This column is archived at

http://chuckbaldwinlive.com/home/?p=4019

A couple of weeks ago, I was honored to attend a private gathering of influential conservative leaders just outside Washington, D.C. While many differences of opinion were expressed on a variety of subjects, there was one subject on which every single attendee was unequivocally united: the US economy is soon going to tank! As one man said, “In a couple of years, these could be the ‘good old days.’” Another thing the august assembly was agreed on was that the only Presidential candidate in the two major parties who would actually have the guts to do what needs to be done is Congressman Ron Paul. And the national press corps (including FOX News) is doing everything in its power to make sure that the American people do not hear much of what Dr. Paul has to say for that very reason.

Neither the Democrat nor Republican parties in Washington, D.C., have any intention of addressing the real reasons why the American economy is on the verge of collapse. The only thing the two major parties--and the elites who dominate them--can see is the next election. The lust for power is the one thing that both the Donkeys and the Elephants share in common. And neither party is willing to disappoint their constituents who are feeding at the teat of that fat hog known as Washington, D.C.

Democrats want to extend Washington’s insatiable appetite for deficit spending in order to promote the Welfare State. And Republicans want to extend Washington’s insatiable appetite for deficit spending in order to promote the Warfare State. Conservative or liberal, hawk or dove, Christian or secularist, Democrat or Republican: they all are lining up at the back door of Uncle Sam’s kitchen begging for a handout!

Archived column:
http://chuckbaldwinlive.com/home/?p=4002 recent major investigative report by the Los Angeles Times sheds light on what all this “war on terror” is actually costing--and actually accomplishing. According to the report, “A decade after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, federal and state governments are spending about $75 billion a year on domestic security, setting up sophisticated radio networks, upgrading emergency medical response equipment, installing surveillance cameras and bombproof walls, and outfitting airport screeners to detect an ever-evolving list of mobile explosives.
 
“But how effective has that 10-year spending spree been?
 
“‘The number of people worldwide who are killed by Muslim-type terrorists, Al Qaeda wannabes, is maybe a few hundred outside of war zones. It’s basically the same number of people who die drowning in the bathtub each year,’ said John Mueller, an Ohio State University professor who has written extensively about the balance between threat and expenditures in fighting terrorism.”
 
The LA Times report goes on to say, “Like the military-industrial complex that became a permanent and powerful part of the American landscape during the Cold War, the vast network of Homeland Security spyware, concrete barricades and high-tech identity screening is here to stay. The Department of Homeland Security, a collection of agencies ranging from border control to airport security sewn quickly together after Sept. 11, is the third-largest Cabinet department and--with almost no lawmaker willing to render the U.S. less prepared for a terrorist attack--one of those least to fall victim to budget cuts.
 
“The expensive and time-consuming screening now routine for passengers at airport boarding gates has detected plenty of knives, loaded guns and other contraband, but it has never identified a terrorist who was about to board a plane. Only 14 Americans have died in about three dozen instances of Islamic extremist terrorist plots targeted at the U.S. outside war zones since 2001--most of them involving one or two home-grown plotters.”
 
The report also notes, “Large sums of Homeland Security money, critics complain, have been propelled by pork barrel politics into the backyards of the congressionally connected.”
 
See the LA Times report at:
 
http://tinyurl.com/3u3olzx
 
Add to the LA Times report a report by Madison Ruppert. In the report, Ruppert notes that it is clearly the Bill of Rights--especially the First Amendment’s freedom of speech and the Second Amendment’s right to keep and bear arms--that are suffering the most egregious attacks from the federal government’s “war on terror.”
 
Ruppert concludes his report saying, “In short, despite the fact that all the statistics and data in the world directly contradict the report’s findings and the claims made by clearly biased ‘experts’ on the threat of terrorism, especially of the homegrown variety, the HSPI  and other bodies continue to fearmonger and lie to the American people to keep us scared while they empty our pockets and continue their imperialistic adventures in the Middle East and now North Africa.”
 

THOMAS JEFFERSON

At 5, began studying under his cousin's tutor. At 9, studied Latin, Greek and French. At 14, studied classical literature and additional languages. At 16, entered the College of William and Mary. At 19, studied law for 5 years starting under George Wythe. At 23, started his own law practice. At 25, was elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses. At 31, wrote the widely circulated "Summary View of the Rights of British America " and retired from his law practice.

At 32, was a Delegate to the Second Continental Congress. At 33, wrote the Declaration of Independence . At 33, took three years to revise Virginia ’s legal code and wrote a Public Education bill and a statute for Religious Freedom. At 36, was elected the second Governor of Virginia succeeding Patrick Henry. At 40, served in Congress for two years. At 41, was the American minister to France and negotiated commercial treaties with European nations along with Ben Franklin and John Adams. At 46, served as the first Secretary of State under George Washington. At 53, served as Vice President and was elected president of the American Philosophical Society. At 55, drafted the Kentucky Resolutions and became the active head of Republican Party.