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Why Central-Planning Won’t Work October 3, 2013

Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Politics.
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Failure to plan is planning to fail.  This truism has been a guiding light in my life and in the lives of countless others.  Without planning we would never accomplish much in life.  The haphazard serendipity of chance rarely adds up to a consistently positive result.  We all know people who seem like they can fall into a sewer and come up smelling like roses.  Most of us come up smelling like something quite different if we take the same fall.

On an individual basis planning is absolutely critical.  For society some things also need planning such as coining money, defending the nation, and delivering the mail.  All of these require planning and for all of these things it is possible to plan realistically and effectively.

There is no argument between the citizen supporters of constitutionally limited government and our perpetually re-elected Progressive collectivists and the fellow-travelers who support them about this. Some planning is both necessary and good.  However, this is where we part company.  Those who believe in a constitutionally limited government do not believe that it is possible or advisable to try to run an economy and a society through central planning.

The very attempt to use central planning short circuits the myriad of personal decisions which make up the routine functions of a free economy and that is the bedrock of a free society.  Every group that advocates central planning, no matter what they call themselves are Utopians who believe that they can do a better job making decisions for everyone than everyone can make for themselves.  That is the essence of the Nanny-state: government knows better and must protect us from our own bad choices.

There is one common feature that is clearly a part of all the various collectivist systems no matter what they call themselves.  They all call for the deliberate organization of society to accomplish identifiable social goals.  That a free society lacks this focus and its activities are guided by the personal whims and feelings of individuals all seeking their own good is always the complaint of the Utopians.

This brings the basic difference between the collectivists and the advocates of personal liberty into stark relief.  The different types of collectivists: Socialists, Communists, Fascists, and Progressives may differ as to the specific societal goals towards which they want to drive their populations, and they may differ in their methods depending upon the amount of control they exert over the choices of others.  However much they differ from each other they all uniformly differ from the advocates of individual freedom in that they wish to regiment all of society and all its resources to achieve whichever set of goals their particular brand of collectivism sees as the pathway to Nirvana.

Whatever the social goal is whether it’s called the great leap forward, a worker’s paradise, a classless society, the common good, the general welfare, or the Great Society it doesn’t take much reflection to see that these terms are so vague it’s impossible to determine their exact meaning so that any specific course of action could be decided upon.   It’s like a war on terror, or drugs, or obesity how are you supposed to know when the goal has been reached or victory achieved?

The welfare and happiness of people cannot be measured on a scale of more or less.  There are too many variables.  There are too many possible combinations of circumstances that can become either negatives or positives depending upon another set of widely diverse situations.  The “good” of any society cannot be expressed as simply or succinctly as the collectivists pretend.  It is just too complex.

To direct all of society’s energy and resource by one plan assumes that every need and desire is given a rank in order of importance and a place in order of time.  It also assumes that an absolute lineal order of occurrences must proceed from every action.  If this happens that will automatically occur.   Besides asserting through action that it is possible to order all things as one desires it also inherently expresses the idea that there is one universal set of ethics by which good and bad are obviously seen by the planners.  All of these assumptions, assertions and expressions are not only false they are obviously false.  No one is as smart as everyone.

The very idea of having a universally accepted and complete code of ethics is beyond the scope of human experience.  People are constantly choosing between different values as they go through their daily life.  What is best today in this situation may not be best tomorrow in that situation.  However, when all of society and all of its resources are to be harnessed and driven in one direction toward a preselected set of goals such a universal and complete set of ethics are not only a necessity they are a prerequisite for success.  Since this is unattainable success is also unattainable.  If this sounds harsh please view the tattered hulks and broken lives which litter the history of all Utopian collectivist societies.

Only God can plan the end from the beginning.  Only God has an ultimate and a true ethical code that is universally applicable to all people in all situations.  Only God has a right to order events to suit His purposes. He created all things, and all things exist because He holds them up. All things are His, and He has the ability and the right to do with them as He pleases.

The problem we face is that collectivism puts the state in the place of God.  Collectivists believe that government, through its bureaucracy, can make decisions and take action that could only work if designed and carried out with the aid of omniscience and omnipotence neither of which qualities have ever or will ever belong to government.

A scientist once said to God, “You’re not so much.  We have learned how to make life in our laboratories.”

God answered, “Is that so.”

The scientist proudly said, “Yes it is and I am willing to have a contest with you right now to see who can make life faster and better.”

“All right,” God said, “let’s go.”  With that God stooped down and picked up some dirt and started molding it into a man as the scientist grabbed his test tubes and started pouring liquids from one to another.

Just as God was about to blow the breath of life into His creation, he looked at the scientist and said, “Hey!  Get your own dirt.”

There is one thing I have learned in this life: God is God and I am not and neither is anyone or anything else.  Sounds like a pretty basic lesson; however, it took me about half of my life to learn.  If we could only get those entrusted with our government to learn the same thing maybe we would stop our slow slide into that long dark night.

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion.  He is the Historian of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2013 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com  Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens / Edited by Dr. Rosalie Owens

 

A Word to the Wise September 19, 2013

Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Politics.
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The most insidious result that central-planning and the overabundance of government control that it requires is not the maladjustments that it inevitably creates in the economy.  It is not the crony capitalism and bureaucratic nepotism that it always fosters.  It is not the smothering blanket of nanny-state regulations that strangle creativity.  It is not even the tendency to one-party rule even when camouflaged behind a two party system that is in reality two heads of the same bird of prey.  It is not a system which may actually contain only two parties if you believe there is the government party and the country party.

No none of these missteps on the way to an illusionary utopia are the most insidious result of any system no matter what it is called that is some variation on the socialist theme of “From each according to their ability and to each according to their need.” Instead the most insidious result of the effort by some to control all is a change in the character of the people.

When government regulation becomes an all-embracing web of minutia that requires lawyers, accountants, and other translators of government-speak to comprehend, when safety-nets become hammocks, and when the do-gooders believe that they know what is best for everyone reaches a tipping point people begin to expect others to do for them what they used to do for themselves.  A nation of self-reliant, go-getters can be changed into a sea of slugs on the dole constantly crying and voting for more.

The descendants of the pilgrims and the pioneers are content to wait for their government check and their food stamps as long as there is a game on their flat screen and minutes left on their obamaphone.    Militant apathy has ossified the sinews of a once great people.  So many people don’t care about anything beyond their creature comforts, the most basic of which are guaranteed, that the will to succeed has been squashed.

When you guarantee success and everyone gets a trophy just for showing up few will strive to do more than is required.   When success is punished by the ridicule of the media and the inequality of government policies such as a progressive income tax that says, “The more you make the more we take” few will strive to do more than is required.  When college entrance quotas and set-asides say, “We don’t seek the best and the brightest we look at race and gender to pick the winners and losers” few will strive to do more than is required. When government subsidies and tax-breaks say, “If you have connections the government will hold back the crushing reality of the market at tax-payers’ expense” few will strive to do more than is required.

In America today we are surrounded by low-information voters who either don’t pay any attention to affairs beyond their life or who get their news exclusively from the Progressive controlled Corporations Once Known as the Mainstream Media.  Their opinions are scripted for them by the progressive group-think of corporate hacks constantly building a narrative to advance their utopian agenda.  If it doesn’t fit it doesn’t print.  If they don’t like what you say it will never play.  America’s once dynamic free press transformed into a one-sided monologue reciting over and over, “Government knows best.”

Our government controlled and increasingly standardized education system works hard to say as some of my students have; “a ‘D’ is good enough.” Or, “At our school we receive an attendance diploma it just means we were there it don’t mean we learned anything.”  Assignments such as I witnessed in a 12th grade Political Science class, “Watch Michael Moore’s film, ‘Fahrenheit 9/11’ and then write an essay on how many ways Bush lied to trick us into invading Iraq” show indoctrination has in many places swallowed education.  Circumstances such as these tend to stifle those who would drive innovation and promote those who are just along for the ride, pass the mediocre while holding back the brilliant.

We have moved from a capitalist system to a mixed economy and now under a president who promised to fundamentally transform America we are lurching into a socialist system in all but name that seeks to ensure equality of result instead of the equal opportunity which has traditionally been the seedbed of America’s meritocracy.  We have transitioned from a small limited government, a representative republic that operates on democratic principles into an all-powerful central government that operates through a massive bureaucracy.  Executive orders are used to make end-runs around Congress and the Constitution.  Unconstitutional and illegal recess appointments are used to avoid the scrutiny of a Senate confirmation.  Our borders are for all intents and purposes open like an automatic door at Wal-Mart.  Forgetting what Ronald Reagan told us, “A nation without borders is not a nation.”

Norman Thomas, an early Socialist candidate for President said, “The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism. But, under the name of ‘liberalism’ they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program, until one day America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it happened.”  And as Lenin said, “Socialized Medicine is the Keystone to the Arch of the Socialist State.”

Step-by-step we have journeyed from being a people birthed in rebellion against tyranny, a people who founded the world’s first experiment in a government of the people, by the people and for the people.  Until a nation founded upon a written constitution which guaranteed limited-government, personal liberty, and economic freedom has become just another failed utopia that is spending itself into oblivion as the band plays, “let the good times roll.”
At a time like this it is good to remember some of the wisdom of those who have gone before:

Noah Webster said, “There is no nation on earth powerful enough to accomplish our overthrow.   Our destruction, should it come at all, will be from the inattention of the people to the concerns of their government.”

Alexis de Tocqueville said, “The American Republic will endure, until politicians realize they can bribe the people with their own money.”

Benjamin Franklin said, “When the people find that they can vote themselves money that will herald the end of the republic.”

Barry Goldwater said, “A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away.”

AND

Alexander Tyler said, “A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship”

A word to the wise they say is sufficient.

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion.  He is the Historian of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2013 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com  Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens / Edited by Dr. Rosalie Owens

It Doesn’t Make Sense August 23, 2013

Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Politics.
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Our leaders aren’t stupid. They may be foolish, they may be corrupt, but they aren’t stupid.

This isn’t just a Democrat phenomenon. It didn’t start with President Obama’s occupation of the White House. This is a manifestation of the Dualocracy: the regime of the government party, that great two headed Hydra wherein the Democrat and Republican Parties are merely two heads on the same bird of prey.

When we look at the current direction our country is going in many people say, “That just doesn’t make sense.” I hear this or a variation of it all the time. We see laws, regulations, and programs spewing forth from Chicago on the Potomac on a daily basis that just don’t add up.

Why would our government spend us into the poorhouse? Borrow more money than anyone could ever pay back? Create money out of thin air like Weimar Republic? Pass Healthcare reform to insure millions that’s really a tax, is almost incomprehensible even to those who supposedly wrote it, and doesn’t insure anyone? Why would we help overthrow our friends to empower our enemies? Why do we look for ways to legalize illegals now and make promises about securing the border in the future? Why? Why? Why?

It doesn’t make sense.

The problem is these people are too smart and their organizations are too well-oiled to do so much that is nonsensical. I don’t believe the problem is that they are from Bizarro World or that they are political savants. I believe we are not looking at what is happening in and to our country in the proper context.

Much like a person who needs glasses: if the lenses aren’t right everything looks blurry or distorted. So too when we look at the actions of intelligent people who are operating with a grand design of how they want the world to be and nothing makes any sense: we need some new lenses. The problem most Tea Party types have understanding what our dear leaders are doing is that we think they should be trying to preserve the America we received from our forefathers. We look at their actions, and they seem like the theater of the absurd.

Who would do what they do if they want what we want?

That’s the key. They don’t want what we want. We want to preserve our heritage and they want to fundamentally transform the United States of America. We believe the Constitution recognizes what the Declaration of Independence calls our “unalienable rights” and it is a good thing to limit government from having the power to violate those rights. Our Progressive masters bemoan the fact that the Constitution only gives negative rights which limit the power of the central government. They dream instead of a second bill of rights which bestows upon the central government and its mammoth bureaucracy a mandate to legislate, regulate, and strangulate us into their vision of utopia.

The problem with any Utopia is that it’s always based upon coercion. People must be forced to do what some all-knowing god-like central authority decides is the way to achieve perfection. From Plato’s Republic to Sir Thomas More’s Utopia from Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World to Kurt Vonnegut’s Piano Player the visions of a perfect society herded and regimented by an all-powerful government will always end up as some dystopian reflection of George Orwell’s 1984.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but perfection will never happen in this life. We are imperfect people living in an imperfect world. God has endowed us with certain rights and without them it is not possible to be all that we are meant to be. The only way to ensure them is to limit governments from violating them. That is why we have a Constitution to empower our government to do those things we need done for the general good such as defense and providing a sound money while limiting it from trampling upon the things that make us a free people, namely our freedom of action, our privacy and our inviolability as individuals.

In recent years this has been turned on its head as rights we plainly have, rights which are explicitly enumerated such as the right to keep and bear arms are endlessly debated and infringed upon while rights imagined are held up as constitutional.

A case in point: What ever happened to the Fourth Amendment?

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

This is where our God given right to privacy is acknowledged and protected by the Constitutional government of the United States. It expressly mentions the inviolability of our “houses, papers, and effects.” It doesn’t mention abortion. This is the pattern in America today: ignore what the Constitution plainly says and extol imagined things the Progressives wish it said.

Today a Progressive Supreme Court has decreed there is a constitutional right to privacy involved when a woman wants to terminate the life of an unborn child and nowhere else in our 21st century surveillance state America? The right to terminate life is protected and even subsidized by the central government and the right to have a private conversation is no longer acknowledged. Today in the post-constitutional America it is all right for the government to listen to and record every communication of every citizen and the one person who tells us that they are doing so is a traitor.

All it takes is the right set of lenses and we can see clearly. Rather than not making any sense it all makes total sense. Our leaders are leading us from where we have been: a constitutionally limited government ensuring personal freedom, individual liberty and economic opportunity to a centrally-planned, highly regimented, constantly watched society marching lock-step towards a utopia that will never work. With leaders like this all I can do is echo Scott Adams warning, “Don’t step in the leadership.”

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion.  He is the Historian of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2013 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com  Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens / Edited by Dr. Rosalie Owens

 

History Doesn’t Happen in the Past August 2, 2013

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The parasite has out grown its host and it can’t live on its own.

We are witnessing the convergence of multiple mistake streams combining into one river of destruction. We have a ruling clique concerned only with maintaining its power supported by a dependent class that wants what it wants now not later. And they are employing public sector unions that want to negotiate feather-bed contracts with the same people they help elect. All empowered by a mass of low information voters who either don’t pay any attention to what is going on or accept anything they see, hear or absorb from the Corporations Once Known as the Mainstream Media, late night talk shows or the Daily Show as real news.

America has been dumbed down so far it is acting stupid. We have been assaulted by so many outrageous actions we are becoming numb. Every day the drip, drip, drip of this Administration’s unconstitutional activities and the constant drumbeat of the media covering-up instead of exposing and advocating instead of investigating makes us so tired of the fight we want to just throw up our hands and retreat into our families and our personal lives. This is just what the Progressives have been working for the last one hundred years. They have educated generations who have educated generations until most people have no idea how things were let alone how things should be.

The loss of historical perspective forces people to live in the now, and the now can always be changed. The lack of intellectual understanding causes people to rely upon emotion, and emotions can always be swayed. When people listen with the intent to respond instead of to understand conversations become two-way monologues between self-absorbed cyphers incapable of joining together in any meaningful way. Our Progressive education has cultivated a nation of couch potatoes who aren’t aware that the Republic of their forefathers is being transformed before their eyes into a centrally-planned utopian experiment in social engineering.

Turn off the game, open a book, go online, and do something that will raise your awareness of what America is supposed to be. Look at our government and what they are doing and see what America is becoming. Think about it. Today in the name of security the government of the people, by the people and for the people is watching and listening to everything that is said and done while the one person who stands up and tells us they are doing it is a traitor, a felon, and must be stopped at all costs.

Yet with all this watching, all this listening even with warnings from multiple sources our vaunted security apparatus couldn’t stop the Boston bombers. Despite the constant surveillance we are told endlessly that there is no way to identify the millions of illegal aliens who are swamping our system. In the face of obvious signs and numerous warnings a Muslim fundamentalist can climb on a table shouting “Allah Akbar!” shoot dozens of people, and this isn’t terrorism while according to the news anchors of one network Senator Ted Cruz is a terrorist, and according to others so are the Americans involved in the Tea Party. Open your eyes and realize this country has been hijacked, the constitution is a dead letter, and if we don’t do something soon nothing will happen.

How long have we waited for someone to rise up and lead the cause of freedom, to call a spade a spade and point out the fact that the Progressives are leading us away from freedom and towards totalitarianism? How long have we waited for someone in Washington to speak plainly and to point out that the Emperor has no clothes?

Finally there are a few in the Senate and in the House willing to lay it all on the line to speak up and be counted. The Progressive Republicans are joining with their fellow travelers across the aisle to denounce them, malign their names and attempt to marginalize them. The Corporations Once Known as the Mainstream Media are predictably showing praise on the RINOs for becoming statesmen for attacking the true conservatives while they pile on with vindictive abandon.

It is time to support the cause with our time, talent and treasure. Join with others and work, march, organize. Do whatever you can to accomplish all you can in the cause of freedom. Write, speak, share, and do everything you can to influence everyone you can that freedom isn’t free. It is worth saving, and it is time to stand up or be counted out. Give to those organizations and leaders who are in the forefront of the fight.

We will either rise to the occasion or we will sink beneath the waves of oppression as man’s greatest experiment in personal freedom, and individual liberty and economic opportunity descends back into the well of human suffering and statist control from which it emerged in 1776.

This is a call to action to be all that we can be now before we morph forever into what someone else has decided we should be. America, it’s time to be America again, or watch as our children and grandchildren find themselves in the USSA and never even know there was ever anything else. The flags will still wave, the names will remain the same, but this will no longer be the America we have known.

Keep the faith. Keep the peace. We shall overcome.

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion.  He is the Historian of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2013 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com  Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens / Edited by Dr. Rosalie Owens

 

Are the States Out of Date? July 5, 2013

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The people of the founding generation did not think of Americans as Americans. They did not see them as one people but instead as citizens of the various states. Even as late as the Civil War, people such as Robert E. Lee, who disagreed with secession and wanted a united United States, left because his State seceded and not because he suddenly wanted Virginia to be another country. Another example of the feelings of many in the founding generation was the fact that the term “We the People of the United States” that opens the  preamble to the Constitution caused great controversy during the ratification debates. It was pointed out as a blatant attempt to make the States irrelevant.

The Constitution was meant to improve the federation of the various States as created under the Articles of Confederation. It was not meant to create anything new. This was stressed over and over by the supporters of the Constitution in the ratification debates. The Framers voted by State, and, though some of the Framers wouldn’t sign the completed document, since it was adopted by all the States it was called unanimous. The ratification votes of the various conventions voted by state not as individuals. As provided in the original document the members of the Senate were not elected by the people at large. They were instead selected by the State legislatures. The house was designed to represent the people, and the Senate was designed to represent the States.

The Constitution never would have been ratified without this provision designed to protect the States from losing their integrity as sovereign republics which had voluntarily joined together. This was essential and this was generally understood.

So when was our social contract revised? How can a contract be unilaterally revised?

When did we agree to surrender our liberty in exchange for security? When did we agree to move from a voluntary federal republic to a centrally-planned democracy? When did our freedom from warrantless searches morph into 360° surveillance? When and how were the guarantees found in the Bill of Rights turned inside out and upside down?

The scariest thing I see about all this as I travel around the country is not that our totalitarian wanabes will use any excuse and any subterfuge to undermine limited government for the benefit of their power and their crony capitalist’s profit. No, that doesn’t scare me or surprise me at all. What catches my attention is that as I speak to more and more people about this creeping corporatism the majority of them say things like, “I’m glad the government is watching out for terrorists” or “If you’re not saying or doing anything wrong why should you care if the government listens in?”

Not only have Americans been dumbed down to the point where the majority of college freshmen need remedial studies, but these descendants of the pioneers have lost sight of the American Dream. Asked “What is the American dream?” most citizens today will recite the pabulum spooned out by the Federal Reserve Bubble Machine, the political hacks who gave them power, and the Wall Street Casino that profits by the game: “The American Dream is to own your own Home.”

That is not the American Dream! The American dream is limited government, personal liberty, and economic opportunity.

At what point do unilateral changes to a contract render it null and void?

I have long said, it will still be called the United States of America. The stars and stripes will still wave, there will still be elections, and we will still hear that this is the freest most prosperous nation on earth as our freedom slips away and our opportunities shrink.

During the ratification debates it became clear that the Constitution would not be ratified unless there was a promise that the first order of business for the new government was going to be to amend the document to state some things that a majority of people thought were missing. The promise was made and the first ten amendments were added. Today we call this our Bill of Rights. While some people can recite all of them and many more can recite a few almost every American knows they exist. The Bill of Rights has a treasured place in the American heart.

Few if any know what was said in the Preamble to the Bill of Rights, which is neither mentioned nor studied today. This sets out their purpose and is enlightening as a starting off point for understanding what they are and what we are losing.

“THE Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution” (emphasis added). The Bill of Rights was added in order to prevent misconstruction, or the words of the document, or abuse of its power by the government to be established under the Constitution. This could not be possible unless the words of these amendments were supposed to mean what they say, not what black-robed partisans can interpret them to say.

The Bill of Rights were not written nor adopted in their order of precedence. The number one amendment requested by the States was set as the 10th or capstone. “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” In other words, above all the citizens of the various States were concerned most that the central government not run rough shod over the States which were the home republics closest to and controlled by the people. They feared that the central government would become a Leviathan, crushing dissent and smothering freedom.

And they never heard of the IRS, the NSA, or the EPA. They never imagined an unelected, appointed for life Supreme Court that would cancel amendments to State constitutions that were legally adopted according to the processes within those constitutions. Not since they had overthrown King George had they lived under the suffocating tyranny of a Patriot Act or rule by decree such as executive orders.

According to the amendment  process in the Constitution, the States can offer amendments to the Constitution by calling for a convention to propose such amendments. Many people are afraid of a convention believing that those who advocate for a limited government, personal liberty, and economic freedom could not carry the day and the Constitution would be altered in a negative way.

It is time to admit to ourselves that the progressives have been and are changing their “Living Document” every day in countless ways: executive orders, regulations (from the EPA for example) and legislation (the 4th Amendment bending Patriot Act for example). We must face the fact the dam has broken and the foxes are guarding the hen house. The ship has sailed and the fix is in. We need a reset button before we slide completely into the abyss of totalitarianism. The flag will still fly, the national anthem still play, yet the land of the free and the home of the brave will be fundamentally transformed into a centrally-planned, regimented, surveillance state.

Once the scales have fallen from our eyes and we see that just because they call themselves liberals, people who want to control every aspect of every one’s lives are no more liberal than any of the other statists who have sought total control to impose their idea of utopia on anyone at any time in any place.

What we need is an American Spring. We need Americans to act like Americans and demand the freedom that is their birthright. Freedom is not just another word for nothing left to lose. We the People who believe in limited government, personal liberty and economic freedom have got to unite or we might end up joining a worldwide chorus singing, “And freedom, oh freedom well, that’s just some people talkin’ your prison is walking through this world all alone.”

The center no longer holds. We must all work to influence our States, our home republics, to reign in the runaway Washington-centered bureaucracy machine before we are strangled in the red tape and buried in regulations.

The States must prove their relevance or perhaps the States are out of date.

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion.  He is the Historian of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2013 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com  Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens / Edited by Dr. Rosalie Owens

 

Can Learning the Truth Unlearn the Lie? June 27, 2013

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I have witnessed a teacher of Political Science in America require a class to watch Fahrenheit 911 by Michael Moore then write an essay outlining how many ways President Bush lied to trick America into invading Iraq. If you don’t find this assignment offensive you’ve already had you quota of Kool- Aid and you should step away from this article and dial 911. Tell them someone is about to tell you the truth and you aren’t prepared for what that might do to your world-view.

Conversely when I say we should have listened to the Anti-Federalists, echoing the message of my book The Constitution Failed I’m sure many who often turn to these dispatches from the History of the Future are ready to call the headquarters of the Vast Rightwing Conspiracy and report that poor old Dr. Owens has veered off the reservation. I was once hired to teach history in a high school devoted to promoting the Socratic learning style using the works of the Enlightenment in the hopes of molding another generation akin to the Founders, critical thinkers dedicated to the proposition that liberty is the fountainhead of achievement. I was fired before the semester started because I did not hold the Founders in enough reverence believing as I do that they were mere men and not demigods infallible and universally inspired.

Don’t get me wrong. I do believe that the Founders of American independence and the Framers of the Constitution were a unique collection of political geniuses who did their best to craft the vehicle for their posterity’s benefit and for this nation’s greatness. The limited government they founded allowed the forever pent-up abilities and longings of man to burst forth into the flowering of American Exceptionalism, the brilliance of the American experiment.

However, that experiment crashed upon the shoals when Abraham Lincoln and the newly birthed Republican Party decided to interpret the Constitution which had been freely entered into by sovereign States to say that no State could ever voluntarily leave even though this is not stated anywhere in the document. Having made that determination this minority government used the overwhelming majority they had in what was left of the Congress to shackle the power of the Industrial North to crush the seceding agricultural South. Slavery,

which cannot be divorced from its evil nor defended in any way, provided the spark, the rallying cry, and the effective explanation for a war which shattered the myth of a federal republic composed of sovereign states.

Since that war between brothers our nation has inexorably grown from the vision expressed by Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence of a commonwealth of freemen into what is rapidly becoming a statist express highballing its way to the gulag of collectivist uniformity and shabby mediocrity. Gone is the meritocracy of the young republic. Gone is the equality of opportunity smothered in the cold dead grasp of the equality of outcome. Gone is the blind justice of a nation of laws devoured by the politically correct insanity of social justice. The Progressives and their coalition of mega-state lobbies have turned the protections of a Constitution written to limit government into a suicide pact wherein if the nationalist federal government chooses open borders in contravention of federal law and states are condemned for passing laws which requires police to enforce the law.

It is time to think the unthinkable and to embrace the abhorrent conclusion that the Constitution has failed. It was meant to limit government. This is proven conclusively by the 10th Amendment which states, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” Without the promise of the immediate adoption of the first ten amendments, the Bill of Rights, the Constitution would never have been ratified by a majority of the States. This important though neglected amendment says, and means that only those powers expressly delegated to the central government are legitimate not the endless multiplication of powers which allows that government to intrude into every aspect of our lives as it does today.

The very reason for a written Constitution was and is to limit the government created by that document to the powers expressly delegated not to open the door for interpretation and precedent to expand infinitely until all limits are gone. If that wasn’t the intent why have a Constitution at all?

Though many trace the diversion from republican purity to Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressives the truth is Hamilton set the stage for a big government. He fathered the movement away from a decentralized federation of free people agreeing to disagree so that compromise would leave enough space for liberty to bloom. John Marshall the second Chief Justice of the Supreme Court manufactured the power of judicial review by exploiting political factions clearing the path for the rule of unelected black robed aristocrats with the power to turn a country of laws into a country of men.

This history lesson may not make my fellow Patriots glow with the satisfaction derived from accepting the Constitution as inviolable scripture received from on high. However, our current decent into the Progressive’s transformed America should make every lover of liberty ready to embrace the truth. The only question remaining: Can learning the truth unlearn the lie?

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion.  He is the Historian of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com  © 2013 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com   Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens / Edited by Dr. Rosalie Owens

Is the Necessary and Proper Clause either Necessary or Proper? May 30, 2013

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I want to begin by saying that I believe the Preamble to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, with the Bill of Rights included, comprise the most enlightened, ennobling, and beneficial documents ever penned by the hand of man. I also believe that the Constitution afforded the United States the greatest level of freedom and opportunity ever experienced by humanity. This freedom and opportunity in turn released the talents and abilities of the American people to build the greatest nation ever to exist, rising from thirteen states exhausted and impoverished from years of war into a prosperous and powerful nation which by the end of the twentieth century stood upon the world stage as the uncontested sole superpower.

Simplicity is the essence of genius while over-simplification is the essence of fraud. In a picture perfect example of the truism “The victors write history” what we have been taught concerning the writing and ratification of the Constitution is actually a politically slanted version of the truth. This highly patrician account is also an example of over-simplification.

We are taught that the Articles of Confederation were an abject failure because they were too weak. Shay’s Rebellion scared the venerable leaders who had led and won the Revolution. George Washington and Co. came back from retirement to once again save the nation writing an “almost” divinely inspired document. There was only token dissent to the immediate acceptance of this tablet from the mount by some shadowy unknown people collectively called the “Anti-Federalists.” However after some well-written articles by future leaders called the Federalists, We the People overwhelmingly voted for ratification and the Constitution immediately ushered in the blessings of liberty and opportunity for all rescuing the United States from anarchy and stagnation. Amen.

This is a thumb-nail sketch of what our thumb-nail sketch type history education once delivered as gospel in American public schools. Today, those lucky enough to live in a school district that still includes American History are instead treated to the progressive’s litany of American crimes and debauchery. However, as our constitutionally limited government exceeds all previous limits, is either of these offerings good enough? Americans from all walks of life watch in stunned disbelief as the Federal Government on steroids swallows the economy, health care, the financial system, major manufacturing, the insurance industry, and anything else that doesn’t move fast enough to get out of the way. Can the States themselves be far behind?

How did this come about? How did a government born in the shackles provided by a written constitution designed to limit its power swell into the all-powerful OZ?

Quite simply it was through the deception of the Progressives evolving our Constitution from a rock-solid framework limited to what it actually said to a living document that is constantly being re-interpreted. Thus without amendment, without debate, without a vote our leaders have nudged us from land of liberty to the centrally-planned surveillance state which today sends the IRS after their enemies, leaves our borders open, our opportunities closed, and our sons and daughters manning hundreds of garrisons around the world.

One of the key tools in this century long quest to transform America has been the use of the so-called elastic clauses in the Constitution. One major clause used to accomplish this is found in Article I, Section 8, Clause 18 which states, “The Congress shall have Power To …make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.”

There are several ways to look at this clause and its meaning. First we need to look at what is called “Original Intent,” or what those who wrote the clause meant. Then we will look at what those who ratified the Constitution thought it meant. Finally we will look at how the Progressives interpret and re-interpret their favorite clause.

The necessary and proper clause was added to the Constitution by the Committee of Detail with no debate. Nor was it the subject of any debate during the remainder of the Convention. The reason why this clause was neither attacked nor defended during the Convention becomes clear from the statements of the Framers during the ratification process. James Wilson, one of the most eloquent defenders of the Constitution, a signer of the Constitution, and one of the first justices of the Supreme Court, said that this clause gave the federal government no more or other powers than those already enumerated in Section 8 of Article I and that “It is saying no more than that the powers we have already particularly given, shall be effectually carried into execution.” The Framers felt as if the clause was merely saying that which had been delegated could be used.

During the ratification debates this clause was a hot topic. Brutus proclaimed that through the Necessary and Proper Clause “This government is to possess absolute and uncontrollable power, legislative and judicial, with respect to every object to which it extends…” the debate raged back and forth between the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists in newspapers, pamphlets, and on the floor of the ratification conventions. Eventually the Federalists won the day and the Constitution was ratified. The result? The interpretation of this clause that was generally accepted by the ratification conventions was that it added no new or expandable powers to the federal government.

Since the New Deal era, Progressives have argued that the Necessary and Proper Clause expands the powers of the federal government to any it deems necessary and proper. In other words the federal government has all the power necessary to do whatever they want about anything they want. The executive department has been using this clause to grab power since Hamilton used it to found the First bank of the United States in 1791. The Supreme Court has been stretching this clause since they ruled in Mcculloch v. Maryland, 17 U.S. 316 (1819) to give themselves the power of judicial review. This expansionist interpretation has been upheld by the Supreme Court on numerous occasions and is today the accepted opinion amongst the political-media-corporate establishment.

It is my belief that if we have a better understanding of where we came from and how we got here that we would have a better understanding of where we are. If we understand where we are perhaps we will see the way to get back to where we wanted to go when we started: back to a limited government of the people, by the people and for the people.

Knowing how a simple clause meant to say that what had been delegated could be used has evolved into near totalitarian power shows us that just as the present use of the Necessary and Proper Clause is neither necessary nor proper.  And thus a government of the people, for the people and by the people has been hijacked and become something else.

No matter what we have been taught, no matter even what the reality was the reality is that the Constitution replaced the Articles of Confederation as the supreme law of the land. The announced purpose of the Constitution’s writing and adoption was to provide a limited government which respected both the rights of the States and the people. Since this was the stated and accepted purpose of the Constitution after two centuries and several decades can We the People deny any longer that it has failed?

Failing and failure are two different things. Everyone who has ever succeeded has failed. It is falling forward from that failure which ultimately brings success. If the Constitution has failed what do we do now? Where’s the reset button.

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion.  He is the Historian of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2013 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com  Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens / Edited by Dr. Rosalie Owens

 

 

Did You Do Anything to Keep Liberty Alive? May 10, 2013

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One day our grandchildren may ask us this question.  Will we have an answer that will make us and them proud or will we have to sit silent knowing we stood silent when it was time to speak or remained passive when it was time for action?  Now is the time for all believers in limited government to stand up and be counted.  Now is the time for all who believe, “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”  to remember “That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

The coming 2014 mid-term elections may well be the most important in our lifetime.  America faces a crisis as profound as the Revolution and as divisive as the Civil War.  This has been brought on by the Progressives who seek to fundamentally transform America through evolutionary means.  Incrementally, one entitlement program, one regulation, and one tax rate increase at a time, these Evolutionaries have used class warfare, activist judges, a politically-correct education system, and a complicit media to create a dependent constituency.   They’ve constructed a matrix of sports addiction, celebrity worship, and recreational prescription medicine that makes the bread and circuses of Rome appear as crude as they were effective.  Welcome to the Brave New World.

In 2008 the Progressives achieved what the media called a “Veto Proof” majority in both houses.  This was typical of the Progressive-controlled media’s spin.  With a fellow Progressive holding court in the White House there was no chance the long cherished dreams of national health care, massive interference in the economy, and expansion of the bureaucracy would be vetoed.  The description of the majorities should have been “Filibuster-proof” meaning there was no way for the minority party to thwart the will of the majority.  Even when the Democrats lost their 60th seat in the Senate with the addition of a Progressive Republican taking Teddy Kennedy’s seat, they still had a filibuster-proof majority.  The only reason they did not achieve more of their agenda such as amnesty for illegal immigrants is that members of their own party balked at a complete surrender of our heritage.

Fast forward to 2013 and after 3 years of the 2010 Tea Party led re-capture of the House Nancy Pelosi and her troops are chomping at the bit to finish their Evolution and drive the final nails in the coffin of limited government.

Those who wish to stop the mad rush into the arms of an all-embracing Federal Government must register!  They must vote!  They must do all they can to influence anyone and everyone to elect a true veto proof majority with the power and the will to reverse the slide into insolvency, which will trigger either a default upon our overwhelming debt or a collapse of our economy.  Either of which opens the door for the current administration to impose their statist solutions irrevocably altering the nature of the United States.  The name will remain the same but let no illusions of normalcy cloud your sight; this will be a new nation, the Obamanation.

In the coming mid-term elections it is imperative that those who wish to reverse course send a veto- proof majority in both the House and the Senate to Washington or President Obama will block every attempt to return to the traditional American model of limited-government.  And even if this happens the newly awakened Patriots must realize their victory will energize the portion of the country desiring a European-style welfare state.  They must realize just as Truman in 1948 ran against the “Do-nothing Congress” more than against Tom Dewey and Clinton in 1996 ran against the “Mean-spirited” Congress more than against Bob Dole, in 2014  Mr. Obama and his surrogates will run against the “Obstructionist” Congress more than against any individual opponents the Republicans might nominate.

The Town Hall meltdowns of 2009 and the Tea Party phenomenon of 2010 have surged across America as no spontaneous movement has in many years.  The energy and enthusiasm of this grassroots explosion has rocked primaries from Coast-to-Coast.  The political establishment in both parties were bracing for a tsunami of popular indignation at the ballot-box in 2012.  Instead the republicans nominated another Progressive which left the conservative base sitting on the sidelines.

The Republicans managed to hold the House leaving the Democratic Majority Leader to lead well-disciplined troops in blocking every move the Conservatives make, and the media will hang the ensuing deadlock squarely around the neck of the Tea Party.

In 2014 to make sure that the rising Tea Party Samson successfully pulls down both the House and the Senate pillars of the Temple of Progressivism, the novice Conservative political activists need to understand voting is not enough.  We need to exert every ounce of influence among friends, neighbors, and family to bring out an historic vote.  We should stand ready to drive people to the polls, work the polls, do anything we can to plant the flag of Liberty once again in the capital of the Land of the Free and the home of the Brave.

Turning to the Word of God we’re counseled, “If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”  Our Founders declared, when tyranny raises it head, when a government founded to ensure the rights of citizens begins to trample upon those rights their descendants should remember, “That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to 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 affect their safety and happiness.”

As peaceful citizens let those who love Liberty use their guaranteed rights to write, speak, assemble, and vote to preserve what we’ve been given for our children and our grandchildren.  Let every politician know, whether they wish us well or ill, that “we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”  If we will do this, if now that it’s our time upon the stage we’ll take a stand beside the Founders, the Framers, and the Greatest Generation when our children or grandchildren ask us, “Did you do anything to keep liberty alive? we will be able to say more than, “I didn’t notice what was going on,” or “I couldn’t find the remote.”

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion.  He is the Historian of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2013 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com  Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens / Edited by Dr. Rosalie Owens

 

 

Why I am No Longer a Conservative Republican May 3, 2013

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Maybe it’s just me but I’m tired of the same old same old in our politics.  The big-box monopoly parties have morphed into two sides of the same coin, two heads on the same bird of prey.  Today our choice boils down to the Conservative Republican tax and spend, infringe personal liberty, and outsource or sovereignty policies or the Liberal Democrat tax and spend, infringe personal liberty, and outsource or sovereignty policies.  But of course, since we don’t want to throw away our vote we must vote for one of the big boys.   Conservative?  Liberal?  Tweedle Dee Or Tweedle Dum?

As a voter I’ve had my Damascus Road experience, the scales have fallen from my eyes, and I have reached the point where I would rather throw away my vote voting for someone who might actually try to find a different way to operate our government besides taxing like the Sun King and spending like a drunken sailor.  (By the way, do you know the difference between how a drunken sailor spends and how the Republicrats spend?  The drunken sailor is spending his own money.)

And what might this different way be?   How about this for radical: let’s return to constitutional government?   WOW!  what a concept.

How did we arrive at the current situation?  James Madison in his speech to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 16, 1788 said, “There are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by the gradual and silent encroachment of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpation.”  We didn’t get here all in one jump.  First the camel said, “Can I just stick my nose in your tent to stay warm?” and finally the generous man found himself out in the cold as the camel settled down for a nice warm nap, one inch at a time.

The compassion of our people built a safety net for those who needed help, and the greed of the lazy have turned it into a hammock.  America, the Land of the Free has turned into America, from each according to their abilities to each according to their need. The willingness to share our heritage has led America to welcome more immigrants each year than the rest of the world combined, and the abuse of our generosity has turned into a migration invasion that threatens to overwhelm us and destroy the future of our children.  Taxes imposed to meet the ever-swelling demands of government have turned into a blatant wealth re-distribution program that makes most pyramid schemes look fair.  Sometimes I think our government looks at a productive citizen as merely a source of residual income.  Or as the ads promise, our leaders lay on the beach of self-importance and our checks just keep pouring in.  We are no longer respected as Citizens.  Instead, we are coveted as consumers, or human capital.

Albert Einstein said, “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

If we want a different world we have to start at the only place we have the absolute sovereign ability to make a change, we must start with ourselves.

I quit the Republican Party once it was obvious that the Republican majority in Congress I had spent my entire adult life working for was just a change in leadership and not a change in direction.  I quit calling myself a conservative after the second Bush debacle made it obvious that the conservative movement had been hijacked by the neocons and I realized that you can’t defend a captured position.  You can’t conserve what has already been lost.   I realized that we as a people, we as a federation of States need to find a different way.

One thing I know, no one person can do this alone.  No one group can do it.  To make any headway in the face of the electoral monopoly held by the party of power the many third party groups are going to have to coalesce into en effective opposition.  We can’t let divisions divide us any more, egos will have to be suppressed, and we will have to bond together with everyone dedicated to limited government, personal liberty, and economic freedom.

None of us can roll this big rock up this steep hill by ourselves.  However, together we can.

Winston Churchill said, “If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed, if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not so costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival.  There may be a worse case.  You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.”

Looking at the increasing speed with which the Progressive regime is building its command and control structure, the future is invading the present at an ever accelerating pace.  Their living document has made the Constitution a dead letter.  Their mixed economy has as many people on the dole as on the job.  The Fed’s printing press is burying us, our children, and their grandchildren taking out a mortgage on lives that haven’t been lived and spending money from taxes on work that hasn’t been done.

We must unite if these United States are to once again become the land of the free and the home of the brave instead of the land of the free lunch and the home of the knave.

Quoting  Ben Franklin, “We must hang together, gentlemen…else, we shall most assuredly hang separately.”

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion.  He is the Historian of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2013 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com  Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens / Edited by Dr. Rosalie Owens

The Revolution Passed in the Night April 26, 2013

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Many things are holding the headlines hostage, the terrorist attacks, the crippling effects of Obamacare, the prospect of expanding war in Syria, and as always Iran.

There is one over-riding constant that defines as it divides the present era: the fact that America has a President who advances values and policies diametrically opposed to the traditional beliefs of a vast number of Americans.  From bowing to foreign leaders to not knowing how many states there are, from vowing to fundamentally transform America to actually doing it, President Obama is to many the Manchurian Candidate.

Elected the first time on a vague promise of hope and change he has been re-elected on a blatant promise to re-distribute the wealth and complete the transformation of  America into a welfare state.  His bureaucratically imposed policies such as Cap-n-Trade and the Dream Act are blatant end runs around the authority of a Congress that overwhelmingly rejected both.  The alarming reality we all must face is that for the first time in American history we may actually have a president who is anti-American.

Barack Obama is blatant in his anti-American rhetoric.  Such as:

“In America, we have this strong bias toward individual action. You know, we idolize the John Wayne hero who comes in to correct things with both guns blazing. But individual actions, individual dreams, are not sufficient. We must unite in collective action, build collective institutions and organizations.”  Emphasis added.

“And what would help minority workers are the same things that would help white workers: the opportunity to earn a living wage, the education and training that lead to such jobs, labor laws and tax laws that restore some balance to the distribution of the nation’s wealth …”  Emphasis added.

“But the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and more basic issues such as political and economic justice in society. And to that extent, as radical as I think people try to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution, at least as it’s been interpreted. And the Warren Court interpreted in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties — says what the states can’t do to you — says what the Federal government can’t do to you — but it doesn’t say what the Federal government or State government must do on your behalf.

And that hasn’t shifted and one of the, I think, the tragedies of the civil rights movement was because the civil rights movement became so court-focused I think there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalitions of powers through which you bring about redistributive change. In some ways we still suffer from that …” Emphasis added.

These positive rights are what Progressives have been trying to establish since FDR floated his idea of a second bill of right which included:

  • The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation
  • The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation
  • The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living
  • The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad
  • The right of every family to a decent home
  • The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health
  • The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment
  • The right to a good education

Now all of these sound great and in a perfect world might make up a laundry list of prizes falling out of the cornucopia of utopia.  In a real world they would mandate a government large enough to provide everything and powerful enough to take everything away.

The whole idea of having a constitution is to limit the government which is in essence a charter of negative liberties.

President Obama goes on to state, “Now, just as there was in Teddy Roosevelt’s time, there is a certain crowd in Washington who, for the last few decades, have said, let’s respond to this economic challenge with the same old tune.  ‘The market will take care of everything,’ they tell us.  If we just cut more regulations and cut more taxes — especially for the wealthy — our economy will grow stronger.  Sure, they say, there will be winners and losers.  But if the winners do really well, then jobs and prosperity will eventually trickle down to everybody else.  And, they argue, even if prosperity doesn’t trickle down, well, that’s the price of liberty.

Now, it’s a simple theory.  And we have to admit, it’s one that speaks to our rugged individualism and our healthy skepticism of too much government.  That’s in America’s DNA.  And that theory fits well on a bumper sticker.  But here’s the problem:  It doesn’t work.  It has never worked.”

And of course there is his infamous “You didn’t build that” statement which exposes his complete misunderstanding of what it takes to start and grow a business.

With a leader such as this whose basic understanding of America is at such odds with those who once constituted the majority of the citizens and the continuity of our History is it any wonder that so many feel as if they are living in a conquered nation?

Conquered by who?  As Pogo once told us, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

Or as Garet Garrett, quipped as he chronicled the fall of the Republic and the rise of the American bureaucratic Empire said, “There are those who still think they are holding the pass against a revolution that may be coming up the road. But they are gazing in the wrong direction. The revolution is behind them. It went by in the Night of Depression, singing songs to freedom.”

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion.  He is the Historian of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2013 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com  Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens / Edited by Dr. Rosalie Owens