Over the last several years conservatives have strived to define what a true constitutional conservative is and how to know if a candidate is one. I believe that the answer is simple but understanding what they really believe can only be found in the substance of their answers which is a little harder to grasp.
Every person has a paradigm, or a philosophy on life, through which, they evaluate everything. The same holds true for their philosophy of government.
A candidate can always answer according to what they think you want to hear. Unfortunately we neglect to catch this before an election and often we find out the person does not measure up when it is too late. This is because we fail to use their answers to understand what their philosophy of government is. Personally, I really couldn’t care less about their answers to any issue because that will not tell me how they will vote on issues that don’t even exist yet. What I am looking for is what they believe about constitutional government. If their thinking is right I can be pretty well assured they will be constitutionally correct on issues now and in the future.
Here is a glaring example of how to know what a candidate believes.
At a recent forum/debate of congressional candidates in NC8, this question was asked; would you fight for “Federal recognition” for Lumbee Indians? All but one said yes to the question. How revealing!
The Lumbee Indians already have Federal recognition. (1) What they are looking to acquire now is welfare. What these candidates told me is that they are not opposed to an expansion of entitlements for this group. Now I know that they believe in the expansion of the Federal government through entitlements and that this philosophy would be an acceptable measurement when the next select people group cry for a hand-out. This thinking (philosophy of government), is a direct contradiction to a constitutional conservatives understanding of sound government and I should add, all that we have fought for in the last three years.
Worse yet, do those candidates not know they would be relegating the Lumbee Tribe to perpetual poverty? All “Federally recognized” tribes in the U.S. suffer from poverty and alcoholism. Two of those tribes bear the distinction of the highest poverty rates in the entire nation (2) (3) so what are they thinking!? Here is what their answer said to me… I believe that we should legislate that the American people be saddled with another debt (never ending entitlement), that will ensure the Lumbee Indians will be impoverished for all generations to come. That is not the type of person we need to represent us in congress. I would not want this on my back so they don’t get my vote!
For the record, Vernon Robinson was the one person who had the constitutional knowledge and the guts to answer the question correctly and honestly. Besides the issue of reparations Vernon reminds u s that we are borrowing .43 of every dollar we spend and most of that is from a credit card we acquired from the communist Chinese. So in addition to a wrong philosophy of government we have to add that they are willing to spend more money. To that I ask what part of “we are broke” are you missing? This is the brand of conservatism we are tired of. It is false and pandering in the least…for the worst I hold my tongue.
This was originally written in the fall of 2010
As the Tea Party Revolution has run the race thus far we've experienced allot of heartache and a few victories. Now that we are midstream of a horrible nightmare we look forward with hope that our new congress will do the right thing.
I have been ridiculed many times over the last 18 months for honestly revealing the true nature of the Republican Party. I even said that we can expect a backlash from the Party operatives, officials and the faithful. There was no great insight. I have spoken from the same knowledge you have. What we are experiencing is a backlash for exposing their very clear and unmistakable track record. Just the facts.
Conservatives in this nation have relied on the Republican Party to hold and advance conservatism. The Party must be given credit for trying but most often it has been too little too late. Meanwhile what they have done is contributing to the devastation of our nation. The facts speak for themselves. They have failed to advance the fundamental tenets of limited government, free markets and individual self government and instead have contributed enormously to the expansion of government power over U.S. citizens and to globalism and one world government. This is leading to the destruction of national sovereignty and towards a western hemisphere socialist state.
We are left with no option but to come out and fight to to reverse the destructive trend our Republican leaders have set in place and seem destined to stay that course by growing government. During the "lame duck" session, Democrats and Republicans alike set out to compromise and the result? Government grew again - Remember Senator Burr and the "Food Act"? Both Parties bragged about accomplishing so much. If this is what we are to expect, our troubles are not over.
Our most fundamental battle is that of restoring truly limited government and maintaining state and national sovereignty, which means to us; a: stop growth and b: shrink the government to something that resembles what the constitution intended it to be and c: resist the globalist agenda to turn our world into socialist hemispheres ruled by the UN and its financial tentacles.
As we have advanced our activism from rallies against massive debt to getting out the vote the Republican Party has fought against the candidates we have supported while instead promoting candidates that are socialists and at best RINO's.
Can you believe this? Leading up to the elections of 2010 and now, more than ever the Republican Party insists on taking credit for our grass roots efforts. Could they do anything else more offensive? Allowing credit to go where it is due, it is only fair to say that there was some real grass roots work being done by party regulars but the vast majority of the energy expended has been a direct result of the onset of the Tea Party Revolution. In addition to this, the amount of personal investment of Tea Partiers into grass roots activism has been far greater as I know of many who have lost homes and personal savings in order to fund our activities. That is how committed we are.
As Republicans continue to promote big government politicians to various positions it is clear that they don't intend to change and they still do not listen to us. Is there anyone who can tell me they believe that the Republican Party will actually stop government growth or shrink government?
Do you believe that they will repeal anything? Remember the revolution of 94? Their promises of repeals never materialized. This fact has been around for years. For more on what others are saying about the revolution of "94 Go Here
The basic Republican philosophy has been big government, giving in to and promoting special interests and just sticking with the status quo.
There is a bright spot in all of this. The "Tea Party" activists have made clear and unmistakable gains in elections at both the voting booth and the party elections at the county level. Many counties voted in majorities of new activists that hold true to conservative values. At least one, led by Heather Harrison in Cumberland County won the whole slate of candidates.
With that said, it has become more important than ever to bring our activism within our state borders. Along with trying to change government from the outside, we must begin to change it from the inside which means we must take over the Republican Party from the precinct to the county and upwards.
It is time for new leadership. You know it, I know it and the Party knows it BUT once again they thumb their noses at us, further inciting us to despise the country club attitude that is destroying our nation right along side the progressive agenda. They have an unprecedented opportunity to make friends with us and work with us and it seems they are intent on keeping us out of the picture until they need our votes. This is a foolish strategy. If we are strong enough to put them in office, we are strong enough to take them out.
We are in the beginning of a bottom up effort to take back politics for the common people. This IS a winnable effort. They did this in less that 15 months in Utah and kicked out "Bailout" Bob Bennett. This is doable in NC and I am expecting you to get into a fight that we can win. Lets take our state back so that we can stand up to the Federal Government and Nullify their unconstitutional efforts to control the states!
M Kelly, Founder, We The People NC
See for yourself
I would say that most of us have reflected on our history in hopes of understanding how we got to where we are today and indeed, we must understand our own history and ourselves if we are to make sense of the events of today.
My family started here as migrants from Italy and Ireland. On my fathers side they settled in DC and my mother’s family settled in Virginia. My mother’s family was the Settlino’s and changed their last name to Settle and of coarse my fathers last name was O’Kelly before becoming the Americanized Kelly’s. This was a common practice where immigrants changed their names to assimilate into the American population. This prevailing view showed respect for the great America they so wanted to be a part of.
My parents moved to Massachusetts while my mother was carrying me in her womb.
I grew up in a family of 7 children in a liberal household and believed as many do; the government is responsible to right all the social and economic wrongs by forcing “change”, a code word for controlling society and economy.
When I turned 18 I moved to Texas and later to N. Virginia and DC and still later to NC.
I have been self-employed for most of my life and have a first hand understanding of government interference in the affairs of business. I have preached for many years about the evils of a government police state or better stated, Fascism.
At 3 my parents divorced and my father moved back to DC where he built a successful electronics business (TV’s, radios and such), with 3 stores. During the DC riots of 68 and 69 his stores were looted and burned to the ground. My father never recovered and what was to be my inheritance was taken by violence.
The late 1960’s and early 70’s was a time where massive social discontent re-defined America and bred those who rule in the halls of power today. They are idealists like we are. They protested like we have, but unlike us, they were violent. Today they wear suits but let us not be fooled. When we show them that we are stronger at the polls they will agitate and ultimately condone violence as a means to accomplish their goals and they will claim and blame the cause of violence on the typical targets they’ve been busy hammering.
Not unlike the Revolutionary War or the Civil War, the violence of the 60’s was the beginning of what has become today the precipice of another great change in America. Massive social discontent is rising. We are teetering on a revolution where two opposing ideologies are competing for the future of our nation.
One is peaceful and prefers the proven benefits of a stable Federal Republic and abiding by the rules of representation, our constitution and the original amendments that brought guarantees of freedom for all.
The other seeks to impose a communist style government that takes possession of all property and progressively taxes those who have money in order that they may first, take for themselves and then to distribute the rest among those who do not have.
Their plan to “Fundamentally transform America as we know it’ comes from the husband and wife team of Richard Clower and Frances fox Piven and is known as the Clower Piven Strategy; to overwhelm the system. Combined with Saul Alinsky’s tactics to agitate the political system, corporations and banks by intimidation, it has become the perfect recipe to force us into a Fascist/Communist state. The current blueprint, managed by the Democrat Party is to run up massive debt by borrowing against the tax revenues of present and future generations. Then…..
At the same time they “Create a target and freeze it”. Blame the rich for not giving their fair share. Blame right wing extremists and Republicans for starving the children. Blame the Tea Party for hijacking the Republican Party from the “center”. The list goes on…
Mortgaging our future through massive debt and making those who create wealth solely responsible to pay it back is the ultimate in the distribution of wealth. This is also class warfare at its best.
There is one caveat in this whole scenario; at the same time they are demonizing and demoralizing wealth creators and destroying our ability to create wealth through regulations, laws and legal challenges, they are agitating freedom loving Americans. These have an inherent understanding of their own right to sustain life and to apply their labors that they might increase their prosperity. They are rising up. They have put themselves to learning of the importance of private property, self-government, free conscience and free market economy and they are defending it! This is leading to a showdown of significant historical proportions.
Other good resources:
Democratic Party members speaking the truth.
The principles of wealth creation
Wealth is not created on Wall Street. Wall Street can only profit from wealth that has already been created.
Government stimulus programs don’t create wealth either. You can’t buy labor without existing wealth, which makes buying labor possible.
Borrowing money to start or sustain a business will not create wealth.
Trade surpluses or imbalances are out too.
You cannot transfer wealth and expect a covetous people to sustain it.
The creation of wealth can’t even exist without 2 fundamental ingredients that have nothing to do with money of any kind. In fact money itself, whether paper or gold or any means of exchange cannot exist without these two ingredients. They are intricately tied to the very survival of mankind yet this fundamental and necessary truth is completely overlooked.
Shortly before our American Revolution, William Blackstone published “Commentaries on the laws of England”. His work had a major influence on the Founders and is the basis to our understanding of unalienable rights. Above all the rights enumerated there are three “principle or primary articles”; the right of personal security, the right of personal liberty and the right of (possessing) private property.
These rights should never be understated or restricted as they form the foundation of wealth production. If they are diminished in any way, wealth will diminish equally.
Reading Blackstone’s commentaries would be very valuable but there is also another worthy source to learn of these great natural rights and that comes from Frederic Bastiat. Bastiat asserted that the sole purpose of government is to defend and protect the right of an individual to life, liberty and property. From this definition, Bastiat concluded that the law cannot defend life, liberty and property if it promotes socialist policies, which are inherently opposed to these very things. In this way, he says, the law is perverted and turned against the thing it is supposed to defend. “In The Law, Bastiat explains that if the privileged classes use the government for "legalized plunder" this will encourage the lower classes to revolt or use socialist "legalized plunder" and that the correct response to both the socialists and the corporatists is to cease all "legalized plunder".
Bastiat also explains why his position is that the law cannot defend life, liberty and property if it promotes socialist policies. When used to obtain "legalized plunder" for any group, he says, the law is perverted and turned against the thing it is supposed to defend.
To this I add that the protection of these rights allows us to create wealth and by Bastiat’s description socialist policies to “spread the wealth around” necessarily destroy these natural rights, thus actually stop the creation of wealth.
Note: There are two resources that I believe give the simplest and most thorough explanation for an understanding of the relationship of natural law to the creation of wealth.
Real wealth is based upon the free exercise of our natural rights.
We must be secure in our self and possessions.
We must be secure in our liberties.
We must be secure in our property.
Lets take a trip to the outskirts of a small town where everybody is growing gardens where we can learn how this works in a practical way.
David has grown a bumper crop of melons but he needs other goods and services too, so he goes to visit Joe. Joe has a garden too and he grew cantaloupe. David tells Joe that he would like some of his cantaloupe and asks if he would trade a melon for one and Joe says sure I’d like a melon!
What just happened is that the fruits became a means for exchange because these men decided they wanted or needed what the other had.
Now, Joe goes in the house and cuts that melon up for his family. They find it is the most delicious melon they ever had and Joe proceeds to call David and ask that they trade for more melons. Just after that, Joe’s wife Jane gets on the phone and calls Sally and rants to her about how delicious Joes Melons are and Sally gets on the phone to David. Before long the whole town is knocking on David’s door wanting to make a trade for some of David’s melons. David’s melons are becoming more valuable because everybody wants them.
Thus far I have articulated how value is created by want or need but we must go a step further, or I should say deeper. The two ingredients that I mentioned earlier must be in place before the melons are used as a valuable exchange.
Where did David get the melons that are becoming so valuable?
David got them from his garden but did the garden happen all by itself?
Obviously not. It required the two ingredients of labor and land. If we do not apply ourselves to harvesting the resources of the earth we have nothing with, which to create value, which must happen before wealth is generated.
What I have said thus far looks like this.
1. The earth’s resources already exist.
2. We must labor to draw those resources out, first for survival, then in abundance.
3. We can create value in what we take or make from the earth if it is what others need or want.
4. Increased value gets a greater return.
A man has a piece of land and he uses it to grow a garden and raise animals for food. He uses it to harvest trees and to grow cotton to house and cloth his family. He uses the land to provide for his survival. Man needs the land to survive.
If he uses the land to produce an abundance of valuable goods, which are better quality, or cheaper or in great demand he can trade for a greater return than what he is able to produce himself. This is how David will become wealthier.
The two ingredients are labor and land. Whether they work together to create wealth depends on whoever is governing.
The foundation of wealth creation is private property ownership where men are free to provide for their basic needs and to provide an abundance of the things that others may want or need.
Where do jobs come from?
David, realizing that his melons are increasing in value he decides that one melon should be worth two cantaloupes or more than one bushel of corn. As a result of David charging more for his valuable melons he is receiving more traded goods for the same melon.
So David gets an idea. Now that he has something the people want he decides to grow more of them. But he has a problem. He has more land, but with the last crop he spent all the time he has and there is no way he has the time to cultivate a larger crop.
Since he’s getting a greater return and has stored up plenty of food and other things he has traded for he decides that he could afford to pay a share of his increase to someone that will help him cultivate more land.
5. Greater return allows us to buy the labors of others to produce more from the earth.
This is how to get more people to work!
Now David has the market locked up on the melons (monopoly), so John down the street pushes for legislation to correct the problem…….NOT!
Not to be outdone, John down the street is free to grow melons too and he decides he wants a piece of that pie. After all everyone wants David’s melons and John believes that he can grow one just as good so the next year he grows melons. What just happened to David’s monopoly? Competition from John is going to challenge it. So now if David is going be able to sell all those extra melons that he is growing this year he is going have to be more creative and it is inevitable that he will battle with John over price and or quality.
Competition always challenges monopolies, always drives price down and drives quality up.
What if there was something like a government that for whatever reason could keep David and John from using their land to grow more melons? By stopping the use of the earth that government would reduce value, competition, employment, price, quality, needed labor and ultimately wealth creation.
Lets look at some present day examples of how government has interfered with the creation of wealth.
What happened to oil drilling in the gulf? How many billions has it cost the economies of the Gulf? How many more are out of work?
What is happening to the mining for coal and the use of it to produce electricity?
How about the harvesting of trees or minerals used to make products?
Whenever anybody or a government restricts or stops the harvesting of the earth it is impossible to create wealth…or jobs!
The Demoralizing nature of Government interference.
If these men can’t expand their enterprise what will they do? There is no incentive to do anything more than to grow enough for their own survival if they are even allowed to do that. Like the gulf oil and numerous other examples the creation of wealth stops, incentive is reduced to just what it takes to survive….jobs are lost…..no jobs are created.
Now what if that government starts dictating how these men are able to use their land; How many animals they can have, what crops they can grow or even if they are allowed to harvest trees to house themselves or what light bulbs they are allowed to have.
Survival is an instinct, a necessity of self preservation and to the extent that you restrict the right of man to provide for themselves and their families is the extent to which you will demoralize him into apathy or you will provoke a defense of this most basic need. This is why private property ownership and the freedom to use it are so important.
Restricting the use of land breeds poverty and worse can provoke wars.
I have said for years, when we look to the government to correct problems that should be corrected by another means, the government only creates more problems and more costs for us all.
I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them” and “Most bad government has grown out of too much government. TJ
Ronald Reagan said “Government is not the solution to our problem, Government is the problem”.
Government intervention has created billions and billions of increased costs for consumers “under the pretense of taking care of them”.
Recently I opened another account at my bank. They insisted I do all my future transactions with a debit card and told me there would be no fees on my account if I did so. I told them it was nice but that I expected it wont be long before they change that policy with a stroke of the pen. The service personnel looked at me like I was some kook. Frank/Dodd had already been signed into law and they were totally unaware of it.
The warnings were posted all over the internet and more so than anywhere else, on Tea Party sites.
The following is a good example of why government cannot fix our problems.
October 3, 2011
A provision in last year’s Dodd-Frank financial regulatory bill is costing banks billions of dollars. So banks are passing these new costs on to consumers in the form of new fees on debit cards and other once-free services.
Under the Durbin Amendment–named for its sponsor, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL)–the federal government now limits the amount of money banks can charge merchants when you swipe your debit card. This costs banks an estimated $6.6 billion per year—and banks are looking to consumers to make up the difference.
Read the rest here.
Herman Cain will unite conservatives of all stripes in the race to come. He will ride a new wave to the presidency, much like his predecessor did.
1. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity, by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity
2. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.
3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.
4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.
5. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work, because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation...
6. The earth provides all that is needed to sustain life and man labors to harvest its provision. If one man can take from another, his property, he will either impoverish him or provoke a bitter defense.
7. Prosperity happens when man takes from the earth and makes something that others want or need.
8. Poverty happens when man stops taking from the earth or is not allowed to trade his labors.
9. How much right a man has to his property has always determined the rise or fall of nations.
I would say that most of us have reflected on our history in hopes of understanding how we got to where we are today and indeed, we must understand our own history and ourselves if we are to make sense of the events of today.
My family started here as migrants from Italy and Ireland. On my fathers side they settled in DC and my mother’s family settled in Virginia. My mother’s family was the Settlino’s and changed their last name to Settle and of coarse my fathers was O’Kelly before becoming the Americanized Kelly’s.
My parents moved to Massachusetts while my mother was carrying me in her womb.
I grew up in a family of 7 children in a liberal household and believed as many do; the government is responsible to right all the social and economic wrongs by forcing “change”, a code word for controlling society and economy.
When I turned 18 I moved to Texas and later to N. Virginia and DC and still later to NC.
I have been self-employed for most of my life and have a first hand understanding of government interference in the affairs of business. I have preached for many years about the evils of a government police state or better stated, Fascism.
At 3 my parents divorced and my father moved back to DC where he built a successful electronics business (TV’s, radios and such), with 3 stores. During the DC riots of 68 and 69 his stores were looted and burned to the ground. My father never recovered and what was to be my inheritance was taken by violence.
The late 1960’s and early 70’s was a time where massive social discontent re-defined America and bred those who rule in the halls of power today. They are idealists like we are. They protested like we have, but unlike us, they were violent. Today they wear suits but let us not be fooled. When we show them that we are stronger at the polls they will agitate and ultimately condone violence as a means to accomplish their goals and they will claim and blame the cause of violence on the typical targets they’ve been busy hammering.
Not unlike the Revolutionary war or the civil war, the violence of the 60’s was the beginning of what has become today the precipice of another great change in America. Massive social discontent is rising. We are teetering on a revolution where two opposing ideologies are competing for the future of our nation.
One is peaceful and prefers the proven benefits of a stable Federal Republic and abiding by the rules of representation, our constitution and the original amendments that brought guarantees of freedom for all.
The other seeks to impose a communist style government that takes possession of all property and progressively taxes those who have money in order that they may first, take for themselves and then to distribute the rest among those who do not have.
Their plan to “Fundamentally transform America as we know it’ comes from the husband and wife team of Richard Clower and Frances fox Piven and is known as the Clower Piven Strategy; to overwhelm the system. Combined with Saul Alinsky’s tactics to agitate the political system, corporations and banks by intimidation, it has become the perfect recipe to force us into a Fascist/Communist state. The current blueprint, managed by the Democrat Party is to run up massive debt by borrowing against the tax revenues of present and future generations. Then…..
At the same time they “Create a target and freeze it”. Blame the rich for not giving their fair share. Blame right wing extremists and Republicans for starving the children. Blame the Tea Party for hijacking the Republican Party from the “center”. The list goes on…
Mortgaging our future through massive debt and making those who create wealth solely responsible to pay it back is the ultimate in the distribution of wealth. This is also class warfare at its best.
There is one caveat in this whole scenario; at the same time they are demoralizing and demonizing wealth creators they are destroying our ability to create wealth through regulations, laws and legal challenges. This is agitating freedom loving Americans who are rising up. They have put themselves to learning of the importance of private property, self-government and free market economy and they are defending it! This is leading to a showdown of significant historical proportions.
Other good resources:
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