East Germany

From Opening Monologue: The Mark Levin Show 3/27/09

Soviet Controlled East Germany (1949-1990)

Cars: Rare, small, standardized; produced almost exclusively by government

Jobs: Goverment preferred to private; private

Energy: Electricity and natural gas were rationed to promote conservation and fairness; usage monitored by government

Education: Centralized federal government run schools, no local systems, required attendance of all children, teachers "government certified," children compelled to attend at earliest possible age; Purpose: indoctrination of children to Communist ideology

Health Care: Nationalized and centralized from top to bottom, people compelled to rely on regime

Economic Policy: Total control of economy through monetary and fiscal policy, smother free markets by massive spending

Volunteer Organizations: Large groups and charities that promote communism, very well funded by government backing, used to intimidate and threaten opposition



Liberal Controlled United States (2009-20??)

Cars: Rare, small, standardized; produced almost exclusively by government

Jobs: Government preferred to private; private

Energy: Electricity and natural gas were rationed to promote conservation and fairness; usage monitored by government

Education: Centralized federal government run schools, no local systems, required attendance of all children, teachers "government certified," children compelled to attend at earliest possible age; Purpose: indoctrination of children to Liberal ideology

Health Care: Nationalized and centralized from top to bottom, people compelled to rely on regime

Economic Policy: Total control of economy through monetary and fiscal policy, smother free markets by massive spending

Volunteer Organizations: Large groups and charities that promote liberal agenda, very well funded by government backing, used to intimidate and threaten opposition

Gitmo

How about this headline:
Guantanamo Detainees May Be Released in U.S. also Here

Oh goodie! Our favorite group of "freedom fighters" are coming to a state penitentiary near you, or maybe just to a city near you.

Of course we know that our dear friends over at the ACLU will most likely take the side of justice on this matter. They most assuredly will see that Saif, Sulaiman, Mahfouz, Ridwua, and all their buddies are treated with the utmost respect and that they get all of their due process rights. I can't wait until we start to learn that our soldiers have failed to follow due process from the start and that each and everyone will be honorably released without charge. Justice is served!

Really though, detention camps are a part of war. We are at war still, are we not? So, when we get into a skirmish, firefight, or outright battle with the enemy, what should we do?

1. Order soldiers to kill everyone on site.
2. Take prisoners & send them to the US on a one way ticket (hmmm eerily familiar)
3. Catch and release on the battlefield like it were a leisurely fishing trip
4. Operate detention facilities locally, close enough for other terrorist cells to effectively target them; or
5. Maintain a humane, non-US detention facility away from the war zone: aka Club Gitmo

Ok time's up, what did you choose? Biased survey? Darn right. This is not a difficult decision. Again let's look back at history; prisoner of war camps have been operated by every war time president dating all the way back. Why? To extract information from the prisoners about the enemy's plans and whereabouts, to ensure that those taken do not continue to fight against you, and sometimes to leverage against the enemy in negotiations (this last one doesn't apply much anymore).

This from NPR February 23, 2009 · "U.S. officials sent Abdallah Saleh Al-Ajmi from the Guantanamo Bay detention facility to Kuwait, where he was released. He later drove a truckload of explosives into an Iraqi army base."

At the end of the day none of us wants to see one of these men released into our country. We do not want them in our prison system with access to the dregs of our society to recruit them to their unholy cause. Most of all we cringe at the thought of another attack carried out or coordinated by someone who is safely locked up right now, or should have been.

Liberty and Tyranny

I will review this book as soon as I have read it, but I preordered it a few weeks ago and will get it later this week. In the book, Mark goes through the history of conservatism and how that history helps us to look at the issues currently facing our country.
Go out and get it now while it's discounted as a bestseller and before it sells out!

Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto

Mind Boggling

We have a problem in our country that is so huge that few if any of us can really even comprehend it. That is the amount of money we are spending, printing, and promising. Each of these in turn WILL, let me repeat WILL destroy our society as we know it.

Spending
I talked about this a few weeks ago, here, on Friday this story popped up everywhere: Obama budget could bring $9.3 trillion in deficits. Basically, if we adopt Obama's 2010 Budget plan it will increase spending over the next decade by so much that we will almost double the debt that recently hit $11 Trillion. This type of debt accrues interest as well, which we have to pay back each year. The CBO says that this increase in the debt is "unsustainable," meaning we will eventually have some type of catastrophic collapse - a giant economic hurricane that will make the last 7 months look like a gentle summer breeze.

Printing
Every dollar placed in circulation makes every other dollar worth a fraction less. For example:

You have ten apples to trade, each apple is worth 1/10th (.10) the total value of your apple economy. Now, I pluck another apple from the apple tree and give it to you. You now have 11 apples, each of which is worth 1/11th (.091) of the value of the entire apple economy.

Our beloved government through our treasury and our federal reserve, is now creating more and more money at a screaming pace - PLEASE See Video. I want to quickly point out the fact that LBJ's great society and mismanagement of the Vietnam War created a situation that was temporarily solved by taking the US off the gold standard in 1971, and now irresponsible people are making extremely dangerous decisions with that leeway. We now risk massive inflation at some point down the road.

Promises or Obligations
Through our largest existing transfer programs: Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, the federal government has made $65.5 trillion in promises to Americans. This is money they do not have. Worse they do not have a plan to get this money yet. Guess who is going to pay for all of this???

So in traditional accounting terms our government is on the hook for $78.8 Trillion.
Just a little perspective:
What 1 trillion dollars look like.
78.8 trillion one-dollar bills end-to-end would extend from earth to the edge of the solar system and back! And there would be enough left over to go from the earth to the sun and back...and then we would have enough to go to the moon and back 264 times, around the earth 18 times (each time in 80 days of course!), from Washington DC to San Francisco and back 4 times, and after all that travel we would still be left with --- $21.1 Million.

Two Months....

Note from the author:

After writing for a couple months now, I think that I will begin expanding our audience. Up until now only a few of you have been following these posts. I will try to broaden and deepen our content here on the blog, and I invite you to begin conversations by posting comments. We have many important battles coming up in this war we are fighting and we must be prepared and we must be engaged.

Prosperity

Material wealth is definitely a blessing and a curse. We who live in America are the wealthiest people as a whole on the face of the earth, and we who live now are the wealthiest generation of Americans ever. America has the richest "poor" people in the world (the link is to a study by the Heritage Foundation). That is to say, those who are classified as poor or who consider themselves poor are much better off than the "poor" of any other nation on the planet.

Our society has come so far over the past generation in terms of quality of living. Here is a tremendous description of that - from Carpe Diem Blog: Young Americans: Luckiest Generation in History.

We should be grateful for all that we have, no matter how much or how little we have. Too often we take what we have for granted and only focus on what we don't have and what others do have; and by doing that we make ourselves miserable, we become overly materialistic, we end up focusing on ourselves too much, we make impulsive short-term decisions that make ourselves worse off, and we develop greed and envy towards others and the possessions of others.

Stop, take inventory of what you have in your life. Look at where you are and focus on doing good. The wonderful thing about capitalism is that it rewards those who help the greatest numbers of people.

#6

The Heritage Foundation and the WSJ publish an annual report called the Index of Economic Freedom.

They have the United States listed as #6 out of all countries ranked according to their levels of economic freedom. The main problems we have in the US are very apparent -

1. Our high tax rates
   
2. Our extremely large federal, state, and local governments
3. And our increasingly corrupt politicians and business professionals

The problem is that the current trend is moving in favor of all of these things and not away = less economic freedom = less overall freedom = less opportunity, higher unemployment, more real poverty, and greater burdens on the citizens.

Millions of people in our country and around the world are depending on America to get this right. All we can do is keep trying!

Climate

I would like to pose a few leading questions:

How far should we go to protect our planet?
What measures should we take to protect earth?
Should we stop driving our vehicles that create so much pollution?
Which businesses are destroying the environment in the name of profit?
What are you doing to decrease your carbon footprint?
Who is promoting the lifestyle that will lead to catastrophic natural disasters?

Now, what are your answers to these questions? Remember, I said they would be leading questions. Now let's look at where these types of questions lead us...

• “The greatest thing anyone in Britain could do to help the future of the planet would be to have one less child.” John Guillebaud - May 6, 2007 Second Article
  
• Couples who have more than two children are being “irresponsible” by creating an unbearable burden on the environment; curbing population growth through contraception and abortion must be at the heart of policies to fight global warming. - Jonathon Porritt, Great Britain's Sustainable Development Commission
• "changes in lifestyle would help to combat climate change. 'That's what I want to emphasise: we really have to bring about reductions in every sector of the economy.'" - Dr Pachauri, chair of UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
• "Australians must pay more for petrol, food and energy or ultimately face a rising death toll . . ." - Professor Ross Garnaut
• U.S. oil and natural gas producing companies should not receive federal subsidies in the form of tax breaks because their businesses contribute to global warming - U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithneron March 4, 2009 (I will comment elsewhere on the deeper idiocy of this statement)
• Madison, WI City Code:

1. Limit waterfront development in the name of water sustainability
2. Require two trees to be planted if one is removed from your property
3. Limit the “number/density of fast food outlets and drive-through windows” in the name of public health
4. Discourage individual parking options to promote public transportation usage

Even though slippery slope is not a valid logical argument, it is a reasonable argument once it has already happened. It is already happening. You do not have to look very hard to find these kinds of statements because they are made every day.

We are slowly being regulated into slavery. I know that sounds extreme, but look at where we are going. First it was our toilets, our light bulbs, and our cars; next it will be the rest of our homes and businesses; then it will be the food we eat; and finally how we live and what we do in every single aspect of our lives.

How long will this process take here in America? Well that depends on you and me. What are you doing to fight back against the tides of tyranny? I plead with you to educate yourself and influence as many people as you can.

Must Read:
Environmentalism as a Religion

Revenue

I want to very quickly explain something about government revenue. Almost all of the money government uses comes from what we do every single day. - See usgovernmentrevenue.com - Your labor, efforts, investments, and so forth are partially confiscated by government.

The more money that federal, state, and local governments take out of the economy the slower it will grow or in our current situation, the faster it will shrink. What happens in principle is you get less of anything you tax. So, if you tax income you get less income; if you tax business you get less business, etc.

Likewise, if you tax something less you will get more of it. Too few people understand this simple concept, and you have a responsibility to inform your family and your neighbors of true principles that will help them -- THIS IS ONE THAT YOU NEED TO TEACH THEM!

When an economy has more income, more business, and more investment, that economy will grow. That is what happened in the early 1980's. We lowered taxes for everyone and we came back from the mess that Jimmy Carter got us into.

This concept is discussed with quantitative figures in a well written article by Louis Woodhill from the Club for Growth.

Spending

The questions of how government raises money and why, how they spend it and on what, have been on my mind for some time. Once upon a time in The United States of America these questions were answered by our Constitution. Last Saturday I bought The Heritage Guide to the Constitution, which is a wonderful guide to understanding the founding of our great nation. By studying the Constitution we really learn what makes this country great.

Spending Clause
"The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States..."(Article I, Section 8, Clause 1).

We find that early on in the nation's history there were differing view points on the implications of the spending clause.

• Madison's view was that this limited Congress to only being able to spend if it furthered ends that were spelled out elsewhere in the Constitution; Jefferson agreed with this idea.
• Hamilton's view was that the clause imposed virtually no restrictions on what Congress could deem as the "general Welfare" of the country.
• A third view, later espoused by Monroe, was that spending by Congress is to be unrestricted as long as it is "general" and benefits the nation as a whole and not only a specific locale or region or group of people.
  

Transition
Early Congressional actions show that Hamilton's view was rejected. And administrations throughout most of the first half of the 19th century rejected the broad interpretation also. The limits on Congressional spending have been slowly eroding ever since, most notably with FDR. And that brings us to our current situation:

• National Debt - $10.9 Trillion
• Deficit for FY 2008 - $454.7 Billion
• Deficit for first 4 months FY 2008 - $88.9 Billion
  
• Deficit for first 4 months FY 2009 - $569 Billion

And what is the solution to controlling, reducing, or eliminating these current deficits? Raise more taxes. IF THAT IS NOT THE MOST ASININE IDEA!!! What do us "average folk" do when we get into debt? We spend LESS. Instead, two weeks ago we signed into law the $787 Billion "stimulus (wasteful spending) bill," soon we'll have a $410 Billion spending bill to cover government operations for the rest of the fiscal year, and to top it all off last week the President rolled out his $4 TRILLION budget for FY 2010!

This is insanity, it clearly violates the principles of the Constitution, and it will bankrupt the next generation if we do not do something to get these irresponsible, arrogant ideologues out of power SOON!

$1 Billion = $1,000 Million = $1,000,000,000
$1 Trillion = $1,000,000 Million = $1,000,000,000,000


[The Heritage Guide to the Constitution Regnery Publishing, Inc. (2005) ppg. 93-96]