The incumbent political parties have long done their level best to ensure that political discourse in America is divided (more or less equally) between two supposedly polar opposite groups. The "Left", currently represented by the Democrat Party and the "Right" the province of the Republican Party.
The struggle between Left and Right is a valid contest. However, the failure of our current two party system is that there is another axis of political discourse that both the Left and Right parties are content to ignore. That axis is "Liberty" (personal freedoms supported by personal responsibilities) verses "Statism" (that is State-ism, or total control and responsibility belongs to the government alone, a.k.a. Tyranny).
Statism is like gravity. An apple is naturally drawn to the ground by gravity, and is incapable of resisting gravity without an outside influence. Likewise, incumbent Politicians and established political parties are unable to resist the draw of Statism. Power corrupts, is a truism that aptly describes this. The draw of Statism is the increase of personal power it offers the government official. The "outside influence", the only power that can resist Statism is Liberty.
As the parties of the Left and of the Right see-saw back and forth in their political tug of war, we all as a Nation slowly sink into the pit of Statism. We are all aware of this, we all feel the frustrations, even if we are unsure of the reasons. The Democrat and Republican parties are seemingly as irreconcilably different as they have ever been, yet the people on the Left feel they are not being represented by their party and the people on the Right feel the same about the their own. This is because, true Liberals and true Conservatives are not Statists!
While Liberals and Conservatives are not Statists, neither are they Anarchists (the extreme of Libertarianism), rather they both see the need for some level of Government control (just what that should be is the crux of their true and correct Political debate). But one thing that both true Conservatives and true Liberals should be able to agree on is that the current level of Statism is too much. We may argue about what order or priorities need to be cut, but we all should agree that our present course is untenable.
"When you find yourself in a hole, the first step is to stop digging." Not to keep digging with a smaller shovel, which is the proposal of both the left and right wing Statist parties in Washington. But as long as they can keep distracting the electorate by squabbling over the left or right-handed shovel, we will never climb out of this hole!
It is time for all Americans to work together to lift ourselves out of this hole, and present the leadership of the Two Parties the option to lead the way, or be buried when We the People begin backfilling this hole we have allowed ourselves to fall into.
To the parties' leadership; the first one of you two to grab, espouse, and follow sound Libertarian (small government, fiscal responsibility) principles will win the tug of war for the next decade or two. If both parties refuse, then one or both of you will be replaced by new Third Parties which are chomping at the bit and raring to go!
It is up to us, the American People to stand for the Libertarian ideals for which this Nation was founded, or submit to enforced slavery to our masters in Washington, as they in turn destroy our Nation in their fiscally irresponsible bid to keep power no matter the consequences.
I say, if you're a Liberal, join the Green Party, or whatever political Party best represents your beliefs. Resuscitate the Democrat party if you so choose and believe you can.
If you are a Conservative, join the Constitution Party, or form up with whatever Tea Party is forming in your State. The National Republican Party is dead to me.
If you are truly a Libertarian, then join that self-same party and help lead the way in a resurgence of the ideals and principles of your party and of this Country's Founders!
The (most recent) Rise (and Fall?) of Left Wing Health Care
The aptly named "Slaughter Solution" may well be the final peal of the death knell to the Rule of Law that established our Nation as a Republic under the Constitution. First the Senate has found a way to pass this "Health Care" bill by fiat, instead of by Vote. And now the House has found a way to join them in supplanting Democracy with rule by fiat.
First off, when the House of Representatives passed H. R. 3590 known colloquially as the Senate Health Plan and officially short-titled "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act", it was actually titled "An Act to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to modify the first-time homebuyers credit in the case of members of the Armed Forces and certain other Federal employees, and for other purposes." Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid caused the House bill to be gutted and replaced entirely with text of his own. This was done in order to bypass the inherent difficulties and Constitutional protections provided if the Senate were to have passed their own, separate bill. The only thing H. R. 3590 as passed by the House and H. R. 3590 as passed by the Senate have in common is the designation H. R. 3590!
What happened to the bill that the House passed and sent to the Senate concerning health care, you may ask? The House did pass a version of health care reform after all, it was H.R. 3962, the "Affordable Health Care for America Act". It, H. R. 3962, is sitting "on the Senate Legislative calendar", forgotten, and quietly waiting to die a peaceful death at the end of the session.
Now, having written his new bill in an old bill's clothing, Senator Reid and President Obama convinced the Democrats in the Senate into standing in lockstep and passing this travesty through a rare (and fortunately short lived) party-line super majority vote. In order to accomplish this task (getting 60 Senators to agree on anything, no matter their party, is difficult) Senator Reid had to resort to the typical base tactic (used unabashedly by both parties) of brib... er, ah ear marks. Unfortunately for them, and fortunately for Americans, the Constitution required that the House vote on any and all changes made. I say required because the latest machinations of the House leadership appears to be an attempt to bypass the very heart of the Constitution itself.
The Constitution of the United States of America, Article 1, Section 7 reads in part; "But in all such Cases the Votes of both Houses shall be determined by Yeas and Nays, and the Names of the Persons voting for and against the Bill shall be entered on the Journal of each House respectively."
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was stuck in a real quandary. It wasn't the fact that the bill was swapped out wholesale from the original, that's normal accepted procedure in Washington, but that the coalition of Democratic Representatives in Congress was able to read the proverbial "writing on the wall". Being politicians first, some had realized that their cushy two-year-at-a-time stints were on the line if they agreed to the current Senate bill, full of bri... er, kick-ba.., ah unpopular mono-state funding initiatives. All but a couple of the hardest headed liberals had finally surrendered on the so-called "public option" for the time being, but some of the more "moderate" members from conservative areas were concerned enough about public sentiment over abortion and those ear marks that they were unwilling to commit to vote "Yea" again. Despite another round of brib... ear marking, the numbers just didn't add up. What she needed was a rules fix, like the Senate had offered.
In the Senate, they recognized that their wholesale re-writing of the Health Care bill would be a hard pill for the House to swallow, so Senator Reid, with his fingers crossed behind his back, promised that the Senate would "fix" the bill, if only the House would pass it and the President sign it first. The President, likewise with his fingers crossed behind his back said, "Yeah, what he said!" Well, being politicians themselves, the House Democrats recognized a snow job when offered one and declined. Even Speaker Pelosi winced when trying to sell that whopper. But Senator Reid produced a surprise claiming that the special rules for "Budget Reconciliation" could be use to fix (most) of the "problems". The Republicans could whine about it, but they had neither the will nor enough of a cache of public trust to do anything substantive about it.
Reconciliation looked to be the answer, it at least afforded a modicum of political cover for most of the concerned "moderates". The only stickler remaining was the anti-abortion democrats. Enough of these members figured out all by themselves (through the aid of copious amounts of mail from constituents) that reconciliation could not fix the non-budgetary rules problems created by the Senate bill concerning abortion.
It struck Speaker Pelosi, that if the arcane rules of the Senate could provide for part of the solution, then surely the arcane rules of the House could provide for the rest! So, she called upon House Rules Committee Chairman Louise Slaughter to save her political bacon. Representative Slaughter, after some time of virtual rules bending finally came up with an idea.
The "Slaughter Solution" as it has lovingly been called, is simplicity (or is that duplicity?) itself. Basically, the House Rules committee would produce a "rule" which would deem the bill, H.R. 3590 (Senate hi-jacked health care bill) as passed without without! it ever having been voted on by the members of the House of Representatives; Article 1 Section 7 be damned.
Sure, the members of the House of Representatives(!) would have to vote "yea or nay" for the rule. But they could flatly and truthfully claim that they never voted for this unpopular bill, even if they vote "yea" on this rule. Is this thin political fig leaf worth the damage to the Constitution; to the Rule of Law in the United States of America? It apparently is worth it to President Obama, Senator Reid, and Speaker Pelosi.
The $64 trillion question is, Why?
First off, when the House of Representatives passed H. R. 3590 known colloquially as the Senate Health Plan and officially short-titled "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act", it was actually titled "An Act to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to modify the first-time homebuyers credit in the case of members of the Armed Forces and certain other Federal employees, and for other purposes." Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid caused the House bill to be gutted and replaced entirely with text of his own. This was done in order to bypass the inherent difficulties and Constitutional protections provided if the Senate were to have passed their own, separate bill. The only thing H. R. 3590 as passed by the House and H. R. 3590 as passed by the Senate have in common is the designation H. R. 3590!
What happened to the bill that the House passed and sent to the Senate concerning health care, you may ask? The House did pass a version of health care reform after all, it was H.R. 3962, the "Affordable Health Care for America Act". It, H. R. 3962, is sitting "on the Senate Legislative calendar", forgotten, and quietly waiting to die a peaceful death at the end of the session.
Now, having written his new bill in an old bill's clothing, Senator Reid and President Obama convinced the Democrats in the Senate into standing in lockstep and passing this travesty through a rare (and fortunately short lived) party-line super majority vote. In order to accomplish this task (getting 60 Senators to agree on anything, no matter their party, is difficult) Senator Reid had to resort to the typical base tactic (used unabashedly by both parties) of brib... er, ah ear marks. Unfortunately for them, and fortunately for Americans, the Constitution required that the House vote on any and all changes made. I say required because the latest machinations of the House leadership appears to be an attempt to bypass the very heart of the Constitution itself.
The Constitution of the United States of America, Article 1, Section 7 reads in part; "But in all such Cases the Votes of both Houses shall be determined by Yeas and Nays, and the Names of the Persons voting for and against the Bill shall be entered on the Journal of each House respectively."
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was stuck in a real quandary. It wasn't the fact that the bill was swapped out wholesale from the original, that's normal accepted procedure in Washington, but that the coalition of Democratic Representatives in Congress was able to read the proverbial "writing on the wall". Being politicians first, some had realized that their cushy two-year-at-a-time stints were on the line if they agreed to the current Senate bill, full of bri... er, kick-ba.., ah unpopular mono-state funding initiatives. All but a couple of the hardest headed liberals had finally surrendered on the so-called "public option" for the time being, but some of the more "moderate" members from conservative areas were concerned enough about public sentiment over abortion and those ear marks that they were unwilling to commit to vote "Yea" again. Despite another round of brib... ear marking, the numbers just didn't add up. What she needed was a rules fix, like the Senate had offered.
In the Senate, they recognized that their wholesale re-writing of the Health Care bill would be a hard pill for the House to swallow, so Senator Reid, with his fingers crossed behind his back, promised that the Senate would "fix" the bill, if only the House would pass it and the President sign it first. The President, likewise with his fingers crossed behind his back said, "Yeah, what he said!" Well, being politicians themselves, the House Democrats recognized a snow job when offered one and declined. Even Speaker Pelosi winced when trying to sell that whopper. But Senator Reid produced a surprise claiming that the special rules for "Budget Reconciliation" could be use to fix (most) of the "problems". The Republicans could whine about it, but they had neither the will nor enough of a cache of public trust to do anything substantive about it.
Reconciliation looked to be the answer, it at least afforded a modicum of political cover for most of the concerned "moderates". The only stickler remaining was the anti-abortion democrats. Enough of these members figured out all by themselves (through the aid of copious amounts of mail from constituents) that reconciliation could not fix the non-budgetary rules problems created by the Senate bill concerning abortion.
It struck Speaker Pelosi, that if the arcane rules of the Senate could provide for part of the solution, then surely the arcane rules of the House could provide for the rest! So, she called upon House Rules Committee Chairman Louise Slaughter to save her political bacon. Representative Slaughter, after some time of virtual rules bending finally came up with an idea.
The "Slaughter Solution" as it has lovingly been called, is simplicity (or is that duplicity?) itself. Basically, the House Rules committee would produce a "rule" which would deem the bill, H.R. 3590 (Senate hi-jacked health care bill) as passed without without! it ever having been voted on by the members of the House of Representatives; Article 1 Section 7 be damned.
Sure, the members of the House of Representatives(!) would have to vote "yea or nay" for the rule. But they could flatly and truthfully claim that they never voted for this unpopular bill, even if they vote "yea" on this rule. Is this thin political fig leaf worth the damage to the Constitution; to the Rule of Law in the United States of America? It apparently is worth it to President Obama, Senator Reid, and Speaker Pelosi.
The $64 trillion question is, Why?
Competing Visions
In the current marketplace for ideas, there are three main "plans", "road maps", or "visions" for America's future.
First let's define where we are. "We the People" are broke. "We the People" are in large part (up to 22%, in real terms) without jobs. "We the People" are in debt up to our eyeballs in our private lives, as well as corporately with the expense of "two wars" (actually, one war on two fronts), massive payments on an unimaginably large public debt, and the unfunded mandates of Social Security and Medicare.
What is the President's response to this crisis? Create a brand new unfunded and unfundable entitlement program, while jacking energy prices (which are already to high, thanks to Federal Programs) through the roof by means of a "Cap and Trade" program. This "Cap and Trade" program is no more, no less, than a naked power grab by the Federal Government seeking to Nationalize our energy infrastructure, just as it has the Banking Sector, two out of the Big Three Automakers (Who came to congress looking for a hand out... What they got was a new ownership structure; a new master. "We the People" better take note!), and the Health Care sector which alone is fully 20% of our "private" economy. So, the President's Vision for America is Central economic, social, and political control, which is more reminiscent of Communist China, Cuba, or Venezuela than anything else.
Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI) has published his "RoadMap Plan 2.0". In a brevity that can only do disservice to the ideas, he wants to return the "New Deal" back into something which is fiscally... reasonable. (Responsible is just too problematic a word to use for socialism.) Through a mixture of cuts, tax hikes, some privatization, and a little bit of voodoo (though nothing like the scale of Lovecraftian mathematics of the President's plan). He has convinced the Congressional Budget Office to declare that this plan would be solvent by 2058; while the "current plan" (the President's Budget) cannot be projected out that far due to the complete economic collapse of the predictive models well before reaching that point. Why 2058? Because most of the Baby Boomers will be dead by then, I reckon.
Finally, Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) has ideas that nobody seems to like! (Which in my book is an excellent sign.) Briefly, Ron Paul is a Libertarian who is affiliated with the Republican Party as a marriage of convenience, as far as I can tell. His ideas are quite simply, get the Federal Government out of private business, private lives, and back into the box built for it by the framers of our Constitution. His plan for health care? Wean the public off of Medicaid, Medicare; support charities and private businesses enabling them to provide universal coverage. His plan for the economy? To bring the Federal Reserve Bank under control through tight auditing, with an eye to the future elimination of that institution. And eventually to wean the economy off of paper money and allow the States (and others?) to establish commodity backed (Gold and/or Silver) currencies. These are radical ideas; ideas that reek of common sense. Is there room in Washington for common sense? Only "We the People", the voters, can truly decide.
First let's define where we are. "We the People" are broke. "We the People" are in large part (up to 22%, in real terms) without jobs. "We the People" are in debt up to our eyeballs in our private lives, as well as corporately with the expense of "two wars" (actually, one war on two fronts), massive payments on an unimaginably large public debt, and the unfunded mandates of Social Security and Medicare.
What is the President's response to this crisis? Create a brand new unfunded and unfundable entitlement program, while jacking energy prices (which are already to high, thanks to Federal Programs) through the roof by means of a "Cap and Trade" program. This "Cap and Trade" program is no more, no less, than a naked power grab by the Federal Government seeking to Nationalize our energy infrastructure, just as it has the Banking Sector, two out of the Big Three Automakers (Who came to congress looking for a hand out... What they got was a new ownership structure; a new master. "We the People" better take note!), and the Health Care sector which alone is fully 20% of our "private" economy. So, the President's Vision for America is Central economic, social, and political control, which is more reminiscent of Communist China, Cuba, or Venezuela than anything else.
Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI) has published his "RoadMap Plan 2.0". In a brevity that can only do disservice to the ideas, he wants to return the "New Deal" back into something which is fiscally... reasonable. (Responsible is just too problematic a word to use for socialism.) Through a mixture of cuts, tax hikes, some privatization, and a little bit of voodoo (though nothing like the scale of Lovecraftian mathematics of the President's plan). He has convinced the Congressional Budget Office to declare that this plan would be solvent by 2058; while the "current plan" (the President's Budget) cannot be projected out that far due to the complete economic collapse of the predictive models well before reaching that point. Why 2058? Because most of the Baby Boomers will be dead by then, I reckon.
Finally, Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) has ideas that nobody seems to like! (Which in my book is an excellent sign.) Briefly, Ron Paul is a Libertarian who is affiliated with the Republican Party as a marriage of convenience, as far as I can tell. His ideas are quite simply, get the Federal Government out of private business, private lives, and back into the box built for it by the framers of our Constitution. His plan for health care? Wean the public off of Medicaid, Medicare; support charities and private businesses enabling them to provide universal coverage. His plan for the economy? To bring the Federal Reserve Bank under control through tight auditing, with an eye to the future elimination of that institution. And eventually to wean the economy off of paper money and allow the States (and others?) to establish commodity backed (Gold and/or Silver) currencies. These are radical ideas; ideas that reek of common sense. Is there room in Washington for common sense? Only "We the People", the voters, can truly decide.
Why the Republicrats in Washington must be voted out.
This is why most of the Republicans currently in Congress have to go. They do not have the ability to make a painful stand for what is right. Senator Bunning made a principled stand and the majority of his co-party-ests fled the scene.
Senator Bunning used parliamentary trick to hold up a bill that the Democrats created via their own rules trick. The ruling Democrat party couldn't find a way to pay for this relatively tiny $1 Billion dollar program, so they delayed it until it could be passed using "emergency" rules. Because in Washington, if you cannot pay for a government program, you merely have to wait until it is close to expiring, which constitutes an "emergency", and all requirements that you pay for the thing are magically lifted! Hmm, I think I would like to try this myself... Except I do not relish the idea of the Sheriff knocking on my door in order to evict me.
Both the Democrats and the Republicans are equally at fault. The Democrats are at fault for exceeding their expected tax and spend behavior, going to just plain old spend because they have nearly taxed the economy to death. The Republicans are at fault for hypocritically failing to stand against the Tax and Spend Democrats and even joining with them in their worse excesses.
The only real answer is for the American People to provide the appropriate feedback, and "throw the bums out" come election time. This means wholesale support of Third Party candidates, and support of those very few party politicians who's actions not merely words are representative of common sense fiscal responsibility. If you do not know if your representative is worthy of re-election or not, then the answer is not, simply because anyone who makes a principled stand in Washington DC will be pilloried in the press, just like Senator Bunning.
Senator Bunning used parliamentary trick to hold up a bill that the Democrats created via their own rules trick. The ruling Democrat party couldn't find a way to pay for this relatively tiny $1 Billion dollar program, so they delayed it until it could be passed using "emergency" rules. Because in Washington, if you cannot pay for a government program, you merely have to wait until it is close to expiring, which constitutes an "emergency", and all requirements that you pay for the thing are magically lifted! Hmm, I think I would like to try this myself... Except I do not relish the idea of the Sheriff knocking on my door in order to evict me.
Both the Democrats and the Republicans are equally at fault. The Democrats are at fault for exceeding their expected tax and spend behavior, going to just plain old spend because they have nearly taxed the economy to death. The Republicans are at fault for hypocritically failing to stand against the Tax and Spend Democrats and even joining with them in their worse excesses.
The only real answer is for the American People to provide the appropriate feedback, and "throw the bums out" come election time. This means wholesale support of Third Party candidates, and support of those very few party politicians who's actions not merely words are representative of common sense fiscal responsibility. If you do not know if your representative is worthy of re-election or not, then the answer is not, simply because anyone who makes a principled stand in Washington DC will be pilloried in the press, just like Senator Bunning.
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