We are missing the point.  The fact that taxes are too high or not high enough is not the point. The fact that our deficit is outrageous or is manageable is not the point.  Debt is only a symptom of the real problem.   We think that if we can put the right person in the driver’s seat, he or she can save the country from its woes.   Wrong.  Wrong.  Wrong. 

The founders knew one basic fact that makes all the differences.  We are imperfect beings who make mistakes; we stumble.  If we manage our own lives we can get up, “brush ourselves off, and start all over again.”  However, if we put our faith in another to manage our lives, all 300 million of us, and he stumbles we’re in for a rough ride. Thomas Jefferson said, “A constitution should be structured to permanently protect the people from the human frailties of their rulers.” 

 That’s why God confused the languages and disbursed the people when they built the Tower of Babel.  He didn’t want them consolidating power.  That’s why God didn’t want the Israelites to have kings.  He knows that power corrupts.  That’s why God wanted the Israelites to organize themselves into families and clans.  He knew that people can take care of themselves if left alone.  We were designed to be free, to walk our walk and stumble and learn and walk again with a “little help from our friends.”

Our Tower of Babel is our federal government.  We have built a leviathan to pay homage to.  Our founders set up a limited government to serve the people.   The egomaniacs in DC have lost their sense of humility.  They see themselves as Gods able to solve our problems, but their solutions are invariably toxic, creating more problems to be solved until we have this colossal tower of government that is not so much interested in protecting the interests of the citizenry as it is interested in making sure that the citizens serve the interest of the state.

Like the Israelites we have yielded to the will of an earthly king trusting that he’ll take care of us rather that remembering the lessons of the past.  Thomas Jefferson’s letters are filled with references to past histories. He understood what destroyed the great empires of the past, the Greeks, the Romans, the Anglos and the Saxons:  centralization of power, towers of Babel.  He said, “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.  In vain would man…subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens.”  

Repealing the 17th Amendment

I have resisted the early voting trend, having enjoyed the nostalgic notion of going to the polls on Election Day, but after the chaos of November 6, I agree with Mike Gorman. “Something’s gotta give.”  There’s got to be a better way.

I disagree however, with his suggestion to split the Electoral College to represent proportions of the total vote.  It’s one more step in the emasculation of the 10^th Amendment. The founders had studied history and recognized that other attempts at democracy had failed because pure democracies become “tyrannies of the majority” and eventually morph into totalitarian regimes. Our government was designed with complicated sets of checks and balances designed to prevent that.

Part of that design was the creation of a republic, a collection of sovereign states united under a federal government with very few and limited powers: to secure the peace and the blessings of liberty. In the 20^th century we have seen a continuous assault on state sovereignty beginning with the passage of the 17^th Amendment.

The two houses of congress were also a part of the checks and balances design. Members of the U.S. House of Representatives were to represent the will of the people and be elected by popular vote.   Senators were to be elected by the State Legislatures and so would be able to bring reason to the table.

In Federalist 49, Madison explains how The House would represent the passions of the people and the Senate would act as a check on those passions, be more deliberate, taking into considerations the problems of the whole. Senators, not reliant on popular vote, would not bend and sway to the winds of popular opinion and could take a more detached view of the issues coming before congress.   It was also thought that senators would prevent members of the house from dipping into the National treasury to buy votes.

The passage of the 17th Amendment destroyed that balance. The states have been reduced from being an equal partner with the Federal Government to being common lobbyists.  Senators too must run expensive election campaigns and, instead of checking the problem, they are now part of the problem. Special interests from all over the country get involved in bankrolling senatorial campaigns and senators no longer represent their states, but the passions of the whole.

Now here is the part I can’t really explain, but something in me says that if our electoral college vote were to be cast proportionally, that somehow exacerbates the problems of state sovereignty.  I don’t know if it’s possible, but what we need to do is draw back about 90 per cent of the power we have ceded to the federal government and retake our state sovereignty, county sovereignty, city sovereignty, neighborhood sovereignty, personal sovereignty. 

  Obama invested another $5 billion of our money to achieve his goal of having 1 million electric cars on U.S. roads by 2015. It makes me feel so good, warm and fuzzy all over to think that he cares so much about our environment. The first requirement of a good leader is that he shows us that he cares.

        Do you think he might know where we get the electricity to run the cars?   From burning coal!  From burning petroleum! From nuclear power plants!  I expect he does, but his friends like Al Gore have invested their fortunes in alternative energy industry, so he’s obliged to pay them off by throwing our tax dollars at them, indenturing our grandchildren to his grand legacy.

       He destroys the jobs of the coal miners, puts the kibosh on pipe lines and oil drilling, adds 1.5 trillion in new debt every year of his presidency, and we, we exult him, “our Lord and Savior, Obama.” We are such idiots to fall for such schmaltzy, emotionally driven policy.

           But, you’ve gotta praise him for stopping the military from waterboarding terrorists.  That was so inhumane.  It’s so much more humane to kill them with drones, and if a few non-militants of the population happen to be taken out as well, well, you gotta break a few eggs to make an omelet.

          He’s ratcheting up the attacks in Pakistan, six already this year.  I wonder.  What is the psychological impact of the terrifying American death machines flying into your neighborhood and taking out your neighbors? Would the general population be more easily co-opted into anti-Western extremist groups? Do you think the Nobel committee might regret their hasty decision to give him the Peace Prize so early into his presidency?  Nope.  Norwegians have mush for brains, too.

James Sefcak is right.  Those stupid conservatives need to quit crabbing (Sore losers keep up Obama attacks, December 3, 2012).  All the president wants is 1.6 trillion in new taxes, a new stimulus package, and the right to lift the debt ceiling without congressional approval.

Good grief.  You know he’s going to watch out for us. He was a constitutional professor after all.  Ok, so he has made himself judge, jury, prosecutor, and executioner of anyone in the world he thinks is an enemy of the state. He’ll do us right.  Like Jamie Foxx says, he is our Lord and Savior. 

And quit your crabbing about Benghazi.  So the president told Susan Rice to lie.  He had to do it to secure the election.  Anyone would have done it.  Everybody lies when it’s necessary.  I was glad to see CBS ran a follow up on Watergate this morning.  Maybe that’ll get those jerks to quit harping about the guys who got killed.  After all you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.

And for goodness sake quit picking on Susan Rice.   That's mean. She doesn’t know anything.  She just did as she was told. . We have to protect our little ladies from those racist rednecks.

Yeah.  Like I’m going to shut up?

Members of the media sneer at people who are concerned with the Islamic Brotherhood’s influence on Capital Hill, but the Egyptian magazine Rose El-Youssef bragged about the manner in which six Brotherhood operatives were able to influence American foreign policy.  Shawki listed six men, Arif Alikhan, the assistant secretary of Homeland Security for policy development; and Mohammed Elibiary, a member of the Homeland Security Advisory Council. He also listed Rashad Hussain, the U.S. special envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference, as well as Salam al-Marayati, co-founder of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, Imam Mohamed Magid, president of the Islamic Society of North America and Eboo Patel, a member of President Obama’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based Neighborhood Partnerships, all of whom are avowed jihadists. 

Written shortly after the massacre, but I forgot to post it.

You can’t watch the news these days without burning tears. Nothing could be worse than the slaughter of innocent children. I cannot fathom the world of pain in Newtown.

But the ensuing gun control hype brings me back to reality. When citizens are deprived of their right of self-defense you get the Katyn massacre, Mongolian massacres, Bleiburg and Foibe massacres the Ma'alot massacre, the Armenian massacre, and the many utopianism inspired massacres in the Soviet Union killing nearly 70 million.

Saddam Hussein slaughtered an average of 80,000 a year for each of the 23 years he was in power. Castro, 100,000; Idi Amin, 500 thousand. Pol Pot's slaughtered nearly 1/3 of his entire population.

The absolutely horrific wars of the 20^th century don’t seem so bad when you compare the 35 million left dead on the battlefield (J. David Singer COW Project) with the hundreds of millions killed by their own governments.

Think I’ll go out tomorrow and buy me a gun.

The American media were outraged, when after 9/11 Bush pushed through congress the original National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). And to a certain extent, we agreed.  Our collective argument:  “If you give up your freedoms for protection, you lose both.”   But now we are appalled that President Obama, through executive order, without consent of congress has granted the U.S. military the right to kidnap U.S. citizens, detain them indefinitely,  with no jury, no trial, no legal representation and no requirement that the government produce evidence. Our military cannot water board foreign terrorists but they can and did under Obama’s authorization, take out an American citizen abroad with drones.  This is all conducted completely outside the protection of law. And the media is silent