Sunday, October 02, 2011
Overhaul Our Government
The Way I See It!
My political leaning is to the right, but since I cannot stand the far right’s nonsense, I aim to stand to the right of moderates, and rather far from the kooky rightists. I cannot stand the far left, or progressives, since they seem to me to be senseless and self-absorbed, prone to elliptical argumentation, and very close to downright America haters.
1. Christianity. I do see myself as a Christian, and make a strong attempt to follow the Golden Rule under all circumstances, as well as practicing the rest of the morals and ethics of my belief.
2. Constitution. My strong predilection is to show patriotism for America, adherence to her guiding principals of freedom and liberty, and her Constitution as the law of the land. I believe in the plain interpretation of the Constitution, and not the straining of words to mean something not intended. I also believe the Constitution is modern and timely and not really marred by its age at all: it is not a living document to be modified at the whim of politicians, but it is capable of being amended by due process with agreement of the people or their representatives. The right to own and use guns for self defense, and I include hunting and sport, for instance, is in our Constitution.
3. Natural Law. It easily follows that I believe in natural law, natural rights, and natural duties, since most of the laws in the Constitution are natural law derivatives.
4. Just War. Since I do believe that we have a right to defend ourselves, I also believe in Just War and Just Killing (but not murder). This translates into further belief in preemptive war if threatened, and in the death penalty.
5. Strong Defense. From my belief in the right of defense and Just War comes the further belief that we should have a strong defense capability that is ever ready to defeat our enemies both singly and in concert.
6. Strong Police Force. A strong internal police force throughout the land is to me an absolute necessity, because we have many lawless people here that must be thwarted. In addition, laws must be enforced, so the idea that police departments can ignore, subvert, or slow roll laws they do not like is simply wrong.
7. Sovereignty. I believe in the sovereignty of the nation, the strong protection of its borders, and the prevention of other authorities from subverting our sovereignty, such as the UN. In my opinion, there are far too many rogue states, unethical states and amoral states for a true international law and court to be fair. Furthermore, I do not see how we could find impartial judges that could administer the laws without some form of bias. Can we find truly honest men?
8. Free Market. I believe in the free market in general, but I also believe that we must have protections against criminal abuses of the market, investors and the customers.
9. Citizen Participation. In my opinion, we must have participation by the citizenry in the daily workings of our republic. This extends to voting at every election, supporting the cause of freedom and liberty, and supporting the nation is preservation of its sovereignty and in the wars it must pursue, and should include aid to disaster victims. Principled Dissent is proper also, I must agree. I believe in national service of some kind for everyone at some point in their lives.
10. Revenues. Taxation is necessary to provide the necessities of government, but I am opposed to the excesses of redistribution of wealth such as is currently reflected in our tax code and in the Amendment that authorizes graduated income taxes. A form of flat tax that recognizes the problems of lower income citizens is my preferred approach.
11. The Disadvantaged. We must take care of the disabled, the poor, and the jobless to the point that they are not destitute. I do think that Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare programs, with some improvements, are needed. We must not create a dependent class of citizens, however, that does not work or strive to work when they physically can work. We should have corrected abuses of these programs a long time ago!
12. Foreign Aid. Foreign aid is a difficult subject for many reasons. Humanitarian aid is often subverted to other uses by the receiving nation. Loans may be diverted to the purchase of military goods. The poor around the world cannot be brought up to a subsistence level by use of our aid; there are simply too many of them. There are few good answers, beyond teaching them “how to fish rather than giving them fish to eat” as the saying goes. Subsidizing foreign governments is in general not a good idea either, because we would often be supporting oppressive governments. I make an exception for disaster aid.
13. Right-Sized Government. There must be a “right size” for our government appropriate to the agreed functions it must perform. Since we have state and local governments, I believe in a proper division of services between the federal government and the state and local governments. I do not believe in unfunded mandates by the federal government.
It seems to me that the well-identified government organizations have topped such a gross number—over 1177 agencies, bureaus, committees, boards, and the like---that it is imperative for us to take the pruning shears to this polyglot of spenders and bring them down to size. While we are at it, I think we should place all of the government offices and budgets under very close scrutiny over some period of time by a bipartisan committee, and force them to justify their mission, methods, staffing level and money expenditures to the public, the Congress and the President all over again.
14. Congressional Overhaul. Our Congress needs to be overhauled to stop the abuses of power that current party orientations employ to the detriment of us all. Such things as: stopping earmarks; creating term limits; standardizing the rules of the house and senate; and reform of election financing, among other reforms, are needed.
15. Illegal Immigrants. Illegal immigrants have by definition violated our law and they must be treated accordingly. I am willing to consider some route to citizenship for some of them provided they are law-abiding, willing to assimilate into our society, and are not destitute and unskilled to begin with. There should be a migrant worker program that is well-controlled and effective, but not a means to disappear into the nation, or to reside in the nation without a legal basis. The bottom line is I do believe in legal immigration of people that add to our nation with their skills, morals, work ethic, and wholehearted willingness to assimilate. Non-assimilation by some measure should be cause for deportation.
16. Abortion. “Thou shalt not murder” is a commandment that must be obeyed, and it extends to prevention of abortions in most cases. Personhood begins with conception, so abortion is murder, in my opinion. The law must reflect this. Incidentally, we currently experience over 1.3 million abortions in the US per year. Think of it! (In 4. above one must differentiate between “murder” and “just killing”.)
17. Same Sex Marriage. We have a large number of same-sex couples, and a growing number of them are being married in states that permit such. I do not believe in same-sex marriage, or adoption by same-sex couples, but I must recognize the laws that exist even if I do not agree with them. I will work to rescend such laws.
18. Subverting the Constitution. Our form of government—a republic-- must be permanent, and not subject to fundamental changes in how it is structured. To try to move our nation towards socialism or communism, or totalitarianism, or “pure democracy” (as opposed to republicanism) is, in my opinion, a form of treason. This must extend to the prohibition of the government from ever owning and operating commercial businesses.
19. Overhaul of Courts. We need a court system overhaul, too. I want to consider term limits for Justices instead of lifetime appointments. When too many justices line up with the progressive opposition, and legislate from the bench, we have a terrible situation that cannot be corrected today until one or more justices retire or die, and the then administration appoints more moderate or rightist judges as replacements.
20. Speak English. We must make American English the official language of the US. I believe that most people can become proficient in English inside of a year if they apply themselves to the task, and they should if they want to assimilate easily. We spend entirely too much money catering to the language needs of immigrants and their children.
21. Education. Our education system needs a full overhaul from top to bottom. We need to break the hold that progressives have on our education, and the hold that the unions have attained. I have seen little or no correlation between the growing wages of teachers and any improvement in the educational products being delivered. We need to ensure that students learn the basics thoroughly.
22. Unions. There may be a place in our society for unions, but it is not in the US government, or in state governments. Unions should be prohibited forthwith from organizing or existing in our government at all levels.
23. Treason and Sedition. We must reform our views and laws pertaining to treason to update them to meet the threats we face today. In my opinion an act of terrorism is an act of treason, and the promotion of anti-American movements, marches, and rallies is inflammatory, inciting to do harm and seditious. No group should have a pass when it comes to the threat or execution of terrorist acts, no matter their ultimate motivation, especially in their own thinking. This specifically includes Islamic Fundamentalists that preach the overthrow of the nation and the necessity for jihad against our nation, which in my eyes are treasonous or seditious.
24. States Rights. We must adhere to the idea of a federation, and restore such rights that have been usurped by the federal government back to the states where they belong in accord with our Constitution, or back to the people themselves.
25. Fiscal Responsibility. We must return the nation to an era of common sense fiscal responsibility, rein in spending, and pay down the national debt, while reducing the annual deficit to a practical level. Our objective should be to balance the annual budget and keep it that way, barring unforeseen events such as war or devastation. Any congressman that voted for spendthrift programs and earmarks should be defeated, and any president, from either party, that leads us into such spending should be defeated also.
26. Energy Resources. The nation has substantial natural resources which produce energy: coal, hydroelectric power, oil, natural gas, sun power, and wind, and eventually perhaps wave power. We also have nuclear power which has the two problems of handling radioactive wastes and the threat of a nuclear meltdown caused by damage to the plant. My belief is that we have not pursued our resources to the maximum over the past years, and we should therefore move out sharply to rectify this shortfall and thereby materially reduce our dependence on Middle East and other nations’ oil. Solar and wind power are both not yet ready for major implementation and economic production of power. Coal represents 50% of our production, and should be the starting place for R&D to develop cleaner plants, not solar!
27. Obama Problems. We must totally eradicate just about every Obama initiative and Executive Order, every Obama appointment, and every Obama policy statement, and then begin all over to straighten out the total mess we are in.
(To be completed)
My political leaning is to the right, but since I cannot stand the far right’s nonsense, I aim to stand to the right of moderates, and rather far from the kooky rightists. I cannot stand the far left, or progressives, since they seem to me to be senseless and self-absorbed, prone to elliptical argumentation, and very close to downright America haters.
1. Christianity. I do see myself as a Christian, and make a strong attempt to follow the Golden Rule under all circumstances, as well as practicing the rest of the morals and ethics of my belief.
2. Constitution. My strong predilection is to show patriotism for America, adherence to her guiding principals of freedom and liberty, and her Constitution as the law of the land. I believe in the plain interpretation of the Constitution, and not the straining of words to mean something not intended. I also believe the Constitution is modern and timely and not really marred by its age at all: it is not a living document to be modified at the whim of politicians, but it is capable of being amended by due process with agreement of the people or their representatives. The right to own and use guns for self defense, and I include hunting and sport, for instance, is in our Constitution.
3. Natural Law. It easily follows that I believe in natural law, natural rights, and natural duties, since most of the laws in the Constitution are natural law derivatives.
4. Just War. Since I do believe that we have a right to defend ourselves, I also believe in Just War and Just Killing (but not murder). This translates into further belief in preemptive war if threatened, and in the death penalty.
5. Strong Defense. From my belief in the right of defense and Just War comes the further belief that we should have a strong defense capability that is ever ready to defeat our enemies both singly and in concert.
6. Strong Police Force. A strong internal police force throughout the land is to me an absolute necessity, because we have many lawless people here that must be thwarted. In addition, laws must be enforced, so the idea that police departments can ignore, subvert, or slow roll laws they do not like is simply wrong.
7. Sovereignty. I believe in the sovereignty of the nation, the strong protection of its borders, and the prevention of other authorities from subverting our sovereignty, such as the UN. In my opinion, there are far too many rogue states, unethical states and amoral states for a true international law and court to be fair. Furthermore, I do not see how we could find impartial judges that could administer the laws without some form of bias. Can we find truly honest men?
8. Free Market. I believe in the free market in general, but I also believe that we must have protections against criminal abuses of the market, investors and the customers.
9. Citizen Participation. In my opinion, we must have participation by the citizenry in the daily workings of our republic. This extends to voting at every election, supporting the cause of freedom and liberty, and supporting the nation is preservation of its sovereignty and in the wars it must pursue, and should include aid to disaster victims. Principled Dissent is proper also, I must agree. I believe in national service of some kind for everyone at some point in their lives.
10. Revenues. Taxation is necessary to provide the necessities of government, but I am opposed to the excesses of redistribution of wealth such as is currently reflected in our tax code and in the Amendment that authorizes graduated income taxes. A form of flat tax that recognizes the problems of lower income citizens is my preferred approach.
11. The Disadvantaged. We must take care of the disabled, the poor, and the jobless to the point that they are not destitute. I do think that Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare programs, with some improvements, are needed. We must not create a dependent class of citizens, however, that does not work or strive to work when they physically can work. We should have corrected abuses of these programs a long time ago!
12. Foreign Aid. Foreign aid is a difficult subject for many reasons. Humanitarian aid is often subverted to other uses by the receiving nation. Loans may be diverted to the purchase of military goods. The poor around the world cannot be brought up to a subsistence level by use of our aid; there are simply too many of them. There are few good answers, beyond teaching them “how to fish rather than giving them fish to eat” as the saying goes. Subsidizing foreign governments is in general not a good idea either, because we would often be supporting oppressive governments. I make an exception for disaster aid.
13. Right-Sized Government. There must be a “right size” for our government appropriate to the agreed functions it must perform. Since we have state and local governments, I believe in a proper division of services between the federal government and the state and local governments. I do not believe in unfunded mandates by the federal government.
It seems to me that the well-identified government organizations have topped such a gross number—over 1177 agencies, bureaus, committees, boards, and the like---that it is imperative for us to take the pruning shears to this polyglot of spenders and bring them down to size. While we are at it, I think we should place all of the government offices and budgets under very close scrutiny over some period of time by a bipartisan committee, and force them to justify their mission, methods, staffing level and money expenditures to the public, the Congress and the President all over again.
14. Congressional Overhaul. Our Congress needs to be overhauled to stop the abuses of power that current party orientations employ to the detriment of us all. Such things as: stopping earmarks; creating term limits; standardizing the rules of the house and senate; and reform of election financing, among other reforms, are needed.
15. Illegal Immigrants. Illegal immigrants have by definition violated our law and they must be treated accordingly. I am willing to consider some route to citizenship for some of them provided they are law-abiding, willing to assimilate into our society, and are not destitute and unskilled to begin with. There should be a migrant worker program that is well-controlled and effective, but not a means to disappear into the nation, or to reside in the nation without a legal basis. The bottom line is I do believe in legal immigration of people that add to our nation with their skills, morals, work ethic, and wholehearted willingness to assimilate. Non-assimilation by some measure should be cause for deportation.
16. Abortion. “Thou shalt not murder” is a commandment that must be obeyed, and it extends to prevention of abortions in most cases. Personhood begins with conception, so abortion is murder, in my opinion. The law must reflect this. Incidentally, we currently experience over 1.3 million abortions in the US per year. Think of it! (In 4. above one must differentiate between “murder” and “just killing”.)
17. Same Sex Marriage. We have a large number of same-sex couples, and a growing number of them are being married in states that permit such. I do not believe in same-sex marriage, or adoption by same-sex couples, but I must recognize the laws that exist even if I do not agree with them. I will work to rescend such laws.
18. Subverting the Constitution. Our form of government—a republic-- must be permanent, and not subject to fundamental changes in how it is structured. To try to move our nation towards socialism or communism, or totalitarianism, or “pure democracy” (as opposed to republicanism) is, in my opinion, a form of treason. This must extend to the prohibition of the government from ever owning and operating commercial businesses.
19. Overhaul of Courts. We need a court system overhaul, too. I want to consider term limits for Justices instead of lifetime appointments. When too many justices line up with the progressive opposition, and legislate from the bench, we have a terrible situation that cannot be corrected today until one or more justices retire or die, and the then administration appoints more moderate or rightist judges as replacements.
20. Speak English. We must make American English the official language of the US. I believe that most people can become proficient in English inside of a year if they apply themselves to the task, and they should if they want to assimilate easily. We spend entirely too much money catering to the language needs of immigrants and their children.
21. Education. Our education system needs a full overhaul from top to bottom. We need to break the hold that progressives have on our education, and the hold that the unions have attained. I have seen little or no correlation between the growing wages of teachers and any improvement in the educational products being delivered. We need to ensure that students learn the basics thoroughly.
22. Unions. There may be a place in our society for unions, but it is not in the US government, or in state governments. Unions should be prohibited forthwith from organizing or existing in our government at all levels.
23. Treason and Sedition. We must reform our views and laws pertaining to treason to update them to meet the threats we face today. In my opinion an act of terrorism is an act of treason, and the promotion of anti-American movements, marches, and rallies is inflammatory, inciting to do harm and seditious. No group should have a pass when it comes to the threat or execution of terrorist acts, no matter their ultimate motivation, especially in their own thinking. This specifically includes Islamic Fundamentalists that preach the overthrow of the nation and the necessity for jihad against our nation, which in my eyes are treasonous or seditious.
24. States Rights. We must adhere to the idea of a federation, and restore such rights that have been usurped by the federal government back to the states where they belong in accord with our Constitution, or back to the people themselves.
25. Fiscal Responsibility. We must return the nation to an era of common sense fiscal responsibility, rein in spending, and pay down the national debt, while reducing the annual deficit to a practical level. Our objective should be to balance the annual budget and keep it that way, barring unforeseen events such as war or devastation. Any congressman that voted for spendthrift programs and earmarks should be defeated, and any president, from either party, that leads us into such spending should be defeated also.
26. Energy Resources. The nation has substantial natural resources which produce energy: coal, hydroelectric power, oil, natural gas, sun power, and wind, and eventually perhaps wave power. We also have nuclear power which has the two problems of handling radioactive wastes and the threat of a nuclear meltdown caused by damage to the plant. My belief is that we have not pursued our resources to the maximum over the past years, and we should therefore move out sharply to rectify this shortfall and thereby materially reduce our dependence on Middle East and other nations’ oil. Solar and wind power are both not yet ready for major implementation and economic production of power. Coal represents 50% of our production, and should be the starting place for R&D to develop cleaner plants, not solar!
27. Obama Problems. We must totally eradicate just about every Obama initiative and Executive Order, every Obama appointment, and every Obama policy statement, and then begin all over to straighten out the total mess we are in.
(To be completed)
Labels: Government Overhaul
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