The U.S. Census and the U.S. Constitution

ckennedy — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 11:40:02 -0500

From the Declaration of Independence: “He [the present King of Great Britain] has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our People, and eat out their substance.”

The above statement most certainly describes, with great accuracy, any number of agencies of the federal government, the Internal Revenue Service in particular. This year, it could well apply to the U.S. Census Bureau, in its campaign (what else could we call it?) to make sure that all of the people respond to the 2010 Census.

Today, I received in the mail a little postcard, with the following return address:

U.S. Department of Commerce
Economics and Statistics Administration
U.S. Census Bureau
8411 Kelso Drive
Essex, MD 21261-6666

On the front, just above the address, set apart by a rectangular box, was the the following statement: “Your response to the U.S. Census Bureau is required by law.” Oh!!!!! (Shudder!!!) Kennedy: Be afraid… be very afraid! You haven’t yet responded to the 2010 Census. They are going to get you!

On the back of the postcard is contained the following letter, dated March 22 (that’s yesterday… amazing, isn’t it, how quickly the U.S. Post Office delivers mail from the Washington, D.C. area when it is coming from the Census Bureau).

Dear Resident:

A few days ago, you should have received a request to participate in the 2010 Census. It was sent to your address as part of our effort to conduct the most accurate census possible.

It is important that you respond. If you have already provided your census information, please accept our sincere thanks. There is no need to provide your answers again. If you have not responded, please provide your information as soon as possible.

If you need help completing your questionnaire, please call 1-866-872-6868, or, para ayuda en español, llame al 1-866-928-2010. The TDD telephone number for assistance is 1-866-783-2010. Census Bureau staff are available to help you every day, between 8:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m., 7 days a week.

Thank you.

Sincerely,
Robert M. Groves
Director, U.S. Census Bureau

Yes, I did receive the Census form. I also received a previous mailing telling me that I would be receiving a Census form. On the Census form, it asks the question: “How many people were living or staying in this house, apartment, or mobile home on April 1, 2010?” Today it is March 23. So, why am I receiving a postcard that is, in effect, admonishing me because they haven’t yet received my response? Can they not wait until the time it takes to reach them from when I mail it on April 1? I suppose I could go ahead and answer question #1 (the only question on the form that is in accordance with Article I, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution), and send it on in with tomorrow’s mail. But, if I am to be truly honest with the U.S. Census Bureau, I am duty bound to wait until April 1. After all, there is no way for me to know today whether the answer I might give today, regarding the number of living in my house, will be accurate on April 1. Indeed, none of us can answer that question accurately. Indeed, receiving a mailing like this makes me want to dig in my heels to spite them. Let them go ahead and waste more money, created out of thin air (i.e., taxed from the future), and send me more notices.

Allow me to parse the language of these forms a little bit. We will start with the postcard. On the front, it says “Your response… is required [emphasis added] by law.” On the back, Mr. Groves says “you should have received a request [emphasis added] to participate in the 2010 Census.” So, which is it? Are we required to participate? Or is it a request to participate? Since when is a request a command? It is true that “request” can be, in certain contexts, synonymous with “demand”. But, to the average person, “request” sounds less insistent than “command” or “demand”. I also note the word “please”, which appears both on the postcard and on the Census form itself. “Please” is short for “if you please”, which presumes the right of the person being requested to refuse the request.

My point in parsing the language is to demonstrate what is clearly a passive-aggressive psychological manipulation on the part of U.S. government to persuade people to participate in the sacred Census with its myriad questions, all of which, save for one (question #1), go beyond the scope of Article I, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution. At best, answering those questions might be seen as a voluntary act, left up to the individual to decide. At worst, those questions are a violation of Article, Section 2, which makes clear that the Census exists for enumeration purposes only. The second line of the return address on the postcard gives it away (Economics and Statistics Administration) that the Census is way beyond its constitutional authority. Clearly, the Census Bureau is playing games with us by trying to be “nice” on the one hand, using words like “request” and “please” and “help”, while showing a nastier side on the other hand by threatening non-respondents with fines (which are not mentioned on any other forms, but which can be found in the U.S. code by anyone willing to look for it). Apparently they haven’t bothered with the fines in the past. The threat of fines seems to be there more for the psychological thrill of enticing submission to government. It’s like to drug to those in power.

Personally, I would not feel any sort of threat from the U.S. Census Bureau were I to provide, for example, my name or my birth date. After all, the IRS already has this information and more. But, I think it is worth pointing out that the U.S. Census Bureau has violated the law (which requires that Census information not be made public until after 72 years) by providing information to other agencies of the government on the whereabouts of various individuals. For example, during World War II, the Census Bureau furnished information on the whereabouts of Japanese-Americans (we are speaking here of U.S. citizens), which was used to round up Japanese-Americans and lock them up in concentration camps, no doubt for “national security” reasons. This was possible be simple recognizance of Japanese surnames. Similarly, the U.S. Census Bureau provided confidential information on the whereabouts of Arab-Americans (in around 2004, I believe) to help the Department of Homeland Security (or some similar agency) look for possible “terrorists” or “terrorist sympathizers”. Knowing this, and knowing that the “War on Terror” is essentially a perpetual war that will never end (unless the people force the government to end it, or if the dollar collapses and the government simply stops working), I do not trust the Census Bureau to abide by its pledge to keep this information confidential for 72 years.

In short, all the Census Bureau needs from me, or anyone else, is the number of people “living in this house, apartment, or mobile home on April 1, 2010.” They need no other information from me, nor will they receive it. I can hardly call my stance an act of civil disobedience when the U.S. Constitution, which is, after all, the Supreme Law of the Land, makes it clear that this is all they need. And, after all, this is why question #1 is set aside in a box graphic from the other 9 questions. (And I won’t even mention the American Community Survey, which is even more egregiously beyond the scope of Article I, Section 2). The U.S. Census Bureau may well be in for shock as to how many more people are informed as to what authority it has under the Constitution, as compared with ten years ago.

A Response to Dick Cheney on Executing Suspected Terrorists Held at Guantanamo

ckennedy — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 22:23:33 -0500

I came across an article with a disturbing title, “Cheney: Execute Terrorists If Cuba Prison Must Close”, published by the conservative-leaning online publication Newsmax.

In the article, the former Vice President is quoted as saying that, since we are engaged in a world conflict (i.e., the global war against terrorism), if Guantanamo must be closed, we have no choice but to execute the people being held there. Seriously, does the former Vice President really have such a distrust of and scorn for our justice system, which requires that those being held in prison must be actually charged with a crime, and that there be a proper trial to prove guilt? It seems quite apparent that this is the case. It has already been obvious that Cheney has no scruples about torture, but now it is apparent he doesn’t even have a problem with executing (i.e., killing) someone being held on mere suspicion of terrorism without any specific charges.

My own Christian beliefs lead me to the view that state-sanctioned killing (including capital punishment and the waging of non-defensive, unprovoked war) is morally wrong. Even were I to morally justify capital punishment, I could not in good conscience condone the thought of executing a suspected criminal who hasn’t been tried under a system of justice in a court of law. If we were to that, what would it say about us to those looking in from the outside? What basis could we ever have for criticizing an oppressive government elsewhere that treats its citizens without any sort of justice or dignity?

Part of the whole problem with the global “war on terror” has been the approach taken in not treating acts of terrorism as acts of crime, but treating them as acts of war. But how can war be waged on a loose network of criminals who are not bound to any country or any government? How can war be waged on a tactic? It seems that the more the problem is approached as it has been (waging war on a tactic instead of seeking justice for criminal acts under a system of law), the worse the problem becomes as the perpetrators of such violent acts have an increasing pretext to radicalize and recruit more and more people to their cause. It also seems clear to me that we can never come anywhere close to solving these problems until we understand what it is that motivates those who would threaten acts of violence against us.

The kind of rhetoric we’ve been hearing lately from the former Vice President is the very sort of thing that does more to recruit violent terrorists than just about anything else. I would like to think that members of the Republican party who wish to see their party become more politically viable in the future would ask the former Vice President to stop talking, as such talk will only run the party further in the ground (of course, opponents of the Republican party may well hope he keeps on talking). In any case, it is critical, for our the sake of our constitutionally-protected liberties and for the sake of our safety and well-being, that we get back to following the rule of law, and that we hold accountable those who would carelessly set aside the rule of law in the name of waging some sort of undefined, unwinnable war against a tactic. Mr. Cheney’s comments must not be allowed to go answered. Above all, this is not a question of politics, of conservative vs. liberal, or Republican vs. Democrat. It’s a moral question. And finally, I would surmise we need to consider the virtues of a peaceful, non-interventionist foreign policy, where we do not try to dictate to those in foreign lands how they must conduct their affairs, but where we, instead, set a good example here at home in the conduct of our own affairs.

Reflections on Memorial Day

ckennedy — Tue, 26 May 2009 15:37:06 -0500

I write this on May 24, the eve of Memorial Day, the day set aside to commemorate Americans who have died while in military service. This day was originally created (the first commemoration was May 30, 1868) to honor Union soldiers of the War Between the States, and was later expanded after World War I to include all those who have died in military service. Typically, commemorations can be expected to include much in the way of what is considered “patriotic” music (more accurately described as nationalistic), along with tributes themed along the lines of thanking those “who fight for our freedoms.” This spills over into Sunday services of many churches around the nation, when the emphasis temporarily focuses away from the praise of God and the proclamation of the Gospel, towards one of military service and national greatness. Such nationalistic celebrations mixed into the divine worship can be rightly disconcerting to many Christians, especially when the church seems to take the role of glorifying war and agression in the name of national greatness and patriotism. None of this is to disparage a proper honoring of those who have died in military service to our country, but rather, to issue a call to think more deeply about the implications of war and its consequences, in the interests of a more purposeful commemoration of Memorial Day. Common assumptions about war and patroitism, often based on fallacies, must be challenged if the true purpose of Memorial Day is to be rightly fulfilled.

First, there is the notion that equates patriotism with nationalism, leading to an attitude of supporting, out of a perceived “patriotic” duty, any decision made by the state to send military personnel into active duty. It is said that to oppose such decisions, or to not yield unquestioning support to such decisions, is to be “unpatriotic”. True patriotism, however, largely understood to mean the love of one’s country, should not be confused with nationalism, which is really a collectivist ideology that glorifies the nation-state. Second, the notion that equates “support for the troops” with unyeilding support for the decisions of the state has to be challeged. A decision by the state to send troops into harms way for a purpose which has nothing to with defending the country from an invasion or an attack cannot be seen as being in the best interests of the troops, or of the country.

Patriotism and support for the troops does not mean support for flawed policies that put the troops in harms way for purposes other than defending the people in the homeland. Christians who also consider themselves as patriots (defined as those who love this country and its founding ideals), have a duty to speak out against policies that lead to war that does not meet the criteria of the Just War Theory of Christianity (as articulated by St. Thomas Aquinas, among others). Non-Christians can likewise share in the moral principles of the Just War Theory. It can be credibly argued, with a careful study of history, that all of the wars involving the United States since its establishment under the Constitution could have been avoided, not the least among them being the War Between the States (a tragic chapter in U.S. history). The case can be made likewise that none of these wars fits into criteria of the Just War Theory (even perhaps, though not without difficulty, including World War II).

The U.S. Constitution vests in the Congress the power and authority to declare war. The President has no authority to under the Constitution to make war without a declaration from Congress. The truth is that, since World War II, none of the wars to which we have sent soldiers to fight have been declared by Congress. Open-ended congressional resolutions giving the President the discretion to commit troops to combat hostilities as he sees fit do not fit the legal requirements of a declaration of war. Congress has, in effect, abdicated its constitutional prerogatives over war powers. We have seen the tragic results of undeclared wars, from Korea and Vietnam to the present wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. These wars have been needlessly divisive and painful for the American people. No war should be fought that cannot be supported by the people. This is precisely the reason the framers of the Constitution vested the authority of war powers in the Congress. The President is not a King.

An often-overlooked aspect to war is that liberty suffers at home, even while we are told that the troops are being sent to “fight for our freedoms.” History is replete with examples of this, including Lincoln’s suspension of Habeas Corpus during the War Between the States, Roosevelt’s establishment of Japanese internment camps during World War II (with the help of a complicit Congress), the authorization of military conscription during most of the wars, and the abuses we have found in recent years (suspension of Habeas Corpus, establishment of military tribunals, the use of torture in secret prisons, and so on). War also endangers the economic health of the country, driving up debt and often leading to the devaluing of the currency (as we are seeing right now with the current financial crisis).The ironic reality is that the state looks for every opportunity to use war as an excuse to erode liberty at home, while sending troops overseas not to protect liberty, but to maintain and extend a world empire in the name of “national greatness.”

If we are to appopriately honor those who have died in military service to our country, it is important to face the unpleasant truth that, all too often, our troops have been sent to fight in wars that have little or no relevance to repelling an attack or an invasion, or to generally keeping the country safe. We can honor the military dead most appropriately by keeping a watchful eye on the policies of our government, speaking out against those policies when they do violence to the Constitution, especially when they involve sending our troops to needless, undeclared wars that have nothing to do with protecting our people here at home. Such policies which serve the ends of empire and wealthy corporate interests constitute an abuse of the lives of those who volunteer for military service. A proper honoring of those who have died in war must include making certain that war is avoided insofar as possible; that decisions to go to war are not entered into lightly, pre-emptively, or for perverse ends (including, but not limited to, empire and nation-building); and that all elected officials are held accountable for decisions that could potentially lead to war. Furthermore, an honoring of the war dead can be furthered by returning to the peaceful foreign policy of non-intervention recommended by our founders, one which emphasizes friendship and commerce with the people of all nations that are willing, free from entangling political alliances.

Food Safety and Dependence on Government

ckennedy — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 05:32:23 -0500

President Obama announced in his weekly radio address (Saturday, March 14) the formation of a new advisory group to coordinate food safety laws and recommend changes to these laws (see the following article). The President makes the typical claims of the food safety system being “too spread out”, with resulting difficulty in sharing information and solving problems. He goes on to say that there are not nearly enough FDA workers or enough money for the FDA “to conduct inspections at more than a fraction of the 150,000 food processing plants and warehouses in the country.” The President stated, ”That is a hazard to public health. It is unacceptable. And it will change under the leadership of Dr. Margaret Hamburg,” his nominee for FDA commissioner.

The President bases his views on a common but fallacious assumption, which is that government is the most capable and efficient mechanism for assuring the safety of the food supply. He claims that, while he doesn’t believe government has the answer to every problem, there are some things that “only the government can do”, such as ”ensuring that the foods we eat and the medicines we take are safe and don’t cause us harm.” But is it really true that “only the government” (that is, the federal government) can ensure the safety of our food and our medicine? A look at the FDA’s record in the most recent well-publicized crisis, the recent peanut salmonella case, calls this view into question.

David Kramer, in an item at lewrockwell.com, points out that the FDA uncovered several violations of healthy safety laws at the Georgia peanut processing plant (Peanut Corporation of America), including the potential of products being exposed to insecticides. FDA inspectors found similar violations nearly eight years later, when they returned for the first time since the prior inspection in 2001. There was no follow-up to the 2001 visit. It seems very difficult to believe, as Kramer points out, that such a time-lag was on account of the FDA’s being underfunded and understaffed. Kramer goes on to suggest a much better way of investigating food safety, in a hypothetical illustration of a retailer (Kroger in his example) sending out its own food inspectors to examine a food processing plant (or else hiring an independent food inspection firm).

There is more to the story yet, as it also turns out that the FDA was aware of a contaminated international shipment of peanuts from the same peanut processing plant, according an Associated Press report dated January 30, 2009. The peanuts from the shipment, which occurred weeks before the earliest signs of the salmonella case, were returned, but the FDA did not follow up with an investigation.

The plot thickens further, with information in another article revealing that the president of the Peanut Corporation of America actually “serves on an industry advisory board that assists the U.S. Department of Agriculture in setting quality standards for peanuts. Stewart Parnell, the president of Peanut Corporation of America, was initially appointed to the USDA’s Peanut Standards Board in July 2005. He was reappointed in October 2008 for a second term that will continue until June 2011.” The article reveals:

The Peanut Standards Board was created by the 2002 Farm Bill and also advises the secretary of the USDA on “standards intended to assure that satisfactory quality and wholesome peanuts are used in the domestic and import peanut markets,” according to the USDA.

The article further reveals:

The Peanut Standards Board is comprised completely of volunteers and isn’t directly involved with food-safety issues. Its main duties are advising the USDA about how to grade and classify peanuts after they come out of the field. This involves setting the sizes for different peanuts and standards for how much moisture peanuts should contain before they are allowed onto store shelves. The board also helps set “quality and handling standards” for domestic and imported peanuts.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that there is significant government-corporate collusion taking place in this particular notorious example, with the typical result that the corporate interest receives special protection from the government. This is but one aspect of the folly of relying upon a government regulatory agency (accompanied by “industry advisory boards”) for safety of food and drugs. The real effect of such a regulatory approach is to provide special favors and protections to large corporate entities, at the expense of smaller, more independent operations, and at the expense of the public health.

Another problem with reliance on a government regulatory agency such as the FDA, as Kramer points out, is that the money to fund its operations is collected by force (i.e., taxes), as opposed to being paid for by voluntary means. Thus, there is no accountability. We as taxpayers have no choice in the matter. Kramer puts it this way:

This Georgia plant catastrophe is a no-win situation for the people (both Liberals and Conservatives) who believe that only government can protect us from problems in the private sector. Here’s why:

If these people think that the EIGHT YEAR gap was due to underfunding, well since the FDA has still been around since 2001, the FDA obviously had enough time and money to send out notices (how about cheap, fast, efficient paperless emails?) alerting all food retailers of the initial situation at the Georgia plant—but warning the retailers that the FDA is so underfunded that it won’t be able to do a follow-up visit for EIGHT YEARS. (You would think that, at the very least, it is the FDA’s responsibility and professional duty to do this.)

If underfunding of the FDA was not the issue, then if an EIGHT YEAR gap for a follow-up visit to a plant that had some problems (regardless of how serious or benign the problems were) on a previous inspection is the standard operating procedure at the FDA, then I hope this shows to these same Liberals and Conservatives that this is what happens when you have only one entity—which you are FORCED to pay for and CANNOT compete with—impose its standards on what are, in actuality, your responsibilities to your customers.

EIGHT YEARS??!! If a private inspection firm operated as irresponsibly and unprofessionally like this, do you think that the Federal Government, the sick victims, and the families of the dead victims would blame only the Georgia plant for this tragedy?

An important moral in the tragedy of the peanut salmonella case (along with similar cases) is that we cannot look to government to protect us from these kinds of things. A centralized government bureaucracy, by its very nature is incapable of performing the task of ensuring food safety with any satisfactory degree of efficiency. Furthermore, the nature of the regulatory state always results in industry “experts” (typically the corporate executives of the industry being regulated) being brought in to serve on “advisory boards” or other capacities to help write the regulations in such a manner as to be favorable to the industry in question. This only breeds more corruption, and imperils the health and safety of consumers as both retailers and consumers alike come to assume that “everything is OK because the government is protecting us.”

President Obama, along with many in Congress (of both parties, I might add), would have us believe that the answer to food and drug safety lies in granting more power, more money and more personnel to the FDA. On the contrary, such a course of action would more likely lead to further compromises in food safety by reinforcing the dependency upon government for these tasks, unavoidably further enhancing the degree of corruption that such a system breeds.

A much better system would be one in which retailers and food distributers have their own food inspection departments, from which personnel can be sent regularly to inspect the operations of food processing facilities. Such departments, along with independent food inspection firms, would be in a far better position of monitoring the safety of food production. Results of inspections would be publicized regularly in print media and on the internet. Any food processing company that refused to allow access to these private inspectors would run the risk of being exposed for having refused such access. Had such a system been in place, instead the current system which relies on the FDA, it is almost certain that the peanut salmonella incident would not have occurred, or that at least it would have been contained on a much smaller scale. Clearly this was an incident that could have been prevented, all the more so without the reliance of a large, inefficient government bureaucracy.

None of this is to say that there shouldn’t be laws regarding food safety. In fact, there are and should be laws on the books to hold food processors accountable for endangering the health of consumers with unsafe products. However, the regulatory state is the least efficient and most potentially corruptible mechanism for ensuring food safety. If government is to be involved at all in such inspections, it should be at the local level, where it can be (and often is) done with much greater efficiency and accountability. But even better is the approach suggested here of relying on private food inspectors who are held accountable to consumers, and not to a corrupt government-industrial complex that manages to get off scot-free most of the time.

The more we rely on government for safety, the less safe we are likely to be. We as consumers need to take responsibility and ownership of the process of food safety. A bottom-up, decentralized consumer-driven process of food safety inspection will lead to far better and more consistent results than a cumbersome, top-down centralized process. President Obama and the Congress need to be presented with a bottom-up, consumer-driven, freedom-based approach to solving our food and drug safety issues.

The Housing Bubble and the Environment: Unintended Consequences

ckennedy — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 05:37:33 -0500

An article in the Sunday, March 15 edition of The Birmingham News, entitled “Lots crumble and mud flows”, discusses some of the complications resulting from the plethora of unfinished housing projects that have been put on hold in the current economic crisis. The problems include excessive runoff and mud flows, crumbling roads without a final seal coat, empty houses in various stages of construction, construction debris posing safety hazards, and other various forms of pollution. Curiously, nowhere in the article does its author acknowledge that most of these housing construction projects are the result of a housing bubble. That is to say, too many houses have been built or contracted to be built, and with a combination of excessively high prices and the lack of demand for houses, these unfinished new developments are causing all kinds of unintended consequences to the environment and to the well-being of nearby property owners.

Our supposedly “progressive”, forwarding-thinking leaders in Washington want to stimulate the building of even more housing, and continue the vicious cycle of more inflation and more bubbles. It seems to me, though, that progressives who care about the environment and land conservation should be showing not only a concern for the toll these projects are having on the environment, but also should be considering the positive benefits of a true, free-market approach to housing on the environment.

We first have to call to mind that we do not have a true free-market economy in our country. What we have is a market economy that is distorted by the creation of credit out of thin air by a central bank, which of course is the Federal Reserve. The creation of money and credit out of thin air (as opposed to responsible use of credit through a reliance on savings and proper capital investment), leading to excessively low interest rates, always leads to distortions in the economy that are referred to as bubbles. We are coming out of such a bubble, known to us as the housing bubble. If we had a true, free-market economy without the distortions of a central bank creating credit out of thin air, we would not be having these bubbles. Likewise, we would be suffering a lot less of the kinds of environmental problems and pollution associated with these unfinished projects cited in the Birmingham News article.

Obama's State of the Union Address: A Response

ckennedy — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 11:32:22 -0600

Tonight as I write this, given that I don’t possess a television and find live-streaming an often frustrating experience on my lap-top computer, I chose to read a prepared text of President Obama’s first State of the Union address rather than listen to it live. Reading such a text can reveal more in some ways, as one isn’t influenced by the mellifluous tones of a well-polished politician’s voice.

My general observation is that Obama spent quite a bit of time in the speech describing symptoms as he spoke about the economy. After doing a fairly creditable job describing symptoms, he would then proceed to describe even more symptoms as substitute for addressing any of the underlying causes of the previously-described symptoms. Frequently he referred to the great expense of the programs he claims as necessary to prevent matters from getting even worse, but he failed to explain how the programs will be paid for. Indeed he neglected to mention that the money required to pay for them doesn’t exist at all. It will have to be created out of thin air by the central bank of the United States, the Federal Reserve, resulting in the further devaluation of the dollar and bringing about a massive transfer of wealth from the middle class to the government-favored corporate and banking interests. He claimed the programs are needed to prevent the recession from lasting up to a decade, while in fact the programs will only ensure that the recession lasts at least a decade.

All the claims about fiscal responsibility were laughable, especially in light of his having signed the largest spending bill in U.S. history. The portion of the speech dealing with fiscal responsibility was filled with all the usual platitudes of what most politicians think people want to hear. It’s amazing that he actually believes that Vice President Biden and fellow “fiscal responsibility commissioners” are smart enough and even capable of accounting for every dollar spent by every governor, state legislature, and mayor. Accountability isn’t even really the main issue. The real issue is, where does the authority to spend all this money come from? Where does the authority come from for the federal government to direct how money gets spent by every state and local government? How will any of this money not be wasted? In another area affecting government spending, Obama made no proposal to change our foreign policy away from nation-building and maintaining an empire overseas to one of non-intervention, peace and friendly commerce among nations. With respect to drawing down the war in Iraq, whatever savings would come from that would be more than cancelled-out by his plans to escalate the war in Afghanistan (and likely expand it into Pakistan).

The speech was filled with so many examples of Orwellian double-speak that it is difficult to know where to begin. The best thing I can recommend is, read it for yourself, and be sure to read between the lines, so to speak. The whole thing was very crafty, very clever, and quite deceptive, filled with all kinds of fallacies and complete misunderstandings. Obviously the President has no clue about monetary policy, or how a true free market works, and he really believes the government is smart enough to know how resources ought to be allocated and which enterprises should be encouraged (or allowed) to flourish. All he is promising is more central planning, more welfarism, more corporatism, and more coercion. None of this has anything to do with the American traditions of ingenuity, individual initiative, and self-reliance. Nowhere in his speech did he make any mention of individual liberty, natural rights, or the Constitution. On the other hand, he did make occasional references to the “full force” of the federal government. Yes, the words “full force” are the key to understanding what is truly at work in the President’s blueprint for America.

I am left wishing it could have been Ron Paul delivering the State of the Union Address, telling us that it is time to start living within our means, paying off our debts and reclaiming our American traditions of individual liberty, the rule of law, friendship, peace and commerce among nations, and ridding ourselves of the notions of central planning, welfarism, empire maintenance and nation-building. We can only imagine how it might have been different had Dr. Paul been elected President. But those of us who believe in the great American traditions have our work cut out for us. There may be a silver lining in the rush towards more central planning, inflation, and top-down control as more people wake up to resist this madness and to insist upon a restoration of the American tradition of governing from the bottom-up (i.e., self-governance, maximum liberty and keeping government as local as possible).

Vehicle Mileage Tax: Dead for Now, but Part of a Future Trend?

ckennedy — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 05:58:35 -0600

According to an Associated Press report on Friday, President Obama has rejected the recommendation of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood (who, by the way, is a Republican) to consider seeking a vehicle miles-traveled (VMT) tax as a replacement for the federal gasoline tax. A VMT tax would be levied based on the number of miles driven per vehicle, as opposed to the amount of gasoline purchased. A number of factors are said to be behind such an idea. According to the AP report:

Gasoline taxes that for nearly half a century have paid for the federal share of highway and bridge construction can no longer be counted on to raise enough money to keep the nation’s transportation system moving, LaHood told the AP.

“We should look at the vehicular miles program where people are actually clocked on the number of miles that they traveled,” the former Illinois Republican lawmaker said in the AP interview.

Apparently the trend towards vehicles with better mileage, including hybrids, electric cars, and other vehicles using alternative fuels, is having or will have the effect of diminishing receipts from the federal gasoline tax, contributing the urge of politicians to look for other ways to tax motorists besides the gasoline tax. It would seem to this writer that a VMT tax, were it enacted, would come in addition to a federal gasoline tax (perhaps with a reduction in the latter just to try to make taxpayers feel better), and not simply in place of it. But that would be the least of concerns about the VMT tax. The real concern lies with how the tax would be levied and collected.

In order for the VMT tax to be computed, there would have to be a way of determining the number miles driven for any given vehicle. This would most likely be accomplished by requiring the installation and use of GPS chips in every vehicle. The AP report continues:

A blue-ribbon national transportation commission is expected to release a report next week recommending a VMT tax.

The system would require all cars and trucks be equipped with global satellite positioning technology, a transponder, a clock and other equipment to record how many miles a vehicle was driven, whether it was driven on highways or secondary roads, and even whether it was driven during peak traffic periods or off-peak hours.

The device would tally how much tax motorists owed depending upon their road use. Motorists would pay the amount owed when it was downloaded, probably at gas stations at first, but an alternative eventually would be needed.

Rob Atkinson, chairman of the National Surface Transportation Infrastructure Financing Commission, the blue-ribbon group that is developing future transportation funding options, said moving to a national VMT tax would take about a decade.

Some states (Massachusetts, North Carolina, Idaho) are already at various points in the formative stages of considering such a tax. The President’s current position notwithstanding, it seem clear that trends appear headed towards a VMT tax at the federal level, as well as at the state level. The method of tax collection certainly raises some very troubling issues, not the least of which is privacy. Policy-makers certainly seem to be aware of the concerns, responding in typical Orwellian fashion, as reported by the AP:

“Privacy concerns are based more on perception than any actual risk”, Atkinson said. “The satellite information would be beamed one way to the car and driving information would be contained within the device on the car, with the amount of the tax due the only information that’s downloaded,” he said.

Whether the information is beamed one way or two ways is not even the point. The point is that information regarding what kinds of roads and what kinds of traffic conditions, and even where one has driven, would be potentially available to a government bureaucrat acting on behalf of tax collection. Perhaps it might seem far-fetched, but GPS devices could potentially be used as tracking devises to restrict freedom of movement in a “national emergency”. It could be hoped that the Obama Administration wouldn’t engage in such abuse, and we probably could expect public assurances to that effect, but whether it’s the Obama Administration as opposed to some other administration isn’t even the point. The point is that government would be taking yet another dangerous step on the slippery slope towards restricting the freedom of movement, a power that could be abused by most any future administration.

It shouldn’t be lost on anyone that a large, expensive government bureaucracy (either under the Department of Transportation or the IRS) would be required to enforce such a tax. Attempting to enforce such a tax would be a nightmare for the taxpayer, requiring an unprecedented degree of government intrusion worthy of Orwell’s 1984. Even so, it wouldn’t work, because no government bureaucracy can operate with the degree of efficiency that would be required to make a “success” out of such a monstrous program. The administration of such a tax would no doubt be done in the same fashion as done with the income tax and IRS, turning on its head yet again the concept of “innocent until proven guilty”. Furthermore, such a tax would be yet another violation of the right to use one’s own property.

In the current troubled times of economic crises and national “emergencies”, the trend is ever-increasing towards enormous pieces of legislation with all kinds of proposals that are effectively “buried” in the thousands of pages required, all but hidden from view from the citizens and the members of Congress. We’ve seen this most notably with the bailout (TARP) legislation last fall, and with the recent economic “stimulus” bill that was only made available to members of Congress by 12:30 a.m. on the night before the vote (in a very limited number of copies, with hand-writing in the margins!). It would not be surprising to see requirements for GPS chips in all vehicles (for the future purpose of a VMT tax) inserted into a future “stimulus” or bailout bill, or some other omnibus bill that would be frantically rushed through, probably under the suspension of the rules in the House, or possibly even by a House-Senate conference committee.

It is bad enough that politicians constantly seek novel ways to tax the people, even as we suffer in the future from that most insidious of hidden taxes, the inflation tax which destroys the value of our money. Taxes which require ever-increasing levels of government intrusion and violation of our privacy must be seen for the evil that they are (this includes, of course, the income tax), and the politicians and policy makers who advocate for these taxes must be exposed to the light of day. While we can be thankful that, for now, President Obama has rejected the VMT tax, it is crucial that we be ever watchful and vigilant against such a proposal, whether it comes at the state level or the federal level, lest we slide ever further down the slippery slope towards an Orwellian police-surveillance state.

Rush Limbaugh: Champion of Big, Powerful Government

ckennedy — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 06:09:55 -0600

To those “conservatives” who look to Rush Limbaugh as a spokesman for the cause of limited, constitutional government, this should silence any doubts as to where Rush stands when it comes to big government. His rant just about sums up everything that is wrong with what the “conservative” movement has become especially during the eight years of the Bush Administration (but clearly getting underway with the “Gingrich Revolution”). The so-called conservative movement is dead, and anyone who wants to understand why would do well to read Rush’s actual words here. I don’t think he was joking at all when he said, “It’s going to be a bigger, more powerful, stronger government — and we’re going to turn it against the left in ways they could have never imagined.”

Rush is correct to be outraged at the massive amounts of power sought and wielded by the Democrats who are now in control, but he turns a completely blind eye to the very same thing experienced under the Republican control of the Bush years. All the while condemning what the left is doing with the disastrous “stimulus” package and other such outrages, he totally ignores the horrible things done by so-called “conservatives” that helped set the stage for the events happening now. The answer is not to use tyrannical power as “payback” for what the “liberals” are doing to consolidate their own powers. The answer lies in something which brings all of us together, regardless of our political party affiliations, religious backgrounds, racial identity or ethnic origin: freedom. Freedom brings people together. This is the beauty of the new movement that has grown out of the Ron Paul presidential campaign, which continues through various groups and organizations such as the Campaign For Liberty, Young Americans for Liberty, the Future of Freedom Foundation, the Ludwig von Mises Institute, and United Liberty.

Forget Rush Limbaugh. Let him be angry and rant and rave all he wants. He does not stand for liberty. He stands for power and vengeance. If this is what the “conservative” movement has come to, then let it die. There’s a new movement bringing people together to promote the things the “conservative” movement once claimed to stand for: freedom, limited constitutional government, and the rule of law.

The Failed Daschle Nomination and the Obama Health Care Agenda

ckennedy — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 05:54:52 -0600

Recent in the news has been former Senator Tom Daschle’s withdrawal of his nomination as Secretary of Health and Human Services, along with President Obama’s additional nomination of him to a newly-concocted post of “White House Health Czar” (isn’t it interesting how increasingly popular the term “czar” has become in the government lexicon as of late?). The main issue that brought Daschle’s nomination down was his failure to pay more than $128,000 in taxes from 2005 to 2007 (which he ended up doing last month in the form of back taxes with nearly $12,000 in interest). Naturally this raised once again the whole matter of double standards over such matters, one for government officials (and others in positions of power or privilege), and another for everyone else. The President seemed finally to recognize that such a double standard would not serve him well, after noticing a disturbing pattern among a few of his other nominees. Incredibly, someone at the White House said, “Nobody’s perfect!” in response to all this. Imagine any normal private citizen telling that to an IRS agent, and see how far that would go! Needless to say, this trend raises doubts regarding the President’s intentions to rid government of the influence of special interests and lobbyists.

However, the whole tax non-payment issue is really a distraction, as there are many more serious concerns over the Daschle nomination that should have been raising red flags, and should provide clues as to what the Obama Administration’s real agenda is for health care. Among the most objectionable attributes of Daschle was his cozy relationship with major health care companies (part of what Ron Paul calls the “medical-industrial complex”). Daschle himself was not technically considered a lobbyist, but he made some $5 million as a “consultant” for various businesses, nearly a quarter-million dollars of which came from health care companies. Furthermore, during his time in the Senate Democratic party leadership, his wife was a paid lobbyist for various industries, the health care industry in particular among them. This clearly shows Daschle to be a true disciple of corporatism (that is, government-corporate collusion), the very thing that has plagued and undermined what was once an unrivaled, robust health care system that left no one uncared for.

Looking beyond Daschle’s cozy relationship with the medical-industrial complex, most objectionable were his policy prescriptions, which amount to nothing less than more central economic planning (see the following New York Times article, which attempts to describe Daschle’s proposals without actually revealing very much). Naturally, this would include adding new health care programs and expanding existing ones, the same ones that have added exorbitantly to the costs of health care. Among his ideas is the creation of an “independent” Federal Health Board to decide what kinds of treatments government health programs would cover, mainly in the interests of keeping costs down. Central planning of this sort can never be successful at keeping costs down, and on the contrary, can be counted upon to do exactly the opposite. Daschle, the supposed “expert” on health care policy, has been able to come up with a number of legitimate criticisms of existing programs, but his solution is simply more of the same, that is, more central planning, amounting to tinkering around with and expanding a flawed system. Many of Daschle’s stated goals sound perfectly fine and well-intentioned, but would be much better accomplished by the efficiency of a properly-functioning free market, as opposed to the arbitrary nature and stifling inefficiency of a government bureaucracy. And given his special relationship of the past four years with the medical-industrial complex, there would be no reason to believe he wouldn’t have been writing legislative proposals filled with special favors to large corporate interests, had he been confirmed (had his nomination not been withdrawn). Regardless of who Obama nominates in place of Daschle, it is likely the replacement nominee will be someone else with special ties to the medical-industrial complex, who believes in central economic planning as the answer to solving our health care problems.

A more sinister aspect of the Obama health care agenda, which remains at this point only vaguely defined, is that of creating some sort of a central electronic database for medical records. Such a database is being promoted, as part the economic “stimulus” proposal, in the name of greater efficiency and convenience. We are told how wonderful it will be to have all of our medical records “linked” together via a central database, and how much easier it will be for doctors and hospitals to communicate with one another. The red flag here is that of privacy. Such a system provided by the private sector, with completely voluntary participation and proper safeguards of privacy, would be a welcome advancement of progress. In contrast, any sort of government-provided database will be centrally controlled, and the government bureaucracy will presume to have the privilege of access to any information contained therein, not the least for controlling costs and trying to prevent fraud, both of which will be deemed necessary with an increasingly large sector of health care coming under government subsidies. Any patient or doctor who values essential privacy should be alarmed at such a prospect.

Beyond the issues discussed here is the simple matter of economics: how does President Obama intend to pay for all these new programs and the central planning that would accompany them? Obviously the answer is: more inflation. The money does not exist, so it will have to be borrowed against the future, most of it created out of thin air by the Federal Reserve. This will further destroy the purchasing power of the dollar, with costs going up even further, leading to fewer choices in health care and a continued decline in the quality of health care for those relying on government-subsidized programs.

The next nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services should be asked to explain how and why more central planning is the solution, when in fact it is at the root cause of so many of the problems plaguing health care in the U.S. Accordingly, he or she should be asked to explain how in the world a “health czar” can possibly be wise enough or smart enough to make decisions that only patients, in concert with their doctors, can reasonably make. He or she should be asked likewise about privacy issues as they relate to the creation of a central, government-maintained electronic medical records database. Finally, the nominee should be asked which article and section in the Constitution justifies the existence of the Department of Health and Human Services.

The Folly of the Economic "Stimulus" Package

ckennedy — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 05:24:16 -0600

The news is dominated by all the talk and debate of the so-called economic “stimulus” package, which, in the House-passed version is said to be $815 billion, while the version under consideration in the Senate is (not surprisingly) even more expensive at something closer to $900 billion. None of these figures take into account the true cost of the program when the interest on newly incurred debt is added (those figures have a range beginning at $1.2 trillion with a limit no one even knows).

Meanwhile, President Obama is trying very hard to control the terms of the debate, having stated in his inaugural address that “the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply.” Which arguments? During the presidential campaign, Republican nominee John McCain framed the whole debate around the practice of “earmarks”, something that he and many other Republicans have conflated with “pork barrel” spending. Congressman Ron Paul correctly pointed out to those willing to listen that earmarking itself is not the issue. Rather, it’s the massive amount of uncontrolled, unconstitutional spending that’s the real issue. The practice of earmarking, of course, which has been made more transparent by recent reforms requiring that earmarking requests be made public, is really an issue of who determines how the money is spent: is it the legislative branch, or is it the executive branch?

Obama has declared that there will be “no earmarks” and no influence of lobbyists in the writing and administering of the “stimulus” package. Apparently now that he is the President, he favors ceding power over appropriations from the legislative branch to the executive branch. Either the President is incredibly naive on this point, or he is simply being disingenuous in an attempt to shore up support for the measure. The K Street lobbyists do not exist in Washington without a purpose, and they most certainly will make every attempt to lobby on behalf of the myriad of corporate and other special interests for “their slice of the pie”. It cannot be any other way. This is how it is when government presumes to take money from the productive to give to the unproductive and reward the foolish and imprudent. The White House, of course, does not single-handedly write the bills that come before Congress. Therefore the President cannot simply wave a magic wand and expect the influence of lobbyists over members of Congress to disappear. Congress could try policing itself accordingly, but that would be unlikely. Assuming the rules of debate do not allow for earmarks, with the decision-making over spending details shifted to the executive branch, a likely outcome is that the lobbyists will go “underground” in their attempts to influence the executive branch, ironically leading to a decrease in transparency and a corresponding increasing in secrecy.

Getting back to the terms of the debate, Obama really means by “stale political arguments” the whole matter of what the role of government ought to be. In other words, if Obama has his way, we cannot have a debate about what the role of government ought to be, and whether it even works for government to attempt to do all of those things that are claimed will “jump start” the economy. Yet this is exactly the debate we should be having. If we do not recognize the true causes of the current crisis, namely, excessive government spending, central planning, and intervention in the markets (see Ron Paul’s recent Texas Straight Talk column [link is at the bottom of the page] for an excellent explanation), there is no way that we can avoid making the drastic consequences that will result both from what has already been done even worse by what is being proposed.

The Republicans in Congress are attempting, at least to some extent, to have a debate over the “stimulus” package. What kind of a debate is taking place? Some members of Congress, especially people like Ron Paul and Tom McClintock, are pointing to the real dangers of trying to spend our way out of the crisis at unprecedented levels. Unfortunately, however, the Congressional Republican leadership (and corresponding media commentators) are making it a debate over how much of the “stimulus” package is devoted to spending increases versus tax cuts. In other words, let’s have less in the way of new spending and more in the way of tax cuts. The trouble with this is that, if the Republicans get their way, spending is increased even while taxes are supposedly cut, resulting in a corresponding increase of debt. Which leads to an inconvenient truth: all of the tax cuts proposed are not tax cuts at all as long as spending and corresponding debt is increased.

As long as the national debt is allowed to increase, there will be a corresponding tax increase in its most insidious form: inflation. The money for the “stimulus” package does not exist. It will have to be created by the Federal Reserve on a computer and/or printed. This, the expansion of the money supply, is the very definition of inflation. The effects of inflation are typically delayed, but once this money comes into circulation, every single dollar of every person’s paycheck, savings, investments, and retirement funds will be robbed of its value. Contrary to being “stimulated” (a word that would imply the creation of new wealth), the economy (the sum total of all of us who take part in the daily transactions of the market) will be distorted and impoverished. The effects of the “stimulus” bill won’t be felt right away, but once they are, we can see massive price increases on an scale unprecedented in our nation’s history. We certainly won’t see the creation of real wealth or any increase in the standard of living of most Americans. Already, unprecedented amounts of new money have been created by the Federal Reserve. The consequences will be forthcoming. It’s a matter of when, not if, and the “stimulus” package will only exacerbate matters. Ultimately this will lead to the destruction of the dollar.

What is the solution? We can begin by moving in exactly the opposite direction of that proposed by the administration and congressional leaders. Spending must be cut, at the very least to the extent possible to balance the budget, so that the insidious practice of inflation can be stopped. The most politically plausible place to begin make spending cuts would be in the area of foreign policy and military spending, which can be accomplished by ending our current imperialist/interventionist policy and the myriad of activities that accompany this policy. A small amount of the savings could be used for needed infrastructure projects, which ideally should be administered by the states (something that would required a transition from the current system of federal funding). A complete reassessment of what the role of government ought to be, in light of the Constitution, is essential to determining the remaining budget cuts, from which should follow tax cuts, including the elimination of the income tax and IRS, and the repeal of the Sixteenth Amendment. All of these things together would provide for the best possible economic stimulus, but none of them can happen without acknowledging that our nation, through its government, has lived well beyond its means. It will require a change of attitude on the part of many Americans who have become accustomed to looking to government to solve problems.

Another part of the solution involves looking for a long-term solution to the monetary problem. The root cause of the current crisis is the central banking system known as the Federal Reserve, whose inflationary practices have allowed government at the federal level to grow to monstrous proportions. The very fact that government has become so large as to require deficit financing of over a trillion dollars annually should silence any doubts as to whether the government is too large. Ideally the Federal Reserve should be abolished, and a new monetary system based on a gold (or silver) standard implemented (but with improvements over the earlier gold standard), as required by the Constitution. This is not something that can be accomplished all at once, but a good start towards this goal would be to call for a complete audit of the Federal Reserve (which has never been done before), followed by the enactment of very tight regulations on both the Federal Reserve and Treasury Department, prohibiting, among other things, the creation of new money out of thin air as a means of monetizing debt. This would logically be accompanied by the repeal of legal tender laws, and the establishment of a new, parallel gold-based currency. Over time, Federal Reserve notes would be abandoned in favor of a sound monetary system. Then the Federal Reserve could be closed down and placed upon the ash heap of history.

The “stimulus” package is so large and multifaceted as to require a series of articles to discuss its many implications. The purpose here has been to provide an overview. Articles from this writer will soon follow to discuss the many hidden and insidious aspects of this massive piece of legislation that few members of Congress have actually read.

Link to Ron Paul’s Texas Straight Talk column:

http://www.house.gov/htbin/blog_inc?BLOG,tx14_paul,blog,999,All,Item%20n…

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