The thing I loathe most about election season is reflected in the central fallacy that drives progressive discussion the minute “Ron Paul” is mentioned. As soon as his candidacy is discussed, progressives will reflexively point to a slew of positions he holds that are anathema to liberalism and odious in their own right and then say: how can you support someone who holds this awful, destructive position? The premise here — the game that’s being played — is that if you can identify some heinous views that a certain candidate holds, then it means they are beyond the pale, that no Decent Person should even consider praising any part of their candidacy.

The fallacy in this reasoning is glaring. The candidate supported by progressives — President Obama — himself holds heinous views on a slew of critical issues and himself has done heinous things with the power he has been vested. He has slaughtered civilians — Muslim children by the dozens — not once or twice, but continuously in numerous nations withdrones, cluster bombs and other forms of attack. He has sought to overturn a global ban on cluster bombs. He has institutionalized the power of Presidents — in secret and with no checks — to target American citizens for assassination-by-CIA, far from any battlefield. He has wagedan unprecedented war against whistleblowers, the protection of which was once a liberal shibboleth. He rendered permanently irrelevant the War Powers Resolution, a crown jewel in the list of post-Vietnam liberal accomplishments, and thus enshrined the power of Presidents to wage war even in the face of a Congressional vote against it. His obsession with secrecy is so extreme that it has become darkly laughable in its manifestations, and he even worked to amend the Freedom of Information Act (another crown jewel of liberal legislative successes) when compliance became inconvenient.

He has entrenched for a generation the once-reviled, once-radical Bush/Cheney Terrorism powers of indefinite detention, military commissions, and the state secret privilege as a weapon to immunize political leaders from the rule of law. He has shielded Bush era criminals from every last form of accountability. He has vigorously prosecuted the cruel and supremely racist War on Drugs, including those parts he vowed during the campaign to relinquish — a war which devastates minority communities and encages and converts into felons huge numbers of minority youth for no good reason. He has empowered thieving bankers through the Wall Street bailout, Fed secrecy, efforts to shield mortgage defrauders from prosecution, and the appointment of an endless roster of former Goldman, Sachs executives and lobbyists. He’s brought the nation to a full-on Cold War and a covert hot war with Iran, on the brink of far greater hostilities. He has made the U.S. as subservient as ever to the destructive agenda of the right-wing Israeli government. His support for some of the Arab world’s most repressive regimes is as strong as ever.

Read it all at Salon.com.

This was not just an appearance on a late night talk show. This was a Ron Paul campaign rally.

During the final interview segment with Paul, Leno asked him his thoughts on the other candidates and went down the list by name. When he got to Bachmann, Ron Paul replied, “She doesn’t like Muslims. She hates Muslims. She wants to go get them.” This probably didn’t win him any neo-conservative supporters. Then he doubled down on this when he replied similarly about Santorum saying he doesn’t like “gay people and Muslims.”  Wow. I can’t imagine that Santorum and Bachmann won’t issue a counter-attack soon.

This just further cements my point in previous articles. Ron Paul can and would beat Obama in the general election. His more difficult win is in the GOP primary.

During the appearance Twitter was about 99% positive about Ron Paul, including many tweets saying things like, “I wasn’t sure before, but now I’m definitely voting for Ron Paul.”

Now we can sit back and monitor how the pundits and other candidates react, if they react at all.

See the entire appearance below in 4 parts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sj0r0lRyiKY

Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

I don’t agree with a lot of what Herman Cain says, but I have to admit he has charisma that will give him a lot of support. Expect the other candidates to start attacking him if his poll numbers go up. I think they will.

Gary Johnson did very well with a few odd moments. If I’m looking at him through social-con or neo-con eyes voting for him would likely be impossible. He did come off as a very honest “make the hard choices” candidate. Sort of like Cain without the charisma.

Pawlenty seems to be channeling John McCain a bit too much and Santorum just comes off as angry. Both seem to be going after the George W. Bush voting block; however small that is these days.

Enjoy the entire debate below.

Eric Holder sent a letter to some former DEA administrator’s who have urged the Justice Department to oppose Proposition 19. In it he wrote:

“Let me state clearly that the Department of Justice strongly opposes Proposition 19. If passed, this legislation will greatly complicate federal drug enforcement efforts to the detriment of our citizens.”

So does this mean that Obama’s justice department will begin enforcing federal drug laws once again in California? Yes, it appears it does.

This goes right back to the nullification debate. Do states have the right to nullify unconstitutional federal laws? Given this news it appears that Obama’s justice department’s Constitution goes right from Amendment 9 to Amendment 11.

It appears that a certain California Sheriff has a similar version of the Constitution:

Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca, who is a co-chairman of the main opposition committee, released the letter at a news conference at his headquarters Friday, flanked by two former DEA heads, the district attorney and the Los Angeles city attorney.

“He is saying it is an unenforceable law and the federal government will not allow California to become a rogue state on this issue,” Baca said. “You can’t make a law in contradiction to federal law as a state. Therefore Proposition 19 is null and void and dead on arrival.”

Wow. Baca’s ignorance would be astounding if it wasn’t for Obama through Holder saying basically the same thing. This directly contradicts our Founders. Obama is King and anyone who disagrees with him are peasants or worse, racists. I suppose we can thank Abraham Lincoln for this.

The America we live in is one where the National Government can nullify state laws and “F%*@ the Founders” sing the Statists.

It gets worse.

It’s your property that’s actually charged with a crime, and your property is considered guilty until proven innocent. This makes it virtually impossible for you to regain your possessions once they’re seized.

But it gets even worse . . .

This scheme of legalized theft actually fosters additional corruption, as demonstrated in the sample letter below. Please use the new evidence we provide to send Congress another letter arguing that . . .

Civil asset forfeiture laws should be made illegal.

You can send your letter using our Educate the Powerful System:

You may borrow from or copy this sample letter . . .

Civil asset forfeiture corrupts our police. It turns cops into robbers.

Civil asset forfeiture is at the heart of government lawlessness.

* It disregards the Bill of Rights.
* It confiscates property from innocent people.

The federal government compounds the problem by cutting-in local law enforcement. They’ve turned the Drug War into a referral program! In a process known as “equitable sharing,” local law enforcement can work with the federal government in pursuit of criminals, and keep as much as 80% of the booty. http://www.ij.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3117&Itemid=165

And where does this money go?

* In Texas, a district attorney has been indicted for using $200,000 of forfeiture funds to line his own pockets and pay for trips to casinos http://www.examiner.com/headlines-in-san-antonio/former-texas-county-district-attorney-indicted-for-misusing-200-000-for-extra-pay-and-casino-trips

* In Indiana, where the law requires forfeiture loot to be spent on public education, only one county is complying with the law. In the other counties, law enforcement departments are keeping almost all the money, and the Attorney General doesn’t seem to care! http://reason.com/blog/2010/08/18/indianas-attorney-general-on-a

Are you surprised by this corruption? You shouldn’t be.

If confiscating property is an institutional mission, one must worry about the people such a group will employ to carry out that mission. If a government tells its employees that they must steal to meet their budgets – that is, engage in asset forfeiture – then some will rationalize that stealing is okay.

And they’ll steal from their employer, too.

The Institute for Justice has a tantalizing list of how some local posses have spent the loot. http://www.ij.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3117&Itemid=165

Because Congress encourages asset forfeiture, I must ask you: “What about the 5th and 14th Amendments? In other words, what about ‘due process of law?’”

Civil asset forfeiture is unconstitutional. Therefore, I DEMAND that you . . .

. . . end all civil asset forfeiture programs

When you abolish asset forfeiture, you will also reduce government corruption. Better yet, you will send a message to the people that the police really are there to serve and protect — not to steal.

END LETTER

You can send your message through DownsizeDC.org’s Educate the Powerful System.

If you know friends who would be as outraged at civil asset forfeiture as we are, please forward them this message and tell them on Facebook.

Thank you for helping grow the Downsize DC Army.

Sincerely,
Jim Babka
DownsizeDC.org, Inc.

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A personal message from Jim Babka . . .

Best-selling author Peter McWilliams died ten years ago today, June 14, 2000.

I remember when I heard the news. I can still feel the sickness and anger that I felt that day.

I didn’t know Peter personally, but I admired him. Some of my colleagues were good friends or acquaintances of his.  [Read his story further down below].

Peter was an eloquent champion of limited government and personal freedom. But his life was cut short by the War on Drugs. The federal government denied him the medication he needed to live and thrive.

What he went through, I wouldn’t wish on anyone, let alone my family and friends. But we have it in our power to prevent similar tragedies from happening to others. Please tell Congress to return to the Constitution, and end the insane War on Drugs.

You may copy or borrow from the following letter . . . 

Today marks a cruel anniversary in the barbaric history of the War on Drugs. On this day, ten years ago, the federal government caused the death of the best-selling author Peter McWilliams.

Do you know his story?

* In 1996 Peter was diagnosed with cancer and AIDS
* The medications he needed to treat these diseases caused extreme vomiting, and he could not keep them down long enough for them to work
* That same year, Proposition 215 legalized medical marijuana in California
* Under the recommendation of four physicians, Peter started using marijuana.
* The marijuana controlled his nausea, restored his appetite, and allowed his medications to work

Marijuana saved Peter’s life, for the moment. This led him to fund research into medical marijuana and to start a business supplying it to buyer’s cooperatives. The DEA took notice, raided and trashed his home, and even confiscated his computer, which contained the manuscript of his latest book.

Peter was charged with being a “drug kingpin!” And then, he was hamstrung, legally. The federal judge in the case took away his defense, barring any mention of . . .

* California’s medical marijuana law
* his terminal illness
* how medical marijuana allowed him to keep down his medication and prolong his life

While the legal process dragged on, the government prevented Peter from using the marijuana that controlled his nausea. Peter was required to pass drug tests. He complied, even though his life was at risk, because . . .

* Peter’s mother and brother had to put up their homes as collateral to post his bail
* If he failed the test, their homes would have been seized by the government

Peter’s health deteriorated until he died at the age of 50. The vomiting had taken a tremendous toll on his alimentary canal, as well as his heart, and even his teeth. Despite the suffering, he never lost his sense of humor. And the reason I most admired him was that he felt sympathy for his tormentors, rather than rage. http://www.wnd.com/index.php?pageId=508

Marijuana saved Peter’s life, but the War on Drugs destroyed it.

Peter’s most noted book was “Ain’t Nobody’s Business If You Do.” It promoted the idea that each person can do whatever they please with their own bodies and property, so long as they don’t interfere with the right of others to do the same. So let me ask you:

* What business is it of yours what people choose to do with their bodies and property?
* Where in the Constitution is the federal government empowered to deny people like Peter McWilliams the medicine they need?

Sadly, Peter wasn’t the only victim of your War on Drugs. He was just one victim among many. The long list of your victims includes . . .

* terminally ill patients for whom marijuana (or some other illegal drug) could ease pain and nausea
* people with psychological problems for whom now-illegal drugs could help calm them or clear their minds
* young people whose futures are ruined not because of drugs, but because of a “criminal” record
* innocent adults and children on our streets, in Mexico, and across the world caught in drug turf warfare
* innocent victims of no-knock SWAT raids and asset forfeiture
* young people who get hooked on drugs precisely because, unlike legal drugs such as cigarettes and alcohol, they’re available to be bought and sold on the streets and school grounds

The United States leads the world in incarceration rates, mostly because of non-violent, consensual crimes like drug possession. Apparently President Obama wants even more people in prison. He wants increased funding for interdiction, law enforcement, and the continuation of bloody drug wars across the border.

I suggest you do something else. Read and learn from Peter’s books – especially “Nobody’s Business.” And then put an end to this stupid, immoral, and unconstitutional War on Drugs.

END LETTER

You may send your letter through DownsizeDC.org’s Educate The Powerful System.

And we urge you to spread this message far and wide. Share it on Facebook.

Jim Babka
President
DownsizeDC.org, Inc.

D o w n s i z e r – D i s p a t c h

Official email newsletter of DownsizeDC.org, Inc. & Downsize DC Foundation.

Millions of people believe . . .

We need the government to regulate business people, otherwise they will run wild, laying waste to the environment, and selling us bad food, bad drugs, and harmful products.

It would be silly to claim that business people never do these things. After all . . .

* Not all people are good.
* Neither are people who are mostly good, consistently good.
* And sometimes goodness has nothing to do with it — sometimes people simply make mistakes, out of ignorance or carelessness.

But politicians and bureaucrats are people too, and subject to these same failings. Do we really solve the problem of human imperfection by giving one small group of imperfect people vast power over all the others?

That last sentence is so important that it bears constant repeating:

Do we really solve the problem of human imperfection by giving one small group of imperfect people vast power over all the others?

To this we might add, “Is there any form of human being more imperfect than the politician?”

To give this question its proper weight, do not think only about politicians you love (if there are any). Do not cherry-pick the evidence. Instead, think also of the politicians you hate. Should such people have great power over other people?

We think a strong case could be made that the worst politicians, and the worst bureaucrats, have done far more harm to humanity than the worst business people. In fact, this simply has to be true for the simple reason that the power scales are so vastly different . . .

* Politicians and bureaucrats have a monopoly over the use of coercion.
* They also have access to vastly greater resources than even the largest businesses.
* And they cannot be easily fired, unlike a business.

You can refuse to trade with Wal-Mart, or Microsoft, or Exxon, but you cannot refuse to submit to anything that the politicians and bureaucrats tell you to do. You can easily walk out of Wal-Mart and go to K-mart or Target, or a host of other stores, but you cannot easily fire a bureaucrat or a politician.

Given this, isn’t it reasonable to ask . . .

* Can anything other than politicians and bureaucrats regulate how business people behave, and if so . . .
* How do these non-state sources of business regulation compare to the regulations politicians and bureaucrats provide?

Consider the following points . . .

Consumers regulate businesses.

Consumers punish every business that provides a bad product or service. They also spread the word about bad companies to other consumers. Many consumers will even refuse to do business with companies that harm the environment. This form of regulation is enshrined in the proverb “The customer is always right.”

Because “the customer is always right” investors and lenders also regulate business owners.

They do this to protect their investments from potential retaliation by dissatisfied customers. Sometimes this regulation involves direct oversight, and sometimes it involves the purchase of insurance, which then leads to this . . .

Regulation by insurance companies.

Unlike the politicians and bureaucrats, insurance companies have their own money at stake. This motivates them to regulate the companies they cover. One approach to this is product-testing through organizations like Underwriter’s Laboratory. Insurance companies will only cover products that test safe.

Legal liability also regulates businesses.

This liability is determined through due process in a government court, but it differs from government regulation in a crucial way. Government regulation attempts to prejudge which products and services may be harmful, and to dictate how this danger must be mitigated, in advance.

This sounds good, but there are serious problems with it, as you will see below. By contrast, legal liability presumes that a product or service is innocent until there is evidence of harm. This is the commercial equivalent of the principle we know so well from our criminal law, innocent until proven guilty.

The above points expose a bit of commonly believed mythology, that a completely free market is also completely free of regulation. Clearly, nothing could be further from the truth. A free market actually has multiple levels of regulation. In fact . . .

It is inherently impossible to have a de-regulated society, for the simple reason that consumers, investors, lenders, and insurance companies will always take steps to control what businesses do, even if the state does nothing.

Taking notice of these overlooked facts allows us to think more clearly, and to refine the questions we need to answer . . .

* Does the state have a role to play, beyond providing a court system for determining legal liability when there is evidence that a product or service causes harm?
* Do we really need politicians and bureaucrats to craft regulations that prejudge whether a product or service is potentially harmful, and that dictate how this risk must be mitigated?

Answering these questions depends on how you respond to concerns that are even more fundamental . . .

* Will the politicians and bureaucrats who devise these regulations be liable for the mistakes they make, in the same way that businesses are held liable by consumers, investors, lenders, insurance companies, and courts of law?
* Can you fire politicians and bureaucrats who regulate incompetently?
* Will politicians and bureaucrats have to personally pay the cost of any harm they cause, the way businesses must?
* What do you do if politicians and bureaucrats abuse their power of regulation in order to reward friends and punish enemies?
* What recourse do you have if politicians and bureaucrats use their vast power and resources to serve their own selfish interests?

These are powerful questions. But they are really only a more detailed way of asking the question we began with:

Do we really solve the problem of human imperfection by giving one small group of imperfect people vast power over all the others?

We would humbly submit to you that the answer is no. The real problem is NOT how to better regulate businesses, but rather, how to better regulate the politicians and the bureaucrats.

* They are the monopoly.
* Their power of coercion is inherently dangerous.
* They have vastly more resources than businesses.
* They are vastly more difficult to control.

—-

Thank you for reading this educational essay. Tomorrow we will debunk a specific and pernicious myth about state regulation, the myth of “The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair.

This message is an educational service of the Downsize DC Foundation. Please share it with others. Please tell your friends that they can receive similar material in the future by subscribing to our free email newsletter, The Downsizer-Dispatch.

Remember . . .

* The Downsize DC Foundation educates
* DownsizeDC.org both educates, and acts, applying constant pressure on Congress.

Perry Willis
Vice President
The Downsize DC Foundation

D o w n s i z e r – D i s p a t c h

Official email newsletter of DownsizeDC.org, Inc. & Downsize DC Foundation.

Please send a letter telling Congress to end the failed, unconstitutional War on Drugs.

You may borrow from or copy this letter . . .   

In November, the American Medical Association urged Congress to reclassify marijuana as a “drug with possible medicinal benefit.” http://tinyurl.com/yl8fywl

I believe you should go further than that, and re-think the entire War on Drugs . . .

* 87% of drug studies found that drug law enforcement was associated with increasing levels of drug-market violence http://tinyurl.com/ycrvkkc
* this is no surprise in Mexico, where 18,000 have died in three years of war between the government and drug cartels
* which is expanding to once-calm cities http://tinyurl.com/y97vzoy

But the Administration’s response is to pour more aid into Mexico’s unwinnable war. http://tinyurl.com/yz3hsow

Even “success” leads to failure. Look at what happened when the U.S. made strides in stopping the flow of drugs at the border . . .

* drug gangs began cultivating marijuana in America’s national parks and forests
* where they use animal poisons that can pollute mountain streams and groundwater meant for legitimate farmers and ranchers. http://tinyurl.com/yfo2bhn

And cash-strapped states can no longer afford to fight this war . . .

* lack of funds actually led to a decrease in the prison population http://tinyurl.com/ybyuxe2
* 14 more states will consider legalizing medical marijuana or lessening penalties for pot possession this year
* and California is considering a bill to legalize and tax marijuana http://tinyurl.com/yl8fywl

The writing’s on the wall. More and more people want this Drug War to end. I urge you take the lead. If Congress decriminalized drugs at the federal level . . .

* drugs would be distributed by legitimate businesses instead of by violent thugs
* which will lead to safer streets and neighborhoods in both the U.S. and Mexico
* and will make it less likely for minors to get access to drugs

Ending the federal War on Drugs will also . . .

* empower each state to decide the best balance of control, treatment, regulation, and taxation for itself
* save tens of billions of dollars
* and restore some of our Ninth and Tenth Amendment rights

END LETTER

You may send your message using DownsizeDC.org’s Educate the Powerful System.

James Wilson
Assistant Communications Director
DownsizeDC.org

D o w n s i z e r – D i s p a t c h

Official email newsletter of DownsizeDC.org, Inc. & Downsize DC Foundation.

Originally published December 4, 2009 at http://towneforcongress.com/economy/the-governments-war-on-main-street-1

This talk was originally delivered to Campaign of Liberty chapter on December 3, 2009.  Video will be available shortly.

Today President Obama will tour Allentown, Pennsylvania, in my home congressional district as part of a “Main Street Tour” to show his concern for economic plight of the masses. Many of the people I have spoken with while campaigning innately realize that government is at fault – or at least complain a lot about how the government should “fix” the economy. Unfortunately, many do not have enough of a grasp of economics to understand exactly how the government is ruining their lives and their childrens’ lives. Speaking for myself, about 2 years ago I would have been included in this category. This is no surprise as most of the press and educational system has been hijacked by the disciples of Lord Keynes (the Keynesians) and the socialist Karl Marx for the past century.

The late economist from the Austrian school and NY Times columnist Henry Hazlitt wrote a series of easy-to-understand economic lessons in the 1940s in what was later published as Economics in One Lesson. Hazlitt warned of the dangers of what he termed the “seen and the unseen.” Let me give a rather harsh but true example.

Last week one local paper published a story about a local hardware store on Main Street in Nazareth going out of business. I grew up in Nazareth, and this store was there my whole life. The owners were not able to afford the rent, tried moving down the street for cheaper rent, but were not able to save the company.

On the exact same day, another local paper published a story about the Obama stimulus plan. They explain how $7.8 million was awarded to the private Lehigh University for research on hot lava, smarter electric wheelchairs, and Ice Age climate shifts in Alaska. This amount was more than the amounts allotted to Allentown, Bethlehem, and Easton, the three major cities in the Lehigh Valley. Before I continue – I am a proud alumni with an excellent education in chemical engineering provided by Lehigh.

So, what is going on here? It is nothing more than Hazlitt’s seen and the unseen at work. What is normally seen is the government spending on government pet projects, whether the Hoover Dam, hot lava research, banker bailouts of Goldman Sachs, or even new roads and bridges. Some government projects may even have some utility, like new roads or bridges. These are held up to the population as examples of how the government is doing its best to help you – with your taxes, that is.

However, what is typically NOT SEEN is local hardware stores failing, or other businesses who fail to get listed on the government’s gravy train list. What is NOT SEEN is those living on fixed incomes like social security whose standards of living are affected the harshest by inflation, the businesses that never started due to government interventions. What is NEVER SEEN is the employment these new businesses would be providing and, most especially, what is not seen is simply what would happen if the people were not plundered by government in the first place, either in the form of payroll taxes or the insidious hidden tax of inflation.

Of course, realistically speaking in today’s America, what is seen is the looting of the public treasury by the special interest lobbyists who, to a large extent, control Congress, the FED, and the rest of DC. We must instead focus on the general interest of society over the long run. We must remember that government exists to protect liberty, not to redistribute wealth, nor to grant special privileges, nor to interfere with the lives of individuals and their actions.

When the government says that the path to prosperity rests in destroying used cars and giving cash incentives to buy new cars, they are instead saying that the path to prosperity rests with creating false demand, more taxes and destroying economic goods. When the government says that the way to prosperity is to increase the price of milk from dairies, it is like saying that the way to prosperity is to make food costlier for the city worker. When the government says that the way to national wealth is to pay out governmental subsidies, they are in effect saying that the way to national wealth is to increase taxes.

When the government says to make it a main objective to stimulate an increase in the number of jobs by providing government-paid salaries, they are in effect saying that excessive taxation and placing an immense debt burden on future unborn generations is really the main objective. When the government says that the way to recovery is to increase the minimum wage, they have found only another way of saying that the way to recovery is to increase costs of production and legally price people out of jobs.  (slides 46-47)

Anytime when bureaucrats in government attempt to centrally plan economies, the result is ALWAYS failure, such as was seen in the modern socialism’s longest-surviving market economy experiment, the Soviet Union. This is simply because America’s economy cannot be planned by supercomputers or even thousands of economists sitting in a room computing X barrels of oil, Y loaves of bread, Z gallons of milk and – don’t forget – thousands of tons of munitions and war material to be used in the wholly economically destructive practices of warfare. However, many Americans today still believe the MYTH that the FED has enough knowledge to centrally plan interest rates, the supply of money and credit, and takeover corporations.

Market economies like ours consists of millions of individuals all making millions of mutually beneficial exchanges every day. Now, a Keynesian economist will look at a loaf of bread and say it equals $3. An Austrian economist will look at the exact same transaction and say no, it was certainly NOT an equal transaction. The seller of the bread benefited because he preferred the $3 to the bread. The buyer of the bread obviously preferred the bread to the $3, otherwise he would not have spent the money at all.

Keynesian central planners also have a bad habit of trying to crunch long equations to project, say, the average cost of rent six months in the future in New York City. The Austrian school will plainly admit that these calculations are pretty useless, as no model can contain possibly contain all the factors that factor into human actions.

Now when one considers the best steps to take for an economic recovery, one realizes that government is not only stopping a recovery from happening, but it is doing the POLAR OPPOSITE. Government, in effect, is at “war” with Main Street. Consider:

1. Instead of slashing government spending, which was done in 1920 and 1946 to rebuild the economic damage done by WWI and WWII, we are instead repeating the ruinous practice of FDR in the 1930s to spend record amounts with the Obama stimulus plan while simultaneously running three wars in Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

1. Dr. Thomas DiLorenzo points out that deposit insurance must be appropriately priced by the market and banks with higher risk should have higher insurance premiums. Regulation Q limited bank accounts to a maximum of 5% interest that could be paid on savings accounts while the fed funds rates were between 13-20% in the early 1980s. So, obviously, funds were leaving these accounts for higher-yielding accounts. Part of the way the government “saved” savings and loans in the 1980′s was to increase FDIC insurance from $40,000 to $100,000, which only postponed and worsened their crash. Government encourages more risk-taking, and creates the moral hazard while at the same time proclaiming it’s being reduced. And now today, to encourage safety in the system in 2008 the FDIC limit was increased from $100,000 to $250,000. The FDIC’s Deposit Insurance Fund, as of September 30, now is officially bankrupt at negative $8.2 billion.

2. Obviously, the best possible cure to a recession is to reduce taxes and keep dollars in people’s pockets. Instead, government is hard at work raising taxes – with the energy tax via the Cap and Trade bill, a health care tax, and repealing the tax cuts on capital gains. Inside the Obama stimulus bill there is the removal of the inflation-adjustment on federal income tax which will bump taxpayers to higher brackets.

3. Redistribution of wealth through the tax system to soak the rich will backfire as the very same rich, realizing that the more they produce, the more government legally plunders from their earnings, will opt to not act and take risks in creating more wealth. The federal income tax which began in 1916 was itself orginally a tax on just the super-rich, a maximum of 7% on the rich making the modern equivalent of a salary of $500,000. When one looks at the tax revenue numbers for the income tax, one can only conclude that not only is this tax immoral, but it’s also unnecessary and should be abolished.

4. DiLorenzo also predicts that next year, just as was done during the FDR spending of New Deal funds, dollars will be funneled to areas where the electoral margins of victory were the smallest between the two gangs who hold monopoly and control of the political system. The bulk of the stimulus money will be spent in 2010, not 2009, due to the fact that this is an election year. This will not revive the economy — providing international confidence remains in the dollar — but will instead tighten the politicians’ stranglehold on the economy.

5. Government must avoid all wage and cost adjustments to pricing. Today, what we have is the government propping bubbles such as the property and equity bubbles which only delays the inevitable, which is the markets clearing to appropriate price levels.

6. Union powers should not be expanded since they can contribute to strangling their business owners, such as seen in the case of General Motors. Instead, government is trying to expand the powers of the union through ‘card check’ legislation where unions can force votes in workplaces to install unions and takes away the anonymity of the ballot. [Unions can of course exist, but should enlist volunteers, not coerce members into joining.]

7. Only when private investors feel secure will they invest in assets, or what is termed as “regime uncertainty.” Right now, of course, the economic situation is completely unstable. We have lots of new taxes, such as the health care tax, possibly value-added taxes, and the war tax the Senate has been bandying about. The instability in the dollar and the unknown losses in the OTC derivatives market make a stable business environment all but impossible.

8. Avoid giving the Federal Reserve and government new bailout powers. What we have occuring right now, is that Congress has just passed through House committee yesterday HR 3996 which will grant the FED the ability to bailout any “individual, trust, or corporation” as well as vastly expanding the government’s regulatory powers. The FED will also be able to force financial holding companies into bankruptcy. [This is the same bill that HR 1207, the bill to audit the FED, is unfortunately attached to as an amendment.]

9. Avoid giving the Federal Reserve and government wide new regulatory powers over the risk-taking of the private sector. Following the Enron and WorldCom frauds, Congress passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which has failed to prevent the rampant fraud in the financial system. The former NASDAQ Chairman, Madoff, is one such example, while the Wall Street Journal exposed Scott Rothstein’s billion-dollar ponzi scheme this week. SarBox legislation has placed American firms at a disadvantage to the rest of the world. The question is not which additional regulations were needed but rather how many other frauds exist. HR 3996 includes the creation of vast new levels of regulation bureaucracy. It will grant the FED the power to force companies to obey their orders if the company’s actions or size pose a threat to their own “safety and soundness” or to the “financial stability of the United States,” which are both incredibly vague and undefined terms.

So that’s the bad news. America’s sails are set on a pretty hazardous course. The good news is the course that we should follow is very easy. We need to return to what America does best.  As an engineer, one principle quickly learned in industry is K.I.S.S. – “Keep It Short and Simple.”

America needs to restore individual liberty.

America needs to restore the rule of law per the Constitution.

America needs balanced budgets with a sound currency to impose discipline on government.

America needs very low taxes.

America needs a strong national defense while avoiding international intrigues, undeclared wars, bases on foreign soil, and nation-building missions.

Above all America must act to bring about a separation between the State and economic decision-making.

Mark my words – the above is what must be done to bring an end to government’s “war” on Main Street — once and for all.

Jake Towne is running for U.S. Congress in Pennsylvania’s 15th District in the 2010 election as a citizen unaffiliated with any political parties. Jake also writes at www.LibertyMaven.com and www.CampaignForLiberty.com.

Also recommended is Jake’s lecture on why the stimulus plan will fail and better alternatives and the collection of videos “Escaping the Current Depression – Causes and Cures.”

It would be very difficult for me to not support Johnson if he were to run for President in 2012. As of right now, In my view he is the best positioned candidate to carry forward the message of liberty within the Republican Party. He may not be perfect on specific issues here or there, but Ron Paulians would be hard pressed to find another Republican candidate with his record and political viability. He served as a Governor for eight years. He didn’t raise taxes as Governor once. He promoted private business and free markets over government corporatism and regulation. Finally, and perhaps most pertinent, he enthusiastically endorsed Ron Paul for President.

There has been very minimal evidence for a Johnson 2012 bid until now. Jason Pye at UnitedLiberty.org reports that Johnson has formed a PAC and is set to release a book in December entitled “Seven Principles For Good Government”.

A few web sites have been set up by supporters in an effort to coax Johnson into running for President such as JohnsonForAmerica.com.

With this latest news it appears that Johnson is warming up to jump in the fray. I can see it now at the first GOP primary debate sometime in 2011:

Fox News Debate Moderator: Governor Johnson, you’ve been an outspoken critic of the drug war and support the decriminalization of marijuana. These positions don’t seem like Republican positions. This raises questions about your electability. Do you have any sir?

Gary Johnson: Who am I, Ron Paul?

Let us hope so, but this time, let us hope he wins.

Even so, we must keep asking such questions. The more we ask, the more nervous Congress will become. Eventually, they will be forced to either answer our questions or admit publicly that they don’t care what the Constitution says.

We believe Congress’s refusal to answer our questions underscores the need for the Enumerated Powers Act (EPA). We urge you to demand that Congress pass this bill.

Since we last resported on the EPA in September, the House has increased the number of co-sponsors from 48 to 52, and the Senate increased its co-sponsor list from 21 to 22.

You can find House co-sponsors of the EPA here.

And co-sponsors of the Senate version are here.

If any of your House or Senate representatives has co-sponsored the bill, send them your congratulations and urge those who haven’t to do so.

In my personal comments, I also asked more questions . . .

“Two weeks ago I asked you about the Constitutionality of the War on Drugs, and you haven’t answered my questions. But the issue is larger than drugs. Congress is considering legislation that affects what food people can grow on their own land. Congress is also considering legislation that can force people to purchase health insurance against their will.

Do people not have a natural right to control their own person and property?

Article I, Section 8 empowers Congress to regulate commerce between the states and with other nations, but I see no provision that empowers Congress to control my life and property directly. Do you think I’m incorrect? Maybe I am. But if so, how?

If Congress presumes to tell us what to do with our own lives, shouldn’t it at least cite where it gets the authority to do so?

The Enumerated Powers Act is not a complicated proposal. If you believe the bills you support and sponsor are Constitutional, EPA won’t be a problem. That’s because all it requires is for Congress to specify the constitutional authority for the laws they pass.

But the longer you dodge these Constitutional questions, and the longer you avoid sponsoring the Enumerated Powers Act, the more I’ll be forced to conclude that you believe most bills you support are unconstitutional.”

You can send your message here.

And we encourage you to share this message with friends: http://www.downsizedc.org/blog/more-questions-for-congress

James Wilson
Assistant Communications Director
DownsizeDC.org

D o w n s i z e r – D i s p a t c h
is the official email list of DownsizeDC.org, Inc. & Downsize DC Foundation

Quote of the Day: “I want a government small enough to fit inside the Constitution.” — DownsizeDC.org co-founder Harry Browne (1933-2006)

You can read our response here.

What we didn’t mention in the previous Dispatch was the Constitutional problem of the War on Drugs. That’s because . . .

Many people seem not to care what the Constitution requires. Today’s message is for those who do care.

Drug control is NOT a Constitutional power of the federal government. At the very most the federal government could, perhaps, ban the importation of drugs, and prohibit their sale across state lines under the Commerce Clause of Article I, Section 8.

But nowhere in the Constitution is Congress empowered to prohibit the sale or possession of any item within state boundaries. The Tenth Amendment dictates that whatever Congress is not empowered to do must be left to the States, or to the people. This means Congress cannot . . .

* forbid the personal possession or use of drugs
* prohibit drug sales within the same state
* intervene in other countries with money or troops to fight undeclared drug wars

This means that drug prohibition laws can only exist at the state level. Imagine what could happen if some states had no prohibition laws, while other states had prohibition laws of differing severity. Competing claims about drug prohibition could be tested, in the real world. As it is . . .

Federal prohibition laws not only prohibit the sale and use of drugs, they also prohibit us from learning what would work best.

The 10th Amendment’s Constitutional restrictions on federal power used to be well-known and understood. For instance, those who wanted to prohibit alcohol in the 1910′s knew that the Constitution didn’t give Congress the power to do this. So they had to pass the 18th Amendment, ratified in 1919.

Alcohol prohibition was a failure, so in 1933 the 21st Amendment repealed the 18th Amendment.

If prohibiting alcohol required a Constitutional Amendment, how does prohibiting other drugs NOT require a Constitutional Amendment?

It’s an important question. To ignore the Constitutional process is to ignore the rule of law. No matter how one feels about drug use, the rule of law, especially as applied to government power, is essential to protecting our lives, freedoms, and property. With this in mind . . .

We want to ask you to do something different today. We’ve changed the message to Congress for our “Help End the Mexican Civil War” campaign. For today’s action item it reads . . .

“You’ve sworn an oath to protect the Constitution, so could you please answer three questions. 1. Where does the Constitution authorize the federal government to wage a War on Drugs? 2. If alcohol prohibition required a Constitutional Amendment, how does prohibiting other drugs NOT require a Constitutional Amendment? 3. Shouldn’t we be allowed to learn what works best by having states with different drug laws, or NO drug laws, in keeping with the 10th Amendment? I would appreciate an honest, thoughtful response.”

If members of Congress receive enough of these messages, some will feel compelled to reply. We want to see what form these responses take, and we’d like to compare the names of those who respond with the list of those who have co-sponsored the “Enumerated Powers Act.”

Remember, the “Enumerated Powers Act” would require Congress to cite its Constitutional authority for every law it passes. This would be impossible for them to do in the case of most drug prohibition laws, except those provisions that might squeeze through under the Commerce Clause.

If you receive a response could you please forward it to us, so we can publish it on our blog? Please let us know if you want us to omit your name to protect your privacy. Or, you can post the response in the Comments section of this blog post:

http://www.downsizedc.org/blog/don-t-read-this-if-you-care-about-the-constitution

You can send your Constitutional questions to Congress here.

Please share this Dispatch with any friends who care about Constitutional requirements.

James Wilson
Assistant to the President
DownsizeDC.org

D o w n s i z e r – D i s p a t c h
is the official email list of DownsizeDC.org, Inc.

& Downsize DC Foundation