We the People: A Christian Nation

By RICHARD MCKENZIE NEAL

Political correctness appears innocuous enough until one truly looks at the ripple effect created by todays manipulative players looking for an advantage. Political correctness is a lie because saying it isnt so, doesnt change the factsthe facts are that pigs dont fly and life aint fair! This charade has become so ingrained in our culture today that no one is willing to call it what it is; a faade for a culture of entitlement based on denial and rejection of responsibility. While political correctness has been solidifying its place in our lives for some time now, it has recently been joined by its natural adjunct partnersocialism. Our current administration has decided it knows whats best for us in spite of a majority of voters expressing an opposing opinion. But my real fear is that his agenda and ambitions are going to destroy America Obama is not the first president with a large streak of narcissism. But the others had equally expansive feelings about their country. He epitomizes todays me culture with their its not my fault mentality supported by their entitlement attitude. He is the embodiment of everything that is wrong with America todayhe is the maestro of the blame-game (mistakes will be made, but others can be blamed). We have misplaced our traditional values while buying into the liberal's progressive mindset. Our losses have been mounting for decades and the accumulative consequences are coming to bear. The list is endless: common sense, common courtesies, responsibility, accountability,integrity,family values, love of countryand God. Im not suggesting he caused this decline in America's moral values; but I would suggest his radical vision for Americaand beyond, is to take what we see today to the next level. From his distorted perspective he is myopically focused on shepherding us to whats right for America.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Oct 18, 2010
• ISBN: 9781452060323

RICHARD MCKENZIE NEAL

About the Author: Richard McKenzie Neal One should never equate education and/or intelligence to wisdom… Richard was born in Hope, Arkansas (Bill Clinton’s boyhood home), in 1941 and his father was gone prior to Richard turning two years old. He never knew the man, but attended his funeral as a sixteen-year-old. Before boarding a Greyhound bus for California, at seventeen, Richard knew two stepfathers and a number of others who were just passing through. During those teen years, before succumbing to the beckoning allure of the outside world, Richard worked at an assortment of low-paying jobs. Summers were spent in the fields…picking cotton and/or watermelons and baling hay. He also worked as a plumber’s helper and a carhop at the local drive-in burger stand. After dropping out of school, eloping and landing in California, he soon realized how far out of his element he had ventured. And without the guidance of his “Constant Companion,” Richard would have spent a lifetime floundering in a sea of ignorance and ineptness…and his books would not exist. Richard’s first book (Fridays With Landon) was driven by his son’s life-altering heroin addiction. He had hoped not to author a sequel, but left the book open-ended due to historical concerns, which did in fact…resurface. For 25 years the family has endured the emotional highs and lows associated with the chaotic, frustrating and more often than not…heartbreaking task of rescuing one of their own, from the always ebbing and flowing tide of addiction. The unintended sequel (The Path to Addiction…) was triggered by a mind-numbing relapse after 30 months of sobriety. The second book was then written to bring closure…one-way or the other. The author advanced several possible scenarios for the ending of that book, but only one of those possibilities was favorable. His third book (The Long Road Home…) is a philosophical journey that we’ll all experience as our time here begins to dwindle. The fourth book (We the People) was driven by what he saw as the dismantling of America and the circumventing of its Constitution. Additionally, the ominous cloud of socialism and a New World Order looming over Washington motivated him to speak up, in spite of political correctness’ muzzle. This, the fifth book was written to confirm and document the realities of those fears and concerns chronicled in the preceding book. While those fears and concerns were driven by the current administration, his nightmare now is the possibility of that same administration being returned to office, for another four years, in 2012. He has grave apprehension regarding America’s future should the unthinkable happen. All five books were written after retiring from a rewarding, thirty-six years in the oil industry. Our success should be measured by what we gave up (what it cost us) to obtain it...and not by what we accomplished and/or accumulated.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

In the beginning, God created humankind. All were created equally with an innate understanding that from that point on, they (as individuals) would be personally responsible for their livelihood and ultimately…their status and destination in life. Survival of the fittest has been with us from day one…Capitalism 101.

In theory capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned.

This recognition of individual rights entails the banishment of physical force from human relationships: basically, rights can be violated only by means of force. In a capitalist society, no man or group may initiate the use of physical force against others. The only function of the government, in such a society, is the task of protecting man’s rights, i.e., the task of protecting him from physical force; the government acts as the agent of man’s right of self-defense, and may use force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use; thus the government is the means of placing the retaliatory use of force under objective control.

The action required to sustain human life is primarily intellectual: everything man needs has to be discovered by his mind and produced by his effort. Production is the application of reason to the problem of survival…

Since knowledge, thinking, and rational action are properties of the individual, since the choice to exercise his rational faculty…or not, depends on the individual; man’s survival requires that those who think…will be free of the interference of those who don’t. Since men are neither omniscient nor infallible, they must be free to agree or disagree, to cooperate or to pursue their own independent course, each according to their own rational judgment. Freedom is the fundamental requirement of man’s mind.

Before people had evolved into what we think of as Homo sapiens, there were families. People taught other people the skills needed for survival. His or her parents taught each child. Each man was expected to know how to make a club, how to create a fire, and how to hunt and fish. Each woman was expected to know where to find firewood and water, how to cook, how to cure skins, and how to make primitive clothing. Before families became very large, there were individuals who were more skilled at certain tasks than others.

The families eventually grew until there were tribes, which were extended families. When tribes were evolving, there was trading between individuals. The one who made the best hand-axes would trade his implements for skins from the one who was the best tanner…or perhaps the skins and the axes would go for the best food from the one who was the best hunter.

Bartering…earliest form of capitalism.

The people who survived and flourished in both prehistoric and historical times were those who were willing to work for what they acquired. Those who did not…did not usually survive. This led to what we call today a work ethic in which people have no self-esteem or sense of satisfaction if they are given free handouts. Generally speaking, people want to acquire benefits proportional to their work effort and mental capacity for providing benefits (material, mental, and spiritual) for others.

As time passed, there were individuals in a tribe who wished to carry more goods for trading than was feasible for them to carry easily from their own tribe to a neighboring tribe. Eventually, there were even larger distances to be traveled between tribes, and traders began to carry wares from one tribe to the next. Aside from the difficulties involved with large loads, there was the problem of knowing what the individuals in the other tribe would want - and taking the wrong items along, meant that the items might not be accepted. However, if some token was used that was easily carried and accepted for trade by anyone, the problem was solved. So a medium of exchange evolved…and today we call it money or capital.

At first, people were nomads who gathered berries, nuts, and other things that grew along the way. They hunted game that was in whatever area they frequented. But as time passed, some of them learned to plant seeds and agriculture was established. This meant that land was needed and must be guarded. So at least some of the people in each tribe became farmers and land was considered to be a form of capital. Private ownership of land became a reality.

By this time, people were becoming specialists rather than generalists. There were manufacturers of needed goods; farmers, hunters, and fishermen for needed food; traders to exchange goods between tribes; midwives to aid in birthing; medicine men and women to cure the sick…and so on. Manufacturing businesses began to grow when the manufacturer produced the best spears and clubs. Farms began to grow when the farmer produced food that was better than the food of other farmers. Even medicine men needed apprentices who knew which herbs were gathered and when to gather them. So the idea of employers, employees, and wages was established.

Capitalism has evolved naturally since prehistoric times. It is self-regulating and very efficient. In fact, it is so efficient in satisfying demand with supply that the KGB in Russia spent a lot of time and effort attempting to find the United States’ top-secret committee that was so efficient at satisfying demand with supply. The Soviets at that time were never taught about capitalism and its marvelous self-regulation. Under Marxism, even the Soviets’ vocabulary was very limited. They believed that only control by a government committee could take care of supply and demand.

Capitalism, being an evolved phenomenon and very natural, takes the human equation into consideration. Socialism in all forms is artificial, humanly created, and does not take the human equation into consideration. Once started it evolves into its final form, which is known today as communism…control of supply and demand by committees headed by bureaucratic dictators. A capitalist society in its proper form, unfettered with socialist crowbars, is a utopia. Socialism has proven to be the opposite.

Because capitalism is a naturally evolved system, it has natural human incentives as a base and requires very little in the way of laws and law enforcement. Socialism, being artificial, must use laws and harsh enforcement to survive. Consequently, people do not enjoy living in a socialistic society relative to a free-enterprise society. A capitalist would always choose to use incentives to gain cooperation. A socialist believes that he can make a law and that will cure the situation. Many times, the socialist’s law turns out to be impossible to enforce or impossible to enforce equally for everyone. This was spelled out in the old adage; you can attract more flies with honey than with vinegar.

Historically, people attempt to escape from fully evolved socialist (communist) societies. The iron curtain in the Soviet Union held within it a population that was subservient to the dictator and kept ignorant by control of the language (only words in Marxist philosophy could be spoken or heard) and by force (fences and armed guards). This was also true in post-war Germany (the Berlin wall), and in soviet satellite countries. Communist China has natural barriers around it to hold the population in (sea, desert, and mountains).

It was not until enough Soviet citizens were able to conceal illegal ham radios and listen to the Voice of America radio broadcasts that the outside vocabulary was heard sufficiently to offset the numbing lack of concepts created due to hearing only words found in Marxist philosophy. Eventually, even the iron curtain could not keep the citizens in. They preferred to escape to free capitalist nations such as the United States. Historically, people want to be in a free society as is experienced today with the large number of illegal immigrants who cross U.S. borders every day.

Fundamentals of Capitalism:

1) Capitalism is an evolved, incentive-based economic system rather than a legislated, enforced economic system.

2) Capitalism is based upon competition among those providing goods and services. Where monopolies exist, there is no capitalism. Consequently, it is necessary under capitalism to divide any existing monopolies into several competing industries and to prevent any proposed new monopolies from coming to fruition.

3) Inflation means that your dollar is losing its value. If you once bought a loaf of bread for one dollar, inflation will mean that the cost of bread will increase to more than one dollar. A sales tax is inflationary because it causes you to pay more for the loaf of bread (because the tax is included). For instance, a sales tax of 8 percent causes you to pay $1.08 for a loaf of bread rather than $1.00. Income tax on businesses (including corporations) is inflationary because businesses must make a profit or they go out of business…and this means that they pass their taxes on to the customer. Therefore, a corporate income tax on profits from the loaf of bread will raise the price of the bread. This means that an income tax on businesses is actually a hidden tax on each customer.

The government and private institutions monitor inflation rate. What I call real inflation is that which occurs on items necessary for survival such as food, lodging, and transportation to and from work, heat, etc. What the government calls inflation takes real or actual inflation into account, but frivolous items such as electrical gadgets, computer games, items for hobbies, etc skew the final numbers. These items are usually manufactured out-of-country by cheap labor. Therefore, real inflation is more than the government-published inflation. Those in the government like it that way because their version makes them look better than does the truth.

4) Deflation happens when business is bad and prices must drop to prevent an extreme loss of money that can occur when too little or nothing can be sold. The economy is never static (never perfectly stable). In every industry, there is always either some inflation or some deflation. The economy self-corrects in each instance if the government does not tamper with it. When inflation is becoming too high, more income tax on the individual will cause a deflationary influence to counter the inflation. This is the result of less money for the individual to spend…so the rate of spending is reduced, causing sellers of products and services to drop their inflationary prices. However, more income tax on the businesses will tend to increase inflation even though the cost is born by the individual. Nevertheless, overall the inflationary trend can be overcome with slightly greater taxation. The opposite happens in normal times or in recessions. In such times, higher taxes merely increase inflation preparatory for an economic collapse.

If the government wishes to cure any bad economic situation, it must monitor almost every facet of the economy, think carefully, and then take action. In socialist economies relying on such a system, the results are usually too slow and inappropriate by the time they are implemented. In a capitalistic economy, such a system merely upsets the self-correction that is natural. It is best in our capitalistic system that the government intervenes as little as possible.

5) A slow rate of inflation is natural in a healthy capitalistic economy. This is caused by unions increasing their demands, businesses attempting to bring in more dollars for the owners, employees wanting pay raises, and attempts by others to keep up with those behaving in that manner. A high rate of inflation hurts lending agencies by making the returns on their loans less than what is healthy for them to remain in business.

6) Each industry in a capitalistic economy goes through cycles just as species do in nature. In nature, when food is abundant for a particular species, it multiplies so that there are more members of that species to eat the surplus food. The species grows in number until its numbers become too great for the food supply. At this point, the members of the species starve until only a few emaciated individuals remain. In any particular industry, entrepreneurs who see that one business is thriving begin to create their own businesses in that industry. This is good because it keeps the price of the product down for the customer. However, if too many get into the same industry, deflation begins to occur and most of the businesses in that industry fail. This bad side is avoided when proper studies are made by those planning to go into business…it is always wise to study the market, be alert, and to think in advance.

Nevertheless, there are stupid people in most industries who oversupply that industry by investing in what at the time is a good thing. So the industry is cyclic just as a species in nature is cyclic. Some of the down points in the cycle may be minor, and some may be major. Since most industries are up when one is down, the average keeps our economy thriving. Should too many industries hit down parts in their cycles at the same time, we have a recession. However, the system will self-correct.

7) Corporations are necessary for enough money to be available for large projects. Usually, corporations do well enough as long as stockholders are awake and wary. A corporate executive officer (CEO) can act adversely to the corporate health. Crimes against the corporation are difficult to detect in a reasonable length of time. So it is best to give the CEO incentives that tie his health to that of the corporation. The best way to do that is to give him large shares of corporate stock in lieu of a greater and greater salary. Even then, he could sell all of his stock at one time just before he knows that the corporation is about to fail (insider trading). This is illegal and can be made more so by proper corporate by-laws. Again, it is best that the stockholders be awake and wary. They should be careful to monitor the actions of the CEO in regard to the corporation to be sure that he is acting in accord with the corporate welfare…and they should report him if he does anything illegal.

The Major Modifiers of American Capitalism:

There are three major things that alter normal capitalism in the United States. Perhaps the most obnoxious is graduated federal income tax. The social security system is the second most obnoxious in that it is a scam put forth by both major political parties that siphons off money that could have actually done what it purports to do except for the fact that it is administered to short-change us and give the difference to political interests. The last is the Federal Reserve System, which is helpful in some ways but is being used against us. It is the worst of the three as it allows the Shadow Party to move almost unchecked toward their goal.

Many Americans are confused about what capitalism means. They think it means what’s going on in America today. The government takes your money and gives it to a big business like Halliburton; that’s capitalism in the eyes of many people.

Capitalism means freedom. It means you get to decide what to do with what you earn and own. If you want to go into business and produce widgets and sell them to consumers, you’re free to do so under capitalism. Under socialism, the government tells you what you will produce. Under capitalism, your neighbor is also free to make widgets and compete with you. As a consumer, I am free to buy from you or from your neighbor. You must compete with your neighbor to get my business. If your widgets are the highest quality and lowest price, you’ll get my business. If your widgets are not as good as those made by your competitor, or cost more, you won’t get my business. Under socialism, consumers have to buy everything from the government.

If you’re a great American, you’ll work harder and more efficiently and eventually get my business.

If you’re a lousy American…or a whiner, you’ll ask the government to force me to buy your widgets rather than your competitor’s, or you’ll ask the government to impose a tariff, making your competitor’s widgets more expensive and less competitive, or you’ll ask the government to require your competitor to get a license to make his widgets. Whiners are not capitalists, perhaps you’re a fascist, or some form of socialist. But you’re not a capitalist, no matter how big your business becomes.

A true capitalist believes in free competition and free markets, and does not seek to succeed by using government force or coercion.

An attack on capitalism is an attack on the heart and soul of Christian ethics. To say, I do not support capitalism is to say, I support the use of violence to get what I want.

Capitalists believe in persuasion, not coercion.

America stands for capitalism…capitalism means liberty.

The whole world knows that capitalism works and socialism is a failure. The fall of the Berlin Wall and the breakup of the Soviet Union shouted this truth around the globe.

Capitalist countries are free and prosperous while socialist countries are enslaved and impoverished.

And yet, virtually everyone in the United States has been trained in government schools and by a government-dominated media to believe that socialism is better than capitalism, and that no economy can succeed without some socialism.

The market economy does not need apologists or propagandists. The best argument for the market economy can be found by just looking around…look at what we’ve accomplished. Look at what our vision has produced.

That, I think, is the best defense that the market economy can ever hope for…that people look around and ponder the amazing things and opportunities that entrepreneurs and businesses have given the world during the last 200 years. Just look around at the health, the wealth, the technologies, the opportunities, and the food on your plates. Could any of that have been possible for a king or a queen 200 years ago?

The amazing fact is that entrepreneurs and innovators and businesses have turned luxuries that not even kings could afford into low-priced everyday items at your local store. That is the best defense of capitalism.

Are the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer under capitalism? Yes. The rich are getting richer, but so are the poor. The poor are only relatively poorer, relative to the rich, who are rich beyond the wildest dreams of anyone living a century ago. The poor are super-rich compared to the poor a century ago.

Most Americans over 50 were taught that capitalism was better than socialism, and that America was capitalist. More recently, capitalism has fallen out of favor. The ostensibly conservative Richard Nixon famously quipped, We are all Keynesians now, by which he meant, nobody is a capitalist anymore. Few people today are willing to identify themselves as defenders of capitalism. Capitalism is not trendy in our day. A self-identified socialist is far more likely to get a teaching position at a major university than one who openly defends capitalism.

In the last few years I have been researching capitalism in more detail, by reading the works of those who defend it most passionately. This study has been an eye-opening experience. I believe capitalism, rightly understood, is more compatible with Christianity than socialism in any degree.

That little phrase rightly understood is the whole enchilada here.

The story is told of the six blind men who offered descriptions of an elephant. Each was viewing only a part of the animal, one feeling the trunk, another the tail, another the huge legs, etc., and their varied descriptions of the elephant reflected their limited investigation.

Most descriptions of capitalism (particularly by those who attack it) are as far from reliable as those of the blind men. More ironically, the blind critics of capitalism are not only viewing only a part of the economic animal, but they are actually describing themselves, with one socialist critic of capitalism describing his own leg, another socialist critic of capitalism describing his own ear, etc. In other words, most criticisms of capitalism are criticisms of policies that are completely un-capitalistic, or they are pointing to problems created by socialism, not capitalism.

Karl Marx, a vehement opponent of capitalism, coined the name capitalism. Capitalists have since adopted Marx’s term as their own (without accepting Marx’s content, of course).

America became the most admired nation on earth because it stood for the proposition that capitalism (liberty) succeeds and socialism fails.

This is not just an abstract academic debate. Socialism rationalizes violence. Socialism has meant slavery and death to hundreds of millions of human beings. Too many on the left who claim to be for peace defend The Welfare State (welfare socialism), which turns out to be nothing more than window-dressing for The Warfare State.

None are more hopelessly enslaved, as those who falsely believe they are free…

CHAPTER 2

Since the beginning, the one constant element in life is that we learn as we go…but the problem is that life’s learning curve allows for a vast array of variables. And one of life’s unspoken truths is that we, as individuals, must prove (and reprove) ourselves everyday of our lives. Many are unwilling, unmotivated and/or just too lazy to go the extra mile required for that daily demonstration of ones principles and character. Self-respect and personal pride are often rationalized away and left along the wayside as their journey begins to ask more and more of them. As they fall further and further behind, the it’s not my fault mentality works to compromise any lingering self-esteem…even as they’re reaching for the entitlement crutch.

Welfare or welfare work consists of actions or procedures…especially on the part of governments and institutions…striving to promote the basic well-being of individuals in need. These efforts usually strive to improve the financial situation of people in need but may also strive to improve their employment chances and many other aspects of their lives including sometimes their mental health. In many countries, most such aid is provided by family members, relatives, and the local community and is only theoretically available from government sources.

In America, welfare is often also used to refer to financial aid provided to individuals in need, which is called benefit(s) or welfare benefits.

Generally speaking, before the Great Depression religious charities and other private groups provided most social services. Changing government policy between the 1930s and 1960s saw the emergence of a welfare state, similar to many Western European countries. Most programs from that era are still in use, although many were scaled back during the 1990s as government priorities shifted towards reducing debt and deficit.

From the 1930s on, New York City government provided welfare payments to the poor. By the 1960s, as whites moved to the suburbs, the city was having trouble making the payments and attempted to purge the rolls of those who were committing welfare fraud. Twenty individuals who had been denied welfare sued in a case that went to the United States Supreme Court, Goldberg v. Kelly. The Court ruled that those suspected of committing welfare fraud must receive individual hearings before being denied welfare. Journalist David Frum considers this ruling to be a milestone leading to the city’s 1975 budget disaster.

After the Great Society legislation of the 1960s, for the first time a person who was not elderly or disabled could receive a living from the American government. This could include general welfare payments, health care through Medicaid, food stamps, special payments for pregnant women and young mothers, and federal and state housing benefits. In 1968, a woman on welfare headed 4.1 percent of families; and by 1980 those numbers had increased to 10 percent. In the 1970s, California was the U.S. state with the most generous welfare system. The federal government pays virtually all food stamp costs.

Before the Welfare Reform Act of 1996, welfare was once considered an open-ended right, but welfare reform converted it into a finite program built to provide short-term cash assistance and steer people quickly into jobs. Prior to reform, states were given limitless money by the federal government, increasing per family on welfare, under the 60-year-old Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program. This gave states no incentive to direct welfare funds to the neediest recipients or to encourage individuals to go off welfare (the state lost federal money when someone left the system). One child in seven nationwide received AFDC funds, which mostly went to single mothers.

After reforms, which President Bill Clinton said would end welfare as we know it, amounts from the federal government were given out in a flat rate per state based on population. The new program is called Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF). It also encourages states to require some sort of employment search in exchange for providing funds to individuals and imposes a five-year time limit on cash assistance. The bill restricts welfare from most legal immigrants and increased financial assistance for childcare. The federal government also maintains an emergency $2 billion TANF fund to assist states that may have rising unemployment.

Millions of people left the welfare rolls (a 60 percent drop overall), employment rose, and the child poverty rate was reduced. A 2007 Congressional Budget Office study found that incomes in affected families rose by 35 percent. The reforms were widely applauded after bitter protest. The Times called the reform one of the few undisputed triumphs of American government in the past 20 years. Critics of the reforms sometimes point out that the reason for the massive decrease of people on the welfare rolls in the United States in the 1990s wasn’t due to a rise in actual gainful employment in this population, but rather due almost exclusively to their offloading into workfare, giving them a different classification than classic welfare recipient. The late 1990’s were also considered an unusually strong economic time, and critics voiced their concern about what would happen in an economic downturn.

Aspects of the program vary in different states; Michigan, for example, requires a month in a job search program before benefits can begin.

The National Review editorialized that the Economic Stimulus Act of 2009 will reverse the welfare-to-work provisions that Bill Clinton signed in the 1990s and again base federal grants to states on the number of people signed up for welfare rather than at a flat rate. One of the experts who worked on the 1996 bill said that the provisions would lead to the largest one-year increase in welfare spending in American history. The House bill provides $4 billion to pay 80 percent of states’ welfare caseloads. Although each state received $16.5 billion annually from the federal government as welfare rolls dropped, they spent the rest of the block grant on other types of assistance rather than saving it for worse economic times.

Time lines:

1880’s—1890’s: There were attempts made to try and move the poor from work yards to poor houses if they were in search of relief funds.

1893—1894: Attempts were made at the first unemployment payments, but were unsuccessful due to the 1893—1894 recession.

1932: The Great Depression had gotten worse and the first attempts to fund relief failed. The Emergency Relief Act was then passed into law. It gave local governments $300 million.

1933: In March of 1933 Roosevelt pushes congress to establish the Civilian Conservation Corps.

1935: The Social Security Bill was passed on June 17, 1935. The bill included direct relief (cash, food stamps, etc.) and changes for unemployment insurance.

1940: Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) was established.

1964: Johnson’s War on Poverty is underway, and the Economic Opportunity Act was passed…commonly known as The Great Society.

1996: Passed under President Clinton, The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 becomes law.

But the problem is that the system has created a self-perpetuating black hole (no pun…just a metaphor) that siphons off more and more of our tax dollars. The irony is that the beneficiaries are afforded the opportunity to vote on whether or not they want the government (tax payers) to continue paying their bills and supporting their lifestyle. This voting block has tremendous clout