Say Anything Blog

The Death of Privacy

    Privacy is an issue on many minds these days.  We worry about the security of our most important information because identity theft is so prevalent, Joe the Plumber had his life laid bare before all because he asked a question of a presidential candidate, Sarah Palin had her e-mail hacked into.  We are concerned about warrantless wiretaps and the powers of the Patriot Act.  Perhaps in the back of our mind runs the movie “Enemy of the State” where the NSA easily pries into the life, and then tries to destroy, Will Smith’s character.  The fact is, Big Brother is watching and there is almost nothing we do that is not known, or could be known, about our lives.  Every transaction we make is or can be public knowledge.  If you buy gas with a credit card, BB can find out where you travel.  When you rent or buy a house, BB knows where.  BB knows how much you make and if he chooses, can find out what you spend it on.  And it is our spending that tells anyone who’s looking who we are from the foods we like to the books we read to the movies we watch to where we go on vacation.  Such information is already available to marketing companies so BB can easily access it.  Even your dropping in at the local quick mart to buy a candy bar with cash is recorded on video.  Outside of drug deals and yard sale purchases, private transactions are gone and with it, our liberty.  Today, knowledge is power and the more people that have knowledge of our business and lives, the less power we have as individuals.
    How did we get here?  We can answer with two names-Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt.  The income tax instituted under Wilson enabled the government to know everything it wanted about how we earned a living and established the idea that our money belonged to the government first and we were only allowed to keep the leftovers.  FDR gave us Social Security and the Social Security Number without which you can get nothing in this society.  That number and a credit score are the passports to the standard of living associated with the middle and upper class in this country and it is just such people of initiative and individualism that are a potential threat to the powers that be.
    Before you assume that I am writing from a bunker while hiding from the black helicopters, bear with me a moment.  In 1984 George Orwell correctly pointed out that collectivism is the only secure basis from which to establish and maintain an oligarchy.  Since long before 1984, it has been the desire of the liberal Democrat party to establish such an oligarchy and their willingness to pervert the democratic process, pack the unelected courts and bureaucracies with their own and their willingness to do anything to seize and maintain power demonstrate that desire.  Collectivism is the opposite of capitalism and the foundation of capitalism is individualism and the privacy that goes with it.  Now you may be thinking that Democrats and liberals are the champions of privacy.  They support a women’s right to choose and gay rights and they complain about the Patriot Act.  Sure, one can be “serviced” in the Oval Office, run a gay prostitution ring out of one’s home or have innumerable affairs and if you are a Democrat, that is “private”.  Play footsies in a public bathroom or send some suggestive e-mails, however, and that is “public”.  If you are part of the opposition, the Democrats and their willing accomplices in the media have no problem making what most of us consider private, public.  Forget the army of lawyers and investigators that descended like vultures on Wassila looking for anything on Sarah Palin.  Forget Rathergate, the FBI files found in the Clinton White House, RFK’s wiretaps, Wilson’s jailing of dissidents.  Look at what the Ohio democrat officials did to a private citizen who just happened to be playing football with his son when a democrat presidential candidate happened by.  If that does not demonstrate the Democrat party’s total disregard for our privacy, I don’t know what does.  It is obvious that to a liberal democrat, the “right to privacy” only exists as long as an individual poses no threat.  If such relativism doesn’t make us a “Banana Republic”, how are such things defined?   
    How have we fallen so far down this slope?  How could we let this happen?  Several reasons but they come down to two; convenience and a forfeiture of personal responsibility.  Privacy requires responsibility.  If we are responsible for our own physical and financial well being and accept the risks and rewards of such responsibility then why do we need the government?  Look at Wall Street.  Once upon a time investing in stocks and other financial intsruments was the purview of experts and sorcerers who knew the risks and accepted the consequences, good and bad.  Most people saved their money, put it into their small business or land or even gold and silver.  Banks weren’t even entirely trustworthy.  Since 1929, however, we have accepted the idea that the government should eliminate risk to our savings.  It began with the FDIC and Social Security and has ended with a Wall Street bailout.  The government has eliminated the downside of foolish or risky investing and by doing so has created crises and then stepped into to “save us”, only requiring more regulation, or now, nationalization, and with it our responsibility to know and understand our investments and risks, and our privacy.  The end result of this may be the elimination of personal retirement accounts as all the 401K and IRA monies are rolled into Social security.  All because we have willingly given up our freedom and responsibility over our finances and with it, our right to the privacy of our transactions.
    One more example.  We have given up responsibility for our personal safety.  I was recently listening to a debate over what to do to protect students in school from individuals that come in with guns to kill people.  (There is a section on school violence in “Memoirs of Former American”)  Living in Maryland, I hear the local news from Baltimore, a city with a high murder rate that has experienced a killing spree this fall.  Of course there was recently the terrorist attack in India that makes us wonder if such things may soon happen here.  When the threat of violence increases, we have two choices.  We can take steps to protect ourselves or place that burden on government.  If we place it on government, we need to move to towards a police state because with its current resources, government has shown itself to be woefully inadequate at protecting us from muggers, rapists, Mexican gangs and middle eastern terrorists.  Except for the last one, law enforcement is often unable, or even worse in the cases of illegal immigrants, unwilling, to prosecute the perpetrators and put them behind bars.  Do we really want to make Nancy Pelosi, Barak Obama and all the failed mayors of crime ridden cities responsible for our safety by giving them more money and power?  I don’t think so.  We need to be allowed to legally protect ourselves.  That includes liberal concealed carry laws and self defense laws that don’t prosecute people who do defend themselves against thugs.  Don’t you wonder why you never hear about rampant crime in places like the Mid-west or Alaska?  Places where people are, or can be, armed whereas in place like Washington DC, Baltimore or Philadelphia, places with very restrictive gun laws run by liberal Democrat mayors, are shooting galleries?  Most criminals are lazy cowards and if they think someone’s armed they will go to greener pastures.  In a society where everyone may be armed everyone is polite because no one wants to escalate stupid disagreements.  The point is, by giving up responsibility for our personal safety we give the government the right to take a lot more money and freedom and privacy from us in an attempt to make us safe that is doomed to fail because in the end, who is going to keep us safe from them?
    The Founders of this country were smart men.  They gave the government very limited power and gave the liberty and responsibility to the people.  As long as the people were moral and self-reliant, the system would work.  As our moral fiber and rugged individualism become things of the past, government grows and with it, the problems with big, totalitarian governments.  It is only by taking responsibility for our own success and failure that we will be able to live free and recover our privacy and in so doing, take power back from government.

Consumerism Gone Awry

    In case you hadn’t heard, we are in a recession.  Job losses continue to mount, the credit crunch is still with us, the government continues to debate how best to throw our money at the problem to make it all go away.  During this holiday season they are also encouraging us to behave like them as Fred Thomson so eloquently stated, tongue in cheek.  We all know that in our consumer driven economy, the Christmas season makes or breaks a large number of retailers.  If sales are good in December, they are in the black.  If people are not buying, the red ink spills and with it the lifeblood of our economy.
    A full seventy percent of our economy is based on you and I buying things, most of which we don’t need, things which will most likely be clogging our landfills in a few months.  It’s an economy that is based on a house of cards, however.  As Mr. Obama, whose understanding of economics normally encompasses socialist fallacies, correctly pointed out, if you and I stop spending a vicious cycle of job losses and decreased spending followed by job losses and decreased spending will result.  In a consumer driven economy, if we stop buying as much, business stop producing as much, people get laid off and those people spend less and the cycle repeats until it reaches some stable point.  This is nothing new, it’s called the business cycle.  Business expands and contracts based on the market forces of supply and demand.
    There are several things that make this time around different, however.  One is the nature of our consumption.  The expectation of the consumer today is to have the newest and the best of everything.  It used to be that having a new car or new furniture or a new television or even a new phone was something that happened once in a while and therefore demand for the new stuff was stable because people had to save for it.  Let’s say thirty percent of purchases were new things and most of them were produced here by small businesses.  In a downturn those purchases are cut in half to fifteen percent.  That hurts but it is not catastrophic.
    Things are different now.  Let’s say eighty percent of purchases are new items, it may be more.  Easy credit offered by everyone makes these purchases available (and more expensive) to everyone and even though the television you bought two years ago works just fine you are dissatisfied with it because we are conditioned to have the best possible.  More credit, more purchases, more credit, more purchases and at some point the credit runs out.  People are stretched beyond their ability to repay and begin to default.  Credit tightens and purchases slow.  Now if we cut new purchases by fifty percent we drop from eighty to forty percent and people that bought new are not going to buy used now because the stuff they have is currently better than used, it’s just not the newest and latest.  Easy credit for the purchase of new consumer goods is what brought on the great depression and we are in the same circumstances.
    Had things been able to follow the natural business cycle in 1930, the depression wouldn’t have evolved into the Great Depression.  What made that time and this, different, is government involvement.  Business doesn’t like uncertainty and FDR and the current congress and administration are introducing a lot of uncertainty.  Take the window company in Illinois where the employees sat in to receive wages owed.  The company blames Bank of America for refusing to extend their credit to meet payroll.  Now as a layman I understand that businesses need credit for some things; expansion, covering the expenses of large, unexpected orders, but weekly payroll?  Isn’t that a little like us buying our groceries on our credit card and then blaming the bank for our hunger when we max out the card?  If Bank of America looks at this business and doesn’t believe it will get its money bank, it is within its rights not to lend it, or it used to be.  Now the government steps in and forces Bank of America to lend because Bank of America was forced to take government bailout money.  So look at it this way.  The government has taken our money and forced Bank of America to take it and lend it to a business that is not going to be able to pay it back.  Does that make any sense to anyone?
    Easy credit and our insatiable desire for new things created the crash of 1929 and 2008.  Haphazard government intervention mad the crash of 1929 into the Great Depression.  Unfortunately, I don’t think we have learned our lesson.  In fact, our consumer driven economy and our attitude toward it and our government will make it much worse.  If we truly measure our value by our ability to purchase things then the length we will go to to ensure that ability (and our worth) remains unhindered are frightening.  As FDR showed us, the government is more than willing to step in and attempt to ensure our ability and the attempt to do so has demonstrated government’s complete lack of competence in the economic arena.  Today, we are even more likely to look to government to solve the problem, to ease whatever suffering we think we have and the current crop of politicians from both parties are more than happy to step in and do what they can.  All it costs is our freedom.  Is the newest and best really worth it?  If you think it is, read a book on the Soviet Union.

http://www.patricksamuels.com

Since “Black Friday”, the death toll for this Christmas shopping season stands at three.  One Wal-Mart employee trampled to death and two shootings in a Toys-R-Us.  In other parts of the world people die for religious zeal or providing basic necessities like food for themselves and their families.  In Europe they kill themselves over their enthusiasm for soccer and here in the USA, we die over televisions and toys.
    Of course the likelihood that one will die while Christmas shopping is very small.  You’re much more likely to be killed driving to and from the stores.  But driving is a risk we all take willingly, we all know that every time we get behind the wheel and venture out among our fellow drivers there is the chance that something bad may happen.  Usually, if something bad happens, however, it is not due to malicious intent, which is why we call them accidents.  Sure, someone may have been distracted on their cell phone or with their fast food but that is negligent stupidity, not malicious intent.  Most “accidental” deaths in this country fit into this category.
    What happened in these stores is another animal entirely.  It is more like a “feeding frenzy” among sharks.  One shark, out in the open, isn’t usually dangerous.  Put a group of them together and mix a little blood in the water and you’ve got an entirely different situation.  People are the same way.  Starving people sometimes do things they would not normally do to get food.  When a ship is going down we like to think it’s “women and children first” but that is not always the case.  The will to survive is a very basic drive in people and for all our morality and civilization, for all our “evolution”, when push comes to shove we revert to survival of the fittest.
  What does this have to do with shopping?  Nothing and everything.  In socialist western society the risk of starving or dying of exposure has been effectively removed.  In the US most people on welfare live better than the average European.  If basic needs were really a problem in this country, you would never see an overweight poor person.  Since the risk of death due to exposure and starvation have been removed, all our basic needs are met, we should all live as civilized people in harmony, right?  Isn’t that the promise of socialism?  If everyone is equal and has the same basic stuff, everyone will be happy.  No envy, no need.
    A long time ago I read a study about risky behavior in various civilizations.  The basic conclusion of the study was that if risk and uncertainty were removed from a society they would find ways of inventing and introducing their own.  The examples they gave were among pacific islanders who lived in what many explorers described as utopian settings.  In their settings there was plenty of food and the climate was far from harsh.  The environmental risks were negligible.  In order to introduce risk and uncertainty, one tribe had a “medicine man” who would occasionally kill someone for no reason.  It also concluded that because of the idyllic nature of New Zealand, the Kiwis were among the greatest risk takers in the world.
    We do the same thing.  We go to amusement parks or jump out of perfectly good airplanes to fool ourselves into believing we are risking our lives because it “makes us feel alive”.  We need risk and challenge in life to make us “feel alive”.  Every living thing on this planet wants to survive and thrive, it is only we who have the ability to feel satisfaction by doing so.  What socialism does, however, by removing the risk of failure is to cheapen the reward of success.  What satisfaction is there in winning a game that is fixed?  What incentive is there to try if those who do nothing receive the same reward? Yet within us is that desire for the satisfaction of accomplishment that only comes by taking genuine risk or overcoming real challenge.  If neither our physical or social environment provide that, we have to provide it for ourselves.  What was once a desire to provide food for survival now becomes focused on the acquisition of frivolous consumer goods.  The intensity our ancestors once brought to the hunt is now directed at 32” TVs and the intense competition for survival once felt from enemy clans and tribes is now directed at our fellow citizens.  The difference between hunting the mammoth and hunting for a bargain is that of degree and not substance.  That being true, it is no wonder that the veneer of our civilization is sometimes torn away in these situations and people are injured or killed, they “act like animals” as one witness said.  If we continue down this path of removing all risk in society by “bailing out” failure and forcing people to live safe, orderly, boring lives, we will continue to invent ways to introduce risk and stress whether through outlandish behavior (Hollywood crowd, professional athletes), neurosis, fighting at sporting events or killing people over toys.  Liberty is a natural and healthy state and an essential part of liberty is the freedom to succeed or fail on one’s own initiative.  When our initiative and sense of accomplishment is curtailed or restricted and the freedom of action is severely regulated, basic human drives are being tampered with and the results are never good.

Patrick Samuels
http://www.patricksamuels.com
Author of “Memoirs of a Former American”

One of the last places in America where the pursuit of excellence is encouraged and rewarded is in the sporting arena.  On the field of play, be it football, baseball, basketball, bowling or whatever, competition is celebrated and the desire to win and even dominate is standard.  There was a time, not too long ago, where this was normal in the economic sphere as well.  Amidst bailouts, nationalization and redistribution, I thought it would be interesting to consider what it would be like if we ran and regulated sports the way the government now taxes, regulates and manages the economy.
  Let us propose a game between the currently winless Detroit Lions and the undefeated Tennessee Titans.  It is a foregone conclusion that liberals would want the Lions to win the game.  Their self-esteem must be in the toilet, after all.  They must be feeling really bad and we need to turn those frowns upside down!  And who do those Titans think they are?  Do they think they’re better than every other team?  They probably cheated to win all those games.  It isn’t right that they made all those other teams feel so bad.  Everyone should be able to be a winner.
    When the coin is supposed to be tossed, the Titans are informed the coin is not going to be tossed.  The Lions will be receiving the ball first in both halves and the Titans will have to play into the wind the entire game, there will be no switching of end zones.  When the Titans kick off, they do so from the twenty to give the Lions an opportunity for a better return.  The Lions are allowed to play twelve men and have five downs to make a first instead of four.  On a pass play to the sideline, the Detroit receiver only got one foot down in bounds but the rule is changed on the spot to make it qualify as a catch.  Even so, hapless Detroit goes four and out and has to punt.
    The Titans get the ball and Kerry Collins’ first pass play goes for forty yards.  The Titans find out, however, that whatever yards are gained after ten, they only receive half of them.  A forty yard play now becomes twenty-five.  Receivers are being held on every play and the officials do not call it.  Even with the deck stacked against them, the Titans move the ball the length of the field and score a touchdown.  During Detroit’s next series, the Titans intercept the ball.  Three plays later they score another touchdown but they are informed that it doesn’t count.  The rule is that there can never be more than a one touchdown lead in the game.
    By halftime the score is seven to nothing even though Tennessee has been in the end zone four times.  They are frustrated and demoralized.  The Lions are taking advantage of the officials attitude and cheating without consequence, every time the Titans meet with success it doesn’t count, they seem to be working for nothing.  In the other locker room, the Lions are pumped up.  Even though they have only sixty total yards in the first half they are exited because they are only down one touchdown against the mighty Titans.
    In the second half, the Titans’ offense is flat.  No one wants to play hard anymore since nothing they do counts for anything.  Their first three possessions are three and out.  By the time Detroit gets the ball for the third time, the Tennessee defense is beginning to tire.  The Lions finally score touchdown.  The officials then inform the teams that since Detroit has such a hard time getting to the end zone, their extra point is going to be worth two points instead of one.  Tennessee now finds themselves one point down with four minutes remaining in the fourth.  Collins tries to fire up his offense and they begin to move the ball again.  With thirty seconds remaining they have moved the ball into the red zone.  As the clock ticks down, they line up for the game winning field goal.  The clock shows eight seconds left just before the snap.  Detroit calls a timeout but the officials do not stop the clock.  They let it run down and declare the game over.  Result; Detroit 8-Tennessee 7.
    The point of our little exercise is this.  The object of rules in a game is to create a level playing field where people can compete and gain success commensurate with their talent, hard work and a little luck.  If rules are only applied to one side, are changed in the middle of a game, skewed to assist one group at the expense of another or to punish success, no one is going to want to play the game.
    Thomas Jefferson rightly observed, “a wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.  This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.”  The purpose of government under the constitution was to provide a secure arena and basic rules for our endeavors and that was all.  It was not to assist one group at the expense of another or to punish those who were too successful.  If we really want to get us out of our economic malaise we will return to that which made America great.  We will reduce government control over the economy and our lives to Jefferson’s basics, stop subsidizing or punishing groups or industries with taxes and regulation and unleash the entrepreneurial spirit of man. 

Patrick Samuels
http://www.patricsamuels.com
Author of “Memoirs of a Former American”

Sugar Mountain, North Carolina June 27, 2031

    He knew they’d come, sooner or later, he knew they’d come.  The dogs were barking loudly now, and he knew the day had finally arrived.  As Carl Lee sat at his metal kitchen table in his small home in the mountains, he caressed the semi-automatic rifle before him. He had often wondered what would be going through his mind when he finally had to decide, when the choice before him was accepting a life of cowardice and bondage or if he would go out fighting for all he’d been taught to believe in.  Would he, in the end, bow to the powers he had held in contempt most of his life or would he die a free man with integrity and honor, alone on the side of a mountain.  If someone had told him thirty years ago he would be making this choice, he would have laughed.  This was America, the land of the free and the home of the brave.  This was the one place in the world where you were free to speak your mind, worship your God and defend your right to do it.  A lot had changed in thirty years.
    Thirty years ago the vision of America’s founders was on life support.  Twenty years ago it died.  A man’s money was no longer his own, even his body wasn’t his.  They told you what to eat, when to go to the doctor, how to piss in an environmentally friendly way.  Then his favorite talk radio shows went off the air and the gays were celebrating marriage in the local courthouse.  His own preacher was sitting in jail for hate speech because he had dared to condemn homosexuality from the pulpit.  People were angry and frustrated.  People like him who had no idea how a government elected by the people could do these things.  How could they vote away the right to speak freely?  How could they vote to kill babies and legitimize deviancy?  No one Carl knew wanted any of it.  Even when he saw the polls, most Americans didn’t want any of it yet the politicians in Washington just kept pushing ahead, doing whatever they wanted, the people be damned. 
    At first he figured, as did many others, it was just crazy liberal Democrats doing their thing.  There would be a backlash and things would be put right.  He should have known better.  Washington has a momentum all its own and once something gets started, there’s no stopping it.  Democrats, Republicans, it didn’t matter. Government got bigger and more intrusive every year and all the political promises to the contrary, it continued to this day.  This, of course, became obvious to a lot of people.  The few that had the means left.  But most, like Carl, believed this was their country and they shouldn’t be forced out or forced to accept all this garbage.  For a short time he held out hope in the secessionist movement.  He went to a few meetings and rallies but the numbers were never there.  Most people had become so dependant on Washington that they couldn’t imagine themselves willingly disengaging themselves from the government teat.  They were slaves and could no longer even comprehend the meaning of freedom.
    So Carl and others withdrew.  He bought this little place in the mountains.  He disentangled himself from government control as much as he could, the official notices detailing his non-compliance piled on the mantle a testament to that fact.  He still voted, hoping against hope the people he supported would turn things around, restore the liberty that once reigned supreme.  His final disappointment came with the gun ban three years ago.  He held up his Glock 9mm.  It, and all other handguns, were illegal.  Single shot hunting rifles were the only legal firearms and those only after an expensive permit was acquired.  How the second amendment could be so flagrantly disregarded was beyond him but he shouldn’t have been surprised since the first had been ignored as well.  Last year the supreme Court ruled the ban constitutional and everyone was given ninety day to turn in their guns.  That was when Carl decided to take his stand.  They had tried to muzzle him, they had taken more of his property every year, they tried to make him accept their health care and other services and he had resisted.  Now they wanted to take his right to protect himself.  If he allowed them to do it he knew he would be completely at their mercy.  He would be forced to rely on government for everything and he would have no power over the choices they made for him.  That was unacceptable in America regardless of what Washington said.
  The notices came first, then a visit from the sheriff who was a friend of his.  He warned Carl that if he refused to turn them over it would be out of his hands.  Carl understood.  He tried to live as he always did but somehow he had the feeling he was living borrowed time, like a cancer patient who had been given three months to live and was still alive ninety-one days later.  He heard scattered reports of other resisters being shot or carted off to prison.  The news rarely mentioned the incidents and when they did it was always the good government protecting the people from some nut.  He was not a nut but no one would ever know that.  He believed himself a patriot standing up for his rights against a tyrannical power.
  He started at a shot in the yard, followed by another.  The dogs no longer barked.  Carl gathered the two weapons and walked into the living room.  He sat down in the recliner, facing the door.  He put the Glock on the table beside him and cradled the rifle in his hands, pointing it at the door.  He began reciting the twenty-third psalm.  There was a knock at the door and the federal agents announced their arrival.  Carl paused for a moment and then shouted, “You can have my guns when you pry them out of my cold dead hands.  God bless America!”

If you enjoyed the story…..
You would also enjoy Memoirs of a Former American, a look at the next sixty years of American history.
   
Patrick Samuels
http://www.patricksamuels.com

Video at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxF-KjMExq4

On November fourth, the Year of our Lord two thousand and eight, the majority of the American electorate consciously chose to reject the vision of the founders for a constitutionally limited government whose sole responsibility was the protection of the rights we had been endowed with by our creator.  Instead, we the people elected a man and a party that believes what you earn does not belong to you and if you think it does, you are selfish and deluded.  We chose leaders who openly advocate using the power of the government to restrict the opposition’s right to free speech and everyone’s right to keep and bear arms.  The majority of the people did not care that the winning party engaged in electoral practices like phony registrations, cheating and intimidation, activities accepted in third world dictatorships, not in the supposedly civilized West.  To the majority of Americans, it did not matter that their president elect absorbed the rantings of an anti-American hate monger for twenty years, launched his political career in the home of a domestic terrorist or heaped praise on a man who thought it a good idea to kill as many Jews as possible.  We have chosen a man who voted for infanticide and has been endorsed by terroists and thugs.  We did not care that our president elect promised to bankrupt an American industry and cause our own electricity bills to skyrocket.  We have chosen a president who believes unabashedly in the Marxist formula of the redistribution of wealth and has promised to use the legislature and the courts to accomplish that goal.  We have empowered a party that thinks it a good idea to emasculate the military at a time when our enemies are seeking to destroy us.  We have elected a man who believes our foundational document is fatally flawed because its primary focus is on prohibiting the government from doing things to us instead of empowering the government to do things to and for us.  In this election the majority of the American people consciously choose a man and a party who reject the principles of the founders of our great country and openly embrace European socialism.  We the people have put the final nails in the coffin of American exceptionalism.  We have formally rejected liberty and responsibility and have chosen the warm embrace of the nanny state.  Will president Barack Hussain Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid be able to accomplish all they desire?  I hope not.  But the majority of the people in our great country believe they should and respect for the limiting power of our founding documents is gone.  Today the majority are celebrating at the funeral of the American ideal.  God help us all.

Patrick Samuels
http://www.patricksamuels.com
Author of “Memoirs of a Former American”

It occurred to me the other day, as I have looked, as I often do, at the lack of correlation between the size and scope of the Federal Government and the limits imposed on it by the Constitution, that there is an interesting practical and philosophical parallel between the value of the dollar in our society and that of the Constitution. 
    We have, in this country, what is called “fiat” money.  What that means is that the dollar is not attached to or backed by anything of real value.  Once upon a time, this country operated on money known as “specie” or coins that had real value, mainly gold and silver.  After the Civil War the federal government decided to standardize the great variety of paper money issued by banks or states with the dollar which represented a certain amount of gold.  If one had a dollar one could trade that dollar in for an equal amount of gold.  This is known as being on the gold standard.  Using money that had real value worked for this country until Franklin Roosevelt decided to change the entire face and scope of the federal government and this massive grab for power included taking gold out of circulation.  Theoretically, the currency was still backed by gold but gold could no longer be used in transactions because it was illegal to own.  During the Nixon administration even this fiction was eliminated.  The dollar is now worth…..what we think it’s worth.  No longer anchored by anything “real” the worth of the dollar fluctuates based on a variety of factors and has, over the long run, declined in value…considerably.
    For one hundred years the constitution was the anchor of our republic.  The warnings of the founders about a powerful central government were heeded.  President Jefferson said “In matters of Power, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.”  Like the dollar being chained to gold, our federal government was restrained by the Constitution and by the values, assumptions and fears of the founders.  It was the moral values of our Judeo-Christian heritage, the assumption that public service was to be just that, and the fear of a powerful central government that maintained the course of our country and bound men of ambition from “mischief”.
    Power, however, is a great temptation for those with even the best of intentions and the attempts to break the chains that restrained our government increased in intensity over time.  In the past hundred years Christianity has been attacked and removed from the public square, public service is rare and statesmanship is nearly unheard of as officials have been reduced to pandering to special interests to keep their privilege, and the fear of a strong and expansive central government has turned into an embrace.  Every time the federal government expanded its power, every time it took on a new role, we, as a people, made the conscious decision to remove the chains and unleash the beast.  Whereas the monster was once firmly secured to the rock that was the Constitution, we have now taken that role on ourselves.  We now have a picture of a fire breathing dragon, flying above our heads as we, like the Lilliputians of Gulliver’s Travels, are holding onto the ropes thinking we still have control. 
    The problem is we have now taken a progressive view of the constitution, we treat it as a “living” document.  It, like the dollar, now has whatever value we feel it does.  In reality, by treating the Constitution as a living document, we kill it.  By assigning whatever meaning to it we choose, we give it no meaning at all.  By seeking the “penumbras” we make its clear meaning and intent irrelevant.  Our government now takes on roles that even the majority of us wish it wouldn’t but once the beast is unleashed, its growth and direction eventually resist our power to control.  It is now lobbyists and special interests that feed the beast, determining its shape, size and direction.  We have been reduced to a helpless maiden, shrieking as the monster plunders and restrains us, hoping that occasionally our cries are heard, and the monster pauses, at least for a moment.
    The good news is that in a democratic republic, we get the government we desire if we have the courage and the fortitude to slay the monster.  Individually, there is little we can do.  Collectively, “We the people” still have the ultimate power.  We can say no to big government, no to excessive regulation, no to high taxes but we also have to have the resolve to say no to the largess we receive, we have to take back responsibility for our own lives, we must be brave enough to live as free people once again.  We have the power to grab the beast and chain it again to the rock of the Constitution but only if we put off the garments of the helpless maiden and put on the armor of the bold knight.  It is in our power to restore to this country the system of limited government that ensured our liberty as individuals and our greatness as a country.  The only question that remains, are there enough courageous people left in the “land of the free and the home of the brave” to join the quest?

What If America Elects a Socialist?

    This election is an historic one, there is no doubt about that.  But aside from the issues of race and gender, it is the principles and ideals at stake that have the potential to rapidly and fundamentally change the character of this nation.  For the first time in our history we may elect an avowed socialist.  Although vehemently denied by Senator Obama and his supporters, there is no question that he, and the Democrat leadership, have this goal in mind.  They have envied the enlightened “success” of European socialism and admired the likes of Fidel Castro, Hugo Chaves and, in the past, Joseph Stalin.  Since the days of Franklin Roosevelt they have become experts in class warfare, inciting the poor against the rich, the “middle class” being loosely defined so as to garner their support as necessary.  Senator Obama admitted in an unguarded moment with “Joe the Plumber” that he embraces the concept of redistribution of wealth; “To each according to his need, from each according to his ability” as Karl Marx said.  He and the Democrats believe, and have for a long time, that the Federal Government is the proper avenue for the solution to every problem be it health care, education, charity, mileage standards, free speech and anything else one can think of.  They have pledged to grow government, raise taxes on the successful to do it and borrow the rest.  They are supporters of the fairness doctrine, gun control, infanticide, and gay marriage.  If Senator Obama is elected and Harry Reid gets his senate super-majority there is no question that along with Nancy Pelosi, they will implement this agenda with a speed not seen since the New Deal and pack the Supreme Court with judges who will advance their ideals long after they are gone.
    If Senator Obama is elected, it will only be by the slimmest of majorities, just as all presidential elections have been in recent years.  If he is fortunate, he will get fifty three or fifty four percent of the vote and the press will declare it a landslide and say “The American people have spoken, we want socialism!”  But for the nearly half of us who will not vote for socialism, what are we to do?