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.

The Problem With Compromise

Watching "The Five" on Fox News I have become convinced that it is pointless to argue with liberals. The reason for that conclusion finally penetrated my brain as I watched Juan Williams comment on the role of government. From his perspective the primary task of government is to "take care of people".  My view of government's task is that its duty is to  preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of The United States and thereby maintain the delicate balance between civil order, international relationships, and maximal individual rights, freedom, and liberty.

These two positions have come to be mutually exclusive.  When every action of government must be evaluated by how it "helps" people then discussions of liberty are automatically ruled out. All recipients of government help automatically give up some of their liberty to receive that "help".  The "helping" mission is obvious in our tax code. Taxes should be funding the government operations of defense, border control, common infrastructure, and safety. Our tax code is no longer about funding these government operations as much as it is about some kind of social engineering. Taxes are used to eliminate poverty, eliminate all forms of discrimination, create jobs, heal the sick, shelter the homeless, save the planet, and provide for retirement.  In fact, the actual primary activities of government are sacrificed to support the social agendas.

The Constitutional perspective operates on the fact that life is filled with risks. Taking and managing those risks as individuals is what freedom is all about. When a person with little financial resources says that "I can have a better life if I open a new business and make a profit". That person is saying that he will risk having no insurance, eating poorly, and living in poverty while he build his future. Such people have made the  USA what it is today. This was the country where you were free to bet on yourself. You might fail but you were free to try and to try again. If things did not work out then the risk takers used their own survival skills or if necessary turned to friends, family, and community for help to survive the period between a failed risk and the start of a new endeavor. That new endeavor might be a new job in a new community or  starting another business. Whatever the direction taken, the choice of direction was the individual's choice to make.

Liberals do not believe that anyone should take those risks. In their view it is not individual effort and responsibility that meets people's needs, it is the government. The collective wealth of the country meets the needs of all the citizens. With this as their basic premise liberals cannot even think about individual risk taking inherent in a free society. Allowing people to risk not having health insurance is cruel, stingy, and not compassionate according to reasoning based on the liberal premise of government's job to care for all.

The Constitutional versus liberal ideals of government have become mutually exclusive. There can be no compromise when neither side accepts responsibility for the concepts that define their world view. Compromise is trade-off.  My opinion, based solely on my interaction with thousands of people over my lifetime, is that liberals do not understand their own basic premise and therefore cannot even imagine an alternative perspective. Conservatives are often described as religious fanatics when in fact the strictest fundamentalist religion is Liberalism. Challenges to liberal ideas are not just other ideas, they are heresy. Once defined as heresy no argument is possible.

When liberals acknowledge that theirs is not the "only true way to heaven on Earth" it will be possible to find solutions that require some sacrifice of liberty to provide necessary help for the less successful in our society. But the compromise can only occur when both sides recognize and fairly and openly debate the trade-offs between utopia and freedom.