Oct 21, 2009

Our Freedoms on the Brink

A speech I gave this morning -

My dear fellow Freedom Workers of America – I thank you for joining me today at this counsel to discuss our future as a nation, and some of the challenges we now face as a country, as communities, families, and as individuals.

In a 1950's Readers Digest Article Titled, "The Fable of the Gullible Gull," - the following observation was made regarding sea gulls starving in spite of an abundance of available fish.

The problem: the sea gulls don't know how to fish. For generations they have depended on the shrimp fleet to toss them scraps from the nets. Now the fleet has moved on. The shrimpers had created a Welfare State for the sea gulls. The fat birds never bothered to learn how to fish for themselves and they never taught their children to fish. Instead they led their little ones to the shrimp nets, where the feedings were free of hassle, striving, and work. Now the sea gulls, the fine birds that almost symbolize liberty itself, are starving to death because they gave in to the "something for nothing" lure. They sacrificed their independence for a handout.

I fear, my fellow Americans and Freedom Workers, that many of us have become like these once fat, now starving seagulls. We see nothing wrong in picking the delectable scraps from the tax nets of the U.S. Government's shrimp fleet. In fact, many have now demanded their own "bailout" by demanding some type of government program to protect them from the awful consequences of a fierce but very real global market environment. But what happens when the Government runs out of goods? What about our children of generations to come?

My dear Freedom Fighters of America, let us not be gullible gulls. We must preserve our talents of self-sufficiency, our genius for creating new value, our Christina heritage of being diligent, serviceable and industrious. We must learn again to cherish that same spirit of freedom and independence that our forefathers fought and died for in creating this once-great nation. The dream our fathers fought for is not dead nor lost, but it hangs by a thread in the hearts of many who've lost faith.

The purpose of my speech today is not to entertain you, or inspire you, or even to educate you. My purpose is to awaken you to your situation and your duty as a citizen of this nation.


The 3 Themes I wish to touch upon today:

1) The Costs of Moral Decay in the U.S.

2) The Freedoms We’ve Lost or Destroyed

3) And the Effects of Government Growth and Spending through Oppressive Taxation


I. The costs of Moral Decay in the U.S.

History teaches us that societies erode in their quest for progressive thought and moral relativism - steering further away from freedom, independence and liberty to give way to centralized government, oppression, and inevitable tyranny.

Todd D.
Christopherson brought the following insight to our attention this past month by stating:

“The societies in which many of us live have for more than a generation failed to foster moral discipline. They have taught that truth is relative and that everyone decides for himself or herself what is right. Concepts such as right and wrong have been condemned as “value judgments.”

As a consequence, self-discipline has eroded and societies are left to try to maintain order and civility by compulsion. The lack of internal control by individuals breeds external control by governments.”

One columnist observed that “Policemen and laws can never replace customs, traditions and moral values as a means for regulating human behavior. At best, the police and criminal justice system are the last desperate line of defense for a civilized society. Our increased reliance on laws to regulate behavior is a measure of how uncivilized we’ve become.”2

In most of the world, we have been experiencing an extended and devastating economic recession. It was brought on by multiple causes, but one of the major causes was widespread dishonest and unethical conduct, particularly in the U.S. housing and financial markets. Reactions have focused on enacting more and stronger regulation. Perhaps that may dissuade some from unprincipled conduct, but others will simply get more creative in their circumvention.3 There could never be enough rules so finely crafted as to anticipate and cover every situation, and even if there were, enforcement would be impossibly expensive and burdensome. This approach leads to diminished freedom for everyone


James Faust stated the following:

“There is a great risk in justifying what we do individually and professionally on the basis of what is ‘legal’ rather than what is ‘right.’ In so doing, we put our very souls at risk. The philosophy that what is legal is also right will rob us of what is highest and best in our nature. What conduct is actually legal is, in many instances, way below the standards of a civilized society. If you accept what is legal as your standard of personal or professional conduct, you will deny yourself of that which is truly noble in your personal dignity and worth”

The United States of America - the standard of Freedom and Independence to the world - now boasts 4 interesting but heartbreaking and inconvenient truths.

1) We've become a nation of victimism, and have forfeited our power to those who would govern us by blaming, fighting, and suing one another. All because we've suffered some apparent misfortune. Over 96 percent of the world's lawsuits are in the U.S. - a land that comprises less than 5 percent of the world's population. So much for the Christian conduct our nation’s values were founded upon.

2) America, the land of the free and the home of the brave, has more people in prison or jail per capita than any other developed country in the world - over 2.4% of our population is either in prison, jail, or on parole. This 2.4% continues to grow each year in spite of a continual trend of lower and lower levels of violent crimes amongst our citizens. Interestingly enough, communist China is ranked number two in it's imprisonment / population ratio - with .43% of it's people in prison or jail, they have less than 18 percent as many prisoners per capita as the U.S. So much for freedom.

3) Our largest export isn't computers, oil, steal, food, or toys or even the media - it's debt. We want what we haven't yet earned, and we spend money we don't have. We pass the buck, and in turn, give up our freedom for want of comforts. So much for thrift and industry, and independence.

4) During the Bush years, the government printed and spent more money than it had in all the years under all the presidents of U.S. history – combined. Setting a new standard for deficits at the time, Bush brought us to a staggering $426 Billion deficit. Sadly, this trend hasn’t ceased, as President Obama has topped Bush’s spending spree within the first 6 months in office. Any takers for the deficit now? Over $1.8 Trillion, or in other words, Obama has raised the bar by spending 4 times what Bush spent during his 8 year term, all within a few months.

In addition, future deficits are currently projected to total $9.1 trillion in the coming decade.

If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom: and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that, too – W. Somerset Maugham

As the saying goes, those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

Great nations fall when they forget the lessons of the past.

Why did Rome, one of the greatest nations in the history of the world, fall?

4 Reasons:

First, and most importantly, Rome fell due to the moral and ethical unraveling of its once strong, virtuous and disciplined citizens.

Second, it over extended itself in it's overly ambitious military conquests

Third, it's citizens became excessively reliant upon a government that exercised its oppressive power over and upon its citizens - both through excessive taxation, confiscation of personal property, and terminating human life by imprisonment and death

Lastly, it fell due to fiscal irresponsibly from a centralized government

It is this last point that I want to focus our attention at this time, which is the 2
nd area of our discussion here today.


II. The Freedoms We’ve Lost or Destroyed


Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.” Ronald Reagan

About 3 months ago, my small property management company was effectively shut down by the Arizona Department of real estate. The reason? I wasn't properly licensed for about 6 weeks when I first started the company over 5 years ago. Unknown to me at the time, I needed a real estate license. Admittedly, I was and am guilty of the crime of not getting a license, while practicing property management for a few of my friends. And admittedly, my ignorance is hardly an excuse. Yet, the power given to government to shut down a legitimist business due to a technicality of law as opposed to a character deficit such as lying or stealing or committing fraud, gives us some appreciation for government's power as well as it's indifference to right vs. wrong. The cost benefit approach used by governments to validate budgets shows time and time again the small businesses of less than 20 employees that make up more than 80 percent of the employment in America, are so much easier to attack and beat than those who can afford to defend themselves with legal and political sway.

As government and burocracy increase in a pretend effort to protect its citizens, initiative and innovation find their opportunities and quests for ownership in other industries, states, or nations, where creativity, freedom, self-reliance, and initiative are valued.

Just as bad money drives good money out of an economy, bad government drives good people out of its jurisdiction.

And what makes for bad government?

I turn to Thomas Jefferson for the answer, when he said, "
history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government."

On another issue, I'm sure there are many in attendance here today who, like me, once owned thousands of dollars worth of stock in Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. That ownership interest is worth nearly nothing now. As we're all well aware, the government announced on Sept 7, 2008, a Sunday of all days, that it needed to own what you and I once owned - all in an effort to "protect us" from a supposed catastrophe. The consequence of this drastic and historic action underscores the ability of government to effectively take whatever it may want or need, even from those who own claim and title.

Historically most state and city governments have reserved their rights to exercise their power of eminent domain for such issues as public highways, utilities, and railroads. But in recent years and decades, we've seen an increase in government use of eminent domain as a means of increasing taxes, using terms like "economic development" or "it will add 10,000 jobs to our economy". The people subsidizing these government/corporate expansions are usually those whose interests are supposedly at heart - the job seekers, whose salary is taxed and budgeted into the development cost-benefit equation. Meanwhile the company receiving the government subsidies receives tax abatements (aka "tax holidays") that stretch out for many years and sometimes decades.

People who've never been without freedom, tend not to appreciate it. You don't see people migrating from a capitalist Hong Kong to get into a communist China. On the contrary, thousands of Chinese flock to Hong Kong to live in relative poverty for just an opportunity to have economic Freedom.

According to the latest figures produced by the late Milton Friedman who passed away in 2005, per capita income in Hong Kong is almost identical with that in the United States.

That is close to incredible. Here we are—a country of 300 million people that stretches from sea to shining sea, with enormous resources, and a two-hundred-year background of more or less steady growth, supposedly the strongest and richest country in the world, and yet six million people living on a tiny spit of land with negligible resources manage to produce as high a per capita income. How come?

Well, direct government spending is less than 15 percent of national income in Hong Kong, it's more than 40 percent in the United States. Indirect government spending via regulations and mandates is negligible in Hong Kong but accounts for around 10 percent of national income in the United States.

The real lesson of Hong Kong for the United States is that we’re using our resources inefficiently. Our government is spending our money to subsidize tobacco and to penalize smoking; to subsidize childbearing and to discourage childbearing; to build new housing and to tear down housing; to subsidize agriculture and to penalize agriculture; and on and on—not to mention converting square miles of forests into billions of paper forms and spending many man-years of labor filling them out and then filing them.

Billions for Taxation! The Internal Revenue Service sends out 8 billion pages of forms and instructions each year. Laid end to end, they would stretch 28 times around the earth. American taxpayers spend $200 billion and 5.4 billion hours working to comply with federal taxes each year, more than it takes to produce every car, truck, and van in the United States.

Tree Taxing - Nearly 300,000 trees annually are cut down to produce the amount of required paper for all the IRS forms and instructions.

Taxing Numbers - The IRS employs 114,000 people; that's twice as many as the CIA and five times more than the FBI. 60% of taxpayers must hire a professional to get through their own return. Taxes eat up 38.2% of the average family's income; that's more than for food, clothing and shelter combined. .

In the process, government tends to neglect its basic functions: as I once put it, “to protect our freedom both from the enemies outside our gates and from our fellow citizens: to preserve law and order, to enforce private contracts, to foster competitive markets.’’

III. And the Effects of Government Growth and Spending through Oppressive Taxation

For the average American, the effect of income tax, employment tax, property tax, sales tax, and capital gains tax makes the actual, real cost of most purchases DOUBLE the sticker price. This hidden cost has been referred to by economists as "the rule of two on taxes."

$185,000 is owed to the U.S. Government by every man, woman, and child.

Government always finds a need for whatever money it gets.
Ronald Reagan

Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.
Ronald Reagan


Challenge:


Other Sources:

I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.
Thomas Jefferson

My challenge to you today is to do one or more of the following three things:

1) take part in the discussions going on in political forums, online or in the newspaper -
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent."
Thomas Jefferson - speak up
2) get involved in the community by serving on a board, doing community service, or helping someone in need - reach out
3) Work on yourself - before kingdoms and nations can change, men and women and families must change - For our nation to be strong again, WE and our families must become strong again. Get your finances in order - cut back on your wants, save, work, invest.