Would Mr. Smith Need Term Limits?

It’s been a while!  Mothering and pregnancy has kept me pretty busy of late.  But today in my study of the constitution I was reading about something that I wanted to write about- why the founders chose to give no term limits to Congress.  This is an interesting topic to me because I have watched the way career politicians abuse their power-in both parties.  I tend to agree with those who call for term limits.  Get the career politicians out of there and put in people who are closer to real life and the citizenry of America and who are there with the right motives.  They will more likely do what is best for the people and the states than those who have been in so long they have lost touch with the real needs of Americans and are just there to gain power. I have felt this way even about the Senate which was  purposefully formed to give a longevity of wisdom and experience to Congress to balance out the House.    

In The 5000 Year Leap, Cleon Skousen quotes from and summarizes what the founders intended from those in public office:

“They (the founders) strongly believed that the best citizens should accept major roles in public life.  They believed people with talent and demonstrated qualities of leadership should have the same sense of duty as that which Washington exhibited when he allowed himself to be called out of retirement three separate times to serve the country.” 

In the early years of our country it was considered an honor granted to men by their community to serve rather than a way to achieve power and status and money.  The founders believed that  citizens should feel it a duty to serve out of public virtue, not to satisfy greed and ambition.  Said Benjamin Franklin to a friend in England, “In America, salaries, where indispensable are extremely low; but much of public business is done gratis.  The honor of serving the public ably and faithfully is deemed sufficient.  Public spirit really exists there, and has great affects.”

The founders expected farmers, teachers, lawyers, indeed all types of men to run for office, serve for a time and then return to society.  However, they understood human nature and did their best to guard against it’s evils in government.  In warning to the Continental Congress, Franklin later told of the negative results of human nature on elected officials he’d seen in England,

“There are two passions which have a powerful influence in the affairs of men.  These are ambition and avarice; the love of power and the love of money.  Separately, each of these has great force in prompting men to action; but when united in view of the same object, they have in many minds the most violent effects.  Place before the eyes of such men a post of honor, that shall at the same time be a place of profit, and they will move heaven and earth to obtain it.  The vast number of such places it is that renders the British government so tempestuous.” 

John Adams also expressed his hope that America would rise above Britain’s tendencies when he said,

“Politics are the divine science, after all.  How is it possible that any man should ever think of making it subservient to his own little passions and mean private interests?  Ye baseborn sons of fallen Adam, is the end of politics a fortune, a family, a gilded coach, a train of horses, and a troop of livery servants, balls at Court, splendid dinners and suppers?   Yet the divine science of politics is at length in Europe reduced to a mechanical system composed of these materials.” 

Could a more modern version of this quote from John Adams be applicable today?  I quote from these founders not to say that those in Congress today are there only to make money.  I realize it is still not a high paying job.  Nor am I saying that they all started out with evil intentions.  However the power and prestige that comes with office can an often does go to ones head after a while.  It must or we would not be seeing back room deals and legislation like we are seeing.   There is something in the way human nature works, that man grows accustomed to the power and will do all kinds of things to keep a hold of it.  One of my favorite quotes from a movie about a president is, “I was so busy trying to keep my job that I forgot to do my job.”  I think we see too much of that.

The founders knew this would happen and did everything they could to prepare for and prevent it, yet they did not put term limits on Congress.  WHY?  Today in my reading of The Making of America, also by Skousen, I learned that they chose not to because they 1. felt it interfered with the rights of the people who would elect them 2. would change the dynamic of the office and 3. cause the legislators to lose interest in their important work. 
From Robert Livingston, “The people are the best judges who ought to represent them.  To dictate and control them, to tell them whom they shall not elect, is to abridge their natural rights.  This requirement of constant rotation is an absurd species of ostracism-a mode of proscribing eminent merit, and banishing from stations of trust those who have filled them with the greatest faithfulness.” 
From William Henry Harrison, “If the senator is conscious that his re-election depends only on the will of the people, and is not fettered by any law, he will feel an ambition to deserve well of the public.  On the contrary, if he knows that no meritorious exertions of his own can procure a reappointment, he will become more unambitious, and regardless of public opinion.  The love of power, in a republican government, is ever attended by a proportionable sense of dependence.
 And from Alexander Hamilton: “When a man knows he must quit his station, let his merit be what it may, he will turn his attention chiefly to his own emolument.”

These ideas struck me as common sense and I was surprised to find myself questioning my previous thoughts on term limits.  Should we put term limits on our Congress?  Were there to be limits, we would certainly see what these founders described.  It is human nature.  And so then we are brought back to the original question put before the founders themselves.  How do we empower a government enough and not too much?  How do we curb and control the natural inclination to seek power?  There may have been many a “Mr. Smith” going to Washington in our current Congress or in any of recent history, but they don’t all stay as true to their civic virtue as Jimmy Stewart in Frank Capra’s film.  And, if they had gone back and done a movie after Mr. Smith had been in Congress for 15 years, what would the movie have been like then?  What would he have been like after years of wheeling and dealing and working with unions and Wall street and re-election?  It is a tough question.  As James Madison so aptly put it,  “If men were angels, no government would be necessary.  If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.”

Would term limits help or hinder?  The founders did the best they could to prevent problems, but believed that a well educated and actively involved electorate would be the final check on government.  Is corruption there because we as regular citizens are not paying enough attention?  Are we are not closely enough involved to kick out the ones who go astray and misuse their power?  In a nation as big as ours is it possible to stay that closely involved anymore?  I believe we have grown complacent, but is that all there is to the problem?  Would the negative effects of term limits be better than the lack has been?  I don’t know the answers, but it is something to think for those proponents of term limits.

More Drunk Governing: Farm Bailouts

I’ve often wanted to learn more about big government’s involvement with farming.  I am now reading a book, a book club book ironically enough, that is actually teaching me a bit about this.  It’s called The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan.  The book is actually about how far food has come from being natural or healthy thanks to the industrialized food chain.  I’ve never been into the organic craze out there, but it’s interesting to learn about how corn syrup has taken over the food industry.  Maybe we’ll actually get a little healthier from my reading it.   

But back to stupid governing.  In just the small part I’ve read, the author has explained a bit of the history of farming, tracing the evolution of the corn crop from the New Deal to the present day.  And here is my rant. 
Can someone please explain to me the absurdity of the government, i.e. ME paying farmers money regardless of how much their corn is selling for.  The government pays farmers to make as much as they possibly can even though the supply is too high and the price too low.  I don't get it.  Why can't farmers go out of business?  Businesses do!  If there is too much corn being made, if the prices are to too low, then why the heck do they keep making so much?  Why?  Because the government pays them with my money to keep doing it.
Pollan describes one farmer's payment plan:
"The Iowa Farmers Cooperative does not write the only check George Naylor will receive for his corn crop this fall.  He gets a second check from the U.S. Department of Agriculture-about twenty-eight cents a bushel no matter what the market price of corn is, and considerably more should the price of corn drop below a certain threshold.  Let's say the price of a bushel falls to $1.45, as it most recently did in October 2005.  Since the official target price in Greene County stands at $1.87, the government would then send farmers another $0.42 in "deficiency payments," for a total of $0.70 for every bushel of corn they can grow.  Taken together these federal payments account for nearly half the income of the average Iowa corn farmer and represent roughly a quarter of the $19 billion U.S. taxpayers spend each year on payments to farmers." Really, these farmers are not making any money even with this kind of help!  They are barely getting by.  But they keep doing it because the govt. will pay them even if the price of corn is next to nothing.  It's welfare.  And it's stupid.
Life is hard.  Sometimes your business fails and you have to go do something new. Why should I be paying to keep them in business!  
The demand for food will keep the right amount of farmers in business if government and it’s USDA would just butt out!
Am I wrong?  I realize I have not studied the entire history of farming or its government involvement.  And no, I have never been left penniless when my business/farm failed.  But from this book and other things I have heard and read, it seems to be what’s happening.  This is exactly what the bank bailout was, or the GM bailout or anything else our government has done recently to “save” failing businesses.  Let the free market run it’s course and everything works itself out.  Products (or food) that are needed will be consumed and those businesses will flourish, products (or food) that are not needed, or are poorly made will die off.  And I get to keep my money, thank you very much! 
There.  Now I feel better.  Had to get that MAD vent off my chest.

And just to switch gears slightly and to make myself feel better, I want to post this video from Powerline about the utter hypocrasy being shown by the democrats trying to push the Healthcare bill through via reconcilation.  Oh, it is beautifully funny.  What's sad, is that Republicans were trying to do this 5 years ago.  Pathetic.  Drunk governing indeed.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2010/02/025673.php

Good Things Are Happening

I wanted to post here about some things that I think are promising.  They show me that I’m not alone in my goal to change how things are working in government.  I love seeing this stuff because it shows that every day ordinary citizens ARE awake and are taking a stand against the flood of Big Government.

So just to list a few:

1. The National Tea Party Convention-got a lot of publicity and I’ve read many articles about how powerful this movement could be if taken in the right direction.  Republicans in government are listening because they are trying to get themselves aligned with the movement.  Good signs!  Many are trying to say that the Tea Party movement is “looking for a leader” and wanting to get connected to the Republican party, but I disagree.  I think the movement’s power comes from the fact that it hits every political group and has no leader.  Tea partiers are looking for candidates who support founding principles and  fiscal responsibility in elections ALL over the country.  It is regular ordinary citizens standing up and fighting back. The movement may yet end up with a leader, who knows, but for now it’s making people aware of the problems and the direction the solutions need to take.  It’s motivating Americans to get involved in their government.  
Google Tea Party and your state to find out where your local April 15th Tax Day Tea Party will be happening!  My husband and I are going to make the New York City Tea Party a date and I can’t wait!

2. The Mount Vernon Statement-a conservative manifesto

3. The Contract FROM America-a list put together by Tea Partiers of issues that should be first and foremost in government for 2010.

4. Mitt Romney's CPAC speech-really Good!

5.  All the democrats that have decided not to run for re-election! 

Good things are happening! 

The Danger of Big Government

I was reading a speech that Dennis Prager, a talk radio show host gave to the Republican members of Congress at their retreat this week.  He gives a really good simplified explanation as to why Big government is bad. 
“And finally, theme four: I have a motto that I offer to you because this is the ultimate moral case for us: “The bigger the government, the smaller the citizen.”
We have to learn to make our complex beliefs simple — though never simplistic. And this is our powerful response to government doing more and more for people: “The bigger the government, the smaller the citizen.”
And here’s how we explain it: The bigger the government, the less I do for myself, for my family, and for my community. That is why we Americans give more charity and devote more time to volunteering than Europeans do. The European knows: the government, the state, will take care of me, my children, my parents, my neighbors, and my community. I don’t have to do anything. The bigger question in many Europeans’ lives is, “How much vacation time will I have and where will I spend that vacation?”
America became great by working hard.  That’s what makes you a good person.  Working hard and then giving of yourself.  We can’t let the government take that opportunity from us or our children.  It seems crazy that we should have to fight for the opportunity and the right to work hard and be successful ON OUR OWN, but fight we must or we will become a small, selfish kind of people.

I recently found an old article in the WSJ by Mark Steyn called the State Despotic in which he quotes from Dr. Paul Rahe, author of a new book called Soft Despotism, Democracy's Drift.  In it he says "When something goes wrong, a European demands to know what the government's going to do about it. An American does it himself."  "Human dignity," writes Professor Rahe, "is bound up with taking responsibility for conducting one's own affairs."  Steyn concludes, "When the state annexes that responsibility, the citizenry are indeed mere sheep to the government shepherd."  (paraphrasing from Alexis De Toqueville)
It is our human dignity we must fight for.

Prager continues:
“That is what happens when the state gets bigger — you become smaller. The dream of America was that the individual was to be a giant. The state stays small so as to enable each of us to be as big as we can be. We are each created in God’s image. The state is not in God’s image, but it is vying to be that. This is the battle you’re fighting. You are fighting a cosmic battle, because this is the most important society ever devised, the United States of America.”
In response to Prager’s comment that “the state is not in God’s image, but is vying to be that.” I would say that big government, that is, having government give everything to you and dictate how you live so that all can be equal and safe and healthy is NOT God’s plan at all, but Satan’s.  That is how he wanted to do things.  To send us here to earth and then control everything we do, make all our decisions for us so that everyone returned home safe and sound.  God’s way is to let everyone choose.  Choose to work, choose to give, choose the right, or choose the wrong.  When we have those choices taken away from us we become small.  Character is developed through making choices and learning from them.  I fought for that right in Heaven and it looks like the fight will continue even here.  It is indeed a “cosmic battle”.

A Republic, If You Want It

Here is an awesome article that describes the shift from constitutional government to the current progressive liberalism that rules the day and why so many ordinary folks like me are finally taking an interest in politics.
A Republic if You Want It

It’s long, but worth it.  Understanding the history of the progressive movement and how it is influencing the liberal agenda today is so important if we are to combat it’s spread.  We have to know what happened then, where it came from and what it looks like today to be able to vote against it.  It is breathtaking to me to read some of FDR’s speeches about “The New Nationalism” and the 2nd Bill of Rights.  When I read his ideas, I hear Obama’s voice.  FDR believed that all Americans have a RIGHT to healthcare, a RIGHT to own a home, a RIGHT to make a profit off their farms and that government should make sure it happens and pay for it with American tax dollars.  He believed it was government’s role to make sure everyone succeeded.  I hear the same things from the mouths of democrats today.  They will not go so far as to publicly denounce the constitution and Declaration of Independence as the progressives of Woodrow Wilson and FDR’s time did.  But the end goals are the same, though the rhetoric may be different.  Less individual freedom.  More control by the all knowing state.  They believe that their experts can determine what is best for us better then we can and better than the founders could.  They believe that equality of rewards, ie. things, is the same as or more important than equality of rights. The progressives of 100 years ago went so far as to claim that there was no such thing as natural, God given rights.  They believed that economic “rights” were more important.  Today they believe that everyone should have the same amount of money and drive the same kinds of “environmentally safe” cars.  But in their attempts to provide equal things for all people, they are stepping on my natural rights.  Rights that do, in fact, exist and that cannot be taken away from me by my government even to help the good of society.  It is MY choice to help society, not the government’s.  And by the way, Democrats are not alone in this push to socialism.  Current Republican leaders go along with these ideas, raising only a weak voice of opposition, thereby showing a contempt for the constitution and its ideas that may not be as blatant as the Democrats, but nevertheless destructive.  It was both parties that brought us to this point of Big Government.

I read an article the other day from the Imprimis by Larry P. Arnn, the President of Hillsdale College, in which he talked about the solution to these problems.   Here’s the link.  It’s a very good article.
Education, Economics and Self Government
To put an end to the progressive way of governing  he says; 
“first is for the ordinary folk of the United States to see in this the despotism that it is, and to rise up and repudiate it. The second thing is longer term, but equally vital: It is to replace leaders who have bad educations with leaders who have good educations.” 
He claims that those in office today were educated by the progressive mindset and so though they may think they are doing what’s right for America, it is slowly moving us towards despotism.  And that’s what has to stop. 

So my next goal along with all my reading and along with teaching the next generation of leaders is to start looking for those people who want to run on constitutional principles and free market ideas and help them out, maybe even work on a campaign.  I’m proud to say that my little donation to Scott Brown helped him win his election and my vote helped Chris Christie win Governor here in New Jersey.  I’m going to find more people like them to help. 

Hope-the Real Kind

'It is to me a new and consolatory proof that wherever the people are well-informed they can be trusted with their own government; that whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights." Thomas Jefferson

I feel so happy this morning that we have a vote again!  We have a say again in our government!  It is small right now, but we can make it bigger this year.  It gives me hope!  I haven't felt hope for several months if not almost a year!  We proved again yesterday that the constitution is an amazing miracle.  It provides a way for us to throw off or at least balance out ideas and governing that we do not agree with without going to war.  Here again is another great video that shows the power of what happened last night. And as my mother in law said, "We got our miracle!"
Massachussett's Miracle
I'm so grateful to the founding fathers and for the inspiration they received to create such a process. No, our problems are not over. But it gives me such hope today to know that when the people don't like something the government is doing, they CAN make their voice heard one way or another. Those in power right now have NOT been listening to us.   It has been so frustrating to be on the side with no say, or virtually none because of the Democrats super majority.  But they weren't even listening to their own side!  So as Thomas Jefferson said above, we will set things right in a way that they cannot ignore. 

I was reminded in my studies this week of the whole point behind the two wings of government.  Two wings to the Eagle.  The book, Making of America by Cleon Skousen describes it this way: "The left wing was meant to be the "problem solving" wing or the wing of compassion.  Those who function through this dimension of the system are sensitve to the unfulfilled needs of the people.  They dream of elaborate plans to solve these problems."   Obviously, those solutions cost money.  So there is the right wing which "has responsibility of conserving the nation's resources and the people's freedom.  Its function is to analyze the programs of the left wing with two questions: First can we afford it?  Second, what will the proposed plan do to the rights and individual freedom of the people."  We need both sides of the eagle in order to fly straight and to fly higher.  When the left wing becomes too powerful we drift toward tyranny because there is no one to protect costs or the rights of the people.  When the right wing becomes too powerful then the we drift towards anarchy when the government "loses credibility" and the people take things into their own hands. 
 
This year we have been drifting...well, I would say rushing into tyranny as the left wing has had free reign.  But last night was a huge step back towards the middle.  Let's tip the scale some more this year.  Let's put our government back in the middle in November!  But let's do it with more people like Scott Brown and less people who are career politicians.  But I get ahead of myself.  That's a post for another day!
Congrats to Scott Brown, the people of Massechusetts AND the American people.

Not MAD Tonight!

Go Scott Brown!  I couldn’t be more thrilled that Scott Brown won the Senate race in Mass!  Even if the Democrats figure out a way to stall his seating, he will still be the 41st vote to restore some balance!!!!  Filibusters here we come!  Let’s do it again in November!!~!!!  I just can’t stop smilin!