Research: http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=149495&article=5750 Patricia A. Saye Why is there such a general crisis hanging over America? Mon Jul 30 17:32:54 2001 The following is taken from the Constitional Seminar titled: "The Unhinging of America" 100 Things Destroying America Why is there such a general sense of crisis hanging over America? The average citizen finds his orderly world eroding or even crumbling beneath his feet. His savings have recently become a very slippery kind of security. Taxes, inflation, and high interest rates are ravenously gnawing away at his dwindling standard of living. His hopes of a pleasant and safe retirement are proving illusionary. He has a feeling that he is being propagandized. programmed and over-governed to the point where his personal freedom seems to be shrinking on all fronts. Who has been tampering with the soul of America? Suddenly There Is a Voice In the Wilderness Dr. Milton Friedman, Nobel prize-winning economist from the University of Chicago, took over a television network early in 1980 to shock Americans with the declaration that nearly all of our economic and political problems plaguing the United States are the direct result of the Federal Government indulging in practices which are entirely socialistic in their objectives and completely opposite to the success formula of the American founding fathers. In ten separate one-hour television broadcasts, Dr. Friedman hammered home the message that the American founders had a better way. Then he backed it up with a well-documented book entitled, Free to Choose. Who Is to Blame? Some people were offended when Dr. Friedman identified those who are guilty of propelling us along our present disaster course. He said: "If you want to find the devil who is responsible for our becoming more socialist, go home and look in the mirror. We are all of us responsible. If Washington has been making us more socialist, it's because we, as citizens, have been asking Washington to do so. Special Interest Groups Most Americans work through their own special interest groups to put an avalanche of pressure on "the system" in order to gain special privileges or unconstitutional advantages. Nearly everybody got a wet dishrag in the face from Dr. Friedman. He included the multinational corporations, the big banks. the Federal Reserve System (whom he blamed for prolonging the 1929 depression), organized farm lobbies, big labor, the National Education Association, big cities, little cities, and a multitude of other special interest groups all trying to get something which the Constitution and the free-enterprise system strictly forbids. Actually, this always happens once a government starts drifting toward socialism. Why Socialism is Popular with So Many Politicians The classical definition of socialism will help explain why it is popular with so many politicians. Socialism is defined as: "The government ownership or control of the means of production (farms, factories, mines and natural resources) and the means of distribution (transportation, communication, banks, commercial agencies, etc.). To achieve this, socialism always imposes exorbitant taxes and plunges the nation into a huge national debt. In the U.S. taxes now provide hundreds of billions of dollars for distribution by the politicians. In addition, other hundreds of billions are borrowed. Today, the annual interest payments run up around sixty billion dollars -- more than the cost of World War I! Why is Congress doing this? Dr. Milton Friedman came right out and said it: "The politicians are using a lot of this money to buy votes." What the Founding Fathers Said Samuel Adams pointed out that the founders had done everything possible to make the principles which we call Socialism, unconstitutional. 1 Socialism in the United States means power gravitating to Washington, and to prevent this, the founders adopted the idea of separation of powers. The Federal Government was given only a few limited and specific powers and all other powers were retained on the local level by the States and the people. (Tenth Amendment) James Madison spelled it out in the Federalist Papers, Number 45, when he said, "The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the Federal Government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State Governments are numerous and indefinite ... The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State." How Did the Federal Government Acquire So Much Power? All the special interest groups from the big international banks and multinational corporations down to the farmer and rank-and-file labor union member, found they could do things through the national government which were unlawful to do themselves. So a variety of schemes evolved. The main thrust was to give the Federal Government power to take from the "haves" and give to the "have nots." All special interest groups consider themselves "have nots." The Federal Government gradually acquired its power by two devices: 1. Deliberate distortion of the Constitution. 2. Naked seizure of power by usurpation. 100 Ways These Schemes Are Wrecking America Just to illustrate what the socialist central government's grasping for power has done to America, we are itemizing one hundred specific examples. All of these examples represent either direct' violations of the Constitution as originally intended by the founders or a violation of the principles laid down by the founding fathers as they structured the American civilization. It should be kept in mind that these are only examples. The complete list would be far more voluminous. The Ten Worst Problems Here is a list of what most authorities consider to be the ten worst problems facing America: 1. An alarming rate of inflation which is wrecking the stability of the entire American economy. 2. A deteriorating money system which has no gold or silver base as required by the Constitution. 3. A fantastic national debt of nearly a with interest payments of more than sixty billion dollars per year. 4. A policy of deficit spending which is passing along this generation's extravagance to be paid for by the next generation -- something the founders said was immoral. 5. An overwhelming burden of stifling taxation which is now taking away nearly half of all American earning power. 6. The strangulation of the free-enterprise system with over-regulation, over-taxation, and blatantly unfair competition from 700 government-owned corporations and more than 11,000 government-owned businesses which are usually subsidized and pay no taxes. 7. A federal bureaucracy of 3 million employees plus many more millions in government service on the state and local level. These now comprise one out of every five members of the American work force. 8. A federal Social Security System which was sold to the American people as "insurance" but which has turned out to be a highly discriminatory welfare program, now on the verge of bankruptcy. 9. The abandonment of the Monroe Doctrine which is allowing the United States to be gradually encircled by an avowed enemy equipped with nuclear missiles. 10. Federally-funded programs and Federally enunciated policies which are having a devastating impact on the morality of the nation and the structure of the family. Smashing Constitutional Barriers The U.S. Supreme Court reversed the traditional restrictions on the Federal Government in 1936 with its dictum in the Butler case. (297 U.S. 1). Justice Roberts interpreted the "general welfare" clause as a general grant of power to Congress to tax and spend for anything the Congress felt was in the interest of the nation's welfare. This opened the U.S. Treasury to the unlimited looting by politicians who saw this as a golden opportunity to increase taxes and buy votes with Federally-funded projects in their respective states. Throughout this article we will be citing examples of programs which have no authorization in the traditional Constitution and are therefore examples of outright usurpation or deliberate distortion of the Constitution by Supreme Court edicts. Unconstitutional Legislation Leading to the Destruction of the American Dollar A long series of radical legislative enactments in direct violation of the Constitution led to the destruction of the American dollar: 11. The 1913 transfer of power over the money and credit system of the United States from Congress to a consortium of private bankers operating under the name of the Federal Reserve Bank. 12. The 1933 abandonment of the gold standard for American Citizens while allowing foreigners to continue redeeming American money in gold. 13. The 1933 unconstitutional mandate requiring all Americans to surrender their gold. 14. The 1933 cancellation of thousands of contracts containing "payment in gold" clauses. 15. The 1964 abandonment of the silver standard for both coins and Federal Reserve Notes. 16. The 1971 mandate that even foreigners holding American paper money could no longer redeem it in gold. 17. The repeal (without any amendment) of the Constitutional requirement that the States pay all their debts in "silver or gold." As a result of these aberrations in the American success formula, the U.S. dollar became a "floating" unit of value with its purchasing powers drifting ever downward. Skyrocketing inflation was the inevitable result. Unconstitutional Expenditure of Federal Funds The Federal Government was only authorized to tax Americans and spend their money for specific purposes. The Founders knew that funding "good causes" can get completely out of hand if it isn't supervised close to home by the people who care about what happens to their money. That is why Federal taxes for "good causes" were outlawed in the Constitution. Nevertheless, the government finally invaded the field of "good causes" during various wars, depressions and emergencies, and now expends billions outside of its constitutional authority. Dr. Milton Friedman emphasized in the TV series, "Free to Choose," how disappointing, inefficient, and scandalously expensive the Federal financing of "good causes" has been. Here are a few examples to add to our numerical list of 100 things which are bankrupting America and creating problems rather than solving them. 18. Billions in foreign aid. 19. Billions for Medicare which has skyrocketed medical costs. 20. Billions for Medicaid which is pushing the U.S. toward Socialized Medicine. 21. Billions for the Federal Department of Education. (Dr. Friedman points out that since the Federal Government became involved in the schools, American education has seriously deteriorated.) 22. Federal Welfare through HEW which has failed miserably in actual performance and is plagued by continuous scandal and waste. 23. The Office of Economic Opportunity which has proven uneconomical and discriminatory. 24. Federal Housing and Urban Development (HUD) which has proven unbelievably expensive and counter-productive. 25. Community Health Services and Facilities Act. 26. Bureau of Employment Security which the State was handling originally. 27. Financing the give-away of the Panama Canal. 28. Bailing out the City of New York after 40 years of extravagance and bad management. 29. Bailing out the Chrysler Corporation after strangling it into bankruptcy with taxation and over-regulation. 30. Billions to local law enforcement which has been counter-productive, wasteful, and has failed to curb crime. 31. Federal Insurance Administration. 32. Billions expended in loans and grants to the Small Business Administration. 33. All-Risk Crop Insurance which subsidizes losses from almost any cause while other fields of endeavor have to pay for their occupational losses. 34. Appalachia Development Program. 35. National Endowment for the Humanities (arts, social science, linguistics, literature, etc.) 36. Business disaster loans. 37. The Peace Corps which wasted millions pretending to help other nations with American volunteers. 38. Land Open-Space Improvement Program. 39. Language Development Program. 40. Library Financing Services Program. 41. Student loans which tens of thousands failed to repay on the assumption the government "owed it" to them. 42. Manpower Administration designed to fulfill the unconstitutional and unrealistic promise of Washington to guarantee every American a job. 43. Manpower Development and Training Act to patch up some of the damage created by the disruptive and discriminatory minimum wage law. 44. Mental Health Research and Training. 45. Federal National Mortgage Association. 46. Neighborhood Social Centers. 47. Nursing Home Federal Assistance Program. 48. Federally Financed Children's Day-Care Centers. 49. Rehabilitation of Apartments. 50. Sewage Disposal Facility Grants. 51. National Teachers Corps. 52. Urban Renewal which deprives hundreds of thousands of central city residents of their homes. 53. Waste Disposal Grants. This list could go on for several pages. These expenditures for "good causes" and running into tens of billions of dollars, are so numerous that they are compiled in a 2 inch volume entitled, Encyclopedia of U.S. Government Benefits, published by William H. Wise and Co., Union City, New Jersey. Unconstitutional Expansion of Presidential Powers There has been no greater breakdown of Constitutional checks and balances than that which has occurred between the Congress and the Executive Branch. Not only have the Presidential powers been expanded by outright usurpation, but Congress has cooperated by delegating unconstitutional authority to the President to make laws, interpret laws., and impose penalties for infractions. In the Federalist Papers the Founders defined this combination of power as the formula for "tyranny." Here are some of the areas of greatest concern: 54. Under the Constitution, Congress has the exclusive authority and responsibility to make laws, but today the President issues far more laws through "executive orders" than are passed by Congress. 55. The President holds "summit conferences" with other heads of State and enters into private arrangements which often remain secret. The mysterious Yalta Agreement in 1945 is still being implemented by the State Department without any public knowledge of what commitments were actually made. These are called "Executive Agreements." This whole procedure violates the treaty clause of the Constitution where it provides that agreements with foreign powers shall be presented to the Senate for its advice and consent. No agreements with foreign powers are to become law unless two-thirds of the Senate has approved them. 56. The Congress has also set up as part of the administrative machinery of government certain administrative agencies which hand down decrees and edicts which are enforced by the courts. This is called "administrative law" and never passes through the screening process of Congress as required by the Constitution. 57. The Executive Branch continually threatens to withhold grants to the States unless they conform to Federal mandates, policies, or programs which often have nothing to do with the grant itself. 58. The threatened withholding of Federal funds has also been used to secure votes from reluctant Congressmen and Senators, thereby corrupting the American system of representative government. Unconstitutional Expansion of Judicial Power There are at least three areas in which the Federal judiciary has projected itself and begun operating completely outside the boundaries of the Constitution: 59. The first is in the field of "judicial legislation." The Supreme Court has frequently pretended to interpret an existing law and twisted its meaning to create an entirely new law. This is often done with the full knowledge that the Court is creating something which Congress never intended or never considered. During the administration of the Warren Court, this practice became so flagrant and frequent that the chief justices of the State supreme courts issued a formal charge Continuted from previous message. - Patricia A. Saye "Lady Liberty", Mon Jul 30 17:38 What HAVEN'T they accomplished since 1963? - D., Mon Jul 30 20:41
