Wire Report

Sheldon Richman, Editor “The Freeman”

Sheldon Richman is editor of The Freeman, published by The Foundation for Economic Education in Irvington, New York, and serves as senior fellow at The Future of Freedom Foundation. He is the author of FFF’s award-winning book Separating School & State: How to Liberate America’s Families; Your Money or Your Life: Why We Must Abolish the Income Tax; and FFF’s newest book Tethered Citizens: Time to Repeal the Welfare State. Calling for the abolition, not the reform, of public schooling. Separating School & State has become a landmark book in both libertarian and educational circles. In his column in the Financial Times, Michael Prowse wrote: “I recommend a subversive tract, Separating School & State by Sheldon Richman of the Cato Institute, a Washington think tank… . I also think that Mr. Richman is right to fear that state education undermines personal responsibility…” Mr. Richman’s articles on population, federal disaster assistance, international trade, education, the environment, American history, foreign policy, privacy, computers, and the Middle East have appeared in the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, American Scholar, Chicago Tribune, USA Today, Washington Times, Insight, Cato Policy Report, Journal of Economic Development, The Freeman, The World & I, Reason, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, Middle East Policy, Liberty magazine, and other publications. He is a contributor to the Fortune Encyclopedia of Economics. A former newspaper reporter and former senior editor at the Cato Institute, Mr. Richman is a graduate of Temple University in Philadelphia.

WIRE (FFF) – Last week’s Supreme Court ruling striking down the ban on corporate and union spending at election time is both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, removing a legal barrier to free speech is always a good thing in itself. Government shouldn’t dictate who can speak or from where people may get their information. This is more than a matter of abstract freedom; it’s also a practical matter. More contentiousness in politics is better than less. Free-wheeling debate is more likely to produce good outcomes than a controlled flow of information.

But there is a downside to the ruling that we should freely acknowledge. If history and recent times are any indication, big corporations and unions will use their new freedom of political speech to promote bad ideas. By “bad ideas” I mean proposals for more government interference with our lives and liberty. (Not that the spending ban kept them from doing that in other ways.)

It’s a great myth that businesses, especially big prominent corporations, want less government intervention in the economy. On the contrary, they love government power because it provides things they can’t achieve in a freely competitive marketplace where force and fraud are barred. Corporations support and lobby for interventions that benefit themselves by hampering their competitors, both foreign and domestic. You often find companies asking for tariffs and other restrictions on imports that compete too effectively with their products. Agribusinesses welcome government (taxpayer) help in selling their products abroad; they also love subsidies, price supports, and acreage allotments.

Businesses, despite public impression, routinely support regulations imposing product standards and other requirements. Why? Burdens from government rules don’t fall uniformly on all firms. Major corporations with big legal and accounting departments can handle regulations far more easily than small firms can — or one that is still only a gleam in the eye of an aspiring entrepreneur. Moreover, when government dictates product standards, say in the name of safety, it removes that factor from the competitive arena, giving companies less incentive to outdo their competitors along that dimension. This means fewer threats to the market share of incumbent firms and less chance for new challengers to make headway. It also means inferior and more expensive goods for consumers.

CITIZENS UNITED v. FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION 01/21/2010 Slip Ruling PDF 2.56Mb

In American history big companies were behind virtually ever advancement of the regulatory state. Things are no different today — even under Barack Obama. It’s easy to be fooled by appearances. Banks may balk at a new regulation, but only because they prefer their government privileges with as few restrictions as possible. Major corporations lobby for new controls on and subsidies to energy production not out of concern for the environment, but because they stand to gain profits. The government is literally seen as a tool for enhancing their investments. Instead of decisions being made by entrepreneurs trying to anticipate what consumers will want, they are made on the basis of cronyism and other political considerations.

Often big companies and unions are on the same side of regulatory issues, as when the heads of Walmart and the Service Employees International Union stood shoulder to shoulder to support Obamacare. But even when they disagree, it is usually over how government should manipulate the economic system. The debate is never between regulation and hands-off.

Admittedly this is not the way the story is usually told. Business is thought to favor deregulation, while progressive forces favor enlightened government guidance. But in fact, big business (and a lot of small business too) would panic at the thought of thorough laissez faire — the end to all guarantees. The books of conservative writer Timothy Carney fully document this. Others have an interest in portraying business as pro–free markets because without the charade the public might catch on to the scam.

So here’s the dilemma: limits on free political speech for corporations and unions offend our sense of justice, but they will use free speech to pursue unjust ends. What shall we do?

There is only one answer. We must strip government of the power to dispense privileges to anyone. If we can pull that off, the problem of money in politics will evaporate.

© 2001-2009 The Future of Freedom Foundation. All rights reserved.

Allison Bricker

WASHINGTON D.C. – Senior Associate Justice, John Paul Stevens, is fueling speculation that he may leave the Supreme Court in 2010, following his hiring of only one law clerk in lieu of the standard three or four. Former President Gerald Ford first appointed Associate Justice Stevens to the high court in 1975, thus giving him the distinction of being the only current member to serve along side three different Chief Justices.

In April of next year, Associate Justice Stevens will celebrate his ninetieth birthday, thus providing increased attention by both pundits and politicos to his early hiring practices. The speculation for Associate Justice Stevens’ retirement is based upon Associate Justice David Souter’s decision also to hire only one law clerk prior to announcing his leaving the court this April’s past.

A native of Chicago, many consider Associate Justice Stevens to be the most outspoken member of the Supreme Court’s loose constructionist wing. However, conventional wisdom indicates his potential retirement is unlikely to change the perceived slant of the court. As was also the case with the retirement of Associate Justice Souter, whereby President Barack Obama nominated and the Senate confirmed the appointment of Associate Justice Sony Sotomayor who by her own admission is a loose constructionist.

Nevertheless, prevailing punditry proved contrary to reality at least twice in American history with the appointments of Associate Justice Souter and Chief Justice Warren who both revealed a loose constructionist point of view during their tenures on the Supreme Court.

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Kelly

As the popular cliché goes – be careful what you wish for.  You just might get your wish… and then some.  Those who believe in a “cradle to grave” system whereby one’s every need or whim is fulfilled by the federal government have evidently come to the conclusion that waving one’s rights is no big deal if the grass on the other side is green with entitlement; a brand of socialism that essentially says, “Take from me what you will, so that I can live free of responsibility.”  What this mindset does not fully understand and refuses to take into account is that living free of responsibility is not living free at all.

A very real and frightening example of this are the health “provisions” lurking in Barack Obama’s Economic Stimulus Bill.  Though there have been exhaustive pseudo debates over spending versus tax cuts and the hundreds of billions in blatant pork that lines this bill, there has been very little said about what will be one of the newest additions of bureaucracy- the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology. As Betsy McCaughey points out in her article…

Hiding health legislation in a stimulus bill is intentional. Daschle supported the Clinton administration’s health-care overhaul in 1994, and attributed its failure to debate and delay. A year ago, Daschle wrote that the next president should act quickly before critics mount an opposition. “If that means attaching a health-care plan to the federal budget, so be it,” he said. “The issue is too important to be stalled by Senate protocol.”

… so, for those in favor of shedding the responsibility of your health care choices and medical decisions, I ask this – Was it your goal to have doctors beholden to medical testing and treatments that are determined not by you and your doctor, but rather by a bureaucrat in an office, hundreds of miles away, who will pull up your entire medical history onto a computer screen in front of him/her in order to assess your worthiness?

This is part of the “dire” economic stimulus bill that Barack Obama and friends are bringing to the American people.  The bait-jobs, and the switch-less freedom, less choice, and enough unintended consequences to bridge the Grand Canyon.

Joseph Marohl

Today Barack Obama, four days before his inauguration as 44th President of the United States, said he always thought Bush was “personally” a “good guy.”

I wish the President-elect would give his Jesus-wrapped-in-sunshine shtick a rest already. Sure, I admire Obama’s air of unruffled calm, his zen-like grace under stress, his ability to inspire hope in the midst of crisis. Even I, a conscientious pessimist, hope that Obama will be the Chesley Sullenberger of the financial crisis that Bush and his cronies launched with two expensive wars and eight years of handouts to obscenely wealthy “capitalists.”

Bring the plane down, Barry, and save the passengers, if not the geese—but nobody, not even you, is ever gonna top Hayley Mills as Pollyanna. All right?

Bush is not a good guy. I’ve never understood how anyone ever accepted that he’d be a neat guy to have a beer with. Sure, if I really really needed a beer, I could do it … but for the beer, for Christ’s sake, not for some arrogant, privileged 62 year old with daddy issues who thinks he’s still at the frat house.

Not for some asshole who thought it was funny to snuff out cigarettes on other guys’ skin while he was at the frat house.

Not for a guy whose every achievement has been a free ride provided by his family and his family’s CIA, Fortune 500, and Saudi contacts. A fat Rolodex never made anybody neat or even basically decent.

Not for a guy, who as Texas governor, boasted over presiding over more death-penalty executions (152) than any modern-era governor and even had the vilely bad manners to make fun of one of them (Karla Faye Tucker) by imitating her in a high squeal: “Please please don’t kill me.” Damn, dude, even if I did back capital punishment, adding insult to injury is just mean.

Not for a guy who now brags that we haven’t had a terrorist attack on U.S. soil … at least not since the one he presided over on September 11, 2001. He may as well take credit for no more catastrophic hurricanes since Katrina.

Not for a guy who launched an unjust war against Iraq, sold to the world with falsified info, which has cost 4226 American lives, not counting the 90,000+ civilian deaths attributable to the war.

Not for the guy who defended extreme interrogation techniques like waterboarding so long as we didn’t use the “T” word.

Not for George Double-yuck Bush.

Why in the name of all that’s good and decent does Barack Obama think he has to say nice things about this guy? Admittedly, he qualified the remark by saying he thought Bush loves his family (Bush’s, not Obama’s) and the country. Faint praise indeed, when it’s common knowledge that despots generally love children and dogs—and no doubt their countries too, as long as the citizens are flattened under their dictatorial thumbs. But why any praise at all?

Does he have his eye on a Nobel Prize or something? Or does he expect the Vatican to canonize him? Can’t he just be stiffly polite to Bush the way he is around the gay press—to which he communicates in “open letters,” issued like fiats?

OK, President Obama (and, yes, God, that still sounds awfully good), nobody really expects you to throw a shoe at Bush. That thunder’s been stolen. And I get it: you’re a nice guy, who reaches out, who includes everybody, who doesn’t see red states and blue states, only United States. I respect that. America respects that.

But, listen, it’s enough that you’re our President. Be a good one. And give up on trying to be our personal savior, Boddhisvatta, and high-school counselor rolled into one.

Kelly

It would be an understatement to say that after President George W. Bush was reelected in 2004, I was disappointed.  In fact, I was truly disgusted.  I could not believe that just over half of the American people wanted another term filled with fear, war, and the erosion of our civil liberties.  And so, instead of having that debate,  mainstream media did a fine job of spinning and attributing Bush’s re-election to the issue of cultural and social morality; and let us not forget that he is the man (the recovering alcoholic) that everyone wanted to share a beer with at their backyard barbecue.  A martini with Kerry or a Bud Light with Bush?  You decide.

It is fair to say that during the Presidential bid of 2004, I was still buying into the two-party system of liberal democrats and conservative republicans.  What other viable choice was there?  I was, as so many Americans still are, desperate to believe that one of these characters was a person that actually cared about our country and its people.  I think most people start out this way, believing in the system, the process as it were.  And why shouldn’t we?  Most of us attended  public government run schools for 13 years, being told that the democratic process in this country was good, and that we were the good guys.  I suppose it is quite comforting to grow up feeling that we are the heroes, the richest, the strongest, the best of the best.  And, I suppose this is exactly why much of our population continues to believe that we are still a free and just nation, or that voting for one man or the other means…something.

But, in November 2004, things changed for me.  I had become so over-exhausted by the mainstream media after following the election for a year or more, that I turned off the television for at least six months as a way of wiping the slate clean.  Shortly thereafter, I became a noob to the internet.  Of course, I’m still considered a noob by most standards; though this matters little in the scheme of things. (Reading does not require one to know how to use umpteem different applications.)  However, having internet access was paramount to shifting my political understanding and leanings.  Being able to read from nearly any newspaper or online publication in the world was enough to make anyone go into information overload.  But the fog of NBC and the like had been lifted.  Slowly, I went from democrat to independent and ultimately to where I am today, which is skeptical of nearly anything.  And though I’ve lost the comforts that denial once provided, there is nothing like liberation from a prison-like state of mind.

The last four years have only stood to make a cynic more cynical.

So now, as we try to put the corruption and financial panic of 2008 behind us and brace for the abyss that will soon characterize 2009, we’re left with nothing more than the ritual of one President exiting stage right and his successor entering stage left.   Yes, ladies and gentleman, Bush is finally at the wee tail end of his Presidency.  Though I’m not feeling the jubilation that I felt so certain about four years previous.  When the differences between Bush and Obama come down to the pronunciation of words, I’m not getting what there is to celebrate in Bush’s departure.  A strong and savvy intellect mean very little when one is batting for the same team, no?

Needless to say, ‘change’ is not coming to Washington any time soon. There will be more of the same.  McCain or Obama, it never really made a difference.  The problem is that as we turn the page, we are not headed towards a more perfect union.  We are headed into a very dark time, of course that is only after the  Obama frenzy starts to dissipate.  If you weren’t pleased with the bailouts of 2008, you will most certainly be dissapointed by the amount of money Obama is about to print and spend in every attempt to keep this ship from sinking.  Sadly, a large scale Titanic is more likely to ensue.

Suffice it to say that this end of one and beginning of another is not nearly the splendidly joyous time I once believed it would be.

Sources: ¹ http://www.reason.com/news/show/130832.html, ²http://abcnews.go.com/business/economy/Story?id=6332892&page=1, ³http://www.examiner.com/x-536-Civil-Liberties-Examiner~y2009m1d13-Obamas-new-New-Deal-stimulus-package-could-prolong-economic-crisis

Joseph Marohl

I like Caroline Kennedy, daughter of JFK and big sis to John John—two other people I have a soft spot in my heart for, may they rest in peace. On the few times I’ve heard Kennedy speak, I’ve been reasonably impressed, though it’s hard for me (for a lot of Americans) to really hear her and not her family legacy in US politics.

She’s had a remarkable life—surviving every member of her immediate family, escaping death from an IRA bomb, and inspiring a Neil Diamond hit.

Now she’s interested in taking over the Senate seat soon to be vacated by Hillary Rodham Clinton, wife of Bill Clinton and soon to be Secretary of State. But she’s in competition with Andrew Cuomo, son of former NY governor Mario Cuomo and ex to Terry Kennedy, Caroline’s cousin. Ultimately the decision will be made by the current NY governor David Paterson, son of a former NY state senator.

One of the reasons (I had several) I voted for Barack Obama instead of Clinton earlier this year was that, deep down, I feel that the United States of America should not operate like a family business. I could have lived with a Clinton nomination, but I really favored Obama for this reason (and several others, as well). I wanted the Bush-Clinton-Bush chain to end with George W.

I would never vote against a candidate merely because she or he has family ties to politics. But this sort of thing does figure into my thinking at election times. It is a matter of some importance to my concept of a working free democracy.

Now that the royal lines of Europe and Asia have either petered out or lost the powers of governance, is there really any need for America, where everybody is “created equal,” so we hear, to perpetuate dynastic politics past its expiration date?

Of course, the UK still has its Queen—but the governmental chief is the Prime Minister, of whom, recently, Gordon Brown, Tony Blair, John Major, and Margaret Thatcher have had only remote family ties to politics—mostly descending from farmers, grocers, entertainers, educators, and clergy—and came into high office through lives of public service and/or law careers.

Aren’t there enough brainy, capable people in the United States—like Barack Obama or Bill Clinton—to fill top government positions without resorting to nepotism?

Do we really believe that bloodlines confer the know-how to lead a democratic nation? I would not want to impugn Caroline Kennedy’s, Hillary Rodham Clinton’s, or Andrew Cuomo’s political savvy or statesmanship by crediting it to genealogy or genetics. I also don’t mean to demean their individual accomplishments by assuming that everything they have achieved is due to nepotism. And yet what, apart from their names, distinguishes them from other qualified persons with political ambition?

Have Kennedy, Clinton, and Bush become brand names like Pepsi or McDonald’s? Certainly, name recognition is a selling point for politicians campaigning for elected office—but what advantage does it offer for political appointments?

Last month the citizens voted Barack Hussein Obama into the nation’s highest office in spite of his name (which, let’s face it, was no selling point, as the Republicans so often liked to emphasize). Like Bill Clinton, he was the son of a single mother—the paternal namesake being absent for most of his life. In many respects, unlike either Bush 1 or Bush 2, he represents the American dream—of assimilation, of pulling oneself up by one’s bootstraps, of rising without the help of family or family connections.

So now that “change” seems so necessary and, for the first time in decades, so possible, why must we turn to brand names and/or dynasties for leadership?

Good luck to you, Caroline, and if you make it to the Senate next year, I hope it’s because you’re the best person for the job—and not just because of your tragically romantic name.

Allison Bricker

NOTE: This is the first part in a 4 part series. Your questions and commentary are both welcomed and appreciated.

• Part 1 – How to Save the Republic
• Part 2 – Abolish the Income Tax
• Part 3 – Repeal the Direct Election of Senators
• Part 4 – Similarities Between the Great Depression and Our Current Crisis

Albert Einstein once quipped that the definition of ‘insanity’ is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. This then begs the question; why do so many of our fellow citizens think government intervention into our economy will stave off the coming economic depression? We need only look back to the last group of supreme central planners, ergo Herbert Hoover and Franklin Delano Roosevelt & Company to see that government intervention/interference is both the root cause and sustaining force of large economic recessions and depressions.¹

It is imperative that we look to the not so distant past, educate ourselves to the actual history, and begin a candid discussion of the facts with our friends, neighbors, and fellow citizens. If we fail or refuse this effort, it is my analysis that the consequences which will reveal themselves in short, will be more disastrous than those of the 1930′s. However, where some predict and hope for the fracturing of our union, I see opportunity, regardless of the pending collapse or fracturing. It is my fervent belief that there are many amongst us who will not stand idly by and watch the greatest experiment in human liberty perish from this Earth.

While it most certainly will be an uphill battle, success in our endeavor will secure the blessing of debt free liberty to ourselves and our posterity. Furthermore, the path to reclaiming our Republic from the jaws of the central planners is illuminated before us; if we only take the time to look upon the lessons of history. It is my estimation that three crucial steps are needed in order to right the course of the Republic back onto its Constitutional governance and towards the path of a “more perfect Union”.

The first among these three steps is to seek the complete abolition of the 3rd Central Bank of the United States, better known as the FEDERAL RESERVE. Moreover, we must seek an amendment to our federal Constitution which prohibits the establishment of any future central banking schemes and requires the federal government only produce sound money backed either by silver, gold, or platinum; produced solely by the United States Department of the Treasury.

It is important to note that the three steps will not happen in rapid succession, as it would be naive to entertain such a notion. Instead, with each corrective action we will gain both time as well as more stability in which to continue the restoration of the Republic. It is inevitable that this deleveraging and short run into the FEDERAL RESERVE NOTE Dollar will cease. The FEDERAL RESERVE whether it knows it or not has sealed its fate, a “poison pill” due to its ability to print an endless supply of FEDERAL RESERVE NOTES. There is a reason that every “fiat” currency throughout history has collapsed onto itself.² Thus, it is my analysis that by the Spring of 2009, hyper-inflation will begin to set in and this will allow for the movement to abolish the FEDERAL RESERVE to begin in earnest.

In addition to abolishing the FEDERAL RESERVE and preventing a subsequent reincarnation, we will also examine why we need to repeal the 16th amendment, Income Tax, and the 17th Amendment, The Direct Election of Senators, steps two and three respectively. Finally, this series of posts will conclude with an examination of the parallels of government interference during the Great Depression, and our current economic crisis.

It is my hope that readers of this post will ask questions via the comment section, on their blogs, forums, etcetera. Through an honest and open dialog whereby the free exchange of ideas can take place, we just as those who came before us will see our Republic safely to the other side of this crisis.

Long Live the American Republic!

Source(s): ¹FDR’s Folly – How Roosevelt and His New Deal Prolonged the Great Depression • ² The Financial Organization of Society, by Harold Glenn Moulton-1925, pg93, University of Chicago Press

Allison Bricker

“Change” was the cornerstone of President-Elect Obama’s campaign. Often spoken and vaguely defined, his hypnotic lip service to a nation weary of the “Bush Years” was enough to sweep him from the well of the Senate straight into the White House. The problem here is that as the days since the election become weeks, the individuals President-Elect Obama is selecting to fill out his staff and cabinet are more of the same old career politicians who have spent their lives sucking from the public trough. As the chart below illustrates, these are the same scoundrels which through their love of central nanny state planning, helped ensure the current economic crisis and erosion of inherent liberties.

This list reads like a veritable “Who’s Who” of beltway Washington Aristocrats, and these are just the sourced appointments to the Obama White House. Unconfirmed reports are also circulating that James Steinberg former Clinton Administration deputy national security adviser is on the short list to be President-Elect Obama’s choice for National Security Adviser.¹ How is someone to believe that President Elect Obama will help fix an imploding economy and divided nation when the same people who helped cause the mess are elevated yet again to positions of power?

The answer of course is that they will not. Moreover, a closer inspection of these filthy power hungry individuals yields even less hope for rolling back the massive unconstitutional powers decreed to the Executive Branch under President Bush. The truth is, the face of the puppet may have changed from bumbling dote to articulate persuasive figurehead, but outside of that it is business as usual.

If we look at the public statements and actions of those listed above, we see that their motivation comes solely from attaining more for themselves while throwing scraps to “we the people”. Eric Holder, who is on pace to be the next Attorney General for example, said in a 1999 interview:

“The court has really struck down every government effort to try to regulate it. We tried with regard to pornography. It is gonna be a difficult thing, but it seems to me that if we can come up with reasonable restrictions, reasonable regulations in how people interact on the Internet, that is something that the Supreme Court and the courts ought to favorably look at.”²

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As we reported weeks ago, it is almost a certainty that an Obama Administration will seek to end the free flow of ideas exchanged across the internet vis-a-vi the “Fairness Doctrine 2.0″. Do we as Americans need the government to tell us what is “reasonable” or”safe” to listen to, read, or view? The Founders knew that allowing government to dictate what was “reasonable” was guaranteed to lead to one thing and one thing only, censorship.

Further complimenting President-Elect Obama’s socialist plans for our healthcare industry, are his picks for Chief of Staff and Secretary of State, Rahm Emanuel and Hilary Clinton respectively. Both were lead architects of the failed “Hilary Care” during the Clinton Administration.³ Rahm Emanuel as we reported is also the architect and ferverent supporter of forced unpaid labor via his “Compulsory Civil Service” program. Between Hillary Clinton and Rahm Emanuel they have received over $15.9 million in campaign contributions from healthcare industries, central bankers, criminal financiers, and bailout recipients.⁴ Care to guess which healthcare companies/individuals will receive government certification to administer and oversee the universal healthcare program?

Next, continuing President-Elect Obama’s perverse definition of “change” is his choice for Secretary of the Treasury, Timothy Geithner. Mr. Geithner is currently the President of the New York branch of the Federal Reserve. This guarantees that an Obama Administration will continue this debt based fiat currency system that is to the sole benefit of the private Central Bankers who own the Federal Reserve. The obvious conflict of interest in having a Federal Reserve branch President in charge of the U.S. Treasury, relying on his fellow Federal Reserve Central Bankers to loan the government money via Reserve Notes, should go without saying, and most likely will thanks to a mainstream media intoxicated by President-Elect Obama.

Additionally, many of us would love to be a fly on the wall during the times when Lawrence Summers, former Secretary of the Treasury under the Clinton Administration and Hillary Clinton are in the same room. It would be most interesting to see how Hillary Clinton interacts with Mr. Summers, the former President of Harvard who resigned in disgrace in 2006 after remarking that “issues of intrinsic aptitude” could explain underrepresentation of women in the fields of science and engineering.⁵ Nice to know “Change” in Obama’s mind means appointing a misogynist who feels women are just too stupid in comparison to men.

In conclusion, during the next four years we will see campaign promises fall by the way side, massive government programs designed to fix the last batch of failed government programs, central planning and intervention into our economy which will exacerbate and prolong the coming depression; while benefiting central bankers, as well as a further shredding and trampling of our liberties and Constitution.

It is my opinion, President-Elect Obama’s definition of “Change” reeks of 1984 “doublespeak”.

Source(s): ¹Business Day – “Contenders for Key Posts in New Cabinet” • ² May 28, 1999 NPR Morning Edition • ³ Slate – “Obama’s Muscle” • ⁴ OpenSecrets.org – Hillary Clinton Record/Rahm Emanuel Record • ⁵ The Economic Times – “Lawrence Summer to become Obama’s Top Economic Adviser”

Allison Bricker

As our Republic continues to swerve recklessly away from its Constitutional founding, the opportunity for us to salvage what so many have died for, slides further away from our grasp. Just as Winter has begun to set in across the nation, our Liberties seem to have fallen away like leaves lost into the breeze. Whether it be legalized torture or the Department of Homeland Security suspending the Constitution along the border, the country I fell in love with as a child, looks less and less like the land of the free.

Many amongst us are pinning their hopes of a better tomorrow on yet another politician who promises “change” from the status-quo and business as usual in Washington. However, within hours of the election, his “transition” website, laid out his and his enforcer’s vision of mandatory unpaid servitude for the youth of our nation. Shortly thereafter upon echoing criticism ringing across the blogosphere, they whitewashed the website and scurried their indentured labor force back under the rug. The Obama transition team decided to replace the compulsory service text with toned down verbiage so as not to cause a scandal prior to his formal coronation.

In this Winter of our discontent, there are a few sparks which seek to reignite our lost sense of self. It has for a long time now been my opinion that the planets must have aligned to have allowed such an assembly of thinkers such a Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin and the rest of the founding generation to have known to each other in order to be able to hammer out Independence and beat back tyranny. Perhaps, we may be so fortunate yet again, to recapture that spirit of ’76 with a new gathering of minds dedicated to reason and human liberty. One such intellect where parallels can be drawn is Naomi Wolf. Her latest works, “The End of America” and “Give Me Liberty” are written with such a dedication and sound resolve towards the virtues of freedom that the pages in her books seem to echo the spirit and tenacity of Thomas Paine.

In support of the ideas presented in, “The End of America”, and to help spread the word virally in the internet age, Ms. Wolf has released an online video where she covers the ten steps taken time and again, by all would-be tyrants in a closing society. The movie is available free for online viewing and is a must see for those in tune with our current state of affairs. Her content and tone is so well reasoned and articulated, even those who refuse to acknowledge the danger, must at least pause to question, what our Republic will resemble in two, five, or ten years from now.

The video can be viewed here, and please if you find her presentation to be a powerful arguement as to why we need to restore, preserve and defend our American Republic, please consider passing it along via DiGG, del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, etcetrera.

Kelly

With the transition process from George W, Bush to Barack Obama already in high gear, liberals everywhere are filled with a tenacious hope that this moment in time is the beginning of a new era, a new dawn. If you voted for Barack Obama, then greatness is upon us, or in the very least, the need to believe that greatness is upon us is still fresh in the hearts of the Obama supporters. I cannot blame them. When people so fervently believe in something as broadly defined as ‘change’, and then put a man at the forefront of responsibility to create that ‘change’, it becomes increasingly difficult to be critical of their well-oiled, well-groomed, hypnotic leader; in much the same way that Christians are not particularly inclined to be critical of their leaders or beliefs.

Barack Obama has become a brand name, packaged and sold to the masses. There were promises made, like so many before, of a better, more efficient government that would end ‘politics as usual.’ The leading product, ‘Change,’ sold because we were told that we ‘could believe in it.’ Though, there is little doubt that the Bush Administration laid the groundwork, brick by brick, for change to become the word so desperately sought. It seems the time was never more ripe, the stars never so well aligned.

The Bush Administration led an invasion of Iraq with promises of “cake-walk” that quickly went from ridding America of the threat known as WMD’s to a war campaign based on Iraqi freedom and the deliverance of democracy to the Middle-East. And lest we forget the atrocities that followed; numerous Executive Orders, the warrant-less searches and wire-tapping (only to be feared if you’re not doing anything wrong), the private security forces of Blackwater, Walter Reed Hospital, Katrina, FEMA, Guantanamo, water-boarding, Attorney General Gonzales, and the more recent mess on Wall Street- the Bailout. ‘Tis no wonder Barack Obama is now our President-Elect.

The so-called value-voters were outnumbered this November 4th, at least as it pertains to the Presidential election, since the moral high ground seems to have gained something in all of this as the gays went from wedge issue to bargaining chip (California, Florida, Arizona, and Arkansas.)

In 2004, moral values outnumbered the Iraq war as Americans stood at the ballot box. In 2008, it was ‘the economy, stupid.’ Focus on the Family was won out by Focus on the Globe, as President Elect Obama is promising to change the world (Civilian National Security Force, anyone?) Though, I suppose it’s fair to say that every administration has changed the world in one form or another, whether it has been for better or worse is completely subjective.

Clearly, eight years under neo-conservatism was enough. But, where will we go from here? The American citizens were seeking change, and with good reason. But, is another stimulus check the only thing on the minds of a shrinking and sinking middle class? If so, then one could only conclude that the ‘hope’ that backed the 2008 election is an empty idea at best and by this time next year ‘hope’ will surely return to the apathy from whence it came. Or, are the Obama-ites truly enticed by the farce of a luscious utopia, sprouting with entitlement and more government powers, sprinkled with redistribution of wealth and the consequential loss of liberties? I’m afraid that too many believe that they can have their cake and eat it too, but one can hope that a return to apathy is just around the bend.