In the early part of the Twentieth Century this movement caught on and came eventually to control the apparatus of both the Democrat and Republican parties.  Any assertion to the contrary is patently false.  Of those individuals most influential in the advancement of the Progressive agenda, the most popular names that come to mind are Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, William Jennings Bryan, Thomas Dewey, etc.  Lesser known are those who thought and wrote extensively on how to institutionalize and perpetuate the cause, to normalize it and thus allow it to overcome, overwhelm and entirely pervert the original system as designed by the Framers.

Indeed to this very day we all suffer the effects of this treasonous plot and, in fact, as mentioned above the movement is presently and most rapidly approaching it’s apex, for over the last eight years a great deal of advancement was made in terms of establishing the final foundation from which would spring a transformation in government never anticipated, much less intended, by the Framers of our Constitution, by which the rights of the citizens of this republic would cease to be as they had been, and the balance of power would shift to the federal government as it usurps those rights and claims its own right as supreme arbiter of the rights of the people, citing the interest of national security.  Now, what we have observed since the new administration has assumed power is the implementation of the final stages of advancing this statist agenda with blinding speed and appropriate distraction to turn the attention of those less savvy away from what is really happening.  While employing such benevolent-sounding terms as “social justice,” “economic justice,” and “common good,” the progressives have and continue to imply a desire to “help those less fortunate.”  However, the inevitable result that they intentionally hide from and deny is that the means they have decided to employ in order to achieve such lofty-sounding goals as economic and social “justice,” those means being government authority and force, are wholly incompatible with what is perhaps the most important and vital premise upon which this republic was founded, that being equality of opportunity.  In sum, where the Framers of the Constitution sought to establish conditions to promote and perpetuate equality of opportunity, these “progressives” of both major political parties seek to replace that original intent with an equality of outcome.

Here’s a news-flash you won’t see on CNN, FOX, or any other media outlet of ill repute for that matter: the US Government thinks you are stupid. So do the politicians we continue to elect to “represent” us at the legislative and executive levels. So do the bureaucrats that are appointed and hired by the government. They all think we are stupid, and they might even be right.

Why would I even suggest such a thing, that we the people might just really be as stupid as the politicians assume us to be? Here’s my answer: because we are acting like it. And if we don’t wake up real soon and take some serious action we are going to be jolted awake one morning only discover that we no longer live in a free republic, and all the evidence, coupled with the total economic impact of the events of the last several weeks suggest that we are coming perilously close to that day.

Many, if not most, who are reading this would agree with this assessment, but for the sake of those who haven’t been paying attention to history, have no clue that we have a Constitution that is being knowingly and continually violated with seeming impunity by our elected representatives, bureaucrats and judges, and for those who, being either blissfully ignorant about the truth regarding the economic catastrophe our once-free market has become or who simply nod their heads at the assurance of government that they are working hard to fix the problem and everything is going to be OK, I have some disturbing news for you: the government and the politicians you elected are all lying to you – because they think you are stupid. And if you continue to believe them, then you are stupid.

Here is the ugly truth: In the last month your government has committed to spend approximately $1 trillion to bail out various Wall Street financial institutions, along with Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. That brings the officially acknowledged federal deficit to roughly $10 trillion. And there will most certainly be more regardless who wins the election: more spending, more promises of programs to help homeowners in over their heads, more debt. The Treasury will have to continue bailing out the FDIC as it (the FDIC) has already paid out the $45 billion fiscal insurance policy it holds to the many banks that have already failed. Amid all this chaos the government officials and elected representatives and candidates for office step up and promise they’ll fix it. One of these reprehensible bulwarks of all that is wrong in the world, Rep. Barney Frank – a man who is at the very least (along with his many Democrat and Republican comrades) complicit if not guilty of gross negligence in facilitating this mess has promised to do “major surgery” on the nation’s financial system. 

If Frank and his compatriots in the Congress hold true to their promise you can bet there will be more bank failures and this current recession will likely devolved into a long depression. Why? Because the whole reason the world’s financial system is on the verge of total collapse is because of government meddling in the economy by trying to manipulate and perpetuate artificial conditions of a growing economy. This is called central economic planning, a long discredited manipulative policy that has been proven unsustainable over time, as we are currently witnessing. You will never hear your Congressman or Presidential candidates speak of this, for to do so would betray the truth, and the truth would set us free, so to speak. 

Speaking this truth would be the equivalent of admitting that our planned and over-manipulated economy is no more a true free market system than was the Soviet economy that imploded in 1991 – and as this ugly truth stares us in face all we hear from politicians and bureaucrats is that “greedy Wall Street CEOs” are the ones to blame. In fact, some in Congress are already holding hearings featuring testimony from CEOs of several of the companies recently bailed out or that have failed. The Congress has the sheer audacity to lay 100% of the blame at the feet of these CEOs, who certainly deserve their share of the blame to whatever degree they jumped on the high-risk bundle bandwagon, while conveniently overlooking their own actions that directly contributed the creation of an environment where such catastrophically stupid business practices were not merely possible but were strongly encouraged. One party accuses the other of deregulating the finance industry as if that were the cause while the other accuses the first party of enacting senseless regulations as if those were the cause – and to an extent, both are correct. What was had prior to deregulation was a lot of bad regulation that was replaced by nothing that would solve the problems the bad regulation created, and most would agree that this is so.

However, while enacting laws for the purpose of regulation of commerce is a legitimate function of the Congress, enabling the Federal Reserve to secretly enact policy of its own, and for which it is unaccountable and un-auditable, specifically designed and intended to manipulate the money supply and interest rates to create and perpetuate a false prosperity nicely contained in a bubble that is an anomaly of free market operation, is not. In fact not only does the existence of a central bank go against the advice of the Founding Fathers of our country, it essentially violates all of the core principles upon which the Constitution is founded.

The Founders knew all too well the pitfalls of a fiat currency, that is, a currency of paper money that derives its “value” by the arbitrary authority of government declaring it’s worth, as it is in reality not backed up by any tangible assets. During the Revolutionary War, the Continental Congress financed itself partly by its self-produced Continental currency – paper money like we use today – that was not backed up by gold or anything else of any intrinsic value. The people were forced to use it, and the government simply was able to produce more of it by printing it, until they had printed such an overabundance of it that the currency itself became entirely worthless. Unfortunately the geniuses in government and those at the fed have not correctly understood the warnings of the Founders, because we have been doing the same thing since 1971 when Nixon took us of the gold standard. Either that or they know exactly what they are doing, which would be even more disturbing.

The fact of the matter is that those running the Fed are not stupid – everything they do is calculated. So why would they deliberately choose to destroy the dollar, because that is exactly what our government’s economic “rescue plan” or bailout will achieve if it continues the current charted course. They are destroying the dollar because the fundamental element of this “rescue plan” is the infusion of massive amounts of cash into the monetary system. The problem is that the treasury has none, and so it is left to the Fed to print it. With each new dollar that gets printed and injected into the system, the value of all the other dollars out there is diminished so they become worth even less on the market; therefore the buying power of individuals is likewise diminished as the value of the dollar goes down. The more currency produced, the less value it has. 

This is “inflation 101” and everyone on Capitol Hill and in Washington ought to know that. But, then again, these are by and large the same folks who signed on to creating the conditions that ultimately brought about this catastrophe, so it is not entirely surprising that they would sign on to allowing massive amounts of money to be printed and injected into the system. My dark theory on this is that in doing so they are inviting hyperinflation, which is when so much fiat currency is produced that it becomes essentially worthless (take Italy, for example, where you would pay 10,000 Lira for a pack of cigarettes). Perhaps they know this. Perhaps they don’t care. At the very least, they’d tell us, they are working hard and doing something to “fix the problem. 

But that is exactly the root of the problem in the first place, and so here is where the idea of individual responsibility and self-government comes in. The people are running like sheep in whatever direction the government leads – even if it is off a cliff- and unfortunately they have become so conditioned to looking to government to solve their problems that to do otherwise is often not even an afterthought. The people are not asking the right questions either – if they’re asking them at all. But, they are demanding that government “do something.” If they were living up to their civic responsibilities in the first place they would have been paying attention and seen this coming and would have been able to put enormous pressure on their elected representatives to stop the insanity before the crash became inevitable. 

The fact that this is happening in a Presidential election year makes the idea of individual self-government all the more important. The people are panicking as they see a long and deep recession looming, the politicians are panicking because they are afraid they’ll not be re-elected, and no one wants to tell the truth about how we got here in the first place. And now with the totality of the erosions of our Constitutional liberties having been much accelerated in recent years and the government nationalizing massive segments of industry, taking over individual home mortgages to presumably have courts renegotiate rates or perhaps dictate them, a complacent and uninformed electorate is only weeks away from electing a relatively unknown, unprepared, and untested politician who has spend the vast majority of his life immersed in the world of radical socialist ideology while pretending not to be. Our economy, our nation, our republic is being handed to him like John the Baptist’s head on a platter.

The people are crying, “Do something!”   Be careful what you ask for, because now that the government is doing something everything is going to get worse. You don’t believe that? Then name something outside of the realm of military action or law enforcement that the government does well. Incidentally, the national defense and law enforcement are really the only useful Constitutionally mandated obligations of the Federal Government, aside from the construction of roads, and the legitimate regulation of commerce. 

Also of note is Article I, Section 8. Under the title “Power Granted to Congress,” paragraph 5 reads: “To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin and fix the Standard of Weights and measures.” Note that nowhere in this paragraph is there mentioned an entity known as “The Federal Reserve,” nor is the authority to coin money and fix its value given to a single principal in the person of the Chairman of the Federal Reserve. Furthermore, it is important to note that the Constitution as written is binding as the Supreme Law of the Land, except where amended and ratified. No amendment created the Federal Reserve; rather, by the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 did the Congress unconstitutionally give charter to the Federal Reserve and illegally abdicate its obligation to coin money and set its value. Indeed, as if the creation of the Fed as an illicit central bank wasn’t bad enough, think for a moment of the sheer audacity and arrogance in thinking that one person with even the best and brightest minds to assist them, could ever permanently manipulate the forces of the free market to create a condition of permanent prosperity. And that is a major part of the problem.

If the markets were left to themselves there would indeed be periods of growth and periods of correction; however, absent mountains of poorly defined or ill-scoped regulation and meddling politicians abusing their lawful authority to implement self-serving policies pandering to their own constituencies and thereby exerting massive, undue influence and encroachment on the machinations of the free market, those corrections would be comparably mild and sort-lived. Yet those very persons responsible for creating those conditions encouraging greed and corruption are now the same who demand of us still more of our money and our trust. The talking heads on the TV, with few notable exceptions, tell us repeatedly that as unfortunate as it is, we have no other option. 

To those who suggest as much I say this: economic freedom and liberty are inseparable – you cannot have the one without the other. If the market can be so easily manipulated by the arbitrary will of government for the benefit of the few, then the market is not free and neither are those who participate in it. If, on the other hand, the market is allowed to dictate unto itself and to its participants the worth of goods and services and the worthiness of those who seek them, then all are able to prosper to the extent that they wish to share in that prosperity. Such is free-market capitalism is spared undue meddling of government. That is our other option, indeed our only option; for if we do trust these power hungry fools again, the hegemony of the government, then we are exactly as stupid as they think we are, and we deserve the misery that shall most certainly befall us. If not for liberty we would only then have no other option but follow along like sheep and give to government all that it demands. We are now at a crossroad in the history of this nation, and the decisions to be made and the actions to be taken in the immediate future will have a profound and perhaps irreversible impact on our lives and those of our children. 

Let us not fool ourselves: we have been asleep at the wheel for far too long, and if we don’t immediately wake up and grab the wheel we run the very serious risk of driving right off the cliff. If you don’t believe in the possibility of an authoritarian socialist regime in the United States you are either very naïve or ignorant of history, because the possibility is not only very real but is staring us in the face. Right now our system is still the best in the world, albeit imperfect. It would be even better and we would be returned to great prosperity if our representatives and government were actually abiding by the Constitution. They will not do so unless we the people force them too.

It could be argued that we are in the beginning stages of tyranny, of the proverbial “benevolent dictatorship.” The government is moving now, through the Fed, to take over controlling interest in even more of the banks in the US. The government is also planning on purchasing mortgages and will thus become the largest homeowner in the world. As they “loan” billions to the auto industry and then, doubtless, to others they will likewise require oversight, if not “public ownership” in those companies. Does “public ownership” sound familiar?   Once government encroaches on a segment of the private sector it will not extricate itself unless the people force it to do so. Remember, the New Deal was sold to the people on the premise that it was a temporary measure to meet the needs of an extraordinary crisis. This same line is being sold to us today. Don’t believe it.

At a time when government encroachment into the private lives of citizens at the federal and state level is at an unprecedented level, where state executives and legislatures usurp the rights of parents by mandating that children receive certain “vaccines,” where the Federal Government is pursuing a course to take over massive segments of the economy, where private sector jobs are being lost while government jobs are being created, and where the most likely winner of the upcoming Presidential election will seek to force state run health care, “world” taxes payable to the UN, and the elimination of the right of Americans to keep and bear arms, complacency is not an option. We must be organized and united starting today, for we must take back control of our government and make it work for us and not against us. Government encroachment into areas heretofore left to the individual self-government and personal responsibility of each citizen is out of control, and if left unchecked it will consume us. Keep this in mind: our Founding Fathers sacrificed their very lives for the liberty we are letting the government illicitly usurp piece by piece. So, as you witness these current events continue to unfold, keep asking yourself this question each day: “Am I sovereign or a subject?” Wake up, America, before it’s too late.

Congress to debate passage of $700 billion “Taxpayer Bailout Economic Stimulus Act of 2008.” OK, maybe that’s not entirely true, but they should consider it. After all, it certainly can’t be worse than what is already being proposed, right? Just consider that with the unprecedented government intervention and unlawful appropriations of the public monies we have endured over the last couple of weeks to bailout several private financial institutions and lenders that failed because of poor, if not corrupt business practices and an overabundance of government meddling in the private sector, the best idea our friends in Washington DC can come up with to solve this ever-growing financial crisis is a $700 billion bailout package to save the companies that screwed us over in the first place. 

If nothing else, this just goes to show how really out of touch with reality the Washington elite are. And it is why I am proposing an alternative to this $700 billion monstrosity, one that will actually prove a benefit to the economy and the taxpayer.

So, what is this solution to calm the perfect storm presently ravaging our economy? It is a “bailout” for the taxpayers to the tune of $700 billion.   The original “plan” really wasn’t my idea. I first saw it posted on a fellow Townhall blogger’s site, which he titled “A Tongue in Cheek Plan for Fixing the Economy.” He gave the credit to a “Mr. T. J. Birkenmeier, A Creative Guy & Citizen of the Republic.” I liked it and thought about it and felt there was room for improvement. I asked the blogger if I could repost this and he said yes. But, after thinking about this proposal and doing a bit of research I have come up with a slightly different version of this plan. I will keep it simple, because there is no need to complicate it.

According to the IRS 138,893,908 individual tax returns were filed for FY 2007, but for the sake of simplicity lets round that up to 140 million.

The “Taxpayer Bailout Economic Stimulus Act of 2008” will would consist of a one-time $700 billion refund being sent in equal amounts back to all eligible citizens. Period. No fancy formulas or breakdowns of this tax rate or that tax rate - everyone who gets a check gets the same amount, plain and simple. So, what that essentially means is that every person who filed a 2007 individual tax return (form 1040) will receive a one-time lump-sum payout of $5,000 to do with what they please. That’s it. Easy, right?

There would be one catch. Before getting their checks all eligible recipients would have to read the Constitution of the United States, Milton Friedman’s “Capitalism and Freedom,” as well as “Economic Freedom and Interventionism” and “Liberalism: A Socio-Economic Exposition” by Ludwig von Mises. For those who are unfamiliar and bristled at the title of the last book by Mises, it refers to the Classic or Traditional Liberalism of the kind espoused by the Founding fathers of our nation. The bill would mandate the reading and testing of these works in the public school systems at least twice between beginning middle school and graduating high school. It would eliminate federal withholding for “income” tax purposes and all capital gains for a minimum of two years. It would also require that the Fed seek approval from Congress prior to printing any money, and that it report to Congress on a bi-monthly basis the estimated amount of liquid cash in the national monetary system.

Eligible recipients would then log on to a special and secure government website and, after creating their account by entering their unique taxpayer ID and coded password, take one online test each on the Constitution as well as on each book, and a final cumulative test on the general economic principles espoused within these great works as well as a comprehensive analysis on the Constitutional limitations on government. Immediately upon passing all the tests the recipient’s check would be mailed or electronically deposited, if so desired. This would ensure that all recipients had a solid foundation for understanding at the very least, the basic principles of liberty, free market economics, fiscal responsibility of the individual and government, that the proper respective roles of government and individual citizens in a free republic.

Such a proposal would be far more beneficial to the economy and to the republic than would the current government plan, if for no other reason than that the $700 billion government plan is far too expensive for its intended purpose and is also very, very stupid. But, given how we ended up in this mess, what should we expect from a government conceived and managed “solution” except incompetence, criminal behavior, and unadulterated stupidity? The “Taxpayer Bailout Economic Stimulus Act of 2008” is a far superior solution because, simply put, it is not stupid. It makes perfect sense for a number of reasons: 

First, this proposal is not a bailout. It is either a refund or an inheritance, depending upon how you look at it (just think about the amount of money the IRS confiscated from your families since the Federal Income Tax Act of 1913. 

Second, if you want to pass an economic stimulus package that will actually help the overall economy, said package ought to enable the recipient to do something significant. The recent stimulus check I received, while appreciated didn’t go nearly as far as is needed for its intended purposes. A substantial amount of monies returned to the people would have created the desired effect, but $1,200 when gas is at $4.00 a gallon… well, you get the idea.

Third, given the current situation it makes far more sense to stabilize the economy from the bottom up and not from the top down. Gove the money to the people who will decide where their confidence is in the general market and invest or purchase commodities and goods accordingly. For example, the primary thrust of Secretary Paulson’s argument for a top-down bailout of banks and financial institutions is that under the heavy burden of such vast amounts of bad debt, as the crisis is prolonged the fears of customers and traders will manifest themselves in runs on the banks and financial institutions and will ultimately result in crashing of the collective value of all of these companies, and hence the entire financial system will collapse completely in an economic domino effect. This argument is nothing more than fear-mongering, because it overlooks the simple fact that money in a free market system is equivalent to security, an so if given the money the people who pay that money in the first place will feel more secure (as in they will know they will not be going hungry and will be able to get to work…). When they feel financially secure, they will spend money, either on consumer goods or investing in stocks and commodities, and right now there are many bargains to be had on Wall Street. 

Large numbers of people buying stocks in troubled institutions actually does make sense. Why? Because you generally want to buy something like stock when it is cheap and hold it as it accrues value. T be sure, people would be buying that financial stock up immediately – as they are even now because they know that instinctively buying such stock now is a good bet to make more money later. With waves of people purchasing and therefore by default showing confidence in the overall soundness of the economy and the free market, Wall Street would rally and the value of all companies, public and privately traded would increase, the economy would expand, job would be created due to the affordability of innovation and we would soon find ourselves once again in cyclical upswing, and all without unnecessary government intervention and unlawful nationalization of sectors of the economy or unconstitutional bailouts of private companies. 

Fourth, sending large amounts of money directly to the people instead of to the failing banks and financial businesses is entirely Constitutional and sensible and has a far greater probability of succeeding. Why? Because, in essence, you and I are the economy (read the books…). Such action would truly be supportive of free market capitalism by empowering the consumer and letting the market dictate from there without unlawful manipulation by quasi-government agencies (cough! The Fed) to create artificial conditions conducive to the instability and collapses we are now witnessing because the government wants to perpetuate the upswing cycle and wholly avoid the downswing cycle. Such efforts to force markets and economies to do things and perform in ways that against they nature will never succeed and will only make the eventual downside more severe. Talk to the former Soviet planners about that.

Finally, such an action would boost confidence not only in the economy but also in government for finally realizing that it was the primary reason things are so messed up and for having the sense to trust the people and do the right thing. Bailing out massive corporations that are possibly going to be unresponsive to the injection of cash is just plain stupid. There is no reason whatsoever to appropriate hundreds of billions of dollars for the government to buy bad debt when at the same time there is plenty of reason to spend one-seventh of the current proposed amount and enable those individuals who are struggling to pay off those debts, and by solving their individual financial crises solve by default the collective crises of the larger economy by bringing the debt ratios of the various financial institutions into proper alignment and thereby allowing for the market to do what it alone does best – correct itself.

So, if you are a person who thinks they could use a spare $5,000 maybe you ought to copy this proposal and send it to your representatives in Washington DC before they give a whole lot more of your money to the wrong people and make things even worse.