Friday, December 25, 2009

The Need To Restore Morality In America

"The only foundation for a useful education in a republic is to be laid in religion. Without this there can be no virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty and liberty is the object and life of all republican governments." So proclaimed Benjamin Rush, one of the Founders of the United States and found in his work "On the Mode of Education Proper in a Republic" written in 1806.

Rush and the other Founders of this nation, despite today's pronouncements by the Progressives, were believers in God, Providence, religion and the need to adhere to religious and moral principles. Today we and most importantly our children are told that such things as religion and morals are passe. That is not the case and indeed following the godless, unethical and immoral Progressives may be the reason we are in the shape we are in today in our great nation.

There are those within our country who are pointing out that until we restore our morality we will remain a nation unable to solve our problems. If we do not get right with our God, our difficulties will continue and the leading issue is the matter of on demand abortion. This horrible practice is going to cause God to turn a deaf ear to our concerns. Given that we have now achieved the death of some 50 million innocents, would we blame Him for no longer listening.

Like the Founders and many of the inhabitants, I believe that the creation of our nation was not an accident. Prior to the arrival of the Europeans, North America was inhabited by American Indians who lived a hunter/gatherer life style that was nomadic. Starting in the 17th century we find everything from the religiously persecuted to the ne'er do well coming to North America from western Europe. From these immigrants came those who caused the revolutionary changes in America. At their very core was the belief that God and morality were important to the success of their endeavors. Indeed with the gaining of freedom from England, the Founders called on communities to erect schools based on religious tenets in order that the children become virtuous individuals. That, due to a misinterpretation of a letter written by Thomas Jefferson, is not longer the case in our public schools.

If you are a virtuous person you know it is important to your salvation. As the old joke goes it was the ten commandments not the ten suggestions and the Old Testament in particular sees God reminding us constantly who was responsible for getting us to a good point in our life. Indeed in Deuteronomy 5, Moses cautions his people to "do as the Lord, your God, has commanded you, not turning to the right or left...."

We have become a people who constantly talk about "the gray" of a matter and extenuating circumstances. We are told that there is more to an issue and that it isn't a "black and white" or "good or evil" world as though that causes one to be less compassionate. I would argue that the virtuous one will have more compassion then one who claims to be compassionate and throws the pregnant teenager under the knife for her abortion. There now, its all over go home and have a happy life.

Abortion is just one example of how we have lost our way and become a people with a fading morality. Drugs, alcohol, gambling all the old and new vices rear their ugly heads today and our children are constantly exposed to people acting badly. When they get into trouble we wonder why it happened with few of us pointing the finger in the proper direction because we have a million reasons to avoid taking responsibility for their actions.

At a time of the year when we celebrate the birth of our Saviour, let us remember how those who have gone before us had such faith in Him for the direction of their lives. I ask of you that you go back to those men who gave us the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Read those documents and read what those enlightened men, guided my the Almighty, had to say about the grace of Divine Providence in their lives. Rest assured neither they or their world was perfect but I believe they were more confident in their path and more resolute in their ideas and convictions then we are today.

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Our Safety Is No More

Benjamin Franklin once noted that "Those who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserves neither liberty nor safety." This quote has been stated in a variety of ways but no matter how you state it the fact of the matter is if you attempt to trade your liberty for safety you will ultimately lose both. Such is the case today.

There is no doubt that over the past century we the people have allowed our freedoms and our liberty to slowly disappear. This began at the turn of the 20th century when the Progressives determined that our Constitution was a "living document" and that its principles were no longer what the public desired. Through good times and bad we listened to these foolhardy individuals and agreed with them. During good times they played to our charitable nature saying that but for a few pennies a day those of us who were successful could lift up those who were not all through government run programs. During bad times we were told that the government had to step in and devise programs that would save us and the nation from extermination. In both cases we acceded to the ploys of the politicians.

Now we are in the 21st century and we find ourselves surrounded by tyrannical politicians and their bureaucrats and they are in the process of making us less safe then we have ever been in a variety of ways. Our safety has been attacked by the Obama administrations policies

Obama and the Congress, and this includes the former Bush Congress, put into place a monstrous multi billion dollar stimulus package. In addition the current administration has put into place a trillion dollar plus budget involving additional spending. This spending will be supported by more taxes that will take additional funds from you. That will cause a lose of economic security.

There are two astronomical programs that will have an adverse affect on your safety. The first is the infamous cap and trade program. We now know,thanks to the assistance of some computer hackers, that these militant environmentalists lied and lied and lied when it came to the condition of our planet. The basic thing you need to know here is that the temperatures are going down and not up. Is this going to stop the craziness of our political hacks in the environmental/new communist movement? I doubt it. Not only will they continue this absurdity of trying to supply and run the nation on solar and wind, they will move even faster then before undoubtedly hoping that we continue to be the blithering idiots they think we are. Again, in many ways, our safety is at stake here because we will have to retrofit our homes and purchase new cars. Our taxes will increase in order to subsidize these new but failing industries. Not only is this a continuation of the lose of our economic safety, our health will be in jeopardy given the smaller cars and other forms of transportation. Add to that the fact that any time we have moved to conserve a resource the price of that commodity has gone up.

Then there is the taking over of the health care system of our nation. A number of major points to remember here. First and foremost is the fact that the plan calls for the collection of taxes for 3-4 years prior to the enactment of the actual health care. This was done to create the illusion that health care was going to be deficit neutral. It isn't. Between 2014 and 2024 this program is suspected to reach $2.4 trillion. Hapless Harry Reid is on record stating that such will be the case. On top of all of the above, this will put the government in charge of your life. They will be into every nook and cranny of your body and life including their ability to reach into your bank accounts in order to pay the bill. And for those of you who don't believe their will be rationing of health care, well I have a really nice Ford Edsel to sell you.

The health care bill will be the largest and most expensive program we have ever put into place. Yet the village idiots continue to show up and proclaim the greatness of Social Security, soon to go into the red, an Medicare, soon to go into the red before Social Security. Health care will be rationed and we saw a taste of this just a few days ago. Women will now be forced to get their mammograms and their PAP smears later. How does something like this simply change over night particularly when we just experienced a Nation wide program to vaccinate our teenage daughters against cervical cancer so they can continue to have both safe and unsafe sex in their teens. Does that seem nuts to you? I am waiting for NOW to step up and tell the ladies to unite and have "die ins" at their local doctors offices, hospitals and clinics. Ladies, you are being sold a bill of goods, yet again, and I hope you do something about it. This is not only an example of and attack of our economic safety, it is truly an outright attack on our personal safety.

Then there is the attack on the Second Amendment. The Second Amendment as found in the Bill of Rights is not about hunting. The Founders and Framers would have laughed at anyone who suggested that they needed an amendment to protect hunting. The Second Amendment is all about our right to defend ourselves and our families in our homes and within our communities. Across the nation states and commonwealths are putting the Castle Doctrine into place. This is based on the fact that a man's home is his Castle and as such he has the right to protect it even if it means killing the intruder. This legislation has been extended to include outside areas where one has the right to be and the right to protect his life. Obama, his confirmed allies and his czars, wants to put severe restrictions on guns and nudge you out of your ownership of them. This will certainly make you less safe due to your inability to defend yourself something that more and more Americans have decided to do by carrying concealed.

Last but certainly not least is the inability to get the bad guys under control and in jail. Along with that is a lousy, delusional foreign policy that weakens the nation. A number of things have happened under this heading. Obama refused to put a protective missile system into eastern European nations such as Poland. He has finally come up with 34 thousand troops, 10 thousand are support staff, for the "good war" in Afghanistan but he did this while developing an exit strategy published in the WSJ. He has failed to move strongly against the likes of Iran and North Korea. He continues to bow to foreign rulers, a sign to them that we are capitulators. In addition his defense department has moved to cut the production on the F-22 for the Navy.

The final blow has been the decision to move the stinking' terrorists to New York for a show trial that has now been confirmed by one of their lawyers. Please do not be surprised if these guys walk. Have a safe Thanksgiving holiday and remember the Turkeys won't.

Monday, November 2, 2009

Capitalism Does Not Work

How many of you have heard someone say that the economic system that we know as capitalism does not work? This is interesting in that we haven't seen capitalism at work since July 2, 1890. That was the day that Republican President Benjamin Harrison signed the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. The act was written by Senator John Sherman, a Republican. It passed the Senate on April 8, 1890 with a 51-1 vote. It then passed the House by a 242-0 vote on June 20, 1890 and then went to the President.

The Sherman Anti-Trust act is referred to as "competition law" by attorneys. It acquired this name because Sherman was designed to stop companies or entities from ganging up on new business that might compete with the old companies. That sounds real good at first glance until you look at what really happened. This Act. for all intents and purposes, emasculated companies while turning them into banks for politicians.

Now what do I mean. If you were a businessman and the government was out to regulate you what might you do? Would you obey the regulations? Would you attempt to "persuade" or "lobby" the politicians to look upon your industry favorably and in so doing become a politician's cash cow. Would you befriend the politician to the point where you might get him to put you or your representative on the board that writes the regulations for your industry? Wouldn't that put you in the cat's seat? You could eliminate your competition with the stroke of a pen.

This is exactly what happened. Call them what you will "Captains of Industries" or "Robber Barons" these businessmen, these capitalists, were not going to lose their positions or their companies so they looked for ways to insure their positions and they found that money, dinners, fine cases of wine, and other junkets, purchased the loyalty of elected officials over those who elected them

The Sherman Act, that we could refer to as the assassin that slayed capitalism, was belligerently used by none other then that so called conservative president, Theodore Roosevelt. Teddy, pretending to do good for the common good, used the act to batter organizations like Standard Oil and then turned around and asked those nasty old businessmen for donations for his presidential campaigns. How do you spell hypocrisy? TR, however, was a piker when it came to Woodrow Wilson.

Wilson was a full fledged Progressive. He was an egotistic narcissist. He was a believer in eugenics and adhered to a belief in Social Darwinism. He supported the sterilization of the"feeble-minded." He believed that history evolved based on epochs and that the Constitution was, therefore, a "living document". He talked about the collective will and the need for a good administrator who understood the collective will and would lead the nation based on that. The Constitution and Declaration of Independence were simply old, moldy documents that were no longer viable documents capable of inspiring the people and the Nation.

More importantly, however, was that Wilson found out the importance of a crisis. Initially swearing that he would keep us out of World War I, Wilson walked us straight in to the last months of that war. Why? It caused the folks to rally round the central government. Wilson put into place the War Industries Board or WIB and he put the heads of companies or their representatives on that board. Wilson was then free to come up with two wonderful laws, the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918. With these two pieces of legislation, both of them in contradiction to the First Amendment, Wilson was able to toss 150,000 Americans into prisons across the country simply because they spoke out against the war. You thought the Patriot Act was nasty.

Slowly but surely this nation took more and more steps toward socialism. The New Deal of FDR that among other things gave us the Social Security Trust Act. What a laugh that is particularly the word trust. Our elected officials found their way to power, to spend more and more money to do good things for us with our money. Like little children we got in line and said "do daddy do". Two of my favorite quotes come from two women, one a D and one an R, in the current Senate. Senator Barbara Mikulski who stated that she woke up every "morning trying to figure out what to do for her constituents". Don't you mean "do to your constituents" Senator. The other is Olympia Snowe from Maine who during the debate on health care in the Senate committees stated that only the government could solve the health care problem. This is what we have come too.

I could go on with the Great Society that gave us Medicare and Medicaid both going broke. Or the Plan D drug program given to us by George W. Bush. I thing you get my drift. The next time someone tells you capitalism does not work, ask them to define capitalism to you. Then ask them how they know that capitalism does not work tell them how do they know that since we haven't lived under capitalism since the day the Sherman Anti-Trust Act was signed by that black heart, Benjamin Harrison in 1890. Maye its time for a CHANGE.

Thursday, October 1, 2009

Our Naive President

I believe it is safe to say that we are dealing with a self-loathing, egotistical, narcissistic and naive man who is now the leader of our nation. There are those of you who will disagree with me but I encourage you to do your research and you will find out that I am correct

Barack Obama is a the man the Progressives have been praying for ever since the administration of Woodrow Wilson. Obama is so much like Wilson that one might rightly say they are two peas out of the same pod. Wilson, the son of a Presbyterian minister, was accused and has been identified by many older historians as a man with a Messiah complex. He suffered from the same character traits as Obama, egotism and narcissism. Ultimately, these traits that caused him to be uncompromising, made him an embarrassing failure, winner of the war but loser of the peace. His Senate, controlled by the opposition party, the Republicans, killed his plan to join that failed body known as the League of Nations. A Wilsonian man is not someone we want in the White House.

Like Wilson, Obama is an evolutionist. He believes that man evolves and so does his history. This is why Obama is not a lover of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. These are pesky and moldy old documents that simply get in his way. Obama believes that those items in our Founding documents, such as our unalienable rights, do not transcend history. Thus things like life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are outdated.

Obama believes in the collective organic will of the people. If the people, for example, come to the conclusion that there is no longer such a thing as the ownership of property by the individual you and I can lose our property. Let me remind you that the United States Supreme Court in the Kelo case determined that towns could use the process of eminent domain to take property away from citizens and allow the towns to sell it to developers for profit. That is what happened to Susan Kelo in 2005 when she lost her home in New London, Connecticut.

A better and more understandable term to describe Wilson and Obama is that they are Utopians. They believe in the ability to build a perfect world and really it isn't all that difficult when you come to understand what they believe. Man will evolve into a better person. By studying the historical epoch of the folks one will be able to determine their historical development. While there is talk of the organic will Wilson disclosed in his writings that the best group to determine that were those within the civil service. Those in the civil service were neutral when it came to the matter of discerning the will of the people thus those bureaucrats would determine the collective organic will.

Once the bureaucrats, or ACORN members if you will, determined the will of the group at this point in history all one needed was a good manager or administrator. Wilson and Obama see themselves as supreme administrators. They are going to get out there, more so Obama then Wilson, and tell us what the will of the people is and how they are going to implement that will in order to make sure we are all on the same page. Obama believes that all he has to do is get up in front of his teleprompter and tell us how it is and that we and the rest of the world will fall in line behind him. Tell me that is not the epitome of egotism and narcissism? Tell me this man is not naive with this attitude of all I have to do is speak and it will be so.

Barack Obama is a very dangerous man. He has no understanding of national and international policies. He does not understand human nature. I believe he is truly incapable of formulating a foreign policy for this nation, something that we desperately need. On top of this our allies are looking at us in amazement. Sarkozy of France has stated in so many words that he believes the United States will no longer lead and thus there will be problems. Problems!!! Let's hope we are so lucky as to only have problems. Me, I'm thinking disaster on a large scale for what was the greatest nation in the world.

Now fortunately, Obama has outraged the upstanding citizens of this nation. They are taking a stand that will cause a return to the principles of this nation as espoused by our Founders and Framers. Fortunately for all of us there are those who remember that we are a nation governed by laws not men. They remembered that they are in charge in this nation not some guy who views himself as an administrator from on high who can dictate policy to us. This should cause the honest men in government to recognize that either they change or they go. Looking forward to November 2010.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Education Under The Obama Administration

"It is an object of vast magnitude that systems of education should be adopted and pursued which may not only diffuse a knowledge of the sciences but may implant in the minds of the American youth the principles of virtue and of liberty and inspire them with just and liberal ideas of government and with an inviolable attachment to their own country"--Noah Webster. On Education of Youth in America, 1790.

The goal of Noah Webster and the rest of the Founding Fathers was to provide schools and a system that would educate the children of our nation. The purpose of the schools was to educate children not only in the sciences but to teach them how important liberty and virtue were in their development and in the connection they have to their nation. The Founding Fathers, religious men, knew that virtue played an important role in one's education and that virtue was maintained only in a nation that understood the importance of freedom and liberty.

This has changed in modern America. One needs to simply walk the streets to see that virtue has become a thing of the past. As for liberty, it appears that more and more Americans are willing to fore go that little necessity for what they believe will be safety and security.

Since the beginning of the 20th century our education system has been deteriorating. We moved away from such things as the McGuffey reader and phonics. More importantly we have taken Civics and American history out of our schools. This has given us a population unfamiliar with the way our government is supposed run and is therefore detached from our older generations who constantly ask: What are they teaching in our schools? The answer to that question is--not a lot.

Over the decades we eliminated things like the McGuffey Readers and did away with diagramming a sentence and subjects like history and civics. History is now a hodgepodge known as social studies. It is a composite of history, geography, and cultures. Civics has simply been tossed out the window. In the process we have added programs in drug education and sex education. We have put the emphasis on math and science while history has been all but forgotten. Indeed, in time, history of any type will be eliminated.

It would be nice to be able to tell you that the dumbing down of the children of the nation is about to come to a halt under this new administration but that is not the case. While Mr. Obama made many hopeful statements pertaining to education during this campaign you must keep in mind that Saul Alinsky and Bill Ayers were influential on this issue. Indeed it was while Obama was serving as the first chairman of the Annenberg Challenge Education Initiative that he and Ayers became close associates. Both men believed that increased spending was the way to solve educaional issues


It was Ayers who would run the Annenberg Challenge Education Initiative, a program designed to improve inner city schools in Chicago. Obama, as chairman of the Board, funneled $150 million to Ayers who used it as he saw fit. Ayers spent the money on all the recent fads that came down the education pike. For five years he spent like a drunken sailor had no results showing improvement in the education of Chicago students.

Now we have Obama sitting in the most important seat in the land, the president of the country. What is he going to do about education? He is going to continue the destruction of our educational system. He started out by announcing that the scholarships or vouchers for inner DC black students were going to come to a halt. He stated that he was going to give the program a chance but cut it almost immediately. This program, that has black children standing in line for the scholarships because to get one meant a better education, will be eliminated once the current students graduate. Obama agreed to this solution after parents pressured him and this was the answer he gave them. Now keep in mind that Mr. Obama attended a private Catholic school and a state Islamic school before he went home to Hawaii. In Hawaii he also attended a private school. His daughters went to the costly University of Chicago Laboratory School--tuition ran as high as $20K a year. Now they are in the Sidwell Friends School--tuition starts at $28K--and it is one of the top elite schools in DC. Why wouldn't you want that for all of the kids in the USA?

Another way that we can improve education is offering merit pay for the best teachers. Teachers have been fighting for this for many years. However, the National Education Association will not allow merit pay unless they are the ones who determine who gets it. Obama told us that merit pay proposals would be "developed with teachers, not imposed on teachers." The NEA loves that because they will be doing the proposing. Keep in mind that this is actually a state not a federal issue yet it is going to be handled by the federal government and that will mean higher costs for everything dealing with merit pay and things like charter school.

Of all the matters associated with education it is the curriculum that must be restored. Reading, not all day kindergarten, must be a priority. In fact, those who teach K-3 should hold a BA in reading with at least 36 hours in their subject matter not a BA in education or in special education. The same holds true for those in secondary subjects in grades 6-12, the teachers should have their degree in their major and preferably an MA in the subject they teach. All the extra curricula needs to be eliminated. Standards should be high and the so called little things like spelling and penmanship should not be ignored. Civics and American history must be returned to the classrooms across this nation. It is our history that unites us. It is our story. It is what binds us together as a nation. This we must know, this we must understand.

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Parties, Factions, and Identity Politica

A number of years ago William F. Buckley wrote an editorial on the accumulation and ascendancy of minority groups within our society. The point of this essay was to illustrate that the Democrats/Progressives were creating groups within this nation that would become the very core of their power base for elections. Buckley pronounced that the only problem with this political strategy is that even if you put all the various groups together, feminist, abortionists, blacks, gays and Hispanics, you still did not come up to much more the 49%. Thus the Democrat/Progressive party had not put together a majority of voters needed to win an elections.

What they did put together was Identity Politics. With this policy, the Progressives divided us along racial, sexual, and religious lines. They talked about the need for "diversity" and how it was good for our country. Assimilation of new citizens disappeared from the policies of our nation while the new program of Identity Politics goes on and on becoming more successful everyday

Identity politics has allowed the Progressives to create victims. Blacks, gays, women, are all victims and legislation needs to be passed both to protect them and to give them an advantage over those of us who are not victims or should I say not yet victims. In creating these protected groups, the Progressives expand their voter base because in helping these poor folks they make them loyal to the Progressive agenda and they make the Progressives the Caring Party.

It is easy to be a member of the caring partybecause that is all you do, you care and legislate e use of other peoples' money to finance your charity.You believe in giving people a fish not in doing the necessary work to teach them how to fish. Putting it another way it is known as the re-distribution of wealth, the goal of the Progressives and the Obama administration

Taking their cue from Woodrow Wilson, the Progressives believe that people and therefore government evolve. There is, for example, no such thing as fixed law or rights as outlined in documents like the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Thus citizens no longer have their unalienable rights such as "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". You no longer have the right to own the property where you live or anywhere else. It is easy to see how those involved in Obama's health care program can take you off life support when you have no unalienable right to life despite the fact that you have a right to health care in this brave, new world. The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are simply moldy old documents that no longer matter since man has now evolved to the point where these documents are "living documents" and must be brought up to date where the modern man believes that the best thing to happen is to put the government and its bureaucracy in charge of all decisions.

There is only one problem with this theory, it is not true. First and foremost in order to swallow this you must believe, among other things, that the human nature changes. It doesn't do that. One of the concerns of our Framers was that human nature does not change. Because human nature does not change, ergo improve with the evolving of time, government must be structured to take that into account. In "Federalist 6. Publius criticizes those who fail to see the permanent dangers of human nature by saying that they are "far gone in Utopian speculations." Publius continues explaining that human nature does not change and this can be seen throughout the course of human history. Hamilton in Federalist 34 writes; "To judge from the history of mankind, we shall be compelled to conclude that the fiery and destructive passions of war reign in the human breast with much more powerful sway than the mild and beneficent sentiments of peace; and to model our political systems upon the speculations of lasting tranquillity would be to calculate on the weaker springs of human character".

Our Founders and Framers were concerned with factionalism and with political parties that they believed would cause factionalism. They were correct and party differences existed from day one because governments are made by men who do not always share the same ideas. Disagreement and less then civil discourse has been around since men came together to debate and come to decisions. The question we must ask ourselves today is why are the Progressives so strident when it comes to the exchange of ideas. More importantly why are they insistent on their way and only their way? There is but one answer, caught up in their own narcissism, they believe they and their ideas are superior to all others. The Progressives live in but two time periods, that of Franklin Roosevelt and Woodstock. It was FDR who brought forth a Second Bill of Rights that could be instituted by government and taken away by government. Woodstock and the Sixties saw and idolization of teenagers by guilty adults who lost the courage to stand up to children. This in turn gave us the likes of Bill Clinton who honestly believed that his ideas were so great for the nation that he could do anything, including engaging in illegal actions, and could not be punished for it. This mindset is now the viewpoint of younger generations as witnessed by Obama and his cronies who believe that it is time for us to move forward with the redistribution of wealth, mandatory community service and a civil army directed by the White House to kick us off our property, take our guns, and kill us when we are to old to be of any use to the nation.

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

A Need For Repealers and Restorers

In the election of 1912 the Democrats/Progressives put foreword a bespectacled governor from New Jersey, Woodrow Wilson. Wilson was the son of a Presbyterian minister and a southerner who was not all that opposed to slavery. He spent most of his early years in academia. He attended Princeton and became its president.

Were you to look at a picture of President Wilson you would not imagine him as a man intent on radical changes in the American system and yet that is what he wanted to do. He thought that a parliamentary system was best for us and be damned those old moldy documents that we refer to as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Wilson was full of himself with an ego larger then all outdoors. It was that ego that played a large part in his down fall.

Wilson is best remember for attempting to keep us out of war specifically World War I. That, of course did not happen and one has to wonder if that was his goal. Like Rahm Emanuel, Wilson realized that a lot could be gained from a crisis, particularly since it caused the nation to rally round the government.

While Wilson was able to point to the winning of the war, he failed when it came to the peace. Showing up at Versailles with all the cards in his hands, Wilson allowed Clemenceau and Lloyd George to run rough shod over him thus Wilson and America lost the peace. Back home the victorious Republicans under the leadership of Senator Henry Cabot Lodge defeated Wilson's primary goal to enter the League of Nations, Wilson's baby so to speak.

That is pretty much the history lesson taught to young Americans and while it is true and accurate one must look at additional dangerous accomplishments by this early Progressive. It was under Wilson's reign that this nation adopted the 16th Amendment to the Constitution that put into place the infamous income tax. This Amendment opened the door to an expansive and extensive government. No other item is so patently used to whip the populace into line then the United States Tax code. It is a monstrous and growing item that is used by Congress to curry favors with their financial contributors and the wealthy back home.

In addition to Amendment 16 is Amendment 17 that allowed for the election of Senators to the United States Congress. Up until the 17th's passage it was the state legislatures that selected the federal senators. While this allowed for some cases of corruption, Senator Timber, Senator Steel, it kept those men loyal to their state. Today our US Senators have no loyalty to their states because they need to travel across the nation to fund raising parties.

Wilson was a tremendous supporter of the 17th Amendment because his nemesis in the Congress was none other then Henry Cabot Lodge. Despite Wilson's working against Lodge, Lodge came out the winner when the good citizens of Massachusetts elected him to the Senate. Indeed it was Lodge who brought the letter to Wilson telling him that the Senate was in opposition to the League of Nations and it would not past that body.

In addition to repealing the 16th and 17t Amendment we need to review and tighten the reach of the Commerce Clause. Congress is permitted to regulate commerce with "foreign nations, the several states, and the Indian tribes." Of all the clauses within the Constitution none has been more abused then this one. Sneeze in one state while crossing into another and you will find yourself embroiled in a Supreme Court case to regulate nasal hair and all items associated with same.

Year after election year we are told by office seekers that they want to become our representative in order to reform the system. Now we have a president and czars who admittedly want to not just reform the system they want to replace it with fascism. What we truly need at all levels of government are REPEALERS.

G. K. Chesterton in his work entitled "Eugenics and Other Evil Things" points out that at one point REPEALERS in government were quite popular. Somewhere along the way the politicos agreed to not wipe out the other guy's policies thus the REPEALERS disappeared. The result; burgeoning budgets, massive government programs, laws upon existing laws, and a bureaucracy that is not only huge in its expansiveness, it runs our government at all levels. This bureaucracy is in place due to what was initially a good idea, Civil Service Testing. What is not good is that it is all but impossible to fire these employees and jobs have become generational. Next election question with boldness if your office seeker is willing to be a REPEALER willing to RESTORE those principles found in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.