Category Archives: Politics

Write me in for ’12

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If you’re not satisfied with the current crop of candidates, there is another option. If I were running for president, my platform would be so simple a caveman could vote for it:

  1. Every bill Congress sends me must include its Constitutional authority or I will veto it.
  2. Every spending measure they send me must result in a 1 percent decrease in total federal spending without compromising the government’s Constitutional requirements.
  3. Yes, I will shut down the government. Congress can agree to my requirements or override me.

Write me in for ’12.

DLH

When you look at your country, who do you see?

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To me, last night’s State of the Union Address represented the same kind of drivel that I’ve come to expect from all of our politicians for years. Obama went right to the boasting and political pandering that has defined national politics since I first started paying attention to it decades ago.

The centerpiece of Obama’s pandering is the idea that Americans need the government to take care of them. To the people in Washington, it’s no longer a government of, by, and for the people but a government above, around, and in front of the people.

That thought leads me to the thing that has been bothering me about this election cycle since it began way back after Obama was elected in 2008: why do we spend so much time worrying about presidents and Congresses and national politics at all? Shouldn’t those things pale in comparison to what each of us are doing as individuals wherever we are?

Last night, Obama said, ”I’m a Democrat. But I believe what Republican Abraham Lincoln believed: That Government should do for people only what they cannot do better by themselves, and no more.” The problem is that what he believes the people cannot do better themselves and what I think have nothing to do with each other at all.

If Obama believed those words the way I do, he would do exactly two things: first, he would demand that Congress include the Constitutional justification for every law it passes. If it doesn’t fit, it doesn’t go into law. Second, he would demand that Congress begin systematically dismantling the federal government until it returns to the size and scope of powers enumerated in the Constitution and its amendments.

But, Obama doesn’t believe in that at all. No, instead he believes in a government of the government, by the government, and for the government. In his view, the people need to be taken care of. They need to be ruled.

And the reason he can get away with that idea is because of you. It’s because you’re so worried about electing a president who can fix your problems instead of you fixing them yourself. It’s because you’re so worried about what’s going on in Washington that you’re not worried about what’s going on down the street. It’s because you’ve decided that the idea of being taken care of sounds kind of nice, and if you’re honest with yourself, that’s what you’re paying attention to and voting for.

So, look around you. Who do you see? Do you see a nation full of exceptional individuals who should all be given the maximum opportunity to succeed by the merits of their own work? Do you see opportunities to help others and, by doing so, help yourself? Do you see a future that lies in your hands and a destiny you determine?

Or do you see a bunch of things you want someone else to do because you don’t feel like doing it?

The sad part is that, as our government systematically dismantles our liberty in order to make us all safe and comfortable, it guarantees our demise. The history of great nations tells us that is true. And, the ones who will survive and flourish in whatever comes after that demise are the ones who take matters into their own hands.

Now, look in the mirror. Who do you see? Do you see a person ready for whatever comes next?

If not, do something about it.

DLH

Stop SOPA/PIPA

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Tomorrow, Worldview and the rest of my active websites will be blacked out from 8 a.m to 8 p.m. in protest against the Stop Online Piracy Act/Protect Intellectual Property Act wending their way through Congress right now. These are bad bills conceived for bad reasons intended for bad purposes and they should not have ever been put forward let alone have the chance to go into law.

These pieces of legislation also represent part of ongoing actions on the part of our government, bot the executive and Congress, to encroach on the liberties of individual citizens for reasons that have nothing to do with making those citizen’s lives better. Examples include the latest iterations of the Patriot Act, the social media surveillance of social media by the Department of Homeland Security, a provision in the Defense Authorization Act that allows for the indefinite detention of US citizens suspected of terrorism links, and the individual mandate provisions of the health care law.

Unless we the people–which people the government is supposed to be of, by, and for–stand up against such abuses, we have no hope of securing our liberty for ourselves or for future generations. We must act now or lose more. You can start by speaking out against SOPA/PIPA by contacting your representatives using the form from the menu on the right. Then you can go further by carefully considering how you vote in 2012. Finally, you can realize that the next election begins the moment the last one ends and become involved in the entire political process.

Act now or lose more.

DLH

Occupy Yourself, or a better way for the Occupy Wall Street protesters to succeed

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One of the ironies of the Occupy Wall Street protests is how many of the protesters refuse to acknowledge the contradiction of their outrage against the rich and corporations even as they demand taxes, jobs, and benefits from the rich and corporations. They seek to overthrow the very institutions they also want to depend on for their livelihoods and well-being, and they seem to have no plan for the chaos they could unleash if they succeed.

From my point of view, the protesters need to stop depending on Wall Street taxes, jobs, and benefits if they want to end Wall Street corruption. What they need to realize is that they can’t have it all and that they are the ones who are going to have to make something else happen if anything is going to happen at all.

I think the protests have a place in the grand scheme of making things happen because they draw attention to problems that do exist, but the protesters need to define what they’re for as much as what they’re against. And, no, they are not creating this definition by demanding more taxes on certain income earners or better benefits.

Instead, the protesters need to put their money where their mouths are, sometimes quite literally, and stop supporting the very corporate enterprises they are protesting against with their consumer habits. The sea-change these protesters could awaken in the United States, if they chose to do so, is a return to local economies for the benefit of local people, the very thing they claim, after a fashion, that they want.

And they could do so as part of their protests by seizing the opportunities for innovation and entrepreneurship the protests themselves provide. Why does the City of New York have to provide sanitation for the park where the protest is being held, for instance? Why hasn’t someone in the protest community figured out how to make this happen?

Establishing self-sufficient sanitation is one among the thousands of things the protesters and their supporters could be doing to change the way Americans think about how they do just about everything. There are opportunities in food, clothing, shelter, logistics, and even medical care that present themselves if they would take the risk to make them happen.

But they need to show the creativity and initiative to do these things first. The world is watching and waiting.

DLH

Remembering the warning we ignored

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Today is the 10th anniversary of the bombing of the USS Cole at Aden, Yemen by operatives of al Qaeda. The bombing killed seventeen sailors and wounded another 39.

The US response to the Cole bombing may well go down as one of the biggest mistakes in foreign policy history because it emboldened al Qaeda to take even bigger risks. A year later, 9/11 happened.

This chain of events cannot be more important to our current state of affairs. Actions have consequences, even when the action is failure to act. The bombing of the Cole is an example of what happens when nations do not take care of their problems or the threats arrayed against them.

We live in a time where the national instinct is to give up, and if we do so, we consign ourselves to the real risk of even worse things happening because of an emboldened enemy that will think it has won a great victory. We failed to act after the Cole bombing, and that failure helped bring 9/11. If we fail to finish the job in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere, what consequences will we bring on ourselves?

DLH

Thoughts on a Ron Paul candidacy

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There’s been a little play in the media recently (thank you, Jon Stewart) about how the rest of the media has been ignoring the strength of a Ron Paul candidacy. This can’t help but boost his legitimacy and make him a serious contender in 2012.

Be careful what you wish for.

I identify with his libertarian leanings on domestic issues and his conservative positions on things like financial and social policy, but I think his positions on things like defense and international relations make him a bad fit as our chief ambassador and commander-in-chief.

I think Ron Paul would make a great president for all the wrong reasons because he would paralyze Congress for four years at least. Either Congress would get its act together during that time or the voters would oust both Paul and many incumbents in 2016.

I think many operatives in the Democratic party hope for a Ron Paul candidacy in the same way they were ecstatic about Sarah Palin as McCain’s running mate: it is never about whether they are good candidates and always about how well their attacks will play in the media.

I don’t think Paul will get the nomination any more than I think Herman Cain will. In fact, I’d bet on a Perry-Bachmann/Bachmann-Perry ticket right now, but a lot can change in 12 months. What I do think could happen is that Paul could run as a third party candidate, and he may well be the one would could win.

I wonder if that’s really a good thing?

DLH

Is the 14th Amendment a remedy to the debt crisis? What do you think?

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One of the ideas that keeps appearing as a solution to the debt crisis is that the president could unilaterally raise the debt ceiling by using the power some see implied in Section 4 of the 14th Amendment.

The problems I see with this interpretation is that it doesn’t seem like the 14th Amendment was intended to grant any president that kind of power and that the power to spend money at all still rests firmly with Congress.

Now, I grant that the debt ceiling question results from the fact that Congress authorized spending in excess of what it authorized in borrowing, and I also grant that the president has the responsibility to ensure the sovereignty of the United States, which includes its debts.

I think the underlying problem here is that there is no check against excess by the federal government against its citizens. Granting any president the right to borrow without the approval of Congress seems like an even worse slope than deficit spending already represents.

Yet, this problem is hardly cut and dried, and I am not sure where I stand on it either. What do you think?

DLH