Author: Bob Livingston

Chances are what you learned in school about the causes of the Great Depression and the effects of the New Deal and Word War II on the American economy are all wrong. If you were taught to believe the free market caused the Great Depression and the New Deal and World War II got us out of it, reading The Politically Incorrect Guide to The Great Depression and The New Deal will set you straight.

Murphy earned his Ph.D. in economics at New York University and served as a professor at Hillsdale College. He is now an adjunct scholar with the Ludwig von Mises Institute, a senior fellow in business and economic studies at the Pacific Research Institute and economist with both the Mackinac Center for Public Policy and Institute for Energy Research. In The Politically Incorrect Guide, Murphy provides irrefutable evidence that the not only did government interference with the market cause the Great Depression, but the big government policies of Herbert Hoover and Franklin Delano Roosevelt made it last longer and become more severe than necessary.

Murphy deals with the three main explanations of the Great Depression: 1) The wildcat free market caused the Great Depression and the New Deal pulled us out of it; 2) A Market economy goes through natural ups and downs, but the Federal Reserve let the money supply collapse in the early 1930s, turning a normal downturn in the Great Depression; and 3) The Federal Reserve fueled the stock market boom of the 1920 with its easy money policies. After the crash, the Fed did the wrong thing by cutting rates and propping up unsound institutions. Hoover’s and FDR’s interventions in the economy only made things worse.

He dissects each argument and provides evidence that the third explanation is the most plausible.

Austrian school economists believe FDR’s New Deal was terrible for small business in America, with its wage and price control policies, restrictions and higher taxes hindering innovation and expansion. It also resulted in long-term high unemployment. And Murphy makes a strong case that this is so. He also shows how FDR’s banking holiday and the ensuing “safeguards” placed on the banking industry created many more problems than they solved.

Finally, Murphy makes the case that today’s recession is much like the Great Depression in cause and effect, and that because President Obama’s economic policies mirror FDR’s in so many ways, the result will be a recession that is deeper and lasts longer than is necessary.

The Politically Incorrect Guide to The Great Depression and The New Deal is an easy and quick read that is written in such a way as to give a good history lesson—without being too technical—for those seeking a better understanding of that dark period in America’s history. It also provides the reader with a better understanding of how our country got into its current financial mess.

Although President Obama, Speaker Pelosi, Majority Leader Reid and their elite socialistic foot soldiers cast it in pleasant, humanitarian terms as a means of providing healthcare to those who couldn’t otherwise afford it, the majority of Americans recognized Obamacare for what it was: a transfer of wealth to Big Pharma, trial lawyers, unions and other special interests and a power grab over society’s producers.

Hence, the growth of the Tea Party movement across the United States.

The Tea Party took root early in 2009 in response to the massive government spending policies and takeover of two-thirds of the American automobile industry and all of the financial industry by the redistributionists—carrying both the Democrat and Republican labels—seeking to turn America into Karl Marx’s dream state. The Tea Party grew stronger and louder as Obama—the Liar-in-Chief—denied his socialistic tendencies and looked down on them with an arrogant disdain and dismissiveness.

Tea Partiers found their voices as 2009 turned into 2010 and the power grab reached its zenith when Obama’s dream came true and the House and Senate overrode the will of the majority of Americans and passed into law Obamacare on March 21. They turned out by the thousands in Washington, D.C., that day and the day before—traveling there from all over the country on a couple of days notice—to protest, and those who couldn’t go flooded the Capitol switchboard with calls and the Capitol email servers with correspondence.

The arrogant elitists who occupy Washington, D.C., laughed in the faces of the Tea Partiers once the passage of Obamacare was assured. Pelosi grabbed her gavel and, along with a group of her lackeys, marched boldly through the crowd of Tea Party protesters on the day the voting began, hoping above hope to incite some incident that would allow them to paint the protesters as radicals and racists.

When no one took the bait the arrogant elitists made up an incident, with one congressman saying he was slurred by a racial epithet from Tea Partiers and another claiming he was spat upon. Despite those claims no arrests were made, no video or audio evidence of any slurs have turned up and the congressman who claims spittle flew his way was unable to make any kind of identification of a culprit. And Andrew Breitbart’s $100,000 reward to the United Negro College Fund for evidence of a slur remains unclaimed.

Capitol police escorting the group of elected elitists through the crowd of Tea Party peasants saw no evidence of anything untoward and sensed no danger for those they were charged with protecting.

That’s because Tea Partiers aren’t violent sociopaths as the Left and liberal media would have you believe. They are ordinary, everyday Main Street Americans—49 percent Republican and 51 percent either independent or Democrat; 70 percent conservative, but 22 percent moderate; 55 percent male; and 45 percent with annual income below $50,000, 55 percent above $50,000. In age, education, employment status and race the Tea Party supporters break down statistically almost exactly like the general population, according to Gallup polls.

They’re people who would rather be at home or at work than having to stand outside their capitol building holding signs and demonstrating. They are people who, three or four years ago, would not have dreamed they would have to stand up to a government that is spending away the future of their children and grandchildren and making an unconstitutional power grab.

And make no mistake: That’s what the elected elitists are doing. That group of Ivy League educated lawyers and political scientists that walk the halls of Congress—and one who now resides in the White House and refuses to travel sans teleprompter—has been attempting to pull a bait and switch on the American people, telling them Obamacare had nothing to do with socialism or redistribution of wealth or power over the people but only in helping the less fortunate.

Some fell for it. But, despite Obama’s eloquent teleprompter and long windedness, most haven’t. Indeed, 52 percent still oppose Obamacare four weeks after its passage. But now that it has passed the elites are no longer hiding their true intent: socialist redistribution.

In their own words:

• “It’s a simple proposition to us: Everyone is entitled to adequate medical health care. If you call that a ‘redistribution of income’—well, so be it. I don’t call it that. I call it just being fair—giving the middle class taxpayers an even break that the wealthy have been getting.”—Vice President Joe Biden
• “(Health reform is) an income shift. It is a shift, a leveling, to help lower-income, middle-income Americans. … [T]he maldistribution of income in America has gone up way too much, the wealthy are getting way, way too wealthy, and the middle income class is left behind. (The new health care legislation) will have the effect of addressing that maldistribution of income in America.”—Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.)
• “I don’t worry about the Constitution on this. … What I care more about, I care more about the people dying every day that don’t have health care.”—Rep. Phil Hare (D-Ill.)
• “Let me remind you this (Americans allegedly dying because of lack of universal healthcare) has been going on for years. We are bringing it to a halt. The harsh fact of the matter is when you’re going to pass legislation that will cover 300 (million) American people in different ways it takes a long time to do the necessary administrative steps that have to be taken to put the legislation together to control the people.”—Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.)

To their credit, Republicans in Congress opposed Obamacare. It seems the GOP plans to run on a platform of “Repeal the Bill” as we head into the midterm elections this fall. However, Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), in typical Republican style of surrendering before the battle has been enjoined, has already lost his backbone and is saying repeal is not going to happen. The surrender came three weeks after he said Republicans would and should run on a platform of repeal.

Senate candidate Mark Kirk of Illinois has also backed off his repeal the bill stance. Rep. Mike Castle, (R-Del.) is running for the state’s open Senate seat and he is also avoiding a pledge to repeal. Expect other Republicans to follow.

As I pointed out last week in Don’t Pin Your Hopes On The Party Of Lincoln, the GOP can’t be trusted to fight for smaller government. Big government is in their genes. Thankfully, Kirk and Castle have opposition.

Remember in 1994, after a bruising fight with President Bill Clinton over universal healthcare, Republicans ran on their Contract with America which would have, in their minds, streamlined government, required a balanced budget, created jobs, set term limits and produced other reforms. Some elements did not pass in Congress and others were vetoed by Clinton and the Republicans moved on to other things, like growing government under George W. Bush.

So if you want to take back your government—take back your country—from the Obama regime and his Marxists redistributionists, don’t think you’re going to do that by selecting just any Republican candidate. He or she may be a Bob Corker, Mike Castle or Mark Kirk—maybe a socialist, maybe a progressive or maybe just a spineless, deceitful politician—with no intention of shrinking government.

The Tea Parties will give you some idea of the worth of a candidate. But it’s up to each individual voter to check out a candidate’s record if he has one, or his words and deeds if he doesn’t, before the vote and to hold his feet to the fire after the election.

That’s the only way you’re going to be able to take your country back. The elitist redistributionists are feeling invincible, and their special interests promise generous campaign contributions when the campaign begins.

It’s your job as a voter—as a citizen—to show that your vote is more important than cash from corporatists, trial lawyers, unions and their other johns.

Dear Bob,

I want my son to get some coins each month, but where can he hide them in an apartment that is not in a safe or lock box that someone can pick up and carry away? What is a good way to store them?

JZ

Dear JZ,

First of all, tell no one that you have gold on the premises. That goes for friends and relatives. Any slip of the tongue can alert a thief to your valuables who would be more diligent in a search than would a burglar who picked your home at random.

After that, there are some simple tricks you can use depending upon the way your apartment is constructed. If there are voids in closets (ceilings or walls) you can buy a small—preferably fireproof—safe and secure it in the void. Be sure the void is covered in such a way that it doesn’t look different from its surroundings. If you have large baseboards you can remove one section and cut a small hole in the drywall and place your gold behind the baseboard, securing the baseboard with just a couple of nails for easy removal. You can purchase a package of frozen vegetables or fruit or a container of ice cream, remove the contents and put your coins in the container and the container in the freezer. Most burglars won’t look there. You can also place a few coins at a time in envelopes and tape them inside your cabinets to the underside of the countertop. If you use a little bit of imagination you can thwart most common thieves.

Best Wishes,
Bob

A "sockdolager" is a knock-down blow. This is a newspaper reporter’s captivating story of his unforgettable encounter with the old "Bear Hunter" from Tennessee.

From "The Life of Colonel David Crockett", by Edward S. Ellis
(Philadelphia: Porter & Coates, 1884)

---

CROCKETT was then the lion of Washington. I was a great admirer of his character, and, having several friends who were intimate with him, I found no difficulty in making his acquaintance. I was fascinated with him, and he seemed to take a fancy to me.

I was one day in the lobby of the House of Representatives when a bill was taken up appropriating money for the benefit of a widow of a distinguished naval officer. Several beautiful speeches had been made in its support—rather, as I thought, because it afforded the speakers a fine opportunity for display than from the necessity of convincing anybody, for it seemed to me that everybody favored it. The Speaker was just about to put the question when Crockett arose. Everybody expected, of course, that he was going to make one of his characteristic speeches in support of the bill. He commenced:

"Mr. Speaker—I have as much respect for the memory of the deceased, and as much sympathy for the sufferings of the living, if suffering there be, as any man in this House, but we must not permit our respect for the dead or our sympathy for a part of the living to lead us into an act of injustice to the balance of the living. I will not go into an argument to prove that Congress has no power to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member upon this floor knows it.

We have the right, as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right so to appropriate a dollar of the public money. Some eloquent appeals have been made to us upon the ground that it is a debt due the deceased. Mr. Speaker, the deceased lived long after the close of the war; he was in office to the day of his death, and I have never heard that the government was in arrears to him. This government can owe no debts but for services rendered, and at a stipulated price. If it is a debt, how much is it? Has it been audited, and the amount due ascertained? If it is a debt, this is not the place to present it for payment, or to have its merits examined. If it is a debt, we owe more than we can ever hope to pay, for we owe the widow of every soldier who fought in the War of 1812 precisely the same amount.

There is a woman in my neighborhood, the widow of as gallant a man as ever shouldered a musket. He fell in battle. She is as good in every respect as this lady, and is as poor. She is earning her daily bread by her daily labor; but if I were to introduce a bill to appropriate five or ten thousand dollars for her benefit, I should be laughed at, and my bill would not get five votes in this House. There are thousands of widows in the country just such as the one I have spoken of, but we never hear of any of these large debts to them. Sir, this is no debt.

The government did not owe it to the deceased when he was alive; it could not contract it after he died. I do not wish to be rude, but I must be plain. Every man in this House knows it is not a debt. We cannot, without the grossest corruption, appropriate this money as the payment of a debt. We have not the semblance of authority to appropriate it as a charity.

Mr. Speaker, I have said we have the right to give as much of our own money as we please. I am the poorest man on this floor. I cannot vote for this bill, but I will give one week’s pay to the object, and if every member of Congress will do the same, it will amount to more than the bill asks."

He took his seat. Nobody replied. The bill was put upon its passage, and, instead of passing unanimously, as was generally supposed, and as, no doubt, it would, but for that speech, it received but few votes, and, of course, was lost.

Like many other young men, and old ones, too, for that matter, who had not thought upon the subject, I desired the passage of the bill, and felt outraged at its defeat. I determined that I would persuade my friend Crockett to move a reconsideration the next day.

Previous engagements preventing me from seeing Crockett that night, I went early to his room the next morning and found him engaged in addressing and franking letters, a large pile of which lay upon his table.

I broke in upon him rather abruptly, by asking him what devil had possessed him to make that speech and defeat that bill yesterday. Without turning his head or looking up from his work, he replied:

"You see that I am very busy now; take a seat and cool yourself. I will be through in a few minutes, and then I will tell you all about it."

He continued his employment for about ten minutes, and when he had finished he turned to me and said: "Now, sir, I will answer your question. But thereby hangs a tale, and one of considerable length, to which you will have to listen."

I listened, and this is the tale which I heard:

---

SEVERAL YEARS AGO I was one evening standing on the steps of the Capitol with some other members of Congress, when our attention was attracted by a great light over in Georgetown. It was evidently a large fire. We jumped into a hack and drove over as fast as we could. When we got there, I went to work, and I never worked as hard in my life as I did there for several hours. But, in spite of all that could be done, many houses were burned and many families made homeless, and, besides, some of them had lost all but the clothes they had on. The weather was very cold, and when I saw so many women and children suffering, I felt that something ought to be done for them, and everybody else seemed to feel the same way.

The next morning a bill was introduced appropriating $20,000 for their relief. We put aside all other business and rushed it through as soon as it could be done. I said everybody felt as I did. That was not quite so; for, though they perhaps sympathized as deeply with the sufferers as I did, there were a few of the members who did not think we had the right to indulge our sympathy or excite our charity at the expense of anybody but ourselves. They opposed the bill, and upon its passage demanded the yeas and nays. There were not enough of them to sustain the call, but many of us wanted our names to appear in favor of what we considered a praiseworthy measure, and we voted with them to sustain it. So the yeas and nays were recorded, and my name appeared on the journals in favor of the bill.

The next summer, when it began to be time to think about the election, I concluded I would take a scout around among the boys of my district. I had no opposition there, but, as the election was some time off, I did not know what might turn up, and I thought it was best to let the boys know that I had not forgot them, and that going to Congress had not made me too proud to go to see them.

So I put a couple of shirts and a few twists of tobacco into my saddlebags, and put out. I had been out about a week and had found things going very smoothly, when, riding one day in a part of my district in which I was more of a stranger than any other, I saw a man in a field plowing and coming toward the road. I gauged my gait so that we should meet as he came to the fence. As he came up I spoke to the man. He replied politely, but, as I thought, rather coldly, and was about turning his horse for another furrow when I said to him: "Don’t be in such a hurry, my friend; I want to have a little talk with you, and get better acquainted."

He replied: "I am very busy, and have but little time to talk, but if it does not take too long, I will listen to what you have to say."

I began: "Well, friend, I am one of those unfortunate beings called candidates, and…"

"’Yes, I know you; you are Colonel Crockett. I have seen you once before, and voted for you the last time you were elected. I suppose you are out electioneering now, but you had better not waste your time or mine. I shall not vote for you again.’

This was a sockdolager… I begged him to tell me what was the matter.

"Well, Colonel, it is hardly worthwhile to waste time or words upon it. I do not see how it can be mended, but you gave a vote last winter which shows that either you have not capacity to understand the Constitution, or that you are wanting in honesty and firmness to be guided by it. In either case you are not the man to represent me. But I beg your pardon for expressing it in that way. I did not intend to avail myself of the privilege of the Constitution to speak plainly to a candidate for the purpose of insulting or wounding you. I intend by it only to say that your understanding of the Constitution is very different from mine; and I will say to you what, but for my rudeness, I should not have said, that I believe you to be honest. But an understanding of the Constitution different from mine I cannot overlook, because the Constitution, to be worth anything, must be held sacred, and rigidly observed in all its provisions. The man who wields power and misinterprets it is the more dangerous the more honest he is."

"I admit the truth of all you say, but there must be some mistake about it, for I do not remember that I gave any vote last winter upon any constitutional question."

"No, Colonel, there’s no mistake. Though I live here in the backwoods and seldom go from home, I take the papers from Washington and read very carefully all the proceedings of Congress. My papers say that last winter you voted for a bill to appropriate $20,000 to some sufferers by a fire in Georgetown. Is that true?"

"Certainly it is, and I thought that was the last vote which anybody in the world would have found fault with."

"Well, Colonel, where do you find in the Constitution any authority to give away the public money in charity?"

Here was another sockdolager; for, when I began to think about it, I could not remember a thing in the Constitution that authorized it. I found I must take another tack, so I said:

"Well, my friend; I may as well own up. You have got me there. But certainly nobody will complain that a great and rich country like ours should give the insignificant sum of $20,000 to relieve its suffering women and children, particularly with a full and overflowing Treasury, and I am sure, if you had been there, you would have done just as I did."

"It is not the amount, Colonel, that I complain of; it is the principle. In the first place, the government ought to have in the Treasury no more than enough for its legitimate purposes. But that has nothing to do with the question. The power of collecting and disbursing money at pleasure is the most dangerous power that can be entrusted to man, particularly under our system of collecting revenue by a tariff, which reaches every man in the country, no matter how poor he may be, and the poorer he is the more he pays in proportion to his means. What is worse, it presses upon him without his knowledge where the weight centers, for there is not a man in the United States who can ever guess how much he pays to the government.

So you see, that while you are contributing to relieve one, you are drawing it from thousands who are even worse off than he. If you had the right to give anything, the amount was simply a matter of discretion with you, and you had as much right to give $20,000,000 as $20,000. If you have the right to give to one, you have the right to give to all; and, as the Constitution neither defines charity nor stipulates the amount, you are at liberty to give to any and everything which you may believe, or profess to believe, is a charity, and to any amount you may think proper. You will very easily perceive what a wide door this would open for fraud and corruption and favoritism, on the one hand, and for robbing the people on the other.

No, Colonel, Congress has no right to give charity. Individual members may give as much of their own money as they please, but they have no right to touch a dollar of the public money for that purpose. If twice as many houses had been burned in this county as in Georgetown, neither you nor any other member of Congress would have thought of appropriating a dollar for our relief. There are about two hundred and forty members of Congress. If they had shown their sympathy for the sufferers by contributing each one week’s pay, it would have made over $13,000. There are plenty of wealthy men in and around Washington who could have given $20,000 without depriving themselves of even a luxury of life. The Congressmen chose to keep their own money, which, if reports be true, some of them spend not very creditably; and the people about Washington, no doubt, applauded you for relieving them from the necessity of giving by giving what was not yours to give.

The people have delegated to Congress, by the Constitution, the power to do certain things. To do these, it is authorized to collect and pay moneys, and for nothing else. Everything beyond this is usurpation, and a violation of the Constitution."

I have given you an imperfect account of what he said. Long before he was through, I was convinced that I had done wrong. He wound up by saying:

"So you see, Colonel, you have violated the Constitution in what I consider a vital point. It is a precedent fraught with danger to the country, for when Congress once begins to stretch its power beyond the limits of the Constitution, there is no limit to it, and no security for the people. I have no doubt you acted honestly, but that does not make it any better, except as far as you are personally concerned, and you see that I cannot vote for you."

I tell you I felt streaked. I saw if I should have opposition, and this man should go talking, he would set others to talking, and in that district I was a gone fawn-skin. I could not answer him, and the fact is, I did not want to. But I must satisfy him, and I said to him:

"Well, my friend, you hit the nail upon the head when you said I had not sense enough to understand the Constitution. I intended to be guided by it, and thought I had studied it full. I have heard many speeches in Congress about the powers of Congress, but what you have said there at your plow has got more hard, sound sense in it than all the fine speeches I ever heard. If I had ever taken the view of it that you have, I would have put my head into the fire before I would have given that vote; and if you will forgive me and vote for me again, if I ever vote for another unconstitutional law I wish I may be shot."

He laughingly replied:

"Yes, Colonel, you have sworn to that once before, but I will trust you again upon one condition. You say that you are convinced that your vote was wrong. Your acknowledgment of it will do more good than beating you for it. If, as you go around the district, you will tell people about this vote, and that you are satisfied it was wrong, I will not only vote for you, but will do what I can to keep down opposition, and, perhaps, I may exert some little influence in that way."

"If I don’t," said I, "I wish I may be shot; and to convince you that I am in earnest in what I say, I will come back this way in a week or ten days, and if you will get up a gathering of the people, I will make a speech to them. Get up a barbecue, and I will pay for it."

"No, Colonel, we are not rich people in this section, but we have plenty of provisions to contribute for a barbecue, and some to spare for those who have none. The push of crops will be over in a few days, and we can then afford a day for a barbecue. This is Thursday; I will see to getting it up on Saturday a week. Come to my house on Friday, and we will go together, and I promise you a very respectable crowd to see and hear you."

"Well, I will be here. But one thing more before I say good-bye… I must know your name."

"My name is Bunce."

"Not Horatio Bunce?"

"Yes."

"Well, Mr. Bunce, I never saw you before, though you say you have seen me; but I know you very well. I am glad I have met you, and very proud that I may hope to have you for my friend. You must let me shake your hand before I go."

We shook hands and parted.

It was one of the luckiest hits of my life that I met him. He mingled but little with the public, but was widely known for his remarkable intelligence and incorruptible integrity, and for a heart brimful and running over with kindness and benevolence, which showed themselves not only in words but in acts. He was the oracle of the whole country around him, and his fame had extended far beyond the circle of his immediate acquaintance. Though I had never met him before, I had heard much of him, and but for this meeting it is very likely I should have had opposition, and had been beaten. One thing is very certain, no man could now stand up in that district under such a vote.

At the appointed time I was at his house, having told our conversation to every crowd I had met, and to every man I stayed all night with, and I found that it gave the people an interest and a confidence in me stronger than I had ever seen manifested before.

Though I was considerably fatigued when I reached his house, and, under ordinary circumstances, should have gone early to bed, I kept him up until midnight, talking about the principles and affairs of government, and got more real, true knowledge of them than I had got all my life before.

I have told you Mr. Bunce converted me politically. He came nearer converting me religiously than I had ever been before. He did not make a very good Christian of me, as you know; but he has wrought upon my mind a conviction of the truth of Christianity, and upon my feelings a reverence for its purifying and elevating power such as I had never felt before.

I have known and seen much of him since, for I respect him—no, that is not the word—I reverence and love him more than any living man, and I go to see him two or three times every year; and I will tell you, sir, if everyone who professes to be a Christian lived and acted and enjoyed it as he does, the religion of Christ would take the world by storm.

But to return to my story: The next morning we went to the barbecue, and, to my surprise, found about a thousand men there. I met a good many whom I had not known before, and they and my friend introduced me around until I had got pretty well acquainted—at least, they all knew me.

In due time notice was given that I would speak to them. They gathered around a stand that had been erected. I opened my speech by saying:

"Fellow citizens—I present myself before you today feeling like a new man. My eyes have lately been opened to truths which ignorance or prejudice, or both, had heretofore hidden from my view. I feel that I can today offer you the ability to render you more valuable service than I have ever been able to render before. I am here today more for the purpose of acknowledging my error than to seek your votes. That I should make this acknowledgment is due to myself as well as to you. Whether you will vote for me is a matter for your consideration only."

I went on to tell them about the fire and my vote for the appropriation as I have told it to you, and then told them why I was satisfied it was wrong. I closed by saying:

"And now, fellow citizens, it remains only for me to tell you that the most of the speech you have listened to with so much interest was simply a repetition of the arguments by which your neighbor, Mr. Bunce, convinced me of my error.

"It is the best speech I ever made in my life, but he is entitled to the credit of it. And now I hope he is satisfied with his convert and that he will get up here and tell you so."

He came upon the stand and said:

"Fellow citizens—It affords me great pleasure to comply with the request of Colonel Crockett. I have always considered him a thoroughly honest man, and I am satisfied that he will faithfully perform all that he has promised you today."

He went down, and there went up from the crowd such a shout for Davy Crockett as his name never called forth before.

I am not much given to tears, but I was taken with a choking then and felt some big drops rolling down my cheeks. And I tell you now that the remembrance of those few words spoken by such a man, and the honest, hearty shout they produced, is worth more to me than all the honors I have received and all the reputation I have ever made, or ever shall make, as a member of Congress.

"NOW, SIR," concluded Crockett, "you know why I made that speech yesterday. I have had several thousand copies of it printed and was directing them to my constituents when you came in.

"There is one thing now to which I will call your attention. You remember that I proposed to give a week’s pay. There are in that House many very wealthy men—men who think nothing of spending a week’s pay, or a dozen of them for a dinner or a wine party when they have something to accomplish by it. Some of those same men made beautiful speeches upon the great debt of gratitude which the country owed the deceased—a debt which could not be paid by money, particularly so insignificant a sum as $10,000, when weighed against the honor of the nation. Yet not one of them responded to my proposition. Money with them is nothing but trash when it is to come out of the people. But it is the one great thing for which most of them are striving, and many of them sacrifice honor, integrity, and justice to obtain it."

Still trying to sell his Obamacare plan in Charlotte, N.C., last week, President Obama responded to a simple question with a not-so-simple answer.

Is it, a woman named Doris wanted to know, a “wise decision to add more taxes to us with the healthcare” package? “We are over-taxed as it is,” she said.

More than 17 minutes and 2,500 words later, Obama still hadn’t addressed her question.

According to The Washington Post, Obama “wandered from topic to topic, including commentary on the deficit, pay-as-you-go rules passed by Congress, Congressional Budget Office reports on Medicare waste, COBRA coverage, the Recovery Act and Federal Medical Assistance Percentages (he referred to this last item by its inside-the-Beltway name, ‘F-Map’). He talked about the notion of eliminating foreign aid (not worth it, he said). He invoked Warren Buffett, earmarks and payroll tax that funds Medicare (referring to it, in fluent Washington lingo, as ‘FICA’).”

He continued making points after he ticked off three points after saying he had to make one more point—seven points in all.

Finally, even Obama seemed to realize he had gone on too long. As The Post explains, he apologized—in keeping with the spirit of the moment, not once but twice.

“Boy that was a long answer. I’m sorry. I hope I answered your question,” Obama said.

While he didn’t answer Doris, his non-answer soliloquy was answer enough. Besides, he answered it during the campaign when he responded to a similar question from Joe “The Plumber” Wurzelbacher. “I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody,” Obama said.

Spreading the wealth around is his goal, but he’s not about to say it that plainly anymore. Besides, he still believes that the majority of Americans oppose Obamacare because they don’t understand it. So he’s going to talk it up and talk it up.

“Here comes the Orator! with his Flood of Words, and his Drop of Reason,” Benjamin Franklin wrote in Poor Richard’s Almanac in 1735.

It looks like old Ben spotted Obama not just a mile away, but about 275 years away.

To help control your cholesterol, try adding legumes—or beans—like chickpeas, pinto, kidney, lima, garbanzo, lentil and Northern beans. Findings from Tulane University suggest eating three cups of beans a week may help lower “bad” LDL cholesterol levels. In one study of 300 men and women, patients who ate a legume-rich diet dropped, on average, 14 points in only three weeks.

Republicans love to call themselves the party of Lincoln.

Up until recently—meaning most of the last 40 years while they held the presidency or while they were the majority party, and particularly while George W. Bush was in the White House and then for the first six months of 2008—they have acted like the party of Lincoln, and that’s not a compliment. That’s because Abraham Lincoln is not a model for a party claiming to be the party of smaller, limited government.

The real Lincoln—not the politically correct Lincoln taught in schools—was not a small government guy. Neither was he a friend of the Constitution or the slave.

As the historian Bruce Catton wrote in The Civil War, in 1860 Lincoln wanted to be the nominee of the Republican Party—a party that consisted of an amalgam of former members of the defunct Whig Party, free-soilers (those who believed all new territories should be slave-free), business leaders who wanted a central government that would protect industry and ordinary folk who wanted a homestead act that would provide free farms in the West.

Catton wrote, “The Republicans nominated Lincoln partly because he was considered less of an extremist than either (Senator William H.) Seward or (Salmon P.) Chase; he was moderate on the slavery question, and agreed that the Federal government lacked power to interfere with the peculiar institution in the states. The Republican platform, however, did represent a threat to Southern interests. It embodied the political and economic program of the North—upward revision of the tariff, free farms in the West, railroad subsidies, and all the rest.”

Does that sound like a small government guy?

Writing in his book, The Constitution in Exile, Judge Andrew P. Napolitano said, “Lincoln liked to think of himself as continuing the political philosophy of Henry Clay, who had been the leader of the Whigs.

“For forty years, Clay supported the creation of an American empire through measures such as corporate welfare, (which politicians like to call ‘internal improvements’); today we call them corporate tax breaks, protectionist tariffs, and a nationwide central bank. All the things that Clay favored in essence provided for a highly centralized government. And Lincoln supported them all.”

Not only did Lincoln support Clay’s policies he served as an elector for the Whig Party in the 1840 and 1844 presidential elections, according to historian Thomas J. DiLorenzo in his book, The Real Lincoln.

He eloquently defended specific Whig economic programs like a national bank, a protectionist tariff and distribution of Federal land revenues to the states to subsidize "internal improvements," writes DiLorenzo, quoting historian Michael F.  Holt.

During the Civil War the Federal government was rapidly centralized and enlarged, taxes were imposed on most manufactured goods, tariffs were increased and an inheritance (death) tax was adopted. It was during this period that the first personal income tax was adopted in direct violation of Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution, Napolitano writes.

“The most egregious violations of civil liberties that Lincoln committed were murdering civilians, declaring martial law, suspending habeas corpus, seizing vast amounts of private property without compensation (including railroads and telegraphs), conducting a war without the consent of Congress, imprisoning nearly thirty thousand Northern citizens without trial, shutting down several newspapers, and even deporting a congressman (Clement L. Vallandigham from Ohio) because he objected to the imposition of an income tax,” according to Napolitano.

Republican congressmen tampered with the Electoral College by creating the new states of Nevada, Kansas and West Virginia in order to ensure Lincoln’s re-election in 1864. In Maryland, under Lincoln’s orders, troops arrested and imprisoned without trial a mayor, a congressman and 31 state legislators. And Lincoln claimed to have taken these actions to “preserve” the union.

“It’s hard to imagine something more tyrannical than a central government that suppresses life, speech, and political expression with such drastic measures, Napolitano writes.

The party of Lincoln, and Lincoln himself, had as its main goal growing government. Only one other president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, did as much to destroy the U.S. Constitution as Lincoln.

During the last 40 years the party of Lincoln has done much more to grow government than reduce it. Both Presidents Richard M. Nixon and Gerald Ford expanded the Great Society programs of Lyndon Baines Johnson. In 1970 Nixon imposed wage and price controls throughout the economy, imposed a tax surcharge on all imports and removed the American dollar from the gold standard: hardly small government policies.

Nixon’s policies sparked a rise in oil prices and caused the Great Inflation of the 1970s, according to Charles R. Morris, writing in his book, The Trillion Dollar Meltdown.

Morris writes that Nixon was a Keynesian through and through, as were his supposedly conservative cabinet members.

President Ronald Reagan was a believer in limited government, and took steps to reduce its size. His tax cuts stimulated the economy, but Democrats controlled the House and he was vilified by them for his efforts to reduce domestic spending while he increased military spending. While he campaigned on balancing the budget he wasn’t able to accomplish it, and deficits soared.

President George H.W. Bush was elected to continue Reagan’s policies but despite his “Read my lips. No new taxes” pledge, Bush 41 was neither a small government guy nor a believer in Reagan’s low-tax policies or trickle down economics. He immediately joined the Democrats and raised taxes and grew government.

The second President Bush, George W. (compassionate conservative), was truly a big government socialist. He expanded the Federal reach into our children’s education with No Child Left Behind, along with Senator Edward Kennedy, expanded entitlement programs like the Medicare Drug benefit and embarked on a war strategy that helped push a teetering economy over the cliff.

More egregious than that was his USA PATRIOT Act—which among other things suspended habeas corpus—and other supposed terrorism fighting provisions that intrude on the liberty and privacy of Americans. And many Republicans claiming to be conservative went along.

“I’ve abandoned free-market principles to save the free-market system,” Bush 43 said, in classic Bushism fashion, as he pushed his Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).

The supposed conservatives in Congress sat by and watched—if they didn’t overtly support—as Bush trashed the free market system.

Only when Americans began berating them during town hall meetings and through Tea Party rallies in 2009 did some Republicans decide they were for smaller government.

Now many Americans are looking to the Republicans to stem the Marxist redistributionist tide of the Obama, Pelosi, Reid administration as they follow through with their promise to change America.

Seriously? You’re going to pin your hopes on the Republican Party, with members already backing off their “Repeal the Bill” stance less than a month after Obamacare was passed?

Sorry, but the elites in Washington long ago crossed the Rubicon. While the Democrats are leading the charge today, the Republicans have offered no more opposition than a Civil War picket line.

You can thank the party of Lincoln, and the “Great Emancipator” himself, for getting us to where we are today.

When a little-known (outside of Alaska) governor was announced as John McCain’s running mate Aug. 29, 2008, the Republican Party’s base was electrified and the elites of both the Democrat and Republican parties were mortified.

Five days later Sarah Palin gave her speech to the Republican National Convention and she demonstrated that she was going to be a force to be reckoned with in conservative politics for years to come—a force that the elites will forever fail to understand.

Palin opens Going Rogue: An American Life at the Alaska State Fair in August 2008. She was there with her daughters and infant son Trig—not with an entourage and a host of bodyguards—but with her family, watching her children and their friends ride the rides. Whereas politicians attend those events to shake hands and be seen, Palin was busy keeping up with her kids and buying concessions, like millions of Americans do every year.

But it was at the fair that her life forever changed. For it was there she received the call from McCain that would rock the political establishment.

Although she grew up in Skagaway, Alaska, where her family moved in 1964 when Palin—then Sarah Heath—was just 3 months old, her life was like the vast majority of most Americans’. Her father was a school teacher and coach who worked summers on the Alaska Railroad and tended bar in seasonal tourist traps. Her mother was occupied raising four children, driving a seasonal tour bus and volunteering at the community theatre and the Catholic church.

It’s her everyday American upbringing—raising chickens, growing produce, fishing and digging for clams and picking wild berries—that drives the elites nuts. It’s her blue collar work ethic, her annual work in Bristol Bay in July commercial fishing for salmon with her husband, Todd, that drives the elites crazy. It’s her blue-collar, union oil-worker and competition sledder husband that makes the elites go bonkers.

She writes about her days on the bench of her high school basketball team, and her days as point guard when, as a senior her team won the state championship. And they did so with her playing hurt, persevering through the pain of a broken ankle. It was in that game, she writes, that her parents’ lessons on the payoff of hard work and perseverance finally registered with her. She called it a life-changing victory.

After high school Palin went to the University of Idaho. She dreamed of being a journalist—or more specifically a sports journalist—where she could put her passion for sports to good use. One of the issues pundits used to try and bash her was the fact that it took her five years to graduate. She writes that, yes, it took her five years because she paid her own way by working between semesters. Sometimes, she says, she had to take a whole semester off to earn enough to return to school.

No stranger to hard work—Palin began working with her boyfriend and later husband Todd catching salmon on the Bristol Bay fishing grounds. When the salmon fishing was slow she worked “messy, obscure seafood jobs, including long shifts on a stinky shore-based crab-processing vessel in Dutch Harbor” (the area made famous by the Discovery Channel show, Deadliest Catch).

One season, she writes, “I sliced open fish bellies, scraped out the eggs, and plopped the roe into packaging” where the company would slap a caviar label on the box and sell it to “elite consumers for loads of money” as a delicacy.

She got into politics in 1992 when a friend of hers recruited her to run for the Wasilla, Alaska City Council. She campaigned by going door-to-door while pulling her two children through the snow on a sled.

It was there that she learned about the common sense fiscal conservatism she now preaches. She battled the “progressives” on the council over issues like raising taxes and passing ordinances that would have granted special favors to those who were well-connected. In doing so she quickly fell out of favor with the friend who had recruited her and expected her to vote with him.

She took that same independence to the Alaska governor’s mansion years later, where she fought the Republican establishment over corruption and the oil industry over special drilling deals.

It was that independent spirit that attracted McCain. And though that was one of her main attributes, the decision makers in the McCain campaign stifled that through much of the presidential election and basically put her in a box.

Palin admits she made mistakes on the campaign trail. But she also points out where the handlers and decision makers in the campaign had her shackled when she had something to offer the team. And she criticizes the campaign for effectively throwing in the towel down the stretch when there was still—she believed—time to pull out a victory.

After the campaign Palin returned to Alaska where she was met with an avalanche of ethics complaints and freedom of information requests that threatened to bankrupt her and essentially brought Alaska’s governance to a standstill.

It was while fighting yet another of the partisan, unsubstantiated and finally refuted ethic complaints that she decided the state would be better served if she stepped down. That action, decried by the elites she had so bamboozled for the previous year, freed her up to begin speaking on issues and campaigning for people who believed in common sense fiscal conservatism.

Palin is an amazing person… an American like the majority of Americans… one not cut from the cloth of elitism but very much like you and me and our neighbors—average people.

That’s why elitists despise her so much. She’s like the people they so disdain, yet they fear her because she’s charismatic and popular and they know she will be an influential part of American politics for years to come.

A simple change in the color of your foods and beverages could make a big impact on your health, according to dietician Julie Upton. “The pigments that give plants their color also provide the antioxidants that protect against heart disease, inflammation and certain cancers.”

Try swapping your white grapefruit juice for pink. Or eat more dark green veggies like spinach and kale instead of light-colored lettuce. Other options include 100 percent whole grain black rice instead of white varieties, or black beans—which contain more fiber and antioxidants compared to light-colored beans.

As the crescendo toward the climax builds the paper money syndrome becomes more evident and vulgar.

Let me explain. The dictionary definition of syndrome is: “A group of related or coincident things, events, actions, etc. There is also a pattern of symptoms that characterize or indicate a particular social condition.”

A syndrome involves everything known about a phenomenon.

The paper money syndrome specifically refers to the evolved psyche of the people in all human relationships since the beginning of the fiat regime in 1913 in the United States, especially since 1971 when President Richard M. Nixon closed the gold window. This is the year that the United States went on 100 percent pure fiat and took the rest of the world on the same non-system.

The opposite of the paper money regime would be the 100 years before 1913 when the U.S. was most of the time on the gold standard.

Can we become conscious of the fiat money system and recognize it? I think that we can, and the sooner the better.

When governments enter upon a paper money fiat regime the whole psyche of the population begins to change along with mythical finance and the diminishing store of value of the currency.

It’s as if we are on solid ground and suddenly we come upon quicksand. We become unstable and gradually begin to lose our orientation. We begin a journey in a ship of society without a rudder. It is so gradual that few recognize the change. After all, we still have our legal system, our “representative” government, our flag, our pledge of allegiance, “freedom of religion,” our Constitution and all the symbols that define America.

The “feel good” psyche of expanded fiat and credit fools all but a very few.

From the beginning we have fiat wars on credit. This kills millions but the people focus on the resulting materialism. The State justifies wars and uses patriotism to appeal to the people.

The purpose of fiat paper money is a tax on the population which doesn’t have to be collected or enforced. The state simply has to inflate the currency by printing more paper money. The people are slow to realize the sinister purpose of inflating the currency.

Inflation or depreciation of the currency is a monetary plague that attacks the spenders and the savers. Your wealth is taken without a gun to your head and the crowd even clamors for inflation, while the politicians use inflation to buy votes and political power.

The people don’t understand printing press money but the politicians and the government bureaucrats do. They can promise the people everything without taxes and still have their wars, too.

How then do we recognize the fiat paper money syndrome? Fiat money is more than a monetary phenomenon. It affects the whole mental condition of the people.

The gold standard brings everything in a society into balance and stability, including the spirit of a people, while a fiat paper money regime causes a quicksand-like unbalanced mentality.

The fiat system begins deterioration of society immediately and finally ends in economic collapse through hyperinflation. The finality is the destruction of the middle class and indeed the impoverishment of all who trust paper money.

Many financial businesses enrich themselves with fiat. The life insurance business collects trillions of nominal dollars promising savings and death benefits. If they pay back at all the money is highly inflated (depreciated) so that policyholders take huge losses and, in the latter stages, are all wiped out completely.

So what does the fiat person look like? What is his mental condition? What is his morality? What is the outlook of society? What is the work ethic?

What happens to the family and the institution of marriage? What about the increase of perversion and free love? What about violence and the rule of law? What is public education?

The fiat paper regime is in reality a non-system, fickle and floating without substance, whereas the “rule of law” is what a Federal judge says it is.

Society clings to symbols and standards of the past, grasping and clawing for human liberty that has become elusive and deceptive.

Life in the fading years of the fiat regime is characterized by a Ponzi and fragmented mentality entertained with “bread and circus.”

There is no accountability or individual responsibility since citizens have become vassals of the State. Fiat forces more and more dependency upon the State and with dependency comes more and more control.

Fiat means the massive growth of government with increasing human control.

As fiat completely loses its store of value in the public mind, more and more paper money is never enough. This creates a gambling public. Greed overwhelms restraint. Financial innovation is organized and sanctioned fraud upon the public.

Government employees are bought off with fiat.

The public is easily persuaded to support military adventurism and supply their sons and daughters for cannon fodder. The pretexts are creative as long as the public still believes the politicians and bureaucrats.

The family deteriorates in the latter days of the fiat regime into free love. Wives must work to pay debts and support more and more materialism.

Not one in a million suspects that fiat and the depreciating currency is at the root of the collapse of the social and moral order.

The legal and accounting professions are creations and creatures of fiat. They act as parasites upon the misfortunes of the people caused by the fiat system.

The fiat system promotes altruism with slogans like, “For the greater good.” Translated this means give of your substance so that we can all be equally poor on the animal farm.

Work ethic deteriorates because fiat creates the hopelessness of “what’s the use, there is never enough money.”

There is an increase of perversion and free love in the latter days of fiat. Ugly immorality and base human nature comes out of the closet.

The fiat system presumes to condemn violence but promotes it with a court system that is easy on crime and criminals.

“Public education” is a dumbing down system which promotes dependency on government.

Fiat creates greed and greed destroys morality and undermines the rule of law.

All the above is reversed under the gold standard.

Even though hyperinflation is—in many ways—a complex economic problem… the process of protecting yourself is simpler than you might think. In fact, there are two primary things you must do: 1) Get your assets to safety, and 2) Make sure you take care of your basic needs (and those of your family).

Dear Bob,
Where would I buy junk silver (pre-1964 coins)? Getting very concerned and want to be prepared for when the $$ loses its value. Is this the best way to go?

Wayne Goldsborough

Dear Wayne,

The best place to buy is from a local coin dealer. Be sure it is a reputable dealer who has been in business for a number of years, and check with the Better Business Bureau for complaints against the company. You can buy a full bag ($1,000 face value of coins) for around $12,500, depending on the spot price of silver. You can also buy half bags $500 face value or quarter bags $250 face value. For privacy purposes, pay with cash if possible.

There are also online stores that sell them, as well. Be sure to thoroughly check them out. As of today, full bags are selling for slightly less than $12,500.

Best Wishes,
Bob

Will it never end?

Will the daily, relentless assault on our freedoms by the current socialist-in-chief, President Barack Obama, and the socialist Democrat-controlled Congress never end?

Will the constant pounding and pounding on the Constitution by Obama and Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and the rest of the socialist elite elected class—as they work to not just chip away at our nation’s foundation as progressives before them, but to obliterate it completely—never end?

Will the takeover of business and industry never end?

Will the calls for a cap-and-trade system that will raise taxes and energy costs and further erode out economic well-being never end?

Will the push for amnesty for illegal aliens never end?

Will the spending and the money printing and currency debasement never end?

Will the hubris of the elected class never end?

Apparently not.

Day by day; week by week; month by month the socialist Democrats pounded away at so-called healthcare reform. In office for 14 months, the Obama-Pelosi-Reid triumvirate worked to enact a socialist, European-style big government healthcare system on America.

The American people didn’t want what Obama, Reid and Pelosi were peddling. By 59 percent to 39 percent, according to the latest CNN/Opinion Research poll, Americans opposed Obamacare.

And they said so over and over. They said “no” to the secrecy of the bills, which were crafted in smoke-filled rooms, behind closed doors and foisted upon the public at the moment of the vote. They said “no” to the cost which kept growing and growing with each incarnation. They said “no” to the Louisiana Purchase (to get Mary Landrieu’s vote), the Cornhusker Kickback (to garner Ben Nelson’s support) and to the Gator Aid (to secure the support of senior citizens).

They said “no” by marching on Washington D.C., by the tens of thousands. They said “no” through the Tea Parties. They said so through calls and letters. They said “no” at town hall meetings. They said “no,” “no,” “No,” “NO!”

They said “no” at the voting booth in Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts. Yet the socialist Democrats passed it anyway.

So the people ask, “What part of no don’t you understand?”

Know this: Pelosi, Reid and Obama—they understand. They just don’t care. It’s the progressive way.

Responding to questions about the special favors garnered by recalcitrant Senators in order to enlist their support, Reid replied with something to the effect of: That’s the legislative process. If a Senator didn’t get something he wasn’t doing his job.

Hey. It’s only money, and printing it is cheap.

As Pelosi responded when asked where Congress gets the authority to mandate United States citizens purchase health insurance: “Are you serious?”

Well, yes Madame Speaker, Constitutional issues are serious business to us. They should be to you. But they’re not. That’s because the Constitution limits their power over the citizenry and power is what the socialist elected elites seek.

If the Constitution was important to the socialist elite there would have been an open process in putting together a bill that reformed the health insurance system by letting the free market system work rather than further empowering government. And certainly there would have been no talk of using parliamentary trickery—the Slaughter Rule, also known as Deem and Pass—to pass it.

If the Constitution was important to the socialists there would be no provisions mandating that people buy something simply for being American and no need for 14 states to file suit against the Federal government for violating the 10th Amendment.

If the Constitution was important to the socialists Americans wouldn’t be sitting back asking themselves, “What’s next on their agenda: Another stab at amnesty for illegals, another run at cap-and-trade, a gun grab, a value added tax?”

If the Constitution was important the government wouldn’t own General Motors, Chrysler, the financial industry and now, insurance companies.

If the Constitution was important the government wouldn’t be in the business of setting the salaries of everyone from the lowest level employee to the CEOs of large companies.

To be fair, all of this can be laid at the feet of the socialist Republicans who blindly followed George W. Bush’s big government socialism over the economic cliff. They—the socialist Republicans—are claiming an epiphany now and appear to be standing up to the Democrat tyranny. But like all socialist elected elites, when they controlled Congress the socialist Republicans grew government, expanded its power to monitor its citizenry and supported Bush’s nation-building, empire-expanding war policies and his original $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).

Though they—the socialist Republicans—claim to be strict constructionists when it comes to the Constitution now, they helped Bush enact his ridiculous “compassionate conservatism” that increased government entitlement spending and therefore increased the roles of non-producers eager to sponge off the hard work of the producers.

But that’s what you get from the socialist elected elites. They ignore the Constitution because to them the “be all and end all” is government. They like big government and they like bigger government even better.

You can be sure that the Obama-Pelosi-Reid triumvirate isn’t going to rest on its laurels. More big government programs are on the way.

And Pelosi is not afraid to kick in a few doors to accomplish it. As she told a group of Leftwing bloggers leading up the passage of Obamacare, “…once we kick through this door there will be more legislation to follow.”

So this is only the beginning of the socialist takeover of America. It’s evidence that sovereignty is in the hands of but a few, just as the writer Brutus warned in Anti-Federalist No. 1: “If the people are to give their assent to the laws, by persons chosen and appointed by them, the manner of the choice and the number chosen, must be such, as to possess, be disposed, and consequently qualified to declare the sentiments of the people; for if they do not know, or are not disposed to speak the sentiments of the people, the people do not govern, but the sovereignty is in a few.”

At the close of the Constitutional Convention a woman asked Benjamin Franklin what type of government had been created. Franklin’s reply: “A republic, if you can keep it.”

We couldn’t.

If not for the passage of the 17th Amendment in 1913, Obamacare would probably never have passed. That’s because the Senate would have been more attuned to the will of the public that disapproved of Obamacare by a large margin.

As Article 1, Section 3 of the Constitution of the United States says: The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each state, chosen by the Legislature thereof for six Years; and each Senator shall have one vote.

During the Constitutional ratifying convention, John Jay, co-author of The Federalist Papers, said “The Senate is to be composed of men appointed by the state legislatures… I presume they will also instruct them, that there will be a constant correspondence between the senators and the state executives.”

As historian and author Thomas J. DiLorenzo writes in The Lunatic Left is Getting Desperate on Lewrockwell.com: “The legislative appointment of U.S. senators was responsible for the most famous declarations of the states’ rights philosophy of the founders, the nullification philosophy as expressed in the Virginia and Kentucky Resolves of 1798 (authored by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison respectively).

“John Quincy Adams resigned from the Senate in 1809 because he disagreed with the Massachusetts state legislature’s instructions to him to oppose President James Madison’s trade embargo. Senator David Stone of North Carolina resigned in 1814 after his state legislature disapproved of his collaboration with the New England Federalists on several legislative issues. Senator Peleg Sprague of Maine resigned in 1835 after opposing his state legislatures’ instructions to oppose the re-chartering of the Second Bank of the United States. When the U.S. Senate censured President Andrew Jackson for having vetoed the re-chartering of the Bank, seven U.S. Senators resigned rather than carry out their state legislatures’ instructions to vote to have Jackson’s censure expunged. One of them was Senator John Tyler of Virginia, who would become President of the United States in 1841.

“In other words, the original system of state legislative appointment of U.S. Senators did exactly what it was designed to do: limit the tyrannical proclivities of the central government. As Professor Todd Zywicki of George Mason University Law School has written, ‘the Senate played an active role in preserving the sovereignty and independent sphere of action of state governments’ in the pre-17th Amendment era prior to 1913. ‘Rather than delegating lawmaking authority to Washington, state legislators insisted on keeping authority close to home…. As a result, the long-term size of the federal government remained fairly stable and relatively small during the pre-Seventeenth-Amendment era’ (emphasis added).”

When the 17th Amendment was ratified it changed the way senators were selected from appointment to popular election. Therefore senators are now more influenced by lobbyists and payoffs than they are by the constituents they are supposed to serve. Hence, the passage of Obamacare and other noxious bills.

It’s clear once again that the Founding Fathers knew what they were doing. Yet the group of socialists, and central bankers controlling government in 1913 saw a way to further strip the Constitution of its safeguards and an unwitting public went along.

It’s time to repeal the 17th Amendment. It’s not going to be easy—those senators are now entrenched and will not be amenable to relinquishing their power. But if we’re to take our country back it’s got to happen.

Because, as Madison wrote in Federalist No. 48, “The legislative department is everywhere extending the sphere of its activity and drawing all power into its impetuous vortex.”

The higher the pH level above 7.2, the more available oxygen there is in the body. The term pH means potential of hydrogen and can be measured with saliva or blood tests. The scale runs from zero to 14. A very small rise in pH alkalinity in the blood provides literally thousands of times the oxygen needed for all bodily functions.

Proper pH is by itself a major factor in optimizing health and preventing disease. We want to be slightly alkaline for good health. Negative pH puts us below 7.2 and on the acid side. Cancer thrives in an acid environment.

The most important pH of all is the blood pH, because a deviation of as little as 5/10 of a point from normal can result in illness or death.

What is the simple way to determine if your body is in alkaline balance? Test your saliva with pH strips. If it is not alkaline, use an alkaline supplement in your drinking water to increase the pH. You can find one at a company that sells natural supplements. I use Alkaline Body Balance™ from Health Resources™ available here. It is like adding oxygen to your blood.

For 15 months there has been a growing opposition to the increasing encroachment of the Federal government over the rights of its citizens. It finally reached a crescendo last week as the House worked to steamroll Obamacare through despite objections by the vast majority of the electorate.

The past 12 months have been extremely frustrating for many. People voiced their opposition to Obamacare, Cap and Trade and stimulus bills to their Representatives and Senators, but it seemed that most of their opposition fell on deaf ears.

The Tea Parties were formed, and the shouting grew louder. Many of the elected class who were supporting the growing government—both Democrats and Republicans—found their town hall meetings to be unpleasant places to be.

But still, government grew and spending increased… and the march to Obamacare continued.

Deciding that their voices weren’t being heard and their marches on Washington were being ignored, voters wanting smaller government and a return to Constitutional principals voted in droves. The results were upsets in New Jersey, Virginia and finally, in Massachusetts. The election of Republican Scott Brown to the late Ted Kennedy’s senate seat seemed to end the threat of Obamacare by eliminating the Democrats’ filibuster-proof majority.

Supporters of small government and Tea Party activists breathed a sigh of relief. But, despite President Obama’s promise to focus on jobs, Obamacare didn’t die. It continued to fester and so the shouting got loud again.

But still the elected class, pushing their socialist agenda and seeking to control us from cradle to grave—seeking to enslave us with unconstitutional mandates—didn’t listen.

Writing in Anti-Federalist letter No. 1, Brutus (Robert Yates) said that in a free republic, all laws are derived from the consent of the people and passed by representatives who are supposed to know the minds of their constituents and possessed of the integrity to declare this mind. Unfortunately, the representatives holding the majority don’t possess this integrity.

So Brutus wrote: “If the people are to give their assent to the laws, by persons chosen and appointed by them, the manner of the choice and the number chosen, must be such, as to possess, be disposed, and consequently qualified to declare the sentiments of the people; for if they do not know, or are not disposed to speak the sentiments of the people, the people do not govern, but the sovereignty is in a few.”

That’s were we are now—with sovereignty in the hands of a few. So now it’s time to take the next step. Fortunately, we have the words and deeds of some of our Founding Fathers to direct us.

Since its beginning the Federal government has sought to grow and even those who took part in the framing of the Constitution have tested it’s parameters by trying to intrude on the rights of Americans.

The second president, John Adams, signed legislation that made it a treasonable activity to publish “any false, scandalous and malicious writing.” This was one of the laws that became part of the Alien and Sedition Acts. As a result, 25 men, most of them Republican supporters of Thomas Jefferson were arrested and their newspapers forced to shut down.

One of those arrested was Benjamin Franklin’s grandson, Benjamin Franklin Bache, editor of the Philadelphia Democrat-Republican Aurora.

In response, Jefferson, then the vice president, secretly wrote the Kentucky Resolutions of 1798. In them he argued that the Alien and Sedition Acts were acts of usurpation—that the Federal government had overstepped its bounds and was exercising powers which belonged to the states.

After all, the 10th Amendment states: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

He saw the Constitution not as a document that restrained the people, but as one that restrained the Federal government. And he believed that was a good thing. As an aside: Obama has stated just the opposite. He has said he finds it unfortunate that the Constitution contains the restrictions on Government that it does.

Jefferson corresponded with James Madison (known as the father of the Constitution) about the Kentucky Resolutions and Madison drafted similar Resolutions for Virginia.

Both Kentucky and Virginia adopted the resolutions which essentially said that when the Federal government assumes undelegated powers—those not enumerated in the Constitution—those acts are “unauthoritative, void, and of no force.”

These came to be known as the Principals of ’98.

It’s time to lobby your state representative and state senator and governor and push for a law to prohibit the enforcement of Obamacare and other unconstitutional laws in your state. It’s time to resurrect the Principals of ’98.

Both Virginia and Idaho have voted to sue the Federal government over Obamacare. You must push your state to do the same.

The overreach has gone on for far too long. In addition to Obamacare there is the looming Cap and Trade legislation, there are restrictive gun laws and, under George W. Bush, there was the USA PATRIOT Act and the REAL ID Act (which states have resisted).

Resistance to a tyrannical government is very American. And if the Federal government continues its oppression then it will be time to consider other steps.

Writing to Madison in 1787, Jefferson said, “I hold it that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms are in the physical. Unsuccessful rebellions, indeed, generally establish the encroachments on the rights of the people, which have produced them. An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions, as not to discourage them too much. It is medicine necessary for the sound health of government.”

And then there is one more step to consider. It was commonly understood prior to 1861 that the states reserved the right to secede. There had been talk of secession by the northern New England states many times. Even Abraham Lincoln, as a representative, recognized the states had the right to secede—he only changed his mind after he held the reins of the presidency.

In 1825, Jefferson wrote: “If every infraction of a compact of so many parties is to be resisted at once as a dissolution, none can ever be formed which would last one year. We must have patience and longer endurance then with our brethren while under delusion; give them time for reflection and experience of consequences; keep ourselves in a situation to profit by the chapter of accidents; and separate from our companions only when the sole alternatives left are the dissolution of our Union with them or submission to a government without limitation of powers. Between these two evils, when we must make a choice, there can be no hesitation. But in the meanwhile, the States should be watchful to note every material usurpation on their rights; to denounce them as they occur in the most peremptory terms; to protest against them as wrongs to which our present submission shall be considered, not as acknowledgments or precedents of right, but as a temporary yielding to the lesser evil, until their accumulation shall overweigh that of separation.”

For too long we have failed in being watchful of every “material usurpation” of our rights. But for the last year at least, we have protested them. And our protests have fallen on deaf ears. Dissolution must be in the back of our minds now. But, we’re not ready for that step… not yet.

Dear Bob,

I am a disabled veteran with no savings account. A poor person, mind you, without a financial education. I buy a measly 10 oz bar of silver monthly with my disability check because I have no faith in the government which is what backs the value of a paper dollar. Am I being foolish?

Jerry Diltz

Dear Jerry,

You are not being foolish at all. You are being prudent. You might also consider buying junk silver; pre-1964 silver coins. They are more valuable for their silver content than their face value. However, when the collapse occurs they may be more useful than silver bars because 1) they look like the coins people are used to seeing and may be more readily acceptable in exchange and 2) they provide the flexibility of different quantities of silver for smaller purchases.

Best Wishes,
Bob

Public schools today are crime-ridden, unhealthful places where children are exposed to sex, drugs and diseases and taught a sanitized version of American history and a loyalty to and dependence on big government, according to James Ostrowski in his book, Government Schools Are Bad For Your Kids.

Ostrowski is a trial and appellate lawyer and libertarian writer, and he has drawn on the works of the top libertarian thinkers and organizations in researching his book. He lays out a case that should give pause to anyone with children or grandchildren in today’s government-run school system.

Government schools have not always existed, nor were they immaculately conceived. In fact, prior to the last quarter of the 19th century when compulsory, tax-supported education became the norm, American society had thrived without it for more than 200 years while developing the most prosperous and literate society in human history.

Ostrowski takes the reader on a short but informative history lesson on the roots of compulsory government schools in the western world. They began with Martin Luther in 1524 who urged German princes to “compel the people to send their children to school” because “we are warring with the devil.”

He quotes historian Murray Rothbard: “The Reformers advocated compulsory education for all as a means of inculcating the entire population with their particular religious views…”

Later, John Calvin endorsed compulsory schooling. Like Luther, Calvin did so to spread his religious doctrine by government force.

Early in the 19th century the militaristic and authoritarian Prussians pioneered compulsory education in Europe. Following its defeat at the hands of Napoleon, the Prussian nation began to reorganize itself and prepare for future wars. Under King Frederick William III, the absolute state was made stronger and the nation’s minister, von Stein, began abolishing the semi-religious private schools and placed education under the minister of the Interior. Then the ministry set up a system for certification of all teachers and created a graduation exam.

Again quoting Rothbard, Ostrowski writes: “It is also interesting that it was this reorganized system that first began to promote the new teaching philosophy of Pestalozzi, who was one of the early proponents of ‘progressive education.’ Hand in hand with the compulsory school system went a revival and great extension of the army, and in particular the institution of universal compulsory military service.”

Quoting professor Richard M. Ebeling, Ostrowski writes: “Modern universal compulsory education has its origin in the 19th century Prussian idea that it is the duty and responsibility of the state to indoctrinate each new generation of children into being good, obedient subjects who will be loyal and subservient to political authority and to the legitimacy of the political order. Young minds are to be filled with a certain set of ideas that reflect the vision of the official state educators concerning ‘proper behavior’ and ‘good citizenship.’

Among the disadvantages of compulsory government schooling is the fact that there are so many students who don’t want to be there, or shouldn’t be there because of their criminal proclivities. Yet because attending school is mandated by the government they must be there.

And then there is the watered down education that the children receive and the misinformation they are taught: That we needed the Constitution because the nation was in chaos, Franklin Delano Roosevelt saved us from the Great Depression and Theodore Roosevelt saved us from the “robber barons.”

There are also the myriad of special interests that have become involved in the process—teachers’ unions, suppliers, publishers administrators, parents seeking free babysitting services and politicians who reap the benefits of union contributions.

Ostrowski believes private schools are better venues for learning because the students want to be there, parents have a vested interest (and therefore the students have a vested interest) in their children doing well, and the school can expel students who are unruly, undisciplined or unmotivated.

He advocates pulling your children out of public schools and enrolling them in private schools or home schooling them. Ostrowski believes the loss of tax dollars based on declining enrollment will lead to the end of government schools and a growth in the number of private schools.

And he presents a three-part plan for ending the stranglehold government has on the education of our children.

A short, easy read, Government Schools Are Bad for Your Kids is an excellent book for parents of school children or soon-to-be school children. It will help parents decide how to get the best education for their children and will also serve as a nice primer for anyone interested in working within the system to better the education system for future generations of children.