Littlestuff Weekender-7-9-2011

What a great time to be in Ohio. Fairs and festivals abound. Fantastic food and fun can be found nearby.  Ethnic celebrations, Homecomings and product specific events challenge the taste buds and expand our waistlines, but what a way to go.

We continue to hear murmurs of a debt ceiling/ budget deal. We hear that the GOP will allow some tax increases if the President promises to reduce spending. The rumors may be trial balloons to gauge the backlash for republicans if they were stupid enough to agree to such nonsense. My sense is that a deal will be struck, Boehner will gloat and Reid, Obama and the lefties will cheat. Our path toward fiscal disaster and social upheaval will continue unabated, and millions who naively placed their faith in GOP career politicians will be dismissed once more. Also, they’re discussing $4Trillion in spending reductions for the next 10 years, but if annual expenditures exceed income by $ 1 trillion per year, we add another $6 trillion to the debt in the next decade…if (BIG IF) they stick to the plan and keep their promises.

Personal note: If my father were still with us, he would be 92 on Sunday. I miss him.

It may seem contradictory, but I believe that politicians should be humble. Yes, they must possess a high degree of self-confidence and assertiveness just to seek office let alone hold the post. Humility is an acknowledgement that the person does not have all the answers and is willing to listen, to research and to seek better solutions. The opposite of humility is arrogance, and too many career politicians have it in abundance. Some people may enter public office as humble servants, but the time served and trappings of power seem to transform them into arrogant buffoons who will not countenance dissent. They are dangerous. Almost as dangerous is the empty-headed populist who nods and grins his way through a crowd and votes with the same level of sincerity. Every movement is a calculated political action with no consideration for principle or consequences. Both the arrogant elitist and the populist opportunist represent the type of culture that must be eliminated from our political scene, or we will not have any hope of restoring sensible Constitutional government to our nation.

It seems to me that our national economic situation continues to become more fragile. The only glimmer of good news this past week was that the printing presses at the fed were running more slowly because commercial activity had slowed. Fewer fiat dollars into the system is a good thing because our high indebtedness plus the earlier radical printing and pumping of money lead us inevitably to inflation. The stopping of the presses if only for moment does mean that fewer worthless dollars are floating around.

You may have noticed (or not) that our column is now being written and posted three times (3x) per week (M,W,F) plus the Weekender. I hope that we can maintain your interest as we go forward.

As we noted last week, we are filling our speaking schedule for August through December. Our primary topics are Liberty, Nullification and the Fair Tax, but if you prefer another topic, we can research it and deliver it with adequate advance notice. I always include humor in my presentations because I recognize it as a valuable tool for attention and retention.

The radio show, Eye on Toledo on 1370 WSPD, 6:00pm-7:00pm, Tuesdays and Wednesdays seems to be growing as I encounter people nearly every day who listen. My goal is to examine current issues through the prism of liberty. Sometimes we see a rainbow, and other times it looks like the mirror in the funhouse. As always, I appreciate your calls or your comments to the email address at the end of this column.   www.wspd.com

I’m often asked for permission to repost or print the Littlestuff column. Anyone can post, reprint or forward any column, any time. All I ask is attribution.

Went in for a root canal yesterday afternoon and had a tooth pulled instead, so the pain killers are not working so hot. Have a great remainder of the weekend. Monday’s column will be “Paying for Parties.”

Comments:    cearlwriting@hotmail.com      or     www.littlestuff-minoosha.blogspot.com

Mental Muscle, Moral Courage

In times of national, familial or personal stress we often allow our “feelings” or reactions to get the better of us and the situation. We may lash out, withdraw or wallow in our victimhood. Each of these spontaneous responses is generated by our feelings…our emotions. When we encounter some aspect of government that directly affects us….for good or for ill, it is critical that we face the program or the activity with as much mental clarity as we can muster. We must be in our best conditioning for reasoning. We must exercise our mental muscles.

Let’s examine one of the most painful and obvious examples of unconstitutional governmental abuse. This program is clearly unconstitutional and given the way that it has been administered by government through the decades is also immoral. Yet, most people…even the hardest core fiscal conservatives do not want anyone to tamper with the program or to speak of ending it. The infamous “third rail” of politics is Social Security…the grandiose ponzi scheme that robs future generations of their legacy of liberty. I personally have heard self-proclaimed constitutional conservatives vehemently criticize fiscal hawks for “messing’ with their Social Security. They claim that because they have contributed for nearly all of their working lives, they are “entitled” to the benefits. They have earned them. Their sentiments may be true and justified, but we have no funded trust for retirees, and the nation is broke…busted…upside down. When the system began, nearly a dozen full-time workers were needed to fund one retiree’s benefits. Now three workers provide the necessary cash flow, and soon only two workers will be shouldering the load for their elders. The reasons for this change are several, but the dominate ones are increasing and more broadly distributed benefits, and the massive infusion of “Baby Boomers” into the system concurrent with several decades of smaller family growth.

So, Friends, who claim to be fiscal conservatives, it is time to pony up. You cannot in good conscience or with any moral basis whatsoever expect the nation to return to fiscal sanity if you are not willing to forgo your “entitlements.” Get over it. The programs that you cherish so dearly have not been funded for years. You bought the sizzle without the steak, and now you expect future generations to provide the steak with no sizzle for them. The people who follow you did not lie and over-promise. Why does your greed or self-interest become more important than the future generations’ survival? Before you begin gnashing your teeth, pulling your hair or slitting your wrists, think about the net result of eliminating the entitlement system.

Each company and every worker would have an additional 7.5% (rounded off for illustration purposes) net income available for assisting family members in need. The additional cash-in-pocket amount would accelerate the economy, thus providing even more activity and availability for assisting or charitable giving. You might say,”But they won’t help me.” Perhaps, but your odds of collecting real money from the government are shrinking every day, every hour. In addition to the instant economic boost achieved by eliminating certain entitlements, we would also gain the added benefit of losing a volatile wedge issue for the big spending politicians. The demagoguery on this issue alone has contributed mightily to our economic death spiral. Do the math with an objective mind. You may take a hit, but it won’t be as great as if you continue to insist on “everything that you have coming to you.” One other economic benefit is that if we eliminate all those fiat government dollars chasing food supplies, we should experience some leveling of the food inflationary trend.

Emotional responses are powerful, and the survival instinct is too. This debate that is going on today revolves around the nature and purpose of government…its role in our lives. My Libertarian preferences are clear. I want the federal government to fit in a shoebox and be strictly limited to its Article 1, Section 8 enumerated powers or duties. Many of you readers are not libertarian but do proclaim yourselves to be constitutional conservatives except for…..Social security, Medicare, farm subsidies, corporate incentives, home mortgage tax breaks… any number of government programs or benefits that help YOU. As much as I care for you, your bennies are bad just like welfare, foreign aid, unnecessary wars, bailouts, sweetheart deals, and all other over reaching aspects of government goodies….and control. Many of us have become like crack addicts in the drug dens of benign government, and … we’re dying because of our unwillingness to kick our habits. As libertarians, conservatives, tea party members and patriots you (we) must be committed to going “cold turkey” from government’s largesse. It’s a big step, but it does not match pledging “our lives, our fortunes or our sacred honor.”

If we are truly serious about restoring limited constitutional government, the task must begin at home.

Comment:    cearlwriting@hotmail.com      or      www.littlestuff-minoosha.blogspot.com

  

UofA vs. EPA

In these perilous times for our nation and several of our states and communities, it seems as if new fissure points are deepening in our civil structure. For several decades union membership in the private sector has been declining as our heavy manufacturing industries have relocated to right-to-work states, moved offshore or upgraded to highly automated facilities. The labor unions, thirsting for the constant inflow of dues money, have shifted their focus toward retail establishments, service jobs and public sector employees to maintain their accustomed level of financial and political viability. Overall union membership continues to decline as a percentage of the population, but the militant unionization of the public sector has dramatically altered the dynamics of labor-management relations. Public sector employees negotiate their contracts with unelected supervisors and elected officials who can claim to be neutral even though many of them receive campaign contributions and union-based volunteers at election time.

Because of the dwindling private sector union base, the public sector organization efforts have become more robust and intense. This development, I believe, will become a self-defeating movement for public sector labor and for taxpayer-supported government. By unionizing public sector employees at a dizzying rate, unions have placed the civil service rules of the past century on steroids regarding the government’s ability to remove ineffective or corrupt workers. Many union contracts have constructed various hurdles and barriers to protect the unworthy employee, thereby requiring that others be hired to do the work that doesn’t get completed.

In addition, by funneling millions of dollars of campaign contributions and thousands of campaign “volunteers” into the election efforts of liberals and progressives (primarily), the unions are contributors toward the massive growth of government that so many of them are lusting for. Growing governments yield exploding bureaucracies that exceed the abilities of the political class or the people to control them. The union, nevertheless, is somewhat satiated because of their increasing rolls in the public sector even though their numbers for growth appear to lag behind the private sector losses. So, how many “good-paying middle class jobs” has an overzealous Environmental Protection Agency cost our nation, our local communities….and the unions who organized the laborers? How many union jobs have nit-picking bureaucracies from the entire spectrum of government, controlling departments lost because of their senseless oversight policies? While union leaders and their fundraisers scamper to expand their reach in the public sector, they continue to place private sector jobs at risk. Union members should ask their elitist, socialist-leaning organizers why they insist on killing or maiming hefty private sector jobs so they can squeeze more money for their political cronies.

Private sector workers must realize that their “leaders” are not looking out for them or their welfare. They are merely exchanging public and service dues-paying members for the losers who built their organizations. Every time some big-government rule from the bureaucracy impedes a private sector employer from growing or functioning well, a laid-off or ‘pink-slipped” union employee may be the ultimate recipient of the Big Brother overreach. Big government increases the tax burden for private sector union workers and places their jobs in jeopardy by over-regulating, over-licensing and bureaucratic foot dragging. Big Government’s inherent hostility toward the private sector has undermined its capacity for growth and prosperity…thus diminishing good job opportunities for the workforce.

It should be noted that a labor union wields the most power when it represents skilled workers in a labor-shortage environment. The union leadership’s efforts to organize service and retail workers will fill their financial coffers, but will not result in significant gains for the members. Maids, clerks and wait staff can be hired off the street after a couple of day’s work stoppage. It is more difficult to hire machinists and mechanics because so few people possess the requisite skill set. It seems, therefore, the modern movement to bolster union membership in the public sector could be the saving grace for a dwindling private sector group. The unions may be signing their own death knell with their new emphasis. Private sector workers may finally get a clue, and ignore or dismiss the leaders who have undermined them by promoting big government and massive bureaucracies. The public, the taxpayers, the people may withdraw or resist the expansionist efforts of the unions and big-government advocates.  The basket of tolerance can hold only so many eggs of higher taxes, government indebtedness and bureaucratic meddling before the eggs begin to break. The people’s discontent may rise to the point that the entire public sector will be either radically restructured or become so powerful that there will be no one remaining to pay the freight. Either way, the Marxist-leaning unionist’s strategy may backfire….as it should.

Comment:   cearlwriting@hotmail.com      or     www.littlestuff-minoosha.blogspot.com

Celebrate and Endorse

www.archives.gov July 4, 2011

The Declaration of Independence: A Transcription IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776. The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world. He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people. He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within. He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands. He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers. He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance. He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation: For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States: For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world: For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury: For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies: For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments: For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation. He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands. He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions. In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends. We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor. The 56 signatures on the Declaration appear in the positions indicated: Column 1 Georgia: Button Gwinnett Lyman Hall George Walton Column 2 North Carolina: William Hooper Joseph Hewes John Penn South Carolina: Edward Rutledge Thomas Heyward, Jr. Thomas Lynch, Jr. Arthur Middleton Column 3 Massachusetts: John Hancock Maryland: Samuel Chase William Paca Thomas Stone Charles Carroll of Carrollton Virginia: George Wythe Richard Henry Lee Thomas Jefferson Benjamin Harrison Thomas Nelson, Jr. Francis Lightfoot Lee Carter Braxton Column 4 Pennsylvania: Robert Morris Benjamin Rush Benjamin Franklin John Morton George Clymer James Smith George Taylor James Wilson George Ross Delaware: Caesar Rodney George Read Thomas McKean Column 5 New York: William Floyd Philip Livingston Francis Lewis Lewis Morris New Jersey: Richard Stockton John Witherspoon Francis Hopkinson John Hart Abraham Clark Column 6 New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett William Whipple Massachusetts: Samuel Adams John Adams Robert Treat Paine Elbridge Gerry Rhode Island: Stephen Hopkins William Ellery Connecticut: Roger Sherman Samuel Huntington William Williams Oliver Wolcott New Hampshire: Matthew Thornton

Page URL: http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html

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