Derby

Jury Nullification

May 15th, 2010

During the 19th century, the fugitive slave laws were passed to force people who knew of escaped slaves to return the slaves to the ‘owner’. Many of the northerners did not agree with this law and would not only refuse to return the slaves, but would assist them in getting farther from the slave owner. The ‘criminals’, i.e., the people who helped the slaves, would often be arrested and tried for violating those laws. Time and time again the jurors would acquit them.

After the 18th amendment was passed, laws in support of it were also passed. These were the prohibition laws. Those who violated these laws against manufacturing, sale and transportation of alcohol were put on trial for their offences. Time and time again the jurors would acquit them.

The defendants were guilty of the laws, as they stood, but the jurors believed the laws to be bad laws. Therefore they would acquit. This is called jury nullification.

The consistent jury nullification of the fugitive slave laws were instrumental in getting those laws overturned. It was also jury nullification of the prohibition laws that led to the 21st amendment which rescinded the 18th amendment.

So what constitutes a bad law? Any law which is unconstitutional. In 1803, in Marbury vs. Madison, Chief Justice Marshall delivered the majority decision. In it he stated, “ . . . the theory of every such government must be, that an act of the legislature, repugnant to the constitution, is void.” Marshall was saying that if a law is not Constitutional, it is not law. It is void.

A law may be Constitutional and still be a bad law. The prohibition laws were Constitutional but the people still believed them to be bad laws.

A law designed specifically to work against a political opponent is a bad law. A law which has no victims is a bad law. If a law is not a just law, it is a bad law.

A law which goes against your conscience is, to you, a bad law. If you are against the death penalty, a law that would cause the accused to face the death penalty is a bad law. Or at least the penalty is bad and the only way you can fight it is to consider it a bad law. The same logic applies if you are not specifically against the penalty but believe the crime does not justify a penalty so extreme.

If you are called to jury duty

The important message here is that as a juror, YOU have the right and power to determine if a law is a bad law or a good law. If it is a just or unjust law. If you find yourself on a jury, you have the right and the power to judge the facts of the case. But you also have the right and power to judge the LAW of the case.

The judge won’t tell you that you have the power and right to judge the law. They would rather you believe you only have the power and right to judge the facts. If the judge tells you anything, he or she will most likely tell you that you do NOT have the right to judge the law. The judge won’t hesitate to say you may only judge the facts and he will judge the law. The judge may also tell you that you took an oath to do exactly as the judge orders. But the oath you took likely only obligated you to do your best to provide justice for the defendant.

There was a time when it was standard procedure for a judge to inform the jury that they could and should judge the law. In the late 1800’s that practiced stopped. For a while the defense attorney would give this message to the jurors, but that too has been stopped. Now if a defendant or his/her attorney attempts to say anything about this the judge will tell them to stop. If they don’t stop, the judge will threaten contempt of court charges.

Why are you no longer informed about jury nullification? Don’t forget that the judge works for, and is paid by, the government. It is in his or her best interest to keep the government happy. And the government does not like their laws knocked down by jurors or anyone else.

So where does this leave you as a potential juror? When you are questioned during jury selection, it is best to remain silent on the subject. If they ask you anything jury nullification, you do not need to acknowledge any knowledge of the subject. There questions are just a ploy to keep any honest citizens who know they have the right to judge the law from being a juror on the case. The judges take an oath to support the US Constitution but they won’t hesitate to lie to you to keep you from using all your knowledge to truly judge the case completely. Including the law itself.

To learn more about your rights, powers, and duties as a juror, please visit the site of the Fully Informed Jury Association. Then, when called upon to serve as a juror, please accept and do your best to be sure justice is done for the defendant.

In closing let me emphasize that all this talk about bad laws does not mean that all laws are bad. Anyone who steals or damages someone else’s property, or who does bodily harm to another person, should indeed pay the penalty provided by law (assuming the penalty to not be “cruel and unusual” as prohibited by the 8th amendment). Those laws are not bad laws. They should be upheld as long as the defendant is actually guilty of the stated crime. Jury nullification is to protect the defendant from bad laws and being railroaded by political enemies or because of personal grudges, etc., not to free those defendants guilty of harmful crimes.

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Derby

Changes – Yet the Same

April 7th, 2010

Wind Energy Conversion Systems (WECS) are coming to Tippecanoe County, Indiana.

This is a good deal for the farmers and other land owners. I understand they receive a nice annual stipend for each WECS that they allow to be constructed on their land.

On the negative side I have also heard that they pretty much give up all options in using their land different from what they now have. For instance, they may not be able to plant a tree or build a barn without the permission of the operators of the WECS.

For the non-participants living in the area of wind farms, there are no benefits unless they happen to enjoy the view of the WECS. Some do. Most don’t. These people do have the concerns of noise, shadow flicker, and potential danger in the event of failure on the brake systems when the winds are extremely strong. There is a pretty good chance that the value of their property will go down, also.

Ah, but the county benefits. For each commercial or non-commercial wind farm (one or more WECS on a single plot of land – or on two or more contiguous plots) the developer will be charged $2500 plus an additional $200 for each actual wind turbine. That’s just for starters. Each year there will be an additional $1250 per wind farm and $100 for each WECS unit. Actually, these are minimum charges.

A farm of 50 WECS units will bring the county $12,500 the first year and $6,250 for each additional year. Ten such farms and the county has a nice chunk of change added to the coffers. Sixty-two Thousand five hundred dollars would look real good as an addition to MY bank account, but it’s not a lot for the county. Still, they want to get all they can. And I’ll bet they just find ways to spend it rather then cut taxes a little.

There is a lot of controversy about the WECS themselves. This article is not intended to discuss if they are a good idea or a bad one. It is more about the process that took place to get the ordinances passed this last Monday.

The first reading of ordinances 2010-02-CM and 2010-03-CM took place 5 weeks earlier, at a previous Tippecanoe County Board of Commissioners’ meeting. The first ordinance amends the county code adding a new chapter to regulate the wind turbines. The second one is to regulate the fees the county will collect from the WECS operators.

Two weeks later, at the next meeting, the ordinances were brought up for the second reading. A few members of the public made comments, mostly negative to either the WECS themselves or the ordinances. As a result, the commissioners decided to table the second reading until the next scheduled meeting. That was this last Monday.

It does appear that the commissioners did consider some of the concerns of the citizens of the county. They lessened the burden on the owners of what are referred to as Micro WECS. These are smaller, non-commercial units. That was only one of a few concerns raised at the March 15 meeting.

The county attorney, David Luhman, got things rolling by reading a list of changes that had been made by the commissioners to the ordinances. The list was quite extensive. If the minutes were posted as of this time, I’d count the number of changes – presuming the minutes are complete. So while I can’t tell you how many changes there were, I can say it took 20 to 30 minutes for Luhman to read them all.

In spite of the many changes, it seemed to me that the only real effect the changes would have would be on the Micro WECS. There may have been a slight tightening up of the decibels permitted by each WECS. I am not sure and don’t have a copy of the version prior to these changes. (As a side note, and before I forget it, I’d like to thank Paul Wright for refreshing my memory on a few details in this article.)

After Luhman’s reading of the changes, the public was allowed to comment. There were some comments in favor of the passing the ordinances as they were, but most wanted additional changes or objected to the wind farms completely. One of the suggestions I heard a couple of times made a lot of sense to me. It was to separate the Micro WECS regulations completely from the larger units – give them their own set of rules. It would have made things clearer, in my humble opinion.

After 13 or 14 members of the public had their say, board president, John Knochel, stated that his stomach was starting to growl so he would only hear two more citizens.

Maybe Knochel should have breakfast on the mornings of the meetings. Or if he does eat breakfast, maybe he needs to have a snack just before the meeting starts. This meeting only lasted a few minutes over two hours. At the time of the start of the meeting it had been about 12 hours since I’d eaten. I had no problem waiting until ALL of the public who wished to comment had the chance to do so. I’d have liked to hear the rest and they should have had the opportunity to speak. But maybe the board didn’t want to hear the rest of them.

After the limited public had their say, it was quickly moved to vote on the second reading. The second reading of both ordinances passed three to zero. No surprise. Actually, I don’t recall ANY ordinance passing with anything other than three to zero except when one of the commissioners was absent.

Now let’s review what happened. The county attorney read a list of changes that took 20 to 30 minutes to get out. The public (you know, the people who pay the salaries of these commissioners) were overwhelmingly against the ordinances as they stood.

So even though the changes were so extensive as to make it, for all practical purposes, a new bill, this was treated as a second reading. It would seem to me that if a bill is amended between the first and second reading, it should be considered a new bill (keep the old number) and given a new first reading. This is especially true if the changes are as extensive as these were.

But, no, this modified bill was treated as the same bill, given the second reading, and passed.

Passed against the will of the people.

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Deedon

Enumeration

March 18th, 2010

Some of my readers think that I don’t believe the Federal Government should do anything. Especially if they read “What Are You Willing to Give Up?” So they might presume I don’t believe in the census. But I do. You see, as I have stated repeatedly in these articles, I believe in the Constitution. The Constitution is not perfect but it is still a great document. It is a contract between the government and the states. That sort of makes it a contract between the government and you. And me.

The census was authorized by the Constitution in Article I, Section 2. It was placed there for the purpose of knowing how many citizens the country had. More specifically, how many citizens each state had. There were two reasons to know this information.

Stand up and be counted.

The first reason is the House of Representatives.

“The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative . . . “

So by counting the population of each state, it could be determined how many representatives the state should have. The idea was to divide the population of each state by 30,000 and the whole number answer would be the number of representatives that state would get. If the state had less than 30,000 population, it would get one representative.

Not more than one representative for every 30,000 was in the Constitution and has never been changed, not constitutionally. In 1911 congress decided the house was getting too big. I won’t go into WHY they decided this because I don’t know why for sure. The way I read the Constitution I believe that this relationship of not more than one representative for every 30,000 was something not to be changed. To change it should require an amendment. That was not done. I must admit, however, that the congress of 1911 may have been technically OK in the legislature that froze the house size at 435 members. After all, if there is one for every 600,000 citizens, that is not more than one for every 30,000.

The second reason for the census is taxation. The Constitution allows two methods of taxation. The first is excise taxes as spelled out in Article I, Section 8.

“The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States; . . . “

The founders realized that there would be times when the above taxes would not pay all the bills of the Federal government. So they agreed to allow direct taxes to “ . . . be apportioned among the several States.” These are the only direct taxes allowed. The Federal government was to bill the separate states in ratio to their population. Each state was to determine how to collect from its own citizens. Read the rest of this entry »

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Deedon

Transfer from Derby’s Blog

January 22nd, 2010

I started a blog called Derby’s Blog over a year ago. Originally it was my intent for it to be a mix of politics and anything else that came to mind. Since then I have decided to make a new blog of only political articles. This is that blog.  Welcome to Deedon’s Blog.

Derby’s Blog still exists at www.derbysblog.com. Now it is limited to the “anything else that came to mind” category.

The articles in this blog that are dated before 2010 were originally posted on Derby’s Blog.

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Deedon

Beyond the Constitution

December 31st, 2009

Most of the time It is good to think outside of the box. However, there is one box we should never think outside of: The Constitution of the United States. The Constitution is a small box. I copied and pasted the entire Constitution, including the preamble and all 27 amendments, into my word processor. According to my word processor it is less than 8000 words. Eight thousand is a big number – if you are hand counting raindrops or grains of sand. For reference: a work of fiction that would be classified as a short story might well be up to 15,000 words. In case you want to check it out, the Constitution can be found online here: http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html. I don’t recommend counting the words by hand, but if you would like to – go for it.

The nice thing about thinking inside a box is you have less to think about. Especially when the box is small. None the less, our hired help in Washington D. C. have a hard time with the limitations of this little box. It seems that almost none of them like to be confined. This seems so strange since they all took an oath to support the United States Constitution when they took office. If they don’t like the idea of staying within the confines of this little box, why do they run for office? Surely they know what is required before they run, don’t you think? Whatever the reason, they can’t seem to stay within that box.

If you want good government (some would call that an oxymoron), you have to keep up with what is going on. I’ve heard some say, “I have no interest in politics.” Maybe not, but remember this: Politics has an interest in you! So, first and foremost, let your senators, representatives and president know that you are paying attention and you will work to vote them out of office if they violate the Constitution. If they pay no mind to you, DO work to vote them out of office.

If you find it necessary to replace an unresponsive elected official, just be careful that you help find someone who will be more honest when taking the oath of office. Finding such a person who is willing to run is not an easy job, but it needs to be done. Maybe you can run. Mind you that while we are talking the federal level here, it is also important to take similar actions on the state and local levels.

Since it is almost impossible to keep power hungry politicians from running for (and winning) office, we must be prepared to act against the laws they create which violate their Constitutional restraints, along with our rights and freedoms. Read the rest of this entry »

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Deedon

Three Little Piggs

November 23rd, 2009

Once upon a time, a long, long time ago, in a small village in a distant and tiny and backward land . . . No, wait, that’s not quite right.

Once upon a time, not so very long ago, in a small village in a distant and . . . No, still not right.

Once upon a time, not so very long ago, in a large city in this very country there lived three little Piggs. Yeah, that’s it.

Well, it’s almost right. The Piggs were not necessarily little. And there were a lot more than just three. The three Piggs in this tale each represent many millions of Piggs living right here in the United States of America. We will call them Pigg1, Pigg2, and Pigg3, so as to distinguish one Pigg group from each of the other Pigg groups.

Pigg1 was just an ordinary Pigg in that he had a job (well, he did at one time) and he loved his family and he may or may not have gone to a house of worship on a regular basis. Pigg1’s goal in life is to live easy and accept any help offered from any source offering it – especially the government.

For much of his life, he and his family lived in an apartment. It seems he was unable to save enough money for a down payment for a house for his family. That was OK with him, except his wife really wanted the typical white picket fence surrounding their own little plot of land where the little (this time I mean it) Pigg1s could safely run and play. After all, that was the American dream and Mr. and Mrs. Pigg1 were nothing if they were not dreamers.

Mr. and Mrs. Pigg1 had both received a fine education in our government run education mills. By the time they had graduated they had learned how to read (as long as the words were short enough), how to do arithmetic (with a calculator), and how to ask for help in filling out employment applications, unemployment applications, and general welfare applications. They had also learned that the government is the solution to any problem they might encounter.

In addition, Mr. Pigg1 had learned to put cars up on blocks so he could fix them (maybe) and to do some general repairs of a lot of things as long as he had plenty of duct tape. The apartment manager tended to complain a lot about the car on blocks but Mr. Pigg1 ignored the complaints.

Mrs. Pigg1 had learned how to cook. She always spent the food stamps on fine convenience foods from the grocery department of the local Catchpenny store. She didn’t have to make the food go a little farther by adding fillers of bread or water (depending on the food in question) because the little Pigg1s were getting breakfast and lunch for free at school.

One day Mrs. Pigg1 heard about something called a no-doc mortgage. This had nothing to do with health care. It turned out it was a mortgage that would allow the Pigg1s to finance a house without documenting any income or assets. And why not? They deserved it. After all, Mr. Pigg1 still had a few months of unemployment coming and rumors were that the federal government was going to help the state extend that for several more months – or at least several more weeks. By that time Mr. Pigg1 would surely find employment somewhere – maybe. Also, the payments were going to be quite low on the APR mortgage as interest rates were very low. That’s because the FED kept pushing them down instead of letting the market set the rates.

Mr. and Mrs. Pigg1 agreed that this was certainly better than paying rent. So down to the local no-doc bank they went where they discovered that the government was ‘encouraging’ the banks to give these no-doc mortgages. These were also known as NINJA loans – No Income, No Job or Assets. Read the rest of this entry »

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Deedon

What Are We Willing to Give Up?

November 1st, 2009

At the following link you will find a cartoon called “Make Mine Freedom” which came out in 1948.

http://nationaljuggernaut.blogspot.com/2009/09/this-cartoon-seemed-far-fetched-in-1948.html

I suggest you view the cartoon first, then read as many of the comments as you choose. As of this writing there are over 300 posted comments. Many of them deserve or require replies. I have chosen to reply to only one. I have not posted this at the original site for reasons of my own. Still, it is something that needs to be said and I say it here for all those interested. I have no problem with anyone linking this article to the original site. I will quote the original comment first, then my reply.

On October 25, 2009, Julio said: “Americans who rant and rave against “socialism” obviously want to give up their local and state police departments, their fire departments, their public schools, their state colleges, their libraries, the US armed forces, medicaid, medicare, social security, their state and interstate highway system, the US Postal System, federal law enforcement agencies, unemployment checks and food stamps, and many other beneficial institutions and agencies.”

Yes, Julio. I would like to give up most of the things on your list. I would like to give up all of those items that the Constitution does not give authority for. Now I am talking at the Federal level. Local and state police departments and fire departments should be just that, local and state. That means with no help from the Federal government. Help always comes with strings and strings always mean controls. No help, no interference and no controls.

Personally, I would prefer no public schools at all. However, that is a topic for another session. I will point out that the words “education”, “school”, “university”, and “learn”, do not appear in the Constitution. “College” does appear but only in reference to the Electoral College. My state (Indiana) constitution does promise education. I don’t agree, but at least it is legal at the state level.

I am not aware of any Federal involvement in libraries except the Library of Congress. I suspect many libraries get Federal grants. That is unconstitutional, therefore it is wrong.

The Constitution allows for a navy. It also allows for an army but limits army funding to a two year period. The Founders had a reason for this: They knew, first hand, the potential terror of a standing army. Both the navy and the army were meant for DEFENSIVE purposes, not for empire building. The wrong use of the military is also a topic for another session.

Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Yes, they should all be eliminated. Medicare and Medicaid are major factors in the health care crisis we now face. All three are major factors in the financial crisis the country now faces. When I was in my early twenties I espoused the idea of eliminating Social Security. I never felt those who had paid into it should be left out in the cold. Those already receiving benefits should continue to receive the return on their payments as promised. Those who had paid in for a significant amount of time (but were not yet collecting SS) should receive a pro-rated amount when the time came for them to collect. In the mean time, the money should no longer be taken from the workers (or their employers). The balance of the payments should come from general taxes until SS is totally phased out.

The Constitution allows the Federal government to ESTABLISH both post offices and postal roads. Nothing about maintaining them in perpetuity. Nor should we have any Interstate system set up and funded by the Federal government. The states could decide on where the road between city a in state A and city b in state B could meet so it would be easy to get from one city to another. Then the states could build them (if their state constitutions allowed).

There are very few laws that fall into Federal jurisdiction for the purpose of enforcement. Treason and counterfeiting come to mind. So I suspect a single Federal law enforcement agency should suffice. Most of the Federal agencies with enforcement powers are enforcing unconstitutional laws.

As for unemployment checks and food stamps, I cannot support government charity at any level above the township level. By that I mean the Federal and state governments should not provide handouts to people, corporations or other entities. If a person falls on hard times and cannot find needed private charity from family, friends, churches, or fraternal organizations, then he or she should be able to go to the township for help. This should be the last resort. When the help comes from a higher government level, much of the money available will be lost in the bureaucracy leaving less for its intended purpose. Also, when the help comes from a very local source, it is harder for the lazy good-for-nothing types to game the system. Those who truly have problems will get the help they need, those who won’t try to help themselves will only get it a time or two. Corporations should NEVER get charity from ANY government.

That leaves “many other beneficial institutions and agencies”. Show me what institutions and agencies you are talking about and I’ll show you institutions and agencies that benefit some at the expense of others. And I’ll bet the US Constitution will not support them.

Now for some more general thoughts. True Capitalism has not been in use for a very long time in this country (or anywhere else that I know of). We have had government controls with laws passed to benefit the large corporations at the expense of the small competitors. It is not more regulation on capitalism that is needed. Such regulations makes it difficult for new and/or small companies to enter a market. Take barbers for example. Yes, so far as I know, at present there are no Federal license requirements or regulations for barbers. But there are state and sometimes local requirements. If I can find a barber who does what I want for a fee I’m willing to pay, I don’t care if they have a government approval or not. If they do a bad job, they will lose me as a client and I’ll advise my family and friends to stay away. If they do a good job, I’ll come back. If they do an excellent job I’ll not only come back, but I’ll recommend them to my family and friends.

It always comes back to the Constitution. If the Constitution does not specifically allow it, it cannot be done at the Federal level. As far as lower government levels are concerned, if some states (or cities) are more socialistic and others are less so, let the people vote at the ballot box. If they are not satisfied with the results they can vote with their feet. Of course the states, counties and cities must still protect the rights guaranteed by the Constitution of these united States – including the Bill of Rights.

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Deedon

Term Limits

October 13th, 2009

This article was originally written as a response to many comments on the subject of term limits at Tea Party Patriots. The URL for this is: http://www.contractfromamerica.org/IdeaDetail.aspx?ideaid=776425d7-2493-4f80-9157-006ba256deda . This was posted here on October 13, 2009, at about 10:00 pm (EDT) in case you want to see where it fits in the original discussion. If you would like to comment on this, feel free to comment right here or to go to the above link and comment. Or do both.

Now, as I was going to post at Tea Party Patriots:

Much of what is in the comment you are now reading has been written below in other comments. This is sort of a summary of it all based on my opinions. You will find some variations of what you read earlier.

Because of the limited powers given to the Federal Government by the Constitution, the founding fathers thought there would be little for Congress to do. Therefore, they placed a requirement for it to meet at least once a year (Article I, Section 4) Note: it says “AT LEAST ONCE A YEAR”. The wise men who wrote the Constitution were afraid the congressmen would not bother to come to the capital even that often.

The State Constitution for the New Hampshire states that compensation for the two year term of Representative is $200. That is only $100 per year and it takes an amendment to change it. I like that concept and would like to see in at the federal level. If fact, I would like to see it for ALL elected posts in the country.

If pay and benefits were low enough, our elected officials would not want to be career politicians. If they were required to stay within the bounds of the US Constitution, boredom alone would keep them from running again.

The framers of the Constitution of these united States expected normal farmers and businessmen to run for office and serve a single term. Then, it was expected they would go back living the life they had prior to serving.

Term limits are a good idea. But I would also like to see less incentive for politicians to even want to make serving a career.

My idea would be to limit any person from holding any government position (elected, appointed, or just plain hired), or series of positions, for more than a total of 12 years. I would allow them to rerun after a break from all government service (bureaucrat or elected position or just a clerk in a government office) for a time period equal or greater then the length of their last ‘run’ of government service.

Government servants (at any level) should not receive any pensions or any other incentives other than a basic salary.

Many, here, have spoken of elections being built in term limits. That is the way it should be but it does not work. If you and I vote out our incumbents because we believe in term limits, the people in the next state may not do so. Their incumbents will grab all the power and ours will be powerless. Also, if a senator is instrumental in bringing a factory to his state, his constituency will think he should stay there forever. In the meantime, with his power he may well be passing bills that will hurt the republic. And, remember, if he used his power to bring that factory to your state, he probably did it at the expense of the rest of the nation.

The constitution states we are to have one representative in the house for each 30,000 citizens. This, by the way, is the ONLY reason for the census to be done every ten years. To count heads, not to get demographics. But I digress. To follow the constitution we should have approximately 10,000 representatives in the house. A bigger building would be needed, but Madison Square Garden holds twice that many and we have sports stadiums even larger than MSG. The big advantage to this would be that the Representative would be closer to his constituents. Also, elections would cost less which would give less opportunity for the election to be bought or for contributors to buy the Representative.

Personally, I think the states should pay the salary of their Representatives and Senators. As hinted at above, the salary should not be large and benefits (which should be few and small) should terminate with the term of office. Pensions should not come with any job, people should save and invest a portion of their income for their retirement. Health care should also not be an employment benefit. The fact that it has become one is partially responsible for the health care crisis we now have. Oops! Strayed again.

We should repeal the 17th amendment and go back to the state legislators choosing the senators for that state. They would then be more loyal to the state and less likely to follow the president or house when bills are presented that would hurt their state. Most of the states are too large for the people to know their Senators.

If we force our elected servants to follow the Constitution, we will have a lot less bureaucracies and a lot less bureaucrats and less government jobs. Remember, federal government jobs (with a few exceptions) are non-productive. As a result, we are paying a salary just to let someone tell us what we can or cannot do. The primary exceptions are military and post office. The post office, although allowed for in the Constitution, is not required by the Constitution. I think it should be dissolved and let private enterprise take over. The military should be for DEFENSE ONLY. Then it would be much smaller and need a much smaller budget.

It has been argued that our politicians would get more done if they have longer terms. Frankly, considering what they do I consider it good when they don’t do much at all. That means they are not finding new projects to tax us for, not finding new taxes for us to pay, and not finding new ways to take away our liberties. That kind of non-production is good.

One last point. Someone suggested we should outlaw advertising for elections. This would mean the bulk of the information the public receives would come from the press. The press can be VERY one sided and it won’t always be on your side.

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Deedon

Government Doesn’t Work

September 6th, 2009

Here are some examples of government not working. If you would like details on why government programs fail, read Why Government Doesn’t Work by Harry Browne, (St. Martin’s Press – 1995).

Agriculture:

Farm subsidies for grains, tobacco, etc. are always set up to benefit the large farms at the expense of the family farmer. FTC and FDA regulations are also harmful to the family farmer as well as to any farm that is truly trying to produce healthy products such as non-GMO, pesticide free, and herbicide free foods.

Amtrak:

In 1971 the government took over most long distance passenger rail service in the USA. It is virtually without competition yet it needs to be subsidized. If it were very cheap there would be better arguments for it, but often you can fly from point A to point B for less than the Amtrak fare.

Education:

Since the federal government got deeply involved in education America’s students have consistently failed to keep up with students of other developed countries. Once we were tops in math and science. No longer is this true. A large per cent of high school graduates cannot do 8th grade math and/or cannot communicate effectively and intelligently. Many cannot read above an 8th grade level.

Drugs:

Since the federal war on drugs began, drug use has increased. Drug related crime has increased. Just like prohibition, the war on drugs has caused a rise in gangs (mobs) and an increase in violent crime. Although wrong, prohibition was constitutionally legal due to the 18th amendment (which was wisely repealed with the 21st amendment) – the drug war is not legal.

Health Care:

Medicare and Medicaid were instituted to take care of the health issues of the elderly and indigent. If it is so good, why has the current administration proposed a new multi-trillion dollar health plan? It must be a wonderful plan. Why else would the administration push so hard for it?

Government regulations make it hard for a patient to find natural medical care. The AMA (with the governments blessing) controls the medical schools and the medical industry. They (the AMA and government — FDA & FTC) are in bed with the pharmaceutical industry. Thus it has been decreed that no claims may be made for the health benefits of any natural product unless the FTC decides adequate testing has been done. This, even though the benefits of these natural fruits, vegetables, herbs, etc. have been known for centuries.

Military:

We keep getting into wars we can’t win and won’t get out of.

Money:

I am thinking of the bailouts of the past year. Reports come over the media daily about how we are pulling out of the recession. Still, more and more people are losing their jobs only to find jobs that are lower paying – or no job at all. Will the bailouts prevent a depression? I doubt it. Only time will tell. The Cash for Clunkers program did not help the American auto makers as much as it did those from Japan and Korea.

Poverty:

The Johnson administration declared war on poverty. How’s that working out? More and more people are living below the poverty level every year.

Post Office:

The post office has a monopoly on first class letters. In spite of the monopoly it loses money every year.

Social Security:

This plan was going to be called Social Welfare but the name was changed to Social Security. Those in power at the time realized the people of this country would not stand for such a (welfare) program. It is claimed that the intent was never to be a sole retirement plan, but a supplement. This may be true, but when the government takes over 12% of your income, for such a program, it makes it difficult to have anything to save. I know, your pay stub shows only 6.2% being deducted but your employer pays another 6.2% in your name. This is money that could be available to add to your paycheck if the employer did not have to pay it to Uncle Sam. Besides this, it costs the company money to process these transactions in a fashion that suits the government.

Unemployment:

Government programs and tax breaks were instrumental in sending huge numbers of US manufacturing companies overseas to China (and elsewhere) to open plants there and to close plants in the US. Jobs lost that will likely never be regained!

Once a government program is instituted, it is almost impossible to get rid of it. Even if the legislation creating the program has a sunset clause, it is never allowed to die. It is in the best interest of the operators of the program to continue it and make it grow – job security! And if it is failing, well that is because it needs more funding!

It is worth noting that of all the areas listed above, only the post office and the military are even permitted by the constitution. Your government officials, from the president on down, all take an oath to support that very document. You can see how seriously they take that responsibility. A note on the military: the constitution allows for an army and a permanent navy. It was never intended the army be permanent. The constitution prohibits funding it for longer than a two year period.

More Government Won’t Work

Better.

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