Part 1: Why Gay Marriage and The Confederate Flag Are Meaningless issues Relative To the Lobbyist Behind the Curtain

Later this week we will post our monthly series of political class insanity posts. Every month we gather and discussed the latest insanity, ineptness, wasteful spending, and corruption of the American political class. Unfortunately for us, over the years we have been doing this feature, every month we have needed more and more time just to cover one month’s worth of insanity.

Before we do that for July’s insanity, let’s look at some bigger picture, longer term issues that dwarf the wasteful spending, idiotic programs and laws, stupid quotes, and overall inept performance of the American class. Yes, it is important to point out how wasteful spending goes on in Washington, how government and political class programs never efficiently or effectively implement their goals, how stupid our politicians often sound when they open their mouths.

But the longer term two topics we will discuss in the next two days dwarf these issues. In fact, the top two social and political issues being hotly debated this these days are also nits relative to the two overarching issues we will be discussing today and tomorrow. It really does not matter what you think about gay marriage and the Supreme Court’s recent decision on it. It really does not matter what you think about the Confederate flag and what it stands for. 

Talking about them in the context of the bigger issues is a total waste of time since both issues pale in comparison to the two bigger issues. The gay and lesbian community consists of less than 5% of the nation’s population. Confederate flag supporters are probably comparable in numbers, small minorities in the country. 

But unless we address the major issue of political corruption in Washington (today’s topic) and the unrelenting build up of the national debt (tomorrow’s issue), then who can get married and who can fly a flag of their choice will become totally, totally irrelevant in our near future since these two bigger issues affect EVERY American, not just a small minority of them.

Today’s post is based on the writings of liberal former Senator and Presidential candidate Gary Hart. He is the author of 21 books and the following quotes come from his recent book, “The Republic Of Conscience.” While I have pulled out only a subset of quotes from his book that was discussed in a recent Time magazine article, I encourage everyone to go to that online Time article at:

http://time.com/3937860/gary-hart-america-corruption/

Mr. Hart eloquently and precisely points out how our democratic processes have been thoroughly corrupted by the American political class and the media, lobbyists, and organized political entities that feast on those processes and American tax dollars and freedoms. We have discussed this corruption of the democratic processes before,both in this blog and our book, “Love My Country, Loathe My Government.”

However, I think that you read the following quotes from his book, you will see that he is probably a little more eloquent than this blog in pleading the case that money and the infestation it is installed in our democracy has fundamentally changed America and that change has not been for the best. While it has enriched politicians and those that abuse the political process, it has left the rest of America poorer and less free in the process.

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1. Four qualities have distinguished republican government from ancient Athens forward: the sovereignty of the people; a sense of the common good; government dedicated to the commonwealth; and resistance to corruption. Measured against the standards established for republics from ancient times, the American Republic is massively corrupt.
2. In the governing of a republic, corruption was self-interest placed above the interest of all—the public interest.
3. There has never been a time, however, when the government of the United States was so perversely and systematically dedicated to special interests, earmarks, side deals, log-rolling, vote-trading, and sweetheart deals of one kind or another.
4. What brought us to this? A sinister system combining staggering campaign costs, political contributions, political action committees, special interest payments for access, and, most of all, the rise of the lobbying class.
5. Worst of all, the army of lobbyists that started relatively small in the mid-twentieth century has now grown to big battalions of law firms and lobbying firms of the right, left, and an amalgam of both.
6. There is little wonder that Americans of the right and many in the middle are apoplectic at their government and absolutely, and rightly, convinced that the game of government is rigged in favor of the elite and the powerful. Occupiers see even more wealth rising to the top at the expense of the poor and the middle class. And Tea Partiers believe their tax dollars are going to well-organized welfare parasites and government bureaucrats.
7. Recent months have seen, in effect, the legalization of Watergate. Who would have thought, forty years after the greatest political scandal and presidential abuse of power in U.S. history, that the Supreme Court of the United States would rule the practices that financed that scandal were now legal?
8. And, of course, the ultimate victims of the corruption of the democratic process are not defeated candidates and parties but America’s citizens. 
9. The advent of legalized corruption launched by the Supreme Court empowers the superrich to fund their own presidential and congressional campaigns as pet projects, to foster pet policies, and to represent pet political enclaves. You have a billion, or even several hundred million, then purchase a candidate from the endless reserve bench of minor politicians and make him or her a star, a mouthpiece for any cause or purpose however questionable, and that candidate will mouth your script in endless political debates and through as many television spots as you are willing to pay for. All legal now.
10. To compound the political felony, much, if not most, campaign financing is now carried out in secret, so that everyday citizens have a decreasing ability to determine to whom their elected officials are beholden and to whom they must now give special access.
11. To add to the profound misdirection of American politics by the Supreme Court, we now have what might be called convergence in the garden of government influence.
12. The context is the lobbying maze in Washington and the convergence of dozens of noxious weeds in the garden of government into a handful of giant predator thornbushes now devouring that garden. Of this handful, the largest by far is WPP (originally called Wire and Plastic Products; is there a metaphor here?), which has its headquarters in London and more than 150,000 employees in 2,500 offices spread around 107 countries. It, together with one or two conglomerating competitors, represents a fourth branch of government, vacuuming up former senators and House members and their spouses and families, key committee staff, former senior administration officials of both parties and several administrations, and ambassadors, diplomats, and retired senior military officers.
13. Think of the banks that can be bailed out, the range of elaborate weapons systems that can be sold to the government, the protection from congressional scrutiny that can be paid for, the economic policies that can be manipulated.
14. The lobbying business is no longer about votes up or down on particular measures that may emerge in Congress or policies made in the White House. It is about setting agendas, deciding what should and should not be brought up for hearings and legislation.
15. America’s founders knew one thing: The republics of history all died when narrow interests overwhelmed the common good and the interests of the commonwealth.
16. What would our founders make of this nightmare of corruption? We only know, in Thomas Jefferson’s case, for example, that his distrust of central government had to do with the well-founded and prescient suspicion that its largesse would go to powerful and influential interests, especially financiers, who knew how to manipulate both the government and the financial markets. 
17. All they knew was how to respond to their industry lobbyists’ requests for very large contributions to compliant members of congressional finance committees and to do so quickly and often. And they did get their money’s worth.
18. Americans cannot hold ourselves up to the world as the beacon of democracy so long as we permit, as long as we acquiesce in, corruption so far beyond the standards of the true republic that our government cannot be proclaimed an ideal for other aspiring nations.
19. On a more personal level, how can public service be promoted as an ideal to young people when this sewer corrupts our Republic? 
20. But it is impossible to claim to love one’s country and not be outraged at how corrupt it has become. For former senators and representatives to trade a title given them by the voters of their respective states and districts for cash is beyond shameful. It is outrageous.
21. It is an error of serious proportion to dismiss corruption in twenty-first-century American democracy on the grounds that this has all been going on from the beginning, that boys will be boys, that politicians are always on the take. Past incidents of the violation of public ethics provide no argument for accepting the systemic and cancerous commercialization of modern American politics.
22. And, as scholars of ancient Greek and Roman political texts, they knew in their minds and in their hearts that a republic with leaders who lacked virtue would not long survive.
23. ...is to invite the eventual erosion of the ideal of the American Republic, to reduce this great nation and its heritage to the worst kind of mundane governance, to prostitute a noble experiment on the altar of expediency and greed, and to leave coming generations to ponder what went wrong.
24. “Just because it is legal doesn’t make it right” should be carved above every congressional doorway, every cabinet department, and even the White House itself. 
25. The fact that many former presidents and prime ministers of European democracies have enriched themselves in questionable ways after leaving office does not justify similar behavior on the part of American politicians. We hold ourselves to a higher standard.
26. We are in danger of becoming a different kind of nation, one our founders would not recognize and would deplore.
27. Because of the erosion of the integrity of our governing system, and the principles and ideals underlying it, the fiscal deficit increases. The government spending so many conservatives claim to abhor includes not only the social safety net of Roosevelt and Johnson, but also the war-making excursions of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. It is all government spending. And it includes favorite pork-barrel projects of every member of both houses of Congress of both political parties...
28. We were not created to be like other nations. We were created as an alternative to monarchy, aristocracy, oligarchy, and corrupt political systems. The more we follow the easy path, the one paved for the benefit of the wealthy and powerful, the more we stray from our originally intended purpose and the more we lose our unique purpose for existence.
29. The question is: By adhering to its highest principles and ideals, will America continue to have the moral authority to lead all people of goodwill? The answer remains to be seen. And that answer will have much to do with whether we have the courage to drive the money changers from the temple of democracy and recapture government of the people, for the people, and by the people.
30. Bad politics drives out good politics. Legalized corruption drives men and women of stature, honor, and dignity out of the halls of government. Self-respecting individuals cannot long tolerate a system of election and reelection so dependent on cultivating the favor of those known to expect access in return. Such a system is corrosive to the soul.
31. Campaigning is a major industry now that consumes hundreds of millions of dollars and, in national campaigns, billions of dollars. Almost all of it goes to the media, the same media whose commentators regularly deplore the costs of campaigns.
32. It [lobbying] is a great hydra-headed monster, one that is rapidly devouring American democracy.
33. The significant issue is the effect of this relatively recent conversion of a democratic process to a major industry that devours money. 
34. We are not the same country we started out to be. We cannot conduct our political process the way we are doing in the twenty-first century and claim to adhere to our earliest principles. We must decide who we are. And if that decision is to restore our highest ideals, then major changes must be made in the way we elect our presidents and our members of Congress.

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In light of his comments, insights, and the massive corruption he correctly identifies, worrying about who marries who and who can fly a certain flag pale in comparison. Because in the end, if all we are left with in our democracy is a new type of marriage license and a piece of cloth on a flagpole, at the expense of our economic and political freedom, then who really cares? They are nothing more than small consolation prizes.

As Woodrow Wilson once said: "The government, which was designed for the people, has got into the hands of the bosses and their employers, the special interests. An invisible empire has been set up above the forms of democracy." Never has this quote from a hundred years ago been so right as it is today.

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:

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:

Term Limits Now: http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

March, 2014 The Unfolding Disaster That Is Obama Care, Part 3: Endangering American Lives, Endangering Democracy, and More

This is our third in a continuing series this month on the unfolding disaster that is Obama Care. We have been doing multiple posts every month since last August, posts needed to cover the massive insanity, ineptness, and idiocy of this horrible piece of legislation. The first post in this month’s series can be seen at:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2014/03/march-2014-unfolding-disaster-that-is.html

Previous months’ reviews and discussions can be accessed from the menu on the right side of this page. 

1) We have made the prediction, a prediction that we did not want to make, that Obama Care will end up killing people that would not have died if the legislation had not been passed. We previously discussed the plight of Emilie Lamb whose previous health insurance paid for the expensive medicine she needed to cope with a dangerous medical condition. That insurance policy was cancelled as a result of Obama Care. 

This resulted in her losing medical coverage and financial support for the medicine she needed for her condition. Her new Obama Care approved health insurance does not cover the medicine she needs like her previous, preferred policy did. As a result, she now needs to work a second job just to pay for the medicine she needs to stay alive. 

On March 11, 2014, the Washington Free Beacon reported on a more recent story of heartbreak on an American family as a result of Obama Care. An Oklahoma man is facing over $100,000 in hospital bills because Obama Care caused him to lose health insurance coverage.

Lenny Hubbs is a self-employed contractor who was previously covered for health insurance on his wife’s health insurance plan. Her employer determined that his employees would no longer be allowed to pay for their spouses’ premiums and insurance coverage on his company’s health insurance plan, a decision driven by the tenets and financial burdens of Obama Care.

After doing their research, the Hubbs determined that they could not afford to purchase health insurance on their own for Mr. Hubbs. His wife told a local television station that good health insurance would have cost them $500 a month, which they couldn’t afford and that they do not qualify for Medicaid.

Unfortunately, Mr. Hubbs suddenly became sick about two weeks ago. His doctors told him his lungs were filling with blood and diagnosed him with pneumonia. He ended up going to two hospitals to seek treatment. 

The Hubbs are alleging that as a result of not having health insurance, he did not receive proper treatment at either hospital because they were uninsured. Tragically, he had to have part of his lung removed and the Hubbs are now looking at upwards of $100,000 in hospital bills.

I’m sorry, you will never convince me that Obama Care is a good piece of legislation when it causes such unnecessary and tragic consequences for Americans like Emilee Lamb and Lenny Hubbs. Their suffering and hardships were easily predictable ahead of time by anyone who understood what the legislation did. And still no one in the political class gave a damn what happened to individual Americans as long as they gained their selfish political victories. Despicable.

The video describing the Hubbs' ordeal can be accessed at:

http://webmail.c.earthlink.net/wam/msg.jsp?msgid=54908&folder=INBOX&isSeen=false&x=1345925325

2) Consider some grim recent research findings from McKinsey & Company:

• A survey they fielded found that only 27% of people joining the Obama Care health exchanges were previously uninsured through February. Thus, the primary target market and purpose of Obama Care, to get health insurance for EVERY uninsured American, is not being close to being met if only about one person in four signing up for Obama Care policies did not previously have health insurance.
• The survey also found that about half of people who shopped for a plan but did not enroll said premiums were too expensive. Remember, Obama promised that health insurance costs for the average American family would go down by thousands of dollars a year, not end up having premiums that were too expensive for many American families to afford.
• Even worse, 80% of the people who said that Obama Care premiums were too expensive actually qualify for Federal government subsidies under Obama Care. 

Thus, a large share of the people Obama Care was specifically supposed to help say it is a bad financial value. Missed that target market by a long shot. Pathetic.

3) Many times this President has violated the rule of law and the Constitution by unilaterally changing dates and rollouts of Obama Care schedules and programs. As we touched on briefly two days ago, last week he did it again. He secretly, almost silently, and un-Constitutionally decided that every American can be exempted from the so-called Obama Care individual insurance mandate if they want to.

That’s right, if you do not want to follow the Obama Care’s lawful requirement that all Americans have to get health insurance, you can ignore the law for two years, into 2016. Nowhere in the legislation does it grant the President to do such a delay but he seems to think he can do it anyway. 

We said he did it secretly because he never announced it via a press release or a news conference or a media interview. We said he did it almost silently since he buried this unlawful and un-Constitutional action deep inside an obscure rule that dealt with Obama Care insurance requirements. So much for his “transparency” pledge when he was running for President.

In order to escape from the insurance mandate requirement, you have to fill out a government form and attest that you find the individual mandate to be a financial or other type of “hardship.” You do not have to prove it is a hardship, just have to state it is a hardship and you are exempted. But just about anyone could fall into this self reported category if they wanted to.

Too bad we cannot do this type of self exemption from all Federal laws. Personally, I would exempt myself from the Federal income tax law, freeing up my money to be used for my family and my priorities and not be wasted by the Washington political class.

Two really pathetic aspects of this action:

• First, it is illegal and un-Constitutional. The President is charged with executing the laws that have been enacted as they were written and enacted. He does not get to treat laws as merely suggestions that he can chose to follow or ignore or change at his whim. They are laws, not suggestions.
• Second, the Wall Street Journal recently pointed out that the White House claimed at the Supreme Court hearings that the Obama Care individual mandate to buy insurance was indispensable to the law’s success. Therefore, if the President continues to delay the insurance mandate for years into the future, does that make the law and legislation null and void? You cannot have it both ways, it is either indispensable or it is a trivial matter that can be unilaterally delayed. And if it is a trivial matter that can be delayed, does that void the Supreme Court decision and argument that it was Constitutional? 

The lawlessness of the President’s actions sets a tremendously bad precedent for the future. If he is allowed to get away with this type of behavior, what is to prevent future Presidents from doing the same types of things, using laws merely as suggestions and not requirements? At that point you are no longer living in a democracy, you are living in a dictatorship.

That will do it for today: a piece of Federal legislation that is coming close to killing Americans and placing tremendous and unnecessary financial burdens on them, a piece of Federal legislation that is coming nowhere close to attaining its objectives in being affordable and signing up people who were previously uninsured, and a piece of Federal legislation that the President is using to undermine the rule of law in this country, both relative to Obama Care and every other law in the land.

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:

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:

Term Limits Now:http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

Update: You Are Not Living In A Free Country If... - IRS Oppression, Press Intimidation, Callous Death In Benghazi

Many times in this blog we have painfully pointed out how we are no longer living in a free country. This may be tough news to swallow, it may be difficult to believe, but if you look at the facts, Americans now live under an oppressive, callous, selfish, vindictive Federal government and political class.

It has not happened over night. But over time, the political class has chipped away small pieces of our liberty until you wake up one day and realize that what at first were tiny little chips have become huge chunks of lost freedom. What we used to take for granted as free Americans is now viewed by the politicians in this country as their their domain, and their right to do as these please, paying lip service or no attention to the freedoms guaranteed by the inconveniences of the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

The past three weeks have made this trend all the more evident, with startling revelations that the IRS has been turned into a political weapon of the Obama administration to harass and burden Americans with opposing political and religious views and suppress their freedom of speech rights.

The press and journalism industry found out recently that this administration will do as they please to secretly spy on and obtain information on the inner workings of the press, suppressing the freedom of the press guaranteed by the Bill of Rights.

And the entire country found out that this administration holds the promise of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" in contempt when someone in the Obama administration denied military relief and left over 20 Americans alone to die in the midst to a terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya.

Late last year, we laid out our case to prove that we are no longer living in a free country. The entirety of that post is listed below. However, to that list of shame from December, let us add the following transgressions against freedom that have come to light in just the past few weeks:

- You are no longer living in a free country when the political class uses the IRS to harass, threaten, and strong arm Americans and non-profit political groups that have a different political viewpoint than the current Presidential administration, as what happened with Tea Party and conservative citizens, political campaign donors, and political non-profit groups.

- You are not longer living in a free country when the political class uses the IRS to harass, threaten and strong arm peaceful religious organizations, as what happened with several Christian and Jewish religious organizations and non-profits.

- You are no longer living in a free country when the free press can have the phone logs of its reporters and telephones secretly taken with no apparent approval of a judge or grand jury proceeding, as what happened when the Associated Press learned that the phone logs of its reporters and its organization were secretly obtained by the Obama administration.

- You are no longer living in a free country when members of the political class can sacrifice innocent American lives to further their political gains, as what happened when military relief was denied to over two dozen Americans fighting a terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya.

And you are no longer living in a free country, as witnessed by the following transgressions against freedom that we highlighted back in December:

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December 31, 2012

As we start the new year, one would hope that we could look forward to better times and better lives. However, in the U.S. democracy, that might be a tall order, given the obscene growth and reach of the Federal government in this country and the politicians that operate it. We have previously discussed this erosion of freedom and the perverting of liberty principles in the following popular post:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-freedom-pyramid-where-it-is-and.html

Given this review of how a democracy should work, read the following and then you decide if you think you are still living in a free country:

- You are not living in a free country if your retirement medical care, via Medicare, is dependent on the actions and whims of Federal government politicians.

- You are not living in a free country if a large percentage of your retirement cash flow, via Social Security, is dependent on the actions and whims of Federal government politicians.

- You are not living in a free country if your pre-retirement medical care, via the ramifications of Obama Care, is dependent on the actions and whims of Federal government politicians.

- You are not living in a free country if your ability to go to college, via student loans, is dependent on the actions and whims of Federal government politicians.

- You are not living in a free country if your ability to get a home mortgage, via Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, is dependent on the actions and whims of Federal government politicians.

- You are not living in a free country if almost a third of your annual earnings go to taxes to support all levels of wasteful inefficient, and criminally infested government programs and entities.

- You are not living in a free country if the Federal government’s executive branch can commit U.S. military resources and taxpayer wealth to foreign military actions (e.g. Libya, Yemen, Syria) without Congressional or Constitutional approval.

- You are not living in a free country if the Federal government’s executive branch can independently and arbitrarily designate any American for assassination and then actually commit that assassination without due process of law (e.g. Anwar al-Awlaki).

- You are not living in free country when the Federal government can hold a U.S. citizen in prison for an indefinite period of time without due process of law if that government arbitrarily defines that citizen as a potential threat to national security (National Defense Authorization Act - NDAA)

- You are not living in a free country when a President can seize control of all forms of communications when it alone decides it is in the national interest (Executive Order - Assignment of National Security and Emergency Preparedness Communications Functions)

- You are not living in a free country when the Federal government can collect and store every electronic communication any citizen makes (e.g. email, text messages) in massive data storage centers (e.g. Bluffdale, Utah) without due process, a warrant, or privacy protection.

- You are not living in a free country when the Federal government executive branch thinks it can affix a GPS tracking device to any citizen’s car without a warrant (see U.S. Vs. Jones decision).

- You are not living in a free country when the executive branch thinks it has the power to arbitrarily ignore judicial rulings and existing laws (e.g. Gulf Of Mexico drilling moratorium and DOMA).

- You are not living in a free country when government agents, via TSA, are allowed to legally grope and grab U.S. citizen’s body parts in the name of national security.

- You are not living in a free country if government and political class spending has rung up trillions of dollars of national debt that will eventually have to be paid by you, your children, and your grandchildren.

- You are not living in a free country if you privacy rights can be almost arbitrarily be violated by the Patriot Act and the NDAA legislation.

- You are not living in a free country when crony capitalism wastes billions of taxpayer dollars every year without any redeeming societal benefits (e.g. Solyndra, Fisker, Telsa).

- You are not living in a free country if your political leaders hold you and your opinions in contempt:

• House Speaker Nancy Pelosi - those Americans that opposed Obama's health care reform effort are un-American.
• Congressman Charles Rangel - those Americans that opposed Obama's health care reform effort are like the racists that opposed the civil rights movements in the 1960s.
• Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid - American tourists that come to D.C. in the summer physically smell.
• Congressman Dick Grayson - those Americans with a different opinions from him are knuckle dragging Neanderthals.
• House Speaker Nancy Pelosi - those Americans against the building of a mosque close to Ground Zero in New York City needed to be investigated.
• Congresswoman Shelia Jackson Lee - Tea Party members used to wear Ku Klux Klan white sheets.
• Congresswoman Maxine Walters - Tea Party advocates “can go to hell."
• Czar Van Jones - those opposed to the President's policies are a_ _ h_ _ _ s.
• Vice President Joe Biden and other Democrats in Congress - Those Americans that support Tea Party principles are terrorists.

- You are not living in a free country if the executive branch can circumvent Constitutionally mandated government appointment reviews via a "czar" politburo.

- You are not living in a free country when politicians can use billions of taxpayer dollars, via earmarks, to finance their perpetual re-election campaigns.

- You are not living in a free country where politicians decide what private companies live (e.g. Citigroup) and what private companies die (e.g. Lehman Brothers.)

- You are not living in a free country when those in office can maximize their re-election chances with favorable gerrymandering of Congressional districts.

- You are not living in a free country if your selection of a Presidential candidate for the Democratic Party via the primary and caucus system can be overturned by a small cadre of insiders in the upper echelon of the party called "super delegates."

- You are not living in a free country when sitting politicians can automatically grant themselves annual pay increases regardless of how poorly they led the nation during the past year.

- You are not living in a free country when sitting politicians cannot be removed from Congressional committee posts regardless of how poorly they performed their jobs on those committees (e.g. Intelligence committee members who did not foresee the 9-11 attacks, Finance committee members who did not foresee the coming of the "Great Recession", Interior Department committee members that did not properly oversee the BP oil rig inspection process, etc.)

- You are not living in a free country when any level of government can seize your property for a supposedly fair price and turn it over to developers for a private sector development project.

- You are not living in a free country when perceived and actual voter fraud casts significant doubt on whether or not your vote was counted fairly and if the true winner prevailed.

So let's review. Politicians control our pocketbooks, our health care, our retirement funding, who we vote for, invade our privacy, read our electronic communications, potentially manipulate our voting results, violate our property rights, and control our ability to get a mortgage or student loan while calling us names if we dare to disagree with them. Hardly sounds like the traditional definition of a democracy to me.

The beauty of this system, that the political class has worked out for themselves, is that they are able to keep us fighting among ourselves. This diverts our attention to the fact that our freedom and liberty have slowly been stripped away. We have reached a point in this country that a great portion of our lives is no longer controlled by our brains, our energy, our freedom, and our initiative but by about 600 people sitting in Congress and the executive branch of the Federal government.

We vehemently, and fruitlessly, fight among ourselves over relatively trivial issues while the political class strips us of our wealth and our liberty without ever solving a major issue:

• We are no closer to a rational drug policy in this country since Nixon declared War On Drugs in the 1960s, with this void allowing a narco state to develop just south of our border with Mexico.
• We are no closer to a rational and coherent national energy policy despite the oil crises from the 1970s.
• We are no closer to having world class public schools despite the warning of failing public schools from early in the Reagan administration and the expenditure of trillions of dollars since then.
• We are no closer to having a coherent and effective immigration plan and strategy.
• We are no closer to having an effective strategy for containing escalating health care costs.
• We are no closer to having a sane, balanced budget process for the Federal government with the political class spending trillions of dollars more than they bring in in revenue.

We no longer live in a free country and we have allowed the politicians to do it to us. That is why it is so important to begin the cleansing process and the restoration of freedom with the implementation of the following steps, some of which were laid out in "Love My Country, Loathe My Government:

Step 1 - reduce Federal spending by 10% a year for five years in order to tame our out of control political class spending.

Step 14 - implement specific and fair processes to eliminate the current gerrymandering process for Congressional districts.

Step 17 - eliminate the "Super Delegate" process

Step 19 - strengthen eminent domain laws to prevent the arbitrary confiscation of private property.

Steps 20, 21, 22 - Make the following changes to the Patriot Act to protect the privacy of citizens: review every section of the Act to see if each part is still really needed for national security, make it illegal to intercept any form of communications of a citizen without a judge-approved warrant, notify any citizen if they have been investigated and cleared by any government agency investigation, and finally appoint the members to the oversight committee of the Act, a committee that has never been staffed.

Step 28 - repeal Obama Care, an atrocity that imposes thousands of rules and dozens of taxes on the nation without solving the root causes of our escalating health care costs and replace it with the process described in Step 28.

Step 34 - implement a citizen approval process that would remove politicians from Congressional committees for gross dereliction of duty.

Step 37 - eliminate the Congressional process that automatically grants an annual pay increase to Congressional members, replacing it with a citizen satisfaction based pay system.

Step 39 - implement term limits for all Federal politicians in order to get some fresh thinking and problem solvers involved with the myriad issues facing America, "one and done."

Disband the czar process and restore the Constitutionally mandated checks and balances of our government processes.

Time is running out to fix what the political class has destroyed in this country from a liberty, privacy, freedom, budget, economic, and Constitution perspective. We have allowed this situation to arise and we are the ones that need to fix it. Otherwise, some morning we will wake up and realize that fifty years ago, Nikita Khrushchev got it right when he said:

"You Americans are so gullible. No, you won't accept communism outright; but we'll keep feeding you small doses of Socialism until you will finally wake up and find that you already have communism. We won't have to fight you; we will so weaken your economy until you fall like overripe fruit into our hands." Nikita Khrushchev, 1962

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To this ignoble list we now add the ghost of Nixon past: the political use of the IRS to go after political enemies and the destruction of the freedom of the press. Shameful, both on the political class and ourselves for letting this happen. What will you do about it? Take action or prove Khrushchev right?

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:

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.reason.com/
http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

Do As I Say, Not As I Do - The Dichotomy Between Washington And The Rest Of The Country

One of the strengths of the United States had always been the diffusion of power throughout the population. "One person, one vote" was a great way to make sure that power, wealth, and freedom was dispersed to everyone, not concentrated in the hands of just a small group of people. Throughout history, concentration of power, whether it was in the French monarchy, the Soviet Politburo, or vicious dictators, was a surefire way to restrict freedom and the richness of life for the masses.

I say that this "was" one of the strengths of America since if you are observing what is going on in this country recently, our votes are becoming more and more less important while the power and freedom in this country is becoming more and more concentrated in Washington, the home of our Federal political class. Consider:

1) In Washington, according to a Bloomberg report that was summarized  in the November 4, 2011 issue of The Week magazine, Washington D.C. is now the wealthiest metro area in the country, with the typical D.C. household having an average income of $84,523.

In the rest of the country, as reported in that same issue of  The Week by the Washington Post, half of all U.S. workers earned less than $26,364 in 2010, which was the lowest median wage level since 1999. A household, in the rest of the country, with two average earners would earn only about $52,000 a year, roughly 40% less than a household in the Washington area.

CSM Monitor recently reported that that country's standard of living "has fallen longer and more steeply over the past three years" than at any time since the government started tracking the statistic over fifty years ago. I am assuming this trend is not happening in the Washington D.C. area.

2) In Washington, according to CBS News, as reported in the November 11, 2011 issue of The Week magazine, members of the House of Representatives earn over $170,000 a year, more than three times the average household income of the typical American household. However, those Congress people will be in Congressional session only 109 workdays in 2012 while in recess for 151 weekdays, primarily to be able to focus more on their re-election than the business of the country. In January, August, and October of 2012, they are scheduled to work six days, three days, and five days, respectively.

In the rest of the country, 14 million Americans do not have a job, millions more are underemployed, and millions are working two or more jobs in order to make ends meet. The vast majority of Americans are working well over 109 workdays a year for far less than $170,000.

3) According to a June 2, 2011 issue of the Wall Street Journal, the Washington D.C. area is the only metro area in the country where housing prices increased on a year over year basis, according to the S&P/Case Shiller home price index. This was caused by a number of factors including stable employment, fewer foreclosures, and a steady stream of house hunters.  According to the Journal's report, other surveys indicate sales in the D.C. area are approaching boom-time levels.

In the rest of the country, housing prices continued to decline in most metro areas, foreclosures are clogging the housing market in the rest of the country, with no relief in sight, and the housing market in most U.S. metro areas is no where close to "boom times."

4) In Washington, over 50% of the members of Congress are in the top 1% of income earners in the country, according to an analysis in the November 4, 2011 issue of The Week magazine.

In the rest of the country, 1% of the population is in the top 1% of the income earners in the country.

5) In Washington, it apparently does not matter whether or not you do your job, you get to keep your job regardless. The prime example of this phenomenon comes from a recent article in Politco that was summarized  in the November 11, 2011 issue of The Week magazine. This article reported that although the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill was signed into law 15 months ago, the government agencies responsible for writing the required regulations of the law have missed more than 75% of the law's implementation deadlines.

In the rest of the country, if a typical worker missed over 75% of their deadlines, they would quickly be replaced by someone from the millions and millions of other Americans who are in need of a full time job.

6) According to a July 21, 2011 article in the National Journal, the lobbying business in Washington continues to thrive. Lobbyists continue to help their corporate and union clients to influence the government regulations needed as a result of Obama Care, Dodd-Frank, and other legislation and find ways around the tightening of earmarks to keep special interest money flowing. 

In the rest of the country, every American has only one vote to oppose the billions and billions of lobbyist dollars currently flowing into Washington to influence special interests.

7) In Washington, the political class enjoys inexpensive, high quality health care, receives automatic annual pay raises regardless of how poorly they perform their jobs, and enjoys very lucrative traditional pensions.

In the rest of the country, tens of millions of Americans are about to be lose their current health insurance coverage and be forced into government run health insurance exchanges because of how poorly Obama Care was written, most Americans are happy to just have a job, never mind getting a raise, and very few working people outside of Washington are now able to get a traditional pension.

You get the idea. As power gets more and more concentrated, power gets more and more easily to corrupt. As freedom and liberty get more and more concentrated, freedom and liberty get easier to restrict. We are quickly devolving into the French monarchy or the Soviet Politburo (made that much more ominous by Obama's word choice of "czars" for the shadow government he has established in the White House).

None of these developments bode well for liberty. To combat this creeping political class domination, several steps from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" need to be taken quickly to save our democracy:

• Step 39 - this step would impose term limits on all Federal politicians so that they would be "one and done," serving one term in office and then retiring from national politics. Today's politicians are more concerned about staying in office then fixing what is wrong with the country. Restricting them to one term would put a sense of urgency and focus back into their work habits.
• Step 37 - this step would move the performance appraisal function into the hands of Americans citizens, they would determine if and how much of a pay raise politicians would receive each year. No more automatic pay raises for Washington.
• Step 34 - this step would kick Congressional committee members off of their respective committees for bad or non-performance of their jobs on that committee. It is called accountability, no more free passes on bad performance.
• Step 41 - would prevent any Congressional member or President from drawing a Federal paycheck if their net worth was over $3 million when they came into office. Given that 50% of Congress falls into the upper 1% of the nation's earners, this should not be a hardship for most members of the Federal political class. These people should be in Washington to serve the nation and not to serve their personal wealth needs.
• Step 42 - this step establishes financial benchmarks that would cut off Secret Service coverage and other government expense coverage after a President leaves office if that President was wealthy enough to afford his or her own protection. Again, serving the country in political office should be a service calling, not an opened ended bank account for multi-millionaires.
• Step 9 - this step would terminate the tradition government pension benefit for all Federal workers hired in the future and would terminate the traditional pension benefit for all current and past members of Congress immediately. This would force the current and past set of politicians to survive their retirement on Social Security, 401k-like plans, and their personal savings, just like the rest of most of America.
• Step 6 - this step would allow only individual Americans to contribute to election campaigns, hopefully removing much of the oversized corporate, union, PAC, lobbyists, and other special interest money flowing into Washington, money that dilutes the cherished "one person, one vote" principle.

The ultimate first step would be to defeat and remove all incumbents from office next November. We have to find a way to eliminate the dichotomy of haves vs. have nots in this country, i.e., a dichotomy of the out-of-touch political class vs. the rest of America. Failure to do so will result in the further development of an elitist, pompous political class who enrich themselves while never solving the problems facing the nation.





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/