545 vs. 300,000,000 People

Image via Wikipediaby Charlie Reese

Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.

Have you ever wondered, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits?

Have you ever wondered, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes?

You and I don't propose a federal budget. The President does.

You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does.

You and I don't write the tax code, Congress does. 

You and I don't set fiscal policy, Congress does.

You and I don't control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does.

One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one President, and nine Supreme Court justices equates to 545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.

I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank.  

I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a President to do one cotton-picking thing. I don't care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator's responsibility to determine how he votes.

Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.

What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall.  No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating  deficits. The President can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it.

The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes. Who is the speaker of the House? John Boehner. He is the leader of the majority party. He and fellow House members, not the President, can approve any budget they want.  If the President vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to.

It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million cannot replace 545 people who stand convicted -- by present facts -- of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can't think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal  government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.

If the tax code is unfair, it's because they want it unfair.

If the budget is in the red, it's because they want it in the red. 

If the Army & Marines are in Iraq and Afghanistan it's because they want them in  Iraq and Afghanistan ... 

If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it's because they want it that way.

There are no insoluble government problems.

Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power. Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like "the economy," "inflation," or "politics" that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.

Those 545 people, and they  alone, are responsible.

They, and they alone, have the power.

They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses.

Provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees...

We should vote all of  them out of office and clean up their mess!

Confederate Memorial Day - May 10th, 2011

Image via WikipediaNext Tuesday Confederate Memorial Day will be celebrated in North and South Carolina. I was reminded of an excellent column penned by Ann Coulter in her book "How to Talk to a Liberal if You Must." I thought it worth a repost here.

"The Battle Flag" by Ann Coulter

During the Democratic primaries for the 2004 presidential election, Howard Dean set off a tsunami of indignation when he said he wanted to be "the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks" (just like Bill Clinton was the candidate for the guy with the Astro-turf in the bed of his pickup truck). John Kerry said he wanted to be "the candidate of the guy whose limo driver keeps a Confederate flag in the back window of his Towne Car" and Dennis Kucinich said he wanted to be "the candidate for the guys in the low-emission hybrid vehicles with the Confederate flags in them."

Like clockwork, every presidential election year the Confederate flag becomes a major campaign issue. This always thrills the Democrats, because it finally gives them an issue to run on: Their support for the Union side in the Civil War.

After Dean's contretemps, Al Sharpton denounced the Confederate flag as an "American swastika," saying, "Imagine if I said that I wanted to be the candidate of people with helmets and swastikas." After briefly considering a personal-injury lawsuit, Senator John Edwards lectured Dean, saying, "Let me tell you, the last thing we need in the South is somebody like you coming down and telling us what we need to do."  At first, Dean refused to apologize, prolonging the Democrats' joyous self-righteousness. Dean defended himself saying, "I think the Confederate flag is a racist symbol" -- apparently under the impression that it would help matters to explain that, yes, in fact, he did want to be the candidate of racists. But eventually Dean buckled and said it was Republicans' fault: "I think there are a lot of poor people who fly that flag because the Republicans have been dividing us by race since 1968 with their Southern race strategy." Carol Moseley Braun backed him up, saying the Democrats needed to "get past that racist strategy that the Republicans have foisted upon this country." Okay, so just for the record, this was Carol Moseley Braun urging someone not to play a race card.

In fact and needless to say, it is the Democrats who have turned the Confederate flag into a federal issue, because they relish nothing more than being morally indignant. Not about abortion, adultery, illegitimacy, the divorce rate, or a president molesting an intern and lying to federal investigators. Indeed, not about anything of any practical consequence. Democrats stake out a clear moral position only on the issue of slavery. Of course, when it mattered, they were on the wrong side of that issue, too. 

In addition to expressing outrage over a nonissue, Democrats take sadistic pleasure in telling blacks that everyone hates them. Demonstrating their famous appreciation of "nuance," liberals believe the Confederate flag is pure evil and anyone who flies the flag is pure evil -- and George Bush is a moron who sees the world in simplistic black-and-white terms of good and evil. I guess that's what liberals mean by "nuance."

Despite recent revisionist history written by liberal know-nothings -- the "nuance" devotees -- the Civil War did not pit pure-of-heart Yankees against a mob of vicious racist Southerners. If it had, the North might not have fought so hard to keep Southerners as their fellow countrymen. President Lincoln -- the Great Emancipator himself -- wrote to the editor of the New York Tribune in August 1862, "If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that." Indeed, Lincoln did not even issue the Emancipation Proclamation until well into the Civil War, and then largely as a war tactic. Yes, the South had slaves. Martin Luther King was an adulterer. Life is messy.