Well, that is not what I wanted to write about. I was listening to my local radio host on the way home from working out this morning when I heard a man complaining that the program helps car dealers but not other small businesses. This man wants the government to create a new program to help out other small businesses. I will briefly admit the level of temper which I possess: If I could have reached into the radio and slugged this man in the nose I would have done it. So we have one program which is doomed to failure because there can not possibly have enough money in it to help the economy and he wants another one just like it. It’s the same problem every time: we want government to help us when we can not do it ourselves. This is literally robbing Peter to pay Paul. I hate cliche’s but it is true. These payments can not be made without borrowing the money from our grandchildren, and it is not like we have given them a choice. So we have TARP, we have the car bailout, the Clunker’s program, the “Public Option” health care program, Cap and Tax and that is just what he has done in the last year. Thirteen TRILLION dollars in debt is the old figure. Every time we turn around there is another program. Where does it end.

Watching the news this morning I saw that Nancy Pelosi is calling the health care bill a form of stimulus.  George Orwell would be quite proud…or actually spinning in his grave.  This is Newspeak, in which the meanings of words or the names of things are changed whenever it is convenient to the government or politically necessary.  In this case it is politically necessary.  First of all, the “Stimulus” does not seem to have been very stimulating since unemployment is nearing ten per cent, GM still went into bankruptcy, the dollar is in the tank and the Democrats keep talking about the need for more stimulus.  And how is this going to stimulate the economy, anyway?  A massive new government bureaucracy and tax structure is going to stimulate the economy?  Since when has that ever happened.  Economists are showing more and more all the time how FDR’s alphabet soup recovery plan extended the Great Depression and made it worse.  “But he was actually doing something,” my dad always says, not that dad agrees with what he did.  Politically someone had to do something, and it seems that is what is going on now.  The Democrats just want to do something so they can be seen as leaders and in the meantime they are going to take over a massive portion of the economy and your life, ruin it and then tell you that you are getting the best deal possible.

But forget about if we can pay for it, they just do not have the right to do this.  The Constitution prohibits the government from creating this program (or medicaid/medicare but that will be a hard fight).  The tenth amendment reserves this power to the people and the states.  There is a reason for this:  even if the people of Massachusetts want government healthcare, which they have, the people of Montana may not.  The people of Massachusetts do not have the right to force Montana to have government healthcare.  That is called federalism and it is the very basis of what this country was founded upon.  Without that concept we may have remained thirteen independent countries in the 1790′s instead of thirteen united states.  I digress.

This does go to show that the Democrats will stop at nothing to remain in power and, while they are there, grab up as much power that they do not already have that they can.  I have lived under a government health care plan and I can tell you that it is not what it is cracked up to be.  Oh, and as long as we are trying to stick with real definitions, let us call this plan what it is:  Facism.  That is correct, a privately owned, government controlled industry is called Facism.  Get used to living like Germany in the 1930′s.

The real problem is that he did not even tell the Lieutenant Governor know what was happening.  That is really the only issue.  His actions were selfish and while it does not necessarily disqualify him from further office, I think it does show a lack of good judgement.  While I doubt the Secret Service would let a President out of their sight like that, can we imagine a President who does something like this?  I am not going to call for Governor Sanford to resign, I do not even live in South Carolina.  I think if he did it might help the state move on but he can still discharge his duties at this time and if he wants to ride out his term then it is up to the legislature to remove him.  Do they want to do that and will the Gevernor be willing to go through that process?  Time will tell.

The first clue comes from the President’s own history:  His first desire in politics was to become the Mayor of Chicago.  The Mayor of Chicago could be better called a Thane, an old English word that basically translates to Mayor.  At times in history, a Thane was elected from a small group of eligibles and held near absolute power over his manor because he was the representative of the King.  The President might be mayor right now if it were not for Mayor Daley, who has been in office for twenty years and will probably try to remain until his death.  He enjoys more power than nearly any big city mayor in the country, an envious position for any “big government” progressive (from here on referred to as “statist” in my blog).  That leads into the second piece of my circumstantial case.

The President has, on occasion, stated that he does not have enough legal power to do what he feels is necessary.  He feels that the Constitution is holding him back.  Of course, as a libertarian I wish there were more Constitutional controls being observed but that is for another post.  The President wants the kind of vast power enjoyed by both the Mayor of Chicago and the President of Iran but our system of government was created in such a way to prevent this very style of leadership.  If those controls were not in place, if Presidents could direct policy by fiat, the results would be disastrous.  Presidents from John Adams to Andrew Jackson to Richard Nixon might have done terrible damage to the liberty we enjoy today.  Does the President really believe in the democratic process or is he merely paying it lipservice in his rhetoric as the Iranian government seems to be doing?  This is the question on the mind of his opposition.  This leads into the third piece of evidence, and I will admit it is the weakest link because it is entirely subjective and will confirm my status as a “right wing nut” (not bad for my third post).

So why is the President scared by the protests in Iran?  Iran is a country split between two worlds.  It has actively encouraged the people there to become educated in order to compete and stand up to the powerful West while trying to maintain a top down control of ideas in order to keep a radical, conservative Islamic republic.  The two forces do not mesh any better than a radical, conservative Christian order (such a system resulted in both the Great Schism and the Reformation).  I am not saying that faith and education can not complement each other, only that fundamentalism is incompatible with a true desire to explore the universe around you (thanks to my new Pastor for helping me understand that and have the words to express it).  So if the people of Iran can question their government, not only that but outright rebel, then the people of the United States can, too.  The last time Americans rebelled in this manner it took the combination of the US Marshall Service and federalized National Guard soldiers to get black students into Ole Miss and that was on a much smaller scale.  If things in the US get as bad as they have been in Iran for the last decade or so, the President may find a situation like this but with a populace which is actually armed and professional soldiers who are under the command of someone other than the President, the various National Guards of the states and territories.

Let me be clear, I am not saying that civil war or civil strife is imminent or that I even think it is likely in the next seven or so years that the President may be in office.  I do believe two things:  That the President desires to expand the power of the executive beyond its current scope; and that the President fears that the people of this country may not want him to do so, just as he has found fewer Americans support key points of his policy agenda than his election would have indicated.  Add to that his affiliation with ACORN (now Community Organizations International) and the perception that they might be affiliated with voter fraud in fifteen states and you have a recipe for a similar situation in this country.  I am a libertarian and a similar combination would scare me if I were the President (exact correlation being impossible with our divergent philosophies).

The difference is that I would absolutely support the people of Iran over their government.  Not only do I see Iran as a current enemy of this country but I think liberty is the natural state of life for all peoples of the world, they only get used to not being free over time.  My rhetoric would be very supportive from the beginning and it would include a serious offer of real support to opponents of the regime.  While the last thing I would want is to invade Iran with US soldiers, I do believe that there are many other ways which remain to the United States to put pressure on the government there.  We have put legitimate and powerful pressure on financial institutions in Iran which we know deal with terrorist organizations and it would not be difficult to put that pressure on the rest of their financial system.  This stick would require the carrot of releasing the pressure if there were free and fair elections or else it might turn moderates in Iran against that goal.  We would also need to accept the results, whatever they might be.

To listen to conservative talk radio one might think that had Ronald Reagan been President today we might find  the Ayatollah had already been deposed.  I doubt that seriously but he certainly would have stood up to denounce the bad acts of an enemy against their own people.  We must not look rosily on the past either.  Reagan was perfectly willing to accept totalitarian regimes if they assisted the United States against the spread of communism.  He was not a perfect man but he would have stood against our enemies even if he were being advised against interference for legitimate reasons such as not enraging radical Islamic block.  I would have agreed with him.

So I believe the President is seriously worried:  He does want to have power over the federal government the way Mayor Daley has over Chicago; he is dealing with the worst economic recession in nearly a century; he does want to enact several programs that he has discovered might not be as popular as he once thought; and he has a vocal opposition that seriously dislikes him for his policy agenda; and he might be connected, however loosely, with a voter fraud scheme.  Given his desires and the realities he has to deal with he might be putting himself into the same position as President Ahmadinejad.  I believe his silence is understandable but not forgivable.  The President has spent much of his life helping to enfranchise people who were marginalized by a complacent and at times complicit government.  It is sad to think that this might only have been to gain their favor in order to obtain power.

This is me, just last weekend in Arkansas.  Ferrel hogs are a real pest down there.  They eat crops, disturb wildlife, disturb livestock and very occasionally hurt people (more often hunters than anyone else but not always).  This hog weighs in at about 225 pounds and a caliber .22 pea shooter would probably just make him mad.  The rifle in question here is a CETME Modelo C in it’s civilian version. It was designed by German engineers in Spain after the Second World War and uses the 7.62mm NATO (aka .308 Winchester) round which is still in use by the US Army today.  The CETME is still in use by several armies around the world.  Those engineers later returned to Germany and started Heckler & Koch.  HK made a very similar rifle called the G3, which has interchangeable parts with the CETME.  That rifle has been developed into both the MP5 submachine gun and the G36 rifle, both in use by several armies and police forces around the world.

Okay, that is a lot information, much of which you might not care about.  The point is that the Senator’s statement was factually incorrect, these rifles have many uses and killing homo sapiens is just one of them.  Also of note:  deer hunting; opening master locks for which key’s have been lost (make sure of your backstop first); and target shooting.  That’s all for today.  I will be easing back into this.

Addendum:

For those who wonder, I have that rifle because I enjoy shooting it.

Interested in hunting hogs?  http://www.rollingrranch.com/index.html

Those guys were good old boys but they were great and really made it a good time.  Have fun!

Fellow citizens:

This is a most auspicious day. Today we realize the truth of the American Experiment and once again seize the banners of freedom and justice through the mere act of choosing our own leaders. It is not fate which has brought us to this day but the tireless efforts of a countless multitude of our forebears to end terrible injustice and bring opportunity to all. Today we celebrate, again, that which makes our nation the shining beacon of freedom to the world.

But even so we face adversity from without and from within. We are at war with a bold and determined enemy and find ourselves with but a few strong friendships to help us. All the while we face the real possibility that our prosperity, upon which so much has relied, will come to an end—that we will face one of the greatest challenges of our history without our greatest strength. It is in times like this that it is only natural to feel fear.

There are those people who will tell you that all of our answers lie with a few people in one important city—that the best choice is to let them find the solutions to our problems and build the foundation for our common future. There will be calls to sacrifice that which we hold most dear, our liberty, in order to preserve our nation and way of life. We will be asked to sacrifice it again in order to preserve our prosperity. But we have sacrificed so much already. I advise every citizen to think carefully on these calls, for our way of life is liberty and should we turn away from it we sacrifice the very essence of which we as a nation are made. If we give in to our fear, if we shed the cornerstone of our national experiment, its foundation will come crashing down.

But in any time of adversity there is opportunity. The chance to restore liberty is within our reach. Some tell us that in order to preserve our liberty we must have limits, and there are those limits which makes sense. We do not have the freedom to hurt our neighbors nor do our neighbors have the freedom to hurt us. To prevent and rectify such an occurrence we institute governments and give them power to pass sensible laws. Our republic was the first to do this and limit by law the power which government may use. This limitation is source of our liberty. Without limits, restrictions on what government can do, we are doomed to be hurt by our government and only with a watchful eye and solid resolve can we ensure our liberties are preserved.

So when the call to limit liberty is given, tell the caller that there is a better way, a way which our forebears have tested and proven time and time again. If we keep those few people in one important city as far away from our lives as possible we can easily change our lives for the better. Those people will tell you that you need them to help you—that only they can be your guide—but this is hubris. They speak to you with their ego and not with their reason because they do not know you or your particular situation, and each of us is unique. Only you can really know what is best for you. If you are worried that you will not know the way take ease in knowing that you will have the freedom to try another, and as long as you do not try to hurt your neighbor through force or fraud you will have the opportunity to try as many times as you like until you succeed.

Some will say that we have tried the way of limited government, that we have allowed liberty a free hand to find solutions to our troubles but any objective analysis will prove this a lie. We have been steadily building off of our foundation for a very long time and the structure we have erected is weak and caving in. For more than three generations we have expanded the power and scope of government into every facet of our lives and almost every time when we did not find our desired result we increased its capacity again. Now those same few people in that important city say that when removing one or two unstable joists did not correct our problems we should put them back and more. No one should need to consult an architect to understand that if an unstable structure is built atop another unstable structure it does not create a stable one. Only in arithmetic do two negatives make a positive and we have reached the point where we have no choice but to have half of us stand outside and hold up what we have built, too afraid to move because the whole thing might collapse on us. We can place a brace against it but when the rain comes, as it has recently, the soil will wash out from underneath and we will be forced to hold it up again.

If we replace the limits on our government, if we tear down the unstable pillars of our structure we will free ourselves from having to hold it up and we can build instead in a way that is sound and keeps us free from the designs of a few people who know as little about us and what we need to be stable as we know of them. I have used much metaphor in order to make my point here but our third President put it best:

“…a wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government…”

Citizens, I encourage you all to ponder the words of the man who wrote our most sacred statement, that which Declared our nation to the world, and find comfort in them as I do. In them you will find the fastest and easiest road to prosperity and happiness through your own effort and the ability to be content with how far you will go.