Quote 1 - "Politics would a helluva a good business if it weren't for the [expletive deleted] people"
Quote 2 - "You know the one thing wrong with this country? Everyone gets a chance to have their fair say."
Quote 3 - "When personal freedom is being abused, you have to move to limit it."
Quote 4 - "We can't be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary citizens."
Quote 5 - "The Constitution is a radical document. It is the job of government to reign in people's rights."
Quote 6 - "If the personal freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution inhibit the government's ability to govern the people, we should seek to limit those guarantees."
Quote 7 - "We're going to take things away from you for the common good."
Certainly not freedom friendly quotes or attitudes to have. The common thread of all of these quotes is the those that rule over us tend to think that we exist for their benefit and glory rather than they exist to protect our safety AND our rights, freedom, and liberty. Especially in America, which has its basis and heritage in the concept of individual and personal freedom, we should be alarmed by those that think freedom is an inconvenience for those that are in political office.
The second common theme is that none of these quotes come from the worst tyrants of the 20th century, none of them come from Hitler, Mussolini, Mao, or Stalin:
Quote 1 - From Richard Nixon, and shows that he would rather live in a political world where citizens did not exist, certainly an out of touch with reality perspective.
Quote 2 - From Bill Clinton, illustrating his distaste for freedom of speech, a cornerstone of freedom in this country.
Quote 3 - From Bill Clinton, illustrating every politician's desire to limit someone's freedom to expand their own personal political power and reach.
Quote 4 - From Bill Clinton, again, in his mind, those pesky rights and liberties keep getting in the way of what he wants to do.
Quote 5 - From Bill Clinton, the purpose of the Constitution was to protect people's rights, not reign them in, putting Clinton in direct conflict with the greatest declaration of freedom in the history of mankind.
Quote 6 - From Bill Clinton, the more you read about Clinton quotes, the more you believe that he might have been a great USSR ruler.
Quote 7 - Hillary Clinton, seems to run in the family, government knows what is best for everyone, and if freedom has to be stomped out in the process of determining what is best for everyone, than so be it.
Pretty scary stuff. Quotes on the crushing of freedom and individual liberties that you would expect to hear from the likes of Mao and Hitler actually come from elected American politicians.
Which gets us to the concept of the Orwellian Death March, with George Orwell's epic novel, "1984," being the template for repression. In what other novel would you expect to hear the concepts of denying people the right to have their fair say, reigning in and limiting people's rights, and taking things away from citizens for the so-called "common good," which is really a code word for the good of the political and ruling classes.
As we allow more and more politicians to believe and spread these concepts, we begin the death march from a free, democratic society to a repressive, Big Brother regime where power emanates from an elitist few and is dictated down to the masses. This is the exact opposite of the concepts of freedom inherent in the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and the desires of our founding fathers.
Unfortunately, this Orwellian Death March took two giant steps last week. The first step occurred when a sitting politician, North Carolina Governor Bev Perdue, actually suggested that the next round of Congressional elections be suspended in order to allow politicians to focus on government instead of getting elected: "You have to have more ability from Congress, I think, to work together and to get over the partisan bickering and focus on fixing things. I think we ought to suspend, perhaps, elections for Congress for two years and just tell them we won't hold it against them, whatever decisions they make, to just let them help this country recover....You want people who don't worry about the next election." (ABC News - September 28, 2011)
Outrageous. This country has worked for over two centuries in its current form of government, it is not the process that needs to be changed, i.e. suspend elections, it is the quality of people that are within the process that needs to be changed. It is their lack of courage and conviction, their lack of dedication to doing what is right for the country that is at fault, not our form of election-based government.
It is the incompetence of our current crop of politicians that has gotten us to where we are now relative to the major issues of our times. The last thing you want to do is give them a free pass and let them sit in Washington any longer than necessary.
A much better solution is to get people in and out of office in such a way that re-election is not an issue, i.e. term limits. One and done. That way those sitting in Congress do not have to worry about getting re-elected since that would no longer be a possibility. A term limits solution to the current incompetence in Washington is to have the President serve for only one six year term, Senators serve for only one five year term, and House Of Representative politicians serve for only one four year term.
If you remove the potential for politicians being constantly re-elected, than they might actually do the right thing for the country's welfare, rather than the wrong thing for the country but the right thing for their re-election. The governor fails to realize that a large percentage of people in Congress have been in their position for ten, twenty, or thirty years. Despite their length of service, they have not been able to resolve the major issues of our times. Giving them a free pass for another two years, not subject to recall by the electorate, is a just plain stupid idea.
But the Governor is not the only political figure calling for such freedom defying steps. Peter Orszag, Obama's former director of the Office of Management and Budget recently wrote an article entitled, "Too Much Of Good Thing: Why We Need Less Democracy." Again, unbelievable that a member of the political ruling class would actually come out and lobby for less freedom.
Given the current gridlock in Washington, Orszag would remove some of the power of elected representatives and hand it over to Federal bureaucracies in order to bypass the gridlock: "To solve the serious problems facing our country, we need to minimize the harm from legislative inertia by relying more on automatic policies and depoliticized commissions for certain policy decisions. In other words, radical as it sounds, we need to counter the gridlock of our political institutions by making them a bit less democratic."
His approach obviously has some serious flaws beyond the severe restrictions it would place on individual's freedoms:
- Who gets to decide which people sit on these "political institutions?"
- Who would these institutions be accountable to, who would set their agendas and objectives, who would measure their effectiveness, and how would incompetence from these institutions be dealt with?
- How much is a "bit less democratic?"
- How can he guarantee these institutions will also not be politicized since their membership will be determined by politicians?
What you want to do is understand the root causes of the problem. And the main root cause of the problem is politicians will do what is best for their perpetual re-election to political office, not what is best for the country. It is not the process of government that is the root cause of our gridlock, it is the desire of politicians to get constantly re-elected that is the root cause.
They have made it so attractive to stay in office, high salaries, the best health care, free car leases, lavish offices, large staffs, long vacations, self enriching retirement options, etc., that the perks have become more important than the job. Thus, the right solution to the problem is not to destroy our democratic processes. The right solution is implement term limits (Step 39 from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government") and reduce the perks so that the only people coming to Washington are those that want to make a positive impact on the country, not a positive impact on their careers and life style.
The fact that two prominent members of the political class would actually voice such Orwellian concepts is frightening. But we should not be surprised. Over the past few decades, starting with Quote 1 above from Nixon, it is been a constant, and sometimes losing, battle to protect our democracy, not from external forces, but from our own insidious political class.
And that low quality and lack of courage will not be removed by keeping the same low performing politicians in office without the benefit and right of recalling them via elections or entrenching and expanding even more Federal bureaucracy to make the decisions that our current politicians cannot make.
The only solution is to remove the lure and riches of re-election by making re-election a non-event via term limits. Serving your country should be an honor, a service, and a patriotic duty, not a career of self enrichment. The only other option is to continue the Orwellian Liberty Death March, right into the hands of Big Brother.
"There are always too many Democratic Congressmen and too many Republican Congressman and never enough U.S. Congressman." Author unknown.
Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available, at http://www.loathemygovernment.com/. It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.
Please visit the following sites for freedom:
http://www.loathemygovernment.com/
http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.repealamendment.com/
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