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By David W, March 10, 2010 6:01 pm

The American Restoration Project

It is time to outline an agenda for the coming new age of conservative governance. Despite the fact that in the event of conservative victories resulting majorities in both House and Senate in the November 2010 elections, we will still have a very liberal, socialist- leaning president. Nevertheless, it is time to compose a plan that will return the United States to founding, Constitutional principles. With the highly Washington- centric, central planning legislation limping through Congress currently, the message from the American people is very clear. Most of our fellow Americans simply want to plan their own lives, provide for their families, jobs and lives in the uniquely American way. They want to be simply left alone without the feds continually interfering with their lives and their commerce.

Unlike the Constitution, this is a living document. You are encouraged to enlarge and enrich the concepts outlined below, and to provide additional, intellectually based policy solutions to in this restoration of government by the people.

It will begin with some basic concepts, but the construct will be to consider and assess various policy issues as they enhance a return to re-establishing balance in the three branches of government, responsive to the will of the people. Second, it will be devoted to re-establishing the republican form of government, giving appropriate recognition to the restoration of states as provided by the 10th amendment.

1 Taxation/ Revenue policy

Our revolutionary beginnings were based on the concept of fair representation wherein the Founders did not believe it appropriate to tax without representation in Parliament (a basic tenet of the Magna Carta). We are now at risk financially as a nation based on the fact that 1% of the electorate shoulders 40% of the tax burden, and that a substantial portion of the populace pays no taxes at all. All this is a result of the great progressive movement that resulted in the 16th amendment to establish a federal income tax and not to apportion revenues to the states. According to Judge Andrew Napolitano, the first priority is to lower the federal tax power and to squeeze the lard from the system, and the related special financial benefits provided. This includes the vast entitlement industry and bloated social and military budgets that are destroying our economy. There are several good ideas, such as the fair tax, the flat tax, and requiring a super majority in both houses of Congress to authorize additional revenues. Zero based budgeting is another. I will entertain additions and substantive arguments to add to this list.

2 Federalism

With the advent of the 17th amendment, lobbyists no longer found it necessary to get representatives of state legislatures to support their issues, by allowing “popular election” of Senate candidates rather than election by state legislators. It was the intention of the Founders, even before the composition of the Bill of Rights and the 10th amendment, to guarantee states rights on issues not specifically given to the national legislature. This was best accomplished by the states having a direct voice in national government through the United States Senate. If a senator failed to adequately represent the will of their state or to recognize the just rights of the state, they would not be re-elected for a following 6 year term. It also provided for a national body that was closer to the people and sensitive to the needs of the citizens of the state. This is indeed an example of that to which Ben Franklin responded to curious citizens at the conclusion of the Constitutional Convention who asked what form of government they were to have. His response: “A republic if you can keep it.” We are far down that road of losing it.

I would recommend add comments and that you look at Professor Barnett’s website for remedies to this wound to the Constitution. www.federalismamendment.com

There are many issues that confront us in the restoration of the Republic, such as education, health care policy, redundancy and the excess of national government, including the federal agency, in Kent Masterson Brown’s words, “unelected and unconstitutional.” We will entertain them, but should be considered in the context of the above two principles, the power of taxation and restoration of republican governance.

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By David W, February 14, 2010 2:49 pm

Rodger L Gamblin

02/14/10

ABSTRACT

Man caused global warming, or climate change as some call it now, has become a controversial issue. Normally a little controversy is a good thing and leads to an increase in knowledge by all concerned. Climate change is not that way, however, because it is given as a reason to change the way energy is produced and used. Energy is the most fundamental product of an industrial society. Some time ago, a study was done that correlated the cost of most everything to the cost of the energy needed to produce it. What this means is that as the cost of energy rises, the real cost of everything does too. To preserve our standard of living the cost of energy must not rise. The only alternative would be to increase the efficiency of the use of energy and recently much has been done in this regard. Presently, further progress with increasing efficiency will be slower. What we will discuss today is the case for whether man-made global warming is, on fact, real. As you will see, we cannot say, no, never, and cannot even say there is nothing to it. We will show that most likely there is nothing to worry about for our or our children’s lifetimes.

BACKGROUND

Everyone has heard of the greenhouse effect and many know how it works. For those who fell asleep regularly in science class let me review it briefly. Glass readily transmits visible and high frequency infrared light. Again, for the science sleepers, light consists of certain waves in the ether and comes in different frequencies. The sun, being very hot, produces much high frequency radiation that we see as light. Its rays are readily transmitted through the glass of a greenhouse and are absorbed by, and heat, the soil contained therein. The soil never gets very hot. Even so, it re-radiates low frequency radiation, but this low frequency radiation is not transmitted by glass so the heat stays in the greenhouse. Without this effect, the soil would reach an equilibrium based upon the relative levels of heat radiated by the sun and soil. With the greenhouse effect, the greenhouse gets hotter than it would, say, on the moon.

Physicists know all about this stuff and at least once in their academic path had to compute the greenhouse effect for some ideal model. In addition, it also is known that the atmospheric level of carbon dioxide has been going up due to the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels. Even the slowest of my fellow physicists can connect these dots, and I pity the poor students today who have to compute the expected temperature of the earth if it had a carbon dioxide atmosphere and other simplifying assumptions so that the problem could be finished in less than eight years.

With this as background, you might conclude that the story is over, and that all that has to be done is to compute when we are going to die and forget it. As we discuss in more detail below, most things are not as simple as they first appear, and, in reality, man-made global warming is most likely not much of a problem. The above facts may show, however, why so many physicists in the beginning bought into the theory so easily. After all physicists are like everybody else. They have real work to do and accept what they read in the paper as fact without getting into great detail unless the matter is of importance to them at the time. The initial argument was in accord with their state if knowledge, and so the matter passed by without much analysis. More recently, things have changed as many in the scientific community began to see the danger from those espousing policy to prevent global warming. Presently, over 31,000 scientists, including almost 10,000 Ph.D.s have signed a petition opposing man-made global warming. The Heartland Institute of Chicago has published a collection of papers that point to the limitations of previous work in the field, including that done by the UN IPCC Report. Science has not, and, by its nature, never will be, settled by consensus. Like Galileo, one correct scientist overrules not only all others, but the Pope too.

GLOBAL WARMING COMPUTER MODELS

The earth and its atmosphere are a complex system. Many factors influence the temperature of the earth including the components of the atmosphere, the amount of radiation received from the sun and how much is retained as energy, how much radiation is given up by the earth, and how the energy is distributed and spread. Water vapor is a major factor in the earth’s climate system as are trace materials such as methane, nitrogen oxides, and ozone. Clouds and haze also are major influences. To try to account for these effects, complex models have been programmed on computers in an attempt to simulate the climate system. Much attention has been given the results of these studies.

Those of us who have done such modeling tend to be skeptics. The problem is that one tries as best he can to include the effects in as realistic a way as possible, but ultimately the computer has to run through the program. What it does then tends to be quite opaque. Literally thousands of hours can be spent programming and debugging, and when that all gets done, and the model misbehaves, one has to continue the trouble shooting until the results begin to make sense. The problem is that what makes sense may just be the prejudice of the model builder. There are limited ways to test the results.

Predictions of current computer models tend to be unreliable. For example, it has been reported that none of the most favored models have predicted the cooling trend experienced over the past ten years or so. It has also been reported that our nearby neighboring planets have experienced the historical temperature rise experienced on earth over the past years.

OTHER STUDIES

In 2007 an organization called the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), in a major study concluded it is likely that man had caused any climate change. In 2009 a non-governmental agency from the Heartland Institute published another compendium (NGPCC) on the subject and concluded that it is highly likely that any climate change experienced by the earth is from natural causes. The second study does not preclude any effect from man’s activities, but believes it to be small. It is tedious to study these documents in detail, both being long and technical, however, the second has the advantage of being able to use of the work in the first in their studies. Presently, the NGPCC is the definitive study. Work continues.

THE POLITICAL PROBLEM

When large amounts of money are involved, titanic political forces tend to come into play. In the case of energy, not only is just money involved, but also the well being of major political bodies. For example, General Electric has made a major commitment to wind power. It has very large amounts of money invested in the technology of building and running very large wind mills for the generation of electricity. Such mills are more costly than alternatives, but produce no carbon dioxide. It is in GE’s interest to attempt to block the use of the alternatives. The coal industry in the United States has long suffered from the fact there is no dominant, well funded player in the coal business. Though coal is the least expensive, and most effective means to meet a large portion of the energy needs of the United States, it is not being properly exploited because its use would entail the release of more carbon dioxide than natural gas or nuclear power.

If carbon dioxide is not a problem, the US should be building coal plants as fast as possible for the generation of electricity and heat.

The US has large reserves of oil and gas that are not being exploited. Oil especially is highly useful because of its easy conversion into propellants for transportation. Nuclear power, freed from government supervision, is also a low-cost, highly effective source for the generation of electricity. It is opposed for reasons that are, for the most part, hysterical or driven by its rival energy sources.

A discussion of the political problem would not be complete without taking into account the current struggle to the death between the government bureaucracies and the private sector. Should the government be in charge of energy production or should government have a highly limited role?

CONCLUSIONS

So what does all this mean. To me it means we should put the grown-ups back in charge. Not only will no good come out of limiting our energy production, but surely great harm will. The United States needs to return to basics; the basics understood by the founding fathers of this country. Let no more myths and fads espoused by those of questionable knowledge and intelligence or motives dominate our discussions.

Bureaucratic control gives neither safety nor efficiency. The academics and career bureaucrats currently selected to oversee energy policy and implementation have neither the will nor knowledge to act as rational arbiters. Allow various government interests to have a limited and advisory role only.

Limit the power of elements hostile to developers to use the courts to obstruct development of energy sources; perhaps by requiring suers to post bonds to cover the cost of trial and delay in the event they lose. Prohibit foreign interests from funding advertising or other propaganda campaigns regarding energy development.

Let us act soon. Time is wasting. Our current financial problems are, in part, caused by imbalances in the economic system caused because we tolerated it when we allowed a lot of silly and ill advised policies and fears to slip into our economic system. We need to reset these now in order to regain the vigor of our inherited governmental system. From the first founding of this United States, we have been the most prosperous and inventive nation on earth. We can be again, but must first ourselves of the European-like sclerotic growths on our economic system.

Thanks for your time and interest!

Comments (1)

By David W, January 17, 2010 2:41 pm

In the post Pelosi/Reid era, conservatives have mush to do.  We will use this forum to discuss the Fair Tax, the Flat Tax, & changes in the Constitution regarding tax policy.

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By David W, January 4, 2010 8:21 pm

Ron Browning is a business owner and a student of the Austrian school of economics.  He will be our next speaker on Jan 12rth at 7AM at the Galleria on Yankee Street, near the corner of Yankee and Lyons Rd.  His essay will follow.

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By David W, June 19, 2009 8:45 am

It occurs to me at difficult times for the Republic such as we are experiencing now, there are three kinds of Americans. There are those who are apathetic, taking advantage of the fruits of the American dream. Such citizens are either apathetic or fearful that to speak out will somehow threaten their survival. They are often pessimistic and potential victims of their own self-fulfilling prophesy. A typical attitude is that our destiny is one of socialism Euro- style and that with the leftists in charge of two branches, we are doomed! Every conversation starts with the same gloomy complaint, “I can’t understand what is happening to this country.” My response is always the same, “Understand that we (collective) are there, and that we must do something about it.”

Then there are our friends who are mesmerized by a petulant media and swayed by soaring but meaningless rhetoric of change for the sake of change, ignoring the fact that change may be worse than the current state. These are the seeds of the New Testament parable that were planted on rocky soil and destined to grow but quickly wither and die. For they have no sustenance in the principles expressed in the Constitutional Preamble and the Bill of Rights. They are all about conventional wisdom and popular culture, changing with each fashion season. Such Americans are surprised to awaken and realize that they have lost liberties they once took for granted and then they just want to blame someone else.

At times like this, however there are fellows among us who think we need to be energized. “May you live in interesting times,” is purportedly a Chinese curse, but if you can identify with heroes of our nation, including by the way every American that served in defense of this nation either abroad or in this country, it is our time and our opportunity to be heroes of the Republic, to push out our chests and proclaim this land for liberty and our God inspired and directed rights as free people of one nation.

Consider being an early American and even if you were not a signatory to the Declaration, but merely a supporter and advocate of independence from England. You might not be hanged but a good Tory may have seized your property and your treasure, had the Continental forces been unsuccessful. In a more parallel comparison, imagine you are fighting for the preferences of federalist (Hamiltonian) doctrine vs the republican (Jeffersonian) philosophy of the early post Revolutionary period. This was a question of the very future of the Republic and Republican government, and adherents on both sides were vehement in their defense. Come foreword 70 years when the blood of our ancestors was shed fighting our fellow countrymen. There was little apathy in those days, but plenty of pessimism after 4 years of bloody conflict. Come foreword another 80 years and remember the energy and power exerted by the greatest generation (whether or not you agree with the original premise of our involvement). It is now January, 1942 and Allied forces are losing ground everywhere, including the Far East, Europe and the Middle East. We are at war with a worldwide Axis, and we have essentially one ally. It is at that time when heroes stepped forward and filled the breach in our national security. From the Doolittle raid and Guadalcanal to D-Day and final surrender, our fathers and mothers hearts were in their throats each day as they tuned in to Ed Murrow or Lowell Thomas to see if our their sons’ sacred honor might survive. And again and again in fields and mountains of Korea, and Vietnam, in Kuwait and in Iraq and Afghanistan, heroes are born every day.

My fellow, free Americans, with threats to our system which we have not hereto fore encountered, that is threats to our free market system by an all powerful federal executive and its willing accomplices in Congress, the risk of free access to health care as an essential for a free country to operate, and to free speech and the growing burden of potential taxation, WE need to be in that heroic force. WE are committed to preserving that sacred honor that has been purchased on every battlefield and in most every church and home to preserve and defend our God given Republic. Be that hero and that soldier in its defense.

Dave Westbrock
Take It Back

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By David W, April 23, 2009 7:00 am

We are enthusiastic one week from a slew of Tea Parties across the nation. This is republican government at its best (representative democracy for our “progressive”- elitist friends) The order of business now is to establish clear action plans based the issues that unite us against a growing national bureaucratic dictatorship. TAKE IT BACK will kick of on May 5 to address issues affecting small business and threaten our capitalistic system.

Meanwhile, I want to refer you to an article, The Case for a Federalism Amendment, WSJ Apr 23 opinion section by Constitutional law professor, Randy Barnett. Known as the Federalism Amendment, it would repeal the 16th amendment (federal income tax) and clarify the powers of states vis a vis the federal government and its overreaching success in accruing undue powers in contravention of the 10th amendment. it would have the effect of limiting Congress in its power to tax, to establish the vast new entitlements on the drawing boards and leave to states the power to enforce the law, regulate health care, and social programs in general.

Dave Westbrock