A simple, workable plan does exist and what's more it has been gathering support from conservatives and liberals -- the kind who know this society is being killed by the size of the federal budget and feds' attempts to play long-distance savior to the American populace.
The plan is found in the book Saving Congress from Itself: Emancipating the States and Empowering Their People (December 2014) by James L. Buckley, a 92 year old retired Senior Judge for the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and former U.S. Senator.
The best introduction to the plan is not found in reviews but in Judge Buckley's conversation last night with John Batchelor. Buckley is so clear, concise, and simple in his exposition that I'm going to start wishing friends, "May you have Judge Buckley's clarity of thought in your 90s "
Buckley breaks it down for Bachelor's radio audience to explain the real reasons for fed and congressional overkill. Then he shows in paint-by-numbers style that the remedy is simpler than the uninformed would imagine.
And that's been the problem all along: over the decades hundreds of thousands of plans have been shouted at Americans by people who don't know what they're talking about. So then it becomes a political food fight, then nobody can make heads or tails of what anybody is talking about.
Sweep aside the accumulated clutter and listen to someone with vast knowledge of exactly how the government system in the USA works. Here's the link to the podcast of the conversation, which takes up the last two segments in the second hour of the show, starting around the 19 minute mark:
http://johnbatchelorshow.com/podcasts/fri-42415-hr-2-jbs-james-taranto-wsj-editorial-jim-mctague-barrons-james-l-buckley-author
Then, if you want to confine the federal government to its actual intended purpose, contact your representatives in Congress and tell them you want Buckley's plan.
For the doomsayers who say "They" will never let it happen -- before the financial crash I might have agreed. But to cut through the argument, what'll it cost you to try?
UPDATE
I deleted the title's specific address to "Americans" after I read a post at a blog in India, which made me realize Americans aren't the only ones with the same basic problem described in the title. See the next Pundita post for details.
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7 comments:
Consider that misguided but well intentioned statism is no longer a plausible explanation.
Consider: They Mean Harm.
America has matchless geography and non-pareil seemingly boundless natural resources. It could be so much, except for those backwards Americans standing in the way of Progress.
Consider that calculation doomed the Indians and now dooms us.
There can be now no good will from the DC Government towards the Americans, the die was cast in 2008. There's far too much debt now, no room for goodwill.
Washington DC has made it's choice and it chose itself and it's Financial Elite partners. We cannot even choose to face our choices.
Fight or Die.
Do me a favor on your way to the ramparts. If you haven't listened to Buckley's talk with Batchelor, do so. And even if you don't want to listen send copies of the podcast link to all your friends, along with a copy of the second post I published on the Buckley plan, which was just a few minutes ago.
I guess that's more than one favor but as long as I'm asking and if you can spare the time from loading your musket also contact your reps in Congress and tell them you want Buckley's plan.
Madam Pundita,
When obvious public evils or dysfunctions persist this indicates something is making them persist. They're called Interests. "You cannot ignore the question of Interest" were Washington's only public words at the Convention. Yet this is your contention and Buckley's- Ignore them in favor of "The Common Good." The direct interests of livelihood, power even their entire lives as they know it of 15-40 million Americans employed by the Public Sector dividing up the $9Trillion annual intake of taxes, regulation, Fiat, consulting fees- these are those interests and you, Mr. Buckley and Mr. Bachelor wish away.
A word about Buckley his work isn't a stranger to me, I read his book about his 1 term in the Senate. He was dismayed to discover even then [1970s] most of Congresses time was spent collecting money. He wrote a book about it, I read it years ago.
I get it. He at 92 still doesn't.
As for who's scenarios are realistic I have merely to wait like most Americans and the ramparts and muskets will come to us. The interests of the parties mentioned above are driving them there with whips-the whips of deadly debts.
I will give you the courtesy of listening to the podcast, I admire Mr. Bachelor and you greatly.
But you're wishing away our problems.
If reform was desired they could have done it when I was an infant, when Senator Buckley was in session.
His most noteworthy accomplishment indeed the only one is being the first to call for Nixon's head.
Forgive me but at 92 he remains a Chump.
You're not, you simply cannot face the truth.
I will listen to the link, do have a good morning.
I have nothing to object to in Senator Buckley's proposal of restoring Constitutional Government, but recognize this means overturning The New Deal.
Think about that.
Nor do I think we overcome the vast web of interests which since Clinton includes Finance, since Bush II the Security State, since Obama the Healthcare and Insurance industry...and we haven't begun to discuss either our national bankruptcy or pervasive indeed pandemic corruption and peculation.
Such people and interests do not do "The Right Thing" unless they are facing worse consequences for not [we call them criminals normally] nor can they conceive of any common good beyond themselves.
We don't get there from here by sitting down and working it out, nor Tea Parties, nor elections, nor Madam do we escape a Trial.
No election saves us from a Trial.
Things have gone too far for any other solution.
God could stop it, he has only to directly intervene and take away Free Will. God has never done so.
Nor is divine intervention a plan, although it's as practical as most proposals under discussion.
Good luck and keep up your good work.
Now I hate to spam you, but I'll end with this classic: Edwark Luttwak's Economics of Repression [Appendix A, Coup D'Etat].
https://entitledtoanopinion.wordpress.com/2009/09/07/the-economics-of-repression/
B, I'll comment more extensively on your observations but for now, allow me to speak bluntly. Even more than any political/economic/social policies, the binary mindset that dominates American thinking is our biggest stumbling block.
Granted, it's human nature to tend to think in either-or terms, but our two-party political system, once it became a 24/7 megaindustry, so dominates US public discourse that it's hard to see past the fact that not by any one way is a problem of many parts addressed. And doubly hard to see that a problem can be made of parts that really aren't political.
Buckley is actually talking about a technical fix to a vexing technical problem. That's why even many Liberals are now interested in the fix.
But of course, there are limits to how much getting rid of the fed aid grants will solve all America's problems. Just as there are limits on how much the Right to Work law can solve them.
But that's the point: it is not by any one way that we wrestle our way through an era that is moving so fast from so many directions that it just keeps coming at us.
The only consolation is that all other societies are in the same boat.
That's why your observations caused me to change my mind and publish HK chief Leung's key comments yesterday on the HK-US dollar peg. (see latest Pundita post.) The only editorial comment I allowed myself was in the title of the post.
But if you start deconstructing what Leung said, the Fed has about 15 minutes to stop goosing the US stock market -- which is "US pension funds" spelled backward -- and get back to the fundamentals. (Or better yet shut itself down, which won't happen.)
In short, many of the situations that we see as problematical at this moment will be taken care of by complex chains and convergences of events over which no single government or agency has control -- as Beijing is now learning the hard way.
Leung is essentially saying to them, 'Wanna survive? Then you need a stock market that plays it straight.'
But he's also sending the same message to the Fed -- and ECB.
As to how much longer Beijing and Washington and the EU can continue to stave off reality -- dunno, but my big point is that no one single approach to surviving until 2025 will work.
Yet all we can do is bail water one bucket at a time -- our only edge being that there's no law against how many buckets we can use.
Support Buckley's plan; do whatever you can in your circle to gin up support for it. So that will be one problem down -- one big problem -- with only a million more to go.
But i try not to stop and count. I try to keep in mind that a rose garden can't be at the end of this. As you pointed out, we want free will. Okay, so keep heaving the buckets.
With God giving a little unseen help to his most annoying critters, we'll just manage to keep our heads above water if we keep trying.
I believe that because in that one thing I really don't have a choice unless I want to embrace nihilism.
Well I said I would comment more extensively later, but I can't think what else to add.
Wait -- one more point: another famous feature of human nature is that it doesn't like to do things without being able to estimate its chance of success. Once that blip is applied to situations where it can't compute, we are our own worst enemy.
How the heck should I know whether we can bail fast and furious enough? But Buckley's offering us a bucket. So, bail.
Yes well Buckley is right.
But I am pointing out entrenched interests make it impossible for this to pass.
1100 social programs doling out $641B in food alone is rather a lot of interest.
By interest I mean self-interest.
Liberals are curious about Mr. Buckley, they have no interest in implementing such. Quite the contrary.
We'll bail alright and without embracing nihilism, but you are asking the beast to starve itself, it will not. It will starve it's enemies.
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