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.