Rights and Responsibilities

A couple of days ago I got this in my daily e-mail from Glenn Beck.  This is something that Conservatives must live by and liberals will deny that we do and will probably claim that they came up with. It deals with the proposition that with rights comes responsibilities.  I agree 100%.  And since Beck asked that we memorize these, print them out and carry them around and share them, here I am sharing them with you.

Declaration of Rights & Responsibilities Thus, we the people do hereby declare not only our rights, but do now establish this bill of responsibilities. 1. Because I have the right to choose, I recognize that I am accountable to God and have the responsibility to keep the 10 commandments in my own life. 2. Because I have the right to worship as I choose, I have the responsibility to honor the right of others to worship as they see fit. 3. Because I have freedom of speech, I have the responsibility to defend the speech of others, even if I strongly disagree with what they’re saying. 4. Because I have the right to pursue happiness, I have the responsibility to show humility and express gratitude for all the blessings I enjoy and the rights I’ve been given. 5. Because I have the right to honest and good government I will seek out honest and just representatives when possible. If I cannot find one then I accept the responsibility to take that place. 6. Because I have the God given right to liberty, I have the personal responsibility to have the courage to defend others to be secure in their persons, lives and property. 7. Because I have the right to equal justice, I will stand for those who are wrongly accused or unjustly blamed. 8. Because I have the right to knowledge, I will be accountable for myself and my children’s education…to live our lives in such a way that insures the continuation of truth.

9. Because I have the right to pursue my dreams and keep the fruits of my labor, I have the responsibility to feed, protect and shelter my family, the less fortunate, the fatherless, the old and infirm.

10. Because I have a right to the truth, I will not bear false witness nor will I stand idly by as others do.

Unconditionally, while maintaining my responsibility to compassionately yet fiercely stand against those things that decay the natural rights of all men. And for the support of this declaration, and with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence we mutually pledge to each other our lives, fortunes and sacred honor.

John A. Wilson

President

Conservative Action Project of Union County

El Dorado AR

Article in Waco, Texas newspaper

I got this in an e-mail and thought I should share it with everyone. It's not such a bad plan after all;

• This was in the Waco Tribune Herald, Waco, TX
  Nov 18, 2010
  
  Put me in charge . . .
  
  Put me in charge of food stamps. I'd get rid
  of Lone Star cards; no cash for Ding Dongs or Ho Ho's, just money for
  50-pound bags of rice and beans, blocks of cheese and all the powdered
  milk you can haul away. If you want steak and frozen pizza, then get a
  job.
  
  Put me in charge of Medicaid. The first thing
  I'd do is to get women Norplant birth control implants or tubal
  ligations. Then, we'll test
  recipients for drugs, alcohol, and nicotine
  and document all tattoos and piercings. If you want to reproduce or use
  drugs, alcohol, smoke or get
  tats and piercings, then get a job.
  
  Put me in charge of government housing. Ever
  live in a military barracks? You will maintain our property in a clean
  and good state of repair. Your "home" will be subject to inspections
  anytime and possessions will be inventoried. If you want a plasma TV or
  Xbox 360, then get a job and your own place.
  
  In addition, you will either present a check
  stub from a job each week or you will report to a "government" job. It
  may be cleaning the roadways of trash, painting and repairing public
  housing, whatever we find for you. We will sell your 22 inch rims and
  low profile tires and your blasting stereo and speakers and put that
  money toward the "common good."
  
  Before you write that I've violated someone's
  rights, realize that all of the above is voluntary. If you want our
  money, accept our rules. Before
  you say that this would be "demeaning" and
  ruin their "self esteem," consider that it wasn't that long ago that
  taking someone else's money for
  doing absolutely nothing was demeaning and
  lowered self esteem.
  
  If we are expected to pay for other people's
  mistakes we should at least attempt to make them learn from their bad
  choices. The current system
  rewards them for continuing to make bad
  choices.
  
  AND While you are on Gov't subsistence, you no
  longer can VOTE! Yes, that is correct. For you to vote would be a
  conflict of interest. You will
  voluntarily remove yourself from voting while
  you are receiving a Gov't welfare check. If you want to vote, then get a
  job.
  

Nepotism in our County Government

Nepotism in our County Government

It has recently come to my attention that our County Clerk’s son works in the County Clerk’s Office.  That sentence alone should alarm everyone, but when it was brought up at the latest Quorum Court meeting it was just brushed aside.  Only two of the eleven Justices showed any concern at all.  A recent audit of the county government even found that no law was broken.  How is this possible when the Union County Employee Handbook states that nepotism is not allowed?  Actually, it’s quite simple.  The nepotism in the County Clerk’s Office is possible because the original ordinance forbidding nepotism was not very well written.  The nepotism ordinance states that a supervisor or elected official can’t hire a family member to work under them.  Our county clerk defends having her son working for her by reminding the Quorum Court members that her son was already working in the County Clerk’s Office when she was elected, therefore, she did not hire him.  This is classic use of a technicality to get around common sense laws. 

In just about any private company, if two family members are working together and one gets promoted over the other, of even if a supervisor is hired and it is found that the new supervisor’s relative is now working under him/her, then one of them will have to either quit or be transferred.  But that’s not what Union County law says.  So apparently, nepotism will continue to go on in our County Clerk’s Office because of a technicality.  Most of our JP’s see no problem with it, I do.

Anyone who understands the nature of human beings would have a problem with this situation.  Our County Clerk stated in front of the Quorum Court that she does not sign her son’s time cards.  She has someone else do that and she understands that her son cannot move from part time to full time while she is in office.  With that in mind she thinks that everything is ok.  I’m sorry, but that is not how people are.  Let’s say that you are a mid-level manager and your boss’ son works under you.  You are well aware that he is the boss’ son and you are going to treat him differently than you would other employees.  You’d be a fool if you didn’t.  So don’t try to tell me that the county clerk’s son doesn’t get special favors.  He is the boss’ son. 

There are two ways that we can solve this dilemma. One, we can work to get the nepotism ordinance changed so that this sort of thing is outlawed. One of our JP’s is willing to address the issue and try to change the wording of the ordinance.  Unfortunately, he is one of only two conservatives on the Union County Quorum Court and any and everything he tries to bring up gets pushed aside by the other nine.  A Republican on the Quorum Court is but a voice crying out in the wilderness.  It is brutal to watch how the other JP’s treat him.  Or two, we can elect a different County Clerk next year.  And while we are at it we need to elect more conservative Justices of the Peace to our Quorum Court. 

People don’t seem to understand how much the County Quorum Court affects our everyday lives.  Even if you life in the city, you still have a representative on the Quorum Court.  We need to pay closer attention to what goes on in our county government.  I’ll talk more about this soon.

John A. Wilson

President

Conservative Action Project of Union County

Is There Anything In Here We Can't Live Without?

This was sent to me in an e-mail.  We don’t know the source, but this is very eye-opening.

IS THERE ANYTHING LISTED THAT YOU CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT?

These are all the programs that the new Republican House has proposed cutting.

Corporation for Public Broadcasting Subsidy. $445 million annual savings.

Save America 's Treasures Program. $25 million annual savings.

International Fund for Ireland . $17 million annual savings.

Legal Services Corporation. $420 million annual savings.

National Endowment for the Arts. $167.5 million annual savings.

National Endowment for the Humanities. $167.5 million annual savings.

Hope VI Program.. $250 million annual savings.

Amtrak Subsidies. $1.565 billion annual savings.

Eliminate duplicative education programs. H.R. 2274 (in last Congress), authored by Rep. McKeon, eliminates 68 at a savings of $1.3 billion annually.

U.S. Trade Development Agency. $55 million annual savings.

Woodrow Wilson Center Subsidy. $20 million annual savings.

Cut in half funding for congressional printing and binding. $47 million annual savings.

John C. Stennis Center Subsidy. $430,000 annual savings.

Community Development Fund. $4.5 billion annual savings.

Heritage Area Grants and Statutory Aid. $24 million annual savings.

Cut Federal Travel Budget in Half. $7.5 billion annual savings.

Trim Federal Vehicle Budget by 20%. $600 million annual savings.

Essential Air Service. $150 million annual savings.

Technology Innovation Program. $70 million annual savings.

Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) Program. $125 million annual savings.

Department of Energy Grants to States for Weatherization. $530 million annual savings.

Beach Replenishment. $95 million annual savings.

New Starts Transit. $2 billion annual savings.

Exchange Programs for Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians, and Their Historical Trading Partners in Massachusetts . $9 million annual savings. What is this anyway…?

Intercity and High Speed Rail Grants. $2.5 billion annual savings.

Title X Family Planning. $318 million annual savings.

Appalachian Regional Commission. $76 million annual savings.

Economic Development Administration. $293 million annual savings.

Programs under the National and Community Services Act. $1.15 billion annual savings.

Applied Research at Department of Energy. $1.27 billion annual savings.

FreedomCAR and Fuel Partnership. $200 million annual savings.

Energy Star Program. $52 million annual savings.

Economic Assistance to Egypt . $250 million annually.

U.S. Agency for International Development. $1.39 billion annual savings.

General Assistance to District of Columbia . $210 million annual savings.

Subsidy for Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority. $150 million annual savings.

Presidential Campaign Fund. $775 million savings over ten years.

No funding for federal office space acquisition. $864 million annual savings.

End prohibitions on competitive sourcing of government services. Repeal the Davis-Bacon Act. More than $1 billion annually.

IRS Direct Deposit: Require the IRS to deposit fees for services it offers (such as processing payment plans for taxpayers) to the Treasury, instead of allowing payments to remain as part of its budget. $1.8 billion savings over ten years.

Require collection of unpaid taxes by federal employees. $1 billion total savings. WHAT THE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Prohibit taxpayer funded union activities by federal employees. $1.2 billion savings over ten years.

Sell excess federal properties the government does not make use of. $15 billion total savings.

Eliminate Mohair Subsidies. $1 million annual savings.

Eliminate taxpayer subsidies to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. $12.5 million annual savings.

Eliminate Market Access Program. $200 million annual savings.

USDA Sugar Program. $14 million annual savings.

Subsidy to Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).$93 million annual savings.

Eliminate the National Organic Certification Cost-Share Program. $56.2 million annual savings.

Eliminate fund for Obamacare administrative costs. $900 million savings.

Ready to Learn TV Program. $27 million savings.

Eliminate death gratuity for Members of Congress.

HUD Ph.D. Program.

Deficit Reduction Check-Off Act

TOTAL SAVINGS: $2.5 Trillion over Ten Years

My question, what THE Devil is all this doing in the budget in the first place…?

Is there anything listed you cannot do without…?

The Power of Prayer

The Power of Prayer

I set aside a few minutes each morning for meditation and prayer.  I try to reflect on God’s word and what it means in my everyday life.  Then I pray for God’s guidance to put the things that I think he expects of me to good use. This past Saturday I had an experience that reminded me that God is listening and he does answer prayers. 

While in my morning meditation, I remembered something that I have recently heard.  I’m not sure but I think it may have been Pastor John Hagee on Glenn Beck’s program.  In any case, I remember someone maintain that the best way to serve God is to serve God’s children.  To me this means to do good toward others is to serve God.  As corny as it may sound this is like the Boy Scouts striving to do a good dead every day.  But that is what I thought about during my morning meditation; we should look for ways to help those around us in need as a way to serve our Lord.  I ended my meditation with a prayer.  I asked God to guide me and to bring me to someone that needed help so that I could better serve Him.

That afternoon my wife and I went on a quick trip to Wal-Mart to pick up a couple of things.  Going to the check-out counter, since I only had four or five things in my cart, I went to the express check-out.  At every open express counter there were, as usual, three or four shoppers waiting in line, except one.  An elderly lady was the only person at that particular counter, so, of course I chose that lane.  The lady was in one of those shopping scooters that Wal-Mart provides for their disabled patrons.  As I stopped my cart behind her and started to unload the items from my cart onto the counter the cashier was just finishing ringing up the lady’s purchases. The elderly lady had a bit of a struggle to reach from her seated position to reach the credit card scanner, but she managed to do it, however, she could not reach up to sign the electronic signature pad.  Without giving it much thought I stepped forward to see if I could help.  Fortunately the clerk saw the lady’s struggle and quickly offered to print out a sheet for her to sign so the elderly lady sat back in her seat obviously relieved.  When the cashier handed the lady the piece of paper to sign and a pen a new problem presented itself.  She had no surface upon which to rest the paper to sign it.  This too the cashier quickly noticed and picked up a one of several DVD packages that were for sale on the counter.  Since I was already beside the lady, I took it from the cashier and held the case so that the lady could sign the credit card charge without having to get out of her seat on the shopping scooter.  I then took the slip of paper and the DVD case and handed them back to the cashier.

 It was a small thing to do and I can’t imagine anyone not doing exactly what I did under the circumstances.  But when I finished I saw my wife and the cashier both looking at me with big smiles on their faces.  The cashier thanked me in a very sincere voice and said, “God bless you.”  My wife just smiled at me and patted my arm like I had done something heroic.  I felt a little embarrassed.  I didn’t do anything special; I just helped someone that needed help.  Suddenly it hit me; this was exactly what I had asked God for that morning.  I was a little stunned for a minute then suddenly I felt God’s love surround me.

 Everything had fallen exactly into place to put me there at that moment when someone needed help.  If I had not spent the few minutes that I did looking at some tools in the hardware department we may have gotten to the checkout counter before the elderly lady and been gone.  I would have never known that the elderly lady had needed any help.  Had I taken more time to pick out the new house slippers that I went there to buy the lady may have, though with difficulty, finished her purchase and left before I arrived at the counter.  Then again, I rarely go to Wal-Mart with my wife.  But today I wanted to buy something that my wife may not have been able to find for me.  And what about the fact that all of the express checkout lines were crowded, but not the one where the lady needed my help? 

When it all came together, God had guided me to be at the spot at the time when I could be of some help to one of God’s children.  I have no idea who the lady was.  All I know is that I asked God to give me a chance to help someone today, and He saw to it that I had just such an opportunity.

John A. Wilson

Why Socialism Will Not Work

Why Socialism Will Not Work

           

            For as long as mankind has existed there have been those who dreamed of a more perfect society.  From Robespierre to Marx to Lenin and Stalin, all had an idea of the perfect society.  The only trouble is; the perfect society can never exist in a society of imperfect beings.  Socialism cannot succeed simply because it is anathema to human nature.

            We all know and understand that man and woman are never perfect.  There is at least one fatal flaw in all of us, in some of us there are dozens.  Ambition is a character trait that is rampant in the human race and it has always been so.  As a matter of fact the unambitious individual is a rarity.  Very seldom do you find someone of low status that is happy to remain in that position.  The vast majority of people keep their eyes focused upward always wanting just a little more than what they have.   Ambition is the fly in Socialism’s ointment.

            The premise behind Socialism is “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”  This would mean that everyone has just what he or she needs to survive and not one thing more.  There is no competition, everyone has exactly the same.  Everyone’s house is the same; the only difference is the number of bedrooms.  The furnishings are all the same. The cancer doctor lives in the same apartment building as general laborer, the movie star lives next door to a convenience store clerk.  An education gains you no privilege that the uneducated does not enjoy. 

            Really?

            What is the purpose of studying four, six, eight or more years to be something special if there is no reward for that sacrifice?  Why put pride into your work and do your best to turn out a quality product when you will reap no greater reward than someone who slacks off and does the bare minimum?  Sure, it sounds wonderful, let’s have a society where everyone does his best and shares equally with everyone else.  That may work in a fairy tale, but in real life it won’t work.

            Given a chance to make a socialist society work, I think that the majority of people would start out trying very hard to make it work.  However, as the population of the society grows, disillusion will set in and many workers will find that they don’t have to perform well to be rewarded and eventually it will fall apart.  Severe punishment will have to be implemented to insure that each worker gives at least a modicum of effort.  Eventually this will lead to an elite class whose job is to enforce standards of production on everyone.  This will result in a certain group of people acquiring power over the rest which will inevitably result in that group granting themselves extra privileges. To make sure that they keep these special privileges, they will have to institute ways to insure that they stay in power which leads to Communist dictatorship.  This is not any new idea, it has happened many times over the history of civilization.  If you want a great example of how it works, I recommend that you read George Orwell’s Animal Farm.  Really, everyone should read that book, it isn’t a long treatise or difficult to read, try it, you may learn something.

In this country, middle class and upper middle class citizens look at the very rich and curse the fact that they don’t have as big a house, or as fancy a car and it is very easy to convince them that the rich got their money by cheating people like them.  When I hear most people complain about how unfair life is to them, I always want to ask, “What about those who have less than you?”  And folks, no matter who you are, if you live in this country the vast majority of people in this world have less, much less than you.  Here in America we enjoy the highest standard of living of any country in the world, by far.  But class warfare goes on and a mysterious, vague group of people called “The rich” are targeted.  People don’t seem to have any concept of whom they are speaking when they say, “The rich should pay more taxes.”  It’s just someone that has more than they do. 

And “someone who has more than you” is the very basis of the great push today toward Socialism.  Facts don’t seem to be a big deal to the people who lead this attack on success.  It’s all emotional and anyone who disagrees is labeled an idiot, a liar or worse.  And many of us, myself included, who try to state some facts and inject some small bit of common sense into the argument are threatened and marginalized because there is no real argument against that which we say.  So we continue to plunge this, the greatest country in the world, headlong into a system that has never and will never work, just because someone has something that someone else doesn’t.

John A. Wilson

President

Conservative Action Project of Union County

El Dorado, Arkansas

The Three Fifths Compromise

The Three Fifths Compromise

Article I Section 2 Paragraph 3 of The Constitution of the United States, when written, included the formula for determining, for representation purposes, the population of a state.  It stated, “…their respective Number, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxes, three fifths of all other persons.”

Fredrick Douglas was an escaped slave who became a scholar and a leader of the abolitionist movement in the late 1850’s just before the Civil War.  When Mr. Douglas first heard about the clause in the U.S. Constitution he was appalled and asked the famous question, “Am I but 3/5 a man?”  After Douglas researched the reason behind the Three Fifths Compromise he later conceded that the compromise was, in fact, anti-slavery.

When our constitution was being drafted that part of Article I was dubbed “The Three Fifths Compromise.”  It was not, as some still today claim, a slight against persons held in bondage, but was necessary to insure passage of the Constitution as a whole.  The fact of the matter is, the southern states, which were already dependent upon slavery for their very existence even before the Revolutionary War, wanted to count all slaves in their census to determine the number of representatives their respective states would have in Congress.  The industrial northern states opposed the slave states counting slaves at all. The reasons for the dispute require a bit of a lesson in Civics.

This country was blessed to have some serious geniuses that happened along exactly when our country needed them.  One of the most ingenious accomplishments of the founding fathers was the legislature consisting of two separate houses.  The bicameral legislature was not a completely original idea; the British Parliament is also a bicameral legislature.  It was the way that legislators were selected to each house that was novel and such a stroke of genius.

The original thirteen colonies were of various sizes, from tiny Rhode Island to the Carolinas, Virginia and Georgia.  At the time of the drafting of The Constitution these southern states were much larger than we know them today.  In the case of Virginia and Georgia, the state lines were surveyed all the way to the Mississippi River.   So this is where the genius comes in; the drafters of the Constitution gave each state, regardless of size or population, two senators so that each state had equal representation.  In the House of Representatives the number of Congressmen was based on the population so that each person in the republic had equal representation.  But at this point the states in which slavery was legal, mainly the southern states, cried, “Foul.”

The southerners knew that the northern states were becoming more and more industrialized and that the abolitionist movement was starting to gain some popularity in those states.  They knew that to maintain the practice of slavery a constant battle would have to be fought.  Remember, there were thirteen original colonies.  Seven colonies did not allow slavery.  There were only six that did.  So in the Senate, the slave states were already at a disadvantage since there were 14 senators from Free states and only 12 from slave states.  The southern states hoped to gain the advantage in the House by insisting that the slaves be counted in the census to establish the number of Congressmen from each state.  The northern states had some serious objections.  The northern states reminded the southern states that the slaves were considered “property” instead of people in every other way except determining the number of representatives.  The representatives from the northern states pointed out that the slaves did not have the right to vote, so how could they be represented?  They argued that if the southern farmers could count their slaves as population, then northern farmers should be allowed to count their cows for the same reason. 

This sounds quite silly and it was, but these were the arguments that the northern states used in the hope of maintaining an advantage of numbers in Congress.  They knew that they would have to have numbers over the southern states if they were to be able to enact laws that would eventually abolish slavery.  The southern states were well aware that this was the northern state’s real intention so they insisted on counting their slaves so that they could have enough representatives to keep the anti-slavery laws from being passed.

The result was a total deadlock.  The southern states would never ratify a Constitution that didn’t allow them to count their slaves in the census and the northern states would never ratify one that did.  Thank God for Henry Clay.  He was known as “The Great Compromiser” and found a happy medium to which both sides would agree.  The Three Fifths Compromise allowed the southern states to count 3/5 of the slaves in the census to determine representation in Congress.  This number gave just about an equal number of representatives from the slave states and the Free states. 

With equal numbers in the House, the abolitionists could begin to enact laws with the goal of eventually ending slavery in this country.  It was a long uphill climb and would have taken several decades to bring about the end of slavery, but would have eventually accomplished that end had it not been for the fact that the southern states saw the writing on the wall and decided that to continue with their lifestyles they would have to secede from the Union.  I think we all know what the end result of that was.

When Frederick Douglas learned the real reason behind the 3/5 Compromise he readily admitted that it was an anti-slavery act and supported it 100%.  The Three Fifths Compromise did not, by itself, end slavery, but it put into motion the acts that would eventually bring about the end of this terrible practice.  The portion of our Constitution that mentions this compromise was nullified by Section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment.  Yes, counting slaves as 3/5 of a man was wrong, but The Constitution of The United States of America included a section about how the document could be changed.  After the 3/5 Compromise accomplished what it was set out to do, it was changed, and the Constitution guided this fledgling republic to be the greatest country that the world has ever known.

John A. Wilson

President

Conservative Action Project of Union County

El Dorado, Arkansas