the blueprint: restoring liberty to government

8/14/2019 The Blueprint: Restoring Liberty to Government

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THE BLUEPRINT: RESTORING LIBERTY TO GOVERNMENT

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Restoring Liberty to Government

Introduction

The basic purpose of this paper is to establish a way forward for the libertarian and

conservative movements in the coming years as those movements relate to the renewal

of American promise and the revitalization of American strength. Key to our success

will be a renewed commitment to and emphasis upon individual liberties and self-

determination. We must communicate our ideas to the individual voter in such a way

as to align our future with his own.

Our primary focus should be one of property. Individuals in this country resent the

profligate spending and corruption of Washington, D.C. and they are right to do so. We

must position our movements in such a way as to provide redress for individual griev-

ances against government excess. Chief among the individual grievances against gov-

ernment excess are the onerous taxes that individuals are assailed with on all sides.

At the gasoline pump, anywhere from .30 to .70 cents of each gallon of gasoline can be

nothing but pure tax (http://bit.ly/aSMvfN) . Income taxes, Social Security withhold-

ing, property taxes, sales taxes, gift taxes, capital gains taxes, corporate income taxes

that are passed on to individuals in the form of higher prices and lower wages, lodging

taxes, toll taxes, licensing taxes, the list goes on and on. By positioning ourselves and

our cause against taxation and government spending, and following through on our

commitments with action, we can build an electoral majority for years to come. How-

ever, we must link taxation to property. We must sear into the minds of voters that their

wages and earnings are their wealth. Their home equity is their wealth. The interest

on their savings accounts, and the yield on their 401(k)s are their wealth, and their

property. We must inculcate a deep resentment towards government encroachments onindividual wealth.

Educating and conditioning voters to react skeptically to government proposals which

require increased funding in the form of taxation in order to benefit specific demograph-

ics in society rather than the common interests of society must be our primary task. We2 0 1 6 I n i t i a t i v e T h e B l u e p r i n t : R e s t o r i n g L i b e r t y

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must condition individual voters to react to increased taxes in the same way that they

would react to a theft or robbery. They must see government as an entity to be battled

at every turn, and they must come to understand that the chief responsibility of voters

is eternal vigilance against government expansion.

If we accomplish this, we can destroy liberalism and its appeal. Make no mistake about

it, the primary mission of libertarian and conservative causes is the extinction of leftism

as a politically viable theory around which to organize and rally. The future security of

these United States and our continued progress forward into the future depends on the

vanquishing of liberalism as a political ideal. For this to occur, we must define not only

our own theory, we must also dominate the dialogue to such a degree as to define liber-

alism in the context in which we choose to frame it. We must best the liberals by articu-

lating their cause with greater clarity and honesty than they themselves can muster.

At the core of liberalism is the idea that property rights are not sacrosanct; property

rights are instead flexible and negotiable. The many should be able to appropriate the

wealth of the few in order to fund their political initiatives and desires. The key to re-

framing the debate in our favor is to point out that we live in a republic, not a democ-

racy, and that the rights of individuals are sacred. Since rights include property con-

cerns, we can systematically delegitimize liberalism by reframing the conflict betweenthe right and the left as one of majoritarian tyranny against individual freedom founded

on constitutionally legitimate traditions and rooted in constitutionally based ideals.

Article I, Section VIII, Clause I of the Constitution says the following: The Congress

shall have the power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the

debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United

States...(emphasis added) This is antithetical to the various entitlements programs and

subsidies which benefit specific demographics to the detriment of others. Taxation is tofund the mission of the government, which should consist of the common defense and

the general welfare of the United States; that is, what we all use and need as citizens in

the United States.

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As we consider what to define those two areas as, let us go back to consider what the

Founders had to say on these matters. We may consider the views of the man who

wrote the actual Constitution, Thomas Jefferson:

To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his fathers has ac-quired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised

equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the

guarantee to everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.

Thomas Jefferson, letter to Joseph Milligan, April 6, 1816

A wise and frugal government shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall

leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement,

and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of

good government. Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801

I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from

wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them. Thomas

Jefferson

Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only thosespecifically enumerated. Thomas Jefferson

We may also consider any number of other sources, such as James Madison, who would

go on to become the fifth President:

With respect to the two words general welfare, I have always regarded them as

qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and un-

limited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which

there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators. James Madison in a

letter to James Robertson


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I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a

right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constitu-

ents. James Madison, 4 Annals of Congress 179, 1794

[T]he government of the United States is a definite government, confined to specified

objects. It is not like the state governments, whose powers are more general. Charity is

no part of the legislative duty of the government. James MadisonI cannot

If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will pro-

mote the general welfare, the government is no longer a limited one possessing enu-

merated powers, but an indefinite one subject to particular exceptions. James Madison,Letter to Edmund Pendleton, James Madison, January 21, 1792, in The Papers of

James Madison, vol. 14, Robert A Rutland et. al., ed (Charlottesvile: University Press of

Virginia, 1984).

An elective despotism was not the government we fought for; but one in which the

powers of government should be so divided and balanced among the several bodies of

magistracy as that no one could transcend their legal limits without being effectually

checked and restrained by the others. James Madison, Federalist No. 58, February

20, 1788

There are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual

and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.

James Madison, speech to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 16, 1788

We may also consider the words of John Adams: further take intaccount the following

from John Adams:

The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws

of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and

tyranny commence. If Thou shalt not covet and Thou shalt not steal were not com-


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mandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society before it

can be civilized or made free. John Adams, A Defense of the Constitutions of Gov-

ernment of the United States of America, 1787

The prescient warnings of Benjamin Franklin also serve notice of the inherent danger inallowing redistribution to become a normative standard:

When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of

the republic. Benjamin Franklin

I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best

way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driv-

ing them out of it. Benjamin Franklin

The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it

yourself. Benjamin Franklin

In short, the redistribution which is the goal of every leftist and liberal is antithetical to

the traditions and principles our nation was founded upon. There is no confusion on

this issue. What they wrote and said in their lifetimes was clear. Despite the best at-

tempts of leftists to obfuscate and muddle the discussion, their testimonies stand the

test of time to provide us guidance on the proper way forward. We must use this guid-ance when considering the restructuring and reordering of our government and its es-

sential functions. We must go back to the wisdom of our fathers and the traditions they

bequeathed to us as heirs to the Republic they erected.

By stressing these facts, we can systematically delegitimize the entitlements, subsidies,

exemptions, and various other expenditures which run away from the constitutionally

defined mission of the Congress and the constitutional purpose of taxation. Key to our

cause is the redefinition of the focus and mission of government.


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Limiting the Focus and Mission of Government

Government should focus on four key areas: Infrastructure, Trade Policy, National De-

fense, and Enforcement and Administration. These are the core areas which benefit the

common defense and general welfare of every citizen.

We all use roads and bridges, and we benefit from strong levees and flood control sys-

tems to protect our property. It is only proper that we should all share in the cost of

their construction and maintenance. This is infrastructure, and we can sell it politically

to the American people. As we will see later on, investment in infrastructure will be key

to our long term goals in revitalizing American manufacturing.

We all benefit from strong trade policy, which renders goods cheap and readily accessi-

ble to the American consumer. Trade policy requires public investment in the form of

diplomacy, negotiation of trade agreements, and enforcement of those agreements. As it

is an area of common benefit and mutual concern, the American people can be sold

trade as a core focus and concern of the government which they ought to fund.

National Defense is an area which requires no explanation. The American people have

traditionally supported a strong military, and we will continue to develop our military

capability in order to ensure American interests and national security are promoted

throughout the world. The benefits are common to all Americans: increased security

from the threat of terror, and stability in commerce and trade which enable Americans

to maintain the worlds highest standard of living.

Enforcement and Administration are also critical areas which benefit the common inter-

ests of Americans. We can benefit from specific restructuring in this area, including the

elimination of various government agencies and departments. However, chief among

the reforms we must bring to enforcement and administration is the elimination of

fraud and corruption in our markets. We must fight for free and unfettered markets, as

opposed to free and unfettered corporations.

Financial transparency is critical to preventing fraud and achieving investor confidence

in our markets. XBRL reporting will contribute a great deal to this goal, and we must


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support this sort of innovation and development in the future by requiring companies

to honestly report their fiscal condition to investors in such easy to understand and dis-

sect formats. In this way, investors can detect fraud and punish it in the marketplace,

thereby rendering a result in days rather than the weeks, months, and years it would

take government agencies to achieve the same result.

It is critical, however, to punish fraudulent structuring of debt and the misleading of in-

vestors with a great deal of severity. Limited liability ought to be revoked in the event

that executives have committed a crime. The undue gains of shareholders ought to be

recoverable as well. Simply put, we should remove every incentive which exists that

promotes short term malfeasance by exempting shareholders and executives from the

repercussions of their failure to police the company and its financial disclosures ade-

quately.

Eliminating Agencies

Initially, we must assess which agencies of the federal government are extraneous by

considering their stated intent versus their actual record. The Department of Agricul-

ture; the Drug Enforcement Administration; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Fire-

arms; Health and Human Services; and various other agencies may be easily culled and

eliminated on this logic alone. Quite simply, they dont work.

The stated intent of the Department of Agriculture was to save the family farm. We

now exist in an agricultural reality where the family farm is near extinct, replaced by

factory farming operations which have given rise to a food production system wherein

four major suppliers dominate the chicken, pork, and beef markets. The Department of

Agriculture has been reduced to a mere funnel for tax subsidies and dollars to be chan-

neled to large conglomerates and landowners who own arable land but do nothing with

that land which could justify their receiving tax dollars in support of agriculture.

Both the DEA and the ATF function at the federal level when their roles have tradition-

ally been reserved for states and localities. Moreover, we currently spend $28,000 yearly

incarcerating hundreds of thousands of non-violent drug offenders who were arrested


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for mere possession. In an environment where we are facing insolvency due to ideo-

logical crusades against this ill, that ill, or the other ill, it is perhaps best that we move

forward and begin considering decriminalization if not outright legalization of drugs at

the federal level. For those who doubt my logic, allow me to refer you to a book by

Reason magazine editor Jacob Sullum entitled Saying Yes: In Defense of Drug Use, in

which Mr. Sullum admirably refutes a host of myths about our drug policy with actual

facts.

We might move to prosecute those who injure others while under the influence of in-

toxicating substances in much the same way that we prosecute drunk drivers who kill

someone. Either way, the decision should fall to state and local governments, and out of

the realm of federal oversight and control. As such, I would support the abolition of the

DEA and the repeal of all federal drug laws.

Insofar as the ATF is concerned, I see no reason to have a federal agency dealing with

what have traditionally been state and local concerns. I support the repeal of all federal

gun laws, since so few of them are enforced with any regularity to begin with, and since

they only serve to perpetuate firearms laws already in existence at the state and local

levels. Tobacco is another issue best left to states who currently tax tobacco to no end in

order to fund whatever great idea theyve hit upon during a given week or month. Itstheir tax law, so let them enforce it (Note: this mission is the purview of yet another

agency, which exists under the auspices of the Treasury Department as Bureau of Alco-

hol and Tobacco Tax and Trade). Not one area of the ATFs focus is a legitimate federal

issue. These are matters best left to states and localities, who can determine according

to the preference of their citizens what theyd like insofar as regulation of alcohol, to-

bacco, and firearms are concerned.

Health and Human Services is another ignoble effort of the federal government to injectitself into local and state concerns. As such, it has similar mixed results. I do support a

Centers for Disease Control at the federal level, and I regard this as critical to our na-

tional security. However, public health is best left to the states and localities which are


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equipped with proximity to the population so that they can know which issues require

redress.

The Department of Education has as its legacy greater expense with far less result over

its tenure. It should be abolished as an infringement upon state and local autonomyover education. Moreover, it should be abolished as a means for national teachers un-

ions to prevent parental choice in education. Parents ought to be afforded great leeway

in determining the education of their own children, so long as basic academic standards

established by state and local school boards are met by whatever institution educates

the child in question. It is doubtful that parents will stay too long with an institution if

that institutions results are obviously inferior, so the idea that state interference is

needed is dubious at best.

Public education has taken on a coercive tinge, whereby the unions associated with it

have effectively lobbied legislatures to limit the options available to parents as though

the parents are not the ones paying for the schools with their own tax dollars! This is

antithetical to our identity as a nation of individuals seeking to erect individual liberty

as the ideal.

The National Endowment for the Arts is not an appropriate allocation of federal funds

nor does it constitute an appropriate function of the federal government. Patronage of

the arts should ideally be privately funded for any number of reasons, not the least of

which is the sticky area of forcing constituents to pay for art containing subject matter

or themes which may offend their moral and ethical sensibilities. For this and other

reasons, public money should not be appropriated at the federal level to pay for art.

The general measurement of whether or not we eliminate a government agency or pro-

gram ought to be Article I, Section 8, Clause I of the Constitution, which specifically lim-

its taxation to the purpose of paying the debts and providing for the common defense

and general welfare of the United States. As I pointed out in the opening, the Founders

left a wealth of testimony to indicate what the general welfare did and did not consti-

tute.


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Entitlement Reform and Elimination

Any serious discussion about curbing the mission and scope of government has to in-

clude entitlements. Simply put, entitlements in this country are nothing more than

wealth redistribution, and are therefore incompatible with the letter and the spirit of Ar-ticle I, Section VIII, Clause I of the Constitution. We should position our argument as a

defense of the Constitution and the principles this country was founded upon.

Public sentiment will change when we begin to stress that the United States is a republic

where property rights are sacrosanct. This idea has its genesis in the Founders own be-

liefs and positions, as evidenced by the following quote:

The moment the idea is admitted into society thatproperty is not as sacred as the laws

of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and

tyranny commence. If Thou shalt not covet and Thou shalt not steal were not com-

mandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society before it

can be civilized or made free. John Adams, A Defense of the Constitutions of Gov-

ernment of the United States of America, 1787

For the Founders, property was of paramount concern. They had fought a war against

the Crown to ensure that government would not have the right to make inroads against

individual ownership and control of property. What we must do in articulating our

case against entitlements is to equate property with wages and individual wealth. At

the state and local level, this will entail stressing the end of property taxes. Initially, we

may compromise and say that only residentially zoned property should be exempt from

such taxation, and we should promote the idea that such a decision ought to be settled

by a direct vote in the form of a referendum.

At the national level, we can attack entitlements on the same grounds. We may initially

soften our approach by allowing for a gradual phasing out of entitlements programs

like Social Security and Medicare, but we must be clear and focused on their total elimi-

nation. I would suggest a 20 year phase out to enable individuals to adapt to the com-

ing reality of a retirement that isnt supplemented by Social Security. In the initial five

year period, we will retain the withholding tax in order to fund the entitlement, and we2 0 1 6 I n i t i a t i v e T h e B l u e p r i n t : R e s t o r i n g L i b e r t y

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will gradually transition it to a general budgetary item for the remaining fifteen. This

will have the added benefit of putting a fiscal bind on future Congresses who may be

tempted to expand spending.

What we want to do is to make it absolutely impossible for future Congresses to expandspending without raising or creating new taxes, and thus exposing themselves to politi-

cal repercussions come election time. The way that we manage the phase out of Social

Security and Medicare will enable us to accomplish this.

Essentially, we can eliminate Social Security over time and avoid the charge that we are

heartless and driven to turn seniors out with no other option. We can also point out

that many seniors who have come up in the past three decades have 401(k)s and Roth

IRAs which are potentially substantial sources of retirement income.

This point is critical to our ability to phase Social Security out in a manageable and effi-

cient way, as it highlights a crucial selling point: we will limit the pool of Social Security

recipients by putting a cap on eligibility for those who have external retirement income

in excess of a certain amount. If you have retirement income from savings, 401(k)s,

IRAs, annuities, or any other source, you will be rendered ineligible for Social Security

benefits if the annual payout from those other sources exceeds a certain dollar amount.

In this way we can cull the rolls of Social Security and make it more fiscally manageable

to phase it out over the 20 year period. We may even be able to accomplish our goal in

less time utilizing this and other approaches. We can portray those seniors who oppose

our efforts as greedy on the ground that their demographic has the lowest rates of pov-

erty in our society. The initial battle over entitlement elimination will be an absolute po-

litical bloodbath, as seniors have a powerful lobby in this country through AARP and

other organizations. We want to be positioned to deploy a message depicting those sen-

iors who oppose our initiatives and rollbacks of wealth redistribution as tyrannical and

even antithetical to American constitutional principles and traditions.

This is going to be a war of public perception on which the future course of our Repub-

lic will rest. Turning America away from socialist wealth redistribution (which is what


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entitlements ultimately are) will depend on a disciplined, organized, and focused effort.

When we do attempt to roll these particular reforms out, we will need to have battle

chests ready for deployment. Vast sums of money will be required in order to mount an

offensive campaign. It is advisable that we strike first on the public relations front by

attacking the senior citizens lobbying groups with a full on advertising blitz.

A successful approach will depend on portraying the entitlements as robbery from the

current generation of middle class and working families in order to enrich the already

wealthy generations of seniors who demand ever greater amounts of entitlements with-

out regard for the fiscal security of the country. Ideally, we will portray seniors as being

indifferent to the plight of the Treasury and the potential fiscal insolvency of the United

States. Another approach might include a portrayal of seniors back in the early days of

the Republic and the early 20th century, fighting selflessly for their country only to be

replaced by future generations of spoiled and entitled types who care little for the fiscal

effect their entitlements have on the plight of working families and the middle class.

Whatever we do, we must hit the seniors and their lobby first. We must blitz them and

overwhelm them, and we must coordinate public speeches, study findings, and press

releases in order to stun the public into cooperation. Defining them before they define

us will be critical to the successful implementation of entitlement repeal.

Another critical area of importance is the realization we must have that powerful inter-

ests within the financial community want Social Security restructured into a private in-

vestment account financed by tax withholdings. Chief among the advocates of this ap-

proach are men like Peter J. Peterson, and we must do everything we can to utterly ob-

viate the challenge he and his kind present to our goal of repealing entitlements. The

reality is that we are tasked with restoring constitutional limits to the federal govern-

ment by narrowing its scope and mission to fit the standard of Article I, Section VIII,Clause I. There is no compromise to be reached with Peter J. Peterson or any other ad-

vocate of privatization where Social Security is concerned. If individuals want to take

their 7.5% and invest it of their on volition in hedge funds and stocks, that is their

choice to make as free individuals on their own. The federal government should not be


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involved in any way, shape, fashion, or form. Social Security and every other entitle-

ment must be eliminated entirely.

Today we are faced with an unsympathetic senior demographic that has an arrogant at-

titude towards the private property and earnings of other individuals. They genuinelybelieve that it is their right to take that property and those earnings in order to fund

their golden years. They are wrong. If you communicate the reality of Social Security

to the general public, you will win their support for rolling back and repealing Social

Security.

If you articulate Social Security as a program that takes from working families and the

middle class in order to enrich a demographic which already has greater wealth than all

other demographics in our society, a demographic which has the lowest rates of poverty

in our society, you will win broad support for overturning Social Security. If you point

out that the reason insurance premiums are skyrocketing in this country is a universal

single payer healthcare program that underpays physicians who then pass on the un-

paid costs to their privately insured customers, you can generate consensus support for

overturning Medicare. If you point out that 5% of the patients in Medicare generate the

overwhelming majority of the costs, and ensure that those of us who possess private in-

surance will pay greater premiums and co-pays as well, you can generate outragewhich will sweep us forward in our campaign to eliminate Medicare.

Its all about the presentation. The video footage of bellicose seniors screaming about

socialized medicines in order to preserve their own socialized single payer healthcare is

priceless. It is an asset to our cause. In it, you can see exactly the sort of image we are

going to portray as representative of seniors on Social Security and Medicare. For far

too long, seniors have had a monopoly on the debate. Theyve portrayed politicians

who sought to roll back or limit Medicare or Social Security as misers with no respectfor their elders. Who could respect the bellicose individuals we saw in town halls over

the fall of 2009? The screaming, yelling, entitled, and arrogant individuals who

stomped their feet and waved their hands like lunatics on the verge of a violent melt-

down in order to preserve their illegal and unconstitutional entitlements and wealth re-


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distribution schemes so that they could steal from working families with children in or-

der to have more for themselves when their demographic already has greater wealth

than any other demographic are their own worst enemy. We can turn the tide of public

opinion simply by presenting them as they are in that footage: arrogant, rude, and bel-

ligerent.

These are individuals who dont care that their entitlements are responsible for nearly

bankrupting the country. They dont care about robbing from the future to pay for the

denizens of the past who didnt set aside enough to fund their own retirements, or who

did, but simply want more to add to their already substantial wealth even if it comes on

the backs of working and middle class families. The great wonder of entitlement reform

is that it hasnt already happened.

Were on the verge of overturning leftisms great legacy in our society: a welfare state

where the specialized demographic can steal from the the general demographic in order

to sustain and enrich itself. We simply need to articulate with discipline, focus, and

consistency the message contained in the preceding paragraphs.

The logistics of this particular item will need to be worked out in further detail, but the

general aim of our agenda is quite clear: the orderly and total elimination of Social Secu-

rity as fact of American life. The twenty year phase out period will actually be some-

what longer as the mortality rate of Social Security recipients is inherently unpredict-

able. Given the fact that recipients of Social Security also utilize Medicare, we will have

to factor this is into our end plan. We could ultimately be looking at a sixty year wind

down to the program as the final recipients eventually expire due to illness and old age.

Tax Reform

"It is a singular advantage of taxes on articles of consumption that they contain in theirown nature a security against excess. They prescribe their own limit, which cannot be

exceeded without defeating the end purposed -- that is, an extension of the revenue."

--Alexander Hamilton


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No pecuniary consideration is more urgent, than the regular redemption and discharge

of the public debt: on none can delay be more injurious, or an economy of time more

valuable.

George Washington, Message to the House of Representatives, December 3, 1793

Tax reform is an essential component of the rights resurgence. We have a tax code

which is overlong, overcomplicated, and inefficient. It costs taxpayers a stunning $140

billion a year merely to maintain compliance. This represents an additional tax added

to the income tax, the excise taxes, the corporate income tax, the gift tax, the estate tax,

and a host of other taxes. The American government manages to collect more tax reve-

nue each year than any other country on Earth, and yet it still isnt sufficient. We run

deficits with regularity.

As we roll back the mission and limit the scope of our government, it is also appropriate

that we roll back and eliminate our tax code. Thats right, we need to repeal our federal

tax code in its entirety and start over. No more corporate tax, no capital gains taxes, no

excise taxes, no income taxes, no gift taxes, nothing shall remain of the various and

sundry taxes weve all come to know and loathe.

Were going to repeal every tax we currently have and erect a VAT (Value Added Tax) of

some 18.5%. Lets consider that we produce over $14 trillion a year in GDP. 70% of

that is consumer spending (http://www.hoover.org/research/factsonpolicy/facts

/4931661.html).

Lets say that we collect 18.5% of that 70% of GDP in a VAT, for a total of $1.813 trillion.

As you can see, the VAT has the potential to realize more than adequate revenues for the

government. However, in order to lessen the negative effects of taxation on areas criti-

cal to the well-being of individuals and families, we will exempt food and medical care

from the VAT. This will result in the omission of some 19% of the consumer spending

from taxation (Bureau of Economic Analysis, Gross domestic product data; Department

of Labor, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Expenditures in 2004 (April


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2006)). The net result of this will be a $1.3209 trillion VAT revenue to the federal gov-

ernment.

In 2009, total tax revenues were some $2.105 trillion under the conventional tax struc-

ture currently in existence. Of course, you have to consider that we spent $782 billionon the military alone. We spent $678 billion and $676 billion on Social Security and

Medicare & Medicaid, respectively (OMB 2011 Budget Summary Table S-3). Eliminat-

ing both entitlements programs and cutting military spending in half will produce a

savings of $1.735 trillion dollars. Essentially, youd cut the federal budget by that much

from its total of $3.518 trillion in 2009. In essence, youd halve the budget. Once you

consider how much entitlements like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid cost, you

begin to see that cutting those entitlements will have a substantial effect on reducing

government spending.

Once we go through the federal budget and begin paring programs and items which do

not meet the litmus test of Article I, Section VIII, Clause I of the Constitution, we will

begin to reap vast savings which will make our goal of switching to a VAT far more fea-

sible. Structural reforms to appropriations processes will render even greater savings.

However, on the initial run, we must take care to emphasize a key area of the utmost

importance to American security and prosperity: that of the national debt. Tax reform

must be critically focused on resolving the issue of the national debt.

Eliminating the 35% corporate income tax will greatly encourage business investment in

the United States, as will the elimination of capital gains taxes. Moreover, the elimina-

tion of the income tax code, combined with the replacement of a VAT built around an

invoice-based collection approach, we will further eliminate the need for vast bureauc-

racies to enforce tax regulations and law. The IRS in its current form will cease to exist.

Compliance costs will also decrease drastically with a simplified tax code, resulting in

greater efficiency to private enterprise. Much of the cost will be borne by businesses

who must document their own compliance in the form of invoice based collections.

However, even with this as the case, businesses will be spared a great deal of ineffi-


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ciency and difficulty. Imagine what we could do in our economy with an extra $140 bil-

lion to spend on actual goods or capital investment, money which would be recouped

from a simplified tax code which doesnt require an army of lawyers and accountants to

navigate.

Initially, we will keep Social Security withholding in place as we begin the process of

paring down eligibility in order to limit Social Security disbursements to only those in-

dividuals whose entire livelihoods are supported by their Social Security benefits. This

will be the norm for five years, after which we will totally shift the bulk or the whole of

funding the remaining recipients of Social Security to the general budget and the VAT.

We will eliminate capital gains taxes in order to encourage reinvestment, and in order to

spur savings and investment by ordinary Americans seeking to build their retirements.

There will be no further penalties on retirement or savings, as both are conducive to the

commercial interests of the nation and it is therefore counterproductive to tax them.

Corporations will still face a minimized tax burden in the form of the VAT, but the real-

ity is the cost of their compliance will be greatly reduced and the overall cost of the tax

itself will be cut. We want to encourage corporations to come to the United States as a

tax shelter. Given our history of losing money on the corporate income tax due to the

fact that we often give more in abatements, exemptions, and deductions to corporations

than we actually collect in receipts, the VAT represents a far more efficient and produc-

tive way to deal with our corporate taxation issues. Ultimately, I would favor a zero

corporate income tax rate worked into the VAT over time to achieve our goal of making

U.S. markets attractive to foreign investment and compatible with domestic business

interests.

The fact remains that corporations do not pay the corporate income tax. They merely

pass it on to consumers in the form of higher prices and to their laborers in the form of

lower wages. It is an asinine tax that hurts the working and middle classes while re-

quiring great contortions on the part of corporations seeking to extract benefits from the

tax system. These benefits often represent a market distortion, as any concessions ex-


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tracted from a government by one corporation represent a competitive advantage

against its rivals. The federal government shouldnt be playing favorites in taxation.

Our tax code is currently nothing more than just that: a means for corporations to en-

hance their bottom line by demonstrating an aptitude at gaining concessions andabatements from elected officials who insert said items into the tax code. This is anti-

thetical to free market economics, where the government stays out of market issues and

allows consumers to make the decision as to which product succeeds or fails based on

the products relevance to their life. When the government bestows favorable tax

treatment on one corporation as opposed to its competitor, it essentially interferes with

this balance and creates incentives for the consumer to choose whichever company has

already been chosen by the government. Reforming the tax code with a VAT will ulti-

mately help us to end these government manipulations of the market and its conditions.

Infrastructure Concerns and Opportunities

We have an internal crisis in this country. Our infrastructure is corroding. While we

have been off entertaining dreams of empire and sowing pseudo democracies halfway

around the world, our own roads and bridges have decayed. Fully half of the roads and

bridges in this country are either structurally deficient or functionally obsolete.

Privatization advocates blindly advocate selling off publicly funded and built infra-

structure like roads and bridges to private corporations, who then own the infrastruc-

ture and charge the public a toll which pays for its upkeep while generating a profit for

the corporation. There are two critical distinctions to draw here: first, the public paid

for the building of the road; second, the the government wouldnt be in liquidity crunch

where infrastructure upkeep was concerned if it merely stayed within the constitutional

limits on its role and authority. The reason that federal, state, and local governments so

often become indebted and ultimately financially overextended is that they take onroles and missions that are beyond the constitutional and statutory limits placed upon

their power. It is not that they do not have a sufficient tax base to draw from, or that

private corporations do a much better job of administering infrastructure.


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In point of fact, private contractors and corporations are responsible for a great many of

the infrastructure projects built in this country. Weve seen the obvious quality of their

workmanship: the levees and canals of New Orleans, combined with the MRGO chan-

nel, which stands as a monument to engineering incompetence and oversight, led to the

submerging of 80% of the city of New Orleans in the aftermath of a mere Category 2

hurricane. Our roads do not have the same lifespan as the roads in Europe, precisely

because the mission of European roadbuilders is different than that of U.S. contractors.

U.S. contractors seek to build a road (or for that matter, any other public works project)

to the minimum specifications permitted, using the cheapest possible materials, in order

to drive their profit margins upward.

Theres only one problem with this approach: its more expensive over time, as upkeep

costs rise with the price of patching the shoddily constructed roads, dams, levees,

bridges, and other infrastructure concerns. Moreover, as evidenced by the loss of hu-

man life in Katrina, along with the collapsing bridges and so forth, it is unsafe.

Infrastructure is a general welfare concern. We all use infrastructure and we all rely on

it. Therefore, infrastructure design, construction, and maintenance is an appropriate

function of the government. We have the Corps of Engineers, whose sole purpose is to

handle our nations infrastructure concerns. Theres only one problem: the Corps islargely riddled with incestuous relationships between its officers and the private con-

tractors it does business with. The legacy of this has been flawed and malfunctioning

infrastructure, and ultimately these entanglements have resulted in the preventable loss

of American lives.

Privatization is the problem, not the solution. The reason we are in the situation we are

currently in as a nation has a great deal to do with privatization, both of the legitimate

roles of government and the unconstitutional roles of government such as entitlements.What most Americans do not realize is that something on the order of 3 out of every 4

workers doing the work of the federal government are now private contractors. Whats

more, they cost on average $40,000 more than their public sector counterparts annually.


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Far from saving money, privatization has ensured that we will spend ever greater

amounts of money in perpetuity.

Furthermore, we have the spectacle of defense contractors like Northrop Grumman

administering entitlements programs like Aid for Families with Dependent Children.Lest you believe that the expansions of entitlements programs have anything to do with

a real altruism on the part of the federal government towards the poor, the elderly, and

the disabled, consider if you will the fact that private corporations and contractors re-

tain armies of lobbyists to beat back any attempt to cut spending on the entitlements

and programs they administer for the federal government. It is not that we cant cut

spending because our government is dominated by socialists and leftists; instead, it is

that our corporations have realized that they can generate vast revenue streams for

themselves through government programs. The greatest fans of socialism and govern-

ment overreach today occupy corporate boardrooms.

Any revitalized rightist movement will need to recognize this and resolve to take action

to break these links between government and business, neither of which should exist to

facilitate the other. The governments chief duty towards business is the enforcement of

contracts and the prevention and prosecution of fraud. It is not to line the pockets of

private corporations with taxpayer dollars and taxpayer financed deficit spending forever expanding projects and programs.

Business has no duty towards government whatsoever, other than the observation of

the laws regarding contracts and fraud. As Thomas Jefferson put it, Merchants have

no country. The mere spot that they stand on does not constitute so strong an attach-

ment as that from which they draw their gains. We must recognize reality. Our goals

for infrastructure are fundamentally incompatible for the goals contractors have for that

same infrastructure. So long as you link the legitimate function of government to theprofit motivations of corporations and contractors, corruption, graft, and shoddy

workmanship will be the result.

Furthermore, by severing this incestuous relationship between government and busi-

ness, we will position ourselves to benefit in an electoral sense. The Democrats and the


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leftists in this country will be outflanked, for they are in no way inhospitable to busi-

ness. There is a myth about leftism that we must dispense with; namely that it is hostile

and antithetical to the concerns and motivations of business. If businesses find that they

can appropriate leftist movements through their financial support, they will find leftists

eager to receiver whatever corporate largesse businesses and their lobbyists are willing

to shower them with. The great flaw of leftism is that it denies human nature in order

to assume that utopia is possible, and nowhere do we see this more clearly than in the

leftist who has been assimilated into the great intercourse between government and

corporations.

If we take an oppositional position to this, we will effectively expose the Democrats and

the left in this country for what they are: advocates of corporatocracy and opponents of

republican ideals. Moreover, we will render them as hypocrites even to their true be-

lievers, who will be confronted with the reality that todays Democratic Party is almost

entirely funded and underwritten by financial and corporate interests. In short, the

electorate wont believe in them, and their true grassroots ideologues wont support

them. They will be reduced to shambles and disarray. The resulting vacuum will en-

able us to push through reforms that would otherwise be politically impossible to

achieve, because the left will be too disorganized to offer an effective resistance to our

agenda.

Infrastructure offers us the chance not only to rebuild our country, but also to strategi-

cally undermine our opponents on the left. Opportunities must be maximized at the

earliest, so when we execute our reform of infrastructure, we must do so as a united

front in order to efficiently eviscerate the left on this issue.

We must do so by first establishing a historical basis for the legitimate exercise of federal

power towards the end of infrastructure revitalization and development. This will berather easy, as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson had a dialogue in 1784 con-

cerning the canal system which Jefferson would go on to erect with the planning and

assistance of his Treasury Secretary Albert Gallatin (Hagerty, J.E., McClelland C.P. and

Huntington, C.C., History of the Ohio Canals, Their construction, cost, use and partial


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abandonment, Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society, Columbus, OH 1905;).

The initial dialogue indicated Washingtons clear preference, as a March 1784 letter

would indicate: not a moment ought to be lost in commencing this business

(http://www.candocanal.org/articles/washington.html).

This idea would eventually become the Ohio and Erie Canal (as well as several other

canals), and it would prove vital to Washingtons vision for a canal and road system

that would connect all of American and enable the efficient transport of commercial

goods. The project was initially unsuccessful at the national level due to the opposition

of President Madison and the commencement of the War of 1812, but Gallatin and oth-

ers encouraged Ohio to take up the construction and development of the canal system.

Washingtons views on the role of infrastructure in enabling commerce were unmistak-

able. He built a rough road himself, and initially attempted to construct a canal of his

own in order to reach the west with goods. In a letter to Jonathan Boucher, Washington

noted the following in regards to the Potomac Canal:

. . . Mr Ballendine to shew you the Plan also; as he has met with

pretty considerable incouragement on this side the Potowmack,and has got

Letters (as he says) from Lord Dunmore to Mr Brinley, & others, from whom

he expects the Insight necessary to enable him to be instrumental in carrying

into execution the present attempt of extending the Navigation of Potomack

from Tidewater upwards, as far as Fort Cumberland . . .

. . . because, I think the opening of the Potomack will at once fix the

Trade of the Western Country (at least till it may be conducted through the

Mississippi, by New Orleans) through that Channel and end, in amazing

advantages to these two Colonies . . .

-Letter to Jonathan Boucher, May 5, 17722 0 1 6 I n i t i a t i v e T h e B l u e p r i n t : R e s t o r i n g L i b e r t y

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The simple truth is that our Founders recognized that Americas prosperity and inde-

pendence depended largely on her ability to efficiently transact commerce, and that the

transportation of goods and people was vital to that interest. Article I, Section VIII,

Clause VII clearly establishes the role of the federal government in establishing both

post offices and post roads, while Clause XVII of that same Section and Article call for

the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings;

wherever the seat of the United States government was located.

There is a constitutional and historical precedent for establishing federal involvement,

funding, and oversight of infrastructure in this country. We must understand that in

order to correct the mistakes of the past, we must curb and even eliminate the corrupt-

ing influence of private contractors who seek as their primary end greater profit rather

than the construction of a solid infrastructure and who further seek to lure public offi-

cials and employees to their employment as an incentive to get said officials and em-

ployees to lessen their standards of workmanship. This has been an increasing problem

within the Army Corp of Engineers, whose employees are often assured employment

with contractors upon their departure from public employment so long as they establish

cooperation with the contractors which may not align with the public interest.

As both a political and practical concern, we can position ourselves to profit. By revital-izing Americas infrastructure, we will combat corruption and ensure that American in-

frastructure is conducive to the long term security interests of our nation and its citi-

zens. The public perception of our efforts will be favorable, and we will ensure contin-

ued electoral dominance by gaining the public favor and trust by our exercise of public

funds as a stewards of the public interest.

We can establish the historical basis for our approach to infrastructure, and we can also

establish a strategic basis for our approach towards the involvement and input of pri-vate contractors. There is nothing wrong with utilizing private contractors, so long as

the federal government remains the dominant partner and retains the ability to force the

contractors to meet maximum standards of quality and workmanship for the projects

being undertaken. However, there must a be a strict policing of any potential conflicts


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of interest. Practically speaking, we may require that contractors agree to suspend lob-

bying efforts and refrain from the purchase of political advertising or the support of po-

litical candidates in order to receive access to federal contracts.

Infrastructure Revitalization: A Way to Renew Manufacturing

As we move forward in this country on the matter of infrastructure, while we must in-

sist that infrastructure is ultimately a proper role for the government to oversee and im-

plement, the reality of infrastructure products is that they require vast raw and proc-

essed materials. This reality presents us with a strategic opportunity to bring Americanmanufacturing back to prominence.

As we are spending taxpayer dollars for infrastructure revitalization, we must orient the

expenditure towards the support and enhancement of domestic manufacturing. All

great modern empires or nations undergo three distinct phases of existence: Agrarian,

Industrial, and Financial. The latter of these three is usually the twilight of the empire

or nation which allows its financial sector to surpass its manufacturing sector in impor-

tance. We have reached that phase, but through a concerted effort, we can bring backour manufacturing capacity and prolong our exceptionalism.

As we revitalize our infrastructure by rebuilding Americas dams, levees, bridges,

roads, and other implements, we will renew our manufacturing sector in the process. In

doing so, we will be ensuring that opportunities for Americans remain for generations

to come. Furthermore, combined with our tax reforms, the ultimate end of which is to

render America a tax shelter for the worlds businesses and manufacturers in order to

attract their commerce and operations to our markets, our infrastructure renewal willensure that our ability to transport goods safely, efficiently, and cheaply remains as-

sured.

Infrastructure revitalization also ties in with national security concerns, as we will be

modernizing our nations airports and the air traffic control system as well to ensure2 0 1 6 I n i t i a t i v e T h e B l u e p r i n t : R e s t o r i n g L i b e r t y

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that future terror attacks can be detected and thwarted with a minimal loss of civilian

lives. Our ports will be modernized to ensure an efficient flow of exports and imports,

with an emphasis on security in order to combat smuggling and customs evasion. This

will be vital to our overall program of corporate reform, which will be detailed in a sub-

sequent section.

National Security & Intelligence: A View Through the Looking Glass of History

Should any American soldier be so base and infamous as to injure any [prisoner]. . . I

do most earnestly enjoin you to bring him to such severe and exemplary punishment as

the enormity of the crime may require. Should it extend to death itself, it will not be

disproportional to its guilt at such a time and in such a cause for by such conduct

they bring shame, disgrace and ruin to themselves and their country. - George Wash-

ington, charge to the Northern Expeditionary Force, Sept. 14, 1775

Treat them [prisoners of war] with humanity, and let them have no reason to complain

of our copying the brutal example of the British Army in their treatment of our unfortu-

nate brethren who have fallen into their hands.-George Washington, charge to the

troops under his command.

The executive branch of this government never has, nor will suffer, while I preside, any

improper conduct of its officers to escape with impunity.

George Washington, letter to Gouverneur Morris, December 22, 1795

Perhaps no other area of our overall program will require more diligence than that of

national security, with particular regard to intelligence. Simply put, our intelligence

community lacks professionalism and institutional discipline. In large part, this has

been the fault of authors of various policy memos and protocols who sought to legiti-

mize behaviors which were clear violations of the letter and spirit of various laws.

In particular, our intelligence communitys use of enhanced interrogation techniques

stands as a notable example. Torture is seductive. Our greatest inclination when we are


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wronged is to seek vengeance and reciprocity. The clear distinction we must erect be-

tween ourselves and the left is one of clarity. I write of the left to speak of those descen-

dants of Marxist and Trotskyite thought, the neoconservatives, who ultimately are nei-

ther new nor conservative. Theirs is an old leftist approach, whereby ends ultimately

justify means.

It is incompatible with conservative and libertarian positions, both of which are rooted

in a deep skepticism of human nature and a superior moral and ethical sense. We be-

lieve in the rule of law so much that we actually believe it should be observed in the ac-

tions of officials and employees of the federal government. Its a novel idea in these

times, but one that is necessary to restore our governments credibility and rescue our

intelligence community from itself.

It ought to be evident to any true conservative and libertarian just how depraved the

reasoning of a leftist is when he hears John Yoo, former attorney for the Justice Depart-

ment under the Bush Administration, articulate powers for the President which include

the power to order an infants testicles crushed in order to compel a parent to give inter-

rogators information about terrorist activity. Mind you, the parent is a suspect. He

hasnt been arraigned, he likely hasnt even been charged with wrongdoing if the pat-

tern of Yoo and his allies in the intelligence community is any indication. He certainlyhasnt been tried and convicted of any wrongdoing. In short, we had an official of the

Justice Department actually advocate for the sexual mutilation of an infant on the

grounds that his parent might have information relevant to U.S. national security.

You cannot reason with such individuals. You should not even bother. Their reasoning

is so obviously bankrupt as to be beyond the pale of acceptable discourse. If you were

sitting across a table from the Devil, would you try to enjoin him to your cause as a

Christian? People who advocate for this sort of activity, even theoretically, are obvi-ously of a deficient and defective mindset. We shouldnt be surprised. After all, their

origins are on the left. Dismissal is the only acceptable course. A debate is not required.

Our Founders were men of moral clarity, as the above quotes by George Washington

indicates quite clearly. Lets consider what John Adams had to say on the matter: I


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know of no policy, God is my witness, but this: Piety, Humanity and Honesty are the

best Policy. Blasphemy, Cruelty and Villainy have prevailed and may again. But they

wont prevail against America, in this Contest, because I find the more of them are em-

ployed, the less they succeed.

The more they are employed, the less they succeed. Somehow, that sentence embodies

exactly what is wrong with our interrogation techniques and our defense strategy. You

can call torture by another name, justify it by hypothetical situations, but the true end of

torture comes from the acknowledgement of the facts: it doesnt work. The initial

claims by Bush Administration officials that torture had produced credible, actionable

intelligence have been demolished. What did produce actionable intelligence were the

interrogation techniques which involved trade-offs between interrogators who treated

detainees and prisoners of war with a basic level of humanity.

Torture ultimately has nothing to do with national security, or even the attainment of

credible information. The primary motive of the torturer is to make himself feel better

by inflicting pain on another human being for perceived and real wrongs. This is be-

cause torturers are sadists. Human beings who entertain these sorts of impulses are

mentally unfit for service in our intelligence community. Our Founding Fathers indi-

cated that they should be punished severely, up to and including capital punishment iftheir actions merited it.

Ultimately, the fact that the Geneva Conventions prohibit torture is irrelevant. We dont

need a statute or a treaty to tell us that this sort of behavior and conduct is deeply im-

moral. We have a moral capacity to discern between the right and wrong in any given

situation. It is ingrained within us by our Maker. We do, however, exist in a society

with traditions and laws which tell us clearly that such behaviors are despicable. Our

own Founders discouraged such actions strongly. To engage in them is to betray thevery principles and ideals that our country is founded upon, and conservatism derives

its chief inspiration from tradition. Libertarian thought also derives its inspiration from

the traditions of our forefathers, but it places a greater emphasis on the rule of law and

principles which explicitly discourage forcible coercion as state policy.


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For us to correct our national security and intelligence apparatuses, we must acknowl-

edge just how horribly those apparatuses betrayed the foundations of the Republic with

their actions. We must further deal with the reality that those responsible for the ex-

cesses of the Bush Administration must be held accountable for their actions. President

Bush issued a blanket pardon at the end of his presidency which would absolve mem-

bers of his administration for their actions, but the fact remains that those individuals

violated international law and could be prosecuted at the Hague. This is not only ap-

propriate; it is necessary to maintain the credibility of the the United States. We are not

a lawless society, as the following quote by George Washington would confirm: The

executive branch of this government never has, nor will suffer, while I preside, any im-

proper conduct of its officers to escape with impunity (Letter to Gouverneur Morris,

December 22, 1795).

It is time for Jay Bybee, John Yoo, Dick Cheney, and various other men and women of

the Bush Administration and those who carried out the actual torture to be held to an

account before a court of law for their actions. I do not personally subscribe with en-

thusiasm to the surrender of U.S. sovereignty on these and other matters, but the reality

of the situation, given the blanket pardon issued by President Bush, requires that we go

to international courts to achieve a measure of justice for the wrongs committed by

these individuals. The United States cannot and should not sanction torture or the per-

version of its laws in furtherance and legitimization of torture.

Our own Founders would be appalled to see what the principles of the Republic they

founded had been reduced to by men who swore oaths to uphold the Constitution and

the rule of law. Those who excerpt sections of the Federalist Papers in order to twist

U.S. traditions and the Constitution itself so that they can construct a legal justification

for acts that are clearly illegal are guilty of betraying the core principles and convictions

of our Founders. For those of us who truly believe in patriotism, such acts are tanta-

mount to blasphemy against the Republic and slander against the forefathers who shed

their blood and risked their lives to erect a system of laws to limit abuses by such indi-

viduals against the law and the Republic.


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However, such disregard for the law is ingrained as an institutional reality within the

CIA and other federal agencies. According to the CIAs own disclosures, in the course

of a given year, its agents and officers violate U.S. and international law over 100,000

times on average (IC21: Intelligence Community in the 21st Century, p. 205). This is an

agency that over the course of its history has administered drugs to individuals without

their knowledge, has conducted various psychiatric experiments which violated medi-

cal ethics and led to grave personal injury for the subjects of those experiments, and all

of this with dubious justifications based on some cloudy and subjective view of national

security. The CIA has funded all manner of quackery, from remote viewing experiments

to extrasensory perception studies, and all of this was done on the taxpayers dime.

Simply put, the CIA is lawless and unprofessional, and is in dire need of restructuring

and reform if not total abolition. It has a record of utter contempt for the law, for pro-

fessional standards, and its history is a testimony to the danger of giving a federal

agency wide leeway with minimal oversight. Let us consider the 90s as one decade in

the CIAs history: we had the first attack on the World Trade Center, which the CIA nei-

ther knew of beforehand nor prevented; we also had the bombing of the Chinese em-

bassy in Belgrade, which was an operation ordered and overseen by the CIA; we had

two African embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya; and we further had the attack

on the U.S.S. Stark. Over the course of the CIAs history, there is ample evidence that it

neither generates actionable intelligence of value nor prevents attacks on U.S. interests

with any great regularity.

What the CIA does accomplish is this: it consumes vast sums of money to mount ex-

periments, studies, and operations that are of dubious value to U.S. national security.

Usually those actions are in flagrant violation of the law and involve violating the rights

of U.S. citizens on some level. Breaking and entering, warrantless wiretapping, abduc-

tions, assaults, murders, harassment and intimidation of law-abiding citizens who

havent been charged with any crime but have merely fallen under the suspicion of CIA

personnel, all of these are the rule rather than the exception for the CIA. Where it not

for the fact that the CIA was a government agency, youd think it was an extremely

well-funded and well-equipped criminal syndicate given its record of behavior.2 0 1 6 I n i t i a t i v e T h e B l u e p r i n t : R e s t o r i n g L i b e r t y

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Time and time again the CIA emerges from whatever breach of national security it

failed to prevent intact and with even greater funding than before only to fail again at

its task of preventing attacks on American citizens and interests. Its agents who are

linked to intelligence failures are not reprimanded, demoted, or terminated. In many

cases, they are actually promoted and go on to lengthy careers marked by more of the

same incompetence and unprofessionalism which should have led to their disciplining

and termination in its first manifestation.

If the argument is that the CIA saves American lives, then the record is such that we can

clearly show that it does not prevent attacks that were foreseeable and should have

been prevented. Weve had not one but two attacks on the World Trade Center. Weve

had multiple breaches of security and outright violations of U.S. military and interna-

tional law by CIA personnel. Weve had multiple embassies bombed, resulting in the

loss of American lives. Weve had one embarrassing incident and disclosure after an-

other related to the actions of the CIA.

The CIA has been fortunate to have many of its detractors resort to unsubstantiated

claims and unprovable allegations against its employees. Chief among these claims are

allegations that the CIA either engaged in or turned a blind eye to drug smuggling op-

erations used to fund the Nicaraguan contras. Another claim is that 9/11 was a falseflag operation conducted by the CIA.

Regardless of what you believe where these allegations are concerned, you cannot deny

that theyve ultimately served the CIAs interest, as it has been able to dismiss other

provable allegations by lumping them in with the crackpot theories of the fringe. How-

ever, those crackpot allegations in no way excuse what we can prove and what we do

know about the CIAs track record; namely, that the CIA failed to prevent not one but

two attacks on the World Trade Center in under a decade, and hat its director declaredthe intelligence reports of Iraqs WMD program to be a slam dunk. Moreover, the

CIA escaped and eluded serious consequence for all of these instances and ultimately

even managed to expand its power in the long term.


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Weve given the CIA and other intelligence agencies vast new powers under the Patriot

Acts, only to see them fail to detect the obvious. The shootings at Fort Hood are the

most obvious issue, although to be fair, we must consider that the issues were largely

domestic and therefore largely under the purview of the FBI. However, the reality of

situation is that Major Nidal Malik Hasan attended the Dar Al-Hirjah in Falls Church,

Virginia in 2001 at the same time as Nawaf al-Hazmi and Hani Hanjour, who would go

on to infamy at two of the hijackers on September 11th. The imam of the mosque was

Anwar al-Awlaki, who is now a regional commander for al-Qaeda. In the months lead-

ing up to the Fort Hood shootings, Hasan and al-Awlaki corresponded via email. In

short, we had a U.S. Army psychiatrist corresponding with a suspected regional com-

mander for al-Qaeda who was also a radical imam who presided over a mosque at-

tended by two 9/11 hijackers.

In a security environment where small children are on no-fly lists as potential terrorists,

and they have to endure searches in order to board a plane, we are expected to believe

that no one the CIA or the FBI could have or should have prevented the Fort Hood

shootings. This strains credulity; moreover, when ABC News can access the 18 emails

and reveal that Hasan asked al-Awlaki whether or not jihad was appropriate (Ross,

Brian, and Schwartz, Rhonda, "Major Hasan's E-Mail: 'I Can't Wait to Join You' in After-

life; American Official Says Accused Shooter Asked Radical Cleric When Is Jihad Ap-

propriate?," ABC News, November 19, 2009), there can be no excuse for the failure of

the CIA and the FBI to engage in the necessary and authorized interagency cooperation

necessary to prevent this sort of event from happening. We established the Department

of Homeland Security and the a Directorate of National Intelligence in order to facilitate

intelligence sharing among government agencies so that these sorts of events could be

prevented. The return on our investment has been less than what wed hoped for.

We may further consider that al-Awlaki has admitted to contact with the Christmas Day

bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/

content/article/2010/02/05/AR2010020504028.html), although al-Awlaki denies hav-

ing given Abdulmutallab a fatwa or order authorizing the attack. However, al-Awlaki

has documented contacts and links with the perpetrators of the London subway bomb-2 0 1 6 I n i t i a t i v e T h e B l u e p r i n t : R e s t o r i n g L i b e r t y

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/major-hasans-mail-wait-join-afterlife/story?id=9130339http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABC_Newshttp://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/major-hasans-mail-wait-join-afterlife/story?id=9130339http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/major-hasans-mail-wait-join-afterlife/story?id=9130339http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABC_Newshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABC_Newshttp://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/major-hasans-mail-wait-join-afterlife/story?id=9130339http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/major-hasans-mail-wait-join-afterlife/story?id=9130339http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/major-hasans-mail-wait-join-afterlife/story?id=9130339http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/major-hasans-mail-wait-join-afterlife/story?id=9130339http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/major-hasans-mail-wait-join-afterlife/story?id=9130339http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/major-hasans-mail-wait-join-afterlife/story?id=9130339http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/major-hasans-mail-wait-join-afterlife/story?id=9130339http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/major-hasans-mail-wait-join-afterlife/story?id=9130339


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ings, the members of a plot to blow up the parliament building in Ottawa, Canada, the

six individuals responsible for a plot to attack Fort Dix, New Jersey. Given this history,

how is it that an active member of the military could be corresponding with al-Awlaki

and not raise sufficient suspicion which would have resulted in his removal from active

duty in order to prevent potential terrorist attacks? Clearly, our intelligence apparatus

isnt producing the results weve invested great sums of money to see, not to mention

the wide legal latitude given to the CIA and other agencies by Congress to achieve re-

sults.

What have we learned? We have learned our intelligence agencies can stop a grand-

mother or a child from getting on a plane in the name of national security, but that they

cannot with any great certainty prevent an actual terrorist from getting on board a flight

bound for the U.S. where they will eventually attempt to detonate explosives in order to

kill 289 people. The problem isnt power. The CIA and other agencies have wide lee-

way to do whatever is necessary to protect us from the threat of terrorism. They can

suspend civil liberties, engage in warrantless wiretaps, break foreign and domestic laws

with impunity, and still, none of this is enough.

The answer is always an even greater concession by civil libertarians, a greater invest-

ment in national security in the form of increased appropriations, and a wider latitudeto break the law in the name of national security. And yet, these attacks keep coming,

undetected and unprevented by a security and intelligence apparatus that has the entire

economic might and will of the worlds mightiest country behind it. After the fires of

public fear have cooled, and we look objectively at the result of our concessions to the

CIA and the expansions of the national security and intelligence apparatus which oc-

curred with the creation of the Department of Homeland Security and the Director of

National Intelligence, we can measure what weve achieved with such methods, and

clearly see that these methods have failed on virtually every count. We might consider

the words of George Washington: It is on great occasions only, and after time has been

given for cool and deliberate reflection, that the real voice of the people can be known

(George Washington, letter to Edward Carrington, May 1, 1796).


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The real voice of the people is on the verge of being revealed. We are about to repudiate

the unwarranted expansion of the intelligence communitys powers and the failures

thereof to produce a safer and more secure America. We are on the cusp of declaring

the missions in Iraq and Afghanistan for what they are: inappropriate commitments and

allocations of American resources to tasks which are inappropriate for the purpose of

national security.

To say that it is the job of our military services to go about building countries and sow-

ing democracies is to surrender to the utopian impulse of liberalism. That is, it is to ac-

knowledge the efficacy of government action to produce utopias of democracies and

freedom. No one wants to acknowledge the troubling truth about the Middle East;

namely, that its current geopolitical realities represent the majoritarian sentiment of its

residents.

It is not that Saudi Arabians, Syrians, Jordanians, Iraqis, and the assorted other Arabic

citizens of various nations are not free to rise up and institute their preferred system of

government. In effect, the problem with the Middle East is not a lack of democracy; it is

instead an excess of democracy. To understand why this is the case, you must under-

stand the dominant ideology of region, which is Islam. Islam and the left have a rather

interesting relationship. On the one hand, the left decries Islams treatment of womenand homosexuals, but makes a theoretical distinction of the sort which enables them to

deny in their hearts that the real or true Islam permits such encroachments on indi-

vidual identity and freedom. On the other hand, the left upholds the communitarian

ideal at the heart of Islam which makes the resources the common source of benefit to

the people. At the end of the day, the chief employer in every Middle Eastern country is

the government. Private enterprise does not exist without the permission of the gov-

ernment, and the natural resources are owned by the government and administered by

its officials (usually a monarchical family).

And like every other socialist endeavor, corruption and consolidation of wealth in the

concentrated hands of the few is the end result. While the majority of Saudis are con-

tent with scraps from the aristocracys table because of what they believe, the truth is


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that their lot in life is the result of their consent to such an arrangement. It is majoritar-

ian sentiment and consent which enables the Saudi royals to act as they do. The Wah-

habists are a reflection on some level of what the majority (or at least a significant por-

tion) of Saudis believe and seek to practice. It is not that they need guarantees of indi-

vidual liberty; as a practical matter, the Saudis are exercising their freedom to act and to

choose the ideology which suits their personal beliefs.

The idea that we will ride into the region atop whited steeds and give them freedom is

laughable. They already have it, and their lot in life is due to the choices they have

made. No regime exists without the consent of its governed. The consent may be co-

erced, manufactured, or manipulated, but the reality is that it is still consent.

The problem in the Middle East is not the lack of democracy and freedom; it is instead

that democracy reflects the reality of the majority of its residents. The de-Baathification

of Iraqi government and security forces currently underway is the majoritarian will of

the Iraqi people, the vast majority of whom happen to be Shiites who remember with

fresh resentment and hot anger the way the Baathists treated them under the rule of

Saddam Hussein. Do we see Shiites rioting in the streets of Baghdad over this in-

fringement on the individual rights of Sunnis and Baathists, as it is their practical and

natural right to do in the face of government tyranny against the paper guarantees ofindividual rights supposedly contained within the Iraqi constitution? No, we do not.

Riding into the Middle East is not about sowing democracy. It is simply about overrid-

ing the brand of democracy currently in place, a democracy which consolidates power

in the hands of whatever despot has managed to achieve the practical consent of the

people. It is about rooting up the democracy which currently exists in order to sow a

different type of democracy whereby U.S. corporations and private interests can take

the place of the former despot and gain access to vast natural resources. Pretendingotherwise is self-delusion.

It is not a liberal statement of faith to say that the Iraqi war was about oil. It was and

still is about oil. At the end of the day it is about preserving the same socialist experi-

ment whereby most Iraqis are subsidized by the government, but the lions share of


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their nations wealth goes to those who hold real power. Do we not kn

the blueprint: restoring liberty to government

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