Tuesday, September 16, 2008

The Three Mysteries of Partisan Politics

We are 50 days (plus or minus) from the next election. It is mysterious to The Rainmaker how so much "Sound and Fury" could signify so little. The political communication seems empty, meaningless and without value.

Consider just these two examples:

First: The financial markets seem to be imploding and the candidates are AWOL, failing to even mention the $50 trillion dollars of current debt on the books, which doesn't begin to account for unfunded liabilities such as Social Security, Medicare, pensions and such.

Second: The candidates abhor the failure of the health market but basically pander to voters promising universal coverage and affordability to all while somehow missing the fact that Medicare is going cash flow negative at some point within the first term of the winning candidate.

Those two examples merely typify the disconnect between the candidates and reality. This disconnect can be attributed to the lust for power and glory silencing any meaningful dialogue while we debate the meaning and significance of lipstick, pigs and lipstick on pigs.

The three mysteries are even more troubling.

The first mystery is the Democratic Mystery. While the Democratic Party champions personal freedom of speech, association, sexuality and religion it cares little for economic freedom and property rights. In other words you are free to do whatever you want but what is yours is ours if it is necessary to win a few votes.

The second mystery is the Republican Mystery. While the Republican Party champions economic freedom it stifles individual liberty in most respects. In other words, your ownership of property is sacrosanct but your body is not your own.

The final mystery is the Statist Mystery. The slavish and rabid devotion to the health, well being and primacy of the State is totally incomprehensible. The founders believed the individual to be sovereign. But while both major political parties purport to celebrate individual liberty, both seem to have forgotten two pillars of limited government included in the Bill of Rights.

The 9th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says:

"The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

The 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says:

"The Powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the states respectively or to the people."

Over the past couple of centuries we have ceased to be personally sovereign and have become chattel of the State. How else can one explain the reality we experience in our day to day lives.

Imagine Ben Franklin being forced to remove his shoes and coat and subject his luggage to search in order to travel, foregoing his right to be secure from search and seizure guaranteed to him (as well as to you and me) in the fourth amendment to the Constitution.

Indeed it was Franklin who said, "They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security." Consider this the next time you transit an airport. Do the buffoons of the TSA really accomplish anything beyond making a silly show of officious pseudo security?

Enough of the digression, the Rainmaker will return to the underlying point.

The bottom line is the current reality is nonsensical to the point of absurdity. The government of the United States of America does a poor job of securing the inalienable rights invoked in the Declaration of Independence that include "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

What exactly are you going to do about that? Probably not enough!

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