3 Candidates; 3 Great Ideas

I guess I'm a Libertarian socialist. I think that anytime power is concentrated it inevitably corrupts, whether it be corporate corruption or government corruption. Quite frankly, it is getting ever more challenging to draw that line between big government and corporate dicta. Our founding fathers had a pretty good idea of what tyranny looks like, and the inspired document upon which our democracy was founded does a pretty good job of limiting government powers and ensuring a balance between powers exists. Now, if only we would attempt to follow the U.S. Constitution!

Problem is, most Americans don't even know that they're living under tyranny as we watch these fabricated, controlled and manipulated "debates", by the same corporate media that continue to sell us a bill of goods seeking to perpetuate a fictitious "war on terror". Truthfully, there is no debate in this country, because the "top contenders" all essentially agree on the basics; in other words, they all openly defy the very premises of our Constitution and what a democracy should look like.

Nonetheless, there are three candidates of substance, and three ideas from each that I would like to elucidate. Firstly, there is the idea of allowing the citizenry control over their money:

Rep. Ron Paul is obviously a Libertarian at heart. He is a principled and intelligent man who is opposed to tyranny here and abroad. As much as I consider myself a liberal, progressive, democrat or socialist (and all those adjectives apply under various conditions), I think Rep. Paul might actually do the most to restore our dying democracy. I honestly believe that the fundamental means of restoring democracy is a redistribution of wealth. Whoa!, you say – you don't mean to refer to a communist revolution? Not at all. The way you restore wealth is by abolishing the Federal Reserve and returning to a gold and silver standard. This puts real money back in the hands of the citizenry, and effectively empowers them. This is not an easy thing to accomplish, since it had taken the banking interests roughly sixty years, a great depression and two world wars to wrest our monetary system away from us, and since that time they have been keeping the financial bubble inflated for the past thirty years by creating credit-based economies. This cannot continue indefinitely, however. History has shown that fiat currency can never succeed, as well as it should not since it is intrinsically immoral (it is theft, pure and simple).

Some of my peers have expressed concern over Rep. Paul's assertion of State's rights, by mentioning Jim Crow laws that existed in the South, and the struggle for Civil Rights in the sixties. I think it is a fallacy to attribute the attainment of equal rights to a strong centralized government's insistence upon them. It is fairly clear to me that the Bill of Rights guarantees civil liberties to all men (and women). The individual States must adhere to the overarching Constitution that binds them. In other words, I do not believe that a large, bureaucratic centralized government is any more efficient, democratic or equitable than local and state governments.

Now, all that said…I do believe that the Federal government can be utilized democratically to ensure that certain standards are adhered to. We are living in a different time than when the founding fathers put their pens to parchment. They certainly did not face the specters of global warming and the destruction of the ecosystem, nuclear warfare, corporate globalization nor technological revolutions on a decade by decade basis. Nonetheless, I think we can continue to follow the basic premises of the U.S. Constitution to ensure we do not live under tyranny. Yet the centralized federal government, with the citizenry fully involved along with their representatives in Congress, under complete transparency of operation is able to achieve things that local and state governments, individuals and entrepreneurs cannot do separately. For example, we have the interstate highway system. And then there were the Apollo space missions.

I personally believe that large, fully funded projects that rebuild our manufacturing base are sorely needed to put a shot in the arm of our atrophied economy. They must be pioneering designs which wean us off of fossil fuels and create a more just and equitable future for our progeny. I do not envision any other means of accomplishing such massive projects than a centrally funded and directed campaign led primarily by our democratically elected government. I do not think we can afford to wait for the private sector to patch together a solution to climate change! My pet favorites are the creation of car-free zones in metropolitan areas, the creation of car-free cities, national high speed rail, revamping local transit systems, cleaner and safer nuclear energy and other renewable energy sources. This type of infrastructure will build the economy and support it for generations. This is where Rep. Paul and I diverge – he does not see the value of "big government". I am leery of it too, but I think as long as we have a voice, and as long as government seeks the greater good, wonderful things can be accomplished. These projects should be fully funded without credit (credit-based economies being dissolved), and the government bodies and corporate interests must be limited in size and scope once the infrastructure is put in place, which is only possible when you've got an educated, engaged and empowered citizenry.

The next idea of real value comes from retired Senator Mike Gravel. This is the Fair Tax, and the abolishment of the IRS:

This would not require repealing the questionably constitutional 16th amendment, which essentially allows the federal government the ability to levy direct, unapportioned tax on individual incomes. Yet I think it best to repeal it, since it is so repugnant to the ideals of a free society. The 16th amendment was questionably ratified right at the same time we instituted the Federal Reserve. The federal income tax goes to pay the interest on the federal reserve. Not one penny goes to fund government programs. I could write for chapters about this subject, but I think we can safely say that the IRS is wholly contrary to the spirit of our Constitution and the intent of our founding fathers. The IRS demands transparency from the citizenry, but we are not allowed the same favor. In other words, the IRS has the ability to peer into our private lives where we are required to divulge where we earned every penny, but we have no way of auditing them, or seeing where our taxes go. There is no law in existence, by the way, that requires you to even file a 1040 form. And how does one define income? Income traditionally has implied profits, so working for an employer and earning a wage is not "income", it is fair trade. Is it not? Ironically, it is the very wealthy who actually have "incomes" that are able to weasel their way out of paying income tax due to the myriad loopholes that exist in the tax code. But why should that surprise us? A "fair tax" would be placed on goods and services, so that the more one spends, the more tax one pays. Such a code encourages savings and investment. In order to protect the poorer segments of society, the government would issue prebate checks that pay back the tax paid on essentials. Since the federals reserve system would no longer exist, these tax earnings could be used to directly fund government spending. With all due transparency, the citizenry could then decide where the money is best spent. Senator Gravel also has a plan for direct involvement of citizenry along with our representatives in Congress. These are great ideas for wresting back our democracy and empowering the citizenry. One could expect to see revolutionary changes.

The third idea is from Rep. Dennis Kucinich; it is the repeal of NAFTA, GATT and other "free trade" agreements in favor of fair trade:

These trade pacts are not free trade at all. They have done more to destroy the middle class than the institution of fiat paper currency and individual income tax combined, by sending our high paying jobs overseas. These agreements have also ensured that our national sovereignty is diluted to insignificance. We fought for generations to ensure that we receive equitable pay and benefits through collective bargaining. We have fought for workplace safety and environmental protections. What good is that if big business can move next door and open up factories that require none of those considerations? Ever notice how everything is manufactured in China as of late? Do you think that is just coincidental? China is a totalitarian regime, by the way. How does one compete with that, exactly? And what about small business and individual entrepreneurs? You can forget about that in the global market. We now have an entire class of underemployed and underpaid citizenry.

If you don't realize that the real war that is being waged right now is a "class war", then you are deluded. This has been the real war for almost a century, and it was going on long before that. Yet since 1913 we have been loosing big time. We must wake up and take action before it is too late. The banking cartel will not stop until we are fully under their control. You might think this is an alarmist statement bordering on that of the conspiracy lunatics, but I assure you it is exactly what will transpire if we do not act soon to take back our country. One day you and I could be implanted with chips that allow us to make all our trade and economic transactions without paper money. There will be plenty of people that love the idea. But what that means is every transaction you make will be recorded and your every movement will be tracked. If you do anything to upset the interests of the banking cartel, they will simply turn off your chip and you will not be able to buy or sell. It is brilliant in its simplicity. Resistance will be futile.