Saturday, June 5, 2010

Restoring Checks and Balances

Restoring Checks and Balances

If power moves to the Republicans, even to Conservative Republicans, that is where international monied interests will also move. (Cui bono?) So we have to find simple, clear, enforceable ways to define and defend the territorial and cultural sovereignty of the American people!


To do that, we need two essentials: (1) An intelligent system of checks and balances on levels of government; and (2) a citizenry intelligent and decent enough to respect and enforce that system. There is no such thing as one without the other. (Or, to paraphrase Franklin: "(1) We have given you a republic, if (2) you can keep it.") Those two essentials evolve together, under a guiding Providence. Insofar as we spurn the guidance of Providence, we have no hope. Arizona may be able to teach us about both of the above noted essentials.

Fortunately, we still have workable parts for both of those essentials. But we have grossly neglected their maintenance, so there is much work to be done. One, we need to restore the balance for how political power is distributed. Two, we must disqualify or politically neuter the poseurs, unprincipled sell outs, and brain-addled communalists among us. Otherwise, un-American monied interests will simply corrupt a new clientele of un-American politicians, and the mass of mankind will revert to its default, Hobbes’ian position.

Hobbes was wrong. Absolute power given to a king corrupts absolutely. Centralizing power does not ensure that life is made not solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. But it does ensure that every non-elite thought glances nervously under the boot of a tyrant.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Even before Obama, Prog foundations had already been built on facades of sand and rationalized at colleges under professors of the ethics of sand. They had not endured enough hard experience or undertaken enough individual effort in order to formulate any sound foundation from which to pursue unfolding truth. Obama's deficiencies deliver them to a message: Your progress in consciousness was interrupted; undertake the hard work again. But this time, do not surrender individual responsibility or put so much store in any mortal presenter of undeliverable promises.

Anonymous said...

From A.T. -- Re: "Meanwhile, back at the Goldman Sachs hearing, Carl Levin laid down S-bombs to point out that the derivatives promoted aggressively by Goldman were bad investments."
This is great theater for a citizenry raised on professional wrestling. Too-Steamy-Carl-Levin calls out Goldman-Sachs, while Darth-Curtain pays them both off after the show.
VHG said, "The democrats are not interested in reform."
Now that all democrats are Dinos, you're right. But the problem extends to Progressives, so it includes Rinos.
In law, there is the concept of a "Chinese Wall," a formalism an agency invents so it can feign not to have a disqualifying conflict of interest as it hedges to represent characters from all sides of a controversy. Like the lobbying firm of Dino Daschle and Rino Dole. From age 6 to 9, I lived in Japan, off base. We had paper walls. If Chinese walls are like that, the metaphor (for p.c. toddlers, it's only a metaphor -- not a slur!) makes sense. Because those paper walls did not stop much, not even for a first grader.
Nowadays, what Chinese Wall is not easily and always pierced or run around? How much in illegal, laundered campaign contributions (Chinese laundry?) did Obama benefit from? How much OPEC, Despot, and International Corporatist money is invested in American politics? How much does it behoove incumbents to find ways to look the other way?
This stuff about reform is crap. The "regulations" will make life miserable for those without political access. For those who do have political access, the ways to end run these new regulations will be built in. Regulations written by cronies of Goldman Sachs are not meant to regulate Goldman Sachs, but to opportunize them as they regulate us. Government does not regulate them as much as they regulate the government.
Here's the deal: It's crap to expect to have rule of law when those making laws are outlaws or their bookies. All we're doing is inventing more complicated ways to play "Daddy May I." Each time we play a new round, we're giving up a little more of our freedom to Big Daddy. There is one way to deal with amoral, entitlement-minded outlaws, and that is to take away their power and run them out of Dodge, er, Tombstone. Conservatives need to watch Arizona and learn.
Of old, everyone plainly saw that the King’s finest tailors made the finest clothes. Now, we plainly see that the Queen has no substance. But Dems must not say it, and Repubs who do say it are misogynists. Welcome to big time thought control, where the power to force perception is the reality.

Anonymous said...

From A.T. --- Bush 2044 said, "Keep in mind that the Stalins, Hitlers, Maos of this world rose to power by promising Utopias of equality to the masses, with no intention of yielding anything to the masses. Why does history not stress that in communist regimes, fascist regimes, those in power are the least likely to step foot amongst the peasantry? We're allowing that kind menace to fester in the White House right now."
Yes, fester is right! Keep in mind how those who run for political office tend to promise to use the force of government to make redistributions out of the public coffers of all, but mainly only to their carefully contrived bases. They do not promise to confine government to its proper sphere in order to release the public at large to its own energies. Republican government should be balanced to release the energies of the people at large, rather than to redistribute spoils to alternating parties of corruptocrats bent on elevating their dons to perpetual rule over the peasantry.

Anonymous said...

This afternoon, Beck observed what we have to do if we are to salvage America (which was given and sustained for us by innumerable heroes who gave their last breaths) from the worldwide rampaging and unholy alliance of disgusting "Progressives" --- i.e., Rino corporatist traders and Dino entitlement-mongering unions, i.e., "Chi-Town Crime, Inc." It boils down to respect for faith, Constitution, and founders (traditional wisdom). It boils down to having moxy enough to say that to be anti-Obama Crime, Inc. and (anti-smirking commie) is not to be racist, but to be American. For that, we need such a soul and backbone transfusion as can come only with a massive tea party. No mere paper fix is up to the task.
***************
The administration seeks to criminalize opposition not to safeguard decent government, but to safeguard profane government. The problem is not lack of regulation by government of corporations. The problem is too much regulation of government by Corporatists! The attraction for Corporatists is undeniable: a thousand fold rate of return on each million dollar investment in buying government, plus the killing of all competition. Every “reform” under the Obama administration will be a “reform” for facilitating ever more regulation of government by Corporatists. A more cynical, lying, evil regime can hardly be imagined. To add insult to injury, people like Michael Moore than chalk this evil up as proof of the evil of free enterprise itself. How can decent people establish a government that promotes free enterprise by checking corporations, to immunize government from being entirely regulated by common lying greed?

Anonymous said...

Re: "Did you know, Venezuela has less than a tenth the population of the USA and per capita over ten times the murder rate as the USA. That is also how it's done."
Notwithstanding Michael Moore, et al, people are far from naturally good, and replacing free enterprise with crony capitalism will only grease our slide to the abyss. Our problem is how to preserve higher inspiration for free enterprise against the natural pull of evil, so as not to surrender to nature. To pursue that, we need intelligent checks and balances to protect our government from being bought out by corporatists.

But atheistic or brutally pagan intelligence without higher, empathetic inspiration will never suffice. Lenin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, Castro, Dear Leader, Chavez, Obama, and Pagan Whackjob have not been without intelligence or inspiration. What they have been without is higher, empathetic inspiration -- the kind that respects the God given freedom and dignity of their fellow human beings. And now that is what the Obama admin is unraveling in America.

Who is it that wants to increase practical political and federal representation for illegal voters, Washington D.C., Puerto Rico, American Samoa, and Guam? Is it the caring, communist and fascist souls of the Dem party, or is it the bi-political Corporatists and Political Investors, who virtually own the politicians of the Dino and Rino party of Progressives? If it’s the Corporatists, is that because they “feel the pain” of underrepresented folk, or is it because they sense opportunity by corruptly feigning to feel the pain of “the little folk” in order to buy cheap and easily bent serfs?
Does extending the vote to the most illiterate and dependent portion of a population help that population, or does it lead to their greater enslavement, as well as greater control over the middle class?
What sort of dynamic is gathering and driving the competition among Corporatists to obtain control over all other people, as if they were mere chattel? Are we living through a juggernaut of un-resisted, deceitful, vicious evil? How can a balance be reset, before it is too late for America to avoid being drowned by a next wave of international, Mussolini fascists? At what point does extending representation to the most ignorant segments of society tip to the greatest of evil?
For goodness sakes, with what manner of devils has America been surrounded – in all main institutions of sold-out politics, media, academia, business, science, philosophy, and theology?
Big business no longer competes in a humane marketplace. Rather, it competes to buy up voters and entire governments, not to compete but to wipe out competitors and to reduce territories to syndicated, mafia-like rule. The wolves are not at the door; they are in every room of the house.

Anonymous said...

When Dino and Rino Mafiosi feign to feel your pain, know that they intend to give you pain. Identify the Commie Rats, Dinos and Rinos in Congress and know them for the unadulterated evil that they represent. Know the stakes: We are in a battle for the future of human freedom and dignity, and the enemy has torn down every door. Obama is merely the front for a lying pack of wolves, not even the alpha wolf.

Waves and waves of comprehensive initiatives have been developed and stockpiled by corporatist fascists, looking to this day, when they would have the mass of Americans snookered with disinformation, maleducation, and media controlled p.c. thought control, actually believing corporatist elites really intend to disperse a socialistic paradise to all we lucky and entitled proles. Obama is only the front for a sick and long simmering evil that has been growing all along, just under cover. So here we are, with wave after wave of legal initiatives designed to forever obliterate middle class liberty and neuter us to the control of an international cohort of corporatist elites who "know what is best for us," all this being crammed down our collective throats. There is no reform this admin will undertake that will not incline to the savage slaying of America as we have known her. Sort of reminds me of the closing, power mad scene in "There Will Be Blood." The internet revels in showing how Obama talks crap. That is surely true. But there is horror behind Obama's crap and his deceiving, dishonest smile. We probably have one last window of opportunity to peacefully preserve America at the ballot box. Let's not get it wrong this time.

Anonymous said...

All things in moderation: Instead of “too big to fail,” a nation of free people should proscribe against that which is too big to allow. This includes any consolidation of wealth or power in any single person or entity, apart from America itself (as home for free people).
All mortal freedom is limited, including free expression, free enterprise, and free trade. To survive, a system of artificial laws (government) needs to establish parameters (checks and balances) to limit undue accumulations of influence in any single branch of government, individual, or entity.
This could be done without dis-incentives to initiative or creativity simply by resorting to intelligent and proportional measures. Were adequate parameters in place, government could tax consumptions, including consumptions of political influence, progressively. There would remain incentive to excel, but without power to tyrannize.
Conservatives instinctively see the moral hazard of the entitlement-minded base of sloth in the Dinos of the Democrat Party. But they buy too much of dogma of the elite-minded, entitlement-to-rule hubris that is in the Rinos of the Republican Party. A representative republic cannot long survive a period that alternates only between entitlement-minded Dino and Rino rulers.
Our founders knew liberty cannot survive except in a niche that is protected by adequate checks and balances. Too much power (wealth and influence) corrupts too much. Having separate branches of government to check one another means little once all are owned by corrupt syndicates and hedge funds of extra-national billionaires.
There is no decent, civilized freedom except under God, within natural law, subject to artificial parameters. Conservatives have learned to dislike the lack of work ethic of Democrats. However, Conservatives have not adequately learned this: That to let too many extra-national, disloyal billionaires become wealthy and influential enough to access and buy their country’s politicians, senators, and governors is to grease the road to serfdom.
Bottom line: A sufficient way to rein in sociopathic billionaires has to be found, or real representative republicanism is dead.

Anonymous said...

Eighty years ago, I suspect most Americans believed there was an American culture and that it was worth preserving. Now, Progs tend not even to consider that our Constitution is worth preserving. An interesting article in the most recent edition of the National Review discusses “Darwin’s Constitution.” It discusses how Progs have come to believe that: “… there is one constant: the application of intelligence as a progressive ideal and method.” In other words, for many Progs, the notion of a constitutional system of checks and balances is “quaint.” This is because they consider that there is no fundamental human spirit, will, or propensity that needs enduring checks and balances.

I may find Progs’ notion about unfolding Information more palatable, were it expressed with due respect for a sponsoring Source of Consciousness (God?), such as in a formulation like this: “there is one constant: the empathetic respect for the expression of free will in each perspective of consciousness, which facilitates moral ideals.”

As a Conservative, I would substitute a notion of responsible “Consciousness” for Progressives’ notion of immaterial storing and fluxing of “Information.” Progs seem to believe in a dumb, material source of laws and equations, of which humanity is only a random, mathematically-based representation that happens to have capacity for understanding some equations that are derivable in respect of nothing more than material Information. But I believe in a conscious Source of unfolding expression. That Source is of immutable essence, yet has capacity for infinite expression. Insofar as each of us functions as a perspective of IT, there is dignity in the unfolding of each of our perspectives.

To my lights, each of our unfolding experiences of Information needs to be checked and balanced, to accord decent respect for each perspective’s dignity. While our design for kinds and degrees of constitutional checks and balances will change, our fundamental need for communication, civilization, and mutual respect requires that we preserve constitutional checks and balances coordinate to those needs. Particular checks and balances may get out of sync. But what endures will be our need to adjust and re-synchronize the checks and balances that coordinate decent respect for the free will of all.

Notwithstanding Progs, I believe three things do NOT change: (1) that our rights derive from God; (2) that preserving those rights necessitates a representative republic; and (3) that preserving a republic necessitates a functioning system of checks and balances. Notwithstanding Progs, rule by elites hired by despots in order to warp the mind, thought, and will of each non-elite is not only destructive of a representative republic. It is also counter to the “true progressive” and unfolding purposes of God.

One of two things is about to occur: (1) Americans will find the mojo to preserve and defend their representative republic; or (2) the world will fall into its default position on politics: rule by so-called elite administrators who are themselves controlled by a cohort of despots.

Much of the world is not presently fit for governance under a representative republic. Soon we may learn whether America has lost her fitness.

I consider the philosophy of Progs to be conducive to treachery and treason. It is beneath contempt that Progs wish to sink America as the hope of the world for preserving human freedom of expression and enterprise. Regarding loyalty to America and oaths to defend her Constitution, Progs' adolescent, impractical, and bookish philosophy renders them deceivers and liars. It renders them incompetents, with no basis for comprehending history and no humility regarding their inexperience and limits.

Anonymous said...

Obama told Conservatives to get out of the way so he could clean up their mess. So, now his idea for how to clean up the BP mess is to leave it to BP, but to hang a mess of lawyers all over them. But I thought he said HE was going to clean it up -- not foul it up.

But this is the way Prog elitists always imagine they can improve anything: Hang a mess of lawyers around it. And what happens? Well, no one of ability is stupid enough to stick his neck out and actually produce anything when the fast track is in "fixing things" by suing all the producers.

Yup. That Obama is one helluva wise Dude! I don't know why we even need anyone else, except Holder and his minions. If we get enough lawyers suing doctors, engineers, manufacturers, and business men, why that will indubitably make everything all better. It's the Prog way!

I'm a lawyer, but it has been apparent to me for a long, long time that a good number among my profession are working without a mental or moral gyroscope (a device for measuring or maintaining orientation). I mean, you have to look far and wide to find screwier wingnuts than our CINC and U.S. AG.

Anonymous said...

To my lights, each of our unfolding experiences of Information needs to be checked and balanced, to accord decent respect for each perspective’s dignity. While our design for kinds and degrees of constitutional checks and balances will change, our fundamental need for communication, civilization, and mutual respect requires that we preserve constitutional checks and balances coordinate to those needs. Particular checks and balances may get out of sync. But what endures will be our need to adjust and re-synchronize the checks and balances that coordinate decent respect for the free will of all.

Notwithstanding Progs, I believe three things do NOT change: (1) that our rights derive from God; (2) that preserving those rights necessitates a representative republic; and (3) that preserving a republic necessitates a functioning system of checks and balances. Notwithstanding Progs, rule by elites hired by despots in order to warp the mind, thought, and will of each non-elite is not only destructive of a representative republic. It is also counter to the “true progressive” and unfolding purposes of God.

One of two things is about to occur: (1) Americans will find the mojo to preserve and defend their representative republic; or (2) the world will fall into its default position on politics: rule by so-called elite administrators who are themselves controlled by a cohort of despots.

Much of the world is not presently fit for governance under a representative republic. Soon we may learn whether America has lost her fitness.

I consider the philosophy of Progs to be conducive to treachery and treason. It is beneath contempt that Progs wish to sink America as the hope of the world for preserving human freedom of expression and enterprise. Regarding loyalty to America and oaths to defend her Constitution, Progs' adolescent, impractical, and bookish philosophy renders them deceivers and liars. It renders them incompetents, with no basis for comprehending history and no humility regarding their inexperience and limits.