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REQUIEM

Below are the two final essays to be posted on Allegiance and Duty Betrayed. The first one is written by a friend -- screen name 'Euro-American Scum' -- who, over the past four years, has been the most faithful essayist here. He has written about everything from his pilgrimage to Normandy in 2004 to take part in the 60th–year commemoration of the invasion, to his memories of his tour in Vietnam. His dedication to America’s founding principles ... and those who have sacrificed to preserve them over the past 200+ years ... is unequaled. Thank you, E-A-S. It has been a privilege to include your writing here, and it is a privilege to call you my friend.

The second essay is my own farewell. And with it I thank all of the many regular visitors, and those who may have only dropped in occasionally, for coming here. I hope you learned something. I hope a seed or two was planted. But, even if not, I thank you for stopping by ... 25 March, 2010

5/08/2008

Leadership_in_Context.jpg

With the interminable presidential campaign nearing its long-awaited end, I cannot help but step back and take a look at the gradual erosion of character that has occurred in those who seek the highest offices in the land.

Witnessing the ‘debate’ occurring between this year’s slate of candidates seems to have devolved into something akin to sitting in the audience at a showing of ‘The Great Train Robbery’. Although a milestone in its day, through the eyes of today’s audiences it would seem disjointed, with each small scene representing a single shot, containing very little substance, and encompassing only a few, if any, meaningful moments. Yet its sensational and extraordinarily tragic subject matter is relevant.

Its two main characters are criminals who wreak havoc on a train full of passengers, and the movie ends with one of them taking aim and firing point blank at the audience.

The disjointedness, the superficiality, the criminality, and the eventual expansion of the criminals’ field of terror ...

How apropos.

In the United States of America, we have the freedom to believe as we choose regarding the sanctity of the Constitution of our republic. We can choose to believe that it is the most magnificent and timeless blueprint for governance ever devised by the mind of man. Or we can choose to believe that it is an outmoded government design, in need of constant revision, because it was written by nearsighted men who couldn’t see past the eighteenth century.

Being allowed to embrace either belief, or any other, is what individual freedom is all about. But there are a certain few among us who, by virtue of their position, ought not to have the right to all such beliefs.

There once was a time when national office holders (especially presidents, senators, and congressmen) believed that the Constitution was the incontrovertible law of the land and that it was their honored duty to uphold it. The words 'preserve, protect and defend' had a tangible, concrete meaning. And that meaning in no way allowed the infiltration of the concepts of 'edit, assault, and declare obsolete'. As a matter of fact, it forbade them.

There once was a time when the preservation of individual liberties, the limiting of government power, and the securing of our national sovereignty were deemed the highest calling of an American leader.

There once was a time when America’s leaders were (as they should be) a cut above the rest of us. That time is long past. It has been waning for decades, but drew its last breath around 1989. Before that time, if our leaders were not Constitutional scholars per se, they at least had a working knowledge of the document they were charged to defend, and they were generally committed to seeing to it that it remained whole, and supreme.

When those who are entrusted with the defense of ‘sacred’ ground are allowed to defile that very ground, the ground is then neither sacred nor worth defending.

Those seeking to be our next president, and those already sitting on Capitol Hill, know that the Constitution's dedication to limiting the power of the federal government forbids the government from seeing to it that every American has healthcare insurance, or regulating the prices of commodities, or placing punitive regulations and taxes on successful businesses, or imposing all manner of regulation on industry in the name of a fabricated climate crisis, or stealing the fruits of its citizens' labor, or spending billions in pork barrel projects, or dictating the educational curricula in public schools, or legislating God out of existence, or seeing to it that even the slothful prosper, or legitimizing the killing of unborn babies, or restricting the citizens' right to keep and bear arms, or inviting non-citizens to enjoy the same rights as citizens, or passing countless other laws that increase their own power while robbing us of our individual liberties and punishing personal achievement.

Our Constitution was authored, in large part, to avoid (1) monarchy and (2) socialism. Yet both are being forced upon us, surreptitiously and incrementally.

When those who are elected to the highest offices in the land bear no allegiance to our founding documents, or to truth and justice in general, it is time to awaken from our apathetic stupor and demand character in leadership once again.

We have duty-bound Americans laying their lives on the line in Iraq and Afghanistan – placing their lives on hold, and often in the cross-hairs of a brutal enemy – in order to defend the liberties of other peoples, and to prevent the enemy from once again reaching our shores.

And one of our pretenders to the throne is fabricating lies about being under enemy fire abroad during a diplomatic mission, while, at the same time, those she is seeking to lead are facing the threat of actual enemy fire every single day.

One of our pretenders to the throne is embracing a ‘theology’ that demonizes our protectors in Iraq and Afghanistan, and proclaims that the enemy that our duty-bound young men and women are facing in the Middle East had reason to perpetrate the holocaust that was 9/11.

Treason abounds in Washington. The Constitution is under relentless attack. And the front-runners for the presidency of the United States bear little or no allegiance to its founding documents and principles. Nor do they place any value on truth, other than to the degree that it can increase their power.

The loathsome character of our national leaders extends far beyond those seeking the presidency, and their ‘crimes’ extend far beyond their dismantling of the Constitution they were sworn to defend.

According to recent statistics:

29 members of congress have been accused of spousal abuse.
7 have been arrested for fraud.
19 have been accused of writing bad checks.
117 have bankrupted at least two businesses.
3 have been arrested for assault.
71 have credit reports so bad they can't qualify for a credit card.
14 have been arrested on drug-related charges.
8 have been arrested for shoplifting.
21 are current defendants in lawsuits.

And in 1998 alone, 84 were stopped for drunk driving, but released after they claimed Congressional immunity.


It pays to be a member of ‘the elite’. You get to author and enforce the ever-more-tyrannical rules that the masses must obey, and yet you deem yourself conveniently above the law. One of the primary causal factors in the creation of our form of government was to eliminate kings and queens. It appears that that particular factor has been declared passé.

Since there are 535 ‘leaders’ serving in the house and senate, the majority of them have committed crimes – some of them serious – that you or I wouldn’t dream of committing.

If you grabbed 535 American citizens off the street of a random small town in the midwest (the ‘heart of America’), do you think the percentage in that random sample who have committed any one of the above crimes would come anywhere near to approaching the percentage committed by our ‘leadership’ in Washington? A rhetorical question, if I ever heard one.

Then why have we placed such people in positions of great power over us? (… she says, scratching her head in frustrated disbelief).

As a people, we are collectively more moral, more honest, and more faithful to our Founders’ vision, than are those who believe they possess the credentials to lead us. And that sorry -- potentially deadly -- state of affairs has come into existence because (1) as a people, we are apathetic and uninformed, and (2) those seeking leadership positions in the highest levels of our government consider themselves to be members of an elite class whose superior qualifications destine them the right to dictate how the rest of us should live. They are personally and politically agenda-driven megalomaniacs, pathological liars, and they believe themselves answerable to no one, including their Creator.

As a free republic we are on the road to ruin. Without a rude awakening even more powerful than that which occurred on 9/11, the most moral and prosperous civilization in the history of mankind is in the process of writing its own gruesome epitaph.

~ joanie

43 comments:

Anonymous said...

Bravo, Joanie! One of your best!

Anonymous said...

Very well said. The "Great Train Robbery" analogy is pure genius.

Anonymous said...

There was a story about a man who owned a bagel delivery service catering to office workers. Because he delivered to a lot of businesses, payment was on the honor system.

He noted that at some businesses, there was a lack of honor, and when he pointed this out to the management, they also noted that there was a general lack of honesty in their business as well.

This gave the bagel man an idea: he put up a hidden camera to find out who was taking bagels without paying, and discovered that there was a high correlation with employees who were otherwise already suspected of dishonesty.

So he began a new business, helping corporations eliminate dishonest employees with his hidden camera bagel test. In the long run, firing the bagel thieves resulted in savings of millions of dollars by these corporations in revenue lost due to employee theft.

An interesting discovery. Too bad there isn’t such a system to test government employees and politicians.

Anonymous said...

It isn't the toe-tapping in public restroom stalls. It isn't the bundles of cash stashed in the freezer. Salacious sex scandals and the sale of influence are superficial symptoms of corrupt individuals. Individuals can be replaced. The corruption that permeates Congress may have no cure....

Confressional Character an Oxymoron?

Anonymous said...

As a people, we are collectively more moral, more honest, and more faithful to our Founders’ vision, than are those who believe they possess the credentials to lead us. And that sorry -- potentially deadly -- state of affairs has come into existence because (1) as a people, we are apathetic and uninformed, and (2) those seeking leadership positions in the highest levels of our government consider themselves to be members of an elite class whose superior qualifications destine them the right to dictate how the rest of us should live. They are personally and politically agenda-driven megalomaniacs, pathological liars, and they believe themselves answerable to no one, including their Creator.

You have perfect vision.

Anonymous said...

Joanie, you hit on the two things that will cause our downfall--public apathy and leadership "elite". Lincoln warned us that our demise would come from within. He knew what he was talking about.

Great essay.

Anonymous said...

Good work, Joanie.

Another brick in the wall:

Congress to Transform America to Socialism?

(Another major attack on private property rights.)

Anonymous said...

Regarding Congress' sins on the energy front alone, from Investors Business Daily:

• Failing to allow drilling in ANWR. We have, as Bush noted, estimated capacity of a million barrels of oil a day from this source alone — enough for 27 million gallons of gas and diesel. But Congress won't touch it, fearful of the clout of the environmental lobby. As a result, you pay at the pump so your representative can raise campaign cash.

• Refusing to build new refineries. The U.S. hasn't built one since 1976, yet sanctions at least 15 unique "boutique" fuel blends around the nation. So even the slightest problem at a refinery causes enormous supply problems and price spikes. Congress has done nothing about this.

• Turning its back on nuclear power. It's safe and, with advances in nuclear reprocessing technology, waste problems have been minimized. Still, we have just 104 nuclear plants — the same as a decade ago — producing just 19% of our total energy. (Many European nations produce 40% or more of their power with nuclear.) Granted, nuclear power plants are expensive — about $3 billion each. But they produce energy at $1.72/kilowatt-hour vs. $2.37 for coal and $6.35 for natural gas.

• Raising taxes on energy producers. This is where a basic understanding of economics would help: Higher taxes and needless regulation lead to less production of a commodity. So by proposing "windfall" and other taxes on energy companies plus tough new rules, Congress makes our energy situation worse.

These are just a few of Congress' sins of omission — all while India, China, Eastern Europe and the Middle East add more than a million barrels of new demand each and every year. New Energy Department forecasts see world oil demand growing 40% by 2030, including a 28% increase in the U.S.

Americans who are worried about the direction of their country, including runaway energy and food prices, should keep in mind the upcoming election isn't just about choosing a new president. We'll also pick a new Congress.

The current Congress, led on the House side by a speaker who promised a "common sense plan" to cut energy prices two years ago, has shown itself to be incompetent and irresponsible. It doesn't deserve re-election.


And yet all we hear from the media is how greedy the oil companies are. Hardly a word about how inept, and dangerously politically correct, our leadership in Washington is on the energy front.

Anonymous said...

P.S. Excellent column, Joanie.

Anonymous said...

Marcus Aurelius,

John McCain is against drilling in ANWAR, and he has been AWOL on all the other common sense proposals that are energy related.

He also tried to ram legislation through congress (McCain-Lieberman) that would have added a 50 cents/gallon tax in order to fund scam "global warming" programs.

Our Republican nominee isn't a whole lot better than the two Democrats, or the Democratic Congress.

Anonymous said...

Don't forget the presidential candidate that does not understand: "Congress shall make no law...prohibiting...the freedom of speech"

Where are Congressman that will stand up like this one:

"Mr. Speaker – I have as much respect for the memory of the deceased, and as much sympathy for the sufferings of the living, if suffering there be, as any man in this House, but we must not permit our respect for the dead or our sympathy for a part of the living to lead us into an act of injustice to the balance of the living. I will not go into an argument to prove that Congress has no power to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member upon this floor knows it. We have the right, as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right so to appropriate a dollar of the public money. Some eloquent appeals have been made to us upon the ground that it is a debt due the deceased. Mr. Speaker, the deceased lived long after the close of the war; he was in office to the day of his death, and I have never heard that the government was in arrears to him. This government can owe no debts but for services rendered, and at a stipulated price. If it is a debt, how much is it? Has it been audited, and the amount due ascertained? If it is a debt, this is not the place to present it for payment, or to have its merits examined. If it is a debt, we owe more than we can ever hope to pay, for we owe the widow of every soldier who fought in the War of 1812 precisely the same amount. There is a woman in my neighborhood, the widow of as gallant a man as ever shouldered a musket. He fell in battle. She is as good in every respect as this lady, and is as poor. She is earning her daily bread by her daily labor; but if I were to introduce a bill to appropriate five or ten thousand dollars for her benefit, I should be laughed at, and my bill would not get five votes in this House. There are thousands of widows in the country just such as the one I have spoken of, but we never hear of any of these large debts to them. Sir, this is no debt. The government did not owe it to the deceased when he was alive; it could not contract it after he died. I do not wish to be rude, but I must be plain. Every man in this House knows it is not a debt. We cannot, without the grossest corruption, appropriate this money as the payment of a debt. We have not the semblance of authority to appropriate it as a charity. Mr. Speaker, I have said we have the right to give as much of our own money as we please. I am the poorest man on this floor. I cannot vote for this bill, but I will give one week's pay to the object, and if every member of Congress will do the same, it will amount to more than the bill asks."

Davy Crockett

Anonymous said...

Thank you for this!

Anonymous said...

I'll say it again. You should be a nationally syndicated columnist.

Anonymous said...

"It is universally admitted that a well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people."
. . . . . James Madison, December, 1810

Anonymous said...

The more I read Thomas Paine’s "Common Sense" the more I realize that his arguments of more than two centuries ago apply just as accurately to the problems suffered by the citizens of today’s government.

The ugly divide between members of Congress and the citizens is increasing.

Anonymous said...

If you grabbed 535 American citizens off the street of a random small town in the midwest (the ‘heart of America’), do you think the percentage in that random sample who have committed any one of the above crimes would come anywhere near to approaching the percentage committed by our ‘leadership’ in Washington? A rhetorical question, if I ever heard one.

Way to put things in perspective.

Anonymous said...

Obama's 20 Best Lies:

1.) Selma Got Me Born - LIAR, your parents felt safe enough to have you in 1961; Selma was in 1965.

2.) Father Was A Goat Herder – LIAR he was a privileged, educated youth, who went to work with the Kenyan Government.

3.) Father Was A Proud Freedom Fighter - LIAR, he was part of one of most corrupt & violent governments Kenya ever had

4.) My Family Has Strong Ties To African Freedom - LIAR, your cousin Raila Odinga has created mass violence in Kenya.

5.) My Grandmother Has Always Been A Christian - LIAR, she does her daily Salat prayers at 5am according to her own. Not to mention, Christianity wouldn’t allow her to have been one of 14 wives to 1 man.

6.) My Name is African Swahili - LIAR, your name is Arabic and ‘Baraka’ (from which Barack came) means ‘blessed’ in that language. Hussein is also Arabic and so is Obama.

7.) I Never Practiced Islam - LIAR, you practiced it daily at school, where you were registered as a Muslim and kept that faith for 31 years,until your wife made you change, so you could run for office.

8.) My School In Indonesia Was Christian - LIAR, you were registered as Muslim there and got in trouble in Koranic Studies

9.) I Was Fluent In Indonesian - LIAR, not one teacher says you could speak the language.

10.) Because I Lived In Indonesia, I Have More Foreign Experience - LIAR, you were there from the ages of 6 to 10, and couldn’t even speak the language. What did you learn, how to study the Koran and watch cartoons.

11.) Present Votes Are Common In Illinois - LIAR, they are common for YOU, but not many others have 130 NO VOTES.

12.) Oops, I Misvoted - LIAR, only when caught by church groups and democrats, did you beg to change your misvote.

13.) I Was A Professor Of Law - LIAR, you were a senior lecturer ON LEAVE.

14.) Without Me, There Would Be No Ethics Bill - LIAR, you didn’t write it,introduce it, change it, or create it.

15.) I Have Been A Bold Leader In Illinois - LIAR, even your supporters claim to have not seen BOLD action on your part.

16.) I Passed 26 Of My Own Bills In One Year - LIAR, they were not YOUR bills, but rather handed to you, after their creation by a fellow Senator, to assist you in a future bid for higher office.

17.) No One Contacted Canada About NAFTA - LIAR, the Candian Government issued the names and a memo of the conversation your campaign had with them.

18.) I Am Tough On Terrorism - LIAR, you missed the Iran Resolution vote on terrorism and your good friend Ali Abunimah supports the destruction of Israel.

19.) I Didn’t Run Ads In Florida - LIAR, you allowed national ads to run 8-12 times a day for two weeks - and you still lost.

20. I Have Passed Bills In The U.S. Senate - LIAR, you have passed A BILL in the U.S. Senate - for Africa, which shows YOUR priorities.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2006575/posts

joanie said...

Abraham's son:

Very interesting story! Thanks for sharing it here.

~ joanie

joanie said...

kathymlynczak, anonymous, robmaroni, loubarakos, marcus aurelius:

Thanks for the kind words. :)

~ joanie

joanie said...

Marcus Aurelius, thanks for providing the comprehensive list of congress's (entirely purposeful) 'oversights' regarding energy policy. It represents one of their most flagrant hypocrisies.

~ joanie

Anonymous said...

You're wasting your breath. The American people don't give a damn. At least not enough of them.

Anonymous said...

The majority of Americans can no longer discern a charlatan from a statesman.

Anonymous said...

Bill Clinton's re-election proved, once and for all, that character doesn't count anymore. And when most voters always say that the economy is the most important problem facing the country, they haven't a clue.

Thanks for the great essay Joanie.

Anonymous said...

When this country started out, the power of congress was limited. The people granted congress the power to do only specific things, and all other power was to be retained by the states or the people.

But over the years congress has gradually assumed unlimited powers by claiming that whatever they want to do at any given moment promotes "the general welfare" or "commerce".

Friedrich Hayek wrote a pretty good description of why legislatures in a democracy are always forced by the people to "do something", whether they legally have the power or not. I think what we have is more a situation of legislators with good intentions being caught in an impossible situation and taking the easy way out by doing what the mob demands.

"Law, Legislation, and Liberty" by Hayek is a difficult three volumes to read, but has some real insight to offer (be sure to have a dictionary handy if you choose to read this book).
~~~~~
Laws versus Directions

"To the founders of Constitutionalism the term "Law" had had a very precise narrow meaning. Only from limiting government by law in this sense was the protection of individual liberty expected."

"The philosophers of law in the nineteenth century finally defined it as rules regulating the conduct of persons towards others, applicable to an unknown number of future instances and containing prohibitions delimiting (but of course not specifying) the boundaries of the protected domain of all persons and organized groups..."

"Law was meant to prevent unjust conduct. Justice referred to principles equally applicable to all and was contrasted to all specific commands or privileges referring to particular individuals and groups. But who believes today as James Madison could two hundred years ago, that the House of Representatives would be unable to make "law which will not have its full operation on themselves and their friends, as well as the great mass of society."

"What happened with the apparent victory of the democratic ideal was that the power of laying down laws and the governmental power of issuing directions were placed into the hands of the same assemblies. The effect of this was necessarily that the supreme governmental authority became free to give itself currently whatever laws helped it best to achieve the particular purpose of the moment. But that necessarily meant the end of the principle of government under the law...unlimited government."

"It also invalidated the original belief that a democracy, because it had to obey the majority, could only do what was in the general interest... Such a body, which does not owe its authority to demonstrating its belief in the justice of its decisions by committing itself to general rules, is constantly under the necessity of rewarding the support by the different groups by conceding special advantages. The "political necessities" of contemporary democracy are far from all being demanded by the majority!"

"The result of this development was not merely that government was no longer under the law. It also brought it about that the concept of law itself lost its meaning. The so-called legislature was no longer (as John Locke had thought is should be) confined to giving laws in the sense of general rules. *Everything* the "legislature" resolved came to be called "law", and it was no longer called legislature because it gave laws, but "laws" became the name for everything which emanated from the "legislature". The hallowed term "law" thus lost all its old meaning, and it became the name for the commands of what the fathers of constitutionalism would have called arbitrary government. Government became the main business of the "legislature" and legislation subsidiary to it."

"The term "arbitrary" no less lost its classical meaning. The word had meant "rule-less" or determined by particular will rather than according to recognized rules..."

"An omnipotent sovereign parliament, not confined to laying down general rules, means that we have an arbitrary government. What is worse, a government which cannot, even if it wished, obey any principles, but must maintain itself by handing out favours to particular groups. It must buy its authority by discrimination..."
~~~~~
I hate to be negative, but at this point, I fail to see any possible way to return America to a Constitutional form of government.

Anonymous said...

Good grief! I didn't realize that most of our leaders actually belong in jail. And you didn't even take into account the many who hide stolen money in freezers, etc.

You're so right. We live in a fairly healthy society led by sick people. That doesn't speak well for our future.

Anonymous said...

Thucydides on The Dissolution of Society.

Anonymous said...

We have failed to seek honorable leadership at all levels of government and let the incompetent enrich themselves with corporate salaries that could have fed entire counties with their excess. We have spit in the face of God and told ourselves that killing the unborn and the infirm is not only a good thing, but necessary. We hung men at Nuremburg for admitting they did the same.

We have believed that Presidents always have our best interests at heart. That is why we elect them. On that basis, I cannot tell you how much I appreciate (not really) Woodrow Wilson’s support of the organized crime outfit called the Federal Reserve. Then, there was Roosevelt’s communistic programs and the spread of US socialism in the 1930’s. There was Eisenhower’s leap into Viet Nam and then his great “lament” over the Military-Industrial Complex hold over our nation.

Kennedy continued Viet Nam, however, to his credit, he tried to print United States Notes instead of Federal Conspiracy (Reserve) Notes, and was then promptly assassinated. Johnson was a corrupt thug who killed tens of thousands in that awful conflict so he could play White House General. Nixon WAS a crook. Carter was a wolf in sheep’s clothing and a dumb one at that. Ford was missing a wheel or two. Reagan tried, but ultimately failed to make much difference. Bush #1 was a CIA new world order nut case. Clinton was a new world order nut case with a zipper problem, and Bush #2 hasn’t done much right, especially with regard to national borders, waging war and balancing the nation’s checkbook.

This is just the past 94 years. It was about this time that the United States began to flounder badly. It has never recovered. We are being prepared for what some would say are hugely overdue paybacks for our arrogant ways. Others would say that we are a misguided nation that simply does not know any better. Then there are those who say this is a Biblical ending to a really bad story. I have a tendency to agree with them all. No matter, the end result is the same. We are on the local express to a world gone to hell and there is little we can do to stop it.

http://www.newswithviews.com/Evensen/greg1.htm

Anonymous said...

The Club for Growth recently released their "2007 Congressional Scorecard." The usual suspects were listed at the bottom, but if any congressman gets the equivalent of an A these days it just goes to prove that they've starting marking on a curve.

Anonymous said...

It makes me sad to say that I believe you are 100% right.

joanie said...

I think what we have is more a situation of legislators with good intentions being caught in an impossible situation and taking the easy way out by doing what the mob demands.

John, I rarely disagree with you, but I vehemently disagree on this point.

I believe it boils down to a 'chicken or egg' argument.

I believe the public's clamoring for unconstitutional programs to be provided by government (healthcare primary among them) are a 'programmed response'.

Politicians, and the complicit media, pound away at certain issues until those issues inhabit the forefront of most Americans' minds. Then they proceed to surreptitiously suggest that it is the government's duty to solve the problem. Not the other way around.

Since Reagan, whenever I listen to a campaign speech, all I hear are promises that the government will confront these issues:

(1) healthcare
(2) jobs
(3) the economy
(4) the price of oil
(5) education

I suggest that the only major thing I want from my (federal) government is that they protect me from foreign enemies and maintain a structure for interstate commerce. The five 'problems' mentioned above would solve themselves -- or would at least follow free market pathways toward excellence, whether they achieve it or not -- if the government would simply respect the Constitution and get out of the way.

The fact that presidential candidates are discussing the ways in which government (on the backs of the American taxpayer, and at the expense of usurping yet more of his individual liberties) will confront the above 'problems' is in-your-face evidence of the fact that the Constitution is being dismantled.

The (sometime genuine, sometimes manufactured, sometimes magnified) 'crises' in healthcare, global warming, energy, education, and the like are all government-caused, and, more often than not, purposefully constructed so that government can create an ever-expanding role for itself in the 'solution'.

Consider the 'healthcare crisis'.

It is the government that has opened the door for all manner of frivolous lawsuits (thanks to their being in bed with trial lawyers), and made mandatory all manner of meaningless medical bureaucracy, both of which have been the major contributors to the crisis in medical care in this country. I personally know six dedicated, excellent local doctors who have been driven out of business by the cost of malpractice insurance. And a friend of mine who works as a nurse in the mental health/mental retardation field, has told me that a full half of the staff in her office is there to take care of federally-mandated paperwork, much of which is completely unnecessary.

But those who have created this 'crisis' have a convenient ally in the media, who have brainwashed the public into believing that the 'greed' of medical-related businesses (the drug companies, the insurance companies, etc.) are at the root of the problem, and that government (the real instigator, to begin with) will eventually have to ride in on a white horse and author a 'solution'. Talk about a Trojan Horse!

And that is just the tip of the iceberg. Many (if not most) on Capitol Hill are purposefully attempting to make the best healthcare operation in the history of mankind so burdensome that we will have no choice but to rely on government to 'fix the problem'. Enter nationalized healthcare, stage left.

And how about the 'energy crisis'? Who is it that has handcuffed exploration companies from tapping our vast reserves in ANWR, in the Gulf of Mexico, and off the pacific cost, just to name a few oil-rich areas? Who is it that has virtually forbidden the construction of refineries in this country for more than thirty-five years? Who is it that has made the construction of nuclear power plants almost impossible? Who is it that demands the scrubbing of even clean western coal, adding a prohibitive amount of cost to the use of even clean coal? And who is it that insists on instituting increasingly onerous regulations on the energy sector in the name of a semi-bogus crusade to protect the environment? All of these burdensome regulations have but two motives/sources: an anti-capitalist agenda, and an effort to increase the power of government over every American's life.

And, once again, the complicit media does its part by constant drumbeat reference to the 'greedy' oil companies.

Every aspect of the capitalist system is being painted with a broad black brush in the process of destroying that which makes us strong. And the government is being depicted as the problem-solver who will eventually step in and save us from the greedy capitalists. The end of our capitalist system (which is much closer than most of us think) will herald the realization of the socialist agenda. Fifty-plus years in the making, but never lacking in perseverance.

So much of what the average America sees as a 'crisis' in need of solving has been programmed into his blank-slate brain by a government, a complicit media, and an education 'industry', that have as their motives the destruction of the free markets, the incremental institution of socialism, and the setting in place of the federal government as the source of all decision-making power.

I believe that most politicians who run for office in 2008 simply want to be a part of that ruling elite. Those whose motives for seeking office are more altruistic are often horrified by what they have to face once they are seated in Washington. And many of them do not seek re-election, simply because they no longer want to be a part of such a corrupt system, and the recognize the fact that the ideologically-driven corruption is so deeply entrenched that it is all but futile to attempt to confront it. I suspect that the honorable J. C. Watts represents just the tip of the iceberg in that regard.

I believe that the majority of our 'leadership' in Washington consider themselves part of an irrepressible, self-serving elite, willing to do whatever is necessary (sell out our troops in Iraq, destroy our healthcare system, handcuff business and industry, increase our energy dependence on our ideological enemies, tax us until it no longer pays to be productive ... ) in order to increase the power of government.

While I agree with you that I fail to see any possible way to return America to a Constitutional form of government, I do not agree that the people have been the cause of our 'leaders' abandoning once good intentions. If we have done that, it is only because we have been used as an unwitting tool in the march toward the tyranny of this self-proclaimed elitist class.

Michael Crichton published an incredible book in 2004, entitled, 'State of Fear'. The book rests on the premise that our government is insistent on instilling in its citizens a constant state of fear, so that it can lay the groundwork for government solutions, and thereby eradicate liberties and institute tyrannical rule.

When the search for truth is confused with political advocacy, the pursuit of knowledge is reduced to the quest for power.

Crichton's 'fiction' is much more real than most of us would like to believe.

~ joanie

5/12/08 1:28 PM

Anonymous said...

Joan,

Amen!

Anonymous said...

I second Barry's "Amen!"

Anonymous said...

Joanie--

I guess my naiveté was showing. I was thinking of people like Rick Santorum, Tom Tancredo, Ron Paul, James Inhofe, and several others who seem to be "good guys".

Obviously, they're vastly outnumbered by the type of elected official you described.

Anonymous said...

Your list of "good guys" is a good one, Cooper. But you (and Joanie) are right. They're in a VERY small minority and they're fighting a losing battle.

Joanie, I like your term "programmed response." The public is "programmed" to scream for projects that the government wants them to want. A hundred years ago a politican talking about creating jobs or making sure that every American has health care would have been unheard of.

Good work.

Anonymous said...

Obama on Zionism and Hamas

"Israel is a constant sore."

Talk about frightening.

Anonymous said...

What frightens me the most about this election (and there's a lot of pick from) is that Barack Obama wants a neutered military. He's Neville Chamberlain with a tan.

Why We CANNOT Let Barack Obama Become Commander-in-Chief

Anonymous said...

And how about the 'energy crisis'? Who is it that has handcuffed exploration companies from tapping our vast reserves in ANWR, in the Gulf of Mexico, and off the pacific cost, just to name a few oil-rich areas? Who is it that has virtually forbidden the construction of refineries in this country for more than thirty-five years? Who is it that has made the construction of nuclear power plants almost impossible? Who is it that demands the scrubbing of even clean western coal, adding a prohibitive amount of cost to the use of even clean coal? And who is it that insists on instituting increasingly onerous regulations on the energy sector in the name of a semi-bogus crusade to protect the environment? All of these burdensome regulations have but two motives/sources: an anti-capitalist agenda, and an effort to increase the power of government over every American's life.

Joanie, see Victor Davis Hanson’s “How Oil Lubricates Our Enemies”:

http://www.victorhanson.com/articles/hanson050808.html

Anonymous said...

Joanie, for all the months I've been reading this blog I've pictured you as a highly intelligent, college-grad, hot 40-ish cowgirl type. With my luck, you're probably a hairless, toothless, 85 year-old, living in a nursing home in Brooklyn.

Don't tell me which is right, I want to hang onto my vision. ;)

Anonymous said...

There are some excellent arguments in this column and the responses. Thank you for all the food for thought.

Anonymous said...

Cooper,

Anything by Hayek is worth reading, even if it is a major effort. Thanks for the great quote.

Anonymous said...

GREAT BLOG!!!!!!!!!!

Anonymous said...

anonymous:
I haven't met Joanie, but I'm pretty sure she looks like this.

Anonymous said...

Thanks, Cooper. I KNEW she was a cowgirl type. They have them in every era. ;)