Mar 24, 2014 | Healthcare, Liberty Articles, Taxes
By Dr. Harold Pease
Vladimir Putin’s “forced” annexation of the Crimea invites memories of Adolph Hitler’s annexation of Austria. Both absorbed their weaker neighbor with over 96% of their vote.
With unemployment and interest rates at 25% in 1938, Austria was in deep depression and “people were going from house to house begging for food.” Kitty Werthmann, whose story I summarize, remembers her mother cooking a big kettle of soup and baking bread to feed her staving neighbors, about “30 daily.” The Communist Party and the National Socialist Party, two conflicting varieties of socialism, were fighting each other. The Germans, under Adolf Hitler, promised an environment of no crime, full employment, a high standard of living, and happiness. Austrians “became desperate and petitioned the government to let them decide what kind of government they wanted.” The Austrian government could not deliver these conditions, so 98% of the population, believing the lies, “voted to annex Austria to Germany and have Hitler for our ruler.” When this happened, the people danced for joy in the streets for three days.
Almost immediately law and order returned and “everyone was employed” in government created jobs, but what followed under fascist socialism was pure hell. In return for believing the empty promises, education was nationalized and freedom of religion in public education ended. Crosses in the predominantly Catholic schools were “replaced with Hitler’s picture hanging next to a Nazi flag” and prayer, replaced with singing praises of Germany. “Sunday became National Youth Day with compulsory attendance.” If their children were not present, parents were threatened first with “a stiff letter of warning,” then with a $300.00 fine, and then with jail. The day consisted of two hours of political indoctrination followed by sports and fun. The children loved it but “lived without religion.” Having no moral compass, illegitimacy flourished. “Unwed mothers were glorified for having a baby for Hitler.”
Men and women had equal rights under Hitler. They found out what that meant when workloads were equal, making no distinction on the basis of sex. When the war came in 1939, the draft was compulsory for both sexes and women served on the front lines as well. Many became “emotional cripples because they just were not equipped to handle the horrors of combat.” Kitty Werthmann continues, “When the mothers had to go out into the work force, the government immediately established child care centers. You could take your children ages 4 weeks to school age and leave them there around-the-clock, 7 days a week, under the total care of the government. The state raised a whole generation of children. There were no motherly women to take care of the children, just people highly trained in child psychology. By this time, no one talked about equal rights. We knew we had been had.”
Under Hitler’s socialism everyone was entitled to free handouts, such as food stamps, clothing, and housing. Healthcare was socialized as well, free to everyone. “Doctors were salaried by the government. The problem was, since it was free, the people were going to the doctors for everything. When the good doctor arrived at his office at 8 a.m., 40 people were already waiting and, at the same time, the hospitals were full. If you needed elective surgery, you had to wait a year or two for your turn. There was no money for research as it was poured into socialized medicine. Research at the medical schools literally stopped, so the best doctors left Austria and emigrated to other countries.” Of course, to pay for this benefit for the less productive, “the tax rate had to be raised to 80% of our income.”
When the war started, a food bank was established. “All food was rationed and could only be purchased using food stamps. At the same time, a full-employment law was passed which meant if you didn’t work, you didn’t get a ration card, and if you didn’t have a card, you starved to death.” Socialism now controlled life and death by controlling who ate.
Small businesses were intentionally over-regulated out of business leaving the government owned large businesses the only ones existing. “We had consumer protection. We were told how to shop and what to buy. Free enterprise was essentially abolished.” Moreover, “farmers were told what to produce, and how to produce it.” To prevent the population from revolting, guns had long since been registered, then outlawed, and freedom of speech ended as well. “Anyone who said something against the government was taken away.”
Hopefully, the Crimean’s who recently “voted” for Russian annexation will fair much better than the Austrians did in 1938, as Hitler was a tyrant. Unfortunately some say Putin is as well.
Mar 16, 2014 | Constitution, Liberty Articles
By Harold Pease, Ph. D
The December 19, 2014, death of a SWAT team member, using the ever more popular practice among law enforcement of No-Knock Warrants, brings to the front the need for a reassessment of this warrant. Such enables the police to enter ones home fast, presumably to confiscate illegal substances before they are destroyed. With upwards of 60,000 of these happening each year from only 3,000 in 1981, perhaps it is time we squared this practice with the Constitution, especially in light of its serious escalation.
Hank McGee, who shot and killed a SWAT team officer because he thought those breaking through his front door were robbing thugs, was acquitted by the Burleson County Texas grand jury. He acted in self-defense. Although he was lucky and not killed in the exchange of gunfire, this is not the case with others having the same thing happen to them. In 2006, Eighty-year-old Kathryn Johnson, with similar fears, unloaded several rounds wounding three officers before they killed her. She too was not running a drug house as had been alleged. Nor was Tracy Ingle of Little Rock, Arkansas, two years later, when he tried to defend himself with an unloaded gun from what he thought to be entering thugs. Later after four bullets had been discharged into his body and several others into the wall, the gunfire ended. Surrounding police referred to him as Michael. “My name’s not Mike,” he answered before passing out from his wounds. They had the wrong house and man (SWAT Team Member Killed Using No-Knock Warrant, The New American, March 3, 2014). Ismael Mena, a Mexican immigrant, also the wrong man and wrong address, unlike Ingle who lived, was killed in a no-knock raid. Jose Guerena, presuming home invasion, was shot 22 times. The safety on his gun was still on when found dead. He hadn’t fired a shot.
Certainly these are not normal cases but when intruders break in your door a reasonable person would not first assume that they are friendly. He would grab his gun. This is why initial murder charges against Hank McGee were dropped in the Texas County. In light of a recent Los Angeles robbery ring of 15 led by two former police officers “which used fake no-knock raids as a ruse to catch victims off guard,” today, even if the police announce themselves as the police, uncertainty may justifiably still exist (Wikipedia). With the recent passage of the National Defense Authorization Act authorizing the military to kidnap and remove to Guantanamo Bay, without trial and for indefinite detention, anyone the President, or his military, suspect as being terrorists (not defined), the government should expect citizens to fire back. When uncertainty exists with respect to who the good guys and bad guys are coming through his door—often in the middle of the night unannounced and uninvited—how could it not be self-defense?
It is hard to believe that the Framers of the Constitution had in mind either the police or the military busting through our doors unannounced with guns blazing, as was the case in the examples just cited. This was essentially what the British were doing prior to the Revolutionary War with their general search warrants. The Fourth Amendment to the Bill of Rights prohibited such from ever being reinstituted. It reads: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
The home is the most sacred of all places, the place where we sleep for approximately eight hours a day and are the most vulnerable. Where children often reside. It is very difficult to believe that No-Knock Warrants cause the people to be more secure in their persons or houses. And although a judge, and not the police or military, decide what is reasonable, it is hard to imagine this kind of entry as ever being reasonable unless the suspect is in the act of committing a life or death crime. The dead on both sides make that case.
So what if the drugs are flushed down the toilet by those not law abiding because the police knocked first? When weighed against the police losing their reputation as being first a friend and protector of the people, it pales in comparison. In a free society one should not have cause to fear the police or military.
Mar 10, 2014 | Constitution, Liberty Articles, Tea Party
By Harold Pease, Ph. D
Pundits do not agree on the specific origin of the Tea Party Movement but they do agree that it began in the last week of February 2009 and became a powerful sensation over-night with no specific identifiable founder. There were hundreds of founders including myself. It was as though everyone was frightened by the direction of government at the same time—certainly a grassroots movement. Encyclopedia coverage of its origin and early history is foreign to those of us who were there on the front lines. They tie the movement to extreme breakoffs of other movements going back to the sixties seemingly in some bizarre attempt to cast doubt on its legitimacy, but the Tea Party Movement was as American as apple pie. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the televised press, excepting FOX News, has never been friendly toward this movement.
Actually the movement began in opposition to George W. Bush’s $700 billion stimulus bailout package at the end of his term, which received bi-partisan support from President-Elect Barack Obama and the Democrats. Both parties were on the same page and taking us in the wrong direction—bigger government and debt insanity. Tea Party groups began to spring up everywhere in February 2009, each with their own leaders. Three city leaders in the east, learning of the simultaneous rise of sister cites, contacted each other to compare notes. They liked the name Tea Party because they wished, by that name, to emulate our founding philosophy. Even so, they were uncertain what their core values should be so they invited Internet submissions from the thousands who felt similarly. Still, there was no known single leader. My daily submissions encouraged getting back to the Constitution. The three most frequently submitted core values, and the one’s selected, were: limited constitutional government, free market and fiscal responsibility—precisely the collective views of our Founders and believed to be the values supported by most Americans today.
In time prominent names would emerge notably Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin, and the now strongest group, the Tea Party Patriots, led by Jenny Beth Martin would come to dominate the movement’s presence on the national level. Still, many groups chose to remain independent and influence only local governments.
In my community the leader of the movement was Julie Demos, a second grade teacher, who had no prior political experience making her the perfect leader. This was the gathering of the people who no longer wished to use political party, but the Founders core values, in promoting good government. Between three and five thousand folks gathered at the Liberty Bell in April 15, 2009, many spoke, including myself. Over 600 cities throughout the nation had similar gatherings. The movement was not party based. We wished to attract those who desired to get back to these neglected core values. Our own Congressman Kevin McCarthy and House Speaker John Boehner, were denied the podium for that reason. They attended and viewed the proceedings as spectators as did everyone else. This was not a Republican Party rally! Fifteen thousand heard myself and others speak on getting back to the Constitution at the Tulare Ag Center on July 4, 2010, in support of over a million who gathered in Washington DC. Two other times such numbers gathered in the capitol before years end making these gatherings the most assembled since the days of Martin Luther King Jr.
Although not intending to align with either political party, negative press coverage, primarily from the left hostile to its core values, emerged from the outset. The Tea Party, so undermined by a hostile press, never had a chance in the Democratic Party. Establishment Republicans accepted it in the 2010 election because it gave them the House of Representatives but treated it as a wayward child. Trust between them never really developed the following years. The Tea Party views establishment Republicans as but giving lip service to America’s core values. Today the Tea Party appears to be more popular than ever despite the demonizing from both political parties and the establishment press, excepting Fox News.
Happy fifth birthday Tea Party, some of us value movements that actually fight for liberty. We believe that we literally fight for the same principles as our Founding Fathers and invite everyone that loves the Constitution and liberty to stand with us. We believe that our time is just as critical as was theirs. See you at the next Tea Party event.
Mar 3, 2014 | Constitution, Economy, Liberty Articles, Take Action, Tea Party
Harold Pease, Ph. D
Let me be one of the first to put it in print. The nation’s biggest threat is not Al Qaida! It is not Edward Snowden or NSA spying on every citizen in the nation! It is not the IRS targeting of Tea Party and religion groups for extra scrutiny, or even a president replacing Congress as the leading lawmaking branch of government. It is the impending financial collapse if we do not curb our addiction to debt and do it quickly. It grows by an estimated $3 billion a day and is now $17,355,598,800 trillion as I write this column. By the time many of you read it, one week from today, it will have increased by $21 billion.
Two laws passed this year have made this observation more blatantly obvious. The Republican Party’s total collapse on the debt ceiling increase and the recently passed $1 trillion dollar Farm Bill financing corporate and class welfare.
First the debt ceiling surrender wherein the Republican Party leadership, in opposition to there own party, totally capitulated without asking any concessions from the White House and Democrats in return for the borrowing authority. Please note that a debt ceiling raise eventually means higher taxes or debt. Twenty-eight Republicans joined the Democratic Party majority for a yes vote thus passing the raise in the House of Representatives 221-201. Conservatives and constitutionalists felt betrayed. House Speaker John Boehner in his “Boehner Rule,” had promised that increase in the debt ceiling must reflect spending cuts also.
Amazingly the top three Republican Party leaders: Boehner (Speaker), Eric Canter (Majority Leader), and Kevin McCarthy (Majority Whip) voted to raise the debt ceiling to March 15, 2015, as did all but two Democrats, virtually abandoning their 206 remaining Republican colleagues voting no to the debt raise. So much for fiscal restraint and holding to often repeated principles. These three voted against their own party. To his credit Paul D. Ryan, former Vice Presidential candidate, voted against. The Democratically controlled Senate easily passed the debt raise legislation along party lines 55-43.
Why is this a sign of an impending fiscal collapse? The debt ceiling has been raised 76 times since March 1962, including 18 times under Ronald Reagan, eight times under Bill Clinton, seven times under George W Bush, and seven times under Barack Obama. This is our 14th debt raise in 13 years. We raise it every year to accommodate our need for a “fix.” My point! Congress sadly never says no! Does anyone really believe that our debt-addicted government will ever stop the addiction on its own?
Second, the recently passed five-year Federal Agriculture Reform and Risk Management Act of 2013, popularly called the Farm Bill, costing nearly one trillion dollars, over ten years—a 50% increase over the last one—certainly leaves no room for faith that they will curb their appetite for debt. The 959-page document included the following items considered pork by critics: “$2 million for sheep production and marketing, $10 million for Christmas tree promotion, $170 million for catfish oversight, $119 million for peanut crop insurance, $100 million for organic food research, $150 million to promote farmers markets, $3.3 billion for a cotton income protection plan, $12 million for a “wool research and promotion” program, and $100 million to promote the maple syrup industry. Ironically the 949-page bill spends about $1 billion dollars per page ($956 Billion Farm Bill Loaded with Pork, Your World Cavuto). The Department of Agriculture will also be establishing new federal standards for “the identity of honey.”
The final vote in the Senate was 68-32, with 44 Democrats, 22 Republicans and both independents supporting the measure. The Farm Bill passed in the House of Representatives 234 to 195. Voting yes were 24 Democrats and 171 Republicans. Again, House of Representative leaders Boehner (Speaker), Eric Canter (Majority Leader), and Kevin McCarthy (Majority Whip) voted for the pork filled bill and the 50% increase over the last Farm Bill.
So my friends, how does this pork bestowal to a favored few stop the three billion dollar a day bleed to the national debt, now exceeding $17 trillion? It doesn’t even pretend to try and that is my point, nor does raising the debt ceiling without accompanying cuts. When the bleeding was resisted by at least one political party there was hope. We absolutely must replace our existing House and Senate with those fiscally responsible or there will be a financial collapse. If you are not personally involved in doing so you must begin now. The Tea Party is the only party that gives more than lip service to fiscal responsibility. You may wish be become a part of it.
Feb 24, 2014 | Constitution, Economy, Liberty Articles
By Harold Pease PH. D
By now everyone should have heard of the recently passed five-year Farm Bill costing nearly one trillion dollars, over ten years—a 50% increase over the last one. The 959-page document included the following items considered pork by critics: “$2 million for sheep production and marketing, $10 million for Christmas tree promotion, $170 million for catfish oversight, $119 million for peanut crop insurance, $100 million for organic food research, $150 million to promote farmers markets, $3.3 billion for a cotton income protection plan, $12 million for a “wool research and promotion” program, and $100 million to promote the maple syrup industry. Ironically the 949-page bill spends about $1 billion dollars per page ($956 Billion Farm Bill Loaded with Pork, Your World Cavuto). The Department of Agriculture will also be establishing new federal standards for “the identity of honey.”
Two serious problems from this action exist. First, how does this pork bestowal to a favored few stop the three billion dollar a day bleed to the national debt, now exceeding $17 trillion? It doesn’t even pretend to try. Yes, we over-spend by three billion dollars a day. This growth is our biggest national threat.
Second, where in the Constitution is the trillion-dollar Farm Bill? How did something specifically prohibited on the federal level become constitutional? The Founders clearly saw agriculture as a state or local jurisdiction not a federal one. Alexander Hamilton, credited with having made the strongest statement with respect to agriculture’s exclusion from federal jurisdiction, wrote in The Federalist #17: “the supervision of agriculture and of other concerns of a similar nature, all those things, in short, which are proper to be provided for by local legislation can never be desirable cases of a general jurisdiction.” Any “lust of dominion” in this area by the federal government, he reasoned, the states “would control the indulgence of so extravagant an appetite”(See Clinton Rossiter, p.118-119). They didn’t.
Ironically some $756 billion of this $950 billion mega spending bill through 2023 is not for farm programs, as inferred by the name, but for food stamps for a third of the population. It emerges as a perfect blend of corporate welfare, largely for the rich giant agri-businesses’ farmers, insuring them from all risks, and welfare for the poor —both portions of the population feeding off the middle class. Boiled down it consists of an enlarged crop insurance program where the federal government subsidizes losses from poor yields or low commodity prices.
But does the Constitution allow either type of welfare, for the rich or for the poor, on the federal level? No!! The Founders gave the federal government only four areas of power: taxes, paying the debts, providing for the general welfare (that’s not the same as providing the general welfare), and providing for the common defense. That is it. All four powers are identified before the first semi colon. The clauses, which follow, are simply qualifiers of these four.
The Founders did not dare leave the phrase “general welfare” for future power grabbers, as they could be counted on to enlarge there authority by defining everything as general welfare. They understood that it is the nature of all governments to grow. As a result, clauses 2-9 list 14 powers that comprise “general welfare.” Five deal with borrowing money, regulating its value, and dealing with counterfeiting. The other nine powers include naturalization, bankruptcies, establishing post offices, protecting inventors and authors, establishing “tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court” and “regulating commerce with foreign nations and among the several states.”
One, not well informed, might argue, what about the last part of the sentence giving Congress authority to do whatever is “necessary and proper?” They must read the wording that next follows: “for carrying into execution the forgoing powers.” Article I, Section 8 defines general welfare as 14 specific types of authority so that the federal government could not grow their power at the expense of state, local, and individual authority. If they had meant for Congress to legislate anything that they felt necessary they would have said so in one sentence. Neither handouts to the poor, or to the rich, are on this list and not thereafter added by way of amendment and thus both are unconstitutional. More especially is that so for agriculture specifically discussed as having been omitted.
The trillion dollar Farm Bill is no where in the Constitution yet the leadership of both parties voted for it demonstrating once again that the leadership of neither party protects the Constitution as first priority. Until that happens we will continue our blood letting national debt and accompanying loss of liberty.
Feb 18, 2014 | Constitution, Economy, Liberty Articles, Taxes
By Dr. Harold Pease
President Barack Obama’s favorite president, as is the case with so many Americans, is Abraham Lincoln who now shares a national holiday—Presidents Day—with George Washington. But the Obama/Lincoln bond certainly could not be because of shared political ideology. Lincoln was for the free market and decidedly against socialism—just opposite of President Obama. He saw nothing in the Communist Manifesto, published in 1848, worthy of emulation.
On the ownership of property Abraham Lincoln’s feelings were especially strong, he said, “Property is the fruit of labor; property is desirable; is a positive good in the world. That some should be rich shows that others may become rich, and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprises” (The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume VII, pp. 259-260). To him there was no need to take by force the wealth of those who produce and give it to those less productive. The “share the wealth” philosophy and “envy politics” so articulated by Obama would have been foreign ideology to the Civil War president.
The answer to ending poverty is not class envy, first identified by Aristotle some 2,500 years ago as being the natural inclination of those with less, a philosophy implemented by Lenin in Russia when the communists identified those holding property as enemies of the state and liquidated some four to eight million farmers, the “Kulaks” (“The Russian Kulaks,” InDepthInfo.com). Then they wondered why the country had such a horrific famine in 1921-1922 when millions starved.
No money was set aside for, or provided to, any class or special interest group in our Constitution. The power distributed benefited all equally and at the same time. The federal role was as referee only. Our Constitution does not redistribute wealth; it leaves the individual to do that by his work ethic. It remains the fairest way. Will income inequality be the outcome? Yes! Free men are not equal and equal men are not free. But all will have more than had we instead forced income equality by taking from those who produce and giving it to those who do not. We remain anxious to share our wealth producing philosophy with our less prosperous neighbors and the world so that all can have more but individuals steeling it from us, or using the government to do it for them, known as legalized plunder, is just wrong.
Lincoln’s answer to the poor, from which he sprang himself, “Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another, but let him labor diligently to build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence….” Unfortunately, many in our society have forgotten the “labor diligently” part of his phrase and have come to expect the government to provide, from the industry of others, their every need. On that score Lincoln also had words. “You toil and work and earn bread, and I will eat it.” He viewed this principle as a form of tyranny to those who work. Today 47.5 % of the adult population pays no federal income tax; many actually receive benefits for which they have paid nothing.
Watching others acquire wealth was, in fact, a sign of a healthy economy for Lincoln. “I take it that it is best for all to leave each man free to acquire property as fast as he can. Some will get wealthy. I don’t believe in a law to prevent a man from getting rich; it would do more harm than good.” Nor would he have supported the hundreds of laws that we have today that disincentivise a man trying to acquire wealth.
Lincoln might have added, “When has a poor man ever created a full time job for anyone?” Hate the Wal-Marts’ or the McDonalds’ all you want but they provide the poor thousands of jobs. Do not bite the hand that feeds you then wonder where the jobs and prosperity went, as did the early Russian socialists. The “share the wealth” philosophy, which Lincoln opposed, and Obama endorses, has never brought long term general prosperity for any people, any place, or any time.
