New Book!!!! December 7, 2010
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Introducing Dr. Robert Owens’ latest thought provoking book
The Constitution Failed
A book that will elicit passionate responses from both sides of this bold statement
Dr. Owens scores a direct hit in his effort to move the debate;
From “What’s wrong?”
To “What must we do?”
Please take the time to view this eye-opening trailer
Learning the Truth About Education December 3, 2010
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.Tags: Andy Stern, Dr. Robert Owens, Frankfurt School, Political Correctness, school vouchers, SEIU
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You can’t know what you don’t know, but you can know that you don’t know. Knowing the difference is wisdom. Realizing that knowledge is the cure for ignorance should be the inspiration for education.
If you want to change the future change the children. It seems like every tin-pot dictator and every megalomaniac destroyer of worlds knows this. The Progressives figured this out and they’ve been concentrating on it for generations. The educational guru of the Left, John Dewey may not have coined the term Progressive Education but he has come to be recognized as its earliest and foremost exponent.
In 1889, in his book School and Society he said,”Democracy has to be born anew every generation, and education is its midwife.” Dewey, a member of the first teacher’s union in New York City, and a founder of the American Association of University Professors was an early leader and advocate for these unions which have served America well as academic elevator operators in the descent into our 21st Century Blackboard Jungle.
The importance of education and the power it has to shape the future was a lesson Conservative Academics overlooked in their effort to allow all voices to be heard. Remember, it was the Conservative educational leaders assailed in the 60s and 70s for being too rigid who hired the Liberals who now so often forbid the hiring of Conservatives. The idea that in the marketplace of ideas all voices should be heard providing the opportunity for everyone to make informed decisions was one of the founding ideas of America, enshrined in the First Amendment to the Constitution.
Conservatives didn’t realize the Left made a conscious effort to capture American education as a way of shaping America’s future. The Frankfurt School, a group of Marxists educators who escaped Hitler’s Germany and worshipped Stalin’s Russia came to America intent on transforming this great nation from the bastion of freedom into the pyre of Western Civilization. From their original lair at Columbia University they’ve inserted themselves throughout the colleges and universities of America spreading their cult of Political Correctness along the way.
Spreading like a cancer through the body politic, metastasizing from one area to another, Political Correctness strangles the life from our society. Freedom of speech is slipping from our hands as words are eliminated and meanings are changed. In our current culture war one position seen as a litmus test by both sides of the aisle is the elimination of the Department of Education.
This bureaucratic puzzle factory was birthed during Jimmy Carter’s failed presidency and it has grown larger and more pervasive ever since. Today its tentacles reach from inside the beltway to inside the minds of millions. Our government’s No Bureaucrat Left Behind strategy enforces a politically-correct homogenous drivel wherein teaching to the test has fostered a generation that can forget as quickly as they memorize and critical thinking is one component no one thought to include.
This systematic seizure of education by the central government has turned the premier educational establishment in the world into a system where an emphasis on self-esteem produces graduates who feel great about themselves but can’t read their diplomas. Not surprisingly there are few jobs for people from schools where everyone gets a trophy and everyone passes.
Here’s the Progressive’s answer to this dilemma: let’s add mandatory service to mandatory education and maybe that will give us mandatory mediocrity. Perhaps an army of paid volunteers all marching in lock-step to the drumbeat from Washington will lead us to utopia. Current member of President Obama’s economic team, former head of the Service Employee Union (SEIU) and former leader of Students for a Democratic Society Andy Stern has proposed that the Federal Government combat the effects of the centrally planned Great Recession by creating a youth work program.
This man who drove the SEIU pension plan into insolvency figures that, “Assuming an average annual cost of $15,000 per person, for just $46.5 billion we could offer every 16 to 24 year old who wanted a job a national service opportunity.” After twelve years of memorizing the inconvenient absurdities of Al Gore, Michael Moore, and the rest of the politically-correct wisdom from Mount Olympus this stint in a renamed Civilian National Security Force should help round out just the kind of citizens the regime needs.
The take-over of higher education through the direct loan program and its top down restructuring will eventually decide who gets loans and who has to repay them. Surprisingly, the who gets and the who pays may not end up being the same who.
In addition, the “let’s get everyone in college so they aren’t counted as unemployed” program is turning the halls of Academe into a post-secondary version of the dysfunctional high schools the Progressive teachers’ unions and political correctness have birthed from inner city to the heartland. Criminal Justice programs filled with criminals, political science classes filled with people who don’t vote, discipline problems, and gangs make one hope the home-schooling college of online education will turn out some scholars for the future.
So what’s the answer to America’s educational problems? First of all close down the Department of Education and get the Federal government out of the people programming business. Reassert local control. Adopt school voucher programs that actually transfer the money so the schools doing the best job get the most resources. End tenure, seniority, and anything else that protects ineffective teachers.
What we don’t need is more central planning, more federal control, or one more brick in the wall.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion. Get the latest dispatches from the History of the Future and find books by Dr. Owens @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2010 Robert R. Owens dr.owens@comcast.net Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook.
Don’t Throw the Baby Out with the Bathwater December 1, 2010
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.Tags: Constitution, Declaration of Independence, Dr. Robert Owens, Gettysburg Address, History of the Future
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As America appears to swirl down the drain under the current maladministration, and as the new normal of 9-10% unemployment, crushing debt, and diplomacy by the wiki-wonks compromises our credibility it’s time to recall that there must be limits if there’s to be freedom. President Obama believes the Constitution is flawed, because it only speaks of “negative” liberties and it merely restrains government instead of empowering it. This reveals a lack of understanding of the American Experiment that is breath-taking to behold in the man elected to defend the Constitution.
A constitutional novice, let alone a supposed constitutional scholar, should know the reason for a written constitution is to set limits for government so that individual liberty and freedom can bloom. This has been true since King John was forced to sign the Magna Carta. It was true when the Miracle at Philadelphia produced the Constitution, and it’s true today. If government is not limited it is limitless.
What should be taught has not been taught. What should be known is not known. And what should be self-evident remains hidden in plain sight: “That all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” These words ring down the halls of History reverberating in the heart of every Patriot. Flowing from this same well-spring of wisdom is the reason for the institution of government, the source of the social contract which holds us together as a people: “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
Two hundred and thirty-four years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great culture war, and testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. These Dispatches from the History of the Future are brought forth on a great battle-field of that war: the media.
The world will little note, nor long remember what is said here, but it will never forget what patriotic authors have done and are doing. It is fitting for we who labor in the field of communications to dedicate our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor to the task remaining before us that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth.
Therefore, no matter if a certain Dispatch elicits praise or condemnation, whether it agrees or disagrees with every nuance of each individual it is hoped that positions will be taken in context. That people will react to articles and not headlines. To disagree on matters of foreign relations does not distract from our unity of vision that limited government, personal freedom, and individual liberty are the source and the summit of the American Experiment. Another pearl of wisdom from our forefathers may also be relevant to the necessity of not allowing divisions to divide us, “We must all hang together, or we shall all hang separately.”
A free press and people willing to share their thoughts whether popular or unpopular have long been the bane of tyrants. Those who seek to order the lives of others and to micromanage the fate of nations cannot abide the literature of liberty or the discourse of free people boldly proclaiming that the government that governs least governs best. Thus, these Dispatches from the History of the Future have been banned by the editors of the elite from China to Denver.
A quick review of recent history (Germany & Japan) teaches that nations which were once enemies can become friends, and those who were friends (Iran) can become enemies. This alone should direct us to the wisdom of George Washington, “The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest.” To base our future foreign relations upon our past chains us to backward thinking and tunnel vision, two things our current enemies are exploiting on a daily basis. Please take your shoes off and prepare for the porno scan or grope.
Let us not lose sight of the sacred cause for which we labor: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Let us stand together against the assault upon freedom that is the growth of Progressive government. The time is fast approaching when no matter how dedicated some may be to America remaining on the beat as the world’s policeman, building nations in our own image and chasing the mirage of security through empire, the burden of garrisons in ninety nations, and wars in several more will compel us to retire to the security of our borders.
This does not mean isolationism for we cannot retreat from commerce. It does however mean the time has come to once again heed the wisdom of our first President, “Our detached and distant situation invites and enables us to pursue a different course. If we remain one people under an efficient government the period is not far off when we may defy material injury from external annoyance; when we may take such an attitude as will cause the neutrality we may at any time resolve upon to be scrupulously respected; when belligerent nations, under the impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard the giving us provocation; when we may choose peace or war, as our interest, guided by justice, shall counsel. Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation? Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground?”
The time is also fast approaching when the words of our founders may once again ring clear in a land losing sight of our focus: limited government, liberty, and personal freedom. A time when the words of Jefferson will once again make tyrants quake, “That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.” Let all patriots stand together for truth, justice and the American way.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion. Get the latest dispatches from the History of the Future and find books by Dr. Owens @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2010 Robert R. Owens dr.owens@comcast.net Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook.
Time to START Supporting Obama November 26, 2010
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.Tags: Dr. Robert Owens, Evil Empire, Neo-Cons, Soros, START, trust and verify
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A broken clock is right twice a day, and even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while. It’s not surprising therefore that even as President Obama and the Soros Administration work feverishly to transform America into the USSA they would eventually stumble upon something that’s deserving of support by patriotic citizens.
The Cold War is over. Or at least it was. The fall of the Soviet Union, the greatest totalitarian horror of the twentieth Century came with a raised eyebrow instead of a bang. Unlike the clean-up after those other failed totalitarian monsters, Mussolini, Hitler and Tojo there were no trials and no crimes against humanity. Instead the masters of the gulags, the tormentors of innocents, and the destroyers of liberty received pensions and luxury dachas on the Black Sea disappearing into the woodwork along with much of the nation’s gold. Instead of hanging by his heels from a lamppost Gorbachev started a think tank and began earning astronomical speaking fees from all his friends in the West.
The Cold War was a fifty year-long nightmare. Yet today some History teachers in America characterize this multi-generational conflict as more extreme competition than a war, thus discounting the tens of thousands who died in Korea and Vietnam and the tens of millions who died in the gulags as if they were players fouled in a rough game. Having forgotten the lessons of the past, our bellicose neo-cons are now blustering and bullying the best Congress money can buy into refusing to ratify the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START).
Yes, the treaty needs to be looked at closely. Yes, we need rock solid assurances the treaty provides for our ability to maintain and modernize our deterrent force. However, we need to realize that this treaty is more than just the next round in the nuclear stand-down initiated by President Reagan. This treaty is the next logical step in linking Russia to the West.
Russia has always been conflicted. Is it a Western nation or an Eastern Empire? Is it part of the legacy of the West, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the democratic revolutions and evolutions, or are they the true child of the Golden Horde the political descendent of the autocratic Czars? Is it an honorable member of the human community or is it a ruthless gang of authoritarian Stalin wanabes out to dominate the world?
Today Russia is engaged in massive trade with the West, primarily Europe. The capitalist cat has been let out of the bag and they would have a hard time putting that toothpaste back in the tube. Our war in Afghanistan, without the assistance of Russia in allowing us to cross their territory with supplies, would resemble more of a siege than an assault, with us behind the barricades. The long and winding road from Karachi through the Hindu Kush is a perilously thin life-line the enemy can disrupt or bock anytime it suits their fancy. Without the alternate Russian access our heroes would be on the Little Big Horn looking for General Crook and Colonel Gibbon.
I have long asked what our military establishment in Europe was accomplishing besides providing a bail-out for the socialist economies and the opportunity for them to have no meaningful military budgets interfering with their cradle-to-grave nanny states. Who are we protecting them from: their own people? If Russia permanently joins the West couldn’t we finally bring our troops home? Perhaps we could even deploy them to our borders where they could protect us from invasion?
True, Russia may not be the quintessential example of a liberty loving representative republic, but then again neither any longer are we. True, they may not be Adam Smith’s definition of a capitalist society, but then again neither any longer are we. They are however no longer the Evil Empire. They are no longer a slave state run by megalomaniacs who have dozens of captive nations enthralled to their fever dream of world domination.
If we send the new START Treaty the way of the Versailles Treaty we will undercut every Russian who supports democracy and engagement in Moscow. We will empower every Russian who beats the drums of their age-old national obsession with encirclement. Just as our indifference cut the legs out from the protestors in Iran after their last bogus elections, our failure to accept the Russian’s hand extended in friendship will ensure a Russian fist raised in defiance.
The last thing we need now is a new Cold War. The last thing we need is Russia once again fueling every tin pot regime dedicated to American decline. Imagine if instead of standing with the West in the War on Terror they were: supporting Iran instead of cancelling the delivery of previously purchased weapons systems, supplying arms to the Taliban as we supplied arms to Mujahedeen, and demanding an end to the dollars supremacy.
On the positive side, the new START Treaty, which limits each side to less than 2,000 nuclear weapons leaves more than enough to get the job done if we ever need to vaporize anyone. Though it isn’t perfect it also leaves in place the verification side of Reagan’s “Trust and Verify” wisdom. If we lose this how are we going to retain any trust? The loss of which will lead us back to the distrust, which was at the base of the fifty year long nuclear arms race. Looking at this another way, ratification of the treaty is supported by an overwhelming and bipartisan collection of present and former intelligence, military and diplomatic leaders. They all say the treaty is good for America.
The Neo-cons led us in turning our retribution/revenge raid against Al Qaeda and their Taliban hosts into a decade long experiment in nation-building. They led us into a pre-emptive war in Iraq that has turned into a nation-building mission for an eternal garrison. They are beating the war drums for a pre-emptive strike on Iran. We cannot allow them to bait the Russian Bear and reignite the Cold War. No matter what they or their fellow talking-heads call them these are all globalist distractions keeping our eyes overseas while the Progressives extinguish liberty at home.
Though I have and I will continue to oppose President Obama when he acts against the interests of the Republic, I’m not afraid to speak out when he does something that will benefit the American people. This may not be the beginning of unqualified support, but at least it’s a START.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College and History for the American Public University System. http://drrobertowens.com © 2010 Robert R. Owens dr.owens@comcast.net Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook.
Thanks for Nothing November 20, 2010
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.Tags: 2010 election, Dr. Robert Owens, Dream Act, Insolvency, National Debt, START
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Sometimes not getting everything you want is the best thing you can get. Sometimes enough is too much already. Sometimes the next time might be the last time if this time is just like the last time. Sometimes when we try to run out the time, time runs out on us. Then again, sometimes time seems to stand still, which is exactly the time we need to realize time never stands still.
Sometimes not getting everything you want is the best thing you can get. In the run up to the game-changing election of 2010 many people hoped the Republicans would gain control of both the House and the Senate. This did not happen and that is a good thing. The staggering scope of the re-alignment in the House reveals the breadth and depth of America’s repudiation of the Progressives and their welfare nanny-state. However, if the Teanami had given conservatives complete control of the legislative branch it would have set the stage for President Obama and his accomplices in the media to run against the Tea Party Congress 24/7 for the next two years. As it stands today, the House can act as an anchor slowing down the precipitous rush into the Progressive’s socialist dream world without being a foil for the next comeback kid.
Sometimes enough is too much already. While the House is now in a perfect position to slow down the Progressives march towards Utopia it might be too late. By standing on the promises they’ve made to get another chance at legislative leadership the Republicans can stop anymore over-the-top spending. They can use their power to modify bills and bring some sanity back to our budgetary process. This will be good, but it won’t be enough. The looting of the treasury that’s gone on for the last two years combined with the projected looting already commits us to trillion dollar yearly deficits for the next 10 years. Slowing the rate of growth will do nothing to stop our mad rush into insolvency. Standing still is not good enough, we must reverse course or this Titanic is going to hit the iceberg no matter where we place the deckchairs.
Sometimes the next time might be the last time if this time is just like the last time. The Republicans are hitting the right note as they prepare to take over the House. They aren’t crowing about the victory of their Party. They’re acting chastened and aware that if they mess it up this time they may end up following the Whigs they replaced in the 1850s unto the ash heap of history. After 40 years in the wilderness, the Republicans gained power in 1994. They followed through on their contract and brought in the first balanced budget in a generation, ended welfare as we had known it and inspired a pragmatic progressive to utter those long sought after words, “The era of big government is over.”
Unfortunately, they nominated a lackluster candidate and were out maneuvered by the Clinton Machine in 1996 and then fell into an impeachment debacle wherein they had to fight the administration, the media, and their own Progressive wing. Following their impeachment fiasco the GOP legislative majority followed their Progressive leaders and wallowed in the pork until disgusted voters decided to give the Democrat Progressives a chance.
The Republicans are wise to realize they’ve not been embraced by the Silent Majority / Tea Party. They’ve been given one last chance. Do what you said you would do, fight to reverse the slide, fight to save the Republic, don’t just mark time, or this time will be your last time because sometimes when we try to run out the time, time runs out on us.
Sometimes time seems to stand still which is exactly the time we need to realize time never stands still. The lame duck session grinds on, and we still don’t know what lame laws these ducks will lay before they lose the keys to the House. In a way, with the holidays fast approaching and the blessed sound of a recess bell not too far away it feels as if time is standing still. As if the angels are holding their breath awaiting the first snowflakes as we all gather to give thanks, Congress is going home.
However, the Progressives are not standing still. In the last two years they’ve effectively abdicated their Constitutional responsibilities moving much of the decision-making and oversight from Congress to the bureaucracy. Right now the multiple thousand page bills are being unwrapped like Christmas presents by the departments and bureaus and soon new regulations with the force of law will cascade out of nondescript offices continuing the transformation of America. Those dedicated to the salvation of the Republic cannot rest upon the glow of victory. We must redouble our efforts to turn back the tide. We must limit the government before the government limits us.
Now is the time to petition our representatives, asking them to actively do nothing in the lame duck session that isn’t absolutely necessary. There was no budget passed, so a continuing resolution is required. That’s all that must be done. The tax question can be postponed until the next Congress and made retroactive. The START treaty needs a closer examination. Everything else being proposed such as the Dream Act is nothing but political payoffs for members of the Progressive coalition. The best thing this Congress can do for us after all they’ve done to us is nothing. If they’ll just do that we can all be thankful.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College and History for the American Public University System. http://drrobertowens.com © 2010 Robert R. Owens dr.owens@comcast.net Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook.
A Principle for Peter in the 21st Century November 13, 2010
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.Tags: credit crunch, Dr. Robert Owens, foreclosure moratorium, housing bubble, hyperinflation, Obamacare, QE2
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The world is lining up to not buy our debt so we are buying it ourselves in a move we call by the innocuous acronym QE2, which is short for Quantitative Easing two. More traditional, or verbally honest, economists are calling this what it is: monetizing our debt. This is a move which has our creditors heading for the doors and our enemies smiling as poor old Uncle Sugar stands with his pockets turned inside out, a bewildered look on his face as he wonders, “Where did all flowers go?”
Quantitative Easing is a type of monetary policy central banks use to pump money into their respective economic systems. This policy is only used when the central bank has already reduced interest rates to or near to zero. In other words, they have tried to encourage lending but they’ve failed. What the central bank does next is create money with a printing press, using that money to purchase bonds from its parent government and from banks and corporations within the nation’s banking system. The second and third tier banks then increase the money supply even further through another process known as deposit multiplication wherein they receive 100 dollars but are only required to keep $20 on hand, so they loan $80. The person who borrowed the $80 deposits it in their bank, and then that bank keeps 20% and loans the rest, and so on and so on until the increased money primes the pump and the stalled economy sputters to life. At least that’s the strategy.
No strategy survives contact with the enemy. And in this case the enemy is a financial system still reeling from government produced or instigated shocks: the housing bubble, the credit crunch, the escalating costs associated with Obamacare, and now the threat of a foreclosure moratorium. The dangers of the QE2 strategy lie in two directions. One it could be too successful igniting inflation and maybe even hyperinflation or two it could fail to re-ignite the economy and then the uncertainty of future tax rates, what new regulations might cost and the prospect of irretrievable assets locked up in a foreclosure freeze causing banks to hold the additional cash as a hedge against the government caused uncertainty. This would put us right back where we started: a frozen economy which opens the door for QE3, QE4, and eventually the dollar won’t be worth the paper it’s printed on.
If you rob Peter to pay Paul you can usually count on Paul’s vote in the next election cycle. This has been going on since FDR’s political genius discovered the magic formula of spend, spend, spend, tax, tax, tax, elect, elect, elect. Years of getting Paul addicted to lying in the hammock of government safety nets and swilling a brewsky as the game dulls his senses haven’t worked. Likewise, years of socialist education teaches Paul he isn’t a parasite he’s a victim with an entitlement haven’t worked. At the end of the day even Paul is starting to see that this can’t go on forever.
The free trade policies of both parties may have brought in cheap consumer goods to make Paul with his diminishing buying power think things are getting better all the time, but these same policies have also destroyed the manufacturing base that once provided Peter with enough income to carry Paul on his back and still live a good life. Today the average Paul is obese and the average Peter hasn’t had a raise in years, has watched his friends get laid-off, and wonders how he’s going to send Paul’s kids to college on burger-flipping money.
This brings us back to the world not lining up to buy our debt and to the definition of monetizing our debt. This is the government version of paying your MasterCard with your Visa. It may relieve current stress, but it portends future catastrophe. Debtors may appreciate moving their debt around, but creditors want to get paid. At a minimum they want to know their investment is secure. If we owe someone 100 dollars they want to know that the 100 dollars they receive in payment will have the same buying power as the 100 dollars they originally lent out. If the money they receive in payment is only worth half as much, they have lost half their initial investment. This is why China is reacting negatively to the Fed’s plan to pump more money into an economic system strangled by red tape and bleeding red ink.
It’s just not that hard to recognize a ponzi scheme. The smart bet is to walk away as soon as you see the shill starting to move the shells around on the table and this is just what the rest of the world is beginning to do. But poor old Uncle Sugar still thinks he has magic in his hands and more than a smile to hide his motives. What happens if you have a bond sale and nobody comes? I guess you buy the bonds yourself.
Will the end of American preeminence come not with a Bang: not with a whimper but instead with a “cha-ching!” If America, once the engine of the world’s economy and the seedbed of innovation crashes due to unsustainable debt will this validate the 20th Century concept of the Peter Principle? This principle states that within a bureaucracy people tend to get promoted due to their competence until they reach a level of incompetence remaining there until over time incompetence fills every level. Or is it time for a Peter Principle for the 21st Century?
Now is the time for Peter to rise up and say enough is too much already! In the coming Tea Party Congress the father and son Paul Team plan to offer twin bills in the House and the Senate to dissolve the Federal Reserve and reassert congressional control of America’s economic destiny. The howls will be loud, the fight will be hard, but either those who want to see a second American Century will usher in a return to limited government and free enterprise or the national motto may soon be, “Help I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.” To avoid this I urge every Peter who’s tired of being taxed to support the Pauls, contact you congressional representatives asking them to support the Paul Team as they fulfill their promises and strike a blow for freedom. If all the Peters follow these Pauls maybe we can put Humpty Dumpty back together again.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College and History for the American Public University System. http://drrobertowens.com © 2010 Robert R. Owens dr.owens@comcast.net Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook.
My Name’s America and I’m a Debt-a-holic November 6, 2010
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.Tags: Dr. Robert Owens, entitlements, monetizing the debt, National Debt, tax cuts
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Anyone who’s walked down the twelve-step path or knows someone who has, which is almost everyone in America, has heard the saying, “Until you admit you have a problem there’s no hope for a cure.”
We, as America have a problem: we’re addicted to debt. Now is not the time to point fingers. This isn’t the time to figure out whose fault it is or when was the fatal binge that sent us over the line from recreational user to addict. Now is the time to man-up, to admit we have a problem, and take the first steps toward recovery. And I’m not talking about some over-priced, jazzed-up, Betty Ford type recovery “Program.” I mean real recovery. This won’t happen overnight. It won’t happen without fears and tears and soul-searching honesty as we look in the mirror and admit to ourselves, “We aren’t controlling the debt. The debt is controlling us.”
Like many survivors of the Summer of Love, and the other social scams of the 1960s, when so many of we Boomers danced in lock-step like lemmings at mass festivals loudly proclaiming our induhvidualism while wearing identical tie-dyed shirts and patched-up jean uniforms, I found myself one day admitting I was addicted to something. No longer could I pretend I was taking the formerly magical something for fun. I was ingesting something that was bad for my body, because if I didn’t I’d get sick. My body, my mind, my soul had become addicted, and if I didn’t keep flying I was going to crash. I had that realization. Step-by-step I learned to walk on my own again. Maybe you’ve never had that experience personally. Hold on to your treasured memories of missing that degrading rite of passage, because we as a nation are about to hit the wall.
If we don’t sober up and take the cure ourselves one day soon our friendly local debt dealers are all going to get together and pull an intervention on us, and that will not be pretty. The austerity you place upon yourself is easier to bear than the austerity placed on you by someone else. If we don’t seize these last few moments of independence to stand up and say, “My name’s America and I’m a debt-a-holic” before we can print enough funny money to pay off our massive debts the countries holding that debt will cut us off and we’ll have to go through withdrawals cold-turkey. Or worse yet, we may be so strung out on living beyond our means that we’ll agree to anything the debt dealers demand if only they’ll extend our credit for a few more days. The borrower is slave to the lender and he who pays the piper calls the tune.
It’s easy to pick out all the pet projects of the opposition and say those are what caused us to go over the line. If we’re truthful we will see that it wasn’t just entitlements it was providing garrison troops to maintain the peace around the world. It wasn’t just tax cuts it was also spending. Truthfulness is a required ingredient for this cure. It won’t work if we just stop drinking, because dry drunks just find something else to fill the hole in their souls. It won’t be good enough to kick the heroin of debt just to become strung out on the methadone of printing money. We can’t just click our heels three times and say “I wish I was home” as Bernanke pumps out billions of increasingly worthless paper dollars. We can’t start using our Discover Card after the shop keeper cuts up our MasterCard and our Visa.
Some fear the cure will be worse than the disease. Some are afraid to admit there’s a problem fearing there will be a stigma. We’re past time to worry what the other countries down the block are going to say. We cannot hesitate because we’re ashamed all the other countries will point at us on the UN playground and say behind phony smiles, “America couldn’t handle their budget and now they have to live within their means.”
We can’t let divisions divide us. We must remember we are the UNITED States. We have to realize we cannot remain anonymous buying our debilitating debt on the corner from dealers who’re laughing at us behind our backs. We cannot continue spending like drunken sailors at the first port-of-call in six months and expect that there will be anything left for the kids. We’re sacrificing our children at the altar of our own desires. It’s time to admit that being generous with other people’s money isn’t generosity, its theft. It’s also time to realize that if everyone demands what they want no one will get what they need.
Yes, this will mean hard choices. Yes, this will mean that we all must roll-up our sleeves, tighten our belts, and go to work for the long haul. But we’re America. We can do this. Instead of expecting our representatives to bring home the bacon let’s ask them to balance the budget no matter how that may gore our sacred cow. Perhaps it’s time we remember to ask not what our country can do for us, but ask instead what we can do for our country.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College and History for the American Public University System. http://drrobertowens.com © 2010 Robert R. Owens dr.owens@comcast.net Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook.
This isn’t a Recession October 30, 2010
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.Tags: 99ers, Dr. Robert Owens, food stamps, SEIU, State Capitalism, Tea Party Movement, tea-nami
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Perhaps the following examples are emblematic of our present precarious situation. The Progressive Congressional leadership apparently believes Steven Colbert is not only what they perceive as a conservative commentator they also believe his outrageous satirical views are worthy of a Congressional hearing. Not to be outdone by the pedantic puffery of his lockstep legislative sidekicks, our President, like millions of his devotees, apparently perceives John Stewart as a serious news broadcaster. Together these two politically motivated comedians are what the left believes constitutes an effective counter-weight to Glenn Beck and his chalkboards.
After the dust settles, after the confetti is swept up and all the balloons have popped what will the transformed American political landscape look like? Who will be leading and where? Will the recently awakened millions who’ve campaigned to get their country back have anything to show for all their efforts? Or, will the entrenched GOP establishment reach across the aisle proving all they were really interested in was co-opting the Tea Party Movement to regain their power so they could continue their side of the slide into the shabby future of a Progressive Social Democracy?
Hopefully the Loyal Opposition will realize this election was not a place holder. This was not merely a warm-up for the opportunity to send Mr. Obama back to Chicago. This tea-nami will send people to Congress who need to know this is their chance to work for the reversal of the Progressive agenda. If instead they misinterpret it as a two-year lease with an option they will soon hear the cry, “We can see 2012 from here!”
Then again this whole election cycle may be President Obama’s version of rope-a-dope. His erratic pronouncements and lack of any message except variations of his car-in-the-ditch illustration make it seem as if he wants the Republicans to win control of the House and pick off some old mass-backs in the Senate. That way like the new boss who cleans out the old team, he’ll be free of Nancy and Harry and for the next two years he can bounce against the ropes, play the Comeback Kid, and let the Senate absorb the force of the punches. Then in 2012 he can blame the Republicans for the mess he has created while saying the answer to the failure of Plan A is Plan A again.
Niccolo Machiavelli once said, “No enterprise is more likely to succeed than one concealed from the enemy until it is ripe for execution.” Now look at the situation the 112th Congress is going to face. Without total veto-proof control of both houses the ship of state will continue to speed towards the glacier of unsustainability while the wide-eyed reformers rearrange the deck chairs. Or as Sun Tzu said, “He who is prudent and lies in wait for an enemy who is not, will be victorious.”
The unemployment rate in September 2010 stood at an abysmal 9.6% and that only includes people receiving unemployment benefits. If everyone is counted, those whose benefits have run out and the underemployed who work part time but want to work full time the real unemployment rate is closer to 16.7% and some analysts peg it as high as 22%. Then there are the 99ers, those who have exhausted their 99 weeks of unemployment benefits. With the help of the AFL-CIO and the SEIU they are unionizing online hoping to use the power of collective action to legislate longer benefits.
One in eight Americans, are now enrolled for food stamps. This is the highest share of the U.S. population ever receiving food stamps, which is another first for the Obama Administration’s economic recovery program. The stigma caused by using the old funny colored monopoly money has been replaced with an anonymous looking debit card linked to someone else’s account. Looking forward, the research of professional anti-hunger lobbying groups shows that one in three eligible people are not receiving the benefits they deserve. If this is correct, soon half of America may have the opportunity to subsidize the other half. This will be a major blow to the pro-hunger lobby.
The Census Bureau reports over14% of the population were below the poverty line in 2009, compared with 13.2% in the previous year and 11.3% in 2000. The number has increased three years in a row with no decline in sight as the trillions spent in the President’s recovery plan just keep on giving.
The national debt has increased by 5 trillion since Nancy Pelosi became the Speaker of the House and promised no new deficit spending. Since President Obama’s inauguration the debt has increased by 3 trillion. And according to the administration projections the National Debt will increase by approximately $6.5 trillion during President Obama’s first term which is greater than the unacceptable increases of Bushes two terms.
Apologizing for our past, pillaging our present, mortgaging our future, kowtowing to China, imitating Europe our first post-exceptionalism President rejects our greatness as illegitimate and seeks to manage America’s decline. This isn’t a recession this is the new normal. The Progressive Evolutionaries are systematically destroying our economy in order to produce the Lumpenproletariat their cherished theory of life, the universe, and everything predicted Capitalism would produce. Now that the name of Communism has changed to State Capitalism maybe it will.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College and History for the American Public University System. http://drrobertowens.com © 2010 Robert R. Owens dr.owens@comcast.net Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook.
Wanted a Kamikaze Congress for a Banzai Counterattack October 23, 2010
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.Tags: Crony Capitalist, Dr. Robert Owens, Election 2010, Mainstream Media, Progressives
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During World War II when the no-longer sleeping giant was pounding on Japan’s door their do-or-die military began Kamikaze attacks against our ever growing fleets in the Pacific. The Kamikaze pilots flew planes filled with bombs into American ships as the first and only honorable expression of the term suicide bomber. During America’s island-hopping advance through the Japanese Empire the combination of courageous marines and naval supremacy led to defeat for the fanatically loyal Japanese. In many cases instead of surrender the last of the defenders launched a Banzai Counterattack. This was the earthbound equivalent of the airborne Kamikaze. A final charge into the face of overwhelming odds meant to either change the game in one decisive blow or to at least die honorably for a sacred cause.
Unless the Progressives are able to pull an election out of their hat the coming midterms have the feeling of an approaching hurricane. The tide, as measured by polls, is going so far out it looks like a tsunami of indignation is about to send a tidal surge of newly elected self-proclaimed Conservatives with a mandate to reverse the Progressive trajectory. A trajectory which has America aimed like a laser at the dust-bin of History. These newly elected heroes, many of whom have come from nowhere to defeat long-serving Progressive icons, will have been hired by the voters to not only drain the swamp of Federal corruption but to turn the swamp back into the seed bed of liberty and opportunity.
These New Hires must not morph into the in-crowd clique in Washington as so many have in the past. And if the entrenched leaders of the loyal opposition are determined to compromise with the Progressives for some favorable coverage and a photo-op in the rose garden, the New Hires must vote them out and elect new leaders who will fight the good fight. The New Hires must remain true to the people who sent them or the millions of newly aroused voters and grass-roots activists will throw them out in 2012. The Momma Grizzlies, the Grammas, the Grandpas, and all the once-silent majority who’ve sacrificed their repose to stand-up for limited government will turn from ardent supporter to dedicated advisory in the blink of an eye if they believe the new boss starts to look like the old boss.
The New Hires must withstand the ridicule of the Corporations Once Known as the Mainstream Media. The propaganda arm of the Progressive Movement will relentlessly mock and denigrate any who try to dismantle the welfare state and return America to limited government. The New Hires must be willing to commit political suicide by not tweaking but by repealing the entitlements which have turned America from the cradle of opportunity and the arsenal of democracy into a half-way house on the road to the poor-house.
Billionaires who amassed their fortunes through crony deals and manipulation, dedicate themselves to the destruction of capitalism and liberty. They use their power and their front-groups to destroy the lives and the careers of anyone brave enough to step into the swamp and confront the Progressive beast. The recent campaigns have shown no tactic, no smear, no fraud is beneath the opponents of liberty. Instead of victory celebrations on November 3rd the New Hires should rededicate themselves to doing whatever it takes to re-establish limited government.
The hour is late and the night is dark. Our Progressive President aided and abetted by the democrat-controlled Congress of Pelosi and Reid have delivered the wealth of the nation and the power to rule into the hands of a professional bureaucracy willing to legislate through regulations, to rule through politically correct guidelines, and the desire to control our every move. This may be the charge of the Light Brigade into the valley of doom for it’s not enough to return to the spending of the Progressive Bush (either of them) or the Progressive Clinton. No, we need to face the austerity our credit financed binge has purchased. We need to dismantle the entitlement superstructure constructed upon the re-interpreted foundation of the Constitution.
We boomers need to admit we’ve been swindled. There’s no lock-box and there never was. All the money we’ve invested in Social Security over the years wasn’t invested. It was flushed down a rat-hole. There’s nothing there. We have to stop demanding what we feel we have coming and join our children, roll-up our sleeves, and together rebuild the greatest Republic ever to grace the history of man. All of us, every American, needs to admit the binge is over and the time for heavy lifting is here. To pass these changes, over the President’s veto, may swiftly end new political careers. New Heroes will be needed to replace the first line of battle as the banzai counterattack of limited government assaults the ramparts of the Progressive- bureaucratic-media-crony capitalist coalition.
If the portents of a coming pro-limited government victory at the polls prove true we must gird ourselves for the long legislative war against an implacable foe. Be prepared for the Progressives to react like a cornered jackal forced to drop its prey. The battle will be bitter, and don’t count your votes until the dust settles. In any close races ACORN-by-any-other-name will find bags of votes someone forgot to count, the ballots for our heroes defending the Empire overseas can’t seem to make it there on time while those to prisoners are hand- delivered. Thugs who intimidate in front of polling places are given a pass while government-funded institutions urge people to vote early and help the Democratic Party.
Total victory may not be possible until there is a change of administration, but it must be attempted. Those who believe in limited government and personal liberty must make a stand so that those who come after will hear their cry, “These principles we believe in and for these principles we are willing to sacrifice our lives, our fortunes, and our political careers!” Keep the faith. Keep the peace. We shall overcome. Who knows Republicans may even win in Chicago.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College and History for the American Public University System. http://drrobertowens.com © 2010 Robert R. Owens dr.owens@comcast.net Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook.
I’ll See Your Hiroshima and Raise You a Nagasaki October 17, 2010
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.Tags: alphabet soup of Federal agencies, City on a Hill, Dr. Robert Owens, fundamentally transform America, illegal drilling moratorium, John Boehner
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I do not lightly use the names of the only cities in history obliterated by the use of Atomic weapons. The nature of the cause in which they forever stand as sentinels of determination precludes their use for any profane purpose. I wouldn’t use such loaded terms unless the issue at hand wasn’t equally as momentous within the flow of American History.
Hearing the voice of the people on November 3rd, President Obama ought to pivot to the Center after the coming Tea Party driven Republican resurgence. The Chat-o-crats of talk radio and the 24 hour cable news cycle debate endlessly whether he will imitate Bill Clinton who suddenly switched from his drive to socialize America into a born-again reformer bellowing “The Era of Big Government is over” to ensure that he was still relevant. However, there’s a significant difference between the man from Hope and the purveyor of hope and change. Bill Clinton is a pragmatist willing to do whatever it takes to stay in front of any crowd so he can call it a parade and look like the Grand Marshal. President Obama is an ideologue with an iron-clad agenda and, as his most admirable trait, an iron determination to stand by his convictions. Instead of pivoting Mr. Obama will unveil the Imperial Presidency hidden in those thousand-page bills no one reads.
Thousand-page bills don’t write themselves overnight. Since the people who said they wrote them don’t know what’s in them where did they come from? These bills have been waiting in the wings for such a time as this. The Progressives realized that even after their infiltration and hijack of the liberal wing of American politics, even after generations of addicting Americans to one entitlement at a time their naked grab for power during the sprint to the finish line would turn the most died-in-the-wool fellow-traveler back to American values. And they had to fear that their final push to fundamentally transform America into a social democracy might wake-up those dozing on the couch in front of the game. Realizing all along the homeowner might wake up and catch them with their hand in the cookie jar they built automatic-pilot bureaucratic nomenclature into their signature pieces of legislation.
By voting through omnibus bills without reading them the Best Congress Money Can Buy has ceded their power to the vast Federal commissariat. Since the November Revolution of 2008 this gaggle of accomplices and dupes has allowed the Commander-in-Chief to inflate the Federal red-tape machine by more than 15%. Congress rubber-stamped themselves into irrelevance. Power has been transferred to the alphabet soup of Federal agencies and bureaucrats know how to fill in the blanks.
As a case in point: The Obama administration ends their illegal Moratorium on all offshore drilling. Does this mean the tens of thousands of jobs already lost will come back as new operations ramp up to locate and exploit American energy resources? Not so much. At the same time the administration announced the end of the moratorium they also announced that new regulations are coming. This threat of new, unknown regulations discourages anyone from investing money in new drilling. Even the crony capitalists with their government guarantees and bailout cushions aren’t fool enough to invest money in a rigged game when the rigging hasn’t been decided on yet. None of this took Congressional approval or even notification. After the election look for rule by decree by any other name as the people elected to drain the new swamp learn their predecessors gave away the store.
This is what brings us full circle to the Hiroshima and Nagasaki reference. If we who believe in limited government run the board and send a significant majority to put steel in the back of John Boehner as the new Speaker of the House we must also elect a veto- proof majority in the Senate. If both of these are not accomplished the Progressives, who are masters of the legislative two-step, will thwart every attempt to roll back the coup d’état they’ve legislated for themselves and America will swirl down the drain into the historical backwaters of failed experiments. Unless the new pro-limited government majority is large enough to repeal the massive centralization of the last four progressive administrations over President Obama’s veto, they will become cast in the cement of precedent and instant tradition. A willing media and a complicit judiciary will anoint the Progressive agenda as the new normal.
Victory must be total or it will not be victory. The surrender that was signed in August of 1945 would not have been signed for months or years later unless the twin horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki hadn’t convinced even the Japanese Army who was still winning their war in China that all was lost. Likewise, we who desire a return to limited government must take total control of Congress. If the margin is only a vote or two in the Senate the Progressives, who campaign as Patrick Henry and rule as Benedict Arnold, will cross the aisle and the time for an electoral reversal of the Progressive Evolution will pass. America will still be here. The next day when we wake up the world will still be spinning and the birds will still be singing, but the America we have known will be History. Victory must be total or it will not be victory!
Now is the time for everyone who believes in limited government to come to the aid of their nation. In the past few years many who previously ignored politics have awakened to find their nation has been hijacked and they’re about to land in an America more like Cuba than a City-on-a-Hill. Those now awake must wake-up their families, their friends and their neighbors. A tsunami, an avalanche, an earthquake of voters must swamp the polls on November 2nd to overcome the reality that Chicago votes early and votes often.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College and History for the American Public University System. http://drrobertowens.com © 2010 Robert R. Owens dr.owens@comcast.net
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