The Constitution, Not International Law

As the NRA pats itself on the back and the media pontificates about today’s Supreme Court decision in favor of the Second Amendment, as usual they miss the real story.  The important story today is the Constitution held on by only one vote!  The Constitution is supposed to be the supreme law of the land, yet it’s under attack like never before in our history.  We came very, very close to losing the Constitution today and no one seems to care!

Don’t think it’s a big deal?  Look at the dissenting opinion in today’s judgment.  Appeal was made to international law with the ridiculous argument that other “democratic” nations don’t hold that their citizens have a right to keep and bear arms.  It doesn’t matter what other nations hold as law – our law comes from the Constitution, period!  As Justice Roberts pointed out, Japan is a “democratic” nation, yet it doesn’t hold its citizens have a right to trail by jury.  Perhaps there’s something to that dusty old Constitution after all?

This appeal to international law is a growing and dangerous trend.  Supreme Court nominee Kagan is merely one of a chorus of liberal “progressives” who hold that we need to turn to international law to interpret our law.  The entire reason we have a Constitution is precisely because our founders took issue with prevailing international law.

Once we go down the road of international law, particularly in the form of UN treaties, we literally throw out the Constitution and our cherished rights.  Under international law we lose many of the individual rights which make our nation a representative Republic and would instead turn our country into a socialist state where the power rests with the “ruling class” and not with the people.

Under current pending treaties, if they’re ratified, the Second Amendment and First Amendment would disappear.  There’s currently a UN small arms treaty (supported by the Obama administration) which would effectively make it a crime in the United States to own firearms.  Additional, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (also supported by the Obama administration) would effectively make all children wards of the state with parents only being charged with clothing, feeding and providing shelter – other than that, parents would have almost no rights to raise their children as they see fit.  Most people don’t understand that by the Constitution, once we ratify international treaties, they become the law of the land and trump the Constitution.  The Constitution was written like this as our founders never in their wildest dreams imagined we’d be stupid enough to negotiate away our sovereignty.

Despite all this, incumbents are being reelected by wide margins in the ongoing primaries.  They’re proved time and again they have no interest in changing the status quo – and in fact most favor the sprint towards socialism.  Survey after survey shows dissatisfaction with Congress by wide margins, yet voters keep electing the same people and expecting change.  It’s moronic and beyond understanding!

The stakes are too high and the consequences too dire to keep sitting on the sidelines!

DISCLOSE Act Passes House, Obama Nominates Anti-Gun Lib to Supreme Court; NRA on Sidelines

Here’s the non-statement statement from the NRA regarding passage last week by the House of the DISCLOSE Act, a highly un-Constitutional, draconian attack on basic First Amendment Rights:

STATEMENT ON DISCLOSE ACT PASSING THE U.S. HOUSE

Thursday, June 24, 2010

The NRA’s sworn duty is to protect the Second Amendment above all else. We face attacks daily from the White House, Congress, state legislatures, city councils, courts, the United Nations, multi-billion dollar media conglomerates and billionaires like Michael Bloomberg and George Soros. Make no mistake; if our political voice is silenced, they will destroy the Second Amendment.

We refused to let that happen. We will continue to fight to protect the Second Amendment against all attacks – direct or otherwise. And we will never back down from that commitment.

So my question to the NRA leadership (apparently being led by chief lobbyist, Chris Cox), remains: if the DISCLOSE Act is bad (which the NRA leadership appears to admit), then shouldn’t the NRA oppose this piece of legislation regardless if the NRA is thrown a loophole (asked for or not)?

Groups of a certain size (which magically happens to be Big Union and leftist “community activist” groups) are exempted from the ridiculous provisions of the DISCLOSE Act.  In order to silence opposition from the NRA, Democrats threw in an amendment to exempt groups with the NRA’s level of membership.  Having been thrown this “bone,” the NRA is now using asinine political double-speak to justify their non-opposition of this terrible piece of legislation.

Of course, other leftist-groups, like the Sierra Club, became upset over the NRA-non-deal-deal, so Democrats lowered the “magic” number to include them as well.  As with most things coming out of the current Congress and Administration, the only people the Act will apply to are the regular people speaking out for a return of Government to its Constitutional bounds.

It seems the NRA has become “too big to fail.”  The leadership apparently is more concerned with not rocking the boat instead of standing up for what is right.

As I pointed out before, the First Amendment and Second Amendment are closely tied.  If either one falls, the other – and the Republic itself – cannot stand.  Therefore, an attack on one is a de facto attack on the other.

It’s frankly shameful and pathetic that the NRA leadership refuses to stand in opposition the DISCLOSE Act regardless if they receive an exemption from this dangerous legislation or not.

The NRA also released the following statement on Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan:

With a Key Supreme Court Decision Pending, NRA Watches the Court’s Latest Nominee

Friday, June 25, 2010

On Monday, June 28, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee will begin confirmation hearings on the nomination of Solicitor General Elena Kagan to be an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.  With a Supreme Court decision expected that same day in the critical Second Amendment case of McDonald v. City of Chicago and many more Second Amendment cases likely to come, the NRA is following the debate over the Kagan nomination extremely closely.Because Ms. Kagan has no judicial record and few academic writings, the NRA is carefully reviewing her record in other government posts, including her clerkship for the late Justice Thurgood Marshall and her involvement in formulating anti-gun policies at the Clinton White House.  What we’ve seen to date shows a hostility towards our Right to Keep and Bear Arms, such as her role in developing the Clinton Administration’s 1998 ban on importation of many models of semi-automatic rifles; her note mentioning the NRA and the Ku Klux Klan as “bad guy” organizations; and her comment to Justice Marshall that she was “not sympathetic” to a challenge to Washington, D.C.’s handgun ban.We are working with pro-gun Senators to make sure that Ms. Kagan is aggressively questioned regarding her views on the Second Amendment and other issues that affect America’s 80 million gun owners and we look forward to hearing her answers.

They are watching Kagan?  Her record in opposition to the Second Amendment is abundantly clear.  She wrote the Clinton-era “assault weapons” ban which simply banned semi-automatic rifles based on nothing more than their appearance.  What more proof do you require NRA leadership to figure out where Kagan stands on the Second Amendment?

I don’t know what’s going on with the NRA leadership (though I suspect with all their ancillary activities, they’re worried about losing money if they take an actual stand on “controversial” issues).  However, at this point, I can no longer support the organization — which is not a decision I make easily or lightly.  They already have my money as a life member, but I will no longer contribute money to the NRA, nor can I in good conscious recommend others join the NRA or renew yearly memberships until the NRA leadership gets out of their corporate mindset and gets back to defending the Constitutional rights of the organization’s members.

In the mean time, the three Second Amendment organizations I support and recommend are the Gun Owners of America, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms and the Second Amendment Foundation.  These three organizations are solidly committed to defending the Second Amendment – and all three understand the First Amendment is closely tied to the Second Amendment.  For Ron Paul fans, you might like to know he called the Gun Owners of America, “The only no-compromise gun lobby in Washington.”  That’s a pretty resounding endorsement for any organization.

As Benjamin Franklin said, “We must hang together, gentlemen…else, we shall most assuredly hang separately.”

Theft is Fine as Long as It’s the Government Stealing. Oh, Really?

I’m constantly amazed with the number of people who’d be outraged if a thief came into their home, held them at gun point while taking their legitimately earned property and told them, “Don’t worry, I’m giving this to those less fortunate who deserve it;” but they see absolutely no problem with the government forcibly taking the rightfully earned property of productive people in order to “redistribute” it to unproductive people in the name of “fairness.”

A forcibly taking from B in order to give to C is not the definition of “fairness,” at least in my book; instead it’s the definition of stealing.  I remember hearing about 10 something or others and I vaguely recall they mention something about “thou shalt not steal” and “thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s property” — probably just a bunch of old fashioned mumbo jumbo anyway.

If something is wrong for a private person to do to you or force you to do, it’s wrong for the government to do likewise, as government (in the form of a representative republic) is nothing more than an agent of the people.  In a representative republic, the government is not some sort of special “ruling class” with more power than the people.  Instead, the government IS the people — so when you say “The government needs to do something,” you are really saying you need to do something.

In a representative republic, government is supposed to be a slave to the people, not the other way around.  This is why you can’t live in freedom while at the same time demanding government “solve” all your problems.  Individual freedom and Big Government are mutually exclusive.  Either you have Big Government with more power than the people resulting in a curtailment of individual liberty and freedom or you have individual liberty and freedom which requires limited government.

The choices are limited government with individual liberty and freedom on one hand or Big Government and tyranny on the other.  There simply is no other solution.  Our founders completely understood this concept, yet most people today, strung out on the opium of Big Government handouts (government jobs, government pensions, social security, Medicare, welfare, tax “credits,” etc.), don’t understand it and don’t even care to try to understand it.  As long as the “goodies” keep coming, they happily give up more and more liberty and freedom.  Unfortunately, the “money bag” is only so deep — you can only take so much from productive people until they no longer have anything left and become unproductive people too.

Take a look at Greece to see what happens when the money runs out and the party ends.  We are on the exact same course and with the entitlement mentalities bread into people today, God help us when the money finally runs out here.

The government does not create jobs or wealth — productive people create jobs and wealth.  So the more productive people are “punished” for being productive, the less jobs and wealth are created.  We see this in action today with policy after policy of the Obama administration and current congress.  You cannot reward unproductiveness while punishing productiveness and expect the economy to improve.

Has the NRA Leadership Sold-out?

It certainly seems the leadership of the NRA has cut a “deal with the devil” and sold-out the First Amendment.  Apparently, the NRA leadership believes there’s a First Amendment for Big Union and the NRA and anther first amendment for the rest of us.  I urge you to read the message below, and if you’re an NRA member, contact NRA HQ immediately to protest this sell-out.  There is only one First Amendment and it applies to all of us equally!

I’ve added links to the news strories referenced in the email alert below so you can read the stories in full.

Threat to Free Speech Lights a Fire in the Grassroots

— Vote has been temporarily postponed; keep up the heat!

Gun Owners of America E-Mail Alert
8001 Forbes Place, Suite 102, Springfield, VA 22151
Phone: 703-321-8585 / FAX: 703-321-8408
http://gunowners.org/

 

“[T]he NRA — on whose board of directors I serve — rather than holding steadfastly to its historic principles of defending the Constitution and continuing its noble fight against government regulation of political speech instead opted for a political deal borne of self-interest in exchange for ‘neutrality’ from the legislation’s requirements.”

— NRA Director Cleta Mitchell, June 17, 2010

Thursday, June 17, 2010

The above quote — part of an editorial authored by NRA Director Cleta Mitchell — ran in The Washington Post today.

Like Mitchell, bloggers and editorial writers around the country have lit up the Internet with the story that we have been alerting you to over the past 48 hours. Here are just some of the headlines:

* “The NRA sells out to Democrats on the First Amendment,” The Wall Street Journal

* “Conservatives take on the NRA over deal on disclosure bill,” The Washington Post

* “The National Rifle Association’s Excuse Holds No Water,” RedState.org

The conservative movement (and to be honest, many liberal organizations as well) are coming together to loudly protest the DISCLOSE Act — legislation that threatens to gag our ability to effectively hold individual congressmen accountable in the days and weeks leading up to an election.

It is imperative that we continue hammering the Congress. But rather than cry “uncle,” liberal Democrats are now trying to buy off more groups with an exemption for those that have at least 500,000 members (rather than the higher threshold of one million, which would have applied to few groups other than the NRA).

Of course, how is the government going to know how many members an organization has? According to the legislation, each organization will have to certify to a government commission how many members they have. But what if the commission wants documentation; will the organization have to “disclose” the names of their members?

GOA, of course, will never do this. Furthermore, you should know that your Gun Owners of America can NOT be bought off. We will continue opposing this bill on principle, urging all gun groups to stick together in this fight. As we stated yesterday, we realize that: “We must all hang together, or we will all hang separately.”

GOA applauds NRA Director Cleta Mitchell for the courageous stand she took today. (You can read her editorial here.) We hope that the NRA leadership will heed her wisdom and take a stand against this bill. If they don’t, we wouldn’t be surprised if NRA members start demanding a change in their leadership. After all, the NRA has engaged in many good fights over the years, and it would be a shame to lose this VERY IMPORTANT battle because high-ranking staff led the NRA down the wrong path.

ACTION:

1. Please call your congressman today and urge him or her to oppose HR 5175. We’ve asked you to send emails before, but now on the eve before the vote, it is crucial that the phones ring off the hook. If they’re not ringing, they won’t be worried.

You can use the Talking Points below to call your Representative toll-free at 1-877-762-8762.

2. If you haven’t yet urged the NRA staff to change its position on HR 5175 and stand with Gun Owners of America, please do so. NRA Director Cleta Mitchell was absolutely correct, and the NRA leadership should heed her wisdom. You can call the NRA at (800) 392-VOTE (8683).

3. Please help Gun Owners of America to continue fighting for your rights. You can go to http://gunowners.org/contribute-to-goa.htm to help us alert as many people as possible to the DISCLOSE Act threat.

—– Talking Points for contacting your Representative —–

1. I stand with Gun Owners of America in opposing the DISCLOSE Act (HR 5175).

2. The Bill of Rights is clear in saying that Congress has no authority to pass legislation like this. Just like the Second Amendment says our gun rights “shall not be infringed,” the First Amendment says “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech.”

3. The Supreme Court was right earlier this year in the Citizens United case. Sen. John McCain — the author of the Campaign Finance Reform law (otherwise known as the Incumbent Protection Act) — was wrong. Americans, and the groups they choose to associate with, should be able to criticize Congress in the days and weeks leading up to an election WITHOUT BEING GAGGED OR FORCED TO JUMP THROUGH HOOPS that are mandated by Congress.

Wind the Clock

Wind the Clock

When I went through pilot training, there were still a few “old heads” around who taught an important and valuable lesson which remains applicable today.  They consistently said the first thing to do in an emergency is “wind the clock.”  The expression refers back to the days when aircraft clocks, like old watches, required winding in order to operate.  In this context it means when something bad happens, “doing something” immediately is almost never the correct solution.  Instead, before rushing to “do something,” you need to pause, analyze the situation and then take the correct action based on the situation at hand.

What do we hear today?  With ever increasing rapidity, particularly since Bush’s progressive “I’ve abandoned free-market principles to save the free-market system” Stimulus I, we’re told we must “do something” immediately or everything will collapse.

The economy is in trouble, so we must do something immediately and pass the stimulus bill (read by no one except the special interest group who wrote).  The car companies are in trouble, so we must do something immediately and put them under government control (while violating the rule of law to “bailout” bloated union pension plans).  The medical system is failing, so we must do something immediately and pass Obama care (yet another bill read only by the progressive special interest group which wrote it).  Do you see any pattern here yet?

Now we’re told the evil, capitalist oil companies (despite following laws established by the federal government and being forced to drill not where they wanted to, but where to government forced them to) are destroying the environment and needlessly stringing us out on oil dependence.  So…wait for it…we must do something immediately and pass cap and trade (amazingly yet another bill read only by the special interests who wrote it).

Gang, sit down, take a breath and stop allowing these people to lead you wherever they want merely by playing with your emotions.  Honestly, do you ever make really good decisions when you’re operating only off pure emotion or panic mode, believing you must “do something” immediately?

You’re not supposed to think.  They want you to only react.  Why do you think it’s become one thing after another, after another, all thrown on top of each other.  The game is to completely overwhelm you.  They want you operating in the realm of pure emotion, in the realm of panic.  It’s a very effective technique to keep you completely off balance and to keep you from thinking.

They don’t want you to think, because calm, rational thought is their enemy.  They know you’d never accept their agenda if you actually took the time to think it through and follow it to its logical conclusions.

The “dirty little secret” is you don’t have to play their game.  You don’t have to allow them to drag you to the realm of pure emotion and panic.  Instead of buying into the lie we must “do something” immediately, you have another option.  It begins with remembering to first wind the clock.

The Gods of the Copybook Headings

Rudyard Kipling

The Gods of the Copybook Headings by Rudyard Kipling, 1919

AS I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “Stick to the Devil you know.”

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “The Wages of Sin is Death.”

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “If you don’t work you die.”

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

Book Review: The Overton Window

Overton Window

What’s going on behind the headlines today?  Is there a “behind-the-scenes” purpose?   Why are such clearly savvy people in positions of leadership consistently making such seemingly poor decisions?  Why do ideas and positions considered completely unacceptable yesterday seem perfectly acceptable today?  In The Overton Window, Glenn Beck explores these ideas in a fast moving “faction” thriller, “faction” being his term for works of fiction based on real events.

In the book, a young PR exec and heir apparent to his father’s high-roller client PR firm, Noah, meets a young woman, Molly, who’s involved in a patriot group, Founder’s Keepers.  Together they learn the truths behind the headlines and the “spin machine” attempting to drive public toward a certain end.

Beck wants us to understand what’s going on is not tied to a particular political party.  He wants us to see the problems infecting both parties.  Therefore, we never meet the President; we never learn his name, nor what party he’s from – only that a Presidential election is “upcoming.”  Instead, we see how politicians of all stripes sell themselves out for power, money, sex – whatever their “candy of the day” — and thereby become puppets of larger players behind the scenes.  We claim we want change, yet reelect incumbents at a rate around 90% and then wonder why nothing ever changes.

A couple other items stand out in Beck’s book.  First, he also throws in a “conspiracy theory” “believer” to show us what can happen if we take random facts and use them to make false conclusions.  He shows us how being this person or associating with this type of person is not necessarily a good idea.  Second, the last chapter of the book is something of an “end notes” in which we’re told what is fact, what’s based on fact and what’s purely fiction.  Beck provides us links to the sources and encourages us to do our own homework and reach our own conclusions.  Instead of accepting the baseless “conspiracy theories” or the latest “spin,” we must do our homework to uncover the facts – facts which are out in the open if only we want to look for them and seek the truth.

The “Overton window” is a model illustrating how to manipulate public opinion and move the public at large toward a certain end.  At any particular time, the public will accept a certain range of options.  If the option you want them to accept is not within the current window, you must move the window of acceptability.  This is generally accomplished (barring a crisis to take advantage of) through “nudges” in certain directions.  If you slowly “bump” the people’s window in a certain direction, you eventually reach the point where want you want to accomplish is now within the acceptable option window of the people.

Often, we’re presented two wildly opposed extremes.  The goal is forcing us to eventually accept a certain extreme (say nationalized health care), but they know we’d never accept this move overnight.  Therefore, the window is slowly moved towards that direction, so for example, instead of making us accept nationalized health care overnight, we instead are lead to accept bits and pieces slowly over time until one day we finally realize, for example, we have nationalized health care.

The current Gulf oil leak crisis perfectly illustrates the Overton window in operation.  Before the oil well mishap, most Americans were solidly against cap and trade and had no particular opposition to off-shore drilling.  While a mishap which must be investigated and learned from, it doesn’t automatically follow as a logical conclusion to end all off-shore drilling.  To take this position is the same as calling for a ban on all commercial airlines after a major aircraft mishap.

Yet, in the spirit of “never let a good crisis go to waste,” those who want to impose cap and trade are now in full spin mode.  They want to change your perception.  They want to move your Overton window towards acceptance of cap and trade (which is simply a Ponzi scheme of massive taxation).  In order to do this, they must do everything possible to prevent you from thinking about the facts.  This is why you see such a focus on emotional appeal (“reckless” oil companies, “we’ll make them pay,” etc.).  If they keep you in the realm of emotion, they get you to say “yes” to things you would never agree to otherwise.  Have you ever made really good decisions when you were incredibly emotionally worked up compared to the decisions you made with a clear head?  This is the Overton window in action.

Two themes hinted at in this book but not fully developed are points I mentioned in my review of 10 Books That Screwed Up the World.  First, our society (thanks to an Overton window changing public opinion about belief in God over the past few recent decades) has generally accepted an erroneous utilitarian philosophy which leads most people to live as practical atheists (those who claim to believe in God, but live their lives as if He didn’t exist or at least has no real impact on their lives) and actual atheists (those who flat out deny existence in God – including a few like Nietzsche who at least have the intellectual honesty to take such a belief to its actual and real dark conclusions).

Thanks to this belief, people (in particular the self-appointed intelligentsia) see others as merely means to an end.  If in your own mind, you end goal is “good,” it doesn’t matter how many people your trample on or even murder to reach you goal, since your goal, as far as you’re concerned, is “good.”  We see this at operation in every totalitarian society in human history.  We even see it in the philosophy of people like Ayn Rand, who believe it’s “every man for himself” and if you’re more “powerful,” you have a “right” to achieve your goals over allowing others to achieve their goals – quite literally “survival of the fittest.”

This erroneous philosophy leads directly to the next misconception – the belief man is capable of creating utopia on earth.  Regardless if this utopia is based an anarchical individual “freedom” in which it’s “every man for himself” or complete totalitarianism where the “enlightened” guide the unwashed masses who are too ignorant to understand what’s best for them, it’s a complete falsehood.  Man is not capable of creating utopia on earth.  Man cannot reach full actualization during his earthly life.  His earthly life is to prepare him for full actualization in his next life.  You can beat you head against the wall of Truth all day long, but at the end of the day you end up with a broken head while the Truth stands firm.

I don’t pretend Beck’s book is prize-winning writing, but it’s never the less a very important story for us to understand.  I recommend reading this book and encouraging others to read it as well – especially those still sitting on the fence who can’t quite see what’s really going on; those who haven’t quite fit all the pieces together.  Of course the anti-Beck crowd from all corners is simply going to dismiss this book based on a hatred of Beck without even bothering to read it.

The Solution

Why is it so difficult for the unwashed masses to understand what’s required in this time of crisis?  Clearly, we must immediately grant Our Glorious Leader special dictatorial powers to deal with the Gulf oil leak and to deal with those evil, reckless oil companies — and all the other capitalist pigs just like them. I mean, after all, we don’t need to waste time waiting for something as worthless as the actual mishap report to determine what happened.  We already know: Capitalism caused the Gulf oil leak (oh, also George Bush and all those environment hating Republicans).  Don’t worry — Our Glorious Leader will relinquish all these powers as soon as the crisis has passed.

The REAL Alvin Greene Story

Alvin Greene

 

The media is in a feeding frenzy over the Alvin Greene story – he’s the guy who won the recent South Carolina Democrat primary while being unemployed and apparently doing no campaigning.  Everyone wants to know how he came up with the fee to get his name on the ballot and if he’s really a GOP “plant.” 

As usual these days, everyone is missing the real story in the Alvin Greene story.  South Carolina apparently requires a person pay $10,400 to get his or her name on the ballot.  Ten thousand, four hundred dollars – how many of you have that kind of change just “sitting around?”  So if most of us don’t have this kind of money, what does that mean when it comes to elections?

The answer, and the story the media should actually be covering, is this means only those endorsed by the parties (and therefore gaining access to party campaign funds) or the independently wealthy are able to get on the ballot.  The regular person – you know, the people our founders thought should run for office – are eliminated from consideration since most of us don’t have and can’t raise this type of money just to get on the ballot. 

If we the people, who want to restore the system back to its Constitutional bounds, can’t get our names on the ballot, how can we remove the “career politicians” and effect actual American-value based change?  The system, at every level, is designed to favor the party-favorite “career politician” candidate. 

We must change election laws so that everyone who wants to run – not just the uber-rich or the “party candidate” – can get their name on the ballot.  Nothing will change unless we change the system.

Chinese Pilots Train at ex-Air Force Facility — Are We Giving Up?

A couple news stories in recent days have passed almost completely unnoticed.  In fact, if you aren’t subscribed to the AOPA eBrief, it’s likely you haven’t even heard these stories.  Yet, they should be cause of grave concern among Americans.  Taken together and in context with the state of the United States today, I can’t help but wonder of the Obama administration is correct: We can’t be number one forever and it’s simply our time to step aside so that others can move up.

On June 1^st, one item reported student pilots will number only 69,000 next year, which is a drop of 30% over ten years.  Apparently many of these fledgling pilots have no interest in commercial aviation, as one flight school owner mentioned in the article reports only 20% of his students express a desire to become commercial pilots.  The story concludes the decreasing pool of student pilots could impact the commercial pilot hiring among the airlines.  Could impact hiring?  How about will impact hiring?

Soon, you’ll not only have to be concerned with an inexperienced kid flying your regional airline jet (which represents the majority of flights today – don’t let the major airline livery on the aircraft fool you), but also have to deal with foreign nationals flying these jets.  As it stands right now, several foreign airlines employ American pilots.  However, this pool is almost empty, so these nations are training their own nationals to take the place of American pilots.  With the drastic drop in pilot numbers in the US, it’s only a matter of time before airlines here will be forced to hire foreign nationals to operate US-registered aircraft.  We are on the threshold – if not already crossing it – of losing our dominance in aerospace.

Here’s the second piece of the puzzle to help you see the situation even clearer: today, a piece appeared cheering the economic benefits a new flight school has brought to Hondo, Texas.  Go beyond the headline and you find disturbing information which ties into my comments above.  Of the 120 students at this school, 80 are from China (no mention if any of the remaining 40 students are US citizens).  Add to it, the facility is the former US Air Force Flight Screening facility where prospective USAF pilots went for years to be evaluated on their aptitude for flight training before being allowed to attend formal USAF pilot training.

Why are the Chinese (and many, many other foreign nationals) attending US flight schools?  Because we still produce the best product.  As it stands right now, if you want the best (and most cost effective) flight training, you get it in the United States.  However, the numbers show we’re giving up on maintaining our lead.  Due to the fact flight training is cheaper in the US (because the flight system isn’t overburdened with onerous taxation – at least for now), it’s likely these schools could remain in operation in the US, but staffed and “studented” completely by foreign nationals.

So what, you might ask?  This situation is merely an indicator of a more serious problem in the United States.  We’re already given up almost all our manufacturing – which allowed us to fight a World War and “produce” ourselves out of the Great Depression created by the FDR administration.  Now, we’re giving up on maintaining an intellectual lead.  If the rest of the world no longer must turn to the US for manufactured goods or for new technology and ideas, then what need do they have us of other than as “consumers” of their goods?  We need to wake up and get back in the game before it’s too late.  Unfortunately, it seems like most people are content to hit the “snooze button” of Big Government handouts instead of taking charge and facing reality head on.  The only reason the United States cannot maintain a lead in the world is if we give up.  So why are we giving up?