This is our Time ~ THIS Is our Day!!

[Charles Lingerfelt, Texas State Coordinator]

:

"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." --Thomas Jefferson
INSIGHT

"Every time that we try to lift a problem from our own shoulders, and shift that problem to the hands of the government, to the same extent we are sacrificing the liberties of our people." --John F. Kennedy

OPINION IN BRIEF:

"One of the main reasons there's all of this 'money on the sidelines' out there among private investors is that Wall Street doesn't know what the government will do next. Will it bail out the auto industry? The insurance companies? Which taxes will go up? How far will interest rates go down? How long will the federal government own stakes in the banks? Will more stimulus checks go out? If so, how big will the deficit get? Interventionists, bailout czars and 'bold experimenters' in all parties claim to be like firefighters; they can't stop what they're doing until the fire is out. But this analogy only works if you understand the nature of the fire. If it's a credit crisis, that's one thing. If it's uncertainty, it's quite another. And if the problem right now is uncertainty, then these aren't firefighters, they're arsonists. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson told Congress he'd spend his kitty of tax dollars on bad mortgage-backed securities. Instead, in the spirit of bold experimentation, he's spent much of it to date buying banks. Obama insisted he had a specific plan for the economy -- but his plan seems to be to 'project confidence.' The problem with this 'In Obama We Trust' approach is that it makes private-sector decision-making very difficult. If your boss says he will lay off half his employees next month, but he doesn't know who yet, will you buy a new house this month? In a time of stability and growth, government can afford bold, persistent experimentation. But in a time of uncertainty, the last thing it needs is more uncertainty." --National Review Editor Jonah Goldberg

LIBERTY:

"I was always taught when growing up that when you reward bad behavior all you get is more bad behavior. From the mortgage meltdown to the automaker debacle to cities and states going under, it's all bad behavior. It should not be rewarded. The problem here is that our culture of debt -- both personal and corporate -- has created a culture of dependency. Everyone is calling out to our central government to give them money. And horrors of horrors, many are willing to let the federal government take ownership stakes in these entities and have a hand in their management. That is the road to socialism. The first step to ending the culture of dependency is to tell these corporations, cities and states they need to start taking responsibility for their actions by dealing with the consequences they have created for themselves. If not, then we could accumulate a national debt that even our grandchildren will never pay off." --columnist and former Mayor of Cincinnati Ken Blackwell

GOVERNMENT:

"Evil acts can be given an aura of moral legitimacy by noble-sounding socialistic expressions such as spreading the wealth, income redistribution or caring for the less fortunate. Let's think about socialism. Imagine there's an elderly widow down the street from you. She has neither the strength to mow her lawn nor enough money to hire someone to do it. Here's my question to you that I'm almost afraid for the answer: Would you support a government mandate that forces one of your neighbors to mow the lady's lawn each week? If he failed to follow the government orders, would you approve of some kind of punishment ranging from house arrest and fines to imprisonment? I'm hoping that the average American would condemn such a government mandate because it would be a form of slavery, the forcible use of one person to serve the purposes of another. Would there be the same condemnation if instead of the government forcing your neighbor to physically mow the widow's lawn, the government forced him to give the lady $40 of his weekly earnings? That way the widow could hire someone to mow her lawn. I'd say that there is little difference between the mandates. While the mandate's mechanism differs, it is nonetheless the forcible use of one person to serve the purposes of another. Probably most Americans would have a clearer conscience if all the neighbors were forced to put money in a government pot and a government agency would send the widow a weekly sum of $40 to hire someone to mow her lawn. This mechanism makes the particular victim invisible but it still boils down to one person being forcibly used to serve the purposes of another. Putting the money into a government pot makes palatable acts that would otherwise be deemed morally offensive. This is why socialism is evil. It employs evil means, coercion or taking the property of one person, to accomplish good ends, helping one's fellow man." --George Mason University economics professor Walter E. Williams

CALLING ALL PATRIOTS:

"Let us contemplate our forefathers, and posterity, and resolve to maintain the rights bequeathed to us from the former, for the sake of the latter. The necessity of the times, more than ever, calls for our utmost circumspection, deliberation, fortitude and perseverance. Let us remember that 'if we suffer tamely a lawless attack upon our liberty, we encourage it, and involve others in our doom.' It is a very serious consideration ... that millions yet unborn may be the miserable sharers of the event." --Samuel Adams

Therefore, I now resolve that THIS is our time. This IS our day!!
Charles Lingerfelt, Texas
State Coordinator

~ On to Victory!