CRAIGforCONGRESS
Missouri's 7th District, U.S. House of Representatives

 

 

 

Bringing LIBERTY to Capitol Hill -- 2008
OZARKS VIRTUAL TOWN HALL
Saturday Morning, July 26, 2008, 10:30am

A Discussion of The President's Saturday Morning Radio Address

Click here to listen to a replay of the July 26, 2008 Ozarks Virtual Town Hall

Notes and Summary of the President's Address -- Entangling Alliances that Subsidize

THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. Fighting disease is one part of America's larger commitment to help struggling nations build more hopeful futures of freedom. Over the past seven years, we've learned how advancing the cause of freedom requires combating hopelessness. This is because the only way that the enemies of freedom can attract new recruits to their dark ideology is to exploit distress and despair. So as we help struggling nations achieve freedom from disease through programs like PEPFAR, we must also help them achieve freedom from corruption, freedom from poverty, freedom from hunger, and freedom from tyranny. And that is exactly what we're doing.   (continued below)

How the President Differs from the American vision of "Liberty Under God":

  1. America was founded on the philosophy of "Liberty Under God."
    "Liberty" means freedom from government control and confiscation of wealth
    "Under God" means personal responsibility to love God and neighbor.
  2. America has always taken "love thy neighbor" seriously, and has been the most charitable nation in history.
  3. Government welfare substitutes coercion and impersonal bureaucracies for heartfelt duty and personal compassion.
  4. The word "compassion" means "to suffer with." To be compassionate means being there in person. Having the government take money out of your paycheck when you're not looking, divvy the money out to various politicians and bureaucrats, and then give the rest to foreign bureaucrats, does not make you and other Americans "compassionate."
  5. Poverty is as much a spiritual problem as it is an economic one. Why are Christian nations generally not in poverty, while superstitious nations and socialist nations are always in poverty?
  6. President Bush's foreign policy can best be described as atheistic imperialism.

President Bush's
Saturday Morning Radio Address

Another Perspective:
"Liberty Under God"
THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. This week, Congress voted to expand a vital program that is saving lives across the developing world -- the Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, also known as PEPFAR. I thank members of Congress from both sides of the aisle for working with my Administration to pass this important bill, and I will be honored to sign it into law next week. PEPFAR - "The President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief"
Of course, nobody cares about the Constitution anymore, but where did "We the People" give the Executive Branch the authority to confiscate our paychecks to cure diseases?
Some people say this program puts too much emphasis on getting people to stop having anonymous sex with people who transmit diseases. Other people say this program does not put enough emphasis on that, and merely lines the pockets of certain pharmaceutical corporations and favored bureaucrats in the recipient nations, who use foreign aid to buy themselves new cars, which has resulted in a new word in many African nations: the "WaBenzi" class.
PEPFAR is the largest international health initiative dedicated to fighting a single disease in history. And it is a testament to the extraordinary compassion and generosity of the American people. When we first launched this program five-and-a-half years ago, the scourge of HIV/AIDS had cast a shadow over the continent of Africa. Only 50,000 people with AIDS in sub-Sahara Africa were receiving antiretroviral treatment. Today, PEPFAR is supporting treatment for nearly 1.7 million people in the region. PEPFAR has allowed nearly 200,000 African babies to be born HIV free. And this program is bringing hope to a continent in desperate need. No it's not. 99% of Americans are completely unaware of PEPFAR. No emotions or acts of "compassion and generosity" whatsoever were made or felt by Americans in the funding of this government program. Their money was taken from them without their knowledge or permission.

 

What would have been the cost of "bringing hope to a continent" if private organizations - who have to prove their successes in order to gain the voluntary support of donors - had been allowed to continue their progress.
The new legislation that I will sign next week will build on this progress. We will expand access to lifesaving antiretroviral drugs. We will help prevent millions of new HIV infections from occurring. And we will also bolster our efforts to help developing nations combat other devastating diseases like malaria and tuberculosis. Other Diseases

Malaria was almost completely wiped off the face of the earth - until the government banned the most successful disease prevention program in human history: DDT. All other programs to combat malaria are wasteful and inefficient compared to sensible use of DDT. Congress should re-Legalize DDT.
  Some of the greatest scientists in the world, including Nobel Prize-winners, have questioned the government-approved orthodoxy concerning AIDS. If they are correct, the government is wasting billions of dollars that you worked for. What are these professors, researchers, and Nobel Prize-winners saying? Find out here.
Fighting disease is one part of America's larger commitment to help struggling nations build more hopeful futures of freedom. Over the past seven years, we've learned how advancing the cause of freedom requires combating hopelessness. This is because the only way that the enemies of freedom can attract new recruits to their dark ideology is to exploit distress and despair. So as we help struggling nations achieve freedom from disease through programs like PEPFAR, we must also help them achieve freedom from corruption, freedom from poverty, freedom from hunger, and freedom from tyranny. And that is exactly what we're doing. Hopelessness

More and more government programs means we have less and less freedom.

It's easy to recruit new terrorists these days: "Ahmad, the Americans killed your cousins. Don't you want to kill the Americans? Join us!"

They don't hate us for our [dwindling] freedoms. They hate us for our violence and depravity. See below.
America is using our foreign assistance to promote democracy and good government. We have more than doubled the federal budget for democracy and governance and human rights programs. And through the Millennium Challenge Account, we have transformed the way we deliver aid, so we can support developing nations that make important political and economic reforms. Democracy

"We could send Africa $1 trillion, and the continent still would remain mired in poverty simply because so many of its nations reject property rights, free markets, and the rule of law."
-- Congressman Ron Paul, "What Should America Do For Africa?"
Christianity and Liberty
America is promoting free trade and open investment. Over the long term, we know that trade and investment are the best ways to fight poverty, and build strong and prosperous societies. So we have expanded the African Growth and Opportunity Act to increase trade between America and Africa. We have put eleven new free trade agreements into effect since 2001. And we're striving to make this the year that the world completes an ambitious Doha Round agreement, so we can tear down barriers to trade and investment around the world. Managed Trade

Free trade -- trade unhindered and unobstructed by government rules and economic penalties designed to favor special interests -- is good.
Government-managed trade is not as good.
Governments which are not "bound down by the chains of the Constitution" are even worse.
Bush's "free trade agreements" create new governments that supercede the government created by the U.S. Constitution.
America is leading the fight against global hunger. This year, the United States has provided more than $1.8 billion in new funds to bolster global food security. We are the world's largest provider of food aid, and we have proposed legislation that would transform the way we deliver this aid to promote greater self-reliance in developing nations. When Bush says "America is leading the fight," with "$1.8 billion in new funds," is he talking about Americans like you and me, and the voluntary associations we donate to, or is he talking about Washington D.C.?

Taxation is not "charitable giving." Bush should be encouraging private giving, not public confiscation.
America is leading the cause of human rights. Over the past seven years, we've spoken out against human rights abuses by tyrannical regimes like those in Iran and Syria, Cuba, Sudan, and Zimbabwe. We've spoken candidly about human rights with nations with whom America has good relations, such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia and China. And to ensure that our Nation continues to speak out for those who have no other voice, I recently issued a directive instructing all senior U.S. officials serving in undemocratic countries to maintain regular contact with political dissidents and democracy activists. Human Rights

Money you've earned is taken by the U.S. federal government and sent to dictatorships which violate human rights, while "speaking candidly" about their abuses. Saudi Arabia is far worse than the government complained about in the Declaration of Independence, but Bush sells weapons of mass destruction to Saudi Arabia to benefit his campaign contributors. The federal government sells weapons of death and destruction costing billions of dollars more than the poverty relief it gives (in many cases) to the same people who received the weapons.

On balance, the federal government is a greater force for death, destruction, and enslavement to tyranny than it is a force for life, capitalization, and liberty.
With all these steps, we're helping defeat the forces of violent extremism by offering a more hopeful vision of freedom. And as this vision takes hold in more nations around the world, America will be safer here at home. All of these government programs make us less free here at home, with little evidence of lasting positive changes around the world. The risk of your property being confiscated by "terrorists" is nothing compared to the risk of your property and other liberties being destroyed by the U.S. federal government.
Thank you for listening.  

Kevin Craig's Platform:

Additional Libertarian Resources

AIDS

Scientists who question the HIV paradigm are denied grants by peer review study panels. The reviewers enforce these state-sanctioned orthodoxies by rejecting applications for funding research that challenges them. Donald Miller, cardiac surgeon and Professor of Surgery at the University of Washington in Seattle, reviewed this subject in The Government Grant System: Inhibitor of Truth and Innovation?, published in the Journal of Information Ethics 2007;16(1, Spring 2007):59–69 (and posted on LewRockwell.com). Dr. Miller makes the following reading suggestions:

Dr. Miller's summation of the evidence:

The real cause: Lifestyle (receptive anal intercourse), heavy duty recreational drugs (cocaine, heroin, nitrite inhalants, and amphetamines), anti-viral chemotherapy, and nutrition. In the West, 98 percent of AIDS cases occur in gay men and IV drug users.

Other Diseases - Malaria

Hopelessness - Spiritual Roots of Hunger, Poverty

Why Do The Terrorists Hate Us?

Democracy

Human Rights

Managed Trade

Non-Governmental Foreign Aid

Revolution Won't Come in a Day

John Adams once wrote that the American Revolution began in 1761, when Massachusetts attorney James Otis began legal challenges to the Writs of Assistance. He lost the case, but "American independence," Adams wrote, "was then and there born." Now do the math. That means it took 15 years to convince the rest of America to declare Independence (1776). Then another seven years of war was required before a Peace Treaty was signed (1783), and then six years before the Constitution was finally ratified (1789). That's almost 30 years. (And Jefferson said we shouldn't go 20 years without another rebellion!) How can we hope to convince Americans to fight for principles they were never taught in government schools? We need to be in this battle for the long term. "Eternal Vigilance is the Price of Liberty."

The Internet Can Speed up the Revolution

Here are ways you can help.

Communicating with Government and Media

  • Contact Congress -- this is from the JBS website, powered by "CapWiz," from Capitol Advantage. Lots of organizations use capwiz. If you don't want to go through the JBS, search for capwiz on Google and find another organization that uses it.
    Notice that you can also contact media through this webpage.
  • Action E-List
    Sign up for the JBS Action E-List and be notified when you can make a critical difference on important issues.

Iraqis Vote

  

Support an Iraq Referendum
Americans keep debating when, how, or if to leave Iraq. Maybe we should ask the Iraqi people what they want. After all, it's their country. Tell Congress to request that the Iraqi government hold a public referendum on the U.S. occupation. Learn more »
Make Congress read the laws it passes!
The 'No Legislation Without Representation' Conference

Make Congress read every word of every bill they create before they vote on it.
Urge your Representative and your Senators to sponsor DownsizeDC.org's “Read the Bills Act” (RTBA).

Unelected bureaucrats create tens-of-thousands of new dictates each year. Making rules is the job of Congress, not bureaucrats.
DownsizeDC.org has drafted the “Write the Laws Act” to end bureaucratic “legislation without representation.” Click here . . .
Cap and Trade  

"Cap and Trade" is not the way
The politicians seem to be unifying around "cap and trade" as a way to cut CO2 emissions. If they take this step it may be the largest increase in the size, scope, and intrusiveness of government since the creation of Medicare. Worse still, it may not even achieve its purpose. Please tell Congress to oppose "cap and trade." Learn more »

Iraq Waste

  

Iraq Waste
Big government prospers through failure. Each new failure is used to justify more spending and new powers. Wasteful spending in Iraq is the latest example. One way to change this is to hold government accountable. A new bill in Congress seeks to provide some of the needed accountability. Please support it. Learn more »

Support Ron Paul's “American Freedom Agenda Act”
The politicians have done great harm to this country in response to the 9-11 attack. A bill has been introduced that will undo much of that harm.
Learn More »

   Strike at the Root
Stop The War FOR Terror

Stop the War for Terror
U.S. policy has inflamed the Middle East. It has made terrorism more likely rather than less. We seem to be fighting a war for terror, rather than on terror. This policy must stop. The place to start stopping is with Iran. We must not attack Iran. War with Iran would devastate our economy, disrupt world oil supplies, and recruit more terrorists. Click here to stop this war before it starts.

  

The Democrat Party Radio Address:

The The Democratic Radio Address was delivered by Rhode Island Senator Jack Reed, who suggested alternative ways to deploy U.S. troops around the world.

There is no fundamental difference between the two major parties. Both believe in deploying U.S. troops around the world. Democrats appear to want to shift the mix away from Iraq -- perhaps only symbolically -- toward Afghanistan.

The Signers of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution -- men like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson -- spoke plainly against the U.S. becoming entangled in the affairs of foreign governments.

The "War on Terror" is unconstitutional.

Click here for a replay of this edition of the Ozarks Virtual Town Hall