mick silver
26th April 2016, 05:41 PM
Haven’t politicians done enough damage to America?By Ed Mattson (http://www.veteranstoday.com/author/mattson/) on April 25, 2016
In recorded history there has never been an example of achieving the socialist utopia that has always been the promise of liberals.
I am not talking about the Founding Fathers. I am talking about the succeeding generations of nincompoops who have tried to undo the U.S. Constitution – from elected self-serving congressional representatives and presidents who seem to be three French fries short of a Happy Meal, to Supreme Court Justices who have actually tried to equate European ideology and laws when interpreting the constitutionality of American laws.
Before we go much further I believe it would be appropriate to talk briefly about this great document we call The Constitution of the United States of America. When completed, it was originally signed by 38 of the 41 delegates present at the conclusion of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787. It was a monumental and hard-fought task won by those who supported the separation from England to reach the necessary consensus of 9 out of 13 U.S. states for ratification.
The date of the signing was September 17, 1787 (http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/u-s-constitution-signed), but as dictated http://www.veteranstoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/cartoon-founding-fathers-640x439.jpgby Article VII, the document would not become binding until it was ratified by states themselves. On December 7, five states – Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, and Connecticut – ratified it in fast succession, however the real battle began in swaying the other states – especially Massachusetts, who opposed the document, because it failed to reserve undelegated powers (governing authority) to the states and lacked constitutional protection of basic political rights, such as freedom of speech, religion, and the press.
It took until February 1788, before a compromise was reached under which Massachusetts and other states would agree to ratify the document with the assurance that amendments would be immediately proposed. The Constitution was thus narrowly ratified in Massachusetts, followed by Maryland and South Carolina, and it was not until June 21, 1788, that New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify the document, meaning the threshold had been reached. At that point it was agreed that the new government under the U.S. Constitution would begin on March 4, 1789, but it took until June for Virginia to ratified it and July for New York to sign-on.
In November 1789, North Carolina became the 12th state to ratify the U.S. Constitution. Rhode Island, which opposed federal control of the currency and was critical of the compromise on the issue of slavery, resisted ratifying the Constitution until May 29, 1790, and became the last of the original 13 colonies.
During the first Congress of the United States one of the first acts was to fulfill the promise made to Massachusetts and the other states to adopted the protections they demanded be amendments to the U.S. Constitution – the Bill of Rights – and send them to the states for ratification. Accordingly ten of these amendments were ratified by 1791.
This review was essential because schools no longer teach the difficulty we had in forming the United States, and the many diverse issues these brilliant founders had to overcome from slavery and control of the currency, to the basic freedoms we take for granted and enjoy today. The sad part of this history lesson is that it seems like a daily struggle for those of us who love America, to fight to retain those precious liberties which the liberal-progressives among us are doing their damnedest to trample into oblivion.
Now to the point I wanted to discuss, as our country has surely lost its way:
From the founding of the United States up through the end of World War II, we witnessed the development of the greatest nation ever conceived on earth; the most dynamic economic development one could ever imagine; a super military power without equal; and the destination immigrants would look to, not just as a destination country, but as a Concept, where opportunity and fortunes could be achieved for those willing to seek their dreams.
As we grew into the post-war period in 1945, we hit the streets running all the way to end of the 20th http://www.veteranstoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/war-production-board-475x640.jpgcentury propelled by the manufacturing and farming capabilities we established that enabled the Allies to win the war. Little known is that the farmers across America would end-up feeding much of the world population by providing food for export to save those who would have starved to death because their countries were left in ruin. Farming for much of Europe was destroyed as battlefields had replaced farmlands.
There may be those who wish to diminish our achievements and write them off and call America “just another country among the 196 that are counted as legitimate countries around the world”, but then how could they explain away the following figures?
40% of the world output of war material (https://www.pbs.org/thewar/at_home_war_production.htm) was produced in America. We launched more vessels in 1941 than Japan did in the entire war. Shipyards turned out tonnage so fast that by the autumn of 1943 all Allied shipping sunk since 1939 had been replaced. In 1944 alone, the United States built more planes than the Japanese did from 1939 to 1945. By the end of the war, more than half of all industrial production in the world was taking place in the United States.
While 16 million men and women marched to war, 24 million more worked in America’s plants producing goods to fight the war. Even as late as 1945, 12,209,238 Americans (http://www.historynet.com/what-percentage-of-the-population-served-in-ww2.htm) were in military service representing 9 percent of the 131,028,000 U.S. population. By 1945, 16% of the U.S. labor force was employed in agricultural endeavors, producing food to serve the bulk of the Allied Forces and feed the world. By the end of the war, agriculture accounted for an unbelievable 6.8% of our gross domestic product (http://www.ers.usda.gov/media/259572/eib3_1_.pdf) (GDP).
. . . foolish are those who believe that American Exceptionalism is just rhetoric with no basis of fact! Have you ever seen these amazing facts before? Probably not because they could not be matched by any other country one can name!
People who have little knowledge of the greatness of America, and those who today, believe there is nothing exceptional about our country, need to take note and pay attention to the numbers above. Schools controlled by our government educational system that has a bloated bureaucracy of socialist/Marxists/and ne’er-do-wells, fill our children with pure nonsense, re-written history, and the false-hope and promise of a collectivist society (socialism), which has never been successful anywhere at any time in history . . . they always fail because they run out of other people’s money. They contend we should be more like the failing countries of Europe. They are idiots.
Ludwig Heinrich Edler von Mises, was a renown theoretical Austrian School (http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/AustrianSchoolofEconomics.html) economist (other Austrian School economists of note include, Carl Menger, Eugen Böhm von Bawerk, Friedrich von Wieser). He is best known for his work on praxeology (http://www.praxeology.net/praxeo.htm), a study of human choice and action. Mises professes that Socialism will not work, whether in one country, a multi-state region such as Europe (i.e. European Union), or the entire world.
Interestingly one can understand Ludwig von Mises by the use of simple reasoning and the historic behavior of socialists in general. He explained that socialism is not an alternative economic system, but rather a program for consumption, and never seems to take into account economic production which would be the key to any valid economic system. In collectivism (socialism) each man’s production must be distributed to all, there is no economic incentive to produce anything, or discover and invent new products, except by the possible use of coercion or threats.
Free market capitalism that we have in the U.S. and which can also be found in Hong Kong, is an economic system of production, whereby each person owns the product of his own labors and, therefore, has great economic incentives to produce both for himself, his family, and has surplus goods to trade for the surplus product of others. The production economic cues are the product of the free market, capitalism, and prices.
Under socialism, neither the worker or his boss would know what to produce, how to produce it, or in what quantities and qualities unless dictated by the hierarchy of those in central planning. Market forces (supply, demand, and quality of service and production) do not play a role in socialistic systems (communist, Marxist, and collectivism). Even under threat of punishment or death the worker only produces what they are told is the best for the rest of society. As history has proven, the end results are often shortages, and complete lack of quality control.
Now comes along Bernie Sanders and the very liberal Democrat party to put us on a path ofhttp://www.veteranstoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Bernie-500x640.jpg fundamentally changing America as promised by President Obama and eagerly lapped-up by the youth of today who have been totally dumbed-down by our government public schools. When queried, the vast majority of those Bernie Sanders supporters could not explain what socialism and its derivatives (communism, Marxism, et al) were. According to the conservative magazine, The Federalist (http://thefederalist.com/2016/02/15/why-so-many-millennials-are-socialists/), “The Iowa caucus entrance poll found Sanders garnered an overwhelming 84 percent of the 30 and under vote. Exit polls from New Hampshire found 85 percent support for Sanders among voters ages 30 and younger”. . . a true indictment of our government controlled school systems!
The centrally-planned societies we have seen throughout history developed a herd mentality among its citizens, deprived them of individuality, killed the incentive to succeed, inspired mediocrity, and has never delivered excellence to its citizens. Instead, such systems continue to deliver only basic necessities, and eventually most of those under such systems learn to except what they have or find ways to flee to the bonds that centrally-planned societies hold over their citizens. Certainly, there has never been an example of achieving the socialist utopia that has always been the promise.
Today’s modern left-leaning and progressive democrat, contend the reasons for the failed utopian dream is because, “not enough money has been spent by tax confiscation, or that those in charge simply haven’t done it right”!
The Federalist, goes on to make a very keen observation that today’s youth we refer to as Millennials, are the only age cohort in which more are favorable toward socialism than unfavorable. Because of our inadequate public education, which appears to be by design by those in power regardless of political party, Millennials don’t seem to know what socialism is, and how it’s different from other styles of government. Socialism means controlling the people, and Control is the ultimate aim of most politicians once they arrive inside the Washington Beltway.
“The true definition of socialism is government ownership of the means of production—in other words, true socialism requires that government run the businesses. However, a CBS/New York Times survey found (http://reason.com/poll/2014/07/16/millennials-dont-know-what-socialism-mea) that only 16 percent of Millennials could accurately define socialism, while 30 percent of Americans over 30 could”.
In Part 2, of this article we’ll discuss what is in store for America and diminished prospects for our children and grandchildren if we do not change the direction in which our ship-of-state is sailing.
In recorded history there has never been an example of achieving the socialist utopia that has always been the promise of liberals.
I am not talking about the Founding Fathers. I am talking about the succeeding generations of nincompoops who have tried to undo the U.S. Constitution – from elected self-serving congressional representatives and presidents who seem to be three French fries short of a Happy Meal, to Supreme Court Justices who have actually tried to equate European ideology and laws when interpreting the constitutionality of American laws.
Before we go much further I believe it would be appropriate to talk briefly about this great document we call The Constitution of the United States of America. When completed, it was originally signed by 38 of the 41 delegates present at the conclusion of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787. It was a monumental and hard-fought task won by those who supported the separation from England to reach the necessary consensus of 9 out of 13 U.S. states for ratification.
The date of the signing was September 17, 1787 (http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/u-s-constitution-signed), but as dictated http://www.veteranstoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/cartoon-founding-fathers-640x439.jpgby Article VII, the document would not become binding until it was ratified by states themselves. On December 7, five states – Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, and Connecticut – ratified it in fast succession, however the real battle began in swaying the other states – especially Massachusetts, who opposed the document, because it failed to reserve undelegated powers (governing authority) to the states and lacked constitutional protection of basic political rights, such as freedom of speech, religion, and the press.
It took until February 1788, before a compromise was reached under which Massachusetts and other states would agree to ratify the document with the assurance that amendments would be immediately proposed. The Constitution was thus narrowly ratified in Massachusetts, followed by Maryland and South Carolina, and it was not until June 21, 1788, that New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify the document, meaning the threshold had been reached. At that point it was agreed that the new government under the U.S. Constitution would begin on March 4, 1789, but it took until June for Virginia to ratified it and July for New York to sign-on.
In November 1789, North Carolina became the 12th state to ratify the U.S. Constitution. Rhode Island, which opposed federal control of the currency and was critical of the compromise on the issue of slavery, resisted ratifying the Constitution until May 29, 1790, and became the last of the original 13 colonies.
During the first Congress of the United States one of the first acts was to fulfill the promise made to Massachusetts and the other states to adopted the protections they demanded be amendments to the U.S. Constitution – the Bill of Rights – and send them to the states for ratification. Accordingly ten of these amendments were ratified by 1791.
This review was essential because schools no longer teach the difficulty we had in forming the United States, and the many diverse issues these brilliant founders had to overcome from slavery and control of the currency, to the basic freedoms we take for granted and enjoy today. The sad part of this history lesson is that it seems like a daily struggle for those of us who love America, to fight to retain those precious liberties which the liberal-progressives among us are doing their damnedest to trample into oblivion.
Now to the point I wanted to discuss, as our country has surely lost its way:
From the founding of the United States up through the end of World War II, we witnessed the development of the greatest nation ever conceived on earth; the most dynamic economic development one could ever imagine; a super military power without equal; and the destination immigrants would look to, not just as a destination country, but as a Concept, where opportunity and fortunes could be achieved for those willing to seek their dreams.
As we grew into the post-war period in 1945, we hit the streets running all the way to end of the 20th http://www.veteranstoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/war-production-board-475x640.jpgcentury propelled by the manufacturing and farming capabilities we established that enabled the Allies to win the war. Little known is that the farmers across America would end-up feeding much of the world population by providing food for export to save those who would have starved to death because their countries were left in ruin. Farming for much of Europe was destroyed as battlefields had replaced farmlands.
There may be those who wish to diminish our achievements and write them off and call America “just another country among the 196 that are counted as legitimate countries around the world”, but then how could they explain away the following figures?
40% of the world output of war material (https://www.pbs.org/thewar/at_home_war_production.htm) was produced in America. We launched more vessels in 1941 than Japan did in the entire war. Shipyards turned out tonnage so fast that by the autumn of 1943 all Allied shipping sunk since 1939 had been replaced. In 1944 alone, the United States built more planes than the Japanese did from 1939 to 1945. By the end of the war, more than half of all industrial production in the world was taking place in the United States.
While 16 million men and women marched to war, 24 million more worked in America’s plants producing goods to fight the war. Even as late as 1945, 12,209,238 Americans (http://www.historynet.com/what-percentage-of-the-population-served-in-ww2.htm) were in military service representing 9 percent of the 131,028,000 U.S. population. By 1945, 16% of the U.S. labor force was employed in agricultural endeavors, producing food to serve the bulk of the Allied Forces and feed the world. By the end of the war, agriculture accounted for an unbelievable 6.8% of our gross domestic product (http://www.ers.usda.gov/media/259572/eib3_1_.pdf) (GDP).
. . . foolish are those who believe that American Exceptionalism is just rhetoric with no basis of fact! Have you ever seen these amazing facts before? Probably not because they could not be matched by any other country one can name!
People who have little knowledge of the greatness of America, and those who today, believe there is nothing exceptional about our country, need to take note and pay attention to the numbers above. Schools controlled by our government educational system that has a bloated bureaucracy of socialist/Marxists/and ne’er-do-wells, fill our children with pure nonsense, re-written history, and the false-hope and promise of a collectivist society (socialism), which has never been successful anywhere at any time in history . . . they always fail because they run out of other people’s money. They contend we should be more like the failing countries of Europe. They are idiots.
Ludwig Heinrich Edler von Mises, was a renown theoretical Austrian School (http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/AustrianSchoolofEconomics.html) economist (other Austrian School economists of note include, Carl Menger, Eugen Böhm von Bawerk, Friedrich von Wieser). He is best known for his work on praxeology (http://www.praxeology.net/praxeo.htm), a study of human choice and action. Mises professes that Socialism will not work, whether in one country, a multi-state region such as Europe (i.e. European Union), or the entire world.
Interestingly one can understand Ludwig von Mises by the use of simple reasoning and the historic behavior of socialists in general. He explained that socialism is not an alternative economic system, but rather a program for consumption, and never seems to take into account economic production which would be the key to any valid economic system. In collectivism (socialism) each man’s production must be distributed to all, there is no economic incentive to produce anything, or discover and invent new products, except by the possible use of coercion or threats.
Free market capitalism that we have in the U.S. and which can also be found in Hong Kong, is an economic system of production, whereby each person owns the product of his own labors and, therefore, has great economic incentives to produce both for himself, his family, and has surplus goods to trade for the surplus product of others. The production economic cues are the product of the free market, capitalism, and prices.
Under socialism, neither the worker or his boss would know what to produce, how to produce it, or in what quantities and qualities unless dictated by the hierarchy of those in central planning. Market forces (supply, demand, and quality of service and production) do not play a role in socialistic systems (communist, Marxist, and collectivism). Even under threat of punishment or death the worker only produces what they are told is the best for the rest of society. As history has proven, the end results are often shortages, and complete lack of quality control.
Now comes along Bernie Sanders and the very liberal Democrat party to put us on a path ofhttp://www.veteranstoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Bernie-500x640.jpg fundamentally changing America as promised by President Obama and eagerly lapped-up by the youth of today who have been totally dumbed-down by our government public schools. When queried, the vast majority of those Bernie Sanders supporters could not explain what socialism and its derivatives (communism, Marxism, et al) were. According to the conservative magazine, The Federalist (http://thefederalist.com/2016/02/15/why-so-many-millennials-are-socialists/), “The Iowa caucus entrance poll found Sanders garnered an overwhelming 84 percent of the 30 and under vote. Exit polls from New Hampshire found 85 percent support for Sanders among voters ages 30 and younger”. . . a true indictment of our government controlled school systems!
The centrally-planned societies we have seen throughout history developed a herd mentality among its citizens, deprived them of individuality, killed the incentive to succeed, inspired mediocrity, and has never delivered excellence to its citizens. Instead, such systems continue to deliver only basic necessities, and eventually most of those under such systems learn to except what they have or find ways to flee to the bonds that centrally-planned societies hold over their citizens. Certainly, there has never been an example of achieving the socialist utopia that has always been the promise.
Today’s modern left-leaning and progressive democrat, contend the reasons for the failed utopian dream is because, “not enough money has been spent by tax confiscation, or that those in charge simply haven’t done it right”!
The Federalist, goes on to make a very keen observation that today’s youth we refer to as Millennials, are the only age cohort in which more are favorable toward socialism than unfavorable. Because of our inadequate public education, which appears to be by design by those in power regardless of political party, Millennials don’t seem to know what socialism is, and how it’s different from other styles of government. Socialism means controlling the people, and Control is the ultimate aim of most politicians once they arrive inside the Washington Beltway.
“The true definition of socialism is government ownership of the means of production—in other words, true socialism requires that government run the businesses. However, a CBS/New York Times survey found (http://reason.com/poll/2014/07/16/millennials-dont-know-what-socialism-mea) that only 16 percent of Millennials could accurately define socialism, while 30 percent of Americans over 30 could”.
In Part 2, of this article we’ll discuss what is in store for America and diminished prospects for our children and grandchildren if we do not change the direction in which our ship-of-state is sailing.