> 
> 
> From: Kim Weissman
> Subject: C-NEWS: Congress Action 10/27/96
> Date: Sunday, October 27, 1996 9:43AM
> 
>                          CONGRESS ACTION                Oct. 27, 1996
>                          ===============
>                          By Kim Weissman
>                  Internet BEVDAV@worldnet.att.net
> 
> CROSSROADS: America is at a crossroads. Has liberalism succeeded,
> over the last half century, in making enough people dependent on
> government handouts so that the takers now outnumber those who
> contribute to society? The greedy and the selfish of today believe
> that the future of the country is irrelevant, as long as they get
> theirs. Do they now represent a majority? Bill Clinton glorifies his
> vision for building a "bridge to the future", and denigrates Bob
> Dole's reminiscence of the qualities of the past. Bill Clinton would
> like us to believe that his vision of the future is to be desired.
> It is necessary, however to look behind the rhetoric and examine the
> dark underpinnings, the rotten core of the Clinton ideology. Although
> the politically correct have tried very hard to rewrite and obscure
> the past, our heritage can still be known. Bill Clinton's vision of
> the future is also clear.
> 
> THE PAST: "E Pluribus Unum."
> THE FUTURE: The multicultural Tower of Babel.
> THE PAST: "...nor shall any State...deny any person...the equal protection
> of the laws." -- Fourteenth Amendment; people "will be judged not by the
> color of their skin but by the content of their character." -- Martin Luther 
> King.
> THE FUTURE: There is to be no equality; racial preferences, quotas, and
> discrimination is the order of the day.
> THE PAST: "Property is the fruit of labor...a positive good in the world.
> That some should be rich shows that others may become rich, and hence is
> just encouragement to industry and enterprise. Let him not who is
> houseless
> pull down the house of another; but let him labor diligently and build one
> for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from
> violence when built." -- Abraham Lincoln
> THE FUTURE: Those who benefitted unfairly will be made to pay their fair
> share. "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his
> needs." -- Karl Marx
> THE PAST: "When opinions are free, truth will finally and powerfully
> prevail." -- Thomas Paine
> THE FUTURE: Lies trumpeted by an obsequious media will prevail.
> THE PAST: "...reason and experience both forbid us to expect that National
> morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle." -- George
> Washington
> THE FUTURE: Religion is the great evil which imposes the morality of
> others
> on those who would do as they please without consequence.
> THE PAST: "Nothing is more striking...in the United States than the
> absence
> of what we term...government." -- Alexis de Tocqueville
> THE FUTURE: The vast tentacles of government entwine every aspect of our
> daily lives.
> THE PAST: "...avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt...not
> ungenerously
> throwing upon posterity the burthen which we ourselves ought to bear." --
> George Washington
> THE FUTURE: Expecting the government to live within its means is
> "mean-spirited", but burdening future generations with paying the bill for
> our profligacy is "compassionate".
> THE PAST: Political commentary and the free flow of ideas is essential to
> viable democracy. Freedom of the press is "an essential branch of
> Liberty."
>  -- James Madison
> THE FUTURE: Political commentary and the free flow of ideas must be
> restricted by campaign finance laws; but the First Amendment protects
> obscenity.
> THE PAST: Work hard, play by the rules, and you will be rewarded with
> success.
> THE FUTURE: Whine loudly and you can ignore the rules, which are unfair
> anyway, and you will be rewarded by government handouts.
> THE PAST: Families are the bedrock of society, and parents the best judges
> of what is best for their children.
> THE FUTURE: Families are irrelevant, and it takes Hillary Clinton's
> village
> to properly raise children.
> THE PAST: A nation of freedom loving pioneers, entrepreneurs, risk takers,
> and rugged individuals.
> THE FUTURE: A nation of dependents, welfare whiners, and entitlement
> grabbers.
> THE PAST: George Washington, who strove in all things to be civilized,
> proper, and the personification of dignity.
> THE FUTURE: Bill Clinton, who makes lascivious suggestions about the
> astroturf in the back of his pickup truck, and discusses his underwear on
> national television.
> THE PAST: "Give me liberty, or give me death." -- Patrick Henry.
> THE FUTURE: Servitude to the Almighty State.
> 
>      At one time, we were a nation which understood the importance of
> Freedom. Leaders of a generation were willing to sacrifice their
> Lives, Fortunes, and Sacred Honor in the pursuit of Liberty. Even
> into this century we guarded our rights jealously, we hallowed our
> Constitution as the great bulwark of Freedom. We understood, like
> George Washington, that "Government is not reason, it is not
> eloquence, it is force. Like fire, it is a troublesome servant and a
> fearful master." And we strove mightily to keep that servant under
> control. Today, we look upon government as our master, we welcome
> the tyrant with open arms and cheer as he robs us daily of our
> Liberty. We work half the year, ironically till the day before
> Independence Day, to pay for the cost of government, and believe
> that to be our duty. The brainwashing of government schooling has
> convinced far too many people that government is our superior, our
> savior. We get angry about the peripheral details of our lives, yet
> we remain silent as our Freedoms and our Rights are stolen. Millions
> of Americans are monumentally ignorant about our Constitution and
> our heritage, and worse, couldn't care less. Many view the
> Constitution as an irrelevant relic of the past, disdaining the
> sacrifice made by those who brought it into being, and those who
> fought to preserve it. The foolish believe that Freedom is simply
> another entitlement handout from government, and mock those who know
> that government itself can be the biggest threat to Freedom.
> Ignorance reigns supreme. "If a nation expects to be ignorant and
> free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and
> never will be." -- Thomas Jefferson
> 
>      This November, the public will speak about what kind of country
> we believe this to be, what kind of country we want it to become. We
> live in an age of diminished expectations; for our country, for our
> selves, and predictably, for our politicians. Many say we have lost
> the expectation of the Heroic because we have become more realistic,
> more practical. Are there any Statesmen left any more? Many say
> there never have been, as the reputations of the Heroes of the past
> are "deconstructed" and their alleged foibles are shown to all,
> shorn of the gloss of history. Some commentators have said that Bill
> Clinton is the quintessential politician for our age, the
> personification of all of our personal shortcomings. He's just like
> us, he's identifiably one of us. Indeed, he seems a caricature, a
> parable of human failings too numerous to be contained in a single
> individual. We have all known Bill Clintons in our lives. Annoyingly
> obsequious, pretensions to arrogant superiority, the perpetual
> glad-handing grin, stealing credit for the work of others. Can we
> compare his character with Presidents of our past? Can we imagine
> spending time in small talk with Lincoln? Having FDR over for
> dinner? Having the temerity to even ask Reagan about his underwear?
> JFK had his personal shortcomings, but he inspired the nation to
> reach for greater things, to transcend human weaknesses and strive
> for greatness. Presidents of the past told us that we could all be
> great, as individuals and as a nation; that whatever the problems of
> the moment, we are Americans able to overcome any adversity. Bill
> Clinton tells us that we are all victims, unable to proceed through
> our daily lives without a government protector and provider. He is
> the perfect apostle of the Nanny State. Presidents are more than
> political representatives of the people. They serve as moral
> reflections as well. By casting a vote for a person to represent us,
> we say that we admire the qualities of that person and would, if
> possible, emulate those qualities. When our votes demonstrate that
> honesty, integrity, honor, all the facets which combine to
> constitute character, do not matter in our President, we are in
> essence saying that those qualities do not matter in ourselves
> either. When we acknowledge, as a majority of people do, that the
> President cannot be trusted and has the character of a scoundrel,
> yet we vote for him anyway, we are saying that we admire those
> qualities. We will elect the man who manifests those qualities to the
> highest office in the land.
> 
>      Chief Executives of the past certainly inspired their share of
> hatred. Recall the vituperation surrounding Jefferson's presidential
> campaigns, which make today's supposed excesses pale by comparison;
> or review the venom written about Nixon or Reagan. At the same time,
> however, in the past we had high expectations for those who would be
> President. We overthrew a king, yet expected our Presidents to
> manifest kingly virtues (as Ben Franklin put it, "There is a natural
> inclination in mankind to Kingly Government."). Patrick Henry and
> Thomas Paine inspired a revolution with their talk about the rights
> and the majesty of the common man, yet the country required the
> reassurance that the almost regal George Washington would be the
> first President before we had the confidence to ratify a
> Constitution establishing a powerful Chief Executive.
> 
>      And indeed, it may turn out that Bill Clinton is perfectly
> representative of We, the People, as we have become at the end of the
> twentieth century. We talk about smaller, less intrusive government,
> but we hate the idea of actually doing anything to achieve it. We
> cheer politicians who condemn big government, but knock the head off
> anyone who actually tries to do something to restrain the growth of
> government. We complain about politicians who make promises to get
> elected and then break their promises once in office, yet when any
> politician actually tries to keep his promise we brand him a
> dangerous extremist. Republicans elected to Congress in 1994 were
> vilified and labeled extreme, and for what? For trying to keep their
> promises to their constituents. We pretend to want honesty and
> integrity in politics, yet elect the perfect antithesis of honesty
> and integrity as President. We are hypocrites, and to the biggest
> hypocrite goes the biggest prize. "History will teach us that...of
> those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the
> greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious
> court to the people, commencing demagogues and ending tyrants." --
> Alexander Hamilton.
> 
>      And this is the heart of the matter: despite our personal
> shortcomings and the darker aspects of our history, we always
> expected a President to be someone who would exemplify not our
> weaknesses but our aspirations, not our failings but our hopes and
> our dreams for that utopian Shining City on the Hill. In this age of
> the emminently practical, the glorification of the utilitarian, have
> we concluded that abstract concepts such as Freedom and Liberty are
> simply too much excess baggage? So the selection of President
> addresses the ultimate question: How do we see ourselves? Are we all
> potential achievers, capable of individual greatness and success? Do
> we value Liberty and Freedom? Bob Dole's entire life history
> exemplifies this vision. Or are we all victims of forces greater
> than ourselves, weak, failing, disabled, incompetent, in short:
> losers? This is Bill Clinton's vision of America.
> 
>      Which is it to be? What nature of people, of a Nation, are we?
> 
> 
> Kim Weissman
> BEVDAV@worldnet.att.net
> 
> Congress Action is available on its own web page at
> 
> http://www.aimnet.com/~jbv/congress_action.html
> 
> and on FTP site at
> 
> ftp.aimnet.com
> 
> /pub/users/jbv/congress_action/
> 
> 
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