I wasn’t particularly a fan of Jackson but back in the eighties when MTV still played music I saw more than a few Jackson videos. Even though it wasn’t my kind of music he was obviously very talented.

As I was driving from WV to FL listening to the radio Thursday I was struck with the notion that Jackson was a bit of a metaphor for the US.

Like the US he was recognized early on as something special. His talents and the special talents of America brought each lots of attention and both showed enormous potential.

Both developed their potential in ways almost unheard of in history. In Jackson’s case it brought him to a level of fame and fortune rarely seen in the entertainment world. The US developed its potential in a way that created the richest, most powerful nation the world has ever known.

Jackson used his enormous wealth to create a utopian dreamland, the never ending Never Land of Peter Pan.  Every day a joy filled day of play with absolutely no responsibility. Progressive US leaders at the end of the 19^th century began to build an American Never Land. The entire nation to be Utopian fantasy park. Everything candy canes, ice cream and apple pie. No need to worry where it comes from or who cleans up at the end of the day.

In spite of his enormous wealth, Jackson began living beyond his means. An empire built on raw talent and enormous energy became a hollow shell. Debt ridden and poverty stricken long before the evidence began to show to the rest of the world. Never Land floating in a mountain of debt closed its doors. A middle aged man, Jackson had disposed of more wealth in his short life than perhaps two thousand ordinary men. 

America once the wealthiest nation in history has also developed a taste for living beyond its means. America now finds itself the most indebted nation in history. As nations go 230 years is roughly middle age. This utopian Never Land was created by a political class that told the people what they wanted to hear instead of the truth. I suspect, even as his financial empire collapsed Jackson had plenty of expert managers and administrators telling him if only he bought this or did that all would be well again. They told him what he wanted to hear.  Nobody told him what he needed to hear. In America we have a similar class of experts with the ultimate expert in the White House. They are telling us that in spite of all the debt and the misfortune brought about by utopian dreams the answer is to spend a little more, borrow a little more, don’t look behind the curtain and don’t ever look at the bottom line. They told us what we wanted to hear. They are still telling us what we want to hear. None of the politicians are telling us what we need to hear. The truth is Never Land is crumbling but both political parties are still in a partying mood. Like a bunch of 4am drunks wobbling around on the dance floor, instead of calling a cab, they are still trying to bust a move.

The radio reported that Jackson had recently announced a new beginning. He apparently believed he had one more big game in him and he intended, they said, to make the most of it. Unfortunately for Jackson and his fans he did not get the chance to pull that one off.

Jackson lost his Never Land because the philosophy on which it was based was flawed. He appeared to have acknowledged that fact and was headed back to the foundations that brought him to such prominence. Talent and hard work.

America’s talent was liberty and its pioneering founders viewed hard work, something to put their hand to, as a privilege. They understood Never Land, by whatever name, was a place you visit. They lived in the real world. The progressives, in both parties, that are still selling Never Land today know they are selling what has never been and can never be.

America’s Never Land fantasy is coming to an end. That doesn’t necessarily mean the end of the nation or even the wealth of the nation. The choice is not between prosperity and poverty; it is between reality and fantasy. America can be a wealthy nation but only if we live in reality.

     Well I have been through the TSA shuffle twice in the last few days and I am again reminded why I got my private pilot’s license. It struck me while standing in line at the security gate, watching everybody get virtually strip searched, how complacently we accept this treatment by our “employees”.

I know there are a lot of folks out there that believe in this process. Both in terms of its effectiveness and that it is OK to trade a little liberty for a little security. They forget that government powers once granted are rarely returned peacefully. And will always be abused to the maximum extent. When they acquiesced to these policies they assumed Bush would never abuse them, perhaps they were right. Do you really think Special O won’t abuse them? The same Special O who takes bribes from Chicago slum lords. Special O who strong-armed banks, insurance companies and auto makers into surrendering ownership and control? The same Special O who ripped off pension funds and retirement plans to accomplish the nationalization coup. Special O whose first priority in office was to enable the slaughter of as many unborn children as possible?

right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Even before we were a nation we had the choice of letting someone else manage our destiny (for a tax or fee) or resisting that encroachment upon our liberty. We chose to resist.

Forced to choose between war or submission over that resistance. We chose war.

     During the course of the American Revolution a point came when the British General in charge had been authorized to make peace on our terms if we would forego independence. Franklin, Jefferson, Adams, etc. realized that peace without independence would inevitably result in future encroachments on our liberty. They chose liberty.

     Jefferson, given the opportunity to double the size of the nation chose the Louisiana Purchase.

     Lincoln was faced with two separate Americas. He chose war over peace.

     Wilson, given the choice to keep American's from dying overseas in a war not our own, chose to sacrifice Americans in spite of Washington's and other's warnings that we should avoid such entanglements. That choice took away our ability to choose whether or not to get involved in the Second World War since we bore a large part of the responsibility for laying the groundwork for WWII.

     FDR chose to socialize America creating a darkened future with a massive government rather than choose liberty and a bright future and chance a difficult reelection.

Kennedy and Johnson chose to involve the US in a war of attrition in Vietnam because they were afraid of looking weak. Nation building didn't work then and it doesn't work now.

     GW Bush left us in Iraq as nation builders for twice as long as the WWII took because he wanted to be reelected and knew presidents during war almost always are. He sure didn't make his daddy's mistake. Bush also chose to destroy free-market prosperity as a favor to Wall Street bankers who had already destroyed their own prosperity.

     Obama spent two years whining about Bush's war and then Bush's economy. As soon as he took office he reversed course and continues both Bush policies. Build nations for people who do not appreciate because it fits the socialist globalist view and bail out Wall Street bankers because that is how you get money for reelection.

     This is not, by the way, to indicate a lack of support for pounding the snot out of Saddam. (We had a treaty, he should have honored it.) But we should have done that and then left. The message delivered to future belligerents would have been clear enough. In fact a review of headlines shortly after Shock and Awe is sufficient to demonstrate the message was received around the globe. Now they laugh at us.

     In the first American century we see a list of leaders taking actions based on the long term wellbeing of the nation. The Louisiana Purchase was controversial in it's time but clearly Jefferson made his choice for reasons beyond his own personal feelings.

     Lincoln made a choice that is still hotly contested but it clearly was not for personal gain or recognition. He thought he was doing the right thing for his country. Many agree.

     In the second American century we see the rise of a political class that has been uniformly self serving. Building an administrative state that allows for the concentration of power in DC and a political process that ensures, almost without exception, the election of members of the political class in order that they can utilize that concentrated power to further their progressive socialist agenda. Ninety-eight percent of incumbents who seek reelection, win reelection.

     When Wilson promised to avoid the war in Europe and then immediately worked to involve America in the "War to End all Wars " upon his reelection we see an early example of politicians speaking of one agenda in public and executing their true hidden agenda in private. Wilson had long since abandoned any American fidelity and became instead a global citizen. But agenda or not his personal weakness led to England and France imposing a ridiculous peace on Germany which they failed to enforce (because it was practicably impossible for Germany to satisfy the terms) and which led inevitably to the rise of Hitler and the Second World War.

     FDR criticized the progressive socialist actions of Hoover and then jumped right on board and vastly expanded Hoovers efforts once elected making it clear his campaign rhetoric was empty. When FDR choose the socialist path it was precisely to further his own personal agenda for America which like Wilson was more global than American. Some might say Jefferson had a personal agenda for America and they would be right, his personal agenda was to create and sustain a nation of individuals free of government tyranny. Roosevelt's personal agenda was entirely opposed to personal liberty proven both by his general policies and specific actions such as charging a farmer with growing too much food when the food was used to feed the farmer's own family. You will starve if Roosevelt (or any other progressive) says you should and so while Roosevelt slaughtered millions of pigs, and destroyed millions of bushels of food crops, starve is what many did. I guess we can't have anybody not acknowledge the supremacy of FDR and his administrative state. Roosevelt's welfare programs and interference in the employer/employee relationship created a permanent class of unemployed people entirely dependent on government largesse. A class that votes accordingly. He used our money to buy votes for his own personal benefit and the benefit of every member of the political class to date.

We should not accord such cynicism to only the Democrat Party, Bush One lied blatantly when promising smaller government and no new taxes, Bush two clearly lied when he promised we would not get involved in nation building or when he claimed he was saving the capitalist system by destroying it. Well perhaps that last was not entirely a lie. He seems to have properly laid the groundwork for the destruction of the free market system in America and if we don't act it will be dead by the time his sidekick O'boy is finished.

     Today, as Americans, we are again faced with a choice of two futures. We are forced to choose.

The first path is one of empty rhetoric and broken promises. We've been on this path for a hundred years. This path is laid out for us with clean happy sounding sound bites by a political class that will continue to parse us, slice and dice us, creating one subgroup after another, one minority after another, for one purpose only. To keep us divided and conquered. They have spent the better part of a century dividing and conquering us. They promise an end to racism while attacking anybody who would end government sponsored racism, they promise an end to sexism by dividing us according to gender, they promise an end to poverty by subsidizing indolence and irresponsibility and punishing hard work, by decrying as evil the small businessman that is the source of almost all new employment and prosperity. The countryside treats the city with wariness while the city treats the countryside with derision. We are all taught to treat our neighbor with suspicion. We are forced to subsidize public schools that systematically attempt to destroy any sense of morality we have infused in our children. They promise an ever slightly out of reach future of plenty that is predicated on destroying our history of liberty and bounty.

     As Americans, we can choose a different future but we have to understand that there is not a political party that can be trusted to handle that future. After watching the Republicans spend like drunken sailors for eight years, we must understand this is not simply a Democrat vs. Republican issue. Neither party is worthy of our trust. de Tocqueville said "There are many men of principle in both parties in America, but there is no party of principle." If there are men of principle in either party we must find them but we cannot predicate our future on what may not exist.

     We need to understand that voting for the candidate that is saying the right thing doesn't correlate with getting the right thing. The politicians we have today simply cannot be trusted. In the sixties people used to say never trust anyone over thirty. Today we need to understand we cannot trust anybody who is part of the political establishment of either party unless they have a true and proven track record of voting for smaller less intrusive government. We can't trust a politician who has supported abortion when running for one office and claims to support life when running for another.   We can not afford more politicians who change their core beliefs according to the constituency being courted. There has not, in the lifetime of any currently living American, been a time when taxes were too low or government to small. We can not assume that a politician that vows lower taxes now means it if he has ever supported any tax hike. If we are going to have our bright future , we need to quit worrying about whether we should support this party hack or that party hack.

We need to do two things as Americans if we want a future of liberty and prosperity for our children and our nation.

     First, There are a few things that need to be corrected in our constitution. Some are things that were changed that need to be undone like direct election of senators. As a nation we recognized that prohibition provided the fuel for the growth of organized crime in American and we repealed it. We need to recognize that the Seventeenth Amendment enabled the growth of organized crime in DC by removing a powerful check the states had on both the legislative and judicial process. We should repeal it. Other areas need action to limit the kakistocracy (look it up) government such as term limits. We need a Contract with America in the form of an amendment. Something that clearly limits the powers the federal branch has usurped is in order. We must as Jefferson said "bind them down with the chains of the constitution". 

     We need a comprehensive amendment that restores the federal government to it's rightful place. Such an amendment would include things like term limits on congress, a repeal of the income tax (Not to be replaced with the Fair Tax or a national sales tax. They have way too much money already), the end to the Federal Reserve money monopoly by allowing people to buy or sell using any precious metal without taxing it, a graceful end to Social Security that protects current retirees from political grandstanding while allowing for current workers to opt out, an end to the nanny state by allowing all fines or court costs to be donated to a school or charity at the direction of the person paying the fine (You may think they care about people driving 3mph over the limit or smoking in a smoke filled bar but what they really care about is the money), real and constitutionally mandated immigration reform. Maybe you know some things that should be included as well.

     During the original deliberations in Philadelphia the delegates used a device called "the committee of the whole" in which to propose and debate the various aspects of the constitution without delegates having to firmly commit themselves to the various pieces as they were being suggested. It allowed for a more robust debate and exchange of ideas than what might have been possible otherwise. The delegates didn't however forget that the purpose of the convention was to reformulate a federal government that clearly was then too weak to effectively serve the purpose for which it had been created. Lets form a Committee of The Whole and debate the American Amendment. An amendment to be proposed and debated by a committee of the whole. In this case the committee comprises the whole of the American People. Any body can participate. We must not forget however that the purpose of the Amendment is to restrain a federal government that is now clearly out of control and operating in a manner at odds to the purposes of legitimate government.

     Next we need to realize that the current political class, regardless of party, is no longer serving the cause of liberty. They have passed legislation such as campaign finance reform that is clearly designed to entrench them in office at the expense of the republic. Both parties engage in class warfare in order to divide the sheep for slaughter. They whine about the courts after they approve the members of the courts and often promote the most egregious violators of the constitution to higher courts. They have passed legislation designed to enrich political sycophants at great cost to the people as a whole. They use the tax code as a method to extort behavior from the people and sometimes as a blunt force object to bludgeon political opponents. When in the minority both parties have decried the excesses of the other party but when given power have fallen all over themselves to entrench their own political positions and further their own personal agendas at the expense of the people.

We must not simply support a candidate for office we must run for office ourselves. There can be a bright future for America but we will have to make it ourselves.