Monday, August 30, 2010

1913 was a bad year for America!

By Tim Urling

1913 was a bad year for America! We got the Federal Reserve System, the IRS and the Income Tax with the 16th Amendment and direct election of senators by popular vote with the 17th Amendment. Erosion of state’s rights and federalism has taken place over a period of time but perhaps nothing has done so much harm as the 17th Amendment.

Few ask why the Framers in the first place wanted senators “chosen by the Legislature thereof” as part of the original Constitution. In their wisdom, the Founders created one body of Congress to be the voice of the people, the House of Representatives, and the other the voice of the states, the Senate. For more than 100 years the senators were beholden to each state’s legislatures to curb the power of the federal government. Fisher Ames of Massachusetts referred to the U.S. senators as “ambassadors of the states” to preserve state sovereignty. It was understood that each state legislature would instruct their senators to represent them in congress. Senators were largely free from being intimidated, bribed and bought-off from corrupt influences. Now senators get elected by expensive campaigns, holding fundraisers outside their states and collecting donations from all over the country. Senators hardly represent their constituents from their own states.

Alexander Hamilton is quoted as saying that the election of senators by state legislatures would be an "absolute safeguard" against federal tyranny. Thankfully, we may be heading toward the Founder’s original intent. The Idaho State Republican Party has adopted a resolution to repeal the 17th and Senate Joint Resolution 35 has been introduced into the U.S. Senate to require a return to the Constitution.

Our Constitution is meant to govern the federal government, not the states and not the people. For example, the Bill of Rights grants no rights to the people. It simply prevents the feds from violating certain rights which people are endowed from God. But, the Bill of Rights places no prohibitions on state governments as each state is a jealous guardian of their independence and sovereignty with regard to their internal affairs. If the states abuse the rights of their citizens they will lose productive citizens and competition among other states will force correction. However, when the central government becomes a dictatorship, people have nowhere to seek refuge from tyranny. Today with the assault on state’s rights, there is a multifaceted effort to make our state lines mean no more than our county lines mean within each state.

We will not keep our liberty if we don’t stop government growth and if we ever again hope to live in a free society, one of their first orders of business should be the repeal of the Seventeenth Amendment.

Saturday, August 28, 2010

Opportunity Leaders!

By Gary Randleas

The leaders of America seem to focus on the problems not the opportunities. The news covers Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran and North Korea. Americans turn there attention to issues like terrorism, homeland security, health care and economic panics. meanwhile China, Brazil, South Africa, Kenya, India and Russia are on the rise economically and politically. These rising powers are focusing on free economics, less regulation, and lower taxes. This is an environment for prosperity. U.S. Entrepreneurs are increasingly regulated in the United States. The environment for prosperity in our country in disappearing. So we can increase taxes to protect jobs and so-called benefits, or we can free up the economy like these countries on the rise have done. What ever happened to promoting free enterprise? American is known as the protector of the world against the evils of jihadism and dictatorship. Lets stop trying to solve the worlds problems and look for opportunities to revive free enterprise and free markets. Stop the regulation that is choking the life out of our freedom and prosperity. Socialism has a mentality of scarcity, there is not enough so we have to regulate and redistribute. Free enterprise creates abundance for those who will go out and get it. Opportunity!

"True" Free Market Principles

By Gary Randleas

I have heard it said that we need government regulation in our economy. Without it, those "free market radicals" will destroy our economy. I dare say that government intrusion in the marketplace is more likely to be the cause of our problems rather than the solution. I don't believe we have seen true free market principles in our nation for a very long time.

The Constitution doesn't give the federal government the right to manipulate the free market. Government manipulation has only made things worse. They reward failure by bailing out reckless businesses. We need leaders that are willing to change their mindset and see things as the reality that they are.

“If you look up the word ‘mindset’ in the dictionary, here’s what you get: ‘a fixed mental attitude or disposition that predetermines a person’s responses to and interpretations of situations’ and ‘habits of mind formed by previous experience.’ Societies vanish because their mindsets preclude them from seeing reality as it is.” ~ Alan Webber

We need to elect members of Congress that have a true understanding of the Constitution and free market principles. Current members of Congress with the "Status Quo Mindset" need to be replaced. I encourage all to search for candidates that are good, honest and (most importantly) WISE.

According to Einstein, insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. I wonder what would happen to our economy if we had the opportunity to try TRUE free market principles.

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Lessons of the Past

By Gary Randleas

Many Americans may not realize the history of the 17th Amendment and how it came to be. Although acclaimed as a triumph for the American people, it negates the Founders’ original intent which was to create checks and balances within the Federal Government.

The American Founders had extensive knowledge of governments throughout history. Of their strengths and weaknesses; their successes and failures. They saw patterns that, time and again, led to a society’s destruction. Because of this, the Founders went to great lengths to design a system that would eliminate the potential for similar failures. When they created the three branches of government, they were insistent that there be a complete balance of power. Not only did they devise checks and balances among the three branches, they also created them within each individual branch. The legislative branch was set up as a House of Representatives elected by the people and a Senate elected by the state legislatures. The Founders’ hope was that by allowing state legislatures to elect senators, the state would retain a large degree of sovereignty, thereby ensuring that their rights would be protected in a federal system. The Founders didn’t want senators to involve themselves with the popular issues of the day. It was their responsibility to concentrate on states’ rights. They were to focus on balancing the budget, keeping taxes as low as possible, and serving as the primary check over the ‘sometimes radical’ ideas of the House of Representatives.

There were those who argued that by not letting the people elect all branches of government, corruption would creep in and gradually form a tyrannical aristocracy. The Founders’ response was that in order for corruption to prevail, the Senate itself would have to become corrupt, then the state legislatures, the House of Representatives, and finally the corruption of the people. This was unlikely to happen because a succession of new representatives would take over after an election.

In 1911 corruption came into play and there were those who wanted to change what the founders had established. U.S. senators bought their seats with bribes paid to members of state legislatures. As a result of this corruption, the 17th Amendment of the Constitution was adopted on April 8, 1913. This has not solved the problem but has only made it worse. Now we have tens of thousands of illegal transactions between several thousand unknown funding sources and the state no longer has a voice at the federal level.

Whether or not the repeal of the 17th Amendment is ever realized, it is important to learn from history, as our Founders did, not to repeat the mistakes that have proven to be the undoing of nations.


Recommended reading:
Federalist Papers # 62
Federalist Papers # 63
Federalist Papers # 64
Federalist Papers # 65
Federalist Papers # 66

The Federalist Papers can be a hard read. But, as Sir Walter Scott has said "All men who have turned out worth anything have had the cheif hand in their own education."