Posted on 11/21/2003 7:51:09 AM PST by Temple Owl
Second Thoughts
By: William W. Lawrence 11/18/2003
Off The Internet:
Edward Ellis, an American frontiersman, war hero and congressman from Tennessee, wrote a book in 1884 called, The Life of Colonel David Crockett.
He told how it was that Congressman Davy Crockett learned the importance of heeding the Constitution and the dangers of disregarding its restraints.
One day the House of Representatives took up a bill to appropriate money for the benefit of a widow of a distinguished naval officer.
Several beautiful speeches had been made in support of the bill. Crockett arose just as the bill was about to be put to a vote, and everyone expected that he would offer his support.
But Crockett surprised them all. Rather than the eloquent and heartfelt speech of support that the congressmen expected, Crockett admonished them not to let their respect for the dead officer nor their sympathy for his widow lead them into an act of injustice.
"I will not go into an argument to prove that Congress has no power to appropriate this money as an act of charity," he said. "Every member upon this floor knows it. We have the right, as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity, but as members of Congress we have no right so to appropriate a dollar of the public money. "I am the poorest man on this floor. I cannot vote for this bill, but I will give one week's pay to the object, and if every member of Congress will do the same, it will amount to more than the bill asks."
The bill failed on the vote.
Ellis, though a friend and admirer of Crockett, was outraged. He determined to persuade his friend to move a reconsideration the next day.
"What the devil possessed you to make that speech and defeat that bill?" he asked Crockett later. Crockett replied with this story:
Several years before, he was standing on the steps of the Capitol with some other members of Congress when they observed the light of a large fire in the distance.
They all jumped into a hack and drove over to help as fast as they could. But hard as they tried, they could not put out the fire, and many houses were burned, and families made homeless and entirely destitute.
The weather was very cold, and when Crockett and the other congressmen saw so many women and children suffering, they felt something should be done for them.
The next morning a bill was introduced appropriating $20,000 to help the victims. The majority, including Crockett, favored the bill, and it passed.
The next summer, when election time was coming up, Crockett went out riding through his district. One day he saw a man in a field plowing and coming toward the road. They met at the fence. Crockett greeted the man, but got only a cool response.
The man told him he knew who he was, and that he had voted for him in the previous election. But, he said, he would not be voting for him again.
Crockett was shocked and asked the man to explain why.
"Well, Colonel," he replied, "it is hardly worthwhile to waste time or words upon it.
"I do not see how it can be mended, but you gave a vote last winter which shows that either you have not capacity to understand the Constitution, or that you are wanting in the honesty and firmness to be guided by it. In either case you are not the man to represent me."
He continued, "The Constitution, to be worth anything, must be held sacred, and rigidly observed in all its provisions. The man who wields power and misinterprets it is the more dangerous the more honest he is."
Insisting that the vote supporting the $20,000 appropriation for the fire victims was unconstitutional, he said, "Colonel, where do you find in the Constitution any authority to give away the public money in charity?"
Crockett replied, "Well, my friend; I may as well own up. You have got me there. But certainly nobody will complain that a great and rich country like ours should give the insignificant sum of $20,000 to relieve its suffering women and children, particularly with a full and overflowing Treasury. I am sure, if you had been there, you would have done just as I did."
"It is not the amount, Colonel, that I complain of," the man answered, "it is the principle. In the first place, the government ought to have in the Treasury no more than enough for its legitimate purposes. But that has nothing to do with the question. The power of collecting and disbursing money at pleasure is the most dangerous power that can be entrusted to man."
He continued, "While you are contributing to relieve one, you are drawing it from thousands who are even worse off than he. If you had the right to give anything, the amount was simply a matter of discretion with you, and you had as much right to give $20,000,000 as $20,000.
"If you have the right to give to one, you have the right to give to all. Since the Constitution neither defines charity nor stipulates the amount, you are at liberty to give to any and everything which you may believe, or profess to believe, is a charity, and to any amount you may think proper. You will very easily perceive what a wide door this would open for fraud and corruption and favoritism, on the one hand, and for robbing the people on the other.
"There are plenty of wealthy men in and around Washington who could have given $20,000 without depriving themselves of even a luxury of life," he pointed out. "The congressmen chose to keep their own money, which, if reports are true, some of them spend not very creditably, and the people about Washington, no doubt, applauded you for relieving them from the necessity of giving by giving what was not yours to give."
He concluded, "The people have delegated to Congress, by the Constitution, the power to do certain things. To do these, it is authorized to collect and pay moneys, and for nothing else. Everything beyond this is usurpation, and a violation of the Constitution."
Crockett was humbled. He promised the man that he would never vote for another unconstitutional law. The man pointed out that he had already made that promise once before, but said he would trust him again on one condition. He said that if Crockett would go around the district and tell everyone of his vote and why it was wrong, he would do all he could to help him win.
It turned out the man, Horatio Bunce, was widely known as an intelligent man of incorruptible integrity, kind and generous, and with his support Crockett would do well. A few days later, Bunce hosted a barbecue for Crockett, and Crockett came clean with the thousand men who had gathered there. The lesson he learned that day opened his eyes to truths many have failed to ever understand.
And that vote appropriating money for the widow of the distinguished naval officer? You remember Crockett had offered a week's wages and challenged the rest of the congressmen to give the same. But not one of them cared to contribute to the worthy cause, about which they had so eloquently spoken, when it meant giving up some of their own money.
(Excerpt) Read more at countypressonline.com ...
This story should be read by every politician that spends our tax dollars,
Editorial
Second Thoughts
By: William W. Lawrence
Your tax dollars at work.
State Senator Vincent J. Fumo, the South Philadelphia Democrat, wields a big political stick.
He came out strongly against the House version of Fat Eddie's request for a tax hike.
He said there was way too much pork in it. He ought to know. Vince Baby ran up $72,525 in dinner bills at the veddy veddy high-priced La Veranda Ristorante where diners get a romantic view of the Delaware.
It took him two years to spend $72,525. How much did you spend on food over the last two years, Mom?
***
Your tax dollars at work II.
U.S. Representatives Joe Pitts (R-Pa.) and Sue Myrick (R-N.C.) dispatched a heated letter to the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority after reading ads which the taxpayers paid for in the Washington public transit system: "Enjoy Better Sex: Legalize and Tax Marijuana!"
***
Your tax dollars at work III
In July, the House narrowly rejected a bill offered by Rep. Patrick J. Toomey (R-Pa.). It would have done away with tax dollars for some of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) sex projects which include a $147,000 grant for a Northwestern University study that paid women to watch pornography.
I am going to vote for Pat Toomey.
***
Your tax dollars at work IV
Our U.S. Congress recently voted themselves a nice raise.
How many of you know that our congresspeople only have to be in Congress one time to receive a pension that is over $15,000 a month?
How many of you know that most are now equal to being millionaires plus?
Our congresspeople also do not receive Social Security on retirement because they didn't have to pay into the system.
Many years ago they came up with their own benefit plan. No congressperson has ever felt the need to change it. The plan works like this:
When our congressspeople retire, they continue to draw the same pay -- with cost of living increases -- until they die.
Some of our congresspeople may expect to draw $7,800,000. This plan costs them nothing. The funds for their retirement plan come right out of the General Fund. You and I pay for it.
Our own Social Security Plan -- yours and mine -- will average out to about $1,000 a month when we retire.
Our Social Security plan could be improved immediately if only one small change were made. That would be to get rid of our congresspeople's retirement plan and put them into the Social Security plan with the rest of us.
How long do you think it would take them to fix it?
***
Off The Internet:
Edward Ellis, an American frontiersman, war hero and congressman from Tennessee, wrote a book in 1884 called, The Life of Colonel David Crockett.
He told how it was that Congressman Davy Crockett learned the importance of heeding the Constitution and the dangers of disregarding its restraints.
One day the House of Representatives took up a bill to appropriate money for the benefit of a widow of a distinguished naval officer.
Several beautiful speeches had been made in support of the bill. Crockett arose just as the bill was about to be put to a vote, and everyone expected that he would offer his support.
But Crockett surprised them all. Rather than the eloquent and heartfelt speech of support that the congressmen expected, Crockett admonished them not to let their respect for the dead officer nor their sympathy for his widow lead them into an act of injustice.
"I will not go into an argument to prove that Congress has no power to appropriate this money as an act of charity," he said. "Every member upon this floor knows it. We have the right, as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity, but as members of Congress we have no right so to appropriate a dollar of the public money.
"I am the poorest man on this floor. I cannot vote for this bill, but I will give one week's pay to the object, and if every member of Congress will do the same, it will amount to more than the bill asks."
The bill failed on the vote.
Ellis, though a friend and admirer of Crockett, was outraged. He determined to persuade his friend to move a reconsideration the next day.
"What the devil possessed you to make that speech and defeat that bill?" he asked Crockett later. Crockett replied with this story:
Several years before, he was standing on the steps of the Capitol with some other members of Congress when they observed the light of a large fire in the distance.
They all jumped into a hack and drove over to help as fast as they could. But hard as they tried, they could not put out the fire, and many houses were burned, and families made homeless and entirely destitute.
The weather was very cold, and when Crockett and the other congressmen saw so many women and children suffering, they felt something should be done for them.
The next morning a bill was introduced appropriating $20,000 to help the victims. The majority, including Crockett, favored the bill, and it passed.
The next summer, when election time was coming up, Crockett went out riding through his district.
One day he saw a man in a field plowing and coming toward the road. They met at the fence. Crockett greeted the man, but got only a cool response. The man told him he knew who he was, and that he had voted for him in the previous election. But, he said, he would not be voting for him again.
Crockett was shocked and asked the man to explain why.
"Well, Colonel," he replied, "it is hardly worthwhile to waste time or words upon it.
"I do not see how it can be mended, but you gave a vote last winter which shows that either you have not capacity to understand the Constitution, or that you are wanting in the honesty and firmness to be guided by it. In either case you are not the man to represent me."
He continued, "The Constitution, to be worth anything, must be held sacred, and rigidly observed in all its provisions. The man who wields power and misinterprets it is the more dangerous the more honest he is."
Insisting that the vote supporting the $20,000 appropriation for the fire victims was unconstitutional, he said, "Colonel, where do you find in the Constitution any authority to give away the public money in charity?"
Crockett replied, "Well, my friend; I may as well own up. You have got me there. But certainly nobody will complain that a great and rich country like ours should give the insignificant sum of $20,000 to relieve its suffering women and children, particularly with a full and overflowing Treasury. I am sure, if you had been there, you would have done just as I did."
"It is not the amount, Colonel, that I complain of," the man answered, "it is the principle. In the first place, the government ought to have in the Treasury no more than enough for its legitimate purposes. But that has nothing to do with the question. The power of collecting and disbursing money at pleasure is the most dangerous power that can be entrusted to man."
He continued, "While you are contributing to relieve one, you are drawing it from thousands who are even worse off than he. If you had the right to give anything, the amount was simply a matter of discretion with you, and you had as much right to give $20,000,000 as $20,000.
"If you have the right to give to one, you have the right to give to all. Since the Constitution neither defines charity nor stipulates the amount, you are at liberty to give to any and everything which you may believe, or profess to believe, is a charity, and to any amount you may think proper. You will very easily perceive what a wide door this would open for fraud and corruption and favoritism, on the one hand, and for robbing the people on the other.
"There are plenty of wealthy men in and around Washington who could have given $20,000 without depriving themselves of even a luxury of life," he pointed out. "The congressmen chose to keep their own money, which, if reports are true, some of them spend not very creditably, and the people about Washington, no doubt, applauded you for relieving them from the necessity of giving by giving what was not yours to give."
He concluded, "The people have delegated to Congress, by the Constitution, the power to do certain things. To do these, it is authorized to collect and pay moneys, and for nothing else. Everything beyond this is usurpation, and a violation of the Constitution."
Crockett was humbled. He promised the man that he would never vote for another unconstitutional law. The man pointed out that he had already made that promise once before, but said he would trust him again on one condition. He said that if Crockett would go around the district and tell everyone of his vote and why it was wrong, he would do all he could to help him win.
It turned out the man, Horatio Bunce, was widely known as an intelligent man of incorruptible integrity, kind and generous, and with his support Crockett would do well. A few days later, Bunce hosted a barbecue for Crockett, and Crockett came clean with the thousand men who had gathered there. The lesson he learned that day opened his eyes to truths many have failed to ever understand.
And that vote appropriating money for the widow of the distinguished naval officer? You remember Crockett had offered a week's wages and challenged the rest of the congressmen to give the same. But not one of them cared to contribute to the worthy cause, about which they had so eloquently spoken, when it meant giving up some of their own money.
The following is a link to a more complete version. It is verbatim of a printed version that can be obtained from Grapevine Publications for $0.25/ea (up to 9 copies), and as little as $0.06/ea for over 999 copies). All different lot size betwixt are available. I'm not a Grapevine shill, I'm just pointing it out.
http://www.house.gov/paul/nytg.htm
It is my desire that you focus on what the essay intimates transpired after Crockett's conversation with a humble (and thereby dimwitted to egalitarian right-thinkers of the present age who believe the Constitution to be an obsolete and anachronist documented contrived by a bunch of backwoods agrarians) plow-man. Its the very last paragraph that is most devastating.
I've read this many a time while gathered around a campfire (my contribution to the telling of ghost stories as is so popular to do when gathered about the campfire and one which I preface with "Do you want to hear something REALLY scary?").
I'll tell you one thing: it matters not where in the political spectrum the audience's allegiance lies. At first there are the catcalls and the eye-rolling, friendly ribbing and what not, but they're all ears very soon into the reading. After I finish, some of the most grizzled and gruff of the men are struggling mightily to hold back a sob (although I hazard to say NOBODY would admit to it, while I've struggled to keep my voice from cracking while reading it). Usually there's a quite profound and prolonged silence, at times as long as 10 minutes, intently staring into the fire, nobody looking at anybody else but intently into the fire (brows deeply furrowed). Usually somebody will get up and poke at the fire with the fire-pole although it usually doesn't need it (often with constructive criticism offered by others around the fire, as to how best poke the fire).
Yep, that's me, I'm the wet-blanket on the party; can't take me anywhere.
All that notwithstanding, this is one wicked story - because of the myriad of implications it raises - and everybody comprehends that (on some level or another).
What I wonder, is where we are on that proverbial slippery slope. I perceive that slope can best be described according to the following:
the equation of the NE quadrant of a circle
the physics of the slope being:
are such that as an object moves to the right on the graph, although friction increases exponentially, mass increases in a proportionate amount. Clearly it matters not in the least how great friction becomes at the righ-most part of the circle (where it intercepts the X-axis). Those understanding the physics of an incline plane mechanism will grasp this intuitively.
See, I told you I can't be taken out in public (who else do you know tells such a horror story and convolutes it even further with some sort of twisted physics problem).
My concern is that we're too far to the right on that graph, and we can't save ourselves if we wanted to. Its for brighter minds than mine to figure out the forces needed to get us back to the top of the circle (and not fall off on the other side - if that's possible).
This needs to be discussed everywhere. If this isn't important that I don't know what is; in that it addresses the very essence of what the people believe the nature of its government should be.
ping
Executive Order 11,110
AMENDMENT OF EXECUTIVE ORDER NO. 10289
AS AMENDED, RELATING TO THE PERFORMANCE OF CERTAIN FUNCTIONS AFFECTING THE DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY
By virtue of the authority vested in me by section 301 of title 3 of the United States Code, it is ordered as follows:
Section 1. Executive Order No. 10289 of September 19, 1951, as amended, is hereby further amended-
By adding at the end of paragraph 1 thereof the following subparagraph (j):
(j) The authority vested in the President by paragraph (b) of section 43 of the Act of May 12,1933, as amended (31 U.S.C.821(b)), to issue silver certificates against any silver bullion, silver, or standard silver dollars in the Treasury not then held for redemption of any outstanding silver certificates, to prescribe the denomination of such silver certificates, and to coin standard silver dollars and subsidiary silver currency for their redemption
and --
By revoking subparagraphs (b) and (c) of paragraph 2 thereof.
Sec. 2. The amendments made by this Order shall not affect any act done, or any right accruing or accrued or any suit or proceeding had or commenced in any civil or criminal cause prior to the date of this Order but all such liabilities shall continue and may be enforced as if said amendments had not been made.
John F. Kennedy
The White House,
June 4, 1963.
Money is the creature of law and the creation of the original issue of money should be maintained as the exclusive monopoly of national Government.
Money possesses no value to the State other than that given to it by circulation.
Capital has its proper place and is entitled to every protection. The wages of men should be recognised in the structure of and in the social order as more important than the wages of money.
No duty is more imperative for the Government than the duty it owes the People to furnish them with a sound and uniform currency, and of regulating the circulation of the medium of exchange so that labour will be protected from a vicious currency, and commerce will be facilitated by cheap and safe exchanges.
The available supply of Gold and Silver being wholly inadequate to permit the issuance of coins of intrinsic value or paper currency convertible into coin in the volume required to serve the needs of the People, some other basis for the issue of currency must be developed, and some means other than that of convertibility into coin must be developed to prevent undue fluctuation in the value of paper currency or any other substitute for money of intrinsic value that may come into use.
The monetary needs of increasing numbers of People advancing towards higher standards of living can and should be met by the Government. Such needs can be served by the issue of National Currency and Credit through the operation of a National Banking system .The circulation of a medium of exchange issued and backed by the Government can be properly regulated and redundancy of issue avoided by withdrawing from circulation such amounts as may be necessary by Taxation, Redeposit, and otherwise. Government has the power to regulate the currency and creditof the Nation.
Government should stand behind its currency and credit and the Bank deposits of the Nation. No individual should suffer a loss of money through depreciation or inflated currency or Bank bankruptcy.
Government possessing the power to create and issue currency and creditas money and enjoying the right to withdraw both currency and credit from circulation by Taxation and otherwise need not and should not borrow capital at interest as a means of financing Governmental work and public enterprise. The Government should create, issue, and circulate all the currency and credit needed to satisfy the spending power of the Government and the buying power of the consumers. The privilege of creating and issueing money is not only the supreme prerogative of Government, but it is the Governments greatest creative opportunity.
By the adoption of these principles the long felt want for a uniform medium will be satisfied. The taxpayers will be saved immense sums of interest, discounts, and exchanges. The financing of all public enterprise, the maintenance of stable Government and ordered progress, and the conduct of the Treasury will become matters of practical administration. The people can and will be furnished with a currency as safe as their own Government. Money will cease to be master and become the servant of humanity. Democracy will rise superior to the money power.
(Abraham Lincoln - 1865)
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