Daniel Boone vs. the Nanny State

Today, Oct. 22, marks the 273rd anniversary of the birth of an American icon: Daniel Boone. This death-defying adventurer axed his way through the Appalachian Mountains to settle Kentucky and open the Western frontier. Stamped across his rock-hard life is the trademark of America: the pioneer spirit to cross new frontiers and control one's destiny.

Back then, people ran their own lives. Today, our vastly expanded Nanny State looks after us. Is this a good thing? Imagine you're a pioneer of yesteryear. How would you fare with today's nanny on your back?

As you prepare your covered wagon for journeying West, inspectors report that your wheels fail to meet safety standards, the canvas on your wagon is not fire retardant, and the yoke on your oxen could be harmful – not to you, but to the beasts. Although you've traveled safely in the wagon before, you're slapped with fines and forced to correct the problems. You leave for your journey with a lighter wallet – and a heavier spirit.

When you reach your new town, you find that land isn't cheap anymore. The government took huge tracts off the market to preserve the wilderness. One of the townspeople sells you a plot – at 10 times what he paid for it. You learn that he was one of the councilmen who passed the law preserving the wilderness. He smiles to welcome you to town, but you have difficulty smiling back.

You plant a crop, only to learn it is forbidden. The government decided there was enough of it and any more would lower the price. You find that your neighbors on the town council who passed this law are the folks who grow that crop.(continued)

Here is another piece by the same author (Gen LaGreca)

From American Chronicle

The Declaration of Independence 2008

October 4, 2007

As candidates seeking office in 2008 woo us for our votes, it is crucially important to express to them our indignation over how far our country has swayed from the ideals of liberty expressed by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence. The following is a new version of the Declaration, updated to reflect the current usurpations and threats we face. It is an urgent call for our elected officials to fulfill the promise of America envisioned by our Founders and for We, the People, to insist that they do.

When in the course of human events, a people find it necessary to rid themselves of a government that has abandoned the sound principles upon which it was founded and that increasingly threatens their lives and liberties, reason requires them to declare the causes of their discontent.

We hold these truths to be certain and immutable, that all men by their nature possess unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness; that to protect these rights governments are instituted among men, deriving their just and limited powers from the consent of the governed; that individuals show respect for each other’s rights by associating with one another through voluntary consent; that an act of force against a person violates his rights; and that it is the sole, legitimate purpose of government to ban the initiation of force in society by retaliating with force against it—through the police and courts to apprehend and punish domestic criminals, the military to defend against foreign invaders, and the civil courts to settle disputes among men—thereby insuring the peace and safety of a free and civilized people.

That whenever a government becomes destructive of these ends, when it becomes the very instrument of coercion it is supposed to protect against, it is the right and duty of the people to alter it and institute new government that will protect their safety and freedom. The history of the present government of the United States—with state and local governments following suit—is one of a dangerous, unchecked growth of powers leading to the ultimate perversion in which it is the government that holds the reins and the citizens that are saddled, bridled, and spurred to do its bidding. To prove this, let facts be submitted to reasonable minds:

The government has violated our right to property and seized our wealth through onerous taxation that totals over 40 percent of the national income, taxing our salaries, investments, homes, businesses, purchases, etc., so that we cannot even buy a toothbrush without paying a tribute.

It has transformed a nation of self-reliant, self-supporting individuals into a swarm of special interest groups---workers, farmers, seniors, unions, corporations, etc.---each clamoring for favors and handouts at the expense of others, so that the young are taxed to support the old, the rich to support the poor, the people in the mountains to support flood victims at the shores; and the louder the demands, the more "entitlements" a group receives.

It has made us dependent on its largess for our vital needs, such as our retirement income and medical care, which no longer depend on our individual choices and actions but on the promises of politicians whose costly, ill-conceived programs are fast approaching bankruptcy.

It has appointed itself as the supreme master who decides for all what foods, medicines, products are safe to use---even mandating how our televisions must be made, our cereal boxes labeled, our toilets flushed---bombarding us with countless agencies that misuse our money, harass us, fine us, and violate our freedom to control our own lives.

It has, in order to gain votes and power bases, usurped the role of private charity, giving food, housing, and other provisions to special groups, removing incentive for them to improve their own lives, and creating an uncharitable, unchosen, and unjust financial burden on others to support them.

It has vilified our industries, seized their profits, hampered free trade, prevented mergers, dictated every detail of employment and operation---controlling pay, hours, benefits, prices, hiring, firing, production, profits, and even setting safety standards for swivel chairs in the workplace---thereby violating the rights of employers, employees, and customers to deal with each other on their own terms.

It has created endless ways to cripple businesses, so that if a company is deemed too large, anti-trust laws force it to divide; if it is deemed to pay wages that are too low, labor laws force it to offer more; all at the whim of public officials who create no wealth and live off money extorted from taxpayers, yet issue televised tongue-lashings and punishments to businesspeople for not running their enterprises to better suit the politicians’ favored groups.

It has, for political advantage, doled out subsidies, invoked protective tariffs, created monopolies, bestowed grants and privileges---including paying farmers not to produce any crops---giving unfair advantage to some businesses at the expense of others and creating chaos in the marketplace.

It has failed to protect the people’s rights, but instead protects snail darters, caribou, and the wilderness, in order to pander to aberrant environmentalists who use energy in every aspect of their lives---in their cars, planes, computers, lawn mowers, toasters, microphones---while instigating laws to severely hamper energy production.

It has stifled domestic exploration for oil with onerous regulation, which has made oil scarcer and more expensive and thus enriched foreign oil-producing countries such as Iran, whose revenues support terrorists who plot to destroy us.

It has imposed oppressive taxes, yet the huge sums it extracts still cannot quench its thirst for more reckless spending, plunging the country deeper into debt and, if unchecked, into bankruptcy.

It has seized so much power that kickbacks from contractors, bribes from lobbyists, favors exchanged for votes, and other scandals in its ranks are rampant.

It has corrupted the morals of the people, who see that they can vote themselves the taxpayers’ money, so they abandon personal responsibility and self-reliance to clamor for more handouts, perpetuating their own dependence and their representatives’ corruption.

It has created a welfare state not only within our borders, but throughout the world, squandering huge sums on foreign aid that bails out the failing regimes of dictators, feeds the very enemies who arm to destroy us---such as North Korea and many others over the years---and creates a global entitlement mentality that demands a bite of the already ravaged carcass of the American taxpayer.

It has financed and supported the corrupt United Nations, an organization allegedly dedicated to world peace that grants the worst tyrannies equal moral standing with free countries and provides a forum for depraved dictators to condemn us.

It has shamefully failed in its constitutional duty to protect us from deadly threats abroad, allowing repeated attacks on us to go unpunished and emboldening our enemies to wreak unprecedented death and destruction on our own soil.

It has left us vulnerable to a ruthless enemy because of its endless appeasement, its perverse desire not to offend anyone, its need for approval from hostile countries, its concern for our decorum over our victory—in short, its moral cowardice in defending America.

These and other usurpations and failings now weigh heavily on us.

By the laws of nature and our Constitution, we declare ourselves a free people with sovereignty over ourselves. We demand an end to the creeping tyranny that strangles us. We demand the dismantling of government in all areas of usurped powers never granted it by the Constitution. We demand that our elected representatives act on the ideals of liberty to reverse our self-destructive course.

We will never forget that we are Americans. We forged a continent not with public aid but with the shining vision of a better life and the self-reliance to attain it. We created wealth, progress, and achievement on an unprecedented scale. No government fed our pioneers, inspected their wagons for safety, certified their chickens, subjected their homes to endless building permits, meddled in their businesses, looted their wealth. No government built the breathtaking skylines of our majestic cities, the proud monuments to free minds and free commerce. The government’s fingerprints are found only on the shattered shells of public housing that wound our cities, a grim reminder of the failed welfare state. The time has come to reclaim our country from the meddlers, do-gooders, and would-be dictators seeking to nourish their craving for power with our lifeblood. We will restore America as the proud haven of liberty. To this we pledge our sacred honor.

If you agree with this declaration, send it to the candidates seeking your vote. Tell them that you intend to support people who offer a return to limited government and the freedoms guaranteed us by the Constitution.

Another great frontiersman and a person who rejected the nanny state. The classic Davy Crockett ‘not yours to give’ story:

Not Yours to Give

Colonel David Crockett;

Compiled by Edward S. Ellis

One day in the House of Representatives, a bill was taken up appropriating money for the benefit of a widow of a distinguished naval officer. Several beautiful speeches had been made in its support. The Speaker was just about to put the question when Crockett arose:

“Mr. Speaker—I have as much respect for the memory of the deceased, and as much sympathy for the sufferings of the living, if suffering there be, as any man in this House, but we must not permit our respect for the dead or our sympathy for a part of the living to lead us into an act of injustice to the balance of the living. I will not go into an argument to prove that Congress has no power to appropriate this money as an act of charity. 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. Some eloquent appeals have been made to us upon the ground that it is a debt due the deceased. Mr. Speaker, the deceased lived long after the close of the war; he was in office to the day of his death, and I have never heard that the government was in arrears to him.

Every man in this House knows it is not a debt. We cannot, without the grossest corruption, appropriate this money as the payment of a debt. We have not the semblance of authority to appropriate it as a charity. Mr. Speaker, I have said we have the right to give as much money of our own as we please. 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.”

He took his seat. Nobody replied. The bill was put upon its passage, and, instead of passing unanimously, as was generally supposed, and as, no doubt, it would, but for that speech, it received but few votes, and, of course, was lost.

Later, when asked by a friend why he had opposed the appropriation, Crockett gave this explanation:

“Several years ago I was one evening standing on the steps of the Capitol with some other members of Congress, when our attention was attracted by a great light over in Georgetown . It was evidently a large fire. We jumped into a hack and drove over as fast as we could. In spite of all that could be done, many houses were burned and many families made homeless, and, besides, some of them had lost all but the clothes they had on. The weather was very cold, and when I saw so many women and children suffering, I felt that something ought to be done for them. The next morning a bill was introduced appropriating $20,000 for their relief. We put aside all other business and rushed it through as soon as it could be done.

“The next summer, when it began to be time to think about the election, I concluded I would take a scout around among the boys of my district. I had no opposition there, but, as the election was some time off, I did not know what might turn up. When riding one day in a part of my district in which I was more of a stranger than any other, I saw a man in a field plowing and coming toward the road. I gauged my gait so that we should meet as he came to the fence. As he came up, I spoke to the man. He replied politely, but, as I thought, rather coldly.

“I began: ‘Well, friend, I am one of those unfortunate beings called candidates, and—’

“’Yes, I know you; you are Colonel Crockett, I have seen you once before, and voted for you the last time you were elected. I suppose you are out electioneering now, but you had better not waste your time or mine. I shall not vote for you again.’

“This was a sockdolager . . . I begged him to tell me what was the matter.

“’Well, Colonel, it is hardly worth-while 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. But I beg your pardon for expressing it in that way. I did not intend to avail myself of the privilege of the constituent to speak plainly to a candidate for the purpose of insulting or wounding you. I intend by it only to say that your understanding of the Constitution is very different from mine; and I will say to you what, but for my rudeness, I should not have said, that I believe you to be honest. . . . But an understanding of the Constitution different from mine I cannot overlook, because 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.’

“’I admit the truth of all you say, but there must be some mistake about it, for I do not remember that I gave any vote last winter upon any constitutional question.’

“’No, Colonel, there’s no mistake. Though I live here in the backwoods and seldom go from home, I take the papers from Washington and read very carefully all the proceedings of Congress. My papers say that last winter you voted for a bill to appropriate $20,000 to some sufferers by a fire in Georgetown . Is that true?’

“’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, and 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; 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 intrusted to man, particularly under our system of collecting revenue by a tariff, which reaches every man in the country, no matter how poor he may be, and the poorer he is the more he pays in proportion to his means. What is worse, it presses upon him without his knowledge where the weight centers, for there is not a man in the United States who can ever guess how much he pays to the government. So you see, that 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; and, as 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. No, Colonel, Congress has no right to give charity. Individual members may give as much of their own money as they please, but they have no right to touch a dollar of the public money for that purpose. If twice as many houses had been burned in this county as in Georgetown , neither you nor any other member of Congress would have thought of appropriating a dollar for our relief. There are about two hundred and forty members of Congress. If they had shown their sympathy for the sufferers by contributing each one week’s pay, it would have made over $13,000. 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. The congressmen chose to keep their own money, which, if reports be 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. 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.

“’So you see, Colonel, you have violated the Constitution in what I consider a vital point. It is a precedent fraught with danger to the country, for when Congress once begins to stretch its power beyond the limits of the Constitution, there is no limit to it, and no security for the people. I have no doubt you acted honestly, but that does not make it any better, except as far as you are personally concerned, and you see that I cannot vote for you.’

“I tell you I felt streaked. I saw if I should have opposition, and this man should go to talking, he would set others to talking, and in that district I was a gone fawn-skin. I could not answer him, and the fact is, I was so fully convinced that he was right, I did not want to. But I must satisfy him, and I said to him:

“’Well, my friend, you hit the nail upon the head when you said I had not sense enough to understand the Constitution. I intended to be guided by it, and thought I had studied it fully. I have heard many speeches in Congress about the powers of Congress, but what you have said here at your plow has got more hard, sound sense in it than all the fine speeches I ever heard. If I had ever taken the view of it that you have, I would have put my head into the fire before I would have given that vote; and if you will forgive me and vote for me again, if I ever vote for another unconstitutional law I wish I may be shot.’

“He laughingly replied: ‘Yes, Colonel, you have sworn to that once before, but I will trust you again upon one condition. You say that you are convinced that your vote was wrong. Your acknowledgment of it will do more good than beating you for it. If, as you go around the district, you will tell people about this vote, and that you are satisfied it was wrong, I will not only vote for you, but will do what I can to keep down opposition, and, perhaps, I may exert some little influence in that way.’

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“’If I don’t,’ said I, ‘I wish I may be shot; and to convince you that I am in earnest in what I say I will come back this way in a week or ten days, and if you will get up a gathering of the people, I will make a speech to them. Get up a barbecue, and I will pay for it.’

“’No, Colonel, we are not rich people in this section, but we have plenty of provisions to contribute for a barbecue, and some to spare for those who have none. The push of crops will be over in a few days, and we can then afford a day for a barbecue. This is Thursday; I will see to getting it up on Saturday week. Come to my house on Friday, and we will go together, and I promise you a very respectable crowd to see and hear you.’

“’Well, I will be here. But one thing more before I say good-by. I must know your name.’

“’My name is Bunce.’

“’Not Horatio Bunce?’

“’Yes.’

“’Well, Mr. Bunce, I never saw you before, though you say you have seen me, but I know you very well. I am glad I have met you, and very proud that I may hope to have you for my friend.’

“It was one of the luckiest hits of my life that I met him. He mingled but little with the public, but was widely known for his remarkable intelligence and incorruptible integrity, and for a heart brimful and running over with kindness and benevolence, which showed themselves not only in words but in acts. He was the oracle of the whole country around him, and his fame had extended far beyond the circle of his immediate acquaintance. Though I had never met him before, I had heard much of him, and but for this meeting it is very likely I should have had opposition, and had been beaten. One thing is very certain, no man could now stand up in that district under such a vote.

“At the appointed time I was at his house, having told our conversation to every crowd I had met, and to every man I stayed all night with, and I found that it gave the people an interest and a confidence in me stronger than I had every seen manifested before.

“Though I was considerably fatigued when I reached his house, and, under ordinary circumstances, should have gone early to bed, I kept him up until midnight, talking about the principles and affairs of government, and got more real, true knowledge of them than I had got all my life before.

“I have known and seen much of him since, for I respect him—no, that is not the word—I reverence and love him more than any living man, and I go to see him two or three times every year; and I will tell you, sir, if every one who professes to be a Christian lived and acted and enjoyed it as he does, the religion of Christ would take the world by storm.

“But to return to my story. The next morning we went to the barbecue, and, to my surprise, found about a thousand men there. I met a good many whom I had not known before, and they and my friend introduced me around until I had got pretty well acquainted—at least, they all knew me.

“In due time notice was given that I would speak to them. They gathered up around a stand that had been erected. I opened my speech by saying:

“’Fellow-citizens—I present myself before you today feeling like a new man. My eyes have lately been opened to truths which ignorance or prejudice, or both, had heretofore hidden from my view. I feel that I can today offer you the ability to render you more valuable service than I have ever been able to render before. I am here today more for the purpose of acknowledging my error than to seek your votes. That I should make this acknowledgment is due to myself as well as to you. Whether you will vote for me is a matter for your consideration only.’

“I went on to tell them about the fire and my vote for the appropriation and then told them why I was satisfied it was wrong. I closed by saying:

“’And now, fellow-citizens, it remains only for me to tell you that the most of the speech you have listened to with so much interest was simply a repetition of the arguments by which your neighbor, Mr. Bunce, convinced me of my error.

“’It is the best speech I ever made in my life, but he is entitled to the credit for it. And now I hope he is satisfied with his convert and that he will get up here and tell you so.’

“He came upon the stand and said:

“’Fellow-citizens—It affords me great pleasure to comply with the request of Colonel Crockett. I have always considered him a thoroughly honest man, and I am satisfied that he will faithfully perform all that he has promised you today.’

“He went down, and there went up from that crowd such a shout for Davy Crockett as his name never called forth before.

“I am not much given to tears, but I was taken with a choking then and felt some big drops rolling down my cheeks. And I tell you now that the remembrance of those few words spoken by such a man, and the honest, hearty shout they produced, is worth more to me than all the honors I have received and all the reputation I have ever made, or ever shall make, as a member of Congress.

“Now, sir,” concluded Crockett, “you know why I made that speech yesterday.

“There is one thing now to which I will call your attention. You remember that I proposed to give a week’s pay. There are in that House many very wealthy men—men who think nothing of spending a week’s pay, or a dozen of them, for a dinner or a wine party when they have something to accomplish by it. Some of those same men made beautiful speeches upon the great debt of gratitude which the country owed the deceased—a debt which could not be paid by money—and the insignificance and worthlessness of money, particularly so insignificant a sum as $10,000, when weighted against the honor of the nation. Yet not one of them responded to my proposition. Money with them is nothing but trash when it is to come out of the people. But it is the one great thing for which most of them are striving, and many of them sacrifice honor, integrity, and justice to obtain it.”

Holders of political office are but reflections of the dominant leadership—good or bad—among the electorate.

Horatio Bunce is a striking example of responsible citizenship. Were his kind to multiply, we would see many new faces in public office; or, as in the case of Davy Crockett, a new Crockett.

For either the new faces or the new Crocketts, we must look to the Horatio in ourselves!

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