Posted on 07/04/2004 7:33:03 AM PDT by Mikey
It's popular to talk about limited government these days. Paying lip service to the idea of a smaller federal government is not revolutionary anymore. Everyone talks about it now, but no one follows his or her rhetoric with action. Everyone from Tom Daschle talking about fiscal responsibility to Constitution Party presidential nominee Michael Peroutka, talking about a government that could function in a moral way, is using the monster of a federal government as a means to submit his or her politically beneficial solution.
We've got to face reality and see that the term "limited government" has been worn out and no longer holds power, emphasis or really any meaning.
There are at least two reasons why this term is dead. First, those who stand for a perceived smaller government have committed adultery. I'm not talking about a random liberal who spouts off about fiscal responsibility. I'm talking about conservatives who make a commitment to smaller government and talks the talk about such things, but doesn't actually do anything. Ronald Reagan was one of the greatest orators and supporter in favor of limited government, but his administration didn't greatly decrease the size of the federal government. Another example is the Republican takeover of Congress during the Clinton administration followed by their failure to eliminate countless, wasteful federal departments.
The second reason the "limited government" term is dead goes hand-in-hand with the first. "Limited government" has yet to be defined. Thus, anyone can talk about fewer taxes, eliminating government waste and limiting government, but they can't be called on the carpet about their statements, because no one really knows what limited government is. Or maybe politicians don't want to admit the real definition of limited government in this nation.
Limited government is a constitutional government. This is plain and simple on the federal level, because the nitty-gritty services of government are done on the state and local level. The federal government was expected to be small and limited.
Still, we can talk about the Constitution all day long and it won't make a difference. Conservatives, if they want a shot at real limited government, need to quit talking.
Thus, conservatives need to stay united on at least on issue: limited government. But the biggest question is this: How do we return to a constitutional government? There are countless things wrong with our federal government, and they can't all be tackled at the same time – which, I believe, is one of the reasons our task of reform in America seems to be impossible.
We need to concentrate on taxes. The flow of money into the beast of the federal government allows for the funding of all the socialistic and immoral departments we gripe about.
Further, we need to do more than just cut taxes; we need to eliminate some taxes altogether. Cutting taxes is good, but all it does is eventually increase the budget when the economy is spurred.
The battleground for conservatives is in true fiscal responsibility. Unfortunately, neither presidential candidate will push this agenda.
Politicians can speak heavy rhetoric and activists can reiterate the need to decrease the size of our federal government and pay off the national debt, but the only way do to anything about it is cut off the flow of cash into the budget, thus requiring extensive elimination of federal departments and programs.
Yes, education reform is needed, we should leave the United Nations, foreign aid should be eliminated, Social Security and Medicare must be reformed, and various other issues must be resolved, but we're going nowhere if we're still funding the beast.
Limited government is about eliminating taxes. That should be the focus of conservatives.
Special Offer!
In Kyle Williams' book, "Seen and Heard," America's youngest national columnist takes on the establishment, offering clear evidence that a leftist agenda is at work in our nation. His lively, energetic analysis of current events is both informative and entertaining and will leave readers with a better understanding of the daily attacks against traditional family values. Order your copy now in ShopNetDaily.
Kyle Williams is 15 years old and lives in a rural community in America's heartland. In addition to his weekly weekend column on WorldNetDaily, Kyle also has a daily blog at OklahomaConservative.com.
When I entered County public office, one of the first things I did was head to the building dept. to ask for a review of ordinances to see if we could pare down regulations. I found out we have no local ordinances. We implement the minimum State codes.
Our County has some serious poverty and health issues. (Almost 54% of total population in low income households (below 200% of FPL. 39% of low-income parents living with food insecurity. Mental Health/Alcohol & Drug at 40 per thousand population.)
I was instrumental in establishing a network of nonprofit family resource centers to shift assistance from government to the community. We have all these retirees, surely they could volunteer. Nope, they have raised their kids, worked their jobs and want to be left alone. Funding for rural social non-profits - very little, foundations want more population impact for their buck.
How does one match social policy with moral beliefs? Do we get used to the fact that some people will live in luxury and some in poverty and illness and write it off as fate like third world countries? Do we drag everyone down to the median level to take care of everyones needs like socialists where there is no excellence? Or do we try and mix something in between?
What is scary is that the biggest employer in most rural counties is government. Union government employees become a large voting block.
IMHO the primary effort should not be on taxes (although important) but in getting rid of 'activist' judges. If the 9th and 10th amendments were enforced as written, probably one-half of everything the federal government does would be declared unconstitutional.
--Boris
I believe that your plan is self defeating. Bush has advanced the police state way too far in his first term to be trusted with a second. He will not have to be worried about reelection so all bets will be off.
A second Bush term will include a spreading war and a draft to supply that war. This will probably result in significant terror attacks in retribution. You can't go around the world making enemies without consequences. Unfortunately it will be American civilians that will pay for Bush's evil.
Before anyone thinks I will vote for Kerry-no way. That is why I think that we should all vote and support Badnarik, no matter if you think he can't win. You are not wasting your vote since it matters little to the nation whether Bush or Kerry is elected. It is disaster either way.
....also....one of the reasons we don't have "limited government" is that the non-Liberals (including Conservatives...) allowed the Left to almost totally dominate academia, the legal profession, the courts, big government/bureaucracy, labor, entertainment, etc. If Conservatives dominated big government (instead of running away from it a crying about it) and then practiced what they preach, then big government would shrink from within. Remaining on the outside (bitching and moaning) isn't working. Yes? No? Third Parties are third rate.
You seem to have the matter backwards. I am trying to prevent the third party vote from being splintered. Please don't waste your vote on Peroutka, vote for Badnarik. I think that, with the seriousness of the problem we are facing, Peroutka should withdraw and ask his supporters to vote for Badnarik.
There are two reasons. However, the two reasons were not directly included in the article.
The two reasons are the 16th and 17th Amendments to the Constitution. These two amendments, combined with human nature, virtually insured the failure of the framers of the Constitution’s vision of a free people and a limited central government.
The 16th Amendment gave the government the power that history had warned against and that the original constitution forbid; the power to directly tax the citizen.
The 17th Amendment caused both houses of congress to become directly beholding to the voters.
A review of the effect these two Amendments had on the nation reveals why the vision of a limited government failed. A few basic facts regarding the creation of the Constitution are required.
First Fact: We the People established a Constitution to define the creation of a government.
The Preamble to the Constitution
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
Second Fact: Congress was only granted specific enumerated powers.
Article I Section 1 of the Constitution
All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.
Consider:
We the people had fought a revolutionary war. We the people were not in the frame of mind to establish a central government with unlimited powers over we the people. To that end, we the people established a government with only specific enumerated powers. Those powers “herein granted” are the only powers granted government. If the Constitution does not specifically grant a power then the power does not exist.
Third Fact: Members of The House of Representatives are elected by the people.
Article 1 Section 2 of the Constitution
The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States
Consider:
The reason the members of the House of Representatives are elected by the people is because they represent the people. It was intended that the members of House of Representatives be beholding to the people for their votes.
Fourth Fact: Members of the Senate are elected by the state legislatures.
Article 1 Section 3 of the Constitution
The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof, for six Years; and each Senator shall have one Vote.
Note: modified by Amendment XVII
The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof
Consider:
The reason the members of the Senate were elected by the state legislatures is because the Senators represent the state, not the people. It was intended that the members of the Senate be beholding to the state legislature for their votes and not the people.
Fifth Fact: The government did not have the power to directly tax the citizen unless in proportion to the nation’s population.
Article 1 Section 9 of the Constitution
No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken.
Note: modified by Amendment XVI
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.
Consider: If the government were contemplating an expense of $100 million and the population were 100 million then each state would tax its citizens $1 each.
Our Constitution now grants the federal government the unlimited power to directly tax the citizens and the Constitution now requires that all those seeking election must appeal directly to the people for their votes. I don’t want to connect dots that you do not see connected so let me close with these quotes for your consideration.
"The Roman Republic fell, not because of the ambition of Caesar or Augustus, but because it had already long ceased to be in any real sense a republic at all. When the sturdy Roman plebeian, who lived by his own labor, who voted without reward according to his own convictions, and who with his fellows formed in war the terrible Roman legion, had been changed into an idle creature who craved nothing in life save the gratification of a thirst for vapid excitement, who was fed by the state, and who directly or indirectly sold his vote to the highest bidder, then the end of the Republic was at hand, and nothing could save it. The laws were the same as they had been, but the people behind the laws had changed, and so the laws counted for nothing."
"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”
"Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government, those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny."
The Purse-Seine
Robinson Jeffers
Our sardine fishermen work at night in the dark
of the moon; daylight or moonlight
They could not tell where to spread the net,
unable to see the phosphorescence of the
shoals of fish.
They work northward from Monterey, coasting
Santa Cruz; off New Year's Point or off
Pigeon Point
The look-out man will see some lakes of milk-color
light on the sea's night-purple; he points,
and the helmsman
Turns the dark prow, the motorboat circles the
gleaming shoal and drifts out her seine-net.
They close the circle
And purse the bottom of the net, then with great
labor haul it in.
I cannot tell you
How beautiful the scene is, and a little terrible,
then, when the crowded fish
Know they are caught, and wildly beat from one wall
to the other of their closing destiny the
phosphorescent
Water to a pool of flame, each beautiful slender body
sheeted with flame, like a live rocket
A comet's tail wake of clear yellow flame; while outside
the narrowing
Floats and cordage of the net great sea-lions come up
to watch, sighing in the dark; the vast walls
of night
Stand erect to the stars.
Lately I was looking from a night mountain-top
On a wide city, the colored splendor, galaxies of light:
how could I help but recall the seine-net
Gathering the luminous fish? I cannot tell you how
beautiful the city appeared, and a little terrible.
I thought, We have geared the machines and locked all together
into inter-dependence; we have built the great cities; now
There is no escape. We have gathered vast populations incapable
of free survival, insulated
From the strong earth, each person in himself helpless, on all
dependent. The circle is closed, and the net
Is being hauled in. They hardly feel the cords drawing, yet
they shine already. The inevitable mass-disasters
Will not come in our time nor in our children's, but we
and our children
Must watch the net draw narrower, government take all
powers--or revolution, and the new government
Take more than all, add to kept bodies kept souls--or anarchy,
the mass-disasters.
These things are Progress;
Do you marvel our verse is troubled or frowning, while it keeps
its reason? Or it lets go, lets the mood flow
In the manner of the recent young men into mere hysteria,
splintered gleams, crackled laughter. But they are
quite wrong.
There is no reason for amazement: surely one always knew
that cultures decay, and life's end is death.
Mr Peroutka will get my vote. GWB and the Pubbies have been profoundly disappointing in almost everything they have done in the past 31/2 years.
Besides, Al Qaeda is probably targeting the Federal Triangle as we speak. With the bonus that after their first nuke goes off, there will be a bounty on all Muslims.
BUMP
Immigration will stop being a problem when we end the welfare state. Then the self selection process of immigration of the early 20th century will return.
What is at stake in getting rid of Bush and Kerry and returning freedom to this land is worth all sorts of compromises on lesser issues. Would you accept the domestic police state that is being created before your eyes rather than accept a less active foreign policy?
Great post Scott, sad that it was ignored by all but a few.
Bush isn't the most conservative choice. But he's the most conservative choice that is actually ELECTABLE. And whose fault is that? It's not the fault of the politicians. It's the fault of the electorate.
A lot of Freepers really seem to overestimate their fellow Americans. They spend hours in this online echo chamber and they truly believe that most people share these opinions.
Don't attack Bush, he's the symptom, not the cause. Have to change the hearts and minds of the people.
If that is truly what you believe, I have nothing further to say. Poor Ben Franklin must be turning over in his grave.
He that would give up freedom for security deserves neither.
Your right young man and their are movements about getting rid of the income tax and stopping the flow of money into the federal government to supply the socialists programs and the need to get past.
Also we need more young people like this who want LIBERTY and FREEDOM. Limited government is not dead because we won't let it be. People need to start understanding that we are the government and the elected ones are supposed to do what we say. We are the government they are just elected to conduct the business and if we just let them do what they want we have no one to blame but ourselves!
great post
Not really. The Democrats and Republicans fight HARD to keep any third party candidates for MANY offices out of televised debates.
very interesting... I'm still trying to figure out why Alan keyes was arrested that one election year.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.