Posted on 08/05/2007 7:51:43 PM PDT by Jim Robinson
We believe the federal government has grown too big, too expensive, too intrusive, too nosy, too abusive and.. . .well, just about everything it was not supposed to be.
What are we talking about when we say that? It's not Congress. Nor is it the Presidents, but between the two, they have created and fostered an Imperial Bureaucracy, a virtually independent, ever growing government that is answerable to no one, staffed by unelected bureaucrats who write rules and regulations that have the force of law and lord it over us as if they were our Imperial Masters.
How big is the bureaucracy? Not counting Congress, the White House, the State Department, the CIA or the Military in uniform, there is 1 fulltime civilian federal employee for every 123 Americans. Surprised? Is that too big?.
Congress has been on a Legislative binge for more than 60 years. To enforce those laws, at the direction of Congress, the bureaucrats write regulations. At the end of 2006, there were 144,040 pages in the Code of Federal Regulations. In that almost undecipherable mass there has to be one, two or a dozen that can jump up and bite any one of us at any moment. When it happens, they have the full force of government behind them while all we can do is go broke paying attorneys.
For instance: The BATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms) is systematically, one by one, revoking gun dealers' licenses on paperwork technicalities. Someone overlooked and therefore did not fill in one space in a form. BOOM! "Your license has been revoked." The small ones who could not afford thousands of dollars in Attorney's fees, simply went out of business. Twenty years ago, there were 250,000 licensed gun dealers in this nation. Today, there are only 108,000. That works out to be 19 a day that have just disappeared. And, of course, the number of gun dealers "not complying with regulations" is used by BATF to justify and expand it's budget.
How much are these regulations costing us? According to a recent study released by the Office of Advocacy of the U.S. Small Business Administration, in 2004, the nation's business community, mostly small businesses, spent $1.1 trillion complying with Federal Regulations. Who pays that? We do. It's a cost of doing business and is a part of the price of everything we purchase. How much is $1.1 trillion? Assuming a population of 300 million, it's $3,667 for every man woman and child in the country. And you thought all those regulations didn't affect you. Right?
All Congress has to do to change all this is snatch the bureaucrats up by the knap of the neck, let them know the Rules Committee has arrived and rewrite the enabling legislation in specific terms, precisely narrowing and defining the scope of their authority and how they will conduct themselves. But it's too busy playing a vicious, high stakes game of political "Gotcha" while enacting even more legislation that directs the bureaucrats to write even more regulations. And virtually every new regulation take a bite out of someone's liberty.
The list of abuses and abusive attitude could go on to near infinity, but the real question is, "How did it get this way?" The Founding Fathers put together a government meticulously designed to prevent what we have. What happened?
What happened was the standard ingredients of politics, greed and corruption. Late in the 19th Century, the Power Brokers and Robber Barons saw the federal government as a cow that could be milked for power, prestige and cash, but the Senators, who took their marching orders from their respective Legislatures kept blocking them. After a number of years of manipulation, apparent bribery and really dirty politics, we got the 17th Amendment which took the power of appointment away from the State Legislatures and moved it over to general election.
The result was predictable and inevitable. When the Senators were dependent on the Legislatures for reelection, the individual legislators and the Legislature as a whole, had enormous clout. When your reelection depends on only 80, 90, 100 people, you pay very close attention to what they want. When it was shifted over to the entire population of the State, the electing units were so large no one at home had any clout. This is exactly what the manipulators wanted, because the Senator's attention and loyalties switched to those who could help assure reelection, the Power Brokers. And that's where they still are today.
We were supposed to have a Senate made up of Statesmen who would be immune to public opinion and popular causes, vigilant guardians of our individual rights and liberty. Instead, we have a Senate composed of 100 free agents, free to follow their own agenda, which they do with impunity and immunity; answerable only to their political party, special interests, the mainstream media and their campaign contributors; responding with legislation to every popular cause that comes along, often inventing one just to get face time on TV; perfectly willing to eradicate everyone's rights simply because a few might or have abused them and have turned the United States Senate into an arena for an ongoing, seemingly never ending political food fight. It's disgusting and we deserve better.
The answer, the solution, is to repeal the 17th amendment so we have at-home control over what they do or do not do and we can get that done if we put our mind and resources to the effort. Put the appointment of Senators back where it belongs, with the Legislatures and that's exactly what we're going to do..
"Whaat," you wail, "you want to take away my right to vote for Senators." If putting it back where it belongs, with the State Legislatures, means taking it away from you, Yes, we do. We're taking away ours too, so you haven't been singled out. But be realistic. That vote is only symbolic. It is meaningless, simply because the only time a person has power in the ballot box is when he can exercise some control over the actions of his "servants" and the only way to have control is to be able to talk to them directly, not just to their staff. Can you call your Senator and get him on the Phone? The Party Bosses can. Milton Megabucks can. The media can. The lobbyists can. But you can't. Face it. We're just a mass of nameless faces in the crowd they have to shmooze every six years just enough to persuade us to keep them in office.
So, the choice is yours. You can hang on to your symbolic vote, or you can take positive steps to help change it. Millions of men have put themselves in harm's way to preserve our freedom with their blood staining the world's battlefields. We have not served them well by allowing this to happen. It's time to make amends and giving up your symbolic vote is a small price to pay compared to what they sacrificed.
We have a solid, three step plan to get it done. It's been hailed as "Brilliant," "Outstanding" with an 80% to 90% probability of success by some pretty savvy people who have been trying for years to get Congress to exercise some self restraint, trying to make them understand that they have been granted responsibility rather than power.
Constitutional historians rate the 17th Amendment as the biggest mistake we have ever made. Our success will be hailed by future historians as the greatest advance of liberty in the 21st Century.
Individual liberty and smaller government are our objectives, but it goes beyond that. We have wounded men and women languishing in miserable conditions in VA Hospitals and there are 1,252,188 members of Disabled American Veterans who are not receiving adequate care, partly because of the bloated, inefficient, dollar consuming bureaucracy but primarily because Congress has proven itself to be the world's most profligate spendthrift to the point where there's no money "left over" to take care of them properly. When we can cut the bureaucracy down to size and get some control over the Senate we will be able to provide some better care for these wounded warriors. We owe it to them and they have earned it.
If you want to be a part of it, contact us at the Email address below or at http://hometown.aol.com/repealthe17th/ROAR.html
ROAR (Restoring Our American Republic, Inc) 2975 Elizabeth Lane Snellville, GA 30078 Voice: 770-978-1913 FAX: 770-978-1064 RepealThe17th@aol.com http://hometown.aol.com/repealthe17th/ROAR.html
Save.
..an interesting idea - but what makes us certain that such a move would make the senate more (not less) responsive to the public will? What happens if it just turns them into more dedicated liberals/globalists?
ping & bump
We need more than that. We need a voters’ bill of rights starting with runoff elections to guarantee minimally that nobody need ever fear to vote his first choice at least on a first ballot, and nobody ever holds any elective office with less than 50% of the vote. We need absolute ironclad guarantees against voter fraud which to me says there has to ultimately be a way to connect a name to every vote ever cast, and we need a none-of-above option on every election in the land. And, if that none-of-above option ever wins, the other candidates should be barred for life from running for any public office, and the parties sponsoring them should be barred for 20 years from running candidates for that particular office. The penalty for running dead wood for public office should be huge.
Wow this blows my mind. There’s some heavy stuff being brought up here.On the one hand do we let government “State Legislatures” choose more government “US Senate” or do we decide for ourselves who represents us? It’s not an easy question to get a handle on !!!
Jim, you have hit the mail squarely on the head! Somewhere in the past couple of years I came to the same realization....
When I Firefox/Googled the web site it came up as a bad address.
The 17th Amendment debacle is, indeed, a major source of our present political disaster. Add in the infamous “Executive Order”, pioneered by TR and you have a situation which the FR community, and lots of others, will be busy trying to correct for quite a while.
Staffers have way too much power.
I agree with the facts here, and the goals, but wonder how it would work out in some states.
In my state, the dems manage to cover up all their scandals.
Independent news agencies get squashed very quickly.
Election fraud, FBI investigations of legislators, and endless dirty politics are kept out of the papers, or spun into Republican witch hunts. Votes are ignored when they don’t like the outcome, and all kinds of ingenious rules are discovered to make undesirable votes go away. There is alot of corruption.
I don’t trust the dem machine here with choosing senators. I am not saying the 17th amendment shouldn’t be revoked, but I do see my senators occasionally now. I can’t imagine all the backroom deals that might go on here as they negotiate who to send to DC.
I have been saying for years that the 17th Amendment was when and where it all started going to hell in a hand basket.
This is the first I’ve heard of ROAR, how long have they been around?
I keep saying its not gun control or abortion or even illegals that are the top issues, its the tyranty of our own government.
Until we get rid of the tyranty nothing else really matters in the long run.
John
Excellent. This state is hopelessly blue, but there’s hope for others.
As Jim says, we already have a representative in the House. The purpose of the legislative elected Senate was to make the senators beholden to the States and not special interests. As he said, can you call your senator and get him on the phone? The newspapers and television stations can and the lobbyists with big bucks can.
If the senators were not beholden to the public, they would not be swayed by public opinion. Hopefully, our state legislatures will be motivated by the shear gree of the federal goverment.
It worked for me. But, right now, all you get at the web site is a plea for money.
We just met Sterling when he attended our recent online VetsCor board meeting. I thought he had some interesting arguments for repealing the 17th, so asked him if I could post this material. I’m hoping he’ll come on to the thread to answer questions and continue the debate.
Thanks for the ping.
I’m hoping he’ll come on to the thread to answer questions and continue the debate.
So do I.
Thanks for the ping.
As he said, can you call your senator and get him on the phone?
Ha,ha,hey Ted Kennedy and John Kerry are my Senators so what do you think the answer to your question is ???
Thanks for the ping, bumping.
Figure out what you can afford and then add a few dollars more in honor of the men in the VA hospitals and the 1,252,188 members of Disabled American Veterans who are not receiving adequate care, partly because of the bloated, inefficient, dollar consuming bureaucracy but primarily because Congress has proven itself to be the world’s most profligate spendthrift.
While both are good causes, it does not stipulate what part of your money goes for which cause.
IMHO this site needs a touch of professionalism and clarity of purpose.
?
No way we can get McCain or Kyl either - we tried. They were busy with their special interest groups.
My first thought is that I’ve never heard of anyone with power willing to support something that might restrain that power.
Gov’t should be a partner with business, not a adversary.
Any plan which depends for its success on the California Legislature doing the right thing is in deep doo-doo from the get-go. No, thank you.
The problem with top heavy organizations is that they are inherently unstable. Each year it becomes increasingly harder to add to the bloat—beyond a certain point the mess just collapses.
This is because government lives or dies based on a simple ratio. Call it “efficiency”. It is the ratio of what the government promises versus what it delivers. And oddly enough, it matters far less *what* it promises than that it delivers on those promises.
If government promises few things and delivers, it will survive and prosper. But over time the tendency is to promise more and more. At first it can grow and continue to deliver. But unless it can curtail its promises, and few can, they will, they must, outstrip the promise delivery.
And that is when the breakdown begins. Much of the breakdown is seen early on, with things such as “The Peter Principle”, and various bureaucratic Murphy’s Laws.
But then you get entire agencies of government that exist solely to perpetuate themselves, no longer performing any real service or function, though they contain an enormous machine to do so.
Other agencies have fewer and fewer people performing the “muscle”, the real work, and more people and assets devoted to “fat”. And if there is one great bureaucratic rule, it is “when asked to cut back, cut the muscle and leave the fat.” This frightens politicians who want to cut back.
An excellent example of this going on right now is the British National Health System. It has reached the point where it demands endless increases in budget, yet performs worse and worse. Now to eliminate its backlog, it has begun to create artificial rules allowing it to discriminate against smokers and the overweight, the sum total of whom, conveniently, nearly matches their backlog.
Problem solving through inefficiency.
Sooner rather than later, it will provide so little health care that people will have to leave the country to get it, or find it through illegal, back-alley private providers.
The only question is what will precipitate its collapse, and what form that collapse will take. Many people will have to unnecessarily suffer and even die before the truly obstinate believers in the NHS are overwhelmed.
So what about the US government? Well, in many parts of the government, the ratio of what is promised to what is delivered isn’t that bad—even though what is promised is improper, unconstitutional, and wasteful. But they can get away with a *lot* of that before it becomes unstable.
Absent major catastrophes. And this is an important point. When something like Katrina happens, and the “inefficiency” is exposed, the promises not delivered upon, then you will see a strong impulse for reform. But in truth, Katrina was just a small version of catastrophe.
What could be far more telling would be a major worldwide economic collapse, a terrible pandemic like Avian flu, or a major war, where there was no longer the easy resources available to support government bloat.
Ironic that such disaster might precipitate much needed reform in government, to force them to back off, and bow their collective heads after having been humbled, having paid the price for wanting to be all things to all people.
Where would you cut?
http://www.thebudgetgraph.com/poster/
Here is the federal government, slice away.
Bookmark for pondering.
Congratulations! You've just passed Politics 101.
Neither have I. What a concept, huh.
BTTT!
Geez, Jim; seems this is where I came in in 1998. Repeal the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Amendments, revise the Fourteenth to preclude citizenship to one born to immigrants, and replace the monetary standard and eliminate the Federal Reserve.
Then we might get our Republic back.
No more Senator Teddy K? :>} Repeal it. It’s only created a disaster. It would also make it more likely some of our better congressmen could get a shot at the senate. Tennessee hasn’t produced a good senator in many years.
bttt
I said my “first thought”.
My second thought is this - an example of a True Leader:
Philippians 2:5-8
5Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:
6Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:
7But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:
8And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
So based on this example, it can be done. But it has been quite a while since we’ve had a humble servant in Congress following Christ’ example. Maybe we cast our votes with the wrong presuppositions and intentions?
So far this year, 2007, the Internet made it possible for a lot of people to gather in DC on March 17 for a common purpose, and counter the antics of the loony-leftists.
About a month ago, the Internet afforded a way for most Americans to tell their so-called elected representatives exactly how America felt about a stupid, dishonest, Shamnesty bill, before they voted on the bill.
It'll be the Internet that finally teaches Americans how to use their VOTE to un-elect their useless, so-called elected representatives! ..............FRegards
It appears it can. We have to do something, our country is slipping through our fingers and if it keeps up the way it's going.........
I realize being so cynical(as I am) could give the malefactors an open gate.. so I fight my cynical bent.. "We" might have a government that reflects the American people exactly.. Its a mystery that blacks and Jews support a party that literally HATEs THEM.. Has proved it hates them and continues to prove it hates them.. Yet they vote lock step for them.. American democrats are mostly women.. the ditz vote..
Maybe I've grown too cynical.. God help me..
Another thoughtful article. Thanks
Public will? Responsive? Like the article says, yeah, sure.. Once every six years, for about 6 months.
With an appointed senator, at least it is the states that hold the influence, and the state legislature is still elected by "the people" of that state.
The influence of the voters may be indirect, but it is much stronger.
Some things won't change.
Senators will still seek pork for their state constituencies, and advance their state's interests.
But there would be less support through certain special interests and corporate sponsors.
The senators would be directly responsible to their state legislature.
Additionally, IIRC, the state legislatures had the power to recall senators that did not faithfully represent the state.
That would help end the "good ole' boys" club in the senate that refuses to punish anyone for their misdeeds.
BTTT
Not being swayed by public opinion cuts both ways. How might things have gone with shamnesty had our opinions not counted?
Given my State’s legislature, this is not an improvement.
I had mentioned this just the other day. Appointment by the state legislature kept the Senators from only playing to the special interest groups, especially here in flyover country where the battle lines have been drawn between rural and urban interests.
At least proportional representation on a basis of land area in the state legislature would create a situation where no longer merely appealing to the population majorities found in two or three cities guarantees re-election, (while the rest of the state wishes in one hand and watches the other fill up).
It is not hard to imagine that the founders would have wanted to ensure all were indeed represented in the workings of the Republic.
The current mess is the result of 'democracy' in action.
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