Haiti and other stuff

Its been a while since my last blog. It's not for lack of subject matter. Like everyone I have periods where my motivation is not so high. I wont use the term depressed because I hate the term. Nowadays if you are "depressed" they have a pill for it. It is a shame we have sunk to a society who believes there are pills for anything. We all go through times where we are less happy or less motivated or less confident. When I was growing up, people didn't go to therapists or take pills, they learned to work through "stuff". "Work shit out" as the linebacker in the movie "the Replacements" said.

So for the last month or so, I have been trying to "work shit out". No answers yet, but I am sure I will get to them. My biggest problem is that lately I don't feel needed. When I was the primary earner, I provided all the money in my household, which made me feel needed. My job also was basically to help people ... again, it made me feel needed. When my kids were younger they needed me to help them with lots of things. Now that they are 20 and 16, they don't really need me.

For the first time in a long time, I feel more like a burden than an asset. But I will get through this, I just need to "work shit out".

On to Haiti. What a terrible, tragic, horrible event. Our government responded the way they always do. America to the rescue!. What I prayed for (in addition to all the Haitians that were impacted by this tragic event) was for a President to have the guts to say something like this:

Our hearts go out to all those effected by this tragic event. The American people, as usual, are responding with gifts of money as well as giving their time and energy in the form of doctors, nurses, and other professionals who have gone to Haiti to help them recover from this catastrophe.

Unfortunately, as a country, we no longer have the resources to give the millions of dollars in aid we have given in the past. Congress was recently forced to raise the debt ceiling to 13 TRILLION dollars ( a figure so large no one can comprehend it). We have an unemployment rate that is over 10%. We recently had to bail out some of our largest banks as well as two of our "big three" automakers. Our social security system will be unable to continue past 2020 unless we fix it. We are involved in 2 "big wars" as well as sending many of our military personnel to other battles around the globe. We still have a problem of illegal immigration to work out, and of course the "war on terror". For these reasons (and many others) we can not, as a country, afford to give you millions of dollars in aid.

We know that by not giving you aid we will subject ourselves to world wide criticism. After all, we are the "richest" country in world. Unfortunately we also have the wolds largest debt, and until we tackle that problem, our resources must be used to fix our roads, bridges, healthcare system, unemployment, immigration, homeland security, etc. Besides, its not like right now we get worldwide praise for all the good we do. Around the world we face criticism, terrorism, and outright hatred. Tacking on a few more criticisms will not be overwhelming.

When the big earthquake hits California (or any other state on the fault lines in America) we promise not to look to other countries for help. We will do as we have always done and"Work shit out" all by ourselves.

Again, our thoughts, prayers and hopes go out to you in this time of trouble, we just don't have the money to give.

I doubt we will see President Obama make such a speech. Too bad. It would guarantee his re-election. Sooner or later a President will make such as speech...he will have to. It will happen when they can no longer sell Debt. When our treasury bills go to junk bond status, they will have no choice.

I know my view will not be popular with some people, but this is America...and I am entitled to my opinion!

Lets be Frank, no really, lets all be like Frank!

For those of you who aren't lucky enough to get to listen to or read Frank Beckmann, I am publishing his editorial from today's Detroit News, word for word (I hope that is legal). It captures my fears about our how our Government (not just the Obama administration) is changing (and not for the better) beautifully. Anything in red does not belong to Frank, it is my "commentary".

Expanded powers seem to ignore constitutional limits

Americans have been promised that they will, at some point, be repaid for the loans our government gave to the banking and auto industries. If only the same assurances had been made about restoring our Constitution.

Our founding document seems to be ignored during the expansion of federal authority and programs that are not enumerated among the 18 powers granted to Congress under Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution.

Former President George W. Bush (to quote the movie Scarface "I never like him, I never trusted him) pushed us further along this slippery path with his No Child Left Behind law that inserted the federal government into the operation of local schools, an individual state responsibility.

And Bush began the Troubled Asset Relief Program bailout for Wall Street, claiming U.S. investment banks were too big to fail as a reason for tapping American tax dollars.(too big to fail "clearly not)

Nowhere does the Constitution authorize federal government actions based on that premise.

The Constitution arguably has been ignored in a succession of Obama administration decisions as well, which is not surprising given the president's stated belief that the document is a "charter of negative liberties." (Is that our Constitution he is talking about? The document that people have fought and died for, the document that allowed a country to land a man on the moon and launch the Hubble telescope, the document that inspired Patrick Henry to utter "give me liberty or give me death", the document that guarantees us freedoms never seen before or since, that document is a "charter of negative liberties"??? That statement is bordering on treason.)

That's what our founders intended in the document's creation, freeing citizens to seek their own happiness by putting checks on what the government can do.

Instead, the White House has fired Rick Wagoner as CEO of General Motors; discarded bankruptcy and state franchise laws in the reorganization of GM and Chrysler, along with their dealer closings; appointed more than three dozen czars to oversee everything from cars to California water to domestic violence, without any clear oversight; sought to regulate the pay of private business executives; set new rules that will determine what cars American automakers will build and sell; and wants a new health care system that would require individual participation under threat of fines.

In addition, the Washington Post recently reported that almost all new mortgages are being processed through the federal government, and the U.S. House passed a bill that would allow the government to take over the entire student loan portfolio. This last move threatens to politicize how citizens get loan capital and reduces the freedom of individuals to find terms most favorable to them.

Supporters of expanding government powers try to justify their policies by citing Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, which states in part that Congress shall provide for "the general welfare" of the United States.(if we are not careful we will all wind up on welfare)

Thomas Jefferson wrote about just such a threat in 1791 when he said, "They are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare," according to documents housed at the University of Virginia.

To focus on "general welfare" without considering the rest of the constitution, explained Jefferson, "would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and, as they would be the sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please ... Certainly no such universal power was meant to be given them." (smart guy that Thomas Jefferson)

Our constitution was uniquely designed for the ages, as a document which would give every American generation a uniform basis for governance.

If the basis for our country is allowed to be discarded by any residing party in power, then they've become no better than the tyrannical rulers from whom our founders meant to distance themselves more than 230 years ago.

Frank Beckmann is host of "The Frank Beckmann Show" on WJR (760 AM) from 9 a.m. to noon Monday-Friday. His column appears on Friday. E-mail comments to letters@detnews.com.(smart guy that Frank Beckmann) .

I will not try to say it any better. I will add that when we start relying on the Government to insure our children get a proper education (no child left behind), to insure that failing businesses do not go under, to insure that everyone has health insurance whether they want it or not, to regulate what companies can pay their top officers, to determine what cars we have access to, and the biggest boondoggle of them all, to tax our carbon usage, it is no longer a slippery slope!

If we saw such behavior in Russia, we would cry out"they are back to their old Communist ways"! When we see such actions in France we declare them as being the reason for their faltering economy. We abhor such behavior from the Chinese. The only difference I see between Us and Them is that we have the freedom to speak out against such obvious stripping of our constitutional rights. Can the losing of that freedom be far behind? We are already nibbling at the edges of censorship by declaring any opposition to President Obama as being Racist.

How far does the government have to go before we say "enough is enough"? In my opinion we have already gone too far!