A few months ago if you mentioned these words one would think you were talking about the American Revolution. But history repeats itself and some of the things that happened then are happening again today.

For the first time in about 200 years, an American vessel was attacked by pirates. The ship, the Maersk Alabama, was carrying relief aid for Kenya when Somali pirates used grappling hooks to board the ship from their small craft. The crew managed to fight back and captured one of the pirates, but the ship’s captain, Richard Phillips, was himself captured. The crew agreed to trade prisoners, but they forgot that you can’t trust pirates and the liars got their man and made off with the captain on a lifeboat. When the Navy came to help, they needed Obama’s approval before making any actions. When Shah President Obama received the message from the Navy, he shoved it aside, saying that he needed to focus on the housing situation. Luckily, the Navy finally sniped the pirates and recovered the captain before any serious harm was done. Although Obama dropped the ball this time, we hope that he will act more quickly and forcefully if this ever happens again.

As for those tea parties, they were a huge success! Thousands of people from all political parties gathered together on the 15th across the nation to protest the rising taxes and insane spending. In California alone, there were 65 tea parties to protest against the Taxinator. When it was said that the government was spending like drunken sailors, John Ziegler said in a speech that that was offensive to sailors because they spend their own money.  Many of the picket signs were homemade and very creative.  One was: “Forget Somalia, the real pirates are in Congress!”  Many protesters wanted Arnold’s head on a stick, and, with the way things are going now, his and many others’ days in office are limited.

These occurrences are certainly reminiscent of the past, but will they have the same result as the last time?  The pot is cooking, and it seems that a revolution just may be brewing.  Sooner or later, time will tell.

It was doomed to die from the start.  Why?  The reason has nothing to do with the fact that it’s a spending package.  It all goes back to the heart of free-market economics and what Ludwig von Mises calls “Liberalism”.

But what is liberalism?  Liberalism is the foundation of limited government based on the common belief that individual liberty to prosper in an unequal system is best.  By unequal I mean a system where there is no balance of wealth: the rich can become more prosperous, the poor poorer, etc.

So how does liberalism play into the economic package passed last week?  It’s not just this one bill that’s doomed us to failure.  The United States began a downward trend the minute FDR initiated his “New Deal” package which did absolutely nothing to stimulate the economy.  In fact in 1939 unemployment under the new deal was HIGHER than it had been previous to Roosevelt’s election in 1931.  Even Roosevelt’s secretary of the treasury, Henry Morgenthau Jr., admitted years after the New Deal had been put into place that it did nothing to solve unemployment and didn’t do anything to stimulate the economy.

Why?  Because when you spend money you have to get the money back from somewhere.  So where does it come from?  Taxes…  Money doesn’t come out of thin air, and for every dollar we spend it’s another dollar we have to tax… or more than a dollar once you look at the interest.  The entire basis for the spending packages now and in the past comes because the government 1) recognizes the difference in income/ benefits and 2) believes that reallocation of wealth is more beneficial than leaving it in the hands of the “wealthy.”

What that means is that every stimulus package comes amidst a philosophical mindset of government intervention that necessitates more intervention to provide for the adverse of effects of spending and taxing.  It’s a perpetually degenerating system that always requires more involvement to “solve” for the problems it creates.  By that token alone we only dig ourselves into a deeper hole every time the government ignores the freedom of the individual in a concerted effort to bring those who aren’t as well off back into the arms of prosperity.

This system has a name, and it’s called socialism.

All socialistic societies lead to more intervention and regulation and less innovation, because the government becomes the provider and the allocator of knowledge and resources.  The question then becomes not whether or not we spend money to try to save capitalism.  We’re too long-gone to try to salvage a capitalistic/free-market system.  The question we now must face is whether or not we let a system so bereft survive or raise it from the ground up.

The first big change was a notable one. Obama froze the pay of his staff. Making a cut for the economy and a brilliant gesture that helped get many in the nation on his side. Also putting some restraints of the lobbyists. Not only reducing their influence on politics, but also giving himself more power over congress and other agencies. But although both of these policies are of some repute I think that there might have been some additional changes that would have further bettered his approval rating and would have been good for the nation.

First, he could have cut his staff. He frankly doesn’t need a thousand plus staff. This is something that Bush should have done as well. Abraham Lincoln went through the civil war with a small staff of two. Even FDR had a staff of only a couple hundred during WW2. There is no need to have that many people in the executive branch. Although a wonderful gesture, freezing funds will do little to help the smothered economy. But cutting the bloated staff would have been a great way to streamline the Cabinet.

The second big change was not nearly so pleasant. Obama announced to the world and many pleasantly surprised terrorist groups, that he is closing Guantanimo Bay for “national security reasons”. What he forgot to mention is where we will put them. Coincidently, this story was highlighted by the fact that the last guy we released from the Detention center went and promptly blew 16 people sky high. Apparently not getting the message of the Saudi “Jihad rehabilitation center” that he attended.

So where do we send them? To another country? How about France? Imagine the headlines. “Mob attacks French prison. Terrorists mysteriously missing.” It would be Bastille all over again. Or maybe to the Saudi’s rehab for terrorists? Or to Yemen, where terrorists “inexplicably” disaster from prisons.

How about the US? Well, there are several reasons why bringing them here would be a national security disaster. First, if they break out, were in deep trouble. (To say the least)  Second they get the same rights as an American citizen. So if they get a good lawyer, a couple of them could go scott free. Even though they are unlawful combatants. And where would we let them go? Here? I would not sleep a wink for months. The last reason I don’t think sending them to your local county prison is that we don’t need to be setting up terrorist “cells” in the US. These prisoners could get the opportunity to converse with each other, or worse US prisoners who will do anything for money. We could inadvertently have people who we would never expect being converted to jihad and helping with terror activities

I would like a better explanation from Obama what his national security reasons are. If they have to come here though I think we should send them all to San Francisco and Manhattan. If they have to be in the US, let the Obama lovers have them.

The next thing was the economic stimulus. Here’s a Lesson in economics. You don’t go into more bad debt to boot up an economy. That is basically what this stimulus does. Also interesting is the pork that is in the bill. For instance the Billions in the original bill that went to contraceptive devices. How does that help the economy? It is really simple really. Just cut taxes. That is the best economic stimulus. Ultimately it is the government’s duty to serve the people, and to protect the people from itself. And they can’t do one without doing the other.

Finally the most disturbing change was on the life issue. In an effort to make the world a better place, Obama reinstituted the “Mexico city policy.”  The funds aid organizations that do abortions in other countries. In addition to being yet another abomination of human rights, it takes my money and uses it to allow human traffickers an easy way to hide their dirty work, and continue to oppress woman.

On the same topic he also cleared the way for the useless, wrong practice of stem cell research. Many scientists have already found that adult stem cells are effective when embryonic ones are not. It makes not sense to do the unnecessary when we are talking about creatures that are just like what we once were. Many who would have grown up to live healthy fruitful lives if they were allowed to live. Liberals hate doing testing on animals. So why people?

In conclusion, Obama has made some good choices, and some not so good ones. On one hand he is not ending the war on terror. But on the other he is making it harder. He is decreasing government corruption. However he ignores much good advice too. I will admit I am not one of the 68% that approve of Obama first week as our leader.