The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions

 Have you ever given thought to how we got into our present fascist quagmire? What has brought us to the brink of Socialism where a President can openly fire the CEO of a private corporation and nearly 40% of our nation’s residents receive some form of federal monetary aid (notice I said residents, not citizens.) When did we step onto that slippery slope? And how can we get off?

 “It is hard for those who did not live through it to grasp the full force of the worldwide depression. Between 1930 and 1939 U.S. unemployment averaged (editorial note: substitute peaked) 18.2 percent. The economy's output of goods and services (gross national product) declined 30 percent between 1929 and 1933 and recovered to the 1929 level only in 1939. (Ed. Note: The stock market recovered much sooner but GOVERNMENTAL POLICIES stymied recovery.) Prices of almost everything (farm products, raw materials, industrial goods, stocks) fell dramatically. Farm prices, for instance, dropped 51 percent from 1929 to 1933. World trade shriveled: between 1929 and 1933 it shrank 65 percent in dollar value and 25 percent in unit volume. (Ed. Note: Protectionist policies restricting free trade kept business, manufacturing, and agriculture from exporting goods, hence prices and production suffered.) Most nations suffered. In 1932 Britain's unemployment was 17.6 percent. Germany's depression hastened the rise of Hitler and, thereby, contributed to World War II.”        --     Robert Samuelson, Encyclopedia Britannica

Mr. Samuelson’s history is generally accurate but relies upon Marxist economic theory for his commentary, normal in today’s Socialist theology.

 In his effort to combat the problems of the Great Depression, Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed, and with the help of the Socialist minded Democratic-controlled Congress passed, many New Deal programs. Within 100 days of taking office in 1933, he and his advisors proposed a series of measures designed to provide relief for the unemployed, recovery of the economy, and reform of the economic and banking systems. In other words, Roosevelt began tinkering with our economic engine. By 1934, the Supreme Court began ruling, correctly, against many of the New Deal programs as unconstitutional. In his second term, Roosevelt, flush from his 1936 landside presidential victory, was outraged and was convinced he had a mandate from the people to continue and expand his New Deal programs. This conflict between the Court and the Executive branches of government led to FDR's court-packing bill in 1937. The court acquiesced joining FDR in his Utopian ideology.

 FDR’s Dem Congress passed the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933. Portions of its provisions were correctly ruled unconstitutional by the Court in 1933 which lead to passage of further curative amendments by Congress in the Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act in 1936. The Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938 limited the area that farmers could devote to wheat production. (The Soviets had done so well with their own allocation programs we had to as well. Of course, the USSR allowed 30 million peasants to starve to death so Stalin could eat well, a mere statistic.)

 The stated purpose of the act was to stabilize the price of wheat in the national market by controlling the amount of wheat produced. The motivation behind the Act was a belief by Congress that great international fluctuations in the supply and demand for wheat were leading to wide swings in the price of wheat. Of course, our farmers weren’t allowed to export their excesses which led to widespread world hunger and poorer US farmers. Ah, how well the road is paved, eh! Even farmers who grew more than their Government allowed allocations for their own usage were penalized. More Socialism. Why should Government in any form be allowed to tell farmers how much grain they can grow for their own use?

 Wickard v. Filburn was a US Supreme Court decision. It allowed the Fed’s to control wheat production. Filburn was a small farmer in Ohio. He was given a wheat acreage allotment of 11.1 acres under a directive, Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938, which authorized the government to set production quotas for wheat. Filburn harvested nearly 12 acres of wheat above his allotment. He claimed that he wanted the wheat for use on his farm, including feed for his poultry and livestock. Fiburn was penalized. He argued that the excess wheat was unrelated to commerce since he grew it for his own use. It wasn’t sold nor intended to be sold.

 The Federal District Court ruled in favor of Filburn. The Act required an affirmative vote of farmers by plebiscite in order to implement the quota. (The Dems thought a vote would seem democratic.) Much of the District Court decision related to the way in which the Secretary of Agriculture had campaigned for passage: The District Court had held that the Secretary's comments were improper. The government then appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States, which called District Court's holding against the campaign methods which led to passage of the quota by farmers a "manifest error." The court then went on to uphold the AAA under the Interstate Commerce Clause.

 Government prosecutors claimed concern lest the Act be held to be a regulation of production or consumption rather than of marketing.  In fact, activities such as 'production,' 'manufacturing,' and 'mining' were considered strictly 'local' except in special circumstances and not regulated under the commerce power because their effects upon interstate commerce were, as matter of law, only 'indirect.'

 It was supposed no decision of the Court allowed activities to be regulated where no part of the product is intended for interstate commerce or intermingled with the subjects thereof. It doesn’t work that way, of course. The issue was not how one characterized the activity as local, but rather whether the activity "exerts a substantial economic effect on interstate commerce." In simple language, since Filburn didn’t have to buy feed from somebody else, his activities infringed on someone else’s ability to sell their grain.

 But the decision held ….even if (a person’s) activity be local and though it may not be regarded as commerce, it may still, whatever its nature, be reached by Congress if it exerts a substantial economic effect on interstate commerce and this irrespective of whether such effect is what might at some earlier time have been defined as 'direct' or 'indirect.'  …..  It was a power grab by FDR and the DEMS to allow them to regulate who could buy and sell. Lot’s of flowery language but same result, Fascism. Just exactly the governmental form we went to war to end in Japan and Europe, aided, abetted, and promoted by a populist President same as Obama today.

 PL Booth, The Blue Eye View, MO 04/02/09 

The Tea Party Tax Revolution

It is simply amazing how great are the spontaneous numbers of people responding to the national “Tea Party” revolution scheduled all over the country on April 15^th of 2009, a nationwide protest in 500 cities and towns. Past events have largely been gatherings of people venting frustration over a variety of tax issues, carrying signs such as "Tar and feather Washington" and "Spread my work ethic, not my wealth." I expect the 4/15 event to be much the same though larger.

Organizers say they were not pleased by former president George W. Bush's performance on spending, either, but what moved them from yelling at the TV to rallying in the streets was Obama's proposed $3.6 trillion budget, a package the Congressional Budget Office says would produce record-breaking deficits of $9.3 trillion over 10 years. The fury is palpable. The Tea Parties are merely beginning.

The Information Age has given people the ability to network as never before. In that sense, the Tea Party movement resembles the early days of MoveOn.org, which began in 1998 as a small, tech-savvy liberal group and became a behemoth in Internet fundraising and rallying. "Conservatives are catching up on the tools," says Ilyse Hogue, MoveOn.org's spokeswoman. She was dismissive of the several hundred events the Tea Party organizers plan for Wednesday, saying her group routinely mobilizes many more.

Nevertheless, Jenny Beth Martin, a former paid consultant for local Republican candidates, says the strength of the Tea Party movement is the emergence of many people not known for street action. "It's not your hippie protesters," she says. "It's people who are working hard for their families and they don't want their money taken away from them to be given to people who aren't working hard." An activist, Meckler, says, "They're supposed to energize a group of new activists, show them there are people much like themselves."

Dawn Wildman of San Diego, who is organizing four tea parties, says lawmakers should not be dismissive. "We're seeing how you vote," she says. "You're not paying attention to your constituency. We put you there, and we can take you out." In fact, there at least are two Facebook “causes” that are calling for the removal (via ballot box, of course) of all current sitting congress people.

There is opposition as well, to this movement. Arianna Huffington, founder of the left-wing Huffington Post blog, wrote that “Internet hooligans are spewing their talking points to thwart the dissent of the newly-out-of-power… Political leftists play for keeps. They are willing to lie, perform deceptive acts in a coordinated fashion and do so in a wicked way - all in the pursuit of victory.” I do believe this woman has a handle on how the left handles things it doesn’t like.

There should be Tea Parties in Springfield, Branson,  St’ Louis, Kansas City, and Columbia , MO, at least, perhaps more. I have read Tea Parties are scheduled in Little Rock, Ft.Smith, Fayetteville, and West Memphis in Arkansas. Memphis, Jackson, Nashville, and Knoxville in TN are all hosting Tea Parties as well. It remains to be seen just how large the movement is to become and just how effective the protests will carry over at the ballot boxes but, if talk radio and the internet bloggers have their desires, we’ll be looking at a new congress after the next election. None too soon for me. Clearly, our present sets of representatives aren’t doing their jobs very well.

PL Booth, The Blue Eye View, MO 04/13/09

What’s So Great About Christianity?

For some strange reason, there is a concerted effort underway to teach our nation hostility to religion, particularly Christianity, the very basis upon which Western Civilization was founded. Our children are taught little about the Bible, Christian history, nor religion’s actual role in shaping the values and precepts of Western Republicanism and political freedoms. Without Christianity, the USA could not exist.

It seems silly to me that some people mistakenly believe Christianity brought on the “Dark Ages”, the fall of civilization from the classical age of Greece and Rome, rather than Rome’s decadence. “Renaissance” and “Enlightenment” have become meaningless terms. Yet Christian values and institutions are the very root of Western civilization’s organization now taken for granted by the west.

Our old testament God, a universal foundation figure of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, the three most influential religions of all time, introduced a new concept, freedom of conscience, free will. In the Garden, Adam and Eve exercised and paid the price for their will versus God’s. At the same time, God is elevated above any human desires occupying a universal heavenly realm, omnipotent but tender and loving.

Christianity teaches man exists in two realms, one earthly, one heavenly. Though Christians have dissimilar duties within these two, the ultimate devotion is to the heavenly thus limiting the political authority of our leaders to the temporal and secular. From this idea comes the foundations of limited government; there are some things even elected governments may not control.

Our system and constitution dictate that governments are necessarily limited to roles ensuring safety and security but not granted powers to the extent that they intrude upon the private rights of citizens to life, liberty, and pursuits of individual happiness. When intrusions exceed the publics’ interests, tyranny exists and the people have the right to oppose and replace it. Fortunately, free states may elect new representatives to change the course of their governments. Captive states such as the Socialist, Communist, Muslim, and pretenders to democracy cannot.

It is important to recognize the self-imposed separations of the Christian church and Western government arose and has operated since the beginnings of Christianity. The asinine rhetoric of atheists such as Dawkins that insist separation precludes all references to God is absurd and clearly at odds with individual consciences. Our society and laws do not overlap jurisdictions in such a manner as does Islam where we see women punished for the mere instance of conversation with a man or executed for refusal to wear mandated garb.

Our founders were modern thinkers that understood religious tolerance must exist to preclude the very abuses Christianity is falsely accused of today. Tolerance accepts disagreement allowing others their erroneous ways. Was it not true in the US, such as Dawkins could not exist. In fact it is the atheist who is intolerant.

The genius of our founders’ freedom of conscience kept Government out of the business of religion until modern times. Even Jefferson argued, “And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath?” Why then should we try to insulate governments from morality, all of which arises from religion?

Factually, morality is necessary for a free society to succeed. No amount of laws can protect people from the amoral thief or murderer but can only punish evil doers. Law reflects societies existing sentiments.

Courts today interpret separation to mean religion has no place in the public arena. Morality should not be permitted to shape our laws. Now freedom of expression has become freedom from expression emptying the public discourse of morality so secularists (Socialists) can monopolize conversation with their own views. The first such decision rendered by Hugo Black in the late 40’s came only 30 years after the first acceptance of socialism worldwide, ten years after FDR’s revolution.

In the 1890’s Alexis de Tocqueville famously observed all America’s varied Christian sects preached a common morality based upon the Laws of God and termed religion America’s first political institution. Today, socialists make religious believers 2^nd class citizens distorting the idea of separation promoting social peace and justice into one promoting politically correct injustices and amoral behaviors. Recovering the true sense would greatly benefit both our nation and Western Civilization. There can be no morality outside the concept of God, only ethics which are malleable by the will of men.

PL Booth, The Blue Eye View, Blue Eye, Mo. 04/07/09