Individual Liberty — Individual Responsibility 

<< Older Posts     

Looking for a job?

My friend Karma forwarded this to me. While I have nothing against free trade, this is a fairly populist notion of why there are so few jobs available. The real problem is that the business climate in this country is pathetic. With financial markets under attack by the current Congress and administration, and uncertainty about taxes, fees, and the government mandates regarding health care, it’s just too hard to know whether it will be a good economic bargain to hire people.

But I figure we can all use a bit of humor.

Looking for a job?

Tony started the day early, having set his alarm clock (made in Japan) for 6:00 AM. While his coffeepot (made in China) was perking, he shaved with his electric razor (made in Hong Kong).

He put on a dress shirt (made in Sri Lanka), designer jeans (made in Singapore), and tennis shoes (made in Korea).

After cooking his breakfast in his new electric skillet (made in India) he sat down with his calculator (made in Mexico) to see how much he could spend today.

After setting his watch (made in Taiwan) to the radio (made in India) he got in his car (made in Germany), filled it with gas (from Saudi Arabia) and continued his search for a good-paying American job.

At the end of yet another discouraging and fruitless day checking his computer (made in Malaysia) he decided to relax for a while. He put on his sandals (made in Brazil), poured himself a glass of wine (made in France), and turned on his T.V. (made in Indonesia). Then he sat there wondering why he can't find a good-paying job in America.

Now he's hoping he can get help from his President (made in Kenya).

Well... I found it funny anyway.

Revisiting "The 545"

A good friend of mine that I used to work with and who helped me out in my racing efforts some time ago passed around the latest incarnation of Charley Reese’s “The 545” today. It reminded me that I had seen it a couple of years ago – the thing about it is what Charley Reese wrote back in the 1980s still resonates today – with a little tweaking to keep events current. Realizing that I’ve decided to repost what I wrote about it then.

There’s one thing that’s missing from Charley’s article, as well as my posting below though. While it’s true that 545 people are responsible for most of what our government does – assuming they’ll take the responsibility and the blame (as well as the credit that they’re oh so happy to claim) for what they do – It’s also true that Congress and the President are only responsible for a small amount of what our federal government is into anymore.

Charley neglected to mention, and I did as well, the federal bureaucracy. While Congress may draft huge bills these days in their sweeping attempts to re-regulate this and control that, the federal bureaucracy is a vast army of clerks, middle managers and the like that end up drafting regulation after regulation affecting just about every aspect of our lives. These regulations often carry the force of law – and NOBODY votes for or against them. If there’s anything that needs reform even more than Congress it’s this system of bureaucrats running our lives without anybody’s advice or consent.

What exists is what we want to exist

My dad sent me an interesting article titled "The 545" via email attributed to a Florida Reporter named Charley Reese. [Update: I read a few of Charley's articles. He's not a modern-day conservative, but rather a paleoconservative with some libertarian ideas. His more recent writing sounds decidedly like some of the things the Democratic party has been saying of late. Even so, he's occasionally right.] I found it to be an interesting and spot-on read.

The original publication date is unknown, but it was reportedly originally published in the Orlando Sentinel Star newspaper. From the context, it was written many years ago (Tip O'Neill is referred to as the Speaker of the House, which dates that article at least back to the 1980s). I think it's still relevant today.

Just from the number 545, I'm sure you can guess who he's referring to. If not, he spells it out.

One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president and nine Supreme Court justices - 545 human beings out of the 235 million - are directly, legally, morally and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.

There are some interesting points in the article that struck me. Who do you think is responsible for the national debt and for deficit spending? Who's responsible for the federal budget?

Often times, we hear that "under Reagan" we had massive deficit spending. We hear that "George W. Bush" brought back deficit spending. Why is it that the President is given the blame when our federal government outspends it's revenues? What gives William J. Clinton the gall to take credit for the revenue surplus during his Presidency?

The president can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it. The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating appropriations and taxes.

The version of the article my dad sent me is modified somewhat from the original. It doesn't reference Tip O'Neill for one. Instead it refers to the Speaker of the House as "She", obviously meaning Nancy "the felon" Pelosi. Rather than referring to the marines being in Lebanon, the updated article refers to Iraq.

Isn't it interesting, how with a few minor changes this old article still applies?

It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million cannot replace 545 people who stand convicted -- by present facts - of incompetence and irresponsibility.

I can't think of a single domestic problem, from an unfair tax code to defense overruns, that is not traceable directly to those 545 people.

When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.

If the tax code is unfair, it's because they want it unfair. If the budget is in the red, it's because they want it in the red. If the Marines are in IRAQ, it's because they want them in IRAQ.

"It must follow that what exists is what they want to exist."

Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exist disembodied mystical forces like "the economy," "inflation" or "politics" that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.

Those 545 people and they alone are responsible. They and they alone have the power. They and they alone should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses - provided they have the gumption to manage their own employees.

Have we got that gumption? There are 300 million of us and 545 of them. In a representative republic we ought to be able to choose more honest leaders than the ones we've been choosing for the last several decades.

The names and the places may have changed, but politics in Washington hasn't changed in over 50 years. The fact that we keep choosing scoundrels to represent us tells me something about the American people…

"It must follow that what exists is what they want to exist."

For a people that seeks change, as the popularity of Barack Obama suggests, we keep putting the same type of scoundrels into office. Shame on us all.

With President Obama's popularity down to an all time low and disapproval - even anger at the federal government's policies running at over 80% perhaps the people will finally do something about it. Nobody else can - unless the Chinese decide to call in our debt.

It’s a nice place to visit but...

About ten months ago I lost a job that I had held for several years. I hadn’t really enjoyed working where I was for most of two years before that, but being unemployed made a change in my life that I didn’t really like. Shortly after I left, my former boss lost his job. Other people working for the same company started losing theirs too.

Getting a new job took me close to eight months, the longest time I had been without work in my adult life. I sent out thousands of copies of my resumé and got very few hits. I became a member of more than a couple of job search sites. I talked to my network of former coworkers. In all that time I ended up interviewing for maybe four jobs.

The first one was just a month or so after I re-entered the labor market. I ended up spending about three months talking to those people. I went to multiple interviews with them. They brought people across the country to talk to me. Near the end of the process things were looking pretty good – and their funding dried up. I never heard from them again. It was also near the end of that particular process that I ended up talking to two other potential employers.

One would have required me to move across the country – and I was actually looking forward to it. Betty and I have wanted to move to the East coast for a while now. Still, that job didn’t pan out either. Ultimately the company I would have ended up working for simply expanded the territory of one of their existing consultants. At least they let me know what had happened.

The other was a very short term thing – possibly producing a prototype of a new software product. Unfortunately the man that had that project had funding problems as well. He had a great idea for a product. Hard economic times just didn’t allow him to develop it.

And then I started talking to some people in Utah. Interview after interview – phone call after phone call. Something clicked with them and with me, and they decided they wanted me on their team. Then the real work started. Background checks, drug screening, information disclosure forms. It took weeks. Worst of all, I was afraid that something would turn up and they would decide that I wasn’t really suitable for the job.

No, I wasn’t worried about a positive drug test. No, I never lied in any of my applications or anything like that. But my prospective employer was a big banking firm and they had a tougher screening process than I went through getting a government security clearance for my first real job, and I have led a less than exemplary life from time to time – including … well we’ll not go there OK?

Still, the day came and the job turned out to not only be real, but it was mine. The only hitch was I’d have to relocate to Utah for the duration of the contract – about a year. My younger son was finally doing better in school – and liking it. Betty and I decided that there was just no way we could uproot him for us all to move out to Utah. And so here I am in a small studio apartment/hotel room for the next year while my wife is back home in Washington.

Utah has some lovely scenery. It has seasons. It has work (and it’s a really nice job too). But it doesn’t have my wife and family. Oh, I have aunts and uncles and cousins here, but that’s not quite the same. I’ve got a web camera and so does my wife (gifts from my mother this past Christmas), so I can see her from time to time, but it’s still not the same.

Fortunately I’ll be able to return home occasionally. I’ll be home for a couple of weeks at the end of next month (but I’ll still have to work remotely, and attend my meetings by telephone – at six-thirty in the morning for the first meeting). That’ll be much better I think, actually seeing my wife in person and spending evenings with her instead of alone.

The way I understand it, the unemployment rate has been hovering around 10% for most of a year. The rate of people that don’t have work but have given up looking is even higher – hovering around 17% to almost 20% and has been that way for a while too. I’m grateful to have a job – even if it does take me away from my family for a while.

But I really pray that the people in this country wake up to the cold hard facts and dump these tax-and-spend politicians that have sapped the heart of our economic prospects in the name of bigger government and “things that are too big to fail”. The only sector of our economy that seems to really be growing is government. There seem to be plenty of jobs there – paid for at the expense of private sector jobs.

The stimulus plan needs to be scrapped. The unspent money needs to be used to pay down the national debt, and we’ve got to stop spending money hand over fist. The idea of punishing success through punitive taxation has to be scrapped too. You’d think by now that we’ve had a fabulous demonstration of how poorly it works at resolving our unemployment problems. At the same time, we’ve got to stop rewarding failure through “tax credits”and “bailouts”.

Everyone knows how to train animals. You reward them when they do what you want and you punish them (gently) when they do what you don’t want them to do. Either the statists in our government want the economy to fail or they’re simply to stupid to understand the principle of reward and punishment. The people need to learn too that we can’t keep rewarding Senators, Representatives, and Presidents that continue to fail us by re-electing them.

Please wake up this election cycle people. Utah is a great place to visit but… well, you get the picture. Still…

… I’ll do what I have to for my family.

Oh look! A squirrel!

Sometimes I wish that we didn’t have all of the modern technology that we enjoy. When I was a very young boy we didn’t have a television – at least not that I can remember for a long time. We had radio and LP recordings. We had books, and we had toys – real, physical toys. If we were bored, we read or we went outside to play.

I remember my parents’ stereo set. It was bigger than the table that I have my printer, monitor and keyboard on now. That’s it behind my brother in this photo (yes, this was a long time ago).

Give it enough time though and technology creeps into our lives until we think we can’t do without it. There’s the television front and center in the room one Christmas morning. We’d had it for a while – a small black and white set.

My dad had an interesting way of preserving historic events. In 1969 when men landed on the moon, my dad recorded it – with his camera. Yes, I know it says “Live Color TV Pictures of Moon”, but we only had a black and white TV. Still, technology was really on the move.

Yesterday, I played World of Warcraft on my computer in my room in Woods Cross, UT. My son was playing at the same time on his laptop in Covington, WA. We were both watching the Super Bowl, shooting “leper gnomes”, bears, and snow leapards in the imaginary land of Dun Morogh – just outside Gnomeragon and Brewnall Village. I’ve got a big screen projection TV at home that he plays other video games on at times. I’d guess it’s five times the size of that old stereo, and my stereo fits in my pocket.

At home we can pause live television and re-wind it if we miss something. I used to pause whatever I was watching when there was too much noise in the house. We’ve got DVDs, MP3 players, headphones, computers, and all sorts of gadgets. I receive about 150 e-mail messages a day on my personal accounts (only about 20 or so are spam) – not to mention the e-mail I get at work. I’m sitting behind a computer monitor for ten to twelve hours a day. It seems anymore that it takes a special event to get outside.

Unless the electricity is working and the internet is up – my kids are bored. Even with them both available sometimes they’re still bored – or at least they complain that there’s nothing to do. Pink Floyd was right. “Got thirteen channels of shit on the T.V. to choose from.”¹ Well, it’s more like 250 channels anymore and there’s seldom anything worth watching. Even as I write this I’m listening to the “Celt in a Twist” podcast, doing a search on the Internet to verify the lyrics I just quoted, updating my iPhone’s OS and downloading a few more podcasts – even though my internet connection is dog slow.

With all of the entertainment devices we have today is it any wonder we’re putting on weight? Forgetting our history? Losing touch with one another? Losing touch with the world?

- Oh look! A squirrel!

Interestingly enough, as I'm lamenting the sapping of our intelligence and imagination that comes from too much info-tainment The Hill's RSS feed is touting The need for broadband Internet adoption. I don't believe in coincidence. That's all we need, another NGO lobbying our government to pursue yet another program we don't really need government to get involved in.

And finally, some GOOD news. Thanks to the snow in Washington D.C. there will be no votes tomorrow in the House of Representatives. Climate Change finally does something good for the United States. While our Congress is out playing in the snow they aren’t doing anything to make our economy even worse – even if it’s only for a day. But wouldn't you know it... Steny Hoyer made the announcement via Twitter!

How to advance a statist agenda

The (modern) conservative believes that our nation was founded upon some very simple principles and that those principles happen to be the same principles that (modern) conservatism is based upon. (Modern) conservatives revere the Declaration of Independence, the United States Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. A (modern) conservative believes that these documents promulgate and are based upon the concepts of individual liberty and limited government.

I can’t presume to tell you what the (modern) liberal believes. In doing so all I would really be doing is propping up a straw man to knock it down. Anything I as a (modern) conservative have to say about their motivations would be purely speculation. What I can tell you about (modern) liberals is the direction they have been taking our nation.

I use the word “modern” in parentheses when I am talking about liberals and conservatives in the above paragraphs because the meaning we give to those words today is somewhat different from what it was sometime in the past. It used to be that believe in individual liberty and the inalienable rights of man was a liberal viewpoint. Back in the 1930s today’s liberals would have been called “progressives”. Mark Levin calls them “statists”. I think these two terms are much more accurate ways to describe the (apparent) motives and actual actions of (modern) liberals.

One of the principal differences between liberals and conservatives these days is centered around the role of government in our lives. The liberal (apparently) sees government as the answer to the problems that beset our society and the conservative sees government as a necessary means to preserving ordered liberty. The conservative believes that individual ingenuity and industry can overcome the problems we face – provided that unnecessary roadblocks to innovation aren’t put in our way.

As I have said before, the conservative believes in the unalienable rights of the individual. The conservative believes that these rights come from his creator – and not merely from the mind of man. The Declaration of Independence declares that it is the purpose of government to secure these rights – Life, Liberty, the pursuit of Happiness, and that governments are established among men for that purpose. Clearly the founders believed that those rights exist outside of government – and not as something that comes as a consequence of being governed.

Today’s liberal seems to view the rights of the individual as a problem rather than as a gift from our creator. The (liberal) environmentalist appears to believe that the “crushing” numbers of people are destroying our environment – and there is some evidence that in certain areas this is indeed the case. Go to a national park today and observe the structures you’ll find there. If there are old farmhouses preserved in the parks, take a walk through – and tell me what you find. I’m willing to bet that just about anywhere you go you’ll find evidence of some thoughtless individual “leaving his mark” – whether it be in graffiti drawn with a marker or spray can; or a name and date carved into picnic tables or the walls of ancient buildings; or simply fast food wrappers tossed into a corner. Obviously such defacing of public property is a criminal act deserving of punishment – and yet even in the face of stiff fines it continues to this day.

Faced with this the liberal seems to seek more government regulation – not just with regard to our national parks – but with regard to all of the environment – even parts that he cannot enjoy without trespassing on someone else’s property. Private property rights must be abridged in the name of preserving the environment (ask me about King County Washington’s “Critical Areas Ordinance” sometime if you don’t believe me).

Ah, but the founders considered property and liberty to be of one cloth. John Locke reasoned in his “Second Treatise of Government” that men left the “state of nature” to form civil societies in part to protect their property and liberty from the depredations of others. For the (liberal) environmentalist to have his way the rights of the individual must be suborned by the government. This certainly doesn’t sit well with conservatives. Recall again (I can’t stress it enough) the notion that our unalienable right to liberty (and according to Locke therefore our right to property or those things which we take from the “commons” and make our own by our labor) comes from our creator, and not from our government. To weaken that argument the statist must attack the very notion of a creator – and repudiate the words of our founders.

Let’s consider an example – the first amendment to our constitution. Let’s read it shall we?

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

This amendment is, on the face of it, a restriction upon the power of Congress. It says “Congress shall make no law… respecting an establishment… or prohibiting … or abridging”. In plain English, Congress cannot establish a government sponsored religion. Just as Congress cannot establish a religion, neither can it make a law that prohibits the free exercise of religion. This is a conservative viewpoint of the first part of this amendment.

A “liberal” viewpoint of this part of the first amendment is quite different though. Do you see anywhere in the text of the first amendment (quoted in it’s entirety and in it’s original language above) any mention of “a wall of separation” between “church and state”? And yet, this is what I am told by some liberals that the first amendment means. Today the first amendment is used to prohibit people from praying in a public venue – surely a prohibition on the “free exercise” of religion.

Much is made of the “wall of separation” that Thomas Jefferson described in his letter to the Danbury Baptists, and yet it is plain to see from their own words that the founders believed that for liberty to survive the people needed to attend to their relationship with their creator – who gave them their unalienable rights in the first place. They believed that without moral convictions and virtue the people would easily be led astray and that corruption would eventually overtake the government to the ruination of everyone’s liberty.

Faith in a creator and the belief that one is accountable to Him that made us puts constraints upon individual behavior. Whether those constraints come from fear of punishment or from a desire to please the creator they still exist. Such faith constrains us to take a moral course in our lives, to hate corruption and to deal honestly with one another. It inspires us to work hard to solve the problems we are faced with. It also re-affirms our faith in the gifts that He has given us – especially our unalienable rights to Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.

Unbelief removes those moral constraints on our behavior. Whether the unbelief is because of open hostility toward the idea of moral accountability or from ignorance is immaterial. Without a belief in the creator how then is there a need for moral behavior – except where the fear of society’s censure and punishment impells it? Without a belief in the creator how then can our unalienable rights to Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness be any such thing as gifts from Him? Why surely without a creator they must be inventions of mankind and therefore not unalienable.

Statists, or progressives, or socialists, or today’s (modern) liberals have always sought bigger government at the expense of the individual. In order to advance a statist agenda, the liberal must overcome resistance to it from many areas. Since the statist agenda typically involves restrictions on individual liberties the notion that those liberties are fundamental to our nature must be repudiated. This requires the erosion of faith – accomplished by pushing it out of the public square. This is also achieved by re-defining individual rights “in terms of a changing and growing social order” as Franklin D. Roosevelt put it in the 1930s.

Since the statist agenda inevitably involves increased government oversight over our lives Constitutional restrictions on what the government may do must be overcome. When Roosevelt was unable to advance his agenda he overcame his opposition by threatening to pack the courts with Judges who would interpret the Constitution as a “living” document holding whatever meaning he wished it to have.

It is no wonder that liberals portray conservatives as mere obstructionists. In terms of the statist agenda we have to be. We must because that agenda attacks all that we believe in at it’s most fundamental level. Unless and until we wake up to this fact and can demonstrate it to the public liberals will succeed in demonizing conservatives and conservatism. The liberal talks of “getting things done” in government. Often the conservative must “get things undone” if we are to retain our freedoms.

They’ve taken the language from us – changing the meaning of so many things – including the terms conservative and liberal. It’s time we took it back. It’s time we “got a few things done” like protecting our liberties.

If you want to really know a conservative point of view – simply ask when any topic comes up - “how will this affect individual liberties, especially in terms of our unalienable rights”. If it will affect them adversely then it’s not a part of a conservative agenda.

Originally published on another web site that I am no longer affiliated with.

<< Older Posts