The sound of thundering elephant feet first began to resonate right here in the Bluegrass State.

Republican Rand Paul easily beat Democrat Jack Conway by an 11 point margin in the Kentucky U.S. Senate race. The early 7 p.m. call for Paul was merely the beginning of a pachyderm stampede.

Republicans picked up 61 seats in the U.S. House, and they could end up with as many as a 66 seats by the time its all said and done. Democrats will still control the Senate, but the GOP made gains there too, snapping up at least six seats. It was the biggest single election power shift in 70 years.

Here in Kentucky, Republicans rode the wave, gaining seats in both the Kentucky State House and Senate. The GOP took control of seven new House seats and strengthened its Senate majority with a two, perhaps three seat pickup.

While Republicans trumpet their victory, they would do well to ground themselves in an important reality. This election was not a ringing endorsement of the GOP. It was instead a repudiation of progressive ideology. It was a backlash against bailouts, deficits and federal health care mandates. It was a protest against rapidly expanding government power. The newest Kentucky Senator seems to understand the message sent by American voters on Tuesday.

“It’s a message that I will carry with me on day one. It’s a message of fiscal sanity. It’s a message of limited Constitutional government and balanced budgets,” Paul said.

The hue in our nation’s capitol shifted from dark blue to purple on Tuesday. This Republican tsunami, as some have called it, will certainly change the political landscape in Washington D.C. But if Republicans don’t bring about some fundamental changes, this new crop of representatives will likely enjoy short careers. Senator elect Marco Rubio from Florida articulated the reality for Republicans perfectly.

“And we make a great mistake if we believe that tonight these results are somehow an embrace of the Republican Party. What they are is a second chance. A second chance for Republicans to be what they said they were going to be not so long ago.”

The question remains. Will the GOP squander this second chance? Will GOP leaders do any better adhering to constitutional principles than their Democratic brethren? Are the American people suddenly safe from government overreach now that Republicans will have some say in Washington?

I fear not.

Many Republicans talk a good game when it comes to limiting government, and protecting defending the Constitution. But their track record doesn’t quite live up to their rhetoric. If history teaches us anything, it reveals that federal power tends to expand unabated regardless of the party in charge in D.C.

We the people simply can’t rely on Washington to solve our problems. Asking the federal government to reign in its own power is akin to asking a lion to quit hunting, or the fish to quit swimming. It goes against its very nature.

The people must hold the feds accountable. The Constitution is a compact between the people of the United States and their federal government. The mechanism we have to protect our freedom and liberty is through the States. James Madison wrote in the Virginia Resolution of 1798:

That this Assembly doth explicitly and peremptorily declare, that it views the powers of the federal government, as resulting from the compact, to which the states are parties; as limited by the plain sense and intention of the instrument constituting the compact; as no further valid that they are authorized by the grants enumerated in that compact; and that in case of a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of other powers, not granted by the said compact, the states who are parties thereto, have the right, and are in duty bound, to interpose for arresting the progress of the evil, and for maintaining within their respective limits, the authorities, rights and liberties appertaining to them.

Liberty loving Americans can certainly celebrate the outcome of these midterm elections. But we will not ultimately win the war to restore the proper balance of power between the State and federal governments in Washington D.C. That battle must be waged in Frankfort and Tallahassee. In Austin and Sacramento. In every state capitol across the fruited plain.

Originally Published November 7, 2002 at WorldNetDaily

John Adams: “The favorites of parties, although they have always some virtues, have always many imperfections. Many of the ablest tongues and pens have, in every age, been employed in the foolish, deluded, and pernicious flattery of one set of partisans, and in furious, prostitute invectives against another; but such kinds of oratory never had any charms for me; and if I must do one or the other, I would quarrel with both parties and with every individual of each, before I would subjugate my understanding, or prostitute my tongue or pen to either.”

As a result of Tuesday’s elections, we can expect the growth in government to continue unabated – and probably to accelerate.

We can be reasonably sure that the new Congress will pass a flood of bills that intrude government ever-more-deeply into our lives, as well as make government more costly (and even more inefficient).

How can I be so sure?

Because the winners in the congressional races are virtually all advocates of big government. The winning incumbents have never bothered to introduce a single bill to reduce government in any significant way, while they have been reliable supporters of all sorts of new big-government schemes.

The few new congressmen and senators come from the same mold. In their campaigns, they told us about their grand plans to “fix” the nation’s schools, get government involved in prescription drugs, and use your money to take care of anyone who says he needs it.

Big government, big government, big government.

Mea culpa

And now I must offer a confession.

I wrote this article Monday evening, before the elections.

And yet, I stand by every word of it.

It doesn’t matter whether the Republicans or the Democrats won control of the Senate. Government will get bigger, more intrusive, more expensive, and less efficient.

It doesn’t matter whether the Democrats or the Republicans won control of the House. Government will get bigger, more intrusive, more expensive, and less efficient.

Nothing has changed in the past 75 years.

• We elect a Republican Congress – and government gets bigger.
• We elect a Democratic Congress – and government gets bigger.
• We elect a Republican president – and government gets bigger.
• We elect a Democratic president – and government gets bigger.
• Congress passes a “tax cut” – and government gets bigger.
• Congress makes “tough budget cuts” – and government gets bigger.

Despite what they tell you, there really is no significant difference between the two major parties. They are both devoted to power, to big government, and to rewarding those with the most political influence.

Your culpa

If you voted for a Democrat or a Republican, you didn’t waste your vote.

You used it to congratulate your candidate for all his big-spending schemes. So you can take part of the credit for the coming increases in government.

You may have thought you were voting to limit the damage – to prevent the “greater of two evils” from being elected. But that isn’t the way your vote will be interpreted.

Your candidate will look at his victory and say, in effect, “The public has endorsed my plan to ‘fix’ government schools with a new government program. The voters have said they like my ideas to involve government in prescription drugs. The people have spoken, and they have endorsed every vote I’ve made in Congress and/or every new government program I outlined in my campaign.”

Oh sure, your candidate may have said that government is too big or too intrusive. But that doesn’t mean he’ll do anything to stop it.

Republicans complain loudly about Democratic spending programs – and then vote for them.

Democrats complain loudly about invasions of civil liberties and a reckless foreign policy – and then vote for them.

And your vote has told them that you endorse what they’re doing. Whatever you thought your motivation was, nothing says ‘I love big government’ like your vote for someone who is supporting big government in Congress.

In other words, when you vote for the “lesser of two evils,” you shouldn’t be shocked when what you get is evil.

No, a vote for a Republican or Democrat isn’t a wasted vote. It’s a self-destructive vote – a vote for the very things you’ve spent the past two years complaining about.

No culpa

If you voted Libertarian, you at least know you didn’t endorse big government. Since Libertarian vote totals usually aren’t announced on election night, you may not have been able to make any kind of “statement.”

But at least you don’t have to blame yourself for endorsing big government.

The future

It may seem that you have to vote for the lesser of evils among the major-party candidates.

But since government grew just as rapidly with Ronald Reagan as president as with Bill Clinton in the White House, and since the Republican Congress expanded government at the same speed as the Democratic Congress, it’s obvious that your vote doesn’t change anything.

There is no lesser of evils between the two major parties.

Your vote achieves only one thing: It tells the people you voted for that you love big government – that there’s no program they can support that’s so bad that you won’t vote for them anymore.

Your vote provided a big boost for big government.

Is that what you wanted?

Harry Browne (RIP 1933-2006), the author of Why Government Doesn’t Work and many other books, was the Libertarian Party presidential candidate in 1996 and 2000, a co-founder of DownsizeDC, and the Director of Public Policy for the American Liberty Foundation.  See his website.

How hard is it to position yourself to the right of Barack Obama, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi?

This is all the House Republicans did recently when they released their “Pledge to America” at a Virginia hardware store on September 23.

Mimicking their 1994 “Contract with America,” this new Republican proposal sets forth their legislative agenda should the American people see fit to give the Republican Party a majority in the House of Representatives in the upcoming election.

Promises, promises.

Do Republicans think we’re stupid? Do they think we’ve forgotten the eight-year presidency of Republican George W. Bush? Do they think we’ve forgotten that Republicans had an absolute majority in both houses of Congress for over four years of the Bush administration? Do they think we’ve forgotten that the Republican Party controlled the Congress during the last six years of Clinton’s presidency?

The empty promises, grandiose claims, vain assurances, and blatant lies in the Republican “Pledge to America” mean that it’s not worth the paper and toner it would take to print out a copy. Republicans are clearly trying to capitalize on voter discontent with the Democratic Party, garner the support of the Tea Party movement, and sucker Americans into voting them back into power.

Promises, promises.

Before even examining the text of the “Pledge to America,” I would like to point out two major practical problems. First, like the “Contract with America,” this is a House Republican document. And like what happened with the “Contract with American,” there is no guarantee that Senate Republicans will pass legislation proposed by the House – assuming that Republicans even regain control of the Senate. The second problem is, like what happened with the “Contract with America,” we have a Democratic president with veto power. So, even if the Pledge is a good thing (it isn’t), and even if the Republicans are sincere (they aren’t), there is no guarantee that Republicans will accomplish anything even if they do win back control of the House. And as it was pointed back out in 2000: “The combined budgets of the 95 major programs that the Contract with America promised to eliminate have increased by 13%.” Is there any doubt that things will turn out any different this time?

But what about the text of the Pledge itself? Well, the preface is a lie. The foreword is a lie. All five of the plans introduced are a lie. All six chapters are a lie. All forty-five pages are a lie. Even the cover is a lie.

Surely, Mr. Vance, you are exaggerating. You are being too hard on the Republicans. You are making baseless accusations. You couldn’t possibly have carefully read the Republican’s Pledge.

Is that so? We need to look no further than the cover. It says that the “Pledge to America” is “a new governing agenda built on the priorities or our nation, the principles we stand for and America’s founding values.” Among other things, America’s founding values certainly include liberty and limited government. Is this Pledge or any other Republican agenda built on these things?

Jacob Hornberger, the founder and president of the Future of Freedom Foundation, has described American society when it was based on the “founding values” of liberty and limited government:

Let’s talk about the economic system that existed in the United States from the inception of the nation to the latter part of the 19th century. The principles are simple to enumerate: No income taxation (except during the Civil War), Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, welfare, economic regulations, licensure laws, drug laws, immigration controls, or coercive transfer programs, such as farm subsidies and education grants.

There was no federal department of labor, agriculture, commerce, education, energy, health and human services, or homeland security. There was no SEC, DEA, FEMA, OSHA, or EPA.

There was no Federal Reserve System and no paper money or legal-tender laws (except during the Civil War). People used gold and silver coins as money.

There were no foreign military bases and no involvement in foreign wars. The size of the military was small.

Now, I ask you a simple question: Does that way of life resemble even in the remotest way the way of life under which Americans live today? Of course it doesn’t, because the way of life under which we live today is precisely opposite to that under which our American ancestors lived. Today’s Americans do live under all those programs, departments, and agencies, and principles that were absent during the first 125 years or so of American history.

Oh, the “Pledge to America” talks about Republican plans to “advance policies that promote greater liberty” and about how their plan “stands on the principles of smaller, more accountable government,” but then the Republicans propose, not to cease funding any of the abovementioned programs, agencies, and policies, but – are you ready – “to roll back government spending to pre-stimulus, pre-bailout levels.” My, what an ambitious plan to promote liberty and limited government!

In the preface to the Pledge, the Republicans have the audacity to complain about “an unchecked executive” as if the presidency of George W. Bush never occurred. They pledge to “honor the Constitution as constructed by its framers,” and in particular “the Tenth Amendment.” I’ve got to hand it to the Republicans. They know the right words to use to sucker conservative advocates of the government strictly following the Constitution to vote for them. Of course, if Republicans really believed in the Constitution and the Tenth Amendment, they would introduce legislation to eliminate 95 percent of what the federal government does.

The foreword to the Pledge introduces the five Republican plans:

• A plan to create jobs, end economic uncertainty, and make America more competitive
• A plan to stop out-of control spending and reduce the size of government
• A plan to repeal and replace the government takeover of health care
• A plan to reform Congress and restore trust
• A plan to keep our nation secure at home and abroad

One thing in particular in the foreword that stands out is the Republicans claim that they want to “protect our entitlement programs for seniors and future generations.” This shows without a doubt that Republicans don’t have the slightest intention of honoring the Constitution, following the Tenth Amendment, stopping “out-of-control spending,” and reducing “the size of government.”

I want to focus in particular on the first and last of the Republican plans in the “Pledge to America.” I will, however, not neglect the lies in plans two, three, and four.

The Republican plan “to create jobs, end economic uncertainty, and make America more competitive” sounds good on the surface. It blasts Keynesian economics, Obama’s stimulus, tax increases, federal regulations, job-killing policies, and small business mandates while promising to create jobs, end economic uncertainty, and make America more competitive by permanently stopping all job-killing tax hikes, giving small businesses a tax deduction, reining in the red tape factory in Washington, DC, and repealing job-killing small business mandates. Don’t be deceived: Even Republicans sometimes look good when compared with Democrats. However, alongside the standards of liberty, limited government, and strict constitutionalism, Republican economic policies are not much better than those of Democrats. This Republican plan mentions how a Republican Congress enacted the child tax credit in the 1990s. This is a good thing, as are all tax credits. However, why is this tax credit progressive; that is, why does this tax credit begin to phase out above a certain income level and end completely at another? And even worse, if the amount of the tax credit exceeds the tax liability, the unused portion is refundable in the form of an “additional child tax credit.” This means it is an income transfer program, as is the Republican-instituted earned income tax credit.

Another troubling thing about the Republican economic plan is its attitude toward business regulation:

Small businesses must have certainly that the rules won’t change every few months so they can get back on their feet.

Excessive federal regulation is a de facto tax on employers and consumers that stifles job creation, hampers innovation and postpones investment in the economy.

The Republicans seem to be saying that as long as federal regulations are relatively constant and not excessive then they are okay. In fact, they give their threshold as $100 million: “To provide stability, we will require congressional approval of any new federal regulation that has an annual cost to our economy of $100 million or more.” But if Republicans really wanted to “honor the Constitution,” then they would require congressional approval of any new federal regulation that has an annual cost to our economy of $100 or more not $100 million or more.

The last section of this economic plan mentions a “job-killing small business mandate.” Since when are Republicans against these? Is there a greater “job-killing small business mandate” thanthe minimum wage? Did not even Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell say a few years ago that “raising the minimum wage” was a good idea? Outside of Ron Paul, would a Republican member of Congress ever publicly question the concept of a federal minimum wage? What it all comes down to is this: Democratic mandates are bad; Republican mandates (or Democratic mandates they accept) are good.

The promise in plan 2 “to stop out-of control spending and reduce the size of government” is laughingly pathetic when you realize that the national debt increased under the Republicans from $5,727,776,738,304.64 at the time of Bush’s first inauguration in 2001 to $10,626,877,048,913.08 on the last day of Bush’s second term in 2009. Republicans speak negatively in this plan about “the bailouts of businesses and entities that force responsible taxpayers to subsidize irresponsible behavior.” Yet, this is the same Republican Party that helped the Democratic Party pass the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (the first bailout bill).

The Republican plan “to repeal and replace the government takeover of health care” is only being proposed because it is a Democratic takeover of health care and not a Republican one, as I have written about here and will write more about in the future. I would like to point out, however, that the proposal to “establish a government-wide prohibition on taxpayer funding of abortion and subsidies for insurance coverage that includes abortion” is a little overdue. What were all the pro-life Republicans in the House doing when the Republican Party had an absolute majority in the House and Senate for over four years under a Republican president? They were funding Planned Parenthood, that’s what.

Get the New Book Today!

The promise in plan 4 to “reform Congress and restore trust” is more smoke and mirrors. The Republicans lament that “for too long, Congress has ignored the proper limits imposed by the Constitution on the federal government.” Their solution is to “require each bill moving through Congress to include a clause citing the specific constitutional authority upon which the bill is justified.” The real truth is that Congress has sought to circumvent the Constitution almost since the day it took effect in 1789. Citing specific constitutional authority for a bill is an empty gesture. Just as Nancy Pelosicited the Constitution’s “commerce clause” in defense of the health care bill so Republicans will cite the phrase “to provide for the common defense” in the Constitution’s preamble to justify funding drone attacks in Pakistan.

The Republican plan “to keep our nation secure at home and abroad” is the most objectionable part of the “Pledge to America.” It can be summarized as: xenophobia, war, empire: vote Republican. It consists of one lie after another followed by one bad policy after another. It promises to keep terrorists out of America by keeping foreigners locked up in Guantanamo – as if there were any connection between the two. What this really means, of course, is that Republicans are in favor of the U.S. military picking up anyone anywhere in the world and holding them indefinitely without charge or trial – or until they are killed and their deaths reported as suicides.

This plan “to keep our nation secure at home and abroad” is sure to create more terrorists, further erode civil liberties in the name of national security and fighting the war on drugs, line the pockets of the military-industrial and security-industrial complexes, further blacken the name of the United States throughout the world, provoke a war with Iran, further bankrupt the treasury, senselessly cause more U.S. troops to die in vain, and unjustly kill more foreigners.

What is tragically ironic is that a liberal group earlier this year placed an ad in the New York Review of Books condemning Obama’s actions “to keep our nation secure at home and abroad” as in some respects “worse than Bush”:

First, because Obama has claimed the right to assassinate American citizens whom he suspects of “terrorism,” merely on the grounds of his own suspicion or that of the CIA, something Bush never claimed publicly. Second, Obama says that the government can detain you indefinitely, even if you have been exonerated in a trial, and he has publicly floated the idea of “preventive detention.” Third, the Obama administration, in expanding the use of unmanned drone attacks, argues that the U.S. has the authority under international law to use extrajudicial killing in sovereign countries with which it is not at war.

Such measures by Bush were widely considered by liberals and progressives to be outrages and were roundly, and correctly, protested. But those acts which may have been construed (wishfully or not) as anomalies under the Bush regime have now been consecrated into “standard operating procedure” by Obama, who claims, as did Bush, executive privilege and state secrecy in defending the crime of aggressive war.

The most wretched lie in this fifth Republican plan is the statement that “the threat from Iranian intercontinental ballistic missiles could materialize as early as 2015.” This is political fearmongering at its worse that is designed to sucker Americans into voting Republican and justify funding of provocative boondoggles like missile defense. U.S. foreign policy is already aggressive, reckless, and belligerent enough without the Republican plan “to keep our nation secure at home and abroad” making it even more so.

Promises, promises – that’s all the Republican Party is good for. Promises to cut spending. Promises to cut the deficit. Promises to cut the debt. Promises to reduce federal regulations. Promises to reduce the size of government. Promises to reduce the scope of government. Promises to do better than the Democrats. Promises to follow the Constitution.

But not only does the Republican Party never deliver, it can always be counted on to increase spending, increase the deficit, increase the debt, expand federal regulations, expand the size of government, expand the scope of government, do worse than the Democrats, and make a mockery of the Constitution.

The Republican “Pledge to America” is not, as Bob Barr says, a “good and sound document.” It is political propaganda, pure and simple, from a party desperate to regain power.

Promises, pledges, lies: vote Republican.

Never, ever, under any circumstances, for any reason, trust in, rely on, or put any hope in Republican promises. As night follows day, disappointment, vexation, and anger are sure to follow.

Laurence M. Vance [send him mail] writes from Pensacola, FL. He is the author of Christianity and War and Other Essays Against the Warfare State and The Revolution that Wasn’t. His newest book is Rethinking the Good War. Visit his website.

Copyright © 2010 by LewRockwell.com. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given.

It’s another revolutionary season in American politics, with voters preparing to do everything they can within the structure of the law to throw out the bad guys and the bad system they represent. The focus is on this amorphous thing called the Tea Party, which embodies a huge range of political impulses from libertarian to authoritarian, united under the common belief that everything is going wrong in Washington, with a common goal of upending the status quo.

Candidates that the Republican Party doesn’t like are making big inroads into the party structure and, quite possibly, the election itself. That is fun to watch. The wind at their backs is the spectacular — but wholly predictable — failure of the Obama administration’s economic witchcraft. Trillions and trillions created and spent and yet the suffering endures.

The healthcare bill is also a source of American public anger. People are not deceived into believing that whatever reforms we are getting are going to fix the problems of the current system; they will make them worse. As it is, the freedom remaining in the system is the only reason that the system serves us at all. Take that away and you take away a lifeline.

The revolt, then, is in high gear. It’s not the first time, and it won’t be the last. The governed have long been very unhappy about the government, and they periodically wake up and seek to change it. It’s been some 16 years since the last go-around of such revolutionary sentiment. It is arguably stronger today than it was back in 1994.

The good aspects of this have nothing to do with political outcomes, despite what people believe. The political environment focuses the mind on important issues like freedom, economics, culture, power and its uses, and the role of the state. As they debate with their neighbors, follow election coverage, listen to the candidates, and watch the process, people learn and study and, most importantly, think and rethink.

If you begin with a skeptical attitude toward the government, watching and thinking can lead to a radicalization and ultimate embrace of a consistent opposition to government involvement. This is why election season always ends up creating a huge flood of new libertarians who buy books, feel the inspiration to get active (perhaps for the first time), and dedicate themselves to reducing the power of the state in whatever way they can.

If American politics can be said to contribute anything to American culture, it is this educational aspect that stands out. The elections focus the mind and lead people to a new consciousness. Ideally, that consciousness would dawn without politicians and elections and all the apparatus of the season. And yet people are busy in normal times, dealing with regular life; it is the very urgency of the election that gives rise to the concern in the first place.

You might as well know right now, however, that the Tea Party, no matter how successful it is at the polls in November, will certainly betray the party of liberty. There are several reasons for this, but the fundamental one is intellectual. The Tea Party does not have a coherent view of liberty. Its activists tend to be good on specific economic issues like taxes, spending, stimulus, and healthcare. They worry about government intervention in these areas and can talk a good game.

But just as with old-time conservatives, there are many issues on which the Tea Party tends toward inconsistency. The military and the issue of war is a major one. Many have bought into the line that the greatest threat this country faces domestically is the influx of adherents of Islam; in international politics, they tend to favor belligerence toward any regime that is not a captive of US political control.

On immigration, the Tea Party ethos favors national IDs and draconian impositions on businesses rather than market solutions like cutting welfare. On social and cultural issues, they can be as confused as the Christian Right, believing that it is the job of government to right all wrongs and punish sin.

This doesn’t describe them all. A poll taken last spring divides the activists into two camps: Palin and Paul. Both groups are mad as heck at the mainstream Republican Party, but only the Paul camp has broadened that anger to the government generally.

Such are the philosophical problems. Just as telling are the structural problems in politics that lead all political candidates toward the center as a matter of maximizing votes. It’s always the same. They count on their base to show up and vote for them, however reluctantly. It’s the voters in the middle who get their attention. This is why all candidates tend to water down their positions after the primaries — that, and to get funding from the corporatists allied with both parties.

The larger problem occurs once they take office. Here is where the serious problems begin. They are leaned on by their new colleagues, the party elites, related financial interests, the press, and the entire system of which they are now part. Are they going to make themselves enemies of that system, or are they going to work within the system in order to achieve reform, and not just for one term but more terms down the line? Doing a good job means being part of the structure; doing a bad job means being an enemy of the very system that they now serve.

Which choice do they make? The same choice that everyone else in office makes (Ron Paul being the lone exception in all of human history). It is for this reason that newly seated “revolutionary” politicians will betray those who put them in power. It happens like clockwork, same as day turns to night.

Some good can still come out of the results, if only because former ideologues can serve as some resistance to really bad policy. The new Congress that was seated after the 1994 election certainly curbed the ambitions of the Clinton administration for a time. But avoiding greater evil is not the same as doing good. We can state with confidence, all else being equal, that even the best electoral outcome will not lead to actual cuts in the power of government over our lives.

That doesn’t mean that all is for naught. What will change the prospects for freedom in this country is a growing and society-wide awareness of the issue of freedom and the role of the state in wrecking that freedom, and the civilization to which it gives rise.

Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. [send him mail], former editorial assistant to Ludwig von Mises and congressional chief of staff to Ron Paul, is founder and chairman of the Mises Institute, executor for the estate of Murray N. Rothbard, and editor of LewRockwell.com. See his books.

Copyright © 2010 by LewRockwell.com. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given.

Is this what anyone thought they were voting for in 2008?  On Saturday, our democrat President signed legislation to renew the Patriot act.  This legislation was first passed by the democrat controlled house and the democrat controlled Senate.  Let’s review what our democrat leaders *used* to say about the Patriot Act….

“This is legislation that puts our own Justice Department above the law. When National Security Letters are issued, they allow federal agents to conduct any search on any American, no matter how extensive or wide-ranging, without ever going before a judge to prove that the search is necessary.”

“This is a massive invasion of the privacy of the American people, not just some idle threat. The Washington Post reported last month that the FBI hands out more than 30,000 national security letters per year, a reported hundred-fold increase over historic norms. How did this happen?”

“Now, what happens in Las Vegas stays in Las Vegas, but not in this instance. It’s in some federal data bank. That’s what the Patriot Act is doing to the American people. And we have to make sure that big brother doesn’t take over this country.”

Based on what these leaders were saying, did you expect them to renew the Patriot Act when they were in control?  President Obama was right in 2007.  Liberty minded people who have actually read the bill have been saying the same thing since 2005 and before.  Unlike the political class in Washington, DC, their opinions didn’t change along with the party in power.

So have you figured it out yet?  Do you get it?  Washington is not going to check itself.  You feel oppressed by republican legislation from the previous administration?  Tough.  The democrats are not going to roll it back.  Not this year.  Not any year.  They’re too busy working to extend their own reach.

Once we lose one of our freedoms, we don’t get it back without a struggle.  Neither do our children or their children or theirs….  If we leave it up to Washington, A freedom lost is lost forever.  Our two party oligarchy keeps marching down the path towards tyranny.

It is up to the States and the People to start correcting both parties’ abuses in order to reestablish the freedom that should be our childrens’ heritage.  The Tenth Amendment is one tool for doing it.  Get involved in your state.  Join the Tenth Amendment movement to work towards true protection of your Liberties.

Steve Palmer is the State Chapter Coordinator for the Pennsylvania Tenth Amendment Center.

Copyright © 2010 by TenthAmendmentCenter.com. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given

One of the things most abhorrent to us sovereignty-seekers is the incredible amount of bloat in Washington, D.C.  While some of us are coming around to seeing that Washington, D.C. is killing this country on a non-partisan basis, the following chart illustrates this fact.

What the chart above shows is that, had the federal government grown in proportion to the U.S. population over the past 60 years, Uncle Sam would have spent approximately $2,621 per person in 2008.  However, our all-wise and powerful government spent a whopping $9,828 per person in 2008.  And given the magnificent packages passed this year, 2009 stands to be a real whopper!  (All of the dollar amounts in the chart are inflation-adjusted to 2008 dollars per capita of federal spending.)

This means that the federal government has grown 3.75 times faster than our population.  This is no trifling figure.  At that rate, how much longer can this trend continue to last?  Quite interesting is that the longest-standing decline in spending occurred from 1992-2000.  Of course, taxation (revenues) still increased during that period.

What this means is that there is a long, long tradition on the part of both of the predominant parties to grow Washington at an irresponsible rate.   So, the question must necessarily follow:  “Can turning the government back over to Republicans be viewed as a potential remedy to a government bloat that threatens the fiscal soundness of our entire nation?”  The answer would appear to be a clear “no.”  The track record over the last 60 years proves this.

If history is to serve as a lesson, then, it should be entirely predictable that when Republicans regain control over Congress and the administration, they will inherit a yet larger government and continue to grow it further.  We should begin seeking solutions from sources other than our traditional parties.  Perhaps the Libertarian Party should be given a chance.

It is admittedly difficult to forsake the Republican Party at the potential expense of leaving the Democrats in power for perhaps years to come.  However, to stay true to the Republican Party is to vote to continue the trend over the last 60 years.  It is definitely time for a change.

Jeff Matthews [send him email] is an attorney living in Houston, Texas.  His current projects include the website SovereignStates, and the forthcoming organization, The National Taxpayer Takeover.

If you are not free to choose wrongly and irresponsibly, you are not free at all. – Jacob Hornberger.

Every four years, voters in the United States are given a choice between two major party candidates in the Presidential election.  We are often told that either of these candidates are the “mainstream” candidates and if you want your vote to count, you need to choose between either one of the two major party candidates who have a “chance” at “winning”.

However, for true supporters of limited government and personal liberty, this is often a choice made in vain.  If you truly believe in a limited, decentralized government which protects both economic and personal liberties and rights, during most elections there isn’t a major party candidate that will generally fit your values.  You have a choice between the Democratic Party, of which too many members wish to violate your economic rights and liberties, and the Republican Party, of which too many members wish to violate your personal rights and liberties.  This is not a judgment of individuals in either party.  Most individual members are doing what they think is right.  This is a judgment on those than run the major parties.

To illustrate my own philosophy of government, I’ve often used an analogy of a road trip.  The route and destination are analogous to the choices you make in life and the level of freedom you possess.

Too many big government Democrats want to drive your car for you.  They feel that if they know the route better, it’s in your own interest to just sit in the back and let them drive the car for you — they will be able to plan the best route and will be able to get to the destination according to the way they think is best.  It doesn’t matter if you feel that a different route may be better, because they know how to get there better than you do.

Unfortunately for the American people, some Republicans have deviated from the principles that the party was founded upon, limited government and personal responsibility.  Therefore, there is also a part of the Republican Party, a segment of big government Republicans that also want to choose the route and destination for you.  Rather than driving the vehicle for you, they will let you sit in the drivers seat and give you the illusion that you are making free choices when in reality the government is in the passenger seat next to you with it’s own set of omnipotent pedals and a steering wheel that they can use to override any choice they deem as unacceptable.  Like the omnipotent Drivers Ed teacher than can take control of the vehicle at any moment, big government Republicans want you to have the illusion that you are making your own choices but in reality are only holding up a smokescreen.  If they don’t like your choice, they can (and will) quickly override you.  The only difference between big government Republicans and Democrats is that Republicans want to give you an illusion that you will be able to choose your destination, when in fact the level of control is the same.  Pro-corporate bailout Republicans fit into this category, and it hurts good Republicans like Jeff Flake and Ron Paul.

Those who advocate limited government offer a different path.  Grover Norquist wrote that, “The Leave Us Alone Coalition [Norquist's name for limited government advocates] is not antigovernment.  It simply wants properly limited government that plays a role in protecting the life, liberty and property of citizens.”

The proper role of government is not to shepherd you to the “correct” decision, government’s role is to protect your rights so that you may make your own choices, whether popular or not, good or bad.  Therefore, in the context of the above analogy, to an advocate for limited government, the government is not in your car at all.  No judgments can be made on either your route or destination because government is not a participant in the road trip.  Instead, government is the mechanic, keeping your car running so that you can make your own decisions while driving.

The proper role of government is not to make sure people make good decisions.  There is no role for personal morals in government.  The real purpose of government is to maintain minimum social order for people to live their lives by their own morals through their own choices. The key word in that sentence is minimum.  For too long, authoritarians have used the guise of “social order” to induce massive control and individual rights violations.  To protect minimum social order, government exists to protect nothing more than individual rights, with individual rights being defined broadly enough to include the right to do anything until you restrict the freedom of someone else to do what they please — the classic example being that you have the right to swing your fists through the air, but the right to swing your fist ends at the tip of another person’s nose.  This self-correcting view of rights is the only way to ensure freedom.  Some may even question whether government is the proper avenue for the protection of rights.  Throughout history, it is rare to find an institution that has as evil a record on protecting rights as government does.  However, while government may be a bad mechanism for protecting rights, it’s probably least bad way we have, and certainly the only demonstrable way.  Barry Goldwater illustrated this point when he stated in his classic Conscience of a Conservative, “All too often we have put men in office who have suggested spending a little more on this, a little more on that, who have proposed a new welfare program, who have thought of another variety of ’security.’  We have taken the bait, preferring to put off to another day the recapture of freedom and the restoration of our constitutional system.  We have gone the way of many a democratic society that has lost its freedom by persuading itself that if ‘the people’ rule, all is well.”

However, the deference to government power is moving us from the individualistic “Father knows best” mentality to our current way, a “government knows best” mentality where Barack Obama and his band of merry travelers will dictate economic planning from above because they know best.  This is the same type of argument that Justice Holmes gives in allowing the power of government to dictate what’s best in the 1927 decision Buck v. Bell in which Holmes reasoned that government could dictate solutions to social problems.  By reasoning that it was within the power of government to forcibly sterilize the “feeble minded and socially inadequate,”  Holmes’ reasons for why the government could sterilize women against their will and the reasons behind the entire platform of Barack Obama’s Presidential campaign are identical:  government knows best, and government will attempt to solve social problems.  If there is one lesson to take from history, it’s that deference to government knowledge and planning is dangerous and responsible for most of the suffering in the world.

However, under no objective analysis have the Republicans done any better.  Too many Republicans have given in to the demands of big government is an effort to hold on to power.  The Republican Party is not in the gutter because they have been too laissez-faire.  The Republican Party is in the gutter because the status quo of the GOP has thrown the principles of limited government into the trash. Discretionary domestic spending under George W. Bush rose at a higher rate than it did under Bill Clinton.  The legacy of George W. Bush will be as the Great Spender and the Great Regulator.  If you are proud of the record of the GOP in the last eight years, you are not an advocate for limited government.  If you are proud of the record of the GOP in the last eight years, you are a supporter of big government.

The main problem for this stems from the fact that when presented with a big government Republican, advocates for limited government are often pressured to support the big government Republican in the name of ‘victory.’  Unfortunately, I see no ‘victory’ in creeping socialism, despite whether there is an R or a D next to the name.  Republicans who supported candidates like John McCain and other politicians who voted for the bailout seem to welcome socialism, as long as there is an R next to the candidate’s name.  Instead of standing up for the principles of limited government, these Republican socialists have tossed aside what’s right and many have become no better than Democrats.

Under President Bush, this Republican administration has left a legacy of big government.  Among the legacies of the Bush administration

• When President Bush took office, the national debt was approximately $5 trillion dollars.  As he leaves office, the national debt is currently over $10 trillion dollars.  President Bush has doubled the national debt in eight years.
• President Bush has made it his policy that the federal government should micromanage who should and who shouldn’t get married.  The federal government must approve of your relationship before you can wed.
• President Bush spearheaded the federalization of education in 2001.  President Bush has decided that unelected bureaucrats in Washington should control your child’s education, not parents and teachers.

This is only a select portion of the harm that runaway government power under George W. Bush has threatened our nation and way of life.  Big government was slipped in by Republicans because no one was minding the store.  Many of the largest budget items weren’t even included in budgets, because they were so outrageous that they wouldn’t survive budget negotiations.  They could be added later with a sense of urgency because of “emergency” purposes.  According to Grover Norquist:

“The Bush administration has perfected the strategy of pretending to send up a budget and then showing up later with ‘emergency’ spending requests to pay for such ‘unexpected’ costs as pay and equipment for the hundred thousand American troops in Iraq that have been there for years, but somehow the guys at OMB forgot this when they wrote their budget”

The fiscal policies of the Bush administration while running interference on budget supplementals would make Senator Goldwater roll over in his grave.  In the end, there is really no difference between the “Compassionate Conservatism” of President Bush and the Great Society socialism of President Johnson.  Both are big spending, big government social programs designed to treat the “symptoms” of poverty and not the actual “disease” of poverty.

Henry Hazlitt understood these problems when he wrote the free market classic Economics in One Lesson.  The central thesis of the book is that economic planning by government will always attempt to benefit one group (whichever group is lobbying for a policy enactment) at the expense of all other groups, and will always help in the short term while being harmful in the long run.  Therefore, he states that, “The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups.”  When government tries to meet the need of whatever group has power or money at any given time, the results are almost universally bad.  Hazlitt states,

“Each one of us, in brief, has a multiple economic personality.  Each one of us is producer, taxpayer, consumer.  The policies he advocates depend upon the particular aspect under which he thinks of himself at the moment.  For he is sometimes Dr. Jekyll and sometimes Mr. Hyde.  As a producer he wants inflation (thinking chiefly of his own services or product); as a consumer he wants price ceilings (thinking chiefly of what he has to pay for the products of others).  As a consumer he may advocate or acquiesce in subsidies; as a taxpayer he will resent paying them.  Each person is likely to thinking that he can so manage the political forces that he can benefit from a rise for his own product (while his raw material costs are legally held down) and at the same time benefit as a consumer from price control.  But the overwhelming majority will be deceiving themselves.  For not only must there be at least as much loss as gain from this political manipulation of prices; there must be a great deal more loss than gain, because price fixing discourages and disrupts employment and production”

Because we have many different roles in our economy, any policies which are enacted for your benefit as one role will harm you in your other roles.  The only way to keep everything is free market capitalism.  Enterprise capitalism is the only way to ensure justice among all the roles within a diverse economy, strictly because it avoids the problems of central economic planning expressed so eloquently by Hazlitt above.

This all leads back to the fact that the powers that be in both the Democratic and Republican Parties have ignored two of the most important parts of the Bill of Rights:  the Ninth and Tenth Amendments.

The Ninth Amendment states:

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

In layman’s terms, this means that just because some rights are specifically mentioned in the Constitution, naming those rights should not be taken to mean that rights that are not mentioned are not protected.  Put simply, the list of rights in the Constitution is not exhaustive or complete; there are other rights held by the people which are not named, because it would be impossible to name every single right retained by the people.  Leading Ninth Amendment scholar and law professor at the Georgetown University Law Center (and native of my home town/graduate of my high school alma mater) Randy Barnett has this to say about the Ninth Amendment and the protection of rights, from his book Restoring the Lost Constitution:  The Presumption of Liberty (p. 58)

…natural rights define a private domain within which persons may do as they please, provided their conduct does not encroach upon the rightful domain of others.  As long as their actions remain within this rightful domain, other persons — including persons calling themselves government officials — should not interfere without a compelling justification.  Because people have a right to do whatever they please within the boundaries defined by natural rights, this means that the rights retained by the people are limited only by their imagination and could never be completely specified or enumerated.

There is no better paragraph on the meaning and bounds of natural rights of which I am aware.  The Ninth Amendment is not a source of any specific rights per se, it’s a guideline that ensures that just because a right isn’t mention doesn’t mean it isn’t held by the people.

Next up is the Tenth Amendment.  It 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.

This is probably the most ignored part of the entire Constitution.  The meaning has been lost to many currently in power, yet is so simple:  the federal government only has the power it is specifically given in the Constitution.  Unless the Constitution gives the federal government the power to do something, it doesn’t have that power.  This system was set up by the founders precisely to give autonomy to the state and local governments, with minimal power to the federal government.  The federal government serves an important purpose, and that’s why powers are delegated to the federal government in the Constitution.  However, the power that was delegated to the federal government was minimal.  Current politicians have chosen to completely ignore this amendment, and give a completely illiterate reading of the necessary and proper clause of the Constitution.

The ninth and tenth amendments work hand in hand.  The ninth amendment gives an expansive view of individual rights, and the tenth amendment institutes a strong limitation on the powers of the federal government.  It seems that too many Republicans want to ignore the expansive view of natural rights in the ninth amendment and Democrats want to ignore the strict limits on the power of the federal government of the tenth amendment.

The most principled person in Washington understands this problem.  Back in 1998, Ron Paul wrote,

“But rather than abide by our constitutional limits, Congress recently passed two pieces of legislation – neither containing a shred of constitutional authority – which, of course, were “non-controversial” despite moving us further from the notion of a limited government. One piece of legislation pledged that the Congress will “pass legislation that provides the weapons and tools necessary to protect our children and our communities from the dangers of drug addiction and violence.” Setting aside for the moment the practicality of federal prohibition laws, an experiment which failed miserably with alcohol in the 1920s, the threshold question must be: “under what authority do we act?” Whether any governmental entity should be protecting individuals from themselves and their own stupidity is certainly debatable; whether the federal government is constitutionally empowered to do so is not. Being stupid or brilliant to one’s sole disadvantage or advantage, respectively, is exactly what liberty is all about.”

Unfortunately, not enough people have read the Constitution.

It is for these reasons that I call on advocates for limited government to pledge to support the World’s Smallest Political Platform.  It reads that we “support reducing the size, scope and power of government at all levels and on all issues, and opposes increasing the size, scope or power of government at any level or for any purpose.”

There are good organizations out there that believe in limited government.  Some good ones to support are (There are many, many more good limited government organizations.  This is just an example):
Heartland Institute
Americans for Tax Reform
Illinois Policy Institute
Cato Institute
Republican Liberty Caucus

I leave you with a quote from Mr. Republican himself, Robert Taft.  If we had more Robert Tafts in the Republican Party, we’d be much better off.

I mean liberty of the individual to think his own thoughts and live his own life as he desires to think and to live; the liberty of the family to decide how they wish to live, what they want to eat for breakfast and for dinner, and how they wish to spend their time; liberty of a man to develop his ideas and get other people to teach those ideas, if he can convince them that they have some value to the world; liberty of every local community to decide how its children shall be educated, how its local services shall be run, and who its local leaders shall be; liberty of a man to choose his own occupation; and liberty of a man to run his own business as he thinks it ought to be run, as long as he does not interfere with the right of other people to do the same thing. – Robert Taft

Jeff Wartman [send him email] is an activist for limited and local government in Will County, Illinois.  He is fighting to restore the principles of limited government, liberty and competitiveness to the people.  Visit his website at http://jeffwartman.com.