A few months ago, one of the newsletters to which I subscribe distributed a video of a lady named Becky Gerritson from Wetumpka, Alabama. On June 4th, Ms. Gerritson testified before the House Ways and Means Committee about IRS abuses of her organization, the Wetumpka Tea Party. In just a few words, she gave a summary of America’s degeneration. Her words were right on target and more powerful than all of the empty words coming from our current political, governing, and main stream media elites. She said simply that the America she has known and loved for all her life is slipping away and she is both saddened and frightened about this.

Her brief statement highlights the fact that no one in the current ruling elite of our nation has dared to provide even a sketch of the full dimensions of current American problems and not a soul has dared to propose a program (or a set of program options) for dealing with those current problems. The tragedy here is that until some courageous member (or small band of members) of our national leadership class develops and articulates a full scale picture of our nation’s current problems there is probably no chance that the country will get started along a viable path to realistic recovery.

1.) DEFINING OUR OBJECTIVES

In my view, any discussion about how to get America back on track would have to begin with an effort to define, clearly and realistically, where we want the track to lead. That is, we need an articulated vision of the America we want to be again. Such a vision would provide a logical, realistic, complete, and easily understood objective for us to pursue. Well stated and defined, such a vision would also be strongly attractive to the majority of Americans who remember a better America and perhaps it might rouse them to action toward a brighter national future.

We now have no such vision and no spokesman for such a vision because today’s leadership elite is bogged down in fighting about one or another, special-interest program or project. As a result they fail to project a single image of the entirety of a better future America.

Our founding fathers did a pretty good job painting a picture of the America they saw in the nation’s founding documents. It might be helpful to us, therefore, if we structured our discussion, as they did, in macro level terms. More specifically, I suggest that we approach the definition of our objectives for America in just three subject areas as follows.

• Makeup of the American Population
• Reach and Power of the Federal Government
• America’s Role on the World Stage.

The remainder of this paper will suggest some ideas about our future goals in these three areas, and the difficulties we will face in trying to move toward those goals.

2.) MAKEUP OF THE AMERICAN POPULATION

As used here, the phrase “Makeup of the American Population” is not intended as a reference to its distribution by age, gender, ethnicity, race, religion, intellect or talent. It refers, rather, to the people’s moral values, to their self reliance and self confidence, and to their passion for freedom of action.

a) The Makeup of the American Population Has Changed Radically and Negatively from What It Was When I Was Born.

I was born in New York City in 1930 into a working class family. My father was an electrician. My mother was a stay-at-home Mom and I have a sister just two years younger than me. During my childhood years, our type of family unit was seen as the norm, as the right and proper arrangement of parents and children for the health and well being of all the family. Even during the worst years of the great depression, people held themselves responsible for their own health and well being. “Going on welfare” was seen as a terrible badge of shame, a terrible admission that one could not make it on his or her own. So negative was the view of welfare that people would endure extreme poverty rather than admit to the world that they could not take care of themselves and their family loved ones.

This picture of the belief system of the typical, depression era, American family is vastly different from today’s picture. Today’s role models are the takers not the makers, those who are dependent upon wealth created by others, who glory in that dependence because they believe they have rights to benefits they did not and will never earn themselves. In short, there has been a major change in the views that many of the American people have about right and wrong, about self reliance and self respect, about the rights of others, and about their own role in the protection of the real, God given rights of all people in their families, their communities, and in their nation.

b) The Degeneration of the American Population Has Been Caused Largely By Unwise or Ill Intentioned Government Policies and Programs.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt had a senior advisor named Harry Hopkins. Years ago, I read somewhere that it was Hopkins who characterized Roosevelt’s liberal strategy with the words “tax, tax, tax, spend, spend, spend, and elect, elect, elect”. For many years during Roosevelt’s time and later, the Hopkins described strategy has been implemented by liberals whenever and wherever possible. The objective of the strategy was, and still is, continuous growth of power of the liberal elite by legislating “give away” programs to the masses of voters who could then be counted upon to support ever growing liberal power. The success of this strategy can be seen in programs like social security, medicare, medicaid, food stamps, minimum wage, unemployment insurance, student loans and countless others.

In some areas, the Hopkins described strategy has been implemented by the refusal of our governing liberal elite to enforce the laws they have pledged to support. Control of our borders is an example of this approach. Here, the Government has allowed masses of unskilled, uneducated and illegal immigrants to enter the country and to enroll in benefit programs and even register to vote. Thus the liberal governing elite gains ever more dependent voters by buying off their votes with free benefits paid for either by hard working American taxpayers or with borrowed money that will have to be repaid by real American citizens as yet unborn.

The liberal programs have been so successful in winning the hearts and minds of many American voters that they are seen more and more as inalienable rights, never to be taken away or even reduced in size or scope. Notwithstanding their popularity among the new American class of “takers not makers”, they have been (and will ever be) deadly enemies of the personal freedom of American citizens and powerful enforcers of the control and reach of the American ruling elite.

c) Rebuilding the American Population Will Take Time, Courage and Clarity of Purpose.

Taking back the stolen power now in the hands of the American ruling elite and restoring the personal freedoms of the American citizenry will take a massive effort to terminate the Federal Government’s “give away” programs. But the effort will never get off the ground if it is characterized only as an effort to restore the Government’s economic health. Rather, it will need to be described by the entire membership of American conservatism as a fight for the restoration of American freedom, as an effort to heal the sick American population of “takers not makers”, and to restore the American population as the envy of the world for their freedom, their intellectual and moral leadership, and their unrivaled productivity.

I recognize that many obstacles will have to be overcome to rebuild the American population in this way. But we will never even get to make a start until our conservative leaders recognize that our objective is a major restoration of the character and belief systems of the American population, and until they step forward and speak out with irresistible persuasive power to make the case for the effort we need to undertake.

The disheartening truth in all of this is that I see no such leadership anywhere among our conservative elite. I cannot name a member of the conservative political leadership who has articulated a macro-level, strongly motivating vision of the American shining city on the hill that once was real and can be again.

3.) REACH AND POWER OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

In an often told story about Benjamin Franklin, it is said that as he was leaving one of the final meetings of the 1787 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, he was stopped by a passerby and asked “What kind of government are you giving us?” He answered “A Republic if you can keep it."His answer was both brief and profound. Perhaps most important, he did not include the word democracy.

a) The Nation’s Founding Fathers Gave Us a Republic that Provided the Environment for the Growth, Development, and Well Being of the Greatest Nation in the History of the World.

Our country’s founding fathers understood full-well that democracy was a code word for mob rule and that when more than 50 percent of the voting public discovered that they could vote themselves ownership of the wealth created by others they would support an endless progression of programs and policies to do so. They understood too that such an outcome would destroy the motivation for hard work, self reliance, respect for property rights and the rule of law. In short, it would destroy the personal freedom of the most productive members of our society and, in time, the freedom of all Americans.

To avoid these unwanted outcomes, the founding fathers designed and implemented a republic with sovereign states, joined together voluntarily in a national union. The states were given full rights as sovereign powers with appointed representatives to a national senate, and with elected members of a people’s house of representatives. The powers of the national union were clearly defined and tightly limited by the law of the land, the U.S. Constitution. Thus, the original American republic was one of balanced powers among the states and the national union, and among the three branches of the national government. Operating in an environment of strong loyalty to personal freedom, rule of law, and free enterprise; this governmental structure moved the new American nation to a position of world leadership in many areas.

b) For Much of the 20th Century, the Republic Was Set on a Path to Self Distruction.

The strategy of American destruction has two prongs. One prong works tirelessly to reduce the sovereign powers of the states. The other prong followed the Harry Hopkins approach to buying the loyalty of the "takers” within the population while suppressing the freedoms, the energies, and the probabilities for success of the “makers” within the population.

The milestones along the path of the first prong of the strategy included Amendment XVI to the Constitution which legalized Federal collection of the income tax; Amendment XVII which required that U.S. Senators be elected by the voters within each state rather than by state governments; and the birth of the Federal Reserve Bank with the power to destroy the value of America’s currency.

The milestones along the path of the Harry Hopkins prong of the strategy included the Social Security System, Medicare and Medicaid, food stamps, increasingly endless unemployment insurance payments, Federal support (and near takeover) of the country’s educational resources, and recent efforts to Federalize the nation’s health care system (both operational resources and the healthcare economy), and mounting pressure to provide amnesty and Federal giveaways to illegal immigrants.

The above brief list of the ongoing efforts at destruction of American freedoms is just the tip of the iceberg. The list of Federal abuses to the America into which I was born is already almost endless and continues to grow. The items mentioned above are included here primarily to make clear the enormity of the problems we must overcome to recover the America bestowed upon us by the nation’s founding fathers.

c) Recovery of the America We Know and Love Will Require Restoration of the Republic that Served the Nation So Successfully in Its Early Years and Will Be Enormously Difficult.

Restoring the American Republic and rebalancing power between the Federal government and the states will require termination or major downsizing of popular but unaffordable “give away” programs; large reductions in the Federal bureaucracy perhaps by elimination of executive departments that give the Federal government powers that are extra-constitutional and should be exercised by the states; and readying the state governments to exercise their full rights and powers as sovereign entities. None of this will be easy or quick.

In America, power lies with the voters. Much of the recent erosion of the American Republic has happened because the voters allowed it to happen or supported its happening in the pursuit of ever larger free benefits from the Federal elite leadership. Thus, the most difficult part of restoring the American Republic will be the education of the American voter about the massive loss of personal freedoms he/she has endured in recent years; the enormous negative future consequences of those losses; and motivating the voting public to enter immediately and vigorously into the fight to win back the country. It is this urgent challenge, immediate education and motivation of the American voter that calls for the formulation and the articulation of a universally attractive vision of the America we want to be again.

4.) AMERICA’S ROLE ON THE WORLD STAGE

I was just a few weeks shy of my 12th birthday when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941. It will come as no surprise then that my view of America’s appropriate and proper role in the international world was heavily influenced by the way I saw America perform and behave during World War II, the Korean War and the Cold War.

a) On the International Scene, the America in Which I Was Raised Was Primarily a Defender of Our Values and Those of Other Societies with Values Similar to Our Own.

America viewed other countries as natural and trusted allies if their governments and their people held views on and commitments to freedom, Judeo Christian moral codes, and the rule of law. In the first half of the 20th century, societies such as these were found largely in Europe. Thus, England and France topped the list of our natural allies during the two World Wars of first half 20th century. Other countries such as the USSR and China were chosen as allies primarily because we shared common enemies with them.

Our commitment to our 20th century allies extended throughout the years of active combat and, to varying degrees, into the years of peace and societal and infrastructure recovery. In some cases, this meant quartering American military forces and assets in the homelands of our wartime allies. In the main, these forces were peace keepers not engaged in post-war combat. In other countries, our post-war support was limited to the export of financial aid and export support.

b) America Was Not, Is Not, and Cannot Be a Builder of Free Democratic Societies Where No Such Societies Existed in the Past.

During the first half of the 20th century, America’s post-war aid to former allies was not focused on the construction of governments or societies similar to America’s in countries where there was no history of welcome or success of such societal or governmental structures; and no evidence of massive popular support for such new structures.

Later in the 20th century, America’s leaders began to accept the idea that democracy and freedom, and rule of law (American style) could be exported and planted successfully in countries where there was no history that such concepts would flourish. Nevertheless, an American effort was, and is still being made in several countries of the Middle East and of North Africa. For the most part, these efforts have been failures. They have imposed enormous costs and, in some cases, extreme hardships on the American people with little real, lasting benefits to those same people. Indeed, some would claim that our country’s current massive indebtedness and economic distress can be attributed, at least in part, to our nation’s international overreach. While this may be an overstatement of the financial impact of America’s international overreach, it is certainly true that most of the personal pain and sorrow that has been visited upon our military men and women and upon their families can be tied directly to wrong- headed use of our national power in pursuit of unrealistic dreams of empire.

c) The American Government Should Focus Its Energies on the Defense of the Freedoms and the Security of the American People.

In the international arena, America needs to give up the idea that it can remake the world into societies that mirror our own, and whose people will adopt our beliefs about the proper structure of governments, and the proper distributions of power. Indeed, there are many places in the world where our way of life and our beliefs are hated and our people are seen as enemies to be killed or conquered and enslaved. In such places in the world, no amount of American blood and treasure can remake those societies into images of our own.

It is time to face this reality and to refocus America’s international powers and influence on objectives that, first and foremost, support the freedom, security, and well being of the American people, and the furtherance of American interests.

* * * * *

Basketball players and fans know the phrase “full court press”. It describes a plan of attack in which every player goes simultaneously into maximum energy offense mode to surprise, confuse, and overwhelm the opposing team in the hopes of scoring some points. Freedom loving Americans need to put on a full court press and they need to do it now. Nothing less will recover the American shining city on the hill that we once knew and loved and now dream of having again.

To implement the full court press that is conceived here, every freedom loving member of the country’s leadership elite, in business, in politics and in government, will need to give full voice and full energy to the common, three part objective described in this article.

Restore the American population to its position as the envy of the world for its freedom, its intellectual and moral leadership and to its unrivaled ingenuity and productivity.

Reduce the reach and power of the Federal Government to what was envisioned by the nation’s founding fathers and is enshrined in the United States Constitution.

End the Federal Government’s actions to build a worldwide American empire and focus its international energies on the defense of the freedom and the security of the American people.

To make progress toward achievement of these objectives will require winning the hearts and minds of American voters who can be counted on to support the efforts of a new leadership cadre in the governing classes at all levels. This can best be done by clearly, loudly, and continuously articulating one vision, one America, one land of the free that will appeal to all citizens of the country who must be persuaded to see in it the best and brightest life for themselves.