They’re the same as every president before him.
Obama sees inherited problems. I see inherited solutions. One of us is looking back much further. History provides every important detail of how we got into this mess. It also illuminates the path of escape. Tyranny can be reverse engineered.
"A government that has outgrown its Constitutional size cannot afford to talk substantively about its past." ~ LEXREX
Obama’s constant kvetching about "inherited problems" would be cause for an instant discharge for any executive in the real world of real business [where all Bailouts are unlawful]. It is akin to Homer Simpson’s: "It was like that when I got here." I don’t need to hear it. He was not drafted. He asked for the job. We could have elected Ron Paul.
It is the responsibility of the President to faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and, to the best of his Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. His duties are outlined in Article II of the Constitution. They do not include blaming previous presidents. They would necessarily include making things right that are out of line with Constitutional Mandates. This might include small details like prosecuting almost everyone in the top tiers of the financial rackets that have been erected despite the Constitution — instead of bailing them out. As we carefully read Article II we have to wonder how long it has been since a president took it to heart.
Precedent is no basis or excuse for executive function or authority. Sadly, we have also found it to be very popular within the judicial branch — which is by far the most corrupt, having known better since before day One. The judicial branch has knowingly excused a creeping, incremental departure from the rule of law. They are not just useful idiots. They have proven to be brilliant Seditionists.
In the real world we don’t just cite blame — we fix blame. For that we need some evidence; some history, some context, some forensics. Could it be our financial problems began when we first abandoned sound Constitutional principles related to lawful money and banking?
This is a really old problem:
Consider the political rhetoric during a "peaceful transition of power" documented in 1st Kings 12: "My father laid on you a heavy yoke [read u2018total burden of government’]; I will make it even heavier. My father scourged you with whips; I will scourge you with scorpions [read u2018unlawful trillions for bailouts on top of all the unlawful spending that preceded them — with more on the way’].”
The words were blurted out by Rehoboam, a young, overbearing new king, who had decided to ignore the wise old men who had served his father very well, and take the advice of his contemporaries and cronies who had no real wisdom or experience.
The old counselors had advised: "If thou wilt be a servant unto this people this day, and wilt serve them, and answer them, and speak good words to them, then they will be thy servants for ever." [The "good words" spoken of were to be in pursuance of the Law of Moses.]
If Obama, and the rest of us, would realize the inherited blame goes back through every administration including Washington’s; and if we would carefully heed the wisdom of all the old men who framed the Constitution as well as their contemporaries, and even their critics, we would have the most realistic hope of returning our society to the rule of law. Every president, and every generation must decide to pass the buck forward or backward, or take full responsibility for a sweeping correction which cannot be accomplished without returning to first principles. And we cannot return to first principles until we know them in full context.
Samuel Adams said it best: "But we want no excuse for any supposed mistakes of our ancestors. Let us first see it prov’d that they were mistakes. Till then we must hold ourselves obliged to them for sentiments transmitted to us so worthy of their character, and so important to our security…"
Please realize the statement above is as pregnant with meaning as an Obama or a Dubya speech is vacuous. Take it to heart and take it to brain. Sam incited our first Revolution. We have to go back to the place where we departed from the truth. And we have to study the original documents until we "get it."
Did Obama inherit the ability to read, carefully study, and obey the Constitution? If not, why not? Take all the in-between guys out and we find that Obama inherited the same Constitution we all had in the beginning. That is the "change" I will always be working for.
Does Obama say, "Here’s where Dubya [or any other president] disobeyed the written law — and this is another area in which my administration will obey it?" He might as well be saying, "Dubya chastised you with Whips, I will chastise you with Scorpions" or "Whereas Dubya’s deficits were in the Trillions, mine will be in the Quadrillions — and it is none of your damn business what I spend it on."
Will these Scorpions sting us or our grandchildren? Will there be a trace of American Liberty left for any of them to enjoy?
A partial list of major things plaguing us; things that we didn’t get from the Constitution — or any alleged flaw in the Constitution:
The Federal Reserve, Fiat Money, Toxic Paper, Standing Armies, Deficits, Federal Supremacy, Judicial Supremacy, Bailouts, The erosion of Habeas Corpus, Abuse of Eminent Domain, Gun laws, Foreign Aid, The Military Industrial Complex, Imperial Hubris.
As you can readily see, the partial list above contains hypertext links to corresponding Google searches at LewRockwell.com. In a sense, we are all Auditing the federal government all of the time — but without enough definitive data — or the proper accounting tools. We need to get into the forensic accounting phase and expose the magnitude of the Problem. For this I would enlist the Austrian School of Economists and have a few of them camped out in Congress and the White House, feeding unfiltered information directly to the American People, until we all realize not only the impossibility of "auditing" the Federal Reserve Banking System, but also the necessity of Abolishing it and eradicating it completely. The more we know, the more support there will be for shutting it down. Those who continue to worship at the Keynesian Altar will be more and more embarrassed as the lights are turned on. Right now their minions are locking arms. But the truth is on the side of Liberty.
Instead of going back to our founding principles, this administration is going back to the perpetrators of our most egregious financial problems — "the usual suspects" — and asking them for a fresh approach, while it perpetuates the addiction to military adventurism of the past few presidents. This is not enough of a change for me.
If Obama is as brilliant as advertised we may find he is also callous and cynical — because he is taking the country in a disastrous direction that has been tried many times before. The slope of hyperinflation is at hand. Like a black hole, the closer you get the more certain your extinction becomes. Yet Obama is not quoting anything I recognize from the wisest counselors of the past. Either they are wrong or he is wrong.
How can Obama have the gall to begin a pitch with words like, "Before we ask the American Taxpayer to foot the bill, we have to do such and such [where u2018such and such’ is some bizarre allusion to some form of virtual accountability]?" There is no accountability. The buck is passed backward and there is no accountability going forward. Obama is not asking you or me. He’s not asking the Founders and Framers. He is taking; stealing, misappropriating. It doesn’t seem as though he even has to ask the fawning Dems for anything. They are all as gaga as Nancy Pelosi. The Republicans seem to be either dazed or daft. They are still not humbled enough to eat Ron Paul’s Crow.
A few presidents have made manly attempts to return to the rule of law.
Bastiat maintained that government cannot lawfully commit an act that would be unlawful for any individual. His reasoning in this is unassailable as far as I have been able to determine.
In Luke 11:11—13 we find another Biblical reference to the friendly Scorpion: "If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?"
Do you, do I, know enough about Liberty to bequeath it to our children and grandchildren?
“Honour, justice and humanity call upon us to hold, and to transmit to our posterity, that liberty, which we received from our ancestors. It is not our duty to leave wealth to our children: but it is our duty, to leave liberty to them. No infamy, iniquity, or cruelty can exceed our own, if we, born and educated in a country of freedom, entitled to its blessings, and knowing their value, pusillanimously deserting the post assigned to us by Divine Providence, surrender succeeding generations to a condition of wretchedness, from which no human efforts, in all probability, will be sufficient to extricate them; the experience of all states mournfully demonstrating to us, that when arbitrary power has been established over them, even the wisest and bravest nations, that ever flourished, have, in a few years, degenerated into abject and wretched vassals.” [from the Resolutions of Committee for the Province of Pennsylvania — 1774]
Exercise: Get a transcript of Anything Obama is saying. Check to see how it corresponds to the Founding Principles or the Communist Manifesto. Make the same comparisons/contrasts with anything his cronies are saying. Repeat as necessary. Find someone to mentor. Many of you are already doing this. You are the Liberty Choir.
Keep Singing! Louder!
