Obama Does Something Right – Kinda…

I can not believe I am about to type this…

Obama is right.

Ok – the shock is over.

Obama has done the first thing I can actually say I am proud of and it has to do with his education reform. He is letting local school districts make the choice to raise their mediocre standards or not get any federal money.

Obama is to the right of Bush on education!!!!

Despite this pleasant change – local school districts shouldn't have to have Uncle Sam's money as an incentive to raise the standards. If any school district is able to raise the standard after Obama implements this program – they should have there school board fired. It is obvious in that case that these "public servants" are only after money.

Another slight problem: more than likely, the money will still go to the big city schools with the lowest SAT scores and highest drop out rates after the states get their hands on the money

Also – the Secretary of Education ultimately gets to choose which schools gets the money, and you know that he has the opportunity to favor some districts and states over others.

So – corruption in Washington will more than likely destroy the good intentions of Obama. The Law of Unintended Consequences strikes again!

This is why the founding fathers did not want education at the federal level, and why the Department of Education should be abolished, but this plan is better than the Bush administrations "Let Every Child Pass" Program that has caused the students in our Middle Schools and High Schools to become increasingly dumb.

The best plan would to eliminate the Department of Education at the federal level, and allow the states to compete without Uncle Sam's money as a grand prize. It worked before Jimmy Carter created the Department of Education, and it can work today.

In the Time I've Been AWOL

Ok, I have FIVE things to say:

First – sorry for my absence. School was crazy.

Second – Obama has lost the little respect I have for him. He is simply a racist that has used the false promise of hope to get elected. I would say Bush was better, but he promised to end the nation building of the Clinton years. I guess it's all in the family.

Third – I have lost the little respect I had for the GOP. The party went from being Go Bail-Out and McCain canceling his campaign to "Get It Passed" to hating bail-outs. The reason appears to be simple – the president is not a Republican anymore. Therefore the "Grand Old Party" is simply the Old Party. I don't like the old (or new) idea of socialism or fascism. So GOP is now on my list of political parties I will never vote for. Congrats – you have joined the list of shame. I am stuck to choose between my self-imposed two party system now. Libertarian or Constitution. At least it is a choice. The DNC and GOP are simply the same party with a different letter. Do you like the letter R or D. Maybe we can have a system where if your last name starts with letters A-M you are a Democrat and N-Z you are a Republican. Honestly, that is the biggest difference between the two parties. It is sad.

Fourth – I read FA Hayek's Road to Serfdom again. It applies SO much to our time, it is incredible. If everyone in the US were to read that book – both the GOP and DNC would have to take up actual stances they truly believe in, or would cease to exists. Either of those two options seem alright to me right now.

Fifth – Minimum wage went up – yet my pay check didn't change. I wonder if politicians will figure out that minimum wage actually doesn't increase our wages. It does allow us to get second jobs – but the forced wage hike, economic collapse they created, and the tax code that prevents me from keeping MOST of my paycheck (and I earn minimum wage) has done the great job of preventing that.

Obama Congressional Speech Analysis: Our Schools are Terrible and It's Your Fault, not ours!

“Now, if we're honest with ourselves, we'll admit that for too long we have not always met these responsibilities, as a government or as a people. I say this not to lay blame or to look backwards, but because it is only by understanding how we arrived at this moment that we'll be able to lift ourselves out of this predicament.

The fact is, our economy did not fall into decline overnight. Nor did all of our problems begin when the housing market collapsed or the stock market sank.

We have known for decades that our survival depends on finding new sources of energy, yet we import more oil today than ever before.

The cost of health care eats up more and more of our savings each year, yet we keep delaying reform.

Our children will compete for jobs in a global economy that too many of our schools do not prepare them for.”

The first line made me laugh. He admits that the government isn’t doing its job, than blames the people for it. In other words it is like Obama is saying,

"You chose to vote in these Republicans and they increased spending and caused a huge massive defect with their wars. You should have voted in Democrats to increase spending and taxes causing a massive debt fighting our social wars."

It made me laugh, wasn't he a Junior Senator from Illinois? I guess he didn't think he could change things as a Senator, it is only a minor position, right? Isn't that what Junior means; a person with low rank or status compared with others. Than, he tries to explain this blame game away by saying it is so we can “understand how we arrived at this moment.” I though earlier he said, “You don't need to hear another list of statistics...” Isn’t this another statistic. Oh, I guess he meant not to list statistics that deal with his political parties motives and ideas.

He than gives us more statistics, our economy did not decline over night. He is absolutely correct, it began to decline in the 1990’s. Dot Com boom and bust anyone? The logical thing to do is blame the institution that caused this mess, the Federal Reserve, right?

Than, instead of confronting the institution that led to this crisis, he goes to social engineering, community organizer, "health care is to expensive and our schools are in decline so we need to socialize them" garbage. Our health care is... was the best in the world, until Nixon began to regulate it in the 1970's. HMO was the United States first socialization of medicine. It worked out great, our system is now second to the French!* The only logical solution is to give the people that wrecked health care more control, because that just makes sense. No one would ever to think to let doctors set their own prices and compete in the open market. No one would think to allow the pharmacutical companys to set their own prices. No, that would take lobbying out of medicine, and that would hurt the economy because it would take those jobs away – unless of course it is replaced by government jobs, than we should change it.

Education totals are also lies. Our schools are view to be equal to France and greater than Germany, Belgium, and other European Social Democracies.† I guess Germany needs to reorganize their education as well, they won’t be able to compete with those dirty Americans and French with their good high schools. Maybe he was thinking about colleges? American colleges consistently rank higher than French, German, Dutch, and other European colleges. The only competition is Cambridge in England (might I point out, it was establish a good many years before Harvard and Stanford, two school mainly competing for the number one spot on the college ranking sheets). Of the top ten univeristies, 8 are American (Harvard (1), Stanford (2), Cal Berkeley (3), MIT (5), CalTech (6), Columbia (7), Princeton (8), and University of Chicago (9)) of which 4 are private and 4 are public, and 2 are British public schools (Oxford (4) and Cambridge(10)). I guess we must assume that these two college represent the rest of the world and educate the rest of the world equally.ª

* "Sicko", Micheal Moore
† "Uberpower: The Imperial Temptation of America", Josef Joffe
ª http://www.arwu.org/rank2008/ARWU2008_A(EN).htm

World War Two Economics? Really?

"Not since World War II has America spent so much money so quickly. In the last two years, the United States has run up deficits that amount to a combined $2.5 trillion dollars -- almost a fourth of all the debt the nation has taken on in its entire history."
America's Deficit-Spending Spree Raises Alarms - Fox News

As Fox News proclaimed today, the government is spending money as quickly as it had during World War II. This idea would trouble the conservative spenders, who dislike deficits and understand basic economic principles. The said fact is that most students learn that World War II led the United States out of the Great Depression. The logic then becomes that this is a good thing for the country. But is it really good?

Let take a good hard look at what the result of these policy will lead. The youth of America will owe China and other friendly countries big bucks. The American dollar will be depreciated, like during the 1930's and 40's to reflect the large amount of cash in circulation. I know we all can't wait until and Hersey's Chocolate bar is $2.50 and a Coca-Cola is $3.00 at the Dollar Tree! Why would this be?

Basic economic law states that the more a good (money for example) is in the market, the lower the value. So, American money is being increased while those with the powers to end the mess (the Republicans under Bush and the Democrats under Obama) have done absolutely nothing to stop the spending. Ben Bernanke, continues to give the US government unlimited IOU's.

The Economy will correct itself, the longer we delay the inevitable, the worse it will be. Example, the Great Depression. The Great Depression shows us the fruits of the Federal Reserves labor. Past Recessions pale in comparison to this bust because the powers that be understood that when the government has control of an economy, such things will happen. The modern American is so concerned with the comfort of TV and Radio and Video Games that they are not willing to allow the economy to work.

"The Republican need to save us!" In the election year, the Republicans under Bush were willing to bail out anyone (unless you were the competitor for the Secretary of the Treasury's company!) and everyone. They lost, because the policy were going to fail! (and did)

"The Democrats need to save us!" After the Republicans failed by increasing speeding, the Democrats attempt to try the same thing! It like they actually wanted the Republicans to loose in order to do the exact same thing. The Democrats mixed it up a bit, they increased internal government spending along with giving the Banking and Auto industry money.

I guess we need to give up on the Democrats and Republicans, because they can't seem to figure out what every American family facing foreclosure has discovered – when a person, company, government, increases their spending without increasing their revenue they will face bankruptcy, other forms economic failure, or a combination of the two.

So, what does this have to do with Constitutional Thinking?
It is impossible for the Constitution to function properly if the people do not hold their elected officials accountable. The only way a person can hold an elected official accountable, is by threatening them with lose of office. But, as this situation has shown, the Democrat and Republican Parties show very little difference in policy choices. The only way we can get into their head that we, the People, do not want this spending, do not want this lifestyle, that we do not want to pay for the education of the Chinese and Iranian children with our tax dollars is by voting for third parties.

Libertarians, Constitutionalists, etc. They have not yet been corrupted by politics, and might be a way out politically.

Sources
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/first100days/2009/02/20/americas-deficit-spending-spree-raises-alarms/
Politically Incorrect Guide to Capitalism written by Robert P. Murphy
Politically Incorrect Guide to American History written by Thomas E. Woods Jr.

Gordon Brown's Economics

Yesterday, Gordon Brown announced "The Road to the London Summit, the Plan for Recovery." Apart of this document is the plan to set up an international board on the regulations of banks around the world. This board was questioned by the ABC News member of the press core. The response of PM Gordon Brown was to be lacking, as in he dodged the question all together. Brown's program would allow an international body of bankers to control all Federal and Private banks in the United States.

What does this have to do with Constitutional Thinking? President Obama is an international socialist, rated as the most leftist member of Congress in 2007. Obama is less than likely to "preserve... the Constitution of the United States" by fighting against an international regulation and internationalizing of the banking systems of the United States designed (according to Gordon Brown) to prevent American Banks from fleeing Europe (specifically Eastern Europe) in order to put domestic problems first. His overall stance on this initiative is as follows according to the Official White House agenda,

"To build an economy that can lead this future, we will begin to rebuild America. Yes, we’ll put people to work repairing crumbling roads, bridges, and schools by eliminating the backlog of well-planned, worthy and needed infrastructure projects. But we’ll also do more to retrofit America for a global economy."
(Italics added for emphasis)

Barrack Obama views the "retrofit" of the American towards a globalization as the infrastructure of the country, in the same light as roads, schools, and bridges. The Constitution, however, does not share this same view. On the contrary, the Tenth Amendment, which state, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." Due to the fact that banking regulation was not mentioned as a power of Congress under the First Article, the President under the Second Article, or the Judiciary under the Third Article, nor prohibited by the States under the Fourth Article; this power is given to the States, and not President Obama. The only Constitutional way that Obama would have the power to achieve this "retro fitting" is by a Constitutional Amendment giving the President the power to achieve this "retro fitting." It is safe to say that this proposal for G20 this year in London will be approved by Obama as an executive agreement between the United States and the World in order to "retro fit" the American economy with the Global Economic Unity projects of Europe, the Far Left, and the Neo-Conservative Movement (which ironically began under the popular President Bush). However, it is a matter of precedence, dating back to John Adams, for Presidents to ignore the Constitution and the Judiciary, dating back to John Marshal, to ignore the Presidential abuse.



Sources

1. http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-02-18-voa38.cfm
2. http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/news/display.var.2490170.0.Brown_unveils_economic_plan_for_recovery_within_months.php
3. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/feb/19/gordon-brown-apology
4. http://www.whitehouse.gov/agenda/economy/
5. http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html
6. C-SPAN presentation of Gordon Brown monthly address of the British Economy (2 - 19 - 09)
7. The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History written by Dr. Thomas Woods (Ph.D in American History)
8. The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Constitution written by Dr. Kevin R.C. Gutzman (J.D. and Ph.D in American History)