What Can I Do?

Recently a conservative fundamentalist preacher said on television that he opposes the campaign of homosexuals to be included in the Civil Rights Act. He said this would give them special privileges – allowing them to sue people whenever rejected for such things as jobs or home loans, a right not available to ordinary citizens.

Wow, what a novel concept! A special-interest group getting privileges not available to other people.

I wonder if the preacher has noticed that farmers get special government subsidies to "stabilize" their income.

Is he aware that corporations use the government to keep competitors – foreign or domestic – out of their markets?

Teachers' unions push for federal programs that pad the salaries of teachers. Military contractors get paid to produce weapons long after the weapons are considered obsolete.

Even policemen want special status. They push for greater penalties for killing a policeman than for killing an ordinary citizen.

And let's not forget the preacher's own special privilege: His church, no matter how wealthy or poor, is exempt from the income and property taxes paid by you. That means he can push for all sorts of government programs, knowing that his enterprise won't be taxed to pay for them.

The government has become exactly what Frederic Bastiat said it would be in a democratic society: "that great fictitious entity by which everyone expects to live at the expense of everyone else" – a free-for-all in which everyone tries to get what he wants by using the force of government.

The Founding Fathers recognized this threat. They knew that a democracy could work properly only until the citizens realized they could vote to steal other people's property. So the Founders created a Constitution that limited the government to a few simple functions: defense of our borders, a post office, patent office, mint, and a few other trivial activities. They knew that anything beyond that would open the door to political chaos.

The system worked fairly well for about a hundred years. Sometimes the government overstepped its boundaries, but generally the Constitution held the government pretty much in check. In fact, at the start of the 20th century, taxes of all kinds at all levels of government comprised only 8 percent of the national income.

But then the floodgates opened. The income tax, the direct election of senators, regulatory agencies that protected the politically powerful, and the election of a president who thought he could create world peace by dragging America into a European war – all these elements combined to remove all the restraints from government. From then on, government was free to grow rapidly to satisfy the politicians' desire for power.

Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton were all just building on the foundation laid by their predecessors – a premise that government is there to do "what's right." Not what's right in your eyes or in the eyes of the Constitution, but "what's right" for those with the most political influence.

And so today taxes at all levels of government take 48 percent of the national income.

It can seem that the whole process has gone much too far to ever be reversed. And maybe it has.

But while I'm not optimistic, I remain hopeful. I can see ways that America can be turned around and restored to its former glory as the land of peace and liberty, the land of truly small government. I'm not saying this will happen, only that it can happen.

I'll leave the details of my hopefulness for another time. But here I'll offer a little advice.

If you don't like big government, there's an obvious first step to take: Quit supporting the people who are promoting big government.

When you vote for the "lesser of two evils," you're voting for evil – and you shouldn't be amazed when government continues to grow at your expense. The person you vote for isn't going to see your vote as a reluctant attempt to prevent some "worse evil." He'll treat it as encouragement for every big-government scheme he's promoting.

If you vote for a Republican to keep a Democrat out of office, or vice versa, you're voting for big government – no matter how you try to convince yourself otherwise.

If you're going to vote, your motive is unmistakable only when you vote Libertarian. No, your candidate probably won't win the election, but at least your vote will have told the world what you really want – and it might lead someday to positive results. After all, how can you expect to get what you want unless you ask for it?

If you can't bring yourself to vote Libertarian, you can at least do the right thing and stay home on Election Day.

Anything else is registering support for all the special privileges, subsidies, intrusions and war-making that the Republicans and Democrats have come to proclaim as "the American way."

Voting Republican to keep Democrats out of office will do absolutely nothing toward restoring Constitutional law in the United States. I say that, but there is an "unless". And that UNLESS is if you demand that Republicans give you something in return for your vote. The Contract with Congress should become the standard for conservative voters in this election. Have we not had enough empty victories? If you want your freedom and the country that the United States once was back, this is the only way to take it back with ballots. If we don't use ballots to take our country, those who want to be free may eventually have to defend themselves from serfdom by secession and possibly other means if the US decides to keep its slaves.

"If you can't bring yourself to vote Libertarian, you can at least do the right thing and stay home on Election Day."

Sorry, but this loses me right there. Staying home or voting Libertarian does NOTHING to defeat the major source of the problem.

"Voting Republican to keep Democrats out of office will do absolutely nothing toward restoring Constitutional law in the United States."

The Democrats are a sucking chest wound for the country. The Republicans, even in the worst of days, are more like a broken leg.

Any doctor will tell you that the first step is to deal with the sucking chest wound. The broken leg can wait.

re: "...And let's not forget the preacher's own special privilege:
His church, no matter how wealthy or poor, is exempt from the
income and property taxes paid by you. That means he can push
for all sorts of government programs, knowing that his enterprise
won't be taxed to pay for them....."

Apartment dwellers also vote for programs paid with my
property tax dollars. It's wrong to single out Churches,
but it should be noted that a "Preacher" has a pulpit
and congregation that can be lead in any direction. Religion
by it's own design, is a political party.

re: "...If you can't bring yourself to vote Libertarian, you can at
least do the right thing and stay home on Election Day....."

Now that's sheer stupidity. That's akin to voting democrat.

I've always been a registered Independent. I changed to
a registered Republican to be able to choose the person I
would like to see on the ballot (occasionally that works).

The idea should be to vote for the person that will do their
best to protect your rights by upholding our Constitution.
That concept may not always meet welcomed eyes, depending
on a voter's personal agenda. As unfortunate as it may be to
those with any agenda, our Constitution and it's Bill of Rights
was designed to protect us all equally.

re: "...preacher...opposes the campaign of homosexuals to be
included in the Civil Rights Act..."

And as unfortunate as it might be to those with an agenda,
"Civil Rights" includes those of varied lifestyles. You can't
deny equal access and still have a free Nation.

Since there are so many Libertarians voicing their support to stay home or in some cases vote for a DemocRAT, decided to do some research.

Interesting things turned up -- didn't realize the Libertarians were for Open Immigration (http://www.lp.org/issues/immigration.html) according to the website detailing what they were for -- that sure flies in the face of some comments on here!

Or how about their policy on National Defense:(http://www.lp.org/issues/national-defense.html) Our massive military budget cannot be needed to defend this country. Why then are we spending more than $262 billion per year? The answer lies in our far-flung and ill-advised commitments around the world. America is bearing the cost for defending the rest of the world.

For example, it costs each American more than $1,000 per year in taxes to pay for the military, while it costs each German or Japanese less than $360 per year. How can we justify these commitments? NATO currently costs American taxpayers more than $90 billion annually. For what purpose? The European Union has a collective population of 370 million, a gross domestic product of $7 trillion per year, and more than two million troops. Surely, these nations can protect themselves from any possible threat. The reinvigorated European Union offers an excellent vehicle to replace NATO and allow European nations to provide for their own security needs.

How about Foreign Policy -- you know our War on Terrorism -- here is a clip of their statement on Foreign Policy (http://www.lp.org/issues/foreign-policy.html): Libertarian foreign policy: Ending welfare for nations -- foreign aid!

And for their classic drug stance brought to you by the feel good do it generation of the 60's:

The professional politicians scramble to make names for themselves as tough anti-drug warriors, while the experts agree that the "war on drugs" has been lost, and could never be won. The tragic victims of that war are your personal liberty and its companion, responsibility. It's time to consider the re-legalization of drugs.

These are just a few of their stands! The problem with them IMO is that their "so-called" rights happen to infringe on my rights. We don't live as only individuals in this Country so sometimes the rights of all take presedence of the rights of one individual. That is why we are a Nation of Laws!

Also suggest that the Libs do some research and see how the DNC has donated to their cause in the past. Bet you won't find any contributions from the RNC to the Greens which they like to throw out. I don't know one Republican that would vote Green in an election.

When the American experiment was started, it was a tiny, agrarian society. People called themselves "Georgians," "Virginians," or "Pennsylvanians." Only a minority of the country was allowed to vote: free male landowners over the age of 21. This was a true constitutional republic.

Beginning with Lincoln, then Wilson, Roosevelt, and Johnson, the nation now consisting of 50 emasculated "states" was transformed into what it is now, a pure social democracy. Democracies are unsustainable as the net tax consumers outvote the net tax payors every time, whether they vote Republican or Democrat.

The United States is governed by a cabal of moderate socialists who only debate which group will get first dibs at the public trough. There is no longer any question of whether the trough should be reduced or taken away. Republican votes are no longer even a question of delaying the inevitable--a deficit is a deficit regardless of whether the money is spent on warfare or welfare.

The sooner more people stop participating in the charade, the sooner the nation can evolve and its people peacably part company along its geographic and cultural divides.

Hello PhiKapMom. We have plowed the immigration ground before. If you adopt the libertarian position and eliminate welfare and "civil rights" laws, you will still have immigration, but you will no longer have an immigration problem. Certainly the Republicans have done nothing to staunch either the legislative proliferation of infinite theoretical and procedural civil and welfare "rights" or immigration.

As for foreign aid, it is unconstitutional, unjust and uneconomic. Welfare doesn't work any better for nation-states than it does for individuals.

As for our far-flung military, the idea that a nation which lives beyond its means and can't even protect its own Border Patrol should maintain huge, obsolete military bases in England, Germany and Italy, and intervene in every sectarian dispute in the world is ludicrous.

As of December 2000, according to the Defense Department, there were more than 250,000 U.S. military personnel deployed overseas on six continents in 141 nations.

http://www.humaneventsonline.com/articles/08-20-01/page3.html

This is CLEARLY what the founding fathers envisioned when they started our constitutional republic, no?

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