the people really wanted something completely changed, it would take a sustained 6-year movement at the least.

Stop for a moment and appreciate the wisdom of the Founders’ intent. Have you ever bought something on impulse that you regret? Well of course you have. I’m ashamed to admit how many times I’ve wasted money on things I thought were too good to pass on. Have you ever made friends with someone and after a few years learned that they were someone completely different than you thought they were? Check. Making hasty decisions is an unfortunate tendency among us human folks. The same thing can happen when we vote. We may think that Candidate X is awesome because he’s saying all the right things and has a really cool coat and tie, but later we find out he’s a tax cheat, racist, or complete bumbling idiot and then we wish we could have our vote back.

In national elections, the 17th amendment has made it easier for people to “impulse buy” their politicians. To make matters worse, many states now require that members of the electoral college vote in accordance with the popular vote of their state. This effectively makes the House, Senate, and President all directly elected by the people. The Founders purposely built a system that required a long time to change and was selected by different (sometimes competing) segments of society. This allowed America to make adjustments more slowly and thoughtfully than we do right now.

I’d argue that the most recent election is a clear illustration of the need for a repeal of the 17th amendment. Sure, most Americans wanted Barack Obama to become President, but in hindsight, would most Americans really admit that having a massive Democrat majority in the House and a de facto super majority in the Senate is a good thing? There has been little to no debate as colossal spending packages continue to fly through. Now there is serious talk about nationalizing major sections of our financial system (just a few years we were all livid that Venezuela was doing the same thing!). I think we would have been far better off if Americans’ enthusiasm was tempered by the original system envisioned by the Constitution and people had at least 2 more years to seriously think about what’s going on.

As they say, patience is a virtue. Unfortunately, our system is designed to reward rash decision making and hero worship. Let’s can 17!

How to Save America (Part 2)

Things are really getting ugly. Obama’s new budget (comically entitled “A New Era of Responsibility“) was released today. This thing is quite a piece of work. It seems that Obama keeps releasing massive spending bills just about every week. This latest economy-killing mammoth spends a shocking $25,573 for every taxpayer. Think about that – the government needs to seize an average of 25 grand from every single person who files a tax return this year. Seem crazy? The bill will grow the deficit by another 1.75 trillion dollars (but don’t worry – these days trillions seem to grow on trees). Oh and part of this “essential” plan to grow our economy includes about 1 trillion in new taxes (guess who pays most taxes? Small business owners. Guess who creates the most jobs? Small business owners. Follow Obama’s logic: to grow the economy, take more resources from those who are best able to grow the economy). How can people be so clueless about how dangerous this spending is? That brings us to our next patch to fix America:

Patch 2: End the government’s monopoly on education.

Doesn’t it seem a little strange that the entity most prone to corruption, domination, and control is solely in charge of training people to be critical thinkers? Our government has formed a legal monopoly on education. All tax paying citizens are required to fund the government run systen and required to send their children to government run schools. Parents can send their children elsewhere, but only at the great expense of private school or the huge opportunity cost of staying home to educate their own children. Some people can afford this additional cost, but many (most?) cannot.

The problem is that lack of competition naturally results in higher prices and a lower quality product. Imagine you live in a small town with only one burger shop. If you want a burger, you’ve gotta eat there regardless of the cost or how good that burger is. Now imagine a second burger shop moves in. They sell burgers for less. The first burger shop is now forced to either a) offer a better quality product for the same price, b) offer much better service, or c) become more efficient so as to lower their prices. In all likelihood, the shops will enter a competition resulting in customers having better options for less money.

Here’s an easy way to think of it. Q: who wins a footrace? A: whoever is fastest! Using the same logic, if the government allows real competition in education (aka VOUCHERS – a proven idea currently killed by the Democrat-run Congress), some schools may fail, some teachers may lose their jobs, but the best educational product will win. Guess who benefits? Children!!! America! Our economy! People will be better educated than ever before if we allow real competition to take place. Here’s what you can do:

Action Point 2: Start attending school board meetings and demand school choice; call your representatives and demand competition in education. I know this is hard, but as the saying goes, “No pain, no gain.” You can do this. It is worth it – check out the video below:

How to Save America (Part 1)

I think we can all agree that America is in pretty dire shape. Things may well all turn out ok, but no one can deny that these are incredibly important times and that what we do today will have a dramatic impact on what happens to this country. I’ll talk about why we should care about fighting for America some other time. In these next several posts I simply want to offer a number of independent “patches” that I think need to happen if we have any hope of preserving the union.

Patch 1: Enact term limits on members of the Senate and the House of Representatives.

People often complain about how the culture of Washington is completely out of touch. Our senators and representatives get out of touch because they spend so much time away from the real world. Several congressmen and senators currently serving have been in office for over three decades (Congressman John Dingell has been in office since 1955!!!) – after that many years, you start to lose your frame of reference. A million dollars starts to seem insignificant. You’ve got power, prestige, fame, and wealth. Why would any human give up those perks? Everything starts to be about keeping the best job you’ve ever had. Everyone in the club starts to try to protect fellow members. It’s all about reelection.

I’m convinced we keep on getting bogus legistlation from Washington because no one can really speak the truth without fear of losing the next election. The lure of power corrupts – no one can withstand its temptations. We need to help our fellow fallen man out – let’s force ‘em out of office. My proposal is simple: limit senators to a maximum of two six-year terms and representatives to a maximum of five two-year terms. It’s time to eliminate the cronyism and corruption in our government. Let’s start by implementing term limits, a mechanism that will prevent even the most ignorant among us from electing the same old crooks.

How do we make term limits happen? Article 5 of the Constitution baby! Here’s a point of action for this patch – Action Point 1: Contact your state representative and senator and ask them to pass a Constitutional amendment creating  term limits for the U.S. House and Senate. Go get ‘em.

The Last Resort

Boys and girls, it may be too late. The latest stimulus package passed by our ambivalent government will lead to rapid inflation, a near doubling of the yearly federal budget, and all but guarantees the mother of all entitlements – government run health care. If that was all there was, then we could still have cause for optimism. Unfortunately, this is just the beginning. The same day the Senate voted for this national bankruptcy bill, our new treasury secretary (who just so happens to have “forgotten” to pay about $30,000 in taxes for about 6 years in a row) announced his department will be spending about $2 trillion and isn’t sure if that will be enough. The spending is like the Energizer bunny – it keeps going, and going, and going… Most people are too clueless to realize what’s happening. Have you seen the video of that guy at Obama’s townhall in Fort Lauderdale? (check out Michelle Malkin for more on Obama the savior)

Those aware of what the government is doing are totally against it. I’ve heard that between 90-95 percent of phone calls to the Capitol the past few weeks have been passionately opposed to the bailouts. How could representatives not care if they actually represent their constituents? Simple. They know that your voice is just one, and that one angry person can’t do anything to them when they are almost guaranteed to be re-elected every cycle.

It’s time to hit the reset button. As citizens of the United States, we are actually the highest office holders in the land. We have the right to choose who will lead and who will not. When our leaders no longer listen to us, when they lie to get elected and quickly forget their promises, when they trample on the Constitution, it’s time to pull the plug. Our system has a built in mechanism that allows us to stage a peaceful revolution. It’s called a Constitutional Convention (or Con-Con for short).

The one thing all politicians are afraid of is term limits and restraints on their power. We can accomplish both of these by staging a Convention. Here’s how it works. The people insist their state representatives (not Congressional) pass a resolution in the state house calling for a Con-Con. Once two-thirds of the states have passed such a resolution, a Con-Con will be convened, and everything’s up for grabs (if you’re unfamiliar with this process, turn off American Idol for a second and read Article V of the Constitution). This is a very risky move, but I think we’re at the point where we have nothing to lose. If we lobby for Con-Con and insist that the agenda focus on a few key elements like term limits and the repeal of the income tax, politicians will shake with fear. They may even be willing to start listening, which would be great (and miraculous). If they don’t listen, then we pull the plug and rewrite our Constitution in a more explicit and careful way. What do you think? Feel like you can’t do anything? Think Washington isn’t listening and doesn’t care? Contact your state rep and press for a Con-Con.

Coming Soon…

In response to our current economic crisis, Bloomberg has reported that the federal government has now spent or has committed to spend 9.7 trillion dollars (how much is that? enough to pay off 90% of all home mortgages). Again, to put that amount in perspective, 1 billion dollars is 1,000 million, and 1 trillion is 1,000 billion. If someone gave you 1 million dollars every day, it would take over 30,000 years before you approached 9.7 trillion. 30,000! Based on current tax rates, the government collects between 2.5 to 2.7 trillion every year. The 9.7 trillion spent is in addition to the 2.7 to 3 trillion the government already spends each year. What would happen to your family if you spent what you hope to make over the next 3-4 years so you could buy stuff you wanted now? You would have to declare bankruptcy or work a couple extra jobs to make up the difference. Guess what? The government is no different than you.

Bank on this: in light of the unsustainable spending initiated by President Bush in 2008 and grossly expanded by President Obama, the federal government will have to either a) declare national bankruptcy in our lifetimes, leading to the collapse of America as we know it, or, b) collect more money than ever before by literally raising taxes through the roof and possibly nationalizing retirement funds, private property, and private business. Think this stuff doesn’t matter? Too bad most Americans are more interested in whether or not A-Rod used steroids.

During Obama’s Presidency or Your Lifetime

Unless we all wake up soon…

…our government will control health care, creating a nationalized train wreck.

This week President Obama signed a massive expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). This new legislation expanded federal health care by considering people up to 30 years old as children and people making 400% the poverty level as poor. As a whole, SCHIP is just another grossly wasteful and ineffective government junk bill (check out Heritage for more; for the dangers of it, click here and here). When a huge chunk of Americans grow up with government-run healthcare, they will be pushovers when politicians suggest they expand coverage further to include people regardless of age. My prediction: SCHIP will lead to a government-run health care monstrosity during Obama’s first term. Why? Because too many of us are asleep at the wheel, and would rather settle for known mediocrity than work for something that could be so much better. Don’t believe a government monopoly is coming to a hospital near you in the next 4 years? Take a look at the President’s photo-op after signing the SCHIP expansion into law.

Still not convinced? Check out the trend of how our health care dollars are already being spent:

It still may not be too late, but we’ve gotta wake up quick, or else. I hope you like waiting in long lines, going months without seeing a doctor, and oppose any medical innovation.