Facing America's Change

The campaign slogan of our next president was "Change for America" but it took months to find out what he intended to change and how he intended to change it.  We had to deduce from little slips during debates and campaign speeches and conversations, which he thought were semi private but were virally published, that he had one huge agenda in mind.  Fundamentally changing America is a huge agenda.  An obscure radio interview released late in the campaign cycle revealed how huge, and how fundamental a change to which he was referring.  In that radio interview, he was talking about the extreme liberal Supreme Court under Justice Warren and how they had not gone far enough.  He felt they had made great strides in what government can't do but had missed their responsibility and opportunity to define what government must do for the people.  Expanding and developing the thought, he went on to explain that they should have ensured the government would redistribute the wealth.  He labeled it 'Redistributive Change.'  He intends to use his presidential powers to influence both the Legislature and the Courts toward that end.

In the words of President Elect Barack Obama  "I don't want to punish you for your success (Mr. Smallbusinessman) - but I think when you spread the wealth around it's good for everybody. "

"We need somebody who's got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it's like to be a young teenage mom, the empathy to understand what it's like to be poor or African-American or gay or disabled or old - and that's the criterion by which I'll be selecting my judges."   Barack Obama

Folks, the responsibility of judges is not to 'feel' for victims or plaintiffs.  The responsibility of judges is to ensure justice prevails.  If somebody steals my truck and takes it for a joy ride, I don't want a judge who 'feels' the economic injustice of the thief's monetary circumstances or his stress levels due to public rejection of his sexual preference.  Likewise, it is not the job of legislators to legislate philnathropy, giving away taxpayer's money and then call that economic justice.  Listen carefully, for every dollar of your money they give away, they have to charge you three dollars because its expensive to operate a bureaucracy. 

But that's not the worst of it.  For every dollar they take away from business, that's one less dollar that could be used to hire more workers or pay more for their workers' work, or invest in new business ventures creating new businesses and more jobs.  It doesn't increase available revenue for the bureaucrats to spend.  It actually reduces the amount they have to spend because it reduces the number of paychecks and sales for them to tax.  This is not a theory, but has been proven thanks to the work of Ronald Reagan.  I should clarify that statement.  Ronald Reagan's economic plan was exceptional because it worked.  Lower taxes increased tax revenue as he promised, because it expanded commerce.  More paychecks, more products bought, more taxes paid overall even though less taxes were paid individually.  The Conservative model of economic politics is to grow the entire pie so everybody benefits.  The Liberal model of economic politics is to take some of Paul's earnings to give to Peter to grow Peter's portion, but government has to hang on to 2/3 of what they took from Paul to pay themselves for doing such a fine job.  (approval rating hit an all time low of 9% under extreme leftist liberal control)   It does not matter to them that they are shrinking the whole pie to increase Peter's portion.

But this is still not the worst of it.  All that extra money they take from you and those business people is hurting the very people they claim to be helping.  Listen to this historian and economist debate an advocate for interventionism.

“To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.” — Thomas Jefferson, letter to Joseph Milligan, April 6, 1816

“A wise and frugal government… 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.” — Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801

“Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated.” — Thomas Jefferson

“The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. If ‘Thou shalt not covet’ and ‘Thou shalt not steal’ were not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society before it can be civilized or made free.” — John Adams, A Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America, 1787

“With respect to the two words ‘general welfare,’ I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators.” — James Madison in a letter to James Robertson

In 1794, when Congress appropriated $15,000 for relief of French refugees who fled from insurrection in San Domingo to Baltimore and Philadelphia, James Madison stood on the floor of the House to object saying:

“I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.” — James Madison, 4 Annals of Congress 179, 1794

“[T]he government of the United States is a definite government, confined to specified objects. It is not like the state governments, whose powers are more general. Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government.” — James Madison

There are brilliant economists who think like President Elect Barack Obama and their are brilliant economists who think like the authors of our founding documents, the framers of our system of governance.  The current argument from the progressive/leftist/liberal ranks goes something like this; "Isn't conservatism by definition trying to conserve the status quo? and doesn't that mean that you conservatives are stuck in the past?"  I rather believe the new way of thinking as those people who think like the founders (those men who wrought from whole cloth something that had never existed on earth since the beginning of civilization, a nation as much as possible, ruled by its citizenry) than those who think like every other form of governance from the beginning of theifdom and the liberal is still labeling the old way of thinking the "NEW THING."  (that the citizenry are too dimwitted to rule themselves)  Without a doubt, America is changing beyond recognition from its framers' ideals into the all too familiar, socialist, fascist state. 

A Prophet Warns America

Milton Friedman Interview: Three Categories of Freedom

One of the scariest things you will ever hear is, "Hello; I'm from the government and I'm here to help,"- Ronald Reagan

Thomas DiLorenzo - Interventionist Economics

Thomas Woods - Free Market & Housing Bubble

Mark Thornton - Interventionist Economics