by J.R. Dunn

There comes a moment in a failing presidency where the incumbent, through some single gesture, action, or statement, crosses a certain line from beyond which there is no return. Through his own will and behavior he so underlines his failings, so frames his negative image, that no further action can ever erase it. Fate, accident, and circumstance have nothing to do with it. It is the president himself who puts the period at the end of his own sentence.

Such moments are obvious in retrospect, though not always at the time. With Richard Nixon, it was the “eighteen-minute gap.” An oval office tape recording turned over to Judge John Sirica, who was overseeing the investigation of the Watergate incident, turned out to have a lengthy period of silence smack dab in the middle of a conversation between Nixon and chief of staff H.R. Haldeman. The White House claimed that Rose Mary Woods, the president’s secretary, had inadvertently hit the wrong button for those eighteen minutes. This might well have been true, but in light of Nixon’s long reputation as Tricky Dick, it sounded like the cock-and-bull story to end them all. Nixon had been holding his own in the Watergate battle up to that point. The voting public viewed the uproar with bemusement rather than indignation. But the tape gap finished him. In less than a year, he was forced into resignation.

For Jimmy Carter, it was the “malaise speech” of July 15, 1979, in which he attempted to shuffle the blame for his tepid performance as president from his own administration onto the shoulders of the American people. Carter claimed that a national “crisis of confidence” (he never actually used the word “malaise”) made it impossible for him to adequately grapple with the country’s problems. It was America’s fault, not Jimmy Carter’s. The public reaction was open disgust and the abject collapse of any support for the Carter presidency.

With Obama, we have an abundance of riches: the multiple vacations, the legal harassment of the state of Arizona on behalf of illegals, the clownish response to the Gulf oil blowout. But when historians come to select the moment when Obama went over the edge of the world, I think they’ll find the great Iftar mosque speech of August 13, 2010 hard to beat.

During a White House dinner celebrating Ramadan the president found it appropriate to come out in favor of religious freedom. Not in support of Christians being attacked by janjaweed gunmen, or Bahais tormented by Iranian mullahs, or Jews being stalked by assassins, or even American citizens being told that they cannot pray in public, but in favor of a shadowy foreign foundation with suspicious financing and disturbing Jihadi connections that wishes to build some kind of victory monument congruent to the site of the 9/11 massacre.

These doomsday statements work by putting previous suspicions and surmises about the president — always negative — into sharp relief, acting as verification and confirmation. Nixon had suffered a reputation as a conniver since his knock-down, drag-out 1950 battle against Helen Gahagan Douglas (it was Douglas who coined the “Tricky Dick” nickname). The tape gap fit so perfectly into that narrative as to crowd out everything else. Carter’s inept performance as president was rendered even harder to bear by his continual sanctimony and moral preening. The malaise speech merely added the patina of a whiner.

With Obama, suspicions have involved his status as an American. The foreign parentage, the registration in an Indonesian school noting him as a Muslim, the uproar over the birth certificate, aroused misgivings that, despite media scorn heaped upon those noting them, he has never quite been able to put to rest. As of last weekend, his opportunities to do so are ended. Impressions trump arguments, and for most of the country, Obama will, from here on in, be a strange and untrustworthy figure — a man who does not understand what Ground Zero means to America, who utilizes American law and custom to support foreign interests, who speaks to strangers more clearly than to his own.

Nothing either Nixon or Carter did enabled them to recover from their faux pas. Even as the tape gap story broke, Nixon was supervising a massive airlift of supplies and ammunition to Israel, which was involved in life-or-death struggle against massive Arab attack in the Yom Kippur War. It gained him nothing, scarcely earning a mention amid all the public speculation about Watergate. Less than three months after the Carter speech, Iranian “students” (actually professional revolutionaries under the control of the Ayatollah Khomeini) sacked the American embassy in Tehran, taking nearly a hundred American hostages. I can attest that I was not alone in thinking, “Great — and we’ve got Mr. Malaise is charge.” The year-and a-half-long hostage crisis, climaxed by the disastrous Eagle Claw rescue mission, hastened the collapse of the worst presidency of the later 20th century.

The past two years are the best Obama will ever see. The real crises of his presidency are still to come, and are easily visible as they move toward us — Iran, terrorism, the economy, the collapse of the national health care system hastened by his own policies. He will meet them under a cloud of his own making, attempting to overcome them as a president who takes endless vacations, who will not defend his country’s borders, who sat out the Gulf oil crisis, who overlooks the sacrifices of his own countrymen in favor of dubious foreign figures.

The tide has gone out for Barack Obama. It is all epilogue from here on in.

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History is a great teacher. It often provides clues that enable us to understand the present and future.

Ancient regimes’ concept of divine right of kings seems pertinent to today. Wikipedia offers as good a summary as any:

The Divine Right of Kings is a political and religious doctrine of royal absolutism. It asserts that a monarch is subject to no earthly authority, deriving his right to rule directly from the will of God. The king is thus not subject to the will of his people, the aristocracy, or any other estate of the realm, including the church.

The phrase “not subject to the will of his people” is an appropriate similarity to contemporary times.

Divine right was based on a metaphysical assertion. Despite “ultimate authority,” kings engaged “intellectuals” to provide supporting propaganda for the claim. Their efforts worked for a long time. As late as 1729, Thomas Paine saw fit to speak about the lingering right of heredity:

…the idea of hereditary legislators is as inconsistent as that of hereditary judges, or hereditary juries; and as absurd as an hereditary mathematician, or an hereditary wise man; and as ridiculous as an hereditary poet laureate.

We do not believe in the divine right of elected representatives, although some of them seem to.

The interesting parallel to today is the ancient regimes’ use of “intellectuals” as court propagandists. The same model exists today. The propagandists who led our country to its current dismal state, it seems to me, are economists. Today’s metaphysicians are called economic advisers. The Keynesian model is their tool for increased and activist government.

To many, the Keynesian myth is every bit as metaphysical as the divine right of kings. Gary North provides an evaluation that should unnerve Keynesians:

Ever since the third quarter of 2008, the nation’s nominal GDP has increased by a tiny $100 billion, but the Federal debt has increased by 25 times the GDP increase.

It has taken $25 of Federal deficits to produce $1 of GDP growth. This marks a major anomaly for Keynesian economic theory. The justification for government deficits in Keynesian theory is that government spending restores economic growth. Money spent by the private sector does not increase economic growth in a recession; government spending does. This has never made any economic sense, but now the non-response of the economy is exposing this original nonsense for what it always was: nonsense.

The ineffectiveness of Keynesian policies is a surprise only to those who worship at the Keynesian Temple. Many non-Keynesians accurately predicted that recent interventions would make conditions worse.

The Faustian bargain between some of the economics profession and the political class was struck after Keynes’ General Theory was published during the Great Depression. Keynes’ ideas provided cover for politicians to take increasing control of the economy due to its alleged instability. Government management was deemed necessary for consistent growth and wealth creation. For politicians, that was nirvana. For economists, it provided wealth and power in the form of government service. All they had to do was please the king and his court.

The Faustian partnership is now unraveling, despite the protestations of Keynesians. Worshipers like Paul Krugman claim that the economy would be worse if the Keynesian potions had not been applied.

The sacrosanct Keynesian paradigm is never doubted by true believers. All problems are assumed solvable by injection of more poison into the patient. There is no other solution. If results are less than expected, it is always the fault of practitioners who failed to administer enough medicine in a timely manner.

As the world economy implodes, the mountebanks are increasingly seen for what they are — descendants of the court advisers who supported the divine rights of kings. They are alchemists paid to support the divine right of government. It is their role to provide the intellectual support for the growth of government at the expense of the will of the people. These paid political hacks are little different from prostitutes or hired guns. They are the whores of the economics profession.

Let me be clear that I am not calling all Keynesians whores. Some are just plain ignorant. (Neither category is flattering.) Many are technocrats who have mastered mathematical techniques from prestige universities. Like idiot savants, they are brilliant with models, but not intelligent enough to know that aggregate models have nothing to do with individual human behavior. A wag’s characterization of Paul Samuelson seems appropriate to describe these types: “He is the best physicist that the economics profession has ever produced.”

Now their franchise is in danger. Their fingerprints are all over disasters like the Post Office, Amtrak, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and too many others to mention. Despite their best efforts and promises, there is no recovery coming in the economy. Keynesianism is under attack around the world.

It is times like these that paradigm shifts occur. Thomas Kuhn wrote about the difficulties of such shifts in the natural sciences. Vested interests were not easy to overcome, even with contradictory data. That does not bode well for changing the Keynesian paradigm in the social sciences where the vested interests are more numerous and powerful.

There are reasons to be pessimistic:

First, virtually every politician and bureaucrat favors the status quo. It has produced pay, retirement benefits, power and prestige relative to their counterparts in the private sector. There is no risk of unemployment of your employee relocating or going out of business. It is a sheltered overcompensated life that few would willingly change regardless of political affiliation.

Second, big media favors big government and big spending. They understand little about anything, especially economics. The Daily Bell discussed this shortcoming with respect to Time Magazine’s recent article on Economics and concluded:

Here is a woman who writes about economics for millions and whose platform is arguably the most prestigious magazine of its type during the 20th century. Yet both she and her editors allow her to publish an article that betrays such ignorance that the feedbacks beneath the article are of far more value than her own erroneous musings. When that happens, you’ve got a problem.

Third, major corporations are dependent upon various corporate welfare items, contracts and tax loopholes that they are unwilling to give up.

Fourth, 47% of individuals pay no income tax. These individuals have the incentive to vote for larger government because they are “free-riders.”

Fifth, the elderly receive Medicare and Social Security. Presumably they paid into these systems during their earning years. When someone talks about government reform, they see their primary source of income threatened — “they are trying to take away my benefits. How will I live?”

Sixth, the balance of the population is generally unable to determine whether they are winners or losers from government. There are too many programs and regulations to make such a calculation. Many deem a particular program or regulation good because they do not know its costs. Even if proper cost determinations could be made, the calculation is terribly biased because of deficit spending. Deficit spending is close to 50% of total spending. If people compare what they pay in taxes as the costs of these programs, they fool themselves by being biased toward government spending.

Seventh, intellectual arguments cannot overthrow the Keynesian paradigm. Unlike the natural sciences, replicated laboratory tests of a hypothesis are not possible. Proof in the social sciences is never as definitive as in the physical sciences.

Vested interests are much greater than Kuhn described in the natural sciences. No constituent group supports a move toward smaller government. Eventually the truth outs, at least in the natural sciences. Will that happen in the social sciences? Will we overthrow the false paradigm of Keynesian economics? Will big government be able to be rolled back? These are questions that only the passage of time will reveal.

The Keynesian paradigm has gone on too long. It is likely that it cannot continue much longer. Rational evaluation will not kill it. It will die from self-immolation. It will perish in the flames that consume our economy. Consensus that it is dead will probably only come when the economy has reached a similarly terminal condition.

One hopes that this tragedy unfolds fast enough that our freedom still remains. If so, we will rise from the ashes painfully but quickly. If not the world may enter an Economic Dark Ages.

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By Monty Pelerin

Obama’s election was supposed to transform America, at least in his mind.

This country’s first socialist president strode into office confident that he would remake this country. Fortunately for the country, the timing of his election was twenty, if not fifty, years too late. Socialism has failed in its pure form wherever it has been tried. Now it has failed in its modified form. While much of the world realizes this, President Obama is either ignorant or has more sinister plans for the country.

In the 1920s, Ludwig von Mises demonstrated via economic reasoning why socialism could not work. His argument was that without market prices, there was no way to properly allocate resources. About ten years later, Friedrich Hayek supported Mises’ conclusion from a different angle. He approached it as a “knowledge problem” and argued that no central authority, regardless of how intelligent, could possess enough information to make proper and efficient decisions for tens of millions of people and businesses.

History validated the theory of the two Austrian economists. Russia, China, Eastern Europe, Cuba, and North Korea produced inevitable the misery, poverty, and brutality. The two countries that continue the system are amongst the poorest countries in the world, held together only by totalitarian rule and outside economic support.

With the recognition that socialism did not work, “do-gooders” changed their efforts to a system that would be part capitalism and part socialism. They believed that capitalism could be used for resource allocation while the “caring nature” of socialism could ensure equitable distribution of wealth. President Clinton expressed interest in what was then referred to as a “third-way.” Western Europe had adopted this approach decades earlier.

Interestingly, Mises argued that a “third way” could not work, either. In the 1940s, Mises demonstrated that one intervention begets additional interventions. A so-called mixed system is nothing more than capitalism with interventionism imposed. Mises showed that any such system eventually degenerates into full-fledged socialism. In a collection of essays entitled “Planning for Freedom,” Mises concluded:

There is no other alternative to totalitarian slavery than liberty. There is no other planning for freedom and general welfare than to let the market system work. There is no other means to attain full employment, rising real wage rates and a high standard of living for the common man than private initiative and free enterprise.

The countries of Western Europe have, as Mises predicted, deteriorated into social welfare states likely never imagined or intended at their inceptions. As full-blown socialism approached, these countries became insolvent. Soon all will be forced to either dismantle their welfare states or incur sovereign defaults. The U.S., while never formally adopting either socialism or the mixed system, drifted into the mixed system by gradually adopting many socialist programs. As a result, the U.S. faces the same future of insolvency as its European counterparts.

In terms of history, the mixed system dates back only to Bismarck in the 1880s. It was initiated in a few countries in the first quarter of the twentieth century. Its widespread acceptance occurred after World War II, when several countries chose not to return to the decentralized economies that existed prior to the war. England was the prime example. Industries nationalized for the war effort remained nationalized after the war. England rapidly devolved into a third-rate economy as a result. Prime Minister Thatcher reversed the decline by re-privatizing most of these industries.

It took only about fifty to seventy years for the mixed systems to fail. That is literally a moment in terms of history. Many people are still reluctant to admit that socialism is a failure despite the theoretical warnings and the actual failures themselves. With socialists, it is never the system and always the people that are the cause of failure. “If only we had better leaders.” As Hayek and Mises pointed out, it has nothing to do with leadership. There is a fatal flaw in the concept.

As a result of attempting to extend the socialist myth, governments and their populations are now burdened with debt, much of which will never be paid. We are on the verge of a worldwide depression that will hit as governments run out of resources. It is likely that politicians will continue to play the game of “extend and pretend.” But we have reached Ms. Thatcher’s end-point: “The problem with socialism is that you run out of other people’s money.”

How ironic that President Obama’s first major achievement was ObamaCare. In May, Greece was ordered to privatize its health care system. This month, it was reported that England was going to overhaul their health care system. England was frequently referenced as a model of affordable, efficient health care by ObamaCare advocates. Apparently, the English government and its people view it differently.

These instances are not one-time events. Nor will they be limited to health care. The welfare states of Europe will soon be dismantled in part or whole. So too will the entitlement programs in the U.S. The laws of economics and physics are immutable. They are above legislation. Countries do not have the resources necessary to honor their commitments, period!

Our Founding Fathers, without using the term socialism, designed a Constitution to protect against such incoherent schemes. Over time, the Constitution was vitiated by “living document” interpretations, penumbras, and other nonsense. Now, the U.S. stands on the precipice of failure just as Western Europe. It is insolvent, and there are no other alternatives than to default or dismantle.

The world is at a very dangerous inflection point. We are about to enter a depression. Politicians are not going to back away from socialism willingly. They and large numbers of other beneficiaries will do whatever they can to retain the status quo. Despite the unequivocal failure of the modern welfare state, it is unlikely to disappear quietly. The status quo is always difficult to change. It becomes especially so in desperate economic times and for people who believe they are entitled to be taken care of by others.

The welfare state is headed for the dustbin of history. That is certain because it is no longer sustainable. The critical question is what will replace it. As Mises pointed out, there are only two alternatives: freedom or totalitarianism. There is no middle ground. There is no political compromise that can bridge this gap.

Regardless of which side of the issue you are on, the battle will be bitter and likely last a decade or more. Economically, everyone will be hurt, including many of the “well-off.” Whether our moral and ethical code is strong enough to get through this together is moot. We are not like our ancestors in the sense of their strong commitment to community, responsibility, forbearance, and integrity. We are the pampered generation, entitled to gratification now and willing to cut corners to get it.

In many ways, this problem is more serious than that faced by our Founding Fathers. After all, King George had little control over their lives or fortunes. Yet these principled men risked both rather than accept even a little bit of tyranny. Theirs was a fight of principle; ours is one of survival. The fight is made more important when it is coupled with a depression. We know what monsters rose to power during the last depression and their effect on the world.

We will either get liberty or totalitarianism. There is no middle ground. For me, the choice is clear and was stated by Patrick Henry more than two centuries ago: “Give me liberty or give me death.”

I am willing to sacrifice just as much as our Founding Fathers did so that my grandchildren and their grandchildren can live in the same country I grew up in. I hope enough others feel the same.

Monty Pelerin blogs at www.economicnoise.com.

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By Bob Unruh

We have a man in White House who brazenly disregards his oath of office

A former congressman and GOP presidential candidate says for current members of the House and Senate to uphold their oath of office that includes the defense of the United States against enemies “foreign and domestic,” they need to be filing impeachment charges against Barack Obama.

Former U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., joined what has become a growing surge of those recommending the ultimate solution for a president they believe not only has disagreeable policies, but is participating in actions that damage the nation.

Tancredo wrote in a opinion piece in the Washington Times that, “Mr. Obama’s refusal to live up to his own oath of office – which includes the duty to defend the United States against foreign invasion – requires senators and representatives to live up to their oaths. Members of Congress must defend our nation against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Today, that means bringing impeachment charges against Mr. Obama.”

The ultimate guide to Obama’s radical agenda – and how to stop it!

Tancredo is not the first to raise the idea of impeachment against Obama, who has implemented legislation and policies effectively nationalizing financial institutions, automobile companies, health care and many other previously private interests.

In fact, he was not even the only person on this particular day. Times columnist Jeffrey T. Kuhner, who also is president of the Edmund Burke Institute, wrote at the same time, “President Obama has engaged in numerous high crimes and misdemeanors. The Democratic majority in Congress is in peril as Americans reject his agenda. Yet more must be done: Mr. Obama should be impeached.”

Kuhner continued, “He is slowly – piece by painful piece – erecting a socialist dictatorship. We are not there – yet. But he is putting America on that dangerous path. He is undermining our constitutional system of checks and balances; subverting democratic procedures and the rule of law; presiding over a corrupt, gangster regime; and assaulting the very pillars of traditional capitalism. Like Venezuela’s leftist strongman, Hugo Chavez, Mr. Obama is bent on imposing a revolution from above – one that is polarizing America along racial, political and ideological lines. Mr. Obama is the most divisive president since Richard Nixon. His policies are Balkanizing the country. It’s time for him to go.”

Tancredo’s arguments aren’t complicated. During his brief presidential run in 2008 he focused on the border security issue of the United States, and he still is concerned that the failure to secure the U.S. boundary – especially with Mexico – will lead to tragic consequences at the hands of border-crossing terrorists.

Tancredo appeared on Fox News today to defend his position from skeptics, saying Obama’s responsibility is to protect and defend the Constitution and the United States, not “fundamentally transform” them.

“Our president is an enemy of our Constitution, and, as such, he is a danger to our safety, our security and our personal freedoms,” Tancredo warns, affirming his belief that Obama is more dangerous for the United States than al-Qaida.

“He is more dangerous simply because he is inside,” he said. “Few people took him seriously about fundamentally transforming America. That is what he is all about. That is what he has set about doing. He is a committed ideologue. When you have someone like that in the White House, it is a scary proposition.”

He cited the president’s lack of action to adequately secure the border with Mexico.

“He’s putting his country in danger,” Tancredo said. “The country the Founders put together, that’s what’s in jeopardy.”

“Barack Obama is one of the most powerful presidents this nation has seen in generations. He is powerful because he is supported by large majorities in Congress, but, more importantly, because he does not feel constrained by the rule of law. Whether he is putting up the weakest possible defense of the Defense of Marriage Act despite the Justice Department’s legal obligation to support existing law; disenfranchising Chrysler and GM bondholders in order to transfer billions of investor dollars to his supporters in the United Auto Workers; or implementing yet a third offshore oil-drilling moratorium even after two federal courts have thrown out two previous moratoriums, President Obama is determined to see things done his way regardless of obstacles,” Tancredo wrote in his op-ed.

“To Mr. Obama, the rule of law is a mere inconvenience to be ignored, overcome or ‘transcended’ through international agreements or ‘norms.’”

Tancredo wrote that the “dedicated Marxist who lives in the White House” holds power over budgets, the judiciary, national defense and health care. As such, “his regime and his program are not just about changing public policy in the conventional sense. When one considers the combination of his stop-at-nothing attitude, his contempt for limited government, his appointment of judges who want to create law rather than interpret it – all of these make this president today’s single greatest threat to the great experiment in freedom that is our republic.

“Yes, Mr. Obama is a more serious threat to America than al-Qaida. We know that Osama bin Laden and followers want to kill us, but at least they are an outside force against whom we can offer our best defense. But when a dedicated enemy of the Constitution is working from the inside, we face a far more dangerous threat. Mr. Obama can accomplish with the stroke of his pen what bin Laden cannot accomplish with bombs and insurgents.”

Tancredo, who served five terms representing Colorado and now is chairman of the Rocky Mountain Foundation, was joined by Kuhner, who accused Obama of abusing his office and violating his oath.

Kuhner cited Obama’s demand that all Americans buy health insurance.

“The federal government does not have the right to coerce every citizen to purchase a good or service. This is not in the Constitution, and it represents an unprecedented expansion of power,” he wrote. “Yet Obamacare’s most pernicious aspect is its federal funding of abortion. Pro-lifers are now compelled to have their tax dollars used to subsidize insurance plans that allow for the murder of unborn children. This is more than state-sanctioned infanticide. It violates the conscience rights of religious citizens.”

He further cited Obama’s actions regarding the BP oil spill.

“There is a legal process for claims to be adjudicated, but Mr. Obama has behaved more like Mr. Chavez or Russia’s Vladimir Putin: He has bullied BP into setting up a $20 billion compensation fund administered by an Obama appointee. In other words, the assets of a private company are to be raided to serve a political agenda.”

He also wrote about the takeovers in the auto and financial industries, and the New Black Panther case.

“Under Mr. Obama, the Constitution has become a meaningless scrap of paper,” he said. “As president, he is supposed to respect the rule of law. Instead, his administration has dropped charges of voter intimidation against members of the New Black Panther Party. This was done even though their menacing behavior was caught on tape: men in military garb brandishing clubs and threatening whites at a polling site.”

Tancredo nearly two months ago broached the subject of impeachment, suggesting an “impeachment file.”

“I believe there is a growing body of evidence of impeachable offenses sufficient to warrant a formal impeachment resolution in the House, followed by a trial in the Senate,” he wrote at the time.

And the suggestion even has come from onlookers at a presidential appearance. CNN has documented when Obama made a surprise visit to a crowd on a shuttle bus, one onlooker shouted, “When are you going to quit. When are you going to be impeached?”

The issue even has appeared among online gamers, when Microsoft told an Xbox user the signon name “Impeach Obama” was not allowed because, “If you were President Obama, how would you feel if someone wanted to impeach you?”

Floyd and Mary Beth Brown, in a column on WND, discussed the ImpeachObamaCampaign.com that they launched.

They reported that many, instead of examining the evidence, attacked the messengers.

“We expected these attacks,” they reported. But they said the unresolved issues include:

• Gerald Walpin, inspector general of the Corporation for National and Community Service, investigated Kevin Johnson, a big buddy of the president, for misuse of funds from an AmeriCorps grant. Obama did not like Walpin’s investigation and findings, whereupon he vindictively fired Walpin to cover for his friend, Johnson. A subsequent investigation vindicated Walpin’s judgment in the matter.
• Barack Obama oversaw the effective takeover by government of banks, the largest insurance company (AIG), General Motors and Chrysler – the bulk of the U.S. auto industry – thus stripping bondholders, shareholders and others of their personal property.
• Barack Obama is actively pursuing cap-and-trade legislation. Instead of taxing the very air we breathe, it will instead, in a manner of speaking, tax the air we exhale, giving the government unprecedented control over the economy and American businesses. Those taxed businesses will then pass the fees onto the American people.
• Spending American citizens’ money, Barack Hussein Obama is running up our debt at an alarming rate. In just the nine months since Obama assumed office, our national debt has gone up by over a trillion dollars. To put that figure in perspective, it took George W. Bush eight years to add $4.8 trillion to the national debt.
• And, to add insult to injury, Obama is printing money like it’s going out of style. The effect will be hyperinflation, a crippling of our economy and, quite possibly, personal hardship on a scale that has not been experienced since the Great Depression.
• Barack Hussein Obama appointed countless “czars” to oversee everything from the closing of Guantanamo to the food we eat. These czars don’t have to be approved by the Senate. The czars have unprecedented power and report only to Obama. Members of both parties are disturbed by these extra-constitutional excrescences. Sen. Robert Byrd said: “The accumulation of power by White House staff can threaten the constitutional system of checks and balances.” Rep. Jack Kingston called the czars a “parallel government.”
• And finally, Obama consistently refuses to approve the release of his actual birth certificate, college transcripts and his medical records. Is he trying to hide something that will threaten his presidency?

Retired U.S. Maj. Gen. Paul E. Vallely, a noted military leader who now is a presence on the Internet with his Stand Up For America and Veterans Defenders websites, told WND he would like Obama to resign.

Vallely, who served in Vietnam and retired in 1991 from the U.S. Army as deputy commanding general for the Pacific, said, “We now must call for the immediate resignation of Barry Soetero (AKA President Barack Hussein Obama) … based on incompetence, deceit, fraud, corruption, dishonesty and violation of the U.S. oath of office and the Constitution.”

“We can wait no longer for a traditional change of power and new government,” he has warned.

“‘We the People’ have had enough. Enough is enough. The Obama White House and identifiable members of Congress are now on a progressive socialist, treasonous death march and are bankrupting and weakening the country. We have watched them violate their sacred oath of office. ‘We, the People’ cannot wait for and solely rely on the next round of elections in November of this year. It is now and each day that these public servants must put the citizen’s interests above self-interest by resigning immediately,” he said.

Peter Ferrara, on the American Spectator website, also has predicted Obama’s resignation.

“I am now ready to predict that President Obama will not even make it [to 2012],” he wrote. “I predict that he will resign in discredited disgrace before the fall of 2012,” Ferrera said.

Opinion by ImpeachCongress: Fellow Americans, we are at a crossroads here in America. We either stand up for our country as the founding fathers bequeathed it to us or we roll over and give up our Liberty. It is our choice. There are “designing men” as George Washington put it that want to destroy the very Liberty that America stands for and our forefathers fought for to further their own personal power.

We are a nation of free individuals. We cannot succumb to the progressive onslaught on our freedom. We must stand up, united, against the tyranny of the federal government and send the message this November that the progressive liberals in Congress are done. Once Constitutional Conservatives have gained control of both Houses we must begin to dismantle the past 110 years of progressive influence on our Country.

The first order of business will be to either impeach Obama or force his resignation followed by the criminal trials he so deserves. Second, we bring impeachment proceedings against any remaining Representatives and Senators, that were not voted out in November, that have been complicit in this great fraud on the American People. And, finally, we begin the arduous task of undoing the mess of laws and bureaucracies that have strangled our Liberty for one hundred years. Close the department of education and the IRS. Repeal the internal revenue code and replace it with a fair and simple flat tax. Put education back into the hands of State and Local government. Repeal the seventeenth amendment and scale federal government back to the seventeen enumerated powers granted it in the Constitution. We must unite around these principals and take back our country!

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Democratic and Republican leadership in both the House and Senate have named 43 individuals to a conference committee tasked with hammering out the final version of the Congress’ financial regulatory reform legislation.

These members comprise just 8 percent of Congress, but the group has been far more likely to benefit from Wall Street’s cash.

Out of every $100 that Wall Street interests have contributed to sitting members of Congress over the years, $16 has gone to a member of the financial reform conference committee, the Center for Responsive Politics has found.

Since 1989, all political action committees and individual employees of companies classified by the Center as part of the finance, insurance and real estate sector (FIRE) have contributed more than $695 million to the campaign committees and leadership PACs of current members of the 111th Congress.

More than $112 million from these interests has benefited the Democrats and Republicans named to the conference committee, which will reconcile differences between the Wall Street reform measures passed by the House and Senate.

Among specific interest groups within the FIRE sector, commercial banks were found to have given about $18 to a member of the conference committee out of every $100 donated to all current members of Congress.

Securities and investment interests have given $1 out of every $5 to a member of the conference committee, the Center for Responsive Politics found.

And people and political action committees associated with credit and finance companies have given nearly $1 out of every $4 donated to members of the conference committee.

The median amount of contributions from Wall Street interests received by the committee’s 16 House and Senate Republicans ($1.75 million) is 81 percent larger than the median amount received by the committee’s 27 Democrats ($969,600) — although the parties have received nearly the same amount when one compares averages.

The conferees who have received the most from the FIRE sector since 1989 are Sens. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Conn.). Schumer has received more than $17.5 million, while Dodd has received more than $15.1 million.

The next highest recipient of contributions from Wall Street interests has received less than half as much as either Schumer or Dodd. Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), the ranking Republican member of the Senate Banking Committee, has collected more than $7.5 million.

The eight-figure sums collected by Schumer and Dodd increase the Democrats’ average as a whole.

Thanks in large part to their hauls from Wall Street, Senate Democrats on the conference committee have received an average of 72 percent more from the FIRE sector than Senate Republican on the conference committee.

When comparing medians, Senate Republicans named to the conference committee have received 3 percent more than their Democratic counterparts.

Among House members named to the conference committee, Republicans have collected more from Wall Street interests, when comparing both the median and average amounts.

The median amount received from the FIRE sector by House Republicans on the conference committee is double the Democratic median.

And the average haul from Wall Street interests by House Republicans on the conference committee is 60 percent large than the average among Democrats on the committee.

For more detailed information about the summary figures, and the breakdown of all FIRE contributions to the 43 members of the conference committee, you can download a spreadsheet of the data here: FinReg Money.xls

(If you use this information, please be sure to credit the Center for Responsive Politics.)

You can also see the FIRE contributions to all members of the 111th Congress here as part of the financial tools available in our “Crossing Wall Street” series.

Source: Center for Responsive Politics and OpenSecrets.org

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In order for a free people to self-govern, they must be virtuous and moral. Without these traits as a people, they will sink into despotism.

Samuel Adams pointed out a sobering fact concerning our political survival as a free people when he said:

“But neither the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt. He therefore is the truest friend to the liberty of his country who tries most to promote its virtue, and who, so far as his power and influence extend, will not suffer a man to be chosen into any office of power and trust who is not a wise and virtuous man.”

(emphasis added)

He then went on to say that public officials should not be chosen if they are lacking in experience, training, proven virtue, and demonstrated wisdom. He said the task of the electorate is to choose those whose “fidelity has been tried in the nicest and tenderest manner, and has been ever firm and unshaken.”

If we look at our current leadership, we have chosen a President who is neither virtuous or moral. He is, at a minimum, a socialist and more likely a communist. Moreover, it is highly likely that he is neither a Natural Born Citizen nor a legal Naturalized Citizen of the United States. This is a very serious matter that has been utterly ignored by the courts and the press in order to perpetrate a fraud on the American People. It is the highest treason that our founding fathers would never have tolerated. They took great care and consideration to be certain that a leader with dual loyalties could never hold the highest office in the land.

Indeed, our Congressional leadership is worse! These people were “hired” by us to represent us and what have they done? They have defrauded the very people that elected them by allowing an unqualified candidate to run for and get elected to the Presidency. What immoral cowards! Yet, we the people have failed ourselves in choosing people of such low mortality to begin with. We deserve to suffer the consequences of our actions. Our actions are representative of the low moral character that we, as a nation, have sunk to and this has been driven by the long term undermining of education in America. In our complacency, we have allowed a liberal takeover of education which in turn is indoctrinating our children against the very Constitution that protects them.

So, what do we do? We seek out leaders of High Virtue and Morality!

Below is letter from Eugene DiSimone, Candidate for Governor of Nevada to James Gibbons, Governor of the State of Nevada. In no uncertain terms, he is spelling out all that is wrong with the current deficit of virtue and morality with the current President and Congress. The call is there for Governor Gibbons to proceed with Quo Worranto proceedings against the President and redress for the seizure of States rights with the Healthcare Bill. Each branch of government have usurped power from the states and claimed it for themselves. Clearly in violation of the Constitution.

Mr. Eugene “Gino” DiSimone
Candidate, Governor of Nevada 2010
17810 Thunder River Dr.
Reno, NV 89508

March 27, 2010

Mr. James A. Gibbons
Governor State of Nevada
101 N. Carson Street
Carson City, NV 89701

Dear Governor Gibbons:

I adjure you, nay, I require you, as the duly elected Governor of my State exercising the duty of Commander in Chief of Nevada, to immediately take action to protect my freedom, liberty, property and wealth, as your duty utterly requires. To this end I require you file a legal challenge, Quo Warranto (D.C. Statute 35 §16-3501), on the authority of BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA II, a/k/a BARRY SOETORO requiring proof that he is eligible to be President of the United States of America, and he has the constitutional authority to act as President of the United States and to execute the Health Care Bill. This Bill is a direct threat to my freedom, liberty, wealth and property. It threatens nearly every citizen of Nevada and nearly every business of Nevada as it will forcefully extract, under duress, my/our wealth and property. This is an acute direct security threat and I require swift aggressive intervention for assurances of security from my Commander in Chief of this great State of Nevada.

By virtue of this acute security threat to me and Nevada citizenry and businesses, as Commander in Chief, it is your solemn sworn duty to protect me/us from acute security threats, particularly threats to my freedoms, liberties, health, wealth and property. To this end I demand you exercise your sworn duty to protect us with expediency as follows:

1. File (directly from the Governor of Nevada) a legal challenge, Quo Warranto (D.C. Statute 35 §16-3501), on the eligibility and authority of BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA II, a/k/a BARRY SOETORO requiring exacting legal proof of the specific constitutionally defined and required form, such that he is eligible to be President and has constitutionally granted Presidential signature authority of the legal and correct form – not withstanding substitute documents are not authorized by the U.S. Constitution.
2. Submit an Executive Order staying all provisions, actions, or other measures of the Health Care Bill, and further enacting such measures as is required to guarantee the security of the citizens and businesses toward our freedoms, liberties, wealth and property against all efforts to infringe them as is written in the Health Care Bill.
3. Submit a Proclamation of Resolutions, listed in items ‘a’ through ‘l’ below and adopted in large part from the Resolutions of 1798, making null and void the Health Care Bill, claiming the State of Nevada reasserts constitutional authority and sovereignty over all powers not expressly delegated to the United States nor prohibited to it by the US Constitution.

1. Be It Resolved: The Health Care Bill of Congress, signed by the President on the 23th day of March, 2010 and again thereafter, and so commonly known as the “Health Care Bill” or otherwise known as “Health Care Reform” (and all their other acts which assume to create, define, or otherwise establish laws, other than those so enumerated in the Constitution,) are altogether void, and of no force; and that the power to create, define, and otherwise establish laws is reserved, and, of right, appertains solely and exclusively to the respective States, each within its own territory; that the State of Nevada reasserts rightful constitutional ownership and power of these rights within its territory and borders.
2. Be it Resolved: That the several States composing, the United States of America, are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their general government; but that, by a compact under the style and title of a Constitution for the United States, and of amendments thereto, they constituted a general government for special purposes — delegated to that government certain definite powers, reserving, each State to itself, the residuary mass of right to their own self-government; and that whensoever the general government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force: that to this compact each State acceded as a State, and is an integral part, its co-States forming, as to itself, the other party: that the government created by this compact was not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself; since that would have made its discretion, and not the Constitution, the measure of its powers; but that, as in all other cases of compact among powers having no common judge, each party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress.
3. Be It Resolved: That the Constitution of the United States, having delegated to Congress a power to punish treason, counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States, piracies, and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations, and no other crimes, whatsoever; and it being true as a general principle, and one of the amendments to the Constitution having also declared, that “the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, not prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people,” therefore the Health Care Bill of Congress, signed by the President on the 23th day of March, 2010 and again there after, and so commonly known as the “Health Care Bill” or otherwise known as “Health Care Reform” (and all their other acts which assume to create, define, or otherwise establish laws, other than those so enumerated in the Constitution,) are altogether void, and of no force; and that the power to create, define, and otherwise establish laws is reserved, and, of right, appertains solely and exclusively to the respective States, each within its own territory and borders.
4. Be It Resolved: That it is true as a general principle, and is also expressly declared by one of the amendments to the Constitutions, that “the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, or prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people”; and that no power over the free choice of Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness shall be infringed by forced participation in health care or any other aspect of private lives as it pertains to health or health care. That, therefore, the act of Congress of the United States, signed by the President on the 23th day of March, 2010 and again there after and so commonly known as the “Health Care Bill” or otherwise known as “Health Care Reform” which does abridge the freedom and liberty of individual choice of health care or any other measure within such “Health Care Bill”, is not law, but is altogether void, and of no force.
5. Be It Resolved: That illegal aliens are not friends of the State and are under the jurisdiction and the laws of the State wherein they are: that no power over them has been delegated to the United States, nor prohibited to the individual States, distinct from their power over citizens. And it being true as a general principle, and one of the amendments to the Constitution having also declared, that “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,” the act of the Congress of the United States, signed by the President on the 23th day of March, 2010 and so commonly known as the “Health Care Bill” or otherwise known as “Health Care Reform” which assumes powers over aliens, not delegated by the Constitution, is not law, but is altogether void, and of no force.
6. Be It Resolved: That the construction applied by the General Government (as is evidenced by sundry of their proceedings) to those parts of the Constitution of the United States which delegate to Congress a power “to lay and collect taxes, duties, imports, and excises, to pay the debts, and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States,” and “to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution, the powers vested by the Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof,” goes to the destruction of all limits prescribed to their powers by the Constitution: that words meant by the instrument to be subsidiary only to the execution of limited powers, ought not to be so construed as themselves to give unlimited powers, nor a part to be so taken as to destroy the whole residue of that instrument: that the proceedings of the General Government under color of these articles, will be a fit and necessary subject of revisal and correction, at a time of greater tranquility, while those specified in the preceding resolutions call for immediate redress.
7. Be It Resolved: That a committee of conference and correspondence be appointed, who shall have in charge to communicate the preceding resolutions to the Governors and Legislatures of the several States: to assure them that this commonwealth continues in the same esteem of their friendship and union which it has manifested from that moment at which a common danger first suggested a common union: that it considers union, for specified national purposes, and particularly to those specified in their late federal compact, to be friendly, to the peace, happiness and prosperity of all the States: that faithful to that compact, according to the plain intent and meaning in which it was understood and acceded to by the several parties, it is sincerely anxious for its preservation: that it does also believe, that to take from the States all the powers of self-government and transfer them to a general and consolidated government, without regard to the special delegations and reservations solemnly agreed to in that compact, is not for the peace, happiness or prosperity of these States; and that therefore this commonwealth is determined, as it doubts not its co-States are, to submit to undelegated, and consequently unlimited powers in no man, or body of men on earth: that in cases of an abuse of the delegated powers, the members of the general government, being chosen by the people, a change by the people would be the constitutional remedy;
8. Be it Resolved: That where powers are assumed which have not been delegated, a nullification of the act or Bill is the rightful remedy: that every State has a natural right in cases not within the compact, (casus non fœderis) to nullify of their own authority all assumptions of power by others within their limits: that without this right, they would be under the dominion, absolute and unlimited, of whosoever might exercise this right of judgment for them: that nevertheless, this commonwealth, from motives of regard and respect for its co States, has wished to communicate with them on the subject: that with them alone it is proper to communicate, they alone being parties to the compact, and solely authorized to judge in the last resort of the powers exercised under it, Congress being not a party, but merely the creature of the compact, and subject as to its assumptions of power to the final judgment of those by whom, and for whose use itself and its powers were all created and modified.
9. Be It Resolved: That if the Bill before specified should stand, these conclusions would flow from it; that the general government may place any act they think proper whether enumerated or not enumerated by the constitution as cognizable by them: that they may transfer its cognizance to the President, or any other person, who may himself be the accuser, counsel, judge and jury, whose suspicions may be the evidence, his order the sentence, his officer the executioner, and his breast the sole record of the transaction: that a very numerous and valuable description of the inhabitants of these States being, by this precedent, reduced, as outlaws, to the absolute dominion of one man, and the barrier of the Constitution thus swept away from us all, no ramparts now remains against the passions and the powers of a majority in Congress to protect from a like exportation, or other more grievous punishment, the minority of the same body, the legislatures, judges, governors and counselors of the States, nor their other peaceable inhabitants, who may venture to reclaim the constitutional rights and liberties of the States and people, or who for other causes, good or bad, may be obnoxious to the views, or marked by the suspicions of the President, or be thought dangerous to his or their election, or other interests, public or personal; that the common man has indeed been selected as the safest subject of a first experiment; but the greater citizenry will soon follow, or rather, has already followed, for already has the Health Care Bill marked him as its prey: that these and successive acts of the same character, unless arrested at the threshold, necessarily drive these States into revolution and blood and will furnish new calumnies against republican government, and new pretexts for those who wish it to be believed that man cannot be governed but by a rod of iron. The States are required to protect the people from such despotism and heretofore shall do so.
10. Be It Resolved: That it would be a dangerous delusion were a confidence in the men of our choice to silence our fears for the safety of our rights: that confidence is everywhere the parent of despotism — free government is founded in jealousy, and not in confidence; it is jealousy and not confidence which prescribes limited constitutions, to bind down those whom we are obliged to trust with power: that our Constitution has accordingly fixed the limits to which, and no further, our confidence may go; and let the honest advocate of confidence read the Health Care Bill, and say if the Constitution has not been wise in fixing limits to the government it created, and whether we should be wise in destroying those limits. Let him say what the government is, if it be not a tyranny, which the men of our choice have con erred on our President, and the President of our choice has assented to, and accepted over the common man to whom the mild spirit of our country and its law have pledged hospitality and protection: that the men of our choice have more respected the naked belief of the President, than the solid right of proof, the claims of justification, the sacred force of truth, and the forms and substance of law and justice. It is well known that this President elected in November of 2008, his father was from Kenya and, therefore, according to the British Nationality act of 1948, BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA II, a/k/a BARRY SOETORO would also be British, making him a dual citizen. It is this dual allegiance that the Constitution specifically guards against, especially in the Office of the President where fierce loyalty and allegiance to only this country is required; it is jealousy and not confidence which prescribes limited constitutions, to bind down those whom we are obliged to trust with power. The State of Nevada asserts jealousy, and not confidence, which prescribes and requires proof of allegiance through constitutional limits on Presidential eligibility.
11. Be It Resolved: In questions of powers, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution. That this commonwealth does therefore call on its co-States for an expression of their sentiments on the Health Care Bill, plainly declaring whether this Bill is or is not authorized by the federal compact. And it doubts not that their sense will be so announced as to prove their attachment unaltered to limited government, weather general or particular. And that the rights and liberties of their co-States will be exposed to no dangers by remaining embarked in a common bottom with their own. That they will concur with this commonwealth in considering the said Bill as so palpably against the Constitution as to amount to an undisguised declaration that that compact is not meant to be the measure of the powers of the General Government, but that it will proceed in the exercise over these States, of all powers whatsoever: that they will view this as seizing the rights of the States, and consolidating them in the hands of the General Government, with a power assumed to bind the States (not merely as the cases made federal, casus fœderis but), in all cases whatsoever, by laws made, not with their consent, but by others against their consent: that this would be to surrender the form of government we have chosen, and live under one deriving its powers from its own will, and not from our authority; and that the co-States, recurring to their natural right in cases not made federal, will concur in declaring this Bill void, and of no force, and will each take measures of its own for providing that neither this Bill, nor any others of the General Government not plainly and intentionally authorized by the Constitution, shall be exercised within their respective territories and borders.
12. Be It Resolved: That the said committee be authorized to communicate by writing or personal conference, at any times or places whatever, with any person or persons who may be appointed by any one or more co-States to correspond or confer with them; and that they lay their proceedings before the next session of Assembly.

Sincerely,

Gino DiSimone
1-775-544-2765

Copyright © 2010 by Gino DiSimone

February 22, 2010, 10:00 a.m. EST

MEMORANDUM

FROM: Michael Hammond
RE: New Obama Health Care Draft

As of this hour, there is an 11-page document on the White House web site outlining Obama’s newest version of ObamaCare. Before laying out a summary of the most recent Obama proposal, I would like to make a couple preliminary points:

PRELIMINARY POINT #1:

OBAMACARE CANNOT BE PASSED THROUGH RECONCILIATION

There are several reasons for this:

First, you cannot get the bill through the House without “fixing” abortion, and you cannot do abortion on reconciliation in the Senate.

Cao will not be the deciding vote. This means that, if absolutely nothing has changed, the current House vote count on the House bill is 217-216. But things have changed:

• Public support for ObamaCare has continued to sink through the floor.
• Between 10 and 12 “yes” votes would vote against the Senate bill based on its abortion language.
• Many House Democrats are still uncomfortable about the “Cadillac tax.”

But, under the Byrd Rule (which prohibits reconciliation language with budgetary implications which are only ancillary to the policy ramifications), you can’t fix abortion on reconciliation. We have asked Senate parliamentarian Alan Frumin concerning our ability to offer abortion amendments to reconciliation, and he has adamantly stood by the position that this is not allowed. And, to get around the Byrd Rule, the Senate requires 60 votes. Without an abortion “fix,” this bill cannot pass the House.

Furthermore, the new provision to allow the government to set insurance rates is also a violation of the Byrd Rule.

Also, the $60 billion union “fix” requires a $62 billion offset. And the additional substantial costs of Obama’s proposal would also have to be offset. Assuming they take the entire $2.5 trillion package and pass the whole thing through reconciliation, they can pay for some of these costs with the phony $124 billion budget “surplus” contained in the Senate-passed bill. The downside of this is that the insurance “reforms” (preexisting conditions, limits on co-payments, etc.) which form the core of the bill will be thrown out under the Byrd Rule.

But, assuming they are using reconciliation for nothing more than a “fix,” they have to come up with a new set of offsets. The offsets on the Senate bill are unavailable to them. And it’s not like it has been easy to come up with the offsets they have.p>

In order to comply with the 1974 Act, these offsets would have to make the reconciliation bill compliant with the reconciliation instructions during the first five-year window and revenue-neutral in every year thereafter. Thus far, NO VERSION OF THE LEGISLATION HAS BEEN ABLE TO COMPLY WITH THIS REQUIREMENT, EVEN USING THE PHONY ACCOUNTING GIMMICKS.

Incidentally, Pelosi is now demanding that the Senate act on reconciliation before House members are forced to put their necks on the line again. But a Senate-initiated tax bill is unconstitutional, and would be “blue slipped” in the House.

Incidentally, the 1974 Act allows an unlimited number of amendments to be offered, without debate, at the end of the 20-hour statutory time for debate. My recommendation would be that, if Senate Democrats decide to invoke the “nuclear option” and throw out the Senate rules in order to do reconciliation, that the first ten amendments be the pro-gun agenda.

Finally, the Senate has failed to comply with the reconciliation instructions that mandated reporting by October 15. And, although they may get a pass on this, the production of a new concurrent budget resolution will extinguish this possibility unequivocally.

PRELIMIARY POINT #2:

What bothered the American people, as much as anything, was the perception that the Senate’s ObamaCare bill was produced by fraud, secrecy, corruption, bribery, and extortion. Rather than improve the process, the White House has actually made it more corrupt by:

• threatening to fraudulently take a process restricted SOLELY to deficit reduction and using it to pass the biggest deficit engine in human history; and
• refusing to release legislative language, in the hope that controversies can be kept secret.

there is more to the story here…REDSTATE website

Welfare always breeds contempt…

by Mark Steyn

While Barack Obama was making his latest pitch for a brand-new, even-more-unsustainable entitlement at the health-care “summit,” thousands of Greeks took to the streets to riot. An enterprising cable network might have shown the two scenes on a continuous split-screen — because they’re part of the same story. It’s just that Greece is a little further along in the plot: They’re at the point where the canoe is about to plunge over the falls. America is farther upstream and can still pull for shore, but has decided instead that what it needs to do is catch up with the Greek canoe. Chapter One (the introduction of unsustainable entitlements) leads eventually to Chapter Twenty (total societal collapse): The Greeks are at Chapter Seventeen or Eighteen.

What’s happening in the developed world today isn’t so very hard to understand: The 20th-century Bismarckian welfare state has run out of people to stick it to. In America, the feckless, insatiable boobs in Washington, Sacramento, Albany, and elsewhere are screwing over our kids and grandkids. In Europe, they’ve reached the next stage in social-democratic evolution: There are no kids or grandkids to screw over. The United States has a fertility rate of around 2.1 — or just over two kids per couple. Greece has a fertility rate of about 1.3: Ten grandparents have six kids have four grandkids — ie, the family tree is upside down. Demographers call 1.3 “lowest-low” fertility — the point from which no society has ever recovered. And, compared to Spain and Italy, Greece has the least worst fertility rate in Mediterranean Europe.

So you can’t borrow against the future because, in the most basic sense, you don’t have one. Greeks in the public sector retire at 58, which sounds great. But, when ten grandparents have four grandchildren, who pays for you to spend the last third of your adult life loafing around?

By the way, you don’t have to go to Greece to experience Greek-style retirement: The Athenian “public service” of California has been metaphorically face down in the ouzo for a generation. Still, America as a whole is not yet Greece. A couple of years ago, when I wrote my book America Alone, I put the then–Social Security debate in a bit of perspective: On 2005 figures, projected public-pensions liabilities were expected to rise by 2040 to about 6.8 percent of GDP. In Greece, the figure was 25 percent: in other words, head for the hills, Armageddon outta here, The End. Since then, the situation has worsened in both countries. And really the comparison is academic: Whereas America still has a choice, Greece isn’t going to have a 2040 — not without a massive shot of Reality Juice.

Is that likely to happen? At such moments, I like to modify Gerald Ford. When seeking to ingratiate himself with conservative audiences, President Ford liked to say: “A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you have.” Which is true enough. But there’s an intermediate stage: A government big enough to give you everything you want isn’t big enough to get you to give any of it back. That’s the point Greece is at. Its socialist government has been forced into supporting a package of austerity measures. The Greek people’s response is: Nuts to that. Public-sector workers have succeeded in redefining time itself: Every year, they receive 14 monthly payments. You do the math. And for about seven months’ work: For many of them, the work day ends at 2:30 p.m. And, when they retire, they get 14 monthly pension payments. In other words: Economic reality is not my problem. I want my benefits. And, if it bankrupts the entire state a generation from now, who cares as long as they keep the checks coming until I croak?

We hard-hearted small-government guys are often damned as selfish types who care nothing for the general welfare. But, as the Greek protests make plain, nothing makes an individual more selfish than the socially equitable communitarianism of big government: Once a chap’s enjoying the fruits of government health care, government-paid vacation, government-funded early retirement, and all the rest, he couldn’t give a hoot about the general societal interest; he’s got his, and to hell with everyone else. People’s sense of entitlement endures long after the entitlement has ceased to make sense.

The perfect spokesman for the entitlement mentality is the deputy prime minister of Greece. The European Union has concluded that the Greek government’s austerity measures are insufficient and, as a condition of bailout, has demanded something more robust. Greece is no longer a sovereign state: It’s General Motors, and the EU is Washington, and the Greek electorate is happy to play the part of the UAW — everything’s on the table except anything that would actually make a difference. In practice, because Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Ireland are also on the brink of the abyss, a “European” bailout will be paid for by Germany. So the aforementioned Greek deputy prime minister, Theodoros Pangalos, has denounced the conditions of the EU deal on the grounds that the Germans stole all the bullion from the Bank of Greece during the Second World War. Welfare always breeds contempt, in nations as much as inner-city housing projects: How dare you tell us how to live! Just give us your money and push off.

Unfortunately, Germany is no longer an economic powerhouse. As Angela Merkel pointed out a year ago, for Germany, an Obama-sized stimulus was out of the question simply because its foreign creditors know there are not enough young Germans around ever to repay it. Over 30 percent of German women are childless; among German university graduates, it’s over 40 percent. And for the ever-dwindling band of young Germans who make it out of the maternity ward, there’s precious little reason to stick around. Why be the last handsome blond lederhosen-clad Aryan lad working the late shift at the beer garden in order to prop up singlehandedly entire retirement homes? And that’s before the EU decides to add the Greeks to your burdens. Germans, who retire at 67, are now expected to sustain the unsustainable 14 monthly payments per year of Greeks who retire at 58.

Think of Greece as California: Every year an irresponsible and corrupt bureaucracy awards itself higher pay and better benefits paid for by an ever-shrinking wealth-generating class. And think of Germany as one of the less profligate, still-just-about-functioning corners of America such as my own state of New Hampshire: Responsibility doesn’t pay. You’ll wind up bailing out anyway. The problem is there are never enough of “the rich” to fund the entitlement state, because in the end it disincentivizes everything from wealth creation to self-reliance to the basic survival instinct, as represented by the fertility rate. In Greece, they’ve run out Greeks, so they’ll stick it to the Germans, like French farmers do. In Germany, the Germans have only been able to afford to subsidize French farming because they stick their defense tab to the Americans. And in America, Obama, Pelosi, and Reid are saying we need to paddle faster to catch up with the Greeks and Germans. What could go wrong?

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