Dear Mr. Madison . . .

"If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one, subject to particular exceptions." --James Madison, letter to Edmund Pendleton, 1792

Kent comments:

If I could bring Mr. Madison back for questions (wouldn’t that be fun!) I would ask in response to the above, “You mean like the one we have now?”

Sometimes when I read history I get a bit upset with the Founders.  I start to think that they did not make the fact of limited, enumerated powers clear enough in our Constitution.  I start to muse about how they could have made the matter more clear.

I do that in light of the fact that almost no one from any party today really believes that the powers of Congress are limited by their enumeration in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution.  That one clause of the Preamble - ‘promote the general welfare’ – is taken to mean that all bets are off for whatever might come in the body of the Constitution.  Congress, it is often said, can do anything it thinks proper to promote ‘welfare’ – whatever that might be.

As Mr. Madison says above, this effectively gives Congress political omnipotence.

So I often wonder why the Founders didn’t, for example, add a clause to the Preamble saying, “This is just an introduction to the overall purpose of this document.  The allowable means to these ends is stated in the body of the document.”

Well, (I answer myself) for one thing, that would make the Constitution sound stupid.

Then I remind myself that pieces of paper can never hinder people from anything.  When people no longer wish to abide by the terms of the Constitution, they will not.  It’s not just those evil politicians in Washington who are to blame for trashing the Constitution.  (There is plenty of blame for them, of course.)  Most Americans want what they want.  Many of them have no idea what the Constitution says.  Many more of them do not care what it says.

Constitutions are no barrier to tyrants unless a significant number of the people understand liberty and love it.  In our situation, you can certainly expect to get what we’ve got.

Totalitarian ‘Gays’

D.C. Catholic Charities Drops Spousal Benefits in Gay Marriage Dispute

Religion News Service reports that the Archdiocese of Washington's social service branch will stop offering benefits to spouses of new employees. The move is an attempt to balance the District of Columbia's new same-sex marriage law with Catholic opposition to homosexuality. Edward Orzechowski, president and CEO of Catholic Charities of Washington, informed the group's 850 employees of the change in a letter on Monday, two days before gay marriage is scheduled to become legal in the city. "We sincerely regret that we have to make this change," said Orzechowski, "but it is necessary to allow Catholic Charities to continue to provide essential services to the clients we serve in partnership with the District of Columbia while remaining consistent with the tenets of our religious faith."

Kent comments:

It was a case of let’s-make-‘gay’-legal vs. a group’s religious principles.  And as many suspected would happen, religious principles lost.  (‘Gay’ used to mean ‘care free’ – didn’t it?)

I, for one, do not want to make homosexuality (assuming it’s between consenting adults) illegal.  I live in a state where the practice used to be prohibited by law.  I was not completely comfortable with that idea.  Several years ago I told a state legislator friend of mine what I thought about that.

He urged me to reconsider.  He predicted that without a law against homosexuality, homosexual activists would use that situation as an opening to push for ‘gay’ friendly school curricula, even homosexual ‘marriage’ and many other such things.  I was not completely convinced, but that was a long time ago.

I’m still not convinced that legal penalties for homosexual practice are a good idea.  But I must say that the ‘homo’ lobby makes it ever more difficult for me to maintain my composure on this matter.  Not content with legal tolerance, the open, active ‘gay’ crowd demands ever more legal approval of their vile behavior.

It is vile.  But vileness alone is still not enough to put someone in jail or worse.  Homosexuality is the kind of behavior best dealt with by social, not legal means.  Christians individually and together as the church should proclaim the fact that it is wrong.  This means that we, at a social level, should warn people of its dangers.  We should counsel people to avoid it, and try to help them do so.  We should call on people to repent of it.

And when some insist on practicing homosexuality openly, we should disassociate ourselves from them.  A religious group that refuses to pay benefits to a homosexual ‘spouse’ is doing just that.

When the law now requires that a religious group violate its own principles in this regard, the religious free exercise clause of the First Amendment has become a joke.  You might say that it has been sacrificed on the alter of the activist homosexual agenda.

I would prefer an open society on matters such as this.  That would mean people are free to practice homosexuality, while the rest of us are free to discourage its practice in peaceful, social ways.  But if the homosexual activists are going to infringe upon my freedom to disapprove of their practice, they should not be surprised to find their freedom in jeopardy also.

By the way, don’t be surprised if very soon, groups like Catholic Social Services are forced to pay for their employee’s abortions.  Oh, wait – I think that’s called ObamaCare!

Three – or more – Cheers for Jim Bunning!!!

Reporting on Republican Kentucky Senator Jim Bunning blocking spending legislation over deficit concerns at the top of Tuesday's CBS Early Show, co-host Harry Smith proclaimed: "Congressional quagmire. Democrats blame one Republican senator for preventing thousands of federal workers from working."

In a later report, White House correspondent Chip Reid continued to assail Bunning: "The White House is pointing its finger at a single Republican senator who they say is standing in the way of federal aid for hundreds of thousands of unemployed Americans....he is single-handedly holding up a routine piece of legislation."

Kent Comments:

On Monday morning I called Jim Bunning’s Washington office.  I wanted to thank him for his willingness to stand up to the big-government-should-be-routine that is now just expected in Congress.

The fellow who answered the phone was very polite, but he seemed fatigued.  “I bet you haven’t received many calls like mine today.”  He assured me he had not.

Mr. Bunning is just about finished with his Senate term.  While he is not completely free from the influence of the big-Republican machine, he has often voted in generally liberty-increasing ways, both in the Senate and when he was in the House of Representatives from our district.

I was very proud to have Mr. Bunning as MY Senator as he refused to go along with the no-debate ‘unanimous consent’ route to a few more billions of government spending.  Yes, it was a small thing in the big picture of really big government under which we now suffer.  But the symbolism was heroic and wonderful.

If I were you, I would not be worrying about some federal bureaucrats who had a few days off work.  (We would be much better off if many of the feds found private employment.)  I would be wondering why more members of the Senate have not done what Bunning did more often.

Bully for you, Mr. Bunning.  Good job.  Well done.  Do it some more of the same in what is left of your term.

No Laughing Matter – the Laffer Curve

[excerpts from Some Thoughts on Supply-side Economics, by Richard M. Ebeling from Mises Daily]

An additional ingredient in the tool kit of some "supply-side" theoreticians, however, is the concept of the "Laffer Curve," named after Arthur Laffer, a USC economist.

Laffer argues that there are two possible tax rates that will generate the same level of government revenue. If taxes are zero, government revenue is zero and the people retain 100 percent of their income. If taxes are l00 percent, government revenue would again be zero because, Laffer says, nobody would bother to work if they were not allowed to keep any of what they had earned and produced.

If the rate of taxation is lowered from l00 percent, individuals would have an incentive to work, since they could now keep some of what they had produced and government revenue would rise from zero to some positive number. Every lowering of the tax rate would continue to induce more and productivity, with greater government revenue besides.

Greater government revenue, that is, until some point at which any further lowering of the tax rate would, in fact, generate less of a government take rather than more. Hence, the "Laffer Curve" . . .

But even more important than the theoretical difficulties of determining the position and shape of "The Curve" is the assumption that the goal of fiscal policy should be the maximizing of governmental revenues.

Kent comments:

This little survey of so-called supply-side economics is worth reading in full.  This is the view that some derisively refer to as ‘trickle down’ economics.  What these critics would prefer, because they are statists of some sort, is that those who have anything be taxed as much as possible so that the state will have more to redistribute.  In their view, only the state has the wisdom and fair-mindedness to distribute wealth ‘properly.’

If you love freedom, you naturally oppose this whole idea.

But as Ebeling points out in the article above, the proponents of the ‘other’ view have a very similar problem.  This is especially ironic because they are typically self-professed conservatives of some stripe who claim to be opponents of ‘big government.’

I have no doubt that some of them are in many ways.  Perhaps they have just not considered this matter carefully.  For examples, you can often hear radio talk show folks like Rush Limbaugh extol the virtues of the Laffer curve.  They often argue for lower tax rates based in part on the idea that it will, in fact, generate more revenue for governments.

I always want to ask (but I refuse to spend enough time on hold to do so):  “Exactly why would conservatives every want to generate more revenue for any government?”  And I want to ask this poignant question in a very loud and forceful voice!

If a conservative is someone who wants to conserve individual liberty, the goal should be to keep governments on a very (very) strict diet.  When fed very much, they always grow from helpful servants to horrible masters – which make us their slaves!  Those who love liberty should never give as a reason for anything the thought that it might supply more revenue to governments.

Governments always tend to spend at least as much as they collect, and almost (?) always much, much more than that.  Revenue to government is power to government, because almost anything governments do beyond discouraging us from murdering one another and stealing from one another will result in less liberty.  My desire is just enough government to preserve liberty, and no more.

So even if Laffer is right, I for one do NOT want to implement policies that take advantage of his ‘curve.’  I don’t want governments to have more revenue, because I don’t want governments to have the power to do very much – which is usually too much.

Regulated Freedom?

from: Breakpoint with Chuck Colson

Hope for Health Care Reform
What We Can Do

March 1, 2010

“On the one side, the Democrats seem intent on reform through increasing government’s role in health care. The Republicans, on the other side, are firm in their belief that reform should come through better regulated free markets.”

Kent comments:

This illustrates perfectly the problem with many Republicans, and many Christians who think about political economy.  I admire Mr. Colson for much of his work.  He is, no doubt, a much smarter guy than I will ever be.

But the phrase ‘better regulated free markets’ is just so much non-sense.

A regulated market is not free.  A free market cannot be regulated and remain free.  The lack of economic freedom is the root cause of 90% of most economic problems.

People who are free to work, produce, give, trade, save, invest, etc. as they wish will almost always have most of the things they wish to consume.  It’s not a perfect system.  It’s not a ‘system’ at all.  It’s freedom.

And if you try to ‘regulate’ freedom, of necessity, you must destroy it.

The Postmodern Squeeze

from:

A New Kind of Christianity: Ten Questions That Are Transforming the Faith
by Brian McLaren

"I realized that my conversation partners [his critics] simply couldn't address life-and-death issues like poverty, the planet, and peace within the conventional paradigms they inherited. … The Greco-Roman narrative, founded on a constitutional reading of the Bible … rendered those life-and-death issues invisible, insubstantial, and unaddressable."

Kent comments:

If you don’t know of Brian McLaren, he is a key figure in the crowd that would like to re-make the Christian faith in the image of postmodernism.  There is much that could be said about this whole muddle-headed project, but I will focus on just a couple of the points mentioned here.

McLaren thinks this ‘constitutional reading’ of the Bible, by which he seems to mean the usual and customary reading, leaves certain key social problems unaddressed because they become somehow ‘invisible.’  What this seems to mean is that a problem like poverty, given a traditional reading of the Bible, goes unrecognized.

I know a lot of ‘traditional’ Bible readers, and almost all of them know that poverty is a problem around the world.  So what is McLaren talking about here?  He is probably expressing the typical liberation theology-inspired frustration that, given the parameters of the historic Christian faith, there is no institutional, social and particularly governmental solution to the problem of poverty.

This is especially ironic given that one key contributing cause of poverty is the interference of institutions, especially governments, in the economic lives of people.  When you look around the world currently and survey the past, it becomes alarmingly obvious that wherever and whenever people are allowed to work, produce, buy, sell, and so forth without interference from governments they often do fairly well economically speaking.

While there are always setbacks and exceptions, economic well-being is the tendency when there is economic freedom.

But that does not mean there is never an example of a poor person even in the most economically free circumstances.  It does mean that when you try, even with the best of intentions, to develop some system imposed by a government to ‘solve’ this problem, the problem always gets worse in the end.

Christians should not be blind to poverty.  Charity, which in its best forms can never be institutionalized anyway, is a wonderful thing.

But Christians should desire and work to achieve a situation in which governments are ‘blind’ to poverty.  Equality before the law – something that God insists upon according to the Bible – is impossible whenever governments ‘see’ poverty and try to solve it by law.

This is the case because a law aimed at solving poverty will, of necessity, need to treat one person very differently from another.  It will need to deliver goods to people in a certain economic situation by taking those goods from people in a different economic situation.

Lev. 19:15 reads, “Do not pervert justice; do not show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the great, but judge your neighbor fairly.”  Once the law requires that those who have less than the ‘poverty level’ receive something from those somewhere above that level, justice has been perverted.  In fact, it has been destroyed.

The ‘traditional’ reading of scripture treats poverty as something to be handled by generosity, that is, by gifts.  Once governments begin to demand ‘gifts’ for the benefit of a certain class of people, justice is gone.  That doesn’t mean poverty is ‘unaddressable.’  It means that it cannot be morally addressed by government.  It is something that governments must ignore so that justice is preserved and charity can operate freely.

It’s NOT Just a ‘Common Sense’ Problem

An irate Staten Island mom blasted a grade school principal Wednesday for treating her son like a pint-sized Plaxico Burress after he brought a 2-inch-long toy gun to school.  "This principal is a bully and a coward, and needs to be held accountable," said Laura Timoney, 44, after her teary fourth-grader was nearly suspended for playing with the tiny toy at lunch.  "The school should be embarrassed. This is a common-sense issue."

Patrick Timoney, 9, was terrified when he was yanked into the principal's office to discuss the teeny-weeny plastic "weapon."  "The gun was so little," the boy said. "I don't understand why the principal got so upset. I was a little nervous. They made me sign a statement."

Patrick and a friend were playing with Lego figures in the school cafeteria on Tuesday when he pulled out the faux machine gun and stuck it in the hands of his plastic police officer.

"I was in disbelief," the still-fuming mother said. "Why didn't anyone step up with an ounce of common sense and put an end to the harassment of my child?"  Timoney said her boy loved the toy figure because her husband is a retired police officer.

The elder Patrick Timoney, a former 72nd Precinct cop, couldn't believe his son was nearly busted over something so obviously inauthentic.  "It's a 2-inch gun," he said. "She went overboard. She should have said, 'Put the toys away,' and that would have been the end of it."

After a meeting between the principal and the parents, the boy was spared any disciplinary action. City school officials said Patrick agreed to leave the "gun" at home.  "I'm never bringing a toy to school again," said Patrick, whose favorite subject is math.  Laura Timoney remained upset. Her son, a typically eager student, asked to stay home yesterday because he thought the principal was mad at him.  The mother said she expects an apology and may sue.

"The toy gun is not the issue," she said. "A lack of common sense is the issue."

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/education/2010/02/04/2010-02-04_big_trouble_over_this_tiny_toy_mom_fuming_at_a_lack_of_common_sense_as_son_buste.html#ixzz0fRDsawdT

Kent comments:

If only this were just a ‘common sense’ problem.  Unfortunately, it is much more than that.  This is a worldview problem.  You really cannot understand this problem until you become familiar with the the worldview that is propagated in the government-sponsored education establishment.

It is not even a safety-at-school matter.  If it were, school officials would concentrate on real weapons, not Lego figure ‘guns.’

A key part of the education establishment worldview, which is actively propagated at most university schools of ‘education,’ is a hatred of firearms.  You can see evidence of that in the fact that most universities do not allow even concealed-carry permit holders to carry on campus.  There is no reasonable explanation for such a rule other than a systemic hatred of even the possibility of an armed citizen.

This is why even tiny, lego-sized, plastic representations of guns are treated this way at government schools.  No one really believes that a lego-sized plastic gun replica could present any possible problem at a government school.

The real problem is that those who hold the worldview propagated by the education establishment tend to believe that children should not even be allowed to think about firearms.  Thus, the control of lego-sized plastic replicas of guns is a form of thought-control.

Back in the day of our little school, which we called Sophia Academy, we actively celebrated the goodness of guns.  Guns are interesting mechanically.  Guns are fun to shoot at the target range.  They can help you rid your environment of pesky things like squirrels and other such critters.  In a worst-case scenario, guns can protect you from evil people.

Gun safety and maintenance was a regular part of our school’s curriculum, and it was a lot of fun.  Guns are no more dangerous than automobiles – perhaps less so.  Everyone should know how to use one, just in case it ever become necessary – rather like swimming.

But those holding the education establishment worldview could never agree with this, not because of any question of ‘common sense’ but because of that worldview.  In that worldview children, and people in general, are things to be controlled by ‘experts.’  Integral to that control is the control of what people think.

It is exactly what you should expect when you allow statists to run schools.