Home of Today's Common Sense

It is time for another revolution

22 Feb 2009 @ 10:38 AM

Published Brownsville Herald February 22, 2009

I am usually optimistic but of late the storm of trials that has fallen upon us is getting to me. The Democratic machine of Illinois that gave us President Obama continues to demonstrate what politics today is really like and the credibility of our supposed representatives with the new revelations of Senator Roland Burris in the “Blago Chronicles.” Is this politics as usual today?
The recent Mallard Fillmore cartoon caption said, “I must be getting old.”
I remember when I could tell the Republicans from the Democrats.
It shows us that even the conservative commentary is losing confidence in the here and now of the traditional alternative.
Then to top it all off and in vindication of my tirades of the last year, the current Newsweek blasts out, “We are all Socialists Now!”
Who brought us to the door of socialism with the “buying and exercising ownership control of our banks, effectively nationalizing them? The Republican administration.
That same “conservative” administration that enacted the largest expansion of the welfare state in 30 years with prescription drugs for the elderly. People on the both the left and right want government to put our tax money in alternative energies in order to break our addiction to foreign oil. And it is unlikely that even the most self-reliant of states will decline federal money for infrastructure improvements.
As the current administration passes the largest money bill in American history, caps the salaries of executives at institutions receiving federal aid, and introduces a new plan to rescue the banking industry, the unemployment rate is rising to its highest in 16 years. The stock tickers have slumped to 1998 levels, and last year mortgage foreclosures went up more than 80 percent.
All of this is evolving in an economy that can no longer be understood. Whether we like it or not, the numbers clearly suggest that we are headed in a more European direction. Ten years ago government spending was 34 percent of our gross domestic product, compared with 48.2 percent in Europe, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
In 2010 U.S. spending is expected to be 39.9 percent of GDP, compared with 47.1 percent in the Euro zone.
We now expect entitlement spending to rise over the next decade; we will become even more European!
Americans are not socialists. And most of us don’t want to be. But the media continue to bulldoze us with their fear that private ownership of property is somehow more dangerous than the government’s seizure of what he does not understand, cannot operate, and has not earned.
Unless we want to give up our traditions like those won at the Alamo.
A theme that rings so clear is that the only thing the folks wanted was the freedom from an interfering national government.
When the U.S. Constitution was being written, In the debate it was very clear that the framers of the Constitution wanted the same thing.
The major contentions were how best to protect the people from the government. Contentions surrounding the Bill of Rights demonstrate it well. The Federalists contended that a bill of rights was not necessary as the federal government did not have the authority or power to do any of the things mentioned and that the mandates contained in Article 2 Section 9 were sufficient. Many also asserted that if they were specifically mentioned in the Constitution, it would be inferred that the federal government did have that power and that an activist court would take advantage of them.
The opposition was so afraid of the power of an interfering central government they insisted on the Bill of Rights to protect them and possibly to even delay the approval of the new Constitution. Further, the founders specifically described those powers the several states could not exercise in Article 1 Sec 10.
It would appear that the fears of the anti-Federalists have been well founded, as the national government now interferes with nearly every aspect in our lives, either to protect us from terrorism or the misdeeds of others, or as a condition of the financial supports that have become part of daily life.
It is time for a revolution, a revolution of ideals we need to look back to our roots and elect representatives who really don’t want to be powerful but just want the best for our country. We want citizen statesmen to go to Washington to save us. We want to entreat folks like our brave soldiers and sailors who have proven their honor on a field of battle to go to Washington and defend us again. I remember such a fine young man who wrote describing the war in The Brownsville Herald. I know I would have no problem nominating and voting for Ben Christensen or someone like him to represent us in Congress. The incumbents, whose excesses have gotten us into this peril, must be replaced in the next election.