All posts by Camp Director

General, Education, Commentary

Milestones

milestone

From time to time God provides milestones that allow us to evaluate how well we’re doing in our stewardship responsibilities. I was recently provided with one of these milestones. But first a little background.

Four years ago my wife and I came to the decision that the Westerville School District was not providing the kind of education we wanted our 3 girls to have. Sure, they got good instruction in math, science and English. History is another story, however. One of the first things I always checked was my daughter’s history textbooks. In my children’s last year at Westerville I learned from my daughter’s history text the circumstances of the first Thanksgiving celebration. According to the text, the Pilgrims held the celebration not to give thanks to God but to the Wampanoag tribe. Thus, historical truth was swept under the rug of political correctness in order to maintain supposed religious “neutrality.” My daughters were subjected to constant but subtle attacks on the moral training my wife and I provided. In history, “social studies” and even English classes my children were subjected to training in situational ethics, moral relativism, post-modern and existential philosophies and religiously dogmatic treatment of the “forces of naturalism” as the only possible explanation for life.

Yes, I’ve heard the arguments for why I should have kept my kids in the Westerville school system. The district has many Christian teachers, my kids needed to be in the school to be salt and light, they won’t be properly “socialized” and so on. Well, it is clear that the district could have a faculty consisting of 100% Christians and it would not matter because of federal, state and district mandated policies and curricula. Most children aged 5 to 18 are not equipped with the education, training or willpower to counter the constant assault on their faiths that they encounter in the modern public education system. Most Christian kids are particularly poorly suited to standing up to teachers who single them out since they are trained to respect authority. As for socialization, I’ve never run into a homeschooler who didn’t have lots of friends, both in and out of public schools.

Recently my oldest daughter went with some of her friends (see what I mean? Plenty of socialization) to see the movie “21,” about college students who develop a card counting system to beat the odds at casino black jack tables. I told her that I had read a review of the movie which stated that the audience’s sympathy was with the students because they saw the casinos as corporate thieves and asked her what she thought. Her answer was definitely a milestone. She said, “Dad, I couldn’t root for either the students or the casinos. Both of them were dishonest. It was like watching two thieves fight over a stolen wallet. There weren’t any heroes in the movie, even though the director tried to make the students the heroes.”

My daughter showed me that my wife and I made the correct decision to pull our children out of Westerville City Schools 4 years ago. Her answer revealed not a hint of moral relativism, situational ethics or post-modernism. Unlike her public school trained contemporaries, she was able to see through a direct appeal to her emotions to the crux of the dilemma that the director was trying to convey. She was also able to see that the underlying question was not an “either/or” choice and that she was free to reject both sides as immoral.

Could she have come to the same conclusion had we looked the other way as she was trained in a system of moral thinking that is not just “morality neutral” but openly hostile and antithetical to a Christian worldview? The answer to that question can be found in examining the worldviews of the millions of Christians who have been trained in America’s public schools. In a recent survey performed by George Barna, only 9% of adult professing Christians had anything close to a Christian worldview. We think the answer to the question is “No!”

As much as I would like to, neither my wife nor I cannot take any credit for this. God planted the seed within my children. My wife and I have been entrusted by Him with the care and nurturing of that seed so that He may eventually harvest the crop and use the resultant seed to plant more. In this way does Christ grow His Church. We are merely the conduits through which He works.

Thus we have been given a milestone to measure our stewardship. Thank God!

Warning- Blatant plug ahead.

If you’re looking for good Christian worldview training, especially in the civil government realm, then consider sending your teens to Camp American

Commentary, The Vote

McClatchy Newspapers Has a “DUH!” Moment

Voting MachineI gotta hand it to you, George. You certainly do have a talent for trivializin’ the momentous and complicatin’ the obvious. You ever considered runnin’ for Congress?- General James Kemper to General George Pickett in Gettysburg

In this article running in McClatchy Newspapers under the stunningly understated headline “McCain’s Senate record not always conservative,” authors David Lightman and Matt Stearns demonstrate a similar talent to the one George Pickett is accused of having in the opening quote.

What makes this headline, and really the entire article, so laughable is that anyone EVER thought that John McCain was a “conservative.” This is another indicator that the word “conservative” has been so stretched and distorted to create a “big tent” covering that the word is, for all intents and purposes, meaningless. It is also an indicator of the perspective of the authors of the article and the McClatchy editors. When one is sitting to the left of Franklin Roosevelt, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Barak Obama, et al EVERYBODY to the right looks like a “conservative.”

The authors unwittingly engage in “damnation by faint praise” in tooting McCain’s supposed “conservative” Senate record. They do so by adding qualifiers like “usually,” “most of the time,” “often enough,” “reasonably conservative” and the sycophantic media label of grudging respect “maverick.”

What the authors fail to exploit is the obvious dichotomy of opinion on McCain from groups like the American Conservative Union (ACU) and The National Rifle Assoc. (NRA). The article makes it clear that no one really trusts McCain but some (NRA) are willing to drink the Kool-Aid because of the looming boogy man of a Clinton or Obama presidency. This is nothing new. The NRA is always the first one at the compromise bar, ordering a triple, when the 2nd amendment is at stake. At least some of the “conservatives” grasp that a philosophically rudderless McCain cut loose from the fetters of his relatively “conservative” Arizona constituency is a dangerously unstable entity.

Public Policy Radar, Commentary

Oh, What A Tangled Web We Weave….

This entry is part 1 of 3 in the series Can A Christian Be Deceptive In The Political Arena?

RadarThe director of the Institute For Principled Policy, Barry Sheets, was the guest host on WRFD’s Bob Burney Live radio talk show. The topic for discussion was the plans of some of the members of the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections, specifically the Democratic Party members, to discern if any of the 17,000 “former Republicans” who crossed over to request Democratic Party ballots did so deceptively, i.e., to strategically try and influence the Democratic Party ticket to the advantage of the Republican Party. Those Cuyahoga County elections officials want to investigate in hopes that any of the deceptive crossovers would be prosecuted. Ohio does not have an open primary; one must swear an oath that one is sincere when one changes parties to vote in a primary election here. It is a 5th degree felony carrying a possible $2500 fine and 12 month jail sentence to be deceptive in swearing this oath.

This is an interesting situation, considering that there are several complicating factors. “Conservative” radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh has been very vocal in encouraging fellow “conservative” Republicans to cross over and vote in Democratic primaries for Hillary Clinton. Further complicating the situation is that Limbaugh is also encouraging the same voters to vote for Clinton in the general in the fall, thus seriously damaging the claim that the Republicans crossing over were not necessarily sincere. Further muddying the waters, is the fact that Clinton’s win in the March primaries seemingly knocked the Barak Obama Democratic juggernaut off the rails. How much of the Cuyahoga County election officials outrage is due to this factor? How many were Clinton and how many Obama supporters? Another question- where did these same Cuyahoga County election officials stand while leaders in their party were encouraging Democrats to cross over and vote for John McCain in the 2000 Republican party primaries?

Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, recognizing the political can of worms that the Cuyahoga County elections board is attempting to open, has said she isn’t really interested in pursuing charges in these cases. Uncharacteristically, she recognizes a political poison pill for what it is. Career suicide.

But more importantly and for the purposes of this series of articles Barry raised a number of questions during the radio show that all Christians who are called to be involved in political activity in the public square should be asking themselves. These questions are of such a basic nature that debate on the questions and the wider implications of proposed answers has resulted in a debate within the Institute For Principled Policy. The basic question is whether or not a Christian is ever justified in engaging in deception in political activity, and if so, under what circumstances and within what limits? In other words, what standard is the Christian to apply when engaging in political activity?

Those on either side of the question will be citing specific biblical passages and precedents and exegeting these biblical citations to make their respective cases.

Gentlemen, Make your cases!

Commentary, The Vote

Federalism, Democracy and Presidential Elections

1 Comment
This entry is part 1 of 5 in the series Federalism, Democracy And Presidential Elections

Voting MachineOver at a blog this author reads regularly (and recommends, great theology, really cool comic graphics), Frank Turk’s …And His Ministers A Flame Of Fire, Frank has made the following observation

In spite of what some people have already said, the primary system in this country has evolved toward a democratic process and away from the idea that party elites should pick a candidate apart from an electoral process.

It’s interesting in what ways the Clintons want to take our nation back to 1820.

This post prompted me to do a quick review of the class I’m preparing for Camp American on the electoral college. This being an election year and all, I thought this would be a great advanced class for some of our young budding Christian constitutional scholars who already have a working knowledge of the documents. I took notice of two things from Frank’s post.

The first is Frank’s observation that the presidential election process has evolved toward a more democratic process for choosing a president and away from the constitutional republican representational process the founders designed. The second is that the current fight in the Democratic party with the Clinton team’s attempted manipulation of the so-called super-delegates is a throwback to the party structure of 1820. Frank’s a really smart guy and has a pretty good handle on the workings of the current political system but may not know the ins and outs of the original design and evolution of the current system for election of the chief executive. Such is the state of modern constitutional education that most people don’t know the details unless they make a special effort to learn the details.

Well that’s why we do Camp American, and why the Institute For Principled Policy is involved. In order to understand how we got where we are, we have to know where we started. The original design of the framers was for a representative federal republic. We emphasize the word federal because the current understanding of federalism is vastly different than it was in the late 18th century. To keep this from becoming a multi-post series in 500 parts, we’ll stick to the highlights of this issue.

The framers vision of the federal government’s design was built on the idea that the states, which were autonomous republics, delegated certain limited powers to the federal government for three specific purposes; defense, diplomacy, and trade. There are many implications of this structure, but one of the most important to understand that, as Dr. Thomas Woods has eloquently stated, under the system of federalism as it existed until about 1865 the only contact that the majority of citizens had with the federal government was with the post office. Under this system, the federal government was a creation of the states and therefore it was decided at the Constitutional Convention, after lengthy and hard-fought debate with numerous contradictory resolutions and several see-saw attempts at a solution to the problem of election of a president which ranged from popular election to election by state legislatures to election by the federal legislature, that an electoral college would be the method by which a president would be elected. The number of electors for each state is based on the number of senators (2) each state is allotted plus the number of federal representatives allotted to it by the census count. The method each state was to use to choose these electors was left to the states themselves with limited restrictions such as candidates for the office and federal office holders not being electors. The hope of the framers was that each congressional district in each individual state would be represented by an elector from that district who would represent the interests of the district. The two senatorial representatives, it was hoped, would be representatives of the state governments’ interests. It should be noted that this system was designed well before any political parties had been even conceived of.

In its original form, the electoral college in each state was to vote for two candidates from a slate of nominees. The list of nominees was chosen by the consensus of caucuses, usually regional, within the US House of Representatives. The top vote-getter who received a majority (not a plurality) of the electoral votes became the president. The second highest became vice-president. If no candidate got a majority of electoral votes then the top 5 vote-getters were presented to the House of Representatives who were to immediately cast a presidential ballot. If no candidate received a majority of votes then the legislature was to go into caucus by states with each state getting one vote. Voting continued until a president was elected. Growing factionalism and failed conspiratorial intrigue in the elections of 1796 and 1800 complete with an electoral crisis in the 1800 presidential election caused the introduction of the 12th amendment which dropped the number of candidates on the presidential slate if the election went to the House from 5 to 3 candidates and provided for a separate slate of vice-presidential candidates, leading to the current method of choosing a running-mate. Not only was this system not democratic, it was specifically designed to prevent organized majorities from overwhelming the interests of minority populations. One need only read The Federalist to understand that democracy was a form of government the framers feared and avoided.

In the beginning of the republic, most of the states chose presidential electors in their state legislatures. But by the election of 1836 the only state which still held to this method was South Carolina, which did not switch to a popular election of electors until the fateful 1860 election. Political parties did not really exist until after Washington’s first term. They were formed on the basis of several major issues; first, whether or not to get involved in the French Revolution and which faction to support. Second, constitutional interpretation of issues regarding a National Bank and “internal improvements” and presidential authority. Third, the roles of the federal government and the state governments and centralized authority. The Federalists under Hamilton wanted to abandon France, grow presidential authority and diminish the power of the states. The Democratic-Republicans under Jefferson wanted the opposite. What we now call parties were then only what Madison called “factions” because there were only guiding philosophies and no official organizations or platforms until Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren hammered together the Democratic Party from their faction of the old Democratic-Republican’s in the 1828 election. The other faction became the Whigs, the Federalists having committed political suicide in 1816 leaving a single party. From the election of 1796 until the election of 1832 candidates for president were chosen by party caucus alone. After a revolt of newer western party members in the election of 1824 where they rejected the party’s nominee in favor of Andrew Jackson, the party convention system was developed. Convention delegates were chosen by party caucuses in the individual states.

This system of presidential nominations, delegates to national conventions chosen in local and state party caucuses, continued relatively unchanged through the 19th century into the so-called Progressive era. In 1910(!) Oregon held the first presidential primary that bound delegates to a specific candidate at the 1912 national party conventions. Interestingly, this humble beginning led to a split in the Republican party in the 1912 election. Former Republican President Theodore Roosevelt was an overwhelming favorite in the tiny number of states with a primary election, but sitting Republican president William Howard Taft held the nomination from the vast majority of delegates chosen in party caucus and because most primaries were non-binding. Really just beauty contests, if you will. Hence, the Bull Moose or more correctly the Progressive Party split from the Republicans with TR at the helm which eventually finished second to Democrat Woodrow Wilson. Taft was a distant third. Interestingly, only a few states adopted the primary system, even after this.

By 1968 only 14 states used the binding primary election or some variation of it. Interestingly 1968 was the last election where a candidate controlled a convention with no primary victories. Hubert Humphrey was the candidate. He won no primaries because he didn’t run in any. Anyone over 50 should clearly remember the events of the summer of 1968 with the Chicago Democratic Convention. Thus, the founders’ fear of direct democracy was born out and we were treated to both a revolutionary vanguard and a police riot over a brokered political convention. Perfect direct democracy leading to anarchy, just as Madison feared. The spirit of a constitutionally limited representationally elected republican (note small “R”) chief executive, elected to serve in a federal government which was constrained from interference in the lives of the individual, gradually became weaker and sicker throughout the 19th century, became comatose in the Progressive era and died in the summer of 1968.

After 1968 the number of primaries exploded, most states using some form of the binding primary. In the spirit of “democracy,” slowly but surely, discontent has grown with the idea that small rural states like Iowa and New Hampshire can set the electoral tone of the whole primary race for the whole country. Several states have worked to develop schemes to have their own states be in the first tier, some scheming to knock New Hampshire out as the earliest primary, a position most are surprised to learn it has held only since 1952. Now, after the Michigan and Florida debacles of this election cycle, the parties are clamoring for some kind of federal fix of the primary system, a power they do not constitutionally possess. Remember that the original republican design was for the states to choose how the chief executive was to be elected.

Now we are beginning to see, with the current cycle especially, the compression of the time available to make a choice for who should be the President. As this trend grows, candidates spend more and more money on media, consultants and staff, talk in shorter and shorter sound bytes, designed by advisers to have the highest positive emotional impact on subjects that the media has been working for months or years to create a particular kind of popular “buzz.” Candidate sound bytes need not necessarily contain any real intellectual content, nor does it necessarily need to cohere with the candidates stated policy positions. No need to contact the brain if the heart can be touched properly. Candidates who are the best media manipulators in appealing to their target audiences, end up in the lead. Those who have the resources dig for dirt on their opponents, knowing that the popular wind can shift in an instant if the right kind of scandal can be found and the media gatekeepers allow its use.

So, I think I can safely conclude that Frank’s timetable is off somewhat. The Clintons are not trying to revisit the politics of 1820, where the republican spirit was still quite alive, though it had caught a chill and the first signs of fever had set in, but back to the halcyon days of 1968, when a candidate didn’t have to win primaries to get a party’s nomination, but could manipulate the masses with blatant emotional appeals to the progressive dream of forcible redistribution of wealth in a completely egalitarian utopia in attempting to grab their party’s nomination. In other words, they’re trying to be the best possible democrats (note small “D”).

Warning! Blatant plug follows

If you want your kids to understand the original intent of the Constitution, the Christian origins of the nation’s foundational documents, economics, the truth about global warming and biblical stewardship of resources, have fun and meet new friends, check out Camp American.

Commentary

Slow Posting Lately…

Plague GermsYeah, we know. It’s been pretty slow around here.

That’s mostly because many of our regular posters have been either down with the latest plague that seems to be sweeping the country or meeting themselves coming around corners.

Most of us seem to be recovering nicely, so stay tuned for some much needed updates.

Public Policy Principles News, Gambling

Exactly What Ohio Needs…To Commit Cultural Suicide

GamblingThis story from the Des Moines Register is written in a somewhat light-hearted, wink-wink, nudge-nudge style but putting a little thought into it reveals that, like an iceberg, the dangerous part is below the surface.

The question here is about how casinos outside Las Vegas market themselves to attract customers and how those customers translate that message. The fired employee, Mr. Jorgensen, demonstrated that he understood exactly the intent of the Iowa casino’s marketers in their sales campaign. He said “The advertisement is that it’s just like Las Vegas, so I thought I was in Las Vegas.” Mr. Jorgensen was drawn by the implied promise and the belief that “what happens in Iowa City stays in Iowa City.” Obviously, this was a mistaken belief.

What Mr. Jorgensen believed was that he was being treated by the casino, his employer, to a night of drunken debauchery, complete with gambling, pornography, prostitutes, etc. What his casino bosses know and are actively trying to obfuscate is that Mr. Jorgensen’s assumption is exactly what they’re trying to sell to certain kinds of people. People like Mr. Jorgensen. But the obfuscation is in play because the casino operators know that there is a tension in their marketing efforts. If Iowans who aren’t really paying attention, having been temporarily dazed and confused by claims of giant revenues and consequent potential unlimited benefits from allowing casino gambling, begin to see the truth of what casino gambling brings to surrounding communities they will demand an end to it. And the cold reality is that casino gambling brings increased theft, prostitution, assault, broken families, bankruptcies, drugs, pornography, gambling addiction and costs to clean up the mess that far exceed the revenues.

So the trick for casino operators is to sell their non-Vegas casinos as the closest possible clone, implying that anything available in Vegas will be available in Iowa City or Wheeling or Rising Sun or wherever to gamblers and those who seek the other activities accompanying gambling while not awakening the locals to the cold reality. It’s a tight-rope walk and Mr. Jorgensen has been caught in the backdraft of casino management’s effort to show locals that they’re keeping it “family friendly.” Jorgensen, for one, gets the idea that he has been treated hypocritically. “Gamblers have been allowed to continue gambling after they’ve urinated on the blackjack table standing in full public view,” he testified. “I think there’s a little dual standard here.” Of course there’s a dual standard, but after all it’s for the common good!

Ohio needs to think very hard before allowing casino gambling, or keno machines, for that matter. Keno machines are no different from electronic slots and they have the problem of being constitutionally banned, though this little impediment doesn’t seem to bother Governor Strickland or Attorney General Marc Dann.

Commentary, The Vote

Watching The “Debate”

Voting MachineAside from mock civility between Barak Obama and Hillary Clinton, the insincerity of which was so thick that a professional grade chainsaw would have to employed to have the faintest hope of cutting it, there was nothing of any real note in tonight’s Democratic Party debate. Brian Williams and Tim Russert could just as easily have phoned in their inane and useless questions about campaign tactics. Both of these “hard hitting” journalists appear to have left the pads in the locker room in favor of a light workout. Policy questions revealed that the only real difference between the Obama and Clinton platforms, even the much vaunted health care issue, was the color of the fringe around the edges. In other words there wasn’t any real difference. Hillary’s approach to health care may be less disingenuous than Barak’s because Hillary admits her’s is a “gun in the back” approach. Barak’s approach makes the phony appeal to “choice.”

The howler of the evening came when Obama explained that since he had been a constitutional law professor he understood the impact certain policies probably better than anyone else. This raised an idea for a new party game. Find the saltiest chips you can buy and make sure no one has had anything to drink. A list of Barak Obama’s campaign proposals (or Hillary’s or McCain’s or Huckabee’s, for that matter) are given to each player. Each player must read a proposal and then look for the authority to implement that policy in the Constitution. Any player failing to find the authority in the Constitution must eat a handful of chips. No one can drink anything unless they can find a clear constitutional authority for the candidate in question’s proposals. It’s a lead pipe cinch that the gamers will be demanding the suspension (if they can muster enough saliva to actually wet their puckered lips and croak out their demands) of the game by the third round.

Totally appropos of nothing, it appeared that MSNBC dedicated a soft-focus camera for Hillary. It also appears that her handlers made sure that theatrical makeup was applied…ahem…liberally (meaning with a trowel) and she was warned to keep her facial muscle movements to a minimum to avoid re-exposing the crevasses they had artfully concealed.

The bottom line is that Hillary needed to hit a home run in order to right the sinking ship of her campaign in Ohio and Texas, and consequently the US. Barak just needed to appear to not be mean to the girl. She whiffed. He didn’t.

Overall, this “debate” was a gross waste of time. Except for the idea for the party game, maybe.

Taxation, Public Policy Radar, Commentary

Special Guest Blogger- A Crisis in Democracy: Are We Going Bankrupt?

John WhiteheadBy John W. Whitehead of the Rutherford Institute

“Our country is insolvent, and bankruptcy will come.”—Congressman Ron Paul (R-Tex.)

I’ve never seen our country in worse shape—culturally, constitutionally or financially. Marriages and families are falling apart, our liberties are being eroded and the U.S. economy is in serious trouble. We are, as author Robert B. Reich noted in a recent New York Times editorial, “totally spent.” All we’re managing to do now is keep our creditors at bay.

The U.S. trade deficit has reached record highs in recent years. Gas prices, which have largely contributed to trade deficit woes, have led to higher prices in transportation and other goods. The bursting of the home price bubble has triggered a crisis in U.S. housing finance. This has led to a sharp spike in foreclosures, as well as heavy losses at major banks, a pull-back in the market for securitized debt and a credit crunch worldwide.

With the value of the dollar plummeting worldwide, America is, in effect, now on sale at discount prices to foreign countries. For example, a record $414 billion was invested by foreigners in the U.S. economy in 2007, with much of it coming from sovereign wealth funds, vast pools of money controlled by anti-democratic governments from China to the Middle East.

The fact that our nation is nearing bankruptcy has become what David Walker, comptroller general of the United States, calls “the dirty little secret everyone in Washington knows.” Most politicians, says Walker, are aware of the impending financial crisis but reluctant to do anything about it. After all, it is not politically expedient to increase taxes or trim spending, but this is exactly what needs to be done.

Walker also argues that health care, a political promise rolling off every candidate’s tongue, is by and large the most prominent issue, five times bigger than Social Security. And Walker calls the 2003 measures that included Medicare prescription drugs “probably the most fiscally irresponsible piece of legislation since the 1960s.” This bill, Walker says, was “eight trillions dollars added to what was already a 15 to $20 trillion under-funding.”

Walker, who recently resigned after serving as the government’s chief internal watchdog for a decade, concludes that the nation’s “current standard of living is unsustainable unless some drastic action is taken.” But, as usual, when we leave the problem-solving to the politicians, what we end up with is bigger government, more bureaucracy and a larger federal deficit, which is projected to total $410 billion for 2008. (The national debt, which is the total amount of money owed by the government, is currently estimated to be over $9.2 trillion.)

We are living in a house of cards that’s on the verge of crashing around us, and yet most Americans remain oblivious and continue to spend beyond their means. But, as Reich notes, “That era is now coming to an end. Consumers have run out of ways to keep the spending binge going.”

Hoping to continue the spending a little longer, Congress passed a $168 billion stimulus plan made up of personal tax rebates and business tax cuts. While some Democrats criticized the plan, fiscal conservatives expressed grave doubts that the measure is too little and will reach consumers and businesses too late. Former congressman Jack Kemp asserts that “rebates haven’t worked in the past…and won’t work in the future,” as they reward past production. Other critics have voiced the concern that such a costly measure merely serves to increase the already burgeoning national deficit.

While the nation’s financial woes are grave, a recession will impact more than Americans’ pocketbooks—it will impact our very freedoms. After all, economic security and freedom go hand in hand.

In his book, A Free Nation Deep in Debt, James MacDonald, an investment banker, discusses the relationship between democracy and economic development: “Democracy (even in its most partial and imperfect form), is a system in which the citizens control the state. As long as democratic states borrow from their own citizens, their good credit is simply a reflection of the virtual identity of borrower and lender.”

Unfortunately, as economist James Galbraith explains, “The American citizenry has lost its pride of place as creditor of the American state. Today, financial intermediaries hold about 37 percent of U.S. public debt; Japan and China, along with other countries, now hold about 30 percent. The proportion of U.S. debt owned directly by Americans has fallen to below 10 percent; in 1945 (when the debt was more than twice as large in relation to GDP as now) citizen-creditors just about held it all.” But that is no longer true, and “for all practical purposes, the venerable marriage between public credit and democratic government, so vital a factor in the history of the world, has been dissolved.”

Galbraith concludes: “If MacDonald’s thesis is right, the disappearance of the citizen-creditor forces a question. Can democracy survive when its financial roots have been cut? The scale of public debt is not the issue, but its ownership is. Can a country—whether the United States or any other—be truly democratic if it is in hock to banks and foreigners? …To put it bluntly, are we still a democracy? And, if not, what would it take to bring democracy back?”

We know what must be done.

First, we need to elect fiscally responsible representatives with the backbone to resist political pressure to spend what is not there. We also need to stop putting ourselves in hock to foreign banks and nations. And we need to put a stop to the financial hemorrhaging related to the Bush Administration’s war on terror. For example, over the past six years, the U.S. has disbursed to the corrupt government of Pakistan about $80 million monthly, or roughly $1 billion a year. Yet according to the Washington Post, few receipts are provided to account for how the money is used or where it ends up. That’s just the tip of the iceberg when one considers that we spend at least $1 billion a week in Iraq on military operations alone. Just imagine how those dollars could be put to use in our own ailing economy.

Second, we need to show some personal discipline. This will mean reining in our binge spending, nationally and individually. It will also mean getting back to work. We need to bring the manufacturing jobs back to the United States and re-inject ourselves into the economy, even if it means Americans taking on jobs that are usually done by illegal immigrants.

Finally, we need to do a better job of protecting our freedoms. This means resisting the government’s attempt to amass greater authority and centralize power in the executive branch. It also means electing representatives who will abide by their oath of office to protect and defend the Constitution.

If we value our freedoms at all, we have to sober up—and fast—or we will certainly find ourselves facing an even more dangerous crisis in democracy. Yet beware: this will not be a sudden coup but a gradual transformation into a more authoritarian regime. As former presidential advisor Bertram Gross points out in his book, Friendly Fascism: “Anyone looking for black shirts, mass parties, or men on horseback will miss the telltale clues of creeping fascism. In America, it would be supermodern and multi-ethnic—as American as Madison Avenue, executive luncheons, credit cards, and apple pie. It would be fascism with a smile.”

Click here to read other commentaries by John W. Whitehead

General, Public Policy Radar, Commentary

Slow Posting Lately….

RadarYes, yes we know. It’s been a little slow here lately. Well we’re working on a boatload of stuff, but the research and writing takes some time to get right. And we know what happens when we get things wrong. Just look at the commentary from my “Real Thanksgiving” post to see what can happen when you do a hurry-up piece.

Anyway, we’re working on an analysis of Governor Strickland’s State of the State address, where the Ron Paul presidency should go from here, more police brutality and what it all means, our long awaited report from the Constitutional Coalition meeting, reports on Ohio State Senator Tim Grendell’s efforts in changing Ohio’s eminent domain law and his efforts to change an awful interstate compact with international implications to keep the southwestern states from diverting Great Lakes water, a report on HB 429 which eliminates the small business killing delivery-based state sales tax collection method in favor of the old purchase-based system (this has been an economic nightmare for small business since its proposal and inception and the state spent MILLIONS trying to get a working computer program that would at least allow a “simple” calculation. It’s a nightmare to use if any volume at all is involved).

We’re a little short-handed due to illness, travel, and the fact that only two of us (not me) lobby, or do policy analysis on a professional basis. In other words, most of us have jobs to do, businesses to run, or classes to teach (when we’re healthy).

Thank you for your patience!

Crime and Punishment, Public Policy Radar, Commentary

Featured Guest Article- Are You a Homegrown Terrorist?

John Whitehead By John W. Whitehead of the Rutherford Institute

At first glance, the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007 may not seem dangerous. Yet nothing is ever what it seems, and this bill is no exception.

On its face, the Act, which was approved in the U.S. House of Representatives by a vote of 404 to 6, would establish two government-appointed bodies (one a national 10-member commission, the other a university-based Center for Excellence) to study, monitor and propose ways of curbing homegrown terrorism and extremism in the United States. However, as journalist Jessica Lee points out, the legislation could actually succeed in “broaden[ing] the definition of terrorism to encompass both First Amendment political activity and traditional forms of protest such as nonviolent civil disobedience.”

The danger is the legislation’s vague definitions of violent radicalization and homegrown terrorism and the commission’s power to label individuals and groups as possible terrorists. Violent radicalization, for example, is defined as “the process of adopting or promoting an extremist belief system for the purpose of facilitating ideologically based violence to advance political, religious, or social change.” Note that you don’t actually have to commit violence to be labeled a violent radical. You just have to adopt or promote a belief system that differs with the government, which is easy enough in these times of economic instability, expansive government powers and endless wars.

The definition for homegrown terrorism is equally vague: “the use, planned use, or threatened use, of force or violence by a group or individual born [or] raised…within the United States…to intimidate or coerce the United States, the civilian population…or any segment thereof.”

Would abortion protesters or anti-war organizers be accused of using “force” to “intimidate or coerce” others? What about people who promote immigration views that are considered “extremist”? By Congress failing to define what an “extremist belief” is, what would constitute “ideologically based violence” or the use of “force,” it could mean anyone who expresses a belief contrary to that held by the occupants of the White House.

The concern, as Lee points out, is that the law will be used “against U.S.-based groups engaged in legal but unpopular political activism, ranging from political Islamists to animal-rights and environmental campaigners to radical right-wing organizations. There is concern, too, that the bill will undermine academic integrity and is the latest salvo in a decade-long government grab for power at the expense of civil liberties.”

The Senate version of this legislation, which finds that domestic threats “cannot easily be prevented through traditional Federal intelligence or law enforcement efforts,” requires the creation of what would essentially join federal agents and local police together in a single paramilitary entity.

“This sounds like part of the same continuum we’ve experienced in the last seven years, which is the effort to deputize local law enforcement to work with the FBI and national agencies without local accountability, as we have seen with the establishment of joint-terrorism task forces across the country,” said Hope Marston of the Bill of Rights Defense Committee. “When you talk about working with local law enforcement to possibly spy on groups and individuals to try to find the so-called ‘needle in the haystack,’ this definitely poses a threat to local autonomy.”

To Howard Zinn, author of A People’s History of the United States, H.R. 1955, as it is referred to, is just one more in a long series of laws passed in times of foreign policy tensions. He points out that the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, for instance, sent people to jail for criticizing the Adams administration. And “During World War I, the Espionage Act and Sedition Act sent close to a thousand people to jail for speaking out against the war. On the eve of World War II, the Smith Act was passed, harmless enough title, but it enabled the jailing of radicals — first Trotskyists during the war and Communist party leaders after the war, for organizing literature, etc., interpreted as conspiring to overthrow the government by force and violence.”

The true targets of this bill may be the anti-globalists and radical environmentalists who pose a threat to the corporate powers. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), the congresswoman who introduced the bill, has enjoyed a long and productive relationship with the RAND Corporation, a California-based think tank with close ties to the military-industrial-intelligence complex.

“Trends in Terrorism,” a 2005 study by RAND, contains a chapter titled “Homegrown Terrorist Threats to the United States.” In that study, RAND maintains that “homegrown terrorism” will come from anti-globalists and radical environmentalists who “challenge the intrinsic qualities of capitalism.” RAND also claims that anti-globalists and radical environmentalists “exist in much the same operational environment as al Qaida” and pose “a clear threat to private-sector corporate interests, especially large multinational business.”

Any thought, speech or action that threatens corporate hegemony and profit under this law—however protected it might be by the Bill of Rights—could be considered an act of homegrown terrorism.

This is not unlike the government’s Red Scare tactics used during the 1950s McCarthy era when thousands of Americans were accused of being communists or communist sympathizers simply for disagreeing with the government or associating with those who did so.

We are the descendants of a long line of dissenters dating back to the early days of this nation, from the Pilgrims fleeing religious persecution and our Founders standing up to King George’s acts of tyranny to civil rights activists staging sit-ins to protest segregation and peace activists protesting the armaments industry.

As long as there are individuals speaking out against what they see as injustice, oppression or corruption, there will always be those in high places attempting to silence or suppress them. But we must not be intimidated or silenced. Instead, we need to raise our voices even louder or our constitutional rights will be obliterated.

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