First Cut the Warfare Budget
by Bill Huff Then Cut Both Welfare Budgets …but only if you really want lasting prosperity, peace, justice, and Liberty. We are bleeding fiat money! Realize they looted most of the Silver and Gold Decades ago. We must rid ourselves of unlawful wars, government cheese, and bailouts for corporations by fascists. And don’t forget to Abolish the Federal Reserve Banking System. The elimination of the four hemorrhages above will stop most of our bleeding. None of them were remotely considered as lawful by the Founders and Framers [except perhaps Hamilton and Marshall – one was finally shot and the other should have been]. None of the four are compatible with Life, Liberty, or Private Property. Any of them are poisons enough by themselves. But combined they form a venomous cocktail that could murder our Constitutional Republic. We can no more afford these "luxuries" than the salaries we have been paying Congress to betray our country. This congress has been playing by its own rules – unimpeded by such trifles as honor or basic human decency. To them an Oath is a mere formality on their way to the getaway limo. Each voter is just another Mark to be played. Innocent people die every day because of the impotence and willful negligence of this congress. Now American families are being "asked," preemptively, to tighten their belts so our fearless leaders in D.C. and their friends in New York can maintain the same profligate spending habits – and the lifestyle to which they have become accustomed – along with annual cost of living increases plus interest and dividends with their respective versions of the Golden Parachute. On Main Street most of us are being forced to take stock and consider which things are necessities and which are luxuries – what must remain – and what has to go. We are expected to make all the real spending cuts. How can we squeeze enough out of our budgets to survive and wait for the next onslaught from an overbearing and obsolete Big Government? We are working harder and harder just "to put food on our families." "That’s Uniquely American" alright! Better hurry before the People wake up. Government and its cronies are being forced once again to consider their main obstacle, the age-old conundrum of tyrants: Where is the real tolerance level of the People? How much more abuse are they willing to endure at the hands of their own government? How fast can you boil a frog?
Brothers and Sisters, the Design has been Evinced! You are well on your way to Absolute Chattel Slavery! Right now you are being re-fleeced and mutton is on the menu. What was the total tax burden under George III? Ben Franklin spoke about a 10% cap on all taxation as something the people would never tolerate: "It would be thought a hard Government that should tax its People one tenth Part of their Time, to be employed in its Service." Shall we tolerate a government that exacts 50%? 75%? 110%? It is so good to read the Declaration again periodically – in order to get our heads straight about the proper functions of Lawful Government. While almost no one can read it without being inspired, it is a fairly straightforward document. The King George III certainly got the message. It doesn’t take long to read the Declaration all the way through. Please take some time and read the whole thing again soon. The Constitution doesn’t take much more time to read. But it is amazing how so many talk about it without having read the whole thing even once. Some even take an Oath to it without reading or understanding it. Some see it merely as a point of departure. America will soar to new heights without the ballast of Big Government. The free trade with all nations and political alliances with none philosophy spoken of so eloquently by Jefferson and Washington, if consistently and faithfully applied, will engender global trade and prosperity such as we have never known, and all through the voluntary participation of nations and citizens. If other nations and peoples did not have to fear our military, our banksters, or our fascist corporatists, truly free enterprise could spring up from anywhere at any time. Creativity and resourcefulness are stifled whenever corporations and governments combine to siphon off all real wealth from the true producers of goods, services and even intellectual property. The free market will triumph mainly because some element of it is necessary for any real productivity or prosperity to occur. We cannot tax and spend ourselves into Utopia. Your Enemy is the State with its Corporations. Have you ever stopped to consider the volumes of wisdom in the motto for LewRockwell.com: "anti-state, anti-war, pro-market?" If you don’t already understand how profound this combination is, spend a little time reading through the volumes of information available there and of course at the Ludwig Von Mises website. These sites do not need to be vindicated in the traditional sense, although we might be tempted to say they are being vindicated in Spades right now. They continue to exist and thrive because they are repositories of substantive thought and exhaustive truth. At Lexrex.com we try to point toward lawful solutions to American problems in a comprehensive context of the relevant historical documents, e.g. Bancroft’s Essay: "A Plea for the Constitution – Wounded in the House of Its Guardians." Our motto is "Rescuing the Republic, one Heart and one Mind at a time." Nothing we do is rocket science. We just bet on the Founders and Framers and other exponents of classical libertarian ideals – and against those who despise them. There is no contest between the current "government" and the Founders’ and Framers’ wisdom, or the Austrian School of Economics. To read them enough is to know. The Enemy will have short-term gains and predictable losses. But their gains based on theft and sloth will not last.
There was no original Preemptive War Budget in the Constitution. The "duties imposts and excises" it was collecting were deliberately based on activities that could be avoided by yer average Joe Sixpack eh [Palinese Dialect]? If government shrunk slightly during that period it was nothing to be upset about. It was understood that there would be more liberty when there was less government. No one ever dreamt that government would grow to be larger than private industry at some point. But they all knew it would cease to be a free government before it reached that point. You can’t have free agriculture if you have more people in the Department of Agriculture than out in the field. And where is the Constitutional authorization for a Department of Agriculture? Once we get out of the Warfare Business it will be easier to get out of the Welfare Business. War wastes the resources of the world in ways that cannot be recovered. Anyone who doesn’t understand this should read Bastiat’s Broken Window – until they thoroughly get it. The Warfare State thrives on the false notion that war creates prosperity in the long run – at least for the winners. The immediate losers are not under the same delusion. The real truth is that both sides are big losers in war and the whole world pays a price for years and years. Amazingly, the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan have been sold on the basis of the oxymoronic delusion that you can force free government on an unwilling people as the same government erodes our liberties at home. Apparently big government sees Joe Sixpack in a different light than the Founders and Framers did. To big government Joe Sixpack is really just part of a herd to be nurtured only as necessary and then harvested just like any other crop. Without big government, we will have the resources to rebuild our communities and sufficient cash to help those near us who are truly in need.
The Welfare State thrives from two main impulses. Both of these are morally bankrupt. Bastiat called them "stupid greed and false philanthropy." It’s hard to tell which Party represents which impulse more than the other at this point. Social Security was an easy sell for the first few "customers" who paid in for a couple of months and then received more than 900 times "return on investment." Wall Street is nothing more that a clique that wars against property and industry by offering the illusion of easy money. It’s a giant Casino – and the odds are always with the house. The main corrupting factor is fiat money and fractional reserve banking. The "solution," "this week," is to put $700,000,000,000 of your children’s heritage on the line and roll the dice one more time.
If this economic wake-up call means we all get a handle on the fact the US cannot police or dominate the rest of the world it may well be worth the price. If it bankrupts the War Party it can’t be all bad. And if the Welfare State implodes perhaps we will be ready to rebuild on a more solid foundation. PLEASE Make sure you get angry enough – but don’t do anything stupid.
Before you put head to pillow on Election Day Evening, make sure you have cast a vote against your local Congressional Criminal Bailout Delegation. "Thou [Government] Shalt Not Steal!" October 15, 2008 Bill Huff [send him mail] is a Classical Libertarian and proprietor of LEXREX.com and JamTheCulture.com; a former public school music teacher turned home schooling advocate; a US Navy veteran, and host of WarIsARacket.com. He is available as a guest lecturer or for interviews on talk radio. Copyright © 2008 Bill Huff
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