The actions of the second-stringers, stand-ins, and understudies from the theater of the absurd who now pass for leadership in our Republic not only insult our intelligence, they act as if the American people have the IQ of a potted plant and the attention span of someone riddled with ADD.  There is one good thing about people who insult our intelligence; they’re probably misunderestimating the true level of our understanding.

Our President tells us that killing the Keystone Pipeline is no big deal.  Instead he tells us “However many jobs might be generated by a Keystone pipeline, they’re going to be a lot fewer than the jobs that are created by extending the payroll tax cut and extending unemployment insurance.”  Making decisions that kill the opportunity to create real jobs is offset by the jobs created by extending payments made to those who are unemployed.  That doesn’t make sense to anyone outside the beltway

At the same time this oxymoronic newspeak pours from the White House, the valiant leaders of the loyal opposition in the House vote to deny our spendaholic President another trillion all the while knowing that they already gave him the money last year.

You see, according to the debt increase law which was supported by all of the Republican Congressional leaders, the debt limit is automatically raised fifteen days after the president officially notifies lawmakers that the government is close to the current $15.2 trillion cap.  That is unless Congress votes to deny the borrowing increase and the President signs the bill.  This is where the Republican leaders add insult to injury by staging a symbolic vote to hold the line against an ever rising debt they already approved.  Their powerless measure passed the House with ease. Yet they knew all along it was DOA in Harry Reid’s Democratic-controlled Senate.  And even if by some miracle it was voted on and passed by the Senate, President Obama would veto it guaranteeing the increase will go through as planed and the debt will grow by another 1.2 trillion.

While Mr. Obama may work day and night to kill projects that might actually provide some work for the rest of us he has no problem investing billions of our dollars in green energy boondoggles that turn a profit for his donors and cronies.  Then when the flimflams are about to be exposed as the money pits they are, on the eve of an election, the Energy Department which turned a blind eye to the initial foolish investment suddenly becomes involved and the announcement is delayed until after the marks, I mean voters, have cast their ballots.

In foreign policy our Commander-in-Chief announced the date for our withdrawal from Afghanistan at the same time he announced the same type of surge he was against in Iraq.  Now he decides it’s time to negotiate with the Taliban.  Are we supposed to believe these highly dedicated, highly motivated, and religiously fanatic battle hardened warriors will rush to make concessions?  Won’t they instead hang tough, demand concessions, and pick up the pieces as our leader leads our valiant, though under-cut warriors, for the door?  Does anyone doubt that Karzai, our creature in Kabul, will be on a jumbo jet filled with American dollars before our last soldier gets home?  All this is presented as a rational settlement instead of an abject surrender and jaded political maneuver.

There’s no inflation.  At least that’s what the Federal Government wants us to believe.   Everyone who goes to the supermarket buys gas or pays to heat their home can evaluate the reliability of that piece of government information for themselves.

How could anyone ever see through any of this unless of course they have at least the IQ of that potted plant mentioned earlier?  This may be insulting, it may show us what the perpetually re-elected think of their constituents, but it also shows that they’re giving us an advantage.  We’re smarter than they think we are so we should be able to blind side them with organizational skills and motivational abilities far beyond what they’ll expect.

They are counting the Tea Party out because we aren’t holding mass rallies.  They believe they’ve won the organizational battle because they were able to mobilize the occupy everywhere crowd to gather for a street party and pollute some major cities.  They believe that since the conservative vote is currently split in the GOP they will manage to nominate the next Bob Dole/John McCain moderate to play the part of the Washington Generals in a Harlem Globe Trotter game: good but never quite good enough.  In 2012 they see the Republicans, like the Washington Generals, there to provide a platform for the chosen winner to shine.

The parties of power treat us with such disdain it’s obvious they believe we’re the sheep they work so hard to make us.  They believe Americans have been dumbed down enough and fattened with enough entitlements that we’ll barely bah bah bah as they lead us to the shearing shed one more time.  Our Progressive leaders in both parties see that election is the one that counts.  This is the election that will either drive us over the cliff into the shabby abyss of collectivist conformity or the one that will give us one last opportunity to return to limited government, personal liberty, and economic freedom.

We may not be demonstrating in the streets.  We may not be organizing boycotts.  We may not be united behind one candidate.  However, we are awake.  We are educating ourselves.  We are determined that this great experiment in human freedom shall not perish from the face of the earth.  Vote for the Constitution.  Vote for personal liberty.  Vote for economic freedom.  If we all do what we can do we will accomplish what must be done.  We will keep the faith.  We will keep the peace.  We shall overcome!

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College.  He is the author of the History of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2012 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com  Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens

I’m not sure how making piles of more money just before the world is going to end makes a great deal of sense, but then again I’m not wise enough to know the world is going to end with enough lead time to produce my spiffy world ending products that people can buy on credit so what do I know?

Even the Mayans have been caught up in the world ending money making marketing frenzy.  They are hosting tours and throwing a year-long party even though they know, and they used to point out, that the apocryphal reference in one ancient calendar actually refers to the end of an age not the end of the world.  And the big secret anyone who has studied Mayan culture knows and the doomsday charlatans don’t want us to share is that the Mayans actually had numerous calendars and they don’t all agree.  The so-called long calendar is reset to day 0 every 1,872,000 days.  This is known as The Great Circle.  The next reset date is December 21, 2012.   Many cultures believe in ages. Even presumably educated, though not commercially prophetic, Historians speak of the Age of Enlightenment, the Bronze Age, the Iron Age, etc.

The charlatans pontificate about the advanced astronomical calculations of the Mayans.  It is true they made accurate astronomical observations and for their time were one of the most advanced pre-telescope cultures on earth.  However their understanding of these observations was not along the lines of modern cosmology which is the study of the physical universe considered as a totality of phenomena in time and space.  It was less Astronomy and more Astrology.  Ultimately the fact that one of the Mayan calendars ends this year is about as relevant to the unfolding of reality as the fact that this is also the year of the Dragon according to the Chinese calendar.  This isn’t prophecy it is Profit-cy and the theme song of this cottage industry is the cha-ching of the cash register.

And while the calendar hanging on my wall says, “Don’t Step in the Leadership” which aptly describes what we have experienced for the last few decades. Any calendar’s predictive value for 2012 shouldn’t be taken too seriously.

So what does 2012 hold?  Will it be boom or will it be doom?  Will it be morning in America or will it be mourning in America?  Will we reclaim our place in the sun or will we continue our precipitous slide into the dustbin of History?  The answer to all these questions is the same: it depends.

It depends on whether the American electorate once again allows their hope for change to lead them to the hopelessness of more of the same.  Or will we rise above faction, self-indulgence and the mass hypnosis of demagogues and demand that our beloved nation return to its roots.  Will we demand that our government is once again limited, our liberties secure, and our economy free or will we fall for the siren song of “Spreading the wealth around” and sink into the morass of collectivism that has swallowed the hope of millions?

Looking to the Left all we see is the ultimate realization of the Progressive’s generational dreams of a centrally-planned regimented society based upon the dictum of “From each according to the ability to each according to their need.”  All we can look forward to under a second Obama Administration is a continued slide into the shoddy future of redistribution, political correctness, and loss of international prestige.

Somewhere amongst the challengers, the Republicans must find someone who is ready to re-invigorate the Constitution limiting government and securing the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity.  Somehow the Republicans must see through the smoke and mirrors of the Corporations Once Known as the Mainstream Media attempting to pick a suitable second place finisher to their previously chosen leader.

Even before the election we are faced with a power-grab by the administration of staggering proportions.

First there is the 2012 Defense Appropriations Bill ( NDAA 2012) which contains an amendment allowing the use of the military to arrest and confine American citizens indefinitely if they are accused of being a terrorist or of supporting terrorism.

As we look upon the Constitution voiding legislation passed as part of the NDAA 2012, it should be pointed out, though President Obama threatened to veto the bill, according to the amendment’s co-sponsor Sen. Carl Levin the controversial language inserted into the bill were lobbied for by the Obama White House.  This was a bi-partisan effort to gut the effectiveness of the 4^th and 5^th amendments, the other co-sponsor being, Republican John McCain once again reaching across the aisles to limit American freedom.

As bad as this monstrous bill is it was accompanied by a signing statement.   President Obama’s use of signing statements continues the George W. Bush legacy of de facto rule by “executive fiat.”   Often signing statements declare the intent of the executive to interpret laws in directions they were never intended to go.  At times they are used to in effect nullify the very laws just signed.   Further, Barack Obama has backtracked on his campaign promise not to use signing statements and executive orders to circumnavigate legislation signed into law.

What this inside-the-beltway maneuvering means is that President Obama has signed a law which gives him the power to detain indefinitely American citizens arrested on American soil, a provision he lobbied for while ingenuously criticizing.  He has issued a signing statement which acknowledges the receipt of the power he sought while promising not to use it for “military” detention.  Some are calling this the martial law bill instead of the NDAA 2012.  Whatever you call it, its implications are chilling, and I must admit I never thought I would live to see such a blatant assault upon our constitutional liberties introduced let alone passed in the Congress of the United States and signed by an American president.

Some have recently told this observer when discussing the unconstitutional aspects of this new federal power, “If they’re terrorists lock them up and throw away the key.”  How could such a provision affect you?   As one recent headline tells us, “Woman allegedly accuses man with Arabic surname of terrorist plane threat after he ends 4-day fling.”  Who might accuse who of what, might end up being a new question in a fundamentally transformed America.

Then there is President Obama’s decision to rule without Congress.  He has announced this intention repeatedly as part of his “We can’t wait” offensive.

He is now beginning to make recess appointments while Congress is still in session.  If this is allowed to stand the limits to the president’s power will be hard to locate.  He has taken us to war without Congress, he appoints without Congress, what is it that he cannot do?

We don’t need Mayan calendars or other gimmicks used by the doom and gloom profit seekers to tell us that 2012 may well spin out of control on many fronts.

Nothing sums up the Federal spending addiction which is driving us off the cliff better than the comment a Postal worker recently made to this observer after moaning about the possible closing of their tiny rural post office due to shortfalls in the USPS budget, “They print money don’t they?  Why don’t they just print some more?”

2012, a President determined to rule without Congress, no end to the spending in sight, legislation which could easily turn into martial law, an election choice between Tweedledum and Tweedledee.   2012 what will it be: boom or doom?  Will it be rebirth or revolution?  The choices we make, in this the most decisive election of our generation, will decide which way we go.  Will we re-limit our government, or will we be swallowed by a bloated federal government?

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College.  He is the author of the History of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2012 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com  Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens

Which explains

The Cyclical Rise and Fall of Bureaucracy

While at the same time answering the age-old question:

“What happened to the Maya?”

OR

I’M NOT GIVING YOU ANYMORE CORN TO BUILD PYRAMIDS

Introduction

“The Mayas were intelligent; they had a highly developed culture. They left behind not only a fabulous calendar but also incredible calculations. They knew the Venusian year of 584 days. . . ” (p.55)

Von Daniken, Erich. Chariots of the Gods? Bantam Books: New York.

For years people wondered where did these peaceful geniuses go.  Did the mother ship come down and carry them back to Jupiter or wherever peaceful geniuses come from?  Did they evolve into a higher state of being?

All this wondering provided the gist for popular speculation and pseudoscientific pontification for many years or at least until Yuri Valentinovich Knorosov and other linguists translated the Mayan language.  Then it was learned that they might not have been so peaceful after all, and as a matter of fact they may have been one of the most warlike of all peoples.  And low and behold archeological data began to supply the required evidence and the problem was solved: the Mayan had destroyed themselves in an orgy of fire and arrows.  It all seemed so neat, scientific, and profitable.

Then some smart aleck historian, who also happened to be an organizational leadership researcher, made the mistake of interviewing some of the Native Americans who today make-up a sizable portion of the population of Guatemala and Mexico who happen to look surprisingly like the people depicted in the Mayan bas-reliefs.  And inconvenient as it may seem once all this speculation, pontification, and general wondering had made several careers and helped some otherwise starving publishers buy much needed yachts and mansions this eager young researcher emerged from the wilds of Northern Arizona and declared, “The Maya had NOT disappeared after all.”

“What!”  Cried the popular speculators.

“Away with him!”  Yelled the enraged pseudoscientific pontificators.

“Quick, have him write a book about it!”  Yelled the copious publishers from their thousand foot yachts docked outside their hundred room mansions.

Since it is impossible to categorically answer the question, “What?”  And since no one really ever feels like following the Red Queen’s advice and conveniently being, “Away withed.”  I figured I might as well at least write an article and do my little part to help keep poor, disadvantaged publishers supplied with at least enough caviar, truffles and European blended coffees to avert any relief from the high cholesterol and gout which serve as their red badge of courage.

So where did the Maya go?  To quote one of my sources, “We got tired of giving those guys all our corn to build pyramids so we moved to the next valley and kept our corn for ourselves or something like that.”

This somehow brings me to the breakthrough Organizational Leadership concepts that should make my career as a leadership expert and hopefully get me an invitation to sip European coffee and eat truffles on one of those yachts.

Are you ready?

Here they come:

1. Bureaucracy is a good thing.
2. History supports the theory that bureaucracy is fundamental to the human condition
3. Bureaucracies all start out as pyramids with a large base, a small peak, and a proportional center, which adequately supports the top and adequately covers the base.
4. Bureaucratic pyramids all eventually become diamonds as they bloat in the middle.
5. All organizational diamonds eventually collapse due to the bloated weight of the expanded center.
6.  The top is always lost in the crash.
7. A majority of the center plunges back to the base.
8. The natural leveling process of change never leaves a level playing field.
9. A new peak immediately appears because there is always a point that rises above the field.
10. The remaining middle coalesces to support the new peak in order to accentuate and solidify its difference from the base.
11. Another pyramid establishes itself on the ruins of the preceding one.

I call this Owens’ Law of the Oscillating Pyramid.  I propose that this Law explains the cyclical rise and fall of bureaucracy.  This Law is based upon observation and research and upon the fact that eventually the costs outweigh the benefits and someday, somewhere someone is going to yell, “I’m not giving you anymore of my corn to build pyramids!”

The collapse of the Soviet Union provided a perfect example of this phenomenon.  For decades, this highly bureaucratic “Evil Empire” had enforced its rule by giving benefits to one group (the communists) to brutalize and dominate other groups (everyone else).  As the model predicted the Soviet system admitted more and more people into the middle of the pyramid thus bloating the mid-level brutalizers and increasing the number of people who supposedly had a stake in the system.  But unfortunately for the Evil Empire the inefficiencies of the system didn’t allow the pyramid to provide the material advantages needed to continue the inflation nor to even sustain the growing weight of the middle level.  Therefore with no incentive to continue supporting the regime the pyramid collapsed.

Bureaucracy = hierarchical structure, division of labor, written rules, and records.

This has been evident since the beginning of time.

Examples:

Revolution every generation

Revolutionary youth becoming Reactionary adults

Luther from 99 theses to peasant revolt

British bureaucracy “the ministry” goes on though ministers may come and go.

Pyramids are made of pyramids, each department or group has a head, and each head is supported by layers.

When a pyramid falls these component pyramids tend to seek independence (Chinese mandarins – Roman Empire) and then they begin to coalesce into succeeding pyramids, such as exemplified by the successive Egyptian and Chinese dynasties or the Frankish Empire of Charlemagne.

Signs that the end of a pyramids cycle is approaching:

• “I was just following orders,”  or “That’s the way we’ve always done it,” as an excuse for doing things that common sense tells us are foolish.
• Malicious obedience.  When a subordinate follows the nonsensical orders of superiors in the hopes that doing so will bring about change.
• Geritocracy.  Look at Congress.  Almost automatic re-election ensures a constantly aging pool of leaders with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo.

In modern American society we have moved from Trueman’s “The buck stops here,” to Clinton’s “It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.?’ ”  From Bill Gates leading an industry to change the world to octegenarian politicians whose secretary’s have to turn on their computers deciding what shape that industry should take.

At the time of the American Revolution there was no direct taxation there was instead taxes on various transactions which in total added up to a miniscule percentage of their income.  Today, for many it is now over 50%.  How much corn are we willing to give to those we don’t trust to do things we don’t want?  How long can this continue?  We are spending the money of the unborn to pay for the repose of the unproductive.  This is the ultimate expression of taxation without representation.

The Oscillating Pyramid Cycle:

Formless base – pinnacle dominated true pyramid – bloated middle diamond shaped twin pyramid – out of balance wobble (component pyramids strive for increasing individual autonomy) – collapse

Historical opportunity to break this cycle: The Israelites at Mt. Sinai.  Instead they reject God’s offer to reinstate a personal relationship and demanded that Moses build them a social pyramid instead.

Proposed Exception to the Rule:

Steady-state primitive (Neolithic, pre-agriculture) societies both ancient and modern have been advanced as being different then the cultures of the present and therefore by implication exempt from this theory of bureaucratic/organizational structure.  There is not enough social or organizational data to make informed statements about unknown cultures.  Every one that has been extensively studied and reported on exhibited the pyramidal, hierarchical social structure and rule based operation even if a lack of writing precluded the development of true bureaucracy.

Long running societies (China, India, and Rome) exhibit this oscillating character within the ebb and flow of civil war and dynastic change.

In modern democracies, elections are designed to provide stability through a peaceful, periodic change in the pinnacle thereby allowing the base to exert influence and buy into the existence of the pyramid through nationalism.  Economic self-interest has also become a major factor in modern democracies.  Periodic major changes, Andrew Jackson, FDR, etc. change the tenor but not the shape as the middle continues to bloat.  Modern democracies are still too new of a phenomenon to contend that they will break the pattern and at the moment they appear to be textbook cases of its operation.

Change of focus for modern consideration: Bureaucracy is a GOOD thing.  The oscillating nature of its natural life cycle should be understood, recognized, appreciated, and factored into current calculations for what it is, the natural course of human organization.  Change is a constant component of life.

So the next time you’re standing in line to renew whatever permit happens to need renewing at the time tell yourself that, “Bureaucracy is a GOOD thing.”  Tell yourself that about a thousand times as you wait for the clerk who has been standing at the window for ten minutes waiting to open the window at exactly 9 AM and not one second sooner.  And as your mind numbs through this exercise you can comfort yourself with the thought, “Eventually all pyramids fall,” as you fight to keep yourself from standing on a chair and yelling,

“I’M NOT GIVING YOU ANYMORE CORN TO BUILD PYRAMIDS!”

Then again as every pyramid falls another takes its place. That is Owens’ Law of Oscillating Pyramids.

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College.  He is the author of the History of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2011 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com  Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens

As a retired pastor and a continuing follower of Jesus Christ I have often been accused of practicing an exclusivist belief that discriminates between believers and is intolerant of opposing views.  I have often had other believers and non-believers beat me about the ears with Matthew 7:1, “Judge not, that you be not judged.”  The problem with this is that it is addressing the believer who judges non-believers.  In a more related passage I Corinthians 1 5:12 Christians are taught, “What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside?”  Therefore when the President goes on record declaring why he became a Christian it is appropriate for others who profess to be Christians to weigh in, offering their considered judgments and reactions. I say “converted to Christianity” because according to Islamic tradition President Obama as the son of a Muslim Father was born a Muslim.  As a youth in Indonesia he attended an Islamic school and ostensibly lived as a Muslim and was accepted as a Muslim by those around him.   His official records from Indonesia list him as a Muslim, so I don’t believe it is inaccurate or partisan to say he converted to Christianity.

Moving on to the statement which has opened this door for a Christian to render and express a judgment.  Reacting to the many questions concerning his faith President Obama shared why he became a Christian telling a group of residents in New Mexico that he had become a “Christian by choice.”   The reason for that choice being “the precepts of Jesus Christ spoke to me in terms of the kind of life that I would want to lead – being my brother and sister’s keeper.”

Not to be doctrinaire, there is an answer to the question, “Why have I become a Christian?” that is Biblically sound and universally accepted by those of an Evangelical, Pentecostal or (dare I say it) Fundamental view of the Bible and of faith, and the one our President shared is not that answer.  The answer, which directly addresses the belief that Jesus is THE Way is found in Acts 4:12, “Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”  This exclusivity, this belief that salvation is found only in the acceptance of Jesus, in the belief that He is God from all eternity, that He came to Earth to bear the burden of our sins, that He died, rose again and ascended into Heaven to come back again one day for those who have chosen Him is the source and the summit of the faith.

It all relates to the fact that human beings have been separated from God.  Most of us notice along the way that there is something out of phase in this world, something not quite right.  As in, “Why do bad things happen to good people,” or “What’s it all about, Alfie? Is it just for the moment we live?” Personally I spent thirty years wandering about in a fog thinking, “There’s got to be something more” until I came to the end of myself, read the Gospels, and had to decide whether this good news that there is a way back to God is either true or a lie. I decided it is true, confessed Jesus as my risen Lord, and began a new life.

This “something’s not quite right” situation is aptly expressed in Romans 5:12-14, “You know the story of how Adam landed us in the dilemma we’re in— first sin, then death, and no one exempt from either sin or death. That sin disturbed relations with God in everything and everyone, but the extent of the disturbance was not clear until God spelled it out in detail to Moses. So death, this huge abyss separating us from God, dominated the landscape from Adam to Moses. Even those who didn’t sin precisely as Adam did by disobeying a specific command of God still had to experience this termination of life, this separation from God. But Adam, who got us into this, also points ahead to the One who will get us out of it.” 

The Bible doesn’t leave us hanging. It shows us the way home too.  How are we supposed to get across this gulf that exists between us and God?  Someone has to pay the price.  And in Romans 5:6-8 it tells us “Christ arrives right on time to make this happen. He didn’t, and doesn’t, wait for us to get ready. He presented himself for this sacrificial death when we were far too weak and rebellious to do anything to get ourselves ready. And even if we hadn’t been so weak, we wouldn’t have known what to do anyway. We can understand someone dying for a person worth dying for, and we can understand how someone good and noble could inspire us to selfless sacrifice. But God put his love on the line for us by offering his Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to him.”

That’s it.  He paid the price and we get the benefit.  Any other answer than one which conforms to this is “Another Gospel.”  How do we know this and where does Dr. Owens get off saying this is the one, the only answer?  The ancient creeds (or statements of belief) of the Church testify that this is the Gospel as received by the Apostles and as delivered to the Church.

Paul the principle author of the New Testament warns us in Galatians 1:6-8 when speaking to believers who were wandering from this simple Gospel, “I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel, which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed.”

And this is what the narrative of our President tells us: he believes another gospel a gospel based on collective rather than individual salvation.  He spent more than twenty years sitting in the pew listening to Reverend Wright.  I know he claimed to have never heard anything like the Reverend’s famous “God Damn America” tirade, but is that believable?  The President has said Rev. Wright is the one who led him to the Lord.  Rev, Wright performed the President’s wedding ceremony, and baptized his children.  Most telling of all Mr. Obama’s book The Audacity of Hope is named after one of Wright’s sermons, so it strains credulity to believe he sat there for twenty years and never heard his Pastor preach week in and week out the tenants of Black Liberation Theology, which is a variant of Liberation Theology.   Liberation Theology was condemned by the Catholic Church, whose South American priests developed it as a heresy and not as a true reflection of the Gospel as received by the traditional church.  Pope Benedict went so far as to say, “the visible consequences’ of the ‘deceitful principles’ of liberation theology have been ‘rebellion, division, dissent, offense, anarchy [that] are still being felt.’” And it is this gospel our President follows.

The question that needs to be asked is do you believe in personal salvation based upon the life, the death and the resurrection of Jesus?  Or do you believe in a collective salvation which is diametrically opposed to the truth who was born in a manger, lived a perfect life, died on a cross in payment for sin, and rose from the dead.  President Obama has said he believes his salvation is impossible without a national collective salvation. Christ tells us salvation is possible for all who believe in Him.  Paul tells us that whoever confesses Jesus as Lord and believes in his heart that God has raised Him from the dead will be saved.  I don’t know about you, but I know in whom I believe.

Celebrate the season and remember the reason.

Merry Christmas!

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College.  He is the author of the History of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2011 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com  Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens

I tested the first truism mentioned above as a young man whose motto should have been, “I’ll never do that again – I just did it again.”  For some reason just as not going to school didn’t lead to improved job prospects attempting to spend every day at a party didn’t lead to happiness.  Over and over I valiantly kept trying to rock-n-roll all night and party every day.  I developed a patented hang-over cure. Stay drunk.  I figured it wasn’t the drinking that caused the hangover it was the getting sober, and I tried my best to avoid hangovers from the time I was fifteen until I was thirty.   Then at thirty I had my Come-to-Jesus moment, meaning I literally came to Jesus.  With His guidance I found another path which included school and working which yielded a different result including a soul mate for a wife, a son to be proud of, and a wonderful life.

Turning to the second truism mentioned above, as a person who actually tried putting toothpaste back in the tube I can attest that it deserves its symbolism as impossible.  At best you can manage to get a little back in the tube.  But the process is messy, frustrating and in the end so fruitless it’s laughable.  All of which brings me to my question for the week.  Can those of us who believe in limited government, personal liberty, and economic freedom walk America back from the cliff to which the embrace of Progressive leadership and its collectivist mindset, one hundred years of reinforcement by indoctrination, and an addiction to entitlements have led us?

How best to describe the problem we face?  Often a good example will expose a basic problem better than any technical explanation.  Look at the debate about the payroll tax extension.   Both wings of the Party of Power continue the baseline inspired fiction that you have to pay for tax cuts when all they ever do is allow those who earn money to keep it.  The Democratic wing, always seeking to divide America into interest groups, contends the only way to pay for tax cuts on one segment of the population is to tax someone else.  Therefore they propose to pay for the extension by taxing millionaires and billionaires.   The Republican Progressives propose cutting federal salaries to pay for it.  An approach which sounds as it if should appeal to those seeking to re-limit the central government.

Looking at the first solution, taxing the rich to give to the un-rich is merely more of the same spreading-the-wealth-around income distribution socialism that is the hallmark of the Democratic wing of the Party of Power.

Turning to the second solution it sounds good while in reality it is more baseline thinking where cutting a proposed increase is a cut even though the budget still increases. Instead of cutting salaries why not cut some of the tens of thousands of new bureaucrats which have been added in just the last two years?   Merely cutting the salaries of the hordes of federal drones is like re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.  It may look better but ultimately it really won’t help keep the ship of state afloat.  This is typical of the governance proposed by the big government Republican wing of the Party of Power.  It may look good, it may even sound good, but when you peel back the onion the deficits continue and the debt goes up.

Peering through the fog generated by the media amplified rhetoric the entire debate is bogus because the original payroll tax cut was a trap to begin with.  It put money in the pocket of every person who receives a pay check by letting each of us keep a little more of the money we earned.  But the payroll tax is what supports the current recipients of Social Security.  There is no Trust Fund.  That is a fiction, since the money goes directly to the general funds to be replaced by IOUs that aren’t worth the paper they would be printed on if they weren’t electronic.  If this money is taken away Social Security loses even the illusion of a pay-as-you-go system and is starkly revealed for what it is: welfare for seniors.

It is time for my generation to admit we have been ripped off for every cent ever extorted from us for Social Security, and the only way we can receive benefits is to have the government extort it from our children and give it to us.  By decreasing the plunder taken from the kids and instead taking it from the perennial enemies of the Democratic Progressives, the most productive, Social Security is revealed for what it is: just another welfare entitlement.  And merely lowering the salary of a bloated bureaucracy perpetuates the growth and legitimizes the recent exponential expansion of a centrally-planned government that has run amuck.  It also makes social security visible as the Ponzi scheme it has always been.

Europe is exploding because the bill is coming due for countries that have played this social welfare shell game for generations.  Austerity is the word that is igniting riots and strikes from Athens to London.  Faced with the possibility that they won’t be able to retire at fifty with full pensions, generous benefits, and guaranteed vacations people are throwing fire bombs and toppling governments.

Western Civilization was born in the Mideast, was launched as a world embracing power from Europe, and culminated in the great experiment of America.  Today Western Civilization teeters on the edge of destruction.  Our Federal Reserve is pumping out funny money faster than anyone can count trying to prop up the European launching pad as we abandon our occupation of the Middle Eastern cradle and fear for the continued vitality of its American summit.  Western Civilization burns while our Party of Power plays the fiat financial fiddle.  Will we continue the shadow dance pretending we have a limited government or will we muster up the courage to tell our media enhance perpetually re-elected puppet master that he who pays the piper calls the tune?

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College.  He is the author of the History of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2011 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com  Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens

Democracy has long been the cover for all manner of despotic totalitarian regimes creating hellholes for their own people and nightmares for the rest of us.  One needs only to recall that even though the popular myth of Hitler being elected is demonstrably false, he lost the only election he ever ran in, he was however appointed Chancellor in 1933 after his Nazi Party became the largest single party through democratic elections.  His ghoulish regime achieved total power when 90% of the German people voted to make Hitler the Führer or undisputed dictator of their nation. And who can forget the many Democratic People’s Republics that have graced the world with their despotic presence, East Germany, Cuba, Laos, Vietnam and North Korea.  The cover of democracy and the votes of the people have been used to legitimize the most insidious forms of human depravity.

It is popular among conservatives to decry the nation-wide and world-wide demand for democracy as if it were something new under the sun.   It is also popular to point out that the United States of America was founded as a representative Republic not as a Democracy.  The representative nature of the Republic was enshrined in both the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution.  The difference is proudly pointed out that we are a representative republic which operates on democratic principles NOT a democracy.

It is not quite as popular to point out that though our representative Republic has always operated on democratic principles in the beginning that democracy did not spread out very far.  The franchise was restricted only to males of the Caucasian persuasion who owned a certain amount of property.   The dirty little secret teachers of American History Survey classes fought for years to keep from their impressionable students was that even though Wilson led America into fighting World War I to make the world safe for democracy and FDR led us into World War II as the Arsenal of Democracy the Founders of our country went to great lengths to protect our Republic from the perils of democracy.

Examples of the Founders distaste for democracy are easy to find:

James Madison said, “Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security, or the rights of property; and have, in general, been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.”

John Adams said, “Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide” and, “The experience of all former ages had shown that of all human governments, democracy was the most unstable, fluctuating and short-lived.”

Alexander Hamilton said, “It has been observed that a pure democracy if it were practicable would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved that no position is more false than this. The ancient democracies in which the people themselves deliberated never possessed one good feature of government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure deformity.”

The circle of American democracy was at first drawn closely around the ruling circle of intellectuals, lawyers and men of property because they feared the tyranny of those unable or unwilling to learn the rudiments of History, Economics or Governance.  However, as time passed spurred on by a combination of their desire to participate and the cajoling of those who wanted to rule them people began to agitate for an extension of the franchise and for one reason or another the circle began to expand until by the 1830s throughout the United States most Caucasian males could vote.  By comparison in Britain at the same time less than 10% could vote.

The watchword in America became democracy, not in the speeches of the first Progressives in the 1890s but in the voices of their great grandfathers in the second generation after our Revolution.  Within a generation leadership passed from Washington, Jefferson, Madison and other statesmen with grand visions of liberty and freedom to partisan leaders of political factions.  The stirring and deeply reflective tone of the Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers was replaced by clever slogans designed to move the masses and win votes.

Alexis de Tocqueville is often quoted to show the high state of American involvement and participation in the democratic process.  He is less often quoted in his assessment of that process, “The most able men in the United States are very rarely place at the head of affairs.”  He pointed to the character of a democracy where people ignored important issues, disdained intellectuals who were informed of these issues and instead were moved by “the clamor of a mountebank [a demagogue] who knows the secret of stimulating their tastes.”

In the recent past President Bush in 2005 during his second inaugural speech declared the doctrine that bears his name by saying, ‘‘it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.’’ Since that time democratic elections have brought us Hamas as the elected representatives of the Palestinian People, Islamists have won the first post-Arab Spring election in Tunisia and who can forget that Hugo Chavez has won multiple elections in Venezuela and then there is our new partner in our latest military adventure Yoweri Museveni Uganda’s President-for-Life who was democratically elected as was his more famous predecessor Idi Amin Dada.

The democratic revolution which began in America a generation after the establishment of our representative Republic has grown through the roughshod years of Jackson, the tax, tax, tax, spend, spend, spend, elect, elect, elect days of FDR and has morphed into the Occupy Everywhere movement currently polluting our cities and clamoring for the predictable goal of pure democracy, “From each according to their ability to each according to their need.”

We are witnessing the tyranny not of the majority but instead of the majority of voters coming to fruition.  In America in a typical election only 50% or less of eligible voters bothers to cast their ballot.  Many congressional districts are gerrymandered into personal possessions, local counties, cities and states belong to good-old-boy networks and the Senate is the province of millionaire media stars.  The uninformed elect the unqualified to give them what is unearned.

Or as our old friend Alexis de Tocqueville also said, “A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years.”

The democratic revolution begun in America 200 years ago has circled the globe.  The leaders of the Egyptian revolutionaries have come to New York to join the protesters at Zuccotti Park to chant, the mantra, “Democracy Now!”  Looking at the paradise on earth replicated from New York to Oakland in these demonstrations supported by the unions, Democrats and the President I only have one question, “Who will vote for that?”

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College.  He is the author of the History of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2011 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com  Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens

When I was studying to become a Historian I came to a point where I had to declare a field of special study. This is where my obsession with current events intersected with my love for History.  This is when I realized that current events are the forever unfolding always receding conveyor belt of reality.  This is when I first verbalized the perception that as the future slides into the present and the present slides into the past our lives are the history of the future.   Therefore in my writings I seek to frame the flow of today with knowledge of yesterday to create a window into tomorrow.

History tells us that Imperial Republics fall.  We have the examples of Athens and all the other grasping Greek republics that followed her.  We have Rome the example always deferred to of a republic that allowed empire to stifle freedom.  The list however does not end there, we can look at Venice and the various republics of Renaissance Italy and of course the First Republic of France which was birthed in blood and died in fire.  The siren song of empire has seduced republics down through history to trade in their freedom for power which eventually cost them both their freedom and the power.

Is it time to re-think America’s international military commitments?  Though settled by European kingdoms seeking empires the United States wasn’t founded to become an empire.  Individuals fought against the empire building tyrants until their determination and resolve won independence against all odds.  Then, although the world was filled with despotic kings, our Framers gave us a Republic.  However, it is worth remembering the exchange that took place between Ben Franklin, the elder statesman of the Constitutional Convention and an unknown woman.  As he left Independence Hall he was asked, “Well Doctor what we have got a republic or a monarchy?”   Appealing to his legendary wit Franklin replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.”   We and our ancestors have been blessed by the Republic for hundreds of years.  We’ve benefited from the liberty to live our lives and pursue our happiness.  Now we’ve arrived at the “if you can keep it” phase of our journey.

At the cost of hundreds of billions and thousands of lives we doubled-down in Afghanistan.  At the cost of over a trillion and thousands of lives we conquered Iraq and deposed Saddam.  We spearheaded the bombing campaign in Libya.  Our drones strike suspected enemies far and near.  Troops have been dispatched to central Africa.  And the perennial war drums still beat at the very mention of Iran.

We have sent our fellow citizens to fight long hard slogs in countries whose names are the very synonym for Quagmire.  As our economy was being outsourced, our debt monetized, and our infrastructure crumbled we meekly followed our leaders deeper into thankless nation-building campaigns in nation after nation including one that’s resisted and foiled every empire from Alexander to Moscow.

Instead of using our cruise missiles and stealth capabilities we fell into the trap announced and laid by Bin Laden.  Whose strategy was as Lawrence Wright told us in his seminal book Looming Towers to, “lure America into the same trap the Soviets had fallen into: Afghanistan.”  How did he plan to do it?  “To continually attack until the U.S. forces invaded; then the mujahedeen would swarm upon them and bleed them until the entire American empire fell from its wounds. It had happened to Great Britain and to the Soviet Union. He was certain it would happen to America.”

There were twists and turns on our journey from republic to empire.

George Washington warned us to avoid foreign entanglements.  Thomas Jefferson outlined the essential principles of our government which included this advice concerning foreign affairs, “peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations entangling alliances with none.”

For more than one hundred years we concentrated on using our liberty to build a mighty nation.  Then the temptation of empire captured the American imagination in the 1890s, a time when Europe was rushing to gobble up the last places open for colonization or carving up those areas unsuited for colonies into spheres of influence.  Under President McKinley the United States entered the scramble for colonies in the Spanish-American War winning Puerto Pico and the Philippines

Teddy Roosevelt followed McKinley walking softly while carrying a big stick in the form of the Great White Fleet and multiple intrusions into the sovereignty of Latin American countries.  After being re-elected on the promise to keep America neutral President Wilson proclaimed America must fight World War I to “Make the World Safe for Democracy.”  An adventure which cost over 300, 000 casualties and which actually expanded the empires of England, France, and Japan.  After the war, the Congress of the United States re-asserted control by rejecting the international entanglements of the League of Nations Treaty returning to the traditional American foreign policy of freedom of trade and freedom of action.

Under FDR America fought an undeclared naval war against Germany in 1940 and 41 and imposed draconian embargoes against Japan prior to Pearl Harbor.  Once we were attacked we had to defend ourselves.  However, when World War II ended not with the defeat of totalitarianism but instead with the expansion of it in Eastern Europe the guiding light of American foreign policy seems to have been permanently extinguished.  As the British Empire sailed into the sunset we filled the void taking up the role of leader of the West in the Cold War.   For forty-six years we faced the Soviets until they collapsed.  Then instead of coming home we spread our wings even further embracing Eastern Europe promising to send young Americans to fight for Estonia and Slovakia among others, and so the sun never set upon the American Empire.

Not only is it against the founding principles of America to establish and maintain an empire of far-flung outposts, we cannot afford to be the Policeman of the world.  We cannot afford to build nations for people who don’t want them. How did a peaceful nation of free citizens become the advocate of pre-emptive attack and endless occupation?  How much blood and treasure will we invest in Iraq, and what will be the result?  A Shi’a ally for Iran.  The war in Afghanistan was obviously defensive and retaliatory in nature given the Taliban’s support for Al Qaeda.  But ten years later what’s it all about?  Are we really dedicated to building a modern nation for tribal people who have no sense of nationhood?  Or have we walked into the same trap that brought the Soviets to their knees?

Currently the United States has armed forces in over 130 countries.  We’re committed to defend most of these countries against aggression.  Where were all these allies on 9-11?  Where are they in Afghanistan?   Why do we have treaties binding us to go to war to defend those who refuse to support us when we’re attacked?  If these policies are counter-productive are there any alternatives?

Close the foreign bases and bring our troops home.  Station them on the border to protect us from the on-going invasion of illegal immigrants who’re overloading our systems.  We can seal and secure the mountainous border between the Koreas and we can secure our own borders if we have the wisdom and the will.  If we need to project American power use the carrier battle-groups designed for that purpose.  Protect America and rebuild our infrastructure instead of everyone else’s.  When asked what to do with the American Military after World War I Will Rogers said, “Get ‘em all home, add to their number, add to their training, then just sit tight with a great feeling of security and just read about foreign wars. That’s the best thing in the world to do with them.”

If we want to save the Republic we need to lose the empire or we can cling to the empire and lose both.

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College.  He is the author of the History of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2011 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com  Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens

It isn’t that our nation is broke since our assets still outweigh our debt, but who wants to sell Yellowstone to satisfy the Chinese?  It isn’t just our government who has buried us buying $640 toilet seats, $436 hammers, or a $797,400 outhouse.  All of us have had an apple out of that sack.  We have pushed our personal credit to the max, our plastic to the limit, and our “Gotta have it now” culture to the breaking point.  It isn’t just the 51% who pay no federal taxes but seem to have an insatiable appetite for federal services that are to blame.  Those of us who make enough to merit a tax target on our backs have also drunk deep from the government trough.  Social Security, Medicare, disaster relief, and student loans have added billions if not trillions to the national debt transferring money to the middle class.

All of us have contributed to this problem.  If not by accepting the money or services ourselves than by voting for people who’ve made careers doling out the plunder, robbing Peter to pay Paul, buying votes, and corrupting the system.  The entire edifice of Western Civilization teeters on the brink of financial collapse due to the last three generations squandering the as yet unearned income of the next three.  We invested the great grand kid’s future in Ponzi schemes so that we could play today and they could pay tomorrow.  This is the national version of “I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.”

Our lack of interest allowed politicians to run amuck.  Our personal greed and lack of restraint have all of us living in houses made of plastic cards.  We look at Greece and ask for whom the bell tolls ignoring the answer that it tolls for thee.

The enemies of capitalism learned the wisdom of Alinsky that “Change comes from power and power comes from organization.”  They followed gurus such as Richard Andrew Cloward and Frances Fox Piven two Columbia professors who advocated overwhelming the government bureaucracy with entitlement demands.  They followed leaders such as Barney Frank and Christopher Dodd who have pushed legislation that created the bubbles and then strangled the recovery.  Now these well organized and well financed Progressives have come to the end game.  In the great tradition of all socialist power grabs now that the crisis has arrived they have taken to the streets.

The Corporations Once Known as the Mainstream Media are falling all over themselves trying to equate the current Occupy Everywhere movement with the Tea party.  I’ve known the Tea Party. The Tea Party is a friend of mine, and this is no Tea Party.  I have attended many Tea Party Events and they were all peaceful.  They all respected the police, and stayed within the limits of lawful protest.  When the events were over they left the areas cleaner than when they arrived.  The only people arrested at Tea Party events have been Progressive street thugs who have attempted to disrupt a peaceful protest. The liberal version is trashing every place they lay their head and threatening violence.  In all the Tea Party events over the last few years not one persona has been arrested.  In the Occupy Movement in just a few weeks hundreds have had to be hauled away.

I personally know a professional agitator who glories in the title of the Rude Guy.  He has made a lifestyle out of pushing for the socialist agenda he imbibed as a youth in public school.  He has spent decades moving from protest to protest advocating an end to capitalism while supporting himself through the sale of his books and paintings.  This Rude Guy has moved from the implosion of Europe to what some enemies of our nation are calling the American Spring seeking free room and board in New York to continue his work.  Given the fact that Van Jones has spent years, George Soros has spent millions through his front groups, and that professional organizers are flocking in from around the world it is hard to buy the Corporate Media line that this Occupy Everywhere movement is spontaneous.

However, there are the Howard Beale types who want to scream “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!”  And there are also the young party people who are looking for an opportunity to have an experience, to recreate the golden years of the 60s when they fantasize the Summer of Love produced something of value besides a generational overdose and a rise in STDs.  These naive sheep will be driven before the organizers into the police truncheons.  It is these unengaged warm bodies being interviewed nightly.  These are the ones who come across as unfocused, confused, and almost comical.  They do not represent the well-oiled machinery behind the curtain.

The list of millionaire entertainers who stop by to step out of their air-conditioned limousine to shout, “Power to the people” as they shake their bejeweled fist grows every day.  The union bosses express solidarity and send in their shock troops.  Leading Democrats praise the movement.  The Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, has said the Occupy Everywhere Movement is more in the mainstream than the current crop of Republican candidates for president.  This movement is not spontaneous, and it is not going to end well.  In some places the leaders of this leaderless movement are calling for violence and socialism.  In other places they are leaving the public square to march on private residences to intimidate and threaten.  Is this organized anarchism or militant apathy?

Some of the issues their signs rail against: bank bailouts, corporate welfare, and other aspects of crony capitalism are issues they do share with the Tea Party.  However, the Tea Party Movement has directed their anger at government which is the culprit as far as wasting our national treasure to support their donors.  The Occupy Movement is focused on attacking the donors who have received the payouts.  The people who invested with Bernie Madoff thought they had found the goose that laid golden eggs, and yes they did receive unrealistic and what are now called unearned payouts, but at the end of the day it wasn’t the investors who were arrested it was Madoff.  The Tea Party offers concrete proposals: end the over spending, cut taxes and regulations, and free the economy to free the people.  The Occupy Movement offers no solution besides more of the same government intervention that caused the problems to begin with.

As stated at the beginning, we have all had a hand in leading our great nation to the edge of the abyss.  And it seems as if our inability to agree upon who the culprits are or what the answers are may push us over the edge.  A great contraction in our economy and in our life styles is coming.  We must choose.  Are we willing to make the changes that will right the ship of state and begin to bail out the rushing tide of debt that threatens to capsize us?  Or, will we continue to argue ourselves into paralysis until our creditors demand the austerity we dread?

The one thing worse than being poor is being poor again.  Most of us individually and all of us as a nation have been living far beyond our means charging extravagance to a credit card that has reached its limit.  We can either send back the steak and have a hamburger on our own now or eventually sit powerless as our card is cut up by the foreign maître.  We can either change our menu from caviar to corn flakes now or end up eating rubber biscuits as we wash dishes in the back room.

One thing is for sure the contraction is coming, how do you want to deal with it?

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College.  He is the author of the History of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2011 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com  Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens

So how do we re-industrialize America?  How do we get back all the jobs that have been exported in the last 30 years?  What will be the consequences of taking the bold steps necessary to make America once again the engine that drives the world’s economy?  What will be the result of failing to do so?

To set this discussion into its proper context first we must look at how America grew from a rustic agricultural nation on the edge of Western civilization into the greatest industrial superpower ever known.

In the interest of full disclosure I must confess that I am a life-long capitalist.  I believe that capitalism is the only economic system ever devised by man that requires free choice as a necessary requirement.  Every other system is either more or less a command economy.  The defense and restoration of America’s capitalist economy is today a hallmark of the conservative movement.  Many study the works of Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek.  Those of us who want to see economic opportunity unshackled espouse the principles of both the Chicago and the Austrian Schools of economics as opposed to the theories of the Frankfurt School which have moved America in the direction of a centrally planned economy.

Flying in the face of this conventional wisdom for the purposes of this discussion we must ask the question, was it capitalism that provided the environment which set America on the road to material riches and industrial power?  Culture to humans is like water to a fish.  It is everywhere.  It provides the medium through which we move.  However, since it is ever present it is not something we constantly notice or concentrate on.  Most of those who read these words were raised in a time or by people who taught American History as a positive, ever improving saga.  We were taught that America never started a war and never lost one.  We were taught that rugged individualism carved out an empire from a raw wilderness.  We were taught that capitalism paved and paid the way.

At the hazard of being branded an apostate to conservatism I must continue to ask the question, was capitalism the catalyst for America’s industrial power or do we labor under the after-glow of a time when American History was taught in such a way as to magnify present circumstances by projecting them into the past?  Are we looking to a myth of free enterprise to recreate what it didn’t create in the first place?

Was it capitalism that fostered the founding of the colonies which became the seedbed of the United States?

Mercantilism was the economic system that proceeded capitalism in western civilization.  This was a system of economic nationalism which sought to build a strong country by maintaining a favorable balance of trade and by being self-sufficient.  This was one of the primary reasons why the sea-going European powers sought to establish colonies.  They wanted to secure sources of raw materials for their developing industrial sectors and to control external markets allowing them to produce and sell products all within their domestic economy, keeping all the gold at home.

The term mercantilism was coined by Adam Smith the philosophical father of capitalism, but it was not capitalism.  Inherently Mercantilism necessitated a centrally planned and controlled economy.  What benefitted the nation was permitted and encouraged.  What didn’t was prohibited and discouraged.  It was under this system that the English colonies were founded.  The first viable English colony in the New World, Virginia was founded by the Virginia Company a joint stock company which was given a charter by James I.  This charter, like subsequent charters given to the Massachusetts Bay Company and proprietary charters given to individuals such as William Penn and the Lords Baltimore gave these companies and individuals monopolies within specific geographic areas.  Government imposed and enforced monopolies are a restraint of trade and by nature incompatible with a free capitalist system.

The colonies founded upon this restraint of trade followed suit giving monopolies to companies and individuals to do everything from making iron to importing. Government planning and control of the economy did not stop there.  The colonial governments also granted subsidies, bounties, land grants, loans and money prizes to encourage the birth and prosperity of the industries and services desired.  Through these actions the precursors of modern America were doing what is today reviled as inherently un-American, picking winners and losers.

If we fast forward to the founding of the United States do we find the unbridled free enterprise seen today to be the natural state of the Republic?

In 1791 Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton issued his third path-breaking report to Congress the Report on Manufactures.  Of all his reports this one is considered the most innovative.  It provided a stark revelation of Hamilton’s and his Federalist compatriots’ vision for America and its economy.  So did this report outline an economy based upon capitalism and free enterprise?  No it did not.  This report envisions an America “independent of foreign nations for military and other essential supplies” this is the heart of a mercantilist program.  Hamilton proposed subsidies to encourage industry.  Some of the mercantilist policies advocated by Hamilton encouraged the central government:

• To constitute a fund for paying the bounties.
• To constitute a fund for a board to promote arts, agriculture, manufactures, and commerce.  Hamilton wanted the fund to:

1. to defray the expenses of the emigration of artists, and manufacturers in particular branches of extraordinary.
2. to induce the prosecution and introduction of useful discoveries, inventions, and improvements, by proportionate rewards.
3. to encourage by premiums, both honorable and lucrative, the exertions of individuals and of classes.

The historical evidence of America’s reliance upon protectionist and economic interventionist policies as tools in the building of our greatness can be found everywhere.  The central government built, licensed, and encouraged roads and canals to foster interstate trade by providing monopolies, subsidies and grants.  It fought wars to safeguard sea lanes and to expand territory and markets.  And it birthed, regulated and controlled the financial industry from its very inception.

The incontrovertible evidence points to the fact that America was founded, launched, and nurtured as the successor to and the continuation of mercantilist not capitalist policies.

If these were the policies of economic nationalism which helped foster America’s rise to industrial greatness wouldn’t it seem appropriate for these policies to be the ones that would help it rise again?  There is only one national figure who has consistently urged a return to economic nationalism, Patrick Buchanan.  He has pointed out for years that our rush to embrace so-called free trade has put American workers at a decided disadvantage.  The dissolution of tariff protection forced our workers to compete against people who will work for a small percentage of what Americans can afford to work for in societies with little or no regulation.

How do we get back all the jobs that have been exported in the last 30 years?

If we want to re-industrialize America we have to protect our markets and support our industry otherwise we will soon sink to a supplier of raw materials and a market to China and the other rapidly rising industrial powers of Asia.

What will be the consequences of taking the bold steps necessary to make America once again the engine that drives the world’s economy?

Such a policy calculated to re-build our industry and re-capture our domestic markets from China, Japan, and the four tigers of Asia will carry as many risks as it does benefits.  Just as any predator will react to resistance on the part of its prey so to if we enact tariffs on Chinese goods it may well ignite a trade war.  Then again anything worth having is worth fighting for.  If we want to once again rise to the top of the industrial world to once again have a favorable balance of trade we need to look to what is best for America not what is best for the U. N. or what is best for the globalization lobby.

What will be the result of failing to rebuild our industrial sector?

Some may deride this proposed return to mercantilist policies as isolationism.  However, just as a nation without borders will soon cease to be a nation any nation that fails to protect and encourage its industry will find itself an agricultural and raw material colony in all but name for those nations which do.

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College.  He is the author of the History of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2011 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com  Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens

Has it always been this way?

At the dawn of the Republic our first Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton issued several reports which in many ways set the tone and pointed the way for the development of America in the economic sphere.  His first report on the public credit recommended that the new central government not only honor the debts contracted under the original government as established under the Articles of Confederation but that it also assume the war debts of the States.  This recommendation was followed by Congress and the Washington administration created what has evolved into a permanent national debt.

In 1790 Hamilton submitted his second report which asked Congress to charter the Bank of the United States.  Several aspects of the bank Hamilton proposed will sound familiar and it can be seen that they provided the mold for the Federal Reserve.  His plan was closely modeled after that used by Great Britain’s Bank of England.  According to Hamilton’s vision the Bank of the United States would be a public/private hybrid.  It would have an exclusive charter for twenty years.  Its initial capitalization would be ten million dollars consisting of eight million from private investors and two million from the government.  Congress would give the Bank the right to print paper money up to the ten million held in deposit.  Most importantly the central government would declare that the notes issued by the Bank would be the only notes which would be accepted in payment for taxes.  This would give the notes of the Bank of the United States credibility and value, which none of its state chartered competitors could match.  This was Hamilton’s proposal.  Now all he had to do was get it passed into law.

The report was introduced into Congress in 1790 and by February 1791 it passed both the House and the Senate and arrived on the desk of President Washington.  This is when the battle of the Titans really began.  Leading Anti-Federalists and strict constructionists such as James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and Edmund Randolph, argued that the Constitution did not grant the government the power to incorporate a Bank.  It was not an enumerated power and therefore it was reserved to the States or the people.  Those arguing for a strict interpretation of the newly minted Constitution, which Madison and Randolph had helped write, urged Washington in a written report not to sign the bill.

Ever the fulcrum between his philosophically divided advisors Washington presented Hamilton with the argument opposing his plan and asked him to present his argument in favor.  Hamilton using his excellent reasoning and communication skills presented President Washington with the original argument for the implied powers granted to the central government by the Constitution.  This report appealed to what is now known as the “Necessary and Proper” clause.  He argued that the government was inherently empowered to do whatever was necessary to implement the laws required to use the enumerated powers.  President Washington accepted Hamilton’s argument and signed the bill and the first Bank of the United States was born.

Beginning on July 4, 1791the first thing the new Bank did was inflate a financial bubble by offering the largest initial stock offering the nation had ever seen.  Investors showed their confidence in Hamilton’s plan by quickly buying the options on the first issue of stock.  Many of these initial investors were members of Congress.  The initial price for the options was $25.  This was soon bid up to over $300.  It soon crashed to $150.  Thus within days of its first action this original central bank inflated a bubble that soon burst.  However, Secretary Hamilton setting the example for the central bankers to follow stepped into the breach and averted a general financial panic by purchasing government securities with public funds thus stabilizing the markets and rewarding those who had initially speculated.

The bank opened for business in December of 1791.  All manner of people, landowners, manufacturers, merchants, politicians, and most important of all, the government of the United States lined up to deposit money and to obtain the new Bank script.  Within months the Bank was the single largest economic enterprise in the nation.

Beginning a pattern that would be repeated over and over the bank which had been created to ensure a firm foundation for the American economy inflated another bubble and caused another crash.

First the Bank flooded the market with easy loans and a massive issue of paper dollars.  This move added liquidity pushing the new securities market into a sharp rise.  However, then the Bank reversed course and began calling in many loans.  Investors and speculators were especially affected as they were forced to sell securities to pay the loans.  When the largest of the speculators William Duer was forced to declare bankruptcy the markets collapsed.  This in turn caused the financial markets to freeze up putting a stop to much of the nation’s credit and commerce.  This is known as the Panic of 1792.  The crash didn’t last long because Secretary Hamilton once again stepped in and bought government securities with public funds injecting much needed capital into the economy.

Over its 20 year life the first Bank of the United States functioned as the central bank.  It worked to regulate state banks, closing those that issued too much paper.  It attempted to guide the entire economy through its monetary and interest policies.  It coordinated all its branches up and down the east coast to project a united front in its economic policy by either tightening or loosening credit.

By the time it came for a renewal of the bank’s charter the Federalists were no longer in the seats of power and the newly ascendant Democratic Republicans led by Thomas Jefferson defeated its bid for another twenty years, and the first bank of the United States, America’s experiment with central banking was over.

Does any other country do this?  Yes, many other countries have central banks.  Today it is a hallmark of an advanced economy.

How did the Federal Reserve get its power over our currency and our economy?   There were subsequent attempts to establish central banking in the United Sates.  There was a second Bank of the United States chartered in 1816, but after being blamed for a series of bubbles and crashes its charter was not renewed and it ceased operations in 1836.  In 1863 in the depths of the Civil War Congress passed the National Banking Act which chartered numerous Federal Banks.  This law also taxed paper money issued by State banks but not paper money issued by the Federal banks giving them a decided advantage.

In 1913 the Federal Reserve System was born.  It established what is known as a decentralized central bank in that it has semi-autonomous branches.  It was given the power to control the currency, issue bonds, and set interest rates for those bonds.  It was established as a public/private concern and actually owned by stock holders.  Who are these stock holders?  They are private banks, and ownership of stock is required to participate in the system.  The system was instituted to provide the foundation for a stable banking industry and an elastic currency that could be used to smooth the rough edges of the business cycle.  Whether this latest experiment in American\central banking has fulfilled its mission each citizen should judge for themselves.

Is the Federal Reserve constitutional?  The first Bank of the United States was never challenged in court as to whether or not the government had the power to create a central bank.  But the second Bank was.   The Supreme Court in 1819 ruled in McCulloch v. Maryland that it was in fact constitutional due to the implied powers clause.  Thus looking to precedent, and unless the Supreme Court reverses itself, the Federal Reserve is considered to be authorized within the confines of the broadly interpreted Constitution.

There was an important constitutional issue born with the creation of America’s first central bank. With the birth of the first Bank the acceptance and use of implied powers became the central government’s method to expand its powers beyond those expressly delegated in The Constitution.

The argument of Madison, Jefferson, and Randolph upholding a strict constructionist view would be codified and added to the Constitution in the same year the Bank was charted, and perhaps in response to it, in the 10^th Amendment, but this did not end the appeal to implied powers as a means to the government’s ends.  In theory this sounds good.  In practice it has turned our limited government into an out of control leviathan that is crushing the free out of our free market and sucking the liberty out of the American experiment.

As my favorite American philosopher once said, “In theory there is no difference between theory and practice.  In practice there is.”

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College.  He is the author of the History of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com View the trailer for Dr. Owens’ latest book @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ypkoS0gGn8 © 2011 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com  Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens.