Missing the point - Part 2

Yesterday I saw and heard a speech by Newt Gingrich. Today I will do the same with Mitt Romney.
The number of attack ads here in Florida is unbelievable. I think the ads will effect the outcome and that is too bad. Everybody has a past and everybody has made bad choices and acted poorly at some time in their lives. The more important issue is did you learn from those mistakes. It took me two marriages to figure out how to be a real partner in a relationship. My second marriage and my current marriage are better because of my mistakes in the first. During the early 1970s I was drawn to the liberal view and the policies for helping people that were enacted and promoted by the Carter administration. I even invited Rosalind Carter to speak at a regional human service conference to further those policies. Today I believe I am a better citizen as a result of my earlier experiences, positions, and beliefs.

As I worked with all the "helping" agencies and saw the bureaucratic morass and the lack of attention to the details and impacts the "helping" programs had on their intended victims (clients?), I realized that government was clearly not the tool to help people. The victims became even more dependent requiring ever more government programs to "help". When government did not follow through on their grand design the victims were left holding the bag. (Example: de-institutionalizing tens of thousands of mental patients from their involuntary placements defined as cruel on the premise that the federal government would fund the appropriate support services in each community. However, the government never got around to part 2 so today we have thousands of "homeless" people instead.) I began to understand the limits of government the the framers had built into our system. Government cannot provide utopia in spite of the wishful thinking of many.

I think both Gingrich and Romney should be judged by how well they understand the design of our government and how well they understand the philosophical and practical principles embodied in the Constitution. They should be looking at how to change the direction our government has turned toward and have a plan for steering the country away from the iceburgs of socialism, the loss of individual freendom, and the dictatorial rule that will be the inevitable consequences of the current course. A presidential plan for creating jobs is irrelevant and actually contrary to the changes we need. On the other hand a serious and practical plan to reduce the footprint of Washington on the lives of citizens is urgent.

Negative campaign ads are only useful when the electorate forgets what the point of the election itself is. Such ads are provocative and titilatting but useless to the decision making process of every voter. I urge every voter to think about how they see their lives tomorrow and  in 4 years and then 10 years. Which candidate has a vision of the world in which you want to live?

It is hard to be confident when your champions are Groucho, Harpo, and Chico

As a follow up to "Missing the Point" on 01/09/12 it is worth looking at the New Hampshire Primary and the the candidates migration to South Carolina. The rhetoric and campaigning by the flock of Republican candidates looks more like a movie from the 1940s. It is just not clear whether the stars are the Marx Brothers or the Three Stooges.

In "Duck Soup" Rufus T. Firefly (Groucho) is looking for money from a wealthy widow to save the bankrupt country of Freedonia. Mitt (I mean Rufus) is advised to eliminate a competitor by "... saying something to make him mad, and he'll strike you, and we'll force him to leave the country."  But the plan backfires and Firefly slaps his competitor instead which leads to war.

The Duck Soup characters could easily be replaced with Romney playing Firefly, Gingrich playing Trentino and  Chicolini and Pinky played by Santorum and Paul respectively. The ridiculous insults traded among candidates in the ongoing primaries sound a lot like Duck Soup dialogue. Saving a bankrupt country (Freedonia) by taking the money of a rich widow sounds a lot like current economic proposals. The elimination of rivals through "negative ads" sounds like Rufus T. Firefly's plan to insult his rival. Watching the New Hampshire Primary would have been a great comedy if the outcomes were not so important.

Today we have a front runner who believes he can do a better job of managing the economy than the current administration. He does not realize that is not in the job description of President or the capabilities of a mortal man to manage the economy of a country. He can however damage an economy

Two contenders believe that government has the power and right to manage the income and lives of individual citizens by determining how much money they can earn and how they should behave in their bedrooms.

One contender understands the role of government in domestic governance but believes that the country can exist without protecting itself from the real foreign enemies of the USA that are waiting to humble us in every way possible.

Where is the candidate who understands the Constitution and the role of government in America? Is there a candidate out there that understands limiting foreign entanglements while maintaining the capability to protect Americans and American interests? The reason the front runner keeps changing is the people are searching for a candidate that understands the need for a revolutionary approach. We are past the usefulness of band-aids.

The results in  Iowa and New Hampshire are not an affirmation of a candidate. Instead they are a spaghetti test. We keep throwing the candidates against the wall waiting for one to stick. Where are you Sarah Palin, or Donald Trump, or Marco Rubio or Person Unknown?

Missing the Point

Once again the pundits and the pols continue to miss the point of the 2012 primaries leading to the election. For the pundits on the eve of the New Hampshire primary the news is all about who is leading, who is insulting who, and how much money each candidate is spending. Meanwhile the candidates are attacking each other's history and discussing who is more moral or more conservative or more electable. The so-called debates follow the same agenda. The entire exercise seems to miss the point of what should be a monumental event, the bloodless peaceful revolution of the people to retake the control of the government of the people.

The Constitution of The United States of America is a plan that imposes a strong government that is limited in scope and power in order to maximize individual liberty. It also provides the first and only means in the history of the world for the governed people to stage a non-violent revolt against their government when it exceeds its limits and infringes on personal liberty. That non-violent revolution is called an election.  A revolution is defined in Wikipedia as

"... a fundamental change in power or organizational structures that takes place in a relatively short period of time."

The United States needs  "a fundamental change in power or organizational structures". Historically revolutions have been bloody violent overthrows of oppressive regimes. The original American Revolution was a protracted war that destroyed lives and fortunes in order to replace the ruling English king and Parliament. After the bloody war the Founders of this country designed a governing system with divided powers and explicit limitations on its actions. They also knew that the tendency of governments and bureaucracies is to accumulate power and control. Subsequently they provided for an orderly overthrow that allows extensive change that is spread over time by the various terms of office applied to the three branches. Today we have a government that makes George III look like a libertarian. The Obama administration represents a high point of government control and intrusion on individual liberty. It is the peak of a trend begun 50 years ago with The Great Society. Elections in 2010 represent the first skirmishes in the 2012 revolution and established a beachhead in the House of Representatives. Like the militia on the road from Lexington to Boston, a few brave Congressional souls have been fighting a delaying action.

 The need for revolution is seen in the the ballooning government debt, voluminous regulation at all levels, and the polarization of society into those who depend on government for existence versus those who want to be independent. Nearly all of the campaign rhetoric has been aimed at these symptoms rather than elaborating the strategy for conducting a revolution to overturn them.

• Yes, we do need to reduce our expenditures and our debt. But the problem to be solved is the gigantic size of a government which is consuming our financial resources and infringing on the individual rights gained in the fight over two centuries ago. 
• Yes, illegal immigration is a problem. But it is a symptom of government failing to protect and manage the borders of the country, one of government's primary tasks. 
• Yes, we are engaged in too many foreign entanglements. The government  must defend the country but it should do so by declaring war if we are under attack and not by finding clever ways of circumventing the limits set by the Constitution.
• Yes we are over regulated. It requires an incredible stretch of logic to use the Commerce Clause to justify federal interference in my medical treatment, where I build my house, and how my private debts should be paid.

I do not want candidates telling me how they will build the economy and create jobs. First, the only effect government can ever have on economy is negative. They can always make it worse but the only way they can improve it is by removing their heavy thumb from the scale. Government produces nothing and any time it interferes with real business it reduces productivity and profits. Secondly, it is not the job of the President of the United States to create jobs.That is the job of the presidents of Intel, Alcoa, Ford, and Joe's Carpentry Shop, and all their colleagues.

I want to hear candidates' views on the Constitution. I want to hear them speculate on how they will defend our borders and how they will eliminate unnecessary and freedom destroying agencies and regulations.

We do not need new faces extending a government that has outlived its usefulness as it has veered away from the grand design of the Founders. We need leaders to fight the non-violent revolution that is the keystone of what has made the USA so different and so successful in the affairs of men and nations. Let's hear the tactics for winning and the strategy for governing instead of the latest morning line on who is going to win each state race.