What We Want From Government

June 27, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Tea Party comments

Peter & Helen Evans

Friends, Americans, Patriots — lend me your ears!

We are gathered here on this beautiful day — not because we are filled with hate — but because we love our country.

Our hearts are breaking as we watch our good, true and beautiful nation being crippled by self-inflicted wounds, crushed under an enormous burden of unnecessary debt and strangled by tighter and tighter regulations.

Although the cancerous growth of government has been happening for a long time, it is happening much more quickly now. Even so, many of our families, friends and neighbors still don’t see this yet. This where we have work to do. This country is its people — “we the people” — ALL the people. So, when we love our country, we also love our neighbors. We don’t want to insult them, hurt their feelings and drive them away from us. We love liberty and we know that only the truth — and constant vigilance — can make us free. We must bring the truth to our families, friends and neighbors in ways that educate, persuade and convince them to do what’s right for this country that IS ALL of us.

Helen and I wrote a review of a movie a few years ago for our young nephews and niece. It was about the movie “John Q.” We offer it as an example of one way to get a discussion going about the truth. Helen is handing out cards right now with a link to it on our website. We hope that it can be helpful for you in your efforts to spread the truth.

An important truth was stated here almost 30 years ago and in these troubled times we need to hear it again. “Government is NOT the solution to our problems. Government IS the problem.”

Is anyone here old enough to remember the “Great Society” project of the 1960′s? Remember the “War on Poverty”? Over a period of about three decades the government spent Trillions (with a “T”) of dollars in an attempt to “eliminate” poverty. What happened? Well, we got MORE broken homes. We got MORE fatherless families. We got MORE unemployment. We got MORE drug abuse. We got MORE crime. We ended up with MORE poverty! Oh yes. Did I mention that we also ended up with MORE government?

OK, that was a long time ago. Look back just a decade or so. We all remember “Affordable Housing” right? Back in the 1990′s government started interfering with the mortgage market to force down interest rates and to compel banks to make insecure loans. Right after we got over the dot-com bubble, the real-estate bubble started blowing up. After a few years, of course, the insecure loans started collapsing in record numbers. By then the securities based on these shaky loans had been sold all over the world and this contributed to the worldwide financial meltdown that we are all “enjoying” right now. OK. So… “affordable housing” results in financial collapse.

It’s a CRISIS!!! Well we “can’t let a crisis go to waste” can we? Quick! We have to DO SOMETHING!!!! No time to stop and think about it. If all that borrowing and spending of the last few decades was a “bad thing,” then we had better borrow five times as much and call it a “stimulus” or a TARP or a bail-out or an “investment in our future.” Then it’ll be a “good thing” — right?

Well, it’s a good thing if you are the government, because now you control the financial sector and the American auto industry. What a relief! Pretty soon “we the people” can count on having “affordable” money and “affordable” cars! What’s the matter? Don’t you have any faith in the government?

Don’t you have any hope? Put your hands into your pockets. See!! you still have change!

Well, watch out now, because the geniuses who brought us “affordable” housing are getting all set up to bring us “affordable” education, “affordable” energy and “affordable” health care. As a very smart man once said, “If you think health care is expensive now, just wait until it’s free!”

The only way we can get government back on its Constitutional track is for ourselves to embody the foundational values of liberty and self-responsibility. The only way for us to embody them is to talk about them, talk about them with our families, friends and neighbors. It will really surprise you, once you start doing this, how many times we actually endorse bad values just because we are swimming in them. They are in TV the movies and the internet. They’re changing the meaning of the words we use. The bad ideas are usually hiding behind good-sounding names like ‘fairness’ and ‘equality,’ like ‘non-judgmentalism,’ ‘tolerance’ and ‘choice.’ Help your families and friends to find the truth underneath these disguises. That is why we’re asking you to take a movie, a TV show or a some other event in your life and sit down with someone and talk about what values are being promoted there. You might be surprised. That’s why Helen is passing out some cards of that movie review I just told you about. We went through that movie scene by scene to talk about the values portrayed there.” http://peterandhelenevans.com/articles-JohnQ.html.”

One of the bad ideas out there is that it’s OK for the government to steal from some people and give to other people. This is usually called something like “social justice” or “being fair” or “spreading the wealth around.” It might even sound better if we call the giving “welfare” and the stealing “taxes on the rich.” But if we bring it into real life — it’s just wrong. Imagine this: here’s you, me and the other guy. It’s cold. I’ve got a coat. You’ve got no coat. The other guy’s got a closet full of coats. Is that fair? That’s just the reality. I want you to like me, so I take one of the other guy’s coats and give it to you. Is that fair? Now you’re warm, but you’re in possession of stolen property, the other guy’s been robbed, and I’m a thief. Is that what we want? I don’t think so.

So much is being trashed in the name of fairness. Now, let’s be clear, we really DO want things to be fair, we want people to be generous and helpful; that’s an important part of life. Let’s take back what it really means to be fair and giving; let’s not substitute stealing for giving; let’s tell the government to get back to its real Constitutional principles and stop making things up as it suits them.

Come November, there will be a lot more evidence that government is doing more harm than good. It will become progressively easier to show our families, friends and neighbors the truth that these interventionist, big-government policies are the wrong way to go.

It’s going to become so obvious that even politicians will start to notice. Let’s help them pay attention. Give them a call. Send them a letter. Tell your representative just one thing you want to see changed. Tell your families, friends and neighbors to tell their representatives. By 2010, we the people will have some real alternatives when we go to the polls. We’ve got to tell them — PROTECT OUR LIBERTY. PROTECT OUR SOVEREIGNTY. ENFORCE OUR LAWS. AND — STOP REWARDING FAILURE! NO MORE BAIL-OUTS!!

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Real Economic Help for Haiti

January 16, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Cherry BlossomsHaving No Money Doesn’t Mean You’re Poor   September 2003

There’s a proverb about sailing on the notoriously shallow Chesapeake Bay, “If you haven’t run aground at least once, either you’re not sailing or you’re lying.”  And so in every life, if you have never found yourself wondering where you’re going to get the money to meet your financial obligations, either you’re not responsible for yourself or you’re lying.  However, even if you only had a nickel in your pocket, we wouldn’t necessarily say you were poor. 

There’s a difference between simply being ‘broke’ and being ‘poor.’  Almost every one of us has been broke at some point in our lives. Sometimes it was an intentional choice, like subsisting on a part time job while going to school.  Sometimes it’s just bad luck or the consequence of bad choices.   Life sometimes has its downs and we adjust; that’s broke.  But, when we give up trying to better ourselves, that’s poor.  And lack of money isn’t the defining factor of poverty.

The difference between broke and poor is not a new concept.  We’ve known for ages that if someone doesn’t work toward something themselves they don’t value it.  The “greatest generation,” who lived through the Depression and went on to win the second World War tried to give their kids everything that they, themselves, had had to work hard for.  But they couldn’t ‘give’ them the values and stamina that made their success possible.  That was the difference between the war against Hitler and the “War on Poverty.”  Just look at the housing projects to see what happens when something is given people who have the poverty mindset.  We’ve seen the same cycle with many lottery winners or rock stars; suddenly they’re rich but, within a short time they’re bankrupt.  Remember that old adage, you can take the boy out of the country but you can’t take the country out of the boy.  The same holds true for the poverty mindset. We can’t just throw money at poor people or the poor countries of the world – or even a poor cousin – and expect them to suddenly have the motivation to make something of themselves.

Dr. Ruby Payne has written a great book for educators, “A Framework for Understanding Poverty.”  In it she lists eight resources a person must draw on to abolish poverty or the ‘poor’ attitude.  Money is only one of them; the others are emotional, mental, spiritual, physical, support systems, relationship/role models. The eighth, and most interesting, factor is Knowledge of Hidden Rules.  She explains that in each class there are unspoken rules of conduct and behavior.  To escape the poverty mindset, new rules must be adopted.

So what are the implications for our national welfare system and the global welfare system?  That just giving money away doesn’t eliminate poverty; that we’re actually creating more poverty by down-playing or distorting the other seven resources a person needs to become self-sufficient.  President Bush’s Millennium Fund is one response to the hard problem of poverty in other nations, but it doesn’t get a lot of press and  the poor countries, who might benefit from it, are trying to change its un-hidden rules.  Why?  Because, in order to receive funds, they must live up to certain standards. In other words, they must work for the money and that doesn’t hold with the so-called “Liberals” of the world.

Of course we can’t ‘give’ anyone emotional stability or mental clarity.  All we can do is expect it, and then reward it.  Failure will provide its own corrective stimulus… if we don’t intervene with a mis-guided ‘compassion’ that attempts to ‘protect’ people from learning the error of their ways.  As a society, we must demand that people accept the consequences of their own actions.  We can expect that people must learn the difference between right and wrong.  We can’t take all the evil influences and bad people out of the world, but we can expect that people learn to recognize them for what they are and reject them, for their own benefit.

We all have a role to play to by our expectations, as expressed in law.  The so-called compassion that makes pets out of welfare recipients has to be re-examined.  If we are to survive as a society, we must expect the best from people.  Money alone won’t solve the poverty problem.

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