Sauk Valley Voter Fair

The Sauk Valley Voter Fair will happen Sunday September 26 at the Sauk Valley Community College. The last time the Sauk Valley Voter Organization held one of these, there was a great turn out and the ability to meet the candidates one on one was invaluable. I invite everyone to come and meet these people that would like to lead our local, state and federal government. Rather than having the media filter their message or listening to advertisements, it would be wise to listen to them for yourself and make a decision based on looking them in the eye and asking them the questions YOU want to have answered. For more information, go to www.saukvalleyvoter.com

The Case Against Progressivism

Probably already a book title somewhere, this attempt is to define the term progressivism so that a "progressive" person would agree with the definition, then from a philosophical, economic, and religious view, demonstrate the dangers of such an ideology and offer a more sound solution to long term improvements in the human condition. Because ideology goes deeper than religion, which I will explain later, there is little hope to change those deeply ingrained into the social engineering ideology. This paper will hopefully help the fence sitters or uncommitted minds understand that while they may not end up a libertarian, convervative, objectivist, or constitutionalist, but rather recognize the danger, dare I say evil, of a progressive ideology.

A progressive in their own mind, is someone who believes through the power of the collective (working together), man can create a better world. They are conditioned to believe that status quo is not altruistic and that there is always a better answer around the corner and all that holds us back is people that are stuck in their ways.

One could argue that the definition above, save for the collective part, applies to an entrepreneur. However, that would not be accurate. The entrepreneur is not looking for change or for a better answer, but rather a person willing to take an individual risk to invest their money, energy and time into an idea they have in hopes it will pay off for them. The risk and the reward is theirs and possibly their families. The progressive believes in a collective risk and reward scenario.

The obvious flaw in Progressives are their desire to take collective risk even though non-progressives agree to take the risk. In their lies the tyranny. Anytime someone wants to do something for the greater good or society they are imposing their will onto others.

This is why progressivism was born out of religion. The idea of helping ones fellow man is very tempting, but those well versed in Natural Law recognize the evil of imposing tyranny over our fellow man in order to make others suffer less. This is also the reason progressives exist in most every religion and how the left and Islamic extremists can be seen working together against Israel or to create revolution.

Because the motivations to create a "fair" and better world are deeply ingrained into progressivism, their is little doubt we will be able to show people the errors of their way. It is difficult for many to grasp the idea of suffering from personal risk or the "mean" thought of motivation thru the risk of poverty.

Although one need not look far to see that the greatest improvements in liberty, life and property have come when these things are individually protected and not collectively shared, it is difficult for progressives to get past the emotional issues of suffering, unfairness and mans nature to sin.

The most frustrating part for the libertarian is we don't stand a chance in a Bureaucracy against a progressive. As the individualist pursues his or her dream and takes on risk the progressive is organizing into social activism and promising the "masses" protection from failure to create a social order that works against the individual before the individual even thinks about what has happened. That is why it has take us 70 years to finally create the Tea Party movement to help conservatives and libertarians organize enough to keep the pendulum from swinging too much against them.

What Madison Missed

Our Founders could not have possibly imagined how distorted the progressive movement could have taken this country over the past 100 years. They definitely had the understanding of tyranny, the temptation and ultimate failing of democracy, and the evils of forced compliance. But, I am not sure, in their wildest imaginations, they would have thought our country could have faded so far away from the Constitution without the constitution being fundamentally changed. If they could have imagined such tyranny by our own government, they would have enacted more safe guards to help cripple the federal government in the case it did start to exhort too much authority.

So what did Madison and the others miss?

They attempted to control the 'power' of the federal government, but they never attempted to control the 'size'. By allowing the size to grow, progressives found their loop hole to circumvent the Constitution. Despite the Constitution stating that all powers not granted in the Constitution were reserved to the people and states, the left has used their ability to bloat government and gray that statement.

The second miss was understanding the corruption of power on the individual basis. By not setting term limits, or tying officials compensation to the electorate, they allowed for a political 'elite'. A bourgeois class of elected officials not protecting the Constitution or serving with honor, but rather serving those that keep them in power or an ideological bent not represented in our Constitution.

The third miss, is the the undo influence of money on government. Yes, they knew wealthy people could influence politicians, but they did understand how the very purchase of elected officials would or could become an industry. I am talking of course of lobbyists. The idea of organized influence continues to make me shutter. Government should not be in the business of business, but simply protecting free trade among states, promote transparency and protect the individual from fraud. No more.

So do I have some sort of insight that Founders did not? Do I have the fortune of history they did not know? Perhaps...perhaps not. Benjamin Franklin was right when he told the crowd outside the constitutional convention, "A republic, if you can keep it." The American constitutional republic was the real utopia, and we have been fortunate enough to have a glimpse of it for so long.

Why the left is so dangerous and what the right can learn from them

I just finished watching Annie Leonard and Book TV. She wrote the book about stuff and created a video that essentially is a blueprint to indoctrinate children into political activism. Her position is simple, 80% is identical to those on the right - sense of community, desire for a better world, limit human suffering, and become self actualized. However, she then moves in a very opposite direction than the right. She has her idea of 'truth'. Her 'truth' is for people like her to decide what is best for us and use political action and 'power' to force the structure to change. In fact, her very words talked about it is not the individuals fault, but the systems fault, except for those individuals that run oil companies of course. The scary part is she is really preaching fascism under the smiley face symbol. She appeals on an emotional level for sure, but it does not take much to see the insidious under tow. She wants to use the power of the government to make wholesale change to create her world view. 'Those of us that are helpless sheep, would not make the choices we do if they control those choices'. She lectured us on how Europe has done so much better than the US, when it comes to cosmetics, cell phones, regulations, etc. I listen to her and get the sense that she thinks that everyone would agree with her if they simply had all the facts and understood the 'truth'. I believe it is very similar to how all genocide in this world began. If you only understand the 'truth', you would think like me. "Oh, you still don't? - Bang"

Their answer is political power, increased regulation, dictation and controlling markets. There fervant desire to do this may be our downfall. Do we have the will to attempt to control the system as they do? It is not in our DNA. As we seek what feels like the impossible - reduced government intrusions, reduced government and more localized power, they are seeking to take the reigns of our ever increasing bloated government and complete the transformation that has been happening for the last 100 years. Is it easier to reverse the flow of a river or just put a levy in to make it turn to the left? Despite it being against our philosophy, we must press harder than them and flex our political muscle. If we do this, I do not believe we are being hypocrtical if we accomplish 2 goals that will slow the left and almost completely take away their ability to fundamentally change our country.

1) Constitutional amendment to limit the federal government size to 15% of GDP. It seems so benign, yet this will stop most entitlement programs. If you can't grow the government beyond 15% of GDP you can not have a giant bureaucracy and they can not control us. Some will call this juvenile, because they will say you simply create mandates pushed down to the states and to that - I would respond as part of the amendment, that 15% includes mandates that cause spending at State or local levels.

2) Constitutional amendment to term limits - 3 for congress, 2 for senate. This will stop congress from getting in bed with special interests because there will be more former congressmen and senators than lobbyists after a decade or so, so those fat golden parachutes will stop and the back room dealings will lessen. It is easy to buy off a few people, but thousands? Every farmer knows, rotating the crops increases long term productivity and the ground more fertile.

We need to use our political might, as the left is so good at doing. After all, they are collectivists and we are individualists. Harder for us, but not impossible. Because we may be individualists, but we have greater bonds that connect us - our faith, culture and partiotism, 3 things that left do not have nor respect.

Why Democrats and Non-Progressive Left Leaners should study Distributism

I urge anyone that does not understand the right, or the tea party, or what is so great about capitalism, google distributism, read the wikipedia summary and then read about economic personalism. http://www.acton.org/publications/mandm/publicat_m_and_m_1998_mar_gronbach.php

I understand that it is difficult to have a wholesale transformation like Saul getting knocked off his ass, but perhaps you may see the dignity of the individual in this economic philosophy.

I can empathize with those on the left that fear the unknown - the greedy, cold, corporation that does not care about people and crush the 'little guy'. However, I lose connection when they do not correlate the same possibility to government. Anytime institutions grow, they grow impersonal, and grow in their ability to hide thieves and megalomaniacs in their bureaucracy. Is it not bureaucracy that is the chill that robs organizations of their humanity?

This is an appeal to you, the non-republican, non-conservative, non-capitalists, non-tea partiers, and non-involved and repulsed by political activism, to read up on Distributism, as I believe you will find an emotional connection to an economic philosophy that perhaps can bring us closer together.

In a nut shell, distributism is intended to decentralize authority, eliminate the ability of corporation to grow too big to fail, and support the growth of cooperatives, guilds and independent businesses. It in many ways sounds very close to decentralized Marxism with 2 HUGE exceptions. First, it puts a tremendous emphasis on personal PROPERTY rights, which if you understand Marx, there is no individual right to property. Second, it is NOT about re distribution of wealth but about maximizing independence.

If you can get over those two hurdles, I believe distributism could transform your way of looking at the world.

Policy Changes Behavior

This Thursday in Sterling we are going to have our 1 year anniversary tea party. We look forward to seeing everyone there celebrating our union, protesting against this out of control government and educating our fellow man on the virtues of our beloved natural law based constitutional republic. Lets work together to bring our country back to the fundamentals. One of the best ways to do that is through education and policy change. Remember the following phrase, "policy effects behavior." This is going to be my mantra for the next few months. For every action, there is a behavioral change in our culture. Examples are Social Security has changed our attitudes on being owed something for retiring. SSI Social Security Insurance, it was not called a retirement fund. Sure, you think you deserve the money, but then you deserve ALL your taxes back and all the fees associated with government. People thought it a good idea to have a safety net, if you fell on hard times, but then people's behavior changes and became dependent upon it. Likewise for medicare and medicaid. Policy effected behavior. Look at those 50% who pay nothing into the system net net, yet they expect a refund or the same government services as those who pay into the system. Can you imagine walking up to a movie theater or going into a restaurant and demanding to see the move or have a meal and not pay for it? It is the same think with taxes. Policy changes behavior. Not all policy results in destructive or malicious behavior, but politicians and policy makers never seem to take the time to think through the effects the policies will have in the long term. That has always been my arguments against progressives - they can never see the forest through the trees and they never truly have grasped the concept that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

The SVTP is going to start a series of classes this year, focusing on our constitution, "real" free market capitalism, and 9/12 meet ups. We are looking to educate our selves before we can educate others. Once we build up our educated numbers, we will work to pass this knowledge along to our fellow citizens through the media, the schools, and our local politicians. Keep posted to this website for more information.

SVTP Update

We are up to 110 emails on our mailing list. Think of the potential we have of being a force in the Sauk Valley. If we all brought someone with us to our next Tea Party and we convinced just 2 other people to come, we could approach 500 people. This may not seem like much, but when local elections are in the 100's and state office representative positions are in the low thousands, it seems we have the ability to get our voices heard. Not to sound too much like a community organizer, but the one thing I have learned about this system we have inherited through the years is that the squeeky wheel gets the oil. It is our duty to counter balance the progressive movements and be the voice of reason and our constitution. Please get involved, not only with your opinion, but talk to your neighbors, let them know that apathy will no longer cut it. The tipping point is far closer than most care to admit. There are over 100 taxes that did not exist 100 years ago, there are thousands of regulations that constrict our individual liberties that did not exist 50 years ago, there is a mentality in Washington that government is the answer, not the problem. It is time to re-invigerate this movement with a cross section of the sauk valley and build our coalition to make the positive constitutional changes needed in the next election cycle. God Bless.

Who am I voting for?

This does not represent the views of the SVTP, just me

Governor - Dan Proft - met him, looked him in the eye and he brought up Natural Law in our conversation. He is a real conservative that understand our national constitution. I did not meet Andejewski or Brady, both of which sound like great candidates, but neither made the effort to contact our local tea party and Dan did. Dan has a deep intellect of the issues and for this reason he is getting my vote. If you are voting for a candidate that is not one of the 3 above, you are in herd mentality - there is a difference between a conservative or libertarian and being a Republican.

Lt Governor - Jason Plummer - this was a hard choice because I really liked Brad Cole. But Jason has a command of the issues and the go get'em attitude that gives me confidence in him. He is ahead in the polls and Brad is in last, so that helps solidify my decision. Don Tracy is second in the polls and a nice guy, but Jason is far more in command of where he is an wants to do in the position.

US Senate - Patrick Hughes - I know, most tea partiers are saying Judge Lowery, but I met Pat and believe him to be a stand up guy. I like Kathleen Thomas's views as well, but I think a more vibrant candidate has the best chance of winning and I think Pat is more electable and shares the same values. Not trying to come across as an ageist, but I am thinking more about November and the Democrat candidate and I think Pat simply has a better chance with the general public. For the life of me, I can not figure out why Mark Kirk is leading in the polls. I understand his name recognition, but his voting record simply does not cut the mustard with me.

Comptroller - Jim Dodge - he is from the classic Chicago School side on economics and has read Hayek. Lets put a smart financial guy in this post and not a political hack - please.

Most of the other areas have single candidates, but one comment on a district that I do not belong in. If I lived in the 14th District I would throw my support behind Randy Hultgren. I met both Ethan and Randy and like them both very much. However, I think Randy is more of an outsider. I have a feeling in my gut, Ethan is a bit more rounded than his Dad when it comes to libertarianism so if he wins, don't abandon him just because you we not happy with his Dad at the end of his career.

Who to Vote For

If you want to be told who to vote for, you came to the wrong place. If you want to be told how to arrive at a decision, please read on. Step 1, come to the Sauk Valley Voter Education Fair. Step 2, follow the following Simple Rules.

Rule 1. Do not vote for anyone that is not willing to immediately put forth bills that will stem corruption in Springfield or DC. Idea's such as Spending Caps tied to GDP, Term Limits, Tying government workers compensation to the average Americans income, Capping retirement benefits for elected official, eliminating institutionalized lobbying, etc.

Rule 2. Vote for candidates that understand the constitution and what Natural Law means.

Rule 3. Vote for candidates that take an oath to limit their own terms, and benefits.

Rule 4. Do not vote for any candidate that wants to utilize the power of the Government to create jobs, redistribute wealth or protect us from ourselves. The roll of legislatures, presidents are constitutionally limited to the following - insure the free flow of trade between states which means a strong and efficient transportation system; protect the borders of the US which is obviously defense spending; protect ALL INDIVIDUAL citizens Life, Liberty and Property from the force of others and from the Government itself; There are so many current laws today that already impede upon its citizens, it would take years to reverse the serious of programs and laws that have impeded life, liberty and property of every individual. Coin money - which means end the Fed Reserve and restore back the the people sovereignty over our own money.

Rule 5. Vote for the candidate that believes in equal treatment under the law. Which means, no progressive tax system, no unequal distribution of taxpayer funds, and equal playing field between the government and private industry for charitable purposes, no government health care.

Rule 6. Never vote for the incombant that has served more than one term. Rotating the crops keeps the ground fertile, even if the next crop is still a vegetable.

Rule 7. Vote for candidates that believe CO2 is NOT a Green House Gas responsible for global warming. The science is settled, we are in a cooling period and there is NO proof that man has contribued to Global warming.

Rule 8. Vote for the candidate that believes parents make better decisions about their childrens education than governments. If public schools continue to be a necessary evil, vote for the candidate that will tie money to the children, not to a building and teachers.

Rule 9. Vote for the candidate that believes conceal carry increase safety in our streets

Rule 10. Vote for the candidate that understands Life Begins at Conception and Science supports that fact far better than any science supports the idea of man made Global Warming.

If you follow these 10 rules, this country will become stronger, healthier, more prosperous and better equiped to deal with the challenges ahead.

God Bless America.