-Caveat Lector- WJPBR Email News List [EMAIL PROTECTED] Peace at any cost is a Prelude to War!
ENTANGLED by Ray Simmons Should commercial interests govern the nations? This is a question every American needs to come face-to-face with because this is what is being used to push us into the one-world, global government that lies just around the corner. Our Founding Fathers believed that individual liberty was the most important factor in the setting up of our country's government. Individual liberty is not license to do as one pleases but it is the freedom to use ones abilities and assets in a manner consistent with one's best interest. The approach represented by our Constitution was one involving as little interference as possible from government. John Adams, second president of the United States, wrote in 1789, "Our Constitution was designed only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other." In recent years we have witnessed a growing segment of the populace that no longer exercises the character of a moral and religious people, largely due to changes wrought in our educational system since the days of John Dewey, who boldly stated his purpose was to get God out of the schools. Partly because of this we are seeing great growth in the powers exercised by government over the lives of the people. When people refuse to self-regulate their actions, government must assume those functions. Government is power, and it responds to power. In a democratic republic, if the people stay informed and monitor their elected officials they exercise power over them, but if the people are not informed or they fail to exercise their oversight, other forces will step in to fill the vacuum. Those forces are likely to be the deep pockets that can provide the officials with the wherewithal to remain in power. When we have partnerships formed between big business and government and well-funded special interest groups the average citizen becomes of least importance to those making the rules. Franklin Roosevelt, in a letter to an associate dated November 21, 1933, said: "The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the large centers has owned the government since the days of Andrew Jackson." When we signed on to the GATT treaty during the Clinton Administration (with great help from Republican leaders in both houses of Congress) we signed an agreement with the WTO (World Trade Organization), which settles trade disputes between nations. We, in effect, ceded our sovereignty in large measure to the panel of unelected judges sitting on the WTO council. Just recently, in a dispute in which the European Union claimed the U.S. practiced unfair trade by allowing U.S. corporations to set up off-shore subsidiaries through which business was conducted in other nations, the WTO ruled that we had to change our law or face fines and penalties of up to $4 billion. A similar situation exists with the NAFTA treaty. If you saw the Bill Moyers' "Trading Democracy" on a recent PBS showing you know that a Canadian firm has sued the U.S. because the state of California passed a law banning certain gasoline additives which were discovered to cause cancer and which were getting into the groundwater and creating greater pollution problems than they were solving with emissions. The Canadian firm contends that the law passed by the California legislature has cost them hundreds of millions in profits and wants the United States' tax payers to reimburse them for the loss. This also works in the other direction. A U.S. firm sued the Mexican government and collected $17 million plus because a community in Mexico refused to grant them a local permit to proceed with a landfill until they cleaned up the toxic waste left there by earlier users. The Mexican government had granted a permit which required the clean-up but gave the company five years in which to accomplish it. Our first president, George Washington, strongly warned us in his farewell address (no longer taught in government schools) about foreign entanglements: "The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is, in extending our commercial relations to have with them as little political connection as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop." and "Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor, or caprice?" Another quote from Washington's farewell address that I like even better: "Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness...And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion." *COPYRIGHT NOTICE** In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for nonprofit research and educational purposes only.[Ref. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ] Want to be on our lists? Write at [EMAIL PROTECTED] for a menu of our lists! 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