Picking Paul Ryan

Unless you have been hiding under your bed or under a rock the past few hours, presumptive Presidential nominee Gov. Mitt Romney has picked Rep. Paul Ryan as his running mate.

There are some things that have changed in this race, because of that, and others that remain the same.  I've said this a number of times in a few places, but it bears repeating:

This election is not about candidates, not about parties, not about personalities.  It is about the size, scope and power of the US federal government.

All else is distraction.  Your job is to keep your eye on the target, do not flinch with the exploding shiny objects as they are ephemeral.  To permanently alter the course of this Nation away from its Statist and decrepit ends, you must vote and you must make sure that everyone you know is registered to vote.  To do so go to Wall Builders as they have a site up to allow you to check the registration status of individuals.  Too many 'conservatives' are sit on the side complainers unwilling to even register to vote.  Ask them if they are willing to do the simplest thing necessary to change things so that they can stop complaining and become an active critic that matters to their fellow citizens.

Ask them if they have any honor.

Give them the low-down on what honor means:

HONOR

Do as You say.

Say what You mean.

Mean what You do.

There are no excuses brooked in this.  If they have already registered, make sure they will honor their duty to society, the thing that We the People acting as Caesar ask of you to do: vote your conscience.  This IS a rendering unto Caesar, make no mistake about it, and is a requirement of our civilized society to do with a representative democracy.

From Lincoln we have learned that you can fool all of the people, some of the time; some of the people, all of the time; and all of the people some of the time.  You can't fool all of the people, all of the time.  Sit this election out, and you are just a fool and have been fooled and will continue to be in that 'some of the people, all of the time' group.  

Your vote does matter and there is no brooking this question. 

This is not part of one's duty to God but to the service that you agree to by being part of civilization.  Civilization is not a gift but a life-long occupation you get from the moment you can rationally think.

Anyone who complains, who doesn't register or won't vote is a fool.  You may want to find a better sort of friend that no longer includes fools.  Better to be friendless and committed to the hard work of civilization and upholding your responsibilities to it than to accept authoritarian barbarism delivered with a sweet smile and a set of chains to hook you up to the chattel car.  A civilized person will be dead long, long before that point, defending their life, their liberty and their inalienable right to pursue happiness.

Do I think Mitt Romney is a hot and great candidate?  No.  Yes I have a variety of reasons on that.  I don't have to like a man to vote for him.  He has some character.  The person we have as President is a character, and a composite one, at that.

Is he a lesser evil, like all we have been presented with in the latter part of the 20th and first decade of the 21st century?  To a degree, yes.  That is a distraction.  Your job is to get good people elected locally, from the neighborhood level on up, to start removing the claws and tentacles of the beast of government, and to stop it from sucking the life blood of this Nation out and putting our inalienable rights in danger at every turn.  You can start to limit evil and start removing choices from it.  You can't get to there from here without voting.

Did I mention that YOU have to be registered to vote and have a commitment TO VOTE on the assigned day?  06 NOV 2012.  It is printed on most civic minded calendars.  It is a date.  Keep it.

The job of curbing the extent, the reach of government begins with YOU not the government.  If you self-govern, abide by the laws (at least to the degree that you can as the evil concept of making so many laws that you are in danger of violating any of them by just being alive is now seeing fruit), be a good neighbor and help your neighbor... even that smelly guy at the end of the block who passes out on the sidewalk far too frequently... yeah, that guy... do you live at the end of the block and pass out frequently?... imagine what a horror HIS LIFE must be.  Reach out to help that sot.  Once he is sober he can tell you to keep out of his life!  You will find no good deed goes unpunished.  Let that sot know that if he ever needs help, he can knock on your door and get it.

Notice the part government plays in that?  Zip.

Nada.

You are not depending on government for getting the guy into rehab.  That is HIS decision to make, not ANYONE ELSE'S which includes YOU.  You can look up the number to a rehab clinic if he asks you to do so.  But that poor sot may have other problems of which being drunk and passed out is just a minor side-effect.

Say, is he registered to vote?

Find out. 

He might not get sober enough for this election, but might make the next one... which will be a LOCAL election.  For you to create a better society you must not only be willing to help out that drunken sot at the end of the block who tends to rant too much and not take showers that often, but go and vote.  Of the two, voting is the more difficult one.  He might even be able to give you some insight into that.

Bet you thought this 'civilization' stuff was going to be easy, huh?

These critical fundamentals of being kindly to your fellow man, taking responsibility to make sure that those heading to hell in their own hand-basket know they have a hand ready to get them out of it, and upholding your duty to your fellow man by telling Caesar what to do.... these don't change.

Notice how this isn't about Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney or any other thing beyond you being a good person, saying 'hey, no thanks' to government 'help', and then being willing to help others.  And VOTE THAT WAY?  Geez, wouldn't it be great if more people did this?

The enemies of liberty seek to beguile through theft via government... taxation is legalized theft to do a few small things, but handing that hard earned money over to those  who didn't earn it because THEY DIDN'T EARN IT and are UNWILLING TO EARN IT, that is theft of a greater sort.  Beyond the mere wasteful spending of government on overhead, forms, layers of bureaucracy that yields no better results save to ask for a larger bureaucracy (and this is thievery as well)... is the belittling of our fellow man saying that they are entitled to be kept alive for the sole reason that they are ALIVE.  Sorry, you gotta earn your keep and prepare for a bad life.

Are you prepared to practice the principles necessary to get to the good ends of man helping man instead of saying, 'Hey, Caesar!  You take care of this guy, ok?'  I'm sure Jesus said to deliver the sick and poor unto Caesar... no, wait a sec.... you're supposed to take care of those folks.  So sorry!  If you want to stop having money thefted from you via taxation, that means you have to pick up your end of that deal.  And no matter how much fancy and nice language you put up to this, it is destruction of the moral will of individuals to be individual and to be a vibrant member of society and to uphold the good of society so that government can get on with the few things necessary to protect us from attack.  That in no way relieves YOU of the obligation to protect yourself, your loved ones, your neighbors or your property from attack, either.

I suggest you be well armed.  Others tend to forget that what you earn is yours, not theirs.  Government is just at the top of the list, it is not the list entire.

So what has changed in the Presidential race?

The above is now the new focus.

Remember it.

Keep your eye on the target.

Ignore distractions, and they will be outrageous.

Make sure your friends are registered to vote.

Make sure your friends vote.

Make sure YOU VOTE.

And after that be a beacon and light of liberty to others, holding out a hand in friendship and yet prepared to confront those that only have a fist ready for you.

This is not the end of the procedure.

It isn't even the beginning of the end.

It isn't even the end of the beginning.

Depending on how much of this you already do you are either in Square 1 and saying 'where the hell am I?' or a few squares down the road.  Getting to GO is a long, long, long way away and every decision you make will become a gamble on yourself, your neighbors, your life and your Nation.

Every.

Single.

Decision.

Keep your eye on the target as it is the light of liberty and freedom for all mankind.

Government can't build that.  ONLY YOU CAN.

Isn't life grand?

The Way Forward - Blue State Reforms

The victory by Gov. Scott Walker (R - WI) last night points a way forward for other Blue State Governors to start reforming Public Employee Union problems with pensions and health care.  It is a multi-step process but the key points are now clearly visible.

First - Stop collecting Union dues for the Union at the State and local level.  The power of the PEUs comes from dues garnered from employees who may not want to be in the Union.  As States have sovereign power outside of those powers vested in the federal government, it can decide with input from its people on how best to ensure that public employees are to be treated.  When WI stopped the government role of dues collector and left it up to voluntary contributions, the number of dues paying teachers, as an example, dropped by 2/3 (Source: Fox News/WSJ 31 MAY 2012):

Wisconsin membership in the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees-the state's second-largest public-sector union after the National Education Association, which represents teachers-fell to 28,745 in February from 62,818 in March 2011, according to a person who has viewed Afscme's figures. A spokesman for Afscme declined to comment.

This hits the ability of PEUs to flow cash into political campaigns and to seek to get PEU friendly representatives across the table to pass legislation friendly to the PEUs.  That is inherently corrupt as it puts PEUs in a position of running both sides of the table during negotiations, which short-changes the public at large.  For a Blue State Governor, putting the case forward that the public, alone, should be the ones to decide how many employees should be in the government, what they should get paid and what other perks should be paid by the public to give to the employees.

Of course this is the 'Third Rail' of PEU influence in politics at the State and local level.  Yet it is the easiest to sell to the public.  Why should PEUs get a say in the political process which, in essence, allows them to influence votes, influence the legislative process and to bias the legislation in their favor at public expense?  The major upside is that public employees will get an opportunity to get a virtual raise by not funding the PEUs.

Second - Pension and health care reform requiring PEU members to pay a larger percent (or ANY percent) of their pension and health care insurance.  Changing the pension system to get away from the pyramid scheme system where current PEU members pay for the pensions of current retirees, with the State or local government picking up any difference, is bankrupting the governments involved.  Shifting to a defined contribution set of plans under the control of the public employees individually, firstly empowers employees to determine their own course in life means that their independence is increased by having an individual retirement plan.

As most private employees pay a large percentage of their health care insurance (either through an employer or purchased individually) the idea that public employees should pay an equivalent amount, or at least something closer to what the federal employees pay (approx. 40%) attacks the idea of 'fairness'.  Putting public employees in the same position as their private counterparts is self-evident as a 'fairness' measure, and yet another easy sell to the public at large.  Anyone who spouts 'fairness' should support this as it is the basis of having a level employment system amongst public and private employees.

These can both be made more palatable to public employees by letting them decide if they want to pay dues to the PEUs (step 1), thus by doing the first step, the second becomes easier.  This can be made more palatable to public employees by allowing a voucher so that they can choose a private health plan or cash it out as additional income and fully take the risk for their own health care on their own.  Shifting cost need not be a fully negative affair and can be made into a liberating and empowering experience for the individuals involved.

Third - Remove the under-performers.  For the public to see an increase in performance and to see that tax dollars are being spent wisely and that public employees are dedicated to their job and not just to their perks, remove protection from being fired from the public employee workforce and shift pay to meet performance.  To do this set standards of performance and efficiency to be met by public employees and fire the bottom 10% each and every year, regardless of seniority, time in service, or level of service.  Performance can have input from peers within the workforce, input from upper and lower levels of the public employee structure and public input.

This moves a step beyond what has been done in WI, but follows the successful system utilized by the CIA.  There it is possible to shift up and down the pay structure very quickly which means that performance matters.  By linking pay with performance and getting under-performers out of the system means there is incentive to perform better and serve the public in a more open and friendly manner.  After the power of the PEUs is removed and public employees are given more independence, the move to a performance based system then becomes possible.  This utilizes the 'best of breed' systems utilized elsewhere and underscores that the job of a public employee is to serve the public, not just service the public.

By increasing visible efficiency and friendliness government functions are done better and with greater transparency.  Increased efficiency means having a workforce that can be downsized over time, perhaps by removing job billets with the annual 10% reduction, until optimal efficiency is reached by the remaining labor force.  Companies do this and the same methodology can be applied to government functions.  After step one and step two, this then puts the results of those two into play to the benefit of the public.  A way to show this is to remove fees and other payment overhead from State functions for the public as the public is already paying for the function and shouldn't have to pay twice for it: efficiency should have visible rewards beyond just better service.

Result - For a Blue State Governor this achieves reform without having to become a 'Right To Work' State, which means that Unions (not just PEUs) have no basis to lobby against the government on hostility to Unionization grounds.  Public employees are a different category from private employees as they serve the public, on the public's dime and that is garnered through involuntary taxation (not voluntary purchase).  That sovereign function of needing individuals to perform duties for the State is due to there being a public willing to support the system of government for the benefit of the public in an unbiased manner.  Public employees do not have to worry about evil capitalist bosses as the State is not in a position to make a profit as it is not a corporation, thus there is no 'exploitation' of workers: the public sets the rules through the legislative process, everyone knows what they are and what the standards are for employment on the public's dime.

Resolving the problems of insolvency of States and local government can be handled in such a way as to ensure that all services (not just 'vital' ones) are done in an efficient, timely and courteous manner by public employees.  By rewarding efficiency and courtesy, it is reinforced, meaning that public employees understand that they are volunteering to take a public job and that they are beholden to the public for their activities.  This is a benefit not just to the public, but to public employees who are given the ability to chart their own course for longer-term life necessities and make their own decisions about what they should be.  By not rewarding organizations that slack off, by not rewarding inefficiency through larger work force sizes, and by not taking on the future debt of public employees, government size and cost can be reduced.  Showing a balanced budget, a user-friendly government, transparency on cost, and by demonstrating that positive moral values are enforced by the government, a Blue State Governor can demonstrate that they can support public needs while not putting future generations at risk for insolvent decisions made for politically expedient reasons, now.

Because of the future insolvency problems due to the current system of PEU contracts, reforms will take place.  Taking some pain now can mean avoiding default and bankruptcy of governments, which is a much, much larger pain when that happens.  It doesn't matter how Blue the State is: this is coming.

The other results from last night were from the cities of San Diego and San Jose reforming pensions for their public employees.

CA is a very Blue State, yet even there reform is coming due to decades of spendthrift government and bloated government PEU structures.

If a Governor doesn't get ahead of the game, then it will be done for him or her starting from the ground-upwards.

When that happens the color of Blue just might disappear.

Even the most deeply committed ideologue in government does have a survival instinct.  From last night's results, that instinct is now being forced to the forefront.

Reform is coming to America.

You can do it fast and with some pain now, or with much greater pain in a couple of years and putting our children and grandchildren into a 3rd world failed Nation situation.

That choice is yours.

I suggest you make sure you are registered to vote.

Memory Compression

Four years ago doesn't seem like all that long ago which is part of the ageing process: 4 years to someone who is 10 is 40% of their life, yet to someone who is 40 it is 10% of their life.  With 40% it seems like a long, long duration, but at 10% it is getting scaled down to something understandable.  This is part of the experiential memory compression we all go through and it is due entirely to natural processes.  Yet, today, that now appears to be having an added factor put into, which leads to some interesting results.  That factor is one that Mickey Kaus hit upon: Feiler Faster Thesis (FFT).

I've been looking at this for awhile (with attention to the FFT here) as it is a part of a suite of changes due to technology that we are experiencing (which I discuss here and here).  Kaus applies it to the newsroom (circa. 1970's) to describe how news cycles were getting shortened due to the public being able to process news faster, but it serves as an expansible concept that can be applied to other aspects of life.  When applied to politics or economics, people ingest information about those areas and come up with mental products for themselves faster than they did one cycle previously.  The FFT is a cyclic compression phenomena that tends to lower the scale of time to understand where new events and topics fit into a broader schema of ideas for individuals. 

Thus proposed budgetary changes and their impacts on individuals used to be something, in the 1930's, that took years if not longer to figure out and some things were just shelved, mentally, by individuals.  By the 1980's the information processing system had produced end-products for 1930's to 1960's programs that was showing a definite 'crunch' time for them circa 2030-2050.  Thus the elapsed time of nearly 40 years was being compressed, for understanding, between 1970 and 1985: 15 years.  We, as individuals, ingest that and begin to comprehend that the social systems run by government won't be with us in the future.  Growing up, in those years, meant you were changing your expectations for life to be far different than that of your parents or even that of the Baby Boom Generation.

The first Republican Congress that ran on a fiscal tightening agenda was elected in 1992.  Time span: 7 years from general acknowledgement that something was wrong with social programs.  By the mid-1990's the Welfare program had been altered and tightened to start removing it as a 'social program' that was constantly expanding.  That followed along with the general previous timeline of 7 years, and during that timeframe the Republicans in Congress started to demonstrate they had not gotten the message in 1992.

Even with White House victories in 2000 and 2004, the Republican majority in Congress was waning and finally shifted in 2006.  Time from 1998 to 2006: 8 years.  Part of the reason for the stalling of the FFT between 1985 and 2006 is that technological advances which were remaking industry, were not remaking home life and how we view news.  With the Internet Bubble and its bursting, the sharing of economic data started to match up with the expansion of Internet accounts for individuals.  The FFT is based on technology, in the end, with TV having replaced newspapers which was what Mickey Kaus was seeing.  The advent of the digital platform along with the laws that go with it (Moore's and Metcalfe's) means that the ability to process information is increased over time by technology and the number of people on the network.

If the Internet Bubble Crash was the phenomena that rippled through the users of the 'net, then it also makes the kick-start point for the next cycle of the FFT as it is now the driver of information, not TV.  This new cycle, then, picks up where the old left off and between the IBC and the changeover to Democrats in Congress is: 5 years.  The election of Barack Obama would appear to be intra-cycle but, in fact, is the mark of the next cycle where the Baby Boom Generation finally gets a clue about the insolvency of social programs.  They don't like that idea, as a whole, and deny it.  Thus Barack Obama comes on the scene promising money for nothing... or worthless money, whichever comes first.

Now comes the fun part: what if Obama didn't interrupt the cycle?

Then you get a new set of social changes in 2009-2010.

It is called the Tea Party.

In just 2 years the Tea Party has arisen, started to take over Republican state political systems and is moving a new force into the political and economic systems.  In some ways it feels like forever from the first call for a Tea Party to having Tea Party members elected to Congress, and yet that was under 2 years.  If you cast your mind back 4 years, it feels like a long time ago due to the fact that it is part of the last cycle of comprehension increase.  Experientially, however, it still remains rather close to an adult, and so the things done in the name of 'fiscal stability' (TARP, bailouts, printing money, taking over banks, the housing meltdown which caused those things) still remains close as it is an active part of today's mental knowledge.  The bewilderment at the systems melting down turned to understanding and then moving in socially known vectors to start changing the system to get rid of the dysfunctional parts of it.

Depending on if you see government spending on social programs as a 'necessity' or a 'cost' you have two very different attitudes towards what is going on in government and society today.  If you see it as a 'necessity' you can't understand why anyone wants to amend or change, or even remove the current social system set-up.  If you see it as a 'cost' however, you understand that the ramifications to trying to prop up this system are bone chilling not just for you but for the Nation and the World.  

These two different outlooks trend towards different eras of processing via the FFT and those with the 'necessity' outlook are still adhering very much to a newspaper attitude towards things where social and economic costs really aren't projected out beyond a 6 month time horizon.   With those in the Internet side of processing information (not via computer but you, personally) the time horizon is collapsing in front of you AND behind you as you see the direct cause and effect of social programs that are unsustainable.  As I went over elsewhere, this becomes an 'OODA loop' phenomena in which the rate of new information processing as part of the Observe stage then feeds faster into the Orient stage based on the FFT cycle.  Also the Decide stage is done faster by those with a higher FFT basis than those in a previous cycle, so that those in the mental era of the 1990's are having rings run around them by individuals who adapted to the new FFT circa 2001.  What happens is that the modern FFT individuals then Act faster and more decisively than those in the older cohorts.

By processing more and orienting on it faster, the memories necessary to sustain the modern FFT then come closer to you in the present.  The rancor of politics circa 2006 is still felt, today, by those who the rancor was pointed at, but they have put that to use in their OODA loop boosted by the FFT: winning is a long-term prospect, not just the next election.  The time compression forward means that 4 years doesn't seem that long, at all, no matter how bad the personal experiences are, the days flow quickly by.  Yet on that experiential front, individuals in the modern FFT are now taking in more than 4 years worth of data per year, and perhaps as much as 3-5 times that while their pre-cycle counterparts are still at 1.2 – 2 times standard.

This is purely experiential, there is no way to measure this feeling and outlook, and it must vary by an individual's age and background, and their willingness to accept information cycle changes over time.  The language of just the 1960's now seems quaint and even archaic, so those spouting similar language, today, come across as detached from modern times and unwilling to adjust to them.  As events go on, as budget items come up, those still struggling with the limited horizon FFT mindset are finding themselves besieged at every turn by people who, though wildly different in age and computer skills, have accepted the new cycle's capabilities and applied them.  FDR's programs have gone from glorious wonders of social security to spendthrift economics of a Ponzi Scheme that did not lift the Nation out of the Great Depression but actually lengthened it and made it worse over time.  That is disturbing to the pre-Internet cycle individuals as this is liquidating their outlook on economics and society in a single blow.  Yet those in the Internet cycle FFT understand, intuitively, that this is so and the cost of government 'help' is far too high and absolutely unsustainable due to demographics.

If the society of a Nation is its engine, then the government is the vehicle in which it moves, and the old vehicle, cobbled together out of feel good programs in the 20th century has ground to a halt with its transmission grinding.  A new transmission is being put in place, one that is 21st century advanced but based on ageless principles of self-government, self-reliance and charity.  The Tea Party is just the lowest gear of that new transmission and those stuck in the old pre-Internet FFT fear it like all get out as it is a future that none of their theorists ever predicted, that no one on the Left ever foresaw, and that Marx didn't account for.  Centuries of Leftist thought are about to get churned out of the system as the new transmission goes into place.

It doesn't feel that far off, although it may be a decade to do that.

It will be a different world, then, as we change it as we go.  No matter how horrible the circumstances those on the Internet FFT understand the horror that is government when given power over individuals.  That is not a turning away from social duty, quite the contrary, it is putting faith and trust in individuals to do this and no trust in government to do it at all.  Yet the memory of what happens when government DOES get its fingers into everything will be remembered with a very fresh face even once that new way of doing things is put in place.  The past is still, by year, growing distant just 4 years down the road, but the memory of it is fresh and hard... and while the way ahead is harder, still, the outcome must be one that shears politics and economics asunder, so as to leave society to dictate to government what few things need be done.

Those who don't want that don't want to change.

They want a world that is stagnant, dying.

It doesn't work that way, the pie does grow and when the poor do well then the society is doing good.  There will always be a difference between rich and poor, but when the poor can have food, provide shelter for themselves and find a job to sustain themselves, then society is doing very well.  We had a short taste of that until government ruined it during the 1990's to 2005.  It is understood that government is the problem, not corporations or individuals.  When those clinging to the old way of thinking finally come to understand that, they will have a new horizon open to them: a frightening one of personal freedom, personal liberty and the responsibilities of charity thrust upon them.

Your memories do get compressed, and if you are uncomfortable with the process, then welcome to the Internet FFT.

The next compression cycle will knock your socks off.

Day of Decision

Tomorrow is a day of decision for Americans and a day of history.

It is a day we vote for our representation in our National government in the Legislative Branch, and for the past four decades and more we have become lax in this exercise of our franchise right.

Source: US Census

Our ancestors who founded this Nation fought hard so that we the people would get the franchise so as to be able to have a say in our governance.  To have that say we elect representatives to Congress, so the Nation may know about itself via those who represent us.  Voting is not about parties 'winning' nor about ideology, but a simple means for the Nation to know about itself in its National government so that all the views of the people can be heard and given airing for the people to know about.  This is the role of any government, but is particularly the case in a representative democracy in a republican form of government: we get wide say in our representatives and our government comes to reflect us in our voting for representatives at all levels of government.

We crossed the boundary of 50% for Congressional elections in 1974 and only approached that, once, in 1982.

Worse is that our turnout for Presidential years has been in a steady decline, as well, so that we passed the point of claiming even a plurality support for government, that being over 35% support via 'winning' of the entire population, some time ago.  Not voting is not a vote to support any 'party' or, indeed, our form of government and counting only those who do vote have left out the plurality, turning into a majority, that do not do so.  Winning even 50% of 60% turnout is 30% National support of all those eligible to vote and that was last seen in 1984 with 1992 being a 3-way race.  It follows then that the actual plurality that does not vote is sending a message that they do not support our government enough to exercise the right that so many around this planet give their lives for: a simple say in their government.

When such small segments of the polity come to power there is great trouble in any form of government as the oversight of the few with that power diminishes.  The history of this is such that we can no longer claim the necessary validity that some tyrants have had coming to power based on far larger turnouts, with even more parties to contest elections.  That history is not inevitable, however, as it is the people who give legitimacy to representative government, not the government that takes it or assumes it for itself.

America turned away from the regular cleansing of government when the Progressive movement took hold so as to concentrate power and slowly distance the people from their representatives.

Courtesy: thirty-thousand.org

It is a set of graphs that we will all come to rue if we do not assert our will as a people upon our government and, instead, feel that our voice has no say and that those in power will forever be re-elected to the point that they rarely concern themselves with those they represent.  Distant governors are tyrannical ones, as they have to stake in those they govern and thus feel that they are fit to rule, not govern, over people.

Thus tomorrow is a day of exercising our hard won rights, fought and died for, marched for, and that has left a bloody trail behind it so that we can, indeed, have a say in our own government.

Tomorrow we the people can make history and vote in more than a mere plurality but in a majority, and begin to place legitimacy back into government of, by and for the people.  To get a government for the people it must be supported by the people and consist of representatives from the people.

Voting for a candidate that reflects your outlooks on life, your viewpoints and who will protect your way of life is paramount at all times.  A people willing to govern themselves will hold their government accountable to the same high standards they hold themselves to, and change that government when it fails to meet those standards.  If you can find none in the parties to represent you, then your own name needs to be written in on the ballot so that you, at least, vote for someone who can speak to your needs, wishes and wants in life so as to be free to exercise liberty and create a better society without the interference of others to tell you what to do, how to live and what is right and wrong.  You had parents for that, and government is no fit parent to anyone, especially you as an adult.  Your vote is never 'wasted' even if cast for yourself: you have done your duty to your neighbors and our Nation and honestly voted for a better representative.  No matter who 'wins' your vote is the right one to cast because it comes from your own hand, guided by your mind which is governed by your heart.  There is no 'wrong' vote in voting as the act itself is good and necessary to protect ourselves from the tyranny of government.

I encourage all citizens of the United States who are eligible to vote to do so, as their voice is necessary for all of us to hear.  In our multitudes we come together as one Nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Only you can form this Nation by taking part in our governance so that you may be free to govern yourself.

May we be the most civil people on this planet able to guide ourselves so as to hold this Nation's honor as our very own.

I thank you for your time.

Con Man Universe Description

A Confidence Man is an individual or group that runs a corrupt game or scheme so as to defraud those who pay into or invest in such a scheme.  I will horrendously oversimplify this, as the multiplicity and complexities involved in con games, as well as types of them, are enormous.  Still they all boil down to just a few major factors.  In the universe of the Con Man (and associates) there are only a few classes of people outside of those actually running the thing:

1) The Plant(s) - These are individuals who may know about the scheme or game, or may only be willing to accept minor payment to take part in the game or scheme so as to make it work.  Plants are the individuals who 'win' or get pay outs early on in the system.  These are the individuals that give a patina of legitimacy to the scheme or game so as to entice others to take part.  Plants can also be individuals who are of a later class, but so early on in the scheme or game that it 'works' for them.

2) Rubes - These are the individuals who buy into the game or scheme as 'legitimate' but have no knowledge that a game is going on.  Plants can be first generation Rubes who unknowingly play the game or pay into the scheme but are in that select segment that must get a payout, of some sort, so as to keep the mollified and have the illusion of an above-board operation remain.  Rubes who become Plants via this unknowing pay off of a fraudulent scheme or game in its first iteration also serve as recruiters to get more people to play the game or buy into the scheme.  The more gullible Rubes there are saying that the scheme or game is legitimate, the greater the long term pay off for those running the game or scheme.

3) The Mark - The Mark are the individuals in the high profit zone for the game or scheme.  Marks can be from any level of Rube-dom, but they are the ones who will buy into the scheme late enough so that they will not get their money back.  Marks may be unintentional players who just want to have some 'fun' or who have a predilection to believing the scheme works due to the number of Plants and Rubes.  When the game or scheme fails, these are the folks who lose the most.  Once a confidence scheme is fully operational after the first level of pay outs, anyone paying in can be said to be The Mark.  The Mark is the target of the swindle.

4) Those who see through the game or scheme for what it is.  These are the people that the game or scheme derides, calls them 'unsophisticated' or 'stupid' or otherwise castigates them.  That serves the two-fold purpose of assuring the Rubes and future Marks that they are the 'smart' ones who are going to 'make' money off of the scheme or game.  The level of attacks on those who see through the game may be intense enough to convince them to become Rubes, which also makes them qualified to be Marks.

 

Consider the world of Bernie Madoff with a scheme built up out of the 'intelligent' investing class of rich individuals.  He originally made his name as a smart trader on Wall Street, and with a good history of some ability to pick stocks he gained the reputation of knowing what he was talking about.  That portion of the patina to his con game ran through until just a few years ago, but the con, itself, started in the 1980's.  The con started with friends and family, and then became a 'word of mouth' affair that described the 'incredible deal' that Madoff had for those willing to invest in his organization.  The deal was that Madoff had a 'secure' group of stocks and bonds that were 'market proof': they gave a steady yield no matter what the market did.  His immediate friends and family became Plants and they created the aura of Madoff being able to 'out-smart' the market and even had pay offs to show for it.  Thus the investment scheme gained legitimacy as it was seen as being able to pay out as it said it could do.  For nearly two decades the population of Rubes expanded and so did the population of Marks.

The external population was kept at bay as they were not privy to the investment scheme system.  Part of making the aura of stability was that it went after rich individuals and conned them into believing that their money gave them good and smart advice via this system.  Madoff's system was recognized for what it was when a mathematician exposed the fraud in 2001, but by then the Universe of Rubes and Marks was large enough to convince Congress and Regulators that the scheme was legitimate.  Like any Ponzi Scheme it requires a new generation of individuals to pay into it, and lacked funds to actually pay out as there were very few actual investments in the scheme at all.  The numbers were made up.  As the latest recession started to tremble into the upper reaches of the markets, those individuals finding their investments evaporating went to Madoff to get their money back, as he said they could do.  He hoped to weather out the storm, thought it would be minor, and was able to pay off the first few people asking for funds as he hoped to retain the air of legitimacy via their becoming Plants.  As the numbers wanting their money back increased, the system could no longer pay out to them and the scheme was revealed for what it was.

 

Enron's mess of water and energy trading followed a similar set of lines in the buying, trading and selling of energy and water as commodities via the State run system in California.  Enron's attempt to hold financial pay outs steady, however, led to misreporting finances, that then steamrollered once the fraud was uncovered.  It went from controlling a majority of the private power sold in California to nothing in a period of months.  Here the scheme was the utilization of the ever increasing energy needs in California to purchase energy outside the State and put it through the State's regulatory system which was stifling the creation of new power facilities in the State.  In this case the Rubes set up the system to run the game, and the people of California were the Plants and then the Marks. 

Enron, by manipulating the power market, was able to create shortages and hike costs all the while showing a sound financial footing in the commodity trading scheme that it ran.  This scheme ran well enough, at an internal loss of course, that they expanded into the water markets and started doing the same thing.  When the crooked money transfers, kick-backs and executives siphoning funds from the company to leave it as a shell was revealed, the entire set of schemes imploded.  When the Plants became the Marks via the legitimacy given to the scheme via the Rubes in Sacramento, the ability to actually buy and sell power into California showed deficiencies in the accounting practices at Enron.  Whistleblowers would reveal the system, but the system itself can be seen as a creation of an over-weening State wanting to get around hard decisions and a confidence game stood up to gull the Rubes into believing that they could do so.  Rubes who set up a system to make hard decisions for them are less likely to run good oversight on the system as actually doing so gets them involved in distasteful decisions which they want to hand off in the first place.

 

Stepping up in scale is the Bank of NY penetration by the Red Mafia that started in the early 1990's with the collapse of the USSR.  In the post-USSR set of Republics there was a lack of hard currency as the Soviet Ruble was worthless.  Yet there were still factories, mines, and a population that could work if you could do the minimal and guarantee food for them.  Those able to get hard cash, or even work out barter systems between ore, finished goods and food gained control of the means of production as they became available.  Approximately one-third of that fell into criminal enterprises which were set up by an internal group of operatives assisted by the financier on the lamb, Marc Rich (the from previous articles on the Red Mafia, in particular this one on international finances).  Again the Rubes set up the system (the Russian government) for the Con Men to operate and once they were able to sell goods and ore for hard cash, they immediately went into procuring banks and over-seas accounts.  To get around foreign investment transaction oversight required penetrating western financial institutions, which was done via the Bank of NY (my lengthy article on that is here).  In short being able to get a couple of Plants into the BoNY system allowed for other operatives from the Red Mafia to utilize a money laundering system on a global scale that would process approximately $70 billion through it in less than ten years, and more like 7 years.  The fraud became apparent when one of the side operators (only a side operator in this area, but a major player in Russia) Semion Mogilevitch who was part of the YBM/Magnex fraud scheme that took place in the Canadian and US commodities market for permanent magnets.  That securities fraud funneled money through the BoNY and into a system of trade and transactions that still has not been teased out.

In this case the fraud system is so large, and the fronts operating with legitimacy via the legal framework in Russia and exploiting the nature of the capital and commodities markets in the west, that no one can even be sure if the fraudulent transactions have actually stopped.  When billions of dollars go into transactions for aluminum or steel, who will notice a few hundred million more in fraud bundled in with it?  In this case the Rubes in government have made everyone, globally, potential Marks.  The Plants are those individuals who actually had normal transactions go through the fraudulent system early on.  Even with the tightening of banking and financial regulations by many countries, many other countries refuse to do so as they are seen as 'safe havens' for 'troubled times' and enjoy having the benefits of large money transactions funding their governments via minor taxes.  So while a few Plants have been prosecuted, along with a Rube or two, the Marks remain defrauded.

 

Moving up scale from that.... and you can move upscale from that, size-wise, is another Ponzi Scheme that has been rolling blissfully along for nearly 80 years.  It has the patina and age of legitimacy.  There are lots of Plants who get pay offs from the system, and it has a full population of Rubes who, by law, are also The Marks.  This is another Rube created system by government unwilling to make hard decisions and wanting to pass on any oversight of a system that was not meant to work outside of very limited circumstances.  The scheme seems so 'nice' that Rubes don't want to admit to themselves that it doesn't work:  look at all the Plants getting pay offs!  Unfortunately as they are also The Mark there are a few people starting to realize that this system is broke (not just broken, but broke) and that paying into it will not sustain or recover it.  This system is the US Social Security Administration, and since its first pay outs in 1940 it has been creating a class of Plants to confirm that the system 'works'.

Based on the proposition that you 'invest' into an account with government, you are 'guaranteed' a set of payments equal to what you paid in plus 1% until you draw all 'your' money from the account.  Even when created private annuity systems paid out better via investments as those running annuities must keep reserve capital inside their funds system to allow for pay back of funds over time.  In good times the funds run on the excess made, stock a portion of earnings into the reserve and then utilize the rest to grow the system.  In bad times the limited payoffs cause the fund system to shrink, but retains operating expenses necessary to run pay outs from reserves to cover those who paid into the system.

The US government, on the other hand, spends the money it gets and puts a big, fat IOU in the reserve of SSA.  This became law during the Johnson Administration, and since then there are no 'reserves' of funds for SSA: it is broke and pays out in income from FICA and now from the general fund of the US government.

By definition any scheme that is able to pay out early adopters but only by growing the base of those paying in while keeping no reserves (or only a slim reserve like Madoff) is a Ponzi Scheme.

Thus SSA is a Ponzi Scheme.

Every single individual drawing 'their' promised money is involved in a wealth transfer system with the government as intermediator so that young, and relatively poor, working class individuals pay to have the older, and generally richer, generation 'retire' with a 'guaranteed income' from SSA.  Set up so that those who would get money from the system would be limited via a 'retirement age' of 63 which was also the average life expectancy when the system was started, it would never have had to pay out to more than half the older population and thus would 'work'.  Demographic trends in two directions make this unworkable: increased average life expectancy, and the child replacement rate.  I have examined this problem previously (in this article) but when this is taken in the context of a Confidence Game the perspective becomes clear - the retirement age is kept constant (even as life expectancy increases and child per family decreases) so as to create a 'faith' in the system that it 'works' and will be able to run like this forever.  Madoff would pay off some early investors entirely and that gave them faith in the system and they spread the word about it.  So, too, does SSA have a couple of layers of the Ponzi pyramid behind it giving the sense that this systems is 'workable' and 'legitimate'.  And as with any good con game, the Con Man has gained such a degree of confidence that, like Enron, even when presented with the cold, hard facts, people don't want to believe that this is the way it is actually run.

When this system comes down all of the Rubes will know they are the Mark, and some of the Plants will, also.

The system has been run, like the California energy trading system, to put off hard decisions and yet get pleasing results, to the point where the first internal audits of SSA in the 1980's put its collapse around 2050.  Then in the early 1990's it was 2030.  Around 2000 it was 2020.  SSA went into the red this year.  Every single politician since that original revelation during the Reagan Administration who has told you this system: 'works', is 'sustainable', is run 'efficiently', and is 'good' has been lying through their teeth to you or are oblivious to the ways of economics and demographics.  Yet as they take an Oath to the Constitution, and thusly to you, they have been negligent in their duties for decades.  Remember those trying to point out the problems in the system or try to 'fix' this already rigged system have been shouted down as being 'mean to the elderly', 'stupid', 'hurtful', and just plain 'ignorant'.  That has been the shouting down by the Con Men to continue the system by castigating those who recognize the con game for what it is.

We have got a problem, and in a sane world every politician who has willingly supported SSA as it stands since the 1980's should be up on fraud and negligence charges, with decades ahead of them in the Federal Pen.

 

 

Now moving up in scale...

What?  Isn't that bad enough?  Isn't the fact that our National Debt is more than all the money in the world (and that is on the optimistic side) bad enough?

My fellow Americans there is a problem that will hit us, from out of the blue, in the next few years that is not our own Progressive/Socialist/Communist Establishment Elite Politicians or of their making.  Not by intent, at least.

Nation States can give the instant aura of legitimacy, the patina of something being 'real' and 'working' even when such schemes they put forth make zero economic sense, at all.  Why?  Because they can tax the hell out of their people.  The US started running another Ponzi style scheme in the home mortgage market and the advent of the 'securitized' home mortgage by Ginnie Mae (my article on that and the destruction of the traditional mortgage market).  In this system the government 'guarantees' the risk of home mortgages via the 'securitized' system by bundling loans together.  Thus we saw loans that were pure junk get AAA ratings when they were bundled together via the fiat of government regulation.  Those regulations are still on the books, by the way.  Thus banks were forced into working with this market arrangement if they wanted anything to do with the home mortgage market, and if they didn't Fannie and Freddie had started to move in with their even higher risk loan capabilities that gained the benefit of the 'securitized' market.  That is how we got a multi-decade housing bubble: by government regulation, forcing banks to accept government assessment of risks, and then cutting down the amount needed to get a home to zero.

Didn't work so hot, did it?

Now imagine a country that does that with residential real estate, like we did, commercial real estate (that is slowly coming out here, too), and industrial real estate and facilities.  In other words a country that has its entire economy built on a bubble of bad debt that it is unwilling to own up to, but must do so as the creditors it invited in want their money out in the securities that they were given.  That country is not the United States.

It is China.

I wrote about that in The Directivity of China.  The reason I more or less live my life by trend analysis is that once a trend is established it will continue unless its underlying causative factors change.  To get its industrial growth in the 1990's, China issued debt obligations: they promised to pay back the money with a nominal rate of interest.  When those notes came due in the mid-2000's they 'rolled over' the debt as in 2003-2006 China looked pretty safe, all things considered.  Now the next debt 'roll over' has arrived and the creditors want their money plus interest.

China's problem is that it did with its entire real estate, commercial and industrial sectors what the US did with 'securitized' loans: it gave junk loans the imprimatur of being good loans via its ratings.  In fact those loans were crony capitalist loans that went to making factories that were not well run and failed.  Luckily the cronies, being cronies, could get more money by hitting up their friends in the government to continue on the patina of 'everything is working just fine'.

Thus the Con Men are the Chinese government, just as it was the US government for SSA, Fannie, Freddie, Ginnie, etc.

The plants for this, in China, are the crony capitalists and some foreign capitalists willing to take on some risky loans that might get a high payback.  Some factories actually moved to China for its low cost labor force.  Meanwhile as industrial plants failed, the government absorbed the debt, called it 'AAA delicious', and rolled over their Marks as they had established a good Rube environment in the west.  To this day you hear about how 'China is a world beater' and then hear about them having enough empty rental property to house the entire US population (Source: Marketwatch, 03 AUG 2010).  China has overbuilt entire cities expecting ever increasing wealth, and yet cannot find people to occupy them (Source: Kris Cyganiak at BuyRIC, 08 MAR 2010) even though the government assures everyone that their people are growing so rich, so quickly, that they just don't have time to move to them (Source: WSJ, Andrew Batson, 12 MAY 2010).

If that last bit sounds a lot like a Con Man trying to convince the Rubes that the game is working, and even better than expected, then join the club.  The problems of China go far beyond industry and have to do with the population, demographics, and just sheer size of China.  Yes China is the world's second largest economy.  Just as it was in 1900.  Size will get them there even on absolute poverty as the median for standard of living.  The problem is that with the debt come due, the current Marks wanting to be paid, and having put so much into so much useless building, China has nothing to repay with.  The cost of labor in China has increased, due to the cost of overhead, in turn that is due to the over-building and speculation that has gone on, which, in its turn, is based on bad debt.  When the debt gets called in the rest falls apart, and building gleaming new apartment complexes with no one to fill them does not a modern city make.  This is repeated in the commercial sector, with empty shopping malls created via crony construction companies, and private real estate via the same system and bundling together of bad loans with the AAA perfume. 

 

In the near future we may come to the point where any 'security' even glanced at by a government will be assumed to be junk in its status, and it won't matter which government it is, either on a global basis as they will all be assumed to be in bed with their cronies running a con game on their people.

And when China slips below the waves of solvency, just where will Wal-Mart get its stuff?

Probably Indonesia, Vietnam and a few other places... but that lovely market that everyone talked about in the 1970's... you remember the one that would see the glorious infusion of western capital to build up a wonderful system as part of the global trade concept... what happens when that drops of the radar screen of fiscal solvency?  The US can't save it as we are nearly there, ourselves, just not going at the fast rate of China.  And we can't solve the problem by spending more money.

The source of the problem, if you haven't guessed it, is not the small time cons like Madoff or even Enron, both bad enough, and, for the horror of it all, the penetration of our international financial system by organized crime.  That latter is horrific, but cannot be matched by the willingness of Nation State political systems to rip off their own people under multiple guises and not be held accountable for their actions until it is too late.  The problems in China, alone, dwarf anything that any organized crime organization could even dream of due to the scale of the population involved.  Even the Daly Machine in Chicago realized it needed to pick up trash regularly to have the patina of 'working' on its side.  Nation States are only under that much obligation to the extent they allow their people a say in their own systems, which is why it is necessary to have Plants to encourage the Rubes to buy into a scheme to become Marks... or to force them into the scheme, anyway, even if they don't buy into it.

Nice how governments over-ride good sense, isn't it?  Notice how that is also the pre-requisite to running a con game?

 

How do you identify a con game?

Whenever you approach a situation, and it doesn't matter if it is a proposal from government or an offer from Luigi down the street to do your windows, the question you first have to ask is: who is going to really benefit from this?  They may tell you that you will benefit, but you then have to ask who besides you will benefit?  Now with Luigi that's just a contract situation of money for services.  For a government it is taxes for a whole slew of things, that just keep on getting longer, many of which have no benefit to you, whatsoever.  If what you hear is that it is you, and only you, that will benefit, and this is not God talking to you, then you have properly identified a con game. 

Get rich quick?  A con game. 

Easy money? A con game.

A sure way to pick the ponies learned in ten minutes? A con game.

Retire with assured benefits that no one in the market can guarantee?  A con game.

A majority services economy makes everyone rich without making anything? A con game.

Do you see how this works?  Unrealistic expectations guaranteed to come true.  That is a con game.  When perpetrated as part of a system to separate you from your money it is called either fraud or taxes.

Some systems are set up by well meaning Rubes that then turn into a con game with no one running it save a bureaucracy. That is SSA, Fannie, Freddie, Sallie, Ginnie, etc. and while SSA can't lobby Congress, the others can and do so for their own bureaucratic interests.  Of course the bureaucracy has an innate goal of perpetuating a con game once it starts, and they will deny any concept that they are running a con game, even to themselves.  Pournelle's observation on bureaucracies is that in all bureaucracies you have those wanting to do their jobs and those wanting to grow the power of the bureaucracy, and the latter always come to dominate the former.  Thus no matter how 'good' a bureaucracy starts out, it quickly morphs into a large, power-hungry, cash driven organization wanting more and more at each step along the way.

 

Once you identify the con game, you then have to ask: who is the Mark?

You are the moment you realize you must ask that question, especially if it is in the middle of a con game.

You are the Mark.

You are being defrauded and you may already have paid a lot of money into a system that 'promises' to pay you back.

The system will only pay you anything so it can turn you into a Plant, to continue the patina of legitimacy it has.  Most Marks never get a chance to become Plants, unless it is a truly huge fraud scheme.  For the most part you have a low likelihood of becoming a Plant as a proliferation of Plants shows that the scheme is about to be revealed.

Have I mentioned that SSA is running in the red?

When you are the Mark in any normal scheme, you must stop paying into it.  There are very few schemes where you can out-swindle the swindlers and maybe get some justice, if not your money back, but those are so rare they need fictional accounts to glamorize them as they don't happen that often in daily life.

If you can't stop paying, say the government requires you to pay into a system involuntarily, then you must recognize that you have losses of throwing good money after bad that will, most likely, never come back.  Everything you paid into the system is gone: you have been swindled.

You are the Mark, the target of the swindle.

If you have any say into the system, at all, you must exercise it to end the fraud and cease the swindling.

The Rubes will attack you as mean, stupid, vicious, hating people, unrealistic, heartless, cold, cruel... remember that before you thought about it you were a Rube, once, too.  The willing Mark is the worst sort of Rube as they want to deny reality and want to willingly live in a fantasy land to their last breath.  Or their last dollar, which will probably come first. 

If you try to ignore the problem, you become a Plant to give shade to the Rubes who continue to push Marks into the system.  And if you worry about the other Marks or those Plants who can still become Marks, you do them no good whatsoever by creating more of them by letting the system go on with your nodding assent.  And that doesn't help your situation, as you are still being swindled, nor the situation of the other Marks, and while you feel sorry for the plants you could certainly find a better way to tend to the ends you desire than via the con game you are in.

Remember that in all cases, you are the Mark: you are the victim of this fraud.

You were born Free.

You can get back to being Free by ending the con game.

Your choices are:

1) The Plant - Hoping you get in on the game early enough to get out of it and offer the game an air of legitimacy.  That makes you culpable for continuing the game, however.

2) The Rube - The mindless repeaters, nodders, those agreeing to the game without thinking and those shouting down the critics of the con game.  They are the backers of legitimacy, and can't believe that they will ever be a Mark.

3) The Mark - The sucker.  The person who gets swindled. The loser. The target of the fraud.

4) The Free - Those who ensure their freedom by the hard task of guarding it, thinking about what they do, and trying to end fraud high and low when it is perpetrated upon them and their fellow citizens.  This is the hardest to do.

The choice of what you are is up to you, once you identify a con game.

Getting to Free is painful.

Waiting for the game to come apart even more painful.

You can either end it and gain Freedom, or wait for it to be ended and continue to the The Mark.

Duty not ideology

Jennifer Rubin has five reasons why the 'Gates-Gate' matters, but I find myself having problems with that list as it is missing a lead item.  Indeed, all the talk about Henry Louis Gates Jr. did or did not do comes with a problem when President Obama opined upon it.  This is a point that transcends race in America, one that goes beyond petty ideology.  This is a point about the Presidency and all individuals who serve in that capacity, and it has a catch phrase that is one that has been used for decades and should be well understood.

The President is the Chief Law Enforcement Officer of the Nation.

He gets that by the powers to execute the Laws of the Land, thus is the Executive on law enforcement.

His duties are delimited by the US Constitution to Federal and National venues.

Yet, over decades, how a President does his job has become an important factor in the tone and tenor of law enforcement across the Nation.  Most Presidents of the post-WWII era have been bogged down by so many laws, rules and regulations to enforce that they cannot enforce them all.  Congress has been unwilling to pay up for proper enforcement of all such things it passes and the subsidiary regulations that are put in place upon the Nation.  Indeed all such regulations based on bureaucratic rules stemming from the laws passed by Acts of Congress to be enforced by the President are so numerous, so wide-spread, so deep that you are probably already breaking Federal law on a daily basis, as Ilya Somin at The Volokh Conspiracy points out (H/t: Instapundit).  In 1998 the Federal government had seen 2/3 of all regulations come into being since 1970 as seen by the pages of the Code of Federal Regulation.  As government has not stopped passing Acts of Congress to add to this body, the number of regulations continues to swell as the Federal government reaches out with such to encompass more of your daily life.

Thus President Obama, the Chief Executive on such enforcement, is put into a position of leading the tone and tenor of what he can't enforce and what he can't do because Congress will not and can not fund proper enforcement of all the 'good ideas' it has passed into being via legislation.  Indeed, if any President properly made a budget to address the needs of all the 'good ideas' passed by Congress, we would have a staggering budget today,that would eat up much of the National wealth.  As Presidents have this oversight of the National Laws and is the individual who has oversight of the enforcement of those laws, what he says and does in that realm under any auspices is an indication of just what sort of law enforcement we can expect from the Nation.

If we decry the abuses of President Nixon in utilizing the CIA to thwart the FBI in investigations and the meddling in those powers to political ends, then that exact, same standard must be applied to all subsequent Presidents.  Especially when they speak out about law enforcement involving a supporter and contributor to his political rise as all law enforcement must see all citizens as equal before the law.

The Duty, then, of a President is to ensure that respect for the law and all of its Officers is upheld across the Nation.  While he gains no power over local venues outside federal regulation, and that is a huge power in the last 40 years, it then becomes incumbent upon the President to ensure that the basic necessities of respect for the law is upheld.  That means not speaking out of turn, letting individuals do their job and letting the process of law enforcement proceed without comment or meddling from its highest office in the land.

That is part of the job of the President and not understanding that job and crossing its bounds to comment or otherwise opine on the local process of the law is neglect of that job by not understanding the Duty that comes with it.  A President only gets a few special cases via the Constitution with respect to himself and his office.  As those Powers that go with the job of President are at the same level as those in the other two branches of the Federal government, any President must take especial care not to abuse nor diminish those powers entrusted to the holder of that office.  It has taken decades to slowly regain public respect for the FBI due to the problems associated with a temporary office holder.  Going down deeper into the structure of law enforcement outside of the jurisdiction of the federal to speak of another level outside of the President's control is not part of the job of President and the respect of other Executive branches in the States must be upheld for the good of the Union.  Thus his duty is to respect the other Executive Branches in the States who have sole say over State laws and needs.

In running for the job of President, Barack Obama has a slate of powers, responsibilities and duties that he temporarily wields for the good of the Nation and those must be respected so that they may be passed on to future office holders.

Because that is an office for all Americans to look to without respect to age, gender, race or sexual outlook.

Silence is Golden when one does not have the facts at their fingertips.

Duty requires such Silence when it effects other Executive branches trying to do their job.

Uniform treatment under the law is a requirement for all of those executing the law at all levels.

It is a minor incident, of course, but it reveals much about President and his ability, or lack of same, to understand just what it is he has taken on in this job.  While his power does not reach down that far, his visibility does.  He wanted that job with that visibility and now has the duties that comes with it for equal enforcement of the law for all citizens... and no special exemptions for political backers. 

Something the Left would be aghast about if this were someone they didn't like in office, but then ethical outlook from the Left is not something anyone expects these days as partisanship now comes first, last and at all points in between.  That leads to no good place at all, when we become a Nation of Men not a Nation of Laws.

Our Duty

As citizens we do have a duty to each other and our society.

In belief of having a representative form of government via democratic means, that requires that each citizen recognizes their duty to that means we agree to.

Duty is not pleasant at all times, that is why it is not called 'pleasure' or 'indulgence'.

I urge all my fellow citizens of the Republic to vote their choices, even if that means standing up to just be counted as a citizen participating in our common duty.

We have had 40 years of believing otherwise and the cost of that is now upon us.

The right to vote has cost us dearly.

Ignoring that duty has and will cost us beyond any price.

Vote today as if your life depends upon it.

It does.

And always has.

Before the Declaration: Sam Adams and the Rights of the Colonists

As we hear much of the inalienable rights of man, and the Declaration of Independence, it must be regarded that these two phenomena did not show up simultaneously. The Declaration of Independence, itself has roots going back into history and is a culminating document of the rights of individuals, the rights of the state and how the rights of individuals are primary to them, while the rights of the state derive from them. Samuel Adams would have an article published in 1769 and again in 1772 to look at such rights (italics in the original, bold is mine) in an untitled document (Source: Learning American History):

At the revolution, the British constitution was again restor'd to its original principles, declared in the bill of rights; which was afterwards pass'd into a law, and stands as a bulwark to the natural rights of subjects. "To vindicate these rights, says Mr. Blackstone, when actually violated or attack'd, the subjects of England are entitled first to the regular administration and free course of justice in the courts of law—next to the right of petitioning the King and parliament for redress of grievances-and lastly, to the right of having and using arms for self-preservation and defence." These he calls "auxiliary subordinate rights, which serve principally as barriers to protect and maintain inviolate the three great and primary rights of personal security, personal liberty and private property": And that of having arms for their defence he tells us is "a public allowance, under due restrictions, of the natural right of resistance and self preservation, when the sanctions of society and laws are found insufficient to restrain the violence of oppression."

The British constitution is not a singular document, but a series of views giving Parliament primary power in law making, and affording rights under the various laws added in as-needed. With the Magna Carta also goes: Habeas Corpus Act 1679, Bill of Rights for England and Wales 1689, Claim of Right for Scotland 1689, Act of Settlement 1701, Act of Union 1707 which creates Great Britain. After the abrogation of rights under the Magna Carta by Charles I, and the resultant Acts passed after Cromwell's republic during the Restoration, the rights of individuals were more defined and put in as a matter of law. Thus rights are gained by law, not presumed to pre-exist and then law being applied to them to regulate them.

The Declaration would change some of the wording on the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and in the US Constitution the stronger views on the inviolability of person and property would be established to be without question save as under due process of law. The right to bear arms is seen not only as a public allowance under the English system, but it goes directly with the natural right of resistance and self preservation, when law is not enough to keep violence of oppression in restraint. Note that these two things are each combined, so that it is not only the violence of oppression from government against society, but also the violence of oppression by other individuals who are insufficiently restrained by law. The individual's right to be armed and counter these things, while having due restrictions, must not be so restrained as to remove them. That is a worry in the English system as Parliament decides on rights via law, so preventing laws that would go against those rights is paramount and the only way to back that up is to be armed.

The Amendment II language on a 'well regulated militia' is in accord with this, and every individual must be able to arm themselves for the defense of self and society under due restrictions by law. Banning weapons is a violation of the right to protect oneself from those actors that will not abide by law or that will use law to oppress individuals or society. Adams then goes on to follow up that view with this (I will use some editing for readability, but leave his text 'as-is' as he now uses both italics and bolding):

-How little do those persons attend to the rights of the constitution, if they know anything about them, who find fault with a late vote of this town, calling upon the inhabitants to provide themselves with arms for their defence at any time; but more especially, when they had reason to fear, there would be a necessity of the means of self preservation against the violence of oppression.

-Every one knows that the exercise of the military power is forever dangerous to civil rights; and we have had recent instances of violences that have been offer'd to private subjects, and the last week, even to a magistrate in the execution of his office!

- Such violences are no more than might have been expected from military troops: A power, which is apt enough at all times to take a wanton lead, even when in the midst of civil society; but more especially so, when they are led to believe that they are become necessary, to awe a spirit of rebellion, and preserve peace and good order. But there are some persons, who would, if possibly they could, perswade the people never to make use of their constitutional rights or terrify them from doing it. No wonder that a resolution of this town to keep arms for its own defence, should be represented as having at bottom a secret intention to oppose the landing of the King's troops: when those very persons, who gave it this colouring, had before represented the people petitioning their Sovereign, as proceeding from a factious and rebellious spirit; and would now insinuate that there is an impropriety in their addressing even a plantation Governor upon public business-Such are the times we are fallen into!

Here is one of those great times in history when an individual now calls attention that the civil right to bear arms is far, far better than military troops. As put forward, military troops are a means of oppression against those having grievances against a sovereign, and yet the natural right of resistance via arms is not only legitimate but necessary for a free people to claim their rights under law. This is oppression at its heart: the ability of the State to cow or overawe or threaten individuals that society, itself, is put under threat from tyrannical rule. Without arms one cannot have civil society nor accountability of the State. To those who would like to give the State the power and capability to ban weapons: you would not have had the American Revolution with that outlook.

Sam Adams would re-iterate these things in his listing of Rights of the Colonists and he would use language drawn not only from Blackstone, but other sources as well (bolding mine, throughout):

Among the Natural Rights of the Colonists are these First. a Right to Life; Secondly to Liberty; thirdly to Property; together with the Right to support and defend them in the best manner they can-Those are evident Branches of, rather than deductions from the Duty of Self Preservation, commonly called the first Law of Nature

Life, liberty, property and the ability to defend them in the best manner possible. Another line from the Declaration would show up from Sam Adams:

All Men have a Right to remain in a State of Nature as long as they please: And in case of intollerable Oppression, Civil or Religious, to leave the Society they belong to, and enter into another.

When Men enter into Society, it is by voluntary consent; and they have a right to demand and insist upon the performance of such conditions, And previous limitations as form an equitable original compact.

A primary right of humans is the right to associate with each other and bring about, voluntarily, society. That society is then safeguarded via a compact, design, or other such statement of what that society is and will do. This is not a right bestowed by government or States, but is an inviolable right of individuals to do this thing. So many gloss over this in the reading of the Declaration of Independence, but the concept is primary for all of mankind: you have the right to form society, set its limits and then discriminate based on those limits set by mutual agreement within society. If you do not like that society and cannot convince your fellow man to change it, you can dissolve that voluntarily made association and go elsewhere and associate with others more to your liking.

In case it has been missed in all the grand splendor of those talking about 'classical liberalism' this is the foundation of that: the right to tell folks that they must adjust to society and its laws. A society does not have to accept those that will not accede to that and the laws may be used in those circumstances. That is voluntary consent between individuals and society and is reciprocal.

Then comes an idea that would be the guiding light of the US Constitution and re-stated in two Amendments:

Every natural Right not expressly given up or from the nature of a Social Compact necessarily ceded remains.

This is a key part of the Constitutional outlook restated in Amendments IX and X, so that the People and States retain all rights not given to the National government. For the Constitution to have a reasoning behind it, this is its underpinning: the People give government very few things to do and very few rights and retain all other rights and responsibilities at a lower level.

So far we have: life, liberty, property, arms to support those three, self-preservation, to live in a natural state of being, to form societies, to defend societies, to leave societies, to recognize mutual consent about forming, defending and leaving societies, to have equal enforcement of the social compact, and to retain all of those rights not ceded of necessity by the social compact in the individual.

Now comes one that will be a surprise to those not paying attention to the founders:

As neither reason requires, nor religeon permits the contrary, every Man living in or out of a state of civil society, has a right peaceably and quietly to worship God according to the dictates of his conscience.

You do have the right to peaceably worship God to your own views inside or outside of civil society. That is an individual right supported by society and comes from the views of Westphalia and from the developed views of the English Common Law over time as Henry VIII had made some definite inroads on it, and by the time of Charles I it had become a sticking point. This is given over to the individual, not the State to choose for individuals. A State may have a religious view, may promulgate holidays, may do many things, save force you to worship as the State dictates. Iraq may have a 'Muslim state' but it is also figuring out how to accommodate both major groups within Islam, a host of sects within those major groups, and then many others like the Yezidis, Syriac Christians, Followers of John the Baptist...quite an interesting thing to see a Muslim country make Christmas a National Holiday.

He then goes on in a more lengthy portion to put in God's place in the law, and then how reasonable men should approach religious differences:

"Just and true liberty, equal and impartial liberty" in matters spiritual and temporal, is a thing that all Men are clearly entitled to, by the eternal and immutable laws of God and nature, as well as by the law of Nations, & all well grounded municipal laws, which must have their foundation in the former.

In regard to Religeon, mutual tolleration in the different professions thereof, is what all good and candid minds in all ages have ever practiced; and both by precept and example inculcated on mankind: And it is now generally agreed among christians that this spirit of toleration in the fullest extent consistent with the being of civil society "is the chief characteristical mark of the true church"2 & In so much that Mr. Lock has asserted, and proved beyond the possibility of contradiction on any solid ground, that such toleration ought to be extended to all whose doctrines are not subversive of society. The only Sects which he thinks ought to be, and which by all wise laws are excluded from such toleration, are those who teach Doctrines subversive of the Civil Government under which they live. The Roman Catholicks or Papists are excluded by reason of such Doctrines as these "that Princes excommunicated may be deposed, and those they call Hereticks may be destroyed without mercy; besides their recognizing the Pope in so absolute a manner, in subversion of Government, by introducing as far as possible into the states, under whose protection they enjoy life, liberty and property, that solecism in politicks, Imperium in imperio3 leading directly to the worst anarchy and confusion, civil discord, war and blood shed-4

When I hear someone say they want religion as it was 'just at the founding as the founders saw it' may I politely say: You are nuts. Folks like Jefferson wouldn't even mince the words as nicely as Sam Adams... mind you Jefferson was not even Orthodox, being a Unitarian, and had some bright things to say about many Protestant sects, also. The reason they followed the Westphalian concept of not having the government inculcate religion, was that they were of various sects, beliefs and outlooks, and a very few had *none* and yet wanted a Nation of *reason* to come about. Adams, Jefferson, and the rest were more than prepared to share a Nation with those they disagreed with on religion, so long as religion was kept out of what was pressed upon them all by common government. Apparently Christianity was something that had multiple different viewpoints, with some very harsh feelings between the various branches and sects.

The founders were wise to hold secular government in common and, while giving an overlook across all Christianity with 'In God We Trust' and other forms of recognition, they wanted no part in actually telling people which sect, group, or cult was actually vested in those words. We do, indeed, trust in that higher power, but heaven help you if you try to push your version of it on others. The Peace of Westphalia and the moves by Henry VIII prior to the 30 Years War all set the stage to try and step away from wars that would see a disturbingly large number of believers *dead* because they fought for their branch of Christianity under the Prince of Peace. That had *not* died down by the founding and the last thing anyone wanted to do was to put in-place the very same sorts of laws that had forced the Puritans and others to leave their homes in the Old World because they could not get equality under the law for their religious views. Apparently I remember a different and diverse set of founders that agreed upon common government to be held apart from religion and only give some obeisance to a generalized societal view of it. As society held no singular view of even Christianity in common, the idea to leave what you believed up to the individual was one that was pressed forward, just as it was in Westphalia so that States with that agreement would *not* practice religious persecution. It didn't stop them, of course, but the slow seeping of that wisdom into how we viewed Nations has changed history.

From there one moves to Sam Adams' views on natural liberty:

The natural liberty of Men by entring into society is abridg'd or restrained so far only as is necessary for the Great end of Society the best good of the whole

In the state of nature, every man is under God, Judge and sole Judge, of his own rights and the injuries done him: By entering into society, he agrees to an Arbiter or indifferent Judge between him and his neighbours; but he no more renounces his original right, than by taking a cause out of the ordinary course of law, and leaving the decision to referees or indifferent Arbitrations. In the last case he must pay the Referees for time and trouble; he should be also willing to pay his Just quota for the support of government, the law and constitution; the end of which is to furnish indifferent and impartial Judges in all cases that may happen, whether civil ecclesiastical, marine or military.

Hmmm... 'The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few'! Lovely how Star Trek tries to address these things. Yes, that firm and fundamental right to associate and create society comes with it a burden to each and every member to then support that society. If one lived solely by their own hands and with no interaction with any others, ever, then living in a state of nature each man is judge of his actions and his rights with no other to intervene. By being in society and having the benefits of society, one incurs the obligation to support society in its means and methods under law. Thus to gain the rights previously mentioned within a society, one needs to support that society as a whole, enter into it voluntarily and understand that the cost of supporting all of it, even if you vehemently disagree with a small subsection of it, must be done. If your conscience moves you from that ability to support due to a small section you disagree with, you are breaking your societal compact and setting your beliefs higher than those of the society around you.

In our modern day we get a segment of society that wishes to push their views upon the whole of society via government, have the ability to complain and protest and give non-support to those areas they dislike which *are* held in common, while claiming that everyone *else* needs to support their views on things they want government to do that are not agreed upon by the whole or even majority of society. Via the Sam Adams view you do have the right to such civil views so long as you support the entirety of the burden placed upon you, even for those things you do not like. To do otherwise is to set oneself up under the law of nature as above society and dictating one's own beliefs to society while refusing to support it. This is why those who want to 'protest' by withholding their taxes have a difficult time getting traction: they have abdicated their responsibility to the entirety of society for the minority of their views. So long as you support the whole, then it is civil discourse to talk about one's problems and differences with what is going on. The moment that greater support stops, or you wish to pick and choose your obligations outside of what your personal religious beliefs tell you for *yourself*, then one acts in an authoritarian manner putting themselves up as judge and arbiter for society for their views. By placing yourself in that 'morally higher position' you have simultaneously isolated yourself from society to dictate to it your wishes. That normally gets shunning, not an audience.

The kicker is: you may even be *right*.

You chose the exact, wrong means to state your disagreements.

Of final note on this passage is that Sam Adams understands the different provinces of the law: civil, ecclesiastical, marine, military. This is fascinating, not for the ecclesiastical mention which is an individual's choice to subject themselves to such law, but for the marine choice. This is the commonly held Admiralty laws, that go along with the high and near seas, and the commerce it engenders. At this point the English law is already a few centuries from The Black Book of the Admiralty, and marine or maritime law has gone through a few iterations on an international scale in France, Spain, Netherlands, Britain, and elsewhere. While we, today, think of this as a minor jurisdiction for contract law, it is still a view that governs trade, commerce, and the sovereignty of a ship at sea to be a part of its Nation until out of the reaches of the sea (which is a direct access affair for the US, requiring the passing of headlands for local law to take hold outside of traffic restrictions and such for common navigation). It is difficult to determine if the listing of these laws are precedential (that is with the earliest being most important) or equality in different provinces, which I think is what he is getting across, which gives each of these its own separate views that can overlap, but only do so when the type of law is crossed. Something like Piracy, depending upon maritime law, also has civil and military views to it and those differences remain with us to this day, based on activity and what is being done (ex. an attack by a Pirate is a military attack, a capture of a Pirate by civil authorities is a civil action, and the predation of commerce is a maritime action which relates to both the civil and military laws).

After that there is a section that will definitely make a few people pause:

"The natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man; but only to have the law of nature for his rule."

In the state of nature men may as the Patriarchs did, employ hired servants for the defence of their lives, liberty and property: and they should them reasonable wages. Government was instituted for the purposed of common defence; and those who hold the reins of government have an equitable natural right to an honourable support from the same principle "that the labourer is worth of his hire: but then the same community which they serve, ought to be assessors of their pay: Governors have no right to seek what they please; by this, instead of being content with the station assigned them, that of honourable servants of the society, they would soon become Absolute masters, Despots, and Tyrants. Hence as a private man has a right to say, what wages he will give in his private affairs, so has a Community to determine what they will give and grant of their Substance, for the Administration of publick affairs. and in both cases more are ready generally to offer their Service at the proposed and stipulated price, than are able and willing to perform their duty.

In short it is the greatest absurdity to supposed it in the power of one or any number of men at the entering into society, to renounce their essential natural rights, or the mans of preserving those rights when the great end of civil government from the very nature of its institution is for the support, protection and defence of those very rights: the principal of which as is before observed, are life liberty and property. If men through fear, fraud or mistake, should in terms renounce and give up any essential natural right, the eternal law of reason and the great end of society, would absolutely vacate such renunciation; the right of freedom being the gift of God Almighty, it is not in the power of Man to alienate this gift, and voluntarily become a slave-

Yes, do indeed be wary of those wanting government to do things for you: they are not seeking good ends, but the concentration of power to government and the governors. That is especially true when cloaked in the words of giving succor to the poor - society does have an obligation to the poor and charity is best done by those interested in giving it, not those forced to work at it. When one starts to see the government as the source of that which is good and the source of rights, then one begins to alienate themselves from that gift of freedom. The gift itself, as the Declaration would put it, is self-evident and inalienable.

But only so long as you remember that it is you that are the source of good in society and abide by those things society asks to support it.

Beware those that tell you all the good things government can do for you.

They seek your poverty.

And your submission to them and to government.

That soon gets you back to that right to self-defense against oppression as government can at best only be impartial judge, and never the source of your rights. Forget these things and one is well on the path to putting fetters on themselves and their fellow man by empowering government and forgetting their duty to society as a whole. To utilize one rights incurs an obligation in society to one's conscience and beliefs... and government is very, very poor at handling either.