The Earth versus The Rock Report.

As I previously asserted this Report will address the headline, and NOT the event.

My first response to the headline was, "DAAAAA!", then, based on the short interval of time from the event to the head-line, I wondered if that was just a liberal reporters assumption, (or wish). Then I began to wonder if fear of the government can so quickly be construed as irrational, I remembered that once there were men who had a strong fear of the federal government. In an unusual twist, they feared it even before they created it. You have to remember that a strong central government was not the founding fathers first choice. Only after the perceived failure of the Article Of Confederation did they concede the need for a stronger central government. And when they did create the constitution for such a government they filled it with "checks and balances" to limit what that government could do.
Take note; not what the Government could do to people in other countries, but it limits what it can do to its own citizens.
You can do as you see fit, but if Thomas Jefferson was afraid of the government, then by God I'm going to be afraid of the government. With the constitution preventing any one man from having absolute power, we may not have to worry about absolute power corrupting absolutely. However, the Government will always have power, and power still corrupts. A good man may be able to resist that power to corrupt, but no one living is immune to it. So you see, my fear is not based on "THE" people in government, but rather, just the fact that "PEOPLE" are in government. And a big government has a lot of people in it. Ergo, a large government is more likely to become invasive.

The following list contains, in my opinion, some very good reasons for fear, but if I could not think of any items for this list I would still hold this view. Fear of ones own government is not automatically irrational, through out history it is some times a survival strategy.

Irrational people may come along and take irrational actions, but after this list I will try to demonstrate why irrational responses to this fear are not an option.

To paraphrase Thomas Jefferson,
"a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that I should declare the causes of my fears."

1. I fear any government that looks upon me as nothing more than a source of revenue.
	I hold this Truth to be self-evident.
2. I fear any government whose members live in a political fantasy universe.
	Example: the honorable Dennis Kucinick Democrat from Ohio made the statement on the house floor that we as tax payers give the government our tax dollars, I do not give my tax dollars, my tax dollars are taken from me. And only a space cadet (or a dishonest man), wouldn't understand the difference between the two.
3. I fear any government that plays its citizens for suckers.
	Pork politics, the social security _don't trust_itfund, and government bonds as a good investment???, (reference the earlier Rock Reports.) I think it was Alexis de Tocqueville who put it best. "we are being bribed with our own money." (Paraphrased.) Or was that Jefferson? (George?… No Tom.)
4. I fear any government whose power base requires its citizens be dependant upon it.
	In other reports I have tried to make the point that welfare (and other) programs, besides serving the (so called) needs of the (so called) needy, also serves the needs of any power hungry government. So the question stands, who does the government want to serve when it employs these programs.
5. I fear any government that wants to take care of its citizens, because to care for us, it must control us.
	You disagree? The next time your eight year old asks if he can drive the car, just toss him the keys and tell him to be back before midnight. (not a good idea is it?) As a parent, to care for your child, you do control your child. Want a more complex example? The government controls a portion of our paychecks in order to take care of us after we retire.
6. I fear any government that maintains a retirement system for its citizens that in itself drives the need for such a system.
	Yep, social security, along with other such programs.
7. I fear any government whose priority is on being political correct, as opposed to being correct.
	The two are no where near the same thing. (Explained later.)
8. I fear any government that in its arrogance believes itself so morally superior as to engage in social engineering.
	The failure of it is automatic, human nature and human thought are too diverse, too dynamic for any man, or group of men to try to direct it.
9. I fear any government that will not, or can not believe that it is the core cause of its society's problems.
	When you engineer something, even a society, don't you have to except responsibility for the failures as well as its successes? No… I guess you really don't, the human mind can ignore anything that makes it uncomfortable. Taking responsibility for screwing up an entire country is far too heavy for any man to admit to himself. The technical term for this is "denial".
10. I fear any government that is dedicated to solving the problems of our society.
	Confused? It's simple, such a government will always require problems to solve for us, even to the point of creating problems to solve for us.
11. I fear any government when high ranking officers claim privileges and emunnitiy when they get into ether criminal or civil legal problems.
	When it happens I am not surprised and actually what worries me more is when so many other members of the government readily agree with him.

I could probably come up with many more reasons, but I have been accused of being long winded. Personally I don't believe it. Me, long winded? No way. Why, I bet I could come up with thirty or forty reasons why I am not long winded.
Reason #1…well …maybe this isn't the time for that.
But, I do have one more item, and it's a dozy.

12. now, you would think that I would fear any government who's president makes the following two statements:

"We can't be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans . . . ."
--William J. Clinton, USA Today, March 11, 1993.

[W]hen we got organized as a country and we wrote a fairly radical Constitution with a radical Bill of Rights, giving a radical amount of individual freedom to Americans, it was assumed that the Americans who had that freedom would use it responsibly.... [However, now] there's a lot of irresponsibility. And so a lot of people say there's too much freedom. When personal freedom's being abused, you have to move to limit it.
--President Bill Clinton, 3-22-94, MTV's "Enough is Enough".

But I'll tell what I fear a hell of a lot more, did you note the dates? I fear the society that reelected any man with these views for a second term. (it's just…incredible.)
There are certain things I find I am just incapable of understanding: calculus, quantum physics, women. But I think our 1996 election has to be at of the top of the list.
Boy, are Term limits a great concept, or what?

So, now that I have stated my fears (and I do so quite seriously), what action then will I take against our overbearing and dangerous government?
Well… I was thinking of signing up for skiing lessons.
Or, there are several things on the car that need fixing.
Maybe I should take my bike out for a spin.
I'm not trying to be flippant, or in any way minimize my reasons for fear. But the last item on the fear list illustrates the reality of American politics. It's not the government, because the government is what we ourselves have created, and will continue to create as long as we have elections. So I am not as fearful of the government as I am of the governed.

To quote from William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar;
"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves"

With few exceptions all the items in the fear list had, in some degree public support. All politicians can rightly claim their votes in congress reflect the mandate of those that elected them. Despite my opinion that we have been traveling down what F.A.Hayek called "The Road To Serfdom" (it's a book) our government (to date,) is still very much the government of the people and by the people. (two out of three, ain't bad.)
You and I have been pulling people from among us to be our elected representatives. And they are people just like us. (boy, did we ever screw up.) you know this process as "Democracy". Not that I am knocking the concept of democracy or if you wish "our republic". I agree with Whinston Churchill when he said "democracy is a terrible form of government, but all the other forms of government are so much worse." The bad part about it is it sure as hell ain't Burger king, you don't always get to have it your own way. (something that continues to piss me off to no end.)
Democracy with all its faults is still the best form of government, correction, Democracy applied with responsibility in the voting both is the best form of government.

Most items in the fear list have been or will be expanded upon in other Rock Reports, but one item in particular I wish to address because it is by far the most important. It's item #1. "I fear any government that looks upon me as nothing more than a source of revenue." It is the most important because it is the foundation of all the other aspects of what the government can do to us.
This is one of two opinions that I have acquired from watching C-SPAN. The other opinion is that we are a four party system. You know two of them already the Democrats and the Republicans. But what you may not know is that there are two Democratic parties, two Republican parties. In each case there are the party big wigs, the ones you would find on the evening news. They are skilled and experienced at what they do, they know what to say and when to say it, and more importantly what not to say. And then there are the lower echelons, when they speak they are more likely to let their true beliefs show through. If asked why I call myself a Republican, the best answer would be, "because of the Republican lower echelon". When asked why I really fear the government, "it's because of the Democratic lower echelon". There's a phrase in the bill of rights that goes something like this "no one may be deprived of life, liberty and property without due process." Now I'll agree that as our elected representatives they are "due process". But what was written as a restriction, to them seems more like a justification, at least as far as property goes. (liberty is whole other story altogether.)
So, it's the Democratic lower echelon that drives my opinion that the government views me as nothing more than a source of income. Some of these people would be as at home in the soviet politburo as they are in the U.S. congress. Actually the upper echelon doesn't impress me either.

Two or three times over the past twenty years I have heard a news report on the state of education in America. The report would read something like "66 percent of American high school students can't find America on a world map." Like many other people I was disheartened by such news. However, recently I begin to think that I got it all wrong. I assumed that what they were describing was a failure of the instruction in the science of geography. In actuality it's a positive statement on the teaching of civics and American history. Because when I think of what America has become in my lifetime, actually starting back in the thirties, I discover that I also can not find America on a world map. Not the America I learned about in school. One where the rights of the individual were paramount. Not like it is today, where one mans needs take priority over another's rights, where our rights to keep and bear arms have quit obviously been infringed. And the provisions against double jeopardy have been compromised in the holy name of political correctness. These and other examples reflect rights not taken from us, but surrendered by us. And will not be easily returned. Not until The electorate demands it at the voting booth. (this is not as unlikely as it sounds.)
Gee, I wasn't as off subject as I thought I would be.

Explanation of the double jeopardy statement;
They tried the cops who beat up Rodney King twice, (i.e. "double jeopardy"), but not the murderer of Nicole Simpson. Why?… political correctness. One could argue that the second trial in the King case was also for the sake of justice, but in the America that I learned about in school, rights were more important than justice. That may sound strange to you, but in the minds of those who wrote the constitution the tragedy of what someone may do to somebody else was trivial compared to the tragedy of what the government might do to its citizens. The Bill of Rights sets restrictions on what the Government can do, that was their intent. That is why Justice sometimes must take a lower priority to Rights.

The "lost Continent" opinion and the fear list were raised before the current Clinton scandal and impeachment. But America's give-a-sh@# attitude about the Presidents perjury and obstruction of justice has certainly amplified it.

So, what ever they come up with, I am sure it will involve you and I having to bend over and take it like a man. Gee…something to look forward to. (very heavy sarcasm.)
What ever they do come up with, two things are guaranteed:
1. It will be a temporary fix just as the 1980,s fix was.
2. It will be a hidden transfer of the income tax system into the S. S. system.

* The term "covert" is a bit strong, the transfer is hidden in plan sight, requiring only the desire to look at it. What ever new fix they do come up with will also be hidden in some way.

Why would any of you disagree with the last section? After all, politicians are all cheats and liars aren't they, isn't that what we all say? The media has been calling Bill Clinton the most successful politician of our times. I assume because of his ability to lie, cheat, distort, propagandize, extort and promise everything to everybody. If I were a politician I don't think I would want my profession delineated in such a way, but hey, that's just me.

Well, we've come back to voter responsibility again.
Damn, I'm going back on subject again.
Why are all politicians cheats and liars? Because that's the type we elected.
Once again Bill Clinton has provided a good example;
The Republican congress has held to the rule of law in impeaching Bill Clinton. And they have been hurt by it in the 1998 election and stand to get hurt even worst in the year 2000 election. I can only assume that Americans don't want honest politicians. Please don't give me the standard liberal propaganda about a partisan vote, it just doesn't wash. In impeaching Bill Clinton the Republicans Knew they stood to lose control of the congress in 2000, and they did it anyway. That takes something seldom reported in the beltway, a little something I like to call integrity.
And that my friends is why I call myself a Republican. (if you were curious.)

Last Thought:
The Congress as social engineers:
As a representative republic the Congress is just passable, but as social engineers, they're a cluster f&*k, ( pardon my French.)

So now you have read yet another blistering report... thanks.
If you agree with it, pass it around for comment by others.
If you disagree with it, then write your own damn report and submit it for comment.

Submitted for your review by.
Mr. Eric (Rock) Andersen
A citizen 0f the USA.
Thus given the Right to have and express an opinion.
Also:
A taxpayer of the USA.
Thus given the Right to have and express an attitude.

As always no insects were injured in the writing of this report.
However;
Something in the way of a disclaimer.
The two Clinton quotes in item 12 were taken from the internet and I cannot guarantee their validity.