America suffers in the 21st century not from a loss of innocence, but from a loss of discrimination… a loss of judgment. Mankind has never lacked for debauchery nor for ways to debauch nearly every civilized function, from work, construction and development to education, medicine, churches and religion. Everything “we” have discovered or invented, we seem to have figured out how to besmirch and cheapen… like government.
Government, at least since Saul fell on his sword and bequeathed kingship to David, however inadvertently, has been occasionally a good invention, often completely inimical to human growth and perfection. Okay, okay, humans are perfected only in the rarest of circumstances, but, still, government is mostly inimical. In the long sweep of history, despite themselves, governments have brought a semblance of order, enabled scientific advances, established widespread education – some of it good – and provided measures of safety and peace within which individuals can seek happiness, or perfection, or both.
The last we call constitutional republicanism which stands out among the dozens of forms of tyranny still in use. Nevertheless, despite its promise, this form of self-governance has not been immune to the diabolical inventiveness of the forces of debauchery, of which there is space enough to discuss only a few.
Money is big in the debauchery field, as it is in the politician field, making it frequently difficult to discern between them. There never is enough money in the politician field, particularly where it intersects with socialist whims. Money, money, money means taxes, taxes, taxes and from time to time the working people object to taxation and politicians, who have the clarity of vision denied to workers, can perceive – if not create – hordes of dependents for whom that tax money is so sorely needed. That some dependents are billionaires is of little importance in the grand scheme of dependency. You’ve got your troubles, I’ve got mine.
So if taxation can’t be trusted to produce money fast enough, it becomes increasingly crucial that ways to expand the income of government be devised and, politicians having been elected and installed for their unique efficiencies, recognize that there is no point to re-inventing the wheel, as it were, in the matters of government income, so turn to the financial successes of debauchery for new ideas. Humans have left no stone unturned in the search for ways to cheat others out of their hard-earned money and one of the neatest tricks is the infamous “Ponzi Scheme.” It is easily explained:
A Ponzi scheme is an investment fraud where clients are promised
a large profit at little to no risk. Companies that engage in a Ponzi
scheme focus all of their energy into attracting new clients to make
investments. This new income is used to pay original investors their
returns, marked as a profit from a legitimate transaction. Ponzi
schemes rely on a constant flow of new investments to continue to
provide returns to older investors. When this flow runs out,
the… scheme… falls… apart. [From “Investopedia”]
When the government, itself – who convicted Ponzi for fraud in 1920 – follows Ponzi’s formula, it takes a longer view and fewer dollars from each “investor,” and calls it “Social Security.” No slouches in the debauchery of public trust, politicians are able to compel workers to “invest” by force of police power, and then restrict the “returns” to only so many dollars per month and only after leaving the “investment” fallow for decades. That way the originators of the fraud will have passed on before the scope of the trick is figured out by the “investors.” “Invested” funds are then used to get future “investors” to vote for future perpetrators.
Prudence would suggest that “investors” should contemplate the consequences of having personally (actually) invested 15% of their pay over their entire working career. Upon retirement they would have had a huge financial asset and they wouldn’t be dependent on government to dribble back their own money! Of course, empowering citizens to live WITHOUT government is as anti-socialist as it could be and virtually never allowed even lip-service.
We need to give politicians the power to make life, health and death decisions for us.
Social Security really took off after World War II, as payrolls grew and pay rates along with them. The river of money was “re-invested” in all sorts of vital, crucial, crisis-averting expenditures that any sane and humane investor would endorse… had he or she known of them. After 1968 especially, the number of non-citizens who arrived on our shores seeking the “American Dream” exploded, and the means to support their “disabled, disadvantaged” selves derived from the “lockbox” of Social Security cash. Naturally, thanks to Ted Kennedy’s (the lyin’ of the Senate) legislation (Hart-Cellar Act), the colors and origins of immigrants are more important than the needs of the United States, and their relatives became more important than immigrants who can actually contribute to the strength of the nation. Many had/have no marketable skills or are “disabled” and “qualify” for SSDI or SSI support derived from – you guessed it – the “investments” of those canny worker-investors who are so proud of their own district’s Representative and state’s two Senators… oh, yes.
Unexpectedly, the Social “Security” lockbox tends to empty more quickly than promised. More money is needed! What to do? What to do without “raising taxes,” of course? There must be a form of debauchery… uhmm, we mean, outright mendacity and fraud… well, not that, of course, but some kind of “wool” that can be pulled over enough people’s eyes… naw, that’s just an old political joke, ha – ha – ha. There must be a form of courageous legislative governance that can find “new” revenue to meet the nation’s vital, crucial, crisis-averting expenditures. Aha! Loans!
Fortunately, globalist bankers had finally convinced Congress to approve the creation of a means to provide constant DEBT to the federal government. Now, if you’re one of those worker-investors we were talking about, you’re asking yourself: “Who in Hell would want a supply of debt?” (And you’d be right, but it’s a different topic.) “Everyone wants to get OUT of debt,” you’d say to yourself, being right a second time, “and anyone trying to get more debt should have his head examined!” (Or, his ledgers… again, right!)
Growing governments while controlling countries is a long-term plan. The international socialists have been at it for a long, long time. The “income” tax was instituted by amendment in 1913. This provided a large enough river of funds to enable the government to “help” itself and more and more people. Interestingly and, it certainly must be coincidentally, the Federal Reserve Act – a 20-year project of the largest banks – was passed at the end of… well, ha!… 1913! Both long-term efforts needed a global statist like Woodrow Wilson to be president in order to come to fruition.
The only way to quietly undermine the nationalism and freedom of the United States was to plant the seeds of debt and a private bank that controls the nation’s money supply is the best tool to do so. The “Fed,” as it’s called, makes economic policy as it sees fit. The “governors” don’t take advice from elected representatives, most of whom are happy to not be responsible for too awfully much. Whenever the Chairman of the Federal Reserve testifies in Congress it’s to tell Congress how things are going to be and not to ask the people’s representatives how things should be. The “Fed” is about as “federal” as Federal Express.
So what about how a central bank can control a nation’s economy? Why would any Congress vote for that? Well for the first 20 years or so the new “Fed” was practicing frog boiling, and the financial waters were just pleasantly warm… until the crash of 1929 and the attempts by, first, Hoover, and then by Roosevelt, to force an end to DE-flation and unemployment by running deficits and pushing the private economy to adapt to federal pressure. The federal government could borrow in the face of the human problems that bad economics had wrought.
Adopting the programs initiated by Hoover, FDR managed to keep the U. S., and much of the world, in depression until the Second World War broke out. Prior to the emergency legislation passed during the “Banking Holiday” of 1933, the 12 “Fed” Districts made policy on their own, enabling some to do severe damage in parts of the country while recovery was stumbling forward in others. Naturally, the preferred answers to the crisis were always based in more central control, essentially the story and the outcome of the “Great Depression.”
Until the Federal Reserve was created the U.S., like most industrial nations, was on “the gold standard.” United States Dollars represented a number of grains of 90% pure gold. That is, an ounce of “.9 fine” gold “cost” $20.67 and had since 1900. Never failing to take advantage of a crisis, 1930’s era leftists – FDR and the “brain trust” – used the banking and international gold crises to obtain emergency legislation making private ownership of gold coins, metal or bullion illegal! That is, everyone had to turn in his or her gold in exchange for $35.00 worth of U. S. “dollars” (actually, Federal reserve notes) that were now backed by so many grains of silver or by 60% as many grains of gold than prior to the seizure. It was pretty slick.
The federal government had acquired tons of gold for, in effect, next to nothing, but gold was now valued at $35 an ounce of .9 fine purity. Suddenly the government had a lot of money to spend in its attempts to correct the severe deflation and unemployment afflicting the U. S. and other industrialized nations. Most of it helped but did not solve the fundamental problems in the economy; it took a big war to do that.
We have got to give the federal government total control over our life, health and death decisions.
Where there is a name for schemes like Social Security (“Ponzi”), there isn’t a moniker for what happened to America between the two world wars, except, perhaps, “Progressivism,” not to be confused with “Progress.”
In a Constitutional Republic, “Progress” is measured first by how large a fraction of the population DOESN’T DEPEND ON GOVERNMENT for basic needs like housing, food, clothing, employment and health care. It’s also measured by the quality of citizenship, the honesty of jurisprudence, of police agencies and individuals, the clarity and even-handed enforceability of laws, the honesty of education and the level of cultural agreement by and amongst the vast majority of its citizenry.
The worst chicanery of all is the structure of the federal budget, which is barely a budget at all since it is about 75% “entitlements.” Congress has NEVER cut the budget, has never cut an “entitlement,” has never gotten rid of an “executive” department, has never paid down the national debt, at least in the past 60-odd years, has not failed to borrow from our great-great grandchildren for a like period, and has never audited the “Federal” Reserve. That’s because it’s.., well…, too busy. They are so busy on our behalf of course, and so tired from “fighting” for the middle class and “working” families who are non-working families to a significant degree, fighting to “improve education” and “leveling playing fields,” that there is barely enough time to begin to explain why what rational people think should be done simply can’t be done, unless they write a check for the campaign.
Mostly, they are too busy raising money for re-election, which is the number-one mission after a couple of years in office, and helping their real constituency: the congressmen and women and senators who sit nearby, because THEY can help in the fight for re-election more than any other group in the country.
We elect them, you and I, because their counterparts in the other party – pick one – are such scurrilous bastards and bitches that we have to keep “our” representative or senator in there so that we can continue the fight to “take back our country.” And a check for the campaign is not only vital, right at the moment you tear open your mailer, but may be multiplied up to FIVE times if your check is received by midnight 4 or 5 days hence.
Save yourself and the “campaign” even more, maximizing the value of your support, by using a (bank) interest-bearing credit-card to make your nation-saving donation!
Leftists are loathe to argue principles but they love to set the terms of public discussion. To effect that control they have to change the meaning of words… like “democracy,” for example. Where ”democracy” once meant a system of civic governance where the majority ruled – right or wrong – it now means “when Democrats rule… right or wrong.” So, when non-Democrats are in power, having been elected by a majority of votes, they are “threatening democracy.”
The United States is not organized as a “democracy.” It is a Constitutional Republic with democratically elected representatives and, interestingly, democratically elected executives, part of an extraordinarily well-designed system of dividing powers and constituencies to which each must answer. But power is vested in representatives of the citizenry who, the original theory is, are knowledgeable, honest and willing to sacrifice for their fellow citizens. That last is where the system breaks down. There no longer is any sacrifice! Right under our noses “our” representatives have turned the tables on us and we didn’t smell the odor!
Being an elected official, legislator or appointed officer in any of our states’ governments, the federal government, certainly, most cities and in virtually every public school system on up through state colleges and universities, is a very sweet deal – far more lucrative and secure than any “private” sector position, and with better benefits, more holidays and many “perks.” The “public servants” in today’s equation are you and me: taxpayers… and we don’t get free healthcare when WE retire.
“Representing” ignorant taxpayers is the best job many reps and senators will ever have: high pay, big benefits and almost no responsibility beyond re-election. Americans, themselves, should have it so good.
And, finally, for this chapter, the biggest scheme of all: that “debt” we looked at earlier. A “ponzi” scheme would seem a bad enough swindle for elected representatives to foist upon their “constituents,” but the worst is far, far greater, and so slick that Republicans are regularly denigrated for attempting to slow it – not STOP it, slow it – by just a few billions from time to time. Somehow, Democrats tell us, not going further and further into debt to pay the INTEREST-only on earlier debt, is tantamount to treason and threatens to “ruin the credit rating of the United States of America!” God save the Queen!
If you are seeking a way to judge the veracity, competence, integrity, legitimacy or sensibleness of ANY federal Congress-person, just consider the CURRENT national debt. You do know that it’s closing in on $21 TRILLION dollars, yes?
You do realize that it threatens our very economic existence? That it represents how far beyond our national means we have lived for the past 60 years? That it exemplifies the utter inability of our elected representatives (so far) to manage the budget for which they ARE responsible… and for which job they have earnestly sought our votes?
Do you recognize that unlike wars and other existential threats, since the “Great Society” kicked in, in 1968, every social discomfort has been labeled a “crisis,” confirmed by rigged congressional testimony, making raising the so-called “debt ceiling” every year an act of “courage” and of patriotism. Those 21 Trillion dollars are the proof that socialism will destroy our freedom. It is taking a long time because of the exceptional work ethics of Americans, but our economic destruction is a safe prediction, given that the history of the last 6 decades of representative government in our (ostensible) 2-party system is one of utter economic debauchery.
But then, there’s always Broward County.
