Well, to listen to the congressional rhetoric about the pending 2001 tax cuts, - you would think that congress thinks that most of the money you make is their money!
Yep, that's right, not only are you NOT entitled to the fruits of your own labor (until the government gets it's cut); but, you are damn lucky if they let you keep any of it.
Before the government can confiscate your money - it must be made. But, how is money created?
Money is the result of merit - the best effort of honest men and women. (For in general, most are not rewarded for their worst efforts and in a free marketplace worst efforts are swept away by the choice of purchaser.)
Money is the mode whereby all persons of honorable intent exchange their "merits" with others voluntarily - for their own mutual benefit. Ayn Rand (in Atlas Shrugged) said, "Money is the tool of exchange, which can't exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value."
If you believe that you own yourself (and that the government does not own you) then you must also believe that you own the product of your own ideas and efforts. Anyone or any government seeking to seize by force or unjust fiat the results of your own efforts is stealing the product of your labor - enslaving your efforts for their own benefit. These people should be condemned for the thieves and looters that they reveal themselves to be and this theft should not be allowed to stand.
The Reverend Jesse Jackson has announced that he has fathered a child out of wedlock. I suppose the genuine news is not that the Reverend has committed adultery, but that his supporters (by the legion) tell us; "Jackson's Moral authority hasn't been diminished... He's to continue his stewardship and fight for moral justice" and "His work is very important because somebody has to speak out" while others indicate, "Jackson's political work should not be connected to his personal life".
The real story is ( at least in the New Millennium United States) violating a fundamental precept of core beliefs is not quite enough to lose your leadership status - if you are among the preferred. By the way, just how many of the Ten Commands is one (of Judeo-Christian faith) allowed to break before they lose their (hard earned) right to call themselves a leader?
Sound Familiar?
Damn right it does. This is the same "advice" we received from this moral leader when President Clinton was 'on the lamb' from his moral compass and receiving "ethical guidance" for his own sex scandal. But, what happens when a "leader" who's 'trick-bag' includes leveraging the "need" for moral and ethical conduct and uses the tools of morality and conscience to garner support for his agenda is found to be immoral? Obviously (and if you are 'among the preferred') the post Clinton legacy requires that "we forgive and forget, as this is just a personal matter." The 'religion of politics' is now recognized as a higher calling'- exhalted above all else.
What happens to a Society that abandons it's fundamental precepts? In the absence of principle we have anarchy. Leaders without their own firm values are standing in the quicksand of shifting mores and are ill equipped to guide us through this chaos.
When we follow or allow ourselves to be lead by the immoral "stewards of justice" who have abandoned their own core believes are we too tainted by following their path?
... that entire hubbub in the Federal Civil-Rights Panel Investigation of the Florida Nov 2000 elections is the whole notion of VOTER RESPONSIBILITY! Much was made of the 'abandoning of local election supervisors'; Governor vetoed voter-education campaigns and confusing ballots and the 'voters had to pay the price'.
What price and at what cost to the voter? Which voter - the informed voter, the legal voter or their opposite?
Voters who participate in an entire election cycle -primaries runoffs and Presidential elections know at their first visit to the polls (during the party primary) if they are properly registered in their precinct. If there is a problem with their registration the voter should have ample time to correct it between the primary election and Presidential election time. It should be well argued that it is the voter's responsibility to ensure his or her own registration is in 'proper order' before journeying to the polls to cast a ballot. Furthermore, it is also the voter's responsibility to understand from whom and what he is casting his ballot!
What's to be made of the enfranchisement of the ill informed voter or the illegal voter - besides the obvious erosion of voter confidence and the undermining of the electoral process?
How can any republic sustain such an assault on the very source of it's existence - Power derived from the will of the people by having the will of the people subverted by conferring legitimate status on illegitimate ballots?
An illegitimate ballot is not (as some might think) an honest disagreement with a particular point of view (arrived at by careful consideration of the facts) or political frame of reference; but rather a swindle of the public trust and a fraud perpetrated on the governed by looters seeking criminal suppression of the legal will of the governed for their own illegitimate gain.
...by its very nature indicates 'a complete or radical transformation'. We as a society have been going through this change; but, (as Gil Scott Heron once sang) 'have not directed the change.' - Consequently, the school term is over and our thesis was due - last week.
We've unleashed on ourselves a generation (and a half) of Americans who for some "inexplicable' reason do not know how (or why) our 'democracy' works and many may not care. While it is easiest to see this as a failure of our educational system; the 'final outcome' (if you will) of our 'Outcome Based Education'; but in a republic, it is our own personal responsibility as voters to remain educated to the facts and issues at hand.
As sad as this may be, is there a more sinister plot in play here?
Who benefits from an uninformed electorate? Why it is those who have welded the power (for the last 40+ years), created policy, reduced standards and encouraged a wallow in the vulgar trough of a permission-able society (for the last 40+ years) that benefit. Whether it is the 'yes Johnny 2+2 might equal three' or the public assumption that 'we live in a democracy (instead of a representative republic) a failure of outcomes is equally assured.
Yes, a complete and radical transformation is upon us. The 'political segment' that has the most to gain finds it easy and expedient to enfranchise those least able to make an educated political decision. Moreover, it renders 'those politically least able' hapless in the grinding machinations of those manipulators who seek to rend our 'democracy' from the very principles it is founded upon (for their own purposes and quest for personal power). The 'politically least able' is not a cornerstone that can support the foundation of our republic.
